GlobalWarming.org

The British government decided that it would be a good idea to send copies of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to all schools, with then Environment Secretary (now Foreign Secretary) David Miliband declaring that “the debate over science is over.” Well, it may be, but not in the way Gore portrays it. A truck driver and school governor, Stuart Dimmock, took the government to court, alleging that the film portrays “partisan political views,” the promotion of which is illegal in schools under the Education Act 1996.

The judge has decided that this is indeed the case and that the Government’s guidance notes that accompanied the film exacerbated the problem. For the film to be shown in schools, therefore, several facts would have to be drawn to students’ attention:

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The inaccuracies are:

* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
* The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.
* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
* The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
* The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
* The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
* The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

This is a far better result than refusing to allow the film to be shown at all. It requires that students be told by teachers that Al Gore is factually inaccurate, misleading and – in one case – making things up. These inconvenient truths for the former Vice President have been covered up or obscured by the hype surrounding his film. Students will now realize that there are significant shortcomings and inaccuracies in the way the global warming scare has been presented to them. This is a victory for honest debate, a victory for science and a victory for education.

The comprehensive guide to Gore's innacuracies is, of course, Marlo Lewis' "Al Gore's Science Fiction."

“Cleaner” Coal

The reality is, we would have much lower CO2 emissions right now if it weren’t for the anti-growth, environmental obstructionists. This is because the coal plants built today are up to 90% more efficient than the 60s and 70s coal plants currently in operation; therefore, it doesn’t take a mathematician to see that allowing the old plants to be replaced with new ones reduces total emissions. But the greens don’t want any coal-fired plants.

However, all the wishful thinking of myopic environmentalists isn’t going to create a solar or wind industry overnight to replace the 50% of our energy needs that coal provides. And contrary to Do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do Gore’s belief, we Americans are not going to stop using our air conditioners and build sod houses.

Allowing practicality to replace unrealistic expectations would allow the “cleaner” coal plants of today to be built and our CO2 emissions to be significantly lower.

France is unlikely to meet its target of a fourfold reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide by 2050, according to a report by a government-appointed commission, business daily La Tribune reported on Monday.

The earth is too small to accommodate all the biofuels projects envisioned for the globe, and this raises doubts whether green fuels will ever play a big role in weaning the world off crude oil.

A strange, almost funny thing recently happened at the State Department.  This was unusual not solely because proceedings at Foggy Bottom generally prompt fits of sobbing rather than bemusement.  At a gathering for his “Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change”, President Bush stood before the media, representatives of more than a dozen European and other nations, plus antagonists from Capitol Hill and, buried in his speech, offered long-overdue if curiously lukewarm defense of U.S. performance on greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). 

All eyes are on Greenland's melting glaciers as alarm about global warming spreads. This year, delegations of U.S. and European politicians have made pilgrimages to the fastest-moving glacier at Ilulissat, where they declare that they see climate change unfolding before their eyes.

This was some good work. Pretty convincing.

This is even better. Kid's got impressive range. Maybe he could pick up a Nobel.

Of course, cavemen have much smaller carbon footprints.

>Today’s New York Times, noting that crude oil recently hit $83.32 a barrel on Sept. 20 and stayed above $80 a barrel for the next two weeks, provides some eye-popping numbers on how the high cost of crude is affecting transport industries:

Airlines worldwide expect to spent $132 billion for jet fuel this year, up from $40 billion in 2002. The industry estimates that the share of operating costs devoted to fuel has doubled in six years. Similarly, the American trucking industry expects to spend $107 billion on diesel fuel this year, up from $45 billion in 2002. This means that fuel eats up nearly twice as much of the industry’s annual revenue…

Fortunately, a boom in business has protected trucking’s bottom line. “Had this happened 10 years ago, the industry would have been decimated,” the Times quotes Bob Costello, chief economist for the American Trucking Association, as saying.

An obvious question that leaps to mind: How much higher can fuel prices go without ‘decimating’ the trucking and airline industries–or without triggering a recession?

This question is all the more pertinent given the enthusiasm on Capitol Hill for mandatory global warming policies. For example, John Dingell, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, recently advocated (a) a $50 tax on the carbon content of fuels, (b) a $.50 hike in federal motor fuel taxes, and (c) a cap-and-trade program adequate to reduce U.S. emissions 60 to 80 percent by 2050.

