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ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY DIVISION
NEWSLETTER
25 JAN. 2016
If you need older URLs contact George at [email protected].
Please Note: “This newsletter contains articles that offer differing points of
view regarding climate change, energy and other environmental issues. Any
opinions expressed in this publication are the responses of the editor alone
and do not represent the positions of the Environmental and Energy
Engineering Division or the ASME.”
George Holliday
A. ENVIRONMENT 1. WHO UNLEASHED CLIMATISM?
Guest Blogger / 1 hour ago January 17, 2016
Guest essay by Ari Halperin
This article is intended mostly for American audiences. Today, it seems almost normal that the IPCC,
UNFCCC and CAN (Climate Action Network International) interfere in American internal affairs, deciding
who are scientists and who are not, telling us how much energy to use and from what sources, and
generally sowing discord and polarizing society (with enormous success, I must admit). For more than 30
years, their claims of dangerous global warming caused by CO2 emissions have served as an excuse for
this invasion. If there is a “problem,” and the “problem” is global and America is its main cause, they
reason, why not gang up on America?
But the “problem” is imaginary, and has always been imaginary. The readers of this site know that.
Serious scientific assessments have never come to alarming conclusions, even when assuming
exaggerated climate sensitivity to CO2. So what happened? To answer this question, we need to clearly
understand three historical facts:
1) Almost all climate science between 1970 and 1992 was conducted in the USA.
2) Almost all climate politics in the same period originated elsewhere.
3) Climate politics led to climate pseudo-science, not the other way around.
Fact #1 can be checked by reading 1990’s scientific literature. A less scientific method is to compare the
number of climate research satellites by country; even today, the ratio of the US satellites to those
belonging to the rest of the world is at least 5:1.
Fact #2 may be well-known, but a large part of this article is devoted to proving it.
Fact #3 is vehemently denied by the alarmists, who claim that real science drives their politics. But
climate politics jumps out at us from every corner, and when it drags with it any science, the “science” is
either on a short leash, or with a hockey stick. Climate politics led, crushing resistance from scientists
and then scientists themselves. That might be trivial (in the end, who has real power – scientists or
politicians?), but the article will show how foreign anti-American politics prevailed upon American
scientists by 1992, even before Al Gore became Vice President.
Facts #2 and #3 were not appreciated enough in time. One reason might be that for more than fifteen
years, climate alarmism was opposed by scientists almost alone. Most scientists are simply not into
politics. Another reason is that Americans used to pay little attention to the outside world. Even worse,
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when confronted about this attitude, many Americans feel that they have wronged others. Only a few
Americans understand that hostile forces from other places can seriously impact domestic politics.
Thus, only in hindsight we can make the inevitable conclusion that the climatist agenda was imposed on
the US from outside. In other words:
Climatism is a foreign assault on America
The aggressor is not another nation-state, but an alliance of UN agencies and environmental NGOs.
Climate alarmism was “officially” launched at the 2nd Villach conference, organized by the UNEP, WMO,
and ICSU (Villach, Austria, 1985). But the warmist narrative starts with John Tindall (1859), continues
with Svante Arrhenius (1896), through Guy Stewart Callendar (1938), and followed by Roger Revelle. In
the narrative, these scientists serve as a frame for the portrait of the fearless leader Al Gore. The
narrative fails to mention that none of these scientists, except for Revelle, expressed the slightest
concern about global warming from CO2 emissions. To the contrary, Callendar correctly called the
expected warming beneficial, even without accounting for the fertilization effect of CO2. Revelle did
express some concern, but strongly stood against the alarm. See (Singer, Revelle, Starr,1992), and also
read about Al Gore’s attempts at suppression in (Singer, 2003). In 1983, Nierenberg report concluded (in
a three-word quote): “concern, not panic.” So the alarmist historical narrative is fake, just like its
computer models.
Climate concern (but not yet alarm) entered American politics in a strange way. In 1979, in a late
reaction to the oil crisis of 1973, the country decided to produce synthetic gasoline from its plentiful
coal resources. And it just happened that in the same year, Chancellor of West Germany Helmut
Schmidt warned US Congressman Abraham Ribicoff about the “dangers” of CO2 in the atmosphere!
Congressional hearings and a request for new research followed. But who had “warned” Helmut
Schmidt, who held a degree in economics and politics and could not make this stuff up himself? I guess it
was somebody who was not excited at the prospect of America gaining energy independence. Notably
Schmidt’s predecessor, Willie Brandt, resigned after his personal assistant was revealed as an East
German spy. So, even in the 1970s politics was leading science.
A popular misconception is that global warming was raised to the status of public alarm after the 1988
James Hansen Senate testimony, which led to creation of the IPCC. Climate alarmism erupted following
the 1988 Toronto conference, convened by UNEP and WMO together with the Canadian government.
The infamous Hansen testimony (initiated by Senator Wirth, who sabotaged air conditioning in the
Senate Chamber and later become president of the UN Foundation,) was scheduled to happen before
the Toronto conference. The conference organizers did not need Hansen, because they already had
their own parallel science. After the conference, where scientists constituted less than 15% of the
delegates, the organizers and environmental NGOs simply declared their alarmist claims as the new
“scientific consensus,” and threatened or defamed everybody who disagreed. Thus the Big Lie, created
by UN agencies and environmental NGOs, has been thriving for almost three decades! Further, the IPCC
was planned by the UNEP and WMO even before the Toronto Conference. The next year, the
transnational web of alarmist organizations formalized itself as the Climate Action Network (CAN) at a
meeting in Hanover, Germany. Initially, its HQ was set in Washington, DC (closer to power and money),
but then moved to Beirut, Lebanon (further from law enforcement).
