The hills are alive...

...with the sound of dissent. An anonymous comment a few days back led me to post about Norway, and its bizarre AGW fetish. A fetish that has led the Nobel peace prize committee to give its once respected award to the embarassed and untested President Obama; to honour the IPCC, whose reputation is being shredded every day, and even to award the disgraced and pitiful Al Gore, whose humiliation is as profound as the phony science behind his propaganda.

Since that earlier post, this blog has been visited by Norwegian commenter Geir, who advises us that the Norwegian socialist party in power...

...is led by people who have never worked except for in the politics - we call them broilers, having been bred in cages with one purpose for their lives. Curiously, the party is in Norwegian called: The Worker's Party. So the working class traditionally vote with them. However, both the social democrats and the socialists who rule in coalition with them, are so incredibly fascinated with the leftists in America. Traditionally, they hated America (just look to the 60s/70s and the Vietnam war), so I am puzzled why they embrace the Democrats over there. I think I have found the simple solution:It is not a case of socialism or liberalism in itself. You rather have to divide it into those who opinionate that "we must rule the masses because they CAN'T rule themselves" and those who opinionate "the masses CAN rule themselves". Luckily we see other parties in Norway gaining momentum. The conservatives ("The Right" as opposed to "The Left") has traditionally been strong too...

...However, in the mid-70s a party was formed simply in order to reduce taxes and fees. They call themselves "The Progressive Party", but are not at all progressive in the usual meaning of leftist and marxist, they are rather liberal and are called populist, which is of course a derogatory term. They appeal to "common sense" and opinionate that people ARE in general capable of seeing what is the best for them. They are the only party skeptical to the climate warming hysteria in Norway...

...such comment of course is music to my ears. Here in NZ, the centre-right ACT party who favour a low flat tax and a minor role for the state has seized the "Liberal" name to avoid it being tortured and misused by the left. Geir goes on to comment that the IPCC...

...in order to strenghten their authority...amassed everything from the tiniest company brochure via greenist propaganda to scientific reports for their own report. The importance wasn't in the content, it was in the authority following the content. So we must question the authority, and not even that,we must bring it completely down...The whole IPCC work is done in order to create the impression of an infallible authority. We are working against the equivalent of a global church. The foundations of which can be eradicated, true, but it takes time.Chesterton is often quoted as saying: When people cease to believe in something, they will not then believe in nothing. They will believe in anything...

...and today, in the UK Telegraph, fresh and extensive new criticism of the IPCC...more here...

Geir, thanks for your comments. They add a dimension to the issue that a Google search never can. There is no doubt that the tide has turned against the IPCC and the church of the green left, and with that tide, a call for more honesty and transparency has come about, largely because of enhanced communication like this. Salut !

...and to conclude...Not impoverishing ourselves will also provide the resources to mitigate damage caused by AGW–if it exists, and if they occur. The time has come to fire the discredited IPCC, ignore Al–the debate is over–Gore, and begin to listen to the Bjorn Lomborg’s of the world...more from Bjorn Lomborg, and First Things here...

Wazzup George ?

...Billionaire George Soros, one-time railway porter, will invest $1 billion of his own money in clean energy technology to combat climate change, says The Guardian. He will also create an organization to advise policy makers on environmental issues, which will receive an annual stipend of $10 million over the next 10 years. Soros, founder of the hedge fund Soros Fund Management LLC and the policy think tank The Open Society Institute, made the announcement this week at a meeting in Copenhagen organised by Project Syndicate, an international association of 430 newspapers...Who will get to pocket the $10 million? Soros says that he's on the prowl for profitable opportunities, but that he "will also insist that the investments make a real contribution to solving the problem of climate change...more from New Scientist here...

