The moves now being made by the world's political establishment to lock us into December's Copenhagen treaty to halt global warming are as alarming as anything that has happened in our lifetimes. Last week in Italy, the various branches of our emerging world government, G8 and G20, agreed in principle that the world must by 2050 cut its CO2 emissions in half. Britain and the US are already committed to cutting their use of fossil fuels by more than 80 per cent. Short of an unimaginable technological revolution, this could only be achieved by closing down virtually all our economic activity: no electricity, no transport, no industry. All this is being egged on by a gigantic publicity machine, by the UN, by serried ranks of government-funded scientists, by cheerleaders such as Al Gore, last week comparing the fight against global warming to that against Hitler's Nazis, and by politicians who have no idea what they are setting in train. What makes this even odder is that the runaway warming predicted by their computer models simply isn't happening. Last week one of the four official sources of temperature measurement, compiled from satellite data by the University of Huntsville, Alabama, showed that temperatures have now fallen to their average level since satellite data began 30 years ago. Faced with a "consensus" view which looks increasingly implausible, a fast-growing body of reputable scientists from many countries has been coming up with a ''counter-consensus'', which holds that their fellow scientists have been looking in wholly the wrong direction to explain what is happening to the world's climate. The two factors which most plausibly explain what temperatures are actually doing are fluctuations in the radiation of the sun and the related shifting of ocean currents. Two episodes highlight the establishment's alarm at the growing influence of this ''counter consensus''. In March, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has a key role in President Obama's plans to curb CO2 emissions, asked one of its senior policy analysts, Alan Carlin, to report on the science used to justify its policy. His 90-page paper recommended that the EPA carry out an independent review of the science, because the CO2 theory was looking indefensible, while the "counter consensus'' view – solar radiation and ocean currents – seemed to fit the data much better. Provoking a considerable stir, Carlin's report was stopped dead, on the grounds that it was too late to raise objections to what was now the EPA's official policy. Meanwhile a remarkable drama has been unfolding in Australia, where the new Labor government has belatedly joined the "consensus'' bandwagon by introducing a bill for an emissions-curbing "cap and trade'' scheme, which would devastate Australia's economy, it being 80 per cent dependent on coal. The bill still has to pass the Senate, which is so precisely divided that the decisive vote next month may be cast by an independent Senator, Stephen Fielding. So crucial is his vote that the climate change minister, Penny Wong, agreed to see him with his four advisers, all leading Australian scientists. Fielding put to the minister three questions. How, since temperatures have been dropping, can CO2 be blamed for them rising? What, if CO2 was the cause of recent warming, was the cause of temperatures rising higher in the past? Why, since the official computer models have been proved wrong, should we rely on them for future projections? The written answers produced by the minister's own scientific advisers proved so woolly and full of elementary errors that Fielding's team have now published a 50-page, fully-referenced "Due Diligence'' paper tearing them apart. In light of the inadequacy of the Government's reply, the Senator has announced that he will be voting against the bill. The wider significance of this episode is that it is the first time a Western government has allowed itself to be drawn into debating the science behind the global warming scare with expert scientists representing the "counter consensus" – and the "consensus" lost hands down. We still have a long way to go before that Copenhagen treaty is agreed in December, and with China, India and 128 other countries still demanding trillions of dollars as the price of their co-operation, the prospect of anything but a hopelessly fudged agreement looks slim. But even a compromise could inflict devastating damage on our own economic future – all for a theory now shot so full of holes that its supporters are having to suppress free speech to defend it. Flying in the face of reason Even now it is not widely appreciated that in 2003 the power to regulate air safety across the EU was taken over by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Several times I reported evidence that this new EU body in its shiny headquarters in Cologne would be too weak, incompetent and bureaucratic to do the job properly. Since then one of many problems reported to EASA has been a serious fault in the speed probes of some Airbus airliners, which can cause the automatic piloting system unexpectedly to shut down. EASA did nothing to ensure that the fault was corrected. Last month, when Air France’s Airbus flight 447 plunged into the Atlantic, killing everyone on board, this fault was high on the list as a possible cause. So far, apart from hinting at 'pilot error’, the authorities have come up with no explanation. But last week Air France pilots demonstrated in Paris, writing a letter to EASA and its French subordinate agency, protesting that 'appropriate measures from either agency’, forcing the manufacturers to make the necessary changes, 'would have helped prevent the sequence of events that led to the loss of control of the aircraft’. The real problem with handing over to the EU the power to govern Europe is simply that it doesn’t work.Climate change: The sun and the oceans do not lie
Even a compromised agreement to reduce emissions could devastate the economy - and all for a theory shot full of holes, says Christopher Booker.
