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Is world uniting in Copenhagen?

Capt. Karl — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:47:17 +0000

International climate treaty feared for impact on liberties

Posted: November 16, 2009
8:56 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A video explaining the dangers of a U.N. treaty proposal promoted by President Obama that critics say would lead to a world government has received more than 3.5 million views since WND broke the story on the ominous possibilities, and now there is word from the Obama administration the plan might not be going so smoothly.

In the video, Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, asserts the real purpose of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18 is to use concern over “global warming” as a pretext to lay the foundation for a one-world government.

At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen “this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed,” Lord Christopher Monckton told a Minnesota Free Market Institute audience at Bethel University in St. Paul.

According to the Minnesota Free Market Institute, the video, as originally posted, has collected 2.2 million views and almost 700 pages of comments, but there also are more than 100 other cloned versions of Monckton’s comments on YouTube and the aggregate views exceed 3.5 million.

The video helped launch a national petition drive opposing the Copenhagen treaty at NoCapAndTrade.com, with its more than 135,000 messages to Congress opposing the plan. It’s been discussed by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham and Michelle Malkin, among others.

Now there are indications the light of information being spread about the potential problems is casting shadows on the proposal.

“The more people learn about the supposed issue of ‘climate change’ and how green extremists intend to control our lives, the more skeptical they become,” said Jeff Davis, president of the Minnesota Majority.

Get “The Sky’s Not Falling! Why it’s OK to chill on global warming”

Further, Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, said in a Bloomberg report today the latest word on Copenhagen is an “assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full, internationally legally binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts.”

Davis said the impact of Monckton’s warning is becoming apparent in other ways. He cited a decision just days ago by key U.S. Senate Democrats who confirmed it is unlikely there will be any additional action on climate-change legislation this year. Obama had hoped to pass a cap-and-trade energy taxation plan before the Copenhagen conference.

Bloomberg’s report confirmed leaders from Asia have admitted a binding global-warming accord isn’t likely next month.

Obama attended a meeting

of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore in which leaders proposed a two-stage approach to follow up the failed Kyoto Protocol, which sought to manage emissions worldwide but never earned the support of several of the world’s leading energy-consuming nations.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen told Bloomberg there may be no “legally binding instrument,” although a political agreement is possible.

The 1997 Kyoto plan is scheduled to expire in three more years, but years of talks already held have failed to produce agreement on energy restrictions.

Instead, Rasmussen has suggested an agreement to cut greenhouse gases, with an outline for a political agreement that would be the subject of further negotiations.

At the Examiner, a blogger concluded, “The credibility of global warming theories (and sanctimonious theorists) and any international climate controls are fading with each passing day.”

Monckton warned in the video that Obama supports the idea and is ready to sign on the dotted line.

“Your president will sign it. Most of the Third World countries will sign it, because they think they’re going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regimes from the European Union will rubber-stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it,” Monckton told the audience of some 700 attendees.

“I read that treaty and what it says is this: that a world government is going to be created. The word ‘government’ actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.”

He has warned the proposal would cede U.S. sovereignty, mandate a massive wealth transfer from the United States to pay reparations for “climate debt” to Third World countries and create a new “world government” to enforce the treaty’s provisions.

Davis also warned that while the apparent uncertainty over the treaty has bought some time, it’s not enough.

“Green extremists will be back in force trying to advance both domestic cap-and-trade legislation and an international climate treaty that will rob us of our liberties and grant government more control over our lives,” he said.

Monckton’s lecture can be viewed online and his slides also can be accessed on the Internet.

Son of Waxman-Markey: More Politics Makes for a More Costly Bill

Capt. Karl — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:14:45 +0000

by William W. Beach, David Kreutzer, Ph.D., Karen Campbell, Ph.D. and Ben Lieberman

WebMemo #2450

Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) modified their global warming proposal from the draft version published on March 31. For the most part, the changes focused on the distribution of the allowance revenue–the equivalent of tax revenue.

There was also a slight easing of targeted emissions reductions for 2020, which resulted in a marginally lower economic impact. However, the new distribution of allowances created a less efficient pattern of government expenditures and more than offset the gain from the lower cap for 2020.

The economic impact of the new draft varies from that of the original draft in several major ways:

Compared to no cap and trade, real GDP losses increase an additional $2 trillion, from $7.4 trillion under the original draft to $9.6 trillion under the new draft;
Compared to no cap and trade, average unemployment increases an additional 261,000 jobs, from 844,000 lost jobs under the original draft to 1,105,000 lost jobs under the new draft; and
Peak-year unemployment losses rise by 500,000 jobs, from 2 million under the original draft to 2.5 million under the new draft.

Though the proposed legislation would have little impact on world temperatures, it is a massive energy tax in disguise that promises job losses, income cuts, and a sharp left turn toward big government.

Ultimately, this bill would result in government-set caps on energy use that damage the economy and hobble growth–the very growth that supports investment and innovation. Analysis of the economic impact of Waxman-Markey projects that by 2035 the bill would:

Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $9.6 trillion;
Destroy 1,105,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 2,479,000 jobs;
Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation;
Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent;
Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent;
Raise an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500; and
Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 26 percent, or $29,150 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

Waxman-Markey Basics

The bill discloses a basic two-pronged approach to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The first prong is a set of mandates forcing efficiencies independent of any cost-benefit calculations on the part of industry or consumers. These mandates include a requirement for low-carbon motor fuels and a tenfold increase in the production of electricity from renewable sources.

The second prong is cap and trade. With cap and trade, absolute limits on total emissions of greenhouse gases are established. Before those in a covered sector can emit a greenhouse gas, they need to have the ration coupons (also known as pollution permits or allowances) for each ton emitted. Because the ration coupons will have a value, and therefore a cost, cap and trade becomes a tax on fossil fuels and the energy they generate.

The intent of cap and trade is to impose a cost on CO2 and allow businesses and consumers to adapt as well as they can to this new cost. The mandates of the first parts of Waxman-Markey are counterproductive because they force choices on the economy that might not be the most efficient and inexpensive ways to cut CO2. That said, this paper’s analysis looks at only the cost of a simple cap-and-trade approach. Consequently, the economic impact estimates reported here will likely be lower than the economic cost of cap and trade hobbled further by mandates.

Baseline Assumptions

To establish a benchmark against which to measure the impact of Waxman-Markey, this paper assumes an economic recovery from the current recession and the subsequent smooth type of economic growth that all major economic forecasts must make. A more rapid economic recovery would make the costs of meeting the CO2 restrictions even greater.

What Is in the Baseline? The baseline energy projections come from IHS Global Insight’s latest U.S. Energy Outlook.[1] The highly respected and widely used Global Insight U.S. Macroeconomic model was used to prepare the estimates employed in this paper as well as data from Global Insight’s November 2008 long-term model, which makes economic forecasts through 2038. Use of the November 2008 macroeconomic model aligned this paper’s economic forecasting with Global Insight’s October 2008 energy baseline.[2] The baseline assumptions include:

A near doubling of light-vehicle fuel efficiency by 2030;
Non-hydro renewable electricity reaching 17 percent by 2030–a more than fivefold increase; and
36 billion gallons per year of ethanol production, with 20 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol.

Though these goals and mandates will be costly to meet (if even they can be met), the costs will occur with or without Waxman-Markey. Therefore, these costs are not counted in this paper’s economic impacts of the Waxman-Markey bill.

Addressing Offsets. Waxman-Markey provides emitters with an option to substitute some allowances with certified CO2 reductions by other emitters that are not covered by emissions caps. These offsets can be purchased from domestic or international sources. On the surface, Waxman-Markey’s treatment of offsets is generous to the point of eliminating constraints on fossil-fuel CO2 for decades. However, closer examination reveals multiple catches, costs, and impossibilities.

For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that domestic offsets simply do not exist anywhere near the magnitude nominally allowed by Waxman-Markey.[3] Driven, perhaps, by the concern that existing offset programs suffer from fraud, Waxman-Markey includes significant hurdles for those wishing to use offsets.[4] The EPA administrator “may at any time, by rule, remove a project type from the list.” Further, the administrator shall establish “policies to assign liability and responsibility for mitigating and fully compensating for reversals.” That is, using an offset may leave a firm with an open-ended liability. Finally, offsets require 1.25 tons of CO2 reduction for each ton of offset credit.

This analysis assumes that allowances will increase the effective CO2 caps by 15 percent. Recent prices of offsets for the Kyoto program have been between 10 and 15 euros per ton. Given the exchange rate, discount (the 1.25 ton reduction per ton of credit), and likely increase in demand, the initial price of $20 per ton is conservative. After the first five years, this price increases by the expected rate of inflation.

Carbon Capture and Storage. One hope for those who want to see continued access to U.S. coal reserves is carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. CCS attempts to remove CO2 from the effluent before emission. This captured CO2 would be compressed into liquid form and injected into deep saline aquifers and deep ocean waters or used for enhanced oil recovery.

Serious obstacles to large-scale commercial deployment of CCS have yet to be overcome. CCS requires roughly one-third more energy to generate electricity than processes without CCS. Viable commercial CCS does not yet exist, though the bill does provide funding for three commercial-scale pilot projects. Along with the technological challenges, a massive pipeline system must be created virtually from scratch. But it is the political and environmental obstacles that may prove most daunting. CCS must be proven to be effective in preventing moderate leaks over long periods of time. In addition, community concern with the possibility of catastrophic local release of large quantities of CO2 could provide the ubiquitous not-in-my-backyard opposition that bedevils many waste disposal problems.

This paper’s analysis of Waxman-Markey assumes that CCS will not be available in significant quantities for the years analyzed.

Renewable Energy Goals. The renewable energy targets already established by current laws will be challenging to meet. This paper assumes no additional renewable energy beyond these significant baseline increases of 36 billion gallons of renewable motor fuels and the existing state-level renewable electricity requirements. The current baseline projects 18.3 gigawatts of increased nuclear power capacity. The history of nuclear construction in the 1960s through the 1980s shows that a much more aggressive nuclear build-out is technologically possible, but political and other factors make the likelihood of a “nuclear renaissance” highly uncertain. Therefore, this study assumes no additional nuclear capacity beyond the baseline increase.

Results of The Heritage Foundation’s Analysis

It is no surprise that the economy responds to cap and trade as it would to an energy crisis. The price on carbon emissions forces energy cuts across the economy, since non-carbon energy sources cannot replace fossil fuels quickly enough. Energy prices rise; income and employment drop.

The current recession diminishes near-term projections for aggregate economic activity. As this activity drops, so does energy use. Though a recession is bad news, it has the effect of moving the economy closer to the energy cuts needed to meet the emissions targets. Nevertheless, the income (GDP) losses are nearly $200 billion out of the gate and average over $380 billion per year. As the economy recovers and the caps tighten, the detrimental effect of cap and trade gets more and more severe. In the worst years, GDP losses exceed $700 billion per year.

Waxman-Markey will cause higher energy costs to spread throughout the economy as producers everywhere try to cover their higher production costs by raising their product prices. Consumers will be most directly affected by rising energy bills. Even after adjusting for inflation, gasoline prices will rise 74 percent over the 2035 baseline price. Compared to the baseline, residential natural gas consumers will see their inflation-adjusted price rise by 55 percent. Because of its reliance on coal, the cost of electricity will rise by 90 percent–again after adjusting for inflation and in addition to what the price would have been anyway in 2035.

As President Obama pointed out, cap and trade can work only when energy prices “skyrocket.” To force consumer-energy cutbacks, the prices need to rise to painful levels. This paper’s analysis shows the results of this strategy. By 2035:

The typical family of four will see its direct energy costs rise by over $1,500 per year.
Pain at the electric meter will cause consumers to reduce electricity consumption by 36 percent. Even with this cutback, the electric bill for a family of four will be $754 more that year and $12,200 more in total from 2012 to 2035.
The higher gasoline prices will have forced households to cut consumption by 15 percent, but a family of four will still pay $596 more that year and $7,500 more between 2012 and 2035.
In total, for the years 2012-2035, a family of four will see its direct energy costs rise by $22,800. These inflation-adjusted numbers do not include the indirect energy costs consumers will pay as producers are forced to raise the price of their products to reflect the higher costs of production. Nor does the $22,800 include the higher expenditure for such things as more energy-efficient cars and appliances or the disutility of driving smaller, less safe vehicles or the discomfort of using less heating and cooling.
As the economy adjusts to shrinking GDP and rising energy prices, employment will take a big hit. On average, employment is lower by 1,105,000 jobs. In some years cap and trade reduces employment by nearly 2.5 million jobs.
The negative economic impacts accumulate, and the national debt is no exception: Waxman-Markey will drive up the national debt 29 percent by 2035. This is 26 percent above what it would be without the legislation and represents an additional $29,150 per person, or $116,600 for a family of four. To reiterate, these burdens come after adjusting for inflation and are in addition to the $450,000 per family of federal debt that will accrue over this period even without cap and trade.

