Global Warming

There is good news and bad news about climate. The good news is that science evidence has
made it quite clear that the human contribution to a possible global warming is minor; in fact
it cannot even be identified in the data record. The bad news is that the media and politicians
pay no attention whatsoever to the science and are marching ahead full-speed with efforts to
control CO2 emissions—thereby hurting the economy, destroying jobs, and stunting economic
growth. They are under the illusion that there is a nearly complete scientific consensus in
support of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW).

Good news

As one of the many official “expert reviewers” of the UN-IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change), after examine the so-called evidence to back up the IPCC conclusion
(with claimed >95% certainty!!) that a reported global warming of the 1980s and 1990s is
anthropogenic and that models can be used to predict a future temperature increase of around
2-3 degrees by 2100. I found that IPCC uses the same flimsy evidence in its fifth assessment
report (AR5), due in 2013, as they did in AR4 (Assessment Report #4, published in 2007); except
that there they only claimed 90% certainty.

If there is to be an IPCC-AR6, it will surely claim 99%, based on the same flimsy “evidence”—a
comparison of uncertain model results with even less certain global surface temperature data.
In AR5, this comparison involves just one graph in a chapter on “Attribution.” Yet the IPCC
studiously avoids discussing the several striking examples where observations disagree with
climate models: no global warming during at least the past decade—in spite of rapidly rising
CO2 levels; Antarctic is cooling—not warming; absence of the model-predicted “hot spot” in
the tropical atmosphere, and others.

All of this is detailed in peer-reviewed publications and summarized in the reports of NIPCC
(Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change), which directly contradict the
results of the IPCC. Since NIPCC’s founding in 2007, its voluminous reports have been published
by the Heartland Institute www.NIPCCreport.org. During 2013, NIPCC will publish a final
summary report at about the same time as the IPCC-AR5. Important news: The Chinese
Academy of Sciences has translated these NIPCC reports for publication in 2013—the first
national academy to do so.

The other good news is that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which has been slowly dying since
the UN conference in Copenhagen in Dec. 2009, is finally going to be officially buried this
month, in December 2012. Judging from the latest UN gabfest in Doha, Qatar, it is unlikely
that another international control regime will be constituted by 2015 as planned, because of
opposition to such international agreements from China, India, and other rapidly developing
countries. Among the poorer countries, there is growing talk about the need for “climate
reparations” to reimburse them for some claimed damage caused by CO2 emissions in the
past, mainly from the United States. We should keep in mind, of course, that the major effect
of the increase in CO2 has been to improve agricultural performance. Perhaps these countries
should be thankful to China and India for rapidly increasing CO2 emissions, thereby greening
the planet.

Bad news

While the international control effort may be dead, we aren’t getting rid of the national efforts
to control emissions. The situation in the EU is sort of ludicrous with unrealistic future targets
of 20%, 50%, and even up to 80% reduction being bandied about. But the future is coming
closer—and so is some degree of realism. In some nations, particularly Britain, there has been
serious rethinking on the matter of CO2 emissions targets, with U-turns being announced
frequently.

It is particularly disturbing that the World Bank has commissioned a thoroughly alarmist report
on Global Warming—and that this report could lead to a substantial misallocation of multi-
billions of development funds. Poor countries badly need reliable low-cost electric power;
they may instead be forced into dubious windmill and solar projects that claim “sustainability”
and zero-CO2 emissions—but are uneconomic, intermittent, and not suitable for industrial
development

In the United States, there has been a determined effort by the EPA to abolish the use of
abundant domestic coal in power plants. This is in line with the president’s promise to make
electricity prices “skyrocket” and his plan to make climate-change policy a centerpiece in his
second term.

His efforts to push through cap and trade legislation failed in 2009, after barely passing the
House. But the EPA has been issuing regulation after regulation that impinge on the use of
coal, such as requiring Best Available Control Technology (BACT) to control mercury emissions.
This is a hopeless task as most mercury is now emitted by China into the global atmosphere
where it’ll spread worldwide.

What has saved the situation in the US is the bonanza of cheap natural gas, which is rapidly
replacing coal as the fuel for power plants. But we don’t know if the price of natural gas
will remain at the current low level once EPA issues more regulations concerning fracking
technology.

Category: Environment