Category Archives: Environment

Everytime a paper is written that refutes some part of the “the Science is Settled  AGW” theory,  we hear charges that the author is funded by Exxon-Mobil. The JoNova blog has made two insightful entries that examine the funding for Skeptics and the funding for the AGWs.   The first entry sums up the funding issue this way:

The Summary

The US government has provided over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks.

Despite the billions: “audits” of the science are left to unpaid volunteers. A dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of the theory and compete with a well funded highly organized climate monopoly. They have exposed major errors.

Carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion in 2008. Banks are calling for more carbon-trading. And experts are predicting the carbon market will reach $2 – $10 trillion making carbon the largest single commodity traded.

Meanwhile in a distracting sideshow, Exxon-Mobil Corp is repeatedly attacked for paying a grand total of $23 million to skeptics—less than a thousandth of what the US government has put in, and less than one five-thousandth of the value of carbon trading in just the single year of 2008.

The large expenditure in search of a connection between carbon and climate creates enormous momentum and a powerful set of vested interests. By pouring so much money into one theory, have we inadvertently created a self-fulfilling prophesy instead of an unbiased investigation?

Hardly a fair contest,  $79 billion versus $23 million.   But to get more insight on the way this affects the perception of what theory or theories are correct. Read more here

The second entry shows how the AGW machine attacks scientist that do not share their views.

Thousands of scientists have been funded to find a connection between human carbon emissions and the climate. Hardly any have been funded to find the opposite. Throw 30 billion dollars at one question and how could bright, dedicated people not find 800 pages worth of connections, links, predictions, projections and scenarios? (What’s amazing is what they haven’t found: empirical evidence.)

Normally this might not be such a problem, because the lure of fame and fortune by categorically “busting” a well-accepted idea would attract some people. In most scientific fields, if someone debunks a big Nature or Science paper, they are suddenly cited more often; are the next in line for a promotion and find it easier to get grants. They attract better PhD students to help, are invited to speak at more conferences, and placed higher in the program. Instead in climate science, the reward is the notoriety of a personal attack page on Desmog¹, ExxonSecrets² or Sourcewatch³, dedicated to listing every mistake on any topic you may have made, any connection you may have had with the fossil fuel industry, no matter how long ago or how tenuous. The attack-dog sites will also attack your religious beliefs if you have any. Roy Spencer, for example, has been repeatedly attacked for being Christian (though no one has yet come up with any reason why that could affect his satellite data).

Ironically, the “activist” websites use paid bloggers. DeSmog is a funded wing of a professional PR group Hoggan⁴ and Associates (who are paid to promote clients⁵ like David Suzuki Foundation, ethical funds, and companies that sell alternative energy sources like hydro power, hydrogen and fuel cells.) ExxonSecrets is funded by Greenpeace⁶ (who live off donations to “save” the planet, and presumably do better when the planet appears to need saving).

Read more here

If you claim to represent a grass roots movement, but in fact are in the pay of someone to make it look like a grass roots movement,  a new term is  being used and it is “astroturfing”, or a fake grass roots movement.

 An English blog site has taken on the AGWers that continually say that the “deniers” are astroturfers because they are funded by Exxon and other corporate interests.    I guess it is unsurprising that the media cares little that the AGW movement gets huge sums of money from government and industry.  The last estimate I saw was a figure of about $5 billion in grants, study moneys etc from governments.  And if you look at the Pew Center’s group of companies that support the AGW movement, you would wonder how any honest person could point a finger at skeptics.    The blog, Climate Resistance wrote an article in January of this year that looks at some of the money flow that supports the AGW movement.  It shows how some of the supporters  that claim to be above the fray  are plugging their companies that benefit from all the AGW hype. The blog sums up the story as follows:

The environmental orthodoxy is a tangled web of corporate interests, policy-makers, -movers and -shakers, academics, NGO’s and activists – all pushing in the same direction. Which would be just fine if the idea had been tested democratically. But it hasn’t. We’ve said it many times… environmentalism has not risen to prominence through its own energies: it has not developed from a mass movement; it isn’t representative of popular interests. It is useful only to various organisations that have otherwise struggled to justify themselves over the last few decades. The political parties have bought it. Various ‘radical’ organisations have bought it. Large sections of the media have bought it. Academic departments and funding agencies have bought it. Little wonder that corporate interests have been able to jump upon the bandwagon and play their hearts out for personal financial gain.

