Global Warming

One of the most erudite letters I've ever read on the subject of global warming, written by a relative of a friend of mine and posted at alphecca.com. Read and enjoy:

While only a humble mechanical engineer (with 25+ years of experience in heat transfer and thermogoddamics…thermodynamics, sorry) I still must express my opinion that you have been seriously misled by the government/media hype of their crisis-de-jour, "global warming". Also referred to as GHG/AGW ("greenhouse gas/anthropogenic global warming").

Before I'll listen to anyone express their (usually woefully uninformed) opinion on GHG/AGW, I'll pose to them three questions, the Bezat Basic AGW Quiz. Please don't cheat by skipping down to the answers first.

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1. What gas is responsible for 95% of the greenhouse warming effect on Earth?
Enviro-twit answer: Carbon dioxide, of course.

2. Is the United States a net A) absorber, or B) emitter of carbon dioxide?
Enviro-twit answer: Net emitter, of course.

3. Is the global climate today A) cooler, or B) warmer than it was about 1,100 years ago?
Enviro-twit answer: Warmer, of course.

Anyone who responds with those answers, and yet still has (and is willing to voice) an opinion about anthropogenic warming, should simply be taken out and shot ignored. The real answers are:

1. Water vapor is the gas responsible for 95% of the greenhouse effect on Earth. While part of that is clouds, the majority of the effect is the simple water vapor content (expressed as pounds of water per pound of dry air, as in a psychrometric chart) in the air around us. CO2 is responsible for only about 1% to 1-/1/2% (depending on whose model you use) of the greenhouse effect on Earth. Methane has a far higher effect.

2. The US absorbs far more CO2 than we produce, largely through the effects of huge areas of croplands and forest. Did you know that the US now has MORE forested area than it did pre-Columbian? Another number that the enviro-twits love to trot out is that with only (x)% of the worlds population, we use 25% of the world's energy. The number they DON'T add behind that is that the US also PRODUCES about 30% of the world's GNP. We use more, but we're FAR more efficient at using it, and produce FAR more with it than anybody else.

As a bonus question, ask whether this same is true of 1) Germany, 2) France, 3) Japan? And then ask if there's maybe just the teeny-tiny possibility of a political/economic agenda going on?

3. It's cooler now. Remember, in 900 AD the Norsemen were raising trees and crops (!!!) of oats in Greenland, and had probably colonized Newfoundland ("Vinland", with the grapes), which at the time was fecund. The era is referred to in climatology texts (but only those written prior to the 1980's) as the "Medieval Climate Optimum". It was followed by the period referred to as the "Little Ice Age", from the 1,300's to the late 1,700's. We're still emerging from that era, so an overall warming trend (globally, and of minor import) is expected.

- Bonus question: What was the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere in 1000 AD?
There's a huge amount of speculation among climatologists about the strong correlation between the MCO and a period of almost zero sunspots referred to as the "Maunder Minimum", but as of now it's only a correlation, and not proof of causation.

For a while the GHG/Anthro-GW crowd was trying to claim that "Well, the Medieval Climate Optimum was limited to only the tiny part of the western side of the Northern Hemisphere", but they've pretty much given even that up now, with huge amounts of evidence that it was global. Unless, of course, the following areas are considered to be within the western part of the Northern Hemisphere:

Africa:
Tyson, P.D., Karlen, W., Holmgren, K. and Heiss, G.A. 2000. The Little Ice Age and medieval warming in South Africa. South African Journal of Science 96: 121-126.

Huffman, T.N. 1996. Archaeological evidence for climatic change during the last 2000 years in southern Africa. Quaternary International 33: 55-60.

Holmgren, K., Lee-Thorp, J.A., Cooper, G.R.J., Lundblad, K., Partridge, T.C., Scott, L., Sithaldeen, R., Talma, A.S. and Tyson, P.D. 2003. Persistent millennial-scale climatic variability over the past 25,000 years in Southern Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 2311-2326

Lamb, H., Darbyshire, I. and Verschuren, D. 2003. Vegetation response to rainfall variation and human impact in central Kenya during the past 1100 years. The Holocene 13: 285-292

I can cite studies like this for Antarctica, Asia, North America, Australia/New Zealand, and South America…but you get the point.

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The evidence is that the solar cycles, both long- and short-term cycles, have a bigger influence on the global temperature than does GHG concentrations. Example:

- There's a planet in the Solar System that is currently suffering an apparent global warming. It's weather patterns are changing, and long-term patterns show that the polar caps appear to be shrinking.

- Only one problem: The planet is Mars, and we haven't got our fleets of SUV's emitting CO2 there yet.

