Daily Archives: July 6, 2011

Steve Milloy on the EPA train wreck

Posted on July 6, 2011 | 1 Comment

MILLOY: Last chance for GOP to stop EPA train wreck
Obama’s greenhouse-gas regulations about to kill more jobs
By Steve Milloy

The next month is a good time for Congressional Republicans to move beyond empty gestures to solve the job-killing and economy-slowing problem that is the Obama Environmental Protection Agency.

Since January, the EPA has been implementing its greenhouse-gas regulations and has advanced an entire suite of regulations intended to make it painfully expensive for utilities to continue burning coal for electricity generation.

Known as the “EPA train wreck,” the regulations will force utilities to further reduce emissions of conventional pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides and mercury even though the current emissions are not causing air-quality or public-health problems anywhere in America.

These rules are so oppressive that they’ve even frayed the alliance between radical environmentalists and labor. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers forecasts that 50,000 of its members and another 200,000 workers down the supply line will lose their jobs within three years.

That’s quite a toll for regulations that will bring no health or environmental benefits. (Washington Times)

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Posted in EPA, Misanthropy, Regulation

Blatant plug for Roy Spencer’s new book

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

FUNDANOMICS: The Free Market, Simplified

July 4th, 2011 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

I’m pretty excited that today (Independence Day, 2011) is the release date for my new book, Fundanomics: The Free Market, Simplified.

Our friend, Josh, did the cover art and it perfectly captures one of the book’s main messages: the greatest prosperity for ALL in a society is achieved when people are free to benefit from their good ideas.

In Chapter 1, A Tale of Two Neanderthals, Borgg and Glogg are the tribe’s firestarters, who get the idea to invent firesticks (matches). This leads to a system of trading with a neighboring tribe which has many great hunters, and as a result the inventors’ tribe never goes hungry again.

But the favored treatment the inventors receive from the tribe’s elders later leads to resentment in the tribe, and people forget how much better off they all are than before — even the poorest among them. Technology and prosperity might change, but human nature does not.

Simply put, a successful economy is just people being allowed to provide as much stuff as possible for each other that is needed and wanted. Economics-wise, everything else is details. When we allow politicians and opportunistic economists to fool us into supporting a variety of technical and murky government “fixes” for the economy, we lose sight of the fundamental motivating force which must be preserved for prosperity to exist: Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The main role of the government in the economy is help ensure people play fair…and then get out of the way.

I devote each chapter to a common economic myth. (Roy W. Spencer)

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Posted in From the Publisher & Editor

On the utter garbage that passes for mainstream health reporting

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

How far should we trust health reporting?

If health-risk information in newspapers is routinely misleading, there are real-world consequences (Ben Goldacre, Guardian)

Ben Goldacre’s study of dietary news should be taken with a pinch of salt

Research claiming that up to 72% of dietary health claims reported in UK newspapers are based on flimsy evidence is itself unreliable (James Randerson, Guardian)

Why I’m standing by our study of dietary health claims in newspapers

Ben Goldacre responds to criticism of research into the validity of dietary health claims made in UK newspapers (Ben Goldacre, Guardian)

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Posted in Health care, Silly scares

Life’s not easy for aging hippies, or their disciples

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Is Al Gore Bad for Big Environmentalism? (A shriller gone sour)
by Robert Bradley Jr.

“‘I think Al Gore’s done more to hurt this cause than he has to help it…. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t want to get within 10 miles of Al Gore on climate policy, because he’s seen by a lot of Americans as being on a crusade, and he doesn’t mind turning the economy upside-down because of sort of a religious zeal he has.”

- Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted in Jean Chemnick, “Graham says Gore to Blame, not Obama, for Congress’ Antipathy toward Climate Bill,” E&E News (sub. req.) June 23, 2011.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Activists, Enviros

Global warming and the assault on national governance

Posted on July 6, 2011 | 3 Comments

Impartiality in Science Cast Aside – Political Activism and Attacks on Sceptics Now Called For.

In a move which once and for all removes any doubt any reasonable person may have had on the impartial nature of climate science, the head of the Royal Society, Paul Nurse, has issued a statement calling for climate scientists to get get involved in activism and political agitation. An interview with the left-wing magazine, The New Statesman, quotes Nurse calling for climate scientists to drop any pretense of impartiality, and start agitating for political change: (Haunting The Library)

Science Corruption at the National Academies of Science
Continue reading →

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Posted in Activists, Climate change, Propaganda, UN

Well, he’s got to invest that hot air windfall somewhere…

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Carbon Credits Billionaire to Strip Mine the Arctic.

