Tag: climate challenge

The Malthusian option: Food or Ethanol? A Limerick with explanation.

When EPA regulates, they are but slobs;

No thought what effect it will have on our jobs. (1)

You want food? You want fuel?(2)

The one choice is too cruel. (3)

A Malthusian choice, that’s why Mother Earth sobs. (4)

(1)

(2)TUCSON, Ariz., March 28, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — U.S. and European policy to increase production of ethanol and other biofuels to displace fossil fuels is supposed to help human health by reducing “global warming.” Instead it has added to the global burden of death and disease. Increased production of biofuels increases the price of food worldwide by diverting crops and cropland from feeding people to feeding motor vehicles. Higher food prices, in turn, condemn more people to chronic hunger and “absolute poverty” (defined as income less than $1.25 per day). But hunger and poverty are leading causes of premature death and excess disease worldwide. Therefore, higher biofuel production would increase death and disease. Research by the World Bank indicates that the increase in biofuels production over 2004 levels would push more than 35 million additional people into absolute poverty in 2010 in developing countries. Using statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Indur Goklany estimates that this would lead to at least 192,000 excess deaths per year, plus disease resulting in the loss of 6.7 million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) per year. These exceed the estimated annual toll of 141,000 deaths and 5.4 million lost DALYs that the World Health Organization attributes to global warming. Thus, developed world policies intended to mitigate global warming probably have increased death and disease in developing countries rather than reducing them. Goklany also notes that death and disease from poverty are a fact, whereas death and disease from global warming are hypothetical. (3)
(4) Malthusian: of or relating to Malthus or to his theory that population tends to increase at a faster rate than its means of subsistence and that unless it is checked by moral restraint or disaster (as disease, famine, or war) widespread poverty and degradation inevitably result

A Climate skeptic’s epiphany response.

A Climate skeptic’s epiphany response.

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post started his op-ed with the sentence: “For the clueless or cynical diehards who deny global warming it is getting awfully cold out there”.

Yes, indeed. It is getting cold alright.

Robinson quoted Richard Muller, a true scientist, as having said “Global warming is real”.  Muller did that by noting what skeptics already know that we were having a warming trend between 1970 and 2000. He then presented the data with a 10 year moving average, making the end time 2006. This data resembles the famous “Hockey stick”, with a rapid and accelerating temperature rise. Muller also pointed out that of all temperature stations one third show a cooling trend. All stations monitor CO2 filled air, so what makes the difference? A separate analysis shows that weather stations in continuous use since the year 1900, located in an unchanging environment show no warming trend between 1900 and 2010, while weather stations in airports and near paved parking lots, buildings and air conditioners do. A thinking person would conclude that something else than rising levels of CO2 would be the cause of rising temperatures. It seems to me that land use changes would play a major role, since only those weather stations that are subject to land use changes show an increase. Since 2000 we have had a cooling trend of about 1 degree Fahrenheit/century, and the cooling seems to be accelerating. We have not had a major volcanic eruption since Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, so something else must be the source of our present cooling trend. Cosmic radiation resulting from low solar activity leading to more clouds has a near perfect correlation with temperature data for the last 30 years. Yeah, that’s it. Maybe we get our heat from the Sun! True global warming skeptics to not deny climate change, nor do they deny CO2 being a greenhouse gas. The latest data indicate that if the amount of CO2 is doubled the global temperature would rise about 0.3 degrees Celsius, rather than the 1.5 to 5 degrees that IPCC(A U.N. panel) has guessed. This temperature rise is largely concentrated in the temperate regions of the world and would be mostly beneficial. In addition, with a doubling of the CO2 level, crop yields would increase 30 to 45% allowing the earth to feed that many more people.

What is so horrible about that?

Towards the end of the paper the scientists conclude: “The human component of global warming may be somewhat overestimated.”

I love understatements.

The cause of Climate Change is still up in the air.

