Climate Change Bill

Last year, 27th November 2008, saw the passing of the Climate Change Bill in the UK which aimed to see significant cuts in the UK CO2 emissions in order to tackle climate change. There were three main points in this bill. Firstly to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050, this is the level that scientists believe is required if we are to see a turn in the tide of the current climate change. Secondly the bill included changes that mean that international aviation and shipping – that fastest growing source of emissions – emissions are now included in the targets. Finally, the bill also laid out that there be annual budgets for spending on carbon in order that the emission cuts could be more measurable and kept on top of.

Climate effects on the poor

Climate change is something that is talked about mostly in the context of the developed world. This is because most of the contribution and consequently, the ability to reduce, climate change is from the western world. However, the other side to the story is that it is the developing world that, despite contributing very little, is bearing the brunt of climate change.

The main reasons for this unbalanced impact are because people living in poorer areas of the world are more likely to live in fragile housing, to rely on agriculture for a lot of their income and have no back up of insurance or savings in the event of disaster. All of these factors make them very susceptible to changes in climate.

Every year, 150,000 people die from health-related effects of climate change. For example, crops can be ruined by drought or flooding from heavy rain or rising sea levels and this can mean significant food shortages which means loss of livelihood and malnutrition. This often leads to people being forced to leave their homes in order to find food and shelter elsewhere; by 2050 there will be an estimated 150 million refugees due to this.

A further significant effect is that the spreading of floodwater and changing weather mean that malaria carrying mosquitoes are spreading to highland areas that were previously unpopulated by them. Malaria is one of the biggest causes of death in the developing world especially in children, with much of the control of disease being focused on elimination of the vector mosquitoes. This spread caused by climate change is undoing much of this.

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister in the UK, said in June, that $100 billion needed to be contributed to poorer nations by developed countries in order to help them cope with climate change. As of yet, it is unclear exactly where this money will come from.

Copenhagen, December 2009

UN climate talks are scheduled to take place in Copenhagen this December as part of the process of ensuring that countries are all involved in sticking to aims of keeping the rise in temperature to 2 degrees above their pre-industrial levels. Current worries leading up to these talks are that mistrust between rich and poor countries, and the distraction of the recession might prevent any effective discussions. Countries including China and India are arguing that their emissions per capita are much lower and so they are reluctant to move to reduce their emissions.

Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, has said that it is important that the developing countries also partake in the reduction of emissions because although their contribution is currently significantly less, 90% of the growth in emissions is coming from them. This means it is more important that they show that they will slow the growth of the emissions rather than actually reduce them at this stage.

The World Bank

Unfortunately, a controversial contribution of the World Bank to developing countries has just been uncovered. The World Bank, who is funded by developed countries including the UK, has a goal of reducing poverty and is spending billions of pounds helping developing countries to build new coal-fired power stations. The World Bank has made several statements regarding it’s stance in trying to reduce emissions and protecting the developing world who are worst effected by climate change. Critics say that by giving this money to build new power stations they are not acting in the long term interests of the poor and that this money should instead be given to supporting renewable energy.

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The vast majority of scientists agree that human activity has significantly increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—most dramatically since the 1970s. In February 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that global warming is “unequivocal” and that human-produced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are chiefly to blame, to a certainty of more than 90 percent. Yet global warming skeptics and ill-informed elected officials continue to dis… More >>

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Alan Caruba, in a piece titled The High Cost of Climate Lies, which is available at http://www.usadaily.com/article.cfm?articleID=132147 tries to counter the claim that human action is responsible in some measure for climate change. He cites a number of scientists who are critical of this claim. One of them is Dr. Vincent Gray, a New Zealand-based climate scientist, but the reasoning he cites is very curious. Dr. Gray, he writes, claims that “No average temperature of any part of the earth’s surface, over any period, has ever been made.” And so, “If the earth’s “average temperature” cannot be determined, how can you know that it’s dramatically heating? How can you predict anything about an unknown?”

