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Oh, the irony

by William Yeatman on October 12, 2004

in Science

 Readers may remember the controversy over the mistake made in a recent paper by Ross McKitrick and Patrick Michaels, which hinged on an error in calculation of the cosine of latitudes.  In this context, they may be interested to see this comment from the paper by Von Storch et al. (see last issue) that shattered any remaining credibility held by Michael Manns hockey stick:


Monthly nearsurface temperature anomalies were standardized and subjected to an Empirical Orthogonal Function Analysis, in which each grid point was weighted by (cos f)^1/2, where f is the latitude (Mann et al. 1998 erroneously use a cos f weighting).

Howard victory keeps Australia out of Kyoto Protocol

by William Yeatman on October 12, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

 Australian Prime Minister John Howard was returned to office with an increased majority in the countrys general election on October 9.  The result came after a campaign where early polls suggested a likely victory for Labor Party leader Mark Latham.

 The result ensures that Australia will continue to opt out of the Kyoto Protocol.  Howard has been a strong personal critic of the measure, believing it to be damaging to Australias economic prosperity.

EPA official’s remarks lead CEI to call for his firing

by William Yeatman on October 12, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics, Science

 Jeff Holmstead, assistant administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Office of Air and Radiation, gave a boost to those who stress the inevitability of carbon restrictions at a conference in Lexington, Ky., on October 12.  According to Greenwire (Oct. 13), he said, Unless there’s some changes in the way the scientific community is going, there in some point in the future will be a carbon-constrained world.

Greenwire went on, Asked later to expound on his comments, Holmstead said he was providing an observation on the decisions that U.S. industries must face in the future. With natural gas prices  trending  upward,  Holmstead said the nation will have to maintain reliance on coal as a primary fuel.  As such, new coal-fired plants will likely face some constraints on GHG emissions over their 50- to 75-year lifespans, he said.


 Holmstead noted that uncertainty about the government’s direction on GHGs has got to be frustrating for business people who are trying to anticipate how their status will change in the future.


 In response, CEI Senior Fellow Iain Murray issued the following statement:


 On the same day Vice President Cheney reminded us of the jobs saved by the Administration’s brave stance in rejecting artificial restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, another administration official yesterday pulled the rug from under his feet by suggesting such restrictions are inevitable. 


 Those remarks by Jeff Holmstead are a slap in the face for coal miners and auto workers across the nation.  Greenhouse gas restrictions will mean seniors pay more for their heat in the winter, families pay more for transportation, and business owners pay more in energy costs.  Not only that, but they will do virtually nothing to abate a rise in temperature which may prove beneficial anyway.


 Rather than waving a white flag to the energy suppression lobby (whose former standard bearer was Enron, we should not forget), Holmstead should have focused on ways to strengthen the world economy.  That way, if global warming does prove to be a problem, we will have little to worry about.  We’ve seen how resilient America has been to four hurricanes this year.  We should be trying to make the rest of the world as strong as America rather than weakening America by engaging in futile attempts to change the weather.


Holmstead’s remarks are simply incompatible with the correct approach the current Administration has taken on this issue.  The American economy doesn’t need the poison pill he’s prescribed.  For the sake of American jobs, human wealth and global prosperity, Holmstead should be fired.  He can no doubt look forward to a high-paying job with one of the companies that hopes to profit from impoverishing Americans through energy rationing.

Ford Motor plans for energy-poor future

by William Yeatman on October 12, 2004

in Blog

Ford Motor Company appears to be making plans to join companies that look forward to increasing constraints on hydrocarbon energy use as a business opportunity.

 According to the New York Times (Oct. 4), Ford’s goal, according to its own internal projections, would require an improvement of about 80 percent in the fuel economy of its cars and trucks by 2030, according to people who have been informed of the plan.  The goal was laid out by the company’s chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., and other executives at a meeting on August 3 at their headquarters in Dearborn, Mich.


 The Times suggests that Ford has based its strategy on computer models of carbon emissions.  The company is studying long-range product-development strategies to reach its goal, the report says, and has not yet established shorter-range targets.  Among those strategies could be more reliance on hybrid technology or other advances, like cleaner diesel engines and hydrogen fuel cells.


 Fords strategy has already won plaudits from its usual foes in the environmentalist movement.  Daniel Becker of the Sierra Club told the Times, This is a stunning change of direction for Ford, whose emissions are greater than all of Mexico.  This really is a better idea. We will continue to work with them to ensure that they implement this commitment.


 There are signs that the new direction was the result of alarmist pressure.  In May, commenting on the release of the scientifically absurd The Day After Tomorrow, Mr. Ford said, If you look at where society is headed, whether it’s the Kyoto compact, whether it’s the Hollywood movie that’s coming out this summer on global warming, all of those things will truly have an impact on the debate.  I don’t want Ford to be caught unaware or for us to be always saying, No, we can’t do something.

