NC Media Watch

CARB's Cap and Trade plan moving forward

Russ Steele

Here is an item from the San Francisco Chronicle that was sent by a reader:  California joins major North American effort to curb greenhouse gases

California, six other Western states and four Canadian provinces will launch a market-based carbon trading system in a major North American effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, according to a draft proposal released today.

At the end of the article there is a quote from CARB chairwoman Mary Nichols who said:

"a regional market would be more effective than a statewide one." 

Why would it be more effective? Because once California business experience an increased cost of doing business, due to the cost of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, they will soon be looking for a new lower cost business location.  Nichols' wants to limit the potential relocation options for California businesses.

Potential locations include the US and Mexico States and Canadian Providences that have not signing up for the regional solution:   

UNITED STATES       CANADA           MEXICO   
Alaska                    Quebec             Baja California
Colorado                Saskatchewan    Coahuila
Idaho                                             Chihuahua   
Kansas                                            Nuevo Leon
Nevada                                           Sonora
Wyoming                                        Tamaulipas

These non-participants are listed as monitors. Yea, I would be monitoring too.  I would be developing an ad campaign to point out how much lower the cost of business is in my non Cap and Trade state/providence.  What would you do if you were responsible for economic development in your state/providence.

Myth busting with Michael Mann, Mr Hockey Stick.

Russ Steele

This popped in to my in box this afternoon. Dire Predictions, Understanding Global Warming, a new book by Michael E. Mann, of hockey stick fame, and his co-author Lee R. Kump a Penn State professor of geo-sciences.

I found part of the Penn State PR interview hilarious, given the number of global warming myths promoted by Mann.

"The most fun for me was collecting the misinformation out there and debunking the myths surrounding global warming," says Kump. Mann also thought finding and debunking the myths was fun.

These myths include the idea that carbon dioxide is causing the holes in the ozone, that the increase in carbon dioxide is the result of natural cycles, and the possibility that our atmosphere is not warming at all. The authors consider each myth or misunderstanding and explain any kernel of truth within and why the myths are untrue.

Details here.

I find this disturbing, I hope you do

Russ Steele

In a recent field poll 672 likely voters in California were asked:

"Have you seen, read or heard anything about Proposition 7, an initiative to establish standards for renewable energy to appear on the November election ballot?"

Eighty two (82) percent had never heard about the “Renewable Energy” initiative, which will require all utilities to generate 20% of their power from renewable energy sources by 2010, increasing to 40% by 2020 and 50% by 2025.

Of those that had heard about the “Renewable Energy” initiative, 24 percent said they were likely to vote against it, and 13 percent said they were undecided, leaving 63 percent supporting this measure.

The renewable energy sources most mentioned are wind and solar, all of which cannot compete in the market place with cheaper natural gas and coal, or nuclear if it was available. Solar energy is government subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and ... nuclear power $1.59. Coal is 44 cents and natural gas at 25 cents per megawatt hour. (Source Energy Information Administration)   

Now if those that know about Prop 7 were to win the vote in November, you and I as consumers will have to pay for these renewable energy sources twice. Once for the service and then again in tax subsidies.  Can we afford this?  Can we afford this if we all have to drive electric cars?

The part I find most disturbing is that most consumers have never heard about the Prop 7, yet they will be paying the bills for this quest to solve a non-existing problem. More greenhouse gases are not the problem. The problem is more government drones protecting there position at the government tax trough  by trying to solve a non-existing problem.

The Daily Bayonet's food for thought

Russ Steele

This is a thought provoking blog post that makes sense to me. I am a social scientist and find peoples actions more telling than their words. The author writes:

I believe that human nature will finally kill off the global warming hoax, delivering a coup de grace to the damage already wrought on the hoaxers schemes by the economy. 

Read the Bayonet's theory , it makes good sense to me. What about you?

Dr. Spencer supports Lord Monckton on model over sensitivity

Russ Steele

Anthony Watts writes:

Dr. Roy Spencer went to Washington to give testimony today to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Here is his presentation. While not as technical as Lord Moncktons paper at APS (since it had to be simplified for a congressional hearing), it nonetheless says the same thing - climate sensitivity is overstated by models and not supported by observational data. - Anthony

Details here.

Update #1: The Reference Frame has the video and some commentary on the how Dr. Spencer was treated by Senator Boxer and her committee here.  Senator Boxer is now the official clown of the EIB Network.

Good news among the bad

Russ Steele

I was reading the Bee's Dan Walter's discussion of California's declining economy: Bad economic news piles up.

The bad economic news is piling up for California, with the state reporting stagnant job growth and higher unemployment and economists now agreeing that the state's recession is expanding beyond the imploding housing sector.

Then I found this buried in Walter's article, my emphasis added:

"The June data give the first indication that job losses are moving from being mainly caused by the housing slowdown to where consumer spending caution is a more important cause of job losses. It is also worth noting that more than half of the June losses were in the government sector."

Earlier this year the government job sector was growing at 3%, the fastest sector in California. It is good to read that this growth might be declining. 

