This is a collection of news story excerpts this past week. AGW proponents and environmentalists is general are taking hit after hit in the media this week. – Anthony
From the GWPF via email: The Crisis of Climate Catastrophism
The threat to tropical rainforests from climate change may have been exaggerated by environmentalists, according to a new study. Researchers have shown that the world’s tropical forests thrived in the far distant past when temperatures were 3 to 5C warmer than today. They believe that a wetter, warmer future may actually boost plants and animals living the tropics. – David Derbyshire, Daily Mail, 12 November 2010
There are many climactic models today suggesting that … if the temperature increases in the tropics by a couple of degrees, most of the forest is going to be extinct. What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn’t find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn’t find that the precipitation decreased. — Carlos Jaramillo, The Guardian, 12 November 2010
The spectre of imminent thirst and/or starvation for billions by 2035 from melting glaciers would appear to have been confirmed as the worst kind of alarmist scaremongering. — Lewis Page, The Register, 11 November 2010
Bjorn Lomborg should be careful about what he wishes for. The unintended consequences pursuant to a renewable trough worth $250 billion has the potential to spawn a lot more nonsense, given its potential for increasing the size and direction of government and making energy policy even more political, much less meritorious. The skeptical environmentalist has become far too credulous. –Jon Boone, MasterResource, 11 November 2010
MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich and did little to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, a scathing review has found. –Tom Arup, The Age, 11 November 2010
Despite a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government, Solyndra, a maker of solar panels in the southeast San Francisco Bay Area city of Fremont, will close one of its manufacturing plants, lay off 40 permanent and 150 contract workers, delay expansion plans of a new plant largely financed with the government-guaranteed loan and scale back production capacity more than 50 percent. Despite the hype and tax money, Solyndra seems unable to compete with Chinese manufacturers, whose prices are lower. This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry’s supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010
Yeah, and if they could compete China could simply raise the export price of the rare earths. Stymied!
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Don’t miss the physics at Rank Exploits and No Consensus, where a possibly fundamental flaw in the climate models is being dissected.
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“They believe that a wetter, warmer future may actually boost plants and animals living the tropics.”————….huh, seems I’ve heard that before. I wonder where that was that I read that?
“we didn’t find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn’t find that the precipitation decreased.”————————–Wonders of wonders!
“The spectre of imminent thirst and/or starvation for billions by 2035 from melting glaciers would appear to have been confirmed as the worst kind of alarmist scaremongering. “<————————–Ya think? I'm still staggered by the amount of people that believed melting glaciers would cause droughts. No, really! That happened!
"…..has the potential to spawn a lot more nonsense, given its potential for increasing the size and direction of government ….."————-Its very difficult to comprehend more nonsense in this area, but I’m betting we’ll see more anyway.
“MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich…….”—————– Did they think the poor would run out and buy solar panels? No, I’m not exclusively poking fun at our friends from Oz, we do the same thing in the states with windmills.
“Solyndra, a maker of solar panels in the southeast San Francisco Bay Area city of Fremont, will close one of its manufacturing plants, lay off 40 permanent and 150 contract workers,……..”——————————— I just really can’t see how this could be true! Didn’t Cali just reject a law in order to create “green” jobs? Could it be they got something wrong?
Certainly isn’t happening in Australia. The MSM are still a few years behind the rest of the world…sadly..*sigh*.
In other news, Al Gore has apparently gone missing.
Just wow, seems like everything that is wrong with America in 3 paragraphs…
Researchers have shown that the world’s tropical forests thrived in the far distant past when temperatures were 3 to 5C warmer than today. They believe that a wetter, warmer future may actually boost plants and animals living the tropics.
Amazing. I think that is exactly what I have been saying.
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Two points to be made here.
First, a warm climate, even one 5 degrees warmer than we have now, is not in itself bad; indeed tropical forests might thrive. But this is not the issue. The issue is climate change and a large change happening quickly _can_ kill of a vast number of species before new equilibrium is reached.
Second, in them old days forests were not chopped at the unbelievable rate they are chopped today.
“MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich and did little to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, a scathing review has found. –Tom Arup, The Age, 11 November 2010”
At least they noticed. The same happens in Germany, only a few times larger.
I’ve just heard that current production processes for silicon PV consume as much energy as is created by 10,000 hours of peak production by the PV. In Germany, i estimate the hours of peak production you achieve in a year with 10% or 780 hours. So, after about 12 or 13 years, it’s energy payback time 😉
I see that James Delingpole won a journalism prize as well.
In the past, trees were not REPLANTED at the unbelievable rate that they are today.
I have just seen a promo for a new film titled “Cool it”
Alarmists worry to much I think that’s why they go all out with their paranoia.
Put into rational numbers they worry that the average global temp will go from some 14.5° C to 15.5° C in the coming 80 years. I don’t know about everyone else but to me that spells maybe a month longer viable crop season in Siberia and Wouldn’t that be a good thing since them climatecommunizts fuzz so much of over population.
However, it’s kind of ironic that the average global temperature still is either 14° C or 15° C (hence why I put 14.5) after three decades. For how many decades can an average temperature remain to be the same when supposedly that very same average temperature is supposed to have gone up by 0.7° C or F or 1.4° F or C, all depending on which hobnob hippie does the speaking.
So I here announce my intention to bet 5 whole cents (€ cents not the crappy less worth $ cents) that in the year 2525 the average global temperature will still be some 14.5° C. This based on the regression analysis that the current trend of the global average temperature has kept up its apparent flat lining for several decades. And if I’m alive still, by WWF forgotten conservation techniques, I’ll probably still gonna have that god damn hippie song in my head.
The threat to the Amazon rainforest is from drought not higher temp per se. The warming event studied here occurred much more slowly and did not involve major changes is rainfall. The decline in plant growth in the Amazon has already been observed. Projections are for a significantly drier region. Rainforests need … lot’s of rain.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/65394/title/Warm_spell_spurred_tropical_biodiversity
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19713-tropical-forests-thrived-in-ancient-global-warming.html
What solar panels have to do with the merits of AWG I do not know. This post is just another piece of spin.
