Here is the latest opinion piece from John Coleman, "the founder of The Weather Channel", and a long-time television weather forecaster. If you do a search of this blog for John Coleman you will find other articles by and about him. He does a good job of summarizing in simplified terms the case against man-caused global warming.
Peter
source
Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas
by John Coleman
You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam.
The future of our civilization lies in the balance.
That’s the battle cry of the High Priest of Global Warming Al Gore and his fellow, agenda driven disciples as they predict a calamitous outcome from anthropogenic global warming. According to Mr. Gore the polar ice caps will collapse and melt and sea levels will rise 20 feet inundating the coastal cities making 100 million of us refugees. Vice President Gore tells us numerous Pacific islands will be totally submerged and uninhabitable. He tells us global warming will disrupt the circulation of the ocean waters, dramatically changing climates, throwing the world food supply into chaos. He tells us global warming will turn hurricanes into super storms, produce droughts, wipe out the polar bears and result in bleaching of coral reefs. He tells us tropical diseases will spread to mid latitudes and heat waves will kill tens of thousands. He preaches to us that we must change our lives and eliminate fossil fuels or face the dire consequences. The future of our civilization is in the balance.
With a preacher’s zeal, Mr. Gore sets out to strike terror into us and our children and make us feel we are all complicit in the potential demise of the planet.
Here is my rebuttal.
There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind’s activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces.
Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call “Interglacial periods”. For the past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period. That might well be called nature’s global warming because what happens during an interglacial period is the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age. Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming.
Well, it is simply not happening. Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980’s and 1990’s as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares. That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline. Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years. So, I ask Al Gore, where’s the global warming?
The cooling trend is so strong that recently the head of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had to acknowledge it. He speculated that nature has temporarily overwhelmed mankind’s warming and it may be ten years or so before the warming returns. Oh, really. We are supposed to be in a panic about man-made global warming and the whole thing takes a ten year break because of the lack of Sun spots. If this weren’t so serious, it would be laughable.
Now allow me to talk a little about the science behind the global warming frenzy. I have dug through thousands of pages of research papers, including the voluminous documents published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I have worked my way through complicated math and complex theories. Here’s the bottom line: the entire global warming scientific case is based on the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels. They don’t have any other issue. Carbon Dioxide, that’s it.
Hello Al Gore; Hello UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Your science is flawed; your hypothesis is wrong; your data is manipulated. And, may I add, your scare tactics are deplorable. The Earth does not have a fever. Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.
The focus on atmospheric carbon dioxide grew out a study by Roger Revelle who was an esteemed scientist at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute. He took his research with him when he moved to Harvard and allowed his students to help him process the data for his paper. One of those students was Al Gore. That is where Gore got caught up in this global warming frenzy. Revelle’s paper linked the increases in carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere with warming. It labeled CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Charles Keeling, another researcher at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute, set up a system to make continuous CO2 measurements. His graph of these increases has now become known as the Keeling Curve. When Charles Keeling died in 2005, his son David, also at Scripps, took over the measurements. Here is what the Keeling curve shows: an increase in CO2 from 315 parts per million in 1958 to 385 parts per million today, an increase of 70 parts per million or about 20 percent.
All the computer models, all of the other findings, all of the other angles of study, all come back to and are based on CO2 as a significant greenhouse gas. It is not.
Here is the deal about CO2, carbon dioxide. It is a natural component of our atmosphere. It has been there since time began. It is absorbed and emitted by the oceans. It is used by every living plant to trigger photosynthesis. Nothing would be green without it. And we humans; we create it. Every time we breathe out, we emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is not a pollutant. It is not smog. It is a naturally occurring invisible gas.
Let me illustrate. I estimate that this square in front of my face contains 100,000 molecules of atmosphere. Of those 100,000 only 38 are CO2; 38 out of a hundred thousand. That makes it a trace component. Let me ask a key question: how can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? It can’t. That’s all there is to it; it can’t.
The UN IPCC has attracted billions of dollars for the research to try to make the case that CO2 is the culprit of run-away, man-made global warming. The scientists have come up with very complex creative theories and done elaborate calculations and run computer models they say prove those theories. They present us with a concept they call radiative forcing. The research organizations and scientists who are making a career out of this theory, keep cranking out the research papers. Then the IPCC puts on big conferences at exotic places, such as the recent conference in Bali. The scientists endorse each other’s papers, they are summarized and voted on, and viola, we are told global warming is going to kill us all unless we stop burning fossil fuels.
May I stop here for a few historical notes? First, the internal combustion engine and gasoline were awful polluters when they were first invented. And, both gasoline and automobile engines continued to leave a layer of smog behind right up through the 1960’s. Then science and engineering came to the environmental rescue. Better exhaust and ignition systems, catalytic converters, fuel injectors, better engineering throughout the engine and reformulated gasoline have all contributed to a huge reduction in the exhaust emissions from today’s cars. Their goal then was to only exhaust carbon dioxide and water vapor, two gases widely accepted as natural and totally harmless. Anyone old enough to remember the pall of smog that used to hang over all our cities knows how much improvement there has been. So the environmentalists, in their battle against fossil fuels and automobiles had a very good point forty years ago, but now they have to focus almost entirely on the once harmless carbon dioxide. And, that is the rub. Carbon dioxide is not an environmental problem; they just want you now to think it is.
Numerous independent research projects have been done about the greenhouse impact from increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. These studies have proven to my total satisfaction that CO2 is not creating a major greenhouse effect and is not causing an increase in temperatures. By the way, before his death, Roger Revelle coauthored a paper cautioning that CO2 and its greenhouse effect did not warrant extreme countermeasures.
So now it has come down to an intense campaign, orchestrated by environmentalists claiming that the burning of fossil fuels dooms the planet to run-away global warming. Ladies and Gentlemen, that is a myth.
So how has the entire global warming frenzy with all its predictions of dire consequences, become so widely believed, accepted and regarded as a real threat to planet Earth? That is the most amazing part of the story.
To start with global warming has the backing of the United Nations, a major world force. Second, it has the backing of a former Vice President and very popular political figure. Third it has the endorsement of Hollywood, and that’s enough for millions. And, fourth, the environmentalists love global warming. It is their tool to combat fossil fuels. So with the environmentalists, the UN, Gore and Hollywood touting Global Warming and predictions of doom and gloom, the media has scrambled with excitement to climb aboard. After all the media loves a crisis. From YK2 to killer bees the media just loves to tell us our lives are threatened. And the media is biased toward liberal, so it’s pre-programmed to support Al Gore and UN. CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press and here in San Diego The Union Tribune are all constantly promoting the global warming crisis.
So who is going to go against all of that power? Not the politicians. So now the President of the United States, just about every Governor, most Senators and most Congress people, both of the major current candidates for President, most other elected officials on all levels of government are all riding the Al Gore Global Warming express. That is one crowded bus.