KNCO joins the global warming misinformation campaign

Russ Steele

I just heard this report on our local radio station KNCO:

The California wildfires that have burned more than 900-thousand acres may be just the beginning.  According to a new EPA report on climate change, California and other western states can expect more severe wildfires, along with water shortages, increased pollution and coastal flooding.  Dr. George Benjamin with the American Public Health Association says the effects of climate change on people haven't really been documented until now, and some regions can expect major lifestyle changes.  He says individuals and communities can address climate change by driving less and changing other habits that contribute to ozone and other pollutants.  Rick Wilson, coastal management coordinator with the "Surfrider Foundation," says the report predicts that California's coast will suffer from climate change.  He says intense storms may overwhelm sewer systems leading to more raw sewage spilling into the Pacific

Well here are some facts from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program assessment report titled "Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate." 

The Climate Bureaucrat

Guest post by Kristen Byrnes Science Foundation Volunteers

(More evidence that we have a broken surface temperature measurement system being used to promote global warming hysteria and more greenhouse gas reduction regulations.)

There is an old joke that goes something like this: The easiest way to starve a government bureaucrat is to hide his lunch money under his work boots. From the files of the National Climate data Center and the Kristen Byrnes Science Foundation comes evidence that this may not be just a joke.

Climate Scientists at the National Climate Data Center noticed an anomaly in the temperature record of the Durham, New Hampshire temperature station (USHCN # 272174). When compared to the local Climate Reference Network station, scientists observed that during the summer, Durham was over 1 degree warmer. During the winter, it was slightly cooler.

The climate scientist was baffled. After viewing the station metadata and discovering no documented station changes, he quickly assumed that the equipment at Durham was faulty. That’s where this part of the story ends.

Fast forward to the summer of 2007; volunteers at the Kristen Byrnes Science Foundation surveyed and photographed this site as well as others in New England. After a weekend of photographing stations, volunteer Casey DePeter and his uncle went to the National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine to request station history records on some of the New England stations. Now, one would expect cooperation from the National Weather Service when school kids are conducting scientific research, especially since all of the stations had been visited and photographed. But no, Casey and his uncle left empty handed after being told by the facility manager that they would have to get permission from the NWS national headquarters. During that visit there was a discussion about the quality of the Durham station, after which, the NWS manager conceded that the station would soon be closed.

A few weeks later KBSF requested documentation from NCDC on the Durham station, and advised NCDC about the probable error in their earlier study of the station. No KBSF emails were responded to and follow-up phone calls were not returned. However, a few weeks later we noticed that the study had disappeared from the NCDC on-line archives.

Here is the Durham MMTS that was documented; can you guess why summer temperatures would be over 1 degree higher than the local reference station?

The station is located at a facility which services passenger busses. NWS and NCDC were notified that the prevailing winds move across the parking lot and over the asphalt roof of the service building where it creates an eddy which causes air to be exchanged between the air conditioner (22 feet away) and the temperature sensor.

So back to the climate scientist who studied the warm anomaly at Durham. Did he pick up the telephone and call the NWS station manager or the coop observer to learn about possible microclimate issues? No. Did he get off his chair and visit the site? No. Was he even aware that microclimate issues exist at USHCN stations? Probably not. He just assumed that the temperature sensor was faulty.

The NWS manager obviously didn’t lift a finger to close the station; below is the latest observers report taken a year later. The NCDC also lists this station as currently active.

In closing, you can easily see that the NWS and NCDC were confronted with an embarrassing error, a waste of the tax-payers dollars. Instead of correcting it they covered their tracks, ran for cover and went about business as usual. Does that sound like the average bureaucrat?

Thanks to the following KBSF volunteers who contributed to this story and images: John Simmons, Casey DePeter, Mike Carson, Tammy Byrnes and Paul Alicia

Another scientist challenges the global warming scam

Russ Steele

David Evans writes in The Australian:

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.

FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.

When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.

Evans explains his new view:

But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

Both sides of the APS/Monckton story

Russ Steele

In our discussion of Viscount Monckton of Brenchley's paper in Physics & Society,  Lefty has posted a comment here requesting that both sides of the story get represented.

I agree it is important to views both sides of the issues, but the real news was that a section of the American Physical Society was willing to open the debate on human caused global warming, thus the interest in Monckton's invited paper. Then the breaking news became the seeming discourteous disclaimer posted over the invited article by the American Physical Society Executive Committee.

"The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its
conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the
world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society
disagrees with this article's conclusions."

The same disclaimer was not posted over the counter arguments offered in A Tutorial on the Basic Physics of Climate Change, by David Hafemeister and Peter Schwartz, who conclude:

Conclusion: Earth is getting warmer. Basic atmospheric models clearly predict that additional greenhouse gasses will raise the temperature of Earth. To argue otherwise, one must prove a physical mechanism that gives a reasonable alternative cause of warming. This has not been done. Sunspot and temperature correlations do not prove causality.

Full paper with both articles can be downloaded here: Download july08.pdf

Again, Hafemeister and Schwartz rely on computer models for increased warming, even though those models have not predicted the cooling that has taken place over the last ten years. Viscount Monckton explained how the models have failed, but I am not sure I understand all of the complex math. This I do understand, the real world temperatures are not following the models that proclaim increasing greenhouse gases will cause global warming. What is it that the global warmers do not understand about this graphic: