I've brought up the subject of General Electric (GE) and it's efforts promoting the concept of man-caused global warming and why they think we must do something about it. "Something" like buy fluorescent light bulbs, (which GE makes and sells), to "clean coal" technology, to solar panels, to wind turbines, to nuclear energy......all things GE makes and sells.
To add to the suspicion of their motives, they own MSNBC, NBC and Newsweek Magazine. These are all major news outlets through which they promote their corporate agenda.....by going "green", they hope to profit. They don't care whether man is causing global warming or not.....as long as they can make a profit. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working. Their stock price, which underperformed the S&P 500 for the past 5 years, reflects that. People are not buying into the global warming myth. The article below illustrates the point.
Peter
source:
Little fund says GE's 'junk science' hurts business
By Jack Markowitz FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW Thursday, April 10, 2008
General Electric Co.'s stock is a "dog," says Steven J. Milloy, and his opinion goes down from there. He accuses what is possibly America's most admired company of promoting "junk science" -- in this case, the view that human beings cause global warming -- mainly to get environmentalists off its back and to further its own business interests.
But not even all its business interests, says Milloy. Just the fraction that serves its feel-good Earth-saving markets, which it dubs "Ecomagination."
Much larger businesses will be hurt in the long run, Milloy asserts. He sees the entire U.S. and world economies damaged by the waste of billions on a false consensus -- that carbon dioxide emissions from cars, planes, power plants, essentially the entire modern standard of living, are catastrophic for the planet.
"Scientific consensus? There is no consensus," Milloy said by phone from the Potomac, Md., office of a most unusual mutual fund. The Free Enterprise Action Fund has assets of only $11.5 million -- small but hopefully with a big voice.
story continues below
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The fund wants GE, and other "establishment" corporations it owns smallish pieces of, to quit appeasing anti-business leftists by catering to the carbon dioxide phobia. Free enterprise is actively promoting the enemy, it says, pleading for more government regulations, including a GE favorite, the trading of "carbon credits." General prosperity, freedom and even a better environment are at risk, especially with a left-leaning administration apt to be voted in, according to lawyer Milloy, 49, and fellow fund leader, Thomas J. Borelli, 52, a Ph.D. scientist.
They're bringing a proposal to GE's annual meeting -- to either show the company's own evidence of a man-warmed world or quit imperiling the economy.
Chance of passage is zilch, Milloy admits. Similar resolutions have been shot down by wide margins before. Institutional investors have no interest in fighting a prestigious titan like GE. Or else they also see "green" as a growth market.
And within sensible limits it is, say the dissidents. Supplying products that are fuel-efficient and benefit consumers is "good business." But GE "goes beyond the bounds." It actively lobbies Congress and rallies other companies for tougher regulations, which are bound to "raise energy costs and reduce energy availability." It's the destructive 1990s Kyoto Protocol all over again.
This argument and GE's denial are laid out in the proxy statement for the annual meeting April 23 at the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, the lakeside city of GE's locomotive works. The company earned $22.2 billion last year, or $2.17 a share, on $173 billion in sales. Chairman Jeffrey R. Immelt's letter to 607,000 shareholders conceded that GE stock hasn't even outperformed the S&P 500 index the past five years.
But it's no dog to him. "I continue to buy GE stock in the open market," wrote the $19 million-a-year CEO, "just like you do."
Retired business editor Jack Markowitz writes Sundays and Thursdays. He can be reached at jmarkowitz@tribweb.com.
Showing posts with label Environmental Geology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environmental Geology. Show all posts
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Monday, December 10, 2007
Global Forces of Nature Driving Earth's Climate.....Are Humans Involved?
The author of this review of an article questioning the role mankind is presumed to be playing in global warming and climate change, is in my opinion, far too timid. However, his review makes it clear that many highly reputable scientists are very doubtful that man is causing global warming and climate change. The debate is far from over. Meanwhile these silly politicians are in Bali arguing over who is going to control carbon dioxide emissions and how much.
Peter
source:
December 1, 2006
Are Humans Involved in Global Warming?
Filed under: Climate History, Temperature History —
A recent issue of Environmental Geology contains an article entitled “On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved?” by two scientists at the University of Southern California. Before we examine the article, let’s get a few things on the table. First of all, the two authors (Khilyuk and Chilingar) are faculty members at what most would agree is a world-class academic institution. If their work was not up to the standards of the University of Southern California, they wouldn’t be there for long.
