|  Author | Topic: The Propaganda Continues VI (Read 6,642 times) |
Big Bunny
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|  | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #30 on Jan 29, 2010, 9:15am » | |
UK's top scientist urges care in presenting results of climate change
* Haroon Siddique
* The Guardian, Wednesday 27 January 2010
A failure by some scientists to be candid on the uncertainty of predicting the rate of climate change is to blame for fuelling scepticism about such predictions, according the government's chief scientific adviser.
John Beddington's comments come in the wake of an admission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a claim in its 2007 report that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035 was unfounded. The admission has been used as ammunition by climate change sceptics, who say the public is being misled.
Beddington said scientists should give a caveat to their predictions where there was uncertainty, and release source data "wherever possible" – but added that uncertainty was no excuse for inaction. "I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper scepticism," he tells the Times newspaper today. "Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed."
He said the false claim in the IPCC's report was symptomatic of a wider problem with the way evidence was presented in the field of climate science. "Certain unqualified statements have been unfortunate," he said. "We have a problem in communicating uncertainty. There's definitely an issue there. If there wasn't, there wouldn't be the level of scepticism. All of these predictions have to be caveated by saying, 'There's a level of uncertainty about that'."
He explained that large-scale climate modelling using computers meant "quite substantial uncertainties" which needed to be communicated. While it was unchallengeable that burning fossil fuels released CO2 that warms the Earth, "where you can get challenges is on the speed of change".
He acknowledged that where source data was released there was a danger it could be manipulated, "but the benefits from being open far outweigh that danger".
The head of the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, Professor Phil Jones, stepped down last year while an investigation was conducted into emails leaked from the unit and seized upon by climate change deniers as alleged evidence that scientists had been hiding and manipulating data to support the view that the world is warming up. Shortly after the row, the Met Office released data which showed a rise in the global temperature.
Beddington said the fact that scientists were not 100% certain about every aspect of climate science did not make ignoring the phenomenon a risk worth running.
The IPCC and its head, Rajendra Pachauri, have also come under fire for another claim in its 2007 report – that the cost of natural disasters had risen gradually since 1970 due to climate change. But the IPCC released a statement yesterday saying that the Sunday Times report which carried the allegation was incorrect, insisting that the IPCC had provided a "balanced treatment of a complicated and important issue". While the IPCC admitted that it was wrong about the Himalayan glaciers, scientists maintain that glaciers are melting at historically high rates.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/27....t-urges-caution
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #31 on Jan 29, 2010, 9:18am » | |
Climate sceptics distract us from the scientific realities of global warming
Is the goal of climate sceptics to lead us into greater scientific truth – or merely to sow doubt about the temperature record?
When you peruse the many sceptic arguments against man-made global warming, you find a tendency to focus on a narrow piece of the puzzle while ignoring the broader picture. This narrow focus serves as a useful distraction from the scientific realities of global warming.
A recent example is the campaign to sow doubts about the US temperature record. To achieve this, an army of volunteers traversed the US photographing weather stations. Pictures were posted on surfacestations.org, showing weather stations positioned near heated buildings, air conditioners and other sources of artificial heat.
Each new photo was greeted with a clucking of tongues and a sense of reaffirmation among sceptics that global warming was largely the product of suspect temperature data. "How do we know if global warming is a problem if we can't trust the temperature record?" asked Anthony Watts who runs the sceptic blog Wattsupwiththat.
Never mind that the Greenland ice sheet is losing ice at an accelerating rate. That Antarctic ice loss is also accelerating, including east Antarctica which until late 2009 was thought too cold and stable to lose ice. Arctic sea ice is melting, sea levels are rising and glaciers are retreating. These and many other physical realities of global warming are well documented in the peer-reviewed literature. However, to some, the accumulated body of empirical data is no match against the persuasive power of a well-framed photograph.
The photos were compiled into a single report by Watts and published by the Heartland Institute, a thinktank that funds climate sceptic activities. For good measure, infrared photos were included to visually drive the point home. Using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's own classifications, Watts divided the weather stations into five categories. Well-sited stations, positioned well clear of roads, buildings and other heated surfaces, were given a rating one or two. Poorly sited stations, positioned in proximity to warming influences, were ratedthree, four or five. Most weather stations fell into the poorly sited categories. Watts suggested poor siting could contribute a warming of at least 1-5C to individual stations.
The report concludes:
We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat ... The conclusion is inescapable: The US temperature record is unreliable. And since the US record is thought to be "the best in the world," it follows that the global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable.
The crucial question though is how much extra warming do poorly sited weather stations contribute to the temperature record? Unfortunately, no amount of photos will answer this question. The only solution is data analysis, calculating the temperature trends from poor sites compared with good sites. Curiously, Watt's report contained no such data analysis. While page after page of photos may be effective in sowing doubt about the temperature record, they offer no actual answers on the impact of poor siting.
Finally this month, a peer-reviewed analysis of the temperature data was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The paper used Watt's station ratings to split all US weather stations into two categories: good (rating one or two) and bad (ratings three, four or five). The analysis then compared the raw, unadjusted data from the good and bad sites. In typical peer-reviewed understatement, the results were described as "counterintuitive". They were in fact, a great surprise to many. Poorly sited weather stations actually show a cooler trend compared to the good sites.