“At the online blog GlobalEnergyMagazine, correspondent Dolores Fernandez wrote that Solyndra’s announced closure “was delayed until after polls closed on congressional elections.”
Many alternative-energy interests that stand to gain from taxpayers artificially propping up their industry and subsidizing their businesses campaigned aggressively to defeat Proposition 23 on last week’s ballot because they said it would prevent expansion of green jobs. The proposition, which was voted down, would have delayed California’s global warming regulations that promote renewable energy and penalize fossil fuel-based energy manufacturers.”
I’d like another vote on Prop 23…
“Second, in them old days forests were not chopped at the unbelievable rate they are chopped today.”
This is doubly bad when ancient, irreplaceable forests, gown over hundreds of thousands of years in balance with the animals and native humans that live there are destroyed to make way for “green” plant oil plantations. (Borneo)
These natural ancient forests do not grow back the same way and the ecology is damaged beyond repair. The Orangutan is very close to extinction for this very reason.
“Despite the hype and tax money, Solyndra seems unable to compete with Chinese manufacturers, whose prices are lower. ”
And given the fact that their product was a rather complicated tube, this goes to show that even in the warped economics surrounding the solar industry, you can still be dumb enough to go broke.
Meanwhile, back in the UK, British Gas is set to raise it’s prices by 7% two weeks before Christmas when the market has a glut of natural gas. All down to funding “sustainable” energy of course. If it’s so flaming sustainable why is it so heavily subsidised?
Go figure.
What The Green Movement Got Wrong
A better title might be: “What have the so-called “Greens” ever got right?”
Nuclear Power – “Greens” Wrong –
DDT – “Greens” Wrong –
Man-Made Climate Change – “Greens” Wrong –
GM Foods – “Greens” Wrong –
Biofuels – “Greens” Wrong –
Wind Turbines – “Greens” Wrong –
Solar Power – “Greens” Wrong –
Genocidal maniacs …
Two notable green campaigners – Mark Lynas and Stewart Brand (creator of the Whole Earth Catalog) have (finally) come round to appreciating that some of the key tenets of their Green religion are flawed and have done more harm than good.
GM crops such as “golden rice” and vitamin-enhanced millet, they’ve cheerily conceded, were not evil “Frankenfoods” after all but a vital way of averting malnutrition in the Third World. Nuclear power, they’ve agreed, was way more efficient at producing clean energy than the coal alternative. Furthermore, the fuss about Chernobyl had been horribly overdone. And the near-global ban on DDT – inspired by Rachel Carson’s junk science best-seller “Silent Spring” – has caused millions of poor people to die of malaria.
And so on…
But why do they deserve any credit for reaching conclusions that those of us who aren’t blinkered eco-fascists reached years ago?
What about the hundreds – perhaps thousands – of starving Zambians who died in the 2002 famine when, thanks to the misinformed campaigning of so-called “green” activists like Lynas, the Zambian government refused to distribute US foreign aid packages of GM food?
What about all the honest, decent scientists and agricultural engineers and nuclear workers whose career paths were ruined as a result of “green” hysteria and lying propaganda?
What about the brown-outs, rolling black-outs, power shortages and energy insecurity this Britain is going to suffer as a direct result of the so-called “Green” anti-nuclear hysteria which prevented us replacing our old nuclear power stations?
And what about the millions massacred by Rachel Carson with her entirely unfounded claims about the effects of DDT on birdlife?
“Green” campaigners like Brand and Lynas have not only caused massive damage to the global economy – the bio-tech and nuclear industry, especially – but they have also almost certainly contributed to a massive hidden wave of deaths in the Third World.
But the fact is, neither Brand nor Lynas actually has actually seen the light. Both men remain wedded to the equally wrong-headed theory of Man-Made Climate Change, and both fantasise at the kind of Geo Engineering that might be necessary – a recreation of the dust clouds of the Mt Pinatubo volcanic eruption which caused world temperatures to drop by around 3ºC, say – in order to avert “Global Warming.” Come back Dr Strangelove, all is forgiven.
Had they been capable of a scrap of insight or self-analysis, they would have understood that the hysteria about AGW comes from exactly the same school of junk science and muddled thinking that gave us the “Nuclear – No Thanks!” slogan, and know-nothing idiots in masks and white jumpsuits (Lynas among them) destroying fields of GM crops. Pointing such things out wouldn’t be in Lynas’s interest because that might jeopardise the rather cushy number he’s landed these last few years from the Maldives Government, advising it on how best to squeeze yet more guilt-money out of the global taxpayer. It was Lynas who dreamed up that stunt of the Maldives government holding a cabinet meeting underwater just before the Copenhagen debacle.
This from Monbiot: “Environmentalism is not just about replacing one set of technologies with another. Technological change is important, but it will protect the biosphere only if we also tackle issues such as economic growth, consumerism and corporate power. These are the challenges the green movement asks us to address. These are the issues the film ignores.”
And there you have it: the true voice of the “Green” movement – which really should be renamed the “Watermelon” movement. It’s not about easy fixes. It’s not about making things better. It’s about advancing the Marxist war on capitalism by other means. Thanks, George, for reminding us where you stand.
The truth is that there never has been an “environmental” movement.
“Environmentalism” has been a loud and bizarre spectacle of UK politics, but it has never moved more than a handful of people out onto the streets at any one time. It has never achieved sufficient numbers to count as a political force, and there has been no cohesive environmental philosophy. Instead, “environmentalists” were united, not by science, but by their emotional rejection of contemporary society. They all agreed that the “green” movement came about as protesting was FUN, something to pass the time, camaraderie that evolved into cruel megalomaniac organizations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.
They all need to be shut down.
