May 12, 2008 • Vol. 13, No. 33
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The White House just put out the president's statement on Mother's Day:
On Mother's Day, we honor the grace, wisdom, and strength of our mothers, and we celebrate the special bonds shared between mothers and their children.
Every child blessed with a mother's love has been given one of life's great gifts. On this Mother's Day, we recognize the extraordinary contributions America's mothers make to their children, their families, and our country.
You know who hates mothers--and their children? Lunatic environmentalists.
Raise your hand if this shocks you:
Rock star Sting's celebrity-studded Carnegie Hall charity concert in 2006 to save the world's rainforests raked in millions, but less than half the riches actually funded tree-saving programs, according to charity watchdogs and a Post review of tax records.
It's one of the prime reasons the local arm of Sting's Rainforest Foundation is rated one of New York City's worst charities, according to Charity Navigator.
Some years back, Sting admitted to flying home on his private jet after every performance, no matter where he was, during his then-current concert tour. Polluting the skies night after night just so he could share a glass of Cristal ’27 with the missus was a trade-off he was happy to make.
The caricature of celebrity-as-hypocrite is a cliché for a reason: it’s true. Like his pals Bono and Madonna, Sting lives in incredible luxury while pontificating on what the rest of us are doing wrong. Bono, you might remember, wanted the British government to spend more money on saving the world, even as he moved his publishing company overseas as a tax dodge. Madonna, meanwhile, has been busily raising money for a charity, Raising Malawi, that appears not to exist. What is it about one-named pop stars and their scheming ways?
I hate to pick on Jay Leno, but he really makes it too easy. While Leno is a famous gearhead, he seems to share the same basic misunderstanding as many environmentalists who paint the internal combustion engine as the scourge of the planet. Specifically, he seems to think that if a car is powered by something other than gas, it magically becomes non-polluting:
LENO: it's pretty neat. and this week, we drove -- today, I drove the ford escape hybrid. This is what they call a plug-in hybrid. Now, this is not something on the market yet. It's still a little bit experimental. It's a hybrid car, but you plug it in at home and you get 40 miles free, essentially.
EUBANKS: Whoa.
LENO: So, after about 40 miles, the gas engine will kick in. You can charge up the battery if you drive it again. But my commute is like, 18, 19 miles. So, I drive in, plug it in here, drive home. I use no fuel at all...
If Ford really had developed a car that can travel 18 or 19 miles using no fuel, the company would undoubtedly be doing a lot better. The reality is that Leno is eschewing gasoline in favor of a combination of coal, natural gas, and nuclear to power his car. (That's assuming he lives in the City of Los Angeles and gets his electricity from Los Angeles Water and Power). I don't know how old the Los Angeles coal-fired plants are, but the Sierra Club warns that coal plants are a significant global warming threat.
This is just a reminder that when it comes to policy responses to global warming, you're rarely going to get the unvarnished truth. The lawmakers that point to alternative fuels and CAFE standards rarely talk about the cost to taxpayers and car owners. The Leno example is a reminder that for all the excitement over electric cars, there's no such thing as a free lunch -- no matter who tries to tell you there is.
Via Hit & Run, a Harris Interactive poll of climate scientists:
A slight majority (54%) believe the warming measured over the last 100 years is not “within the range of natural temperature fluctuation.”...
Based on current trends, 41% of scientists believe global climate change will pose a very great danger to the earth in the next 50 to 100 years, compared to 13% who see relatively little danger. Another 44% rate climate change as moderately dangerous.
In addition, "84 percent believe that man-made global warming is occurring." Color me unimpressed. If 16 percent don't believe man-made global warming is occurring--that's a minority, but hardly a lunatic fringe. Sort of like thinking John Edwards would make a good a president, except with a chance you might be proved right. And what about the degree of confidence? Only 74 percent believe there is actual evidence of man-made global warming, which leaves 10 percent who take it as an article of faith--not very reassuring.
Bottom line: more than a quarter of all scientists don't see any conclusive evidence of man-made warming, which leaves us well short of anything that might reasonably be called a scientific consensus.
Wait a minute. I don't think I can keep up with the science of climate change. I was pretty sure that the ozone hole was bad. Now I discover that it was helping to keep global warming from raging out of control...
The scientists found that as ozone levels recover, the lower stratosphere over the polar region will absorb more harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. This could cause air temperatures roughly 6 to 12 miles above Earth's surface to rise by as much as 16 degrees Fahrenheit, reducing the strong north-south temperature gradient that currently favors the positive phase of SAM, said the research team.
The supercomputer modeling effort also indicated that ozone hole recovery would weaken the intense westerly winds that currently whip around Antarctica and block air masses from crossing into the continent's interior. As a result, Antarctica would no longer be isolated from the warming patterns affecting the rest of the world.
So the ozone hole is bad, because... well, it just is. But if and when the ozone hole closes, we'll face further global warming. And that's bad, because there's a 'consensus' on global warming -- even if the globe is the coolest it's been since 1930, and may be headed for a new ice age.
Or are we still on the last environmental scare? I have a hard time keeping up.
Organic foods are suddenly not so popular:
The percentage of consumers who believe organic products are good for them is down to 45%, while those who believe they're good for the environment has fallen to 48%, according to the latest survey from consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail. Both measures stood at a 54% approval rating two years ago.
Higher cost of organic products versus mass market alternatives is a primary deterrent to many consumers, especially during a period when families are already struggling to stretch the household budget.
It's encouraging to see some skepticism regarding the environmental and health benefits of organic products. There's ample reason to question whether consumers are being sold a bill of goods -- perhaps even at the expense of the environment and their health. As always, the Economist produced a superb piece on the problem with the green product movement some months ago. It notes that while it may sound nice to eschew use of pesticides and fertilizers, organic farming produces far lower yields, consumes more real estate, may well use more energy, and produce more pollution related to transportation :
All food choices involve trade-offs. Even if organic farming does consume a little less energy and produce a little less pollution, that must be offset against lower yields and greater land use. Fairtrade food may help some poor farmers, but may also harm others; and even if local food reduces transport emissions, it also reduces potential for economic development. Buying all three types of food can be seen as an anti-corporate protest, yet big companies already sell organic and Fairtrade food, and local sourcing coupled with supermarkets' efficient logistics may yet prove to be the greenest way to move food around.
The piece is dense enough that there's not really one excerpt I can select to do it justice; you should read the whole thing. The answer here is probably not to condemn organic farming, but to call for a reality check. Consumers who pay extra for more expensive products probably ought to be sure that they're actually getting benefit.
Gallup's Frank Newport:
Despite the enormous attention paid to global warming over the past several years, the average American is in some ways no more worried about it than in years past. Americans do appear to have become more likely to believe global warming's effects are already taking place and that it could represent a threat to their way of life during their lifetimes. But the American public is more worried about a series of other environmental concerns than about global warming, and there has been no consistent upward trend on worry about global warming going back for two decades. Additionally, only a little more than a third of Americans say that immediate, drastic action is needed in order to maintain life as we know it on the planet.
It must be maddening for supporters of immediate, drastic action on climate change to know that support for their cause is about as strong as support for the president. But credit where it's due, the Goracle was quoted yesterday as saying that "if you give [people] a list of 25 or 30 issues and ask them to rank them in order of seriousness, climate change comes at the bottom or near the bottom...I remember one poll where it came under dog litter." Indeed, Gallup confirms that far more people are concerned about contamination of soil by toxic waste. Gore really does know this issue backwards and forwards.
On Friday Canada's National Post asked:
How does a BBC story that starts off saying, "Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007 ... This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory," become "Global temperatures will drop slightly this year ... But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend --and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years." All in the space of one hour and 16 minutes?
The paper answered its own question, publishing a series of emails between the story's editor and climate change activist Jo Abbess exchanged during that one hour and 16 minutes. Abbess told the editor "It would be better if you did not quote the skeptics," and threatened that unless he changed the story, she would make their correspondence public, putting him in an "unfavourable light." He complied with a terse, "Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more." Now the BBC has responded to charges that they rolled over for Ms. Abbess:
Among my e-mail exchanges was one with an environmental campaigner who published our e-mails implying that we had changed our article as a result of her threat to publicly criticise our report. We didn’t change it for that reason. We changed it to improve the piece.
So apparently their position is that "tell me you are happier" should not be construed as an indication of caving under pressure. Further, the editor now denies that there was any substantive change to the piece: "Was there any material change? I don’t think so." From "prompting some to question climate change theory" to "experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend." Maybe 'material' doesn't mean what I think it means...
Last night's episode of Bill Maher's Real Time featured evangelical atheist Richard Dawkins (the very poor man's version of Christopher Hitchens), explaining why scientists can't be certain of much of anything:
I think any scientist would be unwise to commit himself to saying there definitely is not anything. I mean, I can’t definitely commit myself to saying there are no fairies. I’m pretty sure there are no fairies. [laughter] But, I think it would be unscientific to do what the extreme religious people do and say, “I know there is a god.”
