Here is a respected geologist's opinion, rather aggravated I must say, about the "myth" being put forth about man-caused global warming. Of course I agree with him and have other articles by Mr. Gerhard on this blog.
Peter
From Lee C. Gerhard [leeg@sunflower.com], Senior Scientist Emeritus, Kansas Geological Survey, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
"Can anyone out there provide me with any empirical data in support of the theory that humans control climate warming? No, don't tell me that climate is changing - we geologists absolutely know that climate changes all the time, in both directions, and at many scales of time and intensity.
Don't give me results of computer modeling - those are not empirical data, they are the results of very serious attempts to place numbers on natural phenomena, but they are still based on assumptions and estimates, and have not been able to replicate past climate changes, particularly over the last 1500 years. Computer models are currently nothing more than scientific theories set to mathematical music.
Bring us some data, some values that support the concept. Right now the data show correlative changes in temperature and solar activity, modified by ocean current movement and orbital variations, many of which are predictable and which have operated to change climate for billions of years.Yes, there is an increase in carbon dioxide, but its effects drop logarithmically with its increase. Thus, it doesn't pose a threat. All told the full greenhouse effect, mostly water vapor, does make Earth a habitable planet.
Please don't argue that climate is changing at rates and intensities not ever seen before. That is just not true. Read the data already out there from the geologists and those who study past climate change.Tell me why otherwise competent scientists argue for their theory but fail to provide any support for their theory other than constant repetition of untrue statements and alarmist exaggerations.
Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Is that what is happening?"
Profile on Dr. Lee C. Gerhard:
Dr. Lee C. Gerhard is Principal Geologist of the Kansas Geological Survey, having retired from the Directorship and as State Geologist in 1999. He received his B.S. in geology at Syracuse University and the M. S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Kansas. He has combined academic, government, and industry leadership and technical appointments, including petroleum exploration, management of exploration programs, oil and gas regulation, reservoir geology, and management of research. His research interests are in carbonate sedimentology, petroleum geology, and environmental public policy. He has been the State Geologist of North Dakota, and led a marine ecology and geology research and teaching laboratory in the U. S. Virgin Islands. Prior to returning to Kansas, he was the Getty Professor of Geological Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines and operated an independent petroleum exploration company. He is licensed as geologist in Kansas and Wyoming.
Dr. Gerhard is an Honorary Member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, past president and Honorary Member of that society`s Division of Environmental Geosciences, an Honorary Member of the Association of American State Geologists, and an Honorary Member of the Kansas Geological Society.
He has published more than 150 papers and books on geology, petroleum exploration, natural resources, and environmental policy. He co-chaired the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Climate Change Issues Committee. He is active in wildlife and fisheries conservation issues in the U. S. and Canada, and has organized three recent major conferences on resource and environmental issues. He lectures widely in the U. S. and in Europe about environment and resources and global climate issues.
Showing posts with label Lee Gerhard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lee Gerhard. Show all posts
Friday, February 15, 2008
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Lawsuits Over Who Is To Blame For Global Warming
Here come the lawsuits over who to blame for global warming and climate change. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Peter
from: http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA550CaliforniaGlobalWarming_90107.html
# 550
January 2007
Science Puts the Chill to California's Global Warming Hot Air
by Bonner Cohen, Ph.D.
Determined to put the kibosh to those responsible for the scourge of global warming, California's ever-vigilant Attorney General Bill Lockyer has sued six U.S. and Japanese automakers, including GM, Ford and Toyota, for "damages" related to greenhouse-gas emissions.
Claiming that emissions from vehicles manufactured by these companies are harming Californians' health, damaging the environment, and costing the Golden State millions of dollars to curb their effects, Lockyer says his federal lawsuit is "part of a strategy to address global warming."
"The goal of this one," Lockyer declared September 20, 2006, "is to hold these automobile manufacturers accountable for the monies taxpayers are spending to address these harms."1
Actually, it's Mr. Lockyer who should be held accountable for the taxpayers' funds he's squandering on a frivolous lawsuit. But there's more. Not to be outdone, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill approved by the Democratic-controlled legislature mandating a reduction in the state's greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. "We simply must do everything we can to slow down global warming before it's too late," the "governator" declared.2
Lockyer's lawsuit and Schwarzenegger & Co.'s initiative are both predicated on the assumption that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), are contributing significantly to a dangerous warming of the planet. As it turns out, this widespread view, enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol and repeated ceaselessly by the media, is being challenged by that pesky nemesis of political fashion known as science.