British energy challenge much larger than public realizes

by William Yeatman on October 12, 2004

in Blog

 A pair of British economists has revealed the true extent of the effort needed to meet the current governments alternative energy commitments.

 Prof Andrew Oswald, an economist at Warwick University, and Jim Oswald, an energy consultant, told the Daily Telegraph (Oct. 7) that the governments plans would require 100,000 new wind turbines or 100 new nuclear power plants.  That many wind turbines would cover an area the size of Wales – or a six mile-wide strip around the entire coast of Britain.


 The enormity of the green challenge is not understood, said Mr Oswald. Many people think that hydrogen is a simple alternative to oil, but in fact it will require a huge investment in either wind farms or nuclear plants.

Drought alarmists accept Medieval Warm Period

by William Yeatman on October 12, 2004

in Science

 Paleoclimatologists have warned that the American West could be in for a long period of severe drought, but in doing so have had to accept the existence of the Medieval Warm Period.


Edward Cook of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York and colleagues wrote in the October 8 issue of Science magazine, The western United States is experiencing a severe multiyear drought that is unprecedented in some hydroclimatic records.  Using gridded drought reconstructions that cover most of the western United States over the past 1,200 years, we show that this drought pales in comparison to an earlier period of elevated aridity and epic drought in AD 900-1300, an interval broadly consistent with the ‘Medieval Warm Period’.  If elevated aridity in the western United States is a natural response to climate warming, then any trend toward warmer temperatures in the future could lead to a serious long-term increase in aridity over western North America.


 The researchers say that the key to the drought lies in the weather pattern called La Nina, which is characterized by the upwelling of cold water from the bottom of the Pacific in eastern tropical waters.  Climate models show this reduces rainfall in the West (Reuters, Oct. 7).



The current drought, however, may not be as severe as currently depicted.  In an article accepted for publication in a forthcoming issue of the journal Pure and Applied Geophysics, Roger Pielke, Sr. and colleagues find that, The consequences of the most recent drought have been exceptional for some uses (e.g. suburban watering; wells, cattle grazing), but the precipitation deficit for most areas in Colorado was not exceptional (although quite dry).  The reason for the heightened consequences (and awareness in the media) is that there is more competition for the available water, due to population growth.  This is a human caused shortage due to the population requirements and competition with agricultural uses, not an unprecedented precipitation shortage. 

The Pielke paper is available at http://blue.atmos.colostate.edu/publications/pdf/R-285.pdf 

Cooler heads likely in Britain this winter

by William Yeatman on October 12, 2004

in Science

 The British weather forecaster Metcheck, which has a better record than the UK Meteorological Office in forecasting the weather recently, has predicted a very cold winter for the United Kingdom this year.


According to The Times of London (Oct. 13), Starting next week, a series of cold snaps and plummeting temperatures will bring to an end all speculation of a late blooming Indian summer.  Instead, bitterly cold winds in the South and even snowfall in the North will quash the hopes of the thousands who banked on global warming to get them through the year without central heating.  Although this winter is not expected to be as cold as the winters of 1947 and 1963, which almost brought the country to a standstill, Metcheck is predicting at least four cold snaps, the first beginning next Monday, then one a month in November, December, and January.



Senior Forecaster Andrew Bond told the Times, The UK has been relatively fortunate over the past few years with mild or very mild winters.

Attempt to exempt NOAA from Data Quality Act abandoned

by William Yeatman on October 7, 2004

in Politics, Science

On September 15, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted out an appropriations bill that included a provision to exempt the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from following the requirements of the Federal Data Quality Act (FDQA).  After the provision came to light and attracted intense criticism, Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the subcommittee chairman in charge of the appropriations bill for the Commerce, Justice and State Departments (S. 2809), on September 23 announced that he would remove it from the bill (Greenwire, Sept. 24). 


 


The FDQA is meant to prohibit federal agencies from using or disseminating information that does not meet minimal standards of objectivity, quality, and utility.  NOAA is one of the principal scientific agencies in the federal government and is in charge of most climate research.


 


The clause was reportedly inserted by Senator Fritz Hollings (D-S. C.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee. It reads, Provided further, That section 515 of Public Law 106-554 and any regulations and guidelines promulgated under such authority shall not apply on or after the date of enactment to research and data collection, or information analysis conducted by or for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Distinguished signatories take on British political consensus

by William Yeatman on October 7, 2004

in Politics

In a letter to the Times of London dated September 22, former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson (now Lord Lawson of Blaby) and other notables attacked the political consensus in the United Kingdom that action is needed now on global warming (see previous issue).


