Prop 23 and the Green Jobs Myth

Californians could protect a million or so jobs by overturning the state's self-imposed carbon dioxide limits

By T.J. RODGERS     WSJ.COM



I have an indelible memory of the one time I was on Rodeo Drive. There she was, a rotund matron dressed in a pink sequined jumpsuit, exiting a limousine and handing her three toy poodles to the doorman at an upscale shop specializing in $1,000 purses. It's a perfect metaphor for California's economy: We ignore the important, focus on the trivial, and spend way too much money in the process.



While our state government frets over issues like the disclosure of trans fat on restaurant menus and the habitat of the red-legged frog, our economy—the habitat of homo sapiens—is a disaster. Jobs and the companies that produce them are being pushed out of the state by excessive taxes and regulations. We have borrowed to the limit and at times have been forced to pay state employees and vendors with vouchers until more cash could be secured.



California, which once plowed through recessions, now has 12.4% unemployment, third worst in the nation. CEOs surveyed nationally by Chief Executive magazine recently rated California the worst state for business, for the fifth consecutive year. My company, Cypress Semiconductor, has recently stepped up its contributions of food and money—and even donated an extra warehouse building—so that San Jose's Second Harvest Food Bank can feed the swelling number of hungry people in Silicon Valley.



Californians have voted to avert economic disaster before. In 1967, we elected Ronald Reagan as governor. After improving our economy, he led the nation out of Carternomics. Then in 1978, we passed Proposition 13, which still limits property taxes to 1% of assessed value, a lifesaver today as our rapacious state government scrounges for revenue rather than cuts spending.



In a few days, we Californians have another chance to restore our competitiveness. We can elect as governor Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO, to make the structural changes necessary to stem the flow of jobs out of California. Or we can elect Jerry Brown, a recycled governor who took interim jobs as state attorney general and mayor of Oakland, where, under his administration, the public schools were taken over by the state for gross mismanagement. For U.S. senator we can elect either Barbara Boxer, another business-hostile veteran politician, or former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who understands the economic problems we face.



Most importantly, Californians have an opportunity to vote for Proposition 23, which will prevent implementation of the California law known as AB32. AB32 is yet another tax, this one on carbon dioxide, the substance that we exhale about 50,000 times per day, that comes from our cars when we drive to work, and from our Silicon Valley plants as we use power for our computers and air-conditioning. Pushed by dogmatic green politicians, the tax would put another burden on California companies that our Chinese and Korean competitors will not have to bear.



The basic premise of AB32 fails a grade-school math test. The latest EPA figures show that total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2007 were 5.98 gigatons, of which California contributed 0.40 gigatons. If California had held its carbon dioxide emissions to its 1990 level of 0.36 gigatons, as AB32 mandates by 2020, the 2007 U.S. carbon dioxide emission figure would have been 5.94 gigatons, rather than 5.98 gigatons. For this our state government has chosen to terminate the jobs of 1.1 million Californians (the impact estimated by the California Small Business Roundtable) on top of existing unemployment.



I know firsthand about green jobs. SunPower Corp., a company I chair and the second-largest U.S. producer of solar cells, has produced about 800 green jobs in California. But that's just a fraction of the 4,700 jobs lost when Toyota pulled the plug on its local Nummi automotive plant due to the high cost of doing business in California.



This is a common unintended consequence of so-called green economies. For example, a recent study by Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid showed that for every green job created in Spain, 2.2 jobs were lost at large. A similar Italian study showed an even worse result. Green jobs, because of the subsidies and regulations that surround them, are often overall economic losers. And there is no guarantee that new green jobs will even be domestic.



When Cypress acquired the 18-year-old, money-losing SunPower Corp. in 2003, I planned to make the company viable by shutting down its high-cost California solar cell factory and moving its manufacturing to the Philippines. One could say that I eventually exported 4,000 green jobs. Yet it's more accurate to say that SunPower created about 800 new American jobs that would not have existed without its offshore manufacturing capability.



After building its first and second manufacturing plants in the Philippines, SunPower chose to build its third in Malaysia. We never considered a California site due to high cost and red tape.



On Nov. 2, by supporting Prop. 23, Californians can prevent another job-killing tax.



Mr. Rodgers is the founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor.

Climate Fools Day in the UK Parliament a Success

email received from analytical chemist Hans Schreuder reporting the Climate Fools Day meeting in the UK Parliament was a great success. Perhaps a US version will occur in the US House of Representatives following the Nov. 2nd midterm elections.

The Climate Fools Day in London meeting was superb.



Will write a proper report on the event yet, when various video clips have been posted.



Attached two pics from the event. The room was nearly fully booked.



Lots of good contacts and a call for a monthly meeting at Parliament and for MPs to attend.



Wind energy in particular was demolished as the greatest waste of time and money. The momentum is building now.

Kind regards,

Hans Schreuder

http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/

Professor Don Easterbrook on The Looming Threat of Global Cooling

Professor of Geology Dr. Don Easterbrook's essay, The Looming Threat of Global Cooling, predicts on the basis of natural climate cycles such as the PDO that "global cooling for the next 2 to 3 decades will be far more damaging than global warming would have been." The paper also finds there were numerous, abrupt, short-lived warming and cooling episodes, much more intense than recent warming/cooling, during the last ice age, none of which could have been caused by changes in atmospheric CO2:

Climate Models Without a 'Greenhouse Effect'

Several posts have demonstrated that the Earth's climate can be physically described without any need to invent a 'greenhouse effect' caused by 'heat-trapping' 'greenhouse gases' that 'back-radiate' from the colder atmosphere to heat the hotter Earth surface in violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Five published Earth energy budgets which roughly agree and do not incorporate 'greenhouse gases' at all were shown in the post Earth Energy Budgets without Greenhouse Gases, including one from the NASA Langley Research Center. A peer-reviewed paper by Ozawa et al published in Reviews of Geophysics also develops an Earth energy budget and climate model that does not incorporate a 'greenhouse effect' from 'greenhouse gases.' This is in remarkable contrast to the Earth energy budget of Kevin Trenberth used by the IPCC, which claims that 'greenhouse gases' heat the Earth by 324 Wm-2 compared to only 168 Wm-2 directly from the Sun! Thus, we have at least 6 published Earth energy budgets stating the contribution to the Earth surface temperature from 'greenhouse gases' is zero, compared to the IPCC/Trenberth budget claiming 'greenhouse gases' heat the Earth almost twice as much as direct sunlight and in violation of the 2nd law. Kevin "missing heat" Trenberth's energy budget is indeed, in his own words, "a travesty." The reason Trenberth's budget has "missing heat" is because it never existed in the first place, since 'greenhouse gases' cannot provide added energy to warm the Earth; only the Sun and geothermal energy sources can add heat to the Earth's surface.

Ozawa et al Earth energy & entropy budgets

For fans of the real 2nd law of thermodynamics, see Fig. 3 in the paper which shows heat only flows one way from the hotter Earth to colder atmosphere. The paper discusses the 2nd law in the context of maximum entropy production, which also explains why the so-called 'fingerprint' of AGW - the "hot spot" - won't occur.



Reviews of Geophysics, 41, 4 / 1018 2003 doi:10.1029/2002RG000113



THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS AND THE GLOBAL CLIMATE SYSTEM: A REVIEW OF THE MAXIMUM ENTROPY PRODUCTION PRINCIPLE



Hisashi Ozawa, Atsumu Ohmura, Ralph D. Lorenz & Toni Pujol



Abstract: The long-term mean properties of the global climate system and those of turbulent fluid systems are reviewed from a thermodynamic viewpoint. Two general expressions are derived for a rate of entropy production due to thermal and viscous dissipation (turbulent dissipation) in a fluid system. It is shown with these expressions that maximum entropy production in the Earth's climate system suggested by Paltridge, as well as maximum transport properties of heat or momentum in a turbulent system suggested by Malkus and Busse, correspond to a state in which the rate of entropy production due to the turbulent dissipation is at a maximum. Entropy production due to absorption of solar radiation in the climate system is found to be irrelevant to the maximized properties associated with turbulence. The hypothesis of maximum entropy production also seems to be applicable to the planetary atmospheres of Mars and Titan and perhaps to mantle convection. Lorenz's conjecture on maximum generation of available potential energy is shown to be akin to this hypothesis with a few minor approximations. A possible mechanism by which turbulent fluid systems adjust themselves to the states of maximum entropy production is presented as a self-feedback mechanism for the generation of available potential energy. These results tend to support the hypothesis of maximum entropy production that underlies a wide variety of nonlinear fluid systems, including our planet as well as other planets and stars.

