Junk Science Expert Guides Us Through Green Hell

Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them
By Steven Milloy
Regnery Press, 2009, 294 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1596985858

Steven Milloy, an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, frequent contributor to Fox News Network, and founder/editor of JunkScience.com, should get the Presidential Medal of Freedom for penning the most accurate and most comprehensive take-no-prisoners description of the demonic green �crisis� that grips society today.

His new book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them, is a must-read for people seeking to understand the underworld of environmental scaremongering. (Jay Lehr, Environment & Climate News)

 

Nike: Just blew it!

Apple, Nike and the U.S. Chamber - Putting green politics above the interests of shareholders.

The recent corporate resignations from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have played in the media as a case of enlightened corporate stewardship vs. blinkered old businesses. But there's far more to this story�not least the way that Apple and Nike are putting green political correctness above the long-term interests of their own shareholders.

The Chamber needs "a more progressive stance on this issue" of climate change, declared Apple Vice President Catherine Novelli in a letter of resignation from the business lobby on October 5. Added Nike, announcing its resignation on September 30 from the Chamber board though retaining its membership: "US businesses must advocate for aggressive climate change." Both decisions were ostentatiously leaked to the media.

The first point to understand is the role of Al Gore, who is a member of the Apple board and perhaps the leading supporter of President Obama's cap-and-tax anticarbon legislation. Mr. Gore has also invested in renewable energy technologies that could make him even richer than he already is if new climate rules make renewables more competitive with carbon energy.

Meanwhile, Apple's Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook happens to sit on the board of . . . Nike. We're told that Nike CEO Mike Parker didn't discuss the Chamber move with his full board of directors before it was announced, and Nike didn't return our phone call asking for comment. In any case, we doubt it's an accident that Nike and Apple acted against the Chamber at the same time�and just when Democrats are trying to build new momentum for cap and trade in the Senate.

Both companies may figure they can afford a U.S. carbon tax because most of their manufacturing is done outside the U.S. Apple has an enormous "carbon footprint" of some 10 million annual tons of emissions to make and use its power-hungry gadgets. But nearly all of those products are made in China and other Asian countries where there are no carbon limits and aren't likely to be any time soon, if ever. According to calculations based on Apple's emissions figures, were the company to manufacture in the U.S., the Boxer-Kerry bill pending in the Senate would hit Apple with carbon taxes between $43 million and $108 million a year.

Nike, meanwhile, makes most of its shoes and apparel in 700 contract factories in countries such as South Korea and Vietnam�which also won't sign up for the Boxer-Kerry energy tax. The larger point is that neither Apple nor Nike would pay as much under a cap-and-trade bill as, say, the maker of Bobcat excavators in Bismarck, N.D., or your average Midwest natural gas utility. Green virtue is easier when someone else is paying for it.

Yet even this self-interested calculation is likely to be short-sighted for both companies. Since climate change is a global issue, green activists won't stop their carbon pursuit at the U.S. border. It wouldn't be long after cap and trade passed in the U.S. that Nike and Apple were pressured to move their manufacturing out of countries that haven't signed Kyoto II. That would threaten their production lines and cost structure, with potential damage to sales and competitiveness.

And if the companies fail to relocate, the next anticarbon lobbying policy step will be a carbon tariff against products made in China or Vietnam and sold in the U.S. A carbon tariff is already part of the House cap-and-trade bill and is gaining currency among Congressional protectionists, most recently Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.). As companies that import nearly all of their products, Apple and Nike would be especially vulnerable. We wonder if Messrs. Cook and Parker thought through any of this before committing their employees and investors to this crusade.

The Chamber's great sin, according to Nike and Apple, is that it questioned the Environmental Protection Agency's right to regulate all greenhouse gases without new legislation. The Chamber has said that while it supports Congressional efforts to regulate emissions, it opposes EPA's attempt to grab that power for itself on the basis of an elastic reading of the Clean Air Act. This is a major issue for many Chamber members.

If companies are going to dump the Chamber over a single dispute, then the overall influence of business in Washington is likely to decline. The Chamber's job isn't to favor one company's agenda over another but to stand broadly for free trade, low taxes and limited regulation�principles that help U.S. business as a whole.

Having abandoned their business allies on climate change, Apple and Nike might wake up one day to discover they need those friends on one of their crucial issues. It will serve them right if they find themselves alone in the Beltway square. (The Wall Street Journal)

 

You think they're figuring out it's a scam? Virgin Money's climate change ISA gets Richard Branson in a pickle - Virgin's 'lighter footprint' promise is alarmingly elastic and doesn't exclude oil firms, arms manufacturers or tobacco companies

Arms manufacturers, tobacco companies, mining giants and oil companies. These are not the kind of companies where you would expect an ethically minded saving operation to be investing the hard-earned cash of an ethically minded saver. And yet Toby Webb says that is exactly where his money ended up when he entrusted it to the Virgin Money climate change ISA.

Toby is no naive green investor. He is the founder of a company called the Ethical Corporation that runs conferences and a magazine that explores how companies are greening themselves.

But even he admits to being shocked when he read the small print on the progress of his investment from Virgin Money. He wrote in a blog: "I had expected the fund to be investing in clean tech firms. Exciting new technology companies set to capitalise on the next green revolution."

But Virgin had other plans for his climate-saving cash. It decided that those cutting-edge clean tech companies, which it calls "solution providers", would get "up to 10%" of the ISA's money. Note that phrase "up to". It could be zero.

Likewise the "solution adopters", would get "up to 15%". For the rest, "between 75 and 100%", Virgin simply promises to find companies with a "lighter environmental footprint". Oh, and they must show "outstanding profit growth".

What does a "lighter" footprint mean? The term turns out to be alarmingly elastic.

For a start, it does not exclude any industry. Oil and coal companies may be the villains of climate change, but that does not count them out of Virgin's climate change ISA. This, Virgin tells its customers, is "so you don't miss out on lucrative sectors like oil, gas, electricity and transportation." Hmm. (Fred Pearce, The Guardian)

 

Lindsey Graham tagged as a 'traitor' for backing climate change legislation -- those angry tea-party protesters are back

Those angry town hall meetings are back.

Last night, at a forum at Furman University, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham was pilloried by protesters for his decision to back Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and for his support for climate change legislation.

During the 75-minute event, one man told Graham he had �betrayed� conservatism and made a �pact with the devil� by working with Democrats, and asked when the senator planned to change parties.

This is Lindsey Graham we're talking about, best friend and constant companion of the Republican Party's 2008 standard-bearer, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

The troubles all started Sunday, when Graham co-wrote an Op-Ed article with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the New York Times called "Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)," which talked about their campaign to corral bipartisan support for climate change legislation.

As Graham has said elsewhere, "I think the planet is heating up. I think CO₂ emissions are damaging the environment and this dependence on foreign oil is a natural disaster in the making."

Maybe what really ticked off the conservatives was when Graham argued that the problem should be addressed as soon as possible -- even if the solution helps the Democrats politically. "I'd like to solve a problem, and if it's on President Obama's watch, it doesn't bother me one bit, if it makes the country better off."

Easily reelected in 2008, Graham has a few years to recover his base. (LA Times)

And with McCain being as Republican as Schwarzenegger, too... Regardless, support of idiotic gorebull warming legislation is much more of a problem than mere political confusion.

 

 

Terence Corcoran: Trillion-dollar black holes

The costs of climate control dwarf the financial crisis

There is much concern in financial markets about exit strategies. How are central banks and governments going to dig themselves out of their multi-trillion dollar monetary and fiscal stimulus holes? Frankly, it�s too late now to start worrying about that problem, which in any case is easily fixed: tax increases. Far more worthy of attention, before it�s too late, are the new mile-deep spending regimes governments are preparing to cover the cost of new climate change policies. And guess how they will get out of those trenches.

The green jungle drums are already at full volume in preparation for the Copenhagen climate policy extravaganza, even though the two week negotiation marathon isn�t set to open until Dec. 7. From now till mid-December, our days and nights are going to be filled with dark nightmares of global warming and bright utopian visions of the greatest reordering of economic activity since the industrial revolution � except run in reverse. No citizen of the world will be able to escape the run-up to Copenhagen where, one way or another, catastrophe looms.

At Copenhagen, the United Nations� Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will attempt to get about 140 nations to approve a new global plan to reduce carbon emissions and, at the same time, engineer a major redistribution of money from developed nations to developing nations. An early draft of the Copenhagen agreement, to replace the collapsing Kyoto Protocol, suggests the focus is as much on redistribution as on carbon reduction, with no guarantee that any of it will have the slightest impact on carbon emissions or the global climate.

In climate policy circles, trillion-dollar transfers and programs proliferate and, in total, easily overtake the paper losses suffered by financial markets through the 2008 crisis. The International Monetary Fund recently set its estimate of the global losses from the financial crisis for 2007-2010 to be US$3.4-billion. The draft Copenhagen document proposes annual �financial flows� to developing nations of somewhere between $70- and $140-billion. At $140-billion, the ten-year tab would run to $1.4-trillion. But forcing carbon-based energy out of the global economy will take a lot more than that.

The International Energy Agency, created decades ago to keep cheap oil flowing, is now dedicated to slowing it down and making it very expensive. In its latest World Energy Outlook report, the IEA estimated that a global attempt to reduce carbon emissions �will increase cumulative energy-related investment over the period 2010-2030 by $10.5-trillion.� On top of that the IEA envisages carbon taxes of between $50 and $110 a tonne; depending on how much of global carbon emissions are subject to carbon taxes or cap-and-trade programs, the carbon tax burden could easily exceed $1-trillion a year.

This week, in a second report, the IEA unleashed another money spinner, a global estimate of how much it will cost to develop carbon capture and storage. As with all climate reports, this one must levitate itself to new heights of urgency. �There is a growing awareness of the urgent need to turn political statements into concrete action.� Current energy use is �patently unsustainable� and it will �take an energy revolution and low-carbon energy technologies� to save the world from crisis. Plus it will take more trillions of dollars .

Carbon taxes of $100 a tonne will not provide enough financial flow to feed the carbon capture beast. The IEA report calls for OECD governments to increase funding to �an average annual investment of $3.5-billion to $4-billion from 2010 and 2020.� This money is just to provide �demonstration projects� to prove that taking carbon and storing it underground actually works and doesn�t blow up as an environmental horror. Another annual commitment of up to $2.5-billion will be needed to establish �new financing strategies� for non-OECD developing regions. That money would be run through whatever mechanisms and agencies are set up at Copenhagen to redirect, redistribute and recycle rivers of cash.

For North America alone, the IEA estimates carbon capture investments of $1.1-trillion. Globally, the number balloons to as high as $3.4-trillion. Along with other IEA carbon control cost estimates and the Copenhagen effort, plus uncountable and unmeasured other burdens on industry and consumers, the cost of the great anti-carbon revolution will eventually dwarf the costs of the financial crisis to global markets, even including government budget deficits and central bank red ink.

The big difference between the financial meltdown losses and carbon control spending is that the financial market losses are paper losses that, in time, will turn around. The IMF said the financial markets have already recouped 15% of their losses as securities values rebound. The carbon spending, if it were to take place, would be lost money never to be recouped. An expenditure of $3.4-trillion to pump carbon into the ground is $3.4-trillion vapourized into black holes.

The Copenhagen-based platform for these trillion-dollar economic schemes is being drafted at a time when many nations are already reeling � and when there is growing doubt about the validity and credibility of the science. Will the politics follow the dismal and risky economics and science of climate policy at Copenhagen? Whatever happens, catastrophe looms. If Copenhagen adopts extreme targets and objectives, the world economy will face more trillion dollar crises. If Copenhagen fails, the catastrophe will fall on climate change activists and their political proponents. Either way, it won�t be pretty. (National Post)

 

Climate-change legislation would come at cost, CBO says

WASHINGTON -- Congressional legislation aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions would come at "some cost" to the economy, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday, estimating that a House bill would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by about one-quarter percent to three-quarters of a percent by 2020.

In testimony before the Senate Energy Committee, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf also said that the "cap and trade" provisions in a bill passed by the House would cut U.S. GDP by between 1% and 3.5% by 2050.

House and Senate bills both propose the cap and trade system, which sets limits on pollutants and then allows utilities and other emitters to trade pollution permits among themselves.

Elmendorf's testimony was originally released on Sept. 17, for a hearing in the same committee scheduled to take place that day. The hearing was postponed until Wednesday due the involvement of the panel's chairman, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., in health-care deliberations. (Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch)

 

Who Else Will Challenge Gore's 'Truth'?

Last week at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Wisconsin, former Vice President Al Gore took questions from journalists about global warming for the first time in years. I attended to ask him about factual errors in his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth."

You wouldn't know it from the sparse media coverage, but the British High Court found so many errors in Gore's movie in 2007 that British schools no longer can show the film without the equivalent of a health warning.

I asked Gore if he intends to correct the record. He dodged the question, and the so-called reporters defended his right to be evasive by shutting off my mic.

The encounter was disappointing but not surprising. I served years of hard time as a liberal journalist in Europe and learned that covering the environmental beat meant toeing the line of extremism � no inconvenient questions allowed.

But it is now time for journalists, and the consumers and businesses that will pay the ultimate price, to start questioning the conventional wisdom about global warming and exposing its true cost. If alarmists like Al Gore get their way, millions of American families will watch as their dreams of a prosperous and pleasant future disappear. (Phelim McAleer, IBD)

 

Really, where would climate realists be without The Guardian? Wildlife expert claims gorilla dung is critical to containing climate change

Gorilla dung could conceivably be the salvation of the planet.

A leading UK wildlife expert today said protecting the large primates he called the "gardeners of the forest" could provide the easy fix for global warming envisaged by international reforestation programmes.

America and other industrialised countries are looking to reforestation programmes in Africa, South-east Asia and South America to help contain the effects of climate change.

But Ian Redmond, the UN ambassador for the year of the gorilla, said the industrialised countries would be making a mistake if they did not commit specific funds to protecting the gorillas as part of the discussion on reforestation efforts at the climate change negotiations at Copenhagen next December. (The Guardian)

 

Climate Talks May Go To Last Minute

NEW DELHI/ PARIS - The world may have to wait until the dying seconds of a U.N. climate summit in December for a global deal to channel business dollars into low-carbon energy, industry and analysts said on Wednesday.

Senior executives warned progress so far in U.N.-led climate talks was inadequate to guarantee the future of low-carbon markets which could transform how the world gets its energy.

Political posturing may delay a deal until midnight on the last day of the December 7-18 talks, said the head of the U.N. climate panel Rajendra Pachauri -- who was nevertheless hopeful of a deal to put the world "on the right path." (Reuters)

The "right path" is any that leads away from all this idiotic carbon fixation.

 

UN Panel Head Sees Wiggle Room For Global Climate Deal

NEW DELHI, Oct 14 - Despite fears of failure facing global climate change negotiations in December, the U.N. climate panel chief said on Wednesday it was still possible to agree a pact, including levels of emission cuts by rich nations.

Talks for a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 37 rich nations to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12, are deadlocked on the question of cuts to be taken by rich and poorer countries.

Developed nations will also have to come up with billions of dollars in climate aid and green technologies for the poor.

"The wiggle room is there even at the stroke of midnight when the conference is ending," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Reuters)

 

Biggest Obstacle to Global Climate Deal May Be How to Pay for It

As world leaders struggle to hash out a new global climate deal by December, they face a hurdle perhaps more formidable than getting big polluters like the United States and China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: how to pay for the new accord.

The price tag for a new climate agreement will be a staggering $100 billion a year by 2020, many economists estimate; some put the cost at closer to $1 trillion. That money is needed to help fast-developing countries like India and Brazil convert to costly but cleaner technologies as they industrialize, as well as to assist the poorest countries in coping with the consequences of climate change, like droughts and rising seas.

This financing is an essential part of any international climate agreement, negotiators and scientists say, because developing nations must curb the growth of their emissions if the world is to limit rising temperatures. Based on calculations by the International Energy Agency for 2005 to 2030, 75 percent of the growth in energy demand will come from the developing world.

Many developing countries have made it clear that they will not sign a treaty unless they get money to help them adapt to a warmer planet. Acknowledging that a new treaty needs unanimity for success, industrialized nations like the United States and those in Europe have agreed in principle to make such payments; they have already been written into the agreed-upon structure of the treaty, to be signed in Copenhagen in December.

But to date there is no concrete strategy to raise such huge sums. There is not even agreement about which nations should pay or in what proportion. (NYT)

So what? There isn't even any agreement on what temperature the planet is, what temperature it should be, what controls it or even how to go about measuring it.

 

Emissions blame game has started

A SENSE of panic is setting in among many campaigners for drastic cuts in global carbon emissions. It is becoming obvious that the highly trumpeted meeting set for Copenhagen this December will not deliver a binding international treaty that will make a significant difference to global warming.

After lofty rhetoric and big promises, politicians are starting to play the blame game. Developing countries blame rich countries for the lack of progress. Many blame the US, which will not have cap-and-trade legislation in place before Copenhagen.

The UN Secretary General says, "it may be difficult for President Obama to come with strong authority" to reach agreement in Copenhagen. Others blame developing countries - particularly Brazil, China and India - for a reluctance to sign up to binding carbon cuts. Wherever you turn, somebody is being blamed for Copenhagen's apparent looming failure.

Yet, it has been clear for a considerable time that there is a more fundamental problem: immediate promises of carbon cuts do not work. Seventeen years ago, industrialised nations promised with great fanfare in Rio de Janeiro to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Emissions overshot the target by 12 per cent. In Kyoto, leaders committed to a cut of 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010. The failure to meet that target will most likely be even more spectacular, with emissions overshooting by about 25 per cent.

The plan was to convene world leaders in Copenhagen and renew vows to cut carbon while committing to even more ambitious targets. But it is obvious that even a last-minute scramble to salvage some form of agreement will fare no better in actually helping the planet. With such a poor track record, there is a need for soul-searching and openness to other approaches.

A realistic "Plan B" does not mean plotting a second meeting after Copenhagen, as some have suggested. It means rethinking our strategy. This year, the Copenhagen Consensus Centre commissioned research from top climate economists examining feasible ways to respond to global warming. Their research looked at how much we could help the planet by setting different levels of carbon taxes, planting more trees, cutting methane, reducing black-soot emissions, adapting to global warming, or focusing on a technological solution to climate change.

The centre convened an expert panel of five of the world's leading economists, including three Nobel Prize winners, to consider all of the new research and identify the best - and worst - options.

The panel found that expensive, global carbon taxes would be the worst option. This finding was based on a groundbreaking research paper that showed that even a highly efficient global CO2 tax aimed at fulfilling the ambitious goal of keeping temperature increases below 2C would reduce annual world GDP by a staggering 12.9per cent, or $US40 trillion ($43.7trillion), in 2100. The total cost would be 50 times that of the avoided climate damage. And if politicians choose less-efficient, less-co-ordinated cap-and-trade policies, the costs could escalate a further 10 to 100 times.

Instead, the panel recommended focusing investment on research into climate engineering as a short-term response, and on non-carbon-based energy as a longer-term response. (Bjorn Lomborg, The Australian)

He's right -- if we ever decide there's really a need to cool the planet then there are far more effective and cheaper means available, although it is virtually certain there will never be such an agreed need.

 

Here they come... Law change needed to cover climate exiles - lawyers

LONDON, Oct 15 - International law is unfit to deal with the millions of people expected to flee their home countries to escape droughts and floods intensified by climate change, a group of lawyers said on Thursday.

Under existing laws, host countries must protect and care for cross-border refugees, who are defined as those forced to migrate because of violence or political, racial or religious persecution.

