Articles Tagged "Tom Harris"

Researchers identify 26 past scares analogous to the global warming alarm.

Polls show that roughly one person in two is concerned about manmade global warming. Why? Because vivid, alarming forecasts, even those based on weak foundations, are persuasive. For a while at least.

We’ve seen this many times before. Take the alarm over mercury in fish: in 2004, an Environmental Protection Agency employee warned that 630,000 babies per year were born at risk of brain and nervous system damage due to “unsafe” levels of mercury in their mothers’ blood. Expectant mothers were discouraged from eating fish.

Japan consumes a lot of fish, and the supposedly unsafe levels cited by the EPA are exceeded by 74% of women of childbearing age there. Yet there is no evidence that their children are mentally deficient. In fact, only benefits have been reported from high levels of fish consumption, including good brain function and improved intelligence at age four.

In the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference just completed in Bonn, Germany, the underlying assumption was the same as usual-a man-made climate crisis is looming. To stop it, we need to revolutionise the way we generate energy.

No country's delegates dare contradict this, a central theses of all UNFCCC events. After all, "the science is settled", they say. United States Special Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern said in December that the UNFCCC's Cancun Agreement, on which the Bonn meeting built, is "very much consistent with US interests and will help move … the world down a path toward a broader global response to changing-to stopping climate change".

As will be shown at the sixth International Conference on Climate Change in Washington DC (June 30 to July 1), this stance is ridiculous. We can't stop climate change anymore than we can stop sunrise or gravity. Climates change naturally on all planets with atmospheres. And we don't know the future of our own planet's climate any better than we know the weather two weeks from now. The science is simply too immature.

That the UNFCCC would be blind to this is to be expected. After all, it was another branch of the UN -- the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- that assembled the reports that concluded we have a human-caused crisis on our hands. It was IPCC officials who chose the most frightening parts of the reports to publicise. It was the IPCC that proposed the solutions. It is the UNFCCC that brokers international climate treaties and will run the $100-billion Green Fund to funnel money to developing nations. And finally, UN agencies will monitor national emissions, as well as orchestrate enforcement.

As Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), I would like to put a different perspective on David Suzuki’s article, We Shouldn’t Expect the Kids to Clean Up Our Mess.

He writes, “We owe it to our children and grandchildren to help clean up the messes we’ve made.”

I couldn’t agree more. But we also owe it to our descendants to differentiate between what really are messes and what are politically-correct, but scientifically unsubstantiated crusades. If we don’t, then we waste vast resources chasing phantom scares at the expense of solving real problems.

The climate alarm that Suzuki references is a good example. Contrary to what he has been telling us for years, the possibility that humans can significantly affect climate by reducing our carbon dioxide emissions is highly unlikely. The future of our planet’s climate is simply unknown and our impact on this phenomenon is even less understood, although it appears to be very small. Natural factors such as changes in the brightness of the Sun are being shown to have far more climatic influence than anything humanity is doing. This is not a mere fringe view of outlier scientists, as Suzuki would have us believe. Many of the world’s leading experts do not support the hypothesis that we are causing, and so can stop, climate change.

Stephen Harper should guide our nation away from the most costly hoax in the history of science

At the end of 2012, Canada’s international reputation will suffer a black eye unless Prime Minister Stephen Harper comes clean on the climate file. The Kyoto Protocol will then expire and, if we are still party to the agreement, our gross violation of this treaty’s emission limits will be highlighted to the world.

Canada’s ratification of the protocol was one of the last acts of prime minister Jean Chrétien’s regime and taints the Liberal party to this day. Harper should feel absolutely no obligation to protect any part of that legacy. He knows that much of the science that props up the climate scare is unfounded and he has stated repeatedly that Canada has absolutely no chance of meeting our Kyoto commitments.

For that reason alone, the new government should work toward making it politically feasible to withdraw from the agreement by the end of this year, rather than break what many around the world regard as international law.

According to the protocol’s article 27, we have been able to withdraw without penalty from Kyoto since early 2008, “three years from the date on which this Protocol has entered into force,” i.e. 2005. The article also specifies that our complete divorce from the treaty would come into force one year after the notice of our intention to quit the agreement. This means that, for Canada to not be in violation of the Protocol when it expires, we must announce our withdrawal by the end of 2011.

A news release from the Public Policy Forum and Sustainable Prosperity last Wednesday began, "A poll released today shows that Canadians believe that climate change is happening and would be willing to pay for government policies that reverse or slow the damage." They continued, "Belief in climate change among Canadians substantially outpaces belief in this phenomenon among residents of the United States."

But that wasn't really what the survey showed -respondents were actually asked about somewhat different topics.

This was not explained by most of those reporting on the poll. For example, the CBC wrote, "Far more Canadians than Americans believe climate change is real, according to a report produced by U.S. and Canadian think tanks . . . In Canada, 80 per cent believe in the science behind climate change . . . ."

Despite the past year of UN climate science scandals and vitally important research discoveries, we are still being told by activists, politicians, media and official science bodies that climate change science is ‘settled’. They tell us there is no doubt that our emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ are causing a climate crisis and we must take urgent action to prevent dangerous global warming. Supposedly, only a handful of unqualified naysayers contest this conclusion.

