By Marita Noon
Monday, March 04, 2013
Two of catastrophic climate change’s staunchest
supporters have been out on the stump promoting their cause—with conflicting
statements.
On February 20, Secretary of State John Kerry gave his
first speech, as Secretary, at the University of Virginia where he offered a
glimpse of how he sees tackling climate change as part of his job—as is
“reducing nuclear threat,” “fighting corruption in Nigeria,” and breaking “the
cycle of poverty, poor nutrition and hunger.”
On the same day, February 20, NASA’s James Hansen was
speaking in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the Lensic Theater, with a follow-up
presentation the next day at the Santa Fe Institute, where he proposed“a steep
energy tax to curb global warming.”
In Kerry’s introductory comments he says: “So our
challenge is to … offer even the most remote place on earth the same choices
that have made us strong and free.” Later, he launches into his climate change
litany, and talks about developing and deploying “the clean technologies that
will power a new world”—yet the inefficient, intermittent, and uneconomical
“clean technologies” are not what made America “strong and free.” America
became a superpower on the basis of energy that was abundant, available, and
affordable. Now, in the cause of climate change, we want to deny developing
countries the same benefits we’ve had?
Additionally, Kerry acknowledges: “we are all in this one
together. No nation can stand alone.” After 15 years of supporters’ best
efforts, the global community has rejected the Kyoto Protocol—which aimed to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized countries on the theory
that it would stop global warming. It expired December 31, 2012. The world’s
biggest emitters refused to sign on, the US never ratified it, and Canada has
since completely backed out. The UK is likely not far behind.
Last week, London’s Daily Express featured a story
titled: “Blackout Britain: EU environmental directive puts millions at risk of
power cuts”—which concluded with the following: “We are facing disaster on
energy prices. The dynamic has changed, but the thinking hasn’t.” A few days
earlier, February 20, another Daily Express headline addressed the panic the UK
is facing: “Cheaper energy is more important than going green.” The “cheaper
energy” article cites “rising energy prices” that have “gone up 159 per cent
since 2004” and quotes Energy Secretary Ed Davey as saying: “energy prices are
now out of control.” The author states: “Our energy policy is no longer
dictated by the need to keep supply plentiful and cheap which for decades was
the basis of all planning. Today energy policy is framed with only one factor
in mind: satisfying the green lobby.” He concludes: “in the UK we let the green
lobby sneer at fracking and barely even pay lip-service to its possibilities,
at the same time as we close down productive power plants and stand back
watching while prices go through the stratosphere.”
It is true, Secretary Kerry, that “no one nation can
stand alone.” But he has promised we will rise to meet the challenge of
tackling climate change—rising energy prices, that is.
Even Dr. Pachauri, the chairman of the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledgesa “17-year pause in global
temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office.” At Melbourne’s
Deakin University, Dr. Pachauri said: “People have to question these things and
science only thrives on the basis of questioning.” He continued: “no doubt
about it,” it is good for controversial issues to be “thrashed out in the
public arena.”
Which takes us to Dr. Hansen’s presentations in Santa
Fe—primarily attended by sycophants carrying copies of his book: Storms of My
Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last
Chance to Save Humanity. However, four scientists also attended—a
meteorologist, a physicist, a biologist, and a geologist.
Though no speech transcript exists, the Santa Fe New
Mexican covered Hansen’s presentation at the Institute, during which he
predicted catastrophes, such as rising seas and species extinctions “if
carbon-based fuels continue to be used at the same rate as today.” He believes
“efforts to stem climate change will be ineffectual as long as fossil fuels
remain the cheapest form of energy,” and therefore he “proposed a new tax for
carbon emissions from oil, gas and coal.” Yet, he stated: “Government shouldn’t
be making decisions as to what the next energy sources are. Let the marketplace
make the decision.” He wants a tax to make fossil fuels unattractive, but the
government should let the marketplace decide?
“That wasn’t the only nonsensical idea he presented,” the
scientists told me.
Robert Endlich, the meteorologist, reported: “One item
after another struck me as being completely at odds with measurements. For
instance, Hansen claimed Earth’s energy balance is out of balance, and we are
warming rapidly, but recent global surface temperatures of land and water have
not increased and, in fact, many measures show cooling over the past 17-19
years. In the US, there has not been a new state maximum temperature record set
since 1995, and, in spite of the claims to the contrary, July 1936, is still
the warmest month on record, set when CO2 was less than 300 parts per million.
CO2 is now 395 PPM.”
Bernie McCune holds degrees in both engineering and
biology and has worked with both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency
and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Hansen admitted there is still some
question,” McCune said. “But, his presentation was mostly political and didn’t
prove that CO2 is the problem; it didn’t show that humans had anything to do
with it.”
Jerry Clark, the physicist, who has spent 30 years as a
spacecraft engineer for the NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System,
talked to one of the organizers before the meeting. The young man was surprised
to learn that not all scientists agreed with Hansen. Clark feels frustrated because
“the opportunity for opposing views to receive equal time and billing with Dr.
Hansen does not exist; nor will the apologists engage in data comparisons.”
Instead of the short-term charts Hansen presented, Clark wants to see the data
and the real records. Drawing from his experiences on his college debate team,
Clark was surprised that “Hansen didn’t even try to justify his thesis of
man-made global warming.”
John Clema looks at the geologic history when he says:
“Hansen’s claim of ‘extinction of 30 percent to 50 percent of animal species’
is nothing more than shameless spreading of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. More
than 98% of all the plants and animals that we currently know of are from the
fossil record. There is no evidence that connects CO2 to these extinctions
other than the strong possibility of linking huge volcanic activity to some
timeframes where extinctions have occurred. In the geologic record, there are
times when we’ve had much higher CO2 than at present—yet there are few
recognizable extinctions. Nor is there any link between CO2 from fossil fuels
and global warming. We are still in an interglacial period where warming could
be expected—but Hansen can’t prove any part of this is due to human activity.
Warm and wet is good for our species, cold and dry is not.”
At the end of Hansen’s presentation, there was a brief
question and answer time. Only four questioners got answers. In response to
Endlich’s question: “Observations show 10 years of warming from 1988 to 1998,
but steady and by many measures, even falling temperatures since—a period over
17 years where the temperature has not risen at all. The total rise since 1988
has been only 0.2-0.3C. To what do you attribute the poor performance of that
prediction?” Hansen first acknowledged the sun’s involvement, then he denied
that the globe had not warmed—despite Pachauri’s admission that the warming had
stalled.
Pachauri’s February 24 speech invited traditional
scientific give and take, yet Hansen refused additional discussion with the scientists.
When Endlich showed data from the Vostok and the Greenland ice cores, Hansen
blew him off, saying: “you are wrong!” End of discussion.
The Santa Fe New Mexican’s headline for Hansen’s visit
was: “a steep energy tax to curb global warming.” Perhaps Hansen was tipping
his hand, confirming the rumor that Obama will approve the long-delayed, but
much-needed Keystone pipeline if Congress will approve a carbon tax. Tit for
tat.
Just what our teetering economy needs: higher energy
prices. What planet do these guys come from?
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