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The Real Greenhouse Effect; CO2 and Biodiversity

by William Yeatman on December 15, 2000

in Science

The Real Greenhouse Effect

The George C. Marshall Institute has just released a published manuscript of a speech given on May 17 by Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at M.I.T. The speech, Climate Forecasting: When Models are Qualitatively Wrong, argues that climate models are wanting compared to real world data.

Dr. Lindzen begins by discussing the “real greenhouse effect.” According to him, the explanation as presented to the public of what constitutes the greenhouse effect is misleading. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explains, for instance, that sunlight passes through the atmosphere to illuminate the earths surface. Some sunlight is reflected, but much is absorbed. Greenhouse gases, primarily clouds and water vapor, act like a blanket that prevents heat escaping from the earth, and the earth gets warmer.

In reality, said Lindzen, “Infrared gases, not the surface, are what send the radiation back to space. Indeed, space cannot see the surface, by and large, except at the poles. Instead, space sees some level about five kilometers up, in the troposphere.” This level is known as the “characteristic emission level” (CEL). A doubling of CO2 would cause the CEL to move out about 150 meters, says Lindzen. “But because the temperature of the air decreases with height, this new level is colder. And because it is colder, it emits less radiation to space. That creates an imbalance, and the greenhouse effect requires that balance be reestablished. Essentially, to make up for raising the CEL 150 meters, the temperature has to increase about 1 degree C at the CEL.”

“How this impacts earths surface is not at all clear,” said Lindzen. Events at five kilometers are connected to events at the surface by processes such as motions of the air so it is thought that the surface will follow suit. “That gives you a 1 degree C increase at the surfacemaybe.”

So where do the estimates of warming from 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C come from? Through feedbacks that amplify the initial warming caused by increases in greenhouse gases. A positive feedback is one that amplifies warming and a negative feedback is one that dampens it. The models show that as temperature warms the air holds more water vapor, the principal greenhouse gas. This is a positive feedback that amplifies warming.

The problem with the models is their use of average cloud cover or average humidity. “We know that thinking in terms of averages is not appropriate. Rather, observations show very dry air in some regions, very moist air in others, and very sharp boundaries between them,” said Lindzen.

Looking at how these moist and dry regions react to changes in atmospheric CO2 is the key to understanding global warming, according to Lindzen. He has found “that the area of cloudy regions went down 15 percent for every 1 degree C increase in temperature,” a negative feedback.

Lindzen concludes, “If you calculate the impact of this negative feedback on the globe as a whole, the impact is larger by a factor of four than the total positive feedbacks in the most sensitive current models. What this means is that even if there were a factor-of-five uncertainty in what weve seen which is a large uncertainty the models that predict that doubling carbon dioxide would increase temperature 1.5 degrees to 4 degrees C, would now predict an increase of 0.6 degrees to 1.5 degrees C.”

CO2 and Biodiversity

An editorial by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change argues that the rising concentration of atmospheric CO2 increases biodiversity. The article cites two studies, one in Nature (406) and the other in the Annual Review of Ecology and Sytemics (30). The Nature study found that, “At continental scales, the diversity of plants and animals usually increases monotonically with productivity.” The ARES article found that, “At larger spatial scales it has been observed that diversity tends to increase linearly with productivity.”

This means that biodiversity increases at the same rate as plant productivity. It has been shown repeatedly in scientific studies that higher levels of atmospheric CO2 enhance plant productivity. According to the article, “Pulling these two observations together, we conclude that one of the best things we could possibly do to preserve the biodiversity or species richness of the planet is let the carbon dioxide content of the air continue to rise, rejecting all overt attempts to curtail anthropogenic CO2 emission via Kyoto-style interventions.” See www.co2science.org.

Announcements

  • The George C. Marshall Institute has published a study, Climate Models and the National Assessment, by Dr. David Legates, Associate Professor of Climatology in the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware. Legates criticizes the National Assessments misuse of Global Climate Models to predict regional impacts of global warming. To get a copy of the study, contact Jeff Salmon or Mark Herlong at (202) 296-9655. A press release may be found at www.marshall.org.

