In The News
NO SURPRISE: SIERRA CLUB TO PAY $28,000 PENALTY
Monday November 20, 2006
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) announced recently that the Sierra Club will pay a $28,000 civil penalty to settle charges for funding a brochure expressly advocating the election and defeat of candidates in the 2004 presidential and U.S. Senate races ( http://www.fec.gov/press/press2006/20061115mur.html ). A press release from the FEC states:
“At issue was a pamphlet distributed by the Sierra Club in Florida prior to the 2004 general election. The front of the pamphlet exhorted the reader to “LET YOUR CONSCIENCE BE YOUR GUIDE,” accompanied by various nature scenes. The heading of the interior of the pamphlet urged the reader, “AND LET YOUR VOTE BE YOUR VOICE.”
The pamphlet compared the environmental records of President Bush and Senator Kerry and U.S. Senate candidates Mel Martinez and Betty Castor through checkmarks and written narratives. Kerry received checkmarks in every box on all three environmental issues addressed in the pamphlet; Bush received only one checkmark in a single category, and in that category, Kerry received two checkmarks. In the Senate race, Castor received checkmarks in all three categories, while Martinez received none. The accompanying narratives made clear that a checkmark represented a favorable environmental record in the eyes of the Sierra Club. The Commission found that the pamphlet “expressly advocated” Kerry and Castor’s election and Bush and Martinez’s defeat.”
FACT: The Sierra Club’s $28,000 penalty is hardly surprising considering the well-established campaign tactics of liberal special interest groups. In 2003, the Washington Post revealed that George Soros met with Carl Pope and other Democrat operatives to discuss how Soros could contribute $5 million dollars to defeat President Bush and circumvent the prohibitions in McCain-Feingold. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24179-2003Nov10?language=printer ). The Washington Post later reported on the use of 501c groups like the Sierra Club, and there use as “conduits for a steady stream of secretive cash flowing into the election, in many respects unaffected by the McCain-Feingold legislation enacted in 2002.” The Post specifically cites the Sierra Club’s Carl Pope, reporting, ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52587-2004Sep26.html )
“Perhaps no one better illustrates the host of interlocking roles than Carl Pope, one of the most influential operatives on the Democratic side in the 2004 election. As executive director of the Sierra Club, a major 501c (4) environmental lobby, Pope also controls the Sierra Club Voter Education Fund, a 527. The Voter Education Fund 527 has raised $3.4 million this election cycle, with $2.4 million of that amount coming from the Sierra Club. A third group, the Sierra Club PAC, has since 1980 given $3.9 million to Democratic candidates and $173,602 to GOP candidates. These activities just touch the surface of Pope's political involvement. In 2002-03, Pope helped found two major 527 groups: America Votes, which has raised $1.9 million to coordinate the election activities of 32 liberal groups, and America Coming Together (ACT), which has a goal of raising more than $100 million to mobilize voters to cast ballots against Bush. Finally, Pope is treasurer of a new 501c (3) foundation, America's Families United, which reportedly has $15 million to distribute to voter mobilization groups.”
Carl Pope and these so-called “environmental groups” are simply Democrat political machines spending millions of dollars in contributions and expenditures each year for the purpose of raising more money to pursue a Democrat political agenda. Senator Inhofe spoke on the Floor of the United States Senate and the EPW Committee (Majority) released a Committee White Paper, “Political Activity Of Environmental Groups And Their Supporting Foundations,” ( http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/Political.pdf ) detailing the lengths these special interest groups will go to distort the truth in order to elect Democrats ( http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=227788 ).
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...Oklahoman Editorial: Changing Environment
Monday November 13, 2006
THE OKLAHOMAN
November 13, 2006
In our view, Inhofe provided practical and reasonable leadership in the environmental debate. He blocked legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, refusing to accept as settled science a view that human activity is the major cause of global warming.
His hard work kept bad legislation from harming U.S. industries and businesses that employ millions of Americans. This in turn helped keep the U.S. economy from being disadvantaged with respect to the growing (and polluting) economies of China and India. Both are key reasons the Senate voted 95-0 against the kinds of provisions contained in the Kyoto global warming treaty nine years ago.
Come January, Inhofe and other Republicans won't be able to stop bad policy in committee, because they'll be outnumbered. Yet Senate rules requiring 60 votes to proceed on most legislation — used by Democrats to block GOP policies when they were in the minority — will be available for minority Republicans, and they shouldn't be bashful about using them.
We're certain Inhofe's leadership hasn't been as appreciated as it will be when he hands his gavel to Sen. Boxer.
Click Here for the Editorial: http://www.newsok.com/article/2969840/?print=1
New UN Children’s Book Promotes Global Warming Fears to Kids
Monday November 13, 2006
Contact: Marc Morano (Marc_Morano@epw.senate.gov ), Matt Dempsey (Matthew_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov )
Nairobi, Kenya – A new United Nations children’s book promoting fears of catastrophic manmade global warming is being promoted at the UN Climate Change Conference in Kenya. The book's main character, a young boy, is featured getting so worried about a coming manmade climate disaster that he yells “I don’t want to hear anymore!” The new children’s book, entitled “Tore and the Town on Thin Ice” ((http://www.unep.org/PDF/TORE.pdf)) is published by the United Nations Environment Programme and blames “rich countries” for creating a climate catastrophe and urges children to join environmental groups.
