Month: May 2017

The Sky is Falling!

The Sky is Falling!

via Friends of Science Calgary
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Contributed by Robert Lyman © May 2017

 

In a story published two days ago in the Independent, a U.K. newsmagazine, Seth Berenstein reported on the claims of a group of scientists, including Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, about the possible effects of the United States withdrawing from the December 2015 Paris agreement on global warming. Oppenheimer is quoted as saying that “one expert group” (unidentified) ran a worst case computer simulation of what would happen if the U.S. does not curb greenhouse gas emissions but all other countries meet their targets. It found that “America would add as much as half a degree of warming (0.3 degrees Celsius) to the globe by the end of the century.”

 

“Another computer simulation team put the effect of the U.S. pulling out somewhere between 0.1 and 0.2 degrees Celsius.”

 

Wow! As a matter of fact, the Paris Agreement contains no targets. It is a “best efforts” political commitment to constrain the growth in global GHG emissions by amounts to be set by each country in a series of five-year plans. The first five-year plans were estimated to reduce eventual warming (if one believes the models) by about .015 degrees. Even those emissions reductions were contingent on the industrialized countries giving at least $100 billion per year to the developing countries to finance their programs. The developing countries have since said that they need at least $300 billion a year and the industrialized countries have not even come up with $40 billion over five years.

 

The thesis that all the other countries of the world would, absent the U.S. participation, go on to reduce emissions by the amounts envisioned by U.N. bureaucrats is baseless anyway. The U.N. claims that global emissions will have to be cut in half from today’s levels by 2050. All the authoritative sources on global energy supply, demand and emissions project that, instead, emissions will grow by 40% or more by 2050.

 

So, under an unrealistic scenario based on questionable modeling and inaccurate assumptions about what the rest of the world will do, the so-called experts are projecting that the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could affect global temperatures by somewhere between 0.1 and 0.3 degrees Celsius 83 years from now. What a catastrophe!

thermometer

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May 30, 2017 at 11:25AM

Good news: Africa has become greener in the last 20 years – CO2 listed as a cause

Good news: Africa has become greener in the last 20 years – CO2 listed as a cause

via Watts Up With That?
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From the “blame CO2” department:

Despite climate change and a growing population, Africa has become greener over the past 20 years, shows new study.

By: Kristian Sjøgren -ScienceNordic

In Africa, a fight is happening. On one side natural forces are making the continent greener, and on the other, people are removing trees and bushes from the continent.

In densely populated regions, people are cutting down trees and forests, but elsewhere, where human populations are more thinly spread, bushes and scrub vegetation are thriving.

Now, scientists have quantified for the first time how vegetation across the continent has changed in the past 20 years.

Thirty six per cent of the continent has become greener, while 11 per cent is becoming less green.

The results show that not all is lost for Africa’s nature, say the scientists behind the new research.

“Our results are both positive and negative. Of course it’s not good that humans have had a negative influence on the distribution of trees and bushes in 11 per cent of Africa in the last 20 years, but it doesn’t come as a complete surprise,” says co-author Martin Brandt from the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

“On the other hand it’s not all negative as an area—three times larger than the area where trees and bushes are disappearing—is becoming greener, which is positive, at least from a climate point of view,” he says.

The new study is published in the scientific journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Challenges the general view of Africa

The study challenges the view that Africa is undergoing a sustained loss of trees and bushes, says Professor Henrik Balslev from the Department of Bioscience at Aarhus University, Denmark. Balslev was not involved in the study.

The new study offers a nuanced picture of how population growth in Africa influences vegetation in different ways.

“The study gives a much more nuanced picture of people’s influence on vegetation in Africa, south of the Sahara, than we had before. The study will have significant impacts on how we evaluate people’s influence on African nature in the future, as the expected population grows dramatically,” he says.