As with most criticism of environmentalism, it is often the reaction to it that reveals more than the criticism itself. What environmentalists lack in terms of a sense of proportion, they make up for with a sense of persecution. Monbiot, for example, claims that the movement was unsuccessful, not because it failed to capture the minds of the public, but because “we are massively out-spent by corporate-funded movements which have had hundreds of millions poured into them telling government and the media there isn’t a problem”, a claim which surely ignores the UK and EU governments’ environmental policies. He complains that Channel 4 has “broadcast a series of polemics about the environment … over the last 20 years”. He’s talking about three programs – “Against Nature,” “The Great Global Warming Swindle” and “What the Green Movement Got Wrong” – which occupied no more than six hours out of the two decades of near-continuous pro-environmental broadcasting – or brainwashing lying propaganda as some would see it.
What Lynas has realised, and Monbiot has not, is that sceptics didn’t undermine the environmentalists’ cause. Environmentalists were their own worst enemy. They have alienated the rest of society by their own uncompromising and human-hating outlook. Without “the precautionary principle,” alarm-ism, doom and catastrophe, and fraudulent claims to scientific certainty, what is environmentalism? The challenge for “environmentalists” is to emerge from this crisis of their own making into an era of growing scepticism, while keeping an eye on the consequences of their arguments.
I’m shocked, shocked, that rainforests might actually do better if the temperature was higher.
Ok, I’m not shocked at the suggestion at all, I’ve long suspected that they might like hotter wetter temperatures.
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RR Kampen says:
November 12, 2010 at 8:57 am
The issue is climate change and a large change happening quickly _can_ kill of a vast number of species before new equilibrium is reached.
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So what, who cares?
Smokey saidf
“November 12, 2010 at 8:41 am
In other news, Al Gore has apparently gone missing.”
Have you got any proof that he actually existed?
tonyb
RR Kampen says:
November 12, 2010 at 8:57 am
“Two points to be made here.
First, a warm climate, even one 5 degrees warmer than we have now, is not in itself bad; indeed tropical forests might thrive. But this is not the issue. The issue is climate change and a large change happening quickly _can_ kill of a vast number of species before new equilibrium is reached.”
When the average temperature increases – and you happen to be a species that is sensitive enough to small changes of the average temperature; which most species are not, as they only care for the temperature extremes – you can nearly always migrate a few kilometers northwards.
There is more Boreal forest now than in 1776- no sailing ships to speak of…
Palm oil for biodiesel is the problem now..
There are many climactic models today suggesting that …
Gotta watch those climaxing models!
Guess again. Nature has burned, bulldozed, and oblitrated forests and environments in centuries, decades, and even in moments. Man is not even close to equaling the destructive power wielded by Natur in Earths past history. Take a look at the abrupt and continental wide changes in forestation in North America during the Neogene. Consider the devastation wrought by the extinction level events when the large aseroids impacted the Earth in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere. Look at the changes caused by the mega-droughts inNorth America in the past 2,000 years. The Earth is presently in an interglacial period in one of the coldest ice ages it has experienced in the past 550 million years. A return to slightly colder ice age temperatures will cause mass extinctions, whereas any post ice age climate change can only return to the 5C to 10C greater than today temperatures which have been the norm for most of the Earth’s past experience.
Mike says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:14 am
Do you know why the Amazon jungle it is a jungle and the Saharan desert it is what it is, being one “in front” of the other?
Please let us know your opinion about it.
There are many climactic models today suggesting that …
That’s precisely the problem!, Try “Wii” instead, kids, at least you will excercise everyday, and if you are constant enough you’ll improve your I.Q. to reach levels similar as to your beloved and Inconvenient Prophet. (From 50 to 60)
RR Kampen says:
November 12, 2010 at 8:57 am
The issue is climate change and a large change happening quickly _can_ kill of a vast number of species before new equilibrium is reached.
Some say it “can”, some say it won’t, some say, “Since we either can’t do anything to regulate ‘climate’, or don’t know what the best thing to do is, so what?”
Did you mean CLIMACTIC or rather CLIMACTERIC ?…because many of the Climatic Scientists, by now, they are frankly Climateric.
“As times goes by…”. Remember the 1980’s ?…..Oh! those were the days my friends…..!!!
Guess I’m gonna cry…….Booooaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!
One advice: If you become sceptic you’ll avoid Alzheimer, Sure!
Looks like Climate Science needs a new Villiam…. GLOBAL DIMMING
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/national/global-dimming-threatening-delhi-most-161
“‘Global dimming’ threatening Delhi the most
London: Scientists and environmental experts scheduled to attend a UN-sponsored Environment Program in Cancun, Mexico, this month, have warned that ‘global dimming’ is emerging as the latest threat to planet Earth, and added that cities like Beijing and New Delhi lie just beneath atmospheric brown cloud, thought to be caused mainly by the use of wood-burning stoves. ”
will this nonsense ever stop?
“thought to be caused by….”.
you have got to be kidding me…..
Apparently the UN hasn’t gotten the news :
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/12/global-warming-global-taxes
Douglas says
Quote
Palm oil for biodiesel is the problem now
Unquote
Mmmmm, Why? Too efficient, too green, uses too much jungle? Competes too effectively with Soy or Corn?
While the peanut gallery whoops and yelps at this latest paper, seemingly affirming their mistaken view that more CO2 is good…or whatever.
Perhaps it’s useful to hear another word from the author of this paper…
“It’s not just a matter of applying what we learned at that time, because today the forest is very fragmented,” Jaramillo says. “For the forests, I don’t think global warming is going to be good.” http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/65394/title/Warm_spell_spurred_tropical_biodiversity
Which incidently, is pretty well exactly what the IPCC AR4 has been saying on the matter…”There is high confidence that climate change will result in extinction of many species and reduction in the diversity of ecosystems (see Section 4.4) Vulnerability of ecosystems and species is partly a function of the expected rapid rate of climate change relative to the resilience of many such systems. However, multiple stressors are significant in this system, as vulnerability is also a function of human development, which has already substantially reduced the resilience of ecosystems and makes many ecosystems and species more vulnerable to climate change through blocked migration routes, fragmented habitats, reduced populations, introduction of alien species and stresses related to pollution.”http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch19s19-3-4.html
To be perfectly honest, to compare a likely greenhouse gas forced rapid warming of 5-6°C over a period of 10,000 years, some 56 million years ago, to an incredibly rapid ,likely greenhouse gas forced warming over the next few hundred years and expect what’s left of the tropical forest to evolve it’s way back to luxuriant rude health in a similar time frame is…..silly IMO.
