Demonising Carbon

Published at the request of Viv Forbes:

“Demonising Carbon – a Death Wish?”

 
A statement by Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.
9 March 2009
 
The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on all parties in the looming state election to make a clear statement on their policies regarding Emissions Trading and Carbon Taxes.
 
The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, said that politicians in a state so overwhelmingly dependent on carbon energy, carbon food and taxes on carbon products can no longer hide behind hypothetical anti-carbon scare stories based on dubious climate forecasts for 100 years ahead.
 
 “We have a real present emergency with growing fear among investors and shareholders in anything associated with mining, power generation, tourism and farming – the backbone industries of Queensland.”
 
“Much of this fear is generated by an insane campaign to demonise carbon dioxide, the natural atmospheric gas on which all life depends.”
 
“There is growing scientific recognition that carbon dioxide does not control climate – rather the other way around – temperatures rise because of solar influences and those rising temperatures expel carbon dioxide from that great carbon storehouse – the oceans”.
 
“There is also growing recognition that current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are very low and the gradual increases occurring at present pose no threat to any life on earth. The reverse is true – all life will benefit from more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the benefits will be increased by the slight warming experienced over the last one hundred years.
 
“We are supposed to panic over carbon dioxide levels of a miniscule 380 parts per million.
 
“Most life, plants and animals, probably developed with CO2 levels of about 1500 ppm – 400% above current levels. This fact is well understood by greenhouse operators who burn gas to increase CO2 levels to at least 1,000 ppm, 260% above current atmospheric levels.
 
“Inside populated buildings, CO2 levels of 3,000 ppm (770% above current levels) have been measured in homes, schools and offices with no ill effects. Even most Health and Safety people consider 5,000 ppm (1,300% above current levels) to be safe. Medical gas given to people with respiratory problems typically contains 50,000 ppm CO2 (13,000% above current levels) and our lung sacs retain about 65,000 ppm (16,800 % above current levels). Not until CO2 levels get to 100,000 ppm (260 times current levels) is there any concern about human health.
 
“All plant life will also benefit from increased carbon dioxide, and much of the extra food produced by the green revolution is the result of the warmer and more carbon-rich atmosphere.
 
“It seems that those who are trying to demonise carbon dioxide have a death wish for Queensland society. To achieve significant cuts in carbon emissions from man’s activities would requires massive destruction of our energy, farming, smelting, cement, transport and tourism industries, together with the jobs and prosperity of the populations that depend on them.
 
“The war against carbon is a war against coal, cattle, concrete, cars, electricity and breathing – who thinks Queensland can survive without these?
 
“It is time for the people of Queensland to be told which parties are supporting or condoning this reckless policy.”
 
————————————————————————————————-
 
 For more information on the importance of carbon dioxide to human health see:
http://carbon-sense.com/
 
————————————————————————————————————————–
 
John Coleman, an experienced meteorologist and founder of the Weather Channel has the last word:
“Global Warming: It is a hoax. It is bad science. It is high-jacking public policy. It is the greatest scam in history”.
Source:
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html
 
————————————————————————————————-
 
Viv Forbes
Chairman
The Carbon Sense Coalition
MS 23  Rosewood        Qld      4340
0754 640 533
info@carbon-sense.com                                                          www.carbon-sense.com.
 
 
The Carbon Sense Coalition was formed in Queensland by Australians concerned at the baseless demonisation of carbon dioxide by an unholy alliance of green extremists, vested interests and political and media opportunists. Support for “Carbon Sense” is growing rapidly. The Coalition aims to expose the lack of scientific support for the anti-carbon campaign, and the real and present threat to our industries and jobs if any of the current proposals for Emissions Trading Taxes or Carbon Taxes are enacted.
 

Scepticism Rises

The following is from Andrew Bolt’s blog on the Courier Mail website:

93 Comments | 0 Trackbacks | Permalink    Andrew Bolt Blog

Andrew Bolt    Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 02:25pm

 

No wonder:

Meanwhile, the ABC’s Lateline confuses predictions with observations:

LISA MILLAR, PRESENTER: Alarming new research suggests sea levels may be rising a lot faster than was previously thought.

Not true:

Seriously worser

 This one from American Thinker caught my eye –  

Global Warming: Seriously Worse than Worse

Larrey Anderson

An IPCC spokesman has now made it clear: Global warming is seriously worse than everything else anywhere and always that ever was bad. Worser than that.

Chris Field is the IPCC panel member. Reuters quotes Field as saying, “The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we’ve considered seriously.”

Seriously. Fields said, “the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious” than any of the climate predictions in the IPCC’s fourth assessment report called “Climate Change 2007.” Seriously … this time it is worse than serious.

