BLOG NUMBER 80; MAY 17,2013; ALARMISTS OR NOT?

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER Ross McKitrick

Ross R. McKitrick is a Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph and Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute. He specializes in environmental economics. He has published many studies on the economic analysis of pollution policy, economic growth and air pollution trends, climate policy options, the measurement of global warming, and statistical methods in paleoclimatology. His latest book is Economic Analysis of Environmental Policy, published by University of Toronto Press (Fall 2010). He has also published numerous invited book chapters, newspaper and magazine essays, and think-tank reports. In 2003, his (coauthored) book, Taken by Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming, won the $10,000 Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian Public Policy. Professor McKitrick has been cited in ince media around the world as an expert on the science and policy of global warming. He has made invited academic presentations in Canada, the United States, and Europe, and has testified before the US Congress and the Canadian Parliamentary Finance and Environment Committees. In 2006, he was one of 12 experts from around the world asked to brief a panel of the US National Academy of Sciences on paleoclimate reconstruction methodology. McKITRICK CLAIMS THAT:

1. Ontario's Green energy Act will place the Province near the top of N American jurisdictions in terms of electricity costs.
2. This will seriously impair Ontario's growth and competitiveness.
3. Manufacturing is likely to decline by 29 per cent, mining by 13 per cent, and forestry by less than one per cent.
4. The Liberals have attempted to offset these declines by offering them subsidies. WHO PAYS?
5. The resulting economic stagnation will cause huge job losses
6. The Global Warming claims are B,S. 
7. THE GREEN ENERGY ACT's focus on wind generated power is a huge boondoggle. 80% of the energy generated occurs only when demand for electricity is low. The province is forced to sell off the surplus at a loss. This miscalculation has cost to date, an estimated $2 billion dollars and generates annual losses approaching $200 million.
8. The inefficiencies of wind power are well documented when compared to conventional methods.
9. Any job increase claims by the Liberal government due to the Green Energy Act are temporary in nature and offset by job losses created by its enactment.
10. Any emission reductions, that have been small in scope, could have been achieved at a fraction of the cost. 

ON CARBON EMISSIONS:  

 Ian Rutherford Plimer 

(born 12 February 1946) is an Australian geologist, professor emeritus of earth sciences at the university of Melbourne, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide and the director of several mineral exploration and mining companies. He has published 130 scientific papers, six books and edited the Encyclopedia of Geology.

Heaven and Earth written in 2009

Plimer writes that climate models focus too strongly on the effects of carbon dioxide, and do not give the weight he thinks is appropriate to other factors such as solar variation The book asserts that the temperature changes we have observed in the 20th century are within the "normal range of variability," that significant global warming is not happening and that there is negligible human impact on warming.

He argues that"The volcanic eruption in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet."

"Climate has always changed. It always has and always will. Sea level has always changed. Ice sheets come and go. Life always changes. Extinctions of life are normal. Planet Earth is dynamic and evolving. Climate changes are cyclical and random. Through the eyes of a geologist, I would be really concerned if there were no change to Earth over time. In the light of large rapid natural climate changes, just how much do humans really change climate?"

"There is no problem with global warming. It stopped in 1998. The last two years of global cooling have erased nearly thirty years of temperature increase." Of course you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress - it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans and all animal life.

COUNTER ARGUMENTS ABOUND:

Michael Ashley is professor of astrophysics at the University of NSW.

"Plimer has done an enormous disservice to science, and the dedicated scientists who are trying to understand climate and the influence of humans, by publishing this book. It is not "merely" atmospheric scientists that would have to be wrong for Plimer to be right. It would require a rewriting of biology, geology, physics, oceanography, astronomy and statistics. 

AND SO THE STORY GOES: 

I tend to agree with the 'common sense' arguments put forward by Teilhard de Chardin and by the late Father David Belyea of St Michael's College at U of T, My understanding of their teachings is that man is insignificant in the overall scheme of things  and " It is our duty as men and women to proceed as if the limits to our abilities do not exist"

Pierre Telhard de Chardin

Father David Belyea (1927-2008)

MAYBE WE SHOULD ALL JUST LEAVE:

Perhaps the scientists, a term largely overused and incorrectly given to theorists, should concentrate on finding for us a new place to inhabit.  The amount of Co2 delivered by volcanos may be in dispute. What about dinosaur farts? Did their farts contribute to their own extinction?  They were called 'sor asses' for a reason! Are the methane gasses released by the pig farms of Carolina and water leaching into the water table through fields over which farmers spread manure, eventually going to destroy the planet? Are rockets and gunpowder and bombs and grenades complicit? Would the millions of starving people in the world today be better off without automobiles or industry? Are people living in misery now any less worthy of our love than future generations. We are the HERE and NOW.

And now the lunatics in the U.S. are picketing PM Harper for his appeal to support the Keystone Pipeline. They continue to promote false conclusions that carbon emissions are threatening the future of Planet Earth. Never mind that the project will create thousands of jobs and allow for energy independence. They still promote the expensive and inefficient technologies of wind and solar. The way forward is to ensure pipelines are safe and controllable in the event of a rupture. Surely we already have, or can develop, the engineering and technology to affect this.

We must embrace visionary projects that will benefit society and balance environmental concerns with economic ones. To concentrate on only one of the parameters is folly. 

SEARCHING FOR A CAUSE?

How about  withdrawing all foreign troops from occupied countries, expanding the 'doctors without borders' concept, providing free drugs to the sick, feeding and educating the hungry, instituting free post secondary education around the globe, using the world's armies to recover from natural disasters instead of killing civilians?

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” - LEO TOLSTOY

LAURELS TO: 

PHIL KIRBY AND KAREN HUNTER FOR THEIR STANCE AGAINST WIND TURBINES IN THEIR LOCAL COMMUNITY OF PORT ELGIN.

CLIP OF THE WEEK: