James Hansen on Obama EPA Climate Regs. Too little, too late
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2014/20140619_TooLittle.pdf…
Matt Ridley: Climate Cure Worse Than Thought
Matt Ridley: Climate Cure Worse Than Thought
http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ridley-climate-cure-worse-than-thought/
The IPCC produced two reports last year. One said that the cost of climate change is likely to be less than 2% of GDP by the end of this century. The other said that the cost of decarbonizing the world economy with renewable energy is likely to be 4% of GDP. Why do something that you know will do more harm than good?
The debate over climate change is horribly polarized. From the way it is conducted, you would think that only two positions are possible: that the whole thing is a hoax or that catastrophe is inevitable. In fact there is room for lots of intermediate positions, including the view I hold, which is that man-made climate change is real but not likely to do much harm, let alone prove to be the greatest crisis facing humankind this century.
After more than 25 years reporting and commenting on this topic for various media organizations, and having started out alarmed, that’s where I have ended up. But it is not just I that hold this view. I share it with a very large international organization, sponsored by the United Nations and supported by virtually all the world’s governments: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) itself.
The IPCC commissioned four different models of what might happen to the world economy, society and technology in the 21st century and what each would mean for the climate, given a certain assumption about the atmosphere’s “sensitivity” to carbon dioxide. Three of the models show a moderate, slow and mild warming, the hottest of which leaves the planet just 2 degrees Centigrade warmer than today in 2081-2100. The coolest comes out just 0.8 degrees warmer.
Now two degrees is the threshold at which warming starts to turn dangerous, according to the scientific consensus. That is to say, in three of the four scenarios considered by the IPCC, by the time my children’s children are elderly, the earth will still not have experienced any harmful warming, let alone catastrophe.
But what about the fourth scenario? This is known as RCP8.5, and it produces 3.5 degrees of warming in 2081-2100. Curious to know what assumptions lay behind this model, I decided to look up the original papers describing the creation of this scenario. Frankly, I was gobsmacked. It is a world that is very, very implausible.
For a …
Geologist: ‘IPCC Confuses Prognoses With Facts’ 15-Year Climate Development ‘No Longer Agrees With IPCC Models’
Geologist: “IPCC Confuses Prognoses With Facts” 15-Year Climate Development “No Longer Agrees With IPCC Models”
In the online Baseler Zeitung Swiss geologist Markus Häring writes that the claim “a drastic reduction in CO2 can prevent a warming of the climate has no scientific basis.”
Hat-tip DkS
Häring writes that he has a background in natural sciences and took it upon himself to examine the science that allegedly underpins the anthropogenic global warming theory. He finds that “CO2 has been unjustifiably vilinized“.
Upon analyzing the data, Häring concludes:
The statement made by the UN IPCC that an unstopped further development of man-made activities will lead with great certainty to a dangerous climate warming is a prognosis and not a substantiated fact. […] Whoever claims the opposite with sentences like ‘The science is settled’, puts his credibility as a scientist in doubt.”
Häring points out that too many of the conclusions made by climate science rely on prognoses for the future and not on actual observations. He writes:
Prognoses cannot be checked. Just how reliable prognoses are is demonstrated by the financial world, even though it works with more measureable facts and systems that can be better understood. Even more problematic is when prognoses are based on models that no longer agree with observations. The climate development of the last 15 years no longer agrees with the IPCC models. Here there is a need to explain why.”
Häring also describes how the bad climate science has led to foolish and destructive policy measures, such as biofuels, palm oil plantations and carbon sequestration. He writes, “The question of whether CO2 in the ground causes more damage than CO2 in the atmosphere needs to be asked.”
On blaming weather extremes on CO2-induced climate change, Häring says it’s cynical to even speculate on this. “Extreme events such as droughts and floods involving the deaths of thousands will continue with or without climate warming”.
He then explains that building infrastructure and taking measures to counter such events today makes much more sense than cutting back on CO2 in the hope that this will act as a solution 100 years down the road. In a nutshell he says that countries need development today, and not witchcraft to cure the possible ills of the year 2100.
It is not surprising that poor countries are hit harder by natural catastrophes than rich countries because they can’t afford any …
Berkeley may consider gas pump warnings about global warming
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-berkeley-gas-pump-warnings-20140617-story.html…