Sunday, 12 July 2009
Posts
Sunday morning, and the UK Energy minister on the TV, The Andrew Marr Show, regurgitates the same old drivel on climate change without any vigorous probing questions by Marr. The BBC has so bought into this pseudo science it now getting rather embarrassing, and one wonders if they are in breach of their charter.
This is what happens when you have politicans who do not understand science, have no backbone to stand up to the green lobby, and an ignorant and servile press and media.
We are on the road to economic suicide.
Well done to The Telegraph for publishing such articles and long may they continue.
Is this by any chance the same Christopher Booker that:-
1. Defends the creationism myth (AKA intelligent design)
2. Claims that white asbestos is �chemically identical to talcum powder� and poses no threat to health
3. Regularly distorts what science says on a number of subjects.
4. Claims that man-made global warming was �DISPROVED� in 2008.
Whether climate change is man-made or not, we should not take anything seriously Booker says on ANY scientific subject, a man who is so scientifically illiterate. He has quite a record of wilful ignorance and repeating deliberate misinformation. BEWARE.
As a side note, scanning comments after a Booker rant on climate change reads as a reinforcement of peoples own prejudices, rather than a dispassionate reading of the science available and coming up with informed conclusions. I would guess that most contributors haven�t read a single scientific paper on the subject.
A glimpse into the future that will come from changing over from fossil fuels is provided by the book 'Sustainable Energy without the hot air' by Cambridge physics professor David J.C. MacKay. It describes the actual figures that are involved.
It is downloadable free of charge from
www.withouthotair.com
A synopsis is also available free of charge at:
www.withouthotair.com/synopsis10.pdf
R. Jones M.A. (6.39am 12/7), stated,
"Read Prof. Ian Plimer's book, p336.
"The oceans have always been alkaline, CO2 is converted to CaCO3 and precipitated. As long as oceans have Ca in them they cannot become acidic."
I haven't read Plimer's book, but if that is an example of the misinformation and misunderstandings that it contains then I won't bother.
Acidification is caused by an increase in hydrogen ions, H+. Adding CO2 to water containing Ca++ ions produces the following reaction:
Ca++ + H2O + CO2 => CaCO3 + 2H+
(simplified: there are other equilibria involved also)
That 2H+ shows hydrogen ions being produced. The presence of Ca++ and precipitation of CaCO3 actually increases the production of H+ compared to what would happen with pure water.
If you have correctly reported what Plimer states then it appears that he does not even understand elementary chemistry.
Or perhaps he realises that the large number of people who are likely to buy his book don't understand it either, so it doesn't matter what nonsense he tells them.
At present the 'counter connsensus' view is also growing in America. For example on Fox News Radio there is an hour long programme by Tom Sullivan which can be heard on the internet on their listen again service. Click on 'listen'
then pick the date 7/08/09. It should be available until Tuesday.
Tom Sullivan talks about how unwanted data is being excluded from a 1500 page government report on the Cap & Trade Bill called the EPA report. It supressed an internal study of a sceptical scientist.
Also, how the Cap & Trade Bill is a job killer.
http://www.foxnewsradio.com/2008/12/29/free-premium-podcasts/
Tom Sullivan Radio Show (not the highlights part, choose the main show)
then choose 7/08/09
John Levett
If global warming is a scam by big business, then why did various well-known oil companies in the US pay "scientists/PR men" to sow doubt about the damage caused by fossil fuels?
Like Monbiot's wages, I'm also happy to pay taxes to support renewables, particularly if it undercuts fossil fuel giants, not all of whom are behind developing clean energy. I hope to see some new companies emerge over the next few decades, profiting from renewables. At the same time I want to see the oil firms disappear.
Do you want us to continue using oil, John? You know, extending our reliance on hardline Islamic countries. We invade some of them when it suits us.
A comon thread here seems to be that the 'warmists' won't engage in the scentific debate. Odd then, that where Slioch and others have put forward science the common response is rhetoric. OK, the science and the politics are inexorably mixed and it's tricky to separate the two. But let's not pretend there's much science behind Mr Booker's rhetoric. Let's face it, in this debate the man in the street is hopelessly out of his/her depth and its all too easy to latch onto 'science' that suits your political leaning. I've tried hard to look objectively at the science, the people producing the science, and the people paying them to do it. I've read Booker's articles for about the last 12 months and checked out some of his 'cause celebres' like Lord Monkton, the Heartland Institute et al. I've come to the conclusion that whatever drives his rhetoric, it isn't a desire to seriously explore the science or to seek out the truth. So, from this occasional contributer its farewell and good luck! I shan't be reading Booker again.
