Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized 8 Jul 2017

Left-wing climate report claims Trump’s policies will kill millions — facts tell a different story

In perhaps the most outlandish accusation made against President Donald Trump by radical environmentalists yet, the left-wing Natural Resources Defense Council has claimed Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement on June 1 will result in the deaths of millions of people over the next 100 years.

According to a report published by the NRDC, the number of “dangerously hot summer days” will skyrocket over the remainder of the 21st century, as man-caused climate change continues to worsen. NRDC predicts nearly 14,000 Americans will lose their lives every year by the mid-2040s, and more than 29,000 will die each year by 2090. From 1975 to 2010, the average number of deaths related to hot days was 1,360.

NRDC says Trump’s decision to pull America out of the Paris climate agreement, which aimed to prevent the global temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, is largely responsible for these deadly predictions.

“President Trump’s plan to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement could seriously harm public health for decades, worsening summer heatwaves that could kill 13,860 Americans each year by mid-century, and as many as 29,850 a year by the end of the century,” an NRDC press release issued on Thursday stated.

“Enormous human misery could be avoided, the report says, if the U.S. remains in the Paris Agreement and fulfills its commitments to the global agreement to address climate change and accelerate a transition to clean energy,” the statement continued. “For the United States, that means adhering to — not undoing — former President [Barack] Obama’s climate action plan that would reduce carbon pollution from the nation’s largest sources: power plants and vehicles.”

These claims are unquestionably dire, but are they true?

To calculate their death rates, NRDC relied on numerous assumptions, including many that are apparently false. For instance, NRDC assumes it can predict what global temperature will be 30 to 65 years into the future, even though scientists have failed miserably over the past 30 years to make accurate predictions.

As Roy Spencer—who earned his Ph.D. in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin in 1981 and previously served as the senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center — wrote in 2014, greater than 95 percent of the climate models through 2013 “over-forecast the warming trend since 1979.”

A second assumption is that NRDC can predict what population growth and urban development will look like in the United States over the next century, a virtually impossible task.

Third, even if climate change is being caused by carbon-dioxide emissions, how can NRDC know if humans will still be using fossil fuels 50 years in the future? It’s entirely possible other technologies will develop over the next century that don’t emit carbon dioxide. After all, 30 years ago, almost no Americans had access to computers in their homes. Today, the majority of people carry super-computer smartphones around in their back pockets.

Fourth, NRDC assumes the Paris agreement would have accomplished its goal of keeping temperature rise from expanding in a meaningful way, even though there is absolutely no reason to believe it would. China, India and many other nations are increasing their CO2 emissions at rates so high the United States’ reductions under the Paris agreement would effectively be meaningless several decades in the future.

Patrick J. Michaels, the director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, explained in May that even under the United Nations’ own estimates, “The Paris Agreement only mitigates about 0.2 degrees of warming,” which many scientists believe is too small to reliably measure.

A fifth false assumption is that humans are too stupid to adjust to higher temperatures. NRDC’s report predicts humans will die at increasingly greater rates as temperatures increase, but that’s not how humans behave. When people are faced with harsher conditions, people react accordingly. This is why people are able to survive in places with extreme environments, such as Iceland or in the Sahara Desert. This, of course, is common sense to virtually everyone — except, of course, the NRDC.

NRDC’s argument is further disproved by looking at data in places such as Arizona, where the average temperature is much higher in the warmest months of the year than under even the worst-case climate-change scenarios in places like New York or Chicago, where NRDC predicts thousands of people will die every year from hot weather.

In Arizona, which has a population of 6.8 million, a total of 1,300 people died from hot weather from 2005 to 2015. According to NRDC, Chicago, which has a population of 2.7 million today, will have more than 2,400 deaths every single year by 2090. Even when population changes are accounted for, this makes absolutely no sense under NRDC’s model. In fact, using NRDC’s own logic, there should be thousands and thousands of deaths in Arizona every year from the extreme heat, and that’s just not the case.

via The SPPI Blog http://sppiblog.org

July 8, 2017 at 01:55AM

Uncategorized 8 Jul 2017

Response to MIT President: Paris Exit Scientifically Sound (Part II)

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Source: Master Resource

Christopher Monckton

By Willie Soon and Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

The world is not experiencing unprecedented rising seas or extreme weather

Professor Reif further states that rising manmade greenhouse gases are “driving rising sea levels and extreme weather.” Neither is happening.