...very interesting indeed. I wonder though if he sought Bjorn Lomborg's advice (I note Lomborg is listed as a "thought leader" with Project Syndicate above) re the disbursement of all this dosh ? I wonder too, if his network of 430 newspapers carry much sceptical AGW news ?...and I wonder too, if George Soros is concerned over the deaths of future populations who will be deprived of cheap and efficent energy ?...Wind power, biomass power and animal power were abandoned when the greater energy intensity of fossil fuels became available by use of the steam engine. The increased energy supply enabled more people to exist and the human population exploded. The population is now about 6.6 billion and all estimates indicate that the present population growth will continue and is likely to peak at around 9 billion in the middle of this century. That additional more than 2 billion people requires additional energy supply. Billions of people - mostly children - will die from lack of energy without that additional energy supply. Reducing the energy supply would kill more millions - probably billions - of people. Replacement of fossil fuels by wind and solar is not possible because the laws of physics do not allow it. Only an increase to nuclear power could make much reduction to use of fossil fuels and that reduction is limited because many activities require energy that is not only available where there is a wire...a perceptive commenter here...

...AND not that we're mean or anything, but just for a laugh... women drivers, here...

Here's the bottom line...

...any politician, of any country, who would vote for radical environmentalist legislation that would cripple their own economy, while literally doing absolutely nothing to reduce "global warming" should be kept away from sharp objects for their own self-protection. In NZ and Australia similar legislation to the US Waxman-Markey Bill is being looked at askance. Analysis of Waxman-Markey concludes ...in the year 2050 with an 83% emissions reduction the temperature reduction is (estimated) nine hundredths of one degree Fahrenheit, or two years of avoided warming...all together a scientifically meaningless, and economically ruinous project. It has to be asked if the Senators supporting such snake-oil lunacy are doing so with their eyes and ears open or shut, and whether they have any concern for the people they pretend to represent...more, here... and, while the warmists get more desperate, they talk of "treason". Bjorn Lomborg replies...reasonable people can differ over their interpretation of the Waxman-Markey bill. Even if we set aside its masses of pork-barrel spending and analyses that show it may allow more emissions in the US for the first decades, there are more fundamental problems with this legislation.
At a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars annually, it will have virtually no impact on climate change. If all of the bill’s many provisions were entirely fulfilled, economic models show it would reduce the temperature by the end of the century by 0.11 degrees centigrade – reducing warming by less than 4 percent.
Even if every Kyoto-obligated country passed its own, duplicate Waxman-Markey bills – which is implausible and would incur significantly higher costs – the global reduction would amount to just 0.22 degrees centigrade by the end of this century. The reduction in global temperature would not be measurable in a hundred years, yet the cost would be significant and payable now.
Is it really treason against the planet to express some skepticism about whether this is the right way forward? Is it treason to question throwing huge sums of money at a policy that will do virtually no good in a hundred years? Is it unreasonable to point out that the inevitable creation of trade barriers that will ensue from Waxman-Markey could eventually cost the world 10 times more than the damage climate change could ever have wrought?
Today’s focus on ineffective and costly climate policies shows poor judgment. But I would never want to shut down discussion about these issues – whether it is with Gore, Hansen, or Krugman. Everybody involved in this discussion should spend more time building and acknowledging good arguments, and less time telling others what they cannot say. Wanting to shut down the discussion is simply treason against reason...more here...

Virgin sacrifices to appease the Earth gods...

...are in order according to Iowahawk's interpretation of the US Waxman-Markey Bill. Whether the bizzare android alien Mr Waxman (right; and this is him after extensive surgery) will officiate at the ritual sacrifices is still unknown. In the meantime House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) defended the bill, saying that "...it is critical that we do something immediately to show we are serious about solving this climate crisis. Without burnt offerings of taxes and virgins, Gaia will smite us all in her angry burning wrath. So let me just say to the corporate and virgin special interest groups - don't come crying to us in 400 years, when our temperatures are up almost 1 degree celsius."
Pelosi denied the bill was anti-consumer, pointing out it contains specific infrastructure and job creation funds. It specifies 500,000 unionized positions to construct a planned 300-foot tall National Eco Pyramid and Virgin Sacrifice Altar in Youngstown, Ohio, as well as funds to train over 20,000 youth volunteer earth-priests in live beating heart removal...
"The rider simply recognizes that virgin members of Congress are often so busy doing the work of the people that we have little opportunity for actual sexual intercourse," said Waxman. "For example, were I not focusing on this crucial legislation, I would totally be porking some sexy, sexy ladies. No, really, I'm serious. I would be. Stop laughing."
Bill co-sponsor Edward Markey (D-MA) said that even if enacted into law, the bill allows a 9 month grace period for current virgins to change their sacrifice eligibility status.
"Easy for him to say," complained Kevin Warren, a 34-year old Green Bay Packer fanatic from Fon du Lac, Wisconsin. "You try getting laid with a foam rubber cheese hat, green face paint and Favre jersey..." ...more from the maestro here...