Smokey: Al Gore has not gone missing… he’s moving on, quietly, to other ways of making money. He appears to be doing something with Time Warner at the moment.
Trust me – soon enough he’ll have no interaction with anything to do with climate.
Yes we cut down a lot more trees than before. How many of those trees were not there because ice covered most of North America to a depth of a mile or more? The area that is now green with plants instead of white with ice or brown with desserts is amazing.
Just for the ice you are looking at an area about twice the size of Canada. Most of which now has forests, brush etc growing. Look at how large the Gobi desert was. No trees don’t grow all over the previous ice covered area but they grow up to the tundra which is most of it.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_glacial_max.html
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/present_interglacial.html
Found it – this is what he’s up to now:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/former-vice-president-al-gore-hosts-time-warner-cables-global-online-town-hall-on-student-attitudes-toward-math-and-science-education-2010-10-26
Mike says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:14 am
What solar panels have to do with the merits of AWG I do not know. This post is just another piece of spin.
——————————————————–
If you don’t know what “solar panels have to do with the merits of AWG” then your comment is just another piece of nonesense.
In fact, what are the “merits of AGW” anyway? Unless you’re talking about the easy money the corporations can make off of the government subsidies for ‘green’ energy.
In fact, I only just noticed – WTF is AWG anyway! I’d copied and pasted and proof read once and I still didn’t see it, though I see it now! Anthropogenic Wobal Gorming! Good one!
AS Jimmy Haigh says above, James Delingpole received the Bastiat Prize for online journalism at a dinner in New York last night. His work on exposing ‘Climategate’ is duly recognised at last , especially on Telegraph Blogs where they’re having a Field Day.
REPLY: Good for him! But few seem to remember that the source was right here, including the coining of “Climategate” on WUWT. – Anthony
A bad news week for some … people … is a good news week for others.
It all balances out.
Even better in those choice selections is the bit about the way the true believers are embracing self-imposed eugenics. No more little global warming rugrats underfoot. Normal skeptical healthy couples can embrace the changes and get busy …
Smokey, I was calling the wrong number from the milk carton. I kept dialing 1-800-get-lost. Thanks for your help.
James did acknowledge/correct the fact that he did not label it climategate in his blog..
In the UK, Booker and Delingpole (both the Telegraph) have done more than anyone else in the mainstream media.
Importantly both of these journalists were writing against AGW and CAGW for a long time before the ‘climategate’ events.
guess they never heard of the Jurassic…or the Triassic…etc etc…
They thought they could be happy with the IEA’s “World Energy Outlook 2010”. They hyped the Media with “fossil fuel subsidies are five times greater than renewables”.
But the truth is very, very inconvenient! Before you read my post below, just ask where that subsidies might be…?
Then read the post: http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/11/world-energy-outlook-2010.html
You’ll be very surprised!
Ecotretas
Mike says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:14 am
The threat to the Amazon rainforest is from drought not higher temp per se. The warming event studied here occurred much more slowly and did not involve major changes is rainfall. The decline in plant growth in the Amazon has already been observed. Projections are for a significantly drier region. Rainforests need … lot’s of rain.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/65394/title/Warm_spell_spurred_tropical_biodiversity
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19713-tropical-forests-thrived-in-ancient-global-warming.html
What solar panels have to do with the merits of AWG I do not know. This post is just another piece of spin.
Yep, yours sure was.
UN Taxes!!!!!!!!!!! Who said something along the lines of `when they take my gun from my cold, dead hands’ or something like that. And imagine, me a Canadian saying something like that…………
Grey Lensman says: The problem with the palm oil plantations is that they are cut out of rain forests and with the blessings of the same crowd that has hissy fits over native farmers slash and burn farming. Can’t have the locals farming for survival, but WWF and other large ‘environmental’ groups can destroy rain forests for profit if they belong to the church of AGW.
RE: Spector: (November 12, 2010 at 9:09 am)
“I have just seen a promo for a new film titled “Cool it””
Based on reviews I have found, it appears that “Cool it” does not question the basic global warming catastrophe hypothesis but it offers a lower cost solution to the ‘problem’ presented by Danish scientist Bjorn Lomborg and spends a little too much time, in the opinion of one reviewer, dwelling on the exaggerations and fear tactics of former Vice President Gore’s film. This may mark the first stages of a retreat or, perhaps, an example of “The Empire Strikes Back.”.
Yes we have observed 0.6 to 0.7 degrees of net warming since 1880 but I think it is hard to say whether if the 40% CO2 increase is responsible for all of this. Lomborg’s proposals may be just one more way to waste government money.
The subsidies for solar panels weren’t wasted at all. “Favouring the rich” is the sole purpose of AGW, so those subsidies accomplished their goal precisely.
The political proof of the AGW/IPCC fraud is in the pudding. Upon release of the climategate emails revealing to the whole world that the information that the socialist frauds in the MSM, academia and government were relying on to push their leftist public policy decisions that would adversely affect millions of peoples way of life and finances of entire countries was inaccurate and manipulated for a political outcome. What do these frauds do. NOTHING. It really wasn’t about the science alfter all.
Mike says: “The threat to the Amazon rainforest is from drought . . . Rainforests need … lot’s of rain.”
One of the greatest threats to the rainforest is the fight against AGW. In the name of fighting AGW, we require a large % of our transportation fuel to be biofuels, which increases the their price and prompts Brazil to raze its subtropical forests to plant corn & soybeans. The destruction of the subtropical forests lowers rainfall in the rainforests.
