A recent interview with global warming "skeptic" and author and scientist, Dr. Fred Singer, who I've cited many times on my blog. This is the latest.......
Peter
from: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_533589.html
Unstoppable skeptic
In the great, never-cooling debate over the causes and consequences of global warming, it's always clear whose side Fred Singer is on: not Al Gore's. Singer, who was born in Vienna in 1924, was a pioneer in the development of rocket and satellite technology and holds a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton. Now president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project research group (sepp.org), his latest book (with Dennis Avery) is "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years."
I talked with Singer -- who will debate global warming issues with climate scientist Charles Keller Thursday at a sold-out event at Duquesne University -- by phone from his offices in Arlington, Va.:
Q: What did you think upon hearing of Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize?
A: First of all, I was really not surprised. The peace prize is a political exercise. Remember that Yasser Arafat got the peace prize for, ha, contributing to lasting peace in the Middle East. It's very interesting, the peace prize selection committee comes from the Norwegian Parliament, so they're all politicians. The government is a very left-wing government right now. I spoke about it this morning, in fact, and said that if the government changes -- if the Progress Party, which is an anti-immigration party. gains majority control -- it might give a peace prize to Pat Buchanan. It's purely political, unlike the other prizes, which are awarded by the Swedish academies and which are based on committees that know something about the subject.
Q: Have you seen Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"?
A: Yes. I saw a slide show at a presentation, which he made in Washington. I saw the movie and I read the book. They're all the same amount of bunk. They're all very, very well presented -- very skillfully presented from a technical point of view. But the science is really shoddy.
Q: A lot of people have seen the movie but they don't really keep up on this global-warming debate, which is very complex and very nasty sometimes about which science is true and which isn't.
A: It is nasty, but it shouldn't be complex. The issue is very simple. The only really important issue is, is the warming we are experiencing now natural or is it man-made? That's really the only issue. Everything else is commentary.
Q: Now the Gore camp will say global warming is man-made and they'll point to all kinds of things to prove that.
A: And they're all wrong.
Q: Is there anything that they point to where you say, "Yes, that's true but ...?"
A: Yes. There are a lot of things they point to where I say, "Yes, but... ." For example, they say glaciers are melting. Yes, but. It doesn't tell you what the cause is. You see, any kind of warming, from whatever cause, will melt ice. Whether it's natural or man-made warming, the ice doesn't care. It will melt when it gets warmer. This is a trick that they do. They play this trick many times over -- showing the consequences of global warming, which really don't tell you what the cause is. And the only important question is, remember, "What is the cause? Is it natural or man-made?" If it's natural, then there is nothing we can do about it. It's unstoppable. We can't change the sun or influence volcanism or anything of that sort. We're not at that stage yet. It also means that all these schemes for controlling CO2 are useless, completely useless. It's all bunk.
Q: When you say global warming is natural, what is your chief culprit?
A: The sun. The sun. Definitely. The evidence we have shows an extremely strong correlation with solar activity. The (Earth's) temperature follows the solar activity and the correlation is very strong. The mechanism itself is still under some dispute, but we think in some way the sun influences cosmic rays, which in turn influences cloudiness.
Q: That doesn't even count the heat output of the sun, which changes over time, doesn't it?
A: Those are very small and are not enough to account for all the climate changes that we see. What is causing it is not just the heat of the sun, but emissions from the sun that we don't see -- except with satellites and spacecraft -- the so-called solar winds and magnetic fields.
Q: What about the things like the wobble of the Earth on its axis and the Earth's eccentric orbit around the Sun?
A: That's also important, but on a different time scale. For each time scale there is a particular cause. The time scale I'm talking about when I talk about direct solar influences are of the order of decades. The time scales that involve wobbles and orbits of the Earth around the sun involve times scales of 10,000 or 100,000 years.
Q: Can you give a synopsis of "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years"?
A: Yes. Our book -- I co-authored it with Dennis Avery -- basically looks at published papers in the peer-reviewed literature by geologists and other paleo-scientists, oceanographers and so on, who have studied the climate records of the past. Every one of them shows this (roughly 1,500-year) cycle. It was first discovered in ice cores in Greenland. Then it was seen in ocean sediments in the Atlantic. And now it's been found everywhere, including in stalagmites in caves. In all kinds of climate records that you wouldn't think of that have been studied, you see this cycle. It shows warming and cooling -- that's an oscillation -- a slight warming and a slight cooling. It's not a big effect. But it could well account for the current warming. It can well account for the warming that occurred 1,000 years ago. It can well account also for what we call "The Little Ice Age," which occurred roughly 500 years ago.
Q: When people talk about the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica growing or shrinking or melting completely, what should we know about that?
A: Well, the ice sheets of Greenland have not melted in historic time at all, even though it was much warmer 1,000 years ago and very much warmer 5,000 years ago. The ice sheets on Antarctica haven't melted for millions of years, because it's really quite cold there. There is always some melting that takes place during the summer, of course, when the sun shines directly on the ice. But in the precipitation that falls -- the rain and snow that falls -- soon turns to ice and grows the ice sheet back again.
Q: Is the quote-unquote "scientific consensus" that Al Gore and his acolytes are always speaking of growing stronger or weaker?
A: Let me put it this way: Many scientists, unfortunately, support the idea that the human influence on climate is very strong compared to natural influences. We don't. We see the evidence differently. But most scientists disagree with Gore on specifics. For instance, on sea level rise: The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control), which is the U.N.'s climate advisory body, has come out with its report and predicts a sea level rise on the order of a foot and a half per century. Al Gore has a 20-foot rise. So he's way out of line compared to the mainstream science.
Q: People like you, who think that global warming is not a crisis that demands instant or dramatic government action, are regularly accused of being tools of the oil, gas and coal industries. How do you defend yourself from that charge?
A: Ha, ha. Well, there are various ways. In the first place, I've held these views for a very long time. And secondly, I'm not a tool of the oil industry. In fact, when you think about oil -- let's take Exxon for an example -- what the global warmists are trying to do is to demonize coal. Why? Because coal emits more carbon dioxide than oil or gas. Well, if they do that -- if they prevent the use of coal -- it figures that it makes oil and gas more valuable. It drives up the price. Exxon has huge reserves of oil and gas. So, in a sense, Exxon should benefit from global-warming alarmism. I don't know if people have thought about that. It's not been commonly discussed that all these holders of oil and gas reserves benefit financially any time the global warmists prevent the use of coal.
Q: The global warming community thinks we're going to turn to wind and solar and ocean-wave energy to replace fossil fuels.
A: None of that is economic. It will produce some energy at a great cost. Put it this way: If it were economic, it would have been done by now. The only way you can do wind and solar is with large government subsidies. And you ask yourself, "Why should we all subsidize with our tax dollars something which is basically uneconomic?"
Q: Here's my McCarthy Era question: Do you now or did you ever get money or grants or whatever from energy companies?
A: Sure. I'd love to get more, but they only did it once, I think. It was unsolicited, unannounced, and I cashed the check immediately. I've been wishing for more, ha, ha, but they haven't given me any more. Now, don't forget that what they've given me amounts to a tiny fraction of 1 percent of our total cumulative budget (at SEPP.org ). And don't forget that the energy companies give hundreds of millions of dollars -- which is at least 10,000 times as much as we're getting -- to researchers everywhere who are working to show that global warming exists and is human-caused.
Q: Do you have any explanation why the Al Gore camp has won the global warming argument in the mainstream media?
A: That's not really my field. I'm not sure they've won the argument in the media. I'm sure there are still many people in the media who are skeptical of Al Gore's arguments -- and they should be.
Q: Should they be skeptical of your arguments as well?
A: Some are skeptical of my arguments, yes, of course. That's because they haven't looked into it. In other words, I'm very convinced that when I talk to somebody one-on-one and show them the evidence, they will agree with me.
Q: You plan to debate Dr. Charles Keller in Pittsburgh next week --
A: Right. I will show the evidence, and if he's honest, he'll agree with me.
Q: What in general is your chief argument going to be with him?
A: My chief argument will be that the actual data show that the climate models don't work, and the actual data show that the cause of the global warming can not be a greenhouse effect.
Q: Have you debated him before?
A: Yeah, we had a debate about 10 years ago.
Q: What have you learned since then?
A: A great deal.
Q: As you've watched this global-warming debate evolve, are you optimistic that good science, honest science, will trump politics?
A: Yes, I'm optimistic because eventually it must do that. The problem is the word "eventually." In the meantime, a great deal of damage can be done to our economy as various schemes are being put forward to control CO2 emissions -- essentially to control the use of energy.
Source
Monday, October 29, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Senator Inhofe Floor Speech On Global Warming: 2007- Global Warming Reaches A Tipping Point
It sounds as if Senator Inhofe has been reading my blog. Actually the material he is using is all over the Internet and people are talking about it. I've only been involved discussing and researching this for the last seven months or so, so I don't have a good perspective on the issue. However the global warming alarmists have had the upper hand until recently. I think the people doubting man-caused global warming will continue increasing. The alarmists are looking increasingly foolish.
You will note I think, that Presidential political candidates, especially the Democrats are keeping their distance from Al Gore, and the subject of global warming. I think they realize it is a sinking ship. Inhofe's speech is two hours long! Holy cow! That must put a lot of people asleep I'm afraid. Anyway, I'm saving this for future reference.
Peter
INHOFE FLOOR SPEECH ON GLOBAL WARMING: 2007 - GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM REACHES A TIPPING POINT
October 26, 2007
CONTACT:
MARC MORANO (202) 224-5762
marc_morano@epw.senate.gov
MATT DEMPSEY (202) 224-9797
matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov
UPDATE: LINK TO FULL SPEECH NOW AVAILABLE HERE
To Read Senator Inhofe's views about Hollywood promoting fears to kids click here:
To Read Senator Inhofe's views on costly "solutions" to global warming click here:
To Read Senator Inhofe discuss activists who believe global warming has 'co-opted' the environmental movement click here:
INHOFE GLOBAL WARMING SPEECH
2007 - GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM REACHES A ‘TIPPING POINT’
WASHINGTON, DC - Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, delivered a speech more than two hours long on the Senate floor Friday revealing the very latest in peer-reviewed studies, analyses, and data error discoveries in global warming science. The new developments have prompted many scientists to declare that the scientific basis for fears of catastrophic man-made global warming are collapsing. Senator Inhofe also detailed how children have been impacted by climate propaganda from their schools, Hollywood and our pop culture. Further, Senator Inhofe exposed the painful economic realities of global warming cap-and-trade legislation.
"I agree with [former Vice President Al] Gore. Global warming may have reached a ‘tipping point,'" Senator Inhofe said in his speech today. "The man-made global warming fear machine crossed the ‘tipping point' in 2007. I am convinced that future climate historians will look back at 2007 as the year the global warming fears began crumbling. The situation we are in now is very similar to where we were in the late 1970's when coming ice age fears began to dismantle. We are currently witnessing an international awakening of scientists who are speaking out in opposition to former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, the Hollywood elitists and the media-driven "consensus" on man-made global warming."
Who: Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
What: Speech titled "2007 - Global Warming Alarmism Reaches a ‘Tipping Point'"
When: TODAY, Start Time Between 11:00AM ET - 2:15 PM ET Friday, October 26, 2007
Where: Floor of the United States Senate (Coverage on C-SPAN and C-SPAN Radio, or online on CSPAN.org
Selected Speech Excerpts:
Senator Inhofe on Climate propaganda to Kids:
Hollywood activist Leonardo DiCaprio decided to toss objective scientific truth out the window in his new scarefest "The 11th Hour." DiCaprio refused to interview any scientists who disagreed with his dire vision of the future of the Earth. In fact, his film reportedly features physicist Stephen Hawking making the unchallenged assertion that "the worst-case scenario is that Earth would become like its sister planet, Venus, with a temperature of 250 [degrees] centigrade." I guess these "worst-case scenario's" pass for science in Hollywood these days. It also fits perfectly with DiCaprio's stated purpose of the film. DiCaprio said on May 20th of this year: "I want the public to be very scared by what they see. I want them to see a very bleak future." < > Children are now the number one target of the global warming fear campaign. DiCaprio announced his goal was to recruit young eco-activists to the cause. "We need to get kids young," DiCaprio said in a September 20 interview with USA Weekend. Hollywood activist Laurie David, Gore's co-producer of "An Inconvenient Truth" recently co-authored a children's global warming book with Cambria Gordon for Scholastic Books titled, The Down-To-Earth Guide to Global Warming. David has made it clear that her goal is to influence young minds with her new book when she recently wrote an open letter to her children stating: "We want you to grow up to be activists." Apparently, David and other activists are getting frustrated by the widespread skepticism on climate as reflected in both the U.S. and the UK according to the latest polls. It appears the alarmists are failing to convince adults to believe their increasingly shrill and scientifically unfounded rhetoric, so they have decided kids are an easier sell. < > And this agenda of indoctrination and fear aimed at children is having an impact. Nine year old Alyssa Luz-Ricca was quoted in the Washington Post on April 16, 2007 as saying: "I worry about [global warming] because I don't want to die." Unfortunately, children are hearing the scientifically unfounded doomsday message loud and clear. But the message kids are receiving is not a scientific one, it is a political message designed to create fear, nervousness and ultimately recruit them to liberal activism.
