Can't get there from here
Okay, so it was 20% from current levels. If that's the case, they're not going to get there, as my Wednesday column argues -- and as a number of economists agree.
April 27, 2007
4/27/2007
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32 Comments
thank gawd for Baird . . this plan is really step one in the long game . . . getting us out of the terrible, terrible mess Chretien git us into.
Let's be charitable here . . Cretin got hosed at the Kyoto 1 negotiations . . taken to the cleaners in some pathetic attempt to buy himself some kind a good-pappa political heritage.
Since we have bailed on the stupidity of the original Kyoto phase we will face big penalties going forward. All Baird had to to do is say the penalties will bankrupt Canada and use the argument as the lever to negotiate minimal Kyoto 2 targets.
Or Baird can just tell the Kyotoistas to blow him.
By the time the negotiations for Kyoto 2 get some traction, the global cooling period, as measured by satellite data, that we entered about fifteen years ago will be getting headlines.
Time is running out for The Believers.
Lizzy the Tizzy May & Dr. Fruit Fly can be expected to ramp up the feverish rhetoric and mega-doom forecasts to new dB levels while the MSM is still on their side.
In the longterm it won't work because the whole thing is an enviro-scam. But it will be entertaining to ride the ride while its still happening.
Well.. I can officially say I've seen a climate change denier Fred. Do you really believe what you're spouting? You're giving off almost as much hot air as Baird did the other day announcing his Green Sham Plan (The Sequel - and we all know sequels are worse then the original).
You've just added about a megatonne of GHG with what you spouted off in that last attempt of a comment.
Actually Scott, Fred is right; satellite data shows that we most probably ARE entering a period of global cooling, coincidentally at the same time our sun goes through a 'less hot' phase. You can try all the ad hominem attacks you like - it doesn't change the facts.
Anon,
They must be anonymous satellites, giving that data. None I've ever heard of. And, yes Scott, Fred's a nut.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94
The above link explains why the confusion about "global cooling" exists.
"Well.. I can officially say I've seen a climate change denier"
hmmmm stupid and can't read.
Did I saw climate change ?? Of course I believe in climate change you moron. The definition if a climate is a constantly changing system.
Jeez . . get a brain & get a life you dolt.
Asking someone if they believe in climate change is like asking if they believe in water wet. You is stuck on stupid boy.
It may be a few years since i studied climatology & geomorphology & glaciology & statistics etc. but I can still read science and the Kyoto/IPCC climate warming crowd is the crapiest analysis of data that has come down the pike in quite awhile.
I an not a Believer, sorry too much common sense.
As you appear to be a Believer, ask yourself "where is the famous Hockey Stick from SPM 3 ??
You know, the one that was used three times in twenty pages ?? That all the MSM "journalists" flogged endlessly as the proof of the end of the world ??
Where has it gone ?? why won't the majority of scientists in the IPCC release their data so other scientists can independently assess ? Why are other scientists having to go to court with FOI requests to get the data ??
Why does the IPCC find only negative things about a warming climate ?? Are there no benefits ??
You and your ilk have been coned into running scared. The enviro world has made hundreds of millions in fund raising off this scam and they continue to defraud the public. They have stampeded the herd and now are picking off the weak, slow & stupid. Look in a mirror. Unless of course you like having your wallet fleeced.
But if you wanna believe, go ahead and fill yer boots.
I have taken steps to insulate myself and my family from the economic consequences of this current political idiocy, so i actually don't give a crap.
wanna buy some credits ?? You'll feel a lot better and I'll be a lot richer.
Well "Fred", I hope you've taken equal steps to insulate yourself and your family from the economic consequences when the world runs out of oil, food, water and clean air in the next couple of decades because people actually believed your ignorant "world is flat" rhetoric.
Yes, there will be a raging inferno of fire that engulfs the world and burns us all unless we switch our lightbulbs and trash our cars.
Just like the great population bomb of the 70s, the horrible bird flu epidemic of the year 2004, the grand calamity of Y2K at the turn of the millenium when the world's computers shut down, the day the world ran out of oil in 1973, the martian invasion of 1938 and the alien invasion at roswell in 1947 near area 51.
