This comes from the BBC’s description of the flights of SpaceShipTwo to take people to the edge of space, and then come back to a nice safe landing (hopefully). And all for a mere $200,000 - the world’s most expensive rollercoaster.
Of course, Richard Branson is a man who is extremely adept at being on both sides of the debate on environmental issues.
On the one hand he runs a transcontinental airline and several smaller low-cost airlines so beloved of environmental extremists AND now a sub-orbital flight company, none of which are known for their environmental friendliness or low carbon emissions.
And on the other:
“To my mind there is no greater or more immediate challenge than that posed by climate change,” said Sir Richard.
“It’s therefore more than fitting that the very first science to be conducted on board our new vehicles may be specifically directed at increasing our understanding and knowledge of the atmosphere and from there, to better inform our decisions as to the most effective ways of dealing with climate change.”
“It’s therefore more than fitting that the very first science to be conducted on board our new vehicles may be specifically directed at increasing our understanding and knowledge of the atmosphere and from there, to better inform our decisions as to the most effective ways of dealing with climate change.”
What’s the betting that no-one will be tasteless enough to point out the carbon emissions per passenger of SpaceShipTwo? Certainly not NASA/NOAA because he’s offered to put their scientific instruments on his carbon-spewing air tractor, sorry, sub-orbital first stage launcher, White Knight 2
“Almost everything Noaa does at the moment is at 25,000ft (7,600m) maximum altitude. It’s quite difficult to find research aircraft that do atmospheric testing above that,” Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, explained.
“One of the things that we as an airline operator know is that the tropopause is rising slightly. That has had quite an effect on aircraft flying in the upper atmosphere and the amount of turbulence they get.
“This is probably related to the mix of greenhouse gases and the levels they are rising to that’s moving the tropopause up.”
…and absolutely nothing to do with the greenhouse gases coming from Richard Branson’s planes.
So here’s today’s scientific question: What’s wrong with this picture?
I rather think even Sir Isaac Newton could answer this one.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
An interesting op-ed comparing the “Yellow journalism of Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer and the abuse of the scientific method by scientists promoting global warming.
The reality is:
over the past several decades an increasing number of scientists have shed the restraints imposed by the scientific method and begun to proclaim the truth of man-made global warming. This is a hypothesis that remains untested, makes no predictions that can be tested in the near future, and cannot offer a numerical explanation for the limited evidence to which it clings. No equations have been shown to explain the relationship between fossil-fuel emission and global temperature. The only predictions that have been made are apocalyptic, so the hypothesis has to be accepted before it can be tested.
Correct. Go on
The only evidence that can be said to support this so-called scientific consensus is the supposed correlation of historical global temperatures with historical carbon-dioxide content in the atmosphere. Even if we do not question the accuracy of our estimates of global temperatures into previous centuries, and even if we ignore the falling global temperatures over the past decade as fossil-fuel emissions have continued to increase, an honest scientist would still have to admit that the hypothesis of man-made global warming hardly rises to the level of “an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure.” Global warming may or may not be “the greatest scam in history,” as it was recently called by John Coleman, a prominent meteorologist and the founder of the Weather Channel. Certainly, however, under the scientific method it does not rise to the level of an “item of physical knowledge.”
As I’ve noted before, one of the key scary aspects of the behaviour of Global Warming scientists has been the total collapse of scientific ethics in regard to reporting results.
Surely Joe Six-Pack should not be expected to monitor the findings of research physicists; if anything is to be done about this collapse of scientific standards, it must be done by the scientific community itself. Unfortunately, history has shown the inability of professional communities to police their own ranks.
And that’s the truth. One of the things that nagged me about the Republican Congress that was, was its complete inability to enforce its own laws on scientific reporting for government-paid scientists (like James Hansen) or the massive funding given to scientists who promoted global warming as a human-made global catastrophe.
Life’s pretty exciting these days when you’re a climate researcher, a lobbyist or an environmental activist. There’s a neverending schedule of conferences on climate change around the world to attend.