  • The Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University in St. Louis has published a monograph, Applying the Precautionary Principle to Global Warming, by Indur M. Goklany. Goklany argues that “the so-called precautionary principle often invoked to justify a greenhouse gas control policy must consider not only risks that such a policy might reduce but also risks that it might generate.” For more information, contact Robert Batterson at (314) 935-5676. The CSAB web sites address is www.csab.wustl.edu.

U. S. Surrender is Not Enough to Save COP-6 from Collapsing; Chirac Reveals Grander Agenda; Is the U.S. Senate Softening?; Norwa

by William Yeatman on December 9, 2000

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

U. S. Surrender is Not Enough to Save COP-6 from Collapsing

The UNFCCCs Sixth Conference of the Parties ended in disarray on November 25 in the Hague with no agreement on the Kyoto Protocols major unresolved issues. Until the last few days of the negotiations, the United States and the European Union were deadlocked over the use of carbon sinks to meet emissions targets.

Then, President Bill Clinton and United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair initiated a process that was expected to lead to a deal. U. S. Under Secretary of State Frank Loy dutifully gave up the American position on sinks.

But to the surprise of delegates who stayed an extra day in order to share in the successful outcome, it all came apart at the last minute. When U. K. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott took news of Americas near-total capitulation to European demands to his fellow ministers in the European Union, they immediately rejected the terms of surrender. The conference then dissolved into expressions of outrage and blame-gaming.

Trans-channel name-calling continued this week in Britain and France. According to a Reuters story (November 28), Prescott blamed French Environment Minister and head of the French Green Party Dominique Voynet for the debacle and said that she was too tired to understand the complex issues.

Voynet responded by telling French radio that Prescotts behavior was “mediocre and shabby.He does no service either to his image or mine, nor does he do any service to the cause of the European Union.”

Blair and French President Jacques Chirac immediately lined up behind their own ministers. And with gusto and glee the tabloid press in London and Paris turned the brouhaha into a rousing Franco-British food fight.

A New York Times story (November 26) opined that, “Many environmental groups argued that the United States had underestimated the strength of the European Green movement and its determination to reduce the use of fossil fuels drastically.” Jennifer Morgan, climate campaign director for the World Wildlife Fund, was quoted as explaining that, “The United States pushed too hard and too far. They didnt leave the time or trust to get a deal in the end.”

However, Christopher Horner, counsel for the Cooler Heads Coalition and an NGO participant at COP-6, had a different explanation. According to Horner, “The U.S. did everything it could to capitulate to European demands, to the point of embarrassment. The U. S. pre-emptively capitulated on the use of nuclear and hydro-electric power and then agreed to reduce the use of sinks by at least three-quarters from its initial proposal.” One senior congressional official noted that the early concessions by the U.S. and subsequent rejection by the EU left the U.S. “negotiating with ourselves.”

The drawn-out fight over carbon sinks meant that no progress toward agreement was made on the other major contentious issues. These include emissions trading, compliance and enforcement, and all the payoff schemes to developing countries.

Failure to wrap up the Kyoto Protocols loose ends, as was promised last year at COP-5 in Bonn, has forced the UNFCCCs Secretariat to turn the next meeting of the subsidiary bodies, scheduled for next May and June in Bonn, into “COP-6, Part II,” or “COP-6.5.” It was agreed to hold COP-7 in Marrakesh, Morocco in November 2001.

Chirac Reveals Grander Agenda

French President Jacques Chirac used the current French presidency of the European Commission to deliver a major address to the delegates at COP-6 in the Hague on November 20. Besides scolding the United States for its stonewalling planetary salvation, he revealed a far grander ambition for the Kyoto Protocol than merely reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance, one that should find a place within the World Environmental Organization which France and the European Union would like to see established,” said Chirac.

Such rhetoric exposes a darker agenda behind the professed agenda of many of the Kyoto Protocols proponents. “It has been clear to us for some time, emphasized by the outright ignoring of recent scientific developments that betray its underlying theory: Kyoto was not aimed at addressing any real environmental threat,” said David Rothbard of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. “At least Chirac was honest about it.”

James Glassman, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and head of Tech Central Station, wrote in the Wall Street Journal (November 28, 2000), that when he arrived at the Hague conference he “discovered quickly that the real objective of the Europeans was not to reduce greenhouse gas emissions world-wide but to inflict economic pain on Americans, curry favor with greenish constituents and emerge with a halo.”

Is the U.S. Senate Softening?

There appears to be a softening of opposition in the U.S. Senate to policies to control energy emissions. According to the Christian Science Monitor (November 27, 2000), “Senator Larry Craig (R) of Idaho long a global warming skeptic noted here that his views were shifting toward accepting the fact of human-induced climate change due to what he sees as increasingly compelling scientific evidence.” Another Senate skeptic not mentioned in the article is Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), who said at the Hague that he believes that the science is coalescing.

Several opponents of the Kyoto Protocol were defeated in the November 7 elections as well, including Senators John Ashcroft, Rod Grams, Spence Abraham, and Slade Gorton. In addition, several new Senators are expected to be fervent hard-left supporters of the Protocol, including Jon Corzine (D-New Jersey), Hillary Clinton (D-New York), and Mark Dayton (D-Minnesota).

Norway Prefers More Electricity

Earlier this year, we reported that the Norwegian government became the first government in the world to fall over its support of the Kyoto Protocol. Now, the new Norwegian government has approved the construction of a natural gas-fired power plant and has cleared the way for development of two additional plants. These plants are needed to meet growing consumer demand since environmentalists have blocked further hydro-electric projects.

Environmental activists naturally were livid. “With this decision Norway, together with the United States, will become the country in the world which is furthest away from reaching it international goals,” said Lars Haltbrekken, a member of an environmental lobby group.

EIA Predicts Higher Energy Use; Taxing Babies to Save the Planet; Global Warming, Global Bankruptcy

by William Yeatman on December 9, 2000

in Blog

EIA Predicts Higher Energy Use

The U. S. Department of Energys Energy Information Administration predicts much faster growth in U. S. energy use and carbon dioxide emissions for the next two decades in its annual energy outlook compared to last years predictions. EIA has raised its electricity demand forecast significantly. The agency now forecasts an annual growth rate in electricity demand of 1.8 per cent between now and 2020. Last year, EIA predicted an annual growth rate of 1.3 per cent.

In other forecasts, EIA expects petroleum prices to begin falling in 2001 and natural gas prices to decline within two years. Over the long term, according to a November 29 article in Congressional Green Sheets Newsroom, EIA predicts that oil and gas prices will be held down by technological advances in exploration and development, even though demand will continue to increase.

Taxing Babies to Save the Planet

Brian C. ONeill of Brown Universitys Watson Institute for International Studies and Lee Wexler of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis calculate the negative value of a newborn child in terms of “increased CO2 abatement costs necessitated by an additional birth” in a recent “scholarly” article. It appears in the November issue of the journal Climatic Change.

These costs include, “the economic activity of the additional child and its descendants will produce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the amount of climate change, and the climate-related damages to society,” according to the authors. Their calculations put these costs at $4,400 per birth in the developing countries and $28,800 per birth in the developed countries over the period 1995-2100.

The authors worry about these “costs or benefits associated with the birth of a child that fall on society but are not considered in the parents fertility decisions.” To help parents take these costs into consideration, ONeill and Wexler propose government action. They claim that, “Externalities cause inefficiencies in the economy, and their existence is often viewed as grounds for intervention in order to improve total social welfare.” So, “In principle efficiency would be served by imposing a tax on births equal to the net value of the externality.”

They also claim that, “The existence of a greenhouse externality strengthens the case for population policies that lower fertility,” and that, “A hypothetical social planner acting in the interests of all parents could increase social welfare by dictating a fertility rate different from the rate parents would choose on their own.”

Global Warming, Global Bankruptcy

Andrew Dlugolecki, director of CGNU, one of the worlds six biggest insurance groups, and an advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme, has come up with one of the more hilarious recent global warming scare stories.

According to Dlugolecki, global warming will bankrupt the world by 2065, due to the damages caused by global warming induced natural disasters. “Climate change will have an effect, our studies show us, in new areas and new intensities, and we know in insurance that new intensities can produce accelerating damage at an exponential rate,” he said.