Never mind that predictions made by the world's scientist regarding climate change have so far been ridiculously inaccurate. If there is a catastrophe to be had it must be true. Only the true believers will survive.
Fred and anon,
That 1997 satellite data was being miss calculated and the whole Global Cooling phenom of which you speak was thuroughly debunked almost a decade ago....
http://tinyurl.com/2letoz
Try to keep up guys.
ian . . that's the 1998 data form Frank J Wentz and Dr Matthias Schabel . . and that was found to be be wring.
they goofed.
NASA has confirmed it many times since . . .
"The lower tropospheric data are often cited as evidence against global warming, because they have as yet failed to show any warming trend when averaged over the entire Earth. The lower stratospheric data show a significant cooling trend, which is consistent with ozone depletion. In addition to the recent cooling, large temporary warming perturbations may be seen in the data due to two major volcanic eruptions: El Chichon in March 1982, and Mt. Pinatubo in June 1991."
read 'em & weep dude.
"when the world runs out of oil, food, water and clean air in the next couple of decades "
I'm vewy, vewy afwaid.
On the other hand I have a warehouse full of long johns & regular lightbulbs that I will sell to you goofballs for vastly inflated prices when current cooling trend continues and becomes the next ice age.
Remember when Toronto was under three miles of ice, just 15k years ago ?? Didn't have a decent hockey then either.
There is nothing wrong with driving smaller vehicles.
There is nothing wrong with living in smaller houses.
There is nothing wrong with conserving electricity.
There is nothing wrong with halting newspaper sales.
There is nothing wrong with banning idling autos at temps higher than, say, -15C.
There is nothing wrong with banning huge, so-called meetings/gatherings, such as Dion's Montreal UN fiasco of Dec 05.
There IS lots wrong with following the Maurice Strong/Suzuki/Gore/UN Kyoto-Kult and it's carbon trading scam. Makes Adscam look like small potatoes.
Suzuki knows all this. He realizes Canadians are wising up to the hoax. That is why he is so POed.
Now if only the media would flog another "story". Notice they have given up on promoting other scams, such as;
Y2K
Franken Foods
Crop Circles
Martians
Global Cooling
Super Milage Carburators
Lost City of Atlantis
SARS
West Nile Virus
Shroud of Turin
Rosswel NM Space Ship
Killer Bees
UN/Mann Hockey stick Graph
DDT Ban
Bermuda Triangle
Population Bomb
Malthus Food Shortages.
One would think Mankind would learn. Once burnt -- twice shy, and all that.
Chretien's 'right-hand-men' allowed him to be taken. Let's get over it, move on, chalk it up to experience. But let's not ruin our great country and our comfortable life style just so some politicos and the MSM can save face.
Sorry Fred, that quote you posted is almost as old as the link I sited (last updated June 14 2000) -
Try this quote from a 2006 science blog...
"Re: The lower tropospheric data are often cited as evidence against global warming, because they have as yet failed to show any warming trend when averaged over the entire Earth"
This page is frequently cited by people still insisting that GW is not happening, they ignore the "last update" date on the page and are unaware or uninterested in the very recent reanalysis that is in agreement with the surface records and the model predictions."
And this from Wikipedia
"A detailed analysis produced by dozens of scientists as part of the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) identifed and corrected errors in the satellite data and other temperature observations. Those corrections, combined with analysis of a more recent generation of climate models yielded a reconciliation such that there is no longer a discrepancy in the rate of global average temperature increase for the surface compared with higher levels in the atmosphere.
This advancement in scientific understanding is documented in the Executive Summary of CCSP Synthesis and Analysis Product 1.1[12] issued in 2006"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
There are plenty more, but why is it I get the sense you aren't interested in research that doesn't support your archaic world view??
