Climate Change Weekly #20
On Wednesday evening Al Gore reminded Americans that nobody can annoy and alienate people through name-calling, condescension, misrepresentation of facts, and paranoid conspiracy theories quite like Al.
In “24 Hours of Climate Reality,” first airing Wednesday at 8:00 pm Eastern Time, Gore presented an hour-long sequel to his movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” followed by 23 hours of semi-reruns of essentially the same presentation. Gore and his new presentation served up the usual taken-out-of-context anecdotal climate anomalies and appeals to polarizing, discredited sources of alleged authority to argue humans are causing a global warming crisis.
So what happens when scientists report global soil moisture has improved throughout the twentieth century and droughts have become less frequent and less severe? No worry, Al Gore can find someplace where there still is a drought and then claim global warming is to blame. Sweep those facts about improving soil moisture and fewer global droughts under the rug.
How do we account for the fact that global hurricane frequency is in long-term decline? No worry, Al Gore can highlight some of the fewer hurricanes that still do occur and claim they were parented by global warming. Heck, Gore can even claim global warming is making them stronger, even though there is no long-term trend in accumulated cyclone energy. If Gore can make the presentation “Hollywood” enough, perhaps people will forget to check the facts.
Except there’s a problem here, Al; people do check the facts. It’s no coincidence that public belief in a human-caused global warming crisis peaked in 2008, shortly after Gore released “An Inconvenient Truth.” But public opinion also plunged dramatically in the years thereafter. If you claim global warming is causing more hurricanes, more tornadoes, more droughts, a shut-down of the oceanic conveyor belt, etc., but none of those claims is supported by real-world facts, people begin to realize you are selling snake oil.
SOURCE: Forbes.com
IN THIS ISSUE
Another prominent scientist breaks from alarmists … Peer-reviewed study: Tropical storm activity at historic low … Wildlife groups alarmed over anti-CO2 biomass programs … Student group struggles to raise Gore’s $145,000 speaker fee … CEI’s Marlo Lewis rebuts climate scare assertions … Green jobs programs a costly failure … ClimateWiki update
ANOTHER PROMINENT SCIENTIST BREAKS FROM ALARMISTS
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever has resigned from the American Physical Society in protest over statements by the society’s leadership regarding climate change. Giaever, who publicly supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign, wrote in his resignation letter that global temperatures have been “amazingly stable” during the past 150 years, with the current climate benefiting human health and happiness.
SOURCE: Climate Depot
PEER-REVIEWED STUDY: TROPICAL STORM ACTIVITY AT HISTORIC LOW
Northern Hemisphere and global accumulated cyclone energy during the past five years have decreased dramatically to the lowest levels since the late 1970s, reports a new study published in the peer-reviewed Geophysical Research Letters. Additionally, the global frequency of tropical cyclones has reached a historic low.
SOURCES: Geophysical Research Letters and Policlimate
WILDLIFE GROUPS ALARMED OVER ANTI-CO2 BIOMASS PROGRAMS
Wildlife and environmental groups are alarmed that new biomass schemes designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions could trigger an escalation in wood imports and threaten rainforests. Environmental groups are also questioning whether biomass even reduces carbon dioxide emissions.
SOURCE: The Guardian
STUDENT GROUP STRUGGLES TO RAISE GORE’S $145,000 SPEAKER FEE
Students at Washington University in St. Louis are hoping Al Gore will speak at a student-funded public event, but they are having a difficult time raising enough money to cover Gore’s $145,000 speaker fee. Washington University has never spent six figures on a single speaker before, and Gore’s exorbitant fee is well above the school’s dedicated budget for “high-cost” speakers.
SOURCE: Student Life
CEI’S MARLO LEWIS REBUTS CLIMATE SCARE ASSERTIONS
Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Marlo Lewis has written a fantastic rebuttal to the frequently asserted claim that global warming is causing an increase in deadly extreme weather events and the frequently asserted claim that restricting carbon dioxide emissions will not harm the economy.
SOURCE: Master Resource
GREEN JOBS PROGRAMS A COSTLY FAILURE
Costly green jobs programs contained in the Obama stimulus program have produced remarkably few jobs. Larry Bell discusses many of the failed programs, including their high costs and low employment impacts, in his weekly Forbes.com column.
SOURCE: Forbes.com
CLIMATEWIKI UPDATE
The Heartland Institute has created a Web site, ClimateWiki.org, to make available the latest and most reliable information on climate science. Please send your questions, suggestions for new pages, or improvements to current ones to John Monaghan at [email protected]. And if you have new research to share, ClimateWiki.org is the perfect place.
An example from ClimateWiki, Cosmic Rays, reads in part:
The signal accomplishment of the scientists’ study was the linking of these millennial-scale climate oscillations–and their embedded centennial-scale oscillations–with similar-scale oscillations in cosmogenic nuclide production, which are known to be driven by contemporaneous oscillations in solar activity.
In fact, Bond et al. were able to report “over the last 12,000 years virtually every centennial time-scale increase in drift ice documented in our North Atlantic records was tied to a solar minimum.” In light of this observation they thus concluded, “a solar influence on climate of the magnitude and consistency implied by our evidence could not have been confined to the North Atlantic,” suggesting the cyclical climatic effects of the variable solar inferno are experienced throughout the world.
If you have questions about the ClimateWiki or about The Heartland Institute, contact Jim Lakely, director of communications, at [email protected] or call 312/377-4000.
RECOMMENDED SITES AND NEWSLETTERS
Power for USA
Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
ClimateWiki
Master Resource
The Climate Bet
International Climate Science Coalition
Climate Scientists’ Register
Science and Public Policy Institute
Climate Depot by Marc Morano
World Climate Report by Dr. Patrick Michaels
E-FACT Report by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)
Global Warming Policy Foundation by Benny Peiser
Biweekly Updates from the Cooler Heads Coalition
Climate and Environment Review by the Center Science and Public Policy
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change by Craig Idso et al.
Watts Up With That? by Anthony Watts
ICECAP by Joseph D’Aleo
Climate Audit by Steve McIntyre
Climate Science by Roger Pielke Sr.
Junk Science by Steve Milloy
The Heartland Institute is a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization whose mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. The Heartland Institute publishes the monthly newspaper Environment & Climate News and sponsors the International Conference on Climate Change, the largest regular gathering of global warming experts challenging the notion that humans are creating a global warming crisis. James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.