I suspect you haven’t heard it because the mass media did not report it, but I am not alone on the no man-made warming side of this issue. On May 20th, a list of the names of over thirty-one thousand scientists who refute global warming was released. Thirty-one thousand of which 9,000 are Ph.ds. Think about that. Thirty-one thousand. That dwarfs the supposed 2,500 scientists on the UN panel. In the past year, five hundred of scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. A few more join the chorus every week. There are about 100 defectors from the UN IPCC. There was an International Conference of Climate Change Skeptics in New York in March of this year. One hundred of us gave presentations. Attendance was limited to six hundred people. Every seat was taken. There are a half dozen excellent internet sites that debunk global warming. And, thank goodness for KUSI and Michael McKinnon, its owner. He allows me to post my comments on global warming on the website KUSI.com. Following the publicity of my position form Fox News, Glen Beck on CNN, Rush Limbaugh and a host of other interviews, thousands of people come to the website and read my comments. I get hundreds of supportive emails from them. No I am not alone and the debate is not over.
In my remarks in New York I speculated that perhaps we should sue Al Gore for fraud because of his carbon credits trading scheme. That remark has caused a stir in the fringe media and on the internet. The concept is that if the media won’t give us a hearing and the other side will not debate us, perhaps we could use a Court of law to present our papers and our research and if the Judge is unbiased and understands science, we win. The media couldn’t ignore that. That idea has become the basis for legal research by notable attorneys and discussion among global warming debunkers, but it’s a long way from the Court room.
I am very serious about this issue. I think stamping out the global warming scam is vital to saving our wonderful way of life.
The battle against fossil fuels has controlled policy in this country for decades. It was the environmentalist’s prime force in blocking any drilling for oil in this country and the blocking the building of any new refineries, as well. So now the shortage they created has sent gasoline prices soaring. And, it has lead to the folly of ethanol, which is also partly behind the fuel price increases; that and our restricted oil policy. The ethanol folly is also creating a food crisis throughput the world – it is behind the food price rises for all the grains, for cereals, bread, everything that relies on corn or soy or wheat, including animals that are fed corn, most processed foods that use corn oil or soybean oil or corn syrup. Food shortages or high costs have led to food riots in some third world countries and made the cost of eating out or at home budget busting for many.
So now the global warming myth actually has lead to the chaos we are now enduring with energy and food prices. We pay for it every time we fill our gas tanks. Not only is it running up gasoline prices, it has changed government policy impacting our taxes, our utility bills and the entire focus of government funding. And, now the Congress is considering a cap and trade carbon credits policy. We the citizens will pay for that, too. It all ends up in our taxes and the price of goods and services.
So the Global warming frenzy is, indeed, threatening our civilization. Not because global warming is real; it is not. But because of the all the horrible side effects of the global warming scam.
I love this civilization. I want to do my part to protect it.
If Al Gore and his global warming scare dictates the future policy of our governments, the current economic downturn could indeed become a recession, drift into a depression and our modern civilization could fall into an abyss. And it would largely be a direct result of the global warming frenzy.
My mission, in what is left of a long and exciting lifetime, is to stamp out this Global Warming silliness and let all of us get on with enjoying our lives and loving our planet, Earth.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Historical Data On Global Warming
The following information was sent as a link in a comment on this blog by Mr. Dan Pangburn. The data and its presentation seem legitimate. Importantly, he provides valuable sources for his data. He has obviously done some independent research on the subject and I thank him for his efforts. I agree with his conclusion that the historical records shows little, if any, causative correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. Any comments are welcome.
Peter
The temperature1 has varied substantially while the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere2 exhibits a smooth progressive rise. Note on this graph that prior to about 1910, and again from 1944 to about 1976, temperature showed a decreasing trend while atmospheric carbon dioxide level was increasing. Thus, as shown on this graph, until 1998 the average global temperature trend and atmospheric carbon dioxide level went in the same direction about half the time and in opposite directions the other half. The temperature rise that received so much attention and contributed to the Global Warming mistake lasted for about 22 years from 1976 to 1998. The temperature stopped significant increase in 1998. According to NOAA data, the average global temperature trended down during 2007 to lower than it was in 1998. This down-trend continues with the average for the first two months of 2008 being substantially lower.
The Vostok ice core data provide carbon dioxide level4 only until about 340 BC. More recent data on atmospheric carbon dioxide level is provided by ice cores from Law Dome6, Antarctica and atmospheric sampling at Mauna Loa . Vostok and Law Dome carbon dioxide data are both plotted on the following graph along with the Vostok3, Sargasso and recent1 temperature data. This shows that, during the current interglacial period, temperature changes occur while carbon dioxide level undergoes little change until about 1750AD. This demonstrates that global temperature change does not depend on atmospheric carbon dioxide level change. As shown on the previous graph, if temperature change was maintained long enough the atmospheric carbon dioxide level followed.
For most of earth’s history carbon dioxide level has been several times higher than the present8,9. The planet plunged in to the Andean-Saharan ice age 440 million years ago10 when the carbon dioxide level was over ten times higher than now.
The conclusion from all this is that carbon dioxide change does NOT cause significant climate change. Actions to control the amount of non-condensing greenhouse gases that are added to the atmosphere are based on the mistaken assumption that global warming was caused by human activity. These actions put freedom and prosperity at risk.
7. Data through 2006 is at ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/mlo/ other sources through 2007 at http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ Mauna Loa recent months at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
8. Raw science report http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/Geocarb_III-Berner.pdf
Peter
15 Mar 2008
Historical Data on Global Warming
Historical Data on Global Warming
provided by U.S. Government Agencies
By Dan Pangburn, P.E.
I have been researching the global warming issue for months. I am a licensed Mechanical Engineer with an MSc in Mechanical Engineering. The following is a brief verbal description of some of my sources and findings with graphics that show these findings.
Climate obviously has changed and will continue to change. But the observation that ice is melting, which can look dramatic on TV, does not show that human activity is the cause. The assertion that humans have or ever can have a significant influence on climate such as by limiting the use of fossil fuel (a.k.a. limiting human production of carbon dioxide) is not supported by any historical record. Avoid the group-think ‘consensus science’ and de facto censorship by Climate Scientists. Directly interrogate official government data that taxpayers have paid for from ORNL and NOAA as follows:
By Dan Pangburn, P.E.
I have been researching the global warming issue for months. I am a licensed Mechanical Engineer with an MSc in Mechanical Engineering. The following is a brief verbal description of some of my sources and findings with graphics that show these findings.
Climate obviously has changed and will continue to change. But the observation that ice is melting, which can look dramatic on TV, does not show that human activity is the cause. The assertion that humans have or ever can have a significant influence on climate such as by limiting the use of fossil fuel (a.k.a. limiting human production of carbon dioxide) is not supported by any historical record. Avoid the group-think ‘consensus science’ and de facto censorship by Climate Scientists. Directly interrogate official government data that taxpayers have paid for from ORNL and NOAA as follows:
The temperature1 has varied substantially while the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere2 exhibits a smooth progressive rise. Note on this graph that prior to about 1910, and again from 1944 to about 1976, temperature showed a decreasing trend while atmospheric carbon dioxide level was increasing. Thus, as shown on this graph, until 1998 the average global temperature trend and atmospheric carbon dioxide level went in the same direction about half the time and in opposite directions the other half. The temperature rise that received so much attention and contributed to the Global Warming mistake lasted for about 22 years from 1976 to 1998. The temperature stopped significant increase in 1998. According to NOAA data, the average global temperature trended down during 2007 to lower than it was in 1998. This down-trend continues with the average for the first two months of 2008 being substantially lower.