At least this worse than serious time, the IPCC is not blaming it on my non-florescent light bulbs. Reuters states :

The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday.

Well maybe. There is no doubt about which countries can’t keep their carbon emissions in their pockets. And it ain’t the West. So, sure, China and India are worse than serious polluters.

But Field couldn’t leave it at that. He just had to do it. He had to throw in the doomsday sound bite. Here it comes:

“There is a real risk that human-caused climate change will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide from forest and tundra ecosystems, which have been storing a lot of carbon for thousands of years,” Field, of Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution for Science, said in a statement.

Field claims that global warming will cause huge wildfires in the tropical rain forests and will also melt the permafrost in the arctic. (That’s where all of that carbon dioxide is going to come from — er … it comes after the carbon dioxide from China and India, I guess. So man made global warming is causing non-made made global warming. This is worse than worser than serious.)

Now a first year high school chemistry student can tell you that fire burns because of, say it together class, oxygen, not carbon dioxide. Most scientists know that what this planet does not need is more oxygen in the atmosphere. A 5% richer oxygen mix in the air — and wild fires would burn and burn and never stop.  But carbon dioxide causes fires? Not on this planet.

And the permafrost is going to melt? Not unless the planet gets much warmer than even the most dire IPCC predicti…. Sorry. I misspoke. This new predication is the direst IPCC prediction.

Are you starting to see the pattern?  The less evidence that is found for man made global warming … the worse the predications about the outcome of global warming.

Remember the movie “Dumb and Dumber?” Al Gore and the global warming crowd need to produce a new movie: “Worse and Worser.” Seriously.

 Hmmm, reminds me of something I read as a child….. Seriouser and seriouser?  No, that’s right, curiouser and curiouser.

American Thinker has a heap of writers contributing seriously interesting articles.

Hansen’s former boss is a global warming sceptic!

In case you haven’t read it elsewhere, here is a copy of an item on the website of the US Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works. It speaks for itself and is chock-a-block full of interesting references and links.

James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic – Says Hansen ‘Embarrassed NASA’

January 27, 2009

Posted By Marc Morano – 6:08 PM ET – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov

  James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic 

Says Hansen ‘Embarrassed NASA’ & ‘Was Never Muzzled’ 

Gore Faces Scientific Blowback  

Also See: Gore’s Inconvenient Astronaut: NASA Moonwalker Defies Gore’s Claim That Climate Skeptics Believe Moon Landing was ‘Staged’   

Washington DC: NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.

 

Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.”  Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears. [See: U.S. Senate Minority Report Update: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims & See Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm ‘Mistaken’  &  Gore laments global warming efforts: ‘I’ve failed badly’ – Washington Post – November 11, 2008  ]

 

“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.

 

“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote.  [Note: NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! – See: Don’t Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom – Get the Facts on James Hansen  – UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says ‘lock up the oil men’ – June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for ‘high crimes against humanity’ for spreading doubt about man-made global warming – June 23, 2008 ]  

 

Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.

 

“As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the  research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research,” Theon wrote of his career. “This required a thorough understanding of the state of the science. I have kept up with climate science since retiring by reading books and journal articles,” Theon added. (LINK) Theon also co-authored the book “Advances in Remote Sensing Retrieval Methods.” [Note: Theon joins many current and former NASA scientists in dissenting from man-made climate fears. A small sampling includes: Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, the former  top administrator of NASA, Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt, Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7, Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette was formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor, Hungarian Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA’s Ames Research Center, Climatologist Dr. John Christy, Climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, Atmospheric Scientist Ross Hays of NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility]

 

 Gore faces a much different scientific climate in 2009 than the one he faced in 2006 when his film “An Inconvenient Truth” was released. According to satellite data, the Earth has cooled since Gore’s film was released,  Antarctic sea ice extent has grown to record levels, sea level rise has slowed, ocean temperatures have failed to warm, and more and more scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made climate fears as peer-reviewed studies continue to man-made counter warming fears. [See: Peer-Reviewed Study challenges ‘notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming’ & New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears ]

“Vice President Gore and the other promoters of man-made climate fears endless claims that the “debate is over” appear to be ignoring scientific reality,” Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee.

A U.S. Senate Minority Report released in December 2008 details over 650 international scientists who are dissenting from man-made global warming fears promoted by the UN and yourself. Many of the scientists profiled are former UN IPCC scientists and former believers in man-made climate change that have reversed their views in recent years. The report continues to grow almost daily. We have just received a request from an Italian scientist, and a Czech scientist to join the 650 dissenting scientists report. A chemist from the U.S. Naval Academy is about to be added, and more Japanese scientists are dissenting. Finally, many more meteorologists will be added and another former UN IPCC scientist is about to be included. These scientists are openly rebelling against the climate orthodoxy promoted by Gore and the UN IPCC.

