Climate Change: Propaganda Vs Reality

The Technology & Economic Forum is a venue to discuss issues pertaining to Technological and Economic developments in India. We request members to kindly stay within the mandate of this forum and keep their exchanges of views, on a civilised level, however vehemently any disagreement may be felt. All feedback regarding forum usage may be sent to the moderators using the Feedback Form or by clicking the Report Post Icon in any objectionable post for proper action. Please note that the views expressed by the Members and Moderators on these discussion boards are that of the individuals only and do not reflect the official policy or view of the Bharat-Rakshak.com Website. Copyright Violation is strictly prohibited and may result in revocation of your posting rights - please read the FAQ for full details. Users must also abide by the Forum Guidelines at all times.
Atish
BRFite
Posts: 417
Joined: 07 Jul 2000 11:31
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Atish »

My latest FB post. Its worded in a way that will appeal to liberals:

The West discovered that DDT is a problem once they wiped out mosquitoes from their lands. They discovered dams are an ecological disaster once they had built all their massive dams. Now they find oil, coal and natural gas is an ecological problem as poor countries drag themselves out of horrible poverty. Bottom line is they want a clean environment on the back of millions of dead and starving Indians and Africans. They don't have any shame or the slightest bit of humanity.
Satya_anveshi
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3532
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 02:37

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Satya_anveshi »

PhysicsToday
Climate unpleasantness intensifies again in politics and the media - Nov 02, 2015
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/ma ... /PT.5.8147

crux of the issue between IPCC "corrections" on the NOAA data leading to different conclusion and a republican chair calling it fudging the data.
The June scientific paper presented “an updated global surface temperature analysis” bearing on the much-discussed global warming hiatus. It concluded that “the IPCC’s statement of two years ago—that the global surface temperature ‘has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years’—is no longer valid.” In a preview of the nastiness that has resumed this fall, climate-consensus scoffers across the media immediately began reacting—usually derisively, and sometimes with outright vituperation.
The paper comes from Thomas R. Karl of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information and eight coauthors. It reports on “newly corrected” data. The closing paragraph points to a figure and sums up:
[T]here is no discernable (statistical or otherwise) decrease in the rate of warming between the second half of the 20th century and the first 15 years of the 21st century. Our new analysis now shows that the trend over the period 1950–1999, a time widely agreed as having significant anthropogenic global warming, is 0.113°C decade−1, which is virtually indistinguishable from the trend over the period 2000–2014 (0.116°C decade−1). Even starting a trend calculation with 1998, the extremely warm El Niño year that is often used as the beginning of the “hiatus,” our global temperature trend (1998–2014) is 0.106°C decade−1—and we know that is an underestimate because of incomplete coverage over the Arctic.
Ars Technica obtained and printed the brief statement that Chairman Smith sent to Nature. It begins with a premise: "It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades." No warming? Two decades? In condemning that claim as "simply false," Ars Technica invokes a posting from the climatologists at the blog RealClimate. It's dated a half-year earlier than the NOAA scientists' June paper.
Here's the rest of Chairman Smith's statement:
The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made. NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda. The agency has yet to identify any legal basis for withholding these documents. The Committee intends to use all tools at its disposal to undertake its Constitutionally-mandated oversight responsibilities.
chaitanya
BRFite
Posts: 218
Joined: 27 Sep 2002 11:31
Location: US

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by chaitanya »

johneeG wrote: Disha saar,
These numbers seem to start from 1979. So, we don't know what is the actual standard of the ice that should be on arctic. I just posted how in the past vikings used to grow barley greenland. Today greenland is covered in ice. Even in NASA's animation, there doesn't seem to be anything conclusively. The ice seems to be growing and decreasing in different years without any clear trend.
JohneeGji,

The second link i posted has ice cover measurements and a trendline for the same. Using a similar argument, one can say that 10,000 years ago the Sahara near Egypt was full of savannah-like vegetation. We know that (for hundreds of years at least) the arctic sea was pretty unnavigable, but it is increasingly becoming so (I think using navigability of the arctic sea is a pretty good proxy for ice cover).

Atish's primer post is a really nice summary of the issues at hand. We can keep on arguing over the baseline values for ice pack, CO2 level, etc. but we can never really establish those, as climate and environmental change is 'always' taking place. The earth is super chaotic and influenced by everything from the coupled earth-sun-moon orbits to asteroids, volcanoes, solar activity, etc. On top of that we only have one earth, so its not like we can try to arrive at a mean value for these measurements or construct some experiments with statistically significant results :-?

Given what information we have, I think we can only try to address this question: Has human activity altered the rate at which climate change is taking place? As far as I know, there has been some research in trying to piece together historical records of climactic activity using ice cores and other sources. I am not so familiar with the results of those studies, but it would be interesting to see what the historical rate of change has been.

Even if we can establish that human activity is significantly altering the climate, its not so clear to me if this is a bad thing in the long run. Many organisms in the planet's history have dramatically altered the composition of the atmosphere and the landscape and allowed new species to evolve while killing others off. For example, our oxygen today is primarily the result of bacterial action billions of years ago, and most limestone comes from corals and whatnot. In our own way, we could be doing the same. Personally, I would rather that we minimize our impact on the environment and let nature take its course...
Satya_anveshi
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3532
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 02:37

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Satya_anveshi »

There is absolutely no propaganda here..it is total, complete, whole, and absolute truth onleee...
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/1 ... te-change/
Veterans Day 2030 Could Look Like Syria Today, Thanks To Climate Change - Nov 11 2015
Image
Satya_anveshi
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3532
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 02:37

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Satya_anveshi »

What else can be expected of brishits.

India could push world into climate change danger zone, warn scientists
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... scientists
India is due to ask the UK and other rich nations to share breakthroughs in renewable energy and other “clean” technology, and for help financing a huge expansion in efficiency and solar and wind power. It is unclear whether British officials will pressure Modi to consider a tougher emissions target.

Before the UN climate summit in Paris in December, India has pledged to increase carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions more slowly than the economy grows. The latest analysis of India’s plan calculates that if it expands as it hopes – by more than 8.5% a year – emissions will reach 9bn megatonnes by the end of the next decade.

This is about one-fifth of the total annual emissions that scientists calculate the world can emit in 2030 and still have a more than a 50% chance of avoiding the global temperature rising more than 2C, considered a dangerous threshold.
johneeG
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3473
Joined: 01 Jun 2009 12:47

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by johneeG »

chaitanya wrote: JohneeGji,

The second link i posted has ice cover measurements and a trendline for the same. Using a similar argument, one can say that 10,000 years ago the Sahara near Egypt was full of savannah-like vegetation. We know that (for hundreds of years at least) the arctic sea was pretty unnavigable, but it is increasingly becoming so (I think using navigability of the arctic sea is a pretty good proxy for ice cover).

Atish's primer post is a really nice summary of the issues at hand. We can keep on arguing over the baseline values for ice pack, CO2 level, etc. but we can never really establish those, as climate and environmental change is 'always' taking place. The earth is super chaotic and influenced by everything from the coupled earth-sun-moon orbits to asteroids, volcanoes, solar activity, etc. On top of that we only have one earth, so its not like we can try to arrive at a mean value for these measurements or construct some experiments with statistically significant results :-?

Given what information we have, I think we can only try to address this question: Has human activity altered the rate at which climate change is taking place? As far as I know, there has been some research in trying to piece together historical records of climactic activity using ice cores and other sources. I am not so familiar with the results of those studies, but it would be interesting to see what the historical rate of change has been.

Even if we can establish that human activity is significantly altering the climate, its not so clear to me if this is a bad thing in the long run. Many organisms in the planet's history have dramatically altered the composition of the atmosphere and the landscape and allowed new species to evolve while killing others off. For example, our oxygen today is primarily the result of bacterial action billions of years ago, and most limestone comes from corals and whatnot. In our own way, we could be doing the same. Personally, I would rather that we minimize our impact on the environment and let nature take its course...
chaitanya ji,
Yep, good posts by Atish in this thread.

