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: Kyoto Protocol and Climategate

A good friend of mine asked me what's wrong with the Kyoto Protocol (KP) and the forthcoming Copenhagen meeting (to start next week) projected to produce a sort of KP Part II in binding environmental commitments. He does not see such international environmental regulations restrict economic freedom and individual liberty.

For me, the main problem with KP and soon, the planned Copenhagen agreement, is the extent of new environmental regulations, energy rationing, carbon taxation, carbon cap and trade, carbon tariff and eco-protectionism. In short, an expanded ecological central planning.

The science behind anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is highly questionable, if not discredited. The current "climategate" scandal is one proof that the AGW claim is not even a theory because of the presence of so many contrary data and facts that do not conform with the predictive capacity of the "theory". Thus, imposing those carbon emission restrictions and regulations based on suspicious, heavily debated, if not wrong science, is wrong.

About clean development mechanisms (CDMs), certified emission reduction (CERs) and related schemes for carbon mitigation, these are among the offshoot of carbon rent-seeking. Consider the following examples.

Philippine Airlines (PAL), Cebu Pacific airline, Superferry shipping line, Victory bus line, San Miguel Corp., for instance, will be assigned a carbon cap by the DENR or a new climate bureaucracy by the Philippine government, say at X tons per year starting 2010. Then such climate or carbon control agency will declare,

"You PAL (or Cebu Pacific or Superferry, etc.), your carbon emission cap by 2015 will be reduced to (X - 10%); by 2020, it will further be reduced to (X-20%); by 2030, it will be further reduced to (X - 30%), and so on." 

So as the number of airplanes of an airline company, or the number of boats of a shipping company, the number of buses of a bus company, etc. are increasing because the population and passengers are rising and people are driving less too, the emission from these corporations will be rising. 

So you have a situation of rising emission from these companies but the cap given by government is reducing. What will these airline, shipping line, bus line and other companies do? One is invest in emission-reduction technologies to be put in the engines of their airplanes, boats, vehicles, and other machineries. If this is not technologically possible, or very expensive to do, another option is to buy carbon credits from some companies, whether in the Philippines or abroad, that sell extra carbon offsets (say from a solar power plant or wind power farm). 

As carbon caps across the world are declining, the number of companies seeking to buy carbon credits expanding, the price of carbon credits naturally will rise. The price of carbon per ton will rise. So those airlines, shipping lines, hotel and restaurant chains, bus lines, vehicle manufacturers, etc. will be passing on the extra cost of higher carbon credits to their consumers, to their passengers, to the public.

CDM sounds "clean" in theory if the AGW science is absolutely correct. But in reality, such mechanisms contribute to higher prices, both of energy and consumer items. Lots of reports that such cap and trade system as CDM has resulted in job losses and company closure, in Europe. The value of carbon trading was $128 billion in 2008 alone, and those do not include companies in the US as the US government is not a signatory to the KP.

At home, some political families were said to have made big money with the mandatory Ethanol 10% (E10) and biodisel 5% (B5) provisions. They capitalized on the carbon restrictions, that all petroleum companies in the country, big and small, will be forced to buy from them. Of course there is a related issue of agricultural lands previously planted to food crops have now been converted to fuel crops, contributing to the recent and continuing food price inflation.

A poor household will soon face higher electricity bill as "non-clean" but cheap energy sources like coal will be slapped with high carbon taxes. A poor and middle class family will soon face higher bus fares, higher airfares and boat fares, because of those carbon caps and trade and related CDMs.

So those supposedly "market-based" instruments to drastically cut carbon emission in the atmosphere like CDM and CER, are actually very distortionary of the market economy. Banks, carbon traders and other private and government bodies that live off implementing and monitoring those schemes become the new carbon rent-seekers. They produce not a single kilo of food, transport not a single passenger, or produce not a single kwh of electricity, but they make big money, hundreds of billions of dollars of carbon traded money every year.


My friend suggested that Kyoto Protocol (KP) is an application of the polluter-pay principle. He also suggested that most developing countries, or Annex II countries, are not obliged by KP to make drastic carbon emission cuts.