The Unseen Carbon Agenda: EPA wants to remove 7% of U.S. power generation

WSJ.COM  REVIEW & OUTLOOK OCTOBER 27, 2010



The Unseen Carbon Agenda



Anyone who cares about the U.S. economy is breathing easier now that cap and tax appears to be on the political garbage barge, but don't be so sure. The White House is still pursuing its carbon agenda through regulation, albeit with almost no public attention, and a new study shows the damage that is already being done.



Yesterday the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a highly regarded federal energy advisory body, released an exhaustive "special assessment" of this covert program. NERC estimates that the Environmental Protection Agency's pending electric utility regulations will subtract between 46 and 76 gigawatts of generating capacity from the U.S. grid by 2015. To put those numbers in perspective, the worst-case scenario would amount to a reduction of about 7.2% of national power generation, and almost all of it will hit coal-fired plants, the workhorse that supplies a little over half of U.S. electricity.



The EPA's battery of new rules is mostly obscure, ranging from traditional pollutants such as mercury and sulfur to new regulation of coal ash and even water intake structures, which power plants use to cool down equipment. NERC notes that the "pace and aggressiveness" of issuing so many new rules at once is unprecedented. Keep in mind, too, that these are conservative estimates and don't even include the EPA's looming carbon "endangerment" rules.



Supposedly all this is separate from greenhouse gases, but the White House and the EPA are clearly targeting fossil fuels and coal in particular to achieve via rule-making what even the Democratic 111th Congress has rejected as legislation. As much as a fifth of the perfectly functioning coal-fired fleet will be forced into early retirement, to be replaced with a largely more expensive energy mix, especially natural gas.



Some plants can be retrofit with new environmental controls like scrubbers, but this is nearly as costly as building new plants from scratch. And just as you can't replace an engine while heading down the highway at 75 mph, this will still require shut downs in the interim, for at least five years.



In a recent research note, Credit Suisse estimates that compliance will cost as much as $150 billion in capital investment by the end of the decade. All of this will flow through to rising electricity prices, which is the same as a tax increase on businesses and consumers.



NERC also warns of "deteriorating resource adequacy" and of the logistical reality that replacing or upgrading so much capacity so fast may lead to brownouts and shortages. The danger is greatest throughout the Midwest in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where the costs will also be concentrated.



The larger point is that instead of debating a carbon program on the merits, the Obama Administration is now trying to impose the same burden step by step on the sly. At this point, the only way voters can stop the EPA is to install a check in one of the other branches of government. Election Day is Tuesday.

Another paper on the Fallacy of the 'Greenhouse Effect'

Adding to the list of papers disproving conventional greenhouse theory, this paper by geophysicists Gerhard Kramm and Ralph Dlugi shows the 'greenhouse effect' is a fallacy based upon erroneous data and physical assumptions including a simplistic 'global average temperature'. Using realistic empirical data, the authors find that the atmospheric models utilized by the IPCC and Kiehl/Trenberth "do not provide evidence for the existence of the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect." Related and also recommended: a new chapter by professor Claes Johnson, Climate Thermodynamics, which also shows the 'greenhouse effect' to be a fallacy and that adding 'greenhouse gases' to the atmosphere does not cause warming.





On the meaning of feedback parameter, transient climate response, and the greenhouse effect: Basic considerations and the discussion of uncertainties

 

Gerhard Kramm, Ralph Dlugi



Abstract: In this paper we discuss the meaning of feedback parameter, greenhouse effect and transient climate response usually related to the globally averaged energy balance model of Schneider and Mass. After scrutinizing this model and the corresponding planetary radiation balance we state that (a) this globally averaged energy balance model is flawed by unsuitable physical considerations, (b) the planetary radiation balance for an Earth in the absence of an atmosphere is fraught by the inappropriate assumption of a uniform surface temperature, the so-called radiative equilibrium temperature of about 255 K, and (c) the effect of the radiative anthropogenic forcing, considered as a perturbation to the natural system, is much smaller than the uncertainty involved in the solution of the model of Schneider and Mass. This uncertainty is mainly related to the empirical constants suggested by various authors and used for predicting the emission of infrared radiation by the Earth's skin. Furthermore, after inserting the absorption of solar radiation by atmospheric constituents and the exchange of sensible and latent heat between the Earth and the atmosphere into the model of Schneider and Mass the surface temperatures become appreciably lesser than the radiative equilibrium temperature. Moreover, neither the model of Schneider and Mass nor the Dines-type two-layer energy balance model for the Earth-atmosphere system, both contain the planetary radiation balance for an Earth in the absence of an atmosphere as an asymptotic solution, do not provide evidence for the existence of the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect if realistic empirical data are used.

California could feel Spain's pain

This article from the Orange County Register is by Dr. Gabriel Calzada, professor of applied environmental economics in Spain and lead author of a 2009 study detailing the economic costs of Spain's experiment with the green economy.



Barring voter intervention, Californians will soon suffer under full-blown European-style energy policies. These include mandated greenhouse gas emission reductions of a sort achieved to date only through economic collapse, and fantastic mandates for renewable energy that so far have caused economic hardship elsewhere.



Oddly, despite these policies having been tried throughout Western Europe at great cost and for no discernible environmental benefit, Californians are told their laws are the "world's first".



It is not because policies similar to those in Assembly Bill 32 have yet to be tried that you hear no shining examples of their success. The "world's first" pretense is likely employed to avoid discussing the harm the policies have already caused elsewhere.



A similarly odd phrase, "California must be a leader," is now invoked against Proposition 23, the Nov. 2 ballot measure to delay these policies until the state's economy significantly recovers.



Yet while promoting similar steps at the national level, President Barack Obama had serially directed Americans to examine several European experiments in orchestrating the "green economy." Chief among his examples was Spain. Whether or not related to what I and two other researchers found after taking this advice, Mr. Obama no longer directs Americans to gaze at our economic wonder.



In Spain we found that the economy, in fact, lost a net 2.2 jobs for every "green job" the state claimed credit for, just in an opportunity cost. That is, the private sector creates jobs much more efficiently than the state – less expensively and dedicated to produce goods and services that people really demand. We found the private section would have created that many more "real" jobs had the money not been removed and put toward politically divined ends. Think "stimulus jobs."



A Power Point presentation leaked from the Spain's socialist Zapatero government earlier this year actually suggests that the loss in terms of jobs is currently even higher.



In Spain we also found that green jobs mostly (9 out of 10) were temporary. That is, they are principally installation jobs. In Italy, researchers found that 4.8 jobs were lost for each green job created.





In Germany – another example frequently cited by Mr. Obama – researchers with the state-funded think tank RWI-Essen concluded that "Germany's promotion of renewable energies is ... a cautionary tale of massively expensive environmental and energy policy that is devoid of economic and environmental benefits."



Therefore, the claims that green-economy policies will create jobs are at once inherently true and patently false. They are true in that, of course, any time the state mandates that something be done, someone must be employed to do it.



Assume a state mandates a certain percentage of electricity come from particular sources – say, windmills, or running on treadmills – or transportation be of a certain variety – hybrid vehicles, or horse-drawn. No one disputes that this will create jobs in the windmill/treadmill installation and buggy-whip industries.



On net, however, green-economy mandates are job killers. In addition to jobs lost through opportunity cost, jobs are lost from the tougher economic environment for manufacturing in places with green-energy mandates. These make energy prices "necessarily skyrocket," to quote President Obama about cap and trade. For California, this would culminate years of creeping, heavy-handed mandates mimicking Europe.



For example, at least one European steel maker, Spain's Acerinox, exported its growth to South Africa, and to Kentucky, where it added 175 manufacturing jobs because, according to its then-CEO, it was uneconomic to invest in manufacturing facilities under the cap-and-trade, renewable energy mandates and other green economy schemes Spain adopted.



Rather unlike Europe, however, Californians are engaged in a debate over whether to re-take control of policies that many feel their political class has demonstrated an inability to handle responsibly. While opponents of this want to focus attention on the identity of employers who support Prop. 23, what are their own interests? Do their obvious financial stakes not indicate they stand to benefit from the very predictable outcome of AB32? When the state robs Peter to pay Paul, it can count on Paul's enthusiastic support. That is surely the case here.



With this referendum California's voters have a privilege not available to those in other areas subjected to the state-imposed green economy. The outcome is now up to them. But it should be determined on the basis of facts, not misleading talking points. And the facts are pretty clear of how these policies have worked out where they have been tried.



Related: article from the Wall Street Journal: Clean Jobs, Expensive Jobs



The "green economy" is supposed to be a win-win situation, as massive subsidies for renewable energy sources and other "clean" technologies would help both the environment and the economic recovery. The facts on the ground tell a different story, though. In Italy, for example, we calculated that each green job comes at the expense of 4.8 "dirty" jobs. That's an awful lot of waste for a movement that's meant to be all about efficient resource use.



Understanding the costs and benefits of ecological policies is particularly relevant for Italy, a country that already paid more than its share of offerings to the church of environmentalism when it shut off its four nuclear plants after a referendum in 1987. So before more public monies are doled out for measures to supposedly save the planet as part of the European Union climate deal, let's look at the consequences.



To this end we developed a study to evaluate the effectiveness of green subsidies in job creation. The question we tried to answer is: If the resources currently invested to promote renewable energy were invested in other economic sectors, would more or fewer people have work?



What's often ignored is that the creation of green jobs through subsidies and regulation inherently leads to the destruction of job opportunities in other industries. That's because any resource forcibly taken out of one sector and politically allocated in favor of renewable energy cannot be invested elsewhere. In our country, green energies are subsidized through a premium that every electricity consumer pays on his electricity bill (about 4.3% of the average bill). That helps to make Italy's electricity costs among the most expensive in Europe. In particular, big industrial consumers pay the most for electricity in Europe (at least 25% above the EU average in 2008, according to Italy's energy regulator).



In order to assess the net balance on Italian employment, we have estimated the number of green jobs expected to be created by the subsidies that have already been granted or committed. To do so, we have assumed that, by 2020, Italy will reach its "maximum potential" for wind and photovoltaic power, as defined by the Italian government in 2007, when Green Party leader Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio was also Italy's environment minister. Using what we see as inflated estimates, from various sources, of already-existing green jobs, we take between 9,000 and 26,000 jobs in wind power, and between 5,500 and 14,500 in photovoltaic energy, as our starting point. From there, we have calculated that thanks to the subsidies Rome has promised, the number of people working in the green economy will rise to an aggregate total of between 50,000 to 112,000 by 2020. However, most of those jobs—at least 60%—will be for installers or other temporary work that will disappear once a photovoltaic panel, or a wind tower, is operative.



Italy's public cost for such subsidized jobs will peak at around €6 billion per year in 2020, an amount that we acknowledge may be slightly overstated because we didn't consider an already announced but unspecified reduction of the feed-in tariff for photovoltaic power. Alas, it is consistent with the estimates from Italy's energy regulator, which foresees that all green energy subsidies (of which wind and solar remain the most important) will account for about €7 billion per year in 2020.



Finally, we have calculated the aggregate amount of public money that will be spent on wind and solar power until 2035 and 2040, when the last green certificate for wind power and the feed-in tariff for photovoltaic power, respectively, will expire for the capacity installed in 2020. Between 2000 and 2040, all subsidies for wind and solar power will come to roughly €63.6 billion. That allowed us to calculate that consumers will be forced to spend, on average, between €566,000 to €1.26 million per green job. This compares to the average "stock of capital," or cost per job, of €112,500 in the industrial sector and €163,200 in the whole economy, according to the Italian Institute of Statistics.



So one green job costs on average as much 4.8 jobs in the entire economy, or 6.9 jobs in the industrial sector. The same amount of subsidies that have already been given or committed could produce nearly five times as many jobs if allowed to be spent by the private sector elsewhere in the economy.



Our results are largely consistent with the evidence provided by Professor Gabriel Calzada of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, who found that in Spain, one green job costs on average as much as 2.2 "dirty" jobs. The reason why the Italian figure is more than twice as high is mostly because Italy, unlike Spain, is technology importer, not a producer.



Our figures only seem to confirm what is intuitive: That the green economy may be very profitable for those who receive the subsidies, but that they are detrimental to the overall economy. Environmentalists and politicians keep speaking about the supposed "double dividend" of renewable energy. Subsidizing green sources may or may not deliver an environmental benefit, but our study suggests that if there is a payoff, it doesn't come for free.



Mr. Lavecchia is fellow of Istituto Bruno Leoni, an Italian think tank. Mr. Stagnaro is research and studies director of Istituto Bruno Leoni.

Climate Activists learn their 'solutions' are absurd

What Have Climate Activists Learned?

Bjørn Lomborg, 2010-10-12



COPENHAGEN – Advocates of drastic cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions now speak a lot less than they once did about climate change. Climate campaigners changed their approach after the collapse of the Copenhagen climate-change summit last December and the revelation of mistakes in the United Nations climate panel’s work – as well as in response to growing public skepticism and declining interest.



Although some activists still rely on scare tactics – witness the launch of an advertisement depicting the bombing of anybody who is hesitant to embrace carbon cuts – many activists now spend more time highlighting the “benefits” of their policy prescription. They no longer dwell on impending climate doom, but on the economic windfall that will result from embracing the “green” economy.



You can find examples all over the world, but one of the best is in my home country, Denmark, where a government-appointed committee of academics recently presented their suggestions for how the country could go it alone and become “fossil fuel-free” in 40 years. The goal is breathtaking: more than 80% of Denmark’s energy supply comes from fossil fuels, which are dramatically cheaper and more reliable than any green energy source.



I attended the committee’s launch and was startled that the “Climate Commission” barely mentioned climate change. This omission is understandable, since one country acting alone cannot do much to stop global warming. If Denmark were indeed to become 100% fossil-free by 2050, and remain so for the rest of the century, the effect, by 2100, would be to delay the rise in average global temperature by just two weeks.



Instead of focusing on climate change, the Climate Commission hyped the benefits that Denmark would experience if it led the shift to green energy. Unfortunately, on inspection these benefits turn out to be illusory.



Being a pioneer is hardly a guarantee of riches. Germany led the world in putting up solar panels, funded by €47 billion in subsidies. The lasting legacy is a massive bill, and lots of inefficient solar technology sitting on rooftops throughout a fairly cloudy country, delivering a trivial 0.1% of its total energy supply.



Denmark itself has also already tried being a green-energy innovator – it led the world in embracing wind power. The results are hardly inspiring. Denmark’s wind industry is almost completely dependent on taxpayer subsidies, and Danes pay the highest electricity rates of any industrialized nation. Several studies suggest that claims that one-fifth of Denmark’s electricity demand is met by wind are an exaggeration, in part because much of the power is produced when there is no demand and must be sold to other countries.



The sorry state of wind and solar power shows the massive challenge that we face in trying to make today’s technology competitive and efficient. Direct-current lines need to be constructed to carry solar and wind energy from sunny, windy areas to where most people live. Storage mechanisms need to be invented so that power is not interrupted whenever there is no sunshine or wind.



Proponents of carbon cuts argue that green-energy technologies only seem more expensive, because the price of fossil fuels does not reflect the cost of their impact on the climate. But allowing for this would make little difference. The most comprehensive economic meta-study shows that total future climate impacts would justify a tax of around €0.01 per liter of petrol ($0.06 per gallon in the United States) – an amount dwarfed by the taxes already imposed by most European countries.



Despite the fact that changing from fossil fuels to green energy requires a total economic transformation, Denmark’s Climate Commission claimed that the price tag would be next to nothing. The Commission reached this conclusion by assuming that the cost of not embracing its recommended policy would be massive.



The Commission believes that over the next four decades, fossil-fuel costs will climb sharply, because sources will dry up and governments will place massive taxes on fossil fuels. But this flies in the face of most evidence. There is clearly plenty of cheap coal for hundreds of years, and with new cracking technology, gas is becoming more abundant. Even oil supplies are likely to be significantly boosted by non-conventional sources like tar sands.



By the same token, the prediction that governments will impose massive carbon taxes has little basis in reality. Such assumptions seem like a poor framework on which to build significant public policy, and seem to ignore the substantial cost of eliminating fossil fuels, which is likely to amount to at least 5% of GDP per year.



The shift away from fossil fuels will not be easy. Policymakers must prioritize investment in green-energy research and development. Trying to force carbon cuts instead of investing first in research puts the cart before the horse. Breakthroughs do not result automatically from a combination of taxes on fossil fuels and subsidies for present-day green energy: despite the massive outlays associated with the Kyoto Protocol, participating countries’ investment in R&D as a percentage of GDP did not increase.



The change in message after the disaster of the Copenhagen summit was probably inevitable. But the real change that is needed is the realization that drastic, early carbon cuts are a poor response to global warming – no matter how they are packaged.



Bjørn Lomborg is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It, director of the think-tank the Copenhagen Consensus Center, and adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School.

Environmental Coalition: Biofuels result in higher emissions than fossil fuels

Bioenergy’s Carbon Neutrality Dismissed by Coalition of NGOs

October 20, 2010 by Antonio Pasolini



A coalition of environmental organizations has warned that bioenergy is far from being carbon neutral and that related carbon accounting systems currently in place are deceptive.



According to Ecosystems Climate Alliance, an alliance of NGOs committed to “keeping natural terrestrial ecosystems intact and their carbon out of the atmosphere”, zero-emission bioenergy is a myth. It blames the loopholes in LULUCF’s (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) accounting rules for the misconception. The organization made an announcement on the subject on the occasion of the Tianjin Climate Change Negotiations, which took place between 4 and 9 October 2010.



ECA says the LULUCF is ‘arcane’ and cryptic. It adds that developed countries at the Tianjin meeting, led by the EU, tried to manipulate the way emission targets are projected and reported to spur biofuel growth and hide its environmental cost. Countries with renewable energy targets allow biomass burners to stay out of emissions accounting, backed by the “deceptive assumption that prior sequestration is sufficient to neutralize the problem”, and give them generous financial incentives for generating “green energy”. This way they act as serious competition for real renewables like wind and solar, which have much higher unit cost of production.



The fact that emissions from logging and burning of biomass are left out of Kyoto Protocol accounting systems, ECA says, creates an “attractive but misleading way for industrialized countries to appear to be achieving their national emissions reduction targets under the Protocol through substituting bioenergy for fossil fuels. In reality, such substitution results in higher emissions than those from fossil fuel for the same amount of useable energy.”



“One of problems we face in trying to get the broader public, climate change and energy decision-makers to appreciate just how perverse it is to burn biofuels. Firstly, it's counter-intuitive - most people just tend to think about growing an agricultural crop and then processing and burning it where all those familiar notions of the renewability of growing vegetables on a patch of ground make it seem 'mostly harmless'” says Alistair Graham, of the Humane Society International, one of ECA’s partners.



CO2 is emitted when natural gas is extracted and wood is extracted from forests because a substantial proportion of the wood is unrecoverable (such as branches, roots and rot). This problem is worse in wet old growth and pristine forest where logging is followed by burning.



“The debate rarely dwells upon the almost inevitable fact that that patch of ground would have grown vegetation anyway - whether as agriculture, forestry or a natural ecosystem - that's just what naturally happens”, Alistair says. “So the growing of biomass is not 'additional' - the vegetation growth would have happened anyway. This argument does seem to be getting some traction in the guise of concern over the displacement of cropland away from growing food - especially food security issues in developing countries, subsistence communities.”



Besides emissions, ECA also highlights transport and storage problems associated with biomass, which requires massive infrastructure. This is one of the reasons wood is favoured over agricultural crops for pulp and paper production. The wood is stored ‘on the hoof’ in the forest and cut when needed. It also explains why agricultural crops are more commonly converted into liquid fuels, as these require less storage space.



“People do not appreciate how effective natural ecosystems are at storing carbon” says Alistair. “Some critics - usually those with vested interests in alternatives - are wont to assert that soil/peat carbon is less securely stored out of the atmosphere than fossil carbon. If left alone or managed carefully, natural vegetation is very good at maintaining itself and its soils for millennia, where climate change itself is the only thing that perturbs things - especially ice ages.”

Physicist: Global Warming 1980-2008 caused by Sun, not Man

Dr. Horst Borchert, the Director of the Department of Physics of the Johannes-Gutenberg Institute, Mainz, Germany, presented a paper, Using Satellite Measurements to study the Influence of Sun Activity on Terrestrial Weather at the Space Weather Workshop held in Boulder, Colorado earlier this year. Dr. Borchert finds from satellite measurements that global warming between about 1980 to 2008 was "not anthropogenic but caused by natural activities of the Sun’s surface." He relates changes of the solar magnetic field to cosmic rays and cloud formation (the cosmic ray theory of Svensmark et al) and to effects on the North Atlantic Oscillation, which affects weather phenomena around the globe.

Author: Horst Borchert



Using Satellite Measurements to study the Influence of Sun Activity on Terrestrial Weather



Abstract: The time rows of Terrestrial Climate Components (TCC) since the Eighties have shown some strong Influences by Extraterrestrial Components with the beginning of the 22. Sunspot period. Therefore the increase of ground near temperature on earth and oceans (2 –3 m above ground), called Global Temperature, during the warming period between about 1980 and 2008 seems to be not anthropogenic but caused by natural activities of Sun’s surface.

 

Some Extraterrestrial Components (EC) can be destined by measurements on the earth’s surface directly or indirectly: (a) The Reduction of Cosmic Rays by the magnetic fields of the sun-winds (Forbush-Reduction) by measuring the neutrons, which are secondary particles (Höhenstrahlung) of Cosmic Rays, and (b) the influence of the sun-winds on earths weather system by calculating the Sun-Wind-Index (SWI) from the difference of magnetic field in antipodal Stations.

