Global Warming - Sticks and Stones

I thank Mr. Lippman for his letter (Devious Dunce, ICO, April 9, 2010). It brought back fond memories of bygone days at Point Arena Elementary when we childishly taunted one another on the playground. Although equally tasteless, our taunts were far more clever and creative than Mr. Lippman’s.

Richard Feynman never mentioned global warming in his 1974 Caltech commencement address because then the world was preoccupied with another “Cargo Cult Science” candidate, global cooling. He didn’t mention cooling either, or many other worthy nominees; he left us to apply his concept as circumstances dictate.

Mr. Lippman pictured me reading without comprehension, but I will be kinder. I picture him accepting my offer to debate, and attempting to clothe his arguments in science rather than name calling.

Believers in anthropogenic global warming argue that current warming is unprecedented. The gist of my counter-argument is that numerous studies show warming was greater during the Medieval Warm Period (800 to 1300AD), and that it was even warmer during the Holocene Climate Optimum 9,000 to 5,000 years ago. These studies will show that warming during those periods was global and persistent, was reflected in ice cores, lake and ocean sediments, in the distribution of plants by latitude and elevations, and evidence from human settlements and historical records.

Arrayed against this record of natural climate changes going back over 11,000 years to the end of the Ice Age, the alleged evidence of man-caused global warming spans 60 years when global temperatures both rose and fell while atmospheric carbon dioxide increased. Now the “Climategate” e-mails show that alarmist scientists had to “hide the decline,” admit that the Medieval Warm Period was as warm or warmer, and that it is a “travesty” that their computer models can’t explain recent cooling.

May the best science win!

Earth Day Blows It

Editor

On Earth Day the “Windies” gusted, and John Muir spun. The marriage of convenience between environmentalists – the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, the American Bird Conservancy, Greenpeace, and the Audubon Society – and industrial wind power projects offends the principles of both science and conservation.

Wind power is retrograde, a technological dinosaur. It only generates within a narrow range of wind speeds, is intermittent, produces best when needed least (nighttime), doesn’t play well with others (see “intermittent”), destroys scenic vistas, remorselessly kills birds (endangered or otherwise), and is and will continue to be prohibitively expensive. Although wind power has a very low capacity factor (25%) compared to nuclear (over 90%), coal (around 80%), natural gas (used primarily for load following, 60%), or hydro (50%), it is much better than solar (under 20%).

For example, between Maryland and West Virginia there is potential for around 2000 wind turbines, each nearly 500-feet tall; they would be placed atop 400 miles of the Allegheny Mountain ridges. About 20 acres of forest must be clear cut to support each turbine—4-6 acres to allow free flow of wind per turbine; one or more large staging areas for each wind project; access road construction; and a variety of substations and transmission lines. Cumulatively, about 40,000 acres of CO² sequestering woodlands containing rare habitat and many vulnerable wildlife species would be destroyed.

Local environmentalists used the California Coastal Commission to annihilate Gualala’s modest fireworks display by demonstrating that a few nesting pairs of seabirds were disturbed. I doubt any of these environmentalists have voiced objections to the thousands of eagles and raptors killed, not just disturbed, by the Altamont Pass wind farm, or the thousands of migratory birds and sea birds killed annually worldwide. On the contrary, most “environmentalists” turn a blind eye to such carnage.

CO2 Tail Can't Wag Climate Change Dog

A May 15 letter began: “A previous letter falsely stated that increased CO2 concentrations can’t initiate a warming trend.” This was then followed by an admission that the Vostok ice core samples proved that solar cycles initiated previous temperature increases and subsequent CO2 rise (an inconvenient truth Al Gore got backwards), “but that is not the case in our present warming trend.” That’s false. Our current warming trend began over 400 years ago, long before atmospheric CO2 increased significantly (Moberg et al, published in Nature, Vol. 433, No. 7026, pp. 613 - 617, 10 February 2005). From the end of the Little Ice Ages, approximately 1860, until 1940, the global temperature increased about 0.6º C. From 1940 to present, it’s only increased 0.4º C, and the Globally Averaged Satellite-Based Temperature of the Lower Atmosphere from January 1979 through April 2009 has only increased 0.2º C. (http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/) The past four years show a cooling trend; 2008 was the 14th coldest year of the past 30, and 2009 could be even colder.