There are no such provisions for so-called climate refugees. Yet by 2050, between 200 million and 1 billion people could be forced to leave their homes because of global warming, said the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, which advises vulnerable countries and communities.

"International refugee law ... was not designed for those who are left homeless by environmental pressures," said the group's director Joy Hyvarinen.

"The international legal framework needs to be adjusted to help climate exiles and deal with statelessness and compensation," she said in a statement. (Reuters)

 

Prentice contradicts climate-change envoy

OTTAWA - Environment Minister Jim Prentice appears to be contradicting his top climate-change envoy, denying that some countries walked out of recent talks in Thailand because of Canada's position.

Prentice insisted Wednesday that no one left the room when Canada proposed replacing the Kyoto Protocol with an entirely new global-warming pact - a view shared by the United States, the European Union and Australia.

But the environment minister's version of events appears at odds with that of Canada's climate-change negotiator, Michael Martin, who acknowledged Tuesday that a handful of countries did walk out. (CP)

 

Brazil to cut deforestation by 80 percent

At December�s UN climate conference in Copenhagen, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will announce an ambitious target for reducing deforestation in the world's largest forest. (CoP15)

Yeah, hurray... more antidevelopment moves.

 

Push To Exempt Australian Farmers From Carbon Laws

CANBERRA - Australia's government will be asked to exempt farmers from carbon trading in order to pass landmark emissions laws through parliament under changes being pushed by opposition lawmakers on Wednesday.

Legislation to set up carbon trading from July 2011, the world's second domestic trading platform after the European Union's scheme, remain locked in parliament's upper house, where the government needs opposition support to pass the package.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could call an early election if the laws are rejected for a second time in November. Agriculture is shaping as a key sticking point.

"You do everything in your power to turn the volume on this ridiculous tax down, so I suppose we'll support an amendment to take agriculture out," said Senator Barnaby Joyce, leader of the junior opposition National Party in the upper house.

The opposition Liberal and National Parties will hold a special meeting on Sunday to endorse changes they want to the carbon-trade laws in return for their support for the scheme, which would cover around 75 percent of Australian emissions.

The opposition also wants a Senate vote delayed until early 2010, but the government wants its laws passed by late November, ahead of global climate talks in Copenhagen in December. (Reuters)

No greenhouse laws! Not now. Not ever.

 

Quiet Atlantic Hurricane Season A Boon For Insurers

MIAMI - Thanks to El Nino, the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season has been the quietest in more than a decade, offering a reprieve for residents in the danger zone and a chance for insurance firms to refill depleted coffers.

With the peak of the season -- late August to mid-October -- now behind, the Atlantic-Caribbean basin has seen just two hurricanes and a total of eight tropical storms.

El Nino, the Pacific warm-water phenomenon that can produce destructive weather in other parts of the world, played a big role in suppressing Atlantic cyclones this year, experts said.

If the full season, which runs from June through November, ended today, it would be the lowest number of storms since 1997. The last time an Atlantic season produced only two hurricanes was 1982.

After a 2008 season that produced Hurricane Ike, one of the most destructive in U.S. history, the cyclones of 2009 have had virtually no impact on the populous U.S. coasts, the vulnerable islands of the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico oil patch.

"There was for all intents and purposes no hurricane damage in the United States this year," Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, told Reuters. (Reuters)

El Ni�o, eh? Oddly, the Southern Oscillation Index has been pretty ordinary, not at all what I expect to see with a warming event sufficient to suppress Atlantic Basin tropical storm activity. Hmm...

 

Forecasters flip-flopping on O.C.�s El Nino forecast

Trying to figure out whether Orange County is going to have a wet winter is something of a fool�s game. No one can consistently predict the weather and climate due to the limitations of science. And the issue becomes even tougher when forecasters are unsure whether an emerging El Nino will be weak, moderate or strong, which is what�s happening now.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center formally announced that the periodic climate change was developing in the equatorial Pacific. It initially looked to be a weak event, at best. But CPC later said it could be �moderate to strong.�

Bill Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, responded by saying �El Nino would El Fizzle.� And some recent CPC forecasts looked like scientists were back-pedaling a bit.

The latest CPC forecast, issued on Oct. 8, adds to the confusion. The agency says, �A majority of the model forecasts for the Ni�o � suggest that El Ni�o will reach at least moderate strength during the Northern Hemisphere fall. Many model forecasts even suggest a strong El Ni�o during the fall and winter, but in recent months some models, including the NCEP CFS, have over-predicted the degree of warming observed so far in the Ni�o-3.4 region (Fig. 7).

�Based on the model forecasts, the seasonality of El Ni�o, and the continuation of westerly wind bursts, El Ni�o is expected to strengthen and most likely peak at moderate strength.�

In other words, no one has a clue as to what will really happen. (Gary Robbins, Orange County Register)

 

Global Average SST Update to October 14

Since the global average sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (departures from average) hit a peak a couple of months ago, I thought it would be a good time to see how they are progressing. Here�s a plot of running 11-day SST anomalies for the global oceans (60N to 60S latitude):

As can be seen, at least for the time being, temperatures have returned to the long-term average. Of course, this says nothing about what will happen in the future. I have also plotted the linear trend line, which is for entertainment purposes only.

The SSTs come from the AMSR-E instrument on NASA�s Aqua satellite, and are computed and archived at Remote Sensing Systems (Frank Wentz). I believe them to be the most precise record of subtle SST changes available, albeit only since mid-2002. (Roy W. Spencer)

 

Multidecadal variability in the Arctic/North Atlantic climate system

International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

RECENT RESULTS

* The Arctic/North Atlantic climate system displays large-amplitude multidecadal variability

* Understanding the key mechanisms influencing the Arctic/North Atlantic multidecadal variability is essential for developing robust climatic forecasts.

Arctic air temperature, fastice thickness, and intermediate Arctic Ocean layer temperature exhibit strong coherent multidecadal variations.

Arctic (blue) and global (red) surface air temperature anomalies (top), fastice thickness (middle), and intermediate Arctic Ocean water temperature (AWCT, bottom) are show. See larger image here.

Arctic Ocean freshwater content exhibits strong multidecedal signal.


6-yr running mean Arctic Ocean freshwater content (FWC, blue line with shades) anomalies (km3). See larger image here.

Low-frequency variability in the Arctic and North Atlantic is linked.

Normalized North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (0-90oN, 290-30oE, green with red and blue shades), intermediate Arctic Ocean water temperature (AWCT, red), and normalized 6-yr running mean 10m water temperature (WT) anomalies from ocean weather station ``Mike�� at 66oN, 2oE (Norwegian Sea, blue), are shown.See larger image here.

Positive and negative phases of arctic multi-decadal variability.

See larger image here.

During the positive phase, there is an increase of transport of warmer air and water from the North Atlantic into the Arctic. The anticyclonic Beaufort Gyre is weakened/ strengthened, and cyclonic circulation in the eastern Arctic is intensified/suppressed during positive/negative phases of multi-decadal variability. Increased cyclonicity under the positive phase of multi-decadal variability causes divergence of ice drift and surface circulation, leading to doming of the Atlantic Water. The well-developed Arctic High, evident during negative phases, results in intensified anticyclonic ice drift and surface circulation, convergence of surface currents and a depression in the Atlantic Water.

Summary
Multidecadal fluctuations in the Arctic/North Atlantic climate system should be taken into account when assessing long-term climate change and variability. Understanding the key mechanisms influencing the Arctic/North Atlantic multidecadal variability is essential for developing robust climatic forecasts.

See more in this PDF. H/T Leonid Klashtorin (Icecap)

 

Climate Modelling Nonsense

The less a thing is known, the more fervently it is believed. �Montaigne

In effect a new religion has grown out of secular humanism. Global warming is the central tenet of this new belief system in much the same way that the Resurrection is the central tenet of Christianity. Al Gore has taken a role corresponding to that of St Paul in proselytising the new faith.

There are major differences, however. Whereas it is not possible to call oneself a Christian without entertaining the central belief in the Resurrection, it is certainly possible to be deeply concerned with the order and condition of humanity and so call oneself a humanist without entertaining a corresponding belief in anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Belief in a Resurrection which supposedly occurred some 2000 years ago is a matter of personal faith, whereas AGW is a scientific hypothesis which can and should be tested by observation. Imagine the consequences both to science and to secular humanism should this hypothesis turn out to be untrue and the dire predictions of the climate models fail to materialise.

The quasi-religious nature of AGW is evidenced by the rancour which is generated when people like me express scepticism about the theory. Scepticism is an essential part of science which has, until recently, been a �small-l liberal� pursuit in which the opinions of doubters were respected. Now we sceptics are called �deniers� and, by implication, lumped in with neo-Nazis who question the Holocaust. The accusation that we are somehow in the sway of the oil companies and similar big business interests is commonplace and indeed is the chief argument of non-scientist supporters of the AGW theory. This echoes the �work of the Devil� argument of fundamentalist Christians; it is a mental trick by which the faithful avoid facing the real issues.

Why then do a majority of scientists support the theory? I believe it is largely a matter of loyalty. Very few of us physicists know enough genetics to justify our belief in Darwin�s theory of evolution by natural selection but most of us support it because we believe it to be the outcome of rigorous scientific processes similar to those carried out in our own discipline. Most scientists would support the AGW theory for much the same reason.

By accident of history I find myself in the opposing camp. I was trained as a physicist and was granted a PhD for my postgraduate work in upper atmosphere physics. In the early 1980s I joined the CSIRO�s Division of Oceanography and worked in surface gravity waves (ocean waves) for a time. Much of the theoretical side of oceanography entails fluid dynamics which, because of its heavy mathematical load, is regarded as a sub-discipline of applied mathematics rather than of physics. Because of this, in my view, many practitioners of oceanography and climatology have a cavalier disregard for experimental testing and an unjustified faith in the validity of large-scale computer models.