There are two persons most responsible for unleashing climate alarmism. The first one is Mostafa Kamal
Tolba (Egypt), who headed the UNEP for 17 years, from 1975 until 1992. When the IPCC was founded,
Tolba instructed it to go and tell the governments what to do. Tolba was a microbiologist and a cabinet
member of Nasser’s government in Egypt – hardly an indication of a positive attitude to the US. He had
proven his hostility to America by driving a wedge between the US and its Latin American allies in the
negotiations of the Montreal Protocol on the protection of the ozone layer (Agrawala, 1997).
The second one is Maurice Strong (Canada), the first head of the UNEP, UN under-secretary, the
organizer of Rio 1992 Earth Summit, and a man with three passions in life: power, money, and hatred of
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America (not necessarily in that order). He openly expressed his desire to make America a protectorate
(or “subsidiary”) of the UN (Strong, 2000, pp. 34, 313, 322, 329-338). He admitted (advertised?) giving
money to Michael Dukakis’ campaign in 1988 and being deeply involved with the top circles of the
Democratic Party, including becoming a trustee of DNC – all without being an American citizen. This is a
passage from his book:
I made a personal contribution of $100,000, which brought me into the privileged circle of top supporters
with access to George [sic] Dukakis and other leading Democrats. I was made a trustee of the
Democratic National Committee and invited to contribute to their foreign policy platform … I was
surprised at the degree of involvement I was able to have as a Canadian citizen; this never seemed to
inhibit my acceptance into the inner circle of Democratic politics (Strong, p. 184).
Pretty damning, is it not? He named Dukakis, because that card was already discarded. We can only
guess which cards remained in the game. To be fair, I will quote another passage on the same page,
leaving it to the reader to decide how much truth in it:
… I had also helped to raise funds for the Republican National Committee, out of friendship with some
key Republicans. My attitude toward U.S. politics has always been generally bipartisan.
Maurice Strong was also “credited” with empowering non-elected and unaccountable NGOs to
participate in negotiations, undermining national governments. Al Gore called Maurice Strong his close
friend.
These individuals were motivated by their hostility to the US and their hunger for power. Next, let’s look
at the organizations and their activities.
Major UN Agencies involved:
UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme): headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. Executive Director:
Mostafa Tolba (Egypt), 1975 – 1992.
WMO (World Meteorological Organization): headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Secretary-General:
Godwin Olu Patrick Obasi (Nigeria), 1984 – 2003. Presidents: R.L. Kintanar (Philippines), 1979-1987; Zou
Jingmeng (China) 1987 – 1995.
ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions, now International Council for Science): headquartered in
Paris, France. President: J. C. Kendrew (UK), 1983 – 1988. The ICSU was affiliated with UNESCO, which
has been a bastion of anti-Western politics and anti-White racism since at least early 1970’s. The
American exit from UNESCO in 1984 has probably contributed to the anti-American sentiment of ICSU.
The actions of the UN agencies are not hard to understand. Since the 1970s, governments of small and
economically weak countries have enjoyed a plurality among UN members. These countries could not
resist strong political agendas, whether supported by promises, lies, or even threats. Many third-world
governments were also resentful of Western colonialism, and blamed America (although America had
almost no colonies and pushed de-colonization at the expense of its relationships with the UK and
France). During the Cold War, the Soviet Union successfully played on this resentment to spread antiAmericanism. After the end of the Cold War, the political agendas and the forces behind them have
changed, but the anti-Americanism remained. Today, it is hard to understand why successive US
governments have been so stubborn in channeling a large part of the United States’ international
relationships and foreign aid through the UN in the last 50 years. But climate alarmism brought a new
low: the Clinton – Gore administration agreed to let the UN into American internal affairs!
Besides politics, another cause of UN activism was simply the desire of the useless UN agencies and their
leaders to increase their importance and power, which they did by inserting themselves into everything
that was none of their business. The climate scare was one of few tools that the UNEP, WMO and ICSU
had, and they used this tool to maximum effect.
Major Alarmist Activities in 1985 – 1988:
1985: 2nd Villach (Austria) Conference. Organized by the UNEP, WMO, and ICSU.
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1986: AGGG (Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases) established by the UNEP, WMO, and ICSU. The
AGGG was a predecessor of the IPCC. Bert Bolin (Sweden) was appointed as its head. This group was the
first to come up with the bizarre idea that the governments have to control the temperature of the
planet. These UN “scientists” declared that the world should not be allowed to warm more than 0.1°C
per decade.
1987: Villach/Bellagio Conference (Austria/Italy). Organized by the UNEP, WMO, and AGGG.
1988: Toronto Conference (Canada). Organized by the UNEP, WMO, and the Canadian Government. Led
to a large scale eruption of global warming alarmism.
1988: IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) established by the UNEP and WMO as a more
muscular replacement for the AGGG.
It’s easy to see that the US was missing in all these exploits, despite having been conducting almost all
the climate research. So nobody should be surprised that the pseudo-science prevailed, the US was
named as the main culprit, and a suitable “problem” was manufactured to accuse the selected culprit.
Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations
Since 1988, environmental NGOs have played a leading role in whipping up climate alarmism. Promoting
unelected, unaccountable, and secretive NGOs as a tool to deprive the American people (and citizens of
other countries) of their freedom has long been a part of the agenda of Maurice Strong and his
accomplices. The major NGOs involved were:
WWF (World Wildlife Fund): founded in Switzerland, HQ in Switzerland; it was co-founded by European
royalty and had strong links to eugenics. Annual Revenue: $850M.
