Environmental Law & Economics: July 2008

Radovan Kazda
Environmental Policy Analyst
Conservative Institute of M. R. Stefanik
radovankazda[at]institute.sk

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Marc Morano: Gore’s (Really) Inconvenient Timing (Part II)

Former Colorado State Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. - Overheated claims: Scientists advocating for action are overselling the predictive capabilities of climate models – June 17, 2008 – (link)

‘No convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide…will cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere’ – By Dr. Fred W. Decker, Professor of Meteorology at Oregon State University, signed the 2008 Oregon Petition dissenting from man-made climate fears. (LINK) & (LINK) & (LINK)

Thermometers Are Doing the Talking - by global warming author and environmental economist Dennis T. Avery – June 9, 2008 - (LINK)

‘Sun is the primary temperature driver’ – By Stephen Wilde has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968 – (LINK)

Update: June 15, 2008: More Signs of the Sun Slowing Down - 'We continue to slide into a deeper than normal solar minima, one not seen in decades' By Meteorologist Anthony Watts – (LINK)
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Read more: Marc Morano: Gore’s (Really) Inconvenient Timing (Part II) (LINK)

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Marc Morano: Gore’s (Really) Inconvenient Timing

RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS CHALLENGE CLIMATE CHANGE CONSENSUS - Russian scientists 'reject the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming' - The Hindu – India’s National Newspaper: July 10, 2008:

Excerpt: As western nations step up pressure on India and China to curb the emission of greenhouse gases, Russian scientists reject the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming. Russian critics of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for cuts in CO2 emissions, say that the theory underlying the pact lacks scientific basis. Under the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is human-generated greenhouse gases, and mainly CO2, that cause climate change. “The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse,” says renowned Russian geographer Andrei Kapitsa. “It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round.” [...] When four years ago, then President Vladimir Putin was weighing his options on the Kyoto Protocol the Russian Academy of Sciences strongly advised him to reject it as having “no scientific foundation.” (link)


'Considerable presence' of global warming skeptics exist, science group admits – July 16, 2008 – Australian's The Herald-Sun

Excerpt: What consensus? The American Physical Society reports: There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. - So it has opened a debate, kicked off by Christopher Monckton: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions probably caused more than half of the “global warming” of the past 50 years and would cause further rapid warming. However, global mean surface temperature has not risen since 1998 and may have fallen since late 2001. The present analysis suggests that the failure of the IPCC’s models to predict this and many other climatic phenomena arises from defects in its evaluation of the three factors whose product is climate sensitivity… More importantly, the conclusion is that, perhaps, there is no “climate crisis”, and that currently-fashionable efforts by governments to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions are pointless, may be ill-conceived, and could even be harmful. (link)

India Issues Report Challenging Global Warming Fears – July 9, 2008

Excerpt: India issued its National Action Plan on Climate Change in June 2008 disputing man-made global warming fears and declared the country of one billion people had no intention of stopping its energy growth or cutting back its CO2 emissions. […] The report declared: “No firm link between the documented [climate] changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established.” (link)
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Read more: Marc Morano: Gore’s (Really) Inconvenient Timing – ‘Consensus’ On Man-Made Global Warming Collapses in 2008 (link)

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

A Climate Crisis? What?

New Christopher Monckton's paper Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered (link) demonstrates that later this century a doubling of the concentration of CO2 compared with pre-industrial levels will increase global mean surface temperature not by the 6 °F predicted by the IPCC but, harmlessly, by little more than 1 °F. Lord Monckton concludes –

“… Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no ‘climate crisis’ at all. … The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chair (2004) of the New England Section of the American Physical Society (APS), has been studying climate-change science for four years. He said:

“I was impressed by an hour-long academic lecture which criticized claims about ‘global warming’ and explained the implications of the physics of radiative transfer for climate change. I was pleased that the audience responded to the informative presentation with a prolonged, standing ovation. That is what happened when, at the invitation of the President of our University, Christopher Monckton lectured here in Hartford this spring. I am delighted that Physics and Society, an APS journal, has published his detailed paper refining and reporting his important and revealing results.‘

“To me the value of this paper lies in its dispassionate but ruthlessly clear exposition – or, rather, exposé – of the IPCC’s method of evaluating climate sensitivity. The detailed arguments in this paper, and, indeed, in a large number of other scientific papers, point up extensive errors, including numerous projection errors of climate models, as well as misleading statements by the IPCC. Consequently, there are no rational grounds for believing either the IPCC or any other claims of dangerous anthropogenic ‘global warming’.”