The average sea level rise since 1870 has been 1.3-1.5 mm (about a twentieth of an inch) per year, or five inches per century. Professor Nils-Axel Mörner, a renowned sea-level researcher who has published more than 500 peer-reviewed articles on this topic, has been unable to find observational evidence that supports the models’ predictions of dramatically accelerating sea level rise.

Observations over the last few decades indicate that extreme weather events, including tornadoes and hurricanes, have been decreasing, rather than increasing, both in number and in intensity. Moreover, total accumulated cyclonic energy has also been declining. As MIT Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen has explained, the decline in storminess is a consequence of reduced temperature differentials between the tropics and exo-tropics that arise when global average temperatures are slightly warmer.

Looking at the United States, major hurricane activity is at a record low. As of June 1, 2017, it had been eleven years and seven months since a category 3 to 5 hurricane last struck the U.S. mainland. According to NOAA Hurricane Research Division data, the previous record was nine years, set in 1860-1869.

Climate Change: Not a Military “Threat Multiplier”

Professor Reif further asserts: “As the Pentagon describes it, climate change is a ‘threat multiplier,’ because its direct effects intensify other challenges, including mass migrations and zero-sum conflicts over existential resources like water and food.” That may have been the official position during the Obama years, but the assertions are not supported by real world evidence.

Milder temperatures and increased CO₂ levels green the planet, not brown it. Deserts are retreating and vegetation cover has increased over recent decades. The production of maize (corn), wheat, rice and soybeans is at a record high. Overall, our planet has seen more than 20% greening over the past three decades, half of which is due to the fertilization effects of more atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Forecasts of droughts are likewise not born out by experience. For example, since the now former Australian Chief Climate Commissioner Professor Tim Flannery warned that dams would no longer fill owing to lack of rain, Australia has been subjected to a series of dramatic floods, and overflowing dams. Governments’ naïve belief in Professor Flannery’s warnings appear to have led to policy actions and omissions that exacerbated flooding and failed to take full advantage of the rainfall when it came.

The most comprehensive recent study of the worldwide extent of droughts (Hao et al., 2014) found that for 30 years the percentage of the Earth’s land area suffering from drought has been declining. The latest news from South Africa is that the country is expecting the biggest maize harvest since 1981, following the high rainfall there in January and February 2017.

Although the UN Environment Program published a 2005 report predicting 50 million climate refugees by 2010, to date there have been no bona fide climate or global warming refugees or mass migrations. The one person we know of who asked to be recognized as a climate refugee had his demand rejected by the Supreme Court of New Zealand; he has since returned to his island home, where he remains safe from inundation.

While the world is currently experiencing mass migrations of refugees, they are fleeing religious persecution and violence, especially in the Middle East, and seeking freedom and prosperity. We are not aware of any evidence that they would have stayed where they were if the weather were cooler

Carbon Dioxide Will Not Linger for 1,000 Years

Professor Reif asserts that “… the carbon dioxide our cars and power plants emit today will linger in the atmosphere for a thousand years.”

The average residence time of a CO₂ molecule in the Earth’s atmosphere is about 4-7 years. Taking into account multiple exchanges leads to an estimate of a mean lifespan of 40 years (Harde 2017).

Moreover, as already noted, instead of being a problem, atmospheric carbon dioxide is the prime nutrient for plants. Indeed, plants grow more quickly and strongly, with better water-use efficiency and improved drought tolerance, when CO₂ concentrations are much higher than they currently are. That is why commercial growers add extra CO₂ to the air in their greenhouses.

