Man-Caused Global Warming Defectors

The cataclysmic climate changers are casting handfuls of mud at the alarmist wall, hoping something will stick. They have just concluded Rio+20, agreed by one and all to have been a colossal failure. Of course they all agreed that “something must be done”, they just couldn’t agree on what to do, when to do it, and by whom.

Compounding the alarmists’ agony is the steady defection from their ranks. The latest was James Lovelock, “Gaia-ist” theorists, now says that global warming has not occurred as he and others, such as Al Gore, thought it would. In his article in The Telegraph,  Fritz Vahrenholt, one of Germany's earliest green energy investors, reports he is not convinced that humanity is causing catastrophic global warming. He was active on the UN climate change panel and found their science was wanting, cobbled together by activist organizations such as Greenpeace and World Wildlife Federation. Vahrenholt found that climate in the past 10,000 years varied greatly naturally, and that recent temperatures and weather are unremarkable in that context.

Front-page articles this week in The Chronicle and Press Democrat predicted sea-level rise of a foot by 2030, and several feet by 2100. However, the San Francisco tide gauge, the longest continuous tide record in the Western Hemisphere (since June 30, 1854), shows a steady increase of eight inches per century. Arena Cove’s record since 1978 shows a sea-level decline of an inch per century. None of the West Coast records show the acceleration necessary to raise sea level a foot in 20 years.

In the age of the internet, it is easy to find peer-reviewed science showing that our severe weather, sea levels, ocean acidity, temperature, and climate change itself are all well within historical norms.

See for yourselves (Second Thoughts of an Environmentalist ).

Obama's Disappearing Magic Trick

In August 1980, Washington Post reporter Robert G. Kaiser described the speech in which Jimmy Carter accepted the Democrat’s nomination. I've adapted Kaiser’s report by substituting Obama for Carter to make the 32-year-old report into a prediction of President Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democrat’s convention in early September later this year. The following is what the future holds for Obama:

“In his acceptance speech, President Obama tried to explain why he had not become the sort of leader Barack Obama promised to be in 2008. Not surprisingly, this 2012 Obama sounded much more defensive. Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech contained no negative references to John McCain. it was entirely a positive statement.

“However, about a fourth of this speech was devoted to lambasting the Republicans and Mitt Romney. If the Grand Old Party should win in November, Obama said, ‘I see despair. I see surrender. I see risk.’ He also sees repudiation, of course, which explains his defensiveness. 

“Obama's acceptance speech in 2008 was a magical moment, easily the high point of his political career. Obama spoke eloquently that night in measured cadences with a sure sense of himself and his message.

“There was no magic in this acceptance speech. Instead, a weary convention heard the sounds of slogging from a worried politician who knows he's in deep trouble.” 

End of report.

Jimmy Carter's been delighted with the Obama presidency: he’s no longer the worst president of the past 100 years. Bill is celebrating Hillary’s revenge, too. And I’m just happy to share these glad tidings over two months before they occur. 

I also feel Ron Lowe’s pain (all the way from Nevada City) as he bemoans Republicans “walk(ing) away with all the prizes” - Wisconsin, San Diego, San Jose - while Democrats dither. And the “magic” disappears.

Driving a Nail into Man-Caused Global Warming

To the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. And so it goes with these tree-ring climate reconstructions: no matter what, you get a Hockey Stick, and somehow the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period (and the Holocene Optimum and Roman Warming) are relegated to climatic mythology.

That's when I seek clarity and open my volumes of Dr. H H Lamb, in particular "Climatic History and the Future." There I find that indeed these climatic periods had global existence; lives prospered where later they were devastated, crops were introduced during warm periods which failed during cold, glaciers retreated, advanced, and retreated again, tree lines and sea levels rose and fell, and all of this in the brief 10,000-year period following the Ice Age.

Worldwide, scientists have examined and documented thousands of studies that illuminate natural climate change. The chronicles of our ancestors, through such means as records of weather, population growth and decline, tax rolls, commodity prices, deserted cities and ports, famine and plague, and in many other ways, show that the flat Hockey Stick shaft does not depict the reality of the climate of the past 1,000 years (or before and beyond), and yet all this is lost in unending debate about the significance of tree-ring sample selection.

