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“Wake Up, America!”

by Julie Walsh on January 23, 2008

Today the Financial Times has a little piece mentioning the gloating in the halls of Brussels over current U.S. financial controversies, with one Eurocrat after another preening that the U.S. adopted reckless policies, didn’t pay heed to Europe – and it’s projected 1.5-1.8% growth, by the way – and has only itself to blame. FT pompously passed along the call to “wake up, America!.

OK, so let’s pay attention to Europe.

* Yesterday, the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries pleaded with the Commission to stop the hemorrhaging from their carbon-cap-n-trade scheme which put their industry at a big competitive disadvantage compared to Chinese, Russian and U.S.

* The day before that, the European Roundtable of Industrialists begged the Commission for the same thing, saying it could destroy the competitive position of European industry. The letter was signed by the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, which had pushed the scheme.

These policies were put in place at the behest of businesses convinced that they can ride the back of the tiger of energy rationing policies and not end up on the inside; certain that if their political buddies impose a system it will be the one they design with plans to profit from – on ratepayers’ and consumers’ backs – and maintain control of.

As a result of just three years of this experiment, yesterday the President of the European Council, Barosso, vowed to impose trade sanctions on countries that haven’t adopted Europe’s rationing scheme – in which I’ve documented they’re cheating, by the way – which is the most direct way you will ever hear them admit that the scheme is doing precisely as we warned, and killing their economy.
Remember this when you hear it sold domestically as creating “green collar jobs”: nonsense–some brokerages have done real well, and utilities and some oil companies have been given windfall profits in the trillions, at the cost of chasing real jobs away due to high energy costs. They have even driven steel jobs HERE.

By coincidence, also this week Greenwire (password required) reported that former RNC chief Ken Mehlman is being paid by rent-seeking industry to convince the administration to adopt this scheme, as are the spinner Tucker Eskew and other former Bushies.

A Bloomberg story yesterday cited Mehlman’s firm, Akin Gump, as an example of lawyers getting $700 an hour to advocate just such things.

Finally, this week, we are also told by our few friends in the White House that there is a new urgency because the long running campaign to get the President to do this is gaining traction, this campaign that is still driven by the Goldman Sachs contingent, which is still driven by Josh Bolten with a little help from Treasury, et al. (Goldman being heavily invested in the project and in on the game since the early days when it teamed up with Enron on it).

We’re told they’ve got a pending recommendation to announce this in the President's State of the Union address. As Cyrano said about a fiscally reckless move characterized as stupid: “But what a gesture!”

Energy alternatives

by Lene Johansen on January 17, 2008

in Science

Harvesting the body heat of Svedes, cheesy floor and cars running on chocolate is some of the environmentally friendly energy alternatives in a recent Guardian article. Great story that shows how innovation happens between self-interested actors, rather than through government planning.

Embarrassingly Bad Economics of the Center for Climate Strategies

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on January 17, 2008

in Blog

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

It’s official: the so-called economic analysis that the Center for Climate Strategies is feeding to state governments is junk, which is what you would expect since their study does not quantify the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and they repeatedly misidentify costs as benefits.

Those are just some of the findings reached by the Beacon Hill Institute, who this week released a peer review study of the methodology used by CCS (and the North Carolina Climate Action Plan Advisory Group) in producing 56 recommendations for the state to act on reducing CO2 emissions. BHI did the study, in addition to a review of another economic model used by CCS (more garbage in, garbage out) to evaluate job impacts, and an earlier review that scrutinized CCS’s findings in Arizona, at the request of the John Locke Foundation. Here is the sobering assessment by BHI’s PhD economist Ben Powell, who wrote this week’s report:

The 56 global warming policy proposals now under consideration for North Carolina include ideas that would increase taxes, restrict land use, ration energy use, and raise energy costs.

“Surprisingly, the NC-CAPAG report claims that the implementation of these measures would bring ‘significant cost savings for the State’s economy,’” Powell wrote. “The NC-CAPAG report gives the impression that the state policy makers can have their cake and eat it, too, and that North Carolina can both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time actually save the economy money. Unfortunately, the seriously flawed nature of the report undermines these conclusions.”