Dlugolecki claims that property damage due to natural disasters is rising by 10 percent per year, but admits that, “Most of that is not yet due to climate change.” Indeed many studies have shown that this increase is entirely due to greater economic development in vulnerable areas.

Nonetheless and astonishingly, Dlugolecki calculates that, “At the current rate of growth of damage of 10 percent a year, we will actually exceed the worlds GDP growth of 3 percent a year by the year 2065.”

So if this increase isnt due to global warming why does Dlugolecki invoke it? Because global warming seems to be the most captivating political argument for subsidies at present. “Were beginning to run out of money in the insurance industry,” whines Dlugolecki.

Reiter Responds to Epstein; British Floods Bring More Hysteria; Canadian Weather is Dull to Normal

by William Yeatman on December 9, 2000

in Science

Reiter Responds to Epstein

In the August issue of Scientific American, Paul Epstein claimed that global warming was to blame for several diseases ranging from malaria to West Nile virus to hantavirus. Paul Reiter, Chief of the Entomology Section of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dengue Branch, has replied in a letter in the December issue. According to Reiter, malaria was rampant in England during the Little Ice Age when temperatures were much cooler. “Climate is not the dominant factor in malarias prevalence or its distribution,” said Reiter.

Reiters opinion of Epstein as a scientist is low. “Nearly all of Paul R. Epsteins inferences in “Is Global Warming Harmful to Health?” about the causes of the recent spread of Aedes aegypti and dengue, the increasing prevalence of malaria at altitude, future dramatic increases in the disease throughout the world, the risk of yellow fever in the Andes, the outbreak of West Nile virus in New York, and so on are based on intuition, not science. Serious public health problems cry out to be addressed seriously. Epsteins reveries amount to a comedy of errors.”

Epstein responded that the mainstream scientists (whoever they are) agree with him and then proceeded to repeat his litany of horrors, without addressing Reiters objections.

British Floods Bring More Hysteria

In a desperate attempt to further intimidate the British populace into tolerating higher energy prices, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has claimed that recent heavy rainfall and flooding in Britain is “a wake-up call” on global warming” (Sunday Telegraph, November 26, 2000). Most of the quality and tabloid London papers were full of quotes from assorted environmentalists essentially announcing that apocalypse was nigh unless Britons repented from their carbon dioxide-emitting ways. Leading climate experts in Britain called the claims scientific nonsense. According to the Sunday Telegraph, “Climate experts will reveal this week that the most likely cause is the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a pattern of atmospheric pressure which forms over the ocean.” The NAO alternates between positive and negative phases. During its positive phase Britain experiences mild, wet and stormy winters. A positive phase causes cold, dry and calm winters. Dr. David Stephenson, head of the Climate Analysis Group at the University of Reading, who organized the conference being held in Orense, Spain, “The NAO was positive in October, but not by an unprecedented amount. The October storms were not extreme in terms of intensity or rainfall amounts, but caused floods due to their accumulated effects.”Dr. Andy Baker of the University of Newcastle studied stalagmite growth to show that Britains bad weather is not abnormal and shows no sign of worsening. “We have shown that nature is able to repeat current events without the help of global warming.”

Canadian Weather is Dull to Normal

Environment Canada has been beating the global warming drum for some time, blaming several recent natural disasters on global warming. “In fact,” says Environment Canada, “the 1980s and 90s have been the warmest decades since people began keeping records. This warming trend will cause changes in other elements of the Earths climate system, in turn influencing our weather patterns.”The National Post decided to test these claims against the evidence by asking, “How bad is it, really?” In 1998, ice storms in Canada were cited as evidence of global warming. But, noted the Post, “An ice storm in 1942 resulted in ice as thick as a persons wrist on telephone wires, trees and railway tracks.”In 1999 heavy snowfall plagued Toronto, but in 1944 48 cm of snow fell on Toronto in a single day. “On July 14, 2000, said the Post, Canadians were shocked when a deadly tornado ripped through Pine Lake, Alberta.” But far deadlier tornadoes occurred in 1912 in Regina, 1922 in Manitoba, 1946 and 1974 in Windsor, 1985 in Barrie and 1987 in Edmonton.Canadas longest heat wave occurred in 1936, lasting 12 days and killing 1,180 lives in Manitoba and Ontario. The hottest day ever recorded in Canada was in 1937. Canadas driest year occurred in 1961. The second driest occurred in 1936. The 1997 Red River flood, which caused $500-million in damage, was blamed directly on global warming. But in 1950 a flood on the Red River also caused $500-million in damage, in 1950 dollars.