1. Temperature from 1880 through 2007 from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html with most recent by month at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/perspectives.html
2. Carbon dioxide level through 2004 from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ and from 2004 to current from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
In the previous graph it appears that since 1976 the increasing carbon dioxide level has caused the average global temperature to rise. However, a close look at the graph below3,4 reveals the fact that, typically in the past, global average temperature rose or fell before the carbon dioxide level changed.
In the previous graph it appears that since 1976 the increasing carbon dioxide level has caused the average global temperature to rise. However, a close look at the graph below3,4 reveals the fact that, typically in the past, global average temperature rose or fell before the carbon dioxide level changed.
Advocates of the idea that recent human activity has caused global warming rationalize this lag of carbon dioxide change to temperature change, which existed before human activity was an issue, with the theory that something external started the temperature change, the temperature change caused carbon dioxide change and then a positive feed back effect from the added atmospheric carbon dioxide caused the temperature change to continue. However, as the temperature record shows, temperature change began and ended at many different temperature levels. This would not be possible with significant positive feedback. Thus significant positive feedback did not exist then and does not exist now. Back then the atmospheric carbon dioxide increased as the ocean temperature increased driving out dissolved carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The current atmospheric carbon dioxide increase is all a result of burning fossil fuel. Added carbon dioxide has no significant influence on average global temperature. Global average temperature change must be driven by factors other than carbon dioxide level.
Although the time scale on this graph can make times look close together, the change in atmospheric carbon dioxide level typically lagged average earth temperature change by hundreds of years. Note especially the period around 112,000 years ago when the decline in carbon dioxide level lagged the decline in average global temperature by thousands of years. Also on this graph, observe that temperature went up and down quickly and frequently while carbon dioxide level changed comparatively slowly. Note also that this graph is in years before 1999 so the present time is at the left side of the graph.
3. Temperature change (or anomalies per their terminology) are per the Vostok, Antarctica ice cores from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/temp/vostok/vostok.1999.temp.dat
4. Carbon dioxide levels from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.html
This graph also shows that global temperature change is not significantly influenced by atmospheric carbon dioxide level change. Sargasso Sea Surface Temperatures5 were compiled from proxies and reported at Keigwin, L. D. (1996) Science 274, 1504-1508. These temperatures are corroborated by historical records of colonizing and abandoning Greenland, vineyards in England , freezing of the Themes, etc. Anomalies determined from the Sargasso temperature data (obtained by subtracting 22.6 from all temperatures) agree only crudely with anomalies from Vostok3. Although Sargasso temperatures are corroborated by historical records of events, they may have been heavily influenced by ocean currents and thus be less representative of global average temperature. Sargasso anomalies are shown for the period that they are available.
3. Temperature change (or anomalies per their terminology) are per the Vostok, Antarctica ice cores from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/temp/vostok/vostok.1999.temp.dat4. Carbon dioxide levels from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.html
This graph also shows that global temperature change is not significantly influenced by atmospheric carbon dioxide level change. Sargasso Sea Surface Temperatures5 were compiled from proxies and reported at Keigwin, L. D. (1996) Science 274, 1504-1508. These temperatures are corroborated by historical records of colonizing and abandoning Greenland, vineyards in England , freezing of the Themes, etc. Anomalies determined from the Sargasso temperature data (obtained by subtracting 22.6 from all temperatures) agree only crudely with anomalies from Vostok3. Although Sargasso temperatures are corroborated by historical records of events, they may have been heavily influenced by ocean currents and thus be less representative of global average temperature. Sargasso anomalies are shown for the period that they are available.
The Vostok ice core data provide carbon dioxide level4 only until about 340 BC. More recent data on atmospheric carbon dioxide level is provided by ice cores from Law Dome6, Antarctica and atmospheric sampling at Mauna Loa . Vostok and Law Dome carbon dioxide data are both plotted on the following graph along with the Vostok3, Sargasso and recent1 temperature data. This shows that, during the current interglacial period, temperature changes occur while carbon dioxide level undergoes little change until about 1750AD. This demonstrates that global temperature change does not depend on atmospheric carbon dioxide level change. As shown on the previous graph, if temperature change was maintained long enough the atmospheric carbon dioxide level followed.
5. Sargasso SST ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/keigwin1996/
6. Law Dome carbon dioxide data http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/lawdome.combined.dat
This graph is a higher-resolution time scale of the previous graph showing detail of the last 1000 years with several other sources of carbon dioxide data added. The added data corroborate the Law Dome data and continue measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide level to the present time from Mauna Loa7. This graph shows that the average global temperature 400 years ago was significantly higher than now and the recent rate of temperature change is not unusual. Recent measurements show that average earth temperatures in 2006 and 2007 were slightly lower than in 1998 and the average temperature for the first two months of 2008 is substantially lower.
6. Law Dome carbon dioxide data http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/lawdome.combined.dat
This graph is a higher-resolution time scale of the previous graph showing detail of the last 1000 years with several other sources of carbon dioxide data added. The added data corroborate the Law Dome data and continue measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide level to the present time from Mauna Loa7. This graph shows that the average global temperature 400 years ago was significantly higher than now and the recent rate of temperature change is not unusual. Recent measurements show that average earth temperatures in 2006 and 2007 were slightly lower than in 1998 and the average temperature for the first two months of 2008 is substantially lower.
For most of earth’s history carbon dioxide level has been several times higher than the present8,9. The planet plunged in to the Andean-Saharan ice age 440 million years ago10 when the carbon dioxide level was over ten times higher than now.
The conclusion from all this is that carbon dioxide change does NOT cause significant climate change. Actions to control the amount of non-condensing greenhouse gases that are added to the atmosphere are based on the mistaken assumption that global warming was caused by human activity. These actions put freedom and prosperity at risk.
7. Data through 2006 is at ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/mlo/ other sources through 2007 at http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ Mauna Loa recent months at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
8. Raw science report http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/Geocarb_III-Berner.pdf
9. Includes easier-to-read graph which uses the appropriate curve from 8 plus a temperature curve. http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html or http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1.shtml which appears to come from 8. and only shows carbon dioxide level.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Man-Caused Global Warming On Thin Ice....
Here is an opinion worth taking seriously. Does any politician know everything about everything? This man, Mr. Wilde, makes sense....that is all that matters.
Peter
Jun 07, 2008The Death Blow to Anthropogenic Global Warming
By Stephen Wilde, Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society
The influence of the sun has been discounted in the climate models as a contributor to the warming observed between 1975 and 1998. Those who support the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), now known as anthropogenic climate change so that recent cooling can be included in their scenario, always deny that the sun has anything to do with recent global temperature movements. The reason given is that Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) varied so little over that period that it cannot explain the warming that was observed. I don�t yet accept that TSI tells the whole story because it is ill defined and speculative as regards it’s representation of all the different ways the sun could affect the Earth via the entire available range of physical processes. Despite the limitations of TSI as an indicator of solar influence I think there are conclusions we can draw from the records we do have. Oddly, I have not seen them discussed properly anywhere else, especially not by AGW enthusiasts.
This link shows a larger graph of TSI from 1611 to 2001.
Throughout the period 1961 to about 2001, there was a steady cumulative net warming effect from the sun. The fact that the TSI was, on average, level during that period is entirely irrelevant and misleading. It is hardly likely that such a high level of TSI compared to historical levels is going to have no effect at all on global temperature changes and indeed during most of that period there was an enhanced period of positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation that imparted increasing warmth to the atmosphere.
This link contains details of my view that the sun drives the various oceanic oscillations which in turn drive global temperature variations with all other influences including CO2 being minor and often cancelling themselves out leaving the solar/oceanic driver supreme.
Does anyone really think that the CO2 we produce is effective enough to reduce that risk to zero when we have plenty of astronomic evidence of an imminent reduction in solar activity? And, moreover, the real world temperature movements are currently a good fit with the solar driver theory both as regards to warming spell, the subsequent stall and the recent turn downwards. The AGW risk analysis process (if anyone ever bothered with one) is seriously flawed. Read more here.
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Peter
Jun 07, 2008The Death Blow to Anthropogenic Global Warming
By Stephen Wilde, Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society
The influence of the sun has been discounted in the climate models as a contributor to the warming observed between 1975 and 1998. Those who support the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), now known as anthropogenic climate change so that recent cooling can be included in their scenario, always deny that the sun has anything to do with recent global temperature movements. The reason given is that Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) varied so little over that period that it cannot explain the warming that was observed. I don�t yet accept that TSI tells the whole story because it is ill defined and speculative as regards it’s representation of all the different ways the sun could affect the Earth via the entire available range of physical processes. Despite the limitations of TSI as an indicator of solar influence I think there are conclusions we can draw from the records we do have. Oddly, I have not seen them discussed properly anywhere else, especially not by AGW enthusiasts.
This link shows a larger graph of TSI from 1611 to 2001.
Throughout the period 1961 to about 2001, there was a steady cumulative net warming effect from the sun. The fact that the TSI was, on average, level during that period is entirely irrelevant and misleading. It is hardly likely that such a high level of TSI compared to historical levels is going to have no effect at all on global temperature changes and indeed during most of that period there was an enhanced period of positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation that imparted increasing warmth to the atmosphere.
This link contains details of my view that the sun drives the various oceanic oscillations which in turn drive global temperature variations with all other influences including CO2 being minor and often cancelling themselves out leaving the solar/oceanic driver supreme.
Does anyone really think that the CO2 we produce is effective enough to reduce that risk to zero when we have plenty of astronomic evidence of an imminent reduction in solar activity? And, moreover, the real world temperature movements are currently a good fit with the solar driver theory both as regards to warming spell, the subsequent stall and the recent turn downwards. The AGW risk analysis process (if anyone ever bothered with one) is seriously flawed. Read more here.
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Friday, June 6, 2008
"Cap and Tax Carbon Dioxide Emissions?
Why don't we just call the idea to cap and tax carbon dioxide emissions utterly stupid. It will not stop global warming or climate change. What it will do is increase the cost of everything that uses coal, oil or gas to generate energy and electricity, which is just about anything. The consequences will be disastrous.
Peter
Let’s Just Call It ‘Cap and Tax’
The current plan for dealing with global warming would trigger a lobbying frenzy to win new subsidies and preferential treatment.
Robert J. Samuelson
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 12:42 PM ET May 31, 2008
We'll have to discard the adage "everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it." In this era of global warming, it is inoperative, because the whole point of controlling greenhouse-gas emissions is to do something about the weather. This promises to be hard and perhaps futile, but there are good and bad ways of attempting it. One of the bad ways is "cap and trade." Unfortunately, it's the darling of environmental groups and their political allies.
The chief political virtue of cap-and-trade—a hugely complex scheme to reduce greenhouse gases—is its very complexity. This allows its environmental supporters to shape public perceptions in ways that are essentially deceptive. Cap-and-trade would act as a tax, but it's not described as a tax. It would directly regulate economic activity, but it is promoted as a "free market" mechanism. Finally, cap-and-trade would quickly become a bonanza for lobbyists, who would scramble to exploit the system for different industries, venture capitalists, localities and others. All the influence peddling would undermine the system's abstract advantages.
The Senate is scheduled to debate a cap-and-trade proposal this week, and although it's unlikely to pass, it will undoubtedly return because all the major presidential candidates support the concept. Cap-and-trade extends the long government tradition of proclaiming lofty goals that are, in practice, difficult or impossible to achieve. We've had "wars" against poverty, cancer and drugs to eradicate obvious societal ills, but poverty, cancer and drugs remain. President Bush called his landmark education law "No Child Left Behind" rather than the more plausible "Fewer Children Left Behind."
Carbon-based fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) provide about 85 percent of U.S. energy needs and generate most greenhouse gases. So, the simplest way to stop these emissions is to outlaw them. Naturally, that's what cap-and-trade does. Under the bill passed by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, companies could emit greenhouse gases only if they had annual "allowances"—quotas issued by the government. The amount of allowances would gradually decline. That's the "cap." Companies (utilities, oil refineries, steel companies) that needed extra allowances could buy them from companies that wanted to sell. That's the "trade."
Consider one version of the bill. In 2012, the cap on greenhouse gases would be 3 percent below their 2005 level and 6 percent below the level projected without any restrictions. By 2030, the cuts would be 35 percent and 44 percent, respectively. By 2050, U.S. greenhouse gases would be rapidly vanishing. Even better, their disappearance would be allegedly painless. Reviewing five economic models, the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group, finds that the cuts can be achieved without "significant adverse consequences to the economy." Fuel prices would rise, but because people would use less energy, the impact on household budgets would be modest.
This is mostly make-believe. If we suppress emissions, we also suppress today's energy sources, and because the economy needs energy, we suppress the economy. The models magically assume smooth transitions. If coal is reduced, then conservation or non-fossil-fuel sources will take its place. But in the real world, if coal-fired power plants are canceled (as many were last year), wind or nuclear power don't automatically substitute. If the supply of electricity doesn't keep pace with demand, brownouts or blackouts will result. The models don't predict real-world consequences. Of course, they didn't forecast $135-a-barrel oil or the disastrous effects of corn-based ethanol on food prices.
As mandated emissions cuts go deeper, the danger of disruptions would mount. Population increases alone raise energy demand. From 2006 to 2030, the population will grow by 22 percent (to 366 million), the number of housing units by 25 percent (to 141 million) and the amount of commercial business space by 35 percent (to 101 billion square feet), projects the Energy Information Administration. The idea that higher fuel prices will be offset mostly by lower consumption is optimistic. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a 15 percent cut in emissions from a base year would raise annual average household energy costs by almost $1,300 (in 2006 "constant" dollars), or roughly 3 percent of income for the bottom four fifths of the population.
That's how cap-and-trade would tax most Americans. As allowances become scarcer, their price would rise, and the extra cost would be passed along to customers. For the government, issuing the scarce emissions allowances would vastly expand its power. The government could sell the allowances and spend the proceeds, or it could give them away, providing a windfall to recipients. The Senate proposal does both, to the tune of about $1 trillion from 2012 to 2018. Beneficiaries would include farmers, Indian tribes, new technology companies, utilities, states and mass-transit systems. Call this "environmental pork," and it would just be a start. The program's potential to confer subsidies and preferential treatment would stimulate a lobbying frenzy. Think of today's farm programs—and multiply by 10.