“NC-CAPAG’s cost savings estimates are not just wildly optimistic; they are the product of a purely fictitious analysis,” Powell wrote. “Its cost savings estimates cannot be believed, and it fails to quantify the monetary benefits of reduced carbon emissions. Thus policy makers are left with no basis on which to judge the merits of the NC-CAPAG report’s recommendations for action on the mitigation of emissions of greenhouse gases.”

Finally someone is looking at the real costs (huge) compared to the alleged benefits (unidentified and not quantified) being claimed by the environmental left. Of course, it’s tough to apply statistical analysis when the only goal is to feel good about yourself.

Whoops! Those Darned Climate Models Just Don’t Work

by Julie Walsh on January 16, 2008

What will the world look like in a century? Imagine asking that question in 1900. And in 1800. The world would have changed in so many dramatic ways, that any economic and environmental predictions would have been worthless.

That’s the problem that we face with the climate doomsayers. They can spin out scenarios day after day, but there is little reason to believe the underlying economic and other assumptions.

So far the computer models have proved inadequate to the task. More research has come forth demonstrating that the models predict more warming than we have so far seen. If they can’t get the last three decades right, why does anyone believe that they will get multiple decades, or longer, in the future right?

Explains Drew Thornley, Texas Public Policy Foundation, writing for Heartland Institute's Environment and Climate News:

Computer models that form the basis for future global warming predictions have projected significantly more warming in recent years than has actually occurred, concludes a comprehensive new scientific study.

“A Comparison of Tropical Temperature Trends with Model Predictions,” published in the December 2007 International Journal of Climatology, is the latest study to cast doubt on the efficacy of climate modeling. Climate scientists David H. Douglass, John Christy, and S. Fred Singer analyzed 22 climate models and found their predictions at odds with actual warming over the past 30 years.

No Human Fingerprint

Most of the models predicted significant middle- and upper-troposphere warming, yet actual warming was minimal.

Douglass and his colleagues write, “Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs.”

Christy, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contributor, noted in a December 6 press statement, “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. Satellite observations suggest that greenhouse models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”

Models Don’t Reflect Causes

Many top climate scientists point out climate models are incapable of handling confounding factors such as cloud cover and water vapor (the dominant greenhouse gas), thus distorting climate predictions.

Additionally, they note, the models do not reflect the actual causes of warming. Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT, says the models used by the IPCC and other alarmists assign too much warming resulting from increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, rendering the models’ predictions inaccurate.

Singer writes, “Dire predictions of future warming are based almost entirely on computer climate models, yet these models do not accurately understand the role of water vapor. Plus, computer models cannot account for the observed cooling of much of the past century (1940-75), nor for the observed patterns of warming. For example, the Antarctic is cooling while models predict warming. And where the models call for the middle atmosphere to warm faster than the surface, the observations show the exact opposite.”

The issue of climate change warrants continuing research. But there is no compelling reason for panic, jumping off an economic cliff to forestall a future unlikely to ever occur.

Arctic Fingerprint Doesn’t Match?

by Julie Walsh on January 10, 2008

From Pat Michaels, World Climate Report

Remember the good old days when “fingerprinting” was in vogue as the way to demonstrate a human impact on global climate? The idea was to show that observed temperature changes throughout the atmosphere match well the temperature changes predicted by climate models to occur there. One of the most prominent, and ultimately disproven, attempts was made by Ben Santer and colleagues, back in 1996. Santer et al. published an article in Nature magazine titled “A search for the human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere” in which they concluded that “Our results suggest that the similarities between observed and model-predicted changes in the zonal-mean vertical patterns of temperature change over 1963-1987 are unlikely to have resulted from natural internally generated variability of the climate system.” In other words, there must be a human influence on the observed changes. However, we (Michaels and Knappenberger, 1996) published a subsequent Comment in Nature, titled “Human effect on global climate?” describing how the correspondence between the observed patterns of vertical temperature change in the atmosphere and those projected by climate models broke down if a longer time period were considered. In other words, if the comparison was extended from 1958 to 1995 (instead of Santer et al.’s 1963 to 1987) the correspondence between model and observations became much less obvious. We concluded “Such a result… cannot be considered to be a ‘fingerprint’ of greenhouse-gas-induced climate change.” (See here for more details)

Now, 12 years later, another study appears in Nature magazine that suggests that there is a poor correspondence between the observed patterns of vertical temperature change and those predicted to occur by climate models over the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. This time, Rune Graversen and colleagues from the Department of Meteorology at Sweden’s Stockholm University, conclude in their article “Vertical structure of recent Arctic warming” that variations in atmospheric heat transport from the lower latitudes into the northern high latitudes (via atmospheric circulation patterns) are largely responsible for the enhanced warming of the Arctic atmosphere. This leaves less temperature change there ascribable to our current understanding of anthropogenic global warming.