It’s a shame that very little science actually goes on at these conferences. Just lots and lots of shoulder-rubbing with politicians, scientists, writers, activists and the press. Especially press, because you can never have too much publicity.
As Bob Carter reports(pdf) on three such conferences held in Australia and New Zealand:
The three conferences shared the features of widespread pre-meeting publicity, and of sponsorship by major science organisations (CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, Royal Society of New Zealand), government departments (governments of Victoria, South Australia and New Zealand, foreign embassies (U.K., Holland), Greenhouse organisations and lobby groups (Australian Greenhouse Office, Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature, Pew Center for Climate Change), and a wide range of companies and business organizations.
Press coverage before and during each meeting often gave the impression that the science of climate change was to be the focus, but in fact the conferences were dominantly concerned with greenhouse politics and governance, with a special emphasis on the development of presumed environmental-good “command and control” measures such as carbon taxes. As the organizer of the Wellington meeting noted, “This is a policy conference, not a science congress or a diplomatic negotiation”.
I present here an analysis of the face that was presented to the public by the Wellington conference, Climate Change and Governance, hereafter often called simply the climate conference. The conclusions that I draw are, however, applicable also to the Melbourne and Adelaide meetings and to others of like kind. I assess the intentions of the Wellington conference organizers, the degree to which the general and policy discussions were informed by an adequate understanding of the science of climate change, the role played by the media in informing the public, and assess the outcomes. Troublesome ethical issues emerge, the most important of which include the role in society of scientific organizations and universities, and the way in which government-employed and other scientists are today constrained in the public comment that they can make on controversial issues of the day. Another major concern is the way in which scientific results are now routinely deployed into the public domain with a clear greenhouse propaganda intent.
That’s problem with being a skeptic - I just don’t get out enough.
(I’ve taken out all of the stupid formatting to leave the essential claims. Persuading Piers to leave the formatting as bland as possible has been a futile exercise)
The Long Range Forecasters
Delta House, 175-177 Borough High Street. London SE1 1HR
Tel +44(0)20 7939 9946 Fax +44(0)20 7939 9901 E:piers@weatheraction.com
www.weatheraction.com or for Europe including News and now to buy WeatherAction 45day ahead weather forecasts for selected European countries via PayPal - visit our European site www.lowefo.com
For further information contact Piers Corbyn office above or +447958713320 / +447507426264
News Release for 06.00hrs UT Thurs 12 June 2008
Weather Action Long range trail forecasts for World weather extremes
Piers Corbyn of WeatherAction Long range forecasters today (June 12) - in a dramatic new move towards developing long range extreme weather forecasts for anywhere in the world - predicted that the first tropical storm of the US season will form (85% likely) around 18th June.
“We expect it to start in the Caribbean / Gulf of Mexico region and soon develop into Hurricane strength and make landfall (75% likely) or near landfall by 21 or 22 June in Florida / Southern States or possibly Cuba or (less likley) the west side of the Gulf .
“This Tropical storm will be associated with severe tornado events in central / SouthEast parts of the USA while New York /NorthEast USA are likely to be unusually cold” said Mr Corbyn. “After that we are 90% confident the storm will quickly die and the period 23 June to 5 July will be essentially storm free” he said.
There is at present (June 13th) no forecast for any US Tropical Storms on the USA official hurricane and weather service Service sites. This is the 5th of WeatherAction’s trial forecasts of extreme weather events in the USA this year. The success rate (for three major blizzards and a spell of severe tornadoes) is 4/4 so far*.
Mr Corbyn currently also has an active summer period forecast for exceptional torrential downpours and floods in Britain at the end of June / start of July which will disrupt Wimbledon tennis and Glastonbury festival (see below)
These trial forecasts are created using WeatherAction’s revolutionary Solar Weather Technique which uses predictable aspects of particle and magnetic affects from the Sun to make forecasts of certain extreme events in various parts of the world. At this stage they are not intended to forecast all extreme events (as do the full forecasts for Europe and Britain) - only a selected few. The forecasts are available to customers months ahead and made public one to four weeks ahead of events.