Because of AGW concerns, we would never think of a coal plant in Tanzania. So the local populace denudes the countryside of trees in order to meet their energy needs. The destruction of trees reduces precipitation in the area, and Mount Kilimanjaro loses snow cover.
“AGW proponents and environmentalists is general”
should read
“…in general”
RR Kampen: ” The issue is climate change and a large change happening quickly _can_ kill of a vast number of species before new equilibrium is reached.”
As I’ve noted before, I live on the west coast of Canada. In the last two years I’ve seen temperatures as low as -19C (very rare) and as high as 35C (not so rare).
Thats a pretty “large change” and I don’t know of any species that died out in the last two years.
Now, RR, I admit you are only talking about a 3-5C change, not a 54C change, but I think animals and plants can adapt to 54C swings during a years, so why can’t they adapt to 3-5C?
GOOD NEWS!
Chilly sea temperatures are the first attendees at Cancun’s Climate XXX Jamboree
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Henry@Tim Williams
Tim, it is you who is silly. How can you still believe that CO2 is a problem, when all the facts point into another direction? Do you realize that carbon dioxide also causes radiative cooling by deflecting sunlight at various wavelengths between 0-5 um?
Just to put the carbon dioxide content into the right perspective: it has increased by about 0.01% in the past 50 years from ca. 0.03% to 0.04%. This compares with an average of about 21% for oxygen and ca. 0,5 – 1,0 % for water vapor in the air. In fact, nobody knows exactly how much water vapor is floating around in the whole of the atmosphere at any given time. (Water vapor in the air has nothing to do with clouds. That is still separate). Most scientists agree that water vapor is a much stronger green house gas than carbon dioxide… (if indeed carbon dioxide is a green house gas, which has yet to be proven to me). According to some sources water vapor accounts for at least 95% of the greenhouse effect. It is also logical for me to suspect that as a result of human activities relating to flying (including rocket fuel H2/ O2) , driving, burning, bathing, cooking, boiling, countless cooling processes (including that for nuclear energy), erection of dams and pools containing very shallow waters, for hydro energy, irrigation, consumption and recreation, etc. etc., a lot more water vapor than carbon dioxide is put up in the air, e.g.
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/its-water-vapor-stupid
For example, I found that in my 50M2 swimming pool I lost 2500 liter water due to evaporation in one week (7days). Compare this to my consumption of patrol (gas) of 40 liters in a week./
A problem that I also picked up are the overlaps of the absorption of water vapor and oxygen in the 14-15 um band. Obviously with much higher percentages of O2 and H20 in the air, a small deviation in the applied compensation formula’s may lead to enormous errors. In fact, I can antipicate that it must be near impossible to do any accurate calculations without messing up something here or there. For example, take the fact that we cannot even be sure of the exact water vapor content in the atmosphere…
So, really, all the facts that are presented to us with the carbon dioxide are still all assumptions based on mathematical approximations. I could not find any results of any real physical tests on the warming and cooling properties of each of the CO2, O2 and H2O. Global warming caused by carbon dioxide therefore comes down to a believe system: you just have to have “faith”. There is no real proof. It is all in the mind of man behaving badly. The applied logic is simply: “let us have a planet, let us add some CO2 and let us see if the temperature went up. It did. So that must be it” . But there is no proof.
The IPPC used 1750 as year zero – thus it compared the warming to the increase in GHG’s from 1750 until 2005. Then it applied proportional blame. But that is looking at the problem from the wrong end. That’s assuming that you know what is causing the problem. However, you don’t have the proof in hand. That’s the worst mistake any scientist can make.
We also know that CO2 stimulates growth and greenery: it is afterall the “oxygen” for plants and trees and plays a distinctive role in the photo-synthesis. An interesting observation I made here in Africa is the cooling that you feel when you enter a forest. It is not just the cooling caused by the shades of the trees. You can actually feel the coolness coming from the bottom up. You clearly feel that greenery and forests actually absorb heat from its surroundings which it needs for growth. Hence, the reason why there is no growth of forests in winter or there where it is very cold! There is also evidence of earth becoming greener during the past couple of decades. So in addition to the radiative cooling caused by CO2, I now also found another part of the CO2 that causes cooling and not warming……It is and it stays a truly amazing molecule without which life would not have been possible.
“”””” DirkH says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:25 am
“Despite the hype and tax money, Solyndra seems unable to compete with Chinese manufacturers, whose prices are lower. ”
And given the fact that their product was a rather complicated tube, this goes to show that even in the warped economics surrounding the solar industry, you can still be dumb enough to go broke. “””””
Apparently Solyndra “Scientists/engineers” think that a round tube has a greater projected area than a flat sheet; so it gathers more sunlight. Well we know that the spherical earth still only has a prjected area that is only 25% of the total aurface area; so Solyndra’s magic cut that 4:1 ratio down to a mere factor of Pi. Whoopy !
So they only have to make pi times as much solar cell surface as they can expose to the sunlight; that’s really a great idea.
No wonder they don’t trumpet their solar conversion efficiency; which is the ONLY thing that matters in solar energy systems; since the real estate consumed costs way more than any solar cell system.
The obvious answer is BIOCHAR – a process whereby CO2-absorbing forests will be felled so the wood can be pyrolised (part burnt, which produces Co2 and copious amounts of H2O) to create Biochar (translation = charcoal) which can be buried (it’s important symbolically, so the nasty black stuff is REMOVED permanently from the environment).
No matter that it’ll take decades to regrow the felled forests, no matter that it’ll take a vast amount of energy to perform the magic process, no matter that the wood and biochar will have to be transported great distances. Apparently the totally chemically inert carbon can be used to “fertilise the soil” for crops – a claim that has no chemical, biological, or logical basis. How many billion tons of wood or biomass are these idiots planning to transport to pyrolysis plants, then transport the “biochar” to the “soil enrichment” areas or vast landfill sites?
It’s enough to make any normal sensible person weep (or laugh – take your pick).