I am basically agnostic about global warming but since a consensus among both the public and scientists seems to be forming in favour of effective policies to reduce green house gases it would seem to me that trying to get out in front of these issues is good policy and good politics. That being said I am still a agnostic and so I (and I think other conservatives) should favour “duel use” solutions that also address secondary issues that we all agree on i.e. reductions in ordinary old fashion air pollution. Reducing the west’s dependence on oil from unstable regions of the world, reducing traffic congestion in our principal citys excetera. Let’s try to kill as many birds with each stone as we can and if one of them turns out to be a mirage we will not have wasted our efforts.
Regards
Steve in Toronto
Anyone else out there fed up with journalists thinking they are experts in the environment and the economy and dishing out their opinions, often contradicting each other? I am.
Years and years ago David Suzuki on his programme talked about the bees and his fear that they would die off.
Well, it's happening now - 60% less bees and they don't know why. Without them we can't grow anything.
So, perhaps people should really listen instead of looking for reasons and talking points to prove what they don't want to believe.
Umm... Anonymous, it's just honeybees that are having problems, not all bees.
As much as I have always respected David Suzuki, I must admit he raises apocalyptic noises about everything, some true (such as the extinction of large numbers of species) and some not so true.
If you truly believe that he was correct, then you might inform the world's scientists about his reasoning, because they are currently stumped regarding the reason for the disappearance of honeybees. What does he know everyone else doesn't?
By the way, have you seen the story in the globe reporting on a study showing a 60% reduction in cancer rates due to vitamin D?
...which directly contradicts the efforts of the world's scientists to get us all to cover up and put on sunscreen when exposed to direct sunlight, thus eliminating the intake of vitamin D completely!
Your use of the word "believe" is key - science loses its usefulness when it is converted into a religion.
Ian,
Thank God for Wikipedia. Did you know Wikipedia said that there are more whales now than there have ever been? Stephen Colbert said so!
Pretty weak Anon.
It's not Wikipedia who is backing up what I am saying. That was just an easy place for me to find reference for a completely credible source that does.
Care to try and refute the source? Or is making fun of poor little the poor little Wiki all you've got?
hey cool, that freackin' raging crazoid "hoax aware" is now "ron in kelowna". a far more credible handle sir...not that it will add credibility to the utter nonsense you like to spout.
"Now if only the media would flog another "story". Notice they have given up on promoting other scams, such as;
-West Nile Virus"
yeah, totally, the media hasn't reported on this "scam" in about 8 months...its like the west nile virus just disappeared over the winter. the crazy liberal biased msm out to manufacture our consent to the crazy evil sadistic liberal reality of all these "scams" will probably trot out the "story" of the wet nile virus again this summer. gee, i wonder why they would wait all winter long to report on that "scam"?
Thank you for smoking. Heh, the climate change deniers are right about one thing - carbon trading is pretty stupid.
Of course, it's a stupid idea based on conservative ideas. Despites their delusions otherwise.
Are the 'Climate Change deniers' the same ones who scoffed at global Warming? Global Cooling? Weren't we supposed to be in an ice age by now?
I LOVE the insanely stupid and offensive term 'Climate Change denier.' That's awesome, trying to connect the Holocaust with climate change.
That's real classy, you scumbags.
Science has all kinds of data proving that global warming and cooling cycles have been going on for hundreds of thousands...if not millions...of years.
From 15,000 to 8,000 BC there were three major global warming periods, each of them relatively sudden, that collectively raised ocean levels about 120 ft. due to literally cataclysmic glacial meltdowns.
It is now documented fact, proven by glacial core sample analysis, that each period of global warming PRECEEDED rises in CO2 levels...i.e., rising CO2 levels are the RESULT of warming, NOT the cause.
There have been periods within the last several hundred thousand years when forests extended well beyond the Arctic Circle where today we have barren tundra and/or glacial cover.
There is now substantial evidence that global climate is first and foremost affected by solar activity.
I could go on for hours here.
Bottom line: Sorry kiddies, but this "man made" global warming through CO2 emissions is not only unmitigated utter garbage, but also now a virtual industry upon which tens of thousands of careers are invested, and billions of dollars in funding are dependent.
CO2 in fact represents a fraction of 1% of the atmosphere. The largest single atmospheric constituent affecting global temperatures is in fact water vapor...you know, clouds.