The book is about a young boy named Tore who lives in an Arctic village. Tore loses a dog sled race because he crashes through the thinning ice allegedly caused by manmade greenhouse gas emissions. The book features colorful drawings and large text to appeal to young children.
After the boy loses the dog sled race, he is visited by “Sedna, the Mother of the Sea” in a dream. The “Sea Mother” Goddess informs Tore in blunt terms that the thinning ice that caused his loss in the dog sled race was due to manmade global warming.
“I’m the one who created and cares for the sea creatures – whales and walruses, seals and fish,” the “Sea Mother” explains to Tore. The “Sea Mother” then tells the boy she will educate him about the reason the ice is thinning.
The morning after his dream, Tore sets out on a quest for knowledge about the dangers of catastrophic manmade global warming. A “snowy owl” informs Tore that “the planet’s heating up” and that both the Arctic and Antarctica “are warming almost twice as fast as elsewhere.” [EPW Note: The Arctic, according to the International Arctic Research Center, was at its warmest in the 20th century during the 1930’s, and both the journals Science and Nature have published studies recently finding – on balance – Antarctica is both cooling and gaining ice.]
The “snowy owl” tells Tore that winning dog sledding races “might not be your top worry” and the owl instead tells the boy that “lots of things are changing fast. Some people who hunt for a living are already going hungry because a lot of seals and walruses are heading north.”
The “snowy owl” also asserts that “the great ice cap here in Greenland—mountains of snow and ice up to about four kilometers thick—is thawing.” [EPW Note: A 2005 study by Ola Johannessen and his colleagues showed that the interior of Greenland is gaining ice mass.]
Next, a polar bear informs Tore that it is hungry because the ice is too thin to stand on and hunt and the bear says that other bears have “starved” because the sea ice went out to sea. The polar bear adds, “We may not have much of a future.” [EPW Note: In May of 2006, biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor from the Arctic government of Nunavut, a territory of Canada, noted that “of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.” (http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146433819696&call_pageid=970599119419 ]
The polar bear concludes by telling Tore, “It looks like many animals and fish and birds will go extinct—die out—during your lifetime, partly because of changes in climate.”
The child is described as “at a loss for words” after hearing this grim news and just “stare[s] at the polar bear.”
After a whale appears to present more climate fear, the boy finally screams, “Listen, I’ve had all the bad news I can stand. Our world is melting. Polar bears are starving and all sorts of animals won’t survive. I don’t want to hear anymore!”
The whale responds, “That’s the spirit! Get good and angry. You’ll need all that energy to make a difference.” The whale then goes on to describe computer model projections of future massive coastal flooding and the potential destruction of human life in coastal areas because of the projected sea level rise. [EPW note: Many scientists dispute the notion that mankind has created a climate doomsday. See: ((http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777))]
The whale continues, telling the child that more hurricanes and “other things you call ‘natural disasters’ are on their way, too – and they’re getting harsher.” [EPW Note: The relationship between global warming and hurricanes is currently under debate, with the great majority of scientists believing there is little connection. For instance, 2006 was anticipated to be a record year for hurricanes, but turned out to be one of the calmest seasons in many, many years.]
Finally Tore has had enough and asks, “Is there anything at all a kid like me can do?”
The “Sea Mother” tells him of the dangerous effects that an oil- and gas-based energy system has on the climate, and the “Sea Mother” singles out the industrialized world as the cause of her predicted climate catastrophe.
“Rich countries use — and waste — an awful lot of energy. Huge cars. Too many cars instead of efficient trains and buses,” the “Sea Mother explains to Tore. [EPW Fact: Several developing world nations will soon pass the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions. China alone will pass the U.S. in emissions in 2009. ]
Finally, the “Sea Mother” tells Tore that the solution to the climate crisis can begin in his Arctic village by “setting up solar panels to get electricity from the sun, and modern windmills to capture the energy of the wind.”
The book ends with a section answering the question “What can you do?” The book's answer includes such suggestions as “join or create an environmental club,” “only drive cars if you must,” and “write to your political leaders.”
Related Links:
Renowned Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics – ((http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777)
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...Bob Carter: British Report The Last Hurrah Of Warmaholics
Friday November 3, 2006
Bob Carter: British Report The Last Hurrah Of Warmaholics
Bob Carter is a geologist and founding member of the Australian Environment Foundation.
The Stern warning could join Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb and the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth in the pantheon of big banana scares that proved to be unfounded
November 03, 2006
NICHOLAS Stern is a distinguished economist. Climate change is a complex, uncertain and contentious scientific issue. Have you spotted the problem with the Stern review yet? An accomplished cost-benefit analysis of climate change would require two things: a clear, quantitative understanding of the natural climate system and a dispassionate, accurate consideration of all the costs and benefits of warming as well as cooling.
Unfortunately, the Stern review is not a cost-benefit but a risk analysis, and of warming only.
This adroit shuffle of the pea under the thimble perhaps explains why Stern's flawed and partial account of our possible climate future stresses costs, ignores benefits, and fails to consider the all too likely eventuality of future cooling.
Even more unfortunate for Stern than his restricted brief is that there is no established theory of climate. Stern therefore has to rely on the advice of others in providing the summary of climate science that occupies the first 21 pages of his review. Though he cites a range of scientific literature, his summary strongly reflects the unsatisfactory consensus view of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The advice to policy-makers that governments periodically receive from the IPCC contains political rather than scientific advice. In concert with this, over the past 10 years the IPCC has moved from being primarily a reviewer of the science evidence to being an advocate for the alarmist case for global warming.
Perhaps the most important scientific point made in the Stern review is the statement that "the accuracy of climate predictions is limited by computer power".
Nonetheless, the review's risk analysis assumes that the computer models used are able to predict the future path of global climate for policy purposes. They cannot.
Worse, even if the models did have global predictive skill, that would only be a tiny first step towards policy advice, because the global average temperature or sea-level rise that the models calculate are conceptual statistics, not physical realities. Estimating accurate costs and benefits for future environmental change requires not just knowledge of changing global averages but accurate, site-specific predictions for all parts of the planet.
For example, from 1965 to 1998, measured sea level rose slightly in Townsville and fell slightly in Cairns. Presuming that these trends continue, there is obviously the need for different coastal management plans for the two regions. Now repeat that thought exercise for future changes in temperature, precipitation and sea level worldwide. To make actual and accurate predictions for this is, of course, impossible.
Stern has surely accepted his IPPC-centric science advice in good faith, yet that turns out to be his fatal mistake. Because there is copious evidence that the advice is untrustworthy. For instance, participants at a recent international climate conference in Stockholm were told that the hockey-stick depiction of temperature over the last 1000 years, an IPCC favourite, has been discredited; that pre-industrial atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were higher, and fluctuated more, than is indicated by the averaged ice core measurements; that global temperature has not increased since 1998, despite continuing increases in carbon dioxide; that the Arctic region is no warmer now than it was in the 1930s; and that climate models are too uncertain to be used as predictive policy tools.
These considerations undercut the core IPCC arguments for dangerous human-caused warming, as contained in its 2001 assessment report. Yet early drafts of the forthcoming fourth assessment report reveal that IPCC thinking does not consider these deep uncertainties, and neither does Stern.
The opinion of Bjorn Lomborg, writing in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, suggests that it is not just Stern's science that is flawed. Lomborg accuses Stern of cherry-picking statistics to fit the argument, such as massaging future warming cost estimates from the generally accepted 0per cent of gross domestic product now to 3 per cent in 2100 to figures as high as "20 per cent now and forever".
It seems that the economics of the Stern review is as shaky as the science, given that Lomborg concludes that "its fear-mongering arguments have been sensationalised, which is ultimately only likely to make the world worse off".
The Stern review has been presented as a rigorous treatment of climate change and its economic effects. In reality, however, the review is a political document whose relation to the truth is about the same as that of the notorious British report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The Stern agenda in Britain is to enable Labour to compete for eco-votes with an increasingly green-oriented Tory party. A wider agenda is the imposition of carbon levies for goods and services provided from outside Europe, thereby penalising more efficient competitors elsewhere. The European Union has form on this, and has previously tried to use DDT and genetic engineering of food as bogies to justify trade barriers. Among a range of possible carbon morality taxes, Stern considers the application of a food-miles levy on produce subjected to lengthy air transport. Subsequent media coverage has concentrated on earlier estimates that flying 1kg of kiwifruit from New Zealand to Europe generates 5kg of carbon dioxide. With delicious irony, it turns out that virtually all NZ kiwifruit are transported by ship, yet arrive in Britain at a price that undercuts local supplies. No wonder a levy is needed.
Australian grape growers are doubtless already resigned to having an extra "noble carbon" levy imposed on their products, to the advantage of their French competitors. For that matter, why not a ballet miles surcharge on tickets at Covent Garden when the Australian Ballet next visits London? And given that most British dildos probably come from overseas, perhaps UK citizens will soon have dildo miles, too.
The Stern review is not about climate change but about economic, technological and trade advantage. Its perpetrators seek power through climate scaremongering. The review's release was carefully timed to closely precede this month's US congressional elections and the Nairobi climate conference. Beyond these events, we can expect another burst of alarmist hallelujahs to accompany the launch of IPCC's assessment report in February.
Though it will be lionised for a while yet, the Stern review is destined to join Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb and think tank the Club of Rome's manifesto, Limits to Growth, in the pantheon of big banana scares that proved to be unfounded. It is part of the last hurrah for those warmaholics who inhabit a world of virtual climate reality that exists only inside flawed computer models.
Meanwhile, the empirical data stressed by climate rationalists will ultimately prevail over the predictions of the unvalidated computer models. Perhaps then we will be able to attend to the real climate policy problem, which is to prepare response plans for extreme weather events, and for climate warmings as well as coolings, in the same way we prepare to cope with all other natural hazards.
