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posted June 3, 2009, from March/April 2009 issue
This figure shows
the Icelandic sea ice index [http://www.eoearth.org/
Cashing In On Earth’s Cycles
Part 2 ‐ The Present: Crisis Mode
Did you know Enron was a major promoter of the Kyoto Protocol?
By Alan Cheetham & Richard Kirby
Editor’s note:
I feel it is beneficial for environmentalists to consider a variety
of informed viewpoints on the global warming issue, including skeptical
viewpoints such as those in the article below. I encourage all readers
to look much more deeply into the subject of climate change. This article
was originally published in the newsletter of Mensa of Western Washington.
Numbered references are listed at the end of the article. Part 1 can
be found in our Jan/Feb 2009 issue at www.wafreepress.org/96/
The science involved with the global warming issue is of two types: (1) empirical science--the actual observations, data and their interpretation, and (2) theoretical science--computer models based on the modeler’s interpretation of the phenomena. The two are at odds: that is, the empirical science does not support the modelers’ predictions.
The temperature trends have a much higher correlation with solar phenomena and with oceanic oscillations than with CO2. [1,2&3]. Glaciers have generally been receding since the early 1800s (before modern CO2) [4], while the Greenland ice melt was similar in the 1930s [5] and Antarctica has no warming [6]. In many regions the current warming is just reaching what it was in the 1930s. But few people alive today were around in the 1930s, and grandstanders are selling an apocalyptic doomsday scenario.
So, why has this apocalyptic scare been so widely promoted? The answer is money. The big money is in the carbon credit trading.
Enron was a promoter of the Kyoto Protocol since it was expected to greatly increase their profits. Enron’s Ken Lay had meetings with Clinton and Gore to try to get Kyoto promoted: “Enron officials later expressed elation at the results of the Kyoto conference. An internal memo said the Kyoto agreement, if implemented, would ‘do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States.’” [7]
There is an extensive overlap of those who created the scare and those greatly benefiting from it. The carbon credit trading companies are illustrative. At the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is “the world’s first... integrated greenhouse gas emissions reduction, registry and trading system.” One director is Maurice Strong creator of both the UN Environment Program and the UN Conference on Environment and Development. Strong has also been senior advisor to UN Secretaries General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Anan and World Bank President James Wolfensohn. Another director is Stuart Eizenstat, who was US Ambassador to the EU during the Clinton Administration, Chief Domestic Policy Adviser for President Jimmy Carter, as well as the leader of the US delegation at the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. [See reference 7 for similar examples]
These figures illustrates
the urbanization effect on temperature trends, comparing the urban Los
Angeles station (left) with the closest rural station (right). The rural
station shows little or no warming trend. This is typical of the urban
versus rural differences found all over the world (see the regional
summary documents at www.appinsys.com/
Al Gore is a major beneficiary of the current hysteria. “In May Al Gore traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel to pick up $1 million... for winning [an] award for his environmental work. In his acceptance speech, Gore repeated his long-familiar sentiment, ‘We do face a planetary emergency.’ According to Bloomberg News, Gore had less than $2 million when he left the vice presidency in 2001. Today his fortune is more than $100 million (Fast Company, July 2007)” [8]
Gore still runs around wielding his “hockey stick” graph, even though the National Academy of Sciences has thoroughly debunked it, and even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has dropped it. Gore recently has endorsed “civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.” [9]
Although the IPCC is promoted as “the consensus,” many climate scientists disagree with the specific positions of the IPCC, and the number of dissenting scientists is growing. Canada’s National Post has an excellent series of articles documenting some of these scientists [10&11].
Many scientists who disagree with the IPCC have found their funding cut off or have been fired. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. [12].
Some retired scientists are speaking out. A prominent atmospheric scientist at MIT states: “...for over 25 years, we have based not only our worst case scenarios but even our best case scenarios on model exaggeration. As far as I can tell, the main question we ought to be confronting is how long the momentum generated by this issue will prevent us from seeing that it has been an illusion based on model error.” State climatologists who disagree with the state government belief in global warming have had their titles removed in such places as Oregon and Delaware [12].
The “climate crisis” is in reality a western nation environmentalist crisis—western environmentalists promote their beliefs, while the rest of the world says “nonsense.” In July 2008 The Government of India published a National Action Plan on Climate Change, which states: “No firm link between the documented [climate] changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change has yet been established.”
India has no intention of cutting CO2 emissions if to do so affects its economic growth. The report Overview states: “India is determined that its per capita greenhouse gas emissions will at no point exceed that of developed countries even as we pursue our development objectives.” [13]
Within the United States there is significant regional variation. The central US on the left (the dustbowl area of the 1930s) still does not have temperatures as high as in the 1930s. On the right, the Southern California and Arizona region--which includes mostly urban stations and top urban growth centers (Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas)--shows considerable warming.
Russia also disagrees with the western view. “Russian critics of the Kyoto Protocol... say that the theory underlying the pact lacks scientific basis. When President Vladimir Putin was weighing his options on the Kyoto Protocol the Russian Academy of Sciences strongly advised him to reject it as having “no scientific foundation.” Russian scientists state: “There is no proven link between human activity and global warming. This problem is overshadowed by many fallacies and misconceptions that often form the basis for important political decisions...” and “The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases.” [12]
China—now the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter--released its plan on climate change in 2007, supporting the rights of developing nations to pursue growth. The Chinese spokesman said “The consequences of inhibiting their development would be far greater than not doing anything to fight climate change... our general stance is that China will not commit to any quantified emissions reduction targets”. [14]
To those profiting from
the scare, it is a critical emergency--to the rest of the promoters,
a ploy for control. We should adopt clear, critical thinking,
and a healthy skepticism.
Next issue:
Part 3--The Future: Recurrent Cycles
Is science becoming subservient
to a new autocracy?
References