Announcements

  • The Cooler Heads Coalition will hold a congressional and media briefing Wednesday, December 6, on “The COP-6 Collapse: What Happened, What Does It Mean, and Where Do We Go From Here?” The roundtable briefing will be held from Noon till 1:30 PM in Room 210B, Cannon House Office Building. For further information, please contact Myron Ebell at (202) 331-1010.

  • The Heritage Foundation has published a background paper, “Road to the Hague: a Desperate Effort to Salvage a Flawed Climate Treaty.” The author is Angela Antonelli, Heritages director of economy policy studies. The 12-page paper may be found at www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1401.html.

  • To receive the Cooler Heads Newsletter by e-mail, please contact the editor at mebell@cei.org.

IPCC Summary Leaked; Australia Turning Against Kyoto; Coal Vote Split on Bush, Gore

by William Yeatman on October 31, 2000

in Politics

Countdown to COP-6

The Kyoto Protocols loose ends were supposed to be wrapped up at the sixth Conference of Parties to the U. N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will meet in the Hague, Netherlands, November 13-24. It isnt looking that way now, and senior negotiators have started to play the lowering expectations game.

Whatever the outcome, several members of the Cooler Heads Coalition will be at COP-6 and will be sending back reports. Updates will be posted on the www.globalwarming.org and www.cei.org web sites.

IPCC Summary Leaked

The Third Assessment Report (TAR) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not due to be released until early 2001. But two weeks prior to the U. S. presidential election, a draft of the Summary for Policymakers was leaked to the press.

Major news outlets seized on the dramatic claims. The New York Times (October 28, 2000) reported that the IPCC “has now concluded that mankinds contribution to the problem is greater than originally believed,” and that, “Its worst-case scenario calls for a truly unnerving rise of 11 degrees F over 1990 levels.”

Vice President Al Gore immediately touted the leaked draft in his campaign speeches. “Unless we act, the average temperature is going to go up 10 or 11 degrees. The storms will get stronger. The weather patterns will change. But it does not have to happen, and it wont happen if we put our minds to solving the problem, and that is one of the reasons I am running for president,” said Gore (CNN Morning News, October 27, 2000).

The lack of media attention to the blatantly political motives in leaking the report was revealing, but so too was the uncritical acceptance of the Summary as a straightforward scientific document. Apparently, in their eagerness to support Gore, the TV networks and major newspapers conveniently forgot that the Summary for Policymakers that accompanied the Second Assessment Report was widely discredited as a political document that didnt reflect the scientific report itself.

It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that the TAR Summary is essentially a political document designed to scare waverers back to the true Kyoto faith. In a briefing paper, Kenneth Green, director of the Reason Public Policy Institutes environment program and a TAR technical reviewer, writes that, “Predictions of future changes rest upon speculative changes that were not reviewed by technical reviewers of the main report.”

Greens paper, Mopping up After the Leak, which is available on the RPPIs web site (www.rppi.org), continues: “The leaked Summary for Policymakers is not peer-reviewed, the author is anonymous, the document is created independently of the actual Assessment Report, and the Summary is so short that issues are overly simplified.”

Vincent Gray, a climate scientist in New Zealand, makes similar criticisms in e-mail comments. He also notes the following statement in the final draft version of the TAR: “The fact that the global mean temperature has increased since the late nineteenth century and that other trends have been observed does not mean that an anthropogenic effect on the climate system has been identified (chapter 1, page 15).” It is doubtful whether that statement will be reported by Dan Rather or appear in Al Gores campaign speeches.

European Union Blasts U. S. Congress

The European Unions parliamentary environment committee on October 16 adopted a resolution providing guidance to the EU Commission on the upcoming COP-6 negotiations in the Hague. In addition to calling on all parties to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and for an agreement to set a “legally binding global emissions ceiling” on greenhouse gases, the EU environment committee aimed harsh language at the U. S. Congress.