Exhaustive research of climatological data going back millions of years carried out by Lee Gerhard, senior scientist with the Kansas Geological Society, reveals an entirely different picture of the forces driving the myriad changes through which the earth's climate has passed. Gerhard dismisses the notion that human emissions of carbon dioxide are a significant driver of climate and refutes the idea that climate change rates and today's slight global warming are unprecedented. "They are not," he flatly states. Instead, Gerhard makes two key points:
* Climate naturally changes constantly, from warmer to cooler and from cooler to warmer, and at many levels of intensity over time at many scales.
* Variation in solar activity closely correlates with global temperature variations, suggesting that the amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the earth is a primary climate driver at the time scale of decades to millennia.3
"Overall," Gerhard says, "the earth's climate has been cooling for 60 million years, but that is only an average -- temperature goes up and down constantly."4 Addressing a September 20 Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the Center for Science and Public Policy, Gerhard, in a power point presentation, showed the highly variable nature of the earth's climate over the past 16,000 years and, in more detail, during the last 2,000 years. "Depending on the period in earth's history that is chosen," he said, "the climate will either be warming or cooling. Choosing whether earth is warming or cooling is simply a matter of picking end points."5
Gerhard, whose research took place under the auspices of the Kansas Geological Survey and was not funded by industry, points out that the geological record shows that rises in greenhouse gases do not precede rises in temperature. Indeed, CO2 levels actually rose prior to the advent of the Little Ice Age (circa 1400).6 Moreover, CO2, the greenhouse gas most prominently cited as contributing to global warming, represents only about 1/4 of 1 percent of the total greenhouse gas effect, "hardly a device to drive the massive energy system of earth's climate," he says.7
Gerhard's conclusions are supported by findings released Sept. 29 by CO2 researechers Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso. "[E]arth's mean near-surface air temperature is nowhere near the peak level of what it was a million or so years ago," they write. "Neither is it as high as it was during the mid-Holocene [circe 5,000 years ago], which was itself much cooler than all four of the interglacials that preceded it. In fact, it's not even as warm now as it was a mere 900 years ago, when the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was fully 100 ppm (parts per million) less than it is today..."8 (emphasis in the original) "Climate is always changing," notes Philip Slott, professor of biogeography at the University of London. "Climate is governed by millions of factors, from the lightest waft of a monarch butterfly's wing, through erupting volcanoes, shifting land surfaces, ocean currents, ocean salinity and atmospheric gases, to shifts in the geometry of the earth, solar cycles, meteors, and meteorites." "The idea of global warming," he continues, "is dangerous precisely because it gives the false impression that we might be able to halt climate change by fiddling with just one or two of the millions of factors involved.9
In Gerhard's view, today's climate debate has been dominated by those embracing the notion of "anthroprocentrism," a mindset that identifies human beings as the source of all things "bad."10 But the earth's climate, and the larger geophysical forces of which it is a part, is a complex, still poorly understood mechanism that does not lend itself to simple explanations. The more we learn, the more we know what we don't know. In the same vein, grandstanding politicians in California and elsewhere, eager to be seen doing the "right" thing, can do much harm if they don't know what they don't know.
# # #Bonner Cohen, Ph.D. is senior fellow at The National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Comments may be sent to bcohen@nationalcenter.org.
Footnotes:
1. "Automakers Sued Over Vehicle Emissions," Washington Times (Associated Press) 21. Sept. 2006: C9.2. "Global Warming Initiative Signed," Washington Times (Associated Press) 28 Sept. 2006: B1; Jeffrey Ball and Jim Carlton, "California Pact Would Place Caps on Emissions," Wall Street Journal 31 Aug. 2006: A1.3. Lee Gerhard, "Introduction to Geological Perspectives of Global Climate Change," http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/gerhardnotes.pdf.4. "Introduction to Geological Perspectives"5. "Introduction to Geological Perspectives"6. http://www.ff.org/centers/cspp/gerhardppt.ppt.7. "Introduction to Geological Perspectives"8. Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso, "How Warm Is the Earth Nowadays?," http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N39/EDITB.jsp. 9. Quoted in Bonner Cohen, The Green Wave: Environmentalism and its Consequences (Washington, D.C. Capital Research Center 2006), page 47. 10. "Introduction to Geophysical Perspectives"
Peter
from: http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA550CaliforniaGlobalWarming_90107.html
# 550
January 2007
Science Puts the Chill to California's Global Warming Hot Air
by Bonner Cohen, Ph.D.
Determined to put the kibosh to those responsible for the scourge of global warming, California's ever-vigilant Attorney General Bill Lockyer has sued six U.S. and Japanese automakers, including GM, Ford and Toyota, for "damages" related to greenhouse-gas emissions.
Claiming that emissions from vehicles manufactured by these companies are harming Californians' health, damaging the environment, and costing the Golden State millions of dollars to curb their effects, Lockyer says his federal lawsuit is "part of a strategy to address global warming."
"The goal of this one," Lockyer declared September 20, 2006, "is to hold these automobile manufacturers accountable for the monies taxpayers are spending to address these harms."1
Actually, it's Mr. Lockyer who should be held accountable for the taxpayers' funds he's squandering on a frivolous lawsuit. But there's more. Not to be outdone, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill approved by the Democratic-controlled legislature mandating a reduction in the state's greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. "We simply must do everything we can to slow down global warming before it's too late," the "governator" declared.2
Lockyer's lawsuit and Schwarzenegger & Co.'s initiative are both predicated on the assumption that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), are contributing significantly to a dangerous warming of the planet. As it turns out, this widespread view, enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol and repeated ceaselessly by the media, is being challenged by that pesky nemesis of political fashion known as science.
Exhaustive research of climatological data going back millions of years carried out by Lee Gerhard, senior scientist with the Kansas Geological Society, reveals an entirely different picture of the forces driving the myriad changes through which the earth's climate has passed. Gerhard dismisses the notion that human emissions of carbon dioxide are a significant driver of climate and refutes the idea that climate change rates and today's slight global warming are unprecedented. "They are not," he flatly states. Instead, Gerhard makes two key points:
* Climate naturally changes constantly, from warmer to cooler and from cooler to warmer, and at many levels of intensity over time at many scales.
* Variation in solar activity closely correlates with global temperature variations, suggesting that the amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the earth is a primary climate driver at the time scale of decades to millennia.3
"Overall," Gerhard says, "the earth's climate has been cooling for 60 million years, but that is only an average -- temperature goes up and down constantly."4 Addressing a September 20 Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the Center for Science and Public Policy, Gerhard, in a power point presentation, showed the highly variable nature of the earth's climate over the past 16,000 years and, in more detail, during the last 2,000 years. "Depending on the period in earth's history that is chosen," he said, "the climate will either be warming or cooling. Choosing whether earth is warming or cooling is simply a matter of picking end points."5
Gerhard, whose research took place under the auspices of the Kansas Geological Survey and was not funded by industry, points out that the geological record shows that rises in greenhouse gases do not precede rises in temperature. Indeed, CO2 levels actually rose prior to the advent of the Little Ice Age (circa 1400).6 Moreover, CO2, the greenhouse gas most prominently cited as contributing to global warming, represents only about 1/4 of 1 percent of the total greenhouse gas effect, "hardly a device to drive the massive energy system of earth's climate," he says.7
Gerhard's conclusions are supported by findings released Sept. 29 by CO2 researechers Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso. "[E]arth's mean near-surface air temperature is nowhere near the peak level of what it was a million or so years ago," they write. "Neither is it as high as it was during the mid-Holocene [circe 5,000 years ago], which was itself much cooler than all four of the interglacials that preceded it. In fact, it's not even as warm now as it was a mere 900 years ago, when the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was fully 100 ppm (parts per million) less than it is today..."8 (emphasis in the original) "Climate is always changing," notes Philip Slott, professor of biogeography at the University of London. "Climate is governed by millions of factors, from the lightest waft of a monarch butterfly's wing, through erupting volcanoes, shifting land surfaces, ocean currents, ocean salinity and atmospheric gases, to shifts in the geometry of the earth, solar cycles, meteors, and meteorites." "The idea of global warming," he continues, "is dangerous precisely because it gives the false impression that we might be able to halt climate change by fiddling with just one or two of the millions of factors involved.9
In Gerhard's view, today's climate debate has been dominated by those embracing the notion of "anthroprocentrism," a mindset that identifies human beings as the source of all things "bad."10 But the earth's climate, and the larger geophysical forces of which it is a part, is a complex, still poorly understood mechanism that does not lend itself to simple explanations. The more we learn, the more we know what we don't know. In the same vein, grandstanding politicians in California and elsewhere, eager to be seen doing the "right" thing, can do much harm if they don't know what they don't know.