Unless we find cost-effective ways of reducing the role of fossil fuels, a cap-and-trade system would ultimately break down. It wouldn't permit satisfactory economic growth. Nor would it work internationally. Developing countries, the largest source of new emissions, won't abandon fossil fuels unless there are competitive alternatives. If we're going to use price to try to stimulate those new technologies, let's at least do it honestly. Most economists think that a straightforward tax on carbon would have the same incentive effects for alternative fuels and conservation as cap-and-trade without the rigidities and uncertainties of emission limits. A tax is more visible, understandable and democratic. If environmental groups still prefer an allowance system, let's call it by its proper name: "cap and tax."
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/139454
Peter
Let’s Just Call It ‘Cap and Tax’
The current plan for dealing with global warming would trigger a lobbying frenzy to win new subsidies and preferential treatment.
Robert J. Samuelson
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 12:42 PM ET May 31, 2008
We'll have to discard the adage "everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it." In this era of global warming, it is inoperative, because the whole point of controlling greenhouse-gas emissions is to do something about the weather. This promises to be hard and perhaps futile, but there are good and bad ways of attempting it. One of the bad ways is "cap and trade." Unfortunately, it's the darling of environmental groups and their political allies.
The chief political virtue of cap-and-trade—a hugely complex scheme to reduce greenhouse gases—is its very complexity. This allows its environmental supporters to shape public perceptions in ways that are essentially deceptive. Cap-and-trade would act as a tax, but it's not described as a tax. It would directly regulate economic activity, but it is promoted as a "free market" mechanism. Finally, cap-and-trade would quickly become a bonanza for lobbyists, who would scramble to exploit the system for different industries, venture capitalists, localities and others. All the influence peddling would undermine the system's abstract advantages.
The Senate is scheduled to debate a cap-and-trade proposal this week, and although it's unlikely to pass, it will undoubtedly return because all the major presidential candidates support the concept. Cap-and-trade extends the long government tradition of proclaiming lofty goals that are, in practice, difficult or impossible to achieve. We've had "wars" against poverty, cancer and drugs to eradicate obvious societal ills, but poverty, cancer and drugs remain. President Bush called his landmark education law "No Child Left Behind" rather than the more plausible "Fewer Children Left Behind."
Carbon-based fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) provide about 85 percent of U.S. energy needs and generate most greenhouse gases. So, the simplest way to stop these emissions is to outlaw them. Naturally, that's what cap-and-trade does. Under the bill passed by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, companies could emit greenhouse gases only if they had annual "allowances"—quotas issued by the government. The amount of allowances would gradually decline. That's the "cap." Companies (utilities, oil refineries, steel companies) that needed extra allowances could buy them from companies that wanted to sell. That's the "trade."
Consider one version of the bill. In 2012, the cap on greenhouse gases would be 3 percent below their 2005 level and 6 percent below the level projected without any restrictions. By 2030, the cuts would be 35 percent and 44 percent, respectively. By 2050, U.S. greenhouse gases would be rapidly vanishing. Even better, their disappearance would be allegedly painless. Reviewing five economic models, the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group, finds that the cuts can be achieved without "significant adverse consequences to the economy." Fuel prices would rise, but because people would use less energy, the impact on household budgets would be modest.
This is mostly make-believe. If we suppress emissions, we also suppress today's energy sources, and because the economy needs energy, we suppress the economy. The models magically assume smooth transitions. If coal is reduced, then conservation or non-fossil-fuel sources will take its place. But in the real world, if coal-fired power plants are canceled (as many were last year), wind or nuclear power don't automatically substitute. If the supply of electricity doesn't keep pace with demand, brownouts or blackouts will result. The models don't predict real-world consequences. Of course, they didn't forecast $135-a-barrel oil or the disastrous effects of corn-based ethanol on food prices.
As mandated emissions cuts go deeper, the danger of disruptions would mount. Population increases alone raise energy demand. From 2006 to 2030, the population will grow by 22 percent (to 366 million), the number of housing units by 25 percent (to 141 million) and the amount of commercial business space by 35 percent (to 101 billion square feet), projects the Energy Information Administration. The idea that higher fuel prices will be offset mostly by lower consumption is optimistic. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a 15 percent cut in emissions from a base year would raise annual average household energy costs by almost $1,300 (in 2006 "constant" dollars), or roughly 3 percent of income for the bottom four fifths of the population.
That's how cap-and-trade would tax most Americans. As allowances become scarcer, their price would rise, and the extra cost would be passed along to customers. For the government, issuing the scarce emissions allowances would vastly expand its power. The government could sell the allowances and spend the proceeds, or it could give them away, providing a windfall to recipients. The Senate proposal does both, to the tune of about $1 trillion from 2012 to 2018. Beneficiaries would include farmers, Indian tribes, new technology companies, utilities, states and mass-transit systems. Call this "environmental pork," and it would just be a start. The program's potential to confer subsidies and preferential treatment would stimulate a lobbying frenzy. Think of today's farm programs—and multiply by 10.
Unless we find cost-effective ways of reducing the role of fossil fuels, a cap-and-trade system would ultimately break down. It wouldn't permit satisfactory economic growth. Nor would it work internationally. Developing countries, the largest source of new emissions, won't abandon fossil fuels unless there are competitive alternatives. If we're going to use price to try to stimulate those new technologies, let's at least do it honestly. Most economists think that a straightforward tax on carbon would have the same incentive effects for alternative fuels and conservation as cap-and-trade without the rigidities and uncertainties of emission limits. A tax is more visible, understandable and democratic. If environmental groups still prefer an allowance system, let's call it by its proper name: "cap and tax."
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/139454
Climate Security Act? Or Global Economic And Environmental Catastrophe
Mr. Solomon points out how wrong the perception is that the United Nations IPCC climate report represents a "consensus" of climate scientists. Many people believe a majority of climate scientists are in support of the concept of man-caused global warming, specifically due to carbon dioxide emissions. The other commonly-held belief he destroys is that limiting carbon dioxide emissions will be a good thing for humanity, whether it stops global warming and climate change or not.
He concludes that 1) There is no scientific consensus, and he documents why. 2) Limiting carbon dioxide emissions will have no affect on global warming, and 3) the actions being taken and proposed to limit carbon dioxide emissions are and will be an economic and humanitarian disaster.
Peter
Selective Precaution: How does the third world insure itself against Lieberman-Warner?
By Lawrence Solomon
(source)
Senators Joseph Lieberman (I., Conn.) and John Warner (R., Va.) base their proposed Climate Security Act legislation on two fundamental premises: That there is a scientific consensus on global warming and that, even if the scientists are wrong and the global-warming risk never materializes, we will at least have aided the environment. Both premises are wrong. Not just wrong. The premises could well have it exactly backwards. First, consider the alleged scientific consensus. Nearby you’ll find the cover page from the 2006 press announcement from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body coordinating the worldwide effort to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. The cover page offers this impressive claim:
2500 SCIENTIFIC EXPERT REVIEWERS
800 CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS AND
450 LEAD AUTHORS
FROM 130 COUNTRIES 6 YEARS WORK
1 REPORT2007
Impressive, isn’t it? You may be even more impressed if you see the accompanying press materials. And you can forgive the press for being impressed, too, at the intellects assembled to establish that global warming is real and manmade. After all, 2,500 expert scientists can’t be wrong. That figure of 2,500 scientists received saturation media exposure, and then it was amplified by environmental groups, bloggers, and others. A Google search of “IPCC” and “2500” produces almost 250,000 results, the vast majority of them references to the scientific consensus. Senators Lieberman and Warner can be forgiven for believing, as the press did, in the existence of a consensus.
But what did those 2,500 scientists actually endorse? To find out, I contacted the Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and asked for the names of the 2,500. I planned to canvas them to determine their precise views. The answer that came back from the Secretariat informed me that the names were not public, so I would not be able to survey them, and that the scientists were merely reviewers. The 2,500 had not endorsed the conclusions of the report and, in fact, the IPCC had not claimed that they did.
Journalists had jumped to the conclusion that the scientists the IPCC had touted were endorsers and the IPCC never saw fit to correct the record. There is no consensus of 2,500 scientist-endorsers. Moreover, many of those 2,500 reviewers turned thumbs down on the studies that they reviewed — I know this from my own interviews with them, conducted in the course of writing a book about scientists who dispute the conventional wisdom on climate change.
From my interviews, it also became clear to me that, if a consensus exists, it exists on the other side. For instance Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute, a former peer reviewer for the IPCC’s work on the spread of malaria and other diseases due to warming says, “I know of no major scientist with any long record in this field who agrees with the pronouncements of the alarmists at the IPCC.” Other scientists also told me that, in their particular discipline, the IPCC’s position was the outlier, far from the mainstream.
“So what?” many say. “Even if there is great uncertainty about the science of climate change, what harm will come of reducing our emissions of carbon dioxide? If it turns out that global warming is a natural phenomenon, we will have gained for ourselves cleaner air and less dependence on foreign oil.” As Sen. Lieberman put it in a PBS interview, “we ought to buy an insurance policy to deal with it. You know, I buy an insurance policy on my house. I don’t know there’s going to be a fire or a pipe is going to break, but I spend the money on it because the consequences of not having insurance are worse. And that’s what we’re doing here.”
This view finds favor with people across the ideological spectrum. Environmentalists, public-health advocates, and planners recognize an opportunity to lower emissions while promoting lifestyle changes; security hawks seize on the prospect of energy self-sufficiency; others see an opportunity to make common cause with Europe. All justify the expense of meeting Kyoto’s emissions targets as an insurance policy of sorts.
The problem is that far from being an insurance policy, Kyoto represents the single greatest threat to the global environment today and its scheme for using carbon credits and carbon offsets to reduce CO2 emissions comes with horrible human costs. When we in the West purchase carbon offsets, typically someone, or some government, in the third world is paid for providing a “sink” for the carbon we’re emitting. Often that sink will be an industrial eucalyptus plantation, planted on what had been farmland or old-growth forest. Apart from the environmental amenities lost, personal tragedies abound. The former inhabitants of that land — either peasant farmers or forest peoples — will have been evicted from their lands, generally without fair compensation.
Mass evictions are also the rule with new large-scale hydro dams, which can appear to become economically feasible only because of carbon credit schemes. China’s Three Gorges Dam, touted for being carbon-free, is uprooting some two million peasants and townsfolk. Nuclear power, too, is enjoying a renaissance due to carbon pricing — nuclear reactors have never been commercially viable without subsidies, and coming back now only because of a perceived carbon crisis.
The third-world suffers from Kyoto in other ways. With farm lands in the west converted to ethanol and other biofuels, world grain prices have doubled, leading to food riots in Mexico, Egypt, Indonesia, and elsewhere. While many have criticized the economic costs of Kyoto, the treaty’s cruel social and environmental consequences represent far greater tragedies.
Environmentalists could once be counted on to insist that sound science be brought to bear on projects or policies that carried the potential for social harm, often through open processes called environmental assessments. In the rush to solve a carbon-dioxide problem that may not exist, many environmentalists have abandoned the science they once held dear and thrown precaution to the wind.—
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe, a Toronto-based environmental group, and author of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud, and those too fearful to do so (Richard Vigilante Books). His next book The Carbon Catastrophe is due out from Richard Vigilante Books in January 2009.
He concludes that 1) There is no scientific consensus, and he documents why. 2) Limiting carbon dioxide emissions will have no affect on global warming, and 3) the actions being taken and proposed to limit carbon dioxide emissions are and will be an economic and humanitarian disaster.
Peter
Selective Precaution: How does the third world insure itself against Lieberman-Warner?
By Lawrence Solomon
(source)
Senators Joseph Lieberman (I., Conn.) and John Warner (R., Va.) base their proposed Climate Security Act legislation on two fundamental premises: That there is a scientific consensus on global warming and that, even if the scientists are wrong and the global-warming risk never materializes, we will at least have aided the environment. Both premises are wrong. Not just wrong. The premises could well have it exactly backwards. First, consider the alleged scientific consensus. Nearby you’ll find the cover page from the 2006 press announcement from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body coordinating the worldwide effort to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. The cover page offers this impressive claim:
2500 SCIENTIFIC EXPERT REVIEWERS
800 CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS AND
450 LEAD AUTHORS
FROM 130 COUNTRIES 6 YEARS WORK
1 REPORT2007
Impressive, isn’t it? You may be even more impressed if you see the accompanying press materials. And you can forgive the press for being impressed, too, at the intellects assembled to establish that global warming is real and manmade. After all, 2,500 expert scientists can’t be wrong. That figure of 2,500 scientists received saturation media exposure, and then it was amplified by environmental groups, bloggers, and others. A Google search of “IPCC” and “2500” produces almost 250,000 results, the vast majority of them references to the scientific consensus. Senators Lieberman and Warner can be forgiven for believing, as the press did, in the existence of a consensus.
But what did those 2,500 scientists actually endorse? To find out, I contacted the Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and asked for the names of the 2,500. I planned to canvas them to determine their precise views. The answer that came back from the Secretariat informed me that the names were not public, so I would not be able to survey them, and that the scientists were merely reviewers. The 2,500 had not endorsed the conclusions of the report and, in fact, the IPCC had not claimed that they did.
Journalists had jumped to the conclusion that the scientists the IPCC had touted were endorsers and the IPCC never saw fit to correct the record. There is no consensus of 2,500 scientist-endorsers. Moreover, many of those 2,500 reviewers turned thumbs down on the studies that they reviewed — I know this from my own interviews with them, conducted in the course of writing a book about scientists who dispute the conventional wisdom on climate change.
From my interviews, it also became clear to me that, if a consensus exists, it exists on the other side. For instance Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute, a former peer reviewer for the IPCC’s work on the spread of malaria and other diseases due to warming says, “I know of no major scientist with any long record in this field who agrees with the pronouncements of the alarmists at the IPCC.” Other scientists also told me that, in their particular discipline, the IPCC’s position was the outlier, far from the mainstream.
“So what?” many say. “Even if there is great uncertainty about the science of climate change, what harm will come of reducing our emissions of carbon dioxide? If it turns out that global warming is a natural phenomenon, we will have gained for ourselves cleaner air and less dependence on foreign oil.” As Sen. Lieberman put it in a PBS interview, “we ought to buy an insurance policy to deal with it. You know, I buy an insurance policy on my house. I don’t know there’s going to be a fire or a pipe is going to break, but I spend the money on it because the consequences of not having insurance are worse. And that’s what we’re doing here.”
This view finds favor with people across the ideological spectrum. Environmentalists, public-health advocates, and planners recognize an opportunity to lower emissions while promoting lifestyle changes; security hawks seize on the prospect of energy self-sufficiency; others see an opportunity to make common cause with Europe. All justify the expense of meeting Kyoto’s emissions targets as an insurance policy of sorts.
The problem is that far from being an insurance policy, Kyoto represents the single greatest threat to the global environment today and its scheme for using carbon credits and carbon offsets to reduce CO2 emissions comes with horrible human costs. When we in the West purchase carbon offsets, typically someone, or some government, in the third world is paid for providing a “sink” for the carbon we’re emitting. Often that sink will be an industrial eucalyptus plantation, planted on what had been farmland or old-growth forest. Apart from the environmental amenities lost, personal tragedies abound. The former inhabitants of that land — either peasant farmers or forest peoples — will have been evicted from their lands, generally without fair compensation.
Mass evictions are also the rule with new large-scale hydro dams, which can appear to become economically feasible only because of carbon credit schemes. China’s Three Gorges Dam, touted for being carbon-free, is uprooting some two million peasants and townsfolk. Nuclear power, too, is enjoying a renaissance due to carbon pricing — nuclear reactors have never been commercially viable without subsidies, and coming back now only because of a perceived carbon crisis.
The third-world suffers from Kyoto in other ways. With farm lands in the west converted to ethanol and other biofuels, world grain prices have doubled, leading to food riots in Mexico, Egypt, Indonesia, and elsewhere. While many have criticized the economic costs of Kyoto, the treaty’s cruel social and environmental consequences represent far greater tragedies.
Environmentalists could once be counted on to insist that sound science be brought to bear on projects or policies that carried the potential for social harm, often through open processes called environmental assessments. In the rush to solve a carbon-dioxide problem that may not exist, many environmentalists have abandoned the science they once held dear and thrown precaution to the wind.—
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe, a Toronto-based environmental group, and author of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud, and those too fearful to do so (Richard Vigilante Books). His next book The Carbon Catastrophe is due out from Richard Vigilante Books in January 2009.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Offshore Drilling For Oil and Gas: A Good Thing In Many Ways
There are many myths perpetuated by the mainstream media, and lacking any other information, the public generally accepts what we hear on the nightly news, and read in most popular publications. The following essay about offshore drilling dispels several of these myths.
First, I admit I have always assumed offshore drilling and production platforms were pretty "dirty" affairs, with unavoidable oil and gas leaks, and other pollutants finding their way into the ocean. According to this article, Louisiana, with 3,200 production platforms, has never had a major oil spill. It seems the major oil spills come from the shipment of oil in tankers, not from the production of oil.
Then there is the issue of the benefits to the marine fisheries by the "artificial reef" environments created by these oil and gas production platforms. Apparently the fish and fishermen love them! Who would have thought it? Not our ever-vigilant "environmentalists apparently. The article makes a strong case for opening up other offshore areas of the United States for oil and gas exploration and production.
Peter
The Environmental Benefits of Offshore Drilling
Humberto Fontova
Monday, June 02, 2008
source
Louisiana produces almost 30 per cent of America's commercial fisheries. Only Alaska (ten times the size of the Bayou state) produces slightly more. So obviously, Louisiana's coastal waters are immensely rich and prolific in seafood.
These same coastal waters contain 3,200 of the roughly 3,700 offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. From these, Louisiana also produces 25 per cent of America's domestic oil, and no major oil spill has ever soiled its coast. So for those interested in evidence over hysterics, by simply looking bayou-ward, a lesson in the “environmental perils” of offshore oil drilling presents itself very clearly.
Fashionable Florida, on the other hand, which zealously prohibits offshore oil drilling, had its gorgeous "Emerald Coast" panhandle beaches soiled by an ugly oil spill in 1976. This spill, as almost all oil spills, resulted from the transportation of oil – not from the extraction of oil. Assuming such as Hugo Chavez deign to keep selling us oil, we'll need increasingly more and we'll need to keep transporting it stateside – typically to refineries in Louisiana and Texas.
This path takes those tankers (as the one in 1976) smack in front of Florida's panhandle beaches. Recall the Valdez, the Cadiz, the Argo Merchant. These were all tanker spills. The production of oil is relatively clean and safe. Again, it's the transportation that presents the greatest risk. And even these spills (though hyped hysterically as environmental catastrophes) always play out as minor blips, those pictures of oil-soaked seagulls notwithstanding. To the horror and anguish of professional greenies, Alaska's Prince William Sound recovered completely. More birds get fried by landing on power lines and smashed to pulp against picture windows in one week than perished from three decades of oil spills.
For fear of oil spills, as of 2008, the U.S. Federal government and various states ban drilling in thousands upon thousands of square miles off the U.S. Coast. These areas, primarily on the Outer Continental Shelf, hold an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil and 633 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This leaves America 's energy needs increasingly at the mercy of foreign autocrats, despots and maniacs. All the while worldwide demand for oil ratchets ever and ever upward.
"Environmentalists" wake up in the middle of the night sweating and whimpering about offshore oil platforms only because they've never seen what's under them. This proliferation of marine life around the platforms turned on its head every "environmental expert" opinion of its day.
The original plan, mandated by federal environmental "experts" back in the late '40s, was to remove the big, ugly, polluting, environmentally hazardous contraptions as soon as they stopped producing. Fine, said the oil companies.
About 15 years ago some wells played out off Louisiana and the oil companies tried to comply. Their ears are still ringing from the clamor fishermen put up. Turns out those platforms are going nowhere, and by popular demand of those with a bigger stake in the marine environment than any "environmentalist."
Every "environmental" superstition against these structures was turned on its head. Marine life had EXPLODED around these huge artificial reefs: A study by LSU's Sea Grant college shows that 85 percent of Louisiana fishing trips involve fishing around these platforms. The same study shows 50 times more marine life around an oil production platform than in the surrounding Gulf bottoms.
An environmental study (by apparently honest scientists) revealed that urban runoff and treated sewage dump 12 times the amount of petroleum into the Gulf than those thousands of oil production platforms. And oil seeping naturally through the ocean floor into the Gulf, where it dissipates over time, accounts for 7 times the amount spilled by rigs and pipelines in any given year.
The Flower Garden coral reefs lie off the Louisiana-Texas border. Unlike any of the Florida Keys reefs, they're surrounded by dozens of offshore oil platforms.
These have been pumping away for the past 50 years. Yet according to G.P. Schmahl, a Federal biologist who worked for decades in both places, "The Flower Gardens are much healthier, more pristine than anything in the Florida Keys. It was a surprise to me," he admits. "And I think it's a surprise to most people."
"A key measure of the health of a reef is the amount of area taken up by coral," according to a report by Steve Gittings, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's science coordinator for marine sanctuaries. "Louisiana's Flower Garden boasts nearly 50 percent coral cover. In the Florida Keys it can run as little as 5 percent."
Mark Ferrulo, a Florida "environmental activist" uses the very example of Louisiana for his anti-offshore drilling campaign, calling Louisiana's coast "the nation's toilet."
