Climate Stupidity 23: Low Cloud and Rains due to Warming

Been raining here in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces the whole day yesterday, the rain showers extended until today and perhaps the next few days. No typhoon or tropical depression, simply on the "tail end of a cold front". It also rained on the first 2 days of this month. This morning it was great -- very low clouds over the metropolis, misty and cold, really nice.

The normal dry-but-cold months of November-December have become wet-and-cold, thanks to "man-made global warming". Many UN and government bureaucrats, plus climate rent-seekers among big international NGOs like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Greenpeace, and corporate rent-seekers are in Durban, S. Africa now to "fight global warming and man-made climate change."

Here's the November 2011 air/tropospheric temperature anomaly. See the trend towards global cooling. Data from Real Science

Air temperature, land surface temperature, sea surface temperature, all experiencing declines in temperature anomaly (meaning "colder than normal") while global CO2 concentration keeps rising, see below. That is why the warmers change tune and say that "more CO2 causes more warming and more cooling." Cool guys.

Here's the growth of CO2 emission in major economies around the world, from 1950 to 2010. Data is from Updated carbon emissions defining the history of the global economy, November 14, 2011 by Warwick Hughes.

So if one will plot recent global air/tropospheric temperature vs. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, this is how it looks like. Data from the Friends of Science.

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Meanwhile, I wrote several short papers on climate in 2009, posting 5 of them here:

(1) Market Solution to Emission Problems

February 10, 2009

I favor market-driven climate change (CC) mitigation via innovation and business. This is because they are still part of human adaptation to CC. What I am against is additional government intervention, regulation and taxation, to "fight and mitigate" CC and global warming. If more companies will join the race to produce more effective solar panels, more efficient windmills, etc., fine. Then let governments abolish corporate income tax, dividend and capital gains tax, documentary stamp tax, etc. on those firms, in exchange for government not giving them "incentives" and subsidies. As demand for green and renewable energy sources increase, and as government distortion through multiple taxation and regulation decrease, suppliers of those commodities will find the sector highly profitable, and more players will come in, and the Greens, adaptationists and alarmists will both be happy.

The volume of human-induced CO2 in the atmosphere and in the planet is directly a function of economic activities. That is, we can say that

(human-induced) CO2 emission = GDP size x Emission Intensity (EI)

A country can have less emission intensity due to modern and less polluting technologies but if the GDP size is big, like the US and combined EU GDP, CO2 emission will still be big.

Governments-inspired mitigation policies that target -30 percent (or higher) CO2 emissions within 20 or 30 years can only mean that (a) EI will significantly decline, or (b) GDP size will have to decline, or both. Since (a) cannot happen in a short period of time as various government-initiated distortions discourage the entry of so many investors and businesses into the sector (eg, coal companies closing their operations and running towards solar farms and wind farms production), the unexpected victim or sacrificial goat will be economic growth. Less trips by cars, jeepneys, trucks, buses, ships and airplanes = less pollution.


Meanwhile, as thick-icy winter still slam-dunk many parts of North America and Europe, and as tropical countries like the Philippines continue to have scattered rains even until February, global warming scare has mellowed.

With the on-going global financial troubles, people are very conservative in their spending. If energy price from "dirty" sources is cheap and energy price from "clean and renewable" sources is expensive, many self-declared Greens people will choose the former.

(2) Human Achievement Hour

March 28, 2009


Today, about 8 1/2 hours from now, there will be two global "earthly" initiatives. The biggest is the "Earth Hour" where people who believe in, feel guilty about, and some want to drastically cut, anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (GW), will switch off their lights between 8:30-9:30pm wherever they are. The other, smaller but also dynamic, is the "Human Achievement Hour", same day, same time. The latter is for people who salute human achievement in progress. The latter was initiated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a think tank based in the US.

Related to this, I made a presentation before some university students here in Manila yesterday,

"The Sun vs. CO2: what drives global temperature changes?"
http://www.minimalgovernment.net/media/mg_20090327.pdf

Meanwhile, here is the letter from the CEI, below.

regards.

Nonoy
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Dear friends,

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has initiated the celebration of ‘Human Achievement Hour’ (HAH) between 8:30pm and 9:30pm on March 28, 2009 in response to and coinciding with Earth Hour, a period during which governments, individuals, and corporations have agreed to dim or shut off lights in an effort to draw attention to climate change.

Unlike Earth Hour, the purpose Human Achievement Hour is to salute the people who keep the lights on and produce the energy that helps make human achievement possible. Many organizations and average folks around the world will show their support for human achievement by simply going about their daily lives.

The celebration of Human Achievement Hour has already garnered sneers and criticism from some of those supporting Earth Hour—they have even had the HAH Wikipedia entry deleted. In spite of all this, we believe that it is important that people around the world participate with us in acknowledging the achievements accomplished by the human race.

Thanks,

Gary Howard Jr.
http://cei.org/


(3) After Earth Hour, Stop Breathing for an Hour

April 5, 2009

A friend joked that since the "Earth Hour" was very successful, the next campaign will be "Stop Breathing for 1 hour". And he suggested that the first group of people to do it should be the President and her officials, and the legislators.

Yes, since some people think that CO2 is "evil", they should minimize their breathing.Because for every breathing, for every exhale, xx mgs of CO2 is added into the atmosphere.People should also stop having pets, because dogs and cats and birds also exhale.They should also stop or minimize eating meat, pork and chicken, because cows, sheep, pigs and chicken also exhale, they also fart, which adds to CO2 in the atmosphere.

