CURRENT TWTW (The Week That Was)
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Date: December 27,
2008
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On Dec. 20, U.S. president-elect Barack Obama --who will take over as head of state on Jan. 20, 2009 --named John Holdren as his chief science adviser, declaring, "The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources. It’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say--even when it’s inconvenient." -- SEPP says: Amen. We couldn’t agree more.
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THIS WEEK
Fred’s Fearless Forecast for 2009: Continued ‘no warming’ – and much else
So here we have them: Obama’s three scientists—Steve Chu, John Holdren, and Jane Lubchenco. All with sterling credentials – a Nobel laureate in physics, a recent president of the AAAS, a recent head of the International Council of Scientific Unions – but with minimal knowledge of climate science, except what they may have gleaned from reading the IPCC summary. Yet all three seem supremely confident that they will drastically change US climate policy. Well, let me be the first with the bad (for them) news: Within a year or so, they are going to be an awfully frustrated bunch.
My fearless forecast for 2009: Big amount of activity by Congress, with lots of ‘Cap&Trade’ bills to limit CO2 emissions. Waxman, Markey, and Pelosi in the House; Boxer, Lieberman, Bingeman, and maybe even McCain in the Senate. It will take off, but it won’t fly: There is the prohibitive cost of any real C&T, raising energy prices and killing jobs -- while the economy is in the dumps. There is the horrible example of the European emission-trading brouhaha, falling apart even as we go to press. And after ten years, the climate is still refusing to warm. I am not even considering the threat of a filibuster in the Senate—with Democrats from ‘fly-over’ states joining Republican opponents of C&T.
I think that Obama is much too smart to devote political capital to doomed climate legislation. He has more important priorities, and must also be thinking of 2010 and, of course, the 2012 elections. Being a ‘one-term’ president just doesn’t look good. He will certainly go through the motions and come up with great rhetoric. He’ll trot out his science team – but to no avail. Climate science isn’t going to figure prominently in the Congressional debates – alas; it’s all about economics and politics.
Now for the real action: Once legislation stalls, Carol Browner, the supreme ideologue and strategist, will go the regulatory route. EPA will try to treat CO2 as a ‘criteria pollutant’ under the terms of the Clean Air Act. But there will be litigation. EPA must demonstrate ‘endangerment’ and make a persuasive case that CO2 is a threat to ‘public health and welfare.’ Perhaps even show that there is a critical level of CO2 and demonstrate convincingly – in a court-of-law -- that its regulatory program will succeed in keeping CO2 from reaching that level. EPA will be required to respond to all the scientific evidence now in its docket that says CO2 is not a threat – including the NIPCC report. Here is where climate science will finally become all-important – but Obama’s science team will be of no help once cross-examination starts.
How much better if the three team members lay off climate and devote their efforts and expertise to genuine problems: Holdren can handle nuclear proliferation and the rising threat of nuclear terrorism; Lubchenco can try to stem the over-exploitation of ocean resources, and look after fisheries and whales; Chu should be thinking about the inevitable transition from fossil fuels to various forms of nuclear energy and foster research that assures adequate and low-cost supplies of fissionable fuel for the more efficient and safer reactors of the future.
While this may be best use of their considerable collective talents, they will probably be pressed into service to back up Browner on her dubious climate science -- where they have negligible expertise.
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SEPP Science Editorial #17 (12/27/08)
Keeping the IPCC honest
I know it’s a tough job – but let’s just check their iconic, widely-quoted conclusion and parse its meaning:
“Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” [IPCC Synthesis Report, SPM, Nov 2007]. How should one interpret this ex cathedra declaration to the faithful?
IPCC helpfully defines ‘very likely’ as ‘90-99% certain.’ But they don’t tell us how they reached such well-defined certainty. What remarkable unanimity! Just how many and whom did they poll?
IPCC doesn’t define the word ‘most.’ We may assume it means anything between 51 and 99%. Quite a spread. But a footnote informs us that solar forcing is less than 10% of anthropogenic [0.12/ 1.6 W/m2]; so ‘most’ must be closer to 99% than to 51%.
OK; let’s check out the data since 1958. But we don’t want to rely on contaminated surface data – which IPCC likely used – although they omitted to say so. Atmospheric data were readily available to the IPCC in the CCSP-SAP-1.1 report (Fig 3a, p.54; convening lead author John Lanzante, NOAA), with independent analyses by Hadley Centre and NOAA that agree well. And further, according to GH models, atmospheric trends should be larger than surface temperature trends.
1958 – 2005: Total warming of +0.5 C – but how much of that is anthropogenic?