I think he is right that for now, developing countries like the Philippines are not obliged to make deep emission cuts. But it's just a matter of time. When KP was sealed in 2005 I think, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, S. Africa, Mexico, etc. were just innocent countries. Now in the Copenhagen meeting, there are direct cap being expected, if not imposed, on them, especially China. In addition, some rich countries are threatening that developing but very big economies like China and INdia, should make their own deep emission cut, otherwise they will impose high carbon tariffs ("eco-protectionism") on their exports. And this makes implementation of the emission cut less transparent. Any rich country can slap different carbon tariffs for different countries, like +10% on top of existing tariff duties for Mexican exports, +15% for Chinese exports, etc.

So for the Philippines having 92 million people, the 12th biggest population in the world, it should be a matter of time and we will be given carbon cap by some international climate bureaucrats.

But even if there will be no carbon emission cap to be imposed on the Philippines and other poorer countries say, in the next 30 years, such economies will also suffer from low and anemic growth that will happen in rich countries. Why? Because the rich countries are the main buyers of our exports, the main employers of our outbound workers (the OFWs), among the main sources of in-bound foreign tourists and foreign investors.

Losing jobs as a result of restricting environmental and energy regulations in rich countries. Last month I read about the biggest aluminum plant in the US closing, going bankrupt. Why -- energy prices in the US becoming more and more expensive. Some states are more strict than the federal government in practically killing coal power plants (which supplies about 60 percent of all US energy needs).

I mentioned that coal is cheap energy source because I read that the per kwh cost of generating electricity from solar and wind power is 10x that from coal. At least in the US energy situation.

I also doubt that the Philippines will be able to sell substantial carbon credits to companies from rich countries because growing domestic demand for more power are often not enough. Whatever new power plants to be put up, from renewables like hydro and geothermal, will be snapped up by domestic industries and households, no credit to be left to foreign companies from abroad wanting to buy carbon credits.

Finally, we should visit and review some scientific literature on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) science, that it is highly debatable if not discredited, because all those carbon regulations are based from that "theory".
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On Climategate

Here's one online search even for fun:

Google "global warming", you get 9.8 million entries (as of this writing)
Then google "climategate", you get 13.4 million entries!
The former is 3 decades old, the latter is only 2 weeks old.

The latter is about the hacked emails, thousands of emails and documents at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the Univ. of East Anglia in Britain, where a number of warming scientists were emailing each other how they cheated on climate data to "hide the decline" in global temperature, how to hide or destroy climate data to escape UK's Freedom of Information law, how to kill and not publish scientific papers that question man-made warming in some scientific journals, and so on. 

These warming scientists and politicians that give them millions of dollars of climate research funds have one major goal: to scare the world of "impending environmental catastrophies" so that the world will accept their planned ecological central planning agenda.

The big problem of the UN, Al Gore and other warmers now, is that millions of people around the world have already known and read the climate data manipulation and bastardization of climate science. And these people are angry.
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A number of NGOs and institutes in the Philippines are pushing now the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill. It was passed in the House of Representatives, awaiting action at the Senate. MG Thinkers is among the 70+ institutes and NGOs that signed the FOI statement.

The UK has a Freedom of Information (FOI) law. In the "climategate" or climate scandal still on-going, a number of the hacked emails showed that the head of the Climate Research Unit (CRU), Dr. Phil Jones, was emailing other warming scientists, "don't let them know that UK has a FOI law" as a number of skeptical scientists were demanding certain climate data. In succeeding emails, Phil Jones later exhorted other scientists to "destroy" climate data before the skeptics would find and see them under the FOI law.

I myself have difficulty getting RP temperature data from PAGASA. I was emailing one official of the meteorology department, cc'd Nathaniel Cruz -- yes, the known and affable Tani Cruz -- and they won't reply to my email. They know my stand that I question man-made warming. Is this the reason?

So, go ahead with FOI bill in the Philippines. Time is very short for the Senate to act as the election campaign period is fast approaching. 

Liars and robbers in government hide from transparency and accountability because they are not obliged by the law to open up certain information to the public.

Warming Hysteria: From GW to CC, Green Protectionism

Yesterday, I gave a talk at the Las Pinas Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a local branch of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The President of Las Pinas CCI, Mohammad Yasin Badr, is my friend, my "classmate" in Rotary Intl. Dist 3830. The title of my paper was "Warming time out amidst climate hysteria" (22 slides, 1.5MB). It should be posted in our website within the week, www.minimalgovernment.net.