Re. The British Brainwashing Corporation on "Global Warming"
Peter Sissons blows the gaff from the inside in his retirement statement:
"Peter Sissons: BBC standards are falling - and bosses are too scared to do anything about it"
In a wide-ranging attack, he also claims it is now 'effectively BBC policy' to stifle critics of the consensus view on global warming. He says: "I believe I am one of a tiny number of BBC interviewers who have so much as raised the possibility that there is another side to the debate on climate change.
"The Corporation's most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that "the science is settled", when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn't. But it is effectively BBC policy... that those views should not be heard".
The other day I was reminded of a visit I paid to Newfoundland where a Viking settlement was discovered. The settlement was about 1000 years old the writings there showed that Greenland was green and and not covered in ice it was possibly called Vinland. The Romans planted vines in UK at about that time so climate is always changing.
Using computers for predictions about weather and climate change is ridiculous as they have not got a sound basis to do this. For example who can pridict when the next volcano will erupt and spoil the weather pattern.
Again the Met Office predicted a long hot summer in UK but it seems that the jet stream has altered its course - why could this not have been predicted, the answer to that is obvious, they can't.
I weary of listening to the doom mongers and more so of the Taxes that are being imposed which sustain this myth of MMGW.
I gather that the planet Mars is getting warmer. Is it because of the traffic, the aeroplanes, or the use of fossil fuels? I am rather puzzled. Perhaps some reader might enlighten me.
If we are going to speculate about the Air France Airbus loss and known speed probe fault I'll venture a theory as to a slow pressure leak which put the pilots unconscious, followed by automatic disengagement of the autopilot when the readings became inconsistent - citing the absence of voice traffic from the crew for some time before the crash as evidence. I'm more than happy for this to be easily knocked down: the body of a pilot was recovered, undamaged, would the autopsy still reveal oxygen starvation after lengthy time in the water?
120709-09:51
Here is your man made global warming.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/11/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-90/
Or rather man made global warming measurement.
If you measure temperature like this then you will never measure the real temperature. This is the "evidence" Al Gore uses for his "argument".
However, in the real world we have UAH data set. This data is here
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1979
Note the temp rise since this data became available (1979) is 0.001C
To Charles Lee:
It's getting colder you say? Where would that be at the moment I wonder?
Just as the ice melt at each Polar continues, just look at all the photos available.
We have two things going on.
1. The atmosphere breakdown by man made chemicals. This causes an increase of ultra violet that directly effects warming the earth.
This effect is still increasing as the chemicals that breakdown the atmosphere are released.
Some say it has slowed down some.
The second effect is caused by pollution that acts as a barrier to the Sun's rays. It's ironic but It would appear that increased industrial pollution gases is actually saving us a bit from the levels of increased UV.
Your theory that we are moving towards the next ice age is correctly judged by what I've read on the subject.
But to say that Global warming has stopped & turned into Global cooling, just because we are being protected by own Smog, would be a little off the mark I think.
GW is a con linked to excuse vast sums taken as taxes being diverted to unnecessary tasks in the West which will enable the permanent lack of anything like full employment to be concealed. It also enables vast sums to be migrated from rich to poor - on the basis taking the gas guzzler to the shops in Tupelo can be cancelled out by planting a tree in Timbuktu.
The idea the countries which will get rich via cheap labour and exports need to be subsidised by us when they will power their industry through vast number of polluting coal power stations is also madness.
If there was real will here - rather than the unseen hand of the ultra powerful fossil fuel lobby - we would switch to nuclear power, with some renewables, just because it made sense to get away from supposedly finite supplies, of oil, gas and coal. Ditto countless forms of surface transport not currently based on electricity - eg for long distance freight. Ditto home heating.
There are more holes in GW theories than in the cheese of which the moon was once thought to be made.
120709-09:46
Personal attacks on Mr Booker show the paucity of true evidence in the "warmers" argument and their pet project.
One fact above all demonstrates the laughable fatuity of the politicians' Great Global Warming Scam. It is this. We are at the end of one of the regular brief (in geological terms) warm periods in an ice age which has lasted now for more than two million years. This ice age is the end result of a cooling trend which started 30 million years ago, the Earth having generally been much warmer (around 15 degrees) than it is now. These facts are absolutely indisputable, although probably scarcely a single politician promoting global warming hysteria is aware of them.
The short warm breaks in the ice age (interglacials) average out at 10,000 years long. This one has been 12,000 years already. So the question genuine scientists are more likely to ask is, not whether the earth will get warmer but when are the glaciers likely to start to advance again. There is no earthly reason to believe that this will not happen, apart from the fact that it is going to be mightily inconvenient for a human race that has become too populous for the planet to cope with.