Senator Inhofe on how many on the Left have become disenchanted with global warming activism:
The global warming scare machine is now so tenuous, that other liberal environmental scientists and activists are now joining [Geologist Dr. Robert] Giegengack and refuting the entire basis for man-made global warming concerns. Denis G. Rancourt Professor of Physics and an environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa, believes the global warming campaign does a disservice to the environmental movement. Rancourt wrote on February 27, 2007: "Promoting the global warming myth trains people to accept unverified, remote, and abstract dangers in the place of true problems that they can discover for themselves by becoming directly engaged in their workplace and by doing their own research and observations. It trains people to think lifestyle choices (in relation to CO2 emission) rather than to think activism in the sense of exerting an influence to change societal structures." Rancourt believes that global warming "will not become humankind's greatest threat until the sun has its next hiccup in a billion years or more in the very unlikely scenario that we are still around." He also noted that even if CO2 emissions were a grave threat, "government action and political will cannot measurably or significantly ameliorate global climate in the present world." Most significantly, however, Rancourt -- a committed left-wing activist and scientist -- believes environmentalists have been duped into promoting global warming as a crisis. Rancourt wrote: "I argue that by far the most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might; and that the global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth. In my opinion, activists who, using any justification, feed the global warming myth have effectively been co-opted, or at best neutralized." "Global warming is strictly an imaginary problem of the First World middleclass," Rancourt added. < >
Left-wing Professor David Noble of Canada's York University has joined the growing chorus of disenchanted liberal activists. Noble now believes that the movement has "hyped the global climate issue into an obsession." Noble wrote a May 8 essay entitled "The Corporate Climate Coup" which details how global warming has "hijacked" the environmental left and created a "corporate climate campaign" which has "diverted attention from the radical challenges of the global justice movement."
Senator Inhofe on how the poor will pay for symbolic climate measures:
What few Americans realize is that the impact of these policies would not be evenly distributed. The Congressional Budget Office recently looked at the approach taken by most global warming proposals in Congress - known as cap and trade - that would place a cap on carbon emissions, allocate how much everyone could emit, and then let them trade those emissions. Let me quote from the CBO report: "Regardless of how the allowances were distributed, most of the cost of meeting a cap on CO2 emissions would be borne by consumers, who would face persistently higher prices for products such as electricity and gasoline. Those price increases would be regressive in that poorer households would bear a larger burden relative to their income than wealthier households would." Think about that. Even relatively modest bills would put enormous burdens on the poor. The poor already face energy costs much higher as a percentage of their income than wealthier Americans. While most Americans spend about 4 percent of their monthly budget on heating their homes or other energy needs, the poorest fifth of Americans spend 19 percent of their budget on energy. Why would we adopt policies which disproportionately force the poor and working class to shoulder the heaviest burdens through even higher energy costs?
Senator Inhofe on Kyoto style attempts to control global temperatures:
First, going on a carbon diet would do nothing to avert climate change. After the U.S. signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Al Gore's own scientist, Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, calculated that Kyoto would reduce emissions by only 0.07 degrees Celsius by the year 2050. That's all. 0.07 degrees. And that's if the United States had ratified Kyoto and the other signatories met their targets. But we didn't and they won't. Of the 15 original EU countries, only two are on track to meet their targets. And even one of those, Britain, has started increasing its emissions again, not decreasing. Similar calculations have been done to estimate other climate bills. The Climate Change Stewardship Act that was defeated 38-60 last year would have only reduced temperatures by 0.029 degrees Celsius, and another bill modeled on the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP) report would have only reduced temperatures by 0.008 degrees Celsius. That's right - 0.008 degrees Celsius, or less than one percent of one degree.
Senator Inhofe on new scientific developments:
We have witnessed Antarctic ice GROW to record levels since satellite monitoring began in the 1970's. We have witnessed NASA temperature data errors that have made 1934 -- not 1998 -- the hottest year on record in the U.S. We have seen global averages temperatures flat line since 1998 and the Southern Hemisphere cool in recent years." (...) Current temperatures in Greenland -- a poster boy for climate alarmists - are COOLER than the temperatures there in the 1930's and 1940's, according to multiple peer-reviewed studies. Yes, you heard me correctly. Greenland has COOLED since the 1940's! A fact the media and global warming activists conceal. Greenland reached its highest temperatures in 1941, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the June 2006 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research. And, keep in mind that 80% of man-made CO2 came AFTER these high temperatures. How inconvenient that the two poster children of alarmism - Greenland and Antarctica -- trumpeted by Al Gore and the climate fear mongers, have decided not to cooperate with computer model driven fears.
Senator Inhofe on the challenges of controlling emissions:
Many times I have heard that America is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and thus is the problem. But that is no longer true. Earlier this year, China surpassed the United States as the world's largest emitter of carbon. Only 6 years ago, it was estimated that China's emissions would still lag those of the United States in 2040. China's emissions growth is explosive and climbing upward. Just to put things in perspective, the United States did not build a single new coal-fired power plant in the last 15 years up to 2006, although there are now some efforts underway to change that. In comparison, according to the New York Times, "China last year built 117 government-approved coal-fired power plants - a rate of roughly one every three days, according to official figures." We won't complete that many in the next decade. India's emission increases are not far behind China, and Brazil is not far behind them. The fact is that if these countries do not curb their rapidly accelerating emissions growth, then embracing a carbon diet and sluggish economic growth by developed countries will accomplish nothing. Moreover, many of the carbon reductions achieved through lost manufacturing jobs in developed countries are simply emitted elsewhere as jobs are created to make the same product in countries that do not ration energy. The U.S. emissions as a measure of productivity are far lower than China's. Cement manufacturing is a perfect example. Every job sent there will increase emissions, not lower them.
Senator Inhofe on the path forward:
So what's the path forward? I categorically will oppose legislation or initiatives that will devastate our economy as well as those that will cost jobs simply to make symbolic gestures purely to start us down the ruinous economic path of energy rationing. I believe such measures will be defeated because the approach is politically unsustainable. We are seeing the first signs of that in Europe right now. Even if the alarmists were right on the science - which they are not - their command-and-control approaches sow the seeds of their own failure. As long as their policies put national economies in the cross-hairs, they will stoke the fires of opposition and eventually collapse of their own weight. Stabilizing emissions can not happen in 20, 40, or even 60 years because our world's infrastructure is built on fossil fuels and it will continue to be so for a long time to come - the power plants and other facilities being built now and in the future will emit carbon for a half century after they're completed. Quite simply, the technology does not exist to cost-effectively power the world without emitting carbon dioxide. And I and many others who reject climate alarmism or ineffective yet expensive solutions will block efforts to implement mandatory carbon restrictions. I find it unfortunate that so many politicians and climate advocates focus on trying to resurrect a mandatory carbon cap policy in the face of its demonstrated failure in practice in the countries that have adopted it. In the process, they are ignoring the best path forward. There is only one approach so far that I know of that will work - it is the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Why? Because this approach serves multiple purposes - it will reduce air pollution, expand our energy supply, increase trade, and along with these other goals, reduce greenhouse gases as a byproduct. Others might put this list together differently in terms of priority, but my point is that the Asia-Pacific Partnership meets the criteria for success - it is a politically and economically sustainable path forward that addresses multiple issues in the context of their relation to other issues. Perhaps other approaches in the future will meet these criteria as well, but the APP is currently the only one that does.
Senator Inhofe on how scientific studies reveal climate changes on Earth lie well within the bounds of natural climate variability:
"A June 29, 2007 paper by Gerd Burger of Berlin's Institute of Meteorology in the peer-reviewed Science Magazine challenged a 2006 study that claimed the 20th century had been unusually warm. Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack, the chair of Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, noted in May 2007 that extremely long geologic timescales reveal that "only about 5% of that time has been characterized by conditions on Earth that were so cold that the poles could support masses of permanent ice." Giegengack added: "For most of Earth's history, the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has rarely been cooler."
Inhofe on how fear is being driven by unproven and un-testable computer model fears of the future:
Even the New York Times has been forced to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that the Earth is currently well within natural climate variation. This inconvenient reality means that all the warming doomsayers have to back up their climate fears are unproven computer models predicting future doom. Of course, you can't prove a prediction of the climate in 2100 wrong today, which reduces the models to speculating on what ‘could' ‘might' ‘may' happen 50 or 100 years from now. But prominent UN scientists have publicly questioned the reliability of climate models. In a candid statement, IPCC scientist Dr. Jim Renwick-a lead author of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report-publicly admitted that climate models may not be so reliable after all. Renwick stated in June: "Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well." Let me repeat: a UN scientist admitted, "Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable." Also in June, another high-profile UN IPCC lead author, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, echoed Renwick's sentiments about climate models by referring to them as nothing more than "story lines." A leading scientific skeptic, Meteorologist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, recently took the critique of climate computer models one step further. Tennekes said in February 2007, "I am of the opinion that most scientists engaged in the design, development, and tuning of climate models are in fact software engineers. They are unlicensed, hence unqualified to sell their products to society."
Senator Inhofe debunks "More CO2 = A Warmer World" simplicity:
Scientists and peer-reviewed studies are increasingly revealing that catastrophic climate fears of rising CO2 are simply unsustainable. In May 2007, the "father of meteorology" Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin, dismissed fears of rising CO2 bluntly saying: "You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide." Bryson has been identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. Climatologist Dr. Ball recently explained that one of the reasons climate models are failing is because they overestimate the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ball described how CO2's warming impact diminishes. "Even if CO2 concentration doubles or triples, the effect on temperature would be minimal. The relationship between temperature and CO2 is like painting a window black to block sunlight. The first coat blocks most of the light. Second and third coats reduce very little more. Current CO2 levels are like the first coat of black paint," Ball explained in June 2007. Environmental economist Dennis Avery, co-author with climate scientist Dr. Fred Singer of the new book "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years," explained how much impact CO2 has had on temperatures. "The earth has warmed only a net 0.2 degrees C of net warming since 1940. Human-emitted CO2 gets the blame for only half of that-or 0.1 degree C of warming over 65 years! We've had no warming at all since 1998. Remember, too, that each added unit of CO2 has less impact on the climate. The first 40 parts per million (ppm) of human-emitted CO2 added to the atmosphere in the 1940s had as much climate impact as the next 360 ppm," Avery wrote in August. Avery and Singer's book details how solar activity is linked to Earth's natural temperature cycles. < > [Dr. Robert] Giegengack said: "[Gore] claims that temperature increases solely because more CO2 in the atmosphere traps the sun's heat. That's just wrong ... It's a natural interplay." He continued, "It's hard for us to say that CO2 drives temperature. It's easier to say temperature drives CO2." "The driving mechanism is exactly the opposite of what Al Gore claims, both in his film and in that book. It's the temperature that, through those 650,000 years, controlled the CO2; not the CO2 that controlled the temperature," he added.
Senator Inhofe debunks the so-called "consensus":
The notion of a "consensus" is carefully manufactured for political, financial and ideological purposes. < > Key components of the manufactured "consensus" fade under scrutiny. We often hear how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) issued statements endorsing the so-called "consensus" view that man is driving global warming. But what you don't hear is that both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the "consensus" statements. It appears that the governing boards of these organizations caved in to pressure from those promoting the politically correct view of UN and Gore-inspired science. The Canadian Academy of Sciences reportedly endorsed a "consensus" global warming statement that was never even approved by its governing board. Rank-and-file scientists are now openly rebelling. James Spann, a certified meteorologist with the AMS, openly defied the organization when he said in January that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype." < > There are frequently claims that the UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers is the voice of hundreds or even thousands of the world's top scientists. But such claims do not hold up to even the lightest scrutiny. According to the Associated Press, during the IPCC Summary for Policymakers meeting in April 2007, only 52 scientists participated. The April 9, 2007 AP article by Seth Borenstein reported: "Diplomats from 115 countries and 52 scientists hashed out the most comprehensive and gloomiest warning yet about the possible effects of global warming, from increased flooding, hunger, drought and diseases to the extinction of species." Many of the so-called "hundreds" of scientists who have been affiliated with the UN as "expert reviewers" are in fact climate skeptics. Skeptics like Virginia State Climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels, Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy, New Zealand climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray, former head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo, Tom V. Segalstad, and MIT's Dr. Richard Lindzen have served as IPCC "expert reviewers" but were not involved in writing the alarmist Summary for Policymakers.
Senator Inhofe on the UN IPCC process:
The UN allowed a Greenpeace activist to co-author a key economic report in 2007. Left unreported by most of the media was the fact that Bill Hare, an advisor to Greenpeace, was a lead co- author of a key economic report in the IPCC's 4th Assessment. Not surprisingly, the Greenpeace co-authored report predicted a gloomy future for our planet unless we follow the UN's policy prescriptions. The UN IPCC's own guidelines explicitly state that the scientific reports have to be "change[d]" to "ensure consistency with" the politically motivated Summary for Policymakers. In addition, the IPCC more closely resembles a political party's convention platform battle - not a scientific process. During an IPCC Summary for Policymakers process, political delegates and international bureaucrats squabble over the specific wording of a phase or assertion. Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes. "I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol," Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007.
Former Colorado State Climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. also detailed the corruption of the UN IPCC process on September 1, 2007: "The same individuals who are doing primary research in the role of humans on the climate system are then permitted to lead the [IPCC] assessment! There should be an outcry on this obvious conflict of interest, but to date either few recognize this conflict, or see that since the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda, they chose to ignore this conflict. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow," Pielke explained. He added: "We need recognition among the scientific community, the media, and policymakers that the IPCC process is obviously a real conflict of interest, and this has resulted in a significantly flawed report."
Politics appears to be the fuel that runs the UN IPCC process from the scientists to the bureaucrats to the delegates and all the way to many of the world leaders involved in it. And another key to the motivation of the UN was explained by former French President Jacques Chirac in 2000: Chirac said Kyoto represents "the first component of an authentic global governance."
