Zach LarkinsKYOTO III
I've spoken about this before and the evidence just seems to get stronger, day by day, that it is a bad deal. Our PM, Stephen Harper, has been raked over the coals for a letter he wrote some time ago describing the Accord as a ‘money sucking scheme'. He was right when he wrote that, but he is busy trying to garner votes for the upcoming election and so is starting to waffle on this idea. I had expected much more from him.
I already wrote about the upcoming UN address that will ignore the majority of science and instead focus on what the tree-huggers want us to believe. Now comes an article from Tom Harris, an Ottawa-based mechanical engineer and executive director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project and Dr. Ian Clark, a science adviser to NRSP, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Ottawa where he focuses on the study of paleoclimatology and isotope hydrogeology.
Despite what many would have you think, Kyoto is not about all the noxious gases that are in our atmosphere. It focuses on CO2 emissions. As Messrs Harris and Clark point out, Global warming alarmists are rarely challenged to back up their claims with hard science these days. Consequently, everything from sea level rise to droughts to melting ice caps and drowning polar bears are blamed on global warming brought on by man's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Alternative viewpoints are carefully screened out of government pronouncements and few in the public seemed to even notice.
Whatever respect you had for Oprah Winfrey, consider that she summed up society's general naivete about climate change when she concluded her Dec. 5, 2006, interview of Al Gore, gushing, "thank you for being our Noah!" You know, ‘The Inconvenient Truth' crap he's trying to peddle? And someone as supposedly as smart as Oprah falls for this drek. As they write, "Considering what's at stake -- either the end of civilization, if you believe environmental extremists, or a waste of hundreds of billions of dollars in one of the biggest science news scandals of all time -- society must start to hold "warmers" to a far higher standard. In particular, those who would have us radically restructure our economy in the vain hope of "stopping climate change" need to be asked some basic, but revealing questions."
A sample of the questions they pose are as follows:
- What is your climate science-related background?
Most of those grabbing the spotlight on this issue have little or no post-secondary training in science or technology, let alone climate change. As professors Chris Essex and Ross McKitrick explained in their award-winning book, Taken by Storm, "the stage is populated by many people whose desire to save the world is deemed an acceptable, even preferable, substitute for technical understanding." Activists are as entitled to express their opinions as anyone, but Canadians must take what they are told about climate science from those with no formal science education with a rather large grain of salt.
- How do you know the "vast majority of scientists" agree with your viewpoint?
The only place that a climate change science consensus exists is in what Essex and McKitrick call "official science," the collective voice of governments and so-called "science authorities." But this is not real science. Among qualified researchers, there is an intense debate raging about the causes of the past century's modest warming.
- If we delayed CO2 reduction decisions by a couple of years to allow a closer examination of the science, what would be the impact on climate?
Essentially none. Even its supporters admit that complete compliance with Kyoto by all nations held to limits would result in less than a 0.1 C difference to global climate a half-century from now.
- Are polar bears and other Arctic wildlife really threatened by current warming?
Recent research shows that 8,000 years ago, temperatures were several degrees higher in the Arctic that they are today with dramatic reduction in sea ice extent. Nevertheless, polar bears and other Arctic wildlife obviously adapted and survived and so are not likely threatened today.
And, the most important question of all:
- How closely has climate tracked CO2 levels in the past?
Some 440 million years ago, when CO2 levels are estimated to have been more than 10 times today's, our planet was in the depths of the coldest period in the last half billion years. At other times, high CO2 levels coincided with warm periods. There is no meaningful correlation with temperature in the geological record. Over the past half-million years, the Antarctic ice core records show a remarkable link between temperature and CO2. Yet, these records consistently show that temperature rises some 800 years before CO2 rises, not after it. Even over the past century, the CO2-warming correlation is poor, with significant cooling taking place between 1940 and 1980 while human-produced CO2 emissions were increasing rapidly. In all these records, there is no evidence to show that CO2 has ever acted as a climate driver or even as a significant secondary effect to accelerate climate warming.
It amazes me how the Liberals, with 13 years to address the problem, did nothing, but they expect Harper to have cured the problem in just over a year. Stephane Dion, new leader of the Liberal party was Minister of the Environment under Liberal rule, and now that he is in opposition, bleeds green and demands answers from Harper, tout suite. The objective is to bring CO2 levels to 6% below levels achieved in 1997. This might be tough to do as we have increased the levels by 37% in the meantime. Former PM Paul Martin was rightly chastised for coming down on the Americans, who did not sign the Accord, when they have done more to reduce emissions than we have.
The accord favours ‘developing' nations such as India, China and Russia who can all spew filth into the air without being held responsible. India is a nuclear nation. How much more help do they need before they are not a ‘developing' nation? China spends more on its military than on its own people. How much more leeway do they need? Russia is finding its feet after the collapse of Communism, but its science hasn't disappeared. How are they a ‘developing' nation.
Harper had it right. Kyoto is a money sucking scheme perpetrated by, and kept in the limelight, by the likes of David Suzuki and Al Gore, who want to keep you in the dark about what is truly happening.
Sources: The Windsor Star
I already wrote about the upcoming UN address that will ignore the majority of science and instead focus on what the tree-huggers want us to believe. Now comes an article from Tom Harris, an Ottawa-based mechanical engineer and executive director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project and Dr. Ian Clark, a science adviser to NRSP, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Ottawa where he focuses on the study of paleoclimatology and isotope hydrogeology.
Whatever respect you had for Oprah Winfrey, consider that she summed up society's general naivete about climate change when she concluded her Dec. 5, 2006, interview of Al Gore, gushing, "thank you for being our Noah!" You know, ‘The Inconvenient Truth' crap he's trying to peddle? And someone as supposedly as smart as Oprah falls for this drek. As they write, "Considering what's at stake -- either the end of civilization, if you believe environmental extremists, or a waste of hundreds of billions of dollars in one of the biggest science news scandals of all time -- society must start to hold "warmers" to a far higher standard. In particular, those who would have us radically restructure our economy in the vain hope of "stopping climate change" need to be asked some basic, but revealing questions."
- What is your climate science-related background?
Most of those grabbing the spotlight on this issue have little or no post-secondary training in science or technology, let alone climate change. As professors Chris Essex and Ross McKitrick explained in their award-winning book, Taken by Storm, "the stage is populated by many people whose desire to save the world is deemed an acceptable, even preferable, substitute for technical understanding." Activists are as entitled to express their opinions as anyone, but Canadians must take what they are told about climate science from those with no formal science education with a rather large grain of salt.
- How do you know the "vast majority of scientists" agree with your viewpoint?
The only place that a climate change science consensus exists is in what Essex and McKitrick call "official science," the collective voice of governments and so-called "science authorities." But this is not real science. Among qualified researchers, there is an intense debate raging about the causes of the past century's modest warming.
- If we delayed CO2 reduction decisions by a couple of years to allow a closer examination of the science, what would be the impact on climate?
Essentially none. Even its supporters admit that complete compliance with Kyoto by all nations held to limits would result in less than a 0.1 C difference to global climate a half-century from now.
- Are polar bears and other Arctic wildlife really threatened by current warming?
Recent research shows that 8,000 years ago, temperatures were several degrees higher in the Arctic that they are today with dramatic reduction in sea ice extent. Nevertheless, polar bears and other Arctic wildlife obviously adapted and survived and so are not likely threatened today.
And, the most important question of all:
- How closely has climate tracked CO2 levels in the past?
Some 440 million years ago, when CO2 levels are estimated to have been more than 10 times today's, our planet was in the depths of the coldest period in the last half billion years. At other times, high CO2 levels coincided with warm periods. There is no meaningful correlation with temperature in the geological record. Over the past half-million years, the Antarctic ice core records show a remarkable link between temperature and CO2. Yet, these records consistently show that temperature rises some 800 years before CO2 rises, not after it. Even over the past century, the CO2-warming correlation is poor, with significant cooling taking place between 1940 and 1980 while human-produced CO2 emissions were increasing rapidly. In all these records, there is no evidence to show that CO2 has ever acted as a climate driver or even as a significant secondary effect to accelerate climate warming.
It amazes me how the Liberals, with 13 years to address the problem, did nothing, but they expect Harper to have cured the problem in just over a year. Stephane Dion, new leader of the Liberal party was Minister of the Environment under Liberal rule, and now that he is in opposition, bleeds green and demands answers from Harper, tout suite. The objective is to bring CO2 levels to 6% below levels achieved in 1997. This might be tough to do as we have increased the levels by 37% in the meantime. Former PM Paul Martin was rightly chastised for coming down on the Americans, who did not sign the Accord, when they have done more to reduce emissions than we have.
The accord favours ‘developing' nations such as India, China and Russia who can all spew filth into the air without being held responsible. India is a nuclear nation. How much more help do they need before they are not a ‘developing' nation? China spends more on its military than on its own people. How much more leeway do they need? Russia is finding its feet after the collapse of Communism, but its science hasn't disappeared. How are they a ‘developing' nation.
Harper had it right. Kyoto is a money sucking scheme perpetrated by, and kept in the limelight, by the likes of David Suzuki and Al Gore, who want to keep you in the dark about what is truly happening.
Sources: The Windsor Star
About the Global Warming nuts and Kyoto... What makes anyone listen to them? they run around saying "The sky is falling, the sky is falling" and they're wrong every time. The Doomsday hysterics and solutions that will make things worse have always been around, and there are still people who jump on the bandwagon with every new one.
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