Later in my career I was involved in running and refining numerical fluid dynamical models, so I gained some insight into how this modelling is done and how rigorously such models need to be tested. Naval architects and aerodynamical engineers do such testing in wave tanks and wind tunnels.

Meteorologists regularly test model �skill�. Climatologists don�t seem to have a concept of testing, and prefer to use the term �verification� instead�that is, they do not seek to invalidate their models; they only seek supporting evidence.

My scepticism about AGW arises from the fact that as a physicist who has worked in closely related areas, I know how poor the underlying science is. In effect the scientific method has been abandoned in this field. (John Reid, Quadrant)

 

Climate Fools Day Anniversary Conference

Climate Fools Day is holding its 1st Year Anniversary Meeting on Wednesday afternoon, Oct 28th, at Imperial College London. Reportedly, Piers Corbyn will make an important announcement concerning his Solar theory. We encourage everyone who can to attend.

Scheduled presentations include:

Climate Change
Refutation of the CO₂ driven theory of Climate Change.
What does cause Climate Change - The Evidence

The Solar Weather
The Solar Weather Technique of long range Weather & Climate forecasting

Technique & The future of forecasting
Principles & Advances The Future of Weather and Climate Forecasting

For more information and to register by email visit the ClimateFoolsDay.com web site. (The Resilient Earth)

 

Leaf-peepers defeated by gorebull coldening: Fall colors? From green to gone - Cold snap brings down green leaves.

Fall is a good time to be delivering the mail, said Jan Eckman. Walking about five miles a day through Robbinsdale, the former landscaping student also collects seed pods and other decorative natural items and enjoys the colors on her route. But this fall has been "just a little weird," she said. "Something's not quite right."

Indeed, yards and streets across much of southern Minnesota have been suddenly carpeted not with the vivid golds and reds typical of autumn, but with a thick blanket of green.

Foresters say last weekend's cold snap killed the leaves on some species of trees before they could display their fall colors. (Star Tribune)

 

<chuckle> The beaten-by-ice-and-cold Catlin "survey" gets a run: North Pole summers could be ice free in 10 years

Findings by the Catlin Arctic Survey team show that most of the ice in the region is first-year ice that is only around 1.8 meters deep and will melt next summer. (CoP15)

 

Don�t Miss Out On The Superfreakonomic AGW Storm

The people behind best-seller Freakonomics have done their AGW outing�part of their new book �SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance� has been published on the Sunday Times under the headline �Why Everything You Think You Know About Global Warming Is Wrong� (the shock! the horror!).

Time will tell if there is anything substantial behind such a bold claim�for now, enjoy Romm�s throwing all he could against Levitt and Dubner. And on past experience, if Romm�s upset about something, then there is something substantial behind it all indeed�.

UPDATE: Long commentary about Superfreakonomics by Dominic Lawson on The Independent (???) (OmniClimate)

 

Hansen Still Embarrassing NASA After 2 Decades

It�s been more than 20 years since James Hansen first warned America of impending doom. On a hot summer day in June 1988, Hansen, head of NASA�s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, announced before a Senate committee that �the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now.�

The greenhouse effect would have looked obvious enough to anyone watching on television. The senators conducting the hearing, including Al Gore, had turned the committee room into an oven. That day it was a balmy 98 degrees, and as former Colorado Sen. Timothy Wirth later revealed, the committee members �went in the night before and opened all the windows. And so when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and [high ratings], but it was really hot.� (Michael Goldfarb, Environment & Climate News)

 

The IPCC Is Never Wrong -1- Why Kevin Trenberth Is Right

Thus spoke Dr Kevin E Trenberth, Head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the (very welcome!) Gray/Trenberth written debate hosted by the Tea Party of Northern Colorado:

I have found that the only scientists who disagree with the IPCC report are those who have not read it and are poorly informed

Contrarily to what the most argument-challenged readers of this blog might think, I fully agree with Dr Trenberth�s statement. Only, I arrive at his same conclusion starting from a very different point of view (wonder if Morano will ever try to sing a different tune?).

==========================

I have read several chapters of the IPCC AR4 (2007) (sadly, I have not read the whole thing in full from start to end and seriously wonder if anybody ever has). Fact is, they are all written in a scientifically very valid way. As the science of climate is still full of uncertainties, then whatever the future, may it be hot, may it be cold, it will be impossible to ever find in the IPCC reports any item that may be actually considered as fundamentally wrong or misleading.

Everything is in there and its opposite, by wise [UPDATE: "wise" means "wise" in a POSITIVE way...do not mix it up with "weasel" or anything else with a bad connotation] use of words like �could�, �might� and �likely�. Even if we meet again in 2050 and global cooling is in full swing, still the IPCC reports will be, in a sense, correct. Take for example AR4-SYR-SPM (Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers)

page 5: Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations

page 7: Continued GHG emissions at or above current rates would [note how they had so many would's to distribute, they added one too many here] cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century

The meaning of �very likely� is explained in the box �Treatment of uncertainty� in the Introduction of the Synthesis Report (page 27):

Where uncertainty in specific outcomes is assessed using expert judgment and statistical analysis of a body of evidence (e.g. observations or model results), then the following likelihood ranges are used to express the assessed probability of occurrence: virtually certain >99%; extremely likely >95%; very likely >90%; likely >66%; more likely than not > 50%; about as likely as not 33% to 66%; unlikely <33%; very unlikely <10%; extremely unlikely <5%; exceptionally unlikely <1%.

Since �very likely� stops at 90%, it means that the IPCC experts agree that there is a 10% probability that most of observed temperature increases might not be due to �increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations�. And that there is a 10% probability that the 21st century will not see anything larger than the 20th century has seen.

So if anything like that actually happens, well, the IPCC AR4 has already included that possibility, has it not?

Interestingly, if the IPCC work were to be presented as a scientific article, and the p-value associated to the null hypothesis (that observed temperature increases have nothing to do with increased GHG concentrations) were 0.1 or 10%, most if not all journals would deny publication.

(continues) (OmniClimate)

With respect to WG1 product (basically all I bother accessing) then I would agree. I draw distinction though with the Summaries for Policymakers since these appear unrelated to the actual IPCC WG1 reports.

 

Peradventure There Shall One Be Found There � Open Letter To The Royal Society

(a guest �blog� by Rupert Wyndham; publication authorised by the author)

Lord Rees
President
The Royal Society

14 October 2009

Dear Lord Rees

Re: Briffa, Schweingruber and the Yamal tree ring data

With some surprise, it must be said, I find myself acknowledging that, within The Royal Society, there exists one individual at least who appears to be motivated by scrupulousness and a desire to work in and for the best interests of the scientific endeavour. Naturally, the identification of this honourable man does not lead to your door nor to the paths of those of your immediate predecessors, May and Houghton. King too, if he�s been a President of the RS, but that he has not, I think � well, not yet anyway.

So, who then is this rarest of paragons within the cloistered precincts of Carlton House Terrace? Is it some great and eminent scientific Titan, invested with honours and burdened with doubloons diverted in his direction by Alfred Nobel�s august and wondrous awarding committees? Nay, nay � to be sure, nothing of the sort! Rather, instead, he (or, perhaps, she) is simply an honest functionary, a self-effacing soul who, after an honest day�s labour, unremarked and unsung, returns of an evening to a favourite armchair in the modest but homely comfort of his bungalow in Surbiton � or would it be Penge? But anyway, but anyway � whatever his name, in the annals of authentic science, in a zeitgeist dominated and polluted by a fraudulent, self-serving counterfeit of itself, he stands out as a true blue, heart warming, life affirming paladin, does he not���in the setting of the RS, a pitch perfect, solitary clarion voice of honesty sounding clear and high above a cacophony of knaves and poltroons?

The hero in question is the Editor of the Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society, of course. And what has he done to merit such an accolade? Well, to be sure, you know as well as I, that he has stood up for, and insisted upon, observance of the time honoured protocols of scientific method � the very precepts that you personally, as well as those who work closest to you, are charged to defend. That you have signally failed to do so is the indelible stain on your own personal honour (theirs too, of course) � an old fashioned concept, but one still with some value, however, as scoundrels on the green benches in the Palace of Westminster are currently discovering to their fully warranted discomfiture.

What this excellent and worthy man has done has been to insist upon publication of the Yamal Peninsular data, hitherto denied for a decade to the wider scientific community � needless to say, contrary to one of the most basic protocols of honest scientific investigation. This has blown apart the much vaunted clutch of �hockey stick� graphs supposedly marshalled by AGW proselytisers such as yourself in support of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes fraud � heavily promoted, of course, by the Yankee snake oil salesman. At the time of writing this, it is even just possible that the RS�s counterpart lapdog at Broadcasting House has finally realised that the entire AGW construct is, scientifically speaking, no more than a monstrous inverted pyramid of dross erected on the crest of a sand dune. Mind you, where the BBC in concerned, it is prudent never to be optimistic!

In the words of the old love song, the salient question for you, of course, is:

�Where have you been all this day, my boy Billy?
Where have you been all this day?
Is it here? Is it there?
Pray tell me, is it � - anywhere?�

Yours sincerely

R.C.E. Wyndham

Cc: Prime Minister Ed Miliband MP David Cameron MP Nick Clegg MP Julia Goldsworthy MP
Lord Lawson Lord Leach Mark Thompson Sir Michael Lyons Editors � national newspapers
As the spirit moves (OmniClimate)

 

Gore On The Grill

Last Friday, global warming's poster boy, Al Gore, spoke to the Society of Environmental Journalists' convention in Madison, Wisconsin. After his speech to this flock of propagandists, there was a rare Q and A session. Among those asking a question was Irish filmmaker Phelim McAleer, director of Not Evil, Just Wrong, a movie critical of the global warming movement.

McAleer queried Gore about a 2007 decision by the British High Court which determined that Gore's global warming flick, An Inconvenient Truth, was so packed with fraud that it required a 56-page disclaimer if it was to continue to be shown to students in the United Kingdom.