The cause of this cooling bias appears to have been a change in instruments. In the late 1980s, many sites converted from Cotton Region Shelters (CRS, otherwise known as Stevenson Screens) to electronic Maximum/Minimum Temperature Systems (MMTS). This had two effects. Firstly, MMTS sensors record lower daily maximums compared to their CRS counterparts. So the switch from CRS to MMTS sensors caused a cooling bias in certain stations.
Secondly, the MMTS sensors were attached by cable to an indoor readout device. Limited by cable length, the MMTS weather stations were often located closer to buildings and other artificial sources of heat. This meant most of the stations with the newer MMTS sensors also happened to fall under poorly sited categories. The net result is that poor stations show an overall cooler trend compared with good stations. However, when the change from CRS to MMTS is taken into account in data adjustments, the trend from good sites show close agreement with poor sites.
One might reasonably question whether the goal of surfacestations.org was to lead us into greater scientific truth or merely to sow doubt about the temperature record. Nevertheless, their efforts to rate each individual weather station enabled scientists to identify a cool bias in poor sites and isolate the cause. A net cooling bias was perhaps not the result the surfacestations.org volunteers were hoping for, but improving the quality of the surface temperature record is surely a result we should all appreciate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bl....-global-warming
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #32 on Jan 29, 2010, 9:33am » | |
Greenpeace plans to build fortress on Heathrow runway site
Environmental group says the plan will create a legal headache for any government pushing ahead with airport's expansion
* Matthew Taylor
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 January 2010 19.07 GMT
![[image]](http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/5351/filephototransportsecr0.jpg "[image]")
Aeroplanes line up to land at Heathrow airport. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Environmental activists have invited some of the UK's leading architects to design an "impenetrable fortress" to be built on land earmarked for the third runway at Heathrow.
Greenpeace plans to build the winning design at the centre of the site where airport operator BAA hopes to construct a £7bn runway and a sixth terminal.
The charity bought the parcel of land last year and then distributed ownership to more than 60,000 supporters around the world.
Organisers say the small individual plots will create a legal headache for any government trying to push ahead with the expansion plans.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....nway-greenpeace
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #33 on Jan 29, 2010, 10:03am » | |
Bin Laden places blame for climate change
* From: AFP
* January 29, 2010 11:15PM
Al-QAEDA chief Osama bin Laden blamed industrial nations for global warming and urged a boycott of the US dollar to end "slavery."
The message, in an audiotape attributed to the terrorist leader, was aired by Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera today.
"All industrial nations, mainly the big ones, are responsible for the crisis of global warming," the message went on.
"We should stop using the dollar and get rid of it ... I know that there would be huge repercussions for that, but this would be the only way to free humankind from slavery ... to America and its companies."
The tape's authenticity could not immediately be confirmed.
http://www.news.com.au/world/bin-laden-p....i-1225824881909
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #34 on Feb 10, 2010, 11:21am » | |
Copenhagen - the Munich of our times?
VIEWPOINT
Malini Mehra
The Copenhagen Climate Accord was a failure of historic proportions that is hardly worth the paper it is printed on, says Malini Mehra. In this week's Green Room, she says climate negotiations need to adopt a new approach that can overcome barriers like national self-interest.
Climate negotiations will never be the same after the Copenhagen climate summit, and the accord reached in the Danish capital may very well prove to be the Munich Agreement of modern times.
The document was an appeasement to major polluters that condemns the world to runaway climate change and declares war on our children.
The conference in December ended with an "accord", with no legal status and dubious value, as one of its key outcomes.
The political agreement was simply "noted" by governments, not adopted by them. Its very existence, however, could now undermine the architecture established by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to combat global climate change.
There is much that is wrong with the agreement.
It is not legally-binding, contains no mid-term or long-term targets for emissions reductions, and - critically - does not refer to a "peaking" year for global emissions in order to keep within the "safe" limit of 2C (3.6F) warming since pre-industrial times.
It has also failed to follow the guidance of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which indicates three benchmarks for avoiding dangerous climate change:
• Developed countries must reduce emissions by 25-40% by 2020 from 1990 levels
• Global emissions must peak and then begin to decline by 2020
• Global emissions must decline by 50% by 2050 from 1990 levels.
The Copenhagen Accord contains a reference to the 2C limit, but does not endorse it.
Given that there are no targets, no peaking years, no trajectories for emissions reductions, only vague rhetoric, this is effectively an agreement for business-as-usual.
The Potsdam Institute on Climate Research estimates that a business-as-usual accord will actually set the world on course for a 3-4C (5.4-7.2F) temperature rise.
As this is a global average, the actual warming in many parts of the world - especially in the higher latitudes - will be much larger.
Small island states have feared this for some time, hence their plea that warming must not exceed 1.5C in order to ensure "island survival".
An accord too far
The Copenhagen Accord is a cruel blow for millions around the world who had put their faith in their leaders to deliver on climate protection.
Never before had such a constellation of groups and institutions come together: civil society, faith groups, business and industry, the investment community, scientists, engineers and professional organisations.
Even the UN itself, which ran an unprecedented "seal the deal" campaign, called for urgent action.
Leaders responded to the call and came to Copenhagen, but they did not deliver.
