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9
March 2008
Unstoppable
Climate Change
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I
have just returned from an historic meeting of more than 500
people from all around the world who gathered in New York to
address the question of whether man-made global warming is
really threatening the future existence of our planet. In
attendance were some 200 scientists,
economists and climate authorities, highly respected
experts who are standing up to defend science against the tide
of political opportunism, media dramatisation,
and crowd hysteria that is propelling the global
warming debate. In doing so these scientists and economists
are putting their livelihoods at risk - their research grants,
tenure, and ability to get published have all been threatened.
Some have even faced death threats for speaking out against
the global warming alarmism that is sweeping the world.
As
a New Zealander concerned that our country is on the brink of
passing new laws to counter global warming that will have a
devastating effect on our standard of living, I wanted some
answers. In particular, I wanted to know whether there is any
scientific evidence that human-induced catastrophic global
warming is occurring, since that is the sole justification for
the economically damaging policies that Labour intends to push
onto the country.
I
would like to share with you what I found.
Scientists
have shown that in the earth’s geological past,
concentrations of carbon dioxide have been up to 20 times
higher than they are at present and temperatures have been
considerably warmer. The two most recent warming periods
occurred during Roman Times from 200BC to 600 AD and Medieval
Times from 900AD to 1300AD. The Little Ice Age followed.
Current
temperature trends show a warm period between 1920 and 1940,
followed by a cooling phase. There was a sudden warming surge
from 1976 to 1978 and another in 1998. Since then the weather
has been cooler. The year 1934 has emerged as the warmest of
the 20th century. This, along with the evidence of
those historical warm periods, confirms that man-made
greenhouse gas emissions cannot possibly be the cause of the
earth’s warming.
The
very latest scientific research shows that the climate
operates on a 1,500-year cycle and is driven by a complex
interaction of solar activity including sunspots and cosmic
rays, winds, deep ocean currents, as well as cloud and
precipitation cycles. It is a “chaotic” system which is
very hard to predict. That is why it is almost impossible to
forecast weather more than ten days in advance. For the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC)
to pretend that their predictions of the earth’s climate in
a hundred years time are accurate is fanciful, and for
politicians to regulate their economies on the basis of such
fantasy is grossly irresponsible.
The
IPCC was set up in 1988 to assess the impact of human-induced
climate change. This is a governmental
body that was established to show firstly, that humans are
causing global warming and secondly, to present the case for
action.
In
their latest report, released in 2007, the IPCC concludes that
“most of the observed increase in global average
temperatures since the mid-20th century is very
likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic
greenhouse gas concentrations”.
However,
in the two years since the cut-off date for that report (May
2006), scientists have discredited that conclusion by showing
that the IPCC used corrupted data, that proper forecasting
principles were not followed, and that their statistical
analysis was flawed.
A
key problem that scientists have discovered is that the
computer model outputs produced by the IPCC are at odds with
observable results: in particular a central feature of the
IPCC’s case for catastrophic global warming is a forecasted
build-up of warmer air above the tropics, yet temperature
records show that this is not occurring. Some of the excessive
temperatures used in the IPCC’s models which are presented
as evidence of catastrophic warming have been traced to urban
encroachment - temperature stations that were once located in
the countryside are now surrounded by carparks, roads and
other heat absorbing structures.
Scientists
at the conference refuted emotive claims that polar bears are
dying out due to a loss of habitat (a claim featured in Al
Gore’s drama, “An Inconvenient Truth”, that is now
screening in schools). They showed that Alaska’s polar bear
population is stable, and Canada’s has increased by 25
percent over the last decade.
Claims
that the melting snow of Mt Kilimanjaro is caused by global
warming were shown to be wrong. In fact, the snow has been
known to be melting since 1880 - deforestation at its base has reduced cloud cover
increasing exposure to the sun.
Predictions
of dramatic sea level rises were categorically discredited.
The sea has been rising by a constant 18cm a century (1.8mm a
year) and is thought to be driven by the melting of the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet. The fact that this started an estimated
18,000 years ago and is expected to continue for another7000
years shows that humans are not to blame!
The
President of the Czech Republic, Hon Václav
Klaus, gave a keynote address at the conference and received a
standing ovation. He is very happy that his speech is being
featured as this week’s NZCPR’s guest commentary.
President
Klaus, who spent most of his life under a communist regime,
believes that global warming alarmism is essentially an attack
on freedom. In his speech he explained: “Future dangers
will not come from the same source. The ideology will be
different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical –
the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that
transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and
the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents
about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in
order to make this idea reality. What I had in mind was of
course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version,
climate alarmism”.
President
Klaus went on to state that there are only three ways to
reduce emissions of carbon dioxide: “we either have to stop
economic growth and thus block further rise in the standard of
living, or stop population growth, or make miracles with the
emissions intensity”. He explained that the only realistic
option is to stop economic growth and cut living standards,
which is why he is so vocal in his opposition to the
objectives of the IPCC. (Read speech
>>>)
Those
New Zealand politicians who have jumped on the global warming
bandwagon have been less than honest with us over the
implications to this country. They have failed to spell out
clearly that the main cost of joining up to the Kyoto Protocol
(which, in spite of a 22 percent increase in our population,
requires greenhouse gas emissions over the next four years to
be reduced to 1990 levels) will be a dramatic cut in living
standards.
Once
the Emissions Trading Bill and the Electricity Amendment Bill
are passed into law, a price for carbon dioxide emissions will
be imposed on the New Zealand economy which will in effect tax
growth and spread the costs across the economy. The lion’s
share of that burden will fall on households.
Based
on the government’s own predictions of
$50 a tonne for carbon dioxide,
petrol prices will rise by 12.2 cents a litre, and
electricity by 20 percent.
Once agriculture is brought into the scheme, farmers
will be effectively taxed on the methane produced by their
livestock with devastating costs – a 12 percent reduction in
the payout for dairy, a 21 percent reduction for beef, a 39
percent reduction for sheep, and a 43 percent reduction for
venison. The overall effect of this madness will be a stalling
of growth and a decline in living standards. (See Emissions
Trading Bill click
>>> )
So
will our emissions trading scheme work? The experience of the
European Union says not. The scheme has forced
carbon-intensive industries to relocate to non-Kyoto
countries, it has caused businesses to fail, and others to
reduce their hours of operation. It has done nothing to reduce
carbon emissions, but a lot to reduce economic growth. And all
for nothing – there is no logical scientific reason to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The only reason is a
political one.
As
acclaimed journalist George Will wrote in Newsweek last
year, if nations go ahead and impose anti-global warming
policies, “the
damage to global economic growth could cause in this century more
preventable death and suffering than was caused in the last
century by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot combined.” (See
“An Inconvenient Price”, click
here >>>)
In
a nutshell, the overwhelming conclusion from the Climate
Change Conference in New York is that climate change is caused
by natural forces not human activity. It is an unstoppable
process and any attempts that are made to try to control it
are futile, political and expensive.
This
week’s poll asks: Do you agree or disagree with the
government’s proposed emissions trading scheme?
Go
to Poll >>>
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