Do we need to do something about, on the other hand, air pollution?
You're damn right we do!
But Kyoto has absolutely not one damn thing to do with global pollution of our atmosphere by toxic wastes. Nada, zilch, zip!
What Kyoto is all about, bottom line, is a global scam in order to transfer wealth from western nations to the rest of the world via great big gobs of cash to buy hot air credits created out of nothing but thin air.
...all of them, of course, through brokerages.
...for a percentage.
Ironic, eh?
It's the 21st century, we think we're more educated and civilized and advanced than ever before.
The truth is, never before has the ability to herd human beings like dumb ass sheep been so available and capably put to use.
Nor has the propensity of humans to allow themselves to be herded like dumb ass sheep so prevalent.
It would be funny were it not so utterly tragic.
If there was climate change
Why was the hockey stick debunked and bravely lacking from the latest report from the IPCC.
Why is it still permafrost in Greenland where the Vikings used to farm. Or are the anthropologists digging them up lying?
Why are we still setting record lows shouldn't we only be setting record highs?
Why do Gore and Suzuki consume the worst if they cared would suz drive a 60 foot bus when he needed a minivan would gore run up a 30k electric bill?
Why does Canada's Hydrological service report no instant increase in sea levels in fact some costal areas have lower sea levels.
Why is there no satellite data in the latest IPCC report?
Why is the data only available 3 months after the latest IPCC report. that isn't the way science is done its the way products are sold.
Why are so many scientists in the latest IPCC report threatening legal action to have their names withdrawn. Why are they including bureaucrats. as part of their 2500 scientists?
The number of polar bears is increasing?
the number and intensity of hurricanes is decreasing.
More and more those with faith are forced to rely on fraudulent data? If it was real why would gore and others be off so much?
It's not as warm as the middle ages warm period or the Holocene maximum.
Why does Al gore say the sea levels will go up 20 feet but the IPCC says 1 foot and a half when the last few centuries the increase was 1 foot?
and the IPCC moved their numbers down who wants to bet in 100 yrs it will equal a normal increase of 1 foot.
besides with the money the real believers want us to sink into the Goracles carbon creditz business we could save like 10 million lives a year.
by worrying about inoculations, malnutrition, diarrhea we could save more lives but dopey Suzuki has pointed the way to the Holy Grail in his 60 foot bus so we must all follow regardless how many are killed....
Now why does Suzuki get funded by Toyota? Because he shills for their Prius!
And if you are worried about co2 the worst thing you can do is transfer industry to china who in the last 7 yrs have doubled their emissions. We're going to kill our economy to pay them to double it in another decade? Maybe in 20 years Chinas co2 will equal the rest of the world!
Now if it isn't worth paying taxes for that what is?
Well if you deniers want to go that direction, fine, but let's get things cleaned up just in case.
"Well if you deniers want to go that direction, fine, but let's get things cleaned up just in case."
The fact of it is, Kyoto has nothing whatsoever to do with cleaning up anything. CO2 is NOT a pollutant.
The smog hanging over our cities that is killing thousands of people every year has SFA to do with CO2!
Pissing billions away on Kyoto will do NOTHING to solve air pollution...except make it worse by focusing attention and funding away from where it could be making a difference.
That's the crime in all of this.
Harper et al are trying to put some attention on pollution...while all the Libs and Dippers can talk about is spending billions on hot air credits over seas in order to meet this idiotic Kyoto commitment pulled out of Chretien's butt at last moment in order to one-up the Americans.
You know. 'Cause Libs know nothing jerks Canadians' leashes like one-upping the US on anything from alcohol in our beer to pucks into a net.
"Scientists are notoriously skeptical, individualistic, and do not tend to play “team” sports. As a result, they only engage in major efforts like the IPCC report in times of clear need. The IPCC process takes about 3 years, and involves nearly 1000 U.S. and international scientists in reviewing the scientific literature, writing chapter drafts, reviewing drafts, and editing and responding to reviewer comments. Scientific results are only connsidered which have survived rigorous peer review in scientific journals, and results from over 4500 journal papers were used and referenced in the previous IPCC report in 2001.
