Just Catastrophic!

Here’s a small poll for you — quickly list the most important stories of the day…

I’m sure for many of you, you selected the Fiscal Cliff and the potential impact on the U.S. economy if our government gets this wrong. Many others might have selected the ongoing conflict in the Middle East with Israel once again lined up against a phalanx of Arabic & muslim special interests who redirect their own failings by attacking the successful Jewish state. Others might have selected the President’s trip to Burma and other parts of Asia.

Of course, the primary, local, daily news source in New Castle County selected a story about the World Bank’s President stating that a 7 degree rise in global temperatures over the next 100 years would be CATASTROPHIC!! Yes, that’s right. If global temperatures rise by 7 degrees over the next 100 years, that will be really, really, really, really bad. Of course, if global temperatures go down by 7 degrees over the next 100 years, that would also be really, really, really, really bad, but for different reasons (Chief among these reasons would likely be too much ice).

Yes, the most important story, today, is that The World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim, thinks that we should target 3.5 degrees of increased temperature (He was silent on a reduction of 3.5 degrees — I don’t think that he likes ice). Note, that in the U.S., we can’t even accurately target our inflation rate, but we’re supposed to target the temperature of the planet? Someone better call up the sun, and let it know…

Anyway, how is that whole global warming thing going? From a report this week in the U.K.’s Daily Mail:

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released–chart-prove-it.html#ixzz2CoLywe68

Well doesn’t that just stink! No temperature rise, no CATASTROPHE. No CATASTROPHE and Delaware survives.

The article goes on:

But according to increasing numbers of serious climate scientists, it does suggest that the computer models that have for years been predicting imminent doom, such as  those used by the [British] Met Office and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are flawed, and that the climate is far more complex than the models assert.

‘The new data confirms the existence of a pause in global warming,’ Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science at America’s Georgia Tech university, told me yesterday.

‘Climate models are very complex, but they are imperfect and incomplete. Natural variability  [the impact of factors such as long-term temperature cycles in the oceans and the output of the sun] has been shown over the past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse warming effect.

‘It is becoming increasingly apparent that our attribution of warming since 1980 and future projections of climate change needs to consider natural internal variability as a factor of fundamental importance.’

Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, who found himself at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ scandal over leaked emails three years ago, would not normally be expected to agree with her. Yet on two important points, he did.

The data does suggest a plateau, he admitted, and without a major El Nino event – the sudden, dramatic warming of the southern Pacific which takes place unpredictably and always has a huge effect on global weather – ‘it [the temperature plateau] could go on for a while’.

Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were imperfect: ‘We don’t fully understand how to input things like changes in the oceans, and because we don’t fully understand it you could say that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We don’t know what natural variability is doing.’

The graph can be found below. Looks pretty flat to me, but its more fun to print headlines with “Tipping Point” and “doomsday”, than one that simply says — “Global Warming takes a hiatus”.

Global Temperatures have remained flat for 16 years.

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James Lovelock on “Global Warming”

Dr. Lovelock seems to confirm much of what this blog has written about on “Global Warming” or “Climate Change” over the last 4 years. It is nice to see when people of different backgrounds and knowledge can come to the same conclusions. Sadly, Delaware’s Governor and his “Warmist” supporters are hurting Delaware’s economy by forcing high energy prices on Delaware’s businesses as well as promoting a regulatory regime that makes high-paying manufacturing jobs difficult to create…

The following is from the Toronto Sun.

Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change.

The implications were extraordinary.

Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.

Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic.

His inventions have been used by NASA, among many other scientific organizations.

Lovelock’s invention of the electron capture detector in 1957 first enabled scientists to measure CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, leading, in many ways, to the birth of the modern environmental movement.

Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, “the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.” Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshipped his Gaia theory and apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.

Lovelock still believes anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that mankind must lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but says it’s now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore’s) were incorrect.

He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear a loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he’s never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence. Indeed, that’s how science advances.

Among his observations to the Guardian:

(1) A long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has made him unpopular with environmentalists, Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal.

As Lovelock observes, “Gas is almost a give-away in the U.S. at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it … Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.” (Kandeh Yumkella, co-head of a major United Nations program on sustainable energy, made similar arguments last week at a UN environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro, advocating the development of conventional and unconventional natural gas resources as a way to reduce deforestation and save millions of lives in the Third World.)

(2) Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion.

“It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion,” Lovelock observed. “I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use … The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.”

(3) Lovelock mocks the idea modern economies can be powered by wind turbines.

As he puts it, “so-called ‘sustainable development’ … is meaningless drivel … We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can’t stand windmills at any price.”

(4) Finally, about claims “the science is settled” on global warming: “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.”

via Green ‘drivel’ exposed | Columnists | Opinion | Toronto Sun.

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Bloom Energy Related Lawsuit Filed Against Governor Markell & The PSC

Below is the Caesar Rodney Institute’s press release, and I’ll let it speak for itself.

In the early 1970’s, the Coast Zone Act was passed in the Delaware General Assembly and signed into law by the late Governor Russell Peterson.

The fundamental purpose of this act was to stop Shell Oil from building another oil refinery in Delaware along the Delaware River. Of course, the act went much further, fundamentally banning all manufacturing from the defined “Coastal Zone”. The broader affect was to indicate to manufacturers that Delaware was an unattractive place in which to build manufacturing even outside the “Coastal Zone”. The result is that over the last 40 years, almost all manufacturing in Delaware has ceased.

One can argue that our environment is cleaner, and therefore, people are healthier. But, that simplistic analysis ignores the clear negative health outcomes for the unemployed and underemployed. And, wealthier citizens demand a cleaner environment. Many on the Left believe that clean manufacturing is impossible, but these same individuals enjoy the fruit of that manufacturing (look at the oil-based fabrics used in the Occupy Wilmington site).

In any event, the law is the law. Governor Markell can’t applaud Governor Peterson for banning manufacturing on the one hand and then choose to ignore that law on the other for his preferred manufacturer.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RE: Lawsuit Filed against Governor Markell, Public Service Commission DATE: 6/20/2012

DOVER, DE – Cause of Action, a Washington D.C.-based legal advocacy group, has filed suit today in US Federal Court, District of Delaware, against Governor Jack Markell and five members of the Delaware Public Service Commission at the behest of the Caesar Rodney Institute.

The Caesar Rodney Institute (CRI), a Delaware-based non-partisan think tank, has challenged the merits of utilizing high-cost solid oxide fuel cells to produce electrical power for sale to ratepayers of Delmarva Power, Delaware’s largest energy utility provider. CRI was the sole entity opposing the contract between Delmarva Power and Bloom Energy at the Delaware Public Service rate hearings in October of 2011, on the basis the economic impact on Delaware’s economy would be negative because of the contract. CRI was also concerned about the constitutionality of the contract.

In an attempt to make the public aware of the issue at hand, CRI funded expert testimony in support of an engaged citizen’s challenge at a hearing before the Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board, as to whether Bloom Energy had the right to build its Solid Oxide Fuel Cell technology in lands that were considered protected for wildlife. The Board voted to deny the citizen activist standing, which allowed Bloom Energy to begin building its Fuel Cell technology in the Coastal Zone. At that point CRI decided to pursue the matter further.

Since CRI was not able to convince the Public Service Commission and other government regulatory bodies to change their views on either the economic or environmental impact of the permit application, discussions were initiated with Cause of Action to pursue the matter further. Based on the information and analyses CRI presented, Cause of Action accepted CRI’s request to intervene in the matter based on constitutional issues that could be adjudicated. 

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Judges Slap Down EPA Not 1, Not 2, But 3 Times

The following is from the freeenterprise.com blog. You want to know where we could make some cuts in the Federal budget? How about reducing the number of frivolous, duplicative, and over-reaching EPA rules. Reduce the rule-writing staff, and you’d reduce the waste associated with going to court to throw out the poorly drafted, wrongly-developed, job-destroying activities that do not improve health or improve the environment…

In a string of unrelated but equally remarkable cases, in the last week three, separate federal courts – including the U.S. Supreme Court – have taken the EPA to task for regulatory overreach. We’ve already blogged about Sackett v. EPA and Mingo Logan Coal v. EPA. In the most recent of these cases – decided yesterday – the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the EPA “had no legal basis” for disapproving 2006 air quality regulations promulgated by the state of Texas as part of its duty under the Clean Air Act to adopt and administer a plan for implementing federal air quality standards.

In other words, the EPA tried to usurp the regulatory authority given to the states by the Clean Air Act – just one more part of the EPA’s misguided efforts to try and make it more expensive and more difficult to operate existing utilities, including coal-fired power plants (making it harder to include coal as part of our diverse energy mix is a recurring theme – today the EPA is proposing new regulations that essentially ban new coal power plants). The case is Luminant Energy Generation Co. and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, et al. v. EPA.

You can check out all three opinions on http://www.chamberlitigation.com, the website for the Chamber’s public policy law firm, the National Chamber Litigation Center.

Spoiler alert: the EPA doesn’t fare well in any of these opinions. As a teaser, in Sackett v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously said that the EPA was “strong-arming” regulated parties; in Luminant Generation Co., et al. v. EPA the Fifth Circuit ruled that EPA had “overstepped the bounds” of its authority; and in Mingo Logan Coal Co. v. EPA, the D.C. District Court described the EPA as engaging in “magical thinking.”

via Judges Slap Down EPA Not 1, Not 2, But 3 Times | Free Enterprise.

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