Sometimes the self-defeating nature of the global warming campaign goes from comedy to farce. This is definitely one of those occasions.

The steel magnate and Britain’s richest citizen, Lakshmi Mittal, has been the recipient of billions in carbon credits. Much of this came from the shutting down of European steel manufacturing and relocating production in lower wage countries like India.

Now it emerges that Mittal is planning a “mega-mine” within the Arctic circle to supply iron ore to his steel plants around the world: (Haunting The Library)

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Posted in Development, Green scams

Funny thing about “resource depletion” and peak [insert favorite panic here]

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Huge rare earth deposits found in Pacific: Japan

Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday.

“The deposits have a heavy concentration of rare earths. Just one square kilometer (0.4 square mile) of deposits will be able to provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption,” said Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo.

The discovery was made by a team led by Kato and including researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

They found the minerals in sea mud extracted from depths of 3,500 to 6,000 meters (11,500-20,000 ft) below the ocean surface at 78 locations. One-third of the sites yielded rich contents of rare earths and the metal yttrium, Kato said in a telephone interview.

The deposits are in international waters in an area stretching east and west of Hawaii, as well as east of Tahiti in French Polynesia, he said.

He estimated rare earths contained in the deposits amounted to 80 to 100 billion tonnes, compared to global reserves currently confirmed by the U.S. Geological Survey of just 110 million tonnes that have been found mainly in China, Russia and other former Soviet countries, and the United States. (Reuters)

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Posted in Development

To capitalize on a major energy resource or not – apparently a tough question in New York

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Will N.Y. Get Fracking?

Energy: Faced with the phase-out of nuclear power, the Empire State’s governor considers lifting its ban on a cheap and plentiful source of American fossil fuel. And, yes, it’s safe.

Sometimes economic necessity concentrates the mind wonderfully, even in the face of long-held ideological beliefs.

This may be the case on Friday, when New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation is expected to release a long-awaited study of a process widely known as hydraulic fracturing, a process used to release oil and natural gas stored in the porous rock of shale formations.

The new policy will end a near total moratorium on “fracking,” as it’s also known, in New York state and will allow drilling on private land, with some restrictions. It would be banned inside New York City’s sprawling upstate watershed, as well as inside a watershed used by Syracuse. It is that fear of groundwater contamination that has kept fracking in check.

The Marcellus Shale Formation covers 34 million acres in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky. SUNY-Fredonia geologist Gary Lash and colleague Terry Engelder of Penn State University estimate that Marcellus holds 1,300 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas.

Right now, we burn about 7 tcf annually to generate about 24% of the electricity used in the U.S. Throw in the natural gas used to heat homes and supply industrial processes and we consume about 23 tcf of natural gas annually. So we’re talking about a 60- to 70-year supply in just this one formation. (Investors.com)

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Posted in Energy, Fracking

Mike Fox with more silly radiation scares

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Anti-Nuclear Fictions Continue

BY MICHAEL R. FOX PHD – Yet another claim purporting to show the danger to public health from nuclear power plants is drawing attention, this one maintaining infant mortality rose thousands of miles away in the Pacific Northwest following the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan

Once again exaggerated assertions of “lethal radiation” and associated scare stories have linked radiation at extremely low levels and ill health. This link is made not by rational analysis but by hysterical claims and charges by people who have a long history of engaging in such sensationalism.

Such claims usually consist of selective data, combined with the incidence of infant mortality or cancer in our society, and a large dose of scaremongering. If you examine any of the radiation scare stories, you will find this formula being used. (Hawaii Reporter)

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Posted in Nuclear, Propaganda, Radiation, Silly scares

Pretty useless and with enormous opportunity costs attached (wind farms, of course)

Posted on July 6, 2011 | 1 Comment

When the wind sucks, part deux

The UK has liberally sprinkled vast wind farms all over its green and pleasant land, but without much effect.

Gaia, it seems, is not without a sense of humor:

Onshore wind as a percentage was 1.9 per cent of all electricity in 2010, down from 2.0 per cent in 2009. This represents a six per cent fall in the amount of energy generated from onshore wind compared to last year. A DECC spokesman blamed the weather but insisted the UK is on track to meet targets, in large part thanks to a massive increase in the amount of energy generated by offshore wind.

Hundreds more giant bird shredders were erected in the past year, yet actual energy production was down 6%.  That’s math only a government could love. (Daily Bayonet)

Windfarms or cancer treatment?
Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Wind

I think they mean they need modern industrial agriculture but…

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

New green farming vital to end global hunger: U.N.