It's an interesting contrast to comments by NASA scientist James Hansen earlier this week complaining about a high school textbook that didn't portray global warming as a fact rather than a theory:
IHansen has sent Houghton Mifflin a letter stating that the book's discussion on global warming contained "a large number of clearly erroneous statements" that give students "the mistaken impression that the scientific evidence of global warming is doubtful and uncertain."
So Hansen is certain that global warming is real and the greenhouse gases are the cause. As are Bill Maher, Barack Obama, Al Gore, and every other luminary of the left. Immediately following his interview with Dawkins last night, Maher proceeded to mock Christians for their skepticism of global warming (or indifference, as he would have it), explaining it as a result of their belief in the Rapture. But hasn't the left embraced global warming as their own version of the Rapture? They do not harbor any doubt, but believe with the fervor of religious conviction that the end of civilization will come as a result of consumerism. And they seem completely unaware that in believing this, they have shed the very skepticism that is supposed to define the secular left.
Also notable from last night's show was Richard Clarke claiming of Bill Clinton, "He doesn’t make mistakes." Right.
This is a remarkable story from Canada's National Post:
How does a BBC story that starts off saying, "Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007 ... This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory," become "Global temperatures will drop slightly this year ... But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend --and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years." All in the space of one hour and 16 minutes? Climate-change activist Jo Abbess of the UK group, Campaign Against Climate Change, explains how on her group's Web site, where she posted her exchange with BBC News environment analyst Roger Harrabin.
After the first note from Abbess, Harrabin stated flatly that no correction was needed: "If the secy-gen of the WMO [World Meteorological Organization] tells me that global temperatures will decrease, that's what we will report." Her response: "I will forward your comments (unless you object) to some people who may wish to add to your knowledge." Apparently this first threat of being exposed for collaboration with global warming deniers was not enough. She later tells him, "It would be better if you did not quote the skeptics...Please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth." She then threatens once again to disseminate his email, and warns that the resulting firestorm of criticism may put him in an "unfavourable light."
To which our fearless BBC editor gave the predictable response: "Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more." Way to stick to your guns, sir. But of course, Ms. Abbess posted the exchange anyway--further evidence that one should never negotiate with terrorists, eco- or otherwise.
HT: Ace
NASA's James Hansen has changed his mind--it's worse than anyone thought:
One of the world's leading climate scientists warns today that the EU and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem.
In a startling reappraisal of the threat, James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, calls for a sharp reduction in C02 limits.
Hansen warns of a "guaranteed disaster" if his new assessment is not heeded by the international community. So does the rest of the scientific community call Hansen alarmist, or does the entire 'consensus' just follow him to this more radical position? If they do, you'll be interested to know that the only solution acceptable to Hansen is the complete abandonment of fossil fuels: no more oil, no more coal, no more gas. The good news? It could be a boon for the methane-based economy of Bartertown.
HT: AoS
Paul Krugman denounces "demon ethanol" in his New York Times column today:
[E]ven on optimistic estimates, producing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses most of the energy the gallon contains....
And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis. You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.
Oh, and in case you're wondering: all the remaining presidential contenders are terrible on this issue.
Actually, in case you're wondering, Obama and Clinton support ethanol subsidies, but McCain has consistently opposed subsidizing ethanol (though he has softened his rhetoric). Here's an excerpt from a speech McCain delivered in Iowa (!) last November:
Yes, I oppose subsidies. Not just ethanol subsidies. Subsidies. And not just in Iowa either. I oppose them in my own state of Arizona. ... [I]t also means no rifle-shot tax breaks for big oil. It means no line items for hydrogen, no mandates for other renewable fuels, and no big-government debacles like the Dakotas Synfuels plant. It means ethanol entrepreneurs get a level playing field to make their case -- and earn their profits.
McCain went on to argue, however, that his support of a cap-and-trade system for "carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions" would provide a "a powerful incentive" for producing "alternatives to oil such as ethanol." A cap and trade system may be a very bad idea, but it's a position McCain shares with Krugman, who has lamented: "Where's the organized, powerful constituency for ...a cap-and-trade system on carbon dioxide emissions?"
So, McCain is objectively quite good on ethanol and seemingly perfect from Krugman's perspective. But I doubt we'll see Krugman writing anytime soon that Obama wants to steal bread from the mouths of starving African children in order to beat McCain in the Midwest.
Ace notes the U.N. finding that 2008 is likely to be a cool year -- a trend that has now lasted for a full decade. He sarcastically comments that 'this is all just further evidence that the earth is boiling over.'