The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. Reports from the conference found that Skeptical scientists overwhelmed the meeting, with  ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ ( See full reports here & here ]  In addition, a 2008 canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled.”   A November 25, 2008, article in Politico noted that a “growing accumulation” of science is challenging warming fears, and added that the “science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.”  More evidence that the global warming fear machine is breaking down. Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming”. An American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists.  An International team of scientists countered the UN IPCC, declaring: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”.  India Issued a report challenging global warming fears.  International Scientists demanded the UN IPCC “be called to account and cease its deceptive practices.”  

The scientists and peer-reviewed studies countering climate claims are the key reason that the U.S. public has grown ever more skeptical of man-made climate doom predictions. [See: Global warming ranks dead last, 20 out of 20 in new Pew survey. Pew Survey:   & Survey finds majority of U.S. Voters – ‘51% — now believe that humans are not the predominant cause of climate change’ – January 20, 2009 – Rasmussen Reports ]  

 

 The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN’s and former Vice President Al Gore’s claims that the “science is settled” and there is a “consensus.”

On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears.  Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following: Global temperatures failing to warm; Peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming;  a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick”; inconvenient developments and studies regarding rising CO2; the Spotless Sun; Clouds; Antarctica; the Arctic; Greenland’s ice; Mount Kilimanjaro; Global sea ice; Causes of Hurricanes; Extreme Storms; Extinctions; Floods; Droughts; Ocean Acidification; Polar Bears; Extreme weather deaths; Frogs; lack of atmospheric dust; Malaria; the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted.    

What can I say, but “Wow!”?

Turn off your airconditioners because it is too hot today!

Some things in the press really make my blood boil. A government body has seen fit to tell people to turn off their air conditioners in 40 degree Celsius heat to protect the climate. That statement is incredibly irresponsible on face value. What really makes my blood boil is that the request is really about MONEY!

It appears the South Australian Government back peddled on their media release. And so they should! I couldn’t find the alleged media release on the Department’s website tonight. This is the Adelaide Advertiser news report which is evidence that it ever existed.

South Australians urged not to use air conditioners in heatwave

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MICHAEL OWEN, RUSSELL EMMERSON

January 27, 2009 06:00pm

THE State Government says a press release urging people to use alternatives to air conditioning during a 40C-plus heatwave was merely intended to save you money.

Acting Energy Minister Paul Holloway called a media conference this afternoon and told reporters the Government was “merely suggesting to consumers a range of complementary measures to help them save money”.

Citing our community’s environmental responsibilities, the Government today put our a press release saying there were many alternatives to using air conditioners, urging South Australians to instead insulate ceilings, use external blinds or a pergola to shade windows, and use fans.

Doctors said the suggestion that people should use alternatives to air conditioning during a 40C-plus heatwave was “highly dangerous” – and a strong majority of AdelaideNow readers voting in the poll on this page agreed.

Mr Holloway today said air conditioning was most effective if there was good insulation, the curtains were closed to keep direct sunlight out, air flow was directed properly and the system was well maintained.

“Certainly, it is not the Government’s intention that people should not use their air conditioners,” Mr Holloway said.

The press release issued this morning stated: “There are many ways to keep your home cool before using air conditioners.”

Australian Medical Association state president Dr Peter Ford said the elderly and infants in particular were “vulnerable to extreme temperatures”.

“This may put them at risk of acute health issues,” Dr Ford said.

“Certainly we would advocate that people utilise passive design methods of maintaining a cool environment, such as closing curtains and so on, but we would not want to provide inappropriate emphasis to people about refraining from using air conditioning.

“For some people, such advice can be highly dangerous. It can be a highly dangerous path to follow.

“Some elderly people in particular are very community conscious and become concerned about such advice and really take it to heart.”

The Opposition has branded the Government “irresponsible” for suggesting people abandon air conditioning during a week of sweltering temperatures.

“Reducing carbon emissions is fine but keeping babies, young children and the elderly healthy and cool must come first,” said Opposition energy spokesman Mitch Williams.

Is this advice appropriate in the midst of a 40C-plus heatwave? Vote in our poll on this page and have your say in the comment box below

The mercury hit 43.2C in Adelaide at 3.20pm today.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s Tom Boeck said overnight temperatures should remain in the mid to high twenties, causing restless nights for some people.

An ETSA spokesman said there was no need for people not to use their air conditioners.

“We are not telling people not to use their air conditioners today. People need to make sensible decisions about their needs,” the spokesman said.

“There is no concern about meeting demand. The network performed well last summer, we have done a lot of work to make sure we can carry the demand this summer.