Click Here for the Full Article: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20690289-7583,00.html
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...Stern Review By Bjorn Lomborg
Friday November 3, 2006
November 2, 2006; Page A12
Stern Review
The dodgy numbers behind the latest warming scare.
BY BJORN LOMBORG
Mr. Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" (Cambridge, 2001), teaches at the Copenhagen Business School and is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center .
Thursday, November 2, 2006 12:01 a.m. ESTThe report on climate change by Nicholas Stern and the U.K. government has sparked publicity and scary headlines around the world. Much attention has been devoted to Mr. Stern's core argument that the price of inaction would be extraordinary and the cost of action modest.
Unfortunately, this claim falls apart when one actually reads the 700-page tome. Despite using many good references, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is selective and its conclusion flawed. Its fear-mongering arguments have been sensationalized, which is ultimately only likely to make the world worse off.
The review correctly points out that climate change is a real problem, and that it is caused by human greenhouse-gas emissions. Little else is right, however, and the report seems hastily put-together, with many sloppy errors. As an example, the cost of hurricanes in the U.S. is said to be both 0.13% of U.S. GDP and 10 times that figure.
The review is also one-sided, focusing almost exclusively on carbon-emission cuts as the solution to the problem of climate change. Mr. Stern sees increasing hurricane damage in the U.S. as a powerful argument for carbon controls. However, hurricane damage is increasing predominantly because there are more people with more goods to be damaged, settling in ever more risky habitats. Even if global warming does significantly increase the power of hurricanes, it is estimated that 95% to 98% of the increased damage will be due to demographics. The review acknowledges that simple initiatives like bracing and securing roof trusses and walls can cheaply reduce damage by more than 80%; yet its policy recommendations on expensive carbon reductions promise to cut the damages by 1% to 2% at best. That is a bad deal.
Mr. Stern is also selective, often seeming to cherry-pick statistics to fit an argument. This is demonstrated most clearly in the review's examination of the social damage costs of CO2--essentially the environmental cost of emitting each extra ton of CO2. The most well-recognized climate economist in the world is probably Yale University 's William Nordhaus, whose "approach is perhaps closest in spirit to ours," according to the Stern review. Mr. Nordhaus finds that the social cost of CO2 is $2.50 per ton. Mr. Stern, however, uses a figure of $85 per ton. Picking a rate even higher than the official U.K. estimates--that have themselves been criticized for being over the top--speaks volumes.
Mr. Stern tells us that the cost of U.K. flooding will quadruple to 0.4% from 0.1% of GDP due to climate change. However, we are not told that these alarming figures only hold true if one assumes that the U.K. will take no additional measures--essentially doing absolutely nothing and allowing itself to get flooded, perhaps time and again. In contrast, the U.K. government's own assumptions take into account a modest increase in flood prevention, finding that the cost will actually decline sharply to 0.04% of U.K. GDP, in spite of climate change. Why does Mr. Stern not share that information?
But nowhere is the imbalance clearer than in Mr. Stern's central argument about the costs and benefits of action on climate change. The review tells us that we should make significant cuts in carbon emissions to stabilize the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide at 550 ppm (parts per million). Yet such a stark recommendation is not matched by an explicit explanation of what this would mean in terms of temperature.
The U.N. Climate Panel estimates that stabilizing at 550 ppm would mean an increase in temperature of about 2.3 degrees Celsius in the year 2100. This might be several degrees below what would otherwise happen, but it might also be higher. Mr. Nordhaus estimates that the stabilization policy would reduce the rise in temperature from 2.53 degrees Celsius to just 2.42 degrees Celsius. One can understand the reluctance of the Stern review to advertise such a puny effect.
Most economists were surprised by Mr. Stern's large economic estimates of damage from global warming. Mr. Nordhaus's model, for example, anticipates 3% will be wiped off global GDP if nothing is done over the coming century, taking into account the risk for catastrophes. The Stern review purports to show that the cost is "larger than many earlier studies suggested."
On the face of it, Mr. Stern actually accepts Mr. Nordhaus's figure: Even including risks of catastrophe and non-market costs, he agrees that an increase of four degrees Celsius will cost about 3% of GDP. But he assumes that we will continue to pump out carbon far into the 22nd century--a rather unlikely scenario given the falling cost of alternative fuels, and especially if some of his predictions become clear to us toward the end of this century. Thus he estimates that the higher temperatures of eight degrees Celsius in the 2180s will be very damaging, costing 11% to 14% of GDP.
The Stern review then analyzes what the cost would be if everyone in the present and the future paid equally. Suddenly the cost estimate is not 0% now and 3% in 2100--but 11% of GDP right now and forever. If this seems like a trick, it is certainly underscored by the fact that the Stern review picks an extremely low discount rate, which makes the cost look much more ominous now.
But even 11% is not the last word. Mr. Stern suggests that there is a risk that the cost of global warming will be higher than the top end of the U.N. climate panel's estimates, inventing, in effect, a "worst-case scenario" even worse than any others on the table. Therefore, the estimated damage to GDP jumps to 15% from 11%. Moreover, Mr. Stern admonishes that poor people count for less in the economic calculus, so he then inflates 15% to 20%.