...and Bjorn Lomborg on the colossal rort of taxpayer money that is the climate industrial complex...American electricity utility Duke Energy, a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council, has long promoted a U.S. cap-and-trade scheme. Yet the company bitterly opposed the Warner-Lieberman bill in the U.S. Senate that would have created such a scheme because it did not include European-style handouts to coal companies. The Waxman-Markey bill in the House of Representatives promises to bring back the free lunch...more here...

A question of morality...

...the green left like to portray themselves as caring and compassionate. They like to think that they have a "social conscience". Alleviating the suffering of the poor and disadvantaged is presumably the focus of social justice, so, as Bjorn Lomborg observes...

...we should focus on the smartest solutions to the problems that the world faces, whether we're dealing with climate change, communicable diseases, malnutrition, agricultural subsidies, or anything else...

John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a participant in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize adds...

...what is the economic and human price, (of dealing with climate change) and what is it worth given the scientific uncertainty?
My experience as a missionary teacher in Africa opened my eyes to this simple fact: Without access to energy, life is brutal and short. The uncertain impacts of global warming far in the future must be weighed against disasters at our doorsteps today. Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus 2004, a cost-benefit analysis of health issues by leading economists (including three Nobelists), calculated that spending on health issues such as micronutrients for children, HIV/AIDS and water purification has benefits 50 to 200 times those of attempting to marginally limit "global warming."
Given the scientific uncertainty and our relative impotence regarding climate change, the moral imperative here seems clear to me...

...and to award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer, who recently said...“Congress has been getting bad intelligence...Congress has been badly misinformed about the so-called science that supports the claim that increasing CO2 levels will bring about catastrophic climate change,” Happer called the movement to promote man-made global warming fears a “climate change cult” and noted that “zealots” promoting climate fears “are actually extremely ignorant...the idea that Congress can stop climate change would be just hilarious if the actions they propose were not so damaging to the American people and even more [damaging] to the poorer people of the world...”more here...

...and it seems perfectly clear to a growing army of global warming sceptics, that catastrophic CO2 induced climate change is a political fantasy and the great social justice issue of our age.

Well...you would wouldn't you, I do...

...a confession. A major proportion of my income, all my professional life, has come from fellow taxpayers. I chose a profession that has been the recipient of NZ's ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) funding. Periodically, when the government of the day tightens its purse-strings, the media publish details of "unsustainable" funding, and we revert to part charging our patients. With publicity, come accusations that we as a profession are "ripping the system off." To those taunts, I have always replied that we are simply responding to the market; no rip off, just true market forces at work. Which reminds me...my favourite P.J. O'Rourke quote: "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."
The bete noire of the green/left, Bjorn Lomborg, makes a similar observation with regard to a forthcoming conference entitled World Business Summit on Climate Change. Lomborg observes companies and individuals attending are responding to the global warming hysteria and amplifying the hysteria to increase their own profits. Market forces at work here too...but with a not so subtle difference, in this case the market is a bubble, created by pretence and enriching the pretenders...
...The opening keynote address is to be delivered by Al Gore, who actually represents all three groups: He is a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.
Naturally, many CEOs are genuinely concerned about global warming. But many of the most vocal stand to profit from carbon regulations. The term used by economists for their behavior is "rent-seeking."
The world's largest wind-turbine manufacturer, Copenhagen Climate Council member Vestas, urges governments to invest heavily in the wind market. It sponsors CNN's "Climate in Peril" segment, increasing support for policies that would increase Vestas's earnings. A fellow council member, Mr. Gore's green investment firm Generation Investment Management, warns of a significant risk to the U.S. economy unless a price is quickly placed on carbon...
Lawyers, always quick to spot fellow travellers, might quite rightly describe this collusion as a "rort." Interested observers like myself are more likely to use the F word...more from Bjorn Lomborg in The Wall Street Journal here...
Footnote (excuse the pun)...I happen to know the planet is cooling. Last night I awoke to find 2 feet of ice in my bed. Both of them belonged to my wife...