# # #Bonner Cohen, Ph.D. is senior fellow at The National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Comments may be sent to bcohen@nationalcenter.org.
Footnotes:
1. "Automakers Sued Over Vehicle Emissions," Washington Times (Associated Press) 21. Sept. 2006: C9.2. "Global Warming Initiative Signed," Washington Times (Associated Press) 28 Sept. 2006: B1; Jeffrey Ball and Jim Carlton, "California Pact Would Place Caps on Emissions," Wall Street Journal 31 Aug. 2006: A1.3. Lee Gerhard, "Introduction to Geological Perspectives of Global Climate Change," http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/gerhardnotes.pdf.4. "Introduction to Geological Perspectives"5. "Introduction to Geological Perspectives"6. http://www.ff.org/centers/cspp/gerhardppt.ppt.7. "Introduction to Geological Perspectives"8. Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso, "How Warm Is the Earth Nowadays?," http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N39/EDITB.jsp. 9. Quoted in Bonner Cohen, The Green Wave: Environmentalism and its Consequences (Washington, D.C. Capital Research Center 2006), page 47. 10. "Introduction to Geophysical Perspectives"
Who or What Caused Global Warming
A short article about global warming, from: http://dpa.aapg.org/correlator/2006/globalwarming.cfm
Who or What Caused Global Warming
We are all familiar with Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth which argues that human-caused global warming will result in near-total destruction of the planet . We can excuse him as he is only a politician not a scientist. However, the Union of Concerned Scientists state unequivocally that they can identify the “Human Fingerprint” on global warming. Even the EPA blames global warming on human activity in their web site where the opening paragraph states: According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with accelerated warming during the past two decades. There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.
So, is global warming real, and if so, are humans to blame? The proof that is cited for a human cause of global warming, the “undeniable human fingerprint” comes from computer-based climate models. The problem is that for a computer-based climate model to be proof of anything, it would require that the scientist generating the model knows all of the variables that affect climate, and knows them so well, that no assumptions need to be made. Should the model fail to account for any variable or should the model contain any assumptions, then the validity of the results can, and should, be challenged.
Examine the following figures from Dr. Lee Gerhard in his web-based presentation, “Geologic Constraints on Global Climate Variability” and see if the models can stand up to the challenge. So, is Global Warming real?
Well, it is certainly warmer today than it was during the “Little Ice Age” of the late 1700s.
It is clearly warmer today than it was 20,000 years ago, but not as warm as it was 125,000 years ago.
And it is cooler today than it was during the “Roman Warm Event” of 500 BC or the “Medieval Climate Optimum” 1000 years ago.
Whether or not you believe we are warming or cooling, the debatable question according to Dr. Gerhard is “Do humans control earth’s dynamic climate system?” The principal cause of global warming according to the EPA and the Union of Concerned Scientists is increased amounts of CO2, which they argue is the result of industrialization. Yet if you examine the graph below, you will see several things. One, CO2 levels have both risen and fallen in cycles over time. These cycles existed long before the beginning of the industrial revolution, which would suggest that human activity is not responsible for CO2 cyclicity. Second, there is a several thousand year lag between the start of the temperature cycle and the CO2 cycle such that one might ask if the rise in temperatures is the cause for the rise in CO2 not the effect. It should be noted that a similar graph appears in the Woods Hole web site, however at a more compressed scale such that the lag is not apparent. They use the graph as proof of human induced global warming although they do not explain how human activity 350,000 years ago resulted in an increase in CO2. No wonder the public is confused.
So, if CO2 is not the cause of temperature changes, what is? Based on the graph below, one would conclude it is the sun.
