Alan Ferguson, The Province
If the cheerleading section for Gordon Campbell’s gas tax will sit quiet for a moment, I’d like you to meet some smart folks who think the premier’s plan is pure madness. They call themselves the International Climate Science Coalition, whose chairman is Tim Patterson, Earth Sciences Professor at Ottawa’s Carleton University. They got together in New York in March to hammer out a response to what they considered to be unnecessary global panic over climate change. What came out of their meeting was a document called the Manhattan Declaration, a blistering indictment of the received wisdom on global warming. (Note: also see this story where signatories topped 1,100).
What heresies does it contain? The kind to make David Suzuki’s toes curl. First, it “affirms that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant, but rather a necessity for all life.” It says: “Attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.” There’s more! Current plans to restrict man-made CO2 emissions, “are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.”
Carbon taxes “will reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering. “All taxes, regulations and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 (should) be abandoned forthwith.” Back to the ICSC. As Tim Patterson puts it: “Millions of Canadians are coming to understand that the only constant about climate change IS change—it changes constantly. Yet, governments continue wasting our money on the ridiculous goal of ‘stopping climate change.’” Read more here.
By Andy Revkin New York Times dotearth blog
"Big Coal is firing back at James Hansen, NASA’s top climate expert, who on Monday told a House committee on energy and climate that he thought top executives of coal and oil companies should be tried for “crimes against humanity and nature.”
Below is a note sent to me by Vic Svec, who you heard from here earlier in the year in relation to efforts by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, a rising star in the Democratic Party, to deny permits for two proposed coal-burning power plants because of their potential contribution to global warming. Mr. Svec is a senior vice president for Peabody, which is the largest private coal producer in the world (to get an idea of their volume, and mission, visit peabodyenergy.com and watch the amazing coal-sales “ticker” at the bottom reel off tons of coal sold per second.
Here’s what Mr. Svec said about Dr. Hansen’s assertions:
1. His use of Holocaust analogies is outrageous and demeaning. It cheapens the dialogue and invites ridicule.
2. The suggestion that a dissemination of ideas be criminalized –- coming from a government employee no less –- does hearken back to World War II. It is stunning and should be pounced upon by everyone who advocates free speech, from the ACLU and talk radio complex to yourself.
3. Blaming big oil and big coal for the broad array of opinions about climate change is disingenuous. If he would imprison those who don’t march in lockstep with his views, the jails would be very, very big. It would include thousands of scientists and university professors and the likes of the president of the Czech Republic, a former founder of Greenpeace and the former founder of The Weather Channel.
4. Speaking for Peabody, our time and energy are being devoted to satisfying an energy-hungry world’s need for coal and advancing the commercialization of carbon capture and storage technology. Among other initiatives, we’re proud to have reduced our greenhouse gas emissions intensity by more than 30% since 1990; to be the initial developer of a supercritical coal plant that will emit 15% lower carbon dioxide than existing plants; to be a founding member of the FutureGen Alliance; to be a part of Australia’s low-carbon Coal 21 program; and to be the only non-Chinese partner in China’s zero-emissions GreenGen project.
In short, while some are interested in sound bites, we’ll keep going about the serious work of providing clean coal, energy solutions and environmental improvement.
Best Regards,
Vic Svec
The Washington Times Editorial
Yesterday, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen, called for oil executives to be tried for “high crimes against humanity and nature.” He also pledged to campaign against members of Congress with “poor” climate-change records, reported the Guardian. This follows comparisons of adversaries to Holocaust deniers and bosses of organized crime and a long record of adversarial relations with the elected officials who, in theory, oversee him. In short, Mr. Hansen sounds like a member of Congress, or perhaps Al Gore - which, indeed, points to two of the legitimate options a vocal, caustic public advocate such as Mr. Hansen has in a representative democracy. High technocrat for global warming is not one of them.
The question is: Would Mr. Hansen’s blatant political advocacy be tolerated anywhere else in the federal government? Could a decorated general advocate an invasion of Iran or North Korea, calling his congressional opponents weak or traitorous, without violating his office? Of course not. The NASA climate-science chief should stop trading on the public trust of an unappointed federal scientific position and try running for one of the offices that possess the legitimate powers he seeks to usurp.
Certainly no one should expect Mr. Hansen to act upon the merits of this argument on his own. A scientific institution such as the Goddard Institute for Space Studies is perhaps the ideal place for an ambitious empire-builder to push the limits of political advocacy while retaining the credibility of science. Housed in New York City’s Columbia University and affiliated with its well-funded, well-connected Earth Institute, Mr. Hansen’s operation is far removed from Washington’s political tentacles at Goddard’s main campus in Beltsville, Md. The United States is still a representative democracy. The sort of high-priest technocrat that Mr. Hansen presumes to be stands outside that tradition. An advocate is an advocate. Read more here.
By Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit
As noted in other posts, IPCC policies state: All written expert, and government review comments will be made available to reviewers on request during the review process and will be retained in an open archive in a location determined by the IPCC Secretariat on completion of the Report for a period of at least five years.
Despite this, IPCC Review Editor John Mitchell of the UK Met Office claimed to have destroyed all their working documents and correspondence pertaining to his duties as Review Editor and the Met Office also claims to have expunged all records. David Holland has also made FOI inquiries to Keith Briffa, a lead author of AR4 chapter 6. The June 3rd refusal by David Palmer included the following comments:
“In accordance with s.17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal Notice, and I am not obliged to supply this information and the reasons for exemption are as stated below
Cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit: The cost of finding and assembling the information will exceed the appropriate limit
Information provided in confidence: The release of this information would constitute an actionable breach of confidence.
Given the amount of material covered by your request, the cost of compliance in locating, retrieving and in the reading, editing or redaction of the relevant documents would clearly exceed the appropriate limit. Additionally, we hold that the exemption applies to all requested correspondence received by the University. We have consistently treated this information as confidential and have been assured by the persons and organisations giving this information to us that they believe it to be confidential and would expect to be treated as such. The public interest in withholding this information outweighs that of releasing it due to the need to protect the openness and confidentiality of academic intercourse prior to publication which, in turn, assures that such cooperation & openness can continue and inform scientific research and debate.”
OK, CRU says that they have “been assured by the persons and organisations giving this information to us that they believe it to be confidential” OK, what “organisations” are we talking about here? The only organization in question is IPCC, whose procedures require that comments be public. Is IPCC interfering at CRU off the record to prevent CRU from releasing supposedly open comments? Read more here.
The Local, Sweden’s News in English
Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria is one of a number of Scandinavian royals making for the Arctic archipelago on the Swedish ice-breaker Oden this weekend to participate in an event to coincide with and promote International Polar Year.
But will there even be a need for such ice-breaking vessels in years to come? Many commentators would have us believe that glaciers and ocean ice are about to go the way of the dodo. Upon their arrival at Svalbard in Norway, however, the royals are likely to be informed by Swedish polar researchers that there is in fact very little concrete proof tying global warming to climate changes in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Some indeed argue that there is more change in today’s political rhetoric than there is in the environment.
Every researcher seems to display a similar reticence when it comes to drawing far-reaching conclusions. Andrew Mercer studies the changes in glacier forms in the Arctic region at Stockholm University. “It is quite a big picture—we are talking about the whole planet. We have to compare many studies and often data is not available elsewhere in the same way it is here in Sweden,” he says, before adding that churches in Sweden have meteorological records dating back a few hundred years. Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, was one of the first Swedish scientists to study the effects of climate on wildlife.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, Swedish glaciers grew in size, which should indicate that we have had colder weather. But in fact there were other factors that contributed to their growth,” Mercer says.
A tiny oasis in the vast expanse of Sweden’s glacier-carved Lapland wilderness, 625 miles north of Stockholm, Riksgransen was host to Scandinavian Big Mountain Championships, an extreme freeriding contest
Last year Sweden invested more than 33 million kronor ($5 million) on research in the Arctic region, which covers almost one quarter of the nation’s landmass. Most of the Swedish funding, according to many researchers, goes mainly toward surveying the effects of climate change on glaciers and wildlife. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, ACIA, anticipates the disappearance of all ocean ice in the period from 2060-2100 should global warming continue at the current rate. However, Swedish scientists are not convinced that today’s meteorological trends will stand the test of time. Read more here.
By Investor’s Business Daily
We can’t drill our way out of the problem,” goes the Democratic mantra on oil. So what would Democrats do? Some in the party have the worst possible answer: “Nationalize the oil industry.” In the kind of “oops!” moments politicians have when they say something they wish they hadn’t, two House Democrats have recently suggested nationalizing the U.S. oil industry. The first was the far-left Maxine Waters of South Central Los Angeles. During a May 22 grilling of oil CEOs, she responded: “Well, I can see that this congresswoman is going to favor nationalizing the oil companies, and making sure the prices go down.”
Then, this week, responding to President Bush’s call for more drilling, the just-as-liberal Maurice Hinchey of New York’s Borscht Belt chipped in with: “We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets into the market.” This is what it’s about: “control.” And it’s extremely dangerous for our democracy because once government controls the economy, it controls you, too. Then the Constitution, which guarantees your rights as a citizen of our republic, becomes a dead letter.
What’s especially shocking is these two extremists no longer seem out of step with what used to be a centrist Party. Don’t take our word for it. A Rasmussen Poll released Tuesday showed that 37% of Democrats think nationalizing the oil companies is a good idea. Only 32% disagreed with that. Which makes us wonder: Do they even know that socialism - state ownership of the means of production - has been completely discredited by history?