In fact, the climate model-predicted human ‘fingerprint’ doesn’t match very well at all the observed patterns of temperature change that have taken place in the Arctic atmosphere over the past several decades.

Figure 1 shows how climate models predict that the vertical temperatures in the atmosphere will evolve as more and more CO2 is added to the air. Notice that in the northern high latitudes (to the right in Figure 1), warming takes place at a greater rate at the surface than aloft—this pattern of temperature change is fundamentally different than that expected to occur elsewhere, most notably in the Tropics where more warming is predicted to occur in the middle atmosphere than occurs at the surface (not that things are working out very well there either–see here for our coverage of the latest on the model failings in the Tropics). In the Arctic, the warming is supposed to be enhanced at the surface as a result of a positive feedback loop in which a little initial warming melts some snow and sea ice, which reduces the reflectivity of the surface, allowing it to absorb more incoming solar radiation, which warms it further, leading to more snow and ice melting, and so on and so forth. Much of this feedback involves near surface processes which do not greatly effect conditions higher up in the atmosphere due to the lack of convection in the Arctic (as opposed to the Tropics where convection mixes surface changes up into the atmosphere).

Figure 1. Climate model projections of the zonal averages of the changes in vertical temperatures expected under Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario A1B for the years listed above each figure compared with the average from 1980-1999 (source: IPCC, AR4, Figure 10.7)

However, when Graversen et al. computed the observed vertical temperature changes which took place from 1979-2001, they found a pattern that was completely different from the one projected by climate models. Figure 2 (top) shows that instead of more warming occurring at the surface in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, more warming has been occurring aloft. This is completely opposite to how most climate models run with increasing CO2 concentrations predict conditions to evolve (and for that matter, the observed patterns in the lower latitudes were opposite the model projections as well, again, see here for more on this mismatch).

This suggests that something other than CO2 and CO2-related feedbacks (at least as we currently understand them) are playing a large role in the region’s recent temperature trends. Graversen et al. propose that the culprit is the variability of the amount of mid-level heat exchange that takes place in the atmosphere between the lower latitudes and the Arctic. They support this idea by showing how variations in heat exchange are closely related to subsequent patterns of mid-tropospheric temperature variations—the more heat exchange across 60ºN, the greater the temperature anomalies in the mid-atmosphere in the Arctic and vice versa. Furthermore, Graversen et al. report that the amount of heat exchange has been generally trending upwards over the past 20 years or so.

Using the observed relationships between heat exchange and temperature patterns, coupled with the time series of heat exchange, the authors can construct vertical temperature changes that are expected to have occurred in response to the variation in heat exchange. What they find is that the observed pattern of temperature change and the ones they calculate to result from heat exchange variations closely match (Figure 2 bottom). This is an indication that their explanation holds water. However, they freely admit that other processes could be involved as well, including changes in cloud cover and increases in moisture (which may accompany the increased heat exchange). Together, in some combination, Graversen et al. believe that these processes are largely responsible for the observed changes in the temperature patterns in the Arctic since 1979. Note that these variations must be 1) largely natural, and/or 2) poorly captured by climate models, because otherwise the observed changes and modeled changes would be in better agreement.

Figure 2. (top) Observed temperature trends in the northern extratropics during the warm season (April – October) over the years 1979-2001. (bottom) The warming trends expected from the variability in the heat exchange between the low latitude and the high latitudes during the same period. Note that north is to the left in this Figure (From Graversen et al., 2008).