About arctic:
it seems that Vikings used to navigate arctic and farm in greenland. So, in medieval times, it was much warmer in arctic than today.
Vikings could navigate, colonize the Arctic during Medieval times

Michael Bastasch
12:54 AM 12/18/2013


The possibility that global warming might contribute to Arctic development isn’t anything new. America’s first European visitors, the Vikings, were able to reach and colonize the northernmost reaches of the continent due to the lack of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean during Medieval times when the earth was going through a warming period.

The Viking era came well before the Industrial Revolution — when humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels which some scientists say causes global warming — and suggests that there are strong natural climate forces that have a profound effect on the extent of Arctic sea ice coverage. However, this is not a new theory — it was discussed as far back as the 19th century.

According to an 1887 newspaper article entitled “Variations in Climate,” Scandinavian Vikings were able to sail through the Arctic Ocean and establish colonies in the “highest north latitude” of Greenland and North America centuries before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. These colonies, however, were abandoned by the Vikings due to “the increasing cold.”

“On the contrary, the formation of ice increases annually if the winters are strongly cold, long and dark,” wrote Alexander Beck in 1887. “The reverse of that state of things is found by calculations for the year 1122 A.D., and it is precisely at that time we find the Danes and other Scandinavian nations going through the Arctic open seas.”

“Colonies are established by them in the highest north latitude of Greenland, and the upper part of North America, a long time before Christopher Columbus had reached a more southern part of the same continent,” Beck added. “But those colonies were relinquished on account of the increasing cold. In the fourteenth century the seas are found again closed, even in the summer. The great north icefield … increases daily, the Arctic colonists are compelled to come more to the south, and the cold takes possession again of countries which were kept free for a few years just about the twelfth century.”

“Remains of those upper Arctic villages are found, I may say, in each Arctic expedition. The climate of Iceland becoming more and more cool also proves that the state of the earth varies in the course of centuries,” Beck continued.

The warm climate that defined the Middle Ages and allowed the Vikings to settle the most northern reaches of the Americas is known as the “Medieval Warming Period,” which lasted from the 9th century A.D. to the 13th Century A.D. During this time temperatures were warmer in the Northern Hemisphere than the so-called “Little Ice Age” that followed, according to the National Climate Data Center.

The “Little Ice Age” that followed the warmer Medieval period lasted from the 14th century A.D. to the late 19th Century A.D. Some scientists argue that this period coincided with low sunspot activity which cooled the climate substantially during this time period. Others say that it had to due with natural climate variations caused by the Atlantic Ocean.

Recently, German scientists have argued that two naturally occurring cycles will combine to lower global temperatures to levels corresponding with the “Little Ice Age” of 1870. According to scientists declining solar activity and the 65-year Atlantic and Pacific Ocean oscillation cycle will cause the earth to cool during this century.

“Due to the de Vries cycle, the global temperature will drop until 2100 to a value corresponding to the ‘little ice age’ of 1870,” write German scientists Horst-Joachim Luedecke and Carl-Otto Weiss of the European Institute for Climate and Energy.
Link

About Human activity and climate:
I think human activity would have some impact on climate. Exactly how much impact is up for debate. When global warmers talk about consensus, what they are saying is that scientists agree that human activity must have some impact on climate. But, exactly how much impact is not settled. And its not settled if this impact is positive or negative in the long run.

In the short run, deforestation is a much bigger environment problem which leads to floods and famines and desertification. Chemical pollution is a big problem. Plastic contaminating the earth is a big problem because it is not decompose in earth. Air pollution is also a problem in certain cases where strange chemicals are emitted due to industrial activity. But, the long term effect is not known.

However, carbon di oxide is definitely not the main problem in any which way. CO2 is needed by the plants. And they can recycle it into Oxygen for animals. So, it is not really that big problem. The bigger problem would be air pollutants which cannot be recycled naturally.

And finally, global warming would be a good thing. More warmer weather means more evaporation which means more clouds and more rains. More rains means more forests. Thats why there are rainforests near equator where the temperature is warmest. This is quite simple and straight-forward and basic science.
johneeG
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3473
Joined: 01 Jun 2009 12:47

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by johneeG »

The whole climate scare is based on the following:
human carbon di oxide emissions leads to global warming which will melt the ice of the poles and wreak havoc in the climate and sea levels will increase.
Now, each of these points is highly debatable if not wrong.
-Human carbon emissions are too minuscule to make any huge impact.
-Carbon is very small green house gas. Water Vapour is the biggest green house gas.
-There is no long-term global warming trend. The temperatures are recorded from 1880. They show that temperatures dropped from 1940 to 1975.

However, what happens if there is global warming and the ice of the poles melts? Will the sea levels increase?
Melting ice and its affect on water levels

... or a fun exploration of volume, mass, density, floatation, global warming, and how to float in a swimming pool.

by Jared Smith
Principles

Archimedes' Principles:

Any floating object displaces a volume of water equal in weight to the object's MASS.
Any submerged object displaces a volume of water equal to the object's VOLUME.

Formula

Mass / Density = Volume
Melting ice cube

Glass of water with ice cube.If you place water and an ice cube in a cup so that the cup is entirely full to the brim, what happens to the level of water as the ice melts? Does it rise (overflow the cup), stay the same, or lower?

Image

The ice cube is floating, so based on Archimedes' Principle 1 above, we know that the volume of water being displaced (moved out of the way) is equal in mass (weight) to the mass of the ice cube. So, if the ice cube has a mass of 10 grams, then the mass of the water it has displaced will be 10 grams.

A tower of Jenga blocks.We know the density (or compactness, weight per unit) of the ice cube is less than that of the liquid water, otherwise it wouldn't be floating. Water is one of the very few solids that is less dense than when in its liquid form. If you take a one pound bottle of water and freeze it, it will still weigh one pound, but the molecules will have spread apart a bit and it will be less dense and take up more volume or space. This is why water bottles expand in the freezer. It's similar to a Jenga tower. When you start playing it contains a fixed number of blocks, but as you pull out blocks and place them on top, the tower becomes bigger, yet it still has the same mass/weight and number of blocks.

Fresh, liquid water has a density of 1 gram per cubic centimeter (1g = 1cm^3, every cubic centimeter liquid water will weigh 1 gram). By the formula above (Mass / Density = Volume) and basic logic, we know that 10 grams of liquid water would take up 10 cubic cm of volume (10g / 1g/cm^3 = 10cm^3).

So let's say that our 10 gram ice cube has a density of only .92 grams per cubit centimeter. By the formula above, 10 grams of mass that has a density of .92 grams per cubic centimeter will take up about 10.9 cubic centimeters of space (10g / .92g/cm^3 = 10.9cm^3). Again, the volume of 10 grams of frozen water is more than the volume of 10 grams of its liquid counterpart.

The floating ice cube has a mass of 10 grams, so based on Archimedes' Principle 1, it is displacing 10 grams of water (which has 10cm^3 of volume). You can't squeeze a 10.9cm^3 ice cube into a 10cm^3 space, so the rest of the ice cube (about 9% of it) will be floating above the water line.

So what happens when the ice cube melts? The ice shrinks (decreases volume) and becomes more dense. The ice density will increase from .92g/cm^3 to that of liquid water (1g/cm^3). Note that the weight will not (and cannot) change. The mass just becomes more dense and smaller - similar to putting blocks back into their original positions in our Jenga tower. We know the ice cube weighed 10 grams initially, and we know it's density (1g/cm^3), so let's apply the formula to determine how much volume the melted ice cube takes. The answer is 10 cubic centimeters (10g / 1g/cm^3 = 10cm^3), which is exactly the same volume as the water that was initially displaced by the ice cube.

In short, the water level will not change as the ice cube melts
Link

It seems that the water levels do not change when the ice melts as long as those ice are in water already. So, the arctic ice thats floating in water already is no problem. Arctic ice pack melting has no impact on sea levels.

What about the ice covering the land?
As I have posted previously, the greenland was being farmed by the vikings. Today, greenland is covered by 2KM thick ice cover. So, previously, during the viking age, it was much warmer. And it had nothing to do with human activity.