The current atmospheric CO₂concentration is higher than it has been for 800,000 years, but it is still far lower than at almost any time in the previous pre-ice-age history of our planet. The pre-industrial age CO₂ levels of 280 parts per million were practically starving plants, botanists say, while the current level of 400 ppm is “greening the planet.”

Far from being a pollutant, CO₂ is a colorless, odorless gas that is not toxic to humans and other animals even at concentrations much higher than we are currently experiencing. It is also one of the most important fuels for phytoplankton, which use carbon dioxide for energy and raw materials to grow, and release oxygen as a product of that process. Up to 75% of the oxygen present in the air originates in freshwater and oceanic phytoplanktons’ photosynthetic water-splitting process.

Carbon dioxide is actually the miracle molecule that makes life as we know it on Earth possible.

Moreover, during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras there were long periods during which the levels of CO₂ were much higher than today, but the temperatures were far colder. We are not aware of any explanation that squares that fact with the manmade global warming theory.

Job Growth Statistics are Highly Misleading

Professor Reif says, “In 2016 alone, solar industry employment grew by 25 percent, while wind jobs grew 32%.” These numbers are highly misleading. In fact, they underscore how deficient these energy sources are as job creators.

Growing jobs by subsidy is easy, provided that one cares nothing for the far greater number of jobs destroyed by the additional taxation, energy price hikes or public borrowing necessary to pay for the subsidy. Several studies have shown that the creation of one “green” job results in the loss of two to four jobs elsewhere in the economy. In Spain the estimated ratio was two jobs lost for each one created by renewable energy, prompting the government to finally end most renewable subsidies.

And yet, despite all those subsidies, wind and solar power generation expensively and unreliably account for 5.6% and 0.9% of total U.S. electricity production, respectively. On its own, electricity provides only a small fraction of total energy consumption, including transportation, industrial processes, heating and electricity generation, so these numbers actually exaggerate the contribution of wind and solar facilities to overall energy consumption.

Viewed from another perspective, EIA data reveal it took nearly 400,000 solar workers (about 20% of electric power payrolls) to produce just 0.9% of all the electric power generated in the United States in 2016. About the same number of natural gas workers (398,000) produced 37 times more electricity – and just 160,000 coal workers produced almost as much electricity as those gas workers. Moreover, gas and coal provide power nearly 100% of the time, compared to 15-25% of the time for most solar (and wind) installations. Wind employment numbers reflect this same pattern.

The so-called alternative energy companies survive only because of heavy subsidies, power purchase mandates, supportive regulations, and exemptions from endangered species and other rules that are applied forcefully to fossil fuel industries. Wind and solar electricity is cripplingly expensive for families, hospitals, schools, churches, small businesses and other customers.

In fact, “alternative” or “renewable” energy is often unprofitable even after massive subsidies from taxpayers. For example, SunEdison received $1.5 billion in subsidies and loan guarantees, and yet it was compelled to file for bankruptcy. Solyndra is another example. This is unsustainable.

Europe is suffering from growing political rejection of fossil fuels: energy prices have soared, millions of poor people are unable to pay their energy bills, and elderly people are dying because they cannot afford adequate heating in the winter. Energy-intensive businesses are relocating to countries where energy is cheaper – thereby transferring fossil fuel use, carbon dioxide emissions and job creation to other nations, especially in Asia. Theirs is not an example the United States should wish to follow.

Conclusion

By withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, President Trump did a wonderful thing for America and the world. He showed that advocacy masquerading as science should not be the basis for public policy decisions. We hope others will follow his lead.

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Update: Since a version of this article originally appeared as an “open letter” to President Reif, his office has issued a follow-up letter, once again invoking the argument that his position is supported by a “consensus” of climate scientists. William M. Briggs and Christopher Monckton of Brenchley offer their answer to his office here.

via The SPPI Blog http://sppiblog.org

July 8, 2017 at 01:55AM

Uncategorized 8 Jul 2017

Gove and The Blob

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Today is a month exactly from the UK general election as well as the last day of the G20 summit in Hamburg. Michael Gove is a UK politician who was not expecting to return to the cabinet after his sacking last year. The Blob is a 1958 American science-fiction horror film, according to Wikipedia. And … Continue reading Gove and The Blob

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July 8, 2017 at 01:31AM

Uncategorized 8 Jul 2017

THE BIGGEST DECEPTION IN HISTORY

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Source: http://ift.tt/2uBfzCY

by Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris

On June 1, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the United Nations Paris Agreement on climate change. He correctly identified it as a very bad deal for America.