But Ace misses the essential basis of apocalyptic environmentalism. It's not that the Earth is warming, it's that human beings are doing something that screws up the planet, and therefore we must make costly and uncomfortable changes to our lifestyle. That was the solution when scientists feared a new ice age, and it's true now when we're concerned about global warming climate change global briskness.
The proper question then is whether the time has come to adopt a complex and expensive new command-and-control regulatory regime designed to force greater carbon emissions, in an effort to stabilize world temperatures before the planet gets too brisk. Perhaps it's time to mothball nuclear energy again, since it emits no greenhouse gases. Maybe it's time to tell manufacturers to retire the emissions controls that they adopted within the last decade, and switch to state-of-the-art production techniques from 1950. Maybe people should be forbidden to purchase cars that get better than 20 miles to the gallon.
While this may sound extreme -- largely in conflict with what we've been told the last 10 years -- it still accomplishes a critical goal: it makes us feel guilty and costs us an arm and a leg.
Via Newsbusters, which has the video, Ted Turner appeared on the Charlie Rose show with this global warming prediction:
Not doing it [taking action] will be catastrophic. We'll be eight degrees hottest in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals. Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state -- like Somalia or Sudan -- and living conditions will be intolerable. The droughts will be so bad there'll be no more corn grown. Not doing it is suicide. Just like dropping bombs on each other, nuclear weapons is suicide. We've got to stop doing the suicidal two things, which are hanging on to our nuclear weapons and after that we've got to stabilize the population.
What an unbelievable crank. But the most disturbing bit is the talk of 'stabilizing' populations. That means you don't get to have babies because Mr. Turner, as the largest land owner in the United States, has decided we don't have enough resources for your family and his environmental conscience. Also, while the rest of us are cannibals, as the owner of 40,000 head of bison, the largest herd in the United States, I think Turner will be eating pretty well. And say, don't I recall reading something about how cattle produce more greenhouse emissions than cars? Surely bison are carbon neutral though...
He also praised Iraqi insurgents as "patriotic"--in fairness, I'm not sure he knows what the word means after a ten year marriage to Jane Fonda.
The New York Times tackles the hottest trend since carbon offsets:
Green jobs are especially good “because they cannot be easily outsourced, say, to Asia,” said Van Jones, president of Green for All, an organization based in Oakland, Calif., whose goal is promoting renewable energy and lifting workers out of poverty. “If we are going to weatherize buildings, they have to be weatherized here,” he said. “If you put up solar panels, you can’t ship a building to Asia and have them put the solar panels on and ship it back. These jobs have to be done in the United States.”
Many advocates of green employment say the jobs should be good for the workers as well as the environment. Two weeks ago in Pittsburgh, more than 800 people attended a national green-jobs conference, where much of the talk was about ensuring that green jobs provided living wages. Many speakers anticipated that the jobs would do so, because they often required special skills, like the technical ability to maintain a giant wind turbine (and the physical ability to climb a 20-story ladder to work on it).
It's hard to decide where to wade into this silliness. First off, what's wrong with Asia? Do environmentalists not want Asians to have jobs? Second, if a green job cannot be outsourced, does that mean that manufacturing solar panels isn't green? After all, they can be produced anywhere. And why do green jobs -- not including functions such as accounting -- require more skill than traditional jobs? Another green jobs advocate tells the Times that a traditional mining job magically becomes green when the metal is used for a green purpose. So which is it?
Advocates also say that green jobs are different because they produce things 'the world wants.' I suppose that sets them apart from traditional capital intensive and polluting jobs such as say, producing food and energy. Those are clearly things that have been forced on the reluctant consumer.
It seems it might be time to conduct a poll and figure out how much Americans are willing to spend to create more green jobs. I bet it's about the same as they'd spend to combat global warming.
The New York Times reports on the war between vegans and feminists:
This isn’t the first time animal rights activists have been accused of sexism. Many vegans have long criticized PETA for using naked celebrities in its advertising campaigns and for staging stunts like naked protests.
Isa Chandra Moskowitz, a cookbook author, is among those who believe such images twist the vegan message. “As a feminist, I’m not keen on the idea of using women’s bodies to sell veganism, and I’m not into the idea of using veganism to sell women’s bodies,” she said.
Who do we like in this one? Well, the vegans are all carrot, and the feminists, of course, are all stick.
Jonathan Chait has a short piece at TNR on the conservative strategy for dealing with climate change:
If you want to know how little sacrifice most Republicans are willing to endure to make a dent in global warming, here is your answer. They're not even willing to take back a special interest subsidy--worth $1.3 billion per year, roughly 1 percent of the industry's annual profit--that nobody was willing to defend when it was enacted.
That's about right. There is a shift taking place within the conservative movement on this issue, but Chait largely misses the point because he can't resist harping on some boring and silly subsidy that no one on the right would care to defend or repeal. But then Chait makes a good living writing on topics that bore me to tears. The larger issue, though, is interesting. So I'll lay it out for Chait.
Conservatives have been forced to concede defeat in the debate over climate change. Americans believe in it, they believe they're responsible for it, and they want their politicians to do something about it. Which isn't to say that conservatives actually believe in global warming, just that they tend to be slightly more pragmatic than their liberal counterparts on such issues. So we're working on a new strategy, and as Chait found out, it can be boiled down to two simple words: do nothing.
If the American people want something done about climate change, they don't necessarily want to pay for it. Take for example cap and trade. It's a marvelous system for obscuring the true costs of regulation, but it clearly isn't the most effective way to reduce carbon emissions. So what happens? You get conservative economists like Steven F. Hayward and Kevin A. Hassett joining forces with far left environmentalists in agitating for a direct carbon tax. I won't assume that Hayward and Hasset have anything but pure intentions, but their position gets a lot of support from conservatives who've never advocated for a tax on anything. Cynic that I am, I think I know what's going on here.
Chait writes of Republicans, "If you're not willing to inflict a one-cent hike at the pump, you're not willing to endure any sacrifice whatsoever to reduce global warming." True, but nearly half of all Americans are not willing to endure a one-cent hike at the pump:
Forty-eight percent of Americans are unwilling to spend even a penny more in gasoline taxes to help reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new nationwide survey released today by the National Center for Public Policy Research.
So there's the strategy--and skeptics have good reason to think it'll be successful.
Each presidential election cycle the media comes around to the idea that this is the year that voters are going to punish 'anti-environmental' candidates. In the past (the argument goes), the American people wanted a clean environment, but didn't consider it a high enough priority to decide an election. And like clockwork, we're being warned this year that global warming changes everything -- that a broad swath of voters is beginning to realize that life as we know it is at stake, and will vote accordingly. The only problem is these skunk-at-the-picnic polls that make it impossible to believe:
Forty-eight percent of Americans are unwilling to spend even a penny more in gasoline taxes to help reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new nationwide survey released today by the National Center for Public Policy Research.
The poll found just 18% of Americans are willing to pay 50 cents or more in additional taxes per gallon of gas to reduce greenhouse emissions. U.S. Representative John Dingell (D-MI), chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, has called for a 50 cent per gallon increase in the gas tax.
If half of all Americans are unwilling to pay anything more to combat global warming, and nearly 20 percent more are willing to spend only a small amount, how seriously do Americans view the problem? It seems that the appetite for a drastic tax increase continues to rest where it always has: with a relatively small activist minority.
HT: ShopFloor
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway....
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
That's the Washington Post, in 1922. As far as the Arctic now, NASA had a press conference today, which sounds like it consisted mostly of moving the goal posts:
"Weather comes and goes, and it's the long term average that really matters," observed Josefino Comiso from Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center.
That's the explanation for the unusually cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere. So the ice is there, covering a "slightly larger" area than it did this time last year, BUT they say it's thinner now. When it's more ice it's weather, when it's less ice...global warming.
HT: Ace
Are you concerned that your child is too happy? Do you want him to enjoy beatings from his classmates because he lectures them on the evils of their Styrofoam cups? Are you desperate for your progeny to become a tedious pedant?
Then I have good news for you. Al Gore is releasing “the first ever Children’s Book on Climate Change!” According to the publisher:
This concise and informative series, printed on recycled paper, introduces children to the critical issue of climate change and offers information on clean, green solutions to the problem. Beautiful photographs, detailed illustrative work, and natty designs make this series a visual delight.
It's a good thing the book has "natty designs." Kids love natty designs! And lest you feel some of that enviro-guilt beginning to well just at the prospect of exploiting our natural resources even for a purpose so noble as boring your child to tears, worry not – the book is printed on recycled paper.
Global warming never polls very well compared to other issues, such as the economy or the Iraq war. But a new study shows it doesn’t rank that high even compared to other environmental issues. Despite all the hoopla about global warming, it ranks below eight other environmental concerns and is even losing ground on the list of environmental issues, according to a new Gallup poll released today.
