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
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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 @ur momisugly 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.'”
@ur momisugly 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.