November 26, 2008

Obama on the 'urgency' of combating

'global warming'

by

Christopher Monckton

www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org

[202] 288-5699

SPPI Reprint Series

Obama on the 'urgency' of combating

'global warming'

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/obama_on_the_urgency_of_combat.html

By The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

Obama's World View on Energy and Climate

In a video shown at a costly, two-day "global warming" jamboree at the Beverly HillsHotel, hosted by Governor Schwarzenegger of California in November 2008, BarackObama said:

"Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climatechange. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising.Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms thatare growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Climate change and ourdependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy andthreaten our national security."

Obama said he would introduce "a federal cap and trade system to reduce America'semissions of carbon dioxide to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional80 percent by 2050." He said his administration would "invest" $15 billion a year in solarpower, wind power, biofuels, nuclear power and clean coal to "save the planet" bycreating 5 million new "green jobs".

A Science-based Response

Few challenges facing America and the world are less urgent than combating the non-problem of "global warming". On all measures, there has been no increase in global meansurface temperatures since 1995; and, according to the University of Alabama atHuntsville, near-surface temperatures in 2008 will be lower than in 1980, 28 years ago,the first complete year of satellite observations. On all measures, global temperatureshave been falling for seven full years since late 2001. The January-to-January fall intemperatures between 2007 and 2008 was the greatest since global temperature recordswere first compiled in 1880, 128 years ago. The rate of new Arctic sea-ice formation inmid-October 2008 was among the fastest since satellite records began almost 30 yearsago. There has been no decline whatsoever in the total global extent of sea ice sincesatellite records began. New records for the extent of northern-hemisphere snow coverwere observed by the satellites in the winter of 2001 and again in 2007. This year, manyski resorts are opening early as Arctic weather strikes. Many temperature stations in thenorthern hemisphere recorded record low temperatures in October/November 2008.

These facts are inconsistent with the notion that "global warming" is occurring, still lessthat it is dangerous. The Sun continues to show very few sunspots. Many solar physicistsnow predict at least half a century of global cooling, which would be a far greater andmore destructive problem than a little warming.

Obama is not correct to say, "The science is not in dispute." Across all disciplines, some31,000 scientists approached by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine in 2007/8signed a declaration to the effect that "global warming" is not a global crisis and thathumankind has very little influence over the climate. A survey of climatologists andscientists in related fields by Van Storch (2005/6) established that a considerableproportion of respondents did not believe the alarmist notions disseminated by Al Gore orthe UN climate-change panel. The office of Senator James Inhofe maintains a list of morethan 500 scientists in climate and related fields who have made public statementsquestioning at least one aspect of what has falsely been presented as a scientific"consensus".

In any event, as the late Michael Crichton used to say, "If it's consensus, it isn't science: ifit's science, it isn't consensus." Science is not done by consensus: and, even if it were, theevidence is that a very considerable body of scientists both within and beyondclimatology have grave doubts about the notion of a significant and damaging humaninfluence on the climate.

Though Obama is correct when he says that sea levels are rising, his implication thatanthropogenic "global warming" is chiefly responsible is scientifically baseless. Sea levelhas been rising for 10,000 years in response to the natural global warming that followedthe end of the last Ice Age. It has risen 400 feet in that time, at a mean rate of 4 feet percentury. However, in the 20th century sea level rose worldwide by less than 8 inches, andMoerner (2004), the world's foremost expert on sea level, who has been studying it for 30years, says that there is little reason to suppose that sea level will rise significantly fasterin the 21st century than it did in the 20th, because most of the land-based ice that oncecovered North America and northern Eurasia melted long ago, and most of the remainingland-based ice is at high altitudes and also at high latitudes close to the North and SouthPoles, where there is no danger that it will melt any time soon. The sea ice in the Arcticand Antarctic, even if it had been diminishing (which it has not), would not add even athousandth of an inch to sea level, because it is already floating.

Obama is not correct to say that "coastlines are shrinking", except to a very limited extentthat has little or nothing to do with "global warming". For instance, the east coast of theUnited Kingdom is being eroded by the sea, but this is attributable not so much to sea-level rise as to the continuing isostatic recovery of the west coast now that the weight ofIce-Age glaciers has gone, causing the British mainland to tilt so that the east coast isbeing driven downward. This phenomenon has nothing to do with anthropogenic "globalwarming". There has also been much talk of the allegedly disappearing coast ofBangladesh: however, the land area of Bangladesh has actually increased in the past 30years through a combination of silt deposits brought down the Ganges to its delta andlocal tectonic movement.