“We’ve upgraded and updated transformers at risk of overload, upgraded sub-station capacity in a number of areas to cope with increasing demand in those areas.

“Our job is to distribute the power people need.”

The national energy regulator NEMMCO forecasts peak demand of 2850 MW during tomorrow’s 40-plus degree day – still within an available supply of 3116 MW given grid availability.

‘Many ways to keep your house cool’

The Transport, Energy and Infrastructure Department’s energy division’s press release said residents should consider closing curtains and using portable and ceiling fans instead of air conditioners.

“Fans and evaporative cooling are good choices to minimise energy use and greenhouse gas emissions,” acting community programs manager Jim Corbett said. 

Greens MP Mark Parnell said people needed to be sensible when trying to do their bit for the environment.

While his family was yet to use their air conditioner, Mr Parnell said it would likely be switched on over the coming days.

“If the house becomes too hot, we will run the air conditioner,” he said.

“There have been situations in the past where elderly people have locked themselves in their homes during extreme temperatures and they have not used air conditioners, which has caused them to suffer heat stress and even die.

“People should not be told not to use air conditioners, especially if their health is going to be put at risk.”

But he urged people to use restraint with their air conditioners and “not run them willy-nilly”.

The elderly are at particular risk of becoming heat-stressed.

In 2003, an estimated 15,000 French people – mainly elderly – died of heat stress and related illnesses during an extended period of severe temperatures.

Heatwave to last at least a week

Adelaide will swelter through at least another week of blistering heat, as maximum temperatures remain above 35C after the next two days in the forties.

The temperature is expected to reach 41C today and tomorrow, then drop slightly into the high 30s before any hope of real relief, possibly next Tuesday.

The Ambulance Service has extra crews and resources on standby to cope with the heat and fire bans are in place across the state.

Thousands of public and Catholic school students will brave a scorcher when they return to school today.

The SA Education Department allows schools to send students home after 12.30pm if the forecast is for 38C or an hour early if it hits 36C.

The decision is made by each school but those with airconditioning are less likely to be affected.

Independent school students return next Monday.

Victoria’s worst heatwave in 100 years

Meanwhile, Victoria is facing its worst heatwave in a century, with firefighters, rail operators and power companies on standby.

The extreme heat starts today with a forecast top of 38C for Melbourne followed by four days of 40C-plus.

Weather bureau senior forecaster Terry Ryan said Melbourne had not endured four straight days over 40C since 1908.

“It is the worst heatwave most will have lived through,” he said.

At Rod Laver Arena, Australian Open organisers are scrambling to prepare for searing on-court temperatures which typically are up to 10C higher than outside.

Ice vests will be provided to all players when temperatures become extreme and 10-minute breaks will be offered to women and juniors between second and third sets. 

 

Irresponsible 

What a ridiculous statement by the government! What – only use air conditioners on cold days?

And what exactly were the working conditions of the public servant and the manager who penned and authorised this request? Air-con on for at least 12 hours a day, computer and printer on at the ready, flouro lights on every x square metres to ensure there are no law suits for eye strain? Did you know that if the office temperature goes above x degrees that workers have to be sent home?

I have a father who is not as young as he used to be. When he tells me it is hotter than usual at home I am relieved when he tells me he has used the airconditioner. Hey – that’s what they are for!

On the other hand, I live in a country close to the equator. I don’t have air con in my home. That’s the main reason my Dad won’t come to visit. My son and I can handle the heat and humidity without life threatening consequences. Not so for others.

Will the public service twits responsible for this request confess that they had the air con on at work all day??????

It is really about MONEY!

In a former job I had cause to learn a bit about the workings of the electricity supply industry in Australia. In Australia, the state governments subsidise the cost of electricity as it is seen that electricity supply is an essential service and therefore should be provided at an affordable cost.

The relevant competition authority calculates what the efficient cost of electricity production should be. The electricity provider argues that up, if they can. The state government regulates the price at which the electricity supplier is allowed to sell the electricity. The state government then pays the electricity supplier the difference between the price the electricity supplier is allowed to sell electricity for and the EFFICIENT cost of production.

In each state there are a number of electicity generation plants. Some are newer and more efficient financially. These are usually coal based generators. At the most expensive end of the production chain are the diesel power generators. In order to minimise the cost of production of electicity, the electricity suppliers buy electricity from the most efficient power generator first. As demand for electricity increases beyond the capacity of that generator, the electricity supplier buys electricity from the next most efficient power generator, and so on as demand for electricity increases each hour.

The times for peak demand of electricity are hot days, and during daylight hours. During these times the electricity supplier has to buy electricity from just about every power generator available, including the much more expensive electricity from diesel generators. Electricity suppliers hate hot days. The cost of the product they are required to provide goes through the roof.