Returning to the Vostok ice core samples, they not only proved solar intensity initiated warming and subsequent CO2 increases, but equally as important showed that increased CO2 levels do not prevent cooling. That’s right. In every instance, as CO2 remained high, cooling began, and then CO2 levels decreased as the cooling oceans absorbed it.

These facts make logical sense. CO2 is only four percent of greenhouse gases, compared to water vapor which is over 90%, and it would be foolish to attribute warming to a trace gas instead of to the extensively documented prowess of the sun. Solar fluctuations result in heating and cooling of the oceans, and the warmer or cooler oceans release or absorb CO2. The CO2 tail can’t wag the climate change dog.

A Previous Letter Writer

Obama's 100% Tax Increase

After promising that he will reduce taxes on 95 percent of Americans, the Obama Administration’s budget establishes a $646 billion energy tax hike that will impact anyone who uses electricity, drives a car, or relies on energy in any way.

A little background on taxes. First, a minority of Americans pay significant income taxes. The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay only 2% of income tax revenues, while the top 5% pay 60%. However, the energy tax hike will be paid by almost 100% of Americans, including non-taxpayers. Just one item in Obama's program, a cap-and-trade system to make manufacturers pay for creating CO2, is a vain attempt to solve a non-existent problem, anthropogenic global warming, that will increase everyone's costs for fuel, travel, heating and cooling, and every manufactured good or service they buy. Further, it will reduce American global competitiveness, reducing exports and making imports more attractive, while killing American jobs.

After all is done, natural climate change will do as it has for millions of years, never noticing or caring about the puny efforts mankind takes to forestall the inevitable. During the much warmer Medieval Warm Period of only 1,000 years ago, mankind probably prayed for its return as the climate changed to the Little Ice Ages of 1300-1850 AD. Our ancestors would think us daft to be so upset and concerned by natural warming, when they suffered so grievously during the 550-year calamity of global cooling.

Now Obama's Administration is going to extract money from almost all Americans to squander accomplishing nothing, while returning a pittance.

Obama is betting that you will all notice the extra $300 you save on your yearly taxes, and not the $2,400 you pay for the hidden taxes on energy.

Knowing the economic-knowledge level of Americans, Obama is betting on a sure thing.

Kyoto Hypocrisy

Editor
The Fence Post

The ICO response to Dean O. Maxwell's letter printed in the 3 August 2001 ICO, "Egotistical opinions," was a masterpiece of misdirection. While it is correct that just about all the nations of the world are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, none of the 15 member states of the European Union has yet to ratify it.

In fact, the last news I saw on the issue, only Romania of all of the world's nations had ratified it. As Mr. Maxwell noted, under the Clinton Administration, the U. S. Senate rejected the protocol 95-0. An example of true bipartisanship at work.

A recent weather study using computer modeling determined that, if the protocol objectives were attained, the resulting average world temperature would only be 0.02 of a degree Celsius lower than without the protocol. It has been estimated that to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 2012 to a level 7 percent below 1990 levels, the United States would be required to drastically reduce our business activity to achieve a reduction of 30 percent. Are the drastic consequences to our economy worth it given the speculative nature of the effects of global warming?

If your answer is yes, then why aren't people who are upset about global warming equally upset about the certain outcomes of other types of disasters, such as the collapse of Social Security and the failure of our public school system? In 2016, Social Security payments will exceed income, and there are only government IOU's in the so-called Trust Fund. If more funds are diverted into the Trust Fund, it will only increase the height of the IOU pile. After 2016, benefits will either have to be cut, or Social Security taxes raised, and then raised again, and government borrowing will have to rapidly increase.

Public schools, particularly in inner cities and throughout California, are documented failures, and the costs of failure are children sentenced to a lifetime of poverty, government dependency, and urban sprawl caused by flight from cities to the suburbs to get away from our education disaster. Self-righteous Democrats defeat school choice, even as they exercise school choice themselves by moving to better schools, home schooling, or as many public school teachers do, sending their children to private schools. Even some community leaders in our area send their children to schools far from their homes, avoiding rather than to trying to fix the Point Arena school system.

I have heard it said that we must do something about global warming even if we are unsure of its existence or its consequences, because it will be too late to fix it if we wait until we are sure. Well, what is our excuse for not doing anything to save our public school students and Social Security from certain disaster?