To read the whole blog,   click here

Cbdakota

The June  SPPI CO2 Report has been issued.  This  monthly report, edited by Christopher Monckton, is the best place to find all of the usual “markers” of the state of global climate change.  You will find the latest charts for atmospheric temperature, ocean temperature, atmospheric CO2 levels,  sea level, Arctic and Antarctic ice extent, solar activity, and more.  In addition it has informative discussions of CO2 induced acidification of the oceans, why the computers programs overstate future global temperatures, etc.  

It is evident from these charts that global warming continues to be global cooling.   To look at this report click here

Cbdakota

The University of Alabama-Huntsville manages a satellite system that measures global temperature.  These measurements are much better than the land based measurements because the satellites cover more of the Earth’s surface and are not subject to the typical errors that plague land based measurements systems. The satellite system has been in operations since 1979.

The oceans represent about 3/4ths of the Earth surface.   The land based do have some  ocean temperature  measurements  but nothing like the satellite coverage.  The raw data from the  land based measurements are mostly readjusted by the managers of those systems.  This could be an invitation to make the  final numbers come out to satisfy your biases.  

The June 09 numbers show decline in the temperature anomaly.   It is consistent with the downward trend of global temperatures in this decade.  

To view the satellite temperature record view

Cbdakota

Steve Spruiell and Kevin Williamson wrote a piece for National Review Online titled “A Garden of Piggish Delights”.   They have gone through the 1300 page Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Bill and have listed the top 50, main provisions in the bill.  As we know, no one who voted for (or against –hooray  them) it had read the bill when they voted.  So I suspect they might be somewhat surprised and enlightened if they read this summary.  And more to the point EMBARRASED!!!!

 As a teaser, the following are some of Spruiell and Williamson highlights:

• Eighty-five % of the carbon permits will not be sold but rather given away to utility companies, etc..  The sale of these permits begins in earnest in about 10 years.
• Some of the monies derived from the permit sales will go to build capacity to reduce  deforestation in developing countries.
• Projects receiving grants from this legislation must implement Davis-Bacon union wage rules.
• The farm state Representatives agreed to vote for this bill when agribusiness was exempted from Cap and Trade controls.
• The bill directs the EPA to ignore the real environmental impact of ethanol and other biofuels.
• And there are guarantees for loans to build ethanol pipelines.
• Obama can enact tariffs on any country that fails to clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions.   Think China, India, Brazil and Mexico when you read “any country”.    Remember what Smoot-Hawley  high tariffs did to the world economy during the 1930’s.
• Utilities must supply 20% of their power from renewables by 2020.  Nuclear and Canadian hydro power generated electricity do not qualify as renewable.
• The EPA is to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks, buses, boats, airplanes,  and other mobile sources. 
• IT GETS WORSE….

To read the whole thing,  click here

Marc Sheppard’s American Thinker blog titled “A Desperate Obama Tries to Sell Cap-and-Trade as a Jobs Bill”  makes a number of excellent points about how this is not a jobs bill.

“Now, make no mistake,” Obama assured us yesterday, “this is a jobs bill.”

Now Obama tells us that the bill “will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs.” Yet according to Indiana Republican Mike Pence’s floor speech this morning, the ever-changing bill makes provisions to aid the millions of Americans it puts out of work.  And that same Heritage study suggests that figure may reach as high as 2.5 million.

In January, the president held out the energy policies of Spain as a shining example of how successful a “government-aided” cap-and-tax plan could be.  But in reality, a “green bubble” inflated by a perpetuating yet unsustainable cycle of Spanish government subsidies for “green jobs” resulted in a net loss of two traditional jobs for every green one created.  And, not unlike Obama’s “shovel-ready” construction jobs, the majority of the Spanish “green” jobs were temporary in nature, further decimating the Spanish workforce as they phased out.  And as the Spanish government continued to pump more money into inadequate power sources, energy prices skyrocketed, driving industry to cheaper ground in other countries.  As a result, Spain’s unemployment rate now stands at a staggering 18 percent.

Yes, it appears to be a jobs bill,  but the jobs created are going to be in China, India, Mexico and Brazil and in the other countries that do not enact Cap and Trade legislation. To read the full blog, click here

George Will also weighs in on Obama’s claim that Spain shows that lots of green jobs are going to be produced by  Cap and Trade legislation.  For Will’s comments click here

For the Pennsylvanians in the audience,  the Vice Chairman and two other Commissioners believe that the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Legislations will be bad for Pa. residents.   The Commissioners  have written a letter to the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation outlining their reason for opposing the legislation.   Read it here