Senator Inhofe on Polar Bears:
The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, whereas in the 1950s and 1960s, estimates were as low as 5,000-10,000 bears. We currently have an estimated four or five times more polar bears than 50 years ago. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations ‘may now be near historic highs.' Top biologists and wildlife experts are dismissing unproven computer model concerns for polar bears. In 2006, Canadian biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the director of wildlife research with the Arctic government of Nunavut, dismissed these fears with evidence based data on Canada's polar bear populations. "Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present," Taylor said, noting that Canada is home to two-thirds of the world's polar bears. He added: "It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria." In September, Taylor further debunked the latest report hyping fears of future polar bear extinctions. "I think it's naive and presumptuous," Taylor said, referring to a recent report by the U.S. government warning that computer models predict a dire future for the bears due to projected ice loss. Taylor also debunked the notion that less sea ice means less polar bears by pointing out that southern regions of the bears' home with low levels of ice are seeing booming bear populations. He noted that in the warmer southern Canadian region of the Davis Strait with lower levels of ice, a new survey will reveal that bear populations have grown from an estimated 850 bears to an estimated 3000 bears. And, despite the lower levels of ice, some of the bears measured in this region are among the biggest ever on record. "Davis Strait is crawling with polar bears. It's not safe to camp there. They're fat. The mothers have cubs. The cubs are in good shape," he said, according to a September 14, 2007 article. He added: "That's not theory. That's not based on a model. That's observation of reality." Other biologists are equally dismissive of these computer model based fears. Biologist Josef Reichholf, who heads the Vertebrates Department at the National Zoological Collection in Munich, rejected climate fears and asserted any potential global warming may be beneficial to both humans and animals. In a May 8, 2007 interview, Reichholf asked: "How did the polar bear survive the last warm period?"
Reichholf also debunked the entire notion that a warmer world will lead to mass species extinctions. "Warming temperatures promote biodiversity," Reichholf explained. "The number of species increases exponentially from the regions near the poles across the moderate latitudes and to the equator. To put it succinctly, the warmer a region is, the more diverse are its species," he added.
# # #
Related Links:
Senator Inhofe September 25, 20076 Speech: HOT & COLD MEDIA SPIN CYCLE: A CHALLENGE TO JOURNALISTS WHO COVER GLOBAL WARMING
http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759
New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears
Global Warming "Consensus" Continues To Melt Away (Op-Ed By Senator Inhofe, Power Magazine)
Cutting Emissions May Cost U.S. Economy Up to $1.8 Trillion
Senators Propose $4500 Climate Tax on American Families
Newsweek Editor Calls Mag's Global Warming 'Deniers' Article 'Highly Contrived'
Newsweek's Climate Editorial Screed Violates Basic Standards of Journalism
Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt
EPA to Probe E-mail Threatening to ‘Destroy' Career of Climate Skeptic
Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
# # #
You will note I think, that Presidential political candidates, especially the Democrats are keeping their distance from Al Gore, and the subject of global warming. I think they realize it is a sinking ship. Inhofe's speech is two hours long! Holy cow! That must put a lot of people asleep I'm afraid. Anyway, I'm saving this for future reference.
Peter
INHOFE FLOOR SPEECH ON GLOBAL WARMING: 2007 - GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM REACHES A TIPPING POINT
October 26, 2007
CONTACT:
MARC MORANO (202) 224-5762
marc_morano@epw.senate.gov
MATT DEMPSEY (202) 224-9797
matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov
UPDATE: LINK TO FULL SPEECH NOW AVAILABLE HERE
To Read Senator Inhofe's views about Hollywood promoting fears to kids click here:
To Read Senator Inhofe's views on costly "solutions" to global warming click here:
To Read Senator Inhofe discuss activists who believe global warming has 'co-opted' the environmental movement click here:
INHOFE GLOBAL WARMING SPEECH
2007 - GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM REACHES A ‘TIPPING POINT’
WASHINGTON, DC - Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, delivered a speech more than two hours long on the Senate floor Friday revealing the very latest in peer-reviewed studies, analyses, and data error discoveries in global warming science. The new developments have prompted many scientists to declare that the scientific basis for fears of catastrophic man-made global warming are collapsing. Senator Inhofe also detailed how children have been impacted by climate propaganda from their schools, Hollywood and our pop culture. Further, Senator Inhofe exposed the painful economic realities of global warming cap-and-trade legislation.
"I agree with [former Vice President Al] Gore. Global warming may have reached a ‘tipping point,'" Senator Inhofe said in his speech today. "The man-made global warming fear machine crossed the ‘tipping point' in 2007. I am convinced that future climate historians will look back at 2007 as the year the global warming fears began crumbling. The situation we are in now is very similar to where we were in the late 1970's when coming ice age fears began to dismantle. We are currently witnessing an international awakening of scientists who are speaking out in opposition to former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, the Hollywood elitists and the media-driven "consensus" on man-made global warming."
Who: Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
What: Speech titled "2007 - Global Warming Alarmism Reaches a ‘Tipping Point'"
When: TODAY, Start Time Between 11:00AM ET - 2:15 PM ET Friday, October 26, 2007
Where: Floor of the United States Senate (Coverage on C-SPAN and C-SPAN Radio, or online on CSPAN.org
Selected Speech Excerpts:
Senator Inhofe on Climate propaganda to Kids:
Hollywood activist Leonardo DiCaprio decided to toss objective scientific truth out the window in his new scarefest "The 11th Hour." DiCaprio refused to interview any scientists who disagreed with his dire vision of the future of the Earth. In fact, his film reportedly features physicist Stephen Hawking making the unchallenged assertion that "the worst-case scenario is that Earth would become like its sister planet, Venus, with a temperature of 250 [degrees] centigrade." I guess these "worst-case scenario's" pass for science in Hollywood these days. It also fits perfectly with DiCaprio's stated purpose of the film. DiCaprio said on May 20th of this year: "I want the public to be very scared by what they see. I want them to see a very bleak future." < > Children are now the number one target of the global warming fear campaign. DiCaprio announced his goal was to recruit young eco-activists to the cause. "We need to get kids young," DiCaprio said in a September 20 interview with USA Weekend. Hollywood activist Laurie David, Gore's co-producer of "An Inconvenient Truth" recently co-authored a children's global warming book with Cambria Gordon for Scholastic Books titled, The Down-To-Earth Guide to Global Warming. David has made it clear that her goal is to influence young minds with her new book when she recently wrote an open letter to her children stating: "We want you to grow up to be activists." Apparently, David and other activists are getting frustrated by the widespread skepticism on climate as reflected in both the U.S. and the UK according to the latest polls. It appears the alarmists are failing to convince adults to believe their increasingly shrill and scientifically unfounded rhetoric, so they have decided kids are an easier sell. < > And this agenda of indoctrination and fear aimed at children is having an impact. Nine year old Alyssa Luz-Ricca was quoted in the Washington Post on April 16, 2007 as saying: "I worry about [global warming] because I don't want to die." Unfortunately, children are hearing the scientifically unfounded doomsday message loud and clear. But the message kids are receiving is not a scientific one, it is a political message designed to create fear, nervousness and ultimately recruit them to liberal activism.
Senator Inhofe on how many on the Left have become disenchanted with global warming activism:
The global warming scare machine is now so tenuous, that other liberal environmental scientists and activists are now joining [Geologist Dr. Robert] Giegengack and refuting the entire basis for man-made global warming concerns. Denis G. Rancourt Professor of Physics and an environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa, believes the global warming campaign does a disservice to the environmental movement. Rancourt wrote on February 27, 2007: "Promoting the global warming myth trains people to accept unverified, remote, and abstract dangers in the place of true problems that they can discover for themselves by becoming directly engaged in their workplace and by doing their own research and observations. It trains people to think lifestyle choices (in relation to CO2 emission) rather than to think activism in the sense of exerting an influence to change societal structures." Rancourt believes that global warming "will not become humankind's greatest threat until the sun has its next hiccup in a billion years or more in the very unlikely scenario that we are still around." He also noted that even if CO2 emissions were a grave threat, "government action and political will cannot measurably or significantly ameliorate global climate in the present world." Most significantly, however, Rancourt -- a committed left-wing activist and scientist -- believes environmentalists have been duped into promoting global warming as a crisis. Rancourt wrote: "I argue that by far the most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might; and that the global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth. In my opinion, activists who, using any justification, feed the global warming myth have effectively been co-opted, or at best neutralized." "Global warming is strictly an imaginary problem of the First World middleclass," Rancourt added. < >
Left-wing Professor David Noble of Canada's York University has joined the growing chorus of disenchanted liberal activists. Noble now believes that the movement has "hyped the global climate issue into an obsession." Noble wrote a May 8 essay entitled "The Corporate Climate Coup" which details how global warming has "hijacked" the environmental left and created a "corporate climate campaign" which has "diverted attention from the radical challenges of the global justice movement."
Senator Inhofe on how the poor will pay for symbolic climate measures:
What few Americans realize is that the impact of these policies would not be evenly distributed. The Congressional Budget Office recently looked at the approach taken by most global warming proposals in Congress - known as cap and trade - that would place a cap on carbon emissions, allocate how much everyone could emit, and then let them trade those emissions. Let me quote from the CBO report: "Regardless of how the allowances were distributed, most of the cost of meeting a cap on CO2 emissions would be borne by consumers, who would face persistently higher prices for products such as electricity and gasoline. Those price increases would be regressive in that poorer households would bear a larger burden relative to their income than wealthier households would." Think about that. Even relatively modest bills would put enormous burdens on the poor. The poor already face energy costs much higher as a percentage of their income than wealthier Americans. While most Americans spend about 4 percent of their monthly budget on heating their homes or other energy needs, the poorest fifth of Americans spend 19 percent of their budget on energy. Why would we adopt policies which disproportionately force the poor and working class to shoulder the heaviest burdens through even higher energy costs?
Senator Inhofe on Kyoto style attempts to control global temperatures:
First, going on a carbon diet would do nothing to avert climate change. After the U.S. signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Al Gore's own scientist, Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, calculated that Kyoto would reduce emissions by only 0.07 degrees Celsius by the year 2050. That's all. 0.07 degrees. And that's if the United States had ratified Kyoto and the other signatories met their targets. But we didn't and they won't. Of the 15 original EU countries, only two are on track to meet their targets. And even one of those, Britain, has started increasing its emissions again, not decreasing. Similar calculations have been done to estimate other climate bills. The Climate Change Stewardship Act that was defeated 38-60 last year would have only reduced temperatures by 0.029 degrees Celsius, and another bill modeled on the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP) report would have only reduced temperatures by 0.008 degrees Celsius. That's right - 0.008 degrees Celsius, or less than one percent of one degree.
Senator Inhofe on new scientific developments:
We have witnessed Antarctic ice GROW to record levels since satellite monitoring began in the 1970's. We have witnessed NASA temperature data errors that have made 1934 -- not 1998 -- the hottest year on record in the U.S. We have seen global averages temperatures flat line since 1998 and the Southern Hemisphere cool in recent years." (...) Current temperatures in Greenland -- a poster boy for climate alarmists - are COOLER than the temperatures there in the 1930's and 1940's, according to multiple peer-reviewed studies. Yes, you heard me correctly. Greenland has COOLED since the 1940's! A fact the media and global warming activists conceal. Greenland reached its highest temperatures in 1941, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the June 2006 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research. And, keep in mind that 80% of man-made CO2 came AFTER these high temperatures. How inconvenient that the two poster children of alarmism - Greenland and Antarctica -- trumpeted by Al Gore and the climate fear mongers, have decided not to cooperate with computer model driven fears.
Senator Inhofe on the challenges of controlling emissions:
Many times I have heard that America is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and thus is the problem. But that is no longer true. Earlier this year, China surpassed the United States as the world's largest emitter of carbon. Only 6 years ago, it was estimated that China's emissions would still lag those of the United States in 2040. China's emissions growth is explosive and climbing upward. Just to put things in perspective, the United States did not build a single new coal-fired power plant in the last 15 years up to 2006, although there are now some efforts underway to change that. In comparison, according to the New York Times, "China last year built 117 government-approved coal-fired power plants - a rate of roughly one every three days, according to official figures." We won't complete that many in the next decade. India's emission increases are not far behind China, and Brazil is not far behind them. The fact is that if these countries do not curb their rapidly accelerating emissions growth, then embracing a carbon diet and sluggish economic growth by developed countries will accomplish nothing. Moreover, many of the carbon reductions achieved through lost manufacturing jobs in developed countries are simply emitted elsewhere as jobs are created to make the same product in countries that do not ration energy. The U.S. emissions as a measure of productivity are far lower than China's. Cement manufacturing is a perfect example. Every job sent there will increase emissions, not lower them.
Senator Inhofe on the path forward:
So what's the path forward? I categorically will oppose legislation or initiatives that will devastate our economy as well as those that will cost jobs simply to make symbolic gestures purely to start us down the ruinous economic path of energy rationing. I believe such measures will be defeated because the approach is politically unsustainable. We are seeing the first signs of that in Europe right now. Even if the alarmists were right on the science - which they are not - their command-and-control approaches sow the seeds of their own failure. As long as their policies put national economies in the cross-hairs, they will stoke the fires of opposition and eventually collapse of their own weight. Stabilizing emissions can not happen in 20, 40, or even 60 years because our world's infrastructure is built on fossil fuels and it will continue to be so for a long time to come - the power plants and other facilities being built now and in the future will emit carbon for a half century after they're completed. Quite simply, the technology does not exist to cost-effectively power the world without emitting carbon dioxide. And I and many others who reject climate alarmism or ineffective yet expensive solutions will block efforts to implement mandatory carbon restrictions. I find it unfortunate that so many politicians and climate advocates focus on trying to resurrect a mandatory carbon cap policy in the face of its demonstrated failure in practice in the countries that have adopted it. In the process, they are ignoring the best path forward. There is only one approach so far that I know of that will work - it is the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Why? Because this approach serves multiple purposes - it will reduce air pollution, expand our energy supply, increase trade, and along with these other goals, reduce greenhouse gases as a byproduct. Others might put this list together differently in terms of priority, but my point is that the Asia-Pacific Partnership meets the criteria for success - it is a politically and economically sustainable path forward that addresses multiple issues in the context of their relation to other issues. Perhaps other approaches in the future will meet these criteria as well, but the APP is currently the only one that does.
Senator Inhofe on how scientific studies reveal climate changes on Earth lie well within the bounds of natural climate variability:
"A June 29, 2007 paper by Gerd Burger of Berlin's Institute of Meteorology in the peer-reviewed Science Magazine challenged a 2006 study that claimed the 20th century had been unusually warm. Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack, the chair of Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, noted in May 2007 that extremely long geologic timescales reveal that "only about 5% of that time has been characterized by conditions on Earth that were so cold that the poles could support masses of permanent ice." Giegengack added: "For most of Earth's history, the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has rarely been cooler."
Inhofe on how fear is being driven by unproven and un-testable computer model fears of the future:
Even the New York Times has been forced to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that the Earth is currently well within natural climate variation. This inconvenient reality means that all the warming doomsayers have to back up their climate fears are unproven computer models predicting future doom. Of course, you can't prove a prediction of the climate in 2100 wrong today, which reduces the models to speculating on what ‘could' ‘might' ‘may' happen 50 or 100 years from now. But prominent UN scientists have publicly questioned the reliability of climate models. In a candid statement, IPCC scientist Dr. Jim Renwick-a lead author of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report-publicly admitted that climate models may not be so reliable after all. Renwick stated in June: "Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well." Let me repeat: a UN scientist admitted, "Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable." Also in June, another high-profile UN IPCC lead author, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, echoed Renwick's sentiments about climate models by referring to them as nothing more than "story lines." A leading scientific skeptic, Meteorologist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, recently took the critique of climate computer models one step further. Tennekes said in February 2007, "I am of the opinion that most scientists engaged in the design, development, and tuning of climate models are in fact software engineers. They are unlicensed, hence unqualified to sell their products to society."
Senator Inhofe debunks "More CO2 = A Warmer World" simplicity:
Scientists and peer-reviewed studies are increasingly revealing that catastrophic climate fears of rising CO2 are simply unsustainable. In May 2007, the "father of meteorology" Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin, dismissed fears of rising CO2 bluntly saying: "You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide." Bryson has been identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. Climatologist Dr. Ball recently explained that one of the reasons climate models are failing is because they overestimate the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ball described how CO2's warming impact diminishes. "Even if CO2 concentration doubles or triples, the effect on temperature would be minimal. The relationship between temperature and CO2 is like painting a window black to block sunlight. The first coat blocks most of the light. Second and third coats reduce very little more. Current CO2 levels are like the first coat of black paint," Ball explained in June 2007. Environmental economist Dennis Avery, co-author with climate scientist Dr. Fred Singer of the new book "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years," explained how much impact CO2 has had on temperatures. "The earth has warmed only a net 0.2 degrees C of net warming since 1940. Human-emitted CO2 gets the blame for only half of that-or 0.1 degree C of warming over 65 years! We've had no warming at all since 1998. Remember, too, that each added unit of CO2 has less impact on the climate. The first 40 parts per million (ppm) of human-emitted CO2 added to the atmosphere in the 1940s had as much climate impact as the next 360 ppm," Avery wrote in August. Avery and Singer's book details how solar activity is linked to Earth's natural temperature cycles. < > [Dr. Robert] Giegengack said: "[Gore] claims that temperature increases solely because more CO2 in the atmosphere traps the sun's heat. That's just wrong ... It's a natural interplay." He continued, "It's hard for us to say that CO2 drives temperature. It's easier to say temperature drives CO2." "The driving mechanism is exactly the opposite of what Al Gore claims, both in his film and in that book. It's the temperature that, through those 650,000 years, controlled the CO2; not the CO2 that controlled the temperature," he added.
Senator Inhofe debunks the so-called "consensus":
The notion of a "consensus" is carefully manufactured for political, financial and ideological purposes. < > Key components of the manufactured "consensus" fade under scrutiny. We often hear how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) issued statements endorsing the so-called "consensus" view that man is driving global warming. But what you don't hear is that both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the "consensus" statements. It appears that the governing boards of these organizations caved in to pressure from those promoting the politically correct view of UN and Gore-inspired science. The Canadian Academy of Sciences reportedly endorsed a "consensus" global warming statement that was never even approved by its governing board. Rank-and-file scientists are now openly rebelling. James Spann, a certified meteorologist with the AMS, openly defied the organization when he said in January that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype." < > There are frequently claims that the UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers is the voice of hundreds or even thousands of the world's top scientists. But such claims do not hold up to even the lightest scrutiny. According to the Associated Press, during the IPCC Summary for Policymakers meeting in April 2007, only 52 scientists participated. The April 9, 2007 AP article by Seth Borenstein reported: "Diplomats from 115 countries and 52 scientists hashed out the most comprehensive and gloomiest warning yet about the possible effects of global warming, from increased flooding, hunger, drought and diseases to the extinction of species." Many of the so-called "hundreds" of scientists who have been affiliated with the UN as "expert reviewers" are in fact climate skeptics. Skeptics like Virginia State Climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels, Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy, New Zealand climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray, former head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo, Tom V. Segalstad, and MIT's Dr. Richard Lindzen have served as IPCC "expert reviewers" but were not involved in writing the alarmist Summary for Policymakers.
Senator Inhofe on the UN IPCC process:
The UN allowed a Greenpeace activist to co-author a key economic report in 2007. Left unreported by most of the media was the fact that Bill Hare, an advisor to Greenpeace, was a lead co- author of a key economic report in the IPCC's 4th Assessment. Not surprisingly, the Greenpeace co-authored report predicted a gloomy future for our planet unless we follow the UN's policy prescriptions. The UN IPCC's own guidelines explicitly state that the scientific reports have to be "change[d]" to "ensure consistency with" the politically motivated Summary for Policymakers. In addition, the IPCC more closely resembles a political party's convention platform battle - not a scientific process. During an IPCC Summary for Policymakers process, political delegates and international bureaucrats squabble over the specific wording of a phase or assertion. Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes. "I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol," Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007.
Former Colorado State Climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. also detailed the corruption of the UN IPCC process on September 1, 2007: "The same individuals who are doing primary research in the role of humans on the climate system are then permitted to lead the [IPCC] assessment! There should be an outcry on this obvious conflict of interest, but to date either few recognize this conflict, or see that since the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda, they chose to ignore this conflict. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow," Pielke explained. He added: "We need recognition among the scientific community, the media, and policymakers that the IPCC process is obviously a real conflict of interest, and this has resulted in a significantly flawed report."
Politics appears to be the fuel that runs the UN IPCC process from the scientists to the bureaucrats to the delegates and all the way to many of the world leaders involved in it. And another key to the motivation of the UN was explained by former French President Jacques Chirac in 2000: Chirac said Kyoto represents "the first component of an authentic global governance."
Senator Inhofe on Polar Bears:
The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, whereas in the 1950s and 1960s, estimates were as low as 5,000-10,000 bears. We currently have an estimated four or five times more polar bears than 50 years ago. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations ‘may now be near historic highs.' Top biologists and wildlife experts are dismissing unproven computer model concerns for polar bears. In 2006, Canadian biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the director of wildlife research with the Arctic government of Nunavut, dismissed these fears with evidence based data on Canada's polar bear populations. "Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present," Taylor said, noting that Canada is home to two-thirds of the world's polar bears. He added: "It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria." In September, Taylor further debunked the latest report hyping fears of future polar bear extinctions. "I think it's naive and presumptuous," Taylor said, referring to a recent report by the U.S. government warning that computer models predict a dire future for the bears due to projected ice loss. Taylor also debunked the notion that less sea ice means less polar bears by pointing out that southern regions of the bears' home with low levels of ice are seeing booming bear populations. He noted that in the warmer southern Canadian region of the Davis Strait with lower levels of ice, a new survey will reveal that bear populations have grown from an estimated 850 bears to an estimated 3000 bears. And, despite the lower levels of ice, some of the bears measured in this region are among the biggest ever on record. "Davis Strait is crawling with polar bears. It's not safe to camp there. They're fat. The mothers have cubs. The cubs are in good shape," he said, according to a September 14, 2007 article. He added: "That's not theory. That's not based on a model. That's observation of reality." Other biologists are equally dismissive of these computer model based fears. Biologist Josef Reichholf, who heads the Vertebrates Department at the National Zoological Collection in Munich, rejected climate fears and asserted any potential global warming may be beneficial to both humans and animals. In a May 8, 2007 interview, Reichholf asked: "How did the polar bear survive the last warm period?"
Reichholf also debunked the entire notion that a warmer world will lead to mass species extinctions. "Warming temperatures promote biodiversity," Reichholf explained. "The number of species increases exponentially from the regions near the poles across the moderate latitudes and to the equator. To put it succinctly, the warmer a region is, the more diverse are its species," he added.
# # #
Related Links:
Senator Inhofe September 25, 20076 Speech: HOT & COLD MEDIA SPIN CYCLE: A CHALLENGE TO JOURNALISTS WHO COVER GLOBAL WARMING
http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759
New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears
Global Warming "Consensus" Continues To Melt Away (Op-Ed By Senator Inhofe, Power Magazine)
Cutting Emissions May Cost U.S. Economy Up to $1.8 Trillion
Senators Propose $4500 Climate Tax on American Families
Newsweek Editor Calls Mag's Global Warming 'Deniers' Article 'Highly Contrived'
Newsweek's Climate Editorial Screed Violates Basic Standards of Journalism
Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt
EPA to Probe E-mail Threatening to ‘Destroy' Career of Climate Skeptic
Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
# # #
The IPCC......Call It Political Propaganda, Not Science
Another geologist speaking out about the absurd notion that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming. The skeptics are growing in number, or rather they are speaking out more. The interesting thing Mr. Segalstad says below is that the oceans control the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. They must. There has to be a regulator in the carbon cycle that keeps it from getting out of control.
Peter
IPCC
Call it propaganda, not science
Tom V. Segalstad: Oceans Regulate CO2.
"The IPCC needs a lesson in geology to avoid making fundamental mistakes," he says. "Most leading geologists, throughout the world, know that the IPCC's view of Earth processes are implausible if not impossible.
Catastrophic theories of climate change depend on carbon dioxide staying in the atmosphere for long periods of time -- otherwise, the CO2 enveloping the globe wouldn't be dense enough to keep the heat in. Until recently, the world of science was near-unanimous that CO2 couldn't stay in the atmosphere for more than about five to 10 years because of the oceans' near-limitless ability to absorb CO2.
This time period has been established by measurements based on natural carbon-14 and also from readings of carbon-14 from nuclear weapons testing, it has been established by radon-222 measurements, it has been established by measurements of the solubility of atmospheric gases in the oceans, it has been established by comparing the isotope mass balance, it has been established through other mechanisms, too, and over many decades, and by many scientists in many disciplines," says Prof. Segalstad, whose work has often relied upon such measurements...
Amazingly, the hypothetical results from climate models have trumped the real world measurements of carbon dioxide's longevity in the atmosphere. Those who claim that CO2 lasts decades or centuries have no such measurements or other physical evidence to support their claims. Neither can they demonstrate that the various forms of measurement are erroneous. "They don't even try," says Prof. Segalstad. "They simply dismiss evidence that is, for all intents and purposes, irrefutable. Instead, they substitute their faith, constructing a kind of science fiction or fantasy world in the process.
In the real world, as measurable by science, CO2 in the atmosphere and in the ocean reach a stable balance when the oceans contain 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere. "The IPCC postulates an atmospheric doubling of CO2, meaning that the oceans would need to receive 50 times more CO2 to obtain chemical equilibrium," explains Prof. Segalstad. "This total of 51 times the present amount of carbon in atmospheric CO2 exceeds the known reserves of fossil carbon-- it represents more carbon than exists in all the coal, gas, and oil that we can exploit anywhere in the world."
Original Source of Segalstad's Criticisms
Peter
IPCC
Call it propaganda, not science
Tom V. Segalstad: Oceans Regulate CO2.
"The IPCC needs a lesson in geology to avoid making fundamental mistakes," he says. "Most leading geologists, throughout the world, know that the IPCC's view of Earth processes are implausible if not impossible.
Catastrophic theories of climate change depend on carbon dioxide staying in the atmosphere for long periods of time -- otherwise, the CO2 enveloping the globe wouldn't be dense enough to keep the heat in. Until recently, the world of science was near-unanimous that CO2 couldn't stay in the atmosphere for more than about five to 10 years because of the oceans' near-limitless ability to absorb CO2.
This time period has been established by measurements based on natural carbon-14 and also from readings of carbon-14 from nuclear weapons testing, it has been established by radon-222 measurements, it has been established by measurements of the solubility of atmospheric gases in the oceans, it has been established by comparing the isotope mass balance, it has been established through other mechanisms, too, and over many decades, and by many scientists in many disciplines," says Prof. Segalstad, whose work has often relied upon such measurements...
Amazingly, the hypothetical results from climate models have trumped the real world measurements of carbon dioxide's longevity in the atmosphere. Those who claim that CO2 lasts decades or centuries have no such measurements or other physical evidence to support their claims. Neither can they demonstrate that the various forms of measurement are erroneous. "They don't even try," says Prof. Segalstad. "They simply dismiss evidence that is, for all intents and purposes, irrefutable. Instead, they substitute their faith, constructing a kind of science fiction or fantasy world in the process.
