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Troubling Lack of Science Behind Global Warming Claims

by William Yeatman on March 18, 2003

in Science

One February 27, Christopher Essex, a professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario, and Ross McKitrick, an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph, gave a Cooler Heads Coalition congressional staff and media briefing on their new book, Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming.

Essex, who studies the underlying mathematics, physics and computation of complex dynamical processes, raised some very fundamental scientific issues with regard to the science of global warming. Take, for instance, the “average global temperature,” which is a mainstay of the debate. Such a thing doesnt exist, according to Essex. You cant add up temperature and take its average like you can with physical quantities such as energy, length, and so on.

“Thermodynamic variables are categorized as extensive or intensive,” said Essex. “Extensive variables occur in amounts. Intensive variables [such as temperature] refer to conditions of a system, defined continuously throughout its extent.” For example, one could add the temperature of a cup of ice water to the temperature of a cup of hot coffee, but what does that number mean? It doesnt mean anything because there is no such thing as total temperature. Dividing that number by two to get the average doesnt mean anything either. Yet that is exactly what occurs when the average global temperature is computed.

Essex also pointed out that the internal energy of a system can change without changing the temperature and the temperature can change while the internal energy of the system remains the same. “This disconnect happens routinely in the natural world around us all the time,” said Essex. “Ultimately this has to be so because temperature and energy belong to two fundamentally different classes of thermodynamic variables.”

Global warming enthusiasts want us to believe that average temperature can tell us something about what is going on in the climate, but it is just a number with no physical content. To add insult to injury, Essex explained that there are literally an infinite number of averaging rules that could be used, some of which will show “warming” and others that will show “cooling,” but the “physics doesnt say which one to use.”

Essex also explained that the earths so-called greenhouse effect does not work like a greenhouse. “Incoming solar radiation adds energy to the Earths surface,” he said. To restore radiative balance the energy must be transported back to space in roughly the same amounts that it arrived in. The energy is transported via two processes infrared radiation (heat transfer) and fluid dynamics (turbulence).

A real greenhouse works by preventing fluid motions, such as the wind, by enclosing an area with plastic or glass. To restore balance, infrared radiation must increase, thereby causing the temperature to rise. Predicting the resulting temperature increase is a relatively straightforward process.

But the “greenhouse effect” works differently. Greenhouse gases slow down outgoing infrared radiation, which causes the fluid dynamics to adjust. But it cannot be predicted what will happen because the equations which govern fluid dynamics cannot be solved! Scientists cannot even predict the flow of water through a pipe, let alone the vastly more complex fluid dynamics of the climate system. “No one can compute from first principles what the climate will do,” said Essex. “It may warm, or cool, or nothing at all!” Saying that the greenhouse effect works the same way as a greenhouse, which is a solvable problem, creates certainty where none exists, said Essex.

Surely scientists are aware of the issues that Essex brings up (and several other equally devastating points that arent discussed here). If so, then how have we come to a place where the media and politicians repeatedly state that there is a scientific consensus that the planet is warming up, it is caused by man, and the effects will be catastrophic? McKitrick offered a very convincing explanation. He discussed several relevant groups, but well focus on politicians and what McKitrick calls “Official Science.”

Politicians need big issues around which they can form winning coalitions. Global warming is a good issue because, “It is so complex and baffling the public still has little clue what its really about. Its global, so you get to have your meetings in exotic locations. Policy initiatives could sound like heroic measures to save the planet, but on the other hand the solutions are potentially very costly. So you need a high degree of scientific support if you are going to move on it. Theres a premium on certainty.”

This is where Official Science comes in. Official Science is made up of staffs of scientific bureaucracies, editors of prominent magazines, directors of international panels, and so on. These members of Official Science arent appointed by scientists to speak on their behalf, but are appointed by governments. They have the impossible job of striking “a compromise between the need for certainty in policymaking and the aversion to claims of certainty in regular science.” What happens is that science ends up serving a political agenda rather than a scientific one. “If things were as they should be, leaders would want a treaty because they observe that scientists are in agreement. What happens instead is that Official Science orchestrates agreement because leaders want to make a treaty.” The presentation will soon be available at www.cei.org. Taken By Storm may be ordered at www.amazon.ca.