The cause of Climate Change is still up in the air. Sherlock Holmes: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts”. From: “Scandal in Bohemia” A. Conan Doyle.

The first Earth Day in Philadelphia 1970, April 22 (the 100 year anniversary of Lenin’s Birth) featured Ira Einhorn (The Unicorn Killer) as master of Ceremonies. The big environmental scare of the day was the threat of a new Ice Age. The clarion call was: “In the year 2000 temperatures will have fallen 10 degrees”, the culprit was pollution, especially acid rain. The acid rain was so bad in the Adirondacks, Canada, Norway and Sweden that the Rainbow Trout died in droves, and even the oceans were in danger of getting too acid. Regulations were enacted to add scrubbers to power stations, waste water was purified, and – wouldn’t you know it, the cooling trend reversed itself and was followed by warming. Since the cooling trend was “obviously man-made” they had to find a reason for the sudden warming. Never mind that around the year 1200 there was at least one farm on South West Greenland that exported, among other things, cheese. How do we know that? They have excavated the ruins of a farm, “Gården under Sanden”, buried under permafrost for five centuries.  During these five centuries the Northern Hemisphere experienced what is called “the little ice age” a time when the winters could be so cold that in 1658 the Swedish army, cavalry and artillery crossed the Belts in the southern Baltic over ice and sacked Copenhagen.

Picture left: Gården under sanden excavation.

Picture right: The crossing of the Great Belt 1658.

To predict future climate changes many computer models have been developed dealing with how the earth responds to changes in atmospheric conditions, especially how it responds to changes in CO2 levels.  Most were developed in the 1970 to 2000 time frame, a time of rapid temperature rise and as such they were all given a large factor for the influence of rising CO2. Since 2005 we have had a cooling trend, so the models cooperate less and less and are given more and more unreliable predictions. It is no wonder then that they all have failed to model the past. None of them have reproduced the medieval warm period or the little ice age. If they cannot agree with the past there is no reason to believe they have any ability to predict the future. The models are particularly bad when it comes to predict cloud cover and what time of day clouds appear and disappear. Below is a chart of a number of climate models and their prediction of cloud cover versus observed data. Note especially to the right where they completely fail to notice the clear skies over Antarctica.

Is there a better way to predict future temperature trends? When you go to the doctor for a physical, at some point and without warning he hits you under the knee with a hammer and watches your reaction. He is observing your impulse response. Can we observe impulse responses for the earth? One obvious case is volcanic explosions. Sometimes the earth burps a lot of carbon dioxide or methane. But the most interesting response would be how the earth responds to a solar flare  with a sudden change in the amount of cosmic radiation hitting the earth. That would give the best indication how the sun and cosmic radiation affects cloud formation. A couple of solar flares lately have been giving us a hint how the cloud cover responds to changes in cosmic radiation, and they are consistent with the latest results from the CLOUD project conducted using the CERN particle accelerator, a confirmation of a theory forwarded by the Danish Physicist Henrik Svensmark. He first presented the theory in 1997 and finally got the results verified and published in 2007, but the prevailing consensus has been slow to accept the theory that the sun as the primary driver of climate change. We have many reasons to be concerned about the well-being of the earth, but rising levels of CO2 is not one of them. In fact, CO2 is our friend. Rising CO2 levels increases crop yields, makes the impact of land use changes less pronounced and the photosynthesis process more efficient, using less water and allowing us to grow crops on land once deemed unprofitable.

Picture right: The CERN Cloud apparatus in 2009.

James Hansen, a world famous climate science activist/NASA physicist writes in one of his publications, called “Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications“. It contains a quote that ties nicely in with Sherlock Holmes observation:  The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-year-mean imbalance of 6.5 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009).

There we have it. The observed data does not fit the climate models. Change the observed data! Then use that data to validate the climate models! How convEEnient, as the SNL Churchlady used to say. Shenanigans like this have been exposed in what has been named “Climategate1.0”, followed by “Climategate2.0” and soon to be released “Climategate3.0” This is what happens when politicians take over science and make further funding contingent on obtaining desired results.