The resolution states, “The committee appeals to members of the US Senate and House of Representatives to drop their resistance to the principles agreed in Kyoto and to do justice to their responsibility to combat the greenhouse effect.” (The full text may be found at www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/OM.) No comments from members of Congress have been reported.

Australia Turning Against Kyoto

On October 25, Ray Evans of Melbourne, Australia spoke to a Cooler Heads Coalition meeting about the Australian political climate regarding the Kyoto Protocol. In 1997 at Kyoto, Australia agreed to a greenhouse gas target of 8 percent above 1990 levels. Business-as-usual scenarios estimate that by 2010 Australias emissions of greenhouse gases would be 45 percent above 1990 levels.

The federal government took the position that, “The Kyoto regime is inevitable, and that Australia should be amongst the very first countries to introduce a comprehensive carbon withdrawal regime, characterized by the sale of government permits at auction at regular intervals, and subsequent trading of those permits through the Sydney Futures Exchange,” according to Evans.

Although energy intensive industries grew concerned over the governments position, there was little overall dissent and the government proceeded to devise a carbon withdrawal system. However, recent events have raised the real possibility that no Australian government is likely to recommend ratification of Kyoto and that no future parliament is likely to ratify it.

Industry Minister Nick Minchin convinced the Howard government over Environment Minister Robert Hills objections to grant exemptions from Australias greenhouse gas obligations to multi-billion-dollar investments to expand natural gas production on the Northwest Shelf. (See page 4 article in the Age, September 23, 2000.)

According to Evans, “Thus for the first time the Government had to decide between carbon withdrawal on the one hand, and jobs and investment on the other. It decided for jobs. This precedent is of very great importance.”

Parliament is beginning to have grave doubts about the wisdom of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) is conducting “a wide-ranging review of Kyoto, including the scientific basis for global warming and carbon withdrawal, and for the first time back-bench parliamentarians are beginning to appreciate the extent of the economic damage which will hit Australia if legislation is passed introducing a carbon tax regime of the kind envisaged by the Australian Greenhouse Office.”

Labor Party parliamentarians who represent workers in energy intensive industries are beginning to balk at the idea of carbon withdrawal. “Once a key group within the opposition Labor Party becomes deeply concerned at the consequences of Kyoto, the prospect of any Australian Government ratifying Kyoto simply vanishes,” said Evans. “Questions now dominating the minds of the ALP [Australian Labor Party] members of JSCOT are about the mechanisms and consequences of withdrawal, in particular the possibility of trade sanctions being imposed on Australian exports.”

Coal Vote Split on Bush, Gore

The coal industry appears split over whom to support as the next president of the United States. Coal mining companies favor George W. Bush, while the coal miners union favors Al Gore. Ben Greene, chief lobbyist for the West Virginia Mining and Reclamation Association, doesnt believe there is anything Gore could say to convince the industry to support him. “He may come in and say, Im with Senator Byrd on money for clean coal technology, and weve got to protect our miners,” Greene said. “But if you look at Kyoto and you look at the book [Earth in the Balance] and you look at the Environmental Protection Agency in the last eight years, I dont take much comfort in any of that.”

The union has a different take, however. “Someone has suggested that George Bush is for coal miners,” said United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts. “There is a distinction to be made here. I do believe George Bush may be for coal companies, but he isnt for coal miners,” said Roberts. “Most important though to UMWA members, Mr. Gore has said that if he is elected president he will keep the promise to our retirees of health care benefits for life” (Charleston Gazette, October 27, 2000). Sounds like the real distinction is between working and retired coal miners.

Two recent polls, one by Ohio State University and the other by Rasmussen Research, now have Bush ahead of Gore in West Virginia (www.atinews.com). This suggests that Mr. Robertss view doesnt reflect that of many of his unions members.

McCain Introduces Bill

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced a bill to create an “International Climate Change Science Commission.” The bill would authorize the president of the United States “to negotiate an international agreement to establish an international commission comprised of scientists whose qualifications and experience qualifies them to conduct scientific, unbiased, politically and economically neutral assessments of global climate change, the factors involved in such change, the consequences of such change, and the potential effect of measures undertaken for the purpose of affecting global climate change.”