In July 1997, the U.S. Senate reached a similar conclusion about the U.N. climate change policy-making process in general. Senators from across the aisle unanimously endorsed the Byrd/Hagel resolution, which stated that America should not be a signatory to “any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC]…that would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States” and did not include emission reductions for developing countries that were similar to those imposed on the U.S.

This is why the Clinton administration never submitted the Kyoto Protocol, which is based on the UNFCCC, to the Senate for ratification. It is also why former President Barack Obama approved the Paris Agreement, which also rests on the UNFCCC, as an “executive agreement” instead of submitting it for Senate approval as required by the Constitution for international treaties. He knew that the Senate would reject Paris as not in America’s best interests.

The Paris Agreement is not just bad for the U.S. According to Australian author and climate analyst Iain Aitken,

“To achieve the goal agreed in Paris of a maximum 2⁰C increase in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels has been estimated to have a global cost of $17 trillion by 2040 (about 800 times more than was spent on all the Apollo missions to the moon) – and it would require carbon dioxide reductions about 100 times greater than those pledged in Paris.”

So, even if the man-made climate change problem were real, the actions specified by the Paris Agreement would solve nothing. And since the climate alarm is not based on sound science, no treaty based on the UNFCCC makes any sense. Kyoto, Paris, Copenhagen, Durban, Cancun, Warsaw, and all the other U.N. climate deals are merely political solutions to a non-existent problem without scientific justification.

Yet the Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted last month showed that a majority of Americans opposed the President’s decision to pull out of Paris. This is largely because most people are unable to differentiate between climate change propaganda, as promoted by the U.N. and activists such as Al Gore, and climate change science conducted by independent researchers.

Even pollsters who apparently support the climate scare recognize that public knowledge about climate change is poor. For example, in their biased 2010 study “Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change,” investigators from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication created a multiple-choice test to examine, “what Americans understand about how the climate system works, and the causes, impacts, and potential solutions to global warming.” They concluded, “In this assessment, only 8 percent of Americans have knowledge equivalent to an A or B, 40 percent would receive a C or D, and 52 percent would get an F.”

The focus therefore must be on educating the public about the realities of climate science. This is especially important now since Trump is talking about the possibility of the U.S. agreeing to a new version of the Paris Agreement, but one “on better terms, fairer terms.” There is no need for a deal at all since there never was a problem in the first place.

On June 30, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that he is launching a program to critique climate change science. He will apparently bring in experts from both sides of the debate in order to determine the actual state of the science, something the EPA should have done long before saddling industry with expensive climate change regulations. Global warming campaigners will do everything in their power to block Pruitt’s review since it will demonstrate that, rather than being settled in favor of climate alarm as eco-activists claim, the science is still immature.

Those who created the global warming scare knew that 85% of the public would not understand the science and the remaining 15% would not question it. Pruitt must therefore use his evaluation to help the public understand what is, and what is not, known about climate change science.

He must also promote the concept that “being a skeptic…is quite alright,” as Energy Secretary Rick Perry said last month. Indeed, science requires unfettered skepticism to advance. But the climate scare is more like an extreme religion than science at this point. And, when people start questioning such extreme belief systems, they rapidly lose the blind faith essential to the religion’s survival.

Handled effectively, the EPA science evaluation should lead many in the public to ask their representatives, “Why are you supporting the expenditure of billions of tax dollars on such an uncertain cause when funds are desperately needed to address society’s real, well understood issues?”

Aside from ignorance, or cowardice in the face of political correctness, politicians will have no answer. The climate scare, the biggest deception in history, will then be over.

via The SPPI Blog http://sppiblog.org

July 8, 2017 at 01:24AM