This is a failure of historic proportions because an "encore" will be very difficult.
We now have the modern equivalent of the Munich Agreement.
In 1938, European powers sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Hitler's aggression, thinking this would appease his territorial hunger.
The consequences of this gigantic miscalculation became evident with the unfolding horrors of World War II.
Now we are making a huge miscalculation by allowing the major emitters knowingly to sacrifice the poor and vulnerable parts of the world in exchange for their "right to pollute".
They will put a positive spin on the document, saying it is just a first step; but the reality is that countries as disparate as the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, China and India have no intention of committing to a legally-binding global climate regime, now or in the future.
Instead, we now have an anaemic "pledge and review" system, which provides little guarantee that emissions will decline as rapidly as they must.
New order
What Copenhagen made blindingly clear is that the world has changed.
We are in a new geopolitical era.
Gone are the days of outdated divisions of the world as "developed" and "developing".
Nations like China and India showed that they were the new power players and would act as nakedly in their self-interest as western powers.
It was their double act, with the US, that delivered this agreement - backed up by a pliant, if somewhat discomfited, Brazil and South Africa, and bounced it on to the rest of the world.
A key lesson from Copenhagen is that the new world order simply does fit comfortably with the archaic systems and processes of the United Nations.
The problem is not with the UN itself, but with its antiquated processes.
Bloc politics at the UN are now at least a decade out of date, and have not permitted the creative emergence of hybrid coalitions from North and South.
Copenhagen made depressingly clear that "political realism" has trumped "climate realism" and that the "G2" powers are incapable of providing global leadership.
We will have to look elsewhere for solutions.
The US and China, aided by others, have acted in their short-term political interest thinking they will be able to "manage" their way out of climate change.
But the climate system is oblivious to the vaunted ambitions of temporal nations, and a kicking is around the corner.
Those who have acted in their national short-term self-interest will find that their actions do not serve their long-term interests in a climate- and resource-constrained world.
The collateral damage of their decisions, however, will be tragic for those less able to cope.
The good news is that nothing is stopping the emergence of new players.
What we need is leadership.
Instead of dysfunctional and anachronistic groupings such as the G77/China, we need new groupings of nations that recognise the perils of climate change and increasingly see their interests as interdependent and intertwined.
Many of the nations that are putting their faith in strong de-carbonisation and green growth national plans - such as the Maldives, Costa Rica, Mexico, South Korea, Brazil, the EU and others - now need to make a common cause.
They need to cross failed "North/South" lines and devise a new politics of climate common security and collective economic prosperity.
With the next climate conference slated to take place in Mexico in November, there is everything to play for.
It may well be that Cancun can, what Copenhagen could not.
Malini Mehra is the founder and chief executive of the Centre for Social Markets, which specialises in corporate responsibility, sustainability and climate change
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8490935.stm
Published: 2010/02/02 16:36:24 GMT
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Deborah
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #35 on Feb 11, 2010, 9:22pm » | |
Copenhagen - the Munich of our times?
Quote:| The political agreement was simply "noted" by governments, not adopted by them. Its very existence, however, could now undermine the architecture established by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to combat global climate change. |
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Exactly as intended. Well done.
Quote:| Given that there are no targets, no peaking years, no trajectories for emissions reductions, only vague rhetoric, this is effectively an agreement for business-as-usual. |
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A truly "aspirational" agreement.
Quote:| They will put a positive spin on the document, saying it is just a first step; but the reality is that countries as disparate as the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, China and India have no intention of committing to a legally-binding global climate regime, now or in the future. |
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This is indeed the truth of the matter.
Quote:| We will have to look elsewhere for solutions. |
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Yes. We, the inhabitants of planet Earth, will need to take matters into our own hands by acting daily on what we know, via direct observation, to be true. There is no other way.
This is a superior analysis of the current situation. Thank you for posting this, BB.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8490935.stm
Published: 2010/02/02 16:36:24 GMT
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #36 on Feb 12, 2010, 1:07pm » | |
China's fears of rich nation 'climate conspiracy' at Copenhagen revealed
'Conspiracy to divide developing world' will make future talks harder, says leaked government report
* Jonathan Watts, Damian Carrington and Suzanne Goldenberg
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 February 2010 15.30 GMT
Rich nations furthered their "conspiracy to divide the developing world" at December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen, while Canada "connived" and the EU acted "to please the United States", according to an internal document from a Chinese government thinktank obtained by the Guardian.
The document, which was written in the immediate aftermath of Copenhagen but has only now come to light, provides the most candid insight yet into Chinese thinking on the fraught summit.
"It was unprecedented for a conference negotiating process to be so complicated, for the arguments to be so intense, for the disputes to be so wide and for progress to be so slow," notes the special report. "There was criticism and praise from all sides, but future negotiations will be more difficult."
The authors - all members of a government environmental research institute - were not part of the Chinese negotiating team, but their paper was commissioned by the environment ministry and circulated internally to the minister, vice-ministers and department chiefs in the days after the conference. The ministry currently plays only a marginal role in climate policy making but many of the paper's observations were echoed by China's chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, in a recent speech given at Beijing University.
The authors were downbeat about the prospects for international talks and China's position within them. "China, which was in the conference spotlight, played an active and constructive role, but was also under huge international pressure. It is predictable that our country will face a tougher challenge in future climate talks," it says.