I suggested to those who participated in the "Earth Hour", why not make it monthly or weekly, why limit to only 1 hour/year? Reduced electricity, reduced demand for power (especially those dirty coal and bunker fuel power plants) is a noble thing, so more frequent lights off will be a good thing.

About Malacanang and Congress initiating the "stop breathing, stop more CO2". This looks not feasible. Those people splurge on spending and electricity use, because the spending does not come from their own pockets. They even created new bureaucracies to "fight global warming". There's a Presidential Task Force on climate change (headed by DOE Sec.), there's a Presidential adviser on climate change (headed by ex-sen. heherson alvarez). Sen. Legarda is also proposing to create a Climate Change Commission in her bill. Some provincial governors also created their own provincial task force on climate change.

So they're creating new bureaucracies, but they won’t personally pay for the salaries, travels and seminars of the staff. Some unemployable people perhaps suddenly became "climate change warriors". Arghh!!


(4) Philippines #1 in Climate Alarmism?

April 15, 2009


A friend who is free marketer on some aspects (he believes income taxes should be abolished, for instance) but is also among the top campaigners of climate alarmism in the country, sent me this update last week:

"We're #1 worldwide! 647 cities and municipalities and over 10 million Filipinos united with the rest of the world in supporting Earth Hour last Mar 28th. Thank you for joining the campaign against global warming!

See how the Philippines supported Earth Hour 2009. Just click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-GZEhMNG3M "

Oh my, the Philippines is #1 among the CC alarmist public in the world!

I do not know of other groups or institutes in the Philippines which do not buy the CC alarmism agenda, aside from MG Thinkers. I know of some individuals though who belong to the "climate skeptics" or "climate realists" group.

MG Thinkers is too small compared to the monster wave of Filipinos who believe in CC alarmism and all sorts of new government environmental regulations and interventions, new environmental bureaucracies, that are being created.

In a number of local discussion list where I belong, I push the "Sun vs CO2" debate, and the new climate development in the Philippines and perhaps neighboring countries in the Equator.

It's now mid-April, temperatures are supposed to be scorching at 36 to 38 celsius, but we are getting only max 34 to 35 celsius. The government's weather bureau, PAGASA, said the country is still in the tail-end of a cold front.

Cold front in April! That's another proof of a new climate pointing to declining global temperature, a period of "global cooling" after the peak temperature in 1998 in the recent global warming period.

Next Wednesday, I will give a talk at the Rotary Club of Makati McKinley (RCMM), co-sponsored by my club, RC Taguig-Fort Bonifacio and possibly, other RCs of RI District 3830. My presentation will be on "Global cooling reality vs Global warming politics".

I hope there will be someone from the DENR or WWF and other campaigners of climate alarmism who will go there.


(5) The Politics of Global Warming
(Or climate science becomes political science)

April 23, 2009

Originally termed “global warming”, it slowly morphed and was renamed to “climate change” because the propagators of the hysteria realized there was something wrong with their models and predictions. Carbon dioxide and other GHGs were indeed increasing but global temperatures did not! When it is called “climate change”, then severe winters, super-strong typhoons, frequent rains and prolonged cold front, can still be considered as part of “climate change due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions.” Very clever!

In the first place, CO2 is not a pollutant; it is the gas that comes out of our mouth and nose when we exhale, the gas that comes out when our pets and farm animals exhale, the gas that our vegetables, flowers and trees use when they produce food in the process of photosynthesis. That is why CO2 is sometimes called the “gas of life” (GOL). But the IPCC and climate alarmists have demonized CO2, short of calling it an “evil gas”.

If global cooling will turn out to be nasty and more severe than anticipated, then perhaps the world will need more GHGs! There will be lots of clouds, rains, snow, and few sunny days. Then what, the world will need more CO2 emissions?

There is too much power and money involved in sustaining the global warming hysteria. Billions of dollars of UN grants, rich governments’ climate research budget, those governments’ subsidies to renewable energy research and production, their grants to big environmental NGOs that help fan the scare, carbon taxes collected by governments now and in the future, carbon emission permits being traded by banks and financial traders, insurance companies insuring people and properties against environmental catastrophes, etc. The list of people, companies, research institutes, political parties and NGOs who have vested interests in the current hysteria are simply too many.

Many politicians and international bureaucrats are aching for more reasons and alibis to impose new regulations, to ration energy, to favor certain energy sources with huge subsidies. Non-elected international bureaucrats decide on energy and emission caps imposed on all participating countries.

When there is a huge “stake” for these people to continue benefiting from the current hysteria and alarmism, then even if new scientific data will further prove that the IPCC results and projections are wrong, said group of people will not hesitate to lying and insist that climate science is also political science. Why? Because there is a huge amount of power and money that will be removed from them.

Just Imagine the implication if more scientists and the public will realize that CO2 is innocent for all the charges being charged against it as the main cause of climate change. Then one big implication is that – the world does not need, did not need, the Kyoto Protocol! And by extension, the world will not need a post-Kyoto agreement of carbon cap-and-trade and all the various environmental and financial mechanisms that have been invented, like emission trading system (ETS), clean development mechanism (CDM), joint implementation (JI), certified emission reduction (CER), and more.

It never fails. When big government enters the economy and science, shit happens. Lots of it.
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See also:
Heartland 2nd ICCC 2009: Politicizing science, March 12, 2009
Earth Day 2008: Cooling Reality vs Warming Politics, April 22, 2009