1958 - 1976: Cooling
1976 – 1977: Sudden jump of +0.5 C Cannot be due to GHG
1977 – 1997: No detectable trend
1998 - 1999: El Nino spike
2000 – 2001: No detectable trend
2001 – 2003: Sudden jump of +0.3 C Cannot be due to GHG
2003 – present No trend, maybe even slight cooling
Conclusion: The IPCC’s ‘most’ is not sustained by observations; the human contribution is very likely only 10% or even less.
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1. Obama's disastrous choices for science positions
2. White House science adviser John Holdren's hysterical quotes
3. Wind energy will be an early test of Obama's White House staff:
4. It's cold outside, but global warming industry still hard at work
5. Global Warming rope-a-dope
6. Interview with Dr Frank Tipler, climate skeptic
7. What lessons can we learn from 2008...and how might things develop in 2009?
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NEWS YOU CAN USE
They are at it again: Gavin Schmidt (Jim Hansen’s chief acolyte and Rottweiler) and Michael Mann (the unrepentant originator and unashamed promoter of the notorious and discredited ‘hockeystick’ – not even the IPCC believes in it any more). This dreadful duo evidently consider the NIPCC (“Not-the-IPCC”) report “Nature – Not Human Activity – Rules the Climate” http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf a threat to the IPCC – and to their careers, so they produce this memorable rejoinder http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/not-the-ipcc-nipcc-report/ About the best they can up with is the smear word “dishonest.” [And this from Schmidt and Mann!]
Thanks, fellas, for free publicity for NIPCC; the brainwashed readers of RealClimate should thank you.
Heartland’s reply to RealClimate attack on NIPCC: http://www.heartland.org/full.html?articleid=24385
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No friends of the earth. by Muhammad Cohen, The Guardian, 11 December 2008
This article on the UNFCCC [Rio Climate Treaty] asks why environmental NGOs support the Convention, as there is no evidence that the Convention is benefiting the environment. On the contrary, the article reports an increase in greenhouse gas emissions rather than a decline.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/dec/11/environment-carbon-emissions-un-poznan
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British Advertising Standards Authority decided that the wind power lobbies’ statement about carbon dioxide reductions was misleading by factor of two. The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has agreed to scale down its calculation.
Telegraph-overstated the environmental benefit of wind farms - Telegraph.pdf
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Last week, two prominent moderate Republicans — William K. Reilly, who ran the E.P.A. under President George H.W. Bush, and William D. Ruckelshaus, who served as administrator under both Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — sent a little-noticed but eloquent letter to President-elect Barack Obama. The gist of the letter was that the E.P.A. could be an enormously positive force in the fight against climate change and oil dependency. All it needed was someone who believed in its mission and was prepared to use the laws already on the books. Granting California its waiver, carrying out the Supreme Court decision, regulating emissions from vehicles and power plants — all this and more, they wrote, could be accomplished with the statutory tools at hand.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/opinion/25thu1.html?th&emc=th
SEPP Comment: Just goes to show that AGW alarmism is a bi-partisan disease
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UNDER THE BOTTOM LINE
Cicerone interview Dec 2008 http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/12/14/2003431064
[Dr Ralph Cicerone is president of the US National Academy of Sciences]
Excerpt: Yes, I think the evidence [for anthropogenic global warming – AGW] is overwhelming; the evidence is also completely scientific. Up until maybe 10 years ago, some people thought the sun was causing some of the warming … but we now have enough high quality data [that] show the sun’s output is not increasing during this period of climate change, so [this] theory is no longer tenable.
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“The good news about today's bad economic news is that we're being forced to curb our material consumption. If we do it in the right way, it will help limit global warming and may even force the realization that a truly high standard of living might entail more leisure, not just more material goods.” [Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate, is a professor of economics at Columbia University].
Published in Mother Jones: http://www.alternet.org/story/113093/ SEPP says: Thanks, Joe. And the millions of unemployed, now forced into “leisure,” thank you too.
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Lib Radio Host: “Record Snows and Cold Caused By Global Warming"
In other news, chastity causes pregnancy, food causes starvation, and fresh water dehydration.
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Environmentally conscious travelers flying out of San Francisco International Airport will soon be able to assuage their guilt and minimize the impact of their air travel by buying certified carbon offsets at airport kiosks. The experimental program, scheduled to start this spring, would make SFO the first airport in the nation - possibly the world - to offer fliers the opportunity to purchase carbon offsets. – SF Chronicle 12/24/2008
***Comment: A Merry Christmas to one and all, and don't spend a single moment worrying about your carbon footprint. – Lord Christopher Monckton [Monckton of Brenchley]***
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