Analysing international reaction to Copenhagen, the paper lists a selection of responses from the UN secretary-general, the Chinese foreign minister, the European commissioner, prominent NGOs and major media organisations, including the Guardian. It was written before the publication of the most strident criticisms of China's tactics by Mark Lynas, climate change adviser to the Maldives, and the UK climate and energy secretary, Ed Miliband.
Contrary to those views, the paper argues that the primary goal of China's negotiators was not to spoil the summit, but to resist a deal from rich nations that would put an unacceptable burden on China and other developing countries.
In their evaluation of the outcome, the officials' top point is that "the overall interests of developing countries have been defended" by resisting a rich nation "conspiracy" to abandon the Kyoto protocol, and with it the legal distinction between rich nations that must cut carbon emissions and developing nations for whom action is not compulsory.
The internal report acknowledges that unity among China's traditional allies in the developing world became harder to maintain in Copenhagen. "A conspiracy by developed nations to divide the camp of developing nations [was] a success," it said, citing the Small Island States' demand that the Basic group of nations - Brazil, South Africa, India, China - impose mandatory emission reductions.
The paper is scathing about the US-led "umbrella group", which it says adopted a position of inaction. Canada, it says, "was devoted to conniving" to convince the world that its pledge of a 3% emissions reduction between 1990 and 2020 is significant, while having no intention of meeting its Kyoto protocol target of 6%.
There are no comforting words for the European Union, which used to pride itself on playing a leadership role in climate talks. "Copenhagen was a setback for the EU", the authors say, in part because Europe "suggested the abandonment of the Kyoto protocol in order to please the US." The ministry has not responded to the Guardian's request for a comment on the leaked paper.
The authors note that the Copenhagen accord which emerged from the summit was not legally binding and lacked a global target for emissions. But it says that overall the accord was a "step forward", noting progress on a consensus to limit global warming within 2C, progress on the funding by rich nations of climate change adaptation measures in poorer nations and a "last minute" compromise by developing nations on the verification of their carbon pledges.
Lynas, who was present at many of the key negotiating sessions, said: "It's astonishing that this document suggests the Chinese really believes the absurd conspiracy theory that small island states were being played like puppets by rich countries. The truth is that the small island states and most vulnerable countries want China and its allies to cut their emissions because without these cuts they will not survive. Bluntly put, China is the world's No1 emitter, and if China does not reduce its emissions by at least half by mid-century, then countries like the Maldives will go under."
He added: "I think these claims of conspiracy are just a bullying tactic, to force more progressive developing countries back into line in case they too start demanding more serious action by China."
Speaking last month, China's chief climate negotiator, Xie - who also serves as vice-minister of the National Development and Reform commission which controls China's climate policy - also referred to the pressure from small island nations. "The rich nations were completely trying to make conflict among developing countries," he said.
He also described the "international fight on climate change" as a contest for economic development space and stressed that the way forward for China was to put more effort into building a low-carbon economy. "Countries with low-carbon industries will have a developmental advantage," said Xie. "Some people believe this is a global competition as significant as the space race in the cold war. "
The concluding section of the leaked document proposes a series of constructive initiatives. In what appears to be a bid by the environment ministry to play a greater role in carrying out climate-related policy, the report suggests amending air pollution control laws to include greenhouse gas emissions.
The official US version about what happened at Copenhagen is also harsh. Todd Stern, the state department climate change envoy, said this week that the summit "a snarling, aggravated, chaotic event." But America attributes the difficulties to a central divide between those countries - led by China - insisting rich countries bear the entire burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the position held by the US that rapidly emerging countries must also take action. Stern suggested the divide had not been bridged. China, along with India, South Africa and Brazil, had been "ambiguous" in its follow-up commitments to the accord.
Tom Burke, the influential environmentalist and a founder of E3G consultants, said: "There was indeed a lot of work done to get developing nations to put pressure on China. [But] it was not a conspiracy of any kind unfortunately as Britain was acting entirely alone on this front. Neither our EU allies nor the US mounted any kind of diplomatic effort. Pretty well everyone in Copenhagen, not just the developed countries, complained about China's blocking tactics."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....nhagen-document
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #37 on Feb 12, 2010, 1:10pm » | |
Senior Chinese climatologist calls for reform of IPCC
Lü Xuedu says Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a young institution that needs to strengthen its credibility
* Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 February 2010 17.17 GMT
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should be reformed to prevent political interference, improve research and reduce western bias, a senior Chinese climatologist has told the Guardian.
Lü Xuedu, the deputy director general of the National Climate Centre and a Chinese delegate to the Copenhagen conference, said the use of flawed projections about the speed of melting of Himalayan glaciers and recent allegations that scientists blocked criticism proved there are problems with the way some IPCC documents are assessed and checked.
Although he stressed support for the IPCC, of which China is an active participant, Lü said the young institution needed to strengthen its credibility.
"The IPCC is still in a developing stage. It cannot be perfect or complete. It needs reform, especially after problems were exposed," he said. "Some scientists take a political stance and wear coloured glasses, which means they do not look at issues in a comprehensive and objective way. The managing institute, authors and contributors of the assessment reports should be more objective in order to be more convincing."
However, he rejected calls for the resignation of the IPCC chair, Rajendra Pachauri, who has admitted it was wrong to include a prediction that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
"I have full confidence that he can lead the IPCC," said Lü. "The assessment reports involved so many materials and people that it is impossible for them to be perfect. As long as the IPCC officially admits problems, it is positive."
Chinese scientists have long been critical of the now-rejected claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035, though there is wide acceptance that the glaciers in Urumqi in north-east China and elsewhere are shrinking, albeit at a slower pace.
The National Climate Centre is a state body that has a strong influence on China's position on the science of climate change.
The government accepts that global warming is taking place, that China is affected and that, despite uncertainties about the degree of human responsibility, the country should take action to mitigate the impact as a responsible member of the international community.
Lü suggested confidence in the IPCC could be improved if the organisation drew on a wider range of sources, invested in research institutions in developing nations and more-carefully cross-checked "grey literature" that is not peer-reviewed.
"The majority of the IPCC's references came from Europe and North America. Developing countries also want their voices to be heard in the drafting stage," he said.
Many Chinese scientists, all funded by the government, remain wary of global efforts to reduce carbon emissions and question whether even a 2C rise in the world's temperature will be as calamitous as the IPCC has predicted.
"The equivalent of climate sceptics in the west are the climate conspiracy theorists in China, who believe this is all part of a western plot against China," said Yang Ailun of Greenpeace.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....ist-ipcc-reform
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #38 on Feb 12, 2010, 1:24pm » | |
Carbon targets pledged at Copenhagen 'fail to keep temperature rise to 2C'
MIT analysis shows pledges submitted to the UN falls short of reduction targets by at least 11bn tonnes of CO2
* John Vidal
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 February 2010 16.31 GMT
![[image]](http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/6568/scr7399196.jpg "[image]")
The pledges made by governments resulting from the Copenhagen climate conference are nowhere near enough to hold global temperatures to the summit's agreed goal of no more than a 2C rise, researchers have calculated. The results, which are the most rigorous analyses yet made of pledges submitted to the UN last month, will increase pressure on rich countries to make far deeper cuts in negotiations over the next year.
Researchers from the Sustainability Institute, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Ventana Systems in the US conclude that emissions reduction pledges would allow global mean temperature to increase approximately 3.9C, a level that could see global warming run out of control. "Under the current proposals, global emissions of greenhouse gases would increase 0.8C a year between now and 2020, , warned the joint report. It concluded that to reach the Copenhagen accord's goal of no more than a 2C rise, global emissions must peak within the next decade and fall to at least 50% below 1990 levels by 2050, which would require emissions cuts of 3% annually after 2020.
"A new degree of collective ambition and cooperation will be required before the world sees a climate agreement consistent with limited warming to even 2C let alone the 1.5C goal named by a growing number of governments and civil society groups," said Elizabeth Sawin of Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont, referring to a push at Copenhagen by the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) and 48 developing nations for a deal that limits temperature rises to 1.5C.
"The situation is serious. An increase of temperature of more than 1C above pre-industrial levels would result in the disappearance of our glaciers in the Andes, and the flooding of various islands and coastal zones," said Bolivian foreign minister minister, David Choquehuanca, responding to the US study. Scientists are agreed that an overall rise of 2C in world temperatures would be serious for food production, species loss and freshwater supplies. But anything over 3C would lead to the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, crippling water shortages across South America and Australia and the near-extinction of tropical coral reefs, they have said.
Earlier this week, teams of European researchers from Ecofys, Climate Analytics and the Potsdam Institute in Germany concluded that the pledges made so far if acted upon would lead to a global temperature rising "over" 3C.
The low end of the reduction proposals made by governments at Copenhagen would deliver a reduction of only 2 billion tonnes by 2020, and the best would be nine billion tonnes. However, at least 13-17 billion tonnes of reductions are needed to have more than an even chance of limiting warming to 2C.They said that only two out of 10 developed countries' reduction targets submitted to the Copenhagen accord qualify as "sufficient" to keep global temperature rise below 2C.
In the lead, said the European researchers, were the Maldives and Costa Rica, which have proposed to become "climate-neutral" by around 2020. Also at the ambitious end of the scale are Norway, Japan and Brazil, which are proposing to reduce their emissions significantly.
A third analysis of the pledges of only developed countries, undertaken by the US-based World Resources Institute, concluded that they fall "far short of the range of 25-40% emission reductions [by 2020] that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is needed to stabilise concentrations of CO2 equivalent at 450 parts per million ppm" Climate campaigners such as Bill McKibben have been pushing for a limit of 350 ppm.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....mission-pledges
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #39 on Feb 12, 2010, 1:31pm » | |
Utah delivers vote of no confidence for 'climate alarmists'
The US's most Republican state passes bill disputing science of climate change, claiming emissions are 'essentially harmless'
* Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 February 2010 18.20 GMT
Carbon dioxide is "essentially harmless" to human beings and good for plants. So now will you stop worrying about global warming?
Utah's House of Representatives apparently has at least. Officially the most Republican state in America, its political masters have adopted a resolution condemning "climate alarmists", and disputing any scientific basis for global warming.
