Featured Story:
Much has been written about the choice that developing nations have when it comes to global warming; a choice between curbing your emissions or growing your economy. India, which, according to the CIA World Fact Book has more than 1.1 billion people, has made its choice:
In India, Growth Trumps Sustainability
(Lawrence Solomon, National Post)
As detailed by Lawrence Solomon, author of "The Deniers," India examined the facts and the needs of its people and came to the conclusion that continuing to develop their economy in order to combat poverty and starvation was priority number one. Stifling their economy to combat global warming somehow didn't make their final to-do list. But why?
"'No firm link between the changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established,' the report states matter-offactly, before proceeding to list the areas in which the science is not settled.
"Parts of India have warmed, the Action Plan explains, and parts have cooled. Monsoon rains have increased in some areas and decreased in others. There have been no marked long-term trends in droughts or floods. Some regions have had a greater and others a lesser frequency of severe storms. Neither do the Himalayan glaciers demonstrate any consistent trend."
Rather than put its people and economy at risk, India decided it was in its best interests to ignore the climate-change hullabaloo, after examining the facts and coming to the conclusion that the science was dubious at best.
In this regard, India is not alone. Several prominent scientists and politicians spoke out against the global warming 'consensus' this week:
Professor Kunihiko Takeda (vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University and one of the world's leading authorities on both uranium enrichment and recycling):
"Global warming has nothing to do with how much CO2 is produced or what we do here on Earth. For millions of years, solar activity has been controlling temperatures on Earth and even now, the sun controls how high the mercury goes. CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another. Soon it will cool down anyhow, once again, regardless of what we do. Every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so. What makes a whole lot of economic and political sense is to blame global warming on humans and create laws that keep the status quo and prevent up-and-coming nations from developing. Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver's seat and developing nations walking barefoot."
Dr. Muriel Newman (Established the New Zealand Centre for Political Debate):
"Around the world, as controversy over climate change continues to grow, it remains very clear that contrary to what the politicians tell us, not only is there is no consensus of scientific thought on this matter, but the science is certainly not settled.
In fact, in a bizarre twist of fate, at a time when advocates of man-made global warming continue to push government policies to restrict energy use and the burning of fossil fuels in order to prevent 'catastrophic' warming, the world continues to cool. That is leading to increasing scepticism that the call to sacrifice living standards in order to "save the planet" is just political spin designed to persuade the public to accept green taxes."
"No significant increase in global average temperature has occurred since 1998 despite an increase in carbon dioxide over the same period of about 5%...There are alternative, very soundly based views on the effects of carbon dioxide and warming of the climate.A human effect on global climate change has not yet been distinguished and measured . . . meanwhile, global temperature change is occurring, as it always naturally does, and a phase of cooling has succeeded the mild late 20th century warming...Natural climate change will continue with some of its likely manifestations, such as sea-level rises and coastal change in particular locations. Adaptation to that will not be aided by imprudent restructuring of the world's energy."
"There are so many times the Earth was warmer than now, or colder than now. We are not affecting the climate change."
"The one thing that is absolutely clear about the science is that it isn't certain, far from it."
(Lenore Taylor, The Australian)
(Jessica Cheng, Popular Science)
(Mairi Beautyman, treehugger.com)
Penn and Teller on Carbon Credits
(Warning: Strong language used for comedic effect)
Most Egregious Claim of the Week:
Have you ever noticed that the doomsday predictions of the global warming advocates never seem to come true? And that when these predictions turn out to be wrong, they're either completely ignored or only mentioned in passing by the media? We've got two tremendous examples this week of precisely this phenomenon First, courtesy of Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun in Australia, we learn that as recently as last year, people were pointing to Perth, Australia and its historically low water levels as evidence that Global Warming was already rearing its ugly head (One even ventured to say that he thought Perth stood a good chance of becoming the 21st Century's first "ghost metropolis"). Unfortunately for those experts, they got the one thing they didn't count on happening this year: Rain in Perth. Now the water levels are at an eight year high, and even Scooby Doo couldn't find a ghost in their thriving metropolis.
Along those same lines, we've heard prediction after prediction after prediction about how the polar ice caps were absolutely definitely, no doubt about it inevitably going to melt away into nothingness this summer. Of course, as we've written about in this very space, they haven't. Not even close. You'd think that would put some humility into these Chicken Littles.
I wouldn't get your hopes up.
As it turns out, scientists have been making this very prediction for the last hundred years. First in the 20's and 30's, then again 40 years later:
New York Times, 1969: Expert Says Arctic Ocean Will Soon Be an Open Sea
This doesn't mean that any claim made by a contemporary scientist that was once made by an earlier one should be automatically dismissed (though most new hypotheses should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism, just as scientists are taught to treat them). But when those scientists are immediately claiming that their unproven and untested claims should influence public policy, it's important for all of us, scientist, politician, and citizen alike, to step back and carefully examine not just the science, but all the factors and consequences of our actions. That's called being responsible. Our leaders could use that trait nowadays.
