2008

From JunkScience.com

Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin leads the pack in this year’s contest for biased climate journalism.

Eilperin’s March 10 article entitled, “Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say” has the same sort of journalistic objectivity that one might expect from totalitarian state-controlled media.

With nary a critical word about the computer models used to project increases in global temperature, Eilperin touted two new model-dependent studies that “suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.”

“Using advanced computer models to factor deep-sea warming and other aspects of the carbon cycle that naturally creates and removes carbon dioxide, the scientists, from countries including the United States, Canada and Germany, are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further,” Eilperin reported.

But none of the models in the studies — nor for that matter any other mathematical model of global climate — has proven to be particularly useful. No model has been validated against historical climate data. So why would any rational person assume that they can be used to predict future climate or serve as a basis for developing national energy policy?

As reported in this column last December, global climate models uniformly predict significantly warmer atmospheric temperatures than have actually occurred.

Such model failure should come as no surprise since they have many built-in biases, including the unproven assumption that atmospheric carbon dioxide drives global climate. But all the available real-life data — including 20th century records and ice core samples stretching back 650,000 years — fail to support such a cause-and-effect relationship. The ice core samples show, in fact, an opposite relationship.

Eilperin, who has long reported on climate for the Washington Post, must know about the models’ problems, but she apparently chooses not to report it.

In her March 4 Post article, Eilperin mentioned a report by a number of climate experts from around the world entitled, “Nature Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate.” She even interviewed one of the experts for her story.

A section of that report, entitled “Climate Models Are Not Reliable” discusses in plain language how climate models don’t consider solar dimming and brightening, don’t accurately control for clouds, don’t simulate the potential feedback effects of water vapor, don’t explain many features of the Earth’s observed climate, and don’t produce reliable predictions of regional (let alone global) climate change.

At JunkScience.com, we label climate modeling as PlayStation® Climatology, with no disrespect intended toward Sony since its PlayStation games are in fact what they purport to be — just games.

Not content with ignoring viewpoints she doesn’t like, Eilperin goes on to diminish, if not ridicule critics of her apparent point of view.

Eilperin’s March 4 article featured four ad hominem attacks from three environmental activists, abusing those who question global warming orthodoxy as members of a “flat Earth society” and participants in the “climate equivalent of Custer’s last stand.” If Eilperin wants to poke fun at those who disagree with her on public policy issues, she ought to write an opinion, rather than a news column.

Another disturbing aspect of Eilperin’s article was the accompanying photo of downtown Beijing.

The photo was captioned, “A heavy haze could be seen in Beijing in August 2007. Two recent reports call for a heightened global effort to reduce carbon emissions.”

The juxtaposition of the article and photo clearly implied that unless we cut carbon dioxide emissions, U.S. cities would soon look like Beijing.

But as virtually anyone who breathes knows, carbon dioxide is an invisible gas. Not only can you not see it, there’s no possible way for carbon dioxide emissions to cause smog, haze or whatever was fouling Beijing’s air in the photo.

The irrelevant and misleading nature of the photo has been pointed out to Eilperin, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell and the paper’s editors. As of the writing of this column, none have responded and it remains to be seen whether the Washington Post has the journalistic integrity to remove the photo from its web site and publish a correction in its print edition.

It’s quite possible that if Eilperin and the many other members of the mainstream media who so far have been in the tank for global warming started reporting on the very real debate about climate model validity rather than simply regurgitating what the agenda-driven modelers tell them, then we could avert the looming national economic disaster that Congress is preparing for the next president to sign into law.

Do cold and snowy winters lead to “snow rage”? So says the police spokesperson in Quebec, where winter has been bad this year, leading to more violence:

Quebec City police said they had been called to a dozen violent disputes about snow from one property ending up on someone else’s. The drifts outside some houses are 12 feet and higher.

. . .

Police in the French-speaking province of Quebec said on Wednesday that people were fighting over snow clearing and even parking spaces.

Recent Canadian winters have been mild but this one looks set to break all-time records for snow. One storm last weekend dumped 23 inches on the capital Ottawa and 19 inches on Quebec City, which has already received 210 inches this year.

Global warming catastrophists constantly point to the dire effects of a warmer planet and push for carbon taxes or other schemes to raise the costs of fuel. But, tragically, bitter cold, blizzards, snow, ice, and sleet usually take a higher toll. And the elderly, who may not be able to afford fuel, often suffer the most.

The Europeans are threatening to impose tariffs on the U.S. if it fails to knuckle under and accept some international climate regulatory system–undoubtedly drafted to favor the Europeans. Reports the Times of London:

America and China face trade protection measures from Europe if they fail to join a global climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, EU leaders will caution at their summit in Brussels today.

Nations that refuse to curb greenhouse gases will be told that they face “appropriate measures” — code for trade sanctions — if they try to gain a competitive advantage by continuing to allow cheap, high-pollution production.

EU leaders are particularly concerned to try to stop big companies relocating from Europe to countries that refuse to join a post-2012 climate change agreement in order to avoid the EU’s tough CO2 targets.

I don’t normally advocate threatening trade retaliation, but Washington needs to make clear that the U.S. won’t accept trade protectionism under the guise of climate protection.