GlobalWarming.org

Breaking News?  New York Times acknowledges the possibility that global warmists exaggerate stuff.

In its annual round-up of the past year's major new ideas, last week's NYTimes Sunday Magazine includes a surprising acknowledgement (surprising for the NYTimes, that is):  some of what we hear about the dangers of global warming may be exaggerated.   The newspaper's description of the concept is pretty muted, but I'm still impressed to see the Times acknowledge this.

Note its closing description:  "…at least some of the talk about climate conflict may be understood as rhetoric."  It really should have said "most of the talk", but at least it didn't rule out that possibility.

I'm not sure the concept itself ranks as a major idea of 2007, but perhaps the NYTimes' recognition of it ranks as a major journalistic development. 

From Classically Liberal Blog

Another warming story doesn't hold up.

I have long argued that when the mainstream media reports on global warming that they play fast and loose with their facts. And the New York Times is certainly no exception.

The Times has just reported that duck hunting in Missouri is going through changes due to a warming climate in Missouri. They claim that rising temperatures have changed the behavior of ducks though they confess that “Scientists and state wildlife officials say there is not clear-cut data to support the reports of changes in duck behavior…” But political lobbying groups like the National Wildlife Federation are quoted as saying: “This actually is happening.”

I was curious and decided to check the historical data. The Times sets their story in Rich Hill, Missouri. The closest weather station to Rich Hill is just 25 miles away in Appleton City. So I looked at the annual mean of the monthly mean temperature for that station since 1900. And the data simply doesn’t support the claims made by the Times reporter.

Here is the data as supplied by the United States Historical Climatology Network. What sticks out rather dramatically is that the most recent 50 years were considerably cooler than the previous 50 years. Missouri didn’t warm up over the last half century — if anything it cooled.

Look at the peak years for temperatures. In recent years only one year exceeded an annual mean in excess of 57 degrees and one was almost that warn. But from the mid-1950s back to 1900 we find 13 years in excess of 57 degrees.

Similarly look at the coolest years in Missouri over the last century. The warmest mean temperature for any year was 1954, over half a century ago. The second warmest year was in the early 1920s, third was in the early 30s, fourth in the 1940s. In fact all of the ten hottest years in Missouri, since 1900, were prior to 1955.

Routinely the New York Times makes claims about temperatures in specific localities rising in recent years in stories about global warming. Not one of such stories that I’ve read bothered to check the historical data.

Some citizens have inquired of me what they can do to force debate with towns, cities and states whose elected officials are seeking to fill a supposed vacuum of “action” to address climate change, in the absence of U.S. ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.  My response to them may be of help to others, so consider the following.

First, all such posturing – which is precisely what the gestures are – are driven by a myth.  Put aside “warming” for now and recall that it reflects the widespread adoration for rhetoric over substance, as further illustrated by, e.g., the Washington Post’s increasingly aggressive keening that the U.S. is “doing nothing” about greenhouse gas emissions or climate change, sitting on the sidelines, refusing to act, and otherwise falling behind in comparison with some subset of the rest of the world. Yet nowhere in its recent series of editorials, news articles and human interest stories covering the topic has the Post actually noted comparative U.S. and EU greenhouse gas emissions performance – Europe, the self-proclaimed “world leader”, being the most likely party in comparison to which we are not acting.  This reflects the mindset that if an emission drops and no bureaucrat was around to mandate it, it didn’t really drop.

Disappointed though the Post or others may be in all things Bush Administration, imagine how this malaise could be improved by acknowledging actual comparative performance, figures for which are publicly available.  Under any relevant modern baseline, e.g., the year Europe made its Kyoto promise (1997) or thereafter, U.S. emissions have risen far more slowly than those of its noisiest antagonists.  For example, International Energy Agency data show that over the past 7 years (2000-2006), the annual rate of increase for U.S. CO2 emissions is approximately one-third of the EU’s rate of increase (yes, increase; the EU is spending billions to watch emissions increase, faster than ours no less).  Indeed, over the same period even the smaller EU-15 economy has increased its CO2 emissions in actual volume greater than the U.S. by more than 20%, even while the U.S. economy and population also grew more rapidly.  In truth, mandates are not everything any more than Europe’s rhetoric amounts to policy.