Is It Worth It?

Is all of this economic pain justified by gains against global warming? Waxman-Markey raises energy prices by 55-90 percent. These higher energy prices push unemployment up by 1,105,000 jobs on average, with peaks over 2,479,000. In aggregate, GDP drops by over $9.6 trillion. The next generation will inherit a federal debt pumped up by $29,150 per person. All of these costs accrue in the first 25 years of a 90-year program that, as calculated by climatologists, will lower temperatures by only hundredths of a degree in 2050 and no more than two-tenths of a degree at the end of the century.[5]

The impact of Waxman-Markey on the next generation of families is $1,500 per year in higher energy costs, over $100,000 of additional federal debt (above and beyond the unconscionable increases already scheduled), a weaker economy, and more unemployment. Furthermore, the recently proposed modifications to Waxman-Markey only make these problems worse: By devising a less-efficient pattern of government expenditures, this new draft would more than offset the gains from the proposed slight easing of targeted emissions reductions for 2020.

And all for a change in world temperature that might not be noticeable.

William W. Beach is Director of, David W. Kreutzer, Ph.D., is Senior Policy Analyst for Energy Economics and Climate Change in, and Karen A. Campbell, Ph.D., is Policy Analyst in Macroeconomics in the Center for Data Analysis, and Ben Lieberman is Senior Policy Analyst in Energy and the Environment in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

[1]IHS Global Insight, U.S. Energy Outlook 2008.

[2]Though this paper employs the model and data developed by Global Insight, the analysis is the authors’ and should not be interpreted as representing that of IHS Global Insight.

[3]U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Atmospheric Programs, “EPA Preliminary Analysis of the Waxman-Markey Discussion Draft,” April 20, 2009, pp. 3, 14, at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/economics/pdfs
/WM-Analysis.pdf (May 8, 2009).

[4]For discussions about the concerns with the effectiveness of offsets, see Joseph Romm, “A Good Reason We Shouldn’t Love Trees, at Least Not in This Case,” Grist.org, July 2, 2007, at http://www.grist.org/article/the-first
-rule-of-carbon-offsets-no-trees (May 8, 2009); Patrick McCully, “Kyoto’s Great Carbon Offset Swindle,” RenewableEnergyWorld.com, June 9, 2008, at http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2008/06/kyotos
-great-carbon-offset-swindle-52713 (May 8, 2009); Michael Wara, “Is the Global Carbon Market Working?” Nature, Vol. 445, No. 7128 (February 8, 2007), pp. 595-596, at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128
/abs/445595a.html (May 16, 2009).

[5]For instance, see Chip Knappenberger, “Climate Impacts of Waxman-Markey (the IPCC-based arithmetic of no gain),” MasterResource, May 6, 2009, at http://masterresource.org/?p=2355 (May 12, 2009).

There Is No Atmospheric Green House Effect

Capt. Karl — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:47:31 +0000

The Liberty Tree Lantern comment: Remember folks, ALLOF THE NEW ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES, that are “economical” and a “benefit” to mankind, in both an environmental sense and a financial / practical sense, will come forward for reasons inherent in “Capitalism” and Liberty.

Oppression and despotically forced new energy technologies, like the now realized devastating pitfalls of ethanol and E85 including additional pollution BTW, will cause massive increases in the cost of living (Groceries and all products) and devastation to our economy; for as long as the tyrants in the Federal Government enforce it by the threat of taxes, penalties, fees, and other costs to be forcefully paid through the “AGENTS” of “The Matrix” called (IRS) Agents at the threat of jail or the point of their guns, the ability of the market and nature, of necessity to be free of immorality through enforcement of justice of “natural law” or the Ten Commandments as inscribedon the doors of the Supreme Court where Moses looks down from a mosaic on the wall with the tablets, will not be able to make the corrections necessary or allow further blessings of our creator for mankind to be realized for his will would be neutralized and superseded by the Federal Government. The JUNK science of Global Warming is a Theocracy of economic and liberty oppression that is of a congregational cult that mankind would be wise to avoid. - – Capt. Karl

Published by AJStrata at 9:20 am under All General Discussions

Updated

Reader Crosspatch referred us to this excellent scientific paper (which has been out in one form or another for almost two years now) which debunks the entire man-made global warming myth at its source – the fact that no one has (or can) prove there is a “Greenhouse Effect”. It is a fascinating read and notes how real green houses warm up by heating the trapped air which cannot be cooled by convection (hot air rises, cool air drops in to take up the heat being absorbed by the ‘ground’).