This figure, 20%, was the number that rocketed around the world, although it is simply a much-massaged reworking of the standard 3% GDP cost in 2100--a figure accepted among most economists to be a reasonable estimate.
Likewise, Mr. Stern readjusts the cost of dealing with climate change. The U.N. found that the cost of 550 ppm stabilization would be somewhere around 0.2% to 3.2% of GDP today; he reports that costs could lie between -4% and 15% of GDP. The -4% is based on the suggestion that cutting carbon emissions could make us richer because revenue recycling could address inefficiencies in taxation--but the alleged inefficiencies, if correct, should be addressed no matter what the policies about climate change. The reason Mr. Stern nevertheless finds a very low cost estimate is because he only considers models with so-called Induced Technological Change. These models are known to reduce costs by about two percentage points because carbon cuts lead to an increase in research and development, which again makes further cuts cheaper. Thus Mr. Stern concludes that the costs are on average 1% of GDP, and in the summary actually claims that this is a maximum cost.
The Stern review's cornerstone argument for immediate and strong action now is based on the suggestion that doing nothing about climate change costs 20% of GDP now, and doing something only costs 1%. However, this argument hinges on three very problematic assumptions.
First, it assumes that if we act, we will not still have to pay. But this is not so--Mr. Stern actually tells us that his solution is "already associated with significant risks." Second, it requires the cost of action to be as cheap as he tells us--and on this front his numbers are at best overly optimistic. Third, and most importantly, it requires the cost of doing nothing to be a realistic assumption: But the 20% of GDP figure is inflated by an unrealistically pessimistic vision of the 22nd century, and by an extreme and unrealistically low discount rate. According to the background numbers in Mr. Stern's own report, climate change will cost us 0% now and 3% of GDP in 2100, a much more informative number than the 20% now and forever.
In other words: Given reasonable inputs, most cost-benefit models show that dramatic and early carbon reductions cost more than the good they do. Mr. Stern's attempt to challenge that understanding is based on a chain of unlikely assumptions.
Moreover, there is a fourth major problem in Mr. Stern's argument that has received very little attention. It seems naive to believe that the world's 192 nations can flawlessly implement Mr. Stern's multitrillion-dollar, century-long policy proposal. Will nobody try to avoid its obligations? Why would China and India even participate? And even if China got on board, would it be able to implement the policies? In 2002, China decided to cut sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 10%--they are now 27% higher despite SO2 being nationally a much bigger health and environmental problem than climate change.
Why does all this matter? It matters because, with clever marketing and sensationalist headlines, the Stern review is about to edge its way into our collective consciousness. The suggestion that flooding will overwhelm us has already been picked up by commentators, yet going back to the background reports properly shows declining costs from flooding and fewer people at risk. The media is now quoting Mr. Stern's suggestion that climate change will wreak financial devastation that will wipe 20% off GDP, explicitly evoking memories of past financial catastrophes such as the Great Depression or World War II; yet the review clearly tells us that costs will be 0% now and just 3% in 2100.
It matters because Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Nicholas Stern all profess that one of the major reasons that they want to do something about climate change is because it will hit the world's poor the hardest. Using a worse-than-worst-case scenario, Mr. Stern warns that the wealth of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will be reduced by 10% to 13% in 2100 and suggests that effect would lead to 145 million more poor people.
Faced with such alarmist suggestions, spending just 1% of GDP or $450 billion each year to cut carbon emissions seems on the surface like a sound investment. In fact, it is one of the least attractive options. Spending just a fraction of this figure--$75 billion--the U.N. estimates that we could solve all the world's major basic problems. We could give everyone clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education right now. Is that not better?
We know from economic models that dealing just with malaria could provide economic boosts to the order of 1% extra GDP growth per capita per year. Even making a very conservative estimate that solving all the major basic issues would induce just 2% extra growth, 100 years from now each individual in the developing world would be more than 700% richer. That truly trivializes Mr. Stern's 10% to 13% estimates for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Last weekend in New York, I asked 24 U.N. ambassadors--from nations including China, India and the U.S. --to prioritize the best solutions for the world's greatest challenges, in a project known as Copenhagen Consensus. They looked at what spending money to combat climate change and other major problems could achieve. They found that the world should prioritize the need for better health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education, long before we turn our attention to the costly mitigation of global warning.
We all want a better world. But we must not let ourselves be swept up in making a bad investment, simply because we have been scared by sensationalist headlines.
“I don’t like the word ‘Balance’’- Says ABC News Global Warming Reporter
Monday October 30, 2006
Contact: (Marc_Morano@epw.senate.gov ), (Matthew_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov )
Burlington, VT - ABC News Reporter Bill Blakemore declared “I don’t like the word ‘balance’ much at all” in global warming coverage at a journalism conference in Vermont over the weekend.
Blakemore, who reported on August 30, 2006, “After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such [scientific] debate” on global warming, (http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=2374968) said he rejects ‘balance’ in order to justify excluding any skeptics of manmade catastrophic global warming from his reporting. He made his remarks at Friday’s panel discussion at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference in Burlington.
Blakemore lamented “the deep professional shame that I discovered two years ago,” regarding how he believes the media had been manipulated by skeptics of manmade catastrophic global warming.