Now there is a revolutionary concept; solar activity affects the Earth’s temperature. I wonder how Al Gore missed that one!
Finally, let me offer one last picture – proof of global warming. It illustrates nicely the effect on humans, not the affect of humans. More importantly, I hope it leaves you with a smile.
For more information on the truth and lies behind the global warming issue, I would encourage you to read “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton; an excellent thriller with abundant footnoted facts about climate change. You are also encouraged to visit Lee Gerhard’s excellent web-site. Other interesting web sites, both informative and alarmist are listed below.
Informational Sites
Kansas Energy Information Network
http://www.kansasenergy.org/climatechange.htm
Geologic Constraints on Global Climate Variability
http://www.kansasenergy.org/documents/Gerhard_Climate_Change.pdf
Competitive Enterprise Institute
http://www.cei.org/pages/co2.cfm
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
Alarmist Sites
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climate.html
Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/Fingerprints.html
NewScientist.com
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change
Woods Hole Research Center
http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/index.htm
Who or What Caused Global Warming
We are all familiar with Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth which argues that human-caused global warming will result in near-total destruction of the planet . We can excuse him as he is only a politician not a scientist. However, the Union of Concerned Scientists state unequivocally that they can identify the “Human Fingerprint” on global warming. Even the EPA blames global warming on human activity in their web site where the opening paragraph states: According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with accelerated warming during the past two decades. There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.
So, is global warming real, and if so, are humans to blame? The proof that is cited for a human cause of global warming, the “undeniable human fingerprint” comes from computer-based climate models. The problem is that for a computer-based climate model to be proof of anything, it would require that the scientist generating the model knows all of the variables that affect climate, and knows them so well, that no assumptions need to be made. Should the model fail to account for any variable or should the model contain any assumptions, then the validity of the results can, and should, be challenged.
Examine the following figures from Dr. Lee Gerhard in his web-based presentation, “Geologic Constraints on Global Climate Variability” and see if the models can stand up to the challenge. So, is Global Warming real?
Well, it is certainly warmer today than it was during the “Little Ice Age” of the late 1700s.
It is clearly warmer today than it was 20,000 years ago, but not as warm as it was 125,000 years ago.
And it is cooler today than it was during the “Roman Warm Event” of 500 BC or the “Medieval Climate Optimum” 1000 years ago.
Whether or not you believe we are warming or cooling, the debatable question according to Dr. Gerhard is “Do humans control earth’s dynamic climate system?” The principal cause of global warming according to the EPA and the Union of Concerned Scientists is increased amounts of CO2, which they argue is the result of industrialization. Yet if you examine the graph below, you will see several things. One, CO2 levels have both risen and fallen in cycles over time. These cycles existed long before the beginning of the industrial revolution, which would suggest that human activity is not responsible for CO2 cyclicity. Second, there is a several thousand year lag between the start of the temperature cycle and the CO2 cycle such that one might ask if the rise in temperatures is the cause for the rise in CO2 not the effect. It should be noted that a similar graph appears in the Woods Hole web site, however at a more compressed scale such that the lag is not apparent. They use the graph as proof of human induced global warming although they do not explain how human activity 350,000 years ago resulted in an increase in CO2. No wonder the public is confused.
So, if CO2 is not the cause of temperature changes, what is? Based on the graph below, one would conclude it is the sun.
Now there is a revolutionary concept; solar activity affects the Earth’s temperature. I wonder how Al Gore missed that one!
Finally, let me offer one last picture – proof of global warming. It illustrates nicely the effect on humans, not the affect of humans. More importantly, I hope it leaves you with a smile.
For more information on the truth and lies behind the global warming issue, I would encourage you to read “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton; an excellent thriller with abundant footnoted facts about climate change. You are also encouraged to visit Lee Gerhard’s excellent web-site. Other interesting web sites, both informative and alarmist are listed below.
Informational Sites
Kansas Energy Information Network
http://www.kansasenergy.org/climatechange.htm
Geologic Constraints on Global Climate Variability
http://www.kansasenergy.org/documents/Gerhard_Climate_Change.pdf
Competitive Enterprise Institute
http://www.cei.org/pages/co2.cfm
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
Alarmist Sites
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climate.html
Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/Fingerprints.html
NewScientist.com
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change
Woods Hole Research Center
http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/index.htm
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