In the real world, as measurable by science, CO2 in the atmosphere and in the ocean reach a stable balance when the oceans contain 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere. "The IPCC postulates an atmospheric doubling of CO2, meaning that the oceans would need to receive 50 times more CO2 to obtain chemical equilibrium," explains Prof. Segalstad. "This total of 51 times the present amount of carbon in atmospheric CO2 exceeds the known reserves of fossil carbon-- it represents more carbon than exists in all the coal, gas, and oil that we can exploit anywhere in the world."
Original Source of Segalstad's Criticisms
Majority of Scientists Do Not Support Man Made Warming
Another attempt to show that there is no "consensus" among scientists about the cause of global warming. Certainly the "debate" is not over.
Peter
Definitive Proof: Majority Of Scientists Do Not Support Man Made Warming Theory
Survey of peer reviewed studies reveals less than 50% of published scientists believe global warming is man made. More skeptics than advocates among scientific community while IPCC claim majority endorse the theory.
Steve WatsonInfowars.netThursday, August 30, 2007
A new survey of over 500 peer reviewed scientific research papers on climate change, written between 2004 and 2007, has concluded that less than half endorse what has been dubbed the "consensus view," that human activity is contributing to considerable global climate change.
In direct conflict with assertions by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a scientific consensus agrees it is 90% likely that man is responsible for warming, Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte's survey contends that only 45% support the theory and that is only if you include papers that merely lean towards endorsement.
Though the survey has not yet been released, the results have been submitted to the journal Energy and Environment, and science blog DailyTech has obtained a pre-publication copy which states:
Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."
The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.
Man made warming proponents have often pointed to a similar survey that was conducted by history professor Naomi Oreskes on peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003 which found that a majority of scientists supported the theory.
Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte sought to update the research and according to DailyTech, used the same database and search terms as Oreskes but reached a radically different conclusion.
The introduction and the summary of the IPCC's report was written entirely by politicians under the mandate of the UN, the input of actual scientists was minimal. In addition, all sections that were written by selected scientists were edited to comply with the report summary.
Some of the scientists involved even admitted that the IPCC models failed to accurately predict climate change and that "none of the climate states in the models corresponds even remotely to the current observed climate".
By contrast, the ISI Web of Science database covers 8,700 journals and publications, including every leading scientific journal in the world and is not directly influenced by any governmental body.
Schulte's survey confirms the claim that the climate change momentum has shifted among prominent scientists who are now benefiting from a greater depth of research. A spate of new research papers has significantly chilled fears of global warming.
The new survey provides undeniable proof that the world is being sold a lie on climate change by a group of politicians and elite lobbyists who wish to seize on the opportunity to hype the global warming threat and use it as a means of social manipulation for political and corporate gain.
As we have extensively reported, it is the elites, the establishment and big business interests that are pushing these fears, not the scientific community.
People who still trust the platitudes of politicians and elitists who implore us to change our way of life, cough up more tax money, and get on board with the global warming religion save being linked with Holocaust denial, are as deluded and enslaved as the tribes of Mesoamerica who, unaware of the natural phenomenon of a solar eclipse, thought their high priests could make the sky snake eat the Sun, and therefore obeyed their every demand.
Politicians are professional liars, they make careers out of deceiving people and twisting reality to fit pre-conceived agendas, yet a cascade of otherwise rationally minded people are eager to blindly trust everything they have to say about climate change, no matter how delusional it sounds.
They are also willing to comply with the ridiculous overbearing "solutions" to climate change that will just coincidentally restrict mobility and freedom of travel, regulate personal behavior, empower and expand global government and reinvigorate the surveillance state - everything Big Brother ever wanted - but surely they wouldn't lie to us about global warming to achieve it, would they?
For a wealth of information on the man made global warming hoax check our archive which has scores of articles and multimedia files relating to the science of global warming as well as the agenda behind the hype.
Peter
Definitive Proof: Majority Of Scientists Do Not Support Man Made Warming Theory
Survey of peer reviewed studies reveals less than 50% of published scientists believe global warming is man made. More skeptics than advocates among scientific community while IPCC claim majority endorse the theory.
Steve WatsonInfowars.netThursday, August 30, 2007
A new survey of over 500 peer reviewed scientific research papers on climate change, written between 2004 and 2007, has concluded that less than half endorse what has been dubbed the "consensus view," that human activity is contributing to considerable global climate change.
In direct conflict with assertions by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a scientific consensus agrees it is 90% likely that man is responsible for warming, Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte's survey contends that only 45% support the theory and that is only if you include papers that merely lean towards endorsement.
Though the survey has not yet been released, the results have been submitted to the journal Energy and Environment, and science blog DailyTech has obtained a pre-publication copy which states:
Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."
The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.
Man made warming proponents have often pointed to a similar survey that was conducted by history professor Naomi Oreskes on peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003 which found that a majority of scientists supported the theory.
Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte sought to update the research and according to DailyTech, used the same database and search terms as Oreskes but reached a radically different conclusion.
The introduction and the summary of the IPCC's report was written entirely by politicians under the mandate of the UN, the input of actual scientists was minimal. In addition, all sections that were written by selected scientists were edited to comply with the report summary.
Some of the scientists involved even admitted that the IPCC models failed to accurately predict climate change and that "none of the climate states in the models corresponds even remotely to the current observed climate".
By contrast, the ISI Web of Science database covers 8,700 journals and publications, including every leading scientific journal in the world and is not directly influenced by any governmental body.
Schulte's survey confirms the claim that the climate change momentum has shifted among prominent scientists who are now benefiting from a greater depth of research. A spate of new research papers has significantly chilled fears of global warming.
The new survey provides undeniable proof that the world is being sold a lie on climate change by a group of politicians and elite lobbyists who wish to seize on the opportunity to hype the global warming threat and use it as a means of social manipulation for political and corporate gain.
As we have extensively reported, it is the elites, the establishment and big business interests that are pushing these fears, not the scientific community.
People who still trust the platitudes of politicians and elitists who implore us to change our way of life, cough up more tax money, and get on board with the global warming religion save being linked with Holocaust denial, are as deluded and enslaved as the tribes of Mesoamerica who, unaware of the natural phenomenon of a solar eclipse, thought their high priests could make the sky snake eat the Sun, and therefore obeyed their every demand.
Politicians are professional liars, they make careers out of deceiving people and twisting reality to fit pre-conceived agendas, yet a cascade of otherwise rationally minded people are eager to blindly trust everything they have to say about climate change, no matter how delusional it sounds.
They are also willing to comply with the ridiculous overbearing "solutions" to climate change that will just coincidentally restrict mobility and freedom of travel, regulate personal behavior, empower and expand global government and reinvigorate the surveillance state - everything Big Brother ever wanted - but surely they wouldn't lie to us about global warming to achieve it, would they?
For a wealth of information on the man made global warming hoax check our archive which has scores of articles and multimedia files relating to the science of global warming as well as the agenda behind the hype.
IPCC Chapter 3, The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Climate Change 2001:Working Group I: The Scientific Basis
Table of contentsSummaryForewordPrefaceSummary for PolicymakersTechnical SummaryChapter 1. The Climate System: an OverviewChapter 2. Observed Climate Variability and ChangeChapter 3. The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon DioxideChapter 4. Atmospheric Chemistry and Greenhouse GasesChapter 5. Aerosols, their Direct and Indirect EffectsChapter 6. Radiative Forcing of Climate ChangeChapter 7. Physical Climate Processes and 3. The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Content
Executive Summary
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Terrestrial and Ocean Biogeochemistry: Update on Processes
3.2.1 Overview of the Carbon Cycle3.2.2 Terrestrial Carbon Processes3.2.2.1 Background3.2.2.2 Effects of changes in land use and land management3.2.2.3 Effects of climate3.2.2.4 Effects of increasing atmospheric CO23.2.2.5 Effects of anthropogenic nitrogen deposition3.2.2.6 Additional impacts of changing atmospheric chemistry3.2.2.7 Additional constraints on terrestrial CO2 uptake3.2.3 Ocean Carbon Processes3.2.3.1 Background3.2.3.2 Uptake of anthropogenic CO23.2.3.3 Future changes in ocean CO2 uptake
3.3 Palaeo CO2 and Natural Changes in the Carbon Cycle
3.3.1 Geological History of Atmospheric CO23.3.2 Variations in Atmospheric CO2 during Glacial/inter-glacial Cycles3.3.3 Variations in Atmospheric CO2 during the Past 11,000 Years3.3.4 Implications
3.4 Anthropogenic Sources of CO2
3.4.1 Emissions from Fossil Fuel Burning and Cement Production3.4.2 Consequences of Land-use Change
3.5 Observations, Trends and Budgets
3.5.1 Atmospheric Measurements and Global CO2 Budgets3.5.2 Interannual Variability in the Rate of Atmospheric CO2 Increase3.5.3 Inverse Modelling of Carbon Sources and Sinks3.5.4 Terrestrial Biomass Inventories
3.6 Carbon Cycle Model Evaluation
3.6.1 Terrestrial and Ocean Biogeochemistry Models3.6.2 Evaluation of Terrestrial Models3.6.2.1 Natural carbon cycling on land3.6.2.2 Uptake and release of anthropogenic CO2 by the land3.6.3 Evaluation of Ocean Models3.6.3.1 Natural carbon cycling in the ocean3.6.3.2 Uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean
3.7 Projections of CO2 Concentration and their Implications
3.7.1 Terrestrial Carbon Model Responses to Scenarios of Change in CO2 and Climate3.7.2 Ocean Carbon Model Responses to Scenarios of Change in CO2 and Climate3.7.3 Coupled Model Responses and Implications for Future CO2 Concentrations3.7.3.1 Methods for assessing the response of atmospheric CO2 to different emissions athways and model sensitivities3.7.3.2 Concentration projections based on IS92a, for comparison with previous studies3.7.3.3 SRES scenarios and their implications for future CO2 concentration3.7.3.4 Stabilisation scenarios and their implications for future CO2 emissions3.7.4 Conclusions
References
Co-ordinating Lead AuthorI.C. Prentice
Lead AuthorsG.D. Farquhar, M.J.R. Fasham, M.L. Goulden, M. Heimann, V.J. Jaramillo, H.S. Kheshgi, C. Le Quéré, R.J. Scholes, D.W.R. Wallace
Contributing AuthorsD. Archer, M.R. Ashmore, O. Aumont, D. Baker, M. Battle, M. Bender, L.P. Bopp, P. Bousquet, K. Caldeira, P. Ciais, P.M. Cox, W. Cramer, F. Dentener, I.G. Enting, C.B. Field, P. Friedlingstein, E.A. Holland, R.A. Houghton, J.I. House, A. Ishida, A.K. Jain, I.A. Janssens, F. Joos, T. Kaminski, C.D. Keeling, R.F. Keeling, D.W. Kicklighter, K.E. Kohfeld, W. Knorr, R. Law, T. Lenton, K. Lindsay, E. Maier-Reimer, A.C. Manning, R.J. Matear, A.D. McGuire, J.M. Melillo, R. Meyer, M. Mund, J.C. Orr, S. Piper, K. Plattner, P.J. Rayner, S. Sitch, R. Slater, S. Taguchi, P.P. Tans, H.Q. Tian, M.F. Weirig, T. Whorf, A. Yool
Review EditorsL. Pitelka, A. Ramirez Rojas
Table of contentsSummaryForewordPrefaceSummary for PolicymakersTechnical SummaryChapter 1. The Climate System: an OverviewChapter 2. Observed Climate Variability and ChangeChapter 3. The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon DioxideChapter 4. Atmospheric Chemistry and Greenhouse GasesChapter 5. Aerosols, their Direct and Indirect EffectsChapter 6. Radiative Forcing of Climate ChangeChapter 7. Physical Climate Processes and 3. The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Content
Executive Summary
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Terrestrial and Ocean Biogeochemistry: Update on Processes
3.2.1 Overview of the Carbon Cycle3.2.2 Terrestrial Carbon Processes3.2.2.1 Background3.2.2.2 Effects of changes in land use and land management3.2.2.3 Effects of climate3.2.2.4 Effects of increasing atmospheric CO23.2.2.5 Effects of anthropogenic nitrogen deposition3.2.2.6 Additional impacts of changing atmospheric chemistry3.2.2.7 Additional constraints on terrestrial CO2 uptake3.2.3 Ocean Carbon Processes3.2.3.1 Background3.2.3.2 Uptake of anthropogenic CO23.2.3.3 Future changes in ocean CO2 uptake
3.3 Palaeo CO2 and Natural Changes in the Carbon Cycle
3.3.1 Geological History of Atmospheric CO23.3.2 Variations in Atmospheric CO2 during Glacial/inter-glacial Cycles3.3.3 Variations in Atmospheric CO2 during the Past 11,000 Years3.3.4 Implications
3.4 Anthropogenic Sources of CO2
3.4.1 Emissions from Fossil Fuel Burning and Cement Production3.4.2 Consequences of Land-use Change
3.5 Observations, Trends and Budgets
3.5.1 Atmospheric Measurements and Global CO2 Budgets3.5.2 Interannual Variability in the Rate of Atmospheric CO2 Increase3.5.3 Inverse Modelling of Carbon Sources and Sinks3.5.4 Terrestrial Biomass Inventories
3.6 Carbon Cycle Model Evaluation
3.6.1 Terrestrial and Ocean Biogeochemistry Models3.6.2 Evaluation of Terrestrial Models3.6.2.1 Natural carbon cycling on land3.6.2.2 Uptake and release of anthropogenic CO2 by the land3.6.3 Evaluation of Ocean Models3.6.3.1 Natural carbon cycling in the ocean3.6.3.2 Uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean
3.7 Projections of CO2 Concentration and their Implications
3.7.1 Terrestrial Carbon Model Responses to Scenarios of Change in CO2 and Climate3.7.2 Ocean Carbon Model Responses to Scenarios of Change in CO2 and Climate3.7.3 Coupled Model Responses and Implications for Future CO2 Concentrations3.7.3.1 Methods for assessing the response of atmospheric CO2 to different emissions athways and model sensitivities3.7.3.2 Concentration projections based on IS92a, for comparison with previous studies3.7.3.3 SRES scenarios and their implications for future CO2 concentration3.7.3.4 Stabilisation scenarios and their implications for future CO2 emissions3.7.4 Conclusions
References
Co-ordinating Lead AuthorI.C. Prentice
Lead AuthorsG.D. Farquhar, M.J.R. Fasham, M.L. Goulden, M. Heimann, V.J. Jaramillo, H.S. Kheshgi, C. Le Quéré, R.J. Scholes, D.W.R. Wallace
Contributing AuthorsD. Archer, M.R. Ashmore, O. Aumont, D. Baker, M. Battle, M. Bender, L.P. Bopp, P. Bousquet, K. Caldeira, P. Ciais, P.M. Cox, W. Cramer, F. Dentener, I.G. Enting, C.B. Field, P. Friedlingstein, E.A. Holland, R.A. Houghton, J.I. House, A. Ishida, A.K. Jain, I.A. Janssens, F. Joos, T. Kaminski, C.D. Keeling, R.F. Keeling, D.W. Kicklighter, K.E. Kohfeld, W. Knorr, R. Law, T. Lenton, K. Lindsay, E. Maier-Reimer, A.C. Manning, R.J. Matear, A.D. McGuire, J.M. Melillo, R. Meyer, M. Mund, J.C. Orr, S. Piper, K. Plattner, P.J. Rayner, S. Sitch, R. Slater, S. Taguchi, P.P. Tans, H.Q. Tian, M.F. Weirig, T. Whorf, A. Yool
Review EditorsL. Pitelka, A. Ramirez Rojas
35 Mistakes, continued to conclusion
ERROR 27
Mosquitoes "climbing to higher altitudes"
Gore says that, because of “global warming”, mosquitoes are climbing to higher altitudes. They are not. Most recent outbreaks have been at lower levels than those of a century and more ago. He says that Nairobi was founded 1000 m above sea level so as to be above the mosquito line. It was not. In the period before anthropogenic warming could have had any significant effect, there were ten malaria outbreaks in Nairobi, one of which reached as far up as Eldoret, almost 3000 m above sea level. Malaria is not a tropical disease. Mosquitoes do not need tropical temperatures: they need no more than 15 degrees Celsius to breed. The largest malaria outbreak of modern times was in Siberia in the 1920s and 1930s, when 13 million were infected, 600,000 died and 30,000 died as far north as Arkhangelsk, on the Arctic Circle. There is no reason to suppose that malaria will spread even if the climate continues to become warmer.