Another friend and "classmate" in rotary, Rodolfo "Inky" Reyes, who is a top official of the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), is in Nairobi, Kenya, for an International Red Cross assembly and meeting. Inky said that if I were in their event, I would love the discussions on climate change (CC).

Well, if I were in Nairobi, I'm sure I would figure in endless debates with many participants there who believe in anthropogenic [man-made] global warming or AGW. The warmers have almost monopolized the discussion for at least 2 decades that it is considered a sacrilegious act to even question AGW, much more to present charts and data that contradict that claim. That is why they declared a few years ago, "There is no more debate, shut up." And it is that dictatorial mindset that somehow crippled public debate, until the global temp data -- tropospheric and surface station data, ocean heat and ocean level data, Arctic temp. and Arctic ice extent data, etc. -- showed that there was NO warming that is happening for the past 10 years. The data have a negative answer to the Rotary test, "Is it the truth?"

The shift from GW to CC was a face-saving act by the warmers. They saw the temperature data, the warming years that should happen now as predicted by their computer models did not happen. So CC is used more often while retaining the warming scare. That is, melting polar ice and Greenland ice (due to GW), that will result in rising ocean by up to 7 meters (about 2 storeys high) just 90 years from now, according to Al Gore, more hurricanes, more typhoons-more drought, etc.

The important point is: there is NO scientific consensus yet of AGW and CC. Big debates still happening.

So if there is no consensus, there should be NO global coercion in energy and environment policies. But here we are, debating how much carbon emission cut by whom and by when. Kill or over-tax cheap energy sources like coal, subsidize from tax money clean but expensive and low-power output wind farms and solar farms, create climate bureaucracies from the national to provincial levels (look at political has-been Heherson Alvarez, now a "climate czar" secretary). And a number of politicians made big money putting up ethanol and bio-diesel plants because all oil companies, big and small, are forced to buy from them because of the mandatory E10 gas and B5 diesel products.

Further money from CC alarmism -- carbon taxes (in the US, about $300 billion/year in Obama cap and trade bill alone, on top of existing federal environmental taxes, on top of existing state and county env'l taxes), carbon trading (in 2008, $128 billion from corporations in the EU, Japan, etc., excl. the US as the US is not a signatory to Kyoto), carbon tariff and eco-protectionism.

So it's the distortions in energy, environment, fiscal and trade policies in almost all countries in the world that are being targeted by the warmers. Ecological central planning is a pernicious game plan. Some of those central planners wish that we stop riding our cars soon and ride bicycles "to save the planet" while they're jet-setting almost every month in endless global climate meetings, not to mention national and provincial climate meetings.
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My related short papers recently:

(1) Warmers' Intellectual Dishonesty Uncovered

November 22, 2009

As incriminating emails and documents from the hacked website of, or stolen data from, the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in UK are spreading like wildfire in the web, the extent of intellectual dishonesty, if not intellectual prostitution, of a number of known warming scientists, are discovered. It's chilling to hear or read how those scientists deliberately alter or hide info that can show decline in global temperatures.

The most exposed scientists are Phil Jones, the head of CRU, and Michael Mann, main author of the "hockey stick" shape of global warming chart.

I wonder what alibi, if any, they can produce since the number of emails and documents that all seem to be original, are just too many? But if they admit that they indeed lied, that they indeed prostituted science for their political designs and desire for millions of dollars of research contracts, then that should be the end of their scientific career. They better go to the most isolated islands or the most uninhabitable place on Earth, with no internet or electricity, to escape global ridicule.

(2) No to Green Protectionism

November 17, 2009

Consumers need more choices and options, not more restrictions and prohibitions. Trade protectionism via carbon taxes and similar schemes limit choices and create more poverty, which push more poor people to use more environmentally-degrading technologies.

Please sign the petition against eco-protectionism,
http://www.policynetwork.net/trade/news/petition-against-green-protectionism

The opening paragraph of the petition says it clearly:

You have no doubt heard about the UN’s climate conference in Copenhagen next month. Chief among the bad ideas being touted by environmental activists and politicians in the run-up to that meeting is a proposal to permit trade restrictions on the grounds that they will help to prevent climate change (for example by encouraging governments to sign up and comply with an international agreement to restrict emissions). Pascal Lamy, director of the World Trade Organization, has even sanctioned this approach, saying that the world’s priorities should be “climate first and trade, second.” And – surprise surprise – uncompetitive industries and other vested interests have jumped on the bandwagon.