Graverson and colleagues are quick to point out that just because the temperature changes in the Arctic observed over the past 20 some odd years do not well match climate model projections doesn’t meant that they always won’t. Perhaps the near surface CO2-induced processes will eventually begin to dominate the processes of natural variability, or perhaps the climate models may one day be better able to handle heat exchange-related processes. But until that ever happens, pointing to ongoing climate change in the Arctic and yelling ‘fire!’ or, in this case ‘humans!’ seems scientifically a bit premature.

Note (added Jan. 4, 2008): The folks over at RealClimate make the interesting observation that the modeled behavior of the vertical temperature trends over the Arctic during the warm season bears a different character than with the trends over the whole year (as is depicted in our Figure 1). Using the output from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) model run for the period 1979-2001 and for the Northern Hemisphere warm season (Figure 3), there appears to be a much better match with the observations than is implied by Graversen et al.’s write-up in Nature (although clearly there remains something seriously amiss in the lower latitudes).

Figure 3. The vertical temperature trends during the Northern Hemipshere warm season (May-October) for the period 1979-2001 as produced by the NASA GISS climate model run with all forcings. Note that north is to the right (source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/transient/Rc_pj.1.11.html).

Reference:

Graversen, R.G., et al., 2008. Vertical structure of recent Arctic warming. Nature, 541, 53-57.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007. Fourth Assessment Report, http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm

Michaels, P.J., and P.C. Knappenberger, 1996. Human effect on global climate? Nature, 384, 522–523.

Santer, B.D. et al., 1996. A Search for Human Influences on the Thermal Structure of the Atmosphere. Nature , 382, 39–45.

Santer et al., 1996. Reply to: Human effect on climate? Nature, 384, 524.

Global warming is ALWAYS the most likely culprit

by Lene Johansen on December 26, 2007

in Science

Some disease are plaguing camels, and the obvious culprit is… -Global warming… you got it!

I read this story in the Guardian, and I had a déjà vu experience, remember this spring when some virus was plaguing the bee population in North America, causing them to die in large numbers. We did not really know that it was a virus until this summer, but several someone's suggested global warming was behind that too, until we knew it was the virus.

Now however, global warming is killing camels, cause microbes, viruses, and bacteria does not mutate, as we all know. At least global warming will be the culprit until some microbiologists take a look at the thing.

A Lightbulb Tea Party?

by Julie Walsh on December 21, 2007

From FOXNews.com

“No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”

That comment by New York State Surrogate Court Judge Gideon Tucker in 1866 aptly summarizes the so-called “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007,” signed into law this week by President Bush.

First, the law requires auto fuel efficiency standards to increase by 40 percent by 2020. Unfortunately, this goal is presently only achievable by reducing vehicle weight — but lighter cars are deadlier cars. So what’s the purported benefit of mandating 4,000 or more deaths per year?

The law’s supporters claim that it may reduce national oil consumption by about 5 percent (400 million barrels of oil per year). Doing the math, your life is now worth about 100,000 barrels of oil. In touting the law, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “it is an environmental issue, and therefore a health issue… it is an energy issue, and it is a moral issue.”

But what exactly is the morality of risking thousands of lives every year to reduce oil consumption by an inconsequential amount?

Next, the new law doubles the use of ethanol, likely further distorting agricultural markets and driving up food prices. Animal feed costs are already up 20 percent this year, no doubt contributing to the 5 percent rise in consumer grocery prices.

More cropland dedicated to growing corn means less cropland for other important grains. In observing that its food-price index is higher today than at any time since it was created in 1845, The Economist on Dec. 8 noted that filling up an SUV’s tank with ethanol uses enough corn to feed a person for a year. Although current biofuel use already requires one-third of the U.S. corn crop, the new law mandates even more biofuels. This “commits the nation to decades of competition between food and fuel for the use of agricultural land,” observed the New York Times.

The morality of that competition may be fairly questioned since increased biofuel use isn’t likely to produce environmental benefits or make us “energy independent.” The biofuel mandates — which will require technologies that don’t yet exist on a commercial basis — are touted as cutting U.S. dependence on oil imports by replacing 20 percent of the fuel now used. But only about 17 percent of U.S. oil imports come from the volatile Middle East. A 20 percent pro-rata reduction in Middle East imports would reduce them to 13.6 percent.

