Energy rationing 4: Anti-coal, anti-nuke hysteria

In one of my discussion googlegroups today, someone posted a campaign, "Please sign: Stop sacrificing the environment and the people's welfare on the altar of profit". Portions of the campaign said,

We, environmental advocates, members of the clergy and churchworkers, citizens, and leaders representing various organizations committed to defending the Philippine environment, unite to declare publicly our growing dismay over the state of ecological destruction and human rights violations under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III....

We challenge President Aquino to stop this sacrifice of the environment and the people's welfare on the altar of profit. We assert our calls for a genuinely pro-people, pro-environment and progressive policy of stewardship over our natural resources by pursuing the following specific demands:

1. Stop the liberalization of the Philippine mining industry.
2. Stop the killings and human rights violations of environmental advocates.
3. Cancel the permits and operations of big commercial logging firms in addition to the logging moratorium.
4. Impose a moratorium on the construction of new coal power plants.
5. Reject the proposal to revive the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
6. Scrap the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement.

The writers and endorsers of this campaign possibly forgot that the President came from the Liberal Party, not from the Socialist Party or a Nationalist or Anti-globalization Party.

A liberal, in the classic liberal tradition or even the current European liberalism philosophy, respects the free enterprise system, not more business regulations, more prohibitions.

On their specific demands:

1. Stop the liberalization of mining industry -- and leave the industry only to local politicians and companies? Among the best practitioners of sustainable mining practices are the big multinationals which have global corporate brands and have modern mining and geological technologies to optimize mining with minimal damage to the environment. If we prohibit them from coming in, the mineral potentials of the country at the time that prices of important commodities and mineral products are very high, as well as the creation of many locals jobs, will not be optimized.

2. Stop the killing and human rights violations of environmental advocates -- I support this, we should support this. And not only environmental advocates, all political killings and human rights violations of ordinary citizens should be stopped. Especially by political warlords like the Ampatuans.

3. On commercial logging ban -- and leave the forests to carabao logging, local politicians logging? People need wood, whether we like it or not. The poor especially as they cannot afford the steel and cement housing, or aluminum/steel/glass furnitures. No commercial logging means zero supply of wood from legitimate sources, wood prices shoot up, and the bigger the temptation to do illegal logging by local politicians and carabao logging to take advance of the high prices of wood.

Commercial logging, supervised by licensed foresters and connected with long-term business contracts, practice sustainable logging. A logging concession area is divided into several blocks. For a 20-years cycle for instance, only 1/20th of the entire logging area is cut and cleared for a year, the remaining 19/20th of the area has thick forest, forever. It is to their business interests that there are trees to cut every year, so they keep planting every year.

4. Moratorium on the construction of new coal power plants, reject nuke power plants -- and what else to prohibit, natural gas plants, petrol oil plants? And what will the new houses, new factories, new schools, new offices, new shops and malls use, candles and firewood?

Many environmentalists advocate the renewables like wind, solar, biomass, etc. That's why we have the RE law, and the business cronyism associated with it as it gives lots of incentives and guaranteed profit for the wind farms, solar farms. Our already expensive power prices will soon become even more expensive due to mechanisms like feed-in-tariffs (FIT) and renewable portfolio standards (RPS).

I discussed the cronyism of the RE law here, Energy rationing 2: The Renewable Energy (RE) law. Dr. Willie Soon and Barun Mitra also produced a paper questioning the global energy rationing polices that restrict access of the poor to cheaper energy sources here.

5. Scrapping of Japan-Philippines EPA -- and go back to the old trade protectionism? That EPA is not exactly a free trade agreement (FTA) but it is better than going back to high protectionism.

The petition also mentioned the "Earth Hour". As I posted in Earth Hour lunacy, part 2, I wrote to the top 2 honchos of WWF-EH, Atty. Ibay and Mr. Yan where I sent them my article why the EH is a lunatic idea, they have one standard reply: silence of the lamb. Then I wrote a comment at the EH website comment section, they censored it. I consider the WWF as a bunch of noisy but coward environmental activists.

If the WWF officials and other environmentalist groups will protest my assessment of them, then I am open to any public debate with them on climate science and policy, anytime, anywhere. Leave a note of challenge at the comment section here.

Meanwhile, here is the latest data on global air temperature, composite for northern hemisphere (NH), tropics and southern hemisphere (SH). The lower troposphere temperature anomaly for March 2011 was -0.10 C. That is, the temperature in March 2011 was -0.1 C colder than the average temperature for all March from 1979 to 2010. Zero global warming, only global cooling trend now.

