William Yeatman

High Noon Passes: Global Warming Didn’t Show Up at the Inaugural

by William Yeatman on January 21, 2009

Well, the noon temperature in Washington DC at the President Obama’s swearing-in was 28 degrees F., eight degrees colder than when Bush was sworn in eight years ago.

So is that what Bush’s much bally-hooed failure to curb CO2 emissions produced in the way of climate change—a Inauguration Day for Obama that’s eight degrees colder than Bush’s inauguration eight years ago? Shouldn’t more CO2 mean warming, not cooling?

Well, as I said in my earlier post today, this is not scientifically significant. But it is funny.

It’s also in line with the lack of warming of the last decade, and with the global cooling we’ve experienced over the last three years. This has occurred even though atmospheric CO2 levels have continued to increase. That is scientifically significant—it casts quite a bit of doubt on the climate models that supposedly indicate that higher CO2 levels mean higher temperatures.

By the way, if we forget about Inaugural Day temperatures and compare Bush’s first year in office with his last year, we find global cooling as well. The British Hadley Centre shows a lower overall global temperature for 2008 than for 2001.

So here we’ve got rising CO2 and declining global temperatures. Just what kind of demon gas is this carbon dioxide?

High Noon: Inauguration Global Temperature Watch

by William Yeatman on January 21, 2009

When President Bush leaves office today, will the capital be warmer or colder than when he was sworn in eight years ago?

It’s not scientifically meaningful, but it is interesting.

Bush has been heavily criticized for doing precious little to curb our emissions of carbon dioxide. During his eight years in office, atmospheric CO2 levels climbed by over four percent.

So what did Bush’s dilly-dallying produce in terms of deadly global warming? The temperature at noon in Washington DC will give us one factoid. It’s a scientifically meaningless factoid, since the local temperature on any one day, let alone any one hour, tells us nothing about long-term temperature trends, but it’s heavy in symbolism.

When Bush was first sworn in, in 2001, the temperature at noon in DC was 36 degrees F. What will it be today, when he leaves office? Will the capital be warmer or colder than when he took office eight years ago?

Don’t be surprised if it’s colder. Today’s forecast is for relatively low temperatures. More importantly, despite steady increases in atmospheric CO2, and despite everything you’ve heard about climate catastrophe, there’s been no warming for about the last decade, and the planet has actually cooled over the last three years. (This is from the British Hadley Centre’s data on land and sea surface temperatures. The Centre’s global surface temperature graph shows this in somewhat compressed form, but you can easily graph its data yourself to get a better idea.)

That should lead us to ask where’s the warming?

But first, let’s see what the temperature is at noon, when President Obama is sworn in.

And I repeat–this is scientifically meaningless, but I think it’s interesting.

(As for Bush’s failure to curb CO2 emissions, I doubt that even stringent curbs would have had any effect on atmospheric CO2 levels.  More importantly, that failure was, I believe, a good thing in terms of affordable energy and human wefare.  And the CO2 curbs that Bush did support and which will soon go into effect, such as higher fuel efficiency standards for cars, will prove extremely harmful to both consumers and the auto industry.  But that’s off topic, sort of.)

President Obama Already Addressing Global Warming

by William Yeatman on January 21, 2009

Anyone who lives in the nation’s capital knows that it has been FREEZING, with well below average temperatures. Even today, inauguration day, started out with the wind chill in single digits. It’s good to know that the president already is seeking to fulfill his promise to halt global warming. After all, as candidate Barack Obama told us in his June speech celebrating having locked up the Democratic Party nomination

“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

Of course, I have to say–as a warm weather person, I think we’ve had a bit too much planet healing lately!

Cooling on Global Warming

by William Yeatman on January 21, 2009

in Blog

Every now and then something unexpected transforms the political environment. For George W. Bush it was the September 11 terrorist attacks. For Barack Obama it took place even before he was sworn in. And it came from an unlikely quarter.

Questions for Obama’s Science Guy

by William Yeatman on January 21, 2009

in Blog

In nominating John Holdren to be director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy – the position known informally as White House science adviser – President-elect Barack Obama has enlisted an undisputed Big Name among academic environmentalists. Holdren is a physicist, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, director of the Woods Hole Research Center, and author or coauthor of many papers and books.

Putin: Chevron’s Man of the Year?

by William Yeatman on January 16, 2009

I don’t know what the situation is in other areas, but Chevron’s use-less-energy ads, launched last fall, are still thick and heavy in the DC area.  Its campaign, dubbed “Will You Join Us?”, shows people promising to use their cars less and “unplug things more.”

The print ads are plastered over subway car interiors and bus stops, while the TV spots proliferate during the Sunday morning talk shows.  For reasons I’ve described elsewhere, I don’t like them.  Oil gets demonized by lots of groups these days, but the notion of an oil company dissing its chief product seems perverse, and doesn’t bode well for the future of mobility.

So what does Chevron think of Vladimir Putin’s recent cut-off of Russian gas to the Ukraine and beyond? It seems to me that Chevron should applaud him.  Putin may have monetary and military reasons for his action, but he’s also reducing energy use and encouraging conservation.

I think Chevron should give Putin a major role in its ad campaign.  This is CEI’s suggestion.

Debate Over: It’s Freezing

by William Yeatman on January 16, 2009

in Blog

The carbon footprint of Barack Obama's inauguration could exceed 575 million pounds of CO2. According to the Institute for Liberty, it would take the average U.S. household nearly 60,000 years of naughty ecological behavior to produce a carbon footprint equal to the largest self-congratulatory event in the history of humankind.

Global Warming Panic Attack over at HuffPo

by William Yeatman on January 16, 2009

in Blog

Please pay no attention to the evidence right outside your windows! Despite the fact that we are experiencing the coldest weather in decades, Kevin Grandia blogging at the Huffington Post wants you to ignore this and start worrying about the growing trend of global warming skepticism. According to Grandia, questioning the holy theology of the Church of Global Warming is a seriously disturbing heresy. He even catalogued the increased levels of global warming skepticism by analyzing Google search stats in excruciating detail:

Pickens Windmills Tilt against Market Realities

by William Yeatman on January 16, 2009

in Blog

He boasts his own self-declared army and the support of 13 governors, 53 congressmen and 180 mayors, along with the Sierra Club and the American Lung Association. He has plugged his cause on countless news shows and spent $60 million of his own money on a massive ad spree.

Spare Detroit Car Czar’s Green Thumb

by William Yeatman on January 16, 2009

in Blog

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the Republican who wore the black hat during the congressional debate on bailing out Detroit's automakers, visited the North American International Auto Show Tuesday to see firsthand what automobiles mean to Detroit. It would have been more useful had Congress sent U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

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