What happens when the ice in greenland melts?
I think the sea-levels would rise. Also, more warming means more evaporation. That means less water in seas. So, there is going to be some natural balance in sea levels to some extent and there is no need for alarm. Maybe a few low lying areas will be under threat. But, I don't think this has anything to do with the human activity. These are natural cycles. Exactly what is the reason for these cycles may be debated.
chaitanya
BRFite
Posts: 218
Joined: 27 Sep 2002 11:31
Location: US

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by chaitanya »

JohneeGji,

Didn't know about the Vikings - interesting read! I wonder how far up north they could go at the time.
johneeG wrote: In the short run, deforestation is a much bigger environment problem which leads to floods and famines and desertification. Chemical pollution is a big problem. Plastic contaminating the earth is a big problem because it is not decompose in earth. Air pollution is also a problem in certain cases where strange chemicals are emitted due to industrial activity. But, the long term effect is not known.
Definitely agree! Most people don't talk about destroying the collective evolutionary history trapped in rainforests that could be put to good use (medicines, etc) or the giant plastic garbage patches in the gyres of every major ocean.
Atish
BRFite
Posts: 417
Joined: 07 Jul 2000 11:31
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Atish »

Modi in Wembley mentioned Global Warming as biggest threat to humanity along with terrorism. Gives me the chills.
johneeG
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3473
Joined: 01 Jun 2009 12:47

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by johneeG »

Image
panduranghari
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3781
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by panduranghari »

Onlee from construction and manufacturing.
Image
johneeG
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3473
Joined: 01 Jun 2009 12:47

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by johneeG »

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Enron
by Chris Horner
April 28, 2009 11:30 AM
This is a worthy topic for continued congressional exploration. In short, the video and accompanying narrative dissect Al Gore’s Friday Capitol Hill appearance touting a scheme to ration energy while in the process rewarding those businesses who helped concoct the scheme:

Al Gore obfuscates, downplays and refuses to discuss the role that CEOs have played in crafting his Cap-and-Trade C02 trading schemes and carbon swapping systems.

Al Gore tries to put a lid in Congressional committee testimony on a little reported but vitally important subject in the global warming, carbon-tax ‘debate’ — the new derivatives bubble in the emerging green-energy credit-swap market. . . .

The point from Rep. Scalise that is gaveled over by the chairman and stuttered-over by Gore is that many of the Congressmen are ‘concerned about turning over our energy economy over to firms like Enron and some of these Wall Street firms that wrecked out financial economy.’

Fmr. Vice President Al Gore denies that Ken Lay and other CEOs developed carbon scheme: “I didn’t know him well enough to call him ‘Kenny-boy’.


Of course, Gore wasn’t the home-state governor of this Fortune 15 company either, so I guess his supposed lack of familiarity (keep reading) would make sense. But one might ask what nickname Gore had for close family friend and (ahem) benefactor, the Soviet stooge Armand Hammer? Maurice Strong? The gang at his own personal Enron — scam-artist and buddy-run Molten Metals? Et cetera, et cetera…

Here, we see how Gore lapses into his true self, well-known before adoption of this Right Reverend persona, awkwardly trying to change the subject from something that is rightly discomfiting to him. So allow me to address the point, as there is much, much more to the story.

Twelve years ago almost to this very day, I left my law firm to accept a position that had rather unexpectedly fallen in my lap: I had gotten a call from Enron asking me to be their Director of Federal Government Relations. Everyone polled suggested it was a great opportunity, a company admired throughout town, not only by the Clinton-Gore administration (with which it was very close), but by Republicans, too.

I believe it was my first day on the job when I walked into my boss’s office in Enron’s suite across from the White House, smack into a meeting between her and two of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s senior DC officials. The next day, I sat in for “Kenny Boy” at a meeting in the fancy D.C. offices of a New York law firm, around a table of Baptists and bootleggers, rent-seekers and green puritans, all discussing how to ensure a global-warming treaty came about according to our collective design, and how to rope the U.S. into it.

Seeing very measured groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists on my immediate left (naturally), I turned to a representative of one of the rent-seekers (in on the meeting were the American Gas Association, Niagara-Mohawk Power, and BP, among others) on my right and asked, “What are we doing sitting around a table with a bunch of people who want to put us out of business?” I was told with a laugh, “They want to put coal out of business first.”

Lovely people, these folks kind enough to introduce me to the world’s second-oldest profession — making one’s fortune off of policy favors from buddies in government instead of by innovation or competition. Frederic Bastiat, phone your office.

So I fired off a “Houston, we have a problem” missive to my boss asking if Enron knew what it was getting into in this group. That’s when they explained the specifics of their business plan to me — which did include setting up a trading business with Goldman, by the way, as one of Goldman’s energy practice chiefs at the time also roared to me in joy about about all of the money they were going to make. This cannot conceivably be news to Al Gore and his VC partner and former Goldman pooh-bah David Blood discussed in the linked item above.

This plan has since been carried off to greener pastures by any number of Kenny Boy’s protégés — including one of the most vocal leaders of the current industry push for the cap-and-trade rationing scheme, as I detail in Red Hot Lies. Read that if you want to know just how Rep. Scalise really did nail things in his questioning.

Anyway, fast forward a few uncomfortable weeks of retaliatory behavior that I am confident you wouldn’t believe — but I’d be happy to take a speaking fee to tell you about. I’m no longer with the company, and Enron and the greens continue to pursue their agenda — which happens to be Congress’s current agenda. Soon thereafter, in July 1997, a unanimous Senate votes pursuant to Art. II, Sec. 2, gives its (unsolicited) “advice” to Clinton-Gore not to go to Kyoto and agree to that beast of a treaty. In December, Al Gore flies off to Kyoto and does just that.

The intervening event? An August 4, 1997 Oval Office meeting with Kenny Boy, Sir John Browne (then of BP), and the president and vice president of the United States. Let that sink in. Al Gore says he didn’t know the guy. But anyone who can even spell “Beltway” can tell you that that kind of attention requires serious influence. Ask Gordon Brown.

As revealed by the August 1, 1997, Kenny Boy briefing memo that entered the public record after the Enron unpleasantness, in this meeting Kenny Boy was to demand that the Senate be ignored, that the administration agree to Kyoto, and — most important — that it contain a cap-and-trade scheme.

I know where “advice and consent” is in the Constitution. I’m not so sure where Ken Lay and Sir John Browne are, probably in the back with all of the scary stuff. Anyway, you know who won.

So, in tossing things back to Gore to finally answer the question, I leave you with key excerpts from the “what I did in Kyoto” memo by Lay’s Kyoto aide (yep, he had one), John Palmissano, hailing Enron’s success:
-“This treaty [Kyoto] is exactly what I have been lobbying for.” “This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!”
- “Enron now has excellent credentials with many ‘green’ interests including Greenpeace, [World Wildlife Fund], [Natural Resources Defense Council], German Watch, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI . . . ” -“This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monitized) [sic].” “if implemented, this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-go ... ris-horner
Link
johneeG
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3473
Joined: 01 Jun 2009 12:47

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by johneeG »

Why Enron Raised Global Warming Alarm

By Larry Bell | Monday, 17 Feb 2014 06:03 PM

Although a more than half-billion-dollar 10-year-long 1980s “acid rain” study of damage to lakes and forests (which some people attributed to emissions from Midwestern utilities) yielded no “smoking gun” evidence, the highly-publicized scare set off a chain of events that continues to have enormously broad and costly regulatory consequences. A key player in this saga was Enron.

That “Acid Precipitation Assessment Program” study ultimately determined that those widespread fears were largely unfounded since only one species of tree at a high elevation suffered any notable effect, and acidity in lakes was traced to natural causes. Nevertheless, the EPA acted quickly to establish the groundwork to regulate sodium dioxide (SO2) even before those results were in.

Sen. John Heinz, R–Pa., and Timothy Wirth, D-Colo., had previously cosponsored the so-called Project 88 to provide a pathway for converting environmental issues into business opportunities. So that media-fueled alarm about acid rain provided a great basis for new “allowance trading” legislation to create markets for buying and selling excess SO2 credits. Project 88 became the Clean Air Act of 1990.