The IPCC has systematically drummed out (or have had resign on them) anyone who dares to disagree with their orthodoxy. Since anthropogenic global warming is based purely on faith, it is essentially a religion, with adherents who cling tenaciously to it's tenets, regardless of what facts might step in their way. The IPCC is an almost purely political group, with an extremely strong collectivist agenda. Their program to control the worlds economy through coercion is simply using the excuse of GHG's to drive through their control agenda. Now, this probably doesn't bother your average sKerry/Gore worshippers, since their collectivist ethos fit right in with that world view Example:

- The IPCC's early report, 694 pages long, contained within the body of the report the comment (from memory, don't have time to go home and track it down): "No correlation could be found between global temperature increases and greenhouse gas concentrations". Did you read that report? I did, and have a hard-copy of it somewhere at home. What's difficult to understand about "no correlation"?

- But the 25-page political summary stated just exactly the opposite of what the scientific report said, and claimed that there WAS a correlation…which led to the mass resignations from the IPCC of hundreds of climatologists, who put their honesty and honor above the politically-motivated grant-withdrawal penalty. And they've been penalized.

- Guess which one the scientifically-illiterate reporters bothered to read?
- Guess which portion of which report got all the publicity?

Let's ignore the fact, as admitted by even the IPCC, that FULL and COMPLETE implementation would have, as it's BEST possible outcome, according to their (shitty) models, a reduction in global temperatures of only 0.1 degrees C over the next 100 years…and that the Kyoto Protocols aren't even going to be considered to be signed by China and India, whose energy growth is (to say the least) prodigious. Or the FACT that they hypocritical assholes in the EU have missed their GHG emissions targets…and have actually INCREASED their CO2 emissions in the past year. So we'll cripple the global economy (and coincidentally, simultaneously condemn billions to death, and take control of what's left) for a literally unmeasurable difference. Hey, makes sense to me.

The latest release is a simple recycling of garbage from bad sources.

-------------It's utter and complete bullshit...to quote:
Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the "hockey-stick" graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.

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The "hockey stick" graph has been thoroughly debunked, and not even the IPCC is willing to stand behind it anymore. The statistical methodology used to create it by Mann et. al. has been demonstrated to take ANY data set, regardless of actual trends, and create the same shape. NO respectable climatologist even references it anymore, other than out of derision for the political science (as opposed to atmospheric science) that created it. As noted above, the current period of "global warming" started back in the middle-1600's or thereabouts. If you carefully pick a starting point for your data of around 1650 AD, you can safely say that it's the warmest it's been in about 350 to 400 years...but if you go farther back than that, the theory falls completely apart.

As for claims of consensus, a petition is circulating with more than 19,00 signatures of scientist and engineers (and more than 2,600 climatologists) which decries the current GHG/AGW pseudo-science. It's available on-line at OISM.org.

I apologize for the length of this e-mail, but I guess I just got on a roll. I'd hate to see someone that I regard as generally sensible accepting the Chicken Little "sky is falling" stuff. Many of the things proposed to help fight AGW, particularly things like conserving resources and improving efficiencies, are near and dear to an engineer's heart. But doing the right things for the wrong reasons generally leads to doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. We should be improving things and reducing pollution of all kinds because it's good to do so, not because we're terrified of an artificial bogeyman.

The author's fatal flaw? Attempting to use reason and scientific thought in the debate, of course.

(If it saves only one child... whoops, wrong liberal platitude.)

Bush's surrender continues...

As if the events of recent days surrounding President Bush's decision to treat all terrorism-related prisoners held by the US Military in accordance with the Geneva Conventions (see my last post), his surrender to the left and to Al Qaeda continues. Now he's decided to submit the international NSA wiretaps to the FISA courts.

No wonder Bush's approval ratings, which had been up when he was making actual presidential decisions, are back down.

Meanwhile, in the "Too stupid for words" category, when's the last time you heard of the president of a major brewery being stupid enough to drive under the influence? Apparently failed Colorado Senatorial candidate Pete Coors (R) wanted to be the answer to that question. One can only guess how many anti-drinking PSA's he'll be assigned to do (no doubt standing by a mountain stream identified as being "near Golden, Colorado" that is, in fact, nowhere within 150 miles of Golden) for his community service requirement...

George W. Bush withdraws from the War on Terror

Ah, there's been so much in the news of late that's been blogworthy. Left-wing nutcase Kevin Barrett at the University of Wisconsin-Madison teaching a class in which he spouts his belief that the US was not only behind 9/11, but is the force behind terrorist activities in Iraq and around the world. (Of course he'll keep his job thanks to "academic freedom"; perhaps someone should ask Harvard's Larry Sommers how much freedom he was afforded regarding his comments regarding females and science.)

Then there's Colorado's wholesale capitulation on the issue of immigration. Colorado's laws will be the "stiffest in the nation," meaning the slap on the wrist employers get for hiring illegal immigrants might sting for a whole two seconds rather than one, and the fines might be something other than a campaign contribution of any amount to the Democratic Party. (Then again Colorado Governor Bill Owens long ago joined John McCain in the "Of course I'm a Republican, see the (R) behind my name on the last ballot?" derby.)