Can we solve climate change ?

...readers of this blog will understand the answer to this question immediately. No of course we can't solve climate change. No more than we can "solve" the problem of rainbows or volcanoes. And Mike Hulme, professor of Climate Change at East Anglia University agrees. He says "we are heading up a "dead end" by putting climate change science at the top of the political agenda.
In fact he thinks we are pretty arrogant to think we can control the climate.
...Mike, who has spent the last 25 years researching climate change, has just written a book about climate change where he questions why climate change has become "the mother of all issues... we should take the spotlight away from climate change at the top of the pile.
It is rather hubristic to think we can actually control climate. Climate change is the new human condition we have to live with. Let's accept this is the new reality.
Don't construct the problem in a way which means we cannot have a solution which is the way I think we have got it constructed at the moment." ...More here...

While remaining a believer in AGW, Mike Hulme at least reinforces the views of realists such as Bjorn Lomborg who argues that billions spent on climate change would be better targeted towards providing sanitation and safe water supplies to millions of people around the world who lack the basic amenities of life...and Lomborg also observes ...strategies to reduce carbon have failed. Meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, politicians from wealthy countries promised to cut emissions by 2000, but did no such thing. In Kyoto in 1997, leaders promised even stricter reductions by 2010, yet emissions have kept increasing unabated. Still, the leaders plan to meet in Copenhagen this December to agree to even more of the same — drastic reductions in emissions that no one will live up to. Another decade will be wasted...more here...

Bjorn Lomborg would also presumably support Tom Harris,UK Labour MP, who writes on his blog... for some environmentalists the fight against global warming has another aim: the defeat of capitalism, of economic growth, of prosperity.Which is why I find their arguments so nauseating...

From the Manchester Guardian again...

...an organ which risks becoming a regular source of global warming scepticism (in spite of the over-excited George "Moonbeam" Monbiot, its environmental editor), this from Patrick Michaels...

...so, Antarctic cooling and warming are both now consistent with computer models of dreaded global warming caused by humans. In reality, the warming is largely at the beginning of the record – before there should have been much human-induced climate change. New claims that both warming and cooling of the same place are consistent with forecasts isn't going to help the credibility of climate science, and, or reduce the fatigue of Americans regarding global warming. Have climate alarmists beaten global warming to death? The Pew Research Centre recently asked over 1,500 people to rank 20 issues in order of priority. Global warming came in dead last. We can never run the experiment to see if indeed it is the constant hyping of this issue that has sent it to the bottom of the priority ladder. But, as long as scientists blog on that both warming and cooling of the coldest place on earth is consistent with their computer models, why should anyone believe them? More here...

...and again in the Guardian, this time from Bjorn Lomborg (right), re the forthcoming round of climate change talks in Copenhagen. (Waterloo may be a more apt venue for the alarmists,)... doomed to failure he thinks... more here...

...and Roger Pielke Snr. alerts us to the curse of "yellow journalism"...
...since papers and weblogs have documented that the warming is being over-estimated in recent years, and, thus, these sources of information are readily available to the reporters, there is, therefore, no other alternative than these reporters are deliberately selecting a biased perspective to promote a particular viewpoint on climate. The reporting of this news without presenting counter viewpoints is clearly an example of yellow journalism;
“Journalism that exploits, distorts, or exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract readers.”
When will the news media and others realize that by presenting such biased reports, which are easily refuted by real world data, they are losing their credibility among many in the scientific community as well as with the public...more here

...and a very interesting (albeit a bit pointy headed) debate re AGW at Skeptiko, here...