The measure, which passed by 56-17, has no legal force, though it was predictably claimed by climate change sceptics as a great victory in the wake of the controversy caused by a mistake over Himalayan glaciers in the UN's landmark report on global warming.
But it does offer a view of state politicians' concerns in Utah which is a major oil and coal producing state.
The original version of the bill dismissed climate science as a "well organised and ongoing effort to manipulate and incorporate "tricks" related to global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome". It accused those seeking action on climate change of riding a "gravy train" and their efforts would "ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty".
In the heat of the debate, the representative Mike Noel said environmentalists were part of a vast conspiracy to destroy the American way of life and control world population through forced sterilisation and abortion.
By the time the final version of the bill came to a vote, cooler heats apparently prevailed. The bill dropped the word "conspiracy", and described climate science as "questionable" rather than "flawed".
However, it insisted – against all evidence – that the hockey stick graph of changing temperatures was discredited. It also called on the federal government's Environmental Protection Agency to order an immediate halt in its moves to regulate greenhouse gas emissions "until a full and independent investigation of climate data and global warming science can be substantiated".
As Noel explained: "Sometimes ... we need to have the courage to do nothing."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/12/utah-climate-alarmists
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #40 on Feb 13, 2010, 2:31am » | |
Somali pirates hold science to ransom
* 11 February 2010
* Magazine issue 2747
SOMALI pirates terrorising the Indian Ocean are a hazard to more than shipping and tourists. They are also killing important scientific research and may be indirectly damaging the ocean's ecosystem.
Fishing boats in the Indian Ocean routinely carry scientists who gather data about fish stocks and threatened species while ensuring that boats comply with fishing rules. The piracy threat has put a stop to that. "We can't monitor and we can't do experiments because of the pirates," says Laurent Dagorn of France's Research Institute for Development (IRD).
Boats now carry guards and no longer have room for scientists, who have had to confine their own research vessels to port. IRD has cancelled all of its cruises in the last nine months.
By eliminating scientific observers, piracy may be indirectly increasing by-catch. It could also be encouraging the use of damaging fishing methods like "fish-attracting devices" - bamboo rafts held together with netting that are left at sea for days or weeks. Fish such as tuna congregate under FADs, making them easier to catch, but FADs also snag and kill turtles and sharks. Michel Goujon, director of the French tuna-boat owners' association, Orthongel, has evidence that their use is on the rise.
Regional governments accept the need to resume research. But, "I don't see any sign that piracy is going to decrease", says Goujon. "In fact, every time a ransom is paid it's an incentive for new attacks."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20....-to-ransom.html
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #41 on Feb 17, 2010, 10:02pm » | |
Distorted view through the climate gates
Richard Black | 17:29 UK time, Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Much has been written - not least on this website - and much more surely will be written over the coming months about supposed inconsistencies, errors, misjudgements and poor practice among climate scientists.
How many "scandals" do we now have with the suffix "-gate" attached to them? At least five, by my count, with the most embarrassing surely being the projection that the mighty Himalayan glaciers could largely be gone within a human generation.
![[image]](http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/5627/earthspl2269232103.jpg "[image]")
The latest -gate - detailed in a series of articles in The Guardian by environment journalist Fred Pearce - concerns a set of temperature data from China that was used in a 1990 paper in Nature to estimate the likely impact of progressive urbanisation on temperatures recorded at weather stations.
The paper is one of several cited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in reaching its conclusion that:
"Urban heat island effects are real but local, and have not biased the large-scale trends."
The implication of The Guardian's article is that Chinese scientists contributing data for that paper had not taken as much care as they should have done to document and allow for the fact that some of the weather stations had been relocated over the course of the study period, possibly affecting their readings; and that at some stage the paper's lead author, Professor Phil Jones, had been made aware of the issue by an independent UK researcher, Douglas Keenan, but did not seek to publicise or remedy it.
As anyone following the -gate trail will know, Professor Jones is the scientist at the centre of the original "Climategate" - November's e-mail theft from the University of East Anglia.
The point of this post isn't to go once more over well-trodden ground, but to raise a simple but crucial point.
Like all the other noisy -gates, this latest one throws up two questions: was scientific best practice followed, and is there anything here that affects the basic picture of climate science?
Weather_stationWhatever the answers to those may be - and Professor Jones' University of East Anglia has issued a rebuttal covering key points of The Guardian's article - the important point to make is that they are separate questions.
In some circles, every single -gate "revelation" has been followed by a ritualised fanfare claiming that the picture of climate warming through rising greenhouse gases concentrations has now been "fatally undermined", or some similar phrase.
Journalists with an eye for old-fashioned concepts such as balance, like Fred Pearce, are careful to avoid making that conclusion.
He writes that this latest episode...
"...does not change the global picture of temperature trends. There is plenty of evidence of global warming, not least from oceans far from urban influences. A review of recent studies published online in December by David Parker of the Met Office concludes that, even allowing for Jones's new data, 'global near-surface temperature trends have not been greatly affected by urban warming trends'."
He could also have cited the body of evidence from the satellite record, which also shows a clear warming trend.
In a paper published in the journal Energy and Environment [pdf link] in which he detailed his concerns about the 1990 conclusions, Doug Keenan made the same point:
"None of this means that the conclusion of the IPCC is incorrect."