For 74 years, we struggled against this evil system, and it ultimately collapsed of its own internal contradictions. Yet, apparently, many Democrats are keen to replicate its worst features here. What’s ironic about this nationalization mania is that government, specifically bad decisions made during decades of control by Democrats, is to blame for our current energy woes. Whether it’s their failure to build nuclear power plants or oil refineries, their refusal to drill for our plentiful oil, their reliance on market-destroying price controls or their absurd belief that windfall profit taxes will somehow bring us more energy, Democrat-led Congresses have failed us over and over again. They’ve demonized oil companies for the very thing they themselves are responsible for - namely, destroying the link between higher prices and increased output of energy that would naturally occur in a functioning free-market economy. Read more here.
By Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute
A year and a half ago, James Spann questioned the money and the so-called scientific consensus pushing the idea that mankind is causing global warming. Today, he says it’s losing steam. Two imminent surveys of meteorologists may further complicate the climate debate. Spann, a broadcast meteorologist for ABC 33/40, an affiliate in Birmingham, Ala., downplayed the future of the global warming movement in a June 13 appearance. He was interviewed by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council for its Washington Watch Weekly broadcast. Spann told Perkins: “[Y]ou know, there was some great power in that movement back in January of 2007,” Spann said. “It’s pretty rapidly running out of gas and it just seems like every day more and more people are coming out with the fact that that’s pretty much a hoax. And these are Ph.D climatologists that are pretty much saying what I said all along.” In January 2007, Spann received national attention when he wrote a post on his blog challenging a post by The Weather Channel climate expert Dr. Heidi Cullen. Cullen had argued that meteorologists should have the American Meteorological Society (AMS) credentials taken away if they doubt the validity of manmade climate change.
Spann explained it wasn’t his belief that carbon dioxide was a pollutant, but he told Perkins to understand the motivation of those who say it is - they should follow the grant money. “Of course, the root of this whole thing is money,” Spann said. “And, there is a vast amount of wealth being generated by this whole issue. And I always recommend to folks - if anyone speaks on the subject, get a disclosure and find out their financial interests in it.” The same claims are often made by climate change alarmists - global warming skeptics are in it for the money from big energy corporations. Spann told Perkins he has never accepted any money for speaking out about global warming alarmism, but he had reservations about money’s effects on government policy pertaining to climate change. “When I speak on this topic, I’ve never accepted one dime,” Spann said. “It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other - if warming that we’ve seen in recent years is natural or not.
But, there’s a vast amount of grant money going to very, very powerful people and I think that maybe that flows into some of the lobbying efforts and it goes and winds up in Washington. He pointed to former Vice President Al Gore as an example of how money behind climate change and global warming alarmism can perpetuate a theory that shouldn’t warrant as much merit otherwise. “I’m not a politician, don’t understand it - I honestly don’t know,” Spann said. “But, I will tell you that there’s a lot of people who have gotten very, very wealthy - filthy rich off this subject. I think former Vice President [Al Gore] collects a minimum of $200,000 per speech on this and all of this money - it can corrupt anybody, and I just think it’s all about money.”
The Press
Manmade global warming is a myth, and the cult surrounding it will fade into obscurity, says JOE FONE , but the costs and taxes imposed to combat this imagined menace will remain. (p>In 1998, a peculiar thing happened. Global warming, such as it was, came to an end. Since then, global temperatures have trended downwards, while carbon-dioxide emissions have risen. The disconnect between carbon-dioxide emissions and global temperature trends proved what many scientists had been saying for some time, that the two are unrelated. But this should have been intuitively obvious in any case because industrial carbon dioxide represents only a tiny percentage of the atmosphere, so it is hardly likely to be a powerful climatic driving force.
So what is going on? What is so special about carbon dioxide and 0.6deg warming over 150 years that has the political world in such a flap? Why is carbon dioxide considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be a polluting scourge inimical to life on Earth when the opposite is true? Despite mounting evidence that manmade climate change is a myth and the science behind it is tenuous at best, the issue is so politically entrenched that the United Nations Human Rights Council has made climate change a human-rights issue. This astounding development reflects the attitude of Maurice Strong, adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said: “We may get to the point where the only way to save the world will be for industrial civilisation to collapse.” Not to be outdone, the United States Undersecretary of State for Global Issues, Timothy Wirth, declared: “We have got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” Even worse, Richard Benedick, who headed policy divisions of the US State Department, said: “A global-warming treaty must be implemented, even if there is no scientific evidence to back the (enhanced) greenhouse effect”. “A lie told often enough becomes truth,” as Vladimir Lenin said.
Yet thousands of scientists are scathing of the IPCC’s forecasts and are concerned that science is being manipulated to prove there is a catastrophe facing mankind, when no such threat exists. They warn of the dangers in relying upon computer models, which have proved hopelessly inaccurate, while being used as a basis for massive economic change. Many scientists are concerned that the IPCC is using the implausible threat of catastrophic climate change to frighten governments into introducing drastic economic penalties for carbon emissions solely to undermine Western democracies, scientific progress and industrialisation. Read more here.