In addition to bringing attention to facts, some Socratic questioning is in order, and it is fairly straightforward; the challenge is to be heard, and getting a public to motivate despite being conditioned to accept most anything policymakers heap on them with a shrug.

In response, btw, I am told that each effort to discuss the issue leads to the intellectually lazy appeal to authority, generally the claim of the IPCC and others that “thousands of scientists agree…”.  Respond that the greatest number of scientists having produced or agreed to any statement in any IPCC product is 51 [the Fourth Assessment Report’s Summary for Policymakers for its Working Group I (“science”), 33 authors, 18 contributing authors).[1][1]  The final Summary for Policymakers of the combined, Synthesis Report was “based on a draft prepared by” 40 scientists, who we will presume agreed to the product though they did not author it.[2][2]  No one else can claim to have authored or been asked to approve any of these, as is the case throughout the IPCC process.

Next, ask whether a cost-benefit analysis was done for the proposed gestures, if not then why not and what do they believe the costs to be, also what do they consider the benefits will be (since even Kyoto’s proponents acknowledge that it wouldn’t detectably impact climate you know they have to divide by zero).  And bang the drum of X costs for a known 0 benefit outside of spiritual contentment among a few (in short, these gestures are a more expensive example of, e.g., Berkeley declaring themselves a nuclear free zone during the Cold War).  They will downplay costs, so take a look at what they actually considered, as they usually exclude most relevant factors.  If they claim an analysis, let’s see it, because to date states have trotted out a group called the Center for Climate Strategies to give a patina of expertise and/or analysis, claiming “original economic analysis”, when in fact they offer anywhere from 49-74 cookie cutter proposals to all parties with which they work, never looked at by an economist (drafted by a poli sci grad student and a systems engineer…that is, activists w/an axe to grind, but no relevant experience and certainly nothing “original” or “economic” to say).  

Paul Chesser of North Carolina’s John Locke Foundation has revealed that this group, while often working through front groups (making that 2 layers), is a project of Rockefeller Bros., Ted Turner Foundation et al.  He has bird-dogged this stealthy program to force a “crazy quilt” of expensive bling on cities and states to force their political leaders to whine to DC that they’ve done something stupid and it isn’t fair that everyone isn't forced to do so.  The usual plan.

Finally, take a look at local temps.  They probably haven’t gone up materially – it is immaterial either way to “global warming”, though optically/rhetorically helpful when they haven’t risen.  Remember, the atmosphere hasn’t warmed since 1998 and 2007 is going to be the coolest year of the millennium.  Always, however, be aware of your baseline, knowing the clever ploy that the alarmists use (they start every analysis with the beginning year of a warming trend, e.g., 1860 or 1975).  www.co2science.org  has charts for local stations.  I say materially because this raises more issues – but one need not worry, digging this stuff isn’t that time consuming and it is great fun given what you'll see what you find about the local surface stations.  At least 2 papers (Goodridge 1996 and Michaels McKitrick 2007) show how warming is largely from the urban areas, and Christy et al showed how land use had led to warming in ag areas like the Central Valley.

Also check the temp station(s), at www.surfacestations.org.  I just did after hearing of CCS et al pushing their agenda through Gov. Huntsman in Utah, and it turned out the preponderance of stations are located in parking lots, on concrete pads, near swimming pools, above recently installed black rubber matting, and similarly corrupted.  So, scan your state’s sites for placement; including, has the area urbanized (it has, Q is how much)?

The alarmists and their ilk cannot make a persuasive case, which is why they bully, lie, shout down and pull stunts like the “appeal to authority” and claim “the science is settled…let’s move on”.  Citizens have every right and ability to be heard, and have the truth heard, before having this posturing shoves down their throats, after a trip through their wallets.

According to the Daily Mail, Al Gore left a London audience wanting more after one of his $6,000/minute climate speeches. To be sure, the Goracle rakes in piles of cash with his climate schtick, no matter how boring it is, but his honorariums are chump change compared to what he stands to make as a green venture capitalist.

The House recently passed an energy bill that would repeal $13 billion in tax breaks for fossil fuel companies and use the new revenue to fund alternative energy sources. Who is better positioned to reap these government handouts than Al Gore? Not only is he well connected to the Democratic majority in Congress, but his word is hallowed among the greens.

An Oscar…A Nobel Peace Price…A thriving rent-seeking career—Climate Change has been very, very good to Al.