One of the big traders in the SO2 allowance market was Enron. Back at that time the company was diversifying its energy business, and already owned the largest natural gas pipeline that existed outside of Russia, a colossal interstate network. However natural gas was having difficulties competing with coal.

Global media hype about global warming, which had been ginned up by then-Sen. Al Gore’s famous 1988 congressional hearings on the matter, provided what Enron recognized as a dream opportunity. After all, since a cap-and-trade market had been established for SO2, why not do the same for CO2 which was already being blamed for a climate crisis?

Natural gas was a lower CO2-emitter than coal. Besides, they knew exactly where to go in Washington to get some help.

Enron’s CEO, Kenneth Lay, had met with President Clinton and Vice President Gore in the White House on Aug. 4, 1997 to prepare a strategy for the upcoming Kyoto conference that December. Kyoto was the first step toward creating a carbon market that Enron desperately wanted Congress to support.

But there was one very pesky problem. Unlike SO2 which really does produce unhealthy smog, CO2 wasn’t considered to be a pollutant . . . at least not yet . . . and therefore EPA had no authority to regulate it.

So after Al Gore’s Senate pal Timothy Wirth was appointed to become undersecretary of state for global affairs in the Clinton-Gore administration, Enron’s boss Lay began working closely with him to lobby Congress to grant EPA necessary CO2 regulatory authority plus gain public United Nations Kyoto Protocol support.

And lobby they did. Between 1994 and 1996 the Enron Foundation contributed nearly $1 million to an energetic and successful global warming fear campaign which included attacks on scientific dissenters.

An internal Enron memorandum stated that Kyoto would “do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside the restructuring [of] the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States.”

The rest, as they say, is history. Al Gore and his partner David Blood, the former chief of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) took big stakes inthe Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) which was poised to make windfall profits selling CO2 offsets if and when cap-and-trade was passed in Congress. Speaking before a 2007 Joint House Hearing of the Energy Science Committee, Gore told members: “As soon as carbon has a price, you’re going to see a wave [of investment] in it . . . There will be unchained investment.”

Thanks to a 2010 Republican mid-term House cleaning that didn’t occur.

So just how well did this sort of this political science pay off in supporting the various agendas? Well, in the case of Enron . . . obviously not so great. As for Al Gore, even though his carbon cash-in plans got capped, he has still harvested lots of the green he was peddling.

Larry Bell is a professor and endowed professor at the University of Houston, where he directs the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and heads the graduate program in space architecture. He is author of “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax,” and his professional aerospace work has been featured on the History Channel and the Discovery Channel-Canada. Read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
Link
johneeG
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3473
Joined: 01 Jun 2009 12:47

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by johneeG »

The Money and Connections Behind Al Gore’s Carbon Crusade

ccoreybarnes | Wednesday Oct 3, 2007 3:01 AM

Share on Facebook

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain?

Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a state think tank, revealed that he was an energy hog. Public records show that Gore’s Nashville mansion used in one month more than twice the electricity the typical American household uses in a year: His average monthly electric bill was more than $1,359. Moreover, Gore’s household energy use increased after An Inconvenient Truth, his film about global warming, was released to ecstatic reviews.

Never mind that the scientific community is divided over what causes global warming, how bad it is and how to deal with it. Gore plays Chicken Little to the media’s applause, insisting that the world is warming dangerously and that he has the solution.

The ‘Cap-and-Trade’ System

To resolve the “climate crisis,” Gore wants to put a cap on the production of greenhouse gases. He calls for an immediate freeze on U.S. emissions, a ban on new coal-fired power plants, tough new fuel-economy and energy-efficiency standards, renewable energy mandates, carbon taxes and mandatory targets and timetables for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Those emissions consist mostly of carbon dioxide (CO2), the byproduct of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas, which supply 85% of all U.S. energy. Gore’s blueprint to save the planet moves the United States towards a command economy in which government regulators hold sway over what kinds and amounts of energy will be made available to the private sector. His principal regulatory tool is what’s called carbon-credit trading.

Under a so-called “cap-and-trade” system, government places a ceiling or “cap” on private-sector emissions of CO2 and other “greenhouse gases.” Each sector, industry or business is allocated a fixed quantity of carbon credits that allow it to emit specific quantities of greenhouse gases. As an example, one tradable carbon credit might permit the emission of one ton of CO2. If a business emits more tons of CO2 than its supply of credits allows, it has the option to buy surplus credits from other firms — or it will have to pay a fine in proportion to the amount of the excess emission. By contrast, businesses that emit less than their allocation can sell their excess credits.

This system, which may sound market-friendly, is something only a bureaucrat could dream up. The twist is that the carbon market exists only because the government’s imposition of a cap creates an artificial scarcity in the right to produce energy. In a cap-and-trade system, buyers will purchase their offsets from a broker or through an electronic trading platform. In Europe, carbon trading is already a reality. Since 2005, carbon offsets have been traded electronically on the European Climate Exchange (ECX).

Most carbon cap-and-trade programs also allow regulated entities to earn credits by taking actions that supposedly reduce emissions outside of the firm’s facilities or operations. In one popular version of the carbon-offset concept, firms earn credits by buying seedling trees for planting in less-developed countries. Supporters claim the CO2 intake of the trees will balance out the carbon emissions of the sponsoring firm’s industrial activity. Despite its public relations value, scientists scoff at the notion that it’s possible to plant enough trees to balance out man’s production of CO2. But carbon-offset projects are popular in the environmentalist community.

More Chances to Cheat

However, the most radical environmentalists reject cap-and-trade. They say it allows polluters to continue to pollute by purchasing carbon credits. That is true but irrelevant. A ton of CO2 emitted in Beijing has the same climatologic effect as a ton emitted in New York. The real problem is that every country’s government has an incentive to cheat on behalf of its domestic producers. This has been the European Union’s (EU) experience with the Emissions Trading System (ETS) that the EU established to implement the Kyoto Protocol. In just about every EU country except Britain, the credits allowed exceed the corresponding tons of emissions.

Carbon offsets provide even more opportunities to cheat. For example, some aluminum companies claim they deserve credits just because they recycle aluminum for a living — recycling being less energy intensive and thus generally cheaper than making the stuff from scratch. The most popular activity for generating offsets is planting trees. But this method of storing carbon takes years and the long-term results are uncertain. If the trees die and decay, or are burned to clear land for agriculture, there is no net emission reduction. The net carbon reduction from tree planting may not materialize for decades, but the offsets are given out now.

To critics on both the free-market right and the environmentalist left, carbon offsets are no more than a marketing gimmick. Some describe the fanciful device as akin to medieval indulgences that were sold in a cleric-run market to regulate the remission of sin.

The truth is that almost every productive human action requires the use of natural resources, and nothing is pollution free. Even something like wind power requires windmills, which, according to environmentalists such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., may visually “pollute” the natural landscape. Kennedy, head of the green group Riverkeepers, says he supports wind power — except when the windmills are in the waters off Cape Cod.

Whatever its impact on the environment, the cap-and-trade carbon scheme is sure to boost the economic and political prospects of people and groups that are behind it. Before the company collapsed under the weight of financial scandal, Enron under CEO Ken Lay was a key proponent of the cap-and-trade idea. So was BP’s Lord John Browne, before he resigned last May under a cloud of personal scandal. In August 1997, Lay and Browne met with President Bill Clinton and Vice President Gore in the Oval Office to develop administration positions for the Kyoto negotiations that resulted in an international treaty to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. Senate voted 95 to 0 not to ratify the Kyoto treaty in 1997. But that hasn’t stopped Al Gore.

Gore’s Circle of Business


Al Gore is chairman and founder of a private equity firm called Generation Investment Management (GIM). According to Gore, the London-based firm invests money from institutions and wealthy investors in companies that are going green. “Generation Investment Management, purchases — but isn’t a provider of — carbon dioxide offsets,” said spokesman Richard Campbell in a March 7 report by CNSNews.

GIM appears to have considerable influence over the major carbon-credit trading firms that currently exist: the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) in the U.S. and the Carbon Neutral Company (CNC) in Great Britain. CCX is the only firm in the U.S. that claims to trade carbon credits.