Etc.

On March 13, Hans Blix, the U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq was interviewed on MTV about his thoughts regarding war with Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. During the interview he stated that, “On big issues like war in Iraq, but in many other issues, they simply must be multilateral. Theres no other way around. You have the instances like the global warming convention, the Kyoto protocol, when the U.S. went its own way. I regret it. To me the question of the environment is more ominous than that of peace and war. We will have regional conflicts and use of force, but world conflicts I do not believe will happen any longer. But the environment, that is a creeping danger. Im more worried about global warming than I am of any major military conflict.” Presumably, the risks of war, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorist acts such as 9/11, pale in comparison to the threat of global warming.

Japan Rethinking Kyoto

by William Yeatman on March 18, 2003

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

Japans industrial sector is beginning to grouse about its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, which the government ratified last year. According to Taishi Sugiyama, a senior researcher at Japans independent Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry, industry is putting considerable pressure on the government to rethink the Kyoto Protocol. Apparently, the government is listening.

Japan was one of the last countries to ratify Kyoto, partly due to strong opposition by industry groups and the Japanese Conservative Party, which favored voluntary reductions. But the government also felt obligated to ratify a treaty named for its ancient capitol. Now, nearly a year later, industry has become increasingly resentful of the Kyoto Protocol, said Sugiyama, who spoke to the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. last week.

Now the government is looking ahead to the 2005 negotiations when Kyoto signatories will discuss actions to be taken beyond 2013. Experts, such as Sugiyama, expect that the government will push for voluntary emissions reductions targets. Others disagree, however, saying that it would be very difficult for Japan to back away from the treaty.

Part of the resentment of the treaty comes from the assumptions the government used to determine its ability to meet the targets. For

example, it assumed that cuts in industrial emissions would be accomplished in large part through carbon leakage. In other words, heavy industry would close plants in Japan and open new plants on the Asian mainland, which the affected industries may have been surprised to learn. There was also widespread doubt that Japan would be able to meet its Kyoto targets, a sentiment the government apparently ignored.

Industry leaders also feel that the treaty is unfair. They argue that Japan is the only country that has enacted truly aggressive implementation policies, while the Kyoto Protocol allows European Union countries to buy emissions credits from less industrialized Eastern European countries, thereby avoiding the need for significant emissions reductions. Moreover, the EU has replaced much of its coal-fired capacity with natural gas since 1990, which serves as the baseline year for Kyoto reductions, thereby making the EUs target much less onerous.

Finally, industry argues that Japan made significant emissions reductions prior to 1990, when the government embarked on a tremendously costly twenty-year program to cope with the Arab oil embargo, making the 1990 baseline unfair to Japan. “We have already done much,” said Sugiyama. “Still, Kyoto requires [Japan] to reduce emissions 6 percent. Given that situation, its going to be extremely difficult to reduce emissions further.”

Last October the government organized a committee to revisit the Kyoto agreement. The committee, made up of 30 stakeholders, half of which are industry representatives, will present its findings to the government this month. It is likely, said Sugiyama, that it will call for a new protocol or an amended agreement with a combination of voluntary and mandatory targets (Greenwire, March 6, 2003).

Carbon Trading Schemes Depend on the Force of Law

by William Yeatman on March 18, 2003

in Blog

There are several hurdles that must be overcome before a worldwide carbon emission trading system can become viable, according to experts who spoke last week at the World Resources Institutes Sustainable Enterprise Summit in Washington, D.C.

Ongoing attempts to create voluntary greenhouse gas emission trading markets are being undermined by a lack of consistency that would come from well-developed rules. There are two primary types of emissions trade occurring so far: awarding of credits for baseline reduction projects and trading under a cap-and-trade scheme.

The baseline-and-credit system awards credits to companies that reduce emissions through the Kyoto Protocols Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation provisions. These allow companies to offset emissions through investment in non-emitting technologies. Companies are awarded credits based on the amount of emissions reduced below business-as-usual levels.

The cap-and-trade system, on the other hand, allows companies to trade emissions credits that are allotted based on a predetermined emission cap. Companies that exceed their targets can sell credits to companies that may not be able to meet theirs.

Although there has been some increase in trading, the market will not be truly viable without market-wide trading rules, consistent pricing, and standardized verification methods, according to the summit participants. “The success of the market really hinges on the ability to develop rules of the game,” said Janet Ranganathan, a senior associate with WRIs Sustainable Enterprise Program. Veronique Bishop, principal finance specialist with the World Banks Carbon Fund, agrees on the need for consistent pricing, but believes that, “We are light years away from that.”

What these experts are calling for is a worldwide regulatory regime to bring about the viability of emissions trading. In the absence of a real asset, there can be no “voluntary” markets with both buyers as well as sellers. Emissions trading markets only work when artificial scarcity is created through regulatory fiat and all emitters are required to participate. Otherwise you have a lot of sellers, but few if any buyers.

Indeed, Ranganathan fingers the U.S.s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol for the weak trading market. “The U.S. would have been the major buyer in the Kyoto Protocol had it ratified [the treaty],” she said. “The fact that it has withdrawn now casts doubt over carbon prices, and low carbon prices can create dysfunctions in the market, ultimately undermining the potential environmental gains.”

Robert Routliffe, manager of greenhouse gas emissions trading at DuPont, said that low participation is a “characteristic of any voluntary market. Its hard to get folks to spend money.” Developing carbon trading schemes is a “big, capital-intensive” process, which presents a major obstacle for most companies. Nor would the cost be lessened by mandatory controls (Greenwire, March 17, 2003).

Another Hit for the Climate Models; Melting in Arctic May be Natural

by William Yeatman on March 4, 2003

in Science

Another Hit for the Climate Models

Its not everyday that the climate models take it on the proverbial chin. It just seems like it. In a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Junhong Wang with the National Center of Atmospheric Research discussed his research teams findings that the amount of water vapor in the upper atmosphere is much greater than previously thought at least over Oklahoma and Kansas.

The researchers have built a new radiosonde instrument, called Snow White (SW), which measures relative humidity more accurately than the old instruments, which have been the basis for all upper atmosphere climate records. The new radiosonde will serve as the new reference case from which all previous measurements will be calibrated.

In test runs over Kansas and Oklahoma, the researchers found that below six kilometers the old and new radiosondes agree reasonably well but then diverge at altitudes above six kilometers. At about 11.4 to 12.7 kilometers, SW found a supersaturation layer, which could be the cirrus cloud layer. Previous measurements found relative humidity of below 30 percent.

This finding is important because high altitude cirrus clouds do not block sunlight, indeed they are often invisible to the naked eye, but very efficiently block outgoing infrared radiation (heat), causing a net warming. Where humidity is high, however, the relative effect of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, on temperature is smaller than in low humidity areas.

Thats why most anthropogenic warming is predicted to take place in extraordinarily dry (and cold) regions such as Siberia. If the humidity data used in a computer model is too low, then the model will overestimate the effect of greenhouse gases. And, the climate models will predict too much warming. The paper is available at www.ametsoc.org/AMS/index.html.

Melting in Arctic May be Natural

Researchers from the Norwegian Polar Institute and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute have compiled data from the ship logs of early Arctic explorers and whalers to determine the sea ice extent from 1553 to 2002.

What they have found is that the current retreat of ice observed in the Arctic occurred before in the early 1700s. While this evidence doesnt rule out that the current melting is due to mans greenhouse gas emissions, it certainly suggests that it may be entirely natural. “If you go back to the early 1700s you find that sea ice extent was about the same as it is now,” said Chad Dick of the Arctic Climate Systems Study.

The researchers also found that sea ice has declined by about 33 percent over the past 135 years, but that most of that retreat occurred before significant manmade emissions of greenhouse gases. This also means that the current melting could be due to natural cycles. “The evidence at the moment is fairly inconclusive,” said Mr. Dick. “The fact is there are natural cycles in sea ice extent and were not outside the range of those natural cycles at the moment.”

Mr. Dick also noted that if the current warming is indeed due to natural cycles, we should begin to see ice thickening again in the near future. It will take about ten more years at the current rate of thinning to get beyond the range that wed expect if the decline in sea ice is due to natural cycles (Globe and Mail, February 27, 2003). The World Wildlife Fund is publishing the sea charts on CD-ROM (www.panda.org).

UK Leader Endorses Ambitious Carbon Reduction Goals

by William Yeatman on March 4, 2003

in Blog

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has thrown his support behind a government plan that would severely restrict greenhouse gas emissions, require large increases in the use of renewable energy, and block any further construction of nuclear power plants. The plan, which was set out in a white paper policy document released by the government on Feb. 24, was hailed by the prime minister as a “step change in the UKs energy strategy over the next 50 years.”

The plan calls for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 60 percent by the year 2050. The massive reductions would to take place without the aid of nuclear power and would rely heavily on building renewable energy capacity as well as energy efficiency. The plan calls for a large increase in renewable energy production, requiring that 20 percent of the nations energy be produced from renewable sources by 2020.

In a speech endorsing the plan, Blair claimed that the technology is available to make the steep reductions in CO2 emissions without hurting economic growth. He also stated that, “It is clear Kyoto is not radical enough” and that he will “continue to make the case to the U.S. and to others that climate change is a serious threat that we must address together as an international community.”

The Financial Times criticized Mr. Blair in a Feb. 25 editorial, stating that, “Having fixed the end, he has not willed the means.” It goes on to say that the white paper “opens a necessary debate on the conflict between energy and the environment but does not provide an answer on how to combine them.” The editorial noted that a Downing Street document published last year said that, “It would be unwise for the UK now to take a unilateral decision to meet the [60 percent] target in advance of international negotiations on longer-term targets.”

It concludes that, “Eventually, the government will have to temper its moral passion for renewables with certain realities,” namely with “awareness that renewable energies can never be a complete solution, because most of them do not work on calm or cloudy days. If avoiding carbon emissions is the priority, this is better performed by nuclear reactors than anything else.”

Court Orders EPA to Hand Over Climate Change Documents; Analyst Shreds AGs CO2 Case

by William Yeatman on March 4, 2003

in Politics

Court Orders EPA to Hand Over Climate Change Documents

The Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to produce “climate change” documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), or to justify their withholding. CEI, a non-profit free market advocacy group, requested the documents to determine whether or not the agency was engaging in activities to implement the Kyoto Protocol “through the backdoor” in opposition to congressional prohibition.

“Now we can finally begin assessing how far the agency has gone toward backdoor implementation of the Kyoto Protocol,” said Christopher C. Horner, CEI Counsel who filed the lawsuit.  “We also remain fascinated by a point of which the Court took particular note:  How does EPA explain their shift in alarmism from the global cooling scare of years past to the current emphasis on catastrophic global warming?”

The documents that the EPA has been ordered to hand over are expected to show that the agency has violated the “Knollenberg Provision,” originally sponsored by Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-MI). The provision prohibits the federal government from spending money to implement the Kyoto Protocol, which has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate.

“By this Order, the D.C. District Court joins CEIs puzzlement over the Administrations refusal to turn over documents on the basis that their release may potentially harm U.S. interests in ongoing Kyoto negotiations,” said Horner.  “And it adds to the mounting public embarrassments over the refusal by various officials to execute the Presidents rejection of Kyoto, instead continuing to try to cut a deal for a treaty the President assured the public he rejected in Americas interest.”

The court ruling, said Horner, will likely expose attempted backdoor implementation during the Clinton Administration. The EPA has until March 31 to either produce the documents or explain to the satisfaction of the court why they are withholding them.

Analyst Shreds AGs CO2 Case

State Attorneys General from several states have filed notice on two separate occasions this year of their intent to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to regulate carbon dioxide. The first notice came on January 30, informing EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman that the Attorneys General of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine planned to sue under Section 108 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), which they claim obligates Whitman to list CO2 as a pollutant that endangers public health and safety.

The second notice came on February 20 when the three AGs, joined by four others representing New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington, informed Whitman of intent to sue unless she promulgates New Source Review Performance Standards for power plant emissions of CO2 under section 111 of the CAA.

In a critique of the two letters, Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, accuses the AGs of engaging in “mere word play” and a “sophomoric attempt to turn statutory construction into a game of gotcha.”

The question, argues Lewis, is “Did Congress delegate to EPA the power to regulate CO2? When Congress enacted and amended the CAA, did it intend for EPA to set up a mandatory greenhouse gas control program?” The answer is clearly no, according to Lewis. As he has noted elsewhere and repeats in the current critique, CO2 is not mentioned in any CAA regulatory provisions and only once in a non-regulatory provision. The clincher, however, is the statement within the non-regulatory provision that, “Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to authorize the imposition on any person of air pollution control requirements.”

Moreover, the AGs want the EPA to declare CO2 a pollutant under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) program. But NAAQS is a program that deals with “place-specific air quality programs,” which “measures local pollution levels against national air quality standards and seeks to remedy local problems via state implementation plans.”

It doesnt make any sense to attempt to regulate CO2 under the NAAQS provision because regardless of where the CO2 is emitted, it has the same potential impact on the climate. “If EPA set NAAQS for CO2 above current atmospheric levels, the entire country would be in attainment, even if U.S. consumption of hydrocarbon fuels suddenly doubled,” says Lewis. “Conversely, if EPA set a NAAQS for CO2 below current levels, the entire country would be out of attainment, even if all power plants, factories, and automobiles shut down.”

The second notice of intent to sue is a new innovation in the AGs attempt to force the EPA to regulate CO2. This one seeks to force Administrator Whitman to set New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for CO2 emission from electric generating units. NSPS requires different categories of stationary sources to meet certain performances. Lewis points out that the NSPS program was enacted in 1970, “years before global warming was even a gleam in Al Gores eye.” Nor did Congress instruct the EPA to address global warming in the NSPS program when it amended the CAA in 1977 and 1990.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced legislation to amend the NSPS to cap CO2 from power plants in the 105th, 106th, and 107th Congresses. Each time the bill attracted zero co-sponsors. Its absurd, says Lewis, to argue that Congress implicitly empowered EPA to cap CO2 in 1970 given Leahys efforts to provide that authority and Congresss flat rejection of those efforts. “The phrase laughed out of court was invented for just such inanities.” Lewis makes several other cogent and damning critiques of the AGs arguments.

He concludes by challenging EPA Administrator Whitman to show leadership in the face of these attacks. These notices are designed to force her to choose between the Presidents opposition to CO2 regulation and the career bureaucrats who want to increase their power over the U.S. economy, says Lewis. “Whitman must decide where her loyalties lie with the rule of law, economic growth, and affordable energy, or with the rule of bureaucrats, regulatory excess, and Kyoto-style energy rationing.” The critique, The Anti-Energy Litigation Of The State Attorneys General: From Junk Science To Junk Law, is available at www.cei.org.

Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources

by William Yeatman on March 2, 2003

in Science

Here is what experts have to say on the issue of alternative and renewable energy sources.

Climate Variation is the Norm, not the Exception

by William Yeatman on February 18, 2003

in Science

A new report by Dr. David Wojick, which reviews six major National Academy of Sciences studies published over the last five years, argues that a new understanding of climate change has emerged as scientists have grappled with the question of mans influence on the climate.