Here are the values, satellite data:

GLOBAL / NH / SH / TROPICS

2010
January 0.542 / 0.675 / 0.410 / 0.635
February 0.510 / 0.553 / 0.466 / 0.759
March 0.554 / 0.665 / 0.443 / 0.721
....
November 0.273 / 0.372 / 0.173 / -0.117
December 0.181 / 0.217 / 0.145 / -0.222

2011
January -0.010 / -0.055 / 0.036 / -0.372
February -0.020 / -0.042 / 0.002 / -0.348
March -0.099 / -0.073 / -0.126 / -0.345

Data and graph source is Dr. Roy Spencer of the Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

Earth Hour 4: WWF-EH Censoring Critical Comments

There are several indicators that a group is insecure and unsure of its position, or deep inside it may already recognize that its position is wrong but it has already started lying, and they must continue the lie. One is cowardice to public debates when frontally and explicitly being challenged. Two is censorship, disallowing contrary comments and make it appear that no one is challenging them anyway.

After I posted Earth Hour lunacy part 2, I posted in the comments section of Media Partners of Earth Hour/ page. I wrote there last Saturday morning:

March 26, 2011 at 8:50 am
So, did more Filipinos join this lunatic campaign? http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2011/03/earth-hour-lunacy-part-2.html

Then I copied it on print-screen as proof as I suspect that WWF will remain allergic to contrary comments and will remain a coward to public debates.

It's now Wednesday or 4 days after I posted in their comments section. Did they approve the comment?

No way. Two otner comments that said "Halleluiah to EH" were posted but my comment is still "awaiting moderation." Yeah, right. Only "pat my back" comments allowed, critical comments are disallowed.

WWF and EH guys, yuhooo! Great job at censorship.

Now let's go back to hard data and facts about climate. Is the Earth really on "unprecedented warming"? No precedents of warm period in the past, only recent warming and climate change due to humanity's modernization and continued use of non-renewable energy, continued high use of electricity?

This is the graph of sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly as of March 27, 2011, in Nino region 3.4, the biggest area of equatorial Pacific Ocean. Data is from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.

The temperature anomaly (or deviation from average temperature) has increased a bit from its low of about -1.6 C sometime in early January this year, to about -0.6 C as of last weekend. Still in the negative and La Nina territory. Terrible "man-made global warming", sustained cooling of the planet's sea surface, equatorial Pacific, for many months now.

And here is the SST anomaly around North- and South-East Asia as of last Monday, March 28, 2011. Blue is colder than normal, yellow is warmer than normal. Data is from the US government's NOAA

So at the time that the Philippines was making a record of having the biggest number of fooled-by-WWF EH of "catastrophic man-made warming", the Philippines and nearby countries in East Asia were enjoying colder than normal ocean and air. Take note also the cloudy sky everyday in Metro Manila and many other places in the Philippines, even in late March.

And more recent data here to show that "unprecedented warming" and catastrophic "man-made climate change" is 100 percent lie.

Here is a graph of warming-cooling-warming-cooling cycle of Nino 3.4 region in a short period from 2000 to 2011. Cooling in 2000-01, warming in 2002-05, cooling in 2006, warming in 2007, cooling in 2008-mid 2009, warming from mid-2009 to mid-2010, cooling from there up to now. Data is from NCDC/NOAA, incorporated in WUWT's ENSO Page.

"Unprecedented warming" -- anyone, please say that again?

And here is the longer story of warming-cooling-warming-cooling cycle of Pacific Ocean from 1950 to 2011. Data is from NCDC/NOAA., also incorporated in the above WUWT's ENSO page.

For those wondering why all the planet's major climate and oceanography research centers are focusing on measuring temperature changes and anomaly in equatorial Pacific, well Pacific Ocean is the biggest of all bodies of water in the planet, covering about 30 percent of the Earth's total surface area. The Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Arctic Ocean, other seas, they are also big but not as big as the Pacific. The planet's climate is largely modulated by temperature changes (warming-cooling cycles) in the Pacific Ocean.

"Unprecedented warming" -- anyone, please say that again? If people believe that the planet is really in danger, they should turn off their lights many hours every night the whole year, not just 1 hour per year.

And here is a graph of air temperature (lower troposphere, about 8 kms above sea level) vs. carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere. Air temperature data (blue line) are gathered by satellites and interpreted by the Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and the Remote Sensing System (RSS). So the blue line is the average of UAH and RSS data. CO2 concentration (green line) is measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. This graph is from the Friends of Science.

Air temperature data from January 2002 up to February 2011 (red line, best fit) showed a 0.0 C temperature anomaly. Zero warming over the past 10 years after warming-cooling in those years have cancelled each other. Meanwhile, CO2 concentration keeps rising, persistently.

"More CO2 emission causes more warming" -- anyone, please say that again?

The EH is a big project to keep fooling hundreds of millions of people around the world. To keep climate alarmism high on their political agenda. There are tons and tons of money and political power involved in more environmental regulations, more energy taxation, more climate loans, more global climate meetings, more climate bureaucracies.