CCX owes its existence in part to the Joyce Foundation, the Chicago-based liberal foundation that provided $347,000 in grant support in 2000 for a preliminary study to test the viability of a market in carbon credits. On the CCX board of directors is the ubiquitous Maurice Strong, a Canadian industrialist and diplomat who, since the 1970s, has helped create an international policy agenda for the environmentalist movement. Strong has described himself as “a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology.” His former job titles include “senior advisor” to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, “senior advisor” to World Bank President James Wolfensohn and board member of the United Nations Foundation, a creation of Ted Turner. The 78-year-old Strong is very close to Gore.

CCX has about 80 members that are self-confessed emitters of greenhouse gases. They have voluntarily committed themselves to reduce their emissions by the year 2010 to a level 6% below their emissions in 2000. CCX members include Ford Motor Company, Amtrak, DuPont, Dow Corning, American Electric Power, International Paper, Motorola, Waste Management and a smattering of other companies, along with the states of Illinois and New Mexico, seven cities and a number of universities. Presumably the members “purchase” carbon offsets on the CCX trading exchange. This means they make contributions to or investments in groups or firms that provide forms of “alternative,” “renewable” and “clean” energy.

CCX also has “participant members” that develop the carbon-offset projects. They have names like Carbon Farmers and Eco-Nomics Incorporated. Still, other participant member groups facilitate, finance and market carbon-offset projects to “sequester, destroy or displace” greenhouse gases. CCX aspires to be the New York Stock Exchange of carbon-emissions trading.

Along with Gore, the co-founder of GIM is Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson. Last September, Goldman Sachs bought 10% of CCX shares for $23 million. CCX owns half the ECX, so Goldman Sachs has a stake there as well.

GIM’s “founding partners” are studded with officials from Goldman Sachs. They include David Blood, former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM); Mark Ferguson, former co-head of GSAM pan-European research; and Peter Harris, who headed GSAM international operations. Another founding partner is Peter Knight, who is the designated president of GIM. He was Sen. Al Gore’s chief of staff from 1977-1989 and the campaign manager of the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign.

Like CCX, the ECX has about 80 member companies, including Barclays, BP, Calyon, Endesa, Fortis, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Shell, and ECX has contracted with the European Union to further develop a futures market in carbon trading. What’s in it for the companies? They will benefit either by investing in carbon credits or by receiving subsidies for doing so.

Front and Center


Clearly, GIM is poised to cash in on carbon trading. The membership of CCX is currently voluntary. But if the day ever comes when federal government regulations require greenhouse-gas emitters — and that’s almost everyone — to participate in cap-and-trade, then those who have created a market for the exchange of carbon credits are in a position to control the outcomes. And that moves Al Gore front and center. As a politician, Gore is all for transparency. But as GIM chairman, Gore has not been forthcoming, according to Forbes magazine. Little is known about his firm’s finances, where it gets funding and what projects it supports.

We do know that Goldman Sachs has commissioned the World Resources Institute (affiliated with CCX), Resources for the Future, and the Woods Hole Research Center to research policy options for U.S. regulation of greenhouse gases. In 2006, Goldman Sachs provided research grants in this area totaling $2.3 million. The firm also has committed $1 billion to carbon-assets projects, a fancy term for projects that generate energy from sources other than oil and gas. In October 2006, Morgan Stanley committed to invest $3 billion in carbon-assets projects. Citigroup entered the emissions-trading market in May, and Bank of America got in on the action in June.

Some environmentalist groups disparage Gore and his investment banker friends. They say the Gore group caters to others who share their financial interest in the carbon-exchange concept. The bulletin of the World Rainforest Movement says that members of a United Nations-sponsored group called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stand to gain by approving Gore’s carbon-trading enterprise. The IPCC has devised what it says is a scientific measure of the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming. In fact, the critics charge, the IPCC sanctions a mechanism that mainly promotes the sham concept of carbon exchange.

The global non-profit organization Winrock International is an example of one IPCC panel member that seeks out groups and individuals with an interest in carbon trading. Arkansas-based Winrock provides worldwide “carbon-advisory services.” Winrock has received government grants from the EPA, USAID and the Departments of Labor, State and Commerce, as well as from the Nature Conservancy (whose chairman used to be Henry Paulson). Winrock argues that cap-and-trade carbon trading is the best way to prevent a climate change crisis. But consider this: When a non-profit group takes money from oil companies and advocates drilling for oil as a solution to energy shortages, it is certain to be attacked as a tool of Big Oil. So far, the groups linked to Al Gore have avoided similar scrutiny.

Then there’s the World Resources Institute (WRI). It was the first nongovernmental group to join CCX as an associate member (a designation for virtuous groups whose greenhouse-gas emissions are negligible). Many of its donors are CCX members or otherwise support carbon exchanges, including the Shell Foundation, Whole Foods Market, the Nature Conservancy, American Forest and Paper Association, and the Pew Center for Climate Change, as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation.

Connect the Dots

In June 2006, the World Bank announced that it, too, had joined CCX, saying that it intended to offset its greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing emission credits through CCX. The bank says its credits would contribute to restoring 4,600 hectares of degraded pastureland in Costa Rica. Somehow, CCX has figured out that this is an amount equivalent to 22,000 metric tons of emission that the bank calculates are created by its activities.

A World Bank blog called the Private Sector Development Blog regularly features items touting Al Gore and the concept of carbon credits. Its articles typically announce corporate “green” initiatives in which carbon credits are said to cancel out “bad” CO2 emissions released by a company’s activities.

In fact, the World Bank now operates a Carbon Finance Unit that conducts research on how to develop and trade carbon credits. The bank works with Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain to set up carbon-credit funds in each country to purchase emission credits from firms for use in developing countries. In addition, it runs the Carbon Fund for Europe helping countries meet their Kyoto Protocol requirements. These funds are traded on the ECX (half of which is owned by CCX, itself a creature of Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management). Can we connect the dots?

A website affiliated with An Inconvenient Truth invites concerned citizens to personally fight global warming by offsetting their “carbon footprint.” The ways to do that include changing over to fluorescent light bulbs and turning down your thermostat at home. But the website also urges Americans to offset their personal CO2 emissions by “buying” carbon offsets from a native-American-owned company called Native Energy. Native Energy promotes “renewable” wind energy by buying and selling carbon-emission credits and futures for wind turbine projects on Indian reservations.

What the website doesn’t mention is that that the founder of Native Energy, energy industry veteran Tom Boucher, also founded a marketing company called Green Mountain Energy, a CCX associate partner that describes itself as “the nation’s leading retail provider of cleaner energy and carbon-offset solutions. Green Mountain offers residential, business, institutional and governmental customers an easy way to purchase cleaner, affordable electricity products, as well as the opportunity to offset their carbon footprint.” In other words, Green Mountain sells advisory services to energy users, alerting them to opportunities to contribute to or invest in groups like Native Energy.

So it seems banks and investment houses are going green, eager to enter an emerging emissions market. Meanwhile, environmentalists are discovering new ways to get rich while believing they are saving polar bears and rainforests.

Gore’s Non-profit Agitators

In 2006 Al Gore established his own global-warming non-profit group, the Alliance for Climate Protection, a 501(3)(c) charitable organization. The group favors more stringent environmental policy regulations on the private sector and especially wants cap-and-trade legislation so that companies will be forced to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and buy carbon credits.

The alliance CEO is Cathy Zoi, a former environmental advisor to President Bill Clinton. Gore is chairman of the board, which also includes environmental activist Theodore Roosevelt IV, Clinton EPA Director Carol Browner, the President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and Reagan-era EPA Director Lee Thomas. Gore has reportedly given the alliance $250,000 and has said he will donate his share of the profits from An Inconvenient Truth to the group.

Last September, the alliance cheered as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R.) signed into law the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. California has the world’s sixth-largest economy and is the world’s 12th-largest source of CO2 emissions. The mandate promises to cut emissions by 25% by 2020. Unlike other state and regional programs to cut carbon emissions and promote alternative energy, the California law is the first to embrace a cap-and-trade program. It has won the support of litigious environmental groups and business and financial groups that want to buy and sell pollution credits.