Wojick states, “The issues in the NAS reports and recent research are far more fundamental and clash with an underlying premise of much climate modeling over the past decade that climate over the past century and a half has been effectively constant and any changes are primarily because of mans activity.”

One of the NAS reports, Decade-to-Century-Scale Climate Variability and Change: A Science Strategy, published in 1998, effectively debunks that premise. “The evidence of natural variations in the climate system which was once assumed to be relatively stable clearly reveals that climate has changed, is changing, and will continue to do so with or without anthropogenic influences.”

The review goes on to quote several more passages from NAS studies, which simply do not offer any confirmation of the claims that the science is settled. The previously mentioned study also states, “Without a clear understanding of how climate has changed naturally in the past, and the mechanisms involved, our ability to interpret any future change will be significantly confounded and our ability to predict future change severely curtailed.”

Another NAS report, The Atmospheric Sciences: Entering the Twenty-First Century, also published in 1998, states, “Large gaps in our knowledge of interannual and decade-to-century natural variability hinder our ability to provide credible predictive skill or to distinguish the role of human activities from natural variability.” In 2001, the NAS admitted in a study titled, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, that “the observing system available today is a composite of observations that neither provide the information nor the continuity in the data needed to support measurements of climate variables.”

Far from being settled, the science is still in its infancy. The NASs Global Environment Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade, published in 1999, argues that, “Climate research is only at the beginning of its learning curve, with dramatic findings appearing at an impressive rate. In this area even the most fundamental scientific issues are evolving rapidly.”

The NAS studies reveal, according to Wojick, that there has been a quiet revolution in climate science. “It seems that we have discovered or confirmed a number of natural mechanisms of climate change, at least ten in fact. These mechanisms provide alternative, competing explanations for global warming; alternative to, and competing with, the theory of human-induced warming. Also alternative to, and competing with, each other.

“Each of these mechanisms can in theory explain all of the changes in 20th century climate. Human greenhouse gas emissions are therefore just one of many alternative hypotheses. In addition, the evidence for warming due to greenhouse gas emissions is no greater than for any of the other mechanisms” (Electricity Daily, February 3, 2003). As a result of this revolution, increases in our understanding about climate change have been paralleled by increases in the uncertainty about mans contribution, if indeed there is one.

The mechanisms include solar variation, emergence from the Little Ice Age, lunar energy variation, internal oscillations (such as El Nio), Milankovitch forcing (variations in the Earths orbit), ocean variation, biospheric variation, cryogenic variation (variations in the amount and distribution of ice), surface versus satellite temperature variation, and aerosol forcing mechanisms.

Wojick concludes that, “We do not know the extent of climate change in the past, we do not know why climate changes, and we must focus our research on this issue. Only then can we integrate the potential role of past increases in GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions into recent climate history, and only then can we begin to assess the outlook for future climate.”

Announcements

Christopher Essex of the University of Western Ontario and Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, will give a Cooler Heads Coalition congressional and media briefing on their new book, Taken By Storm: the troubled science, policy, and politics of global warming, on Thursday, February 27, from 2:30 to 4:00 PM in Room 406 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building. Reservations are requested. To attend, please contact Myron Ebell at mebell@cei.org or (202) 331-2256. Include your name, telephone number, e-mail address, and institutional affiliation. Registered attendees will receive copies of the book, compliments of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Decarbonization in Our Future?; IPCCs Economic Assumptions Assailed; Renewable Energy in Decline

by William Yeatman on February 18, 2003

in Blog

Decarbonization in Our Future?

At a briefing February 7 sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition, Jesse Ausubel, a researcher at the Rockefeller University, laid out a framework for thinking about global warming issues. There are several points at which the issue is being debated. There are the issues of energy use, emissions, and concentrations; climate sensitivity, or how much the climate may warm due to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations; the potential impacts on ecosystems and people; and so on.