Second, Environmental Geology is an international multidisciplinary journal concerned with all aspects of interactions between humans, ecosystems, and the earth. It is published by Springer which is one of the leading academic publishing companies in the world. The editorial board of Environmental Geology includes 53 leading scientists from every corner of the planet; US institutions listed as primary affiliations of board members include the US Geological Survey, the University of New Orleans, the University of Missouri, the University of Kansas, the University of Oklahoma, Temple University, Wesleyan University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and so on.
The point is that Environmental Geology is a first-class journal, papers submitted to the journal are peer-reviewed by scientists at major institutions, and the journal is certainly not part of any industry-funded conspiracy to undermine actions on global warming. Submitting a paper to any journal in which you question whether humans are involved in global warming will assure a more stringent review than normal.
OK – what on earth is this paper all about? How in 2006 could credible scientists seriously question whether humans are involved in global warming? Recall that Khilyuk and Chilingar are writing for a professional journal in geology, not climatology, and it is only natural to expect geologists to look at trends in the context of very long periods of time. Their perspective on climate change would be quite naturally different from someone trained in looking at annual, decadal, or 100 year changes in climate.
The authors begin the article with the sentence “Identification and understanding of global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate is crucial for developing adequate relationship between people and nature, and for developing and implementing a sound course of action aimed at survival and welfare of the human race.” Now who would argue with that statement?
From there, they review the literature on solar output variations and earth’s temperature and show that a “one percent increase in current solar radiation reaching the Earth’s body translates directly into approximately 0.86 K increase in the Earth’s global temperature.” They show that the earth’s orbit about the sun changes over long periods of time resulting in up to a 7.5 K (1 K = 1°C = 1.8°F) modulation of the earth’s temperature. They describe how outgassing alters the composition of the atmosphere over long periods thereby altering the temperature of the earth over by over 50 K. They finally review microbial activities at the interface of the lithosphere and atmosphere that also substantially alter the composition and temperature of the global atmosphere at geological time frames. Initially, the article seems fairly tame, but as one reads more, the article becomes quite controversial.
Khilyuk and Chilingar repeatedly quantify the effect of the various processes that alter global temperature and conclude “The scope and extent of these processes are 4–5 orders of magnitude greater than the corresponding anthropogenic impacts on the Earth’s climate (such as heating and emission of the greenhouse gases).” This seems fair enough given the geological time scales considered by the authors, but you can see where the global warming crowd would be getting more uncomfortable.
The authors place the recent warming into an interesting perspective noting “the global warming observed during the latest 150 years is just a short episode in the geologic history. The current global warming is most likely a combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible for less than 0.01°C (of approximately 0.56°C (1°F) total average atmospheric heating during the last century)”. Holy cow, can you imagine the letters and e-mails they must have received in response to that conclusion? They even show that over the last 3,000 years, the earth has cooled, or if you look just at the last 1,000 years, the earth has been cooling as well (the earth was in the Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years ago).
Their conclusions with respect to potential policy will more than raise some eyebrows as well as they write “Any attempts to mitigate undesirable climatic changes using restrictive regulations are condemned to failure, because the global natural forces are at least 4–5 orders of magnitude greater than available human controls.” They show that the climatic effects of the Kyoto Protocol would be negligible, leading them to state “Thus, the Kyoto Protocol is a good example of how to achieve the minimum results with the maximum efforts (and sacrifices). Impact of available human controls will be negligible in comparison with the global forces of nature. Thus, the attempts to alter the occurring global climatic changes (and drastic measures prescribed by the Kyoto Protocol) have to be abandoned as meaningless and harmful.”
Our World Climate Reports uncover and present interesting results we find in the peer-reviewed professional scientific journals, and as we have seen over and over, there are many absolutely amazing papers published regularly in outstanding journals. The global warming crusade would denounce this paper as outrageous, but it survived rigorous peer-review, the editor elected to publish it, and like it or not, this paper is part of the serious science literature. Dismissing the paper is made more difficult given the affiliation of the authors and the prestige of the journal.
The debate on climate change is never boring, the debate is full of surprises, and anyone claiming the debate is over is simply dismissing a significant number of papers that appear regularly in the major journals.
Reference:
Khilyuk, L.F., and G. V. Chilingar. 2006. On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved? Environmental Geology, 50, 899–910.
Peter
source:
December 1, 2006
Are Humans Involved in Global Warming?