What McCain hopes to accomplish by this is unclear. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Global Change Research Program were both created to accomplish this very goal. The problem is that both have been so thoroughly politicized that they have become harmful to the publics understanding of the scientific debate.

Open Letter from James Hansen

by William Yeatman on October 31, 2000

in Science

James Hansen, of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies, recently published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which argued that CO2 may not have contributed as much to global warming as previously thought, but that the warming could be explained by other emissions, such as black carbon aerosols, methane, and ozone.

Hansens paper made a big splash in the media and received criticism from environmentalists who believed that it gave too much ammo to global warming skeptics who argue that theres no need to reduce CO2 emissions. Hansen has recently written an open letter (which appears to be nearly as long as the paper itself) to clarify what his paper said.

Hansen argues that his paper is merely an “alternative scenario” of how to reduce anthropogenic forcing to 1 Watt per meter squared (Wm-2) over the next 50 years. He derives his alternative scenario by noting that CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels induces a positive 1.4 Wm-2 climate forcing. This also produces a sulfate aerosol climate forcing of negative 1.4 Wm-2, which cancels out the CO2 forcing. Hansen then claims that what is left is a 1.4 Wm-2 climate forcing from other greenhouse gases.

Hansens scenario is to reduce forcing to 1 Wm-2 over the next fifty years, which requires, he is eager to point out, some reduction in CO2. But this begs the question, If CO2 forcing is completely cancelled by sulfate aerosol forcing, what then causes global warming? Hansens protestations aside, his paper clearly relegates CO2 to a non-factor in climate change. Only his arbitrary choice of a forcing target of 1 Wm-2 makes its reduction necessary.

Announcements

The Greening Earth Society has just released a new book, The Greening of the American West, which features before and after photos of different locations in the American West showing changes in vegetation over the last 125 years. The book, authored by Craig and Keith Idso of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, shows that vegetation has increased in several areas of the Western United States, which is attributed partly to the fertilizing effects of rising concentrations of CO2. Details on how to obtain the book can be found at www.greeningearthsociety.org.

The Effect of Fuel Taxes on Emissions

by William Yeatman on October 31, 2000

in Blog

Britain is still trying to deal with the general discontent among its citizens over high fuel taxes. It has been reported that Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown may propose gasoline tax cuts in his next budget. Conservative Party leader William Hague has already proposed a 3 pence per liter cut in gasoline taxes.

Environmental activists have complained about the proposed reductions. Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the governments new Sustainable Development Commission, accused Prime Minister Tony Blair of failing to convince the British populace of the merits of high gas taxes to fight global warming.

A column in the Daily Express (October 30, 2000), however, argues that fuel taxes do little to change fuel use. “Quite a few pence here or there will make hardly any difference to the amount of petrol consumed, particularly when our railways have never been in a worse position to offer a feasible alternative,” said editorialist Richard North. “Influencing the behavior of British motorists now will probably have much less impact on the worlds climate than even a skeptical public supposes.”

North points out that in 1994 the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution claimed that a doubling of gasoline prices would reduce the number of cars on the road. But, said North, “Petrol prices have more than doubled since 1990,” without reducing the number of automobiles. Indeed, “Weve seen continuing year-on-year increases in traffic,” says Britains Automobile Association.

COP-6 Negotiations at the Hague

by William Yeatman on October 29, 2000

in Politics



“COP-6 Off to Shaky Start.” From the November 15 Cooler Heads newsletter.

Tech Central Station: cop 6.

Sovereignty International: Daily Reports from the Hague.

Earthtimes coverage – COP6.

ECO NEWSLETTER.

International Institute for Sustainable Development: Earth Negotiations.

COP 6 Backgrounder from Weathervane.

EU Will Fall Short of Kyoto Target; Corporations Form Global Warming Partnership

by William Yeatman on October 21, 2000

in Kyoto Negotiations

EU Will Fall Short of Kyoto Target

A new study released by Ecofys and the Fraunhofer Institute says that the European Union will not meet its greenhouse reduction target under the Kyoto protocol that requires an 8 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2010. Indeed, the EUs emission levels will likely be in the range of 7 to 8 percent above 1990 levels at the target date.