And THAT is why some government body in South Australia decided to beg the public to not use their airconditioners when 40 plus temperatures were forecast – so that the electricity supplier would not have to buy so much of the more expensive electricity from the diesel generators.

The request to not use airconditioners is not really motivated by saving the climate.

So, if even ONE person dies as a result of heat stroke which could have been prevented by turning on their air conditioner, I reckon this makes a pretty good case for manslaughter.

The “climate change” mantra is being well and truly abused.

Population control and climate change

Some AGW alarmists suggest that the human population will be “culled” by global warming. Other extremist “environmentalists” suggest a more proactive approach to reducing the human population. Being a tad fond of life personally, and being one of those people that believe people are special (with responsibilities which go with that “specialness”), I inwardly cringe at such suggestions.

However, the reality is that this world cannot support an infinite human population. The number of human beings needs to cap sometime.

So, do we just not think about something so horrible? I mean, its not like its going to happen in our lifetimes?

Or, do we listen to global warming alarmists and resile ourselves to doom, like Dr James Lovelock?

James Lovelock in the interview published in  One Last Chance to Save Mankind says:

Do you think we will survive?

I’m an optimistic pessimist. I think it’s wrong to assume we’ll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It’s happening again.

I don’t think humans react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what’s coming up. Kyoto was 11 years ago. Virtually nothing’s been done except endless talk and meetings.

I don’t think we can react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what’s coming up

It’s a depressing outlook.

Not necessarily. I don’t think 9 billion is better than 1 billion. I see humans as rather like the first photosynthesisers, which when they first appeared on the planet caused enormous damage by releasing oxygen – a nasty, poisonous gas. It took a long time, but it turned out in the end to be of enormous benefit. I look on humans in much the same light. For the first time in its 3.5 billion years of existence, the planet has an intelligent, communicating species that can consider the whole system and even do things about it. They are not yet bright enough, they have still to evolve quite a way, but they could become a very positive contributor to planetary welfare.

Real doomsday stuff!

OK, those are two ideas that don’t really appeal to me. Is there a third, or fourth … answer?

Let’s try this one on for size – eliminate world poverty.

Yep, that’s all, that’s not much to aim for.

Isn’t it? And how would that work anyway, you say?

Ever noticed that it is the developing nations which have large families ie higher birth rates? And, if there are no devasting wars, droughts or famines for other reasons, that their populations are growing? Compare that to developed countries who rely on immigration for population growth, even with greater longevity.

Where there are high mortality rates, family sizes are larger so that parents have a greater chance of having enough surviving children to care for the parents when the parents are elderly. In relatively prosperous countries people are not as concerned with survival, and find other things to do than create and raise children. (I can provide references if anyone wants them – I am trying not to be too soap boxish.)

Therefore, eliminate poverty and the feeling of threat for survival, and birth rates drop – dramatically. If people in all countries felt reasonably prosperous, every country would have low birth rates. Natural and painless population cap.

Personally I would rather have my share of the billions of dollars of tax money, which is currently being thrown at global warming ,go towards a united global effort to eliminate poverty. With the amount of money being wasted on the global warming scaremongering, eliminating world poverty would be achievable.

By the way – the Millenium Development Goals are another United Nations project. Ever heard of them?

Need a laugh? – Leprechauns cause Global Warming!

Thank you to Jennifer Marohasy for posting this theory which originated from The Blackboard.

Check out Leprechauns Cause Global Warming?

Professor Will Alexander says he has proven AGW is not the main player in climate change

Now you have to admit this story has WOW factor.

I have copied it straight off An Honest Climate Debate’s website. Just click the website name and that will take you there. He has heaps of other very interesting stuff on his website.

The reason I have copied this in full is because the contributor asked for his story to be broadcast as widely as possible. I am helping to oblige his request because I have questions. (Yes, I am sceptical. An occupational hazard!) I am hoping the wide range of readers that drift hrough this website will be kind enough to answer them.

Is he comparing apples with apples? ie change to anthropogenic global warming to change in solar influenced warming?

Do these arguments hold water scientifically?

SOLAR INFLUENCE UNDERESTIMATED

Professor Will Alexander

By Professor Will Alexander

Via Email, January 26, 2009

Until now the climate alarmists exploited their untouchable status within the shelter of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. This has come to an end.

Our studies confirm that variations in received solar energy and not atmospheric discharges by burning fossil fuels are far and away the dominant cause of climate variability.

We can demonstrate beyond doubt that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will not have the slightest effect on South Africa’s climate now or in the future.

Please distribute the attached memo widely.

 

Memo 07/09

Climate change – solar influence underestimated

Monday 26 January 2009

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT

The scientific advisers to the South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism have created the impression that climate change is one of the greatest threats to our planet and to our people.

This statement is totally false and misleading.

As shown in this memo, during the past five years the range of received solar energy was 28 units compared with a range of only 1.6 units resulting from human activities.

Reducing undesirable emissions arising from burning fossil fuels will not have any measurable effect on climatic processes.

This conclusion is confirmed by comprehensive studies of our extensive hydro-climatic database during the past 30 years. These studies demonstrated the unequivocal linkage with variations in solar activity and complete lack of evidence of the effects of human activities.

The Minister is urged to appoint an independent, multi-disciplinary commission of enquiry to advise him before he commits South Africa to undertake costly and fruitless measures that can only damage our economy at a time of a global economic recession and rising unemployment.

The Minister is further informed that South Africa has now entered a period when severe subcontinental droughts can be expected. The basis for this prediction has been denied by his advisers.

I must also record that the Minister’s advisers are well aware of our studies but have rejected my frequent suggestions that we meet to discuss our differences on this nationally important issue.

Midrand Summit

The Midrand Summit is only four weeks away. The South African authorities are about to make some irreversible decisions that will affect the future prosperity of our nation and its citizens. There will be no benefits — just penalties.

This might be in order if we were facing a national emergency but we are not. There is no enemy at our gates. The threats are entirely imaginary as this memo demonstrates.

I am reminded of Adolf Hitler’s infamous statement that the bigger the lie the more believable it will be. I also recall Winston Churchill’s rallying cry that we will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them on the landing grounds, —- we will never surrender.

Am I exaggerating? Here is yet another example of a big lie perpetrated by climate alarmists. It goes to the very heart of the issue.

I received several responses to my request for one-page contributions that challenge the underlying science of climate change. I have attached a one-page comment from Fred Bailey in the UK. Here is some background to his comments.

Everybody accepts that solar energy received on earth drives the earth’s climate. It must follow that changes in the received energy will result in corresponding changes in climate. It is also elementary knowledge that the magnitude of the received energy will depend on the earth’s distance from the sun.

The first thing that scientists should do is therefore to determine the magnitude of changes in the earth-to-sun distance and then calculate the corresponding changes in received energy. This is what Fred Bailey did. His results are attached. More details of the methods that he used are provided in his book Textbook of gravity, sunspots and climate. Details of the linkage with the earth’s climate are given in our five-authored, refereed paper Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development. (Alexander, Bailey, Bredenkamp, van der Merwe and Willemse, in the Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, June 2007.)

In the attached note Fred Bailey demonstrates that wattage changes in the range of 30 Wm^-2 have been taking place over millions of years. Compare this with the IPCC’s figures below.

The IPCC’s big lie

Climate alarmists have gone to great lengths to discredit the influence of variations in solar activity on climatic variations. They are forced to do this in order to establish their claims of exclusive human causality of undesirable climatic fluctuations. This is how they propagated their big lie. The emphases are mine. Note in particular that the IPCC’s variations are determined from proxy and satellite observations and not direct calculations. Why did they not carry out direct calculations based on the variations in the earth-to-sun distance? The answer is obvious.

IPCC third assessment report, 2001, working group 1, section C6.

Radiative forcing of the climate system due to solar irradiance change is estimated to be 0.3 ± -0.2Wm^-2 for the period 1750 to the present. Most of the change is estimated to have occurred during the first half of the 20th century. The fundamental source of all energy in the earth’s climate system is radiation from the sun. Therefore, variation in solar output is a radiative forcing agent. The absolute value of the spectrally integrated total solar irradiance (TSI) incident on the earth is not known to better than about 4Wm^-2, but satellite observations since the late 1970s show relative variations over the past two solar 11-year activity cycles of about 0.1%, which is equivalent to a variation in radiative forcing of about 0.2 Wm^-2 . Variations over longer periods may have been larger, but the techniques used to reconstruct historical values of TSI from proxy observations (e.g.sunspots) have not been adequately verified.

IPCC fourth assessment report, 2007, working group 1, section 2.2.

There is a very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with a radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6 to +2.4] Wm^-2.

In comparison, changes in solar irradiance since 1750 are estimated to have caused a small radiative forcing of about +0.12 [+0.06 to + 0.30] Wm^-2, which is less than half the estimate given in the third assessment report.

Figure 2.4 of the report provides the following radiative forcing components.

Long-lived greenhouse gasses: 2.14

Ozone: 0.30

Stratospheric water vapour: 0.07

Surface albedo: -0.1

Total aerosol: -1.2

Linear contrails: 0.01

Solar irradiance: 0.12

Total net anthropogenic: 1.6

However, Fred Bailey calculated that for the past five years the range was equal to 28 Wm^-2 compared with the IPCC’s estimate of the anthropogenic component of 1.6 Wm^-2 !

The solar influence is therefore 17.5 times greater than the human influence. No wonder the IPCC cooked the books.

For the past 30 years I have repeatedly demonstrated that there is NO evidence in the hydro-climatological data of human-caused abnormalities against the background of the undeniable evidence of the influence of variations in solar activity.

Midrand Summit

The IPCC’s fourth assessment report will be discussed at the Midrand Summit. It will be very interesting to hear how the presenter treats this problem. Will he quote the overwhelming ignorance of the vast majority of climate alarmists? How will he account for undeniable linkage with the hydroclimatological processes described in our joint paper?

Drought alert

For the past two years I have repeatedly drawn attention to the probable occurrence of severe global droughts from 2009 to 2016. This warning is described in detail in my article The likelihood of a global drought in 2009 – 2016 <click here to read>, published in Civil Engineering in June 2008.

There are already signs of a developing drought in parts of South Africa. Other parts of Africa are in the grip of a drought but confirmation is difficult. Argentina is also currently experiencing a severe drought. The country faces a potential loss of revenue from agricultural production of US$4.4 billion.

My prediction is based on the observed, regular and therefore predictable, periodicity in the hydrometeorological data. The existence of this periodicity is denied by climate alarmists.

Soon it will be far too late to take any action to avoid the consequences, particularly to the rural and farming communities as well as the water supply authorities.

 

[Fred Bailey’s comments are attached.]

(I wish I could figure out how to make the lettering larger in this software – my apologies.)

See – I told you it was interesting.

Now – what do YOU think?

James Lovelock wants to save the world by burying charcoal

New Scientist published an interview with Dr James Lovelock titled One last chance to save mankindon 23 January 2009. James Lovelock is the originator of the Gaia Theory. This theory has evolved over time and gaiatheory.org describes the theory as:

 The Gaia Theory posits that the organic and inorganic components of Planet Earth have evolved together as a single living, self-regulating system. It suggests that this living system has automatically controlled global temperature, atmospheric content, ocean salinity, and other factors, that maintains its own habitability. In a phrase, “life maintains conditions suitable for its own survival.”

Here are a few excerpts from the interview with James Lovelock. It is interesting that James Lovelock has a rather fatalistic view on global warming. He does, however, propose one action which has a chance of “saving the world”.

Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?

Not a hope in hell. Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It’s absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt – that’s an awful lot of countryside.

And later …

So are we doomed?

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste – which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering – into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO₂ down quite fast.

Would it make enough of a difference?

Yes. The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO₂is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won’t do it.

But still he is optomistic ….

Do you think we will survive?

I’m an optimistic pessimist. I think it’s wrong to assume we’ll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It’s happening again.

OK, so he is a global warming alarmist. I also think it safe to say he is not a creationist.

What alarms me is the extremes to which global warming alarmists propose we go in order to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. Let’s think through the charcoal burying idea.

The idea is to lock the carbon into charcoal, and prevent microbes from consuming dead leaves etc and exhaling CO2 as a bi-product. So, we should starve off a few billion microbes, close to the bottom of the food chain, to replace the fossil fuels we burn with charcoal which we then bury?

Just how much biological waste do they propose turning into charcoal? What will the effect on the food chain be? What about soil quality and fertility?

There must be a better answer than this.

Bob Carter says facts debunk global warming alarmism

Professor Bob Carter has again been quoted in http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24934655-5017272,00.htmlon-line newspaper. His comments deserve more wide spread attention, so here it is in full:

Facts Debunk Global Warming Alarmism 

22 September 2009

THE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that October in the US was marked by 63 record snowfalls and 115 lowest-ever temperatures.

Over the past few years, similar signs of colder than usual weather have been recorded all over the world, causing many people to question the still fashionable, but now long outdated, global warming alarmism. Yet individual weather events or spells, whether warmings or coolings, tell us nothing necessarily about true climate change.

Nonetheless, by coincidence, growing recognition of a threat of climatic cooling is correct, because since the turn of the 21st century all real world, long-term climate indicators have turned downwards. Global atmospheric temperature reached a peak in 1998, has not warmed since 1995 and, has been cooling since 2002. Some people, still under the thrall of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change’s disproved projections of warming, seem surprised by this cooling trend, even to the point of denying it. But why?

There are two fundamentally different ways in which computers can be used to project climate. The first is used by the modelling groups that provide climate projections to the IPCC. These groups deploy general circulation models, which use complex partial differential equations to describe the ocean-atmosphere climate system mathematically. When fed with appropriate initial data, these models can calculate possible future climate states. The models presume (wrongly) that we have a complete understanding of the climate system.