Full story here


Abstract (bold mine)

The rapidly growing human population in sub-Saharan Africa generates increasing demand for agricultural land and forest products, which presumably leads to deforestation. Conversely, a greening of African drylands has been reported, but this has been difficult to associate with changes in woody vegetation. There is thus an incomplete understanding of how woody vegetation responds to socio-economic and environmental change. Here we used a passive microwave Earth observation data set to document two different trends in land area with woody cover for 1992–2011: 36% of the land area (6,870,000 km2) had an increase in woody cover largely in drylands, and 11% had a decrease (2,150,000 km2), mostly in humid zones. Increases in woody cover were associated with low population growth, and were driven by increases in CO2 in the humid zones and by increases in precipitation in drylands, whereas decreases in woody cover were associated with high population growth. The spatially distinct pattern of these opposing trends reflects, first, the natural response of vegetation to precipitation and atmospheric CO2, and second, deforestation in humid areas, minor in size but important for ecosystem services, such as biodiversity and carbon stocks. This nuanced picture of changes in woody cover challenges widely held views of a general and ongoing reduction of the woody vegetation in Africa.

Africa’s human population has increased from about 230 million in 1950 to over 1,000 million in 2010 and is expected to grow to as high as 5,700 million by the end of the twenty-first century1. This growth has led to the expansion of agricultural land and the reduction of natural forests and other woody vegetation2,​3,​4, affecting biodiversity and carbon storage3. Severe droughts in recent decades have also had an adverse impact on humid and sub-humid forested areas5. In contrast, studies of drylands have shown an increase in vegetation productivity over the past 30 years6,​7,​8, also highlighting the importance of drylands for global carbon variability and as a land CO2 sink9. Whether this increase in vegetation productivity is driven by the growth of woody vegetation and/or by an increase in productivity of herbaceous vegetation is not clear6,​7,​8. This is because the scattered nature of woody plants in drylands is very different from forests with closed canopies and is challenging to detect with optical satellite imagery at regional to continental scales10,11. Previous studies have used vegetation indices as proxies for net primary productivity, but these indices measure the photosynthetically active part of the vegetation, and most studies do not distinguish between woody and herbaceous vegetation12,13. Furthermore, studies of deforestation in humid areas traditionally report the presence or absence of forests3 and do not assess gradual changes in forest biomass within existing forests (for example forest degradation). They are also based on temporal snapshots of satellite imagery at a higher spatial resolution and only capture forests based on given definitions, such as tree height and canopy cover percentage3,14, which substantially underestimate shrubs and scattered trees in drylands10. Consequently, little quantitative information is available about the state, rate and drivers of change in the cover of woody vegetation at the scale of the African continent. This information is crucial for ensuring that the design of natural resource management in relation to deforestation and desertification is based on observations rather than based on narratives.

via Watts Up With That? http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

May 30, 2017 at 11:10AM

Frost advisories for North and South Dakota

Frost advisories for North and South Dakota

via Ice Age Now
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One of a number of frost advisories for western ND and SD. Sensitive outdoor plants may be killed if left uncovered. 
May. 29, 2017 – The National Weather Service in Aberdeen has issued a frost advisory in effect from 2 am to 8 am MDT Tuesday.

* Temperature… readings will dip into the mid and upper 30s with
light winds and clear skies early Tuesday morning.

* Impacts… frost can kill sensitive outdoor plants if left
unprotected.

Precautionary/preparedness actions…

A frost advisory means that conditions are favorable for frost
formation. Sensitive outdoor plants may be killed if left
uncovered.

http://ift.tt/2rlxezm

Thanks to Jack Hydrazine for this link


 

 

The post Frost advisories for North and South Dakota appeared first on Ice Age Now.

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May 30, 2017 at 10:42AM

Open letter to President Trump – Please Exit the Paris Climate Treaty

Open letter to President Trump – Please Exit the Paris Climate Treaty

via Ice Age Now
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They want to take our money while shackling our economy with ever more bureaucratic control. If we stay, consumers and households will get skewered.

Please Exit Paris. Those who voted for you will remember and approve. Those who detest and resist you will still detest and resist you if you Remain.


Mark Carr and Paul Driessen have written an open letter to the President, urging him to Exit Paris … and giving him multiple reasons for doing so.
___________________________________

Dear Mr. President: Please Exit Paris

Are you are still wondering whether to Exit Paris? Overseas and US officials, environmentalists and bureaucrats urge you to Remain. But you promised voters you would Exit. Please keep your promises.