The survey asked Americans to gauge their level of concern about 12 environmental issues, ranging from water and land pollution, to global warming and acid rain. “Global warming” ranked ninth on the list. Water pollution and safety--like clean drinking water, keeping lakes and rivers uncontaminated, and maintaining fresh water for household needs--all ranked above global climate concerns.
Gallup also asked about these same issues in 2007. Every environmental issue in the survey generates slightly less concern in 2008 compared to last year. And global warming witnesses the second-largest decline. Maybe more Americans are beginning to realize that climate change is a “global issue,” requiring a thoughtful, balanced response, while water issues are somewhat more manageable right here at home.
Tell Al Gore all politics is local!
According to a new study published in Science (behind a subscription wall here), global sea levels have been falling--and will continue to fall--over time. The reason has nothing to do with global warming; instead, it's due to subsiding of the ocean floor:
"The ocean floor has got on average older and gone down and so the sea level has also fallen," said Bernhard Steinberger at the Geological Survey of Norway, one of five authors of a report in the journal Science.
"The trend will continue," he told Reuters.
A computer model based on improved understanding of shifts of continent-sized tectonic plates in the earth's crust projects more deepening of the ocean floor and a further sea level decline of 120 meters in 80 million years' time.
The reasearchers' maps show that about 80 million years ago, there would have been large inland seas in much of what is now Eastern Europe, central Asia, Australia, and South America. In another 80 million years from now (pictured), Russia will again be connected to North America via an Alaskan land bridge, Indonesia will be part of the Asian continent, the British Isles will be part of continental Europe, and all the world's major coastal cities will have moved inland.
The study points up the complexity of global climate and geographic patterns, and how narrow is our perception of what the world "should" look like. The oceans, the icecaps, and the coastlines have been in flux for millions of years, and will continue until our solar system dies. To decide that the climate, temperature, and weather patterns that we have today are the ones that should be maintained is not only chauvinistic, it is also beyond our ability to guarantee.
When elected officials insist upon a radical change in our lifestyle to achieve a desired environmental effect, they must be confident that the recommended course of action is necessary. But they must also be certain that it will achieve the desired effect on the globe. And given the seemingly daily emergence of new and heretofore poorly understood environmental phenomena, isn't it better to postpone radical policy shifts until we understand our globe better?
So it turns out plastic bags, the bête noire of environmentalists worldwide, are not so bad for marine life after all. According to a new report, "The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds." For dear readers of The Blog, the idea of a whale getting trapped in a Whole Foods bag is completely ludicrous on its face. Our greener brethren, however, need an expert to tell them, "Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag."
Now all we need to determine is whether the manufacture of plastic bags creates more greenhouse gas emissions than canvas alternatives. My guess is that people discard canvas bags long before they make up the difference.
Carter Wood points us to a new interview with Carl Pope, the Executive Director of the Sierra Club. Pope calls for expanded production of natural gas to help reduce the American dependence on foreign oil:
But among the fuels that you can use there are clear preferences and our preference is, obviously, use all the energy that we use really well. Use renewables as much as we can. Natural gas is the next-cleanest fuel, then we have oil and then we have coal...
So we’re trying to make sure that, first and foremost, we innovatively and creatively use whatever fuel we burn, but second that we rely primarily on the fuels that are the cleanest. And, among the fossil fuels, natural gas is at the top...
Our view is that we should actually let markets work. We should make it possible for the most efficient-energy sources to meet the largest part of our energy needs. There’s a lot of opportunity—people in the natural gas industry tell me—to produce more natural gas domestically by using new technologies, and we’re in favor of that...
I can't find any mention of natural gas in the energy section of Barack Obama's website, except for a brief mention of his plan to 'repeal tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.' Senator Clinton promises to 'flatten demand' for natural gas. It seems that fear of the base is so strong that no one can seek the Democratic nomination while recognizing that we can't conserve our way to energy independence.
It may be a lot to ask, but if the Sierra Club is willing to admit that we might need to produce more energy here in the United States, maybe the Democratic candidates for president could admit it as well.
From Daily Tech:
But now, that evidence [of global cooling] has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change every recorded, either up or down.
We've been covering this winter's wicked cold for a while now. Not only has Antarctic sea ice reached record levels over the last few years, much to the chagrin of Al Gore, but Arctic sea ice has made a remarkable comeback from last summer's record melt. It is covering a larger area, and it is 10-20 cm thicker, than in recent years. And there's a reason--it's cold outside.
Of course, it's not a consensus until Laurie David delivers her full report.