McAleer asked, "The judge in the British High Court, after a lengthy hearing, found that there were nine significant errors [in the movie]. This has been shown to children. Do you accept those findings, and have you done anything to correct those errors?

Gore brushed off the question by going straight to the heartstrings of the useful idiots assembled in the room: he talked about the court's criticism of the film's claim that polar bears are an endangered species. "You don't think they're endangered?" Gore demanded of McAleer.

We'll get to the truth about polar bears in a moment, but first some insight into the U.K. court case. (Brian Sussman, American Thinker)

 

SPPI Monthly CO2 Report: September

Written by Christopher Monckton

 

For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here.

Edited by Christopher Monckton

[Illustrations, footnotes and references available in PDF version] 

20th-century warming: less than had been thought: SPPI's authoritative Monthly CO2 Report for September 2009 reproduces a research paper by Dr. Joe D'Aleo showing that global temperatures over the past century, corrected for urban bias and other errors in the current datasets, have changed by far less than official sources suggest.

• Science Focus, pages 24-29. "Global warming" poses no national-security threat. Fearmongers are the real threat.
• Editorial comment: Page 3.
• The North-East Passage has been open before, so the Green shipowner's recent stunt that got a ship round the northern coast of Russia with the assistance of several ice-breakers is nothing new and tells us nothing of "global warming". Pages 4-5.
• The IPCC assumes CO2 concentration will reach 836 ppmv by 2100, but, for almost eight years, CO2 concentration has headed straight for only 570 ppmv by 2100. This alone halves all of the IPCC's temperature projections. Pages 6-7.
• Since 1980 temperature has risen at only 2.3 �F (1.4 �C)/century, not the 7 F� (3.9 C�) the IPCC predicts. Pages 8-10.
• Sea level rose just 8 inches in the 20th century, and has scarcely risen since 2006. The oceans are not warming. Page 11.
• Arctic sea-ice extent is now beyond its summer low, but there was more summer ice than there was in 2007 or 2008. In the Antarctic, sea ice extent reached a record high in 2007. Global sea ice extent shows little trend for 30 years. Pages 12-16.
• Hurricane and tropical-cyclone activity is almost at its lowest since satellite measurement began. Page 17.
• CO2 residence time is about 7 years, not the 100 years imagined by the UN's climate panel. Page 18.
• The Sun is still very quiet, but some solar activity returned at the end of September. Page 19.
• The (very few) benefits and the (very large) costs of the Waxman/Markey Bill are illustrated at Pages 20-23.
• We offer a special puzzle to our readers, just for entertainment. Page 30.
• As always, there's our "global warming" ready reckoner, and our monthly selection of scientific papers. Pages 31-35.
• And finally, a Technical Note explains how we compile our state-of-the-art CO2 and temperature graphs. Page 36. (SPPI)

 

Eye-roller: Alp Glacier Melts Reveal Once Frozen Chemical Compounds

Researchers have reported that the melting Alpine glaciers are letting off harmful pollutants once captured by the ice, which could result in a "dire environmental impact" for the region.

In a study of sediment from an Alpine lake, Swiss researchers found trace amounts of now banned chemicals such as dioxins and pesticides like DDT.

"We can confirm with the help of these layers that, in the 1960s and 1970s, POPs (Persistant Organic Pollutants) were produced in great quantities and were also deposited in this Alpine lake," Christian Bogdal, of the Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Testing and Research, said in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Researchers studied a sediment core from the glacier-fed Lake Oberaar in Switzerland. They analyzed the sample for a variety of �persistent organic pollutants, organochlorine pesticides, and synthetic musk fragrances.�

�Input fluxes of all organochlorines increased in the 1950s, peaked in the 1960s−1970s, and decreased again to low levels in the 1980s−1990s,� researchers wrote. �This observation reflects the emission history of these compounds and technical improvements and regulations leading to reduced emissions some decades ago.�

�This second peak supports the hypothesis that there is a relevant release of persistent organic chemicals from melting Alpine glaciers.�

�Considering ongoing global warming and accelerated massive glacier melting predicted for the future, our study indicates the potential for dire environmental impacts due to pollutants delivered into pristine mountainous areas.�

Peter Schmid, one of the researchers involved with the study, told AFP that the findings coincided with those from other glacial lakes in the Swiss Alps. (RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports)

Are they suggesting these deposits predate the last great glaciation? No, then this ice must have been deposited during the cooling period of the '50s through '70s then, mustn't it?

 

Environment Agency warns of climate change flood risk - Britain is experiencing a 'new kind of rain', according to Chris Smith of the Environment Agency

The head of the Environment Agency warned today of the growing flood risk for towns and cities as a result of climate change.

Chris Smith said the increase in heavy downpours in the future would have serious repercussions for urban centres vulnerable to surface-water flooding.

By paving over large areas of permeable ground in cities such as London, "we've made things worse for ourselves", he said, welcoming the change in the law requiring planning permission for the concreting-over of gardens.

In a speech to the Insurance Institute of London, Smith also said recent floods such as the 2007 disaster, which affected large swaths of the country, showed "that we are now experiencing what can only be described as a "new kind of rain" � deluges in which a lot of rain falls quickly in one place. (The Guardian)

New kind of rain? What, it falls up or something?

 

UK looks to tropics for help reducing rain storm flood risk - Porous pavements and open drainage ditches among measures identified

Open drainage ditches may have to be installed in Britain's towns and cities to help cope with future rainstorms. Flood engineers warn that the existing drainage network of underground pipes is unlikely to be able to deal with the intensity of downpours expected as climate change takes hold, and additional measures will have to be put in place.

These may include porous pavements, underground storage reservoirs beneath car parks and open drainage channels, which are used in tropical cities to cope with storms. Engineers accept that making such major infrastructure changes may be difficult in urban environments, but are concerned at the new phenomenon of "surface water flooding", where a town is inundated not when a river bursts its banks � the traditional cause � but when the rainfall is so great that sewers simply cannot cope. (The Independent)

 

The Crone... A Clearer Look at Drilling

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar�s decision to freeze oil-and-gas development on 60 drilling sites in Utah is one more sign that the Obama administration will take a more sensible approach to energy exploration on public lands than its predecessor�s drill-now, drill-everywhere policies. Mr. Salazar faces even tougher calls ahead. (NYT)

 

Cheap Way to Curb Climate Change: Seal Gas Leaks

To the naked eye, there was nothing to be seen at a natural gas well in eastern Texas but beige pipes and tanks baking in the sun.

But in the viewfinder of Terry Gosney�s infrared camera, three black plumes of gas gushed through leaks that were otherwise invisible.

�Holy smoke, it�s blowing like mad,� said Mr. Gosney, an environmental field coordinator for EnCana, the Canadian gas producer that operates the year-old well near Franklin, Tex. �It does look nasty.�

Within a few days the leaks had been sealed by workers.

Efforts like EnCana�s save energy and money. Yet they are also a cheap, effective way of blunting climate change that could potentially be replicated thousands of times over, from Wyoming to Siberia, energy experts say. Natural gas consists almost entirely of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas that scientists say accounts for as much as a third of the human contribution to global warming. (NYT)

Well, the energy efficiency is good...

 

Carbon capture plans won't be derailed by Kingsnorth, insists Miliband

Energy and climate change secretary says viable CCS technologies will be pursued with 'great urgency' (The Guardian)

Guess that means none then, since there's no such thing as 'viable' CCS as far as climate control is concerned (there may be cases for enhanced oil recovery but that's another matter entirely).

 

Carbon capture courts Copenhagen

Proponents of the presently too costly technology urge the UN conference this December to adapt a scheme which can make carbon capture and storage feasible for emerging economies. (CoP15)

"... presently too costly"? Read: "totally pointless and horrendously expensive... "

 

Is this a joke? California board airheaded on autos

Trying to make sense of the regulations coming out of the California Air Resources Board is like trying to figure out why a 2-year-old is upset.

You can't and you shouldn't but you do it anyway and end up scratching your head and wondering what the fuss is all about.

Toddlers, however, are upset about such things as not getting a glass of milk. The California Air Resources Board actually sets policy that affects how Detroit businesses operate.

The latter happened again recently with news that the regulatory board wants advanced window glazing on new cars and trucks to keep them cooler and -- in theory -- help keep the planet from melting any further from dastardly auto exhaust.

The regulatory board has passed regulations that say that by 2014 vehicle windows must prevent 45 percent of the energy from the sun from entering the car or truck, with 60 percent blocked out by 2016. To do that, windows would have to be coated with microscopic specks of metal oxide to reflect sunlight. Unfortunately, say the makers of mobile phones, GPS devices and automakers, this will prohibit transmission of signals from those devices.

Poor solutions

The window glazing regulation is one of many "solutions" the air resource board has proposed as part of the California Global Warming Solutions Act passed in 2006 to bring greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Another doozy they proposed, but later rescinded because it was so widely panned, was legislation to ban black cars from the state because they, too, reportedly require heftier use of the air conditioning to cool down.

The "Solutions Act" may have all the designs of saving the planet but what it's most likely to create in California and in any other state that blindly follows the nonsensical logic is an economy in 2020 that mirrors 1990 without the promised environmental benefits. Increased costs will follow as cars and trucks will get more expensive and older cars will remain on the roads longer because drivers will keep them rather than buy new ones.

"This is a common sense and cost-effective measure that will help cool the cars we drive and fight global warming," Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the resource board said in a statement.

The air resources board says the window glazing regulation will add $250 to the cost of each vehicle and that it will take from five to 12 years for consumers to recoup the costs from reduced gasoline use.

No end in sight

If those figures are accurate, and if such rules would actually put a dent in climate change, they might be justifiable. But those are big ifs.