“Of course [skeptics] play on the idea that we have to be ‘balanced,’” he noted.
“It was very lazy of us for 10 years when we were asked for balance from the [climate skeptic] spinners. We just gave up and said ‘Okay, okay – I will put the other side on, okay are you happy now?’” he said. “And it saves us from the trouble of having to check out the fact that these other sides were the proverbial flat earth society.”
Blakemore also took on the role of psychologist in explaining that global warming presents an “existential” dilemma and people face what he termed “psychological obstacles” about whether to believe the dire predictions that the planet is facing a climate crisis.
“We are looking at serious mainstream scientists now tell us that maybe - it’s over. It’s hard. It’s the kind of news you have to take in small doses,” Blakemore explained. [EPW note: Many scientists dispute the notion that mankind has created a climate doomsday. See: (http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777 )]
“Denial is initially natural and healthy; the psychologists tell us it is what we do to hold our meaning system together, so that we can at least function at first when trauma happens and we are all being delivered a major trauma here,” he explained. He added that greenhouse gas theory is akin to “3rd grade science.”
“Does [extreme weather patterns] fit exactly within the predicted pattern that we projected almost 30 or 40 years ago? This is the little logical problem that we journalists can still work on and solve,” Blakemore said. (EPW Note: 30 and 40 years ago, scientists were erroneously predicting a coming ice age. See last week’s Newsweek’s retraction of global cooling reporting 31 years after its initial report: (http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=265087 ))
“The problem is we journalists have not stood up on our own feet and said ‘Excuse me, this is going to be my assessment of where the scientific assessment is.’ Because those spinners would say you got to listen to who -- for the scientific assessment and they will point to their favorable [skeptical] organizations.” He also said, “I am a professional journalist; don’t tell me how to do my job.”
Blakemore said skeptics of global warming should be ignored because some of them are being funded by industry. But he has failed to note that scientists he promotes such as James Hansen, Michael Oppenheimer, are both recipients of huge sums of money from environmental special interest groups.
When Blakemore reported on January 29, 2006, that NASA scientist James Hansen was alleging that the Bush Administration was censoring his scientific work, he failed to inform viewers that Hansen had received a quarter of a million dollars from Teresa Heinz Kerry's foundation, the Heinz Foundation, and subsequently endorsed her husband Democrat John Kerry for President in 2004 http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1555183 In addition, Michael Oppenheimer is a paid partisan of the group Environmental Defense.
Blakemore also told the journalism conference that global warming was an ever present entity that “affects everything in the weather, everywhere all the time and in every instance.”
Blakemore has also lavished praised on Vice President Al Gore and his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, comparing Gore to Shakespeare and Robert Frost. http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2006/05/al_gore_and_an_.html
Related Links:
Renowned Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics – (http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777)
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Senator Inhofe Credited For Prompting Newsweek Admission of Error on 70's Predictions of Coming Ice Age - In Case You Missed It....
Tuesday October 24, 2006
October 24, 2006
CONTACT: MARC MORANO ( marc_morano@epw.senate.gov ), MATT DEMPSEY ( matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov )
On September 25, 2006, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) delivered a 50 Minute Senate floor speech critiquing the media’s 100 Year history of embarrassing climate change reporting alternating between promoting fears of a coming ice age and global warming. (To read or watch Environment & Public Works Chairman James Inhofe’s September 25, Senate floor speech, go to: http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759 )
Since Senator Inhofe’s speech, reaction from around the world has been resoundingly positive. (See: http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264027 ) In addition, a Renowned French Scientist recently defected from belief in manmade global warming, capping a year of vindication for climate skeptics. (See: http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777 )
Now it appears the media -- led by Newsweek Magazine -- is feeling the heat about their erroneous past predictions of climate doom.
In Case You Missed It…
Newsweek Changes Media Climate 31 Years after Global Cooling Story
Magazine admits first article was 'wrong,' but still wasn't 'inaccurate' journalistically.
By Dan Gainor Business & Media Institute 10/24/2006
It took 31 years, but Newsweek magazine admitted (see: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15391426/site/newsweek ) it was incorrect about climate change.
In a nearly 1,000-word correction, Senior Editor Jerry Adler finally agreed that a 1975 piece on global cooling “was so spectacularly wrong about the near-term future.”
Even then, Adler wasn’t quite willing to blame Newsweek for the incredible failure. “In fact, the story wasn't ‘wrong’ in the journalistic sense of ‘inaccurate,’” he claimed.
“Some scientists indeed thought the Earth might be cooling in the 1970s, and some laymen – even one as sophisticated and well-educated as Isaac Asimov – saw potentially dire implications for climate and food production,” Adler added. However, the story admitted both Time magazine and Newsweek were wrong on the subject – Newsweek as recently as 1992.
The situation was brought to light after Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) gave an extensive speech about media climate change coverage to the Senate on September 25. Inhofe told his Senate colleagues: “Much of the 100-year media history on climate change that I have documented today can be found in a publication entitled ‘Fire & Ice’ from the Business & Media Institute.”
Adler described Inhofe as “chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the self-proclaimed scourge of climate alarmists.” The article agreed that, to use a phrase from the Watergate era of the first story, mistakes had been made, but questioned whether Inhofe had drawn the right lesson from the media failures.
Adler said scientists have also predicted in the past that Earth would be hit by a “giant meteorite,” but “… that doesn't mean that journalists have been dupes or alarmists for reporting this news. Citizens can judge for themselves what constitutes a prudent response …” However, citizens can’t “judge for themselves” if they are getting only one theory, whether it is global cooling or global warming.
Newsweek cited information culled from the BMI report that “for more than 100 years journalists have quoted scientists predicting the destruction of civilization by, in alternation, either runaway heat or a new Ice Age.” But he was unwilling to admit that what the media now say about climate change could be wrong. Newsweek wasn’t alone in its climate revisionism. The October 12 New York Times included an editorial that criticized Inhofe for his criticism of the Times. Inhofe’s comments, according to the article, were “a brisk survey of the way the news media have covered climatic predictions over the past century.” It continued, “Cooling, warming – we never get it right.”
But the Times editors still castigated Inhofe for his comments because they “do not expect Mr. Inhofe to see the light – or feel the heat – any time soon.” At least Newsweek was willing to admit that the world was better off for having ignored the 1975 story.
“All in all, it's probably just as well that society elected not to follow one of the possible solutions mentioned in the Newsweek article: to pour soot over the Arctic ice cap, to help it melt.”
It took Newsweek 31 years to correct its mistakes on global cooling. If they want to recant their latest global warming stance and start the calendar today, that means the next correction will run on October 23, 2037.
For full article go to: http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2006/20061024143134.aspx
# # # Related Links: For a comprehensive review of the media’s embarrassing 100-year history of alternating between promoting fears of a coming ice age and global warming, see Environment & Public Works Chairman James Inhofe’s September 25, 2006 Senate floor speech debunking the media and climate alarmism.Go to: (www.epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759)
To read and watch Senator Inhofe on CNN discuss global warming go to: (http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264308 )
To Read all of Senator Inhofe’s Speeches on global warming go to: (http://epw.senate.gov/speeches.cfm?party=rep)
To Read about Recent developments in climate change science: “Renowned Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics” go to ( http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777 )
“Inhofe Correct On Global Warming,” by David Deming geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (ocpathink.org), and an associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. (http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264537)
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...THE SNOWS OF MOUNT KILIMANJARO, The cause of climate change remains unknown. So, let us be cautious. By Claude Allegre, L'EXPRESS
Wednesday October 18, 2006
On October 17, the EPW Majority issued a press release, Decorated Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777, citing Claude Allegre’s editorial on September 21, 2006 in the French newspaper L'Express titled “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” detailing his newfound skepticism about manmade global warming. In his editorial, Allegre accused proponents of manmade catastrophic global warming of being motivated by money, noting that “the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!”
Claude Allegre, one of the most decorated French geophysicists, is a former government official and an active member of France’s Socialist Party, and is a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences. Allegre has authored more than 100 scientific articles, written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States. Below is Allegre’s editorial translated from French to English.
L'EXPRESSTHE SNOWS OF MOUNT KILIMANJARO By Claude Allegre
The cause of climate change remains unknown. So, let us be cautious.
September 21, 2006
During the same fortnight, we have seen Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s stunning photographs showing the vanishing ice cap of Mount Kilimanjaro, and we have immediately heard the same old story about global warming and read in Science magazine an important paper co-authored by several distinguished glaciologists which showed that glacier mass balance in Antarctica has not changed during the past thirty years[1]. There is a general consensus among specialists on one point: if widespread global warming occurs, it will be experienced more intensely near the poles than at the equator. Yet, these authors explain that we can observe a massive retreat of glacial ice in some places on the Antarctic continent while there is also a thickening of ice sheets in other places.
So, the question that arises is whether there is climate warming or not? The argument that builds upon the retreating white cap of Kilimanjaro seems implacable. The retreating white cap is observable, tangible. Indeed, but things are not as straightforward as they seem. The gradual retreat of the snows of Kilimanjaro is often imputed to local phenomena, the main one of these being desertification in East Africa. In a recent issue of Science magazine, French researchers have shown that this desertification was in a large measure due to tectonic activities responsible for the gradual uplift of the African continent, thereby inducing a reorganization of atmospheric circulation. Greenhouse effect plays no significant role in these processes.
Following the month of August experienced by the northern half of France, the prophets of doom of global warming will have a lot on their plate in order to make our fellow countrymen swallow their certitudes. In all likelihood, there is a climate change, but the latter is characterized more by sudden shifts, both in space and time (the heat wave or the “rotten summer”, just like the violent tornadoes or the increased frequency of floods, are examples of these) than by global warming. The cause of this climate change is unknown. Is it man? Is it nature?
Glaciers’ chronicles or historical archives point to the fact that climate is a capricious phenomena. This fact is confirmed by mathematical meteorological theories. So, let us be cautious. But the exposure of man’s responsibility as regards global warming allows us to sit idly by (the effect of the measures advocated will be felt only in half a century!). On the other hand, the crusade against extreme theories can be led with tangible results! However, as this is not fashionable, we choose to remain passive. In the meanwhile, the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!