In an interview with the Press Association (PA) about The Guardian's article, Phil Jones says he stands by the conclusion of the 1990 paper, not least because it was backed up by other studies, including papers in 2007 and 2008 that used a more detailed Chinese dataset.
Below is a graph comparing the 1990 (Jones et al) and 2007 (Li et al) graphs.
![[image]](http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/1918/jonesgraph9247603.jpg "[image]")
He goes on to say:
"It makes me quite worried people are beginning to doubt the climate has warmed up."
And clearly some people do doubt that - many of you tell me so, in great detail, on every post I write, whatever it deals with - and judging by your comments, that's partly because some of you believe that all climate scientists are as bent as a... well, a hockey stick might be a good simile here.
It is a free world; and if you really do hold that view, then presumably it makes sense to jump the divide between the two questions I raised earlier, and conclude that as all climate scientists are dodgy, so is all climate data.
But I would argue that keeping the questions separate is of absolute and vital importance.
How scientists and the institutions of science behave is an important issue, no doubt about it - for evidence, look no further than the latest developments on the MMR saga, which sees The Lancet retracting the decade-old paper that sparked all the fuss - and Phil Jones tells PA in his interview:
"We do need to make more of the data available, I fully accept that."
But what matters far, far more than the nuances of climate scientists' behaviour is whether the climate is warming, and if it is, what is driving that warming.
Those are questions crucial for humanity's future, because if the IPCC's projections become reality, substantial swathes of the global population will find themselves living in much more straitened circumstances than they face at present.
If the scientific case for greenhouse warming crumbles, so be it; but I'd suggest we should beware of assuming it is crumbling simply because a few scientists or a few scientific papers or a few IPCC reviewers have been seen to fall short of the highest standards.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/....en_written.html
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #42 on Feb 17, 2010, 10:06pm » | |
Rising scepticism - a chill wind?
Richard Black | 17:52 UK time, Friday, 5 February 2010
Over the last few months, a number of British commentators have been trumpeting an increase in scepticism about climate change.
The cold weather (often claimed - incorrectly - to be a hemisphere-wide phenomenon), the University of East Anglia e-mail hack, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's lack of rigour over projections of Himalayan glacier melt, the weak outcome from the Copenhagen summit: all these and more have been proclaimed as factors that are said to be deflecting the public away from climate concern.
Now comes evidence from an opinion poll - commissioned by the BBC, carried out by Populus - indicating that in Britain at least, tales of increasing scepticism may be true.
The headline stats are that between November last year and the beginning of February this year, there has been a net 9% downwards swing in the proportion of Britons believing that "the Earth's climate is changing and global warming is taking place".
Having said that, three-quarters of the population still believes global warming is a real phenomenon.
However, only one quarter believes it is a fact and that it is largely man-made - down from two-fifths last November.
Determining the cause of this change, however, is less easy.
More than half of respondents said they were aware of news stories about "flaws or weaknesses in climate science".
But in this group, 16% said they were now more convinced of the risks of climate change, against only 11% who were less convinced; so if exposure to "ClimateGate" or "GlacierGate" or other such issues has done anything, it has increased confidence in the scientific picture of greenhouse warming.
Which perhaps leaves the weather as a key factor. Having to dig your car out of a snowbank and sending the kids out to make a snowman would, you might think, tend to mitigate against belief in warnings of a dangerously warming world ahead.
Backing this argument, 83% of respondents said they were aware of news stories about the "coldest winter on record" (substantially more than were aware of reporting on the Copenhagen summit, incidentally).
![[image]](http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/8050/cameronpa5952356410.jpg "[image]")
So if this poll gives an accurate reflection of a change in public opinion, who does it vindicate, who does it encourage, and who does it depress?
It hardly vindicates those who see all the various "gate" stories as "exposing the climate science fraud", because if anything - as discussed above - exposure to these stories co-incided with rising confidence in the science, although the numbers are small.
It will encourage those hoping for a crack to emerge in the cross-party consensus on climate change pervading UK politics at the moment.
With a general election looming and political advisers looking for anything that could give them an edge, the poll comes at an apposite time for anyone arguing that their particular party should break the mould and downscale plans for wind turbines, energy-efficient lightbulbs and "walking buses".
It might well depress anyone who sees climate change as a real and looming danger, whether for UK citizens or people in less affluent parts of the world. Bob Watson, chief science adviser for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), said it was "very disappointing".
But should he be so gloomy? If the mood really has been changed by a localised spell of cold weather - and that is a theory rather than a conclusion, I know - it shouldn't depress them too much.
Because who knows? An unusually hot summer - and globally, January was the warmest on record, in case you missed it, and El Nino conditions pertain in the Pacific - and fickle opinion might turn again.
One set of people who perhaps ought to be concerned are those working in the British media.
It would be interesting to see whether all 83% of those who had heard it was the "coldest winter on record" were also aware that the cold snap did not apply to the whole globe or even half the globe, but was much more limited in its extent.
Were all editors as rigorous as they might have been in making sure this context was put across - or was the footage of British snowploughs and closed British schools so compelling as to banish thoughts of including balance from further afield?
In terms of the global politics of climate change, it's hard to see the poll results making any difference at all.