Clearly, Detroit's automakers have far more to worry about these days than glass glazing, but they'd better pay attention because California officials have shown no restraint when it comes to over-regulating cars and trucks, and they're not likely to stop. (Manny Lopez, Detroit News)

 

Don't the Brits have terrorism laws to protect essential services that would allow them to just shoot these twits? Whatever happened to "law and order Labour"?  Protesters to swoop on power plant

Hundreds and possibly thousands of climate change protesters will attempt to close down one of Britain's biggest coal-fired power stations this weekend.

The activists will converge on the giant 2,000-megawatt plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar near Nottingham on Saturday, in what they are calling The Great Climate Swoop, and attempt to halt operations.

The plant, which is owned by the German energy giant E.ON, emits more than 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year and is one of the largest producers of carbon dioxide in Britain.

The activists, largely drawn from three pressure groups � the Camp for Climate Action, Plane Stupid and Climate Rush � have been planning the demonstration since the end of the Climate Camp held at Blackheath in London in August.

E.ON has taken out an injunction which gives police the power to arrest anyone attempting to enter the site, and has hired extra security guards and put up new fencing. A large police presence is expected on Saturday.

However, the activists have said that they will enter the site "by land, water and air". (The Independent)

 

Cane Ethanol Helps Cut Greenhouse Emissions: Study

SAO PAULO - Use of sugar cane-based ethanol as a substitute for gasoline is among the cheapest and easiest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a Brazilian study published on Wednesday.

Cane ethanol provides about eight times the energy used to produce it and adoption of new cane plant varieties and processes could increase its efficiency further.

The study looked only at the future production of cane over pastures or as a replacement for other crops -- not over native forests.

Most new cars in Brazil can run on ethanol alone and the biofuel's environmental benefits are redoubled by burning its bagasse byproduct in thermoelectric plants powering mills and sometimes even feeding into the grid.

"As ethanol is already competitive with gasoline at current oil prices, the additional cost (in adopting ethanol) is zero," said Isaias Macedo, from the Interdisciplinary Center of Energy Planning at the University of Campinas, one of the study's authors.

"And the possibility of producing ethanol in several countries makes it especially attractive," Macedo added. (Reuters)

That's nice. Uh... who cares? Enhanced greenhouse is the problem that never can be.

 

See this feature as an independent file

JunkScience.com
October, 2009

Daily we are bombarded with claims of a catastrophically heating Earth and the need to take drastic action. One thing we don't do, however, is stop to look at the actual numbers.

We are told the Earth is so many hundredths of a degree from specified norms, in the case of NASA's GISTEMP that averages +0.59 �C for the period 1999-2008 (latest available decade and allegedly the hottest on record), to which we are instructed to add 14.0 �C to derive the globe's mean temperature of 14.59 �C (see footnote of linked file). Immediately we have a problem though, because Earth's 33 �C "normal" greenhouse effect is predicated on Earth's mean temperature of 15 �C, i.e., warmer than its current allegedly overheated state. This is a figure with which NASA's Goddard Institute traditionally agrees, making the current panic somewhat mystifying.

Most of us probably remember the derivation like this (your radii and temperatures may not match precisely and so, as they say, your mileage may vary):

The sun behaves approximately like a black body of radius r_s=6.955 x 10⁵ Km, at a temperature of T_s=5,783 K. The radiative flux at the sun's surface is given by the expression σT_s⁴, where σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann Constant (5.6704 x 10^-8 Wm²K⁴). Flux refers to radiation per unit area. Thus, at the Earth's distance from the sun, r_es=1.496 x 10⁸ Km, this flux is reduced by the factor (r_s/r_es)². The Earth's disk has a cross section, a_cs=πr_e², where r_e is the Earth's radius (6.371 x 10³ Km), and thus intercepts a_csσT_s⁴(r_s/r_es)² radiation from the sun. In order to balance this intercepted radiation, the Earth would warm to a temperature T_e, where σT_e⁴4πr_e² = a_csσT_s⁴(r_s/r_es)². This leads to a solution T_e=272 K. Clouds, which obviously require an atmosphere, and other features of the Earth reflect 31% of the incident radiation. Taking this into account reduces T_e to 255 K.

Actually it would be surprising if everyone derived the same value due to rounding and base number variations, just look at these potential causes of confusion:

Solar temperature:

• These two methods give a rough temperature for the Sun of about 5800 K. ... You can use the absorption line strengths as an accurate temperature probe to measure a temperature of about 5840 K. http://www.astronomynotes.com/starsun/s2.htm
• Eventually its temperature was determined to be 5,770 Kelvins (6,000 C or 11,000 F). [!] http://sunearthday.gsfc.nasa.gov/2009/TTT/65_surfacetemp.php (No e-mails, please -- NASA has indeed made a major conversion error here: t �C = (t + 273.15) K is still true and 5,770 K remains 5,497 �C or 9,927 �F)
• "Temperatures in the photosphere usually do not exceed 6,000 �C (6,273 K)" (Loble-Murray-Rice. Earth Science.)
  "The sun's surface or photosphere is about 340 miles thick and its temperature about 5,500 �C (5,773 K)" (World Book Encyclopedia Vol. 18.)
  "The Solar surface is not solid like the earth's, but its high temperature 5,700 �C (5,973 K) �." (Davis, Dan & Anny Levasseur-Regourd. Our Sun.)
  "� temperature of the sun is about 6,000 �C (6,273 K)" (Principles Of Science. Columbus, OH: Merrill, 1979.)
  "� while the sun's surface (photosphere) is 5,600 �C (5,873 K)" (Dichristina, Mariett. "Our Violent Star." Popular Science. 249, 3 (September 1996): 17.) http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1997/GlyniseFinney.shtml
• Effective temperature: 5,778 K http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html

So there you go, you have a range of 500 kelvins with apparently credible sources.

NASA says Earth is subjected to a solar irradiance of 1,367.6 W/m² http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html while Astronomy Notes states: "From the Inverse Square Law of Light Brightness, you find that the solar flux at the Earth's distance = the Sun's surface flux � (Sun's radius/Earth's distance)² = 1,380 Watts/meter²." http://www.astronomynotes.com/starsun/s2.htm

How much incoming solar radiation is reflected by bright clouds, snow & ice fields, bright deserts, atmospheric dust and other aerosols? Again, we don't know for sure -- commonly this figure (albedo) is cited as 30% (0.3) but it could be anywhere from 28%-32% for an average (it constantly varies with cloud cover, season and regional drought).

In the following form we have plugged in some fairly uncontroversial numbers:
AU (earth's average distance from the sun) = 149,597,870 km;
solar radius = 695,500 km;
pi = 3.1415926535897931 and;
sigma (Stefan�Boltzmann constant) = 0.000000056704.

It was a bit of a toss-up whether we used a solar radius of 696,000 instead as it is very commonly used but this does not materially affect the results below. You've seen these types of forms here before so you can play to your heart's content deriving "expected" temperatures for planet Earth and no one knows what it "should be" for sure so they can't really prove you wrong :-) This form is somewhat more sophisticated than the previous calculator we gave you in that it begins with solar temperatures rather than simply accepting TOA irradiance numbers as provided.

Sun temperature in kelvin	(o)
Resulting solar "constant" (W/m2) or TOA irradiance
Resulting mean global surface temperature (K) without albedo or greenhouse
Temperature (C)
Temperature (F)
Albedo (proportion solar radiation reflected)	(o)
Resulting mean global surface temperature (K) with albedo but no greenhouse
Temperature (C)
Temperature (F)
Greenhouse effect (proportion OLR returned to Earth)	(o)
Resulting mean global surface temperature (K) with albedo and greenhouse
Temperature (C)
Temperature (F)

In the past we have shown you this graphic from Earth�s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget (Kiehl and Trenberth, 1997)

They have recently come up with a more politically correct version:

Trenberth, K. E., J. T. Fasullo, and J. Kiehl, 2008: Earth's global energy budget. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., in press.

Abstract: An update is provided on the Earth's global annual mean energy budget in the light of new observations and analyses. In 1997 Kiehl and Trenberth provided a review of past such estimates and performed a number of radiative computations to better establish the role of clouds and various greenhouse gases in the overall radiative energy flows, with top-of-atmosphere (TOA) values constrained by Earth Radiation Budget Experiment values form 1985 to 1989, when the TOA values were approximately in balance. The Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) measurements from March 2000 to May 2004 are used to TOA but adjusted to an estimated imbalance from the enhanced greenhouse effect of 0.9 W m^-2. Revised estimates of surface turbulent fluxes are made based on various sources. The partitioning of solar radiation in the atmosphere is based in part on the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) ISCCP-FD computations that utilize the global ISCCP cloud data every 3 hours, and also accounts for increased atmospheric absorption by water vapor and aerosols. Surface upwards longwave radiation is adjusted to account for spatial and temporal variability. A lack of closure in the energy balance at the surface is accommodated by making modest changes to surface fluxes, with the downward longwave radiation as the main residual to ensure a balance. Values are also presented for the land and ocean domains that include a net transport of energy from ocean to land of 2.2 Petawatts (PW) of which 3.2 PW is from moisture (latent energy) transport, while net dry static energy transport is from land to ocean. Evaluations of atmospheric reanalyses reveal substantial biases. (em added)

Figure caption: The global annual mean Earth's energy budget for the March 2000 to May 2004 period in W m^-2. The broad arrows indicate the schematic flow of energy in proportion to their importance.

Now, we understand their desire to "get with the program" and support their AGW colleagues' claims but we have a real problem with the emphasized portion. We showed you methods here for calculating atmospheric heating, to quote Dr. John Christy: "In my classes I make the problem simpler by describing what happens in a single atmospheric column of 1 m square. We have about 10,000 Kg of air in that meter squared, so the calculations are simpler. Change in temperature is simply cp*d(T)*mass = Q where Q is the heating rate and cp = 1004 j/K/Kg or essentially d(T) = Q*0.0000001 for the whole column. So, if you dump heat in at a rate of 0.9 j/s/m2, then you can calculate the average rate of temperature change as 0.00000009 per second for the whole column.", which yields 0.00000009 x the number of seconds in a year, or a little over 2.8 �C warming per year.

So where is it? We know atmospheric temperatures have flatlined (or "plateaued" in the IPCC's preferred parlance) since 2001 and we know also that there has been no warming of the upper 700 meters of the oceans either. Are they trying to suggest less than 30% of the Earth's surface preferentially absorbed 100% of the planet's alleged radiative imbalance, sharing none with oceans or atmosphere (an atmosphere where enhanced greenhouse is actually supposed to manifest itself)?

Sorry, not buying it. There's a world of difference between not knowing how energy moves through the system and simply declaring a politically correct "imbalance" which can not in reality exist and when empirical measure demonstrates unequivocally that it is not functioning now or over at least half the period they studied.

Their adjustment of albedo from 31% down to 30.5 implied in the new paper simply don't appear justified, any more than their energy imbalance assumption.

As you saw in the form above, no one knows for sure exactly what temperature Earth "should be", all we have are a range of values according to assumptions made. Is the Earth currently "too warm" or is it simply adjusting to a previous equilibrium state following the Little Ice Age? We don't know -- and nor does anyone else.

Importantly, we haven't even agreed what we are trying to measure when we talk about surface air temperature:

Q&A with James Hansen: The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature (SAT)

Q. What exactly do we mean by SAT ?
A. I doubt that there is a general agreement how to answer this question. Even at the same location, the temperature near the ground may be very different from the temperature 5 ft above the ground and different again from 10 ft or 50 ft above the ground. Particularly in the presence of vegetation (say in a rain forest), the temperature above the vegetation may be very different from the temperature below the top of the vegetation. A reasonable suggestion might be to use the average temperature of the first 50 ft of air either above ground or above the top of the vegetation. To measure SAT we have to agree on what it is and, as far as I know, no such standard has been suggested or generally adopted. Even if the 50 ft standard were adopted, I cannot imagine that a weather station would build a 50 ft stack of thermometers to be able to find the true SAT at its location.

Q. What do we mean by daily mean SAT ?
A. Again, there is no universally accepted correct answer. Should we note the temperature every 6 hours and report the mean, should we do it every 2 hours, hourly, have a machine record it every second, or simply take the average of the highest and lowest temperature of the day ? On some days the various methods may lead to drastically different results.

...

Q. If SATs cannot be measured, how are SAT maps created ?
A. This can only be done with the help of computer models, the same models that are used to create the daily weather forecasts. We may start out the model with the few observed data that are available and fill in the rest with guesses (also called extrapolations) and then let the model run long enough so that the initial guesses no longer matter, but not too long in order to avoid that the inaccuracies of the model become relevant. This may be done starting from conditions from many years, so that the average (called a 'climatology') hopefully represents a typical map for the particular month or day of the year.

Q. What do I do if I need absolute SATs, not anomalies ?
A. In 99.9% of the cases you'll find that anomalies are exactly what you need, not absolute temperatures. In the remaining cases, you have to pick one of the available climatologies and add the anomalies (with respect to the proper base period) to it. For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14 Celsius, i.e. 57.2 F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58 F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse. (NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies)

Hansen is being disingenuous with his claims about models, to say the least. Irrespective of the model flavor used, from the most basic to the multipartite coupled models utilizing each other's output as dynamic input, all models are by necessity overly simplistic and inadequate to represent the chaotic, nonlinear coupled system we call climate. While the average of model representations of global climate suggests Earth's mean temperature is about 14 �C (287 K), the 16 most trusted and 'stable' models tested in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) (see original .pdf) are not well able to reproduce this result.

This graphic represents the unforced control runs for the "ensemble" (IPCC-speak for "haven't got a clue if any of these actually represent reality -- throw 'em all together and say the errors average out"). The range starts out guessing mean Earth surface temperature as anything from 11.5 to 16.5 �C (roughly 285-290 K) and ends -- without messing with carbon dioxide levels or anything else -- with the guesses even further apart. If they can't agree where they should start in a 5 �C range how are they supposed to figure out trends an order of magnitude smaller?

Note also that several of these models produce at least as much warming as we think we have measured over the entire Twentieth Century absent any additional forcing whatsoever. Seven of the sixteen controls even suggest the world should be a little (or a lot) warmer than we believe it to be at present (how's that for "consensus"?).

Precipitation results for the various models are similarly erratic, signifying a huge problem in the way models handle the most important greenhouse gas: water vapor. At this time they appear more a disarray of models and we will not be paying attention to model "guesstimations" any time soon.

One thing is for sure: this whole "emergency" is predicated on a few guesses and no real knowledge. Do you really believe it is a good idea to radically change the global energy supply at great expense and certain interruption merely because some people made some scary guesses?

 

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A Tax That Would Finance the Road to Serfdom

Michael Tanner and Michael Cannon are working nonstop to derail government-run health care, but they better figure out how to work more than 24 hours per day, because if they fail, it is very likely that politicians will then look for a new revenue source to finance all the new spending that inevitably will follow. Unfortunately, that means a value-added tax (VAT) will be high on the list. Indeed, the VAT recently has been discussed by powerful political figures and key Obama allies such as the Co-Chairman of his transition team and the Speaker of the House.

The VAT would be great news for the political insiders and beltway elite. A  brand new source of revenue would mean more money for them to spend and a new set of  loopholes to swap for campaign cash and lobbying fees.  But as I explain in this new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, the evidence from Europe unambiguously suggests that a VAT will dramatically increase the burden of government.  That�s good for Washington, but bad for America.

Even if the politicians are unsuccessful in their campaign to take over the health care system, there will be a VAT fight at some point in the next few years. This will be a Armageddon moment for proponents of limited government. Defeating a VAT is not a sufficient condition for controlling the size of government, but it surely is a necessary condition. (Daniel J. Mitchell, Cato at liberty)

 

They're Tragically Delicious

How can Americans be expected to wrestle with the myriad dangers that confront them each day? Insalubrious cereal? Unregulated garage sales? Pools of death? Sometimes it's too much to process.

You know what we desperately are crying out for? An army of crusading federal regulatory agents with unfettered power. Who else has the fortitude and foresight to keep us all safe?

Mercifully, as The Washington Post recently reported, many of President Barack Obama's appointees "have been quietly exercising their power over the trappings of daily life ... awakening a vast regulatory apparatus with authority over nearly every U.S. workplace, 15,000 consumer products, and most items found in kitchen pantries and medicine cabinets."

If there's anything Americans are hankering for in their everyday lives, it's a vast regulatory apparatus. Hey, it's dangerous out there. (David Harsanyi, Townhall)

 

The Improving State of New York City, circa 1800-2007

Two figures that say it all.

Death Rates (deaths per 1,000 population), New York City, c. 1800-2007. Source: NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. Summary of Vital Statistics (2008). H/T to William Briggs for making me aware of this figure.

Infant Mortality Rate (deaths per 1,000 live births), New York City, 1898-2007. In 1898 IMR was estimated to be 140.9 Because of incomplete reporting of early neonatal deaths, this is almost certainly an underestimate. In 2007 IMR was 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. Source: NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. Summary of Vital Statistics (2008) (Indur Goklany, Cato at liberty)

 

Figuring out multiple myeloma

It is always encouraging when we discover more about how cancer works, and I cover some interesting results coming out of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in my latest HND article.

What the researchers discovered here is that certain types of immune cells�specifically Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells (pDCs)�actually turn rogue in myeloma patients. That is, they help the cancer cells to grow and survive. Fortunately, if these traitor cells are exposed to compounds called CpG oligodeoxynucleotides, they can be reformed into well-behaving immune cells once again.

Clinical trials are expected shortly, and that won't be a moment too soon for sufferers of this often incurable disease. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)

 

Study charts links between mobile phones, tumors

WASHINGTON - Studies on whether mobile phones can cause cancer, especially brain tumors, vary widely in quality and there may be some bias in those showing the least risk, researchers reported on Tuesday.

So far it is difficult to demonstrate any link, although the best studies do suggest some association between mobile phone use and cancer, the team led by Dr. Seung-Kwon Myung of South Korea's National Cancer Center found.

Myung and colleagues at Ewha Womans University and Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul and the University of California, Berkeley, examined 23 published studies of more than 37,000 people in what is called a meta-analysis.

They found results often depended on who conducted the study and how well they controlled for bias and other errors.

"We found a large discrepancy in the association between mobile phone use and tumor risk by research group, which is confounded with the methodological quality of the research," they wrote in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The use of mobile and cordless phones has exploded in the past 10 years to an estimated 4.6 billion subscribers worldwide, according to the U.N. International Telecommunication Union.

Research has failed to establish any clear link between use of the devices and several kinds of cancer.

The latest study, supported in part by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examined cases involving brain tumors and others including tumors of the facial nerves, salivary glands and testicles as well as non-Hodgkin's lymphomas.

It found no significant association between the risk of tumors and overall use of mobile phones, including cellular and cordless phones. (Reuters)

 

Most who die from new H1N1 flu had conditions: CDC

WASHINGTON - Most of the people who have died from the new pandemic H1N1 flu had underlying conditions such as asthma, but 45 percent seemed healthy, according to the largest study yet of U.S. cases.

Children with sickle cell and other blood diseases have a special risk from the swine flu, just as they do from seasonal influenza, Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

She said injectable versions of the flu vaccine -- suitable for babies, people with asthma and people 50 and older -- will be available this week.

Schuchat said the CDC collected detailed data on 1,400 adults and 500 children hospitalized with swine flu in 10 states. The findings confirm that most serious cases and deaths have been in people under the age of 65.

"The vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are occurring in younger people," Schuchat told reporters in a telephone briefing. Five more children have died, bringing the H1N1 death toll among children in the United States to 81.

She said 55 percent of the adults had a condition known to worsen flu of all kinds. "In adults, the most common underlying conditions were asthma and chronic lung disease, chronic heart disease and immunosuppression," Schuchat said.