The IPCC green house theory (which is proven to be false) relies on a radiation imbalance between the Sun and the reflecting/emitting Earth. It assumes visible light comes in, is absorbed by the ground, etc, and then heat radiation (infrared) is transmitted out. It assumes (wrongly) that infrared cannot escape the glass or atmosphere and that is how heat builds up (not because the air cannot be refreshed).

The paper is especially illuminating in its discussion on a car getting hot in the sun on the inside, while the ground and air right outside the car doesn’t. If radiation was the real mechanism (as all the priests at the Church of Al Gore/IPCC claim) then there would not be so much warming ‘inside’ relative to the outside.

In fact, the paper notes an experiment where a “salt house” was developed (because salt does pass infrared as easily as visible light) and it was shown both the ’salt and ‘glass’ houses warmed at the same rate, even though there was no trapping of the infrared radiation in the salt house.

In fact, the salt house warmed more and faster – because of one monumental mistake made by the entire man-made global warming community! The priests of IPCC assume the sun generates more visible light than infrared, and it is the infrared radiation from the earth which is heating the atmosphere. They assume the heat from the Earth is trapped because the atmosphere captures the infrared but passes the visible.

But the reality is the Sun produces radiation in the following bands and percentages based on black-body radiation models (used to model suns): Ultraviolet (UV) – 10%, visible light 44.8%, Infrared (IR) 45.2%! The Sun produces more energy in the IR than in the visible. Those same atmospheric molecules absorbing the Earth’s IR is also absorbing the Sun’s IR – and guess which IR source is orders of magnitude larger? Does the Earth glow and shed light to planets across this solar system?

This really is just a stunning point. The Green House effect would have to work both ways. If trapped IR radiation by CO2 (which only accounts for 7% of the so called green house gases) is the driver behind global warming then it should be taking off like a rocket given how much IR is coming from the Sun. The Sun is an IR generator that dwarfs whatever heat is coming from the Earth’s surface. But we all know the CO2 has been rising the last ten years and the temperature has been dropping. What gives?

I find it completely dumbfounding that the IPCC and others never proved their IR radiation imbalance theories. Not once! In fact, the paper lists a string of smart sounding but incoherent and wrong statements about how green houses work and the atmosphere. In a shining example of getting so complicated in the their thinking they misses the obvious is this one:

Claim: The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lets the radiation of the Sun, whose maximum lies in the visible light, go through completely, while on the other hand it absorbs a part of the heat radiation emitted by the Earth into space because of its larger wavelength. This leads to higher near-surface air temperatures.”

Disproof: The first statement is incorrect since the obviously non-neglible infrared part of the incoming solar radiation [ajstrata: the 45.2% of the solar radiation] is being absorbed (cf. Section 2.2). The second statement is falsiedby referring to a counterexample known to every housewife: The water pot on the stove. Without water filledin, the bottom of the pot will soon become glowing red. Water is an excellent absorber of infrared radiation. However, withwater filled in, the bottom of the pot will be substantially colder.

The boiling water example is brilliant in its simplicity and ability connect to just about anyone. The heat from the Earth’s surface is carried away by the air which rises and drops the heat off in the upper atmosphere and into space. Just like the water in the pot. Heat is not dissipated by radiation, it is by conduction to the air and then convection of the air to remove the heat.

So it seems the entire Global Warming ’science’ is built upon science fiction assumptions that defy the real laws of physics! They’ll grant a PhD to just about anyone these days.

Addendum: Clarification – the paper also notes that some or much of the Sun’s IR is reflected back into space by the ionosphere, which is probably why the paper keeps noting the ‘non-negligible” solar IR levels. Note; This reflection boundary is not part of the IPCC green house model.

Update: IPCC ’science’ is based on 19th century theories – never proven:

In their research and review papers the climatologists refer to legendary publications of Svante August Arrhenius (19 Feb. 1859 – 2 Oct. 1927), a Nobel Prize winner for chemistry. Arrhenius published one of the earliest, extremely simple calculations in 1896, which were immediately - and correctly – doubted and have been forgotten for many decades [44{46]. It is a paper about the influence of carbonic acid in the air on the Earth’s ground temperature. In this quite long paper, Arrhenius put the hypothesis up for discussion, that the occurrences of warm and ice ages are supposed to be explainable by certain gases in the atmosphere, which absorb thermal radiation.