The reason for such a large effort is the fact that a thorough review and understanding of climate change requires scientific expertise across sciences including biology, chemistry, oceanography, atmospheric physics, sea ice and ice sheets, geology, paleontology, meteorology, radiation physics, and remote sensing from space. In most areas both observational and theoretical modeling expertise is required.
The final IPCC report produced every 5 years since 1990 carries an authority and depth far beyond that of any individual scientist or small group of scientists, no matter how gifted or experienced. Unfortunately, in the age of the internet, the number of voices with personal opinions is in fact almost endless. The IPCC report is designed to cut through the noise and summarize the current state of scientific knowledge on climate change. The conclusions of IPCC reports are supported and endorsed by all major scientific organizations in the U.S. including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the largest scientific organization in the world with 10 million members), the American Geophysical Union (45,000 earth scientists from 140 nations), the American Meteorological Society (12,000 members), and the U.S. Global Change Science Program which coordinates the U.S. climate change science effort across 13 agencies and departments, including NOAA, NASA, DoD, DOE, EPA, USGS. As far as scientific advice for policy relevant questions like global climate change, the IPCC is as good as it gets."
Bruce A. Wielicki, of NASA’s Langley Research Center, is Principal Investigator for CERES, a project that uses Earth-orbiting satellites to monitor how clouds affect our climate.
"The ‘consensus’ on climate change is not something cooked up by a few scientists, or to which they flock in the hopes of fame, glory or funding. Scientific consensus is not an agreement on opinions — is Picasso better than Rembrandt, or pepperoni better than anchovies?
Rather, the ‘consensus’ is formed through the great efforts of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), or national academies of science including the United States National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences (NRC/NAS, which has somewhat different procedures but works equally hard to insure the quality of the results, and which provides the US Government with advice on many other topics in addition to climate change).
Science is a vast, seething, exciting mixture of new ideas and old, data and models and hypotheses, striving for the truth. The IPCC or NRC/NAS fulfill their mission by developing reports under clear, carefully overseen, well-understood protocols, insisting that their members and representatives complete the task of providing the best scientific evidence to the people who paid for it. Humanity can always improve, so the consensus is not the last word, but scientific consensus as embodied in the IPCC or the NRC/NAS reports is the best information that humans have produced on the subject."
Richard B. Alley is Evan Pugh Professor in the Department of Geosciences, and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Pennsylvania State University
Ian,
I would be happy to let the scientists do their job. I WISH the scientists wrote the policymakers report, I WISH the policymakers report came out after the scientists wrote their report.
There is a big effort now because there is big money being used to fund the question. But the stakes are huge, not because they are but becase they have been made to be so by ourselves.
The politics of this are that the CPC needs to neutralize the issue. The opposition parties have all the incentive in the world to make this a big issue since it is a differentiator. But lets not kid ourselves that the problem is solved. When the problem is solved you wont need to spend huge dollars proving it, how much do we spend proving the earth is round or that the earth goes round the sun? Not required becasue the answer is known.
How much do we spend on things we dont know, cancer, aids, tornados etc...lots....so bottom line, we dont know.
As for "cleaning things up" I think the better point is lets buy an option. In other words we suspect there is something so lets start doing the obvious and easy things while we figure out what is happeneing.
I am sorry, but the problem and causalities are too unknown. It is irrational to make huge investments based on thoughts, feelings and suspicions.
Ozone depletion is an example fo where the science ddrove the policymakers. In this case the foundation just isnt there.
I will sya again...give me one, only one, prediction in direction and maginitude that the climate models have got right....sadly there isnt one. When the models start producing robust predictions then then I'll sign on. Till then, buy the insurance policies in doing easy and responsible stuff, spend money studying to prove or disprove and carry on.
Anything else either way is irrational and superstitious.