The expected success rate at the present level of research is about 6 successful for every one which is unsuccessful. For an ongoing monitor of the WeatherAction (SWT24e) extreme June-December 2008 forecast world trials and latest news visit Weather Action’s world extreme events forecast link on www.lowefo.com .
Two forecasts have been made so far this (N hemisphere) summer - the USA Tropical storm forecast above and the British end-June/start July deluge forecast below which was carried in The Sun on 4th June (page 18).
Weather Action June 2008 Forecast Media summary Statement (Available 3rd June2008 at 00:00hrs)
Exceptional Deluges likely to hit Glastonbury and Wimbledon
Piers Corbyn of WeatherAction Long range forecasters today (June 3rd) warned that WeatherAction’s June forecast is predicting exceptional deluges, thunder and floods around the end of June and start of July and specifically that ‘Glastonbury festival & Wimbledon Tennis are likely to be hit by exceptional deluges of torrential rain’. This warning has a high (85%) confidence and is part of WeatherAction’s full forecast for this June which spells out the timing and region detail of weather through the month. Piers said “We are again experiencing stark changes and extreme weather events all over the world triggered by the high sensitivity of magnetic and particle links between the sun and Earth during this general period of transition between an odd solar cycle - 23 - and even cycle 24″.
Fuller information via www.weatheraction.com
The June issue of WeatherAction forecast bulletin carries an article on the latest development in the challenge to the UN Climate Committee (IPCC) by ‘the gang of 4′ scientists
For latest visit www.weatheraction.com for report: “No response from UN Climate Committee to challenge by ‘gang of 4′ scientists. Is UN split? ”
Thank you
So there you have it. I do not endorse Piers’ predictions because I don’t know what his method is - nobody but Piers does, although they are claimed to be derived from observations of the Sun.
I simply copy them here and we’ll see over the course of the Hurricane Season how accurate they are.
As if by magic, Nigel Lawson has his thesis immediately proven by John Vidal, Environment Editor at the extremely pro-AGW “The Guardian” with this piece:
Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN’s carbon offsetting programme.
Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN’s main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.
No, really?
A working paper from two senior Stanford University academics examined more than 3,000 projects applying for or already granted up to $10bn of credits from the UN’s CDM funds over the next four years, and concluded that the majority should not be considered for assistance. “They would be built anyway,” says David Victor, law professor at the Californian university. “It looks like between one and two thirds of all the total CDM offsets do not represent actual emission cuts.”
Governments consider that CDM is vital to reducing global emissions under the terms of the Kyoto treaty. To earn credits under the mechanism, emission reductions must be in addition to those that would have taken place without the project. But critics argue this “additionality” is impossible to prove and open to abuse. The Stanford paper, by Victor and his colleague Michael Wara, found that nearly every new hydro, wind and natural gas-fired plant expected to be built in China in the next four years is applying for CDM credits, even though it is Chinese policy to encourage these industries.
“Traders are finding ways of gaining credits that they would never have had before. You will never know accurately, but rich countries are clearly overpaying by a massive amount,” said Victor.
Of course, those billions come from Western taxpayers like you and me. Unsurprisingly, developers of such projects as wind energy farms and hydroelectric schemes applying for emissions credits that can be sold, which in theory would help fund building, but they’ve already been funded by conventional means anyway, so the money goes straight into the developers’ pockets.
Happy now?
So Lawson’s observation that one of the key characteristics of bubbles is roguery has already been demonstrated by the UN’s own scheme being ransacked by businessman wanting to double their profits through the CDM.
How long before the general public realises that its been had?
The next few posts are about the vexed question of what exactly is the sensitivity of the Earth’s climate to doubled CO2 enrichment.
But first the question as posed to Benny Peiser’s CCNet mailing list:
Dear Benny
For once, I shall leave Andrew Glikson’s wild world of bizarre linear extrapolation to others and focus on the new challenge from Andrew Revkin:
“A question for climate skeptics: I presume you agree there’s at least a chance you could be wrong, just as you assert those pointing to a clearcut climate apocalypse have little basis for their claims. On that front, I’d be curious to know what you’d propose as a backup plan if the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 turns out to be higher than you think?”
This is such an interesting question that I’d like to throw this open to CCNet’s entire readership:
Where is the empirical evidence that the earth’s climate has any measureable sensitivity to carbon dioxide rise? Theoretically in an equilibrium situation carbon dioxide rises should cause warming. But then we’re not in an equilibrium situation.
Personally I am baffled by calculations of “climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide” which ignore the fundamental problem that all reconstructions of carbon dioxide versus temperature from ice cores show that temperatures rise first and then centuries later carbon dioxide (and that other dread GHG methane) begin to rise. Even while carbon dioxide continues to rise , the previous started warming proceeds at the same rate, and then stops abruptly and begins a relatively slow decline.
I am baffled because of two things:
1. How can supposed cause or even amplification of temperature rise by carbon dioxide induced warming be deduced from this behaviour which is the reverse of that assumed in greenhouse theory?
2. If the ice core records are correct about the amount of carbon dioxide in ancient atmospheres being lower than today’s value (which in itself opens a whole new can of worms about ice core sampling), and given that the theoretical response of temperature rise to carbon dioxide rise is logarithmic, why don’t any ice cores show any sensitivity to carbon dioxide at lower levels when the sensitivity should be much higher?
I ask these questions genuinely openly without sarcasm.
Which brings me to Andrew Revkin’s question: Andrew Revkin assumes that “climate skeptics” are a priori biased for some reason unable to see the marvellous truth of greenhouse gas theory, but why should anyone believe in a theory for which there is no empirical evidence? What if we’ve all been steamrollered into accepting a hypothesis of “climate sensitivity” to carbon dioxide which is false? If the sensitivity is even higher, as Andrew Revkin asks us to consider, why has this never been seen in the past when amounts of carbon dioxide were much lower?
So first, before too much else happens, before we invent fantastical geo-engineering schemes to manage the Earth’s climate, will someone explain what is the climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide rise eight hundred years hence upon the temperature rise of today?
sincerely
John A
In the next few posts I shall be posting various replies to this question before attempting to tackle the question at what I believe is its root.
Another episode where you conclude that climate modellers have been elevated to a new branch of government or a special priesthood. Why else would you think that the UK government would do the following [my emphasis]:
Malaria warning as UK becomes warmer
The UK is to be hit by regular malaria outbreaks, fatal heatwaves and contaminated drinking water within five years because of global warming, the Government has warned the NHS.
Following a major consultation with climate change scientists, the Government is issuing official advice to hospitals, care homes and institutions for dealing with rising temperatures, increased flooding, gales and other major weather events.
Hospitals have been warned to prepare for outbreaks of malaria and tick-born viruses.
It warns that there is a high likelihood of a major heatwave, leading to as many as 10,000 deaths, hitting the UK by 2012.
Really? Suddenly climate scientists are experts in malarial diseases and tropical medicine? Since when? I must have missed that part of the earth sciences course I took at university.
A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said: “Our work is based on what is likely to happen if we do nothing to prevent it - and it could well be that we see an increase in diseases such as malaria.
“Malaria has been seen in these islands in the past, and it is not impossible that it will return regularly if the UK experiences more tropical temperatures and rain on the scale experienced last summer.
“Our nearest continental neighbour, France, has already experienced a severe heatwave, with thousands of people dying, mostly the old and frail, so it was very clearly seen by scientists as possible here within a short timeframe.”