I am fairly certain physics has evolved quite a bit since the First World War.

Major Update: I want to, once more, go to the boiling pot model to explain why there is no radiative green house effect as the IPCC claims (some clown on Powerline doesn’t understand that the ‘real’ green house effect is heat transferred by conduction and then trapped by limiting convection – which the atmosphere can do with clouds, etc).

If the radiative model existed at all then the following would not happen:

3.8.3 In the kitchen: Physics-obsessed housewife versus IPCC

In Section 3.3.5 it was indicated how simple it is to falsify the atmospheric greenhouse hypotheses, namely by observing a water pot on the stove: Without water filledin, the bottom of the pot will soon become glowing red. However, with water lled in, the bottom of the pot will be substantially colder.

In particular, such an experiment can be performed on a glass-ceramic stove. The role of the Sun is played by the electrical heating coils or by infrared halogen lamps that are used as heating elements. Glas-ceramic has a very low heat conduction coecient, but lets infrared radiation pass very well. The dihydrogen monoxide in the pot, which not only plays the role of the “greenhouse gas” but also realizes a very dense phase of such a magic substance, absorbs the infrared extremely well. Nevertheless, there is no additional “backwarming” effect of the bottom of the pot. In the opposite, the ground becomes colder.

Dihydrogen monoxide is of courtsewater. But what the pot shows is is there is no radiation back to the pot from the water molecules (the number one “green house” molecule). The heat transfer process is completely overwhelmed by convection and conduction with water in place, and the run away heating is contained to ‘the ground’ when there is not sufficient water or air to transport the heat out.

The fact is there is no proof or evidence of a radiation driven green house effect, therefore there is no physical reality to the IPCC theories. Remove the concept of CO2 absorbing and re-emitting IR heat creating a feedback heating from the IPCC assumptions and they have nothing. The heat transfer of the atmosphere is in convection and conduction – which has nothing to do with CO2 specifically (any atoms or molecules convey heat through these methods).

Moreover, the regulating of the Earth’s climate is more likely due to the vast oceans which are heat sinks. The warm, livable atmospheric conditions are driven more by the heat contained in the 75% of the planet which is covered by water (which is why coastal cities and towns are degrees warmer than their inland cousins a few miles away).

Basically, these goofs at the IPCC have it completely wrong because they don’t have the knowledge and mathematical skills to apply the equations they misuse.

Addendum: The confusion also seems to be that no one is aware that the IPCC doesn’t assume the driving force is convection (which is neutral regarding the trace gas CO2 verses H2O vapor). The paper lists a long litany of evidence that the IPCC assumes CO2 is the global warming culprit because of their mythical IR radiation transport via CO2 – why else focus on CO2 in the first place? Yes, there is heat energy in the atmosphere, but it is driven by conduction and convection – which means CO2 is no different from any other molecule in the air. Duh.

Some snippets of the IPCC claims:

“If one raises the concentration of carbon dioxide, which absorbs the infrared light and lets visible light go through, in the Earth’s atmosphere, the ground heated by the solar radiation and/or near-surface air will become warmer, because the cooling of the ground is slowed down.”

…

“In a real glass house (with no additional heating, i.e. no greenhouse) the window panes are transparent to sunshine, but opaque to terrestrial radiation. The heat exchange must take place through heat conduction within the glass, which requires a certain temperature gradient. Then the colder boundary surface of the window pane can emit heat. In case of the atmosphere water vapor and clouds play the role of the glass.”

…

“Name for the influence of the Earth’s atmosphere on the radiation and heat budget of the Earth, which compares to the effect of a glass house: Water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere let short wave solar radiation go through down to the Earth’s surface with a relative weak attenuation and,however, reflect the portion of long wave (heat) radiation which is emitted from the Earth’s surface (atmospheric backradiation).”

These are all wrong statements (might as well say the Earth is flat and the Sun orbits the Earth). There are plenty more in the paper. The point is the IPCC cannot target CO2 UNLESS the driver of heat transfer is this mythical IR radiation loop. It doesn’t exist, QED their models and predictions are fiction.