Ausubel argued that many of these issues are essentially unknowable. Climate sensitivity, for example, has been estimated at different extremes. The aggregate results from peer-reviewed scientific studies show a normal distribution of climate sensitivities. Some suggest that a doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration will warm the climate by about 4.5 degrees Celsius. Others show low climate sensitivity, which would lead to a warming of 1.5 degrees C. Still others fall somewhere in the middle. As Ausubel stated, “The pile of papers keeps getting larger, but the shape of the pile never changes.”

The real debate, according to Ausubel, lies in the trends in energy use. This is one variable that is known, and as Ausubel has discovered, the world has experienced a sustained long-running reduction in carbon intensity in its energy use. Wood, still a major source of fuel in less developed countries, has a hydrogen-to-carbon ratio of 1 to 10. Coals H:C ratio is 1 to 2, oil 2 to 1, and methane or natural gas about 4 to 1.

The world has been steadily decarbonizing for the last 150 years, from wood to coal to oil, and now to methane. Ausubel argues, somewhat controversially, that total decarbonization is in our future and that the economy will run on hydrogen, powered by nuclear power. That may well be the case.

One of the major implications of decarbonization is that energy policy may be irrelevant. As Ausubel has noted elsewhere, “Neither Queen Victoria nor Abraham Lincoln decreed a policy of decarbonization. Yet, the system pursued it.” Decarbonization and our path to the hydrogen economy will happen regardless of government decrees or federal research money.

Ausubel also takes to task the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its assumptions on energy use. When Ausubel extrapolated decarbonization trends out to the year 2100 and compared it to the IPCCs 1990 “business as usual” (BAU) scenario he found that they bore little resemblance to one another.

The IPCCs BAU scenario was a flat line, which assumes technical stagnation or what Ausubel dubs the Breschnev Scenario. But properly understood, BAU is a technologically dynamic and progressive scenario that will eliminate CO2 by 2100. The IPCCs 2001 Third Assessment Report uses 40 scenarios which show decarbonization and carbonization going in all different directions with no probabilities attached.

IPCCs Economic Assumptions Assailed

The Economist (February 13, 2003) has published an article featuring criticisms leveled at the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the economic assumptions it used to come up with its temperature projections.

“In recent months,” according to the Economist, “two distinguished commentators Ian Castles of the National Center for Development Studies at Australian National University, formerly the head of Australias national office of statistics; and David Henderson of the Westminster Business School, formerly chief economist of the OECD have put together a critique of the panels Special Report of Emissions Scenarios (SRES).”

The major points of contention are the assumptions about the gap between rich and poor countries and the speed at which the gap will be closed. The SRES based its projections of future output on GDP estimates that were converted into a common measure using market exchange rates. Because prices tend to be much lower in poor countries, this method significantly overstates the gap in average incomes between rich and poor countries.

The IPCC assumed that the rich countries will continue to grow and that in most of the 40 SRES scenarios the poor countries will close the income gap by the year 2100. The combination of the overstated gap and the assumption of convergence lead to vastly overestimated emissions scenarios.

Even more startling are projections that show the per capita incomes of those living in South Africa, Algeria, Libya, Turkey and North Korea overtaking the per capita incomes of Americans by 2100 by a wide margin. There are several other serious errors in the SRES scenarios as well. Castles and Hendersons analysis will be published in a forthcoming issue of Energy and Environment.

Renewable Energy in Decline

The Energy Information Administration has released a report showing that the consumption of renewable energy fell significantly in 2001. Much of the decline was attributed to a drought which curtailed the generation of hydroelectric power by 23 percent. But the report also noted that the equipment used to produce solar power is being retired faster than new equipment is being installed.

Much of that equipment was installed in the 1970s and 1980s when there were plentiful subsidies available for distributed solar power. But now the equipment is getting old and wearing out, and the subsidies are no longer available to replace it.

Even though the use of solar collectors and wind turbines has increased over the last few years, overall consumption of renewable energy fell by 12 percent in 2001, the lowest point in over 12 years. In all, renewables only account for 6 percent of the nations energy consumption (Energy Central, February 18, 2003).