 

NASA’s Glory Satellite failed a second time. A Climate challenge.

The Satellite Glory has failed us once more

No measuring aerosols forming offshore.

Is NASA unable

to say GAIA is stable?

The jury’s still out for the swindler Al Gore.

A rocket carrying NASA’s newest climate satellite failed to reach orbit March 4 2011, and likely crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean after its nose cone failed to separate on time, space agency officials said. The rocket, a four-stage Taurus XL booster, launched from a seaside pad at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base at 2:09 a.m. PST (1009 GMT) carrying NASA’s $424 million Glory satellite to study Earth’s climate. “We failed to make orbit,” NASA launch director Omar Baez told reporters in a somber briefing following the launch failure. “All indications are, the satellite and rocket are in the southern Pacific Ocean somewhere.”

CO2, Man’s best friend.

They published a book I can recommend

It tells CO2 is our very best friend.

The warming is done.

Saturated*, we won.

Too hard for you warmists to comprehend?

The book is called “The many benefits from atmospheric CO2 enrichment.” and can be ordered from: http://www.valeslake.com/bookmart.htm

From:  http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/other/benefits_of_co2.html A synopsis can be downloaded in pdf form:

Click to access 55_benefits_of_co2_pamphlet.pdf

* The atmospheric rise in CO2 has no bearing whatsoever on temperatures in tropical and moderate climates for two reasons: It is swamped by water vapor which determines the final temperature rise. During the ice age the tropical temperature was about the same as it is today. Secondly the temperature rise due to CO2 has reached its upper limit because the free wave length of Infrared light in the frequencies of CO2 absorption is thirty to sixty feet, which means there is saturation of energy absorption, and fundamental physics holds that you cannot absorb more than all available energy for that particular frequency. There is a small additional absorption at high altitudes over the poles, so they will warm up a couple of degrees if we go from 380 to 1000 ppm of CO2. This too is good, the storms will be less severe, (the worst North Atlantic storms recorded occurred during the little ice age), and the polar bears like it a little bit warmer. (They might get competition from increased biodiversity though). The snowfalls over Greenland and Antarctica will increase, the glaciers will again increase. The biggest problem yet to be solved is insufficient amount of water in the 10:40 corridor. Even there CO2 is coming to our aid, for it enables vegetation using less water, and the yields are greater too!

Lies, damned lies, Statistics and Climate Forecasting. A song.

It is hard to make predictions – especially about the future (Yogi Berra, Niels Bohr, et al.)

The Met Office has caused a storm of controversy after it was revealed their £30million supercomputer designed to predict climate change is one of Britain’s worst polluters. The massive machine – the UK’s most powerful computer with a whopping 15 million megabytes of memory – was installed in the Met Office’s headquarters in Exeter, Devon. With a total peak performance approaching 1 PetaFlop — equivalent to over 100,000 PCs and over 30 times more powerful than what was in place before. It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.

So what glorious new and accurate information are they producing now?

Met Office Initial Assessment of Risk for Winter 2010/11 This covers the months of November, December and January 2010/11, this will be updated monthly through the winter and so probabilities will change. Temperature 3 in 10 chance of a mild start 3 in 10 chance of an average start 4 in 10 chance of a cold start Precipitation 3 in 10 chance of a wet start 3 in 10 chance of an average start 4 in 10 chance of a dry start Summary: There is an increased risk for a cold and wintry start to the winter season. Looking further ahead beyond this assessment there are some indications of an increased risk of a mild end to the winter season.

I am really impressed by their newfound forecasting ability. So impressed I have written a new lyrics to Merle Travis song: Sixteen tons (Popularized by Tennessee Ernie Ford)

Some people say people are made outta mud

Global warmists they are, they are chewing their cud,

Chewing their cud and follow Al Gore

A mind that’s a-weak can you ask for much more?

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

.