Florida's fishing fleet must love fishing in toilets, and her restaurants serving what's in them. Most of the red snapper you eat in Florida restaurants are caught around Louisiana's oil platforms. We see the Florida-registered boats tied up to them constantly. Sometimes us locals can barely squeeze in.
In 1986 Louisiana started the Rigs to Reef program, a cooperative effort by oil companies, the feds and the state. This program literally pays the oil companies to keep the platforms in the Gulf. Now some platforms are simply cut off at the bottom and toppled over as artificial reefs; over 60 have been toppled thus far.
A few years back, Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries officials were invited to Australia to help them with a similar program. Think about it: here's Australia, the nation with the Great Barrier Reef, the world's biggest natural reef, the world's top dive destination – they're asking help from “the nation's toilet” about developing exciting dive sites by using the very structures that epitomize (in greenie eyes) environmental disaster.
America desperately needs more domestic oil. In the process of producing it, we'd also get dynamite fishing, dynamite diving, and a cheaper tab for broiled red snapper with shrimp topping.
Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
First, I admit I have always assumed offshore drilling and production platforms were pretty "dirty" affairs, with unavoidable oil and gas leaks, and other pollutants finding their way into the ocean. According to this article, Louisiana, with 3,200 production platforms, has never had a major oil spill. It seems the major oil spills come from the shipment of oil in tankers, not from the production of oil.
Then there is the issue of the benefits to the marine fisheries by the "artificial reef" environments created by these oil and gas production platforms. Apparently the fish and fishermen love them! Who would have thought it? Not our ever-vigilant "environmentalists apparently. The article makes a strong case for opening up other offshore areas of the United States for oil and gas exploration and production.
Peter
The Environmental Benefits of Offshore Drilling
Humberto Fontova
Monday, June 02, 2008
source
Louisiana produces almost 30 per cent of America's commercial fisheries. Only Alaska (ten times the size of the Bayou state) produces slightly more. So obviously, Louisiana's coastal waters are immensely rich and prolific in seafood.
These same coastal waters contain 3,200 of the roughly 3,700 offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. From these, Louisiana also produces 25 per cent of America's domestic oil, and no major oil spill has ever soiled its coast. So for those interested in evidence over hysterics, by simply looking bayou-ward, a lesson in the “environmental perils” of offshore oil drilling presents itself very clearly.
Fashionable Florida, on the other hand, which zealously prohibits offshore oil drilling, had its gorgeous "Emerald Coast" panhandle beaches soiled by an ugly oil spill in 1976. This spill, as almost all oil spills, resulted from the transportation of oil – not from the extraction of oil. Assuming such as Hugo Chavez deign to keep selling us oil, we'll need increasingly more and we'll need to keep transporting it stateside – typically to refineries in Louisiana and Texas.
This path takes those tankers (as the one in 1976) smack in front of Florida's panhandle beaches. Recall the Valdez, the Cadiz, the Argo Merchant. These were all tanker spills. The production of oil is relatively clean and safe. Again, it's the transportation that presents the greatest risk. And even these spills (though hyped hysterically as environmental catastrophes) always play out as minor blips, those pictures of oil-soaked seagulls notwithstanding. To the horror and anguish of professional greenies, Alaska's Prince William Sound recovered completely. More birds get fried by landing on power lines and smashed to pulp against picture windows in one week than perished from three decades of oil spills.
For fear of oil spills, as of 2008, the U.S. Federal government and various states ban drilling in thousands upon thousands of square miles off the U.S. Coast. These areas, primarily on the Outer Continental Shelf, hold an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil and 633 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This leaves America 's energy needs increasingly at the mercy of foreign autocrats, despots and maniacs. All the while worldwide demand for oil ratchets ever and ever upward.
"Environmentalists" wake up in the middle of the night sweating and whimpering about offshore oil platforms only because they've never seen what's under them. This proliferation of marine life around the platforms turned on its head every "environmental expert" opinion of its day.
The original plan, mandated by federal environmental "experts" back in the late '40s, was to remove the big, ugly, polluting, environmentally hazardous contraptions as soon as they stopped producing. Fine, said the oil companies.
About 15 years ago some wells played out off Louisiana and the oil companies tried to comply. Their ears are still ringing from the clamor fishermen put up. Turns out those platforms are going nowhere, and by popular demand of those with a bigger stake in the marine environment than any "environmentalist."
Every "environmental" superstition against these structures was turned on its head. Marine life had EXPLODED around these huge artificial reefs: A study by LSU's Sea Grant college shows that 85 percent of Louisiana fishing trips involve fishing around these platforms. The same study shows 50 times more marine life around an oil production platform than in the surrounding Gulf bottoms.
An environmental study (by apparently honest scientists) revealed that urban runoff and treated sewage dump 12 times the amount of petroleum into the Gulf than those thousands of oil production platforms. And oil seeping naturally through the ocean floor into the Gulf, where it dissipates over time, accounts for 7 times the amount spilled by rigs and pipelines in any given year.
The Flower Garden coral reefs lie off the Louisiana-Texas border. Unlike any of the Florida Keys reefs, they're surrounded by dozens of offshore oil platforms.
These have been pumping away for the past 50 years. Yet according to G.P. Schmahl, a Federal biologist who worked for decades in both places, "The Flower Gardens are much healthier, more pristine than anything in the Florida Keys. It was a surprise to me," he admits. "And I think it's a surprise to most people."
"A key measure of the health of a reef is the amount of area taken up by coral," according to a report by Steve Gittings, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's science coordinator for marine sanctuaries. "Louisiana's Flower Garden boasts nearly 50 percent coral cover. In the Florida Keys it can run as little as 5 percent."
Mark Ferrulo, a Florida "environmental activist" uses the very example of Louisiana for his anti-offshore drilling campaign, calling Louisiana's coast "the nation's toilet."
Florida's fishing fleet must love fishing in toilets, and her restaurants serving what's in them. Most of the red snapper you eat in Florida restaurants are caught around Louisiana's oil platforms. We see the Florida-registered boats tied up to them constantly. Sometimes us locals can barely squeeze in.
In 1986 Louisiana started the Rigs to Reef program, a cooperative effort by oil companies, the feds and the state. This program literally pays the oil companies to keep the platforms in the Gulf. Now some platforms are simply cut off at the bottom and toppled over as artificial reefs; over 60 have been toppled thus far.
A few years back, Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries officials were invited to Australia to help them with a similar program. Think about it: here's Australia, the nation with the Great Barrier Reef, the world's biggest natural reef, the world's top dive destination – they're asking help from “the nation's toilet” about developing exciting dive sites by using the very structures that epitomize (in greenie eyes) environmental disaster.
America desperately needs more domestic oil. In the process of producing it, we'd also get dynamite fishing, dynamite diving, and a cheaper tab for broiled red snapper with shrimp topping.
Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The Holy Goran.....And Other Pictures
Pictures to save........for fun and education......
The oil platform Statfjord A is seen in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea in this undated file photo. An oil spill at the large Statfjord oilfield in the North Sea shut about 138,000 barrels per day of production on May 24, 2008 and triggered the evacuation of workers, but the leak has been stopped, operator StatoilHydro said. REUTERS/Scanpix/Oddvar Walle Jensen (NORWAY
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