Lorne Gunter of Canada's National Post says we should 'forget about global warming.' He compiles some interesting data, and suggests that the world may be headed for a new ice age:
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.
The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."
China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them...
...Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.
Gunter ought to stop making fun of global warming. Doesn't he know there's a consensus?
Besides. All this simply demonstrates that awesome power of man-made global warming. We knew it could cause high temperatures, droughts, and desert expansion, so how long until cold waves are blamed on global warming? Answer, not long: "Cold wave in India attributed to global warming."
From the National Hurricane Center (via Anthony Watts):
A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.
“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”
If this is true for hurricanes, it's likely to be true for any other natural disaster. As you have more people living in more places, extreme weather will cause more property damage. The report concludes that "Even Hurricane Katrina is not outside the range of normalized estimates for past storms." And that's a consensus conclusion.
As if the New York Times story wasn't enough to drive conservatives into the arms of John McCain, Think Progress reports that the League of Conservation Voters today awarded the presumptive Republican nominee the lowest possible score for his environmental record in 2007--a big fat zero. Quoting the Sierra Club:
McCain was the only member of Congress to skip every single crucial environmental vote scored by the organization, posting a score lower than Members of Congress who were out for much of the year due to serious illnesses–and even lower than some who died during the term.
Do you hear that Rush? He'd score better if he were worm food. As Allah would say, second look at McCain!
How cold? Anthony Watts reports that the drop from January 2007 to January 2008 "appears to be the largest single year to year January drop for the entire GISS data set."
Of course, we're not likely to hear much about record breaking cold, but Watts goes on:
This is yet one more indication of the intensity of planet-wide cooler temperatures seen in January 2008, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, which has seen record amounts of snow coverage extent as well as new record low surface temperatures in many places.
Which has had the not surprising effect of restoring much of the sea ice lost last summer. The CBC reports:
Satellite images are showing that the cold spell is helping the sea ice expand in coverage by about 2 million square kilometres, compared to the average winter coverage in the previous three years.
"It's nice to know that the ice is recovering," Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, told CBC News on Thursday.
"That means that maybe the perennial ice would not go down as low as last year."
So what, Al Gore might say. The problem isn't the extent of the ice, but the thickness. Well...
The cold is also making the ice thicker in some areas, compared to recorded thicknesses last year, Lagnis added.
"The ice is about 10 to 20 centimetres thicker than last year, so that's a significant increase," he said.
I'm starting to think that the left only pays attention to the Arctic in the summer--when it's supposed to melt.
Via Instapundit, news of a lull in solar activity prompts some scientists to worry of an impending mini-ice age. But you shouldn't worry--the sun has nothing to do with climate:
Just how much influence the sun has on global temperatures has been the subject of sometimes acrimonious debate. While an upswing in solar activity may cause a warming trend, it was discounted in the mid-1990s as the sole driver of current climate change. And for anyone hoping that a solar downswing might bail us out of our current dilemma: Solar influence on climate is slight compared to the impact of man-made greenhouse gases, a National Academy of Sciences report concluded in 1995.
This illustrates what I suspect is one of the leading causes of skepticism about global warming: the sheer egotism of climate change alarmists. The earth's climate has always been in a state of flux. Might man-made greenhouse gases contribute to a rise in temperature? Sure. Does man have a greater impact on the environment than the big ball of fire in the sky? Obviously not. As the story also notes, waning solar activity "may indicate the star has entered a downturn that, if history is any precedent, could trigger a planetary cold spell that could bring massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere."
History is a pretty good precedent, in fact.
In other global warming news, Canada's "most well-known environmental alarmist" is calling for criminal penalties to be imposed on politicians who don't tow the line on climate change:
"What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there's a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they're doing is a criminal act," said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
That's certainly one way to achieve consensus.
The Independent reports:
A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said....
Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."...
"It moves around like a big animal without a leash." When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. "The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he added.
When asked for comment, the Atlantic Ocean said the Pacific was "always a bit of a lush and never could hold its plastic."
The Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is to be the cornerstone of a revitalized surface fleet (if the Navy can ever get the thing built at a reasonable price). The Navy's next generation destroyer, the DDG-1000, is also built to "dominate the littoral." This is because the Pentagon is betting that future Naval conflicts are likely to be fought in the littoral, rather than in the open ocean. But apparently the Navy can't train in the littoral:
A federal judge yesterday said White House officials cannot override her order requiring the Navy to take special precautions to protect whales and dolphins from sonar used during its training off Southern California....