GCMs are subject to the well-known computer phenomenon of GIGO, which translates as “garbage in, God’s-truth out”.

Alternative computer projections of climate can be constructed using data on past climate change, by identifying mathematical (often rhythmic) patterns within them and projecting these patterns into the future. Such models are statistical and empirical, and make no presumptions about complete understanding; instead, they seek to recognise and project into the future the climate patterns that exist in real world data.

In 2001, Russian geologist Sergey Kotov used the mathematics of chaos to analyse the atmospheric temperature record of the past 4000 years from a Greenland ice core. Based on the pattern he recognised in the data, Kotov extrapolated cooling from 2000 to about 2030, followed by warming to the end of the century and 300 years of cooling thereafter.

In 2003, Russian scientists Klyashtorin and Lyubushin analysed the global surface thermometer temperature record from 1860 to 2000, and identified a recurring 60-year cycle. This probably relates to the Pacific decadal oscillation, which can be caricatured as a large scale El Nino/La Nina climatic oscillation. The late 20thcentury warming represents the most recent warm half-cycle of the PDO, and it projects forwards as cooling of one-tenth of a degree or more to 2030.

In 2004, US scientist Craig Loehle used simple periodic models to analyse climate records over the past 1000 years of sea-surface temperature from a Caribbean marine core and cave air temperature from a South African stalactite. Without using data for the 20th century, six of his seven models showed a warming trend similar to that in the instrumental record over the past 150 years; and projecting forward the best fit model foreshadows cooling of between 0.7 and 1 degree Celsius during the next 20-40 years. In 2007, the 60-year climate cycle was identified again, by Chinese scientists Lin Zhen-Shan and Sun Xian, who used a novel multi-variate analysis of the 1881-2002 temperature records for China. They showed that temperature variation in China leads parallel variation in global temperature by five-10 years, and has been falling since 2001. They conclude “we see clearly that global and northern hemisphere temperature will drop on century scale in the next 20 years”.

Most recently, Italian scientist Adriano Mazzarella demonstrated statistical links between solar magnetic activity, the length of the Earth day (LOD), and northern hemisphere wind and ocean temperature patterns. He too confirmed the existence of a 60-year climate cycle, and described various correlations (some negative). Based on these correlations, Mazzarella concludes that provided “the observed past correlation between LOD and sea-surface temperature continues in the future, the identified 60-year cycle provides a possible decline in sea-surface temperature starting from 2005, and the recent data seem to support such a result”.

Thus, using several fundamentally different mathematical techniques and many different data sets, seven scientists all forecast that climatic cooling will occur during the first decades of the 21st century. Temperature records confirm that cooling is under way, the length and intensity of which remains unknown.

Yet in spite of this, governments across the world – egged on by irrational, deep Green lobbying – have for years been using their financial muscle and other powers of persuasion to introduce carbon dioxide taxation systems. For example, the federal Labor government recently spent $13.9million on climate change advertising on prime time television and in national newspapers and magazines.

Similarly, the London-based Institute for Public Policy Research advised the British Government “ultimately, positive climate behaviours need to be approached in the same way as marketeers approach acts of buying and consuming … It amounts to treating climate-friendly activity as a brand that can be sold. This is, we believe, the route to mass behaviour change.”

Introduction of a carbon dioxide tax to prevent (imaginary) warming, euphemistically disguised as an emissions trading scheme, is a politician’s, ticket clipper’s and mafia chief’s dream. All will welcome a new source of income based on an invisible, colourless, odourless, tasteless and often unmeasurable gas. No commodity changes hands during its trading, and should carbon dioxide emissions actually decrease because of the existence of a carbon dioxide market (which is highly unlikely), the odds are that it will have no measurable effect on climate anyway. Nonetheless, the glistening pot of gold which beckons to be mined from the innocent public is proving nigh irresistible, and it is going to need a strong taxpayer revolt to stop it in Australia.

The present global financial crisis should be inducing politicians not to squander money on non-solutions to non-problems. Yet to support their plans for emissions taxation Western governments, including ours, are still propagating scientifically juvenile greenhouse propaganda underpinned only by circumstantial evidence and GCM computer gamesmanship.

Perhaps a reassessment will finally occur when two-metre thick ice develops again on Father Thames at London Bridge, or when cooling causes massive crop failure in the world’s granary belts.

Bob Carter is an adjunct professor of geology at James Cook University.

Check it out yourself at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24934655-5017272,00.html

Professor Carter’s JCU biography is at http://www.jcu.edu.au/ees/staff/adjunct/JCUDEV_014954.html and his personal page is at http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/