Maine Bill Would Prevent Kyoto Implementation; Arab States Reject Warming Claims; IRS Should Audit SUV Owners

by William Yeatman on February 18, 2003

in Politics

Maine Bill Would Prevent Kyoto Implementation

In an attempt to thwart Kyoto-style legislation and Kyoto-related activities in Maine, a bill has been introduced in the state legislature that would prohibit the State from spending any money to implement international treaties that have not been ratified by the U.S. Senate.

The bill may be the beginning of a backlash against efforts in New England to carry out Kyoto-style policies and to pressure the Bush Administration to do likewise. In 2001, for example, the governors of all six New England States signed an agreement with the Eastern Canadian provinces to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Also, State Attorney General Steven Rowe is one of several attorneys general who have threatened to sue the Bush Administration for failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global warming. Maine lawmakers have also sought to introduce legislation to restrict greenhouse gas emissions.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Henry Joy (R-Crystal), reads in part, “A state department or agency may not expend or award funds to implement, in whole or in part, an international treaty that the United States Senate has not ratified.” The bill explains that “to implement” is any “means to take any action that has a demonstrable and direct connection to specific requirements of any international treaty that has not been ratified by the United States Senate.”

On Wednesday, Rep. Joy testified that Kyoto “really doesnt have anything to do with conservation. Its really about command and control where you live, how you live and in some cases, if you do live.” Joy introduced the bill on behalf of Jon Reisman, an economics professor at the University of Maine at Machias, who has worked to prevent such efforts.

Reisman calls the agreement between the New England States and Canadian provinces, “an unconstitutional foray into foreign policy.” He has noted the agreement violates Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution, which states, “No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance or Confederation. No State shall, without the Consent of Congress enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power.”

Arab States Reject Warming Claims

Thirteen oil producing Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, have signed a declaration dismissing global warming claims and asserting their right to produce and sell oil.

“Such unfounded allegations and doubts would make victims of the oil and gas sector and may result in a recession in world demand, thus harming the interests of producers,” says the so-called Abu Dhabi declaration. The signatories “reaffirmed the necessity of a continuous and unobstructed supply of oil and gas to international markets.”

The signatories also argued that if the world presses ahead with restrictions on energy use, then the Arab states should be compensated for the loss in oil and gas revenues that would result (The Independent, February 9, 2003).

IRS Should Audit SUV Owners

In its continuing war against the automobile in general and large sport utility vehicles in particular, the Sierra Club has urged the Internal Revenue Service in a letter to audit the tax returns of SUV owners who take advantage of the provision in the tax code that allows small business owners to write off a portion of the cost of vehicles weighing over 6,000 pounds used for business purposes.

The tax code requires that such vehicles be used at least 50 percent of the time in business activities to be eligible for the write off. The Sierra Club claims that individuals are taking advantage of the tax credit to purchase luxury SUVs for personal use. The Sierra Club has also attacked President Bush for his budget plan proposal that would increase the deduction from $25,000 to $75,000 (lists.sierraclub.org).

SUVs may get a reprieve from those trying to get them banned, however. The massive snow storm on the east coast saw SUV owners contribute invaluable, life-saving services. An article in the Baltimore Sun (February 18, 2003) begins, “A half-dozen shiny big SUVs were lined up outside St. Joseph Medical Center yesterday morning, their volunteer drivers proving to the world that they are nothing like the arrogant, self-centered, fuel-squandering ignoramuses of stereotype.”

Up and down the east coast, volunteer SUV drivers turned out in droves to help taxi essential hospital personnel, such as nurses and doctors to and from hospitals. Without those volunteers and their SUVs, important emergency personnel would have been stranded without a way to work.

“You hear it on the news – all about the gas-guzzling hogs driving SUVs,” said Jeff Hegberg, climbing back into his $40,000, 7,200-pound, black 2002 Chevrolet Suburban. “Well, on a day like this, what would the hospitals do without us?”

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