So, if politicians insist on devastating their countries' economies for the coming apocalypse, could they please get to prepare for the right one? It most certainly won't involve the world getting hotter, but quite the opposite.
@ Tony Nicholls, 7:56
George Joshua Richard Monbiot (born 27 January 1963)
Makes him 46 in my book, not 42.
Global warming , like CND, is about marxist-feminist's fear of dying.
Every sane person knows that only God will decide when time's up. Not men in suits in Kyoto or New York.
The carbon dioxide under Lake Bailkal in Siberia (the world's largest) is far more of a threat than methane from under the ocean. The last time it welled up it was like a monstrous fart which engulfed half the planet. Why do you think the dinoaurs disappeared?
Stardate : 12.7.09 09:21 (Beam me up,Scotty)
For David Morris:
"So what the hell, relax, lie back, enjoy life while it lasts. Let all the doom sayers run wild they can only be proved right. Myself I don't give a stuff."
Quite right, David.
I woke up this morning (always a great start to any day).
My young son gave me a wonderful cuddle.
The rainclouds are clearing here in Southern England.
We're off to have a nice meal at Donatello's in Brighton this lunchtime and a stroll down the front.
It's a wonderful life if only we can see it.
Isn't it time Prof. Dawkins got involve. He has spent too much time rubbishing the "God Delusion", when is he going to start on the "CO2 Delusion"?
He would have the contacts we don't have.
What astonishes me has been the role of the hypocritical BBC in this journalistic fiasco (you know the same organisation that sends 500 people to cover the Beijing Olympics and a similar number to "report" on Glastonbury). How wonderful to finally see them eating humble pie (with a an exceptionally huge slice going to the "environment dogmatist" - sorry analyst - Roger Harrabin.)
For Eric Worrall:
Thanks for the link to your house, Eric - congratulations.
I hope you have many years of happiness in your new home.
Looks like an easy paddle to your nearest Sainsburys!
(;-)
Indirectly you can blame the Vietnam war for the GW scam. It was because of great dioxin swindle of the 70's and 80's that the present day media, scientists, lawyers and lobbyists learned their multi million dollar craft and turned unprovable theories into an industry.
The y2k bug and avian flu scares were just pocket money to the scare industry.
The Left will always invent idiotic theories to justify stomping on other people's freedom. Whether it's bunkum economics, post-modern pseudo-philosophies, or voodoo ecoscience, it's all the same. Fear, envy and ignorance are the tools and power is the aim.
For Greg Tingey:
"The title is correct.
The Sun and Acoeans do not lie, nor do the scientists.
But Christoper Booker is a deliberate liar.
What I want to know is why?
And why the Daily Telegraph, a supposedly responsible newspaper continues to reprint his deliberate deceptions?"
Thanks, Greg.
I'm sure we all appreciated your considered contribution to the debate.
Simple. Tax carbon based fuels and put the revenue to research into clean alternatives and subsidising the best three existing ones. This cuts pollution, encourages economies, insulation, the use of alternatives all in one go.
It completely baffles me how these allegedly intelligent world leaders all fall for the anthropogenic global warming scam - or are they in fact the architects of it all? The message appears to be 'frighten the public, and thus control them and tax them heavily into the bargain'. How can these arrogant fools think that they can possibly control the climate and limit temperature rise?
They appear to rely on incomplete, or false "science" put forward by the IPCC, when most of us know that the IPCC have been selective in their science, choosing to forget important past events in history, like the Little Ice Age, and the Mediaeval Warming period. They also conveniently forgot to take into consideration many other climate-modifying criteria, like solar activity, submarine volcanicity, extra-terrestrial influences,and the fact that the carbon cycle has little effect on temperature, (rather the other way round) and is not influenced by man anyway - the earth has been much warmer than it is now - warming periods are good, they sustain and enhance life. Cold periods lead to famine, desertification, disease and human strife, misery and conflict. This has historically proved to be so. Far from the globe warming up, with the current fall in solar activity and other criteria we are far more likely to be entering another cooling phase.
The planet and climate are in a constant state of flux and are continually changing, often as result of the combination of recognised cycles - always have, always will. The influence of humanity is negligible, and we are certainly not going to alter things which have been occurring for billennia.
It's all a shameful con, and the real sad thing about it all is that they expect the gullible public (particularly those who have not had the benefit of a sound geographical or historical education) to swallow this hook, line and sinker - which, in general, they do.