Greenpeace: founded in Canada, currently headquartered in Netherlands (moved after an ugly fight
between idealistic founders and leftist activists and lawyers). Annual Revenue: $370M.
FOE (Friends of Earth International): founded in Netherlands in 1971 by a combination of four
independent groups from France, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. The self-selected acronym speaks for
itself.
CAN (Climate Action Network): founded in 1989 in Hanover, Germany. The HQ was set initially in
Washington, DC, but moved to Beirut, Lebanon in 2012. CAN is the main visible network of climate
alarmist organizations, claiming “over 950 members in over 110 countries”.
IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature, sometimes World Conservation Union): founded
in 1948, headquartered in Switzerland. A hybrid between a UN agency and a network of NGOs. Maurice
Strong was one of its Directors. In 1996, Bill Clinton granted the IUCN special diplomatic immunity in
American territory, by an executive order.
The USA is conspicuously missing from this list of players, too. These foreign NGOs and networks were
backed by the governments of Germany and smaller European countries, where Green parties were
deciding the fates of coalition governments. That allowed them to command a lot of power and money
beyond their budgets. Yes, they had accomplices on American soil, such as the EDF and NRDC – left
leaning outfits whose disrespect to this country turned into overt hostility over the election of Ronald
Reagan. The WRI (World Resources Institute) was founded in 1982, and was physically located in the US,
but had a globalist orientation and was chaired by Maurice Strong for some time.
By the end of the 1980s, Western societies and governments accepted environmental and
conservational concerns, and had solved or addressed most real problems (and many imaginary ones). If
there were serious opposition, one could say that the environmentalists won. But the ranks of
professional environmental activists were swelling, and their greed and political ambition was boiling. At
the same time, Communists and fellow travelers were facing the opposite predicament: as Gorbachev
started perestroika in 1987, these groups lost both ideological ground and financial support. This loss
was especially pronounced in Western Europe. In a search for both money and power, subversive leftists
rushed into the environmental movement, pushing it further to the left and deepening its anti-American
position. The explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant cemented the victory of environmentalism
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over nuclear power in the West. Such a catastrophe could not have happened at an American or
Western European power plant (the containment domes over reactors in the US is only one of the many
differences), and even safer designs were proposed, but science and reason did not have a chance
against the media hysteria raised by the environmentalists. Thus, having buried nuclear power, they
were free to adopt the global warming agenda, which would have benefited nuclear power in other
circumstances.
The global warming / CO2 agenda fit the needs of the transnational enviroleft perfectly. It provided a
“problem” which could not be solved – both because it is not a problem and because emitting CO2 is a
part of the existence of industrial society and human life. Contrast that to the real problem of
automobile exhaust gases, which was solved by the auto industry through the development of catalytic
filters, without any damage to society and without much profit to the environmentalists. But the unique
advantage of the global warming agenda was its global nature. While enviros are capable of making up
an “issue” out of nothing in any place at any time (as the case of Dihydrogen Monoxide has amply
proven), environmental issues are usually local or regional. The only other alleged global problem was
“ozone hole,” which was being addressed at that time. A “global problem” justified a global collusion,
and demands to punish and loot America.
The following quote from one of the leaders of Climatism shows that I do not exaggerate:
I fought hard for such a framing at the Conference of the Parties 6 in The Hague in 2000, but was
opposed not by the usual suspects—industrial interests and OPEC—but rather by those who were more
“green”—World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and European Green Party delegates. I was dumbfounded.
Why didn’t they want to support a plan to both keep carbon in the forests and get a double bonus of
biodiversity protection? The debates were heated. … The passion of the opponents seemed totally
misplaced.
One evening during COP 6, I went to the environment NGOs’ tent for a reception. In this more informal
setting, I asked many of those attending what they were thinking. Finally, I understood. They wanted to
punish the United States. “How so?” I asked.
“Because if we allow this relatively low cost mechanism, it will allow the U.S. to keep not cutting its
emissions by mitigation, and anything that sanctions their refusal to take on deep emissions cuts
endangers the world.” “But a ton of carbon is a ton of carbon,” was my rejoinder, “and it doesn’t matter
if it is from retiring a coal-burning power plant or avoiding deforestation—and what about the double
dividend of biodiversity protection?” “We simply can’t let the U.S. find any excuse not to cut its
industrial emissions.” [emphasis is mine] (Schneider 2009, p. 239).
If Stephen Schneider were a good citizen, he would have told his interlocutors to go to hell, then
announced publicly that American enemies were using the global warming agenda as a tool to damage
his country. But he was a radical student leader from 1960’s, so he sided with the enemy. And certain
elected politicians did the same.
The NGOs are much more important in the IPCC process than they seem. The usual thinking is that
Summaries for policymakers are the main tool for perverting scientific findings that cannot be avoided in
full assessments by the WGI of IPCC. This is not fully correct. In Climatism, behind every lie there is a
bigger lie. The main communication channel of IPCC is an extremist group of its observer NGOs, which
includes CAN (twice – CAN Europe and CAN International), Greenpeace, WWF, NRDC, WRI, EDF, and
others. In their observer status, NGOs have access to closed meetings of the “scientists” and
government representatives. (See Donna Laframboise, The IPCC: Bar the Media, Welcome the Activists.)
That makes them the main source of information for the media and consequently everybody else – a
status that they skillfully exploit to whip up hysteria. If any public company in the US were
“communicating” its annual reports in a similar way, it would be a breach of law, and its directors would
be facing prison. But the IPCC is beyond the law.
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Environmental NGOs (especially Greenpeace) also have powerful sway over the majority of the nations,
voting in the IPCC. One example is Tuvalu. Tuvalu has one vote in the IPCC, exactly the same as the
United States. Tuvalu is also making big waves in the media, claiming victimhood from “climate change.”
But the entire GDP of Tuvalu is $38M, just 10% of annual revenues of Greenpeace. Obviously,
Greenpeace does not need to match Tuvalu’s GDP to get its vote. Tuvalu’s annual per capita income is
$3,400 – about one third of the daily operational costs of Greenpeace’s yacht Rainbow Warrior. The
climate activists can probably get a vacation on exotic Pacific Islands, with Tuvalu’s vote and public
declarations from Tuvalu’s Prime Minister thrown in, for cheaper than just the vacation.
Foreign-based UN agencies and NGOs were the driving force behind climate alarmism until Al Gore got
into the White House. Their interests are clear. But there was another factor behind interests. This
factor was ignorance. Remember, the climate science was done in the US, not in Kenya or even Western
Europe. This was before the Internet: Europe connected to the Internet only in 1988, and even
universities were making very little use of it. Scientific books and journals were printed on paper and
purchased by libraries. The best climate science available at that time was summarized in the 1983
Nierenberg Report. The report ran more than 500 pages. But how many European libraries received a
copy of it? How many environmentalists or politicians read it? It is safe to guess that most scientists who
read and understood it simply moved on to work on real problems rather than “engaging” with the
ignorant and aggressive environmentalists. So a few activist scientists, UN politicians, and environmental
activists have created a pseudo-science by selecting bits from American climate research, mixed with
their fantasies and amplified in their own echo-chamber. It is said that a lie can travel halfway around
the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Unfortunately, the rapid spread of the Internet gave
new lies an even bigger edge over old truths. Enviros learnt to pose as scientists, and produced an
avalanche of global warming scare papers. Then European politicians believed that nonsensus. Then
they started accusing Americans of “denying science”! Once Al Gore got into White House, all hell broke
loose, though “intellectual” prejudices against both Presidents Bush have played their role, too. This is
how we have gotten into this mess.
In 1991, another comprehensive study by the National Academy of Sciences rejected climate alarmism,
despite the participation of committed alarmists and even Maurice Strong, then the General Secretary
of UNCED. In hindsight, inviting Maurice Strong to participate in that study was equivalent to inviting
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto to all meetings of the Fleet Command in 1939-1940. Strong resigned before
the final report was published, then ambushed the US at the 1992 “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro.
While the assault was launched by UN agencies and transnational (aspiring supranational) NGOs, they
received aid from nation states. I have absolutely no intent to point fingers at friendly European or
British Commonwealth countries. They became victims, too. Neither do I intend to blame developing
countries, some of which were pushed into confrontation by the UNEP, WWF, and their friends. But one
case deserves special mention. North Korea is at a state of war with the US, and North Korea has
approved all IPCC reports since at least the mid-1990’s. When certain individuals insinuate IPCC
“assessments” as a source of authority, Article 3, Section III of the Constitution naturally comes to mind.
While these individuals use climate change rhetoric to distract public attention, North Korea is
developing a hydrogen bomb and submarine launched nuclear ballistic missiles intended to attack
America.
Hindsight is 20/20, and the full agenda of climate alarmism was almost impossible to discern when the
events were unfolding. Only Richard Lindzen showed genius insight in his April 1992 article Global
Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus (I have selected a few quotes about
the science, Al Gore, political pressure on dissidents, and the centrality of carbon dioxide for quick
reference). Ordinary persons cannot be blamed for having been deceived or otherwise lured in by
climate alarmism.
We should not worry about climate. We should worry about climate alarmism.
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This article describes how UN agencies, UN-affiliated NGOs, and their accomplices used climate change
hysteria as their weapon of choice to attack the US. Other countries might have been victims of the
same attack, too. I invite their citizens to check themselves. Happy New Year, and best wishes to my
fellow Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, British, Russian, Ukrainian, and European skeptics!
References
Must read!
Richard Lindzen. Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus, 1992
Recommended:
Ari Halperin. Summary of Science (Made in USA), 2015
Rupert Darwall. The Age of Global Warming: A History, 2014
Fred Singer, Roger Revelle, and Chauncey Starr. What To Do about Greenhouse Warming: Look Before
You Leap, 1992
Fred Singer. The Revelle-Gore Story – Attempted Political Suppression of Science, 2003
Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee; Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate; Commission on
Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources; National Research Council. Changing Climate: Report of
the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee, 1983 (popularly known as the Nierenberg Report)
Panel on Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy
of Engineering, Institute of Medicine. Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation,
Adaptation, and the Science Base, 1992 (completed in 1991)
Recommended with caution:
Shardul Agrawala. Explaining the Evolution of the IPCC Structure and Process, 1997
Not Recommended:
Stephen Schneider. Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate, 2009
Maurice Strong. Where on Earth are We Going? 2000
2. AT LEAST HALF OF THE POST-1970 WARMING WAS DUE
SOLELY TO ATLANTIC OSCILLATION
Research published in the Universal Journal of Geoscience shows much of the variability and at least half
of the latter twentieth century’s temperature increase was due to natural forcings related to the Atlantic
Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Accounting for the AMO, the post-1970 temperature trend is less than
half that recorded in the raw data used by England’s Hadley Center for Climate Sciences and Services
and much lower than trends produced by computer models that fail to account for the AMO. And this is
just the effect of the AMO. Though this paper doesn’t address the issue, if the AMO alone accounts for
as much as half of the post-1970 warming, what percentage of global temperature change and
variability might the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and other long-term or periodic climate factors like El
Niño and La Niña have contributed ... and thus how much less a factor might rising anthropogenic
greenhouse gas emissions be?