The curious thing about this reasoning is that averages are phantom numbers that nothing ever depends upon. What matters so far as climate change is concerned is not whether the average temperature of the earth is rising, but whether the temperature at the poles and on mountain tops where glaciers are locates are rising. For if the ice and snow at these places melts away, humanity is in for some difficult times. That a recognized scientist should make a claim based on the unknown average temperature of the earth is dubious at best. Either Mr. Caruba has misunderstood Dr. Gray’s claims or Dr. Gray’s recognition as a prominent scientist is questionable.

That the earth’s average temperature is irrelevant can easily be demonstrated. Consider the following sequence of ten terms: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2. The average of this sequence is 5.5. Now consider this sequence: 3, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 7, 6, 4, 3. The average of this sequence is also 5.5. Now suppose the first and last terms in the both sequences represent the temperature at the poles before and after global warming was noticed. Clearly, the temperature at the poles has risen while the average temperature has remained the same. As a matter of fact, it is easy to show that the temperature at the poles can have risen while the average has gone down. Look at this sequence: 3, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 7, 5, 4, 3. When this sequence is compared to the first, the terms representing the temperature at the poles have risen but the average had decreased to 5.1. Certainly any reputable scientist would understand enough about averages to have known the point that I have just demonstrated.

Mr. Caruba then writes this: “The IPCC has depended on computer climate models for its claims and there is now a volume of papers demonstrating how they have repeatedly been proven to be inaccurate. As Dr. Gray points out, if you cannot validate these models as actually capable of making predictions, ‘no self-respecting computer engineer would dare to make use of a model for prediction.’”

But think about this for a moment. The National Weather Service uses computer models, absolutely none of which is accurate, to predict the weather. Yet those predictions, while never absolutely accurate are certainly useful. All of us rely on them every day. They tell us when to carry raincoats and umbrellas, when to wear heavier clothing, when to get sanding trucks and snowplows ready, even when to evacuate people from areas threatened by hurricanes. Would it be reasonable for anyone to suggest that we should abandon these predictions because the models “have repeatedly been proven to be inaccurate”?

It has always been a puzzle to me why people who are successful in some intellectual professions such as some branches of the physical sciences and all branches of the social sciences can engage is egregious reasoning when a thesis contradicts their cherished beliefs. Examples of such reasoning are easy to find, especially when the theses these “scientists” find objectionable have economic consequences. The critics of global warming are all worried about the costs of making the societal changes that countering global warming requires, but they refuse to even consider the costs that will be incurred if global warming is real and nothing is done to reduce or stem it. These people, somehow or another, allow ideology to trump reason.

No one knows for sure, of course, what the cause of global warming is. Is global warming caused merely by changes in the earth or the solar system over which we have no control, or is it caused by the huge amount of greenhouse gasses that we have been pumping into the atmosphere? No one knows, but we’d better hope that our practices are at least a major part of the problem, for if they aren’t, life on this planet may be doomed.

©2007 John Kozy, Jr.

As a nonscientist, it’s daunting for me to work thru the huge volume of information on global climate change. I’ve found that the most reliable scientific information comes from respected peer reviewed science journals . But journals have lots of big words, and lots of small print, and very few illustrations to make it easy for me. You can see why climate denies don’t like them. But that’s where the facts are. How can you tell a good science journal? BBC Interview with Phil Jones news.bbc.co.uk Daily Mail account www.dailymail.co.uk The Economist, review of Daily Mail www.economist.com Scientific American Cyber bullying www.scientificamerican.com IPCC Fact and Spin www.realclimate.org initforthegold.blogspot.com Truth Fights back – debunking climate denier nonsense www.truthfightsback.com The goat woman www.dailymail.co.uk Richard Lindzen deliberately blurring lines crookedtimber.org Round and Round with Lindzen, Motl, and Jones deepclimate.org Lubos Motl blog post scienceblogs.com Low Ball Sea level estimate withdrawn climateprogress.org Vermeer and Rahmsdorf www.pnas.org

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• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

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This essential new title provides a contemporary overview on a major key topic of the 21st century. Written by well known scientists in the area who discuss the topic soberly and without ideology, they focus on how photovoltaic, solar power, wind power, hydropower, geothermal energy, fuel cells, and hydrogen enterprise work. Presented in full-colour with catchy information diagrams and information boxes. “… the book offers a solid overview of possibilities … More >>

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