Exit Paris isn’t about the environment. It’s about letting us utilize our fossil fuel energy to create jobs, rebuild our economy, and Make America Great Again. It’s about avoiding immense transfer payments from the USA to foreign governments, bureaucrats and parties unaccountable to Trump-voting taxpayers.

Worse, even if the USA Remains, and the repulsive payments flow, Paris offers no help in removing real air pollutants. Carbon dioxide isn’t one of them, by the way: it’s plant food, not poison.

Exit Paris: Business

Some high profile American companies recently signed a note urging Remain. Follow the money. Many leaders of those companies didn’t support your election and voted Hillary. And they expect to get billions from us taxpayers and consumers, for locking up our fossil fuels and switching to renewable energy.

We who voted Trump, your base, want Exit. Just as you promised.

Remain, so that we maintain markets for American energy technologies? Some companies will make off like bandits. The rest of us will get skewered. Global buyers of energy systems understand the benefits of America’s world-beating fossil technologies. They understand the life-cycle value of after-sales support poorly delivered by our international competitors. Trust Chinese warranties? We don’t either.

Why ask corporations about Remain or Exit Paris? They pass Remain-driven energy costs on to consumers. Instead, ask consumers about ever-increasing energy bills. You’ll get a different answer.

Corporations have shareholders in the USA, of course, and some of them elected you. But corporations also have European shareholders. Corporations there must survive political economies aligned with Paris’s unaccountable bureaucratic control of energy, jobs, economic growth and living standards. You have to choose: shareholders, entrepreneurs, consumers and families – or rent seekers and bureaucrats.

Renewable energy lobbyists, Obama holdovers – and misguided souls in your own administration – say Remain, to keep a seat at the table. That’s nonsense. Businesses were flogged by the past administration and no longer recognize their obligations to shareholders, much less to societies they are supposed to serve with reliable, affordable power that creates and preserves jobs.

Those companies responded to incentives in a massively hostile American political economy. Those hostilities represent decades-long campaigns by anti-energy groups that got rich while claiming to represent shareholders, and by foreign governments seeking transfer payments. You promised change.

Exit Paris: Group of Seven

Mr. President, you’ll be pressured mightily at the G7 to Remain Paris. Hugely-invested and conflicted world leaders will give you no peace. Your delegation will hound you. Keep your Exit staff close. Why?

Because America got snookered into signing the Arctic Council’s May 11, 2017, Fairbanks Declaration. Now the same pro-Remain forces will claim America wants that language. What language?

Start with Perambulatory Paragraphs 8 & 9: “Reaffirming the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the need for their realization by 2030.” And this: “U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 13.a: Implement the commitment undertaken by developed country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible.”

They want to take our money, while they shackle our economy. But there’s more.

Paragraph 31 (p. 6): “…we welcome the updated assessment of Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic, note with concern its findings, and adopt its recommendations.…The Arctic states, permanent participants, and observers to the Arctic Council, should individually and collectively lead global efforts for an early, ambitious, and full implementation of the Paris COP21 Agreement….”

Your State Department Obama-carry-overs slipped this one past their boss, Secretary Tillerson – and you, by extension. This is where the real art of the deal comes in. Take a leadership role and terminate this. Don’t get sandbagged. Don’t sandbag the people who voted for you. Resist the pressures you’ll face in Sicily. Anything but Exit Paris undermines your credibility and betrays voter trust and America’s future.

Exit Paris: Diplomacy

One reason cited to Remain Paris and Remain UNFCCC and their climate treaties is to “avoid diplomatic blowback.” There certainly will be that, but it’s a cost far more easily borne than the sum of what we paid yesterday and will be told we must pay tomorrow in lost energy, jobs and money. Follow the money:

Emerging nations want the USA to Remain because they expect billions in cash from us every year – plus free technology transfers – at US corporate, taxpayer and consumer expense. Advanced countries want us to Remain because we will inadvertently fund and sign onto programs that they use to seize ever-greater bureaucratic control over energy, resources, jobs and living standards, within their own borders and ours.