Winter NAO Index

The link between TCC and EC is the “Svensmark – Effect”. It describes the formation of terrestrial clouds by the secondary particles of Cosmic Rays (Similar to Wilson’s Fog Chamber 1911). This effect modulates the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAO). It can be shown by using measured data, that the secondary particles of cosmic rays are controlling the NAO and therefore the weather in the Northern Hemisphere especially very strong since 1975. GOES – Satellites, geostationary stationed at about 35,800 km (22,300 miles) in equatorial plane above earth, measure the components of Sun-Wind that earth is exposed. These components are Flares, protons, alphas, electrons and magnetic fields. By correlating these extraterrestrial as well as terrestrial components, one can determine the strength and impact of sun’s activity on the weather on the earth. Applying this method by using the by NOAA published Data it will be explained that the warming period on earth, that started about 1980 and seems to be ending about 2010, in deed was caused and modulated by sun’s activity: Since 1975 GOES Satellites measured increasing strong flux of solar protons, which penetrated earths magnetic field and influenced the stratospheric O3 layer. Especially in 1989 the components of sun-winds caused strong disturbances of electricity and telemetric networks in the Northern Hemisphere. The magnetic fields reduced the Intensity of Cosmic Rays (Forbush Reduction) in this year partly of about 30% at 56 ° N (Moskau). From 1980 to 2009 Cosmic Rays and Cloudiness, which are delayed about 10 to 12 month, correlated with K~0,8 (Svensmark-Effect). The NAO correlates with Cosmic Rays (K~0,7) and confirms these connections between extraterrestrial and terrestrial components. That leaded finally since 1990 to increasing Sunshine-Duration of about 0,5 h/d and global rays of about 10 W/m2 in yearly averages around 50° N (Mainz) in Central Europe during this warming period. The ground near temperature increases of about 0,9 +-2 °C of the Yearly Averages. The Global Temperature increased since about 1980 more continuously to about 0,6 °C in 2006. With the end of sun’s activity in December 2006 (Sunspot Nr. 930 with “sun-tsunami”) the increase of ground near Temperature ended and weather started to become colder again in winter 2009 to 2010 in Europe and USA. Even the Sun-Wind-Index confirmed these development, it decreased very quick to values beneath 10 nTesla, which was never found since 1910, when it was very cold.

That means, that Measurements of sun wind components by Satellites like GOES help to understand and to forecast terrestrial weather development.



10. März 2010

1) Physikdirector a.D. Diplom-Physiker Dr. Horst Borchert

Geographical Institute of Johannes-Gutenberg Institute; Westring 159, 55120 Mainz

T.: 49 6131 683516, E: bcht01@aol.com, www.umad.de

The fallacy of the greenhouse effect

A recommended post from the planetary vision blog, The fallacy of the greenhouse effect, explains in simple terms why the conventional explanation of the "greenhouse effect" violates both the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics:

An object can warm through the absorption of electromagnetic radiation (EMR). However, an object passively warmed can't warm the object providing the warmth. Were this to be so energy could be multiplied for no extra input merely by having objects mutually radiate EMR. But there is no such temperature multiplication because the amount mutually exchanged cancels. It does not add as is required by greenhouse theory.

The reason that an object can be heated by EMR on earth by the sun is because the sun is warmer than the earth.  The idea of the greenhouse effect is that the cooler, upper layers of air are able to warm a warmer ground by backradiation. But this can not happen.

Greenhouse theory would even require that the backradiation from the earth to the sun warms the sun by a small (if practically imperceptible) amount. This is impossible too because a cooler object can not warm a warmer one unless work is done.  But greenhouse gas, not having an energy source, can not provide this work nor can the earth provide work to the sun.

200-plus years of thermal study must be thrown out the window if we are to believe that EMR from a colder object can warm a warmer one. If that were the case energy could be made from nothing merely by bringing two objects together mutually radiating EMR (such as the air and ground) such as the following examples show.







Let object A represent a warmer object radiating to an infinite heat sink C maintained at absolute zero.  Object B is introduced into its field of radiation and so is warmed:

Object B comes up to equilibrium temperature.    Now it has its own radiation and object A is subject to more radiation than it was before (which was zero).  If the cooler object B can warm the warmer object A through backradiation then object A will heat to a higher temperature than before for free merely because object B is passively warmed.







Object A and B now radiate more energy to the universe then when A was by itself merely by B's presence. This is clearly not possible.







Now to carry it further let the sphere B be replaced by many such spheres B on one side of A.  They all radiate as much EMR as the original object B. With eight spheres the energy is multiplied eightfold according to greenhouse theory:

Object A is eight times as warmed by backradiation as it was when there was only one sphere B.  In the case of the atmosphere this is the equivalent of putting more greenhouse gas "energy absorbers" in the atmosphere.







Now let the EMR blocking coverage continue from eight spheres B to a hemispherical shell B.  This is a cross-section through B:

Now half the radiation of A is blocked by B.   According to greenhouse theory half of this half will be radiated back to object A thus warming it.  Object A now emits 100% +  25% now re-radiated back by the hemisphere B.  An extra 25% energy gain for free!







Let the hemispherical shell B become a fully enclosing spherical shell B:

According to greenhouse theory as much of the amount emitted outside of shell B will be emitted inside.  But what happens to the amount emitted inside?  Does it add to the energy?  According to greenhouse theory yes, but how can it?  Only the amount emitted to the outside of the system is relevant.









(The outside shell B must radiate a total amount which was equal to A's original output.  Being at a larger radius it will have a lower emission temperature.  Effectively the shell B is a red shifter of the EMR spectrum.  Yet the amount of energy emitted in total will be the same.)









If adding shells as greenhouse blockers could work as an energy multiplier then Willis Eschenbach's steel greenhouse model would work.  Many commenters on that thread in defence of the greenhouse effect objected to its preposterousness but it is not warranted because the model is an accurate representation of the greenhouse effect; it's just that the greenhouse effect is preposterous.







For me the resolution to the paradox is to view heat energy like a stream that only flows downhill, from warmer to cooler, despite the presence of backradiation.

An ordinary, human blanket creates warming by blocking convection not by "backradiation". An emergency aluminium foil blanket warms by a high reflectivity/low emissivity, not by absorption and re-emission.







In the case of the earth the only way that a chemical can alter temperature is by a lowered emissivity.  But greenhouse gases being good absorbers are also good emitters as per Kirchhoff's law.

An empirical example of how a cooler object can not warm a warmer object can be seen in the operation of a vacuum furnace.

go to SOURCE for rest

CO2 and the Climate: An Engineer’s Point of View

English translation of an essay from ParisTech Review, a Journal of ParisTech, a research and higher education cluster of excellence composed of twelve French Grandes Ecoles (Engineering and Business Schools) that cover a sweeping spectrum in science, technology and management.



Christian Gérondeau / Engineer / October 15th, 2010



Rarely has a debate preoccupied the media and public opinion as much as the one that is raging today on climate change and the possible impact of human activities.



Climatologists themselves are divided into two warring factions. The majority seems to be aligned with the “official” camp, which supports a point of view that can be summarized in four points:



- The temperature of the Earth is rising and will continue to do so in a dangerous way

- Human activities and more specifically carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are the root cause of the phenomenon

- Action thus needs to be taken to control and reduce CO2 emissions

- There are means to achieve this and they must be implemented as soon as possible to “save the planet”



But other climatologists, who are increasingly making themselves heard, are challenging the very foundations of this reasoning. They argue that variations in the climate have always existed, and that there is no evidence that human activities, particularly CO2 emissions, have a significant influence on its evolution or average global temperature.



Without being a climatologist—and there are very few in the world—is it possible to have an opinion? Faced with the difficulty of the subject and the scope of the controversy, it is tempting to say no. This article will try to show that it is not the case, and that a rational approach—which could be qualified as that of an engineer, i.e., based on facts—leads to a number of conclusions that are hard to dispute and shines new light on this complex topic.

Rather than enter the debate between climatologists about climate change and the possible role of human activities in this respect, this article proposes to look at the problem upside down, starting with a simple question: How much room for maneuver do we have with regard to CO2 emissions? Can we do anything about them?



Instinct leads us to respond positively. When we turn off the lights upon leaving a room, when we buy a car that uses less fuel, or when we insulate our homes, we reduce our energy consumption and thereby our carbon emissions. It is the same when a factory or power plant is modernized to improve its energy efficiency.



Intuitively, we therefore feel that it is possible to act on CO2 emissions and to reduce them at individual, country, and consequently global level.



However, instinct is sometimes misleading, as shown by an alternative approach. This involves first of all going over some basic facts about the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere. We know with a fair degree of accuracy through various observation posts located in Hawaii in particular, that in the early 20th century, the Earth’s atmosphere contained approximately two trillion tons of CO2. The figure may seem impressive, but it corresponds to a very low concentration of 280 parts per million (ppm).