Let's not forget Wisconsin Republicans' failure to even field a candidate to run against Herb Kohl. Haven't they ever heard of voters who just want to vote for someone, anyone other than the incumbent? If Wisconsin Republicans really are that weak and/or incompetent, they deserve to have the moonbats they do representing them in the Senate as well as the Governor's office. Mark Green may as well just give up now, or join Tommy Thompson in "I got mine, now go away" retirement. (Hey, I realize Thompson has a right not to run for anything, but it's his fault Wisconsin is as messed up as it is anyway given the way he abandoned the state to be HHS Secretary.) At least those Republicans they proudly state they got laws passed so take away cruisers' cars now. The liberal agenda moves forward, but they'll impound a bunch of Chevy Impalas and Mitsubishi Evos. Great.

No, instead a much more fitting topic is President Bush's effective surrender to Al Qaeda in the War on Terror by decreeing that from now on, terrorists too will be treated by the guidelines set forth in the Geneva Convention.

Really, who cares about whatever the latest New York Times leak of national security documents may be when if terrorists are captured, we give them free room, board, meals and Qurans for the rest of their lives in exchange for their name, "rank" and "serial number?" I'm sure people who have decided to martyr themselves will really be swayed by the fact that if they don't answer our interrogation questions, we may be forced to (oooh!) ask them a second time (though the interrogating officer will still need to be careful not to raise his or her voice when asking.)

This despite the fact that the Geneva Convention also explicitly states that to be treated as POWs, those held must satisfy four criteria:

1. They must be part of a military hierarchy
2. They must wear uniforms or other distinctive signs identifiable at a distance
3. They must openly carry arms
4. They must conduct their military operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war

Sorry, at most two of four just doesn't cut it, and that's the best case scenario.

How about the sections that state that soldiers who fight out of uniform or who commit atrocities or target and kill noncombatants may be executed by firing squad?

Oh, I forgot, according to Ward Churchill, all US residents are combatants ("Little Eichmanns"), and I guess the "uniforms" of those in the WTC were a suit and tie for men and dress shoes for women. I guess Al Qaeda would have called off the whole thing had September 11 fallen on Casual Friday.

Instead now all terrorists in US Military custody anywhere in the world will be treated according to the "humane treatment" (need a definition? I'm sure the ACLU is working on one as we speak) provisions of Article 3 of the Conventions, meaning that the US Government now officially views the prisoners as POWs despite five years of (correct) insistence that they are not.

None of this should surprise anyone of course; the Bush administration has been known to give in to the left with startling regularity, and just because one section of the Conventions will be followed doesn't mean any of the other sections must be acknowledged. This of course is familiar ground for the left, who treat the First Amendment as if it were the (pardon the simile) word of God himself while pretending that next Amendment just isn't there. (Apparently they must think the Founding Fathers just misnumbered or just went from 1 to 3 in some Olde English tradition like writing "F"s for "S"s.)

The sad thing is, Bush knows better and has all along. But rather than read the recent Supreme Court decision narrowly and realize that all he needed to do was get Congress to spell out the fact that terrorists aren't POWs, the administration went for the widest reading possible. It's a little like reading Roe vs. Wade to mean all fetuses must be aborted. Yes, I realize that's what hardcore feminists believe (there are exceptions, of course, like you're a beautiful star and can afford to give birth in Namibia after first effectively bribing the government to forcibly keep the paparazzi away - maybe it's not such a bad idea after all, Britney), but we're talking about a more or less (previously) rational group of folks here.

So why now? I don't know. Perhaps Bush believes this will somehow gain votes for Republicans in this fall's elections (Hint: stupid move - the left will never vote Republican and you've just alienated your base). Perhaps he's just sick of fighting the left. Perhaps he needs to get a lawyer on his staff with a flipping clue. Perhaps he needs staffers with a brain (then he won't do things like visit Wisconsin's Allen-Edmonds shoes to praise its President, John Stollenwerk, despite the fact that Stollenwerk has already donated about $7000 to the campaign of Wisconsin Governor (D)oyle) Bush couldn't be more wrong on this issue and he needs to fix things, fast.

Congress needs to realize that people who, if released, would like nothing better than to kill as many Americans as they possibly can are not POWs in any sense of the word. (Funny how those who most strongly believe the War on Terror is not a war at all want to apply that "W" in "POW.") Call your Congressman and Senator now and let them know that in no uncertain terms they must vote to uphold that fact, or at least put into place legislation that says that the prisoners at Gitmo and elsewhere must be treated according to all provisions of the Geneva Convention, not just Article 3.

But I won't hold my breath waiting for it to happen. We'll see a permanent repeal of the estate tax and a realization that the minimum wage actually hurts the poor first.