ERROR 28
Many tropical diseases "spread through
'global warming'"
Gore says that, as well as malaria, “global warming” is spreading dengue fever, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, arena virus, avian flu, Ebola virus, E. Coli 0157:H7, Hanta virus, legionella, leptospirosis, multi-drug-resistant TB, Nipah virus, SARS and Vibrio Cholerae 0139. It is doing no such thing. Only the first four diseases are insect-borne, but none is tropical. Of the other diseases named by Gore either in his film or in the accompanying book, not one is sensitive to increasing temperature. They are spread not by warmer weather but by rats, chickens, primates, pigs, poor hygiene, ill-maintained air conditioning, or cold weather.
ERROR 29
West Nile virus in the US "spread through
'global warming'"
Gore says that West Nile virus spread throughout the US in just two years, implicitly because of “global warming.” It did not. The climate in the US ranges from some of the world’s hottest deserts to some of its iciest tundra. West Nile virus flourishes in any climate. Warming of the climate, however caused, does not affect its incidence or prevalence.
ERROR 30
Carbon dioxide is "pollution"
Gore describes carbon dioxide as “global warming pollution.” It is not. It is food for plants and trees. Tests have shown that even at concentrations 30 times those of the present day even the most delicate plants flourish. Well-managed forests, such as those of the United States, are growing at record rates because the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is feeding the trees. Carbon dioxide, in geological timescale, is at a very low concentration at present. Half a billion years ago it was at 7000 parts per million by volume, about 18 times today’s concentration.
ERROR 31
The European heat wave of 2003 "killed 35,000"
Gore says, “A couple of years ago in Europe they had that heat wave that killed 35,000.” Though some scientists agree with Gore, the scientific consensus is that extreme warm anomalies more unusual than the 2003 heat wave occur regularly; extreme cold anomalies also occur regularly; El Niño and volcanism appear to be of much greater importance than any general warming trend; and there is little evidence that regional heat or cold waves are significantly increasing or decreasing with time. In general, warm is better than cold, which is why the largest number of life-forms are in the tropics and the least number are at the poles. A cold snap in the winter following the European heat wave killed 20,000 in the UK alone. Though the IPCC says 150,000 people a year are being killed worldwide by “global warming,” it reaches this figure only by deliberately excluding the number of people who are not being killed because there is less cold weather. In the US alone, it has been estimated that 174,000 fewer people are being killed each year because there are fewer episodes of extreme cold.
ERROR 32
Pied flycatchers "cannot feed their young"
Gore says “The peak arrival date for migratory birds 25 years ago was April 25. Their chicks hatched on June 3, just at the time when the caterpillars were coming out: Nature’s plan. But 20 years of warming later the caterpillars peaked two weeks earlier. The chicks tried to catch up with it, but they couldn’t. So they are in trouble.” Yet adaptation is easy for the flycatchers: they merely fly a few tens of kilometers further north and they will find caterpillars hatching at the appropriate time. Besides, though Gore does not say so, what is bad news for the pied flycatchers is good news for the caterpillars, and for the butterflies they will become.
ERROR 33
Gore's bogus pictures and film footage
In the book accompanying Gore’s film, the story of the pied flycatchers and the caterpillars is accompanied by a picture of a bird feeding her hungry chicks. However, closer inspection shows that the bird is not a pied flycatcher but a black tern; and that she is not carrying a caterpillar in her beak, but a small fish. Gore similarly misuses spectacular footage of a glacier apparently calving off enormous slabs of ice into the sea – footage that is often shown on television to accompany stories about “global warming.” However, the glacier in question is one that is known to be advancing – and to be doing so more rapidly and more often than previously. It is in southern Argentina, where its snout crosses – and eventually dams, Lake Argentino. Water builds up behind the ice dam and eventually bursts it, causing the spectacular collapse of ice into the lake that is so misleadingly used as the iconic image of the effect of “global warming” on glaciers. The breaking of the ice dam used to occur every eight years or so: now, however, it occurs every five years, not because of “global warming” because of the regional cooling of the southern Atlantic.
ERROR 34
The Thames Barrier "closing more frequently"
Gore says that rising sea levels are compelling the operators of the Thames Barrier to close it more frequently than when it was first built. They are not. The barrier is indeed closed more frequently than when it was built, but the reason has nothing to do with “global warming” or rising sea levels. The reason is a change of policy by which the barrier is closed during exceptionally low tides, so as to retain water in the tidal Thames rather than keeping it out. Yet even the present leader of the official Opposition in the UK Parliament recently used a major speech as the opportunity to mention today’s more frequent closing of the Thames Barrier as though it were a matter of grave concern.
ERROR 35
"No fact...in dispute by anybody."
Gore says that his prediction that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide will rise to more than 600 parts per million by volume as soon as 2050 is “not controversial in any way or in dispute by anybody.” However, not one of the half-dozen official projections of growth in CO2 concentration made by the IPCC shows as much as 600 parts per million by 2050.
Conclusion
35 serious scientific errors
As many as 35 serious scientific errors or exaggerations, all pointing towards invention of a threat that does not exist at all, or exaggerations of phenomena that do exist, do not reflect credit on the presenter of the movie or on those who advised him. The movie is unsuitable for showing to children, and provides no basis for taking policy decisions. Schools that have shown the movie to children are urged to ensure that the errors listed in this memorandum are drawn to the children’s attention.
[1] For a detailed discussion, see (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/current_issues_in_climate_science_focus_on_the_poles.html) and also (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_reprint_series/the_role_of_greenland_in_sea_level_rise_a_summary_of_the_current_literature.html)
[1] See (http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20060331_issues.pdf)
[1] See: (http://ff.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336&Itemid=77)
[1] See discussion at: (http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/Kiliman-MAC-4-8-04.pdf)
[1] For a serioius examination of this issue, see (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_reprint_series/polar_bears_of_western_hudson_bay_and_climate_change.html)
[1] Are Coral Reefs Endangered by Global Warming? (http://ff.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=382&Itemid=77)
[1] For a discussion of future hurricane trends for Florida, see: (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/current_issues_in_climate_science_focus_on_the_poles.html)
[1] For an in depth look at these issues, see (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/originals/hurricanethreat.html)
[1] For a discussion of the sun’s role in climate, see (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/the_unruly_sunne_cannot_be_ruled_out_as_a_cause_of_recent_climate_variation.html)
[1] See: (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/current_issues_in_climate_science_focus_on_the_poles.html)
[1] For fuller discussion of Polar regions and Greenland, see: (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/current_issues_in_climate_science_focus_on_the_poles.html)
[1] Discussion by world-class expert and IPCC reviewer: (http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/reiter-climate-change-mbd.pdf)
Mosquitoes "climbing to higher altitudes"
Gore says that, because of “global warming”, mosquitoes are climbing to higher altitudes. They are not. Most recent outbreaks have been at lower levels than those of a century and more ago. He says that Nairobi was founded 1000 m above sea level so as to be above the mosquito line. It was not. In the period before anthropogenic warming could have had any significant effect, there were ten malaria outbreaks in Nairobi, one of which reached as far up as Eldoret, almost 3000 m above sea level. Malaria is not a tropical disease. Mosquitoes do not need tropical temperatures: they need no more than 15 degrees Celsius to breed. The largest malaria outbreak of modern times was in Siberia in the 1920s and 1930s, when 13 million were infected, 600,000 died and 30,000 died as far north as Arkhangelsk, on the Arctic Circle. There is no reason to suppose that malaria will spread even if the climate continues to become warmer.
ERROR 28
Many tropical diseases "spread through
'global warming'"
Gore says that, as well as malaria, “global warming” is spreading dengue fever, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, arena virus, avian flu, Ebola virus, E. Coli 0157:H7, Hanta virus, legionella, leptospirosis, multi-drug-resistant TB, Nipah virus, SARS and Vibrio Cholerae 0139. It is doing no such thing. Only the first four diseases are insect-borne, but none is tropical. Of the other diseases named by Gore either in his film or in the accompanying book, not one is sensitive to increasing temperature. They are spread not by warmer weather but by rats, chickens, primates, pigs, poor hygiene, ill-maintained air conditioning, or cold weather.
ERROR 29
West Nile virus in the US "spread through
'global warming'"
Gore says that West Nile virus spread throughout the US in just two years, implicitly because of “global warming.” It did not. The climate in the US ranges from some of the world’s hottest deserts to some of its iciest tundra. West Nile virus flourishes in any climate. Warming of the climate, however caused, does not affect its incidence or prevalence.
ERROR 30
Carbon dioxide is "pollution"
Gore describes carbon dioxide as “global warming pollution.” It is not. It is food for plants and trees. Tests have shown that even at concentrations 30 times those of the present day even the most delicate plants flourish. Well-managed forests, such as those of the United States, are growing at record rates because the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is feeding the trees. Carbon dioxide, in geological timescale, is at a very low concentration at present. Half a billion years ago it was at 7000 parts per million by volume, about 18 times today’s concentration.
ERROR 31
The European heat wave of 2003 "killed 35,000"
Gore says, “A couple of years ago in Europe they had that heat wave that killed 35,000.” Though some scientists agree with Gore, the scientific consensus is that extreme warm anomalies more unusual than the 2003 heat wave occur regularly; extreme cold anomalies also occur regularly; El Niño and volcanism appear to be of much greater importance than any general warming trend; and there is little evidence that regional heat or cold waves are significantly increasing or decreasing with time. In general, warm is better than cold, which is why the largest number of life-forms are in the tropics and the least number are at the poles. A cold snap in the winter following the European heat wave killed 20,000 in the UK alone. Though the IPCC says 150,000 people a year are being killed worldwide by “global warming,” it reaches this figure only by deliberately excluding the number of people who are not being killed because there is less cold weather. In the US alone, it has been estimated that 174,000 fewer people are being killed each year because there are fewer episodes of extreme cold.
ERROR 32
Pied flycatchers "cannot feed their young"
Gore says “The peak arrival date for migratory birds 25 years ago was April 25. Their chicks hatched on June 3, just at the time when the caterpillars were coming out: Nature’s plan. But 20 years of warming later the caterpillars peaked two weeks earlier. The chicks tried to catch up with it, but they couldn’t. So they are in trouble.” Yet adaptation is easy for the flycatchers: they merely fly a few tens of kilometers further north and they will find caterpillars hatching at the appropriate time. Besides, though Gore does not say so, what is bad news for the pied flycatchers is good news for the caterpillars, and for the butterflies they will become.
ERROR 33
Gore's bogus pictures and film footage
In the book accompanying Gore’s film, the story of the pied flycatchers and the caterpillars is accompanied by a picture of a bird feeding her hungry chicks. However, closer inspection shows that the bird is not a pied flycatcher but a black tern; and that she is not carrying a caterpillar in her beak, but a small fish. Gore similarly misuses spectacular footage of a glacier apparently calving off enormous slabs of ice into the sea – footage that is often shown on television to accompany stories about “global warming.” However, the glacier in question is one that is known to be advancing – and to be doing so more rapidly and more often than previously. It is in southern Argentina, where its snout crosses – and eventually dams, Lake Argentino. Water builds up behind the ice dam and eventually bursts it, causing the spectacular collapse of ice into the lake that is so misleadingly used as the iconic image of the effect of “global warming” on glaciers. The breaking of the ice dam used to occur every eight years or so: now, however, it occurs every five years, not because of “global warming” because of the regional cooling of the southern Atlantic.
ERROR 34
The Thames Barrier "closing more frequently"
Gore says that rising sea levels are compelling the operators of the Thames Barrier to close it more frequently than when it was first built. They are not. The barrier is indeed closed more frequently than when it was built, but the reason has nothing to do with “global warming” or rising sea levels. The reason is a change of policy by which the barrier is closed during exceptionally low tides, so as to retain water in the tidal Thames rather than keeping it out. Yet even the present leader of the official Opposition in the UK Parliament recently used a major speech as the opportunity to mention today’s more frequent closing of the Thames Barrier as though it were a matter of grave concern.
ERROR 35
"No fact...in dispute by anybody."
Gore says that his prediction that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide will rise to more than 600 parts per million by volume as soon as 2050 is “not controversial in any way or in dispute by anybody.” However, not one of the half-dozen official projections of growth in CO2 concentration made by the IPCC shows as much as 600 parts per million by 2050.
Conclusion
35 serious scientific errors
As many as 35 serious scientific errors or exaggerations, all pointing towards invention of a threat that does not exist at all, or exaggerations of phenomena that do exist, do not reflect credit on the presenter of the movie or on those who advised him. The movie is unsuitable for showing to children, and provides no basis for taking policy decisions. Schools that have shown the movie to children are urged to ensure that the errors listed in this memorandum are drawn to the children’s attention.
[1] For a detailed discussion, see (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/current_issues_in_climate_science_focus_on_the_poles.html) and also (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_reprint_series/the_role_of_greenland_in_sea_level_rise_a_summary_of_the_current_literature.html)
[1] See (http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20060331_issues.pdf)
[1] See: (http://ff.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336&Itemid=77)
[1] See discussion at: (http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/Kiliman-MAC-4-8-04.pdf)
[1] For a serioius examination of this issue, see (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_reprint_series/polar_bears_of_western_hudson_bay_and_climate_change.html)
[1] Are Coral Reefs Endangered by Global Warming? (http://ff.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=382&Itemid=77)
[1] For a discussion of future hurricane trends for Florida, see: (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/current_issues_in_climate_science_focus_on_the_poles.html)
[1] For an in depth look at these issues, see (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/originals/hurricanethreat.html)
[1] For a discussion of the sun’s role in climate, see (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/the_unruly_sunne_cannot_be_ruled_out_as_a_cause_of_recent_climate_variation.html)
[1] See: (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/current_issues_in_climate_science_focus_on_the_poles.html)
[1] For fuller discussion of Polar regions and Greenland, see: (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/sppi_originals/current_issues_in_climate_science_focus_on_the_poles.html)
[1] Discussion by world-class expert and IPCC reviewer: (http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/reiter-climate-change-mbd.pdf)
35 mistakes, continued........
ERROR 22
Mountain glaciers worldwide "disappearing"
Gore says that “the ice has a story to tell, and it is worldwide.” He shows several before-and-after pictures of glaciers disappearing. However, the glacial melt began in the 1820s, long before humankind could have had any effect, and has continued at a uniform rate since, showing no acceleration since humankind began increasing the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere. Total ice volumes in three of the last four Ice Ages were lower than they are today, and “global warming” had nothing to do with that.
ERROR 23
Sahara desert "drying"
Gore says terrible tragedies are occurring in the southern Sahara because of drought which he blames on “global warming.” There is no drought caused by “global warming.” In 2007 there were record rains across the whole of the southern Sahara. In the past 25 years the Sahara has shrunk by some 300,000 square kilometers because of additional rainfall. Some scientists think “global warming” may actually mitigate pre-existing droughts because there will be more water vapor in the atmosphere. Before 1200 AD there were frequent, prolonged and severe droughts in the Great Plains. Since 1200 AD, there has been more rainfall. Likewise, the US has had more rainfall since the 1950s than it had in the earlier part of the 20th Century, when the great droughts which were then common were described by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath. South African rainfall was also more stable in the second half of the 20th Century, when human effect on climate is said to have become significant, than in the first half.
ERROR 24
West Antarctic ice sheet "unstable"
Gore says disturbing changes have been measured under the West Antarctic ice sheet, implicitly because of “global warming.” Yet most of the recession in this ice sheet over the past 10,000 years has occurred in the absence of any sea-level or temperature forcing. In most of Antarctica, the ice is in fact growing thicker. Mean Antarctic temperature has actually fallen throughout the past half-century. In some Antarctic glens, environmental damage has been caused by temperature decreases of up to 2 degrees Celsius. Antarctic sea-ice spread to a 30-year record extent in late 2007.
ERROR 25
Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves "breaking up"
Gore says half a dozen ice shelves each “larger than Rhode Island” have broken up and vanished from the Antarctic Peninsula recently, implicitly because of “global warming.” Global warming is unlikely to have been the cause. Gore does not explain that the ice shelves have melted before, as studies of seabed sediments have shown. The Antarctic Peninsula accounts for about 2% of the continent, in most of which the ice is growing thicker. All the recently-melted shelves, added together, amount to an area less than one-fifty-fifth the size of Texas.
ERROR 26
Larsen B Ice Shelf "broke up because of
'global warming'"
Gore focuses on the Larsen B ice shelf, saying that it completely disappeared in 35 days. Yet there has been extensive ice-shelf break-up throughout the past 10,000 years, and the maximum ice-shelf extent may have been in the Little Ice Age in the late 15th century.
Mountain glaciers worldwide "disappearing"
Gore says that “the ice has a story to tell, and it is worldwide.” He shows several before-and-after pictures of glaciers disappearing. However, the glacial melt began in the 1820s, long before humankind could have had any effect, and has continued at a uniform rate since, showing no acceleration since humankind began increasing the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere. Total ice volumes in three of the last four Ice Ages were lower than they are today, and “global warming” had nothing to do with that.
ERROR 23
Sahara desert "drying"
Gore says terrible tragedies are occurring in the southern Sahara because of drought which he blames on “global warming.” There is no drought caused by “global warming.” In 2007 there were record rains across the whole of the southern Sahara. In the past 25 years the Sahara has shrunk by some 300,000 square kilometers because of additional rainfall. Some scientists think “global warming” may actually mitigate pre-existing droughts because there will be more water vapor in the atmosphere. Before 1200 AD there were frequent, prolonged and severe droughts in the Great Plains. Since 1200 AD, there has been more rainfall. Likewise, the US has had more rainfall since the 1950s than it had in the earlier part of the 20th Century, when the great droughts which were then common were described by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath. South African rainfall was also more stable in the second half of the 20th Century, when human effect on climate is said to have become significant, than in the first half.
ERROR 24West Antarctic ice sheet "unstable"
Gore says disturbing changes have been measured under the West Antarctic ice sheet, implicitly because of “global warming.” Yet most of the recession in this ice sheet over the past 10,000 years has occurred in the absence of any sea-level or temperature forcing. In most of Antarctica, the ice is in fact growing thicker. Mean Antarctic temperature has actually fallen throughout the past half-century. In some Antarctic glens, environmental damage has been caused by temperature decreases of up to 2 degrees Celsius. Antarctic sea-ice spread to a 30-year record extent in late 2007.
ERROR 25Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves "breaking up"
Gore says half a dozen ice shelves each “larger than Rhode Island” have broken up and vanished from the Antarctic Peninsula recently, implicitly because of “global warming.” Global warming is unlikely to have been the cause. Gore does not explain that the ice shelves have melted before, as studies of seabed sediments have shown. The Antarctic Peninsula accounts for about 2% of the continent, in most of which the ice is growing thicker. All the recently-melted shelves, added together, amount to an area less than one-fifty-fifth the size of Texas.
ERROR 26
Larsen B Ice Shelf "broke up because of
'global warming'"
Gore focuses on the Larsen B ice shelf, saying that it completely disappeared in 35 days. Yet there has been extensive ice-shelf break-up throughout the past 10,000 years, and the maximum ice-shelf extent may have been in the Little Ice Age in the late 15th century.
35 Mistakes, continued
ERROR 15
Mumbai "flooding"
Gore says flooding in Mumbai is increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” It is not. Rainfall trends at the two major weather stations in Mumbai show no increase in heavy rainfall over the past 48 years.
ERROR 16
Severe tornadoes "more frequent"
Gore says that 2004 set an all-time record for tornadoes in the US. More tornadoes are being reported because detection systems are better than they were. But the number of severe tornadoes has been falling for more than 50 years.
ERROR 17
The sun "heats the Arctic ocean"
Gore says that ice-melt allows the Sun to heat the Arctic Ocean, and a diagram shows the Sun’s rays heating it directly. It does not. The ocean emits radiant energy at the moment of absorption, and would freeze if there were no atmosphere. It is the atmosphere, not the Sun that warms the ocean. Also, Gore’s diagram confuses the tropopause with the ionosphere, and he makes a number of other errors indicating that he does not understand the elementary physics of radiative transfer.
ERROR 18
Arctic "warming fastest"
Gore says the Arctic has been warming faster than the rest of the planet. It is not. While it is in general true that during periods of warming (whether natural or anthropogenic) the Arctic will warm faster than other regions, Gore does not mention that the Arctic has been cooling over the past 60 years, and is now one degree Celsius cooler than it was in the 1940s. There was a record amount of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere in 2001. Several vessels were icebound in the Arctic in the spring of 2007, but few newspapers reported this. The newspapers reported that the North-West Passage was free of ice in 2007, and said that this was for the first time since records began: but the records, taken by satellites, had only begun 29 years previously. The North-West Passage had also been open for shipping in 1945, and, in 1903, the great Norwegian explorer Amundsen had passed through it in a sailing ship.
ERROR 19
Greenland ice sheet "unstable"
Gore says “global warming” is making the Greenland ice sheet unstable. It is not. Greenland ice grows 2in a year. The Greenland ice sheet survived each of the previous three interglacial periods, each of which was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present. It survived atmospheric CO2 concentrations of up to 1000 ppmv (compared with today’s 400 ppmv). It last melted 850,000 years ago, when humankind did not exist and could not have caused the melting. There is a close correlation between variations in Solar activity and temperature anomalies in Greenland, but there is no correlation between variations in CO2 concentration and temperature changes in Greenland. The IPCC (2001) says that to melt even half the Greenland ice sheet would require temperature to rise by 5.5 degrees C and remain that high for several thousand years.
ERROR 20
Himalayan glacial melt waters "failing"
Gore says 40% of the world’s population get their water supply from Himalayan glacial melt waters that are failing because of “global warming.” They don’t and they are not. The water comes almost entirely from snow-melt, not from ice-melt. Over the past 40 years there has been no decline in the amount of snow-melt in Eurasia.
ERROR 21
Peruvian glaciers "disappearing"
Gore says that a Peruvian glacier is less extensive now than it was in the 1940s, implying that “global warming” is the cause. It is not. Except for the very highest peaks, the normal state of the Peruvian cordilleras has been ice-free throughout most of the past 10,000 years.
Mumbai "flooding"
Gore says flooding in Mumbai is increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” It is not. Rainfall trends at the two major weather stations in Mumbai show no increase in heavy rainfall over the past 48 years.
ERROR 16
Severe tornadoes "more frequent"
Gore says that 2004 set an all-time record for tornadoes in the US. More tornadoes are being reported because detection systems are better than they were. But the number of severe tornadoes has been falling for more than 50 years.
ERROR 17
The sun "heats the Arctic ocean"
Gore says that ice-melt allows the Sun to heat the Arctic Ocean, and a diagram shows the Sun’s rays heating it directly. It does not. The ocean emits radiant energy at the moment of absorption, and would freeze if there were no atmosphere. It is the atmosphere, not the Sun that warms the ocean. Also, Gore’s diagram confuses the tropopause with the ionosphere, and he makes a number of other errors indicating that he does not understand the elementary physics of radiative transfer.
ERROR 18
Arctic "warming fastest"
Gore says the Arctic has been warming faster than the rest of the planet. It is not. While it is in general true that during periods of warming (whether natural or anthropogenic) the Arctic will warm faster than other regions, Gore does not mention that the Arctic has been cooling over the past 60 years, and is now one degree Celsius cooler than it was in the 1940s. There was a record amount of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere in 2001. Several vessels were icebound in the Arctic in the spring of 2007, but few newspapers reported this. The newspapers reported that the North-West Passage was free of ice in 2007, and said that this was for the first time since records began: but the records, taken by satellites, had only begun 29 years previously. The North-West Passage had also been open for shipping in 1945, and, in 1903, the great Norwegian explorer Amundsen had passed through it in a sailing ship.
ERROR 19
Greenland ice sheet "unstable"
Gore says “global warming” is making the Greenland ice sheet unstable. It is not. Greenland ice grows 2in a year. The Greenland ice sheet survived each of the previous three interglacial periods, each of which was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present. It survived atmospheric CO2 concentrations of up to 1000 ppmv (compared with today’s 400 ppmv). It last melted 850,000 years ago, when humankind did not exist and could not have caused the melting. There is a close correlation between variations in Solar activity and temperature anomalies in Greenland, but there is no correlation between variations in CO2 concentration and temperature changes in Greenland. The IPCC (2001) says that to melt even half the Greenland ice sheet would require temperature to rise by 5.5 degrees C and remain that high for several thousand years.