They came in one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine

They picked up their papers and continued the grind

They had  sixteen conditions, mostly falsified bull

And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul”.

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

.

They came in one mornin’, it was drizzlin’ rain

the prognosis had failed them again and again

The boss harshly told them, You will do many more

Do as I tell you, and agree with Al Gore.

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

.

The cold snap we’re having now, it just cannot last

and hidin’ the warming that occurred in the past

Their ol’  man Mann and his hockey stick.

With conditions like this nothing ever will click.

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

 Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

Obama was right! The sea levels are beginning to drop. A call to action.

In a campaign speech Jun 2 2008, in all humility candidate Obama said this:

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Well, what do you know? The sea levels are beginning to drop in 2010.

(1) Thank you Obama that  the global temperatures are beginning to drop.

(2) Thank you Obama that the excessive heat caused by human activity are beginning to rain out in Australia and Brazil, central Europe and many other places. Thank you Obama for delaying and diminishing Solar Cycle 24, allowing record amounts of Cosmic radiation to reach the earth, giving us more clouds, rain and snow, thereby cooling the planet.

(3) Thank you Obama for protecting our land from all further development, so that our standard of living can be more in line with third world countries.

(4) Thank you Obama for your tireless efforts to usher in Global Governance through Article 21, Cap and trade legislation, giving us mercury lightbulbs that splat mercury all over the nursery when they break, working to sign the Children’s protection act, The Law of the Sea Treaty and everything else coming from the wise leadership of the United Nations.

Thank you Obama for your tireless efforts to protect a woman’s right to choose by denying Federal Funding to doctors and hospitals that have moral qualms about aborting the lives of yet to be born babies, and providing federal funding for abortions.

Again, where would we be, and what could we do without you? Could a return to abiding by constitutional principles change anything? Could reining in a multitude of czars, putting them under congressional oversight rather than giving them carte blance to implement regulation of laws that have not been read before passed prevent some of this? By doing nothing, will all this go away?

But yet, there is hope. As God says through the Prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:21-23 (King James Version) 21This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. 22It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. And again, a call to action: 2 Chronicles 7:14 (King James Version) 14If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

 

Snow in Australia at Christmas! A Limerick.

A 2010 Christmas message from Australia!

It snowed in Australia the night before last,

which makes global warming a thing of the past.

White Christmas down under,

a “hide the decline” blunder.

For snowflakes don’t lie. A white flag up the mast?

Climate Change: A Homeland security matter. A Limerick.

Napolitano Says DHS to Begin Battling Climate Change as Homeland Security Issue.

Friday, December 17, 2010 By J. Brady Howell Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) (CNSNews.com)

– At an all-day White House conference on “environmental justice,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department is creating a new task force to battle the effects of climate change on domestic security operations.

Speaking at the first White House Forum on Environmental Justice on Thursday, Napolitano discussed the initial findings of the department’s recently created “Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force.”

Napolitano explained that the task force was charged with “identifying and assessing the impact that climate change could have on the missions and operations of the Department of Homeland Security.” According to the former Arizona governor, the task force would address specific questions, including: “How will FEMA work with state and local partners to plan for increased flooding or wildfire or hurricane activity that is more serious than we’ve seen before? What assistance can the Coast Guard bring to bear to assist remote villages in, for example, Alaska which already have been negatively affected by changes up in the Arctic?”

The findings from the Homeland Security Department (DHS) also asked: “(H)ow can we focus on how climate change is going to affect our rural citizenry including those who live along our borders both northern and southern?” …

The conference did not define “environmental justice,” and the only reference to the task force that can be found is on the DHS Web site. The June 2010 Department of Homeland Security Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan states “climate change has the potential to accelerate and intensify extreme weather events which threaten the nation’s sustainability and security.”

The Limerick:

Homeland Security guards our peace,

But lumberjacks terrorize forests with ease.

 Why in such a hurry?

I tell you, don’t worry.

With Carbon Dioxide we’ll grow some more trees.