A solid shift to green technologies in world farming is vital if endemic food crises are to be overcome and production boosted to support the global population, the United Nations said on Tuesday. (Reuters)

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Posted in Agriculture

Roger Pielke Sr. on annual Atlantic Hurricane data

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

New Paper “Estimating Annual Numbers Of Atlantic Hurricanes Missing From The HURDAT Database (1878-1965) Using Ship Track Density” By Vecchi and Knutson 2011

Chris Landsea has alerted us to a new paper

Vecchi, Gabriel A., and Thomas R Knutson, March 2011: Estimating annual numbers of Atlantic hurricanes missing from the HURDAT database (1878-1965) using ship track density. Journal of Climate, 24(6), doi:10.1175/2010JCLI3810.1.

The abstract reads (highlight added)

“This study assesses the impact of imperfect sampling in the presatellite era (between 1878 and 1965) on North Atlantic hurricane activity measures and on the long-term trends in those measures. The results indicate that a substantial upward adjustment of hurricane counts may be needed prior to 1965 to account for likely ‘‘missed’’ hurricanes due to sparse density of reporting ship traffic. After adjusting for the estimate of missed hurricanes in the basin, the long-term (1878–2008) trend in hurricane counts changes from significantly positive to no significant change (with a nominally negative trend). The adjusted hurricane count record is more strongly connected to the difference between main development region (MDR) sea surface temperature (SST) and tropical-mean SST than with MDR SST. These results do not support the hypothesis that the warming of the tropical North Atlantic due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions has caused Atlantic hurricane frequency to increase.” (Roger Pielke Sr.)

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Posted in Climate

David Whitehouse on Kaufmann et al

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Global Warming Standstill Confirmed – But How Long Will It Last?
Monday, 04 July 2011 19:10 Dr. David Whitehouse

It is good news that the authors of the PNAS paper Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998 – 2008 (Kaufmann et al. 2011) recognise that there has been no global temperature increase since 1998. Even after the standstill appears time and again in peer-reviewed scientific studies, many commentators still deny its reality. We live in the warmest decade since thermometer records began about 150 years ago, but it hasn’t gotten any warmer for at least a decade.

The researchers tweak an out-of-date climate computer model and cherry-pick the outcome to get their desired result. They do not use the latest data on the sun’s influence on the Earth, rendering their results of academic interest only. (GWPF)

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Posted in Climate

Roger Pielke Sr. on PlayStation® climate “predictions”

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

New Paper “Built For Stability” By Paul Valdes – Further Evidence Of The Failure Of The IPCC Models As Skillful Multi-Decadal Climate Forecasting Tools

There is a new paper which raises questions about the ability of the IPCC global climate model to skillfuly predict paleoclimate. The IPCC has claimed such skill as evidence of its skill to predict climate decades into the future. Based on this new paper, such a claim is unwarranted.

Paul Valdes, 2011: Built for stability. Nature Geoscience Volume: 4, Pages: 414–416 DOI: doi:10.1038/ngeo1200 Published online26 June 2011

The article has the headline text

“State-of-the-art climate models are largely untested against actual occurrences of abrupt change. It is a huge leap of faith to assume that simulations of the coming century with these models will provide reliable warning of sudden, catastrophic events.”

(Roger Pielke Sr.)

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Posted in PlayStation® climatology

Climate sensitivity and the IPCC’s marvelous magical multipliers

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

The IPCC and high biased climate sensitivity

Nicholas Lewis (who with Jeff Id and Ryan O’Donnell rebutted Steig et al and the flawed Antarctica surface temperature analysis) writes in with a note about a post on Climate, Etc. (Judith Curry’s blog) related to the IPCC AR4 and their estimate of climate sensitivity.

The IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), said it was “likely to be in the range of 1.5 to 4.5°C” (from . “Technical Summary: F.3 Projections of Future Changes in Temperature”

More recent work continues to support a best-guess value around 3°C (from “The equilibrium sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to radiation changes”)

There’s been a lot of talk about this as of late, and the number that I keep hearing repeated again and again is in the range of 1.1 to 1.4°C per doubling of CO2. Recently at ICCC6 in Washington, Dr. Roy Spencer suggested in his debate with Dr. Scott Denning that the value seems to be 1.3°C per 2xCO2 based on his analysis of temperature observations.

Nicholas Lewis has found what may be an error with IPCC’s calculation of climate sensitivity and writes: (WUWT)

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Posted in Climate, IPCC