Then, throughout the 20th century, the exploitation of coal, oil, and natural gas produced massive CO2 emissions, increasing the amount now present in the atmosphere to 2,800 billion tons, corresponding to 380 ppm. There are other sources of greenhouse gas emissions, but it is the use of hydrocarbons that is by far the most significant.



And the trend continues as worldwide emissions now stand at 30 billion tons per year, of which 15 billion are added to the existing concentration, and the other half are absorbed by oceans and vegetation.



Is it thus possible to reduce the corresponding emissions, as asked by climate change theory protagonists and as instinct leads us to believe?



The answer could be yes if the Earth had unlimited supplies of oil, natural gas, and coal. But everyone knows that is not the case, which leads us to ask the question differently: Is it realistic to think that mankind will leave all or part of the hydrocarbons lying under the Earth’s surface untouched?



Clearly, the answer is no. Hydrocarbons are far too precious to be left unexplored until the last drop of oil, the last cubic meter of natural gas, and even the last ton of economically viable coal have been attained. In other words, it is the quantities of hydrocarbons still present in the depths of the Earth that will determine the volume of CO2 that we emit into the atmosphere, and nothing else.



The only thing that would be possible is to spread the waste over time. But comparing the flow—15 billion tons per year—and the current concentration—soon 3,000 billion tons—shows that this would have no visible effect. Also, it is a perfectly theoretical hypothesis given that it would involve substantial spending for such a poor result. This is even less conceivable since the majority of emissions now come from emerging countries that lack the necessary financial means to ebb them and have other priorities.



As for the capture and sequestration techniques designed to bury CO2 produced in power plants or heavy industrial facilities underground, they are not yet developed. And, even more importantly, they are far too expensive to be realistic solutions. The estimated cost is at least $50 per sequestered ton, to be weighed against the 30 billion tons emitted each year and which are rapidly increasing.



From the moment we assume that deposits will be exhausted one day, and that almost all oil, natural gas, and coal remaining in the depths of the Earth will give rise to CO2 emissions, it is possible to estimate their total volume from simple data.



According to the noted authority (BP Statistical Review of World Energy), proven hydrocarbon reserves stand at 40 years for oil, 60 for natural gas, and 120 for coal at current consumption rates. We also know that the combustion of oil currently generates 11 billion tons of CO2 per year, that of natural gas 6 billion, and that of coal 13 billion. A simple calculation then shows that the combustion of proven hydrocarbon reserves will give rise to emissions totaling nearly 2.4 trillion tons of CO2.



However, two factors must be taken into account. As everyone knows, today’s proven reserves are much lower than those that will actually be usable. The recent discovery of new techniques to exploit shale gas once again highlights this. Conversely, we realized that the quantity of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere every year was twice what we thought.



It is obviously impossible to know which of these two factors will prevail, but we can draw one conclusion for sure. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, currently 2.8 trillion tons, will continue to grow considerably in the decades to come. It could double during this century and there’s nothing we can do about it. This does not imply, however, that we are necessarily courting disaster.



During the time of the dinosaurs, concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere were five times higher than what they are today, and yet life flourished on Earth. As will be shown at the end of this article, it is thus justified to question the doomsday theories that loom over our heads.



The failure of the Copenhagen Summit last December was inevitable. The purpose was to reduce global CO2 emissions and even to halve them by 2050. This was an unattainable goal, not due to lack of political will as has been proclaimed, but to purely physical reasons.



China will increase its emissions by more than half by 2020. It is continuously building one or two coal fired power plants (1000 megawatts) each week, and its fleet of cars and trucks will triple again by 2020. After becoming the world’s leading manufacturer of trucks, cars, and ships, it can also boast of an aviation industry. Is all this being done with the intention of leaving plants unused, vehicles in the garage, and planes grounded?



When one realizes that China builds 5,000 km of highways every year, that Beijing is completing its seventh beltway, and that only 300 million out of 1.4 billion Chinese now have access to a “Western” standard of living, it is understandable why the Chinese President has said that his country will not sign any commitment in Copenhagen—be it a reduction of domestic or global emissions.



The four billion inhabitants of India, Brazil, Indonesia, and the rest of the emerging world are following the same path. As a result of projects currently in progress, seen as the way out of poverty, their emissions will also increase at a very rapid pace over the decades to come. Four hundred million Indians still lack access to electricity. How could they reduce emissions that they don’t even produce? India, like China, has vast deposits of economically accessible coal because of the existence of abundant and cheap labor. We must look at reality. For them, this is the only way to produce electricity for which they have a great need at an affordable cost.



Despite Barack Obama’s speeches, the United States can only reduce its emissions marginally (4% as compared to 1990 at best!). American homes are twice as large as European ones, the distances to cover twice as long, and the country needs coal to make half of its electricity. As for the climate, everyone knows it is continental. Without air conditioning, the southern half of the United States would be uninhabitable. In contrast, Chicago is known to experience cold waves with temperatures dipping to around minus 27 degrees Fahrenheit. It is not surprising therefore that the potential for energy saving is limited, although not totally absent.



Finally, with one eighth of global emissions, Europe cannot do anything meaningful. Even if it were to eliminate all emissions, the impact would be minimal at the global level and quickly made up elsewhere. Who could imagine for a moment that mankind would leave the Earth’s oil, natural gas, and even coal deposits untouched? Everyone knows that they will be exhausted one day. What is not consumed by some will be consumed by others!



Efforts to reduce European CO2 emissions are as ruinous as they are futile and constitute a serious handicap in worldwide competition.



The only way to diminish CO2 emissions around the globe would be to definitively eliminate or at least reduce the extraction of oil, natural gas, or coal, which produces most of them. Who could believe it? Mankind has never drilled so many oil wells, built so many pipelines, and opened so many coal mines.



It is therefore necessary to face the facts: the objective of reducing worldwide emissions is unattainable and the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will continue to grow rapidly, leaving room for only two hypotheses.



If United Nations officials in charge of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are right, the world is heading towards disaster: uncontrolled global warming, rising oceans, famines, and mass migrations of populations. Fortunately, several observations lead us to question the veracity of their claims.



First of all, contrary to their assertions, there is no unanimity in the academic community. In all countries of the world, there are countless scientists who claim that the role of CO2 in climate change has yet to be proven. In the United States, over 30,000 scientists, including leading climatologists, have signed a petition (Oregon Petition) saying that global warming does not exist. To deny that there is a debate is thus untrue and casts a doubt on the intellectual honesty of those who claim peremptorily that “the debate is closed” and vilifies those who disagree with their assertions.



It has to be known that the first president of the IPCC, John Houghton, was quoted on taking office, as saying: “If we do not announce disasters, no one will listen.” This sheds a disturbing light on two major arguments put forward by current IPCC leaders to influence public opinion and the views of world leaders.



The first argument recently made headlines. All of Asia was traumatized when IPCC officials proclaimed from the rooftops in 2007 that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035, if not before. It must be noted that these are the main source of water and thus of life for billions of people in the region. Concerned governments got scared and started considering the construction of dams to prevent this supposed threat. It was only earlier this year that the IPCC had to recognize that the date 2035 was not based on anything, and that it had been taken from a non-scientific publication of an environmental NGO, and which besides, spoke of 2350 and not 2035. So a mere typo led IPCC officials to run all over Asia predicting an impending disaster!



The approach is the same for the rising sea level. In a syndicated article picked up by the world press in June 2009, the IPCC Chairman, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, declared: “The mega-deltas where cities like Shanghai, Calcutta, and Dhaka are located are extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels … ” raising the worst fears for entire regions of the world. But it’s enough to look at the numbers to see that this is an assertion that does not withstand analysis for one second.



According to official data, average sea level rose by 18 centimeters during the 20th century (i.e., less than two centimeters per decade) and the first 10 years of the 21st century show no accelerating trend. The average forecasts of the IPCC for the current century report an increase of 30 centimeters, or three centimeters per decade.