Dr. Roy Spencer on IPCC defunding

(Note: Related articles in this blog are Dr. Roy Spencer on individual freedom , Climate and government coercion, and Weekend fun 4: IPCC and Pachauri cartoons. Illustrations I just added and not part of Dr. Spencer's article.)

Dr. Roy Spencer is a respected climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and former NASA scientist. He wrote an interesting article in his blog last weekend, On the House Vote to Defund the IPCC. Here are some of his important points:

The climate change deniers have no one but themselves to blame for last night’s vote.

I’m talking about those who deny NATURAL climate change. Like Al Gore, John Holdren, and everyone else who thinks climate change was only invented since they were born.

Politicians formed the IPCC over 20 years ago with an endgame in mind: to regulate CO2 emissions. I know, because I witnessed some of the behind-the-scenes planning. It is not a scientific organization. It was organized to use the government-funded scientific research establishment to achieve policy goals.

Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But when they are portrayed as representing unbiased science, that IS a bad thing. If anthropogenic global warming – and ocean ‘acidification’ (now there’s a biased and totally incorrect term) — ends up being largely a false alarm, those who have run the IPCC are out of a job. More on that later.

I don’t want to be misunderstood on this. IF we are destroying the planet with our fossil fuel burning, then something SHOULD be done about it.

But the climate science community has allowed itself to be used on this issue, and as a result, politicians, activists, and the media have successfully portrayed the biased science as settled.

They apparently do not realize that ‘settled science’ is an oxymoron.

The most vocal climate scientists defending the IPCC have lost their objectivity. Yes, they have what I consider to be a plausible theory. But they actively suppress evidence to the contrary, for instance attempts to study natural explanations for recent warming.

That’s one reason why the public was so outraged about the ClimateGate e-mails. ClimateGate doesn’t prove their science is wrong…but it does reveal their bias. Science progresses by investigating alternative explanations for things. Long ago, the IPCC all but abandoned that search.

Oh, they have noted (correctly I believe) that a change in the total output of the sun is not to blame. But there are SO many other possibilities, and all they do is dismiss those possibilities out of hand. They have a theory — more CO2 is to blame — and they religiously stick to it. It guides all of the research they do.

The climate models are indeed great accomplishments. It’s what they are being used for that is suspect. A total of 23 models cover a wide range of warming estimates for our future, and yet there is no way to test them for what they are being used for! climate change predictions.

Virtually all of the models produce decadal time scale warming that exceeds what we have observed in the last 15 years. That fact has been known for years, but its publication in the peer reviewed literature continues to be blocked.

My theory is that a natural change in cloud cover has caused most of the recent warming. Temperature proxy data from around the world suggests that just about every century in the last 2,000 years has experienced warming or cooling. Why should today’s warmth be manmade, when the Medieval Warm Period was not? Just because we finally have one potential explanation – CO2?

This only shows how LITTLE we understand about climate change…not how MUCH we know.

Why would scientists allow themselves to be used in this way? When I have pressed them on the science over the years, they all retreat to the position that getting away from fossil fuels is the ‘right thing to do anyway’.

In other words, they have let their worldviews, their politics, their economic understanding (or lack thereof) affect their scientific judgment. I am ashamed for our scientific discipline and embarrassed by their behavior.

Is it any wonder that scientists have such a bad reputation among the taxpayers who pay them to play in their ivory tower sandboxes? They can make gloom and doom predictions all day long of events far in the future without ever having to suffer any consequences of being wrong.

The perpetual supply of climate change research money also biases them. Everyone in my business knows that as long as manmade climate change remains a serious threat, the money will continue to flow, and climate programs will continue to grow....

Yes, we should explain and clarify to the public: the IPCC is not and was never a scientific body. It is a political and government body, that is why it is called InterGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climat Change. IPCC gets its funding from governments, its officials like IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, are appointed by governments.

Thus, the political leanings of the IPCC and its political agenda of more environmental and more carbon regulations and taxation, jibe well with the politicians. Not one of the known leaders of the AGW scare -- Al Gore, Pachauri, Leonardo di Caprio, Lord Stern -- is a scientist. Pachauri and Lord Stern of UK are both economists. Di Caprio is an actor.

Can the IPCC be defunded? In the short run, I don't think so. Even if the US government will defund it, many governments will be more than happy to continue funding it because it is the IPCC scare tactics and pronouncements that keep fooling th public. When the people are scared of the catastrophic scenarios painted by the IPCC and other climate alarmists, then it is easy to convince them to keep paying more taxes and fees, so that the politicians can continue "saving the planet."

Warming Hysteria: Challenge Them to a Debate...

Recently, I've been challenging to a public debate the leaders of Oxfam Philippines, IBON, WWF, Greenpeace, etc. re warming hysteria.

I know their usual arguments, the IPCC mantra being paraded, as follows:

a) there is unequivocal warming,
b) this warming is unprecedented in history, and
c) CO2 and other GHGs are the main cause of warming.