A $50 tax on the carbon content of fuels translates into a $.50 cents per gallon gasoline tax. So Dingell is effectively asking for a $1.00 per gallon hike in gasoline taxes. A cap-and-trade program, especially one tough enough to reduce emissions by 60 to 80 percent, would put an additional heavy constraint on petroleum supply, further inflating fuel costs.

So it is a real question whether the airline and trucking industries could remain profitable under the kinds of global warming policies Dingell and others are proposing–and whether the U.S. economy could continue to grow.

Although higher fuel costs would hurt consumers and the economy, emissions might still go up: economic pain for no environmental gain. Consider the European experience.

Because of high motor fuel taxes, Europeans in some countries pay $7.00 a gallon or more for gasoline. But where in Europe are all the zero-emission vehicles? Where is the miracle fuel to replace petroleum? Europe is not one mile closer than we are to achieving a “beyond petroleum” transport system. Indeed, EU transport sector emissions grew by almost 26 percent from 1990 to 2004.

Dingell is more up front than most pols about the costs of Kyotoism. But hiding the costs of climate policy has become a fine art on the Hill. The question a straight talker like Dingell should be raising is: How much higher than European level gasoline prices does Congress think Americans should have to pay to reduce emissions?

Last week (September 28), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) caused quite a stir by proposing global warming legislation that would directly and openly increase the cost of gasoline and home ownership.

As Dingell explained in a statement on his Web site, the proposed legislation would:

• Establish a $50 per ton tax on the carbon content of fuels, including coal, petroleum, and natural gas;
• Increase federal motor fuel taxes on gas, jet fuel, and kerosene by $.50/gallon; and
• Phase out mortgage interest tax deductions on homes larger than 3,000 square feet.

Some climate skeptics speculated that Dingell, who butted heads with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Henry Waxman, and other global warming crusaders earlier this year, was actually trying to pour cold water on climate policies of the Al Gore variety. Gore is a leading proponent of cap-and-trade regulation, the centerpiece of the Kyoto climate treaty he negotiated.

For politicians eager to avoid blame for the burdens they impose on the public, cap-and-trade offers significant advantages. Most Americans have no familiarity with cap-and-trade, so it does not arouse their fear or anger. More importantly, because cap-and-trade programs are regulatory, their costs are indirect or hidden, unlike gasoline taxes, which come clearly labeled at the pump.

So some skeptics hoped that Dingell was issuing a wake up call to a public already upset about high gas prices and worried about the collapsing sub-prime mortgage market.

Unfortunately, this is wishful thinking. Dingell offered his proposed legislation as one element of a package that also includes “an economy-wide cap-and-trade program.” Economists generally view carbon taxes and cap-and-trade as competing alternatives, not as complementary. Indeed, from a climate skeptic’s viewpoint, a carbon tax has redeeming social value only if it replaces all climate-related regulation—not just cap-and-trade but also renewable portfolio standards, bio fuel mandates, and fuel economy standards.

Instead, Dingell offers carbon taxes as an add-on. The carbon tax/mortgage elimination bill is just one step towards reducing “greenhouse gas emissions 60 to 80 percent by 2050.”

Even as a civics lesson, the bill is of limited value. If Dingell’s real aim were to expose the costs of Kyotoism, he should have called for a $5.00 per gallon increase in gasoline taxes, a $500 per ton carbon tax, and outright elimination of home mortgage deductions. Such burdens are much closer to what it would take reduce emissions by 60 to 80 percent.

That Dingell (sadly) has no interest in being a spoiler is evident from the white paper he issued yesterday, the first in a series on cap-and-trade legislation. In both the white paper and an accompanying memorandum, Dingell reiterates that his goal is to reduce emissions 60 to 80 percent by 2050. He says that although carbon taxes and technology programs are “valuable tools, they do not fall under the province of the Committee and will therefore not be the focus of these papers.” In the policy mix Dingell envisions, carbon taxes are at most a side show, not the main event. The White Paper could not be clearer on this point:

Based on the hearings earlier this year, the Committee and Subcommittee Chairmen [i.e. Dingell and Rick Boucher of Virginia] have reached the following conclusions: The United States should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by between 60 and 80 percent by 2050 to contribute to global efforts to address climate change. To do so, the United States should adopt an economy-wide, mandatory greenhouse gas reduction program. The central component of this program should be a cap-and-trade program … The Subcommittee and full Committee will draft legislation to establish such a program.