ERROR 20
Himalayan glacial melt waters "failing"
Gore says 40% of the world’s population get their water supply from Himalayan glacial melt waters that are failing because of “global warming.” They don’t and they are not. The water comes almost entirely from snow-melt, not from ice-melt. Over the past 40 years there has been no decline in the amount of snow-melt in Eurasia.
ERROR 21
Peruvian glaciers "disappearing"
Gore says that a Peruvian glacier is less extensive now than it was in the 1940s, implying that “global warming” is the cause. It is not. Except for the very highest peaks, the normal state of the Peruvian cordilleras has been ice-free throughout most of the past 10,000 years.
35 Mistakes, continued
ERROR 8
Polar bear "dying"
Gore says a scientific study shows that polar bears are being killed swimming long distances to find ice that has melted away because of “global warming.” They are not. The study, by Monnett & Gleason (2005), mentioned just four dead bears. They had died in an exceptional storm, with high winds and waves in the Beaufort Sea. The amount of sea ice in the Beaufort Sea has grown over the past 30 years. A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature shows that polar bears, which are warm-blooded, have grown in numbers where temperature has increased, and have become fewer where temperature has fallen. Polar bears evolved from brown bears 200,000 years ago, and survived the last interglacial period, when global temperature was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present and there was probably no Arctic ice-cap at all. The real threat to polar bears is not “global warming” but hunting. In 1940, there were just 5,000 polar bears worldwide. Now that hunting is controlled, there are 25,000. Ms. Kreider says sea-ice “was the lowest ever measured for minimum extent in 2007.” She does not say that the measurements, which are done by satellite, go back only 29 years. She does not say that the North-West Passage, a good proxy for Arctic sea-ice extent, was open to shipping in 1945, or that Amundsen passed through in a sailing vessel in 1903.
ERROR 9
Coral reefs "bleaching"
Gore says coral reefs are “bleaching” because of “global warming.” They are not. There was some bleaching in 1998, but this was caused by the exceptional El Nino Southern Oscillation that year. Two similarly severe El Ninos over the past 250 years also caused extensive bleaching. “Global warming” was nothing to do with it.Ms. Kreider says, “The IPCC and other scientific bodies have long identified increases in ocean temperatures with the bleaching of coral reefs.” So they have: but the bleaching in 1998 occurred as a result not of “global warming” but of a rare, though not unique, severe El Nino Southern Oscillation.
ERROR 10
100 ppmv of CO2 "melting mile-thick ice"
Gore implies that the difference of just 100 parts per million by volume in CO2 concentration between an interglacial temperature maximum and an ice-age temperature minimum causes “the difference between a nice day and having a mile of ice above your head.” It does not. Gore’s implication has the effect of overstating the mainstream consensus estimate of the effect of CO2 on temperature at least tenfold. Temperature changes by up to 12 degrees C between glacial minima and interglacial maxima, but CO2 concentration changes by no more than 100 ppmv. Gore is accordingly implying that 100 ppmv can cause a temperature increase of up to 12 degrees C. However, the consensus as expressed by the IPCC is that 100 ppmv of increased CO2 concentration, from 180 to 280 ppmv, would increase radiant energy flux in the atmosphere by 2.33 watts per square meter, or less than 1.2 degrees Celsius including the effect of temperature feedbacks.
ERROR 11
Hurricane Caterina "manmade"
Gore says that Hurricane Caterina, the only hurricane ever to strike the coast of Brazil, was caused by “global warming.” It was not. In 2004, Brazil’s summer sea surface temperatures were cooler than normal, not warmer. But air temperatures were the coldest in 25 years. The air was so much colder than the water that it caused a heat flux from the water to the air similar to that which fuels hurricanes in warm seas.
ERROR 12
Japanese typhoons "a new record"
Gore says that 2004 set a new record for the number of typhoons striking Japan. It did not. The trend in the number of typhoons, and of tropical cyclones, has fallen throughout the past 50 years. The trend in rainfall from cyclones has also fallen, and there has been no trend in monsoon rainfall.
ERROR 13
Hurricanes "getting stronger"
Gore says scientists had been giving warnings that hurricanes will get stronger because of “global warming.” They will not. Over the past 60 years there has been no change in the strength of hurricanes, even though hydrocarbon use went up six-fold in the same period. Research by Dr. Kerry Emanuel, cited by Ms. Kreider, has been discredited by more recent findings that wind-shear effects tend to nullify the amplification of hurricane strength which he had suggested, and, of course, by the observed failure of hurricanes to gain strength during the past 60 years of “global warming.”
ERROR 14
Big storm insurances losses "increasing"
Gore says insurance losses arising from large storms and other extreme-weather events are increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” They are not. Insured losses, as a percentage of the population of coastal areas in the path of hurricanes, were lower even in 2005 than they had been in 1925. In 2006, a very quiet hurricane season, Lloyds of London posted their biggest-ever profit: £3.6 billion.
Polar bear "dying"
Gore says a scientific study shows that polar bears are being killed swimming long distances to find ice that has melted away because of “global warming.” They are not. The study, by Monnett & Gleason (2005), mentioned just four dead bears. They had died in an exceptional storm, with high winds and waves in the Beaufort Sea. The amount of sea ice in the Beaufort Sea has grown over the past 30 years. A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature shows that polar bears, which are warm-blooded, have grown in numbers where temperature has increased, and have become fewer where temperature has fallen. Polar bears evolved from brown bears 200,000 years ago, and survived the last interglacial period, when global temperature was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present and there was probably no Arctic ice-cap at all. The real threat to polar bears is not “global warming” but hunting. In 1940, there were just 5,000 polar bears worldwide. Now that hunting is controlled, there are 25,000. Ms. Kreider says sea-ice “was the lowest ever measured for minimum extent in 2007.” She does not say that the measurements, which are done by satellite, go back only 29 years. She does not say that the North-West Passage, a good proxy for Arctic sea-ice extent, was open to shipping in 1945, or that Amundsen passed through in a sailing vessel in 1903.
ERROR 9
Coral reefs "bleaching"
Gore says coral reefs are “bleaching” because of “global warming.” They are not. There was some bleaching in 1998, but this was caused by the exceptional El Nino Southern Oscillation that year. Two similarly severe El Ninos over the past 250 years also caused extensive bleaching. “Global warming” was nothing to do with it.Ms. Kreider says, “The IPCC and other scientific bodies have long identified increases in ocean temperatures with the bleaching of coral reefs.” So they have: but the bleaching in 1998 occurred as a result not of “global warming” but of a rare, though not unique, severe El Nino Southern Oscillation.
ERROR 10
100 ppmv of CO2 "melting mile-thick ice"
Gore implies that the difference of just 100 parts per million by volume in CO2 concentration between an interglacial temperature maximum and an ice-age temperature minimum causes “the difference between a nice day and having a mile of ice above your head.” It does not. Gore’s implication has the effect of overstating the mainstream consensus estimate of the effect of CO2 on temperature at least tenfold. Temperature changes by up to 12 degrees C between glacial minima and interglacial maxima, but CO2 concentration changes by no more than 100 ppmv. Gore is accordingly implying that 100 ppmv can cause a temperature increase of up to 12 degrees C. However, the consensus as expressed by the IPCC is that 100 ppmv of increased CO2 concentration, from 180 to 280 ppmv, would increase radiant energy flux in the atmosphere by 2.33 watts per square meter, or less than 1.2 degrees Celsius including the effect of temperature feedbacks.
ERROR 11
Hurricane Caterina "manmade"
Gore says that Hurricane Caterina, the only hurricane ever to strike the coast of Brazil, was caused by “global warming.” It was not. In 2004, Brazil’s summer sea surface temperatures were cooler than normal, not warmer. But air temperatures were the coldest in 25 years. The air was so much colder than the water that it caused a heat flux from the water to the air similar to that which fuels hurricanes in warm seas.
ERROR 12
Japanese typhoons "a new record"
Gore says that 2004 set a new record for the number of typhoons striking Japan. It did not. The trend in the number of typhoons, and of tropical cyclones, has fallen throughout the past 50 years. The trend in rainfall from cyclones has also fallen, and there has been no trend in monsoon rainfall.
ERROR 13
Hurricanes "getting stronger"
Gore says scientists had been giving warnings that hurricanes will get stronger because of “global warming.” They will not. Over the past 60 years there has been no change in the strength of hurricanes, even though hydrocarbon use went up six-fold in the same period. Research by Dr. Kerry Emanuel, cited by Ms. Kreider, has been discredited by more recent findings that wind-shear effects tend to nullify the amplification of hurricane strength which he had suggested, and, of course, by the observed failure of hurricanes to gain strength during the past 60 years of “global warming.”
ERROR 14
Big storm insurances losses "increasing"
Gore says insurance losses arising from large storms and other extreme-weather events are increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” They are not. Insured losses, as a percentage of the population of coastal areas in the path of hurricanes, were lower even in 2005 than they had been in 1925. In 2006, a very quiet hurricane season, Lloyds of London posted their biggest-ever profit: £3.6 billion.
35 Mistakes, continued.....
ERROR 5
Snows of Kilimanjaro "melting"
Gore says “global warming” has been melting the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It is not. The melting of the Furtwangler Glacier at the summit of the mountain began 125 years ago. More of the glacier had melted before Hemingway wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936 than afterward. Temperature at the summit never rises above freezing and is at an average of –7 Celsius. The cause of the melting is long-term climate shifts exacerbated by imprudent regional deforestation, and has nothing to do with “global warming.”Ms. Kreider says, “Every tropical glacier for which we have documented evidence shows that glaciers are retreating.” However, a recent survey of the glaciers in the tropical Andes shows that they were largely ice-free in the past 10,000 years, except on the very highest peaks. The mere fact of warming or melting, therefore, tells us nothing of the cause.Ms. Kreider says, “Global warming exacerbates the stresses that ecosystems (and humans) are already experiencing.” However, since the temperature at the summit of Kilimanjaro remains below freezing and has not risen in 30 years, “global warming” is not “exacerbating the stresses” at the summit of Kilimanjaro.
ERROR 6
Lake Chad "drying up"
Gore says “global warming” dried up Lake Chad in Africa. It did not. Over-extraction of water and changing agricultural patterns dried the lake, which was also dry in 8500BC, 5500BC, 1000BC and 100BC. Ms. Kreider says, “There are multiple stresses upon Lake Chad.” However, the scientific consensus is that at present those “stresses” do not include “global warming.”
ERROR 7
Hurricane Katrina "man made"
Gore says Hurricane Katrina, that devastated New Orleans in 2005, was caused by “global warming.” It was not. It was caused by the failure of Gore’s party, in the administration of New Orleans, to heed 30 years of warnings by the Corps of Engineers that the levees – dams that kept New Orleans dry – could not stand a direct hit by a hurricane. Katrina was only Category 3 when it struck the levees. They failed, as the Engineers had said they would. Gore’s party, not “global warming,” was to blame for the consequent death and destruction. Ms. Kreider says, “Mr. Gore has never addressed the issue of climate change and hurricane frequency.” What Gore actually says, however, addresses the frequency not only of hurricanes but also of typhoons and tornadoes –
Snows of Kilimanjaro "melting"
Gore says “global warming” has been melting the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It is not. The melting of the Furtwangler Glacier at the summit of the mountain began 125 years ago. More of the glacier had melted before Hemingway wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936 than afterward. Temperature at the summit never rises above freezing and is at an average of –7 Celsius. The cause of the melting is long-term climate shifts exacerbated by imprudent regional deforestation, and has nothing to do with “global warming.”Ms. Kreider says, “Every tropical glacier for which we have documented evidence shows that glaciers are retreating.” However, a recent survey of the glaciers in the tropical Andes shows that they were largely ice-free in the past 10,000 years, except on the very highest peaks. The mere fact of warming or melting, therefore, tells us nothing of the cause.Ms. Kreider says, “Global warming exacerbates the stresses that ecosystems (and humans) are already experiencing.” However, since the temperature at the summit of Kilimanjaro remains below freezing and has not risen in 30 years, “global warming” is not “exacerbating the stresses” at the summit of Kilimanjaro.
ERROR 6
Lake Chad "drying up"
Gore says “global warming” dried up Lake Chad in Africa. It did not. Over-extraction of water and changing agricultural patterns dried the lake, which was also dry in 8500BC, 5500BC, 1000BC and 100BC. Ms. Kreider says, “There are multiple stresses upon Lake Chad.” However, the scientific consensus is that at present those “stresses” do not include “global warming.”
ERROR 7
Hurricane Katrina "man made"
Gore says Hurricane Katrina, that devastated New Orleans in 2005, was caused by “global warming.” It was not. It was caused by the failure of Gore’s party, in the administration of New Orleans, to heed 30 years of warnings by the Corps of Engineers that the levees – dams that kept New Orleans dry – could not stand a direct hit by a hurricane. Katrina was only Category 3 when it struck the levees. They failed, as the Engineers had said they would. Gore’s party, not “global warming,” was to blame for the consequent death and destruction. Ms. Kreider says, “Mr. Gore has never addressed the issue of climate change and hurricane frequency.” What Gore actually says, however, addresses the frequency not only of hurricanes but also of typhoons and tornadoes –
“We have seen in the last couple of years, a lot of big hurricanes. Hurricanes Jean, Francis and Ivan were among them. In the same year we had that string of big hurricanes; we also set an all time record for tornadoes in the United States. Japan again didn’t get as much attention in our news media, but they set an all time record for typhoons. The previous record was seven. Here are all ten of the ones they had in 2004.” For the record, however, the number of Atlantic hurricanes shows no trend over the past half century; the number of typhoons has fallen throughout the past 30 years; the number of tornadoes has risen only because of better detection systems for smaller tornadoes; but the number of larger tornadoes in the US has fallen.
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