An analysis of the greenhouse gas reduction plans of six EU countries found that only one, Britain, would likely reach its target. “Germany might also achieve its target, but France, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands have no chance of getting their CO2 emissions down to the required levels unless they adopt new policies in the near future,” reported Reuters (October 18, 2000).

Corporations Form Global Warming Partnership

Seven major international corporations have joined with Environmental Defense to create the Partnership for Climate Action. The companies, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP, DuPont, Suncor Energy, Ontario Power Generation, and aluminum makers Alcan and Pechiney, have set a target for greenhouse gas reductions that would reduce emissions by 90 million metric tons of carbon equivalent per year.

“The goal,” according to Environmental Defense executive director Fred Krupp, “is to share learning and highlight the value of solid, market-oriented rules, which will encourage even more companies to step forward and reduce pollution” (Reuters, October 18, 2000).

Computer Models Still Wrong; Long Term Sea Level Change

by William Yeatman on October 21, 2000

in Science

Computer Models Still Wrong

Early this year the National Research Council released a report that argued that there was still a major discrepancy between the satellite- and surface-based temperature data but that both datasets were essentially correct. This presented a major challenge for computer models, according to the study, since they predict a substantial warming in the atmospheric layer measured by satellites while the data show almost no warming.

A study in Science (February 18, 2000) by Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and his co-authors claimed to explain the discrepancy and to put the satellite data in accordance with the surface data, thereby claiming that computer model predictions of global warming were correct after all.

A new study in the Geophysical Research Letters (September 15, 2000) by University of Virginia climatologist Patrick Michaels and Paul Knappenberger of New Hope Environmental Services takes issue with Santers findings. Santers study pointed out that computer models did not take into account the cooling influence of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. By including this factor, claimed Santer, computer models could account for the lack of warming, reducing the discrepancy to a statistically insignificant 0.045 degrees C.

The Michaels-Knappenberger study takes into account several other natural forcings that influence atmospheric temperatures, specifically the eruption of El Chichn in the early 1980s and El Nio. Taking these into account puts the discrepancy between model predictions and the observed temperature data at 0.162 degrees C or 360 percent the amount found by Santer, et al.

Michaels and Knappenberger conclude, “That current-generation GCMs [global circulation models] do not accurately reproduce the observed temperature history of the lower troposphere during the MSU [microwave sounding units] era remains unchallenged.” Moreover, “Until the GCMs can produce accurate representations of the known three-dimensional climate history, they cannot be relied upon to produce future scenarios that are accurate enough to serve as the basis for climate impact assessments.”

Long Term Sea Level Change

Are changes in sea level due to the emission of manmade greenhouse gases or are they due to natural fluctuations? According to two new studies in Marine Geology (163, 2000), they may be natural. According to the studies, the evidence suggests that sea levels have fallen significantly for the last 6,000 years. Moreover, from 6,000 to 600 years ago the researchers determined that sea levels fluctuated by as much as 1 meter while experiencing an overall decline.

What this means is that the earths ocean levels could be increasing due to natural oscillations that have nothing to do with global warming. This sea level behavior, according to the authors, is just as likely an explanation for current sea level rise as the global warming hypothesis.

Etc.

With the unusual amount of press attention given to warmer than normal days, we feel it is our duty to point out when temperatures plunge below normal. The month of October has been unseasonably cool throughout the Southeastern U.S. and beyond. In fact, record low temperatures have been recorded in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Record low temperatures across the state of Tennessee lead meteorologist Mark Rose of the National Weather Service to comment that, “I dont know if Ive ever seen this many records in one day” (Associated Press, October 10, 2000).

Although the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has held several press conferences over the last two years to associate global warming with every temperature spike, theyve remained silent during the current Southern cold snap. It has, however, come out with its winter forecast. “We’ve probably forgotten over the last three years what a normal winter is like. With La Nia and El Nio out of the way, normal winter weather has a chance to return to the U.S. this year,” meaning colder winters, according to D. James Baker, who heads the NOAA. Temperatures in the Northeast region of the U.S. could be as much as 4 degrees C below the previous three winters.

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