Filed under: Climate History, Temperature History —
A recent issue of Environmental Geology contains an article entitled “On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved?” by two scientists at the University of Southern California. Before we examine the article, let’s get a few things on the table. First of all, the two authors (Khilyuk and Chilingar) are faculty members at what most would agree is a world-class academic institution. If their work was not up to the standards of the University of Southern California, they wouldn’t be there for long.
Second, Environmental Geology is an international multidisciplinary journal concerned with all aspects of interactions between humans, ecosystems, and the earth. It is published by Springer which is one of the leading academic publishing companies in the world. The editorial board of Environmental Geology includes 53 leading scientists from every corner of the planet; US institutions listed as primary affiliations of board members include the US Geological Survey, the University of New Orleans, the University of Missouri, the University of Kansas, the University of Oklahoma, Temple University, Wesleyan University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and so on.
The point is that Environmental Geology is a first-class journal, papers submitted to the journal are peer-reviewed by scientists at major institutions, and the journal is certainly not part of any industry-funded conspiracy to undermine actions on global warming. Submitting a paper to any journal in which you question whether humans are involved in global warming will assure a more stringent review than normal.
OK – what on earth is this paper all about? How in 2006 could credible scientists seriously question whether humans are involved in global warming? Recall that Khilyuk and Chilingar are writing for a professional journal in geology, not climatology, and it is only natural to expect geologists to look at trends in the context of very long periods of time. Their perspective on climate change would be quite naturally different from someone trained in looking at annual, decadal, or 100 year changes in climate.
The authors begin the article with the sentence “Identification and understanding of global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate is crucial for developing adequate relationship between people and nature, and for developing and implementing a sound course of action aimed at survival and welfare of the human race.” Now who would argue with that statement?
From there, they review the literature on solar output variations and earth’s temperature and show that a “one percent increase in current solar radiation reaching the Earth’s body translates directly into approximately 0.86 K increase in the Earth’s global temperature.” They show that the earth’s orbit about the sun changes over long periods of time resulting in up to a 7.5 K (1 K = 1°C = 1.8°F) modulation of the earth’s temperature. They describe how outgassing alters the composition of the atmosphere over long periods thereby altering the temperature of the earth over by over 50 K. They finally review microbial activities at the interface of the lithosphere and atmosphere that also substantially alter the composition and temperature of the global atmosphere at geological time frames. Initially, the article seems fairly tame, but as one reads more, the article becomes quite controversial.
Khilyuk and Chilingar repeatedly quantify the effect of the various processes that alter global temperature and conclude “The scope and extent of these processes are 4–5 orders of magnitude greater than the corresponding anthropogenic impacts on the Earth’s climate (such as heating and emission of the greenhouse gases).” This seems fair enough given the geological time scales considered by the authors, but you can see where the global warming crowd would be getting more uncomfortable.
The authors place the recent warming into an interesting perspective noting “the global warming observed during the latest 150 years is just a short episode in the geologic history. The current global warming is most likely a combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible for less than 0.01°C (of approximately 0.56°C (1°F) total average atmospheric heating during the last century)”. Holy cow, can you imagine the letters and e-mails they must have received in response to that conclusion? They even show that over the last 3,000 years, the earth has cooled, or if you look just at the last 1,000 years, the earth has been cooling as well (the earth was in the Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years ago).
Their conclusions with respect to potential policy will more than raise some eyebrows as well as they write “Any attempts to mitigate undesirable climatic changes using restrictive regulations are condemned to failure, because the global natural forces are at least 4–5 orders of magnitude greater than available human controls.” They show that the climatic effects of the Kyoto Protocol would be negligible, leading them to state “Thus, the Kyoto Protocol is a good example of how to achieve the minimum results with the maximum efforts (and sacrifices). Impact of available human controls will be negligible in comparison with the global forces of nature. Thus, the attempts to alter the occurring global climatic changes (and drastic measures prescribed by the Kyoto Protocol) have to be abandoned as meaningless and harmful.”
Our World Climate Reports uncover and present interesting results we find in the peer-reviewed professional scientific journals, and as we have seen over and over, there are many absolutely amazing papers published regularly in outstanding journals. The global warming crusade would denounce this paper as outrageous, but it survived rigorous peer-review, the editor elected to publish it, and like it or not, this paper is part of the serious science literature. Dismissing the paper is made more difficult given the affiliation of the authors and the prestige of the journal.
The debate on climate change is never boring, the debate is full of surprises, and anyone claiming the debate is over is simply dismissing a significant number of papers that appear regularly in the major journals.
Reference:
Khilyuk, L.F., and G. V. Chilingar. 2006. On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved? Environmental Geology, 50, 899–910.
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