Obama is wrong to say, "We've seen record drought". In the United States, the droughtsof the first half of the 20th century were considerably more severe than anything that hasbeen seen since. John Steinbeck set his novel The Grapes of Wrath in the severe droughtof the Great Plains in the 1930s. Patterns of flood and drought have fluctuated throughoutthe ages, and there has been no discernible or significant alteration in these patterns inrecent decades. Indeed, the UN's climate panel specifically gives warnings againstattributing individual droughts or floods to anthropogenic "global warming".

Obama is also incorrect to imply that "spreading famines" have been caused byanthropogenic "global warming". There have indeed been catastrophic famines in most ofthe world's poorest nations in the past two years: however, these famines, and theconsequent food riots in a dozen regions, were caused not by any changes to the climatebut by the sudden doubling of world food prices. A report by the World Bank attributesthree-quarters of that doubling to the fact that vast tracts of agricultural land havesuddenly been taken out of food production to grow biofuels, in an unnecessary andineffective response to the imagined "global warming" scare. In the United States, in justtwo years, one-third of all agricultural land has been taken out of food production. InHaiti, starvation is now so acute that people are eating pies made of dirt baked in the sunwith a tiny pinch of salt and a knob of butter. The "global warming" scare is thus killingmillions by starvation, without the slightest effect on the climate. However, it is not yetclear that Obama cares about the starvation that his belief in the "global warming"bugaboo has directly caused.

Obama is incorrect to say that storms are getting worse with each passing hurricaneseason. There has been no increase in the number or intensity of landfalling Atlantichurricanes for well over a century. No trend at all. And the number of severe typhoons ortropical cyclones has actually fallen over the past 30 years. The suggestion that hurricaneintensity might increase as a result of "global warming" was made by Kerry Emanuel(2005); however, he has since changed his mind to some extent, and the official positionof the UN's climate panel is that no link between "global warming" and either thefrequency or the intensity of hurricanes has been proven. We know that "global warming"cannot possibly have caused an increase in either the frequency or the intensity ofhurricanes, typhoons, or tropical storms over the past 13 years because, on all measures,there has been no "global warming" during that entire period.

For these and other reasons, Obama is erroneous when he suggests that "global warming"will weaken the US economy and threaten national security. The measures proposed byObama -- cutting 80-90% of US carbon emissions and accordingly closing down 80-90%of the nation's industries -- would fatally weaken the US economy and reduce it to third-world status. It is disingenuous to suggest, as Obama does, that millions of new "greenjobs" will appear out of nowhere to replace the scores of millions of jobs that the fullimplementation of his proposed measures would destroy.

"Global warming" does not, cannot, and will not represent the slightest threat to thenational security of the United States. On this too, Obama is not correct. Not only has the

planet not warmed for 13 years (or perhaps even for 28 years): even if it were to warm asmuch as the UN imagines, the consequences would not be as severe as Obama and othershave suggested. For instance, the UN projects that global temperatures will rise by 3.3Celsius at doubling of CO2 concentration: however, much of that increase inconcentration and in temperatures has already occurred over the past century, and sealevels rose by just 8 inches. The UN expects sea level in the 21st century to rise by just 1ft5in. It is also generally accepted that even a global temperature increase of 2 Celsiuswould not harm agriculture: indeed, it would be likely to increase agricultural andforestry yields. A temperature increase of more than 2 Celsius as a result of increasingCO2 concentration is highly unlikely, and is founded upon mere speculation by the UN'sclimate panel. Even if such a temperature increase were to occur, it would be largelyharmless and beneficial.

Obama is right to wish to reduce his nation's dependence upon foreign oil from unstableand largely hostile regimes such as Venezuela or the Arab world. But that is a problemquite independent from the non-problem of "global warming". Richard Nixon alsowanted to reduce American's dependence upon foreign oil, and announced a program toreduce it by a tenth. Since then, America's dependence upon foreign oil has increased bya third. Obama is about to learn that mere aspiration is not enough.

It is welcome that Obama has accepted the contributions that nuclear energy and cleancoal can make. However, he is wrong to place any faith in significant energy suppliesfrom solar or wind energy. These technologies only survive anywhere in the worldbecause they are currently fashionable enough to attract massive subsidies. One of thebiggest problems Obama will face in the coming years is maintaining a secure energysupply. For that he will need to continue to rely on coal and other fossil fuels, whether helikes it or not. Fortunately, fossil fuels are not a threat to the planet's climate, and it is nolonger credible to pretend that they are.