A new study indicates alarmist concern and a need to explain away the lack of actual global warming. Researchers belonging to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, reported in Nature (May 1) that after adjusting their climate model to reflect actual sea surface temperatures of the last 50 years, "global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations … temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming."
2008
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
I just spent two days in Detroit and Lansing talking about the fairly new Michigan Climate Action Council, where I was hosted by the free-market Mackinac Center for Public Policy. As usual the local mainstream media showed little interest, but I did get some coverage by the state's (subscription only) political news service, Gongwer ("Group Charges Climate Panel Rigged"):
Michigan, and other states, have hired the Center for Climate Strategies to assist state climate councils in determining how best the state can respond to global warming issues. But what they are getting is a pre-packaged set of recommendations that have no proof of effectiveness, Paul Chesser of Climate Strategies Watch told those gathered Tuesday for a luncheon hosted by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
State officials said the Michigan council is developing its own plan based on Michigan findings and needs, not being served a pre-determined set of recommendations.
Compare that to what the MCAC process memo — basically the ground rules — say about the commission's procedures and sources of recommendations:
The MCAC process will follow the format of CCS policy development processes used successfully in a number current and completed state-level climate action planning initiatives. To facilitate learning, collaboration, and task completion by the MCAC members, CCS will provide a series of decision templates for each step in the process, including: a catalog of state actions with ranking criteria, a balloting form for identification of initial priorities for analysis, a draft policy option template for the drafting and analysis of individual recommendations, a quantification principles and guidelines document for each TWG, and a final report format. CCS will also provide meeting materials for each MCAC meeting and TWG teleconference call, including: a PowerPoint presentation of the discussion items, an agenda and notice of the meeting, a draft summary of the previous meeting for review and approval, and additional handouts as needed. Materials will be provided by CCS in advance through website posting and email notice with a goal of seven-days advance notice. CCS will provide and manage a project website (www.miclimatechange.us) in close coordination with the DEQ. All website materials are reviewed by the DEQ prior to posting. Examples of CCS project websites can be found at www.climatestrategies.us.
But other than that, Michigan is unique! More from the Gongwer report:
Mr. Chesser argued the state climate councils, such as the Michigan Climate Action Council, should be open to discussions of the science supporting global warming findings as well as policies to address it. But he said CCS-run councils do not allow such discussions.
DEQ spokesperson Robert McCann admitted the Climate Action Council was not discussing the reality or causes of global warming. "They're starting point is what science is telling us," he said. "There's really is no scientific debate at this point."
That's because the alarmists are afraid to debate!
But Mr. McCann said the council is not being led to pre-determined recommendations that CCS may have offered in other states. "That's certainly not how it's working here," he said. "They are really taking an open book look at what's happening here."
And CCS is the author.
Mr. McCann argued the recommendations expected from the Climate Action Council will not only help to improve the state's environment, but will also help to improve its economy by creating incentives for alternative energy and energy efficiency. "They'll help us protect the environment and carve a path to those next alternative energy jobs," he said.
Some locals are not thrilled.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
This morning Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, speaking at a meeting held by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, repeated the oft-heard mantra (Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter claims his government will create a New Energy Economy — his capitalization!) that going green (and halting new coal-fired power plants) will create jobs and grow the economy:
“If Massachusetts gets clean energy right, the world would be our customer,” Patrick said at a packed breakfast sponsored by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce….
“Massachusetts has what it takes to lead a clean energy economy,” he said, “because in the age of clean energy, power will come not from fossil fuels but from technology, innovation and skill.
“Those are resources we have in abundance – and they are infinitely renewable,” he said….
Energy efficiency, he said, is “the cleanest energy of all, and the ultimate defense against rising energy prices.”
An impressive discovery, and I hope Gov. Patrick lets everyone else in on the Massachusetts secret. You no longer need raw material to burn, blow or flow to generate power — you simply need brain power (waves?) and reduced usage to keep yourself warm in the winter and to transport yourself long distances. Amazing!
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
USA Today reports today that China has become the world's top industrial source of carbon dioxide. But you'd think the newspaper had dragged over their crime reporter to do the write-up, considering the headline: "China Now No. 1 CO2 Offender." More:
China has overtaken the USA to become the world's No. 1 industrial source of carbon dioxide, the most important global-warming pollutant, according to a scientific study to be published today….
Unless China sharply cuts its emissions, "the situation is pretty bleak," says Richard Carson of the University of California, co-author of a study in today's Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. "There's a lot less time to do something than people previously thought."
Clearly this perpetrator needs to be found, read his rights, and then have the book thrown at him. He's become addicted.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
According to one of the authors of that Nature paper, the cooling is not only consistent with global warming — it confirms it:
The authors stressed that the pause in warming represented only a temporary blunting of the centuries of rising temperatures that scientists have projected if carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases continue accumulating in the atmosphere.
“We’re learning that internal climate variability is important and can mask the effects of human-induced global change,” said the paper’s lead author, Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany. “In the end this gives more confidence in the long-term projections.”
And if you want to know where to turn when you reach the fork in the road, the answer is "yes!" They all lead to catastrophe.
Isn't it curious. Isn't the self-correcting nature of science wonderful to
behold?
Not long ago anyone who looked at the global annual temperature data and
disrespectfully pointed out that it might actually be significant that the
world hasn't become warmer since 1998, was dismissed as foolish and accused
of seeing what they wanted to see in the data.
Then if they had the affrontery to point out that that even the UK's Met Office agreed that the annual data between 2001-7 was an impeccable flat line they were told they were completely wrong as such things were obviously only year-on-year variability (as an unscientific environmental 'activist' dammed my speculations in the New Statesman about the same topic whilst at the same time implying I was lying).
Ten years is too short a period to tell what is going on, they said, conveniently forgetting, if they ever knew, that the IPCC itself was established after less than ten years of global warming data. It seems that ten years is enough to be significant if the data says the right thing!
Then some righteous journalists rushed to get the 'truth' out about the flat line because, as they said, 'sceptics' were already using it to ask questions.
Strange then, that over the past few weeks we have seen from many sources people tryin to explain this 'year-on-year' statistical variability by tangible physical effects although so far such are straining to explain the data.
The impeccable flat line in global average temperatures since 2001 we were told earlier this year by the Met Office will continue throughout 2008 because of the cooling effect of La Nina. Now we are told in a Nature paper that the cooling effect of the Atlantic will extend this flat line, and possibly even point it downwards between now and 2015. They say the Pacific will stay unchanged though as we saw on CCNet yesterday there are other scientists who say that the Pacific will get colder over the same period.
So much for those TV commentators who several years ago pontificated that the 'science is settled.'
Also curious is that over the next decade man-made global warming will be
cancelled out by natural cycles. It's nice that Mother Nature (not the
journal) is helping us this way but it does beg the question as to whether
the man-made effect was all that significant if it can be nullified this
way. What else could this unsettled science find to cool us down? Then there
are speculations about the effect of the downturn in solar activity.
In Medieval times if a hypothesis, such as the heliocentric idea, disagreed
with the consensus, then it was interpreted as being a convenient
mathematical trick taken only to 'preserve the appearances' and not an
indication of physical reality.
Who today, I wonder, will history judge as preserving the appearances?
Avril Doyle of Ireland, who based on my past interaction with her I would describe as otherwise a generally sound Member of the European Parliament, offered another in a series of what Americans continue to miss–flagrant admissions and warning flags against doing a particularly reckless thing to ourselves.
As reported in Greenwire (subscription required), she referred to the notion of a trade war against countries reluctant to adopt the spectacularly "successful" EU Emissions Trading Scheme, a form of which all three candidates for president here endorse:
“‘[The trade war option is] very much Plan B,’ said Doyle. ‘We don’t even want to discuss it. … It's just on the top shelf there so the rest of the world knows we’re not going to destroy our economies without them coming on board and helping us.”
Now, we know their Kyotophilia has made them all millionaires from selling windmills to each other. So why in the world would Ms. Doyle say such a thing?
Oh well. Let's do it, too. A folly completely unburdened by any promise of impacting our cooling climate, to be sure. But, as Cyrano might say, "what a gesture!"
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