SOURCES: Universal Journal of Geoscience and Judith Curry
3. CLIMATE TRUTHS SUMMED UP
While Earth’s climate continues to change, recent changes are relatively mild and benign. Satellites
provide the only transparent temperature records in existence. Although the data cover only the past 37
years, that includes the entire period of the latter twentieth century’s warming. The satellite data reveal
Earth warmed just over four-tenths of a degree Celsius (almost three-fourths of a degree Fahrenheit)
during the past 37 years. If that trend were to continue for another 63 years, Earth’s average warming
would be 1.1º C for the century of satellite coverage, putting it well under the 1.5º C target established
at the Paris climate change summit. The warming over the past 37 years has not been uniform. The
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North Pole and Australia have warmed the most, while other regions, including Antarctica, have cooled.
All in all, the satellites have measured only a fraction of the warming computer models predicted would
occur in response to rising anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
As the renowned physicist Richard Feynman said, “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it
doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
SOURCE: Power Line
4. EVIDENCE OF THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD IN
AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND AND OCEANIA
By Sebastian Lüning Geoscientist and co-author of ‘The neglected Sun’
The climate of the pre-industrial past is of greatest importance to the ongoing climate discussion.
Current climate can only be understood when interpreting it in the paleoclimatological context of the
past few thousand years. Until not too long ago it was thought that the pre-industrial…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/09/evidence-of-the-medieval-warm-period-in-australia-newzealand-and-oceania/
5. BAN-KI MOON’S CLIMATE FINANCE PLAN: DESPOTS
PAYING OFF THIRD WORLD DEBT WITH MORE
OPPRESSION
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, and Kamalesh Sharma, Secretary General of the
Commonwealth, have proposed that third world countries should be allowed to pay off their debts, by
taking “action” on climate change. According to The Independent; Swapping national debt for action on
climate change could be the solution…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/08/ban-ki-moons-climate-finance-plan-despots-paying-off-thirdworld-debt-with-more-oppression/
6. GLOBAL WARMING; A MAJOR CHALLENGE FOR
SCIENCE AND SOCIETY EFFECTIVELY TACKLED BY
FRIENDS OF SCIENCE (FOS)
Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
There is a large group of scientists who rarely express their views on climate change. They are
scientists mostly working in the private sector whose ability to speak out is more limited than
government scientists for two reasons. One is Upton Sinclair’s observation “It is difficult to get
a…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/08/global-warming-a-major-challenge-for-science-and-societyeffectively-tackled-by-friends-of-science-fos/
7. CLAIM: THE CLIMATE “DENIAL” CONSPIRACY IS
GROWING
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Guardian reports that discussions of climate policy are being displaced by “attacks” on climate
science. Naturally the Guardian, and the authors of the study, blames a conspiracy of climate skeptics,
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rather than considering other possibilities, such as legitimate doubts raised by the Climategate fiasco,
and the utter inability of…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/08/claim-the-climate-denial-conspiracy-is-growing/
8. CALL FOR ASME PAPERS
Track 8: Energy
2016 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition Phoenix, Arizona,
November 11-17, 2016
8-14 Carbon Capture and Storage
Organized by Dr. Chuanwei Zhuo, Cabot Corporation, [email protected]
PURPOSE AND SCOPE
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the technologies expected to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. Efficient, economic, and environmentally friendly solutions are always being sought. This
symposium brings together the work of prominent researchers in the field with the emphasis on both
CCS fundamentals and applications. Main areas of interest are engineering challenges of CCS, and
progress made in recent years in terms of novel materials, processes and applications.
Papers, extended abstracts and technical presentation are solicited in areas including but not limited
to:
•
CCS system - general (control, behavior, response, interaction with
power generation and transmission systems, etc.)
•
Materials developed for CO2 capture, separation, purification, transport, storage, and
applications
•
Gas capture (separation) from large point sources (power
generation, natural gas processing, heavy industries, hydrogen production, etc.)
•
Gas compression/dehydration
•
CO2 transport and transport system maintenance
•
Beneficial reuse of CO2 (e.g. enhanced oil recovery (EOR), urea application, food industry,
beverage carbonation, carbonate/bicarbonate, biomass processing)
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 7, 2016
See Conference website for detailed Publication Schedule
http://www.asmeconferences.org/IMECE2016/Author/NewAbstract.cfm
Sponsored by ASME
Energy Division, Advances Energy Systems Division and Environmental Engineering Division
Email From: ASME, 2 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Arne Feldman
COMMENTS
A. THE WEEK THAT WAS: 2016-01-16 (JAN. 16, 2016)
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project
(SEPP)
Administration’s Energy Plan: On January 5, Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell announced the latest
effort in the administration campaign against fossil fuels and reliable energy. There will be a moratorium
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on new leases to mine coal on federal lands for at least three years. Supposedly, the purpose is to
overhaul the program that permits coal mining on federal lands (to include Indian lands) to make the
pricing “fair.” The environmental industry (Big Green) has made the program controversial by objecting
to it, claiming it contradicts the Administration’s Energy Plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Big
Green has been active in a program to demand that fossil fuels not be used (be kept in the ground).
During this Administration, Big Green was successful stopping the use of Yucca Mountain for storage of
waste from nuclear power plants. Combined with its opposition to hydropower, Big Green opposes all
the major sources of reliable electricity generation, a position that the Administration is adopting in
reducing the supply of coal.
If the effort is successful, we can expect future rulings from the Administration on reducing the supply of
oil and natural gas, to the extent that the Administration proclaims it has the power to do so – even if
the Administration’s perceived power will be highly contested in the courts. It is not a matter of what is
moral or ethical; it is a matter of what the Administration believes it can do.