If allowed to stand, the waiver would have exempted the Navy drills from Cooper's restrictions. Among other steps, the judge ordered the Navy last month to not transmit sonar within 12 miles of California's coastline and to shut down the sonar whenever marine mammals are spotted within 2,200 yards.
If a war breaks out, maybe the Chinese will also agree not to use sonar near the coast or when whales are around. Short of that, this has the effect of endangering the lives of American sailors. So what's this really about (besides the fact that environmentalists care more about the whales than humans)?
“The court has affirmed that we do not live under an imperial presidency,” Joel Reynolds, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said yesterday. “The Navy doesn't need to harm whales to train effectively with sonar.”
I don't believe a lawyer for the NRDC is qualified to determine what is necessary for effective naval training. I'd prefer to leave that decision to the Navy, and my imperial president.
La Niña or Global Cooling?
HT: What's Up With That?
Today, we have "Gods" walking among us that seem to know how an infinite system will turn out in the future, because they are armed with the idols that are known as models. They are given credit for things that have not occurred and, in all likelihood, will not occur. Why? It is because what is occurring now has occurred before.
That's AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi writing at IceCap. He goes on:
This first colder than normal year worldwide is one of the signs that we are getting ready to go back to a colder cycle, on the order of 15-20 years. That this is happening seems to be hidden or erased from any trace in the minds of these folks. Amazing isn’t it? Facts of the past are discarded in one-sided arguments.
You gotta love consensus. Go read the whole thing, it's very entertaining. Of course, meteorologists, who spend all their time trying and failing to predict tomorrow's weather, are often skeptical of global warming. I'm a weather geek. I follow the models all winter--the GFS, the EURO, the NAM. They can't tell you much more about the weather five days out than five months out--which is to say they can tell you precisely nothing. So when Bastardi tells you no one knows what the weather will be in 2050, believe it. The models are bunk.
HT: EasternUS Weather
If you believe in that sort of thing. People's Daily reports:
The share price of China Coal Energy, the country's second largest coal producer, jumped more than 40 percent in a strong debut in Shanghai on Friday amid volatile trading....
The capital would be used for the construction of major coal projects in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Heilongjiang Province, and to supplement operating capital, according to the company.
China has a lot of coal. It's a cheap, efficient, and secure source of energy, so they aren't going to stop building coal-fired power plants any time soon--even if Obama hugs it out with them. Not only that, but much of the developing world, most notably Africa, will have to rely on affordable coal-fired power plants in order to lift themselves out of abject poverty. This type of thing puts the environmental movement at odds with efforts to eliminate global poverty--a conflict that Anne Applebaum captured well in her piece on India's Nano.
From the Tierney Lab:
[T]here’s one very hard piece of evidence that casts doubt on the doomsday predictions: a polar bear jawbone that appears to be at least 110,000 years old, meaning that polar bears have survived eras with considerably warmer temperatures than today.
My colleague Andy Revkin reported in December, at his Dot Earth blog, that the discoverers of the jawbone told him there was “no threat of outright extinction within a century or more” and that “this finding reinforces the idea that they can endure.”
More good news for the polar bears: sea ice extent has returned to "near normal" levels after last summer's "record" thaw, and the Northern Hemisphere has more snow cover right now than at any time in the last decade.
HT: Eastern Weather
The brand new Tesla Roadster will soon start shipping, and the designers of what seems to be a pretty cool new electric car are giving test drives to publications like Automobile magazine. Autoblog Green beats them to the punch, with the first published review of the test drive (as far as I can tell). It seems as if the car looks cooler than it actually is. Alternately, it might just be that a site called 'Autoblog Green' just isn't the place to show off a car that goes from 0-60 in four seconds, nearly silently.
The Tesla Roadster is the product of the people who conceived it. Martin Eberhard wanted a really fast sports car that had no emissions. What they have wrought is a hard-edged sports car that fits like a pair of good leather driving gloves. It's not for everyone, even among the relatively few who can afford it. But for those who can and want it, it's a fine choice.
When (and if) electric cars begin to make headway in the domestic market, it will be more through cars like the Tesla than the Prius. The Prius has made headway through its distinctive look, as a symbol of environmental responsibility. But that market is limited. When green cars really capture the American imagination, it'll be because they look and act like the cars currently available with traditional internal combustion engines.
In fact, it sounds like the perfect car for me -- except that I'm 6'4". And have kids. And can't afford it at $100K. But apart from that...
The Washington Post reports:
In November, the Democratic-led House spent about $89,000 on so-called carbon offsets. This | | | |