For example, in their film “Polar Science for Planet Earth”, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) assert, “… Earth scientists are now beginning to understand … how to deal with unprecedented levels of man-made carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that control future climate change.” Newcastle University (U.K.) Professor Nicholas Owens, Director of both the BAS film and the BAS proper, asserts, “There is now overwhelming consensus that human activity is driving climate change,” a statement echoed verbatim in the film. Another BAS leader, Prof Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia maintains, “The only way to control climate change is through a drastic reduction in global CO2 emissions.”

Besides the absurdity of the notion that humanity, at this stage in our development, could hope to “control climate change” of planet Earth, observant readers will ask: how does anyone know that there is a consensus among climate scientists that our CO2 emissions are driving global climate, let alone that they are causing a crisis? After all, climate was changing for billions of years before we arrived on the scene. Are all the ancient natural climate drivers suddenly being eclipsed by human CO2 emissions? No one knows for sure, of course, but much recent research suggests it is highly improbable.

"Climate change" has suffered significant setbacks in the past year. First there was Climategate. Then the Copenhagen conference ended without binding agreements on either mitigation or adaptation. This was followed quickly by Glaciergate, Amazongate, Kiwigate and serious challenges to the credibility of Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Next, professor Phil Jones of the United Kingdom's Climatic Research Unit (and lead author of the IPCC chapter on temperatures) admitted that there has been no statistically significant warming for 15 years. Then "hockey stick" promoters finally acknowledged that there indeed was a Medieval Warm Period.

These events, coupled with the economic downturn and the education efforts of climate realists - those who take a balanced perspective of climate change - have impacted public opinion. Now, a significant fraction of the public regards the past century's warming as primarily natural and a human-induced global-warming catastrophe as improbable. So public support for expensive greenhouse-gas-reduction policies has eroded.

Republican climate skeptics have taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives, thereby killing any chance of federal "cap-and-trade" legislation for now. Republican congressional leaders also have vowed to use every trick in the book to block Environmental Protection Agency carbon-dioxide (CO2) regulations scheduled to start on Jan. 2. And, not surprisingly, the United Nations' 2010 Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, is failing, with Mother Nature helping to dampen warming fears as an early winter sets in across the Northern Hemisphere.

With IPCC Chair now off the hot seat, UN Chief must be held responsible

“The authority of the United Nations is being undermined by the incompetence exposed within its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], and ultimately the buck has to stop with UN Secretary General,” asserted International Climate Science Coalition Chief Science Adviser Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University in Australia.

Observers may be tempted to forgive Secretary General Ban ki-Moon for his failure to properly oversee the IPCC, only one of dozens of UN agencies. However, it seems strange that Mr. Ban has received no criticism whatsoever for years of damaging bias within an influential UN panel for which he is ultimately responsible. Instead, the IPCC Chairman, Indian economist Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, has taken all the heat.

Going into the IPCC meeting in South Korea earlier this month, there was worldwide pressure to dismiss Pachauri since many people considered him to have biases and conflicts of interest inappropriate for the IPCC Chair. Citing a loss in credibility on Pachauri’s part, Tim Yeo, chairman of the UK House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, said point blank, “… I think Dr. Pachauri should resign.” The eminent British climatologist Professor Sir Brian Hoskins said that he too believed that the IPCC Chair had to step down. Even John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK, joined in the calls for Pachauri to be replaced for the sake of the UN’s climate change body’s credibility.

The climate change debate should focus on evidence rather than on smearing opponents.

To dismiss the findings of any scientist due to his or her funding sources is a logical fallacy referred to as “motive intent”—assuming that what someone is saying is wrong because of a suspect ulterior motive.

While it may be a convenient shortcut for those who do not want to take the time to learn the science, it makes no sense unless a particular scientist has a history of dishonesty, or suddenly changed his or her opinion after funding from a vested interest is known to have started.

In the case of the climate scientists who work with the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), this has never been the case. Indeed, the research of professors Tim Patterson, Bob Carter and Chris Essex has never been funded by special interests such as energy companies or environmental lobby groups, and all three of these experts have displayed a consistent and balanced stance on climate change for years before it became an intense political issue.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is ultimately responsible for serious problems inside the U.N. "Global warming report feels the heat," Comment & Analysis, Aug. 31). Yet Mr. Ban has received no criticism for the years of obvious corruption and bias in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Instead, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has taken all the heat.

One might forgive Mr. Ban for his failure to oversee this organization - only one of dozens of U.N. agencies - if he had not been told over and over about the IPCC's problems. However, he was told by many people.

During the 2007 U.N. Bali climate conference, he was sent an open letter signed by 100 leading experts in the field in which he was alerted to IPCC process problems. Mr. Ban did not even acknowledge the letter, let alone answer the concerns raised.

During the U.N.'s 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, Mr. Ban was sent "The Copenhagen Climate Challenge," signed by 166 climate experts. In the supporting documentation, scientists told the U.N. chief "the IPCC's approach to forecasting climate violated 72 principles of forecasting" and "The claims of the IPCC and related persons with respect to sea-level changes are deeply biased and not based on actual observation." The scientists' submission was tracked and confirmed as being delivered to his office, but Mr. Ban never responded.