So the people in France were killed by tropical diseases? No they weren’t. They died because they could not afford to air condition their homes, possibly because of those extra “green” taxes designed to reduce electricity consumption.
What of the claim that the UK has seen these diseases before? Well it has. Up to the 19th Century, malaria was endemic to certain marshy parts of England. But the greatest loss of life from malaria in England came in the teeth of the Little Ice Age when temperatures were a degree celsius lower than today, the growing season was five weeks or more shorter and snow and ice covered the land in winter for months at a time.
Want to find a real expert on malaria and disease transmission? Try Professor Paul Reiter, who works at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in San Juan, Puerto Rico:
Discussions of the potential impact of human-induced global warming frequently include malaria, a disease widely perceived as tropical. Articles in the popular and scientific press have predicted that warmer temperatures will result in malaria transmission in Europe and North America. Such predictions, often based on simple computer models, overlook malaria’s history; until recently, malaria was endemic and common in many temperate regions, and major epidemics extended as far north as the Arctic Circle. Despite the disappearance of the disease from most of these regions, the indigenous mosquitoes that transmitted it were never eliminated and remain common in some areas. Thus, although temperature is important in the transmission dynamics of malaria, many other variables are of equal or greater importance.
Interestingly Professor Reiter withdrew from the IPCC because of its politicization of scientific issues and pre-ordained conclusions which ran counter to the scientific evidence. He even had to threaten to sue them to withdraw his name from the list of authors for the IPCC Review. He also reported that the IPCC had no other comparable expertise on tropical medicine and the transmission of tick-born diseases.
But hey! Why bother when climate modellers can fulfill any expert role.
The English word for malaria was ague, a term that remained in common usage until the 19th century. The Medieval Warm Period was already on the wane when Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400) wrote, in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, “You are so very choleric of complexion./ Beware the mounting sun and all dejection,/ Nor get yourself with sudden humours hot;/ For if you do, I dare well lay a groat/ That you shall have the tertian fever’s pain,/ Or some ague that may well be your bane.”
Such mention of agues did not disappear when the coldest years of the Little Ice Age began. In 16th century England, many marshlands were notorious for their ague-stricken populations and remained so well into the 19th century. William Shakespeare (1564–1616), who was born in the autumn of Bruegel’s first fierce winter, mentioned ague in eight of his plays.
So says Professor Reiter. But what does he know? He’s not creating stupid panics from computer models unable to predict the next El Nino, the next drought or anything else.
But he’s not listened to, because he doesn’t represent the views of a self-indulgent consensus of over-qualified idiots. Whatever makes climate modellers believe their own publicity? Its the rockstar syndrome transplanted into academia.
I recommend the entire essay “From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age” and learn the medical and climatic reality. The UK Government won’t, because scaring Britons with imaginary hobgoblins and unlikely scenarios is a form of social control, and the British taxpayer gets to foot the bill.
You can bet that by 2012, with the UK government unable to produce a single case of domestic malaria, no-one will be held responsible for the money wasted and no-one will be to blame, and the report will be quietly forgotten to be replaced by the next health scare promoted by “the faceless consensus of idiot experts”.
Update:
Professor Paul Reiter testified as to the IPCC’s expertise in tropical medicine and malarial transmission to the UK House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee in 2005. His judgment on the IPCC’s “expertise” was devastating [my emphasis]:
The natural history of mosquito-borne diseases is complex, and the interplay of climate, ecology, mosquito biology, and many other factors defies simplistic analysis. The recent resurgence of many of these diseases is a major cause for concern, but it is facile to attribute this resurgence to climate change, or to use models based on temperature to “predict” future prevalence. In my opinion, the IPCC has done a disservice to society by relying on “experts” who have little or no knowledge of the subject, and allowing them to make authoritative pronouncements that are not based on sound science. In truth, the principal determinants of transmission of malaria and many other mosquito-borne diseases are politics, economics and human activities. A creative and organized application of resources is urgently required to control these diseases, regardless of future climate change.
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