Read more: by Robert Ferguson at ScienceAndPublicPolicy.org (link)

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Global warming: caused by aerosols?

What is the main effect on global warming?
Michael Asher (DailyTech.com) on a new research - influence of aerosols on European climate. (link)
A new study suggests much of that warming isn't due to global warming at all, but rather a decrease in atmospheric pollution as a result of clean air legislation. The cleaner air has fewer small particles known as aerosols, which tend to block sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface. A reduction in aerosols leads to an effect known as "solar brightening," which increases surface warming.

Citation: Ruckstuhl, C., et al. (2008), Aerosol and cloud effects on solar brightening and the recent rapid warming, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L12708, doi:10.1029/2008GL034228. (link)

Abstract

The rapid temperature increase of 1°C over mainland Europe since 1980 is considerably larger than the temperature rise expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases. Here we present aerosol optical depth measurements from six specific locations and surface irradiance measurements from a large number of radiation sites in Northern Germany and Switzerland. The measurements show a decline in aerosol concentration of up to 60%, which have led to a statistically significant increase of solar irradiance under cloud-free skies since the 1980s. The measurements confirm solar brightening and show that the direct aerosol effect had an approximately five times larger impact on climate forcing than the indirect aerosol and other cloud effects. The overall aerosol and cloud induced surface climate forcing is ∼+1 W m−2 dec−1 and has most probably strongly contributed to the recent rapid warming in Europe.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Global Warming Has Ended – The Next Climate Change to A Pronounced Cold Era Has Begun

In a news conference held in Orlando, Florida today, Mr. John L. Casey, Director of the Space and Science Research Center, issued a landmark declaration on climate change. (link)
“After an exhaustive review of a substantial body of climate research, and in conjunction with the obvious and compelling new evidence that exists, it is time that the world community acknowledges that the Earth has begun its next climate change. In an opinion echoed by many scientists around the world, the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC), today declares that the world’s climate warming of the past decades has now come to an end. A new climate era has already started that is bringing predominantly colder global temperatures for many years into the future. In some years this new climate will create dangerously cold weather with significant ill-effects world wide. Global warming is over – a new cold climate has begun.”

Monday, July 07, 2008

The Great Global Warming Dilemma: "Cap and Trade" vs. "Carbon Taxes"

How to eliminate carbon dioxide from atmosphere?

What a childish government's hobby to think about that! But seriously: if the governments want to do it, they would have to look at economic arguments. Two of light economic analysis of the "great global warming dilemma" offer Stephen Gordon and John Whitehead.

Stephen Gordon at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative (link):
What distinguishes the two is what happens to π - the difference between the price the consumers pay at B and what it costs suppliers to produce at Q1. In the case of the carbon tax, the money goes to the government. But if output is capped at Q1, that difference is pure profit: a permit to produce one unit of output allows its owner to collect a rent equal to to the difference between the selling price and the cost of production. If permits are traded, their price will be bid up so that their price will be equal to π. So where that money goes depends on how the permits are allocated in the first place. If the permits are simply given to existing emitters, then those profits are pocketed by the firms. If the permits are auctioned off, the price will be bid up to π, and the government gets the money.
John Whitehead at Environmental Economics (link):
In terms of the market failure, the negative carbon externality, both a carbon tax and carbon cap-and-trade will achieve the same level of increased efficiency by achieving the optimal abatement level at the minimum cost. The only difference is the distributional implications. The cost to the firm is lower for carbon cap-and-trade. The government receives tax revenue with a carbon tax. Both policies are preferred over techological or output standards (i.e., command and control regulation).

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Australian Researchers Say: Gobal Cooling, Not Warming

Australian researchers are not convenient scientists: they assume global cooling!

By Michael Asher, DailyTech.com (link)
A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia is warning of upcoming global cooling due to lessened solar activity. The study, written by three Australian researchers, has identified what is known as a "spin-orbit coupling" affecting the rotation rate of the sun. That rotation, in turn, is linked to the intensity of the solar cycle and climate changes here on Earth.
The study's lead author, Ian Wilson, explains further,
"[The paper] supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 - 30 years."

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Global warming is sick-souled religion

By Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal (link)

Amount of scientists who belive in man-made global warming theory is shrinking. "NASA confirms that the hottest year on record in the continental 48 was not 1998, as previously believed, but 1934, and that six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 antedate 1954."

But what is most considerable, Climate Alarmism spreads as a new ideological branch of socialism. And it is become a new religion.

Read article by Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal, (link)