5 Responses to “There Is No Atmospheric Green House Effect”

# crosspatchon 24 Mar 2009 at 1:31 am

The thing is that it is very easy to use a term like “greenhouse” that most people are familiar with and they can understand and then you make them afraid but offer them a path to deliverance if they just elect you to office and allow you to control industry.

To debunk the idea, you have to be talking to someone that understands the math and physics involved.

What we have today is a situation where if 51% of the people “believe in” something, it becomes truth. So it isn’t a matter of whether it is true or not, it is if one side is able to “sell” it to a greater number of people. That is what Hansen is complaining about when he said last week that the “democratic process” isn’t working in policy.

Well, you can’t vote on physics. Things are what they are, one’s beliefs notwithstanding. We have increasing adult illiteracy, we have people who get their “news” from facebook. We are becoming an idiocracy. When 50% of the population is below the median intelligence level, it becomes very easy to sell them on things like this with simple concepts they can understand and very difficult to explain why those ideas are wrong when you need some understanding of physics to understand the argument.

Before all the atmospheric CO2 was turned into oil, shale, gas, coal, limestone, and marble, it was in the atmosphere. The atmosphere had about 7,000 parts/million of CO2. It now has about 380ppm. When the atmosphere was at 7,000 ppm, the temperature was about 5 degrees warmer than now. It didn’t go into “runaway” and it didn’t destroy life.

When modern fish and corals evolved, the CO2 content was down to about 1500 to 2000 parts/million. People rant that an increase in CO2 from 350ppm to 380ppm is “acidifying the ocean” and hurting species. And that is bunk because those species lived for millions of years when CO2 was much higher and thrived. In fact, only about 10,000 years ago the Great Barrier Reef was completely dead. It was dead because it was 400 feet above sea level. Ocean levels in the last ice age were about 400 to 500 feet lower than they are now. Every single coral reef we know today is less than 10,000 years old if it is in less than 400 feet of water.

The reason the models go into runaway is that they assume an “infinitely thick” atmosphere. They assume an atmosphere than can not shed its heat at altitude. It assumes that the heat from the sun warms the CO2 and what leaks through heats the Earth and the Earth’s radiation further heats the atmosphere creating a “hot spot” in the troposphere several miles up. That isn’t happening. When you heat air (even air containing CO2) it rises. When it rises, it rises above most of the other CO2 in the atmosphere and its heat is radiated into space.

A litmus test for the “greenhouse” effect is warming oceans. If there is a greenhouse, the oceans would be warming. They aren’t. Over the past several years the oceans have been cooling. Sea level rise which has been pretty much linear for the past thousand years or so stopped in 2006.

No hot spot, no ocean warming, no sea level rise. YOU ARE BEING LIED TO. Trouble is, too few people understand well enough to realize it. And those that DO understand are being bribed with research grants or are being fired when then voice their opinions.

It is the biggest scam ever foisted on the people of the earth.
# crosspatchon 24 Mar 2009 at 1:38 am

Also, atmospheric response to CO2 isn’t linear. Imagine an atmosphere with no CO2. If you add X parts per million to get a degree of temperature increase, you need to add 10 * X to get the next degree of rise. And then you need to add 100 * X to get the next degree of rise. Most of the impact of CO2 is already realized. That is why increasing CO2 to 7000 parts/million only results in a 5 degree rise in temperature.

Oh, and another thing … all this fuss is about 0.7 degree rise over 100 years. It turns out that 0.5 degrees of that isn’t real. It is hidden in “adjustments” made to the temperature records. In other words, NOAA fudges the numbers and “adjusts” them up 0.5 degrees. Temperatures from the early part of the century are left unadjusted. Global warming is man made, alright, but not in the way you are expected to believe.
# crosspatchon 24 Mar 2009 at 2:50 am

Here is another little tidbit about where people are being mislead. Weather is generated by differences in temperature. The greater the difference in temperature between two air masses, the stronger the storms will result when those masses collide.

People are being led to believe that “global warming” is responsible for an increase in Midwestern US tornado activity. The fact is that cooling can be just as responsible. When cooler air flows down from the upper plains, it is the same as warmer air flowing up from the gulf. It isn’t the absolute temperature that creates the storm, it is the difference in temperature between the air masses.