Evidence suggests that such rough estimates cannot result in any significant consequence. We are victims of an illusion. No land has an altitude of zero. Even the lowest cities are located several meters above sea level.



Studies conducted by the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique), an official French organization, have shown that the slope of the ground averaged 1% at the border between the land and the sea. A rise in sea level of three centimeters will have the sole outcome of pushing back the shore by an average of three meters, with no effect at all in areas with dams or docks or which are simply rocky. We must listen to reason. Invoking the possibility of the demise of cities and entire regions due to rising sea levels is inane, unless centimeters and meters are being confused, just as 2035 has been mistaken for 2350.



Therefore, we can hope that the world will not end tomorrow. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like a likely scenario.

Global Warming Propagandist Slapped Down

Financial Post, 15 October 2010 by Lawrence Soloman

William Connolley, arguably the world’s most influential global warming advocate after Al Gore, has lost his bully pulpit. Connolley did not wield his influence by the quality of his research or the force of his argument but through his administrative position at Wikipedia, the most popular reference source on the planet.

Through his position, Connolley for years kept dissenting views on global warming out of Wikipedia, allowing only those that promoted the view that global warming represented a threat to mankind. As a result, Wikipedia became a leading source of global warming propaganda, with Connolley its chief propagandist.

His career as a global warming propagandist has now been stopped, following a unanimous verdict that came down today through an arbitration proceeding conducted by Wikipedia. In the decision, a slap-down for the once-powerful Connolley by his peers, he has been barred from participating in any article, discussion or forum dealing with global warming. In addition, because he rewrote biographies of scientists and others he disagreed with, to either belittle their accomplishments or make them appear to be frauds, Wikipedia barred him — again unanimously — from editing biographies of those in the climate change field.

I have written several columns for the National Post on Connolley’s role as a propagandist. Two of them appear here and here.

Financial Post, 15 October 2010

EPA sued by over 90 entities for 'Greenhouse' Gas Regulations

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration's move to curb 'greenhouse gases' using the Environmental Protection Agency has drawn legal challenges from more than 90 companies and trade associations. This could be very interesting since any of these legal challenges conceivably might result in subpoenas issued for infamous warmists such as James Hansen and Michael Mann, forcing them to provide documents and prove their flimsy AGW theory under cross-examination in a court of law. Here's what happened when James Hansen was 'boxed in' on the witness stand once before,  dumbfounded when cross-examined and asked to name just one other scientist who agreed with his assertion that sea levels would rise more than 1 meter this century, stating "I could not, instantly."



Dr. Roy Spencer appears well prepared as an expert witness for the plantiffs.



THE WALL STREET JOURNAL OCTOBER 9, 2010



Carbon Curbs by EPA Land in Court Again



By TENNILLE TRACY

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration's move to curb greenhouse gases using the Environmental Protection Agency has drawn legal challenges from more than 90 companies and trade associations, giving the courts another opening to shape U.S. climate policy in the absence of legislative action.



The most recent lawsuit attacking the EPA's climate policy was filed Thursday by the California-based Pacific Legal Foundation. The conservative group is challenging EPA's so-called endangerment finding, which concluded that greenhouse gases posed a risk to public health. The finding is the basis of proposed EPA regulations to cut carbon dioxide emissions using the Clean Air Act.



"EPA violated its statutory duty—and the public trust—by recklessly making a sweeping judgment about [carbon dioxide] emissions without independent review by scientists of the highest caliber, as required by law," said the foundation's attorney, Ted Hadzi-Antich, in a statement.



EPA has denied numerous requests to reconsider its endangerment finding. The agency says its findings are rooted in science and claims "these types of arguments are based on a manufactured controversy and provide no evidence to undermine our determination," an EPA spokesman said.



The courts have already played a central role in the nation's climate change debate. The U.S. Supreme Court got the ball rolling when it decided in 2007 that EPA could regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.



"Someone not happy with the spilled milk would probably make a run at the Supreme Court," said Kevin Holewinski, a partner with the law firm Jones Day. "These issues are too profound to be heard by one tribunal."



In addition to its endangerment finding, EPA adopted a rule in April that set greenhouse gas standards for passenger cars and light trucks. In May, EPA passed a "tailoring rule" that outlines which types of facilities have to obtain greenhouse-gas permits.



The climate bill passed by the House of Representatives last year would have substituted a more flexible cap and trade system for the EPA's clean air rules. That bill is unlikely to move forward in the Senate.



"The extensive litigation attacking EPA's clean air initiatives are as much—if not more—about the broken politics of Washington D.C.," said Vickie Patton, deputy general counsel at the Environmental Defense Fund.



While litigation over the EPA's climate rules churns through the lower courts, some members of Congress are calling for legislation to block the agency from using the Clean Air act to curb greenhouse gas emissions.



Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.), for example, has introduced a bill to delay EPA's work on the issue for two years and has already recruited dozens of supporters in the Senate. Some Republican lawmakers have also supported action to stop the EPA climate rules.



Also in the Wall Street Journal 10/10/10: Shootout in the EPA Corral 

The Arctic Undeath Spiral

NSIDC director Serreze: “The volume of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month.”

Serreze (photo at right): “I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It’s not going to recover.” (Sept 2010)

“The reason so much (of the Arctic ice) went suddenly is that it is hitting a tipping point that we have been warning about for the past few years.” James Hansen, 2007

If Arctic sea ice was truly in a 'death spiral,' why does the 1st derivative (rate of change) of Arctic sea ice show one of the earliest and healthiest recoveries from the 2010 summer minimum over the past 7 years?

In addition, the 1st derivative for Antarctica sea ice also shows one of the longest sustained rates of sea ice accumulation for the 2010 winter compared to the past 7 years:

 h/t http://daltonsminima.altervista.org/?p=11750

Paper: Sun affects Climate much more than thought

Adding the the recent spate of papers showing that - surprise - the Sun has much, much more to do with climate change than previously thought, the respected German Physics Journal Annalyn der Physik recently published a paper analyzing solar irradiance data from 1905 to 2008 which finds cosmic rays modulated by solar activity cause a large portion of atmospheric aerosols (clouds) with profound effects on climate [see the cosmic ray theory of Svensmark et al]. The paper concludes, "The contribution of the active sun, indirectly via cosmic rays, to global warming appears to be much stronger than the presently accepted [IPCC] upper limit of 1/3."



Strong signature of the active Sun in 100 years of terrestrial insolation data

Werner Weber, Institut fur Physik, TU Dortmund, Otto-Hahn-Straße 4, 44221 Dortmund, Germany





Abstract: Terrestrial solar irradiance data of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1905 to 1954 and of Mauna Loa Observatory from 1958 to 2008 are analyzed. The analysis shows that, with changing solar activity, the atmosphere modifies the solar irradiance on the percentage level, in all likelihood via cosmic ray intensity variations produced by the active sun. The analysis strongly suggests that cosmic rays cause a large part of the atmospheric aerosols. These aerosols show specific absorption and scattering properties due to an inner structure of hydrated ionic centers, most probably of O− and O+ produced by the cosmic rays.



Introduction: In recent years, it has become clear from satellite data [1] that the total solar irradiance (TSI) varies only in the range of 0.1 % with solar activity. At the top of the atmosphere (TOA), the average TSI is ≈ 1360 Watt per m2 of normal incidence, and the solar variations are of order 1–2 Watt/m2 or 0.25–0.5 W per m2 of earth’s surface. For comparison, the anthropogenic warming due to CO2 increase is assessed to ≈ 2 W/m2 . Thus, the IPCC estimates the solar contribution to climate change to at most 1/3 of the total [2].

On the other hand, there are observations of pre-industrial climate change. For example the ‘little ice age’ of the 17th century correlates well with times of specific solar inactivity known as the Maunder minimum [3] from 1640 to 1710 where none of the usual 11 year sunspot cycles have been observed. Other climate variations also appear to parallel the solar activity changes. A survey of such features and others is given by Kirkby [4].

The active sun reduces the cosmic ray intensities by 20 % and more at the height of a sunspot cycle [5]. Most affected are cosmic rays of 1–10 GeV energy which is the dominant part of the spectrum. These cosmic rays deposit most of their energy at altitudes between 8 and 15 km (upper troposphere, lower stratosphere). Balloon measurements have shown that approximately 30 to 50 ions are produced per cm3 and sec, depending on latitude and solar activity [6]. These numbers are consistent with results from cosmic ray simulation programs [7]. Further, from mass spectroscopy it is known that at these altitudes ≈ 6000 ‘small ions’ per cm3 exist, with masses of up to 400 unit masses [6]. In contrast, in the continental boundary layer, there exist ≈ 2000 ‘small ions’, mainly produced by natural radioactivity. Svensmark [8], in his much debated papers, has postulated that the ‘small ions’ strongly influence water droplet nucleation, and thus significantly modulate the cloud formation and thereby influence the albedo. By analyzing satellite data of cloud coverage during solar cycle 22, as measured by the ISCCP satellite program [9], he has suggested that lower troposphere clouds (3–5 km altitudes) are most affected by the variation of cosmic ray intensities, and thus by solar activity (see also [4]). Further arguments for the link between cosmic ray flux and climate variability have been given by Shaviv and Veizer in a study on paleo-temperatures [10].



Conclusion: In summary, the terrestrial insolation data of SAO and of Mauna Loa observatory appear to vary strongly with solar activity. Evidence was presented that this modulation is caused by the cosmic rays, which pro- duce ‘small ions’, most probably consisting of O+ and O− ion centers surrounded by two shells of water

molecules. After coalescence, the very stable hydrated centers persist in the atmosphere as neutral nanometer size droplets and should constitute a large part of the atmospheric aerosols. Due to their strong light absorption, and due to their inner structure, these droplets show their own diurnal dynamics and appear to last for years, if not decades, especially over the oceans. They also exhibit strong Rayleigh scattering, which in solar active times results in a significant blue shift of the insolation, much bigger than that of the active sun itself.

Thus it appears that the SAO and Mauna Loa data represent a key for a more detailed understanding of atmospheric processes. The contribution of the active sun, indirectly via cosmic rays, to global warming appears to be much stronger than the presently accepted upper limit of 1/3. However, to really confirm this view, it is necessary to study the properties of atmospheric small ions and droplets in great detail, along paths which e. g. have been laid by C.T.R. Wilson. F.E. Fowle of the SAO group had been aware of Wilson’s work and had suggested explanations of SAO results along those paths. However, modern research has not taken up these ideas, and the SAO data have fallen into oblivion. In this paper it was shown that this is not justified. Instead, the SAO data, the works of Langley, Abbot, Fowle, Aldrich and others represent a great American scientific heritage.

Paging IPCC: Much of recent global warming actually caused by Sun

The ball of fire in the sky, not the jubblesheet



By Lewis Page • The Register Posted in Environment, 7th October 2010



New data indicates that changes in the Sun's output of energy were a major factor in the global temperature increases seen in recent years. The research will be unwelcome among hardcore green activists, as it downplays the influence of human-driven carbon emissions.



As the Sun has shown decreased levels of activity during the past decade, it had been generally thought that it was warming the Earth less, not more. Thus, scientists considered that temperature rises seen in global databases must mean that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions - in particular of CO2 - must be exerting a powerful warming effect.





Now, however, boffins working at Imperial College in London (and one in Boulder, Colorado) have analysed detailed sunlight readings taken from 2004 to 2007 by NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite. They found that although the Sun was putting out less energy overall than usual, in line with observations showing decreased sunspot activity, it actually emitted more in the key visible-light and near-infrared wavelengths.



These shorter wavelength forms of radiated heat penetrate the atmosphere particularly well to heat up the Earth's surface - just as the same frequencies get in through car windows to heat up its interior. The hot seats and dashboard - in this case the seas, landmasses etc - then radiate their own increased warmth via conduction, convection and longer-wave infrared, which can't escape the way the shortwave energy came in. This is why the car, and the planet, become so hot.



Thus the Sun, though it was unusually calm in the back half of the last decade, was actually warming the planet much more strongly than before.



According to a statement released by Imperial College:

Although the Sun's activity declined over this period, the new research shows that it may have actually caused the Earth to become warmer. Contrary to expectations, the amount of energy reaching the Earth at visible wavelengths increased rather than decreased as the Sun's activity declined, causing this warming effect.



"These results are challenging what we thought we knew about the Sun's effect on our climate," says Professor Joanna Haigh of Imperial, lead author of the study.



"It does require verification, but our findings could be too important to not publish them now," she told hefty boffinry mag Nature, which published the new research. The prof considers that increased sun-powered warming probably had as much effect on global temperature as carbon during the period of her study.



Haigh thinks, however, that while recent temperature rises may well have been down to the Sun as much as anything humanity has done, over long periods of time solar warming probably has little effect on the Earth's temperature one way or the other, as solar activity cycles up and down regularly.



"If the climate were affected in the long term, the Sun should have produced a notable cooling in the first half of the twentieth century, which we know it didn't," she says.



Nonetheless, the research indicates that the Sun's influence on the climate is poorly understood, and that current climate models will probably have to be amended in some way. Other scientists have lately said that solar influences are stronger than established climate theory had originally estimated.



It has also been more and more widely admitted among climate scientists in recent years that among human-caused emissions, other factors - in particular black carbon (soot) and sulphate aerosols - may exercise an influence as powerful as that of greenhouse gases.



For now the long-term implications of the SORCE data are unknown. All that can be said with any certainty is that through 2004-2007, the Sun warmed the planet much more powerfully than had been thought.



"We cannot jump to any conclusions based on what we have found during this comparatively short period and we need to carry out further studies to explore the Sun's activity," says Haigh.



Subscribers to Nature can read Haigh and her colleagues' paper, An influence of solar spectral variations on radiative forcing of climate, here.



Related: Gavin Schmidt of 'Real'climate weighs in with his unfounded opinion that this is not true.

Paper: Models lead to overly confident climate predictions

A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds that ensembles of climate models used by the IPCC to predict future climate change "may lead to overly confident climate predictions." The authors find that many models share the same computer code, have the same limitations, and "tend to be fairly similar," resulting in confirmation bias. Indeed, empirical observations have shown far less warming than the "90% confident" IPCC models in AR4, as shown in this poster by John Christy:

Journal of Climate doi: 10.1175/2010JCLI3814.1 



On the Effective Number of Climate Models



Christopher Pennell and Thomas Reichler



Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT



Abstract: Projections of future climate change are increasingly based on the output of many different models. Typically, the mean over all model simulations is considered as the optimal prediction, with the underlying assumption that different models provide statistically independent information evenly distributed around the true state. However, there is reason to believe that this is not the best assumption. Coupled models are of comparable complexity and are constructed in similar ways. Some models share parts of the same code and some models are even developed at the same center. Therefore, the limitations of these models tend to be fairly similar, contributing to the well-known problem of common model biases and possibly to an unrealistically small spread in the outcomes of model predictions.



This study attempts to quantify the extent of this problem by asking how many models there effectively are and how to best determine this number. Quantifying the effective number of models is achieved by evaluating 24 state-of-the-art models and their ability to simulate broad aspects of 20th century climate. Using two different approaches, we calculate the amount of unique information in the ensemble and find that the effective ensemble size is much smaller than the actual number of models. As more models are included in an ensemble the amount of new information diminishes in proportion. Furthermore, we find that this reduction goes beyond the problem of “same-center” models and that systemic similarities exist across all models. We speculate that current methodologies for the interpretation of multi-model ensembles may lead to overly confident climate predictions.