Rhoda R
November 12, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Grey Lensman says: The problem with the palm oil plantations is that they are cut out of rain forests and with the blessings of the same crowd that has hissy fits over native farmers slash and burn farming. Can’t have the locals farming for survival, but WWF and other large ‘environmental’ groups can destroy rain forests for profit if they belong to the church of AGW.
#
Its worse then we thought!
The greens just want a few really really expensive demonstration installations of unworkable eco-damaging projects, to distract everyone with “gee-whiz”, while the are dismantling the rest of our working power infrastructure. Once we have no choice but to use land wasting solar, wind, and bio-fuel based energy, they will point to these projects, highlighting how damaging they are and demanding that they must be stopped and its all the fault of greedy capitalists.
BTW, you left off the radical Marxist Center for Biological Diversity. These anti-human nut-jobs are a big voice behind “Linguistic Diversity”. They really and truly want to turn Amazonia into a no go Nature reserve of sorts, but not to protect wild life, but to protect the cultures and languages of primitive Indians from the evil contamination caused by contact with western civilization. They do not want them to learn any language, math or science so that they can be maintained in the innocent purity of their forefathers. Is that sick or what?
Don’t forget over a dozen articles from the early 70s was recently discovered that completely bebunks the “Global Cooling Myth” that warmists have been clinging to: http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/a-new-treasure-trove-of-1970s-global-cooling-articles/
All around a bad year for AGW movement.
toad says:
November 12, 2010 at 11:42 am
“AS Jimmy Haigh says above, James Delingpole received the Bastiat Prize…”
A great achievement by Delingpole, no doubt. However, to put the award into a little context, it’s not exacly a Pulitzer prize is it? Instead it’s a prize awarded by one of those UK ‘think tanks’ the nebulously named ‘International Policy Network’ IPN. It may be irrelevant, but interesting nonetheless, to note that the IPN receives some funding from Exxon. Not that that in any way shapes their policies or research because they tell us so in no uncertain terms; so it must be true…
“IPN’s agenda is neither dictated nor compromised by outside financial sources. We are never a “front group” for any donor or industry.”
” IPN does not accept contributions intended to “purchase” a predetermined research outcome or in any way compromise the intellectual integrity of our work.”
http://www.policynetwork.net/statement-international-policy-network%E2%80%99s-independence-and-guiding-principles
Perhaps Anthony should feel a little aggrieved that his sterling contribution in the same subject field has been overlooked this year especially when one considers esteemed WUWT contributor Indur Goklany is listed as an ‘individual’ on the IPN website….there again I’m sure you all know that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastiat_Prize
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Policy_Network
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Policy_Network
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=108
DY @ 2:01
Depersonalized to the status of zoo animals.
==========
Anthony Watts 11:42
“……But few seem to remember that the source was right here….”
Oh, I think most of us remember you breaking the news from an airport somewhere. It was a moment you don’t forget easily. But didn’t the person who originally posted the word “Climategate” actually say something along the lines of “I wonder how long it will be before somebody calls it Climategate?” Best wishes, Dave.
1DandyTroll says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:10 am
Alarmists worry to much I think that’s why they go all out with their paranoia.
Put into rational numbers they worry that the average global temp will go from some 14.5° C to 15.5° C in the coming 80 years. I don’t know about everyone else but to me that spells maybe a month longer viable crop season in Siberia and Wouldn’t that be a good thing since them climatecommunizts fuzz so much of over population.
No, no… it’s worse than you thought. Given an adiabatic lapse rate of 6C/km and a “storey” of 3m , this means you’d have to move up a floor every 18 months in order to keep your personal climate the same.
Can you imagine the catastrophe that would cause? You’d have Inuit moving into the basement after 18,000 years…
What was the earth’s climate like during the period of MegaFauna?
tonyb says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:45 am
Smokey saidf
“November 12, 2010 at 8:41 am
In other news, Al Gore has apparently gone missing.”
Have you got any proof that he actually existed?
tonyb
How else is snow produced?
RR Kampen says:
November 12, 2010 at 8:57 am
The issue is climate change and a large change happening quickly _can_ kill of a vast number of species before new equilibrium is reached.
So if I have a rat infestation, I can turn the central heating up 5C and wipe it out?
That’s good to know.
And yet animals manage to survive the annual seasons. Where I live — not a particularly extreme part of the world — we’ve had temperature swings of 60C degrees from winter to summer. That much of a change in six months makes the 1C degree over a century change “predicted” by climate catastrophists seem like a joke.
James Sexton says:
November 12, 2010 at 8:21 am
“MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich…….”—————– Did they think the poor would run out and buy solar panels? No, I’m not exclusively poking fun at our friends from Oz, we do the same thing in the states with windmills.
Poke fun all you like mate, it is a standing joke here. I am trying to convince the wife to put in a 5Kw system before the subsidies dry up. (Big Jools has already cut and changed the rebate scheme and then reduced what was left, and NSW has aleady cut back the feed-in tariff) must get my snout in the trough quickly.
Were there not climate change, and evolving biological niches, how would evolution have the driving power it does?
============
I think the biggest problem we face is global retardation.
toad says:
November 12, 2010 at 11:42 am
AS Jimmy Haigh says above, James Delingpole received the Bastiat Prize for online journalism at a dinner in New York last night. His work on exposing ‘Climategate’ is duly recognised at last , especially on Telegraph Blogs where they’re having a Field Day.
REPLY: Good for him! But few seem to remember that the source was right here, including the coining of “Climategate” on WUWT. – Anthony
____________
Most of us here remember – and are raring to celebrate the first anniversary. Today I was holding forth on Climategate during a seminar on the social consequences of modern computing and the internet and the students seemed pretty enthralled by the story. Although it was a small group, if they are indicative of students in general (or at least engineering students) the time is ripe to demolish the AGW myth with a few well-placed arguments. It helped that one of the students had read Lawrence Solomon’s The Deniers and was chiming in about natural climate variations.
What makes me laugh is that Solyndra built its headquarters and one of its manufacturing plants in California, the land of government overregulation and expensive everything.