Force Everyone to Play


This year Congress is considering a slew of cap-and-trade bills to reduce carbon emissions. The bill getting the most attention is sponsored by Senators John McCain (R.-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (ID.-Conn.). It would apply to the entire economy, would reduce emissions in stages (to 2004 levels by 2012, 1990 levels by 2020, and 60% below 1990 by 2050) and would set up a cap-and-trade market for emission credits.

The push is now on to force action from the Bush Administration. On May 14 of this year, President Bush signed an executive order directing federal agencies to craft regulations by the end of next year that will “cut gasoline consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions from motor vehicles.” His “20 in 10” plan to cut gas consumption by 20% in the next 10 years focuses on increasing the fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks and mandating increased use of alternative fuels.

But the President is unwilling to call for mandatory nationwide emissions rules and instead favors voluntary carbon-emission cuts in the private sector. This is deeply frustrating to all the brokers, wheeler-dealers and interest groups that want to jump on the cap-and-trade bandwagon. There are billions of dollars to be made in trading emissions credits. But first the federal government must force everyone to play the game.

As for Al Gore, the former Vice President brings emotional fervor to his carbon crusade. He travels the country displaying charts and graphs, quoting scientific experts and appealing to philosophers and religious leaders to save the planet from global warming. But he says nothing about his business partners who yearn to trade on the emerging carbon market. And the media pay no attention to the companies offering “carbon advisory services” that will profit from federal carbon emission controls.

Perhaps it’s about time they did.
Link
Avarachan
BRFite
Posts: 567
Joined: 04 Jul 2006 21:06

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Avarachan »

My respect for President Putin just increased.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html
The president believes that “there is no global warming, that this is a fraud to restrain the industrial development of several countries including Russia,” says Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst and critic of Putin. “That is why this subject is not topical for the majority of the Russian mass media and society in general.” ....

Putin’s views date from the early 2000s, when his staff “did very, very extensive work trying to understand all sides of the climate debate,” said Andrey Illarionov, Putin’s senior economic adviser at the time and now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington. “We found that, while climate change does exist, it is cyclical, and the anthropogenic role is very limited,” he said. “It became clear that the climate is a complicated system and that, so far, the evidence presented for the need to ‘fight’ global warming was rather unfounded.” ....

Environmentalists say that attitude is also reflected in Russia’s pledge for December’s global summit, one that received little media coverage at home. In suggesting a reduction in its emissions to “70 to 75 percent” of 1990 levels by 2030, Moscow is actually proposing an increase from 2012 levels. Russian emissions are currently far below the levels produced by obsolescent ex-Soviet smokestack industries in 1990.

Even that offer is hedged. Russia has said reaching the target will require generous accounting for the role Russia’s forests play in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
RoyG
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5620
Joined: 10 Aug 2009 05:10

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by RoyG »

Look at the end of the day India is presented with two options: Industrialize or don't.

There is no middle ground. Sure we have to come up with our own development model,
but there is no substitute for mass housing, electricity, tech, transportation, tech, etc.

We currently don't have any other form of power besides coal which can provide adequate base
load power. We simply have no choice. Nuclear will never be able to compete and its role in the energy
mix will never go above 20-30% given the cost, time, and fissile stock limitations.

The same goes for this whole renewable energy hogsh*t. Perhaps maybe way down the line we'll see them
become more competitive, but in the short to medium term coal will be the principal growth driver.

If the so called "developed" world wants to make a difference to air quality they can take the lead to reduce
emissions. We'll continue to give them the finger. We're sitting on one of the largest reserves.
It would be incredibly stupid to leave it sitting idle.
disha
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 8243
Joined: 03 Dec 2006 04:17
Location: gaganaviharin

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by disha »

johneeG wrote: Disha saar,
These numbers seem to start from 1979. So, we don't know what is the actual standard of the ice that should be on arctic. I just posted how in the past vikings used to grow barley greenland. Today greenland is covered in ice. Even in NASA's animation, there doesn't seem to be anything conclusively. The ice seems to be growing and decreasing in different years without any clear trend.
Johnee'G., Are you telling us that Vikings cultivated the *ENTIRETY* of Greenland with Barley? If not how much? And can you back up your contention?

PS: Just do not post large replies. Just answer to the questions and you can raise questions only on what you read from your own posts. Yes., this is a conversation. At most you can just put URLs (and not their contents).
disha
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 8243
Joined: 03 Dec 2006 04:17
Location: gaganaviharin

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by disha »

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/1119/ ... scientists

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/absurdly-ho ... this-year/
Nearly every team that measures temperatures found that October 2015 was a record, including NASA, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, University of California at Berkeley and University of Alabama at Huntsville, which measures the upper air using satellites, Blunden said.

Record heat was found in Australia, southern Asia, parts of western North America, much of central and southern Africa, most of Central America and northern South America, according to NOAA. Washington state had its hottest October on record, while California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming had their second-hottest Octobers.

It's also the hottest January through October for Earth on record, along with the hottest consecutive 12 months on record.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/noaa-warnin ... d-hit-u-s/
Atish
BRFite
Posts: 417
Joined: 07 Jul 2000 11:31
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Atish »

Disha read my primer post. Nobody has said that all of Greenland was cultivable, but substantially more than now. Do not swallow this hysteria. It has very weak legs. It will take a lot of work but try to look at the analysis. The raw data over decades is not reliable. i.e. its error tolerance is much higher than the signal projected. Also, effects of local deforestation and the urban heat traps have to be adjusted for.

Assam for example has undoubtedly grown hotter, but that has to do with local deforestation and very little with C02.

Nobody in his/her right mind would be against ecological conservation. The issue is C02 which is a bogey and a red herring.

Go ahead stop logging, curb NO2, SO2, CO. Conserve habitats and species. All good ideas, even at cost of some growth.

But to tax or curb coal, natural gas, petroleum, nuclear and hydro energy is a recipe for eternal poverty and backwardness and there is ZERO science backing these ideas.
Satya_anveshi
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3532
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 02:37

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Satya_anveshi »

Did I not post that there is a dispute going on about NOAA data fixing allegation? Ignoring that and still going gung-ho on global warming as settled is chest thumping in a 'scientific' way:

Congressman now threatens to subpoena commerce secretary over global warming report - Nov 18, 2015
Satya_anveshi
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3532
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 02:37

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Satya_anveshi »

Avarachan wrote:My respect for President Putin just increased.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html
The president believes that “there is no global warming, that this is a fraud to restrain the industrial development of several countries including Russia,” says Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst and critic of Putin. “That is why this subject is not topical for the majority of the Russian mass media and society in general.” ....

Putin’s views date from the early 2000s, when his staff “did very, very extensive work trying to understand all sides of the climate debate,” said Andrey Illarionov, Putin’s senior economic adviser at the time and now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington. “We found that, while climate change does exist, it is cyclical, and the anthropogenic role is very limited,” he said. “It became clear that the climate is a complicated system and that, so far, the evidence presented for the need to ‘fight’ global warming was rather unfounded.” ....

Environmentalists say that attitude is also reflected in Russia’s pledge for December’s global summit, one that received little media coverage at home. In suggesting a reduction in its emissions to “70 to 75 percent” of 1990 levels by 2030, Moscow is actually proposing an increase from 2012 levels. Russian emissions are currently far below the levels produced by obsolescent ex-Soviet smokestack industries in 1990.

Even that offer is hedged. Russia has said reaching the target will require generous accounting for the role Russia’s forests play in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Avarchan ji,

I knew about this report but did not posts that because the key word is "believes"....someone(his critic to be specific) making the sheet up to paint Putin as "science denier" hoping that, that sticker will stick. He said no such thing.
But I did make this pt to some haiseyatwale earlier in an attempt to draw an analogy between science denier and science jihadi and how the separation can be tricky.
disha
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 8243
Joined: 03 Dec 2006 04:17
Location: gaganaviharin

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by disha »

Atish wrote:Disha read my primer post...
With all due respect., let it be a conversation between JohneeG and me.