It’s difficult to see precisely what national security benefit accrues from such a slight decrease. Even if the as-yet imaginary biofuels were to magically free us entirely from Middle East oil, it is worthwhile remembering that oil is a global commodity, the supply and price of which will always remain heavily dependent on Middle East producers and events. Whether we like it or not, as long as we use oil, its availability and price will be affected by the Middle East. Biofuels, particularly imaginary ones, can’t fix that vulnerability.

Another kick-in-the-teeth to consumers is the new mandate to phase-out incandescent lightbulbs in favor of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). The 100-watt incandescent light bulb will be the first to go in 2012. It’s bad enough that the federal government wants to dictate what sort of lighting we can have in our own homes, but it expects us to pay up for mercury-containing CFLs (up to $5 for a CFL vs. $0.75 for a standard incandescent bulb) which are inferior in quality (harsh institutional white light vs. soft yellow-white light) and function (their light-up is slow and inconsistent, and frequent on/off switching shortens their life), and which require special handling and disposal procedures (you’re not supposed to just throw them away in household trash or vacuum up CFL breakage).

Aside from the energy independence canard and the heavy lobbying by the rent-seeking ethanol/biofuels industry, the law’s driving rationale is the much-dreaded global warming. The auto fuel efficiency standards and CFL provisions, in particular, are supposed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide — if only that really mattered. In addition to the umpteen reasons laid out in previous columns for doubting that manmade emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) play a meaningful role in global climate, a new study in this week’s Nature provides yet another.

Dutch researchers reported that during a period of intense global warming 55 million years ago — somewhat before SUVs and coal-fired electricity — there was a tremendous release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But which came first, the warming or the greenhouse gases?

The researchers report that the warming probably began before the main injection of greenhouse gases took place. Moreover, all this occurred at a time when the average temperature in Canada and Siberia was about 65 degrees Fahrenheit, the Arctic Ocean was as warm as 73 degrees Fahrenheit and atmospheric CO2 levels were already in the range of 2,000 to 3,000 parts per million — 5 to 8 times greater than current CO2 levels.

What should Americans do about all this?

I don’t know the answer, but given that CFLs come from China and are imported and sold by businesses that lobbied Congress for the incandescent bulb ban, something akin to the Boston Tea Party comes to mind. That 1773 event stemmed from Colonist resentment of the British Parliament’s Tea Act — a bill lobbied for by the East India Company so that it could monopolize the American tea market.

I suppose we should be thankful that our dim-bulb politicians will be taking the holidays off — at least we’ll have a month’s respite from meddlesome, if not outright menacing government.

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert and advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Congress Takes Propaganda to Heart

by William Yeatman on November 9, 2007

The walls, pillars, and floors of the Metro subway station at Capitol South, which is next to the House office buildings, are plastered with advertisements from a coalition calling itself 35Plus15. The ads support legislation mandating that CAFÉ standards on cars and light trucks be raised to 35 miles per gallon and that electric utilities be required to produce 15 per cent of their power from renewable sources. 35Plus15 appears to be a project of the Save Our Environment coalition of environmental pressure groups.

What's remarkable is some of the claims that these ads make. Most egregious is one poster that says, "Let's put Americans to work saving money". How mandating more expensive vehicles and electricity is going to save anyone money is beyond me. If these policies would save people money, then they wouldn't require government mandates.

Targeting this kind of propaganda to congressional staffers is clearly having an effect, despite its counter-factual claims. At a conference on energy at the Washington Post I attended Thursday, one panel consisted of two Republican Senators–Lisa Murkowski (Ak.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.)–and two Democratic Representatives–Edward Markey (Mass.) and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (S. D.). Markey has been pursuing a leftist anti-energy agenda for thirty-one years as a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and of the Natural Resources Committee, so perhaps his confusion can be explained as a political strategy to advance his goals. But the others are just confused. They recognize that there have been problems when government has gotten involved in picking winners and losers, but still want to do it.

Rep. Markey objected to nuclear subsidies because they violate the need for a level-playing field. But he supports mandates and subsidies for renewable fuels and energy conservation. And on top of those distortions of the level playing field, he favors cap-and-trade controls on greenhousee gas emissions.

Sen. Murkowski thinks CAFE standards must be raised so that the automakers will be forced to produce the kinds of vehicles she prefers rather than the kind her sixteen-year-old son prefers. Of course, the automakers do produce such models, but more people prefer safer, bigger, and faster cars than the Senator says she prefers (I don't know what model she drives).