 


The letter said, Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition made major speeches last week on climate change and the policies that are supposedly required to deal with it (reports, September 14 and 15).  It appears that, in this area, Tony Blair and Michael Howard are of one mind. They hold the same alarmist view of the world, and call for much the same radical and costly programme of action.



Both leaders assert that prospective climate change, arising from human activity, clearly poses a grave and imminent threat to the world.  Such statements give too much credence to some current sombre assessments and dark scenarios, and pay no heed to the great uncertainties, which still prevail in relation to the causes and consequences of climate change.  There are no solid grounds for assuming, as Messrs Blair and Howard do, that global warming demands immediate and far-reaching action.


 


The actions that they call for chiefly comprise a range of higher targeted subsidies, and of stricter controls and regulations, to limit CO2 emissions.  These measures would raise costs for enterprises and households, both directly as consumers and as taxpayers. They would make all of us significantly and increasingly worse off.  There are no worthwhile gains to set against these costs.  It is absurd to argue, as the Prime Minister did in his speech (and Howard took a similar line), that such policies can unleash a new and benign commercial force.  The new opportunities created for high-cost ventures come as the direct result of suppressing opportunities for their lower-cost rivals: this is already happening in power generation.



It is not only the Prime Minister and Mr. Howard who are advancing questionable economic arguments.  We consider that the treatment of economic issues by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not up to the mark. It is time for finance and economics ministries everywhere, including HM Treasury, to wake up to this situation and take action.


 


The letter was also signed by Wilfred Beckerman (Emeritus Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford), Ian Byatt (Director-General of Water Services, 1989-2000), David Henderson (Visiting Professor, Westminster Business School), Julian Morris (Executive Director, International Policy Network), Alan Peacock (David Hume Institute, Edinburgh), and Professor Colin Robinson (Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Surrey).

CARBs assumptions questioned

by William Yeatman on October 7, 2004

in Politics

After two days of hearings, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) on September 24 unanimously approved its plan to require automakers to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new cars and trucks sold in the State starting in 2009.  The regulations, which implement Assembly Bill 1493, signed into law by then-Gov. Gray Davis in July 2002, require automakers to reduce GHG emissions by 22 percent in 2012 and 30 percent in 2016.


 


The regulation sets fleet average standards measured in grams per mile of carbon dioxide (CO2)-equivalent emissions.  For passenger cars and light trucks, each automaker must ensure that the average emissions of the vehicles it sells in California do not exceed 323 grams per mile in 2009, 233 grams per mile in 2012, and 205 grams per mile in 2016.


 


AB 1493 requires CARB to achieve maximum feasible and cost-effective GHG emission reductions from new vehicles.  As Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and other critics have noted, however, it is not possible to achieve maximum feasible reductions without forcing automakers to substantially increase auto fuel economy.  Yet federal law prohibits states from enacting laws or regulations related to fuel economy.


 


CARB claims that its rule is cost-effective, arguing that fuel savings from the technologies automakers will deploy to meet the GHG standards will more than outweigh any increase in vehicle purchase price.  But this is a tacit confession that the rule is in fact fuel economy regulation by another name.


 


Sierra Research, Inc., in a report written on behalf of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, finds multiple problems with CARBs cost-effectiveness calculation.  CARB inflated vehicle costs in the 2009 baseline (no regulation) case by unrealistically assuming universal adoption of expensive new technologies such as 5- and 6-speed automatic transmissions.  CARB used an unrealistically low markup factor to estimate how much retailers would charge for cars incorporating GHG-reducing technologies. 


 


In addition, CARB knocked 30 percent off the cost estimates of key technologies based on nothing more than its alleged experience and the potential for unforeseen innovations.  CARB forgot to take into account Californias 8 percent sales tax.  CARB overestimated fuel savings by using EPAs fuel economy model, which assumes slower average driving speeds and acceleration rates than prevail in California.  CARB implausibly assumed that consumers continue to value fuel savings years after most cars are sold or scrapped.


 


The net effect of such errors, according to Sierra Research, is that, The actual cost of the proposed standards will exceed an optimistic estimate of the present value of the fuel savings for an average California driver by approximately 200%.  Whereas CARB estimates a net lifetime saving of $1,703 for a new passenger car sold in 2016, Sierra estimates a net loss of $3,357.  The results of the proposed regulation can therefore be expected to include reduction in vehicle sales, longer retention of older vehicles on the road, and an increase in ozone precursor emissions.


 


Copies of the Sierra Research report may be obtained by calling (916) 444-6666.  CEIs comments on the final rule may be found at http://www.cei.org/pdf/4218.pdf.


 

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