Air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico is mainly determined by the temperature of the water. Air flowing down from Canada is mainly determined by how much heat it can radiate into space. In a global warming scenario, the air coming from Canada would be warmer (because in the Global Warming model, temperatures at higher latitudes are impacted more) while air from the Gulf would be about the same. That is because it takes a very long time (months) to heat up water but it takes a very small amount of time (hours) to cool air. In a global warming situation, Midwestern tornadoes would DECREASE because the air flowing down from Canada would be warmer. There would be less difference in temperature with air flowing up from the Gulf. In a global cooling scenario, the difference would be greater and there would be more storms.

Same with hurricanes. Hurricanes intensify mainly at night. This is because it is, again, temperature difference that drives a storm. The greater the difference in temperature between the surface and the air aloft, the more convection you get. It is convection that drives a storm. In global warming, the air aloft should get warmer. This should REDUCE convenction and result in weaker storms, not stronger storms. Global warming “experts” also rely on surface temperatures. What they need to rely on is the DIFFERENCE between surface temperature and the temperature at the top of the eye wall. The greater the difference, the stronger, the convection, and the more powerful the winds. The less difference, the weaker the convection.

It isn’ t the surface anomaly that causes the storms, it is the anomaly of surface temp minus aloft temp that will tell you how much storm potential you have with tropical storms. If the air aloft is cold, you are bound to get stronger storms. If the sea surface is warmer you will get more storms started. If the surface is warmer AND the air aloft is colder you will get more storms and more powerful storms provided the winds aren’t so strong aloft that they blow the tops off the convection (sheer).

A storm is a heat engine. It works on the difference in heat between two points, not the absolute heat at one point.
# daniel ortegaon 24 Mar 2009 at 10:39 am

Just a question and I mean no disrespect.
I understand the argument but why this?
On a winter night, if the sky is clear, there is frost on the ground.
But on a winter night, if later, a blanket of clouds come over,
then there is no frost on the ground.
?
The blanket of clouds appears to trap the heat, No?
If the mechanism was just due to the convection then,
it wouldn’t make any difference?

I don’t like the eco-lunatics. I just want to understand.
The convection only theory does not seem to fit my own observations.
# AJStrataon 24 Mar 2009 at 10:46 am

Daniel,

The clouds trap the heat by not allowing the air column to lift the warm air up where it is dissipated in space. That is not a radiation feedback loop. That is convection being limited by a mass of water vapor (the clouds).

The main point is that convection (moving molecules rising with heat) and conduction (heat transfered by ‘touching’ – basically rapidly moving molecules banging into others and heating them up) do not differentiate CO2 from any other molecule. If these are the primary heat pump for the atmosphere, then removing or adding CO2 will have no measurable effect.

The IPCC targets CO2 only because of their mythical IR feedback theory. If the IR feedback theory is not valid (and this paper shows that in spades) then the cap $ trade in CO2 levels is a useless exercise is futility.

EPA Moves to Regulate our Entire Way of Life

Capt. Karl — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:29:43 +0000

EPA Moves to Regulate our Entire Way of Life	Take Action!
Act Now to Have Your Voice Heard

The EPA is asking for public comments on its intention to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, something the Act was never designed to do. We need your voice to be heard. Over the past year, AFP has been warning you about global warming alarmism and the environmental political correctness that it has spawned. One of the greatest dangers this alarmism presents is the continued rise of unelected bureaucrats and their attempts to grab power from the people. The proposed regulation by the EPA is a clear example of the regulations this panic will produce. After the Senate rejected a plan to regulate greenhouse gases, the EPA decided to go ahead and do it anyway. The extent of their plan is truly terrifying. If this proposal becomes law, 33 programs within the EPA would be empowered to, among other things: • Impose Grass Mileage Standards for Home Lawnmowers • Put Speed Limiters on the Commercial Trucking Fleet • List Large Single-Family Homes as Carbon-Polluters • Require Carbon Permits for Retail, Restaurant, Hotel and School Construction Click here to read AFP’s Talking Points We need your help to tell the EPA this is unacceptable. Environmentalists will be stuffing the comment box with their opinion; we need you to make your voice heard. A Note from The Liberty Tree Lantern: George Washington (1796): “Towards the preservation of your government… it is requisite… that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.” (Ibid., 35:225)

John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, Global Warming and Gasoline

Capt. Karl — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:48:52 +0000

You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a master scam. Americans will now lose their prosperity and there FREEDOM.

See: http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html