Regarding your position., you are trying to bend data towards your opinion ignoring science. And I, the dhoti wearing luddite, have already pointed out to keep the science and politics different. With all due humility, this dhoti wearing luddite states that you sir need to heed that before you bring in left-field and back-field statements masquerading as issues.
disha
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 8243
Joined: 03 Dec 2006 04:17
Location: gaganaviharin

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by disha »

Satya_anveshi wrote:Did I not post that there is a dispute going on about NOAA data fixing allegation? Ignoring that and still going gung-ho on global warming as settled is chest thumping in a 'scientific' way:

Congressman now threatens to subpoena commerce secretary over global warming report - Nov 18, 2015
Read this report and comment on the "believes" part. The lone congressman from texas is on payroll of the oil companies and is using his position to bully NOAA.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fed ... ntability/

And next time you bring in the word "hesiyat" - you will be reported.
Atish
BRFite
Posts: 417
Joined: 07 Jul 2000 11:31
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Atish »

disha wrote:
Atish wrote:Disha read my primer post...
With all due respect., let it be a conversation between JohneeG and me.

Regarding your position., you are trying to bend data towards your opinion ignoring science. And I, the dhoti wearing luddite, have already pointed out to keep the science and politics different. With all due humility, this dhoti wearing luddite states that you sir need to heed that before you bring in left-field and back-field statements masquerading as issues.

You wanna keep it between you and Disha, then dont make unsubstantiated attacks against me. I will metaphorically tear you a new dhoti (if I amd bored and feel its worth my time).
disha
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 8243
Joined: 03 Dec 2006 04:17
Location: gaganaviharin

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by disha »

TSJones wrote:declines in the US co2 emmissions....

http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2 ... emissions/
Sir, US has to do more. In fact it has to cap, rollback and then eliminate - that is CRE - for all its top 3 industries - coal fired plants, vehicular emissions and beef industries.

Also it should allow other world scientists - preferably from India (and at US cost) to visit all the above and take stock to see if US is indeed meeting its goal for credible CRE.

Till then, US is the worst polluter on earth. And has no right along with its cohorts Canada, Australia and Europe to tell others what to do or not.
disha
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 8243
Joined: 03 Dec 2006 04:17
Location: gaganaviharin

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by disha »

Atish wrote:You wanna keep it between you and Disha, then dont make unsubstantiated attacks against me. I will metaphorically tear you a new dhoti (if I amd bored and feel its worth my time).
What is stopping you? Do what you feel right. But please learn to put things coherently.
Satya_anveshi
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3532
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 02:37

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Satya_anveshi »

That congressman is Chairman of US House Committee on Science Space and Technology, a constitutional post. Even if he is on the payroll of energy companies his questions needs to be settled and his allegations strike at the root of 'scientific' claim (NOAA data is fixed in a way to support admin view). Hence that claim is 'disputed' at best.
Satya_anveshi
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3532
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 02:37

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Satya_anveshi »

Discounting sheeple I see two camps consists of following types:

Camp 1:
There are folks who are 1a) outright deniers of any change 1b)skeptics with a negative bias for change 1c) scientists who studied and concluded climate due to man made reasons is hoax

Camp 2:
There are folks who are 2a) outright believers 2b) skeptics with a positive bias for change 2c)scientists who studied and concluded climate change due to man made reasons is a fact

I am in 2b. I do want 2c folks to settle this so everyone can focus on course correction and people who fkd up actually pay the price for their fkup.
Neshant
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4852
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Neshant »

Global warming as a buzz word has fallen through the floor and been quietly replaced with a more ambiguous terminology - "climate change".

That to me suggests the evidence to support global warming does not exist.

If it did exist and isn't a failed science, why change the terminology?
disha
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 8243
Joined: 03 Dec 2006 04:17
Location: gaganaviharin

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by disha »

Neshant wrote:Global warming as a buzz word has fallen through the floor and been quietly replaced with a more ambiguous terminology - "climate change".

That to me suggests the evidence to support global warming does not exist.

If it did exist and isn't a failed science, why change the terminology?
Calling the terminology right does not mean that there is no evidence. The right word is "Ocean Warming" leading to unpredictable climate change.

Climate change is more apt than the ambiguous Global Warming. To cite an example, the climate change has become very unpredictable. Cyclone off Yemen. Cyclone off S. India putting Chennai under water.

Climate has already become wild and is going to get wilder.

To cite that change of terminology and hence failed science is an exercise itself in illogic.
Gus
BRF Oldie
Posts: 8220
Joined: 07 May 2005 02:30

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Gus »

Overall Warming can lead to cooling in some places temporarily, like the Gulf Stream getting weaker and not holding, so there is unseasonal cold in some places in U.S that is increasingly happening these years.

And the republican idiots started to show snow in the unseasonal time asking "where is the global warming " and it because of idiots like that the term changed to climate change.

These things are simple to understand.
johneeG
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3473
Joined: 01 Jun 2009 12:47

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by johneeG »

disha wrote:
johneeG wrote: Disha saar,
These numbers seem to start from 1979. So, we don't know what is the actual standard of the ice that should be on arctic. I just posted how in the past vikings used to grow barley greenland. Today greenland is covered in ice. Even in NASA's animation, there doesn't seem to be anything conclusively. The ice seems to be growing and decreasing in different years without any clear trend.
Johnee'G., Are you telling us that Vikings cultivated the *ENTIRETY* of Greenland with Barley? If not how much? And can you back up your contention?

PS: Just do not post large replies. Just answer to the questions and you can raise questions only on what you read from your own posts. Yes., this is a conversation. At most you can just put URLs (and not their contents).
I am posting an article that will answer the points you raised. I'll highlight the points I think are relevant.
Vikings could navigate, colonize the Arctic during Medieval times
Photo of Michael Bastasch
Michael Bastasch
12:54 AM 12/18/2013



An Adelie penguin stands atop a block of melting ice near the French station at Dumont d’Urville in East Antarctica January 23, 2010. REUTERS/Pauline Askin

The possibility that global warming might contribute to Arctic development isn’t anything new. America’s first European visitors, the Vikings, were able to reach and colonize the northernmost reaches of the continent due to the lack of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean during Medieval times when the earth was going through a warming period.

The Viking era came well before the Industrial Revolution — when humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels which some scientists say causes global warming — and suggests that there are strong natural climate forces that have a profound effect on the extent of Arctic sea ice coverage. However, this is not a new theory — it was discussed as far back as the 19th century.

According to an 1887 newspaper article entitled “Variations in Climate,” Scandinavian Vikings were able to sail through the Arctic Ocean and establish colonies in the “highest north latitude” of Greenland and North America centuries before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. These colonies, however, were abandoned by the Vikings due to “the increasing cold.”

“On the contrary, the formation of ice increases annually if the winters are strongly cold, long and dark,” wrote Alexander Beck in 1887. “The reverse of that state of things is found by calculations for the year 1122 A.D., and it is precisely at that time we find the Danes and other Scandinavian nations going through the Arctic open seas.”

“Colonies are established by them in the highest north latitude of Greenland, and the upper part of North America, a long time before Christopher Columbus had reached a more southern part of the same continent,” Beck added. “But those colonies were relinquished on account of the increasing cold. In the fourteenth century the seas are found again closed, even in the summer. The great north icefield … increases daily, the Arctic colonists are compelled to come more to the south, and the cold takes possession again of countries which were kept free for a few years just about the twelfth century.”

“Remains of those upper Arctic villages are found, I may say, in each Arctic expedition. The climate of Iceland becoming more and more cool also proves that the state of the earth varies in the course of centuries,” Beck continued.

The warm climate that defined the Middle Ages and allowed the Vikings to settle the most northern reaches of the Americas is known as the “Medieval Warming Period,” which lasted from the 9th century A.D. to the 13th Century A.D. During this time temperatures were warmer in the Northern Hemisphere than the so-called “Little Ice Age” that followed, according to the National Climate Data Center.

The “Little Ice Age” that followed the warmer Medieval period lasted from the 14th century A.D. to the late 19th Century A.D. Some scientists argue that this period coincided with low sunspot activity which cooled the climate substantially during this time period. Others say that it had to due with natural climate variations caused by the Atlantic Ocean.