The Chinese want us to Remain because it protects access to our market for energy technologies. Do you believe Chinese press releases and speeches that claim they are switching massively to renewable energy? Neither do we. But we see them building more coal-fired power plants in China, Africa and elsewhere.

Europeans want us to Remain in Paris to ensure that our fossil fuels, energy prices, economy, jobs, living standards and ability to compete globally are as shackled by climate insanity as theirs already are.

Some say Remain Paris for a seat at the table. Will the planet otherwise forget American leadership? Better that the deal crumbles without us making huge transfer payments and shackling our economy. Even better is that you lead America and the world back from the climate hysteria precipice.

Anti-America, anti-energy forces unite at the UN and its UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its director, Ambassador Espinosa of Mexico, spoke recently at Georgetown University – to advocate greater bureaucratic control over energy, natural resources, jobs, living standards and human lives. The past administration was in lock-step with this. You should absolutely be against every part of it.

Exit Paris: Science

Paris is a horrible idea, since unassailable empirical evidence demonstrates that: Carbon dioxide makes plants grow faster and better. Atmospheric CO2 levels trail rather than lead warming. Water vapor is a much more potent greenhouse gas. Thanks to carbon dioxide, agricultural productivity has increased over recent decades by over $3.2 trillion. Scientists project up to $10 trillion more in improved crop yields over the coming decades.

Climate science is absolutely not settled. Smart scientists who support you prove there’s no credible path to climate cataclysm due to fossil fuel use and CO2 increases. Doomsayers have gotten rich by peddling false, alarmist, anti-scientific claims, while the rest of us have suffered. This must not continue.

To support Exit Paris, you should reverse the absurd, scientifically unsupportable claim that carbon dioxide “endangers” our welfare. Doing that will substantially remove the ability of subsequent administrations to restore policies that demonize fossil fuels and CO2. Many of the policies addressed and corrected by your recent environmental Executive Order are vulnerable until the endangerment finding disappears. Much of the mischief and job killing of the last eight years can be laid at that doorstep.

Exit Paris, because even outgoing EPA officials admit it will not noticeably affect Earth’s temperature.

Exit Paris: US Politics

Paris intentionally provides for ever-tightening restrictions on American citizens and businesses – thus far with no vote by us or the Senate. Who rewrote our Constitution to allow a president, in his final days in office, to impose such a far reaching treaty on us without our advice, consent, approval or vote?

If you need Exit support of fellow elected officials or a constitutional avenue, submit Remain Paris to the Senate. The measure will crash on that rocky shore, giving you all the support you need to Exit Paris.

Your voters heard you promise to Exit Paris. The support you still enjoy from your voters is because we see that you are keeping your promises. Keep this one, too, Mr. President.

Please Exit Paris. Those who voted for you will remember and approve. Those who detest and resist you will still detest and resist you if you Remain.

Thank you for considering our heartfelt analysis.

Sincerely,

Paul K. Driessen and Mark J. Carr
______________________________________

“The G7 summit is in full swing, say Driessen and Carr, “and President Trump is under intense pressure to Remain in Paris – to force the United States to bow to global demands contained in the treaty that former President Obama insisted is not a treaty, but will nevertheless be made binding on the USA. Many G7 leaders want him to ignore his repeated promises to the Americans who voted for him and continue to support him – by locking the United States into the extensive constraints of the Paris climate agreement.

“We want to bring our letter to his attention … to the attention of White House, State Department, EPA and other Administration officials … and to Americans everywhere – to help them understand why the United States must Exit Paris.”

Driessen is an environmental policy analyst and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death. Carr consults on energy, environmental, transportation and agricultural policy. (To contact President Trump about this vitally important Exit Paris issue, go here to sign CFACT’s Say No to Paris petition.)


 

 

The post Open letter to President Trump – Please Exit the Paris Climate Treaty appeared first on Ice Age Now.

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May 30, 2017 at 08:42AM