In making the announcement, Ms. Jewell claimed that the moratorium is necessary to permit adequate
review of the program for the government to get “fair prices” for leases. No doubt the calculation of a
fair price includes the totally contrived “social cost of carbon” that is being developed by the US Global
Change Research Program (USGCRP). As discussed in the January 9 TWTW, the USGCRP has a legal
mandate to understand “human-induced and natural processes of global (climate) change.” The USGCRP
ignores the understanding natural processes portion of its legal mandate. As shown in the reports by the
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), human carbon dioxide emissions have
a great beneficial impact on humanity and the environment.
The effort to ignore the beneficial impacts of carbon dioxide can be seen in the media reports of the
Administration’s announcement which referred to climate change and to carbon dioxide (CO2), and
greenhouses gases, as pollutants. The 2007 US Supreme Court ruling that CO2 is pollutant that can be
regulated by the EPA is a travesty against language, logic, and science. (Massachusetts v. EPA).
The claim that the Administration needs the three-year moratorium on coal leases to account for
climate change is also a travesty. The federal government has had over three decades to account for
climate change. Despite spending over $40 billion on climate science since 1993, it has not improved
knowledge of the impact of carbon dioxide on the earth temperatures since the 1979 Charney Report to
the US National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. The report estimated that a
doubling of carbon dioxide will result in an increase in earth’s temperatures of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C.
The failure of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and US government funded
scientists to improve on the Charney Report indicates that the estimate may be significantly too high.
Further, recent studies indicate that a resulting warming will be at the low end of the estimate, at worst.
The Administration is shutting down reliable forms of electricity generation by using a highly
questionable scientific justification that government entities have not been able to improve upon in
over 36 years, despite spending over $40 billion since 1993.
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – NIPCC, Challenging the Orthodoxy, The Administration’s
Plan and http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/~brianpm/download/charney_report.pd
********************
Fighting Climate Change in Perspective: In August 2013, the White House reported that in FY 2013, US
expenditures (including tax provisions and credits) on Clean Energy Technologies were $5.783 billion;
Energy Tax Provisions That May Reduce Greenhouse Gases were $4.999 billion; and Energy Payments in
Lieu of Tax Provisions were $8.080 billion; for a total $18.862 billion. Such expenditures created a
sustained green lobby for climate change. SEPP has found no comprehensive government reports on
actual expenditures (including tax expenditures) since FY 2013.
For FY 2013, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reported its expenditures on cancer research were
$5.274 billion and expenditures on all categories of clinical research were $10.604 billion. Government
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expenditures on alternative energy sources and research were 78% greater than NIH expenditures on all
categories of clinical research on known threats to human health. The fear of climate change has
distorted spending priorities in the Federal government.
This Administration has placed a major part of its legacy on a political position claiming a poorly justified
threat to health. See SEPP handout “Climate Fears and Finance”
http://www.sepp.org/key_issues/ClimateFearsandFinance6-6.pdf
*******************
Unreliability Electricity: Many promoters of solar and wind cite Germany as an example of a successful
alternative program. In No Tricks Zone, P. Gosselin gives a German chart of wind and solar output as
compared with capacity dating from 2011 to March 2015. Wind and solar operate at only about 11% of
their rated capacity for the period and had days when there is little or no output. The chart is a further
example of the unreliability of the alternative sources the US Administration’s plan promotes. Who
would go to a hospital for difficult or delicate surgery if the only source of electricity power was wind
and solar, rather than coal? Or live in modern cities that run on unreliable electricity? Would members
of the Administration, or promoters or these forms of electricity generation?
Writing in their respective web sites; Jo Nova and Donn Dears give further examples of the high costs
and the poor performance of the Administration’s promised wind and solar industries. What is
important is not just the cost of the capital and labor for the instillation of solar and wind and wind; but
also, the cost of the needed back-up and the cost to the entire system created by erratic unreliability.
See links under Questioning European Green, Green Jobs, and Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and
Wind
********************
US Oil Imports: In his State of the Union Address, Mr. Obama claimed success in reduction of crude oil
imports. As stated by Robert Rapier in Forbes, he did not state the cause of this success. Mr. Rapier
writes:
“The irony is that President Obama – who is not viewed as a friend of the oil and gas industry – has
presided over rising oil production in each of the seven years he has been in office. (On a separate note,
expect that streak to be broken in 2016). From that low point in 2008, U.S. oil production has grown
each year to reach 9.4 million bpd in 2015 — a gain of 88% during Obama’s presidency. This is in fact
the largest domestic oil production increase during any presidency in U.S. history. [Boldface added]
“It is true that net crude oil imports have fallen by nearly 60% since President Obama took office. In
2008 our net imports (crude oil imports minus exports of finished products) were 11.1 million bpd,
[barrels per day] and in 2015 they were 4.7 million bpd. The largest reason for the decline in imports
wasn’t the investment in clean energy that President Obama first mentioned; it was the 4.3 million bpd
surge in U.S. crude oil production.”
“But I think the other reason President Obama doesn’t spend more time beating the drum on this crude
oil production surge is that it is readily apparent that it happened despite his administration, and not
because of it. President Obama coincidentally happened to enter office just as the shale oil boom in the
U.S. was getting started.
“In fact, the vast majority of the increase in U.S. oil production occurred on private land. On land that
the U.S. government controls, it was a different story. The EIA reported in 2015 that while U.S. oil and
gas production overall were surging, production of natural gas on federal lands was declining. Oil
production is at about the same level as it was during his first year in office:”
Mr Rapier produces charts based on US Energy Information Administration, supporting his views: Total
oil production on federal lands has remained the same and natural gas production has declined
significantly. SEPP adds that, to its knowledge, there are no wells on federal lands were drilled using
modern techniques of deep underground hydraulic fracturing of dense shale.
Mr. Rapier writes further:
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“President Obama’s oil production legacy shares a similarity to that of President Jimmy Carter. In 1973
President Nixon pushed through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, which cleared away legal
challenges seeking to stop construction of the pipeline. But the pipeline didn’t start operating until
1977, during President Carter’s first year in office. As a result, after a sharp decline under Presidents
Nixon and Ford, oil production rose during Carter’s term. But the production increase during Carter’s
first two years in office was a result of decisions made during the Nixon administration.”
Mr. Obama considers the 2% economic growth rate achieved during his administration a success. Many
economists, and SEPP, consider a two percent growth rate economic stagnation. The question is what
would have been the economic growth rate without the boom in the oil and gas industries (including
industries dependent on oil and gas), so opposed by the Administration? Based on his statements in the
State of the Union Address, one can expect oil and gas leasing will be next target, followed by attempts
to stop or slow down production of oil and gas on private and state-owned lands. See links under
Washington’s Control of Energy
********************
Failure of Predictions: Private meteorologists such as Joe D’Aleo and Joe Bastardi of WeatherBell
Analytics, who make their living from private clients by correctly predicting weather months in advance,
have been predicting a late winter, both in arrival and departure, particularly for the central states and
eastern states of the US. For the last two years, they were successful in predicting the cold, snowy
winters in the central, northern, and northeastern states of the US. They have not been particularly
impressed by the overselling of “the warmest year ever”, based on the manipulation of historic data to
create an inflated warming trend in surface data that was done by USGCRP leader Tom Karl, who also is
responsible for NOAA’s historic record. As stated in the January 9 TWTW:
“USGCRP is steered by the Subcommittee on Global Change Research (SGCR) of the National Science and
Technology Council’s Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability (CENRS), and
overseen by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).” Thomas Karl is the chair
of the SGCR.
Writing in ICECAP, Joe D’Aleo discusses how the inappropriately named Union of Concerned Scientists is
influencing state level climate thinking in New England under the banner of the University of New
Hampshire and advocacy group “Climate Solutions New England (CSNE)”
“CSNE, an initiative of the UNH Sustainability Institute, was tasked by the Granite State Future project to
assess past and potential future climate change across New Hampshire. The resulting reports detail how
the state has been getting warmer and wetter over the last century, how the rate of change has
increased over the last four decades, and how those trends will likely continue over the 21st century.”
D'Aleo discusses how very wrong the predictions of the CSNE have been, probably based upon some
version of the work of the USGCRP. See links under Communicating Better to the Public – Make things
up and http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140404/GJNEWS_01/140409672
********************
Number of the Week: 0.66%. 2015 turned out to be an excellent year for light vehicles sales in the US.
According to data presented by Donn Dears 17,386,331 were sold. Of this total, 114,022, 0.66%, were
electric vehicles. These include a) plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), which use electric power
from the grid as the primary source of power, but use a secondary source, such as a gasoline engine]
and b) battery electric vehicles (BEV), which use electricity power from the grid solely, no back-up.
The sales of electric vehicles are significant fewer than the administration projected, even given the
major subsidies and tax exemptions the administration granted. See link under Alternative, Green
(“Clean”) Vehicles. See link under Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles.
###################################################
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B. EL NIÑO SHORTENS THE PAUSE BY JUST ONE MONTH
No global warming at all for 18 years 8 months.
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The Paris agreement is more dangerous than it appears. Though the secession clause that this column
has argued for was inserted into the second draft and remained in the final text, the zombies who have
replaced the diplomatic negotiators of…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/10/el-nio-shortens-the-pause-by-just-one-month/
C. A NEW SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING GLOBAL
TEMPERATURE
Guest essay by Mike Jonas Introduction There are a number of organisations that produce estimates of
global temperature from surface measurements. They include the UK Met Office Hadley Centre, the
Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) and Berkeley Earth, but there are others. They all suffer from a
number of problems. Here, an alternative method…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/10/a-new-system-for-determining-global-temperature/
D. WHY SHOULD VOLKSWAGEN BE INVESTIGATED FOR
EMISSION DECEPTION, BUT NOT GOVERNMENT
AGENCIES?
Guest essay Paul Driessen
The heat is on! Not the unusual winter warmth in much of the United States – but the unrelenting heat
generated by propaganda and pressure campaigns that the White House, EPA, Big Green and news
media are unleashing in the wake of the Paris climate agreement … and as a prelude…
E. BRITAIN BRACING FOR EXTREME WINTER, AS
TORRENTIAL RAIN TURNS TO SNOW
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to forecasters, Britain is bracing for extreme winter conditions which might last for months, as
falling temperatures turn torrential rain into severe blizzards. Arctic SNOWBOMB to smash into Britain:
Coldest winter in 58 YEARS now just days away BRITAIN faces WEEKS of freezing blizzards, crippling
snowfall and brutal winter…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/11/britain-bracing-for-extreme-winter-as-torrential-rain-turns-tosnow/
F. GRAPH VS. GRAPH = POLITICAL JOURNALISM
Guest Blogger
/ 5 hours ago
Guest essay by C.R. Dickson
Most people have no trouble relating to temperature, because they use it every day when they set the
thermostat in their homes, adjust the temperature dial on an oven, or watch a weather report on TV. On
the other hand, practically no one recognizes a temperature anomaly, the yardstick for measuring manmade global warming. That’s because outside of climate studies, no one uses it.
A temperature anomaly is the difference obtained by subtracting an average temperature from real
temperature data. Climate studies work with anomalies instead of real temperatures because anomalies
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are assumed to be more accurate over large geographical areas (see note 1). The rapidly rising graphs of
temperature anomalies also conveniently dramatize catastrophic global warming.
So it’s easy to see why a few journalists made a big fuss over a very flat looking graph of average global
temperatures posted in a tweet from the National Review. The graph in Figure 1 below (see notes 2 and
3) is like the one displayed in the tweet.
This graph supposedly hides global warming because the small increases in temperatures aren’t obvious.
An online article in The Huffington Post stated it was an improper visualization that makes “just about
anything seem stagnant,” and The Fix at The Washington Post complained that “it is misleading”
because it “hides the actual change in temperatures.” Also online, Business Insider said the graph zooms
“out so much that it makes it seem like global average temperatures haven’t changed at all.”
Of course, the journalists decided the temperature graph was up to no good, and they countered with
their own graphs of the national debt and the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s. It was graph vs. graph on
the way to the world’s end.
With a bit of an effort, it’s easy to discover that the temperature changes are identical for both global
temperature anomalies and for global temperatures (see note 4). The difference is that the graph of the
anomalies is a magnified view, not a normal one.
Magnification doesn’t change the object you are viewing; it just lets you see more details. A blood cell or
a microbe doesn’t get any bigger when it’s magnified; it only looks larger.
For example, the normal view of a piece of glass shown in Figure 2 appears to be very smooth. As can be
seen in Figure 3, the magnified view has numerous peaks and valleys making the surface look rough, not
smooth. Although the imperfections seem larger in the magnified view, they are the same size as in the
normal view.
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The same thing happens with reconstructed temperatures and temperature anomalies. When you
magnify the average global temperatures in Figure 4, the unseen changes become visible, as Figure 5
clearly shows.
Fortunately, people normally do not use a magnified version of the world to proceed with their daily
lives. That’s why no one drives down a highway guided by a microscope magnifying the road’s surface.
For the same reason, weather forecasters use the real temperatures instead of magnified temperature
anomalies.
Because it’s so difficult to observe man-made global warming, some experts at NASA GISS believe the
accuracy of climate models requires a one hundredfold increase in order to see the small amount of
warming.
“A doubling in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), predicted to take place in the next 50 to 100 years, is
expected to change the radiation balance at the surface by only about 2 percent. If a 2 percent change is
that important, then a climate model to be useful must be accurate to something like 0.25%. Thus
today’s models must be improved by about a hundredfold in accuracy, a very challenging task.”
A paper by Graeme Stephens et al. in Nature Geoscience also shows how hard it is to find global
warming. They reported the uncertainty in the earth’s warming imbalance as 0.6 watts per m2 ± 17
watts per m2. The enormously large uncertainty in this very small number means that it is difficult, if not
impossible, to observe. Just like NASA said it was!
Figure 6
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But how small is this imbalance? It’s only 0.06 percent of the 1,000 watts per m 2 of sunlight falling on
the earth’s surface at noon. Another interesting comparison is that 0.6 watts per m 2 is like a small AA
battery discharging over a few hours (see Figure 6). Consider this: Little batteries that turn on televisions
do not power hurricanes.
Small numbers with large error bars, combined with excessive averaging, is a recipe for ambiguous
results. The reaction to the temperature graph is a perfect example of how political motivations can
twist ambiguities into disagreements. Confusion is created by using temperature as if it were the same
as an anomaly, but somehow the temperature graph is misleading while the anomaly graph is not. What
is hidden is the fact that both graphs display no real temperature data.
Fortunately, unambiguous data is the cornerstone of scientific research. If independent researchers
cannot obtain the same answer, then there is something wrong with the data, the experiment, or both.
Speculations, theories, and hypotheses come and go in science, but good data lasts forever. That is why
catastrophic man-made global warming, like all consensus “science,” will eventually go the way of
phlogiston, spontaneous generation, and luminiferous ether.
NOTES:
1. Hansen et al. discusses using anomalies instead of actual temperatures, and there is some limited
information on errors. Hansen also complains about talk shows, politics, public perception, and the
news media on pages 20-23. Real Climate talks about temperature and anomalies and for additional
discussions go here, here, and here.
2. The graph in the tweet showed up in a WUWT comment here. Additional comments led to this site.
The graphs in Figures 1, 4, and 5 are in degrees Fahrenheit because that’s what the National Review
graph used.
3. The NASA GISS tabulated values were updated in the process of making the above graphs. A large
number of historical values were changed without explanation making the tabulated values a moving
target.
4. To create temperature anomalies NASA GISS takes real-world temperatures and subtracts a subjective
“best estimate for the global mean for 1951-1980,” which is calculated to be 14 degrees Celsius, or 52.7
degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature changes (ΔT) for both graphs are the same because one graph is
offset from the other by a constant 52.7 degrees F.
Don Shaw
5. The solar irradiance is for AM 1.5 (approximately 48.2 degrees zenith). A value of 3.9 watt hour (14
kilojoules maximum energy) is typical for 1.5 volt AA battery discharging at a 50 mA drain. (0.6 watts /
m2) x (6.5 hour) = 3.9 watt hour / m2.
ABOUT:
C. R. Dickson is a retired chemist and physicist with a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has worked for
Polaroid, Allied Chemical, RCA, and the Solarex Thin Film Division, a solar cell company formed as an RCA
technology spinoff. He also served as a scientific advisor to the United Nations Industrial Development
Organization in Vienna, Austria
Regards
George
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