Six percent were pregnant. Pregnant women have suppressed immune systems so their bodies do not reject the baby, and may also have pressure on the lungs from the fetus.

"And in children, the most common underlying conditions were asthma and chronic lung disease, neurological or neuromuscular diseases, and sickle cell or other blood disorders."

Schuchat said 5.8 percent of hospitalized children had a blood disease related to red blood cells, such as sickle cell disease.

The CDC had not mentioned sickle cell disease before as a special risk, but such children had been highlighted in influenza guidelines as being at special risk and needing to be vaccinated every year. (Reuters)

 

Kids younger than 10 may need two swine flu shots

LONDON - Children under 10 years of age may need two shots of swine flu vaccine to get optimal protection, French drugmaker and the world's biggest flu vaccine producer Sanofi-Aventis said on Wednesday.

A two-dose regimen for H1N1 swine flu would be in line with recommendations for seasonal influenza immunisation in children of this age.

Sanofi said results of a U.S. clinical trial looking at H1N1 vaccination in children aged 6 months through 9 years suggested a single dose may protect many children but "two doses of vaccine will be required for optimal protection".

Previous results from studies of swine flu vaccines made by Sanofi and other companies have found one dose offers good protection in adults.

In the case of children, however, only 50 percent of those aged 6 to 35 months had adequate protection after a single shot, while 76 percent of children aged 3 to 9 years were protected. That compares with 98 percent of adults who had a good immune response after just one dose.

Sanofi is the only company licensed in the United States to produce a flu vaccine for children as young as 6 months of age.

A total of 474 children were studied in the clinical trial. (Reuters)

 

"Meat kills" poster banned for swine flu link

LONDON - An animal rights poster promoting vegetarianism was banned by Britain's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) on Wednesday for wrongly implying that eating meat caused swine flu.

The agency said the poster -- on which the words "meat kills" and "go vegetarian" were transposed over the names of deadly diseases, of which swine flu featured most prominently -- was misleading and could cause undue fear and distress.

So far, 76 people in England have died from the H1N1 swine flu virus, which the World Health Organisation has classified as a pandemic, as well as a further 10 in Scotland, three in Northern Ireland and one in Wales. (Reuters Life!)

 

Can fish for dinner lead to diabetes?

NEW YORK - Making sure fish ends up on your dinner plate a couple of times a week may be a good way to cut your risk for developing heart disease, but it may not do the same for diabetes, new study findings hint.

In the study, researchers found no evidence of reduced risk for diabetes among adults who ate more fish, or the essential omega-3 fatty acids obtained primarily from seafood.

Rather, their findings suggest that eating 2 or more servings of fish a week may slightly increase diabetes risk. (Reuters Health)

 

Where you live affects your chance of obesity

If you want to know your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, you're better off walking through your neighbourhood than looking inside your fridge.

A study published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that people who live in neighbourhoods that support physical activity and healthy diets were 38 per cent less likely to get the disease than their counterparts who reside in unsupportive environments.

Diabetes, a condition in which your blood glucose (sugar) is higher than it should be, occurs when the body's pancreas doesn't secrete enough insulin � the hormone that clears sugar from the blood � or cells don't use insulin properly.

More than two million Canadians have diabetes, a number that's expected to rise to three million by the end of this decade. (The vast majority of people with diabetes have Type 2.) Despite the epidemic of Type 2 diabetes, the disease is largely preventable though physical activity, healthy eating and controlling weight.

Observational studies have linked the increase in diabetes to changes in our environment. We rely on cars to take us � and our kids � everywhere. Many of us live in suburbs so spread out that biking or walking to work, school, or the grocery store isn't an option.

What's more, highly processed and fast foods are more accessible than fresh produce and whole grains. (Globe and Mail)

 

Soda Tax Could Shake Up Industry

Amid the health care overhaul debate, one big question has been where to come up with about $1 trillion in funding to change the system. One idea that has been suggested is a junk food tax � and, in particular, a tax on soda.

Public health advocates say drinking soda is directly linked to obesity, which is partly responsible for skyrocketing health care costs. (NPR)

 

Interscan gets into the Chinese drywall situation

We at Interscan are now involved in the Chinese drywall situation. For those who are unfamiliar with this very big problem, refer here for a quick introduction.

Essentially, a host of issues have been linked to drywall manufactured in China, imported into the US starting around 2005. There is no dispute that the drywall will emit certain toxic and corrosive gases (hydrogen sulfide, carbonyl sulfide, and others), which can corrode wiring and HVAC components, and can be unhealthful�especially to sensitive individuals.

A number of testing and remediation protocols are circulating, but at this point, none has been blessed by some learned institution. Such "blessing" is necessary if banks and insurance companies are ever going to approve a remediation job. That's why I am on an ASTM committee that will be looking into this, and will be having its first meeting on the topic next week.

As in all residential toxic exposures, there will be malingerers and those who overreact. And, of course, there will be lawsuits, but it is unclear as to who should be the defendant�or better put, who would be the defendant most likely to pay off.

A most troubling aspect is that the gases will permeate out of the drywall, and can be absorbed by studs, concrete, and household goods. Sadly, the bulk of this situation is occurring in Florida, already hit with a stunning drop in real estate values, and tainted homes make it even worse.

Some contractors are claiming excellent results with their remediation methods, but these procedures are very expensive, and are not covered by any insurance. More than that, most odor-laden household goods will either have to be separately treated or simply discarded.

The posture of government is frankly not encouraging, since they fear that a huge bailout is in the making. Therefore, they are hyper-analyzing the situation in terms of testing the materials, but have done precious little testing of affected homes. There have been several photo op visits by government officials to affected homes, however.

Where Interscan comes in is that any "clearance" of a house for re-occupancy will involve gas detection.

A solution may be at hand in terms of chlorine dioxide treatment�similar to what was used on anthrax-contaminated buildings. We will keep you informed. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)

 

Zero Tolerance for Difference

When both the New York Times and Fox News poke fun at a school district it�s a good guess that district has done something pretty silly. That seems to be the case in Newark, Delaware, where the Christina School District just suspended a 6-year-old boy for 45 days because he brought a dreaded knife-fork-spoon combo tool to school. District officials, in their defense, say they had no choice � the state�s �zero tolerance� law demanded the punishment.

Now, the first thing I�ll say is that I was very fortunate there were no zero-tolerance laws  � at least that I knew of � when I was a kid. Like most boys, I took a pocket knife to school from time to time, and like most boys I never hurt a soul with it. (I�m pretty sure, though, that I was stabbed by a pencil at least once.) I also played a lot of games involving tackling, delivered and received countless �dead arm� punches in the shoulder, and brought in Star Wars figures armed with�brace yourself!�laser guns! I can only imagine how many suspension days I�d have received had current disciplinary regimes been in place back then.

Before completely trashing little ol� Delaware and all the other places without tolerance, however, there is a flip side to this story: Some kids really are immediate threats to their teachers and fellow students. And as the recent stomach-wrenching violence in Chicago has vividly illustrated, there are some schools where no one is safe. In other words, there are cases and situations where zero tolerance is warranted.

So how do you balance these things? How do you have zero-tolerance for those who need it, while letting discretion and reason reign for everyone else?  And how do you do that when there is no clear line dividing what is too dangerous to tolerate and what is not?

The answer is educational freedom, as it is with all of the things that diverse people are forced to fight over because they all have to support a single system of government schools! Let parents who are not especially concerned about danger, or who value freedom even if it engenders a little more risk, choose schools with discipline policies that give them what they want.  Likewise, let parents who want their kids in a zero-tolerance institution do the same.

Ultimately, let parents and schools make their own decisions, and no child will be subjected to disciplinary codes with which his parents disagree; strictness will be much better correlated with the needs of individual children; and perhaps most importantly, discipline policies will make a lot more sense for everyone involved. (Neal McCluskey, Cato at liberty)

 

What Is Regulation?

The New York Times tries to spin the work of Nobel laureates Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson as not anti-regulation:

Neither Ms. Ostrom nor Mr. Williamson has argued against regulation. Quite the contrary, their work found that people in business adopt for themselves numerous forms of regulation and rules of behavior � called �governance� in economic jargon � doing so independently of government or without being told to do so by corporate bosses.

But none of us �anti-regulation� folks are against �rules of behavior that people in business adopt for themselves independently of government.� The world is full of rules, from wearing clothes in the office to customary trade practices to the rules for managing common-pool resources that Ostrom studied. Anyone who opposed such �forms of regulation� wouldn�t be a libertarian or even an anarchist � he�d be a nihilist. (Of course, one could sensibly oppose particular rules; but no one seriously wants a world without rules of behavior.)

David Henderson analyzes one of the misunderstandings about the laureates� findings:

Some have summarized their work by saying that institutions other than free markets often work well. But that statement can mislead you to conclude that government solutions are the answer. Free markets are only a subset of free institutions. A better way to sum up their work is that what Ms. Ostrom and Mr. Willamson really show is that voluntary associations work.

The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics defines �regulation� this way: �Regulation consists of requirements the government imposes on private firms and individuals to achieve government�s purposes.� That�s the kind of regulation that is controversial among economists and often criticized by libertarians. It is entirely different from �rules of behavior that people in business adopt for themselves independently of government.� Those sorts of rules � often called �governance,� as the New York Times notes � are private and voluntary, made by the voluntary interactions of a few or many people.

The work of Ostrom and Williamson supports the idea of spontaneous order, an order that emerges as result of the voluntary activities of individuals and not through the commands of government. Spontaneous order can be hard to grasp, though it is the background of our entire world � language, common law, money, and the economy are all spontaneous orders (though government has intruded into some of those orders). It�s misleading to say that work of Ostrom and Williamson is somehow supportive of �regulation,� given the way that word is commonly used.

Sheldon Richman made a similar point back in June and wrote a Facebook note on the same paragraph that caught my eye. (David Boaz, Cato at liberty)

 

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