Recently, German scientists have argued that two naturally occurring cycles will combine to lower global temperatures to levels corresponding with the “Little Ice Age” of 1870. According to scientists declining solar activity and the 65-year Atlantic and Pacific Ocean oscillation cycle will cause the earth to cool during this century.

“Due to the de Vries cycle, the global temperature will drop until 2100 to a value corresponding to the ‘little ice age’ of 1870,” write German scientists Horst-Joachim Luedecke and Carl-Otto Weiss of the European Institute for Climate and Energy.
Link

Vikings used to travel in Arctic exploring and settling in Greenland, America and Canada. They even grew barley in greenland. But, as the cold increased from 1300 CE, this was not possible anymore. From 1300 onwards, there was a severe cold and it is called 'little ice age'. During this time, Thames river in England used to freeze over and people used to conduct fairs on the frozen river.

BTW, the Climate change crusade will mostly hurt the coal companies and benefit the oil(because coal is a direct competitor of oil).
Gus
BRF Oldie
Posts: 8220
Joined: 07 May 2005 02:30

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Gus »

2c is settled. Debate is only in the extent of effects, timings, what can be done etc.

There are a handful of oil company paid folks in 1c who serve the purpose of...well the obvious.
Satya_anveshi
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3532
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 02:37

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Satya_anveshi »

Outside of NOAA (which is also leveraged by IPCC) and NASA data/findings/conclusions there is no other agency of repute based on which 2c can be called as settled. NOAA currently stands accused of altering the data to change the result. NASA links on ice sheet melting posted earlier, to anyone following this thread, are ambivalent by its own admission.

So, 2c community does not exist (just as 1c) as of now because they do not have alternate data sources outside of above mentioned.

Just saying 2c is settled without substantiation pushes one towards 2a.
Neshant
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4852
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: Climate Change: Propoganda VS Reality.

Post by Neshant »

disha wrote: Calling the terminology right does not mean that there is no evidence. The right word is "Ocean Warming" leading to unpredictable climate change. Climate has already become wild and is going to get wilder.
It really sounds like bogus science to me. From global warming the terminology has changed to ocean warming?

I'm not a believer in climate doom and gloom scenarios. The ice cores from Greenland show that we are living in one of the most stable climatic conditions in the last tens of thousands of years. If anything, the Earth looks like its over-due for the next ice age.

Image
Gus
BRF Oldie
Posts: 8220
Joined: 07 May 2005 02:30

Re: Climate Change: Propaganda Vs Reality

Post by Gus »

It is not today's average temp that is alarming. It is the trend and the effect of greenhouse gases that will trap more heat and the melting of ice that will reduce the heat reflected etc...come on .. Refute the central points if you can.

Arguing about cycles of earth temp is not refuting the issue of warning and its effects on people.

Already people and animals and plants are migrating. Are you going to show them these earth temp cycles?
panduranghari
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3781
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Climate Change: Propaganda Vs Reality

Post by panduranghari »

^ dont be too hasty is making assumptions.



Gore's global warming mentor in his own words
from 1984 interview to a magazine omni wrote:Omni: A problem that has occupied your attention for many years is the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, which could cause the Earth's climate to become warmer. Is this actually happening?

Revelle: I estimate that the total increase [in CO2] over the past hundred years has been about 21 percent. But whether the increase will lead to a significant rise in global temperature, we can't absolutely say.
from 1988 letter to congress wrote:"Most scientists familiar with the subject are not yet willing to bet that the climate this year is the result of 'greenhouse warming.' As you very well know, climate is highly variable from year to year, and the causes of these variations are not at all well understood. My own personal belief is that we should wait another ten or twenty years to really be convinced that the greenhouse effect is going to be important for human beings, in both positive and negative ways."
from 1991 article in Science magazine Cosmos wrote:What to do about greenhouse warming: Look before you leap.” The three write: “Drastic, precipitous and, especially, unilateral steps to delay the putative greenhouse impacts can cost jobs and prosperity and increase the human costs of global poverty, without being effective.”

They continue, “Stringent controls enacted now would be economically devastating, particularly for developing countries for whom reduced energy consumption would mean slower rates of economic growth without being able to delay greatly the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Yale economist William Nordhaus, one of the few who have been trying to deal quantitatively with the economics of the greenhouse effect, has pointed out that ‘. . . those who argue for strong measures to slow greenhouse warming have reached their conclusion without any discernible analysis of the costs and benefits.’”

Revelle and his colleagues conclude, “It would be prudent to complete the ongoing and recently expanded research so that we will know what we are doing before we act. ‘Look before you leap’ may still be good advice.”
sudarshan
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3018
Joined: 09 Aug 2008 08:56

Re: Climate Change: Propaganda Vs Reality

Post by sudarshan »

Lots of rhetoric and “he said,” “she said” on both sides of the debate. The “there is climate change, and it is anthropogenic” side definitely has a point – increasing CO2 levels will lead to higher temperatures. This is the reason why the planet Venus is much hotter than Mercury, despite being much farther away from the sun – runaway global warming on Venus. However, Venus has an atmosphere whose total pressure is 90 times that of the earth. Moreover, the partial pressure of CO2 in this atmosphere is like 96%, unlike the few parts per million of CO2 on earth. OTOH, the earth has many other greenhouse gases – water vapor, methane, SO2, CO, O3 (which may also be present on Venus – we don’t know).

The “climate change has always been there, but it is not anthropogenic” side also has several good points. What makes me take this side more seriously, is the fact that the pro-Anthropogenic Global Warming (pro-AGW) side has resorted to shrill rhetoric, such as – “deniers should be given the death penalty,” or “the science is SETTLED.” This kind of hysteria and tantrum-throwing is very counter-productive to their own cause, and for one thing, science is rarely, if ever, “SETTLED.” The pro-AGW side has also changed the goal-posts, going from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change,” and has also been proven wrong several times, like with their ridiculous claims that the Arctic Ocean would be free of ice by the summer of 2014.

So let’s change tack and go at it from a different angle. These climate models, which are supposedly SETTLED and unquestionable – let’s take a look at whether we, the lay people, can replicate them. It’s actually not that hard if you have a computer, and if you know what you’re doing. It is not my field, but I’ve gained some knowledge of the science behind this field from other branches of study.

Start with simpler cases, and move to more complex ones. Here’s a summary of the relevant phenomena:

Image

The numbers in the table are my own estimates of computational effort for the relevant phenomena. The color coding also indicates computational effort - blue being easy, red being tougher, green, yellow, orange being in between.

Mercury is very easy to model, even on an Excel spreadsheet, and I've done exactly this. I can share the results. The results agree very well with public domain data of seasonal variations on Mercury.

My idea is to move on to Venus, then the Earth. It's a long-term project.

The complicating factor is the gaseous radiation phenomena, which are the exact phenomena responsible for global warming. I really don't believe that these "climate scientists" modeled this phenomena in an exact sense. Doing so would involve hundreds of millions of computational cycles per iteration, with line-by-line calculations of gas radiation, which, moreover, involve inhomogeneous gas mixtures at varying temperature, partial pressure, and total pressure. There must be some kind of simplifying models involved here. If so, the computational intensity numbers in my table would drop drastically for the scattering and absorption phenomena. However, accuracy would take a hit.

My idea is to try and model Venus, validate with publicly available data. Then the earth - forget about biosphere etc., the idea is to see how much temperature increment can be expected if CO2 fraction rises. What if CO2 goes to 350 ppm? 500 ppm? 1000 ppm? What is the steady-state temperature rise, all other things being constant? We'll see, it's a long-term effort.
Atish
BRFite
Posts: 417
Joined: 07 Jul 2000 11:31
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

Re: Climate Change: Propaganda Vs Reality

Post by Atish »

Atish
BRFite
Posts: 417
Joined: 07 Jul 2000 11:31
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

Re: Climate Change: Propaganda Vs Reality

Post by Atish »

Its well accepted that C02 has less than 1% greenhouse effect compared to other components contribution, primarily steam (water vapor).
Post Reply