Gawd save us from science in the media, from politicians that find causes, from the UN and David Suziki, from debunkers, deniers, demigogues and the Toronto Maple Leafs, from those who preach in their Cowichan sweaters and their $40K Priuses, and their new light bulbs and low energy super size refrigerators, from their 3rd world energy credits. And please Gawd find a special ring of hell for those who think they have an easy, cheap, fast and one-size-fits-all, ready by tomorrow, Canada can save the world solution to a problem that is yet to be understood. Cause Gawd, you and I both know that the problem won't go away but people will just stop listening.
BTW....making big investments on a precautionary priciple is the equivalent of invading Iraq suspecting, not knowing, that Saddam had WMD....
Tell me where you are on that issue and then apply it in this case for consistency.
Big action based on lack of knowledge, even 80% knowledge (the marines doctrine) is just not responsible. We do not know have anywhere near 80% of the knoweledge on this question covered. Maybe we are going to hell in a handbasket but nobody can prove it or provide a reasonable model.
Dr Suzuki, I appreciate his passion and respect his willingness to put himself out there. But it just isnt there yet too many alternatives. Please follwo the scientific process that got us this far in development, lets not go back to shamanism and being "barbers" again.
Global warming claims are based primarily on computer climate models.
Even the best computer climate models are flawed - they have all been tweaked to match reality.
This is not how science works.
You are not supposed to tweak an experiment until it matches the observed results. Statistically speaking, that renders the experiment useless as a test of any theory.
So these climate models have been shown to be inaccurate and flawed, which is not surprising due to the complexities of climatology. In fact, simply predicting the weather in 3 weeks or the formation of a hurricane has been beyond the limits of our scientific capabilities.
Yet these large numbers of scare-mongers claim to be unquestionably correct with their wild predictions. Even though these predictions have also been shown to be highly inaccurate thus far. We're supposed to believe them simply because many of them agree, as if science is a popularity contest. The truth is, large numbers of people can be wrong, no matter whether they are scientists or not, no matter what Al Gore may say. The wildest claims, such as global catastrophe, are the most dubious, because there is no evidence for these claims at all.
Ian
Your description on how the Kyoto-Scam was born is one huge pile. Will take the farmers a long time to haul it away.
Maurice Strong dreamed up Kyoto. He was thinking of it back in the early 1990s, while Chairman of Ontario Hydro. At the time, many wondered why on Earth ('Where On Earth Are We Going ??') would MS have bankrupt OH pay $$millions for a Costa Rican rain forest.
The UNelected United Nations was the best vehicle to push 'One World Governance'. Cohort, Jacques Chirac, also claimed Kyoto was the first step.
Now we know. There is a reason for everything. It just takes time to find out. Longer now, because the Canadian media is into the Tabloid business.
Anonymous listed many of the reasons Kyoto is pure bunk. The Gore/Dion/Suzuki crowd will not even try to counter them. Never have. Are not. Never will. Because it is impossible.
It's not all about CO2. One of the consequences of increasing combustion efficiency and decreasing fuel consumption through hybrids will be, yes, less CO2 but also less nitrogen oxides, less particulates, less sulphur oxides and so on. This means cleaner air for asthmatics like... Stephen Harper.
Also - CO2 can be a pollutant. There is a point beyond where the proportion of CO2 in the air becomes too much for plants to handle and affects humans too.
The fact is that if we ditched the current plans for new coal power plants in AB and BC and deployed nuclear reactors on a French scale (70%+ of national electricity, uniform reactor type to speed certification) we would bite a huge chunk out of our CO2 emissions, not to mention mercury and radioisotopes in the coal plus the others I mentioned above. We could also sell that low-CO2 electricity to the northern US states since they are unlikely to build new nuclear before we do and their dirty coal blows onto Canada.
We could have high speed TGVs in the Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto triangle and the Edmonton-Calgary corridor, massively reducing the need for short range air travel as in France. Replacing diesel with electric suburban rail in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver would also be possible.
Even Suzuki is starting to wobble on nuclear. Yes it will be expensive but the benefits are massive and Canada has homegrown tech and homegrown fuel so that money goes back into our economy.
AECL will have enough clout to be able to stand on its own against Areva and Westinghouse or work with them without being swallowed whole like so many Canadian corporations.