And after all this, nothing is settled, and the debate rages on: the tempest in a tea pot. Sound and fury signifying nothing (Lamb was British, so the Shakespeare is a small tribute to British genius). All sides claim victory, but continue the fight as if victory achieved nothing. And that is the reality of this debate. The tree rings left out of the debate speak as much to the problem of climate reconstruction as the ones included. They tell no tale, because they are as incapable of telling one as are the ones selected. But all that is heard is the yammering of the hammering.

Ocean "Acidity" Myth

Since Mr. Hunt repeats the same two limited studies of Atlantic sediments and Oregon oysters in each of his letters, I’ll provide information about the science involved.

The oceans have remained alkaline during the last 540 million years.

Rainwater (pH 5.6) reacts with the most common minerals on Earth (feldspars) to produce clays, which consume acids, then alkali is leached into the oceans (making them salty), silica is redeposited in sediments, which consumes acid and is accelerated by temperature. Sea water has a local and regional variation in pH  (7.8 to 8.3, but ranging from 7 to 9 in Chesapeake Bay). Since pH is a log scale, there is not enough CO2 in fossil fuels to create oceanic acidity because most of the planet’s CO2 is locked up in rocks. 

In the Precambrian, reactions rapidly responded to huge changes in climate (-40°F to +122°F), large sea level changes (+1,968’ to -2,100’) and rapid climate shifts from ‘snowball’ or ‘slushball’ Earth to very hot. About 750 million years ago life started to extract huge amounts of CO2 from the oceans, life expanded and diversified, and this process continues (which is why we have low CO2 today).

The history of CO2 and temperature shows no correlation. Compared to now: CO2 was 15 times higher in the Ordovician-Silurian glaciation (ice age). Both methane and CO2 were higher in the Permian glaciation. CO2 was 5 times higher in the Cretaceous-Jurassic glaciation. 

The atmosphere once had at least 25 times the current CO2 content, and now CO2 is the lowest it has been for billions of years.

Algae blooms fed by sewage runoff cause increased alkalinity in less salty areas of bays, and higher acidity closer to the open ocean, so atmospheric CO2 is not a factor. Someone should tell those Oregon oysters.

Inventing the Obama Superhero

Mr. Skibbins is “setting the record straight” about Obama inventively. He said: “Under Obama, Americans now enjoy their lowest tax burden since 1958.” In 1958, Deficit Day was April 5; now it’s May 14. Americans must work 134 days to pay this year’s combined 29.2% federal, state, and local tax bill, plus government borrowing that is not reflected in the tax rate. Deficit Day hasn’t been this late since the end of World War II, when it was four days later.

Skibbins: “Obama created a 20% payroll tax cut for small businesses.” This Republican bill is opposed by Democrats and Obama threatened a veto. Giving Obama credit is like giving Custer credit for Little Big Horn.

Skibbins: “Obama fought (unemployment) down from 10 percent to the current 8 percent and it’s still dropping.” Actually, 8.2% and rising, making this the longest period since the Depression with unemployment above 8%. The labor force is 500,000 workers smaller today than it was when Obama took office.  Counting population growth since then, the economy is actually missing 7.7 million workers, who still exist, and who still don’t have jobs. If labor force participation hadn’t dropped, the unemployment rate would be 11%. That’s the Obama way to fight unemployment – get everyone to stop looking.

Actually, an all time record 5.1 million Americans are suffering long term unemployment for 27 weeks or more, nearly double compared to when Obama entered office in January, 2009.

Skibbins: Bush increased the debt by $5 trillion, Obama $1 trillion. True, Bush increased it almost $5 trillion in eight years, but Obama increased it over $5 trillion in three years, aided and abetted by a profligate Democrat Congress.

Finally, Obama was inexperienced when elected, and it shows. Even New York Times staunch liberal columnist Maureen Dowd has noticed: Dreaming of a Superhero?