If we to allow this scam to continue, we will all be led in totally the wrong direction, we will be thrown back into the dark ages (coincidentally, another cold period!)where we will be less able to recover as the planet cools.
You watch - the next cooling phase will take hold, and our dear leaders will say "told you so - do as we say, and the temperature will fall".
Wake up, don't fall for this idiocy. Take a look at Ian Plimer's book "Heaven and Earth - Global Warming: the missing science" A real eye opener, and it goes a long, long way to exposing these scientists for the agenda-ridden alarmists they really are.
IT'S THE SUN -STUPID
As has alreadt been referred to in this blog, constraining the temperature of the planet is as likely as King Canute pushing back the waves. King Canute knew his limitations whereas our so-called leaders, most of the journalists and the activists do not.
The one certain thing about the climate is that it is unpredictable. The satellite data, for example, show that the "temperature" of the earth is an unstable noisy time series. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance and will not be until we know a lot more about what is going on.
The "modal" state of the earth is an ice age with mass extinctions. Think about it and be thankful.
Between 1645 and 175 the Thames froze over during a mini ice-age.
This "coincided" with the Maunder minimum when there was virtually no solar activity.
Similarly, between 1415 and 1534 the Sporer minumum resulted in another ice age.
The solar activity has been high recently , result - high temperatures. But it has now peaked out. I expect the establishment will claim the
co-responding reduction in global warming is a result of their policy of reducing man's carbon footprint.
Kenneth Newton Milton Keynes
Mark B - you need to catch up: climate change IS big business (and probably always was because it sure isn't about science). Another 10% has just been added to our power bills - in addition to the Renewables Obligation charges already levied - to fund inefficient windmills that require massive taxpayer subsidies to operate at a 'profit'. Check out the attendees and sponsors for carbon trading conferences and ask yourself why the big, bad capitalists are so prevalent.
The whole climate change scam is a pretext for big business, with the collusion of self-interested government, to make big money for its shareholders. It is attempting to create a moral climate in which it is justified to suppress competition from the developing world and can only do so by buying off the dissenters with more 'aid' from Britain's (and others) taxpayers. There is absolutely nothing altruistic about the climate change scam and anybody who believes otherwise is in for a serious awakening.
Are you in Beijing profiting from China's uncapped, coal-burning economy? If so, I'd stay there if I were you because it's not going to be possible to make any sort of living here once business relocates to China, India or Russia. You can always ask for some clean air legislation - at least that has some basis in science.
Good article, Mr Booker.
"Global warming" is a totally un-proven herd-mentality, preying on peoples fear.
Last winter was the coldest for decades in Europe and North America, with much of the Northern Hemisphere frozen solid for months.
Without heating this winter would have killed hundreds of millions of people.
We should be even more afraid of that.
Climate changes naturally with variations in solar output, without any contribution from mankind, and volcanic eruptions affect the atmosphere much more than anything we do.
If we get a couple more winters like the last one, we will all know that "global warming" is bunkem.
It�s not whether or not climate change, aka global warming, is taking place, it�s what�s causing it. From all that I have read, it would appear that this is far more likely to be because of the cyclical nature of the world�s climate than anything to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Besides, one good volcanic eruption will put more CO2 into the atmosphere in one go than all that human-kind can do in a year.
Global warming may or may not be caused by human activity and a rigorous cost-benefit analysis may or may not favour corrective action (see "The Skeptical Environmentalist") but how can we take all this political posturing seriously if our politicians cannot address a far more irrefutable and immediate problem. I refer to overfishing. The policies in place are costly, overly complex, politically-driven and utterly ineffective where they are not counter-productive.
As a non-scientist, I am wary of challenging official graphs and statistics 'proving' climate change. We have written testimony that people have sailed round the world in areas that are today covered in ice, and that snowdrops have appeared in December - ie. temperature/climate changes have happened before.
Please keep up your balanced articles for and against climate change, we need the chance to make up our own minds.
remember the names of those who lie about the truth and want to take away your job and living and home and car and make you a slave.
And when the world wakes up and understand that it's not co2 we will should hang them. Oh that's good
Positive thinking?
Lord Avebury in the House of Lords 25th June 2001 asked: "My Lords, have the Government had an opportunity of evaluating the evidence made public in the "Equinox" programme on Channel 4 last week, based on research of Dr Santo Bains at the Oxford University? It revealed that at two points in the world's history there have been catastrophic releases of methane hydrates from the ocean floors, which came at a certain point in the warming of the oceans, raising the temperature of the Earth by some 8 degrees. Does the Minister take this seriously? If so, should there be a far more drastic programme for the reduction in carbon emissions than we have seen so far?"