[1] A. Monaghan et al., Science, vol. 313, August 11, 2006.
Click here for the Op/Ed (French): http://www.lexpress.fr/idees/tribunes/dossier/allegre/dossier.asp?ida=451670
Related Links:
For a comprehensive review of the media’s embarrassing 100-year history of alternating between promoting fears of a coming ice age and global warming, see Environment & Public Works Chairman James Inhofe’s September 25, 2006 Senate floor speech debunking the media and climate alarmism. Go to: (www.epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759)
To read and watch Senator Inhofe on CNN discuss global warming go to: (http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264308 )
To Read all of Senator Inhofe’s Speeches on global warming go to: (http://epw.senate.gov/speeches.cfm?party=rep)
“Inhofe Correct On Global Warming,” by David Deming geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (ocpathink.org), and an associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. (http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264537)
NEW NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES’ INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE REPORT EXPOSES DEMOCRATS’ DISTORTIONS
Wednesday October 18, 2006
Over the last several years, there has been an increasing drumbeat of scaremongering that it is unsafe to eat fish because of mercury contamination. What began as an effort to build opposition to power plants that emit trace amounts of mercury turned into a full-fledged campaign to make people fearful to eat fish, especially pregnant women and children. The campaign was an enormous success, leading to its promotion in many forums Americans have come to trust. Consider this line from a 2005 posting on Oprah's website.
“Nutritionally, fish may seem like your friend. But the mercury in many fish can cause everything from miscarriage and heart problems in adults to mental retardation in babies.” ( http://www.oprah.com/health/omag/health_omag_200504_mercury.jhtml)
At the forefront of this campaign were special interest groups such as the NRDC, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Moveon.org, World Wildlife Fund, and Clear the Air.
FACT: A National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM) report released yesterday clearly states eating fish rich in Omega-3 fatty acids is beneficial to human health, including pregnant women and their unborn children. The expert panel convened by the IOM considered the benefits and risks of eating seafood and concluded that consumers who eat at least two servings weekly from a variety of fish gain significant health benefits without risk from trace levels of mercury and other contaminants in seafood. This new report should provide the American public greater confidence regarding concerns about mercury in fish and makes clear that the American public should embrace the numerous nutritional benefits of regular fish consumption.
Finally, this new report exposes the lengths Democrat operatives went to in their attempt to distort the truth for political gain, severely undermining the credibility of these liberal special interest groups. The study, titled Seafood Choices: Balancing Benefits and Risks, was sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with additional support from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
To read the study, click here: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/mediacenter/docs/Seafood_and_Health_FINAL.pdf
The National Academy of Science's Press Release: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11762
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...SEAFOOD BENEFITS OUTWEIGH MERCURY RISKS,EATING FISH CAN FIGHT HEART DISEASE, INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE REPORT FINDS (AP)
Tuesday October 17, 2006
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...
Associated Press
Seafood Benefits Outweigh Mercury Risks
Eating fish can fight heart disease, Institute of Medicine report finds
Oct 17, 2006
WASHINGTON - Eating seafood twice a week is good for your heart and generally outweighs the risk of exposure to mercury and other dangerous contaminants, the Institute of Medicine said Tuesday.
Even so, the government needs to help consumers figure out which seafood is safer, an Institute report said.
“The confusion may have scared people out of eating something that is beneficial for them and maybe for their offspring,” said Jose Ordovas, a Tufts University researcher and member of the report committee.
“Our goal was to put both things in perspective and see where is the balance,” Ordovas said. The findings from the Institute, which advises the government on health policy, are in line with widely accepted government advice that eating fish and shellfish may reduce people’s risk of developing heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. Interestingly, researchers said it’s unclear how eating fish fights heart disease. It may be that beneficial omega-3 fatty acids offer some protection. Or the answer may be simpler, that people eat less saturated fat and cholesterol when they choose leaner seafood instead of fatty cuts of meat. Americans generally eat too much saturated fat and cholesterol and too little of the good omega-3 fatty acids, the report said. And evidence shows that eating seafood rich in omega-3s can contribute to vision and cognitive development in babies and help expecting moms carry babies to term, researchers said.
The Tuna Foundation and other industry groups issued a statement saying the report tells consumers not to let fears of mercury exposure stop them from enjoying the nutritional benefits of regular fish consumption… For healthy teenagers and adults and those at risk of heart disease, the report said eating seafood may reduce the risk of heart disease. And if people eat more than two servings of seafood a week, they should be sure to eat different kinds of seafood to reduce the risk of exposure to contaminants, the report said.
While the report does not list “good” or “bad” fish, it does describe broad categories: • Fatty fish like salmon have the highest omega-3 levels but also have more saturated fat and cholesterol and can have higher levels of dioxin and PCBs. They tend to have less mercury. • Shellfish and crustaceans are low in saturated fat but can have moderate amounts of cholesterol and present the greatest risk of microbial infection if eaten raw. • In all seafood, levels of dioxin, PCBs and other contaminants do not pose health risks when eaten in government-recommended amounts.
Click Here for the Full Article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15301675/from/ET/