This story has been linked at http://www.instapundit.com . That should keep WUWT’s hit numbers to keep rolling right along. 🙂
More competition with China:
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2010/11/01/daily14-Evergreen-Solar-China-manufacturing-transition-coming-mid-2011.html says in part:
Evergreen Solar Inc. expects the transition of its solar panel assembly operation from Devens to China to be complete by mid- to late-2011, company officials said during a third-quarter conference call Tuesday.
The Marlborough-based company officially opened its new facility in Wuhan, China, in September, and has been moving the Devens panel assembly operation to the new facility as a way to cut costs.
It’s expected that the move to China could lead to the elimination of jobs in Massachusetts. Evergreen employed 925 in the state as of June, according to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, which has been involved with the company since it received more than $40 million in state financing in 2007.
The financing deal requires that Evergreen maintain 660 jobs in Massachusetts, according to the state office.
The Global Warming Alarmists are about stopping human progress, period. They have already come out against private commercial (non-governmental) space flight companies as this activity to will cause massive environmental damage according to them.
Kate says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:27 am
What The Green Movement Got Wrong
A better title might be: “What have the so-called “Greens” ever got right?”
Nuclear Power – “Greens” Wrong –
DDT – “Greens” Wrong –
Man-Made Climate Change – “Greens” Wrong –
GM Foods – “Greens” Wrong –
Biofuels – “Greens” Wrong –
Wind Turbines – “Greens” Wrong –
Solar Power – “Greens” Wrong –
Kate, that would make a great political ad in 2012. Thanks!
HenryP says:
November 12, 2010 at 1:00 pm
“Do you realize that carbon dioxide also causes radiative cooling by deflecting sunlight at various wavelengths between 0-5 um?”
I’m on your side, but theoretically, this effect is overwhelmed by the fact that solar irradiance peaks at about 500 nm, and is relatively low at the dominant CO2 absorption wavelengths at ~ 4 and 15 microns. This irradiance is absorbed by ground materials, and significant amounts are re-emitted from the Earth in the IR at about 0.2-60 microns.
I’m not saying this is the whole story, I’m just giving you info on the narrative, and why your objection will be shrugged off.
One thing you can be sure of: the reasons that the CAGW narrative is unsound are complex. If you think you’ve discovered a simple discrepancy with which to bring the entire edifice tumbling down, you probably need to do more investigation.
Two posts to debunk!! what a night.
Tim Williams says:
November 12, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Read it all, not sure what your point is in that post, you wasted your time, we all realize there is going to be some sour grapes from some over rewards that might be forthcoming…but I am thinking that most of us who work tirelessly to make sure this scam of agw is revealed. Virtue of restoring science to its rightful place is reward enough. Anthony Watts will not be left without a signifigant portion of recognition in this regard.
And Exxon gives money to something…Oh my, it must be an evil conspiracy…come on now, you guys have been trotting that conspiracy theory out for years now, and no one is any closer to believing it.
Tim Williams says:
November 12, 2010 at 11:19 am
While the peanut gallery whoops and yelps at this latest paper, seemingly affirming their mistaken view that more CO2 is good…or whatever.
Funny, I always thought of comments from people like you as coming from the peanut gallery since there has been science on this site that if you had bothered to read, you would know first the benefits and second the actual consequences of more CO2, not those prophesized by bad computer models. There is good science here, but you must read and absorb, which is difficult for some people.
You bring up bio-diversity, so here is your debunking of the IPCC claims:
http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/extinction-fiction/
If you read that and still think the IPCC is correct, well I am not sure what else to call it but denying the tenets of science.
To be perfectly honest, to compare a likely greenhouse gas forced rapid warming of 5-6°C over a period of 10,000 years, some 56 million years ago, to an incredibly rapid ,likely greenhouse gas forced warming over the next few hundred years and expect what’s left of the tropical forest to evolve it’s way back to luxuriant rude health in a similar time frame is…..silly IMO.
So its likely greenhouse gas forced warming? There is nothing else that could possibly be effecting our climate to cause a .7 degree warming over 150 years?
What is more likely to be causing a large portion of this warming?
A trace gas causing “unprecedented” warming.
Natural variation
unknown factors
land-use changes
I like to take the most likely explanation instead of the “kook” idea personally. But sure, humans have a larger impact then meteors, monster volcanos, ice ages, and fires on the climate. And all stages of extinctions are nothing compared to today. Sonud the alarm!! Its worse then we thought!
Believe what you want…but rest-assured they are simply that…beliefs. The second it became a political idealogy, modern environmentalism died and with it climate science did to. I now work to kill both of and allow new science/environmentalism to fill that gap which has been polluted for too long now by socialist ideas and experiments.
Tim Williams says:
November 12, 2010 at 2:26 pm
It may be irrelevant, but interesting nonetheless, to note that the IPN receives some funding from Exxon.
Is that your best shot? What a pathetic post.
I have igoogle set to post article from google news that mention global warming. there are about 2000 that talk about alarmist ideas and 5 that are from the realistic point of view.
Please don’t include GM crops in what the Greenies got wrong, it scared me to hear them say that on the C4 programme, they’re been nobbled perhaps?
GM crops is death to bio-diversity of food production and the sustainable agricultural practices of us the people.
Reminds me that on joining the EU Britain was banned from selling the product of the majority of its diverse fruit and veg, only way around this is by joining a ‘club’, to obtain seeds for personal use. In one fell swoop we lost most of our orchards of delicious varieties of apples and the shops were filled with tasteless French pretenders to our best loved varities.