One of the lessons of Copenhagen is that the question of whether and how the international community will get to grips with rising emissions is currently in the gift of a small, select group of nations - and the UK isn't one of them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/....scepticism.html
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #43 on Feb 18, 2010, 6:46pm » | |
UN climate chief quits
Posted 11 hours 20 minutes ago
Yvo de Boer, head of the UN's climate change convention, will resign as of July 1, his office announced.
De Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will join the consultancy group KPMG as global adviser on climate and sustainability and work with a number of universities, the UNFCCC secretariat said.
The announcement came nearly two months after the Copenhagen summit on climate change, seen even by its supporters as a disappointment and by its critics as a chaotic failure.
The UNFCCC, an offshoot of the 1992 Rio summit, gathers 194 nations in the search for combating the causes of man-made climate change and easing its effects.
Its key achievement is the Kyoto Protocol, the only international treaty that requires curbs in heat-stoking greenhouse gases blamed for disrupting the climate system.
In a statement Mr de Boer said it had been a "difficult decision" to step down.
"I believe the time is ripe for me to take on a new challenge, working on climate and sustainability with the private sector and academia," he said.
"Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a low-emissions world are overwhelming.
"This calls for new partnerships with the business sector and I now have the chance to help make this happen."
A Dutch national, Mr de Boer was appointed the UNFCCC's executive secretary in September 2006.
He had pinned hopes on a breakthrough in Copenhagen that would unlock a new treaty on climate change that would take effect after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's current pledges expire.
Instead, after nearly two weeks of talks, the summit was only able to yield a general agreement on limiting warming to two degrees Celsius.
The accord did not spell out the means for achieving this goal, and the pledges made under it are only voluntary.
The document did not gain approval at a plenary session of the UNFCCC, and it has so far failed to gain the official endorsement of major developing emitters which helped to craft it.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/18/2824113.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #44 on Feb 23, 2010, 8:27pm » | |
Yvo de Boer's resignation compounds sense of gathering climate crisis
Despite his steady hands at the helm of climate talks, de Boer was losing his touch and navigated into rancorous territory
o Mark Lynas
o guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 February 2010 15.05 GMT
How can everything have gone so wrong so quickly? A year ago, the prospects for successful climate change regulation were bright: a new US president promised positive re-engagement with the international community on the issue, civil society everywhere was enthusiastically mobilising to demand that world leaders "seal the deal" at Copenhagen, and the climate denial crowd had been reduced to an embarrassing rump lurking in the darker corners of the internet.
Now there seems to have been a complete reversal. Obama is held hostage by a deadlocked Senate, which will agree to neither domestic climate legislation nor US participation in a new legally binding treaty. Copenhagen was a disaster from start to finish, and even the face-saving Copenhagen accord is winning at best lukewarm support even from the countries that helped draw it up. To add to the sense of crisis, the climate denial lobby is suddenly resurgent, and the conspiracy theories that underlie the hacked climate emails controversy are in danger of becoming popular received wisdom.
These are dark times. And the resignation of Yvo de Boer as executive secretary of the UN climate change secretariat today only compounds the sense of gathering crisis. De Boer has been a steady pair of hands guiding the international negotiations through some very rocky periods — not least the dramatic episode in Bali two years ago where he himself burst into tears on the plenary stage — and his trustworthy, solid presence will be sorely missed. Despite the official denials, there can be little doubt that this resignation indicates his frustration at the general unravelling of the process that was so depressingly evident at Copenhagen.
Whether de Boer himself should shoulder any of the blame for the Copenhagen debacle is arguable. Most of the responsibility for the conduct of the negotiations, which were marked by poor organisation, suspicion, bitterness and almost absurd levels of chaos on the final night, rests with the hosts Denmark. But the secretariat also appeared powerless to navigate past procedural blocking tactics employed by Sudan and other retrogressive developing nations, suggesting a creeping lack of confidence on the part of the UN. De Boer seemed to be losing his touch.
Even after Copenhagen was finally over, things continued to deteriorate. It was unclear what, if any, legal standing the accord actually had given that it was only "noted" by the Conference of Parties rather than adopted as a decision. And a 31 January deadline for countries to decide whether they wanted to be "associated" with the accord was allowed to slip, while governments continued to be confused as to what, if anything, they were supposed to be sending the secretariat.
In the meantime, the prospects for a legally binding new treaty being agreed at Cancun, at the next major UN climate meeting in December, seem to recede by the day. The only countries that support a new round of Kyoto targets are those that would not be bound by them — namely the developing countries.
Even the EU, Kyoto's most stalwart supporter during the Bush era, is now backing away. The more logical idea of tying the world's biggest emitters – China, the US, the EU, Russia and India, in descending order – into a single, fair framework for emissions reduction seems even less plausible, given the current political mood.
All in all, the next few months look grim. There is now no serious prospect of Obama getting legislation through the Senate, this year, or possibly ever. Following the sustained attack by climate deniers on both individual scientists and the IPCC, public confidence in climate change as an urgent issue is also steadily eroding, further reducing the room for manoeuvre by politicians. The next round of intermediate negotiations, due to start in Bonn on 31 May, look set to take place in a poisonous atmosphere of bitterness and rancour.
No wonder Yvo de Boer wanted to get out.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....ate-change-body
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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