For me this is a big SCAM.

And I will argue the following:

1. NO warming in global temperature (northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, tropics) that occured since 1998.

2. There were periods in the past which are a lot WARMER than today's levels. In particular, the Medieval Warm Period (MWP).

3. CO2 is NOT the main driver of the earth's climate cycle (or natural climate change) of warming-cooling. It's the SUN and other natural factors (PDO, cosmic rays, volcanoes).

A few days have passed, there reply is...

Nothing, nada, zero, wala.

Well, IBON said that they will invite me in some of their activities, I said ok, but I wish it will be a debate format -- charts vs charts, tables vs tables, graphs vs graphs. No additional comment from them yet.

I was also sending some of my presentations showing that we are experiencing a global cooling, not warming, to 2 PAGASA officials, including the affable Nathanial "Tani" Cruz. So far, got no comment or countercomment from them.

One of my friends, Ozone Azanza, asked his friends at the DOST if they will comment on my papers that Ozone sent him, probably engage me in a debate, he said no comment from them either.

Well, I would assume that all leaders of the Filipino warmers are in Copenhagen now. So I should receive a reply from them later.

Meanwhile, I will have a debate with Dr. Joey Comiso, perhaps the only Filipino scientist, at NASA. This will be on late Feb or early March 2010. Organizers will be the Filipino Foresters assn. they plan the venue to be either at the DENR or UPLB. I will just wait for details later.
---------

My three related short papers recently:

(1) Hottest Decade?

(Global temperature from satellite data of the troposphere, 8 kms. above sea level; data interpreted by the Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville [UAH], 2002 to Oct. 2009. CO2 data is from Mauna Loa, Hawaii).

Yesterday, well almost everyday before and during the Copenhagen meeting on climate, we hear and read news reports from the UN, from various governments, and from big environmentalist groups, saying we're doomed unless we follow their ecological central planning agenda.

One such report yesterday, is a news report from the UN saying that "this decade likely to be the hottest on record",
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/178855/un-2000-2009-likely-warmest-decade-on-record

I was interviewed yesterday by Ms. Steph Ongkiko of RPN Channel 9 to ask me about my reaction to such report. I said "the UN IPCC is lying. This decade, the planet is cooling, not warming."

This argument and the chart to prove it is contained in my recent paper, "Warming time out amidst climate hysteria" that I presented at the Las Pinas Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LPCCI) last November 24, 2009,
http://www.minimalgovernment.net/media/mg_20091124.pdf

I showed there the following:

1. Earth this decade is experiencing cooling, not warming.
2. Arctic ice is melting, and growing, and melting, and growing.
3. Sea level height is not rising, it is even declining by 0.51 mm/year.
4. Number of hurricanes around the world is not rising, it is declining.
and so on.

Arctic ice extent as of Dec. 8, 2009, red line. The level of ice there this year, this month, is no different from recent years' levels. Data from the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Meanwhile, the hypocrisy of the "saviours of the planet" who want the world to cut on carbon emission, brought to Copenhagen 1,200+ carbon-guzzling limousines, 140 extra private jets, not to mention SUVs, sedans, lots of commercial planes. See here,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/07/december-7th-2009-a-day-that-will-live-in-hypocrisy/

(2) Al Gore Stupidity

At one TV interview last month, he said that the temperature of the Earth at 2 kilometers below the surface was "millions of degrees" (correct answer: between 500 to 900 C)

The other day, when he was interviewed, he said that the climategate emails, "the most recent one is more than 10 years old". Boo-boo. The most recent emails there were several days old when they were hacked/passed on. See here,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/al-gore-cant-tell-time-thinks-most-recent-climategate-email-is-more-than-10-years-old/#more-13904

It's really dangerous to put politicians as "spokesmen" of major natural science issues. They talk junk science and propose junk solutions and the world is implementing them!

(3) Early Snow and Copenhagen

December 07, 2010

Last week, supposedly dry Houston received snow, people there were surprised. My Filipino friends there were happy of course that their kids got their pictures in the snow, for they just migrated from Singapore a few months ago.

This morning, another Filipino friend in NJ posted pictures of his wife and son playing in the snow, saying early winter is here. And tonight, another Filipino friend in Rocklin, north California, was surpirsed to find snow in their backyard!

Meanwhile in Copenhagen, some 15,000 climate bureaucrats, 5,000 media people and environmentalists, went to Copenhagen to fight global warming and climate change. More than 1,200 limousines were not enough, 140 extra private jets, not to mention commercial planes, sedans and SUVs, are crowding the city. Yes, those officials, showbiz celebrities, environmentalists, and so on want to save the world! Here's the link for the above figures,
ttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6736517/Copenhagen-climate-summit-1200-limos-140-private-planes-and-caviar-wedges.html