Genetically Modified to produce benefits which may take decades to achieve by cross-breeding is coupled with genetically built in ‘sterility’, by the imposition of payment to use the seed from one crop for the next.. and this is being pushed for wherever it can be, imposed by trickery India and in Iraq farmers are told it’s the law; by introduction into a country as ‘famine packages’ to engender sympathetic responses in support is just a pr ploy – as in AGW, check out who really benefits.
http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2007/09/20iraq-farmers-us-govt-gm-crops-monsanto-f-up-again/
[link is incomplete ~ac]
P Walker says:
November 12, 2010 at 11:00 am
Apparently the UN hasn’t gotten the news :
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/12/global-warming-global-taxes
—
This, of course, is the endgame of the AGW scare-mongering mania…sucking more money out of you and me to feed the Climate Ca$h machine…
RR Kampen says:November 12, 2010 at 8:57 am
“The issue is ……. a large change happening quickly _can_ kill of a vast number of species before new equilibrium is reached.”
Sorry for a tardy response. In most places the average temperature fluctuates heavily year to year, and sometimes a continuous 2 degC change (up or down) over four years does occur. In that case the “rate” of change is equivalent to 5 degC/10 years or 25 degC/50 years, but at least in the environment around me, flora and fauna do not appear to suffer fatally from such a “quick” change over the four years.
Perhaps many people are worrying over nothing.
Sorry re link above post, missing backslash between 20 and iraq. Computer problems, no copy function to body of page, must triple check, spotted one error but missed this.
http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/iraq-farmers-us-govt-gm-crops-monsanto-f-up-again/
Bob Johnston @ 9:14 beat me to it, but if true, this is a huge deal.
“At the online blog GlobalEnergyMagazine, correspondent Dolores Fernandez wrote that Solyndra’s announced closure [of a plant] ‘was delayed until after polls closed on congressional elections.'”
@ Kate says:
“What Lynas has realised, and Monbiot has not, is that sceptics didn’t undermine the environmentalists’ cause. Environmentalists were their own worst enemy.”
This is very true, perfectly exampled by the UK’s sole green MP Caroline Lucas, in that every time she opens her mouth most other people cringe and take cover.
Henry@Bart
I’m saying that water vapor due to human activities must have increased many times the amount of the CO2 in the past 100 years. We are changing the whole surface of the planet by creating more shallow waters which are prone for very high evaporation rates,e.g. for irrigation, hydro electricity, consumption, recreation etc. Think of how many dams China has created.
Water at 25 evaporates a lot faster than water at 5 degrees C. (see my pool experiment)
In winter, in the cities snow on roofs and streets quickly melt. People do this naturally but if you think about, it it is an act against nature. Normally the snow would stay for weeks on end, reflecting the light from the sun.
The life of all trees and plants and much of green sea life forms depends on photo synthesis during which CO2 is consumed and whereby heat is drawn from nearby surroundings. Hence the reason why trees don’t grow when or where it is cold.
All of this, of course, and more, is unimportant compared to the warming caused by the 0.01% that Co2 increased in the past 50 years….
I am glad you are on my side and I appreciate your help, but I think I did figure most of it out for myself, with help of course from WUWT and everyone here..
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
The factors that resulted in the 20th century global temperature run-up have been discovered.
A simple equation, with inputs of accepted measurements, calculates the average global temperatures since 1895 with 88% accuracy. See the equation, an eye-opening graph of the results and how they are derived in the pdfs at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true (see especially the pdfs made public on 4/10/10 and 6/27/10).
The future average global temperature trend that this equation calculates is down.
My glee at the awakening of some elements of the mainstream media is exceeded only by my caution that those of us who oppose the policy fraud that AGW has perpetrated keep up the fight against those in the media who refuse to see the truth.
James Sexton says:
November 12, 2010 at 8:21 am
“They believe that a wetter, warmer future may actually boost plants and animals living the tropics.”————….huh, seems I’ve heard that before. I wonder where that was that I read that?
It’s even better. “May” is an understatment. A warmer, wetter, CO2 enriched past has done just that towards the end of the 20th century. See More CO2, more rain – booming biosphere
I am pleased to see that AGW has finally sunk to the level of disbelief this phoney hypothesis deserves. However a lot of our politicians still believe in it as a vehicle with which to pick our pockets. Charlatans of the Algore persuasion have bet the farm on windchargers and solar panels by demonizing CO2 as a danger to to the Earth and all life on it when it is actually vital for our food supply. And actually Greenhouse gas, of which CO2 is a very minor constituent, is the only thing standing in the way of another Ice Age. We are not overly warm today. 14,000 years ago the Wisconsin glacial ice sheet began melting that required 6,000 years to accomplish, removing the 5th, major 100,000 year ice sheet that has devasted the the northern hemisphere down to the 40th parallel of latitude 5 times during the last 800,000 years. So, reality of the situation Earth is in today is, we are in just another interglacial period of the Pleistocene ice ages. No one can predict with any certainty that we will not have another sooner or later. But as long as we have iced up polar regions, we remain vulnerable to another ice age and the irony is only a robust greenhouse gas component in our atmosphere could prevent it. I believe this contrived frenzy to remove greenhouse gasses is counterproductive and we need a warmer world with ice free poles even at the sacrifice of Earth.s port cities. This is not an unusual event. At the beginning of the present Era, 65 million years ago, there are upper Cretaceous
marine sediments deposited in southern Illinois I have seen in the field personally.
Thanks Dan and Bob for your useful comments.
I hope you don’t mind if I use some of it in reference?
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Lomborg makes a lot of sense insofar as how to deal with man-caused climate disaster. But creating giant government boondoggles isn’t one of his more helpful thoughts on the matter. More seriously, though, is that his approached is still premised upon the dogma that disaster is imminent, caused by man, and stoppable — If these premises were correct, then some of the approaches he proposes are quite helpful. Unfortunately, his first premise is flat wrong, his second premise is a partial truth and, as for “stoppable”, yes, if one really wishes to stop climate from changing some rather extreme measures could do so, but I believe THAT is the way to imminent disaster. Change is the heartbeat of the climate system. If we succeed in stopping it, we WILL succeed in killing this planet. Let it change. Adapt, mitigate locally, and don’t build cities at sea level. If it gets warmer, enjoy yet another climate optimum, as our ancestors lucky enough to live in such times did. If it gets colder, bear down and weather the storm. Keep a weather eye open for extreme events that have invariably accompanied climate minima.