Rep. Sandlin wants lots of ethanol for motor fuels, but she demands that the mandate be designed carefully, so that corn isn't displaced by other feedstocks. Higher CAFE standards are good, but need to have special loopholes to take account of the needs of rural agro-Americans for bigger pickup trucks.

Sen. Corker likes the ethanol mandate and would support a renewable requirement for utilities if nuclear and hydropower were included. He is also interested in cap-and-trade for greenhouse gas emissions, even though he admits it's a tax, if it will create new green jobs and technology. Of course, cap-and trade would raise energy prices and thereby destroy a lot more jobs than it creates. But any familiarity with basic economics is not a pre-requisite for making the nation's energy policies.

Let the Bali Spin Begin

by William Yeatman on November 8, 2007

A few remarkable pieces ran today in the “climate change” context.

First, China Daily, which is a decent barometer of the state’s thinking, ran a piece with the amusing headline “UN climate change chief impressed by China,” which also was indicative of the piece’s message: this is as good as it gets.

It opens by noting that “China is taking all the necessary steps to tackle the adverse impacts of climate change, chairman of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Rajendra Pachauri has said.” Presumably this means openly rejecting Kyoto-style caps on emissions, and building a coal-fired power plant every three days as China reportedly is doing, in which case the U.S. certainly has some catching up to do on at least one count to match Chinese performance which also is increasingly lauded by the Europeans (see below).

It turns out, however, that Pachauri had less obvious steps in mind. “Pachauri said he was impressed by what Chinese scientists and meteorologists had done to fight climate change.” (emphasis added; and in case you are not yourself impressed by this assessment, China Daily follows this with a reminder that Pachauri leads a group that shared the Nobel with Al Gore).

So, China’s impressive contribution – to fighting climate change, mind you – is proffered by its scientists and meteorologists. Some breakthrough technology, you might ask? Well, sort of. It seems that China now has a weather channel, “and it reaches everyone”. OK, that might exaggerate things by a few hundred million in a country lacking rural electrification necessary for large swaths of its peasantry to plug in their sets.

Still, were that not enough to fight climate change, China has set up 2,400 observation posts (the U.S. may or may not be a laggard, with precisely half that amount, 1221 surface temperature measuring stations, if also having considerably less area to cover). Impressed with their climate-change fighting capabilities yet? There’s more.

Finally, it seems that Chinese scientists were very cooperative with the IPCC, “with its scientists showing a very positive attitude toward working with international researchers to fight climate change”.

You really gotta love state-run media. I may be mistaken, but there has indeed been a detectable cooling just in the past few days.

This heroic Chinese effort becomes relevant due to a claim, made by a European climate delegate published in a Forbes story, “US, not China, main obstacle in climate change talks – EU delegation”, who assures us that the Chinese quietly inform her how “China is also likely to make other commitments when the [post-2012 Kyoto] talks begin next month”. Tough to tell which messenger to believe here, really.

This piece reflects the EU’s rather transparent campaign, in the run-up to December’s Kyoto talks in Bali, to explain away its unilateral if fracturing insistence that post-2012 Kyoto look like the 2008-2012 version, with an ever-tightening if selective absolute emissions cap, which is still rejected by the U.S. and 155 other countries. In truth, the U.S. has joined with Kyoto parties Japan and now Canada to bring in Kyoto-rejecting Australia and Kyoto free-riders India, China, and South Korea and develop (what the administration refuses to call) an alternative path, of technology development and transfer allowing participants to choose their own metric.

Europe demands that others stay clear of that approach, thereby somehow positioning the U.S. as the obstacle to progress. This spin will be on full display beginning on December 3-14, at which point we hopefully will see how it withstands pushback and debate.

Royal Academy of Sciences in the UK, your one stop shop for your daily apocalyptic fix!

by Lene Johansen on October 30, 2007

Doomsayer Lovelock has been visiting the Royal Academy of Sciences in the UK again. I thought the Academy was a society for serious research, but they obviously like to get their apocalypse fix on a regular basis as well. I can recommend several religious establishments for this purpose, they don't have to drag the good name of science through the mud in this way.

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