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  • #46
    Continued from the last post above ↑

    Continuation of excerpts from Patrick Moore's publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" [graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
    What’s So Good About Glaciers, Anyway?

    Much has been made of the fact that many glaciers around the world have been retreating in recent years. By many accounts we should be viewing this with alarm. The potential loss of glaciers is portrayed as an ecological catastrophe, as if it were equivalent to a species becoming extinct. In its June 2007 issue the National Geographic magazine reported that a certain Peruvian glacier was in a “death spiral,” as if it were a living thing. What should we make of this hysterical reaction to melting ice?

    It is important to recognize that glaciers have been retreating for about 18,000 years, since the height of the last glaciation. It has not been a steady retreat as there have been times, such as during the Little Ice Age, when the glaciers advanced. But there is no doubt that in balance there has been a major retreat and it appears to be continuing today.

    The retreat of the glaciers is largely a result of the climate becoming warmer. It brings us back to the question of whether humans are responsible for the warming or if it is just a continuation of the trend that began 18,000 years ago. Either way, we then must ask whether, in balance, this is a good thing or a bad thing. We know the climate was warmer than it is today during most of the past 500 million years, and that life flourished during these times. We also know there is very little life on, in, or under a glacier. Glaciers are essentially dead zones, proof that ice is the enemy of life.

    When a glacier retreats up the valley it carved, the bedrock and gravels are exposed to light and air. Seeds find their way there, on the wind and in bird droppings, and can germinate and grow. Before long the lifeless barrens become a newly developing ecosystem full of lichens, mosses, ferns, flowering plants, and eventually, trees. Isn’t it fairly obvious that this is a better environmental condition than a huge blob of frozen water that kills everything beneath it? Glaciers certainly are photogenic, but as we discussed in the chapter on forests, you can’t judge the health of an ecosystem by the fact that it looks pretty. Sand dunes make for nice scenery too, but they aren’t very welcome when they bury a town and kill all the crops.

    To be continued...

    Comment


    • #47
      Continued from the last post above ↑

      Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.

      Climate of Fear [graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
      Much attention has been focused on the Greenland ice cap, virtually one big glacier with many arms to the sea. During the warming that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s it was reported that the Greenland ice cap was melting rapidly. Al Gore predicted the sea might rise by 20 feet in the next century, apparently assuming the entire ice cap might melt in 100 years. This is a physical impossibility. The high elevation and extreme low temperatures dictate that it would take at least thousands of years for the glaciers of Greenland to disappear.

      More recently the focus has been on the Himalayan glaciers, the largest ice cap outside the Polar Regions. The story of what has become “Glaciergate” helps to illustrate the present very confused state of climate science and of how important glaciers are, or are not. The 2007 report of the IPCC, its fourth report, stated Himalayan glaciers may be completely gone by 2035, less than 25 years from now. The report warned, “if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.” It was not until the lead-up to the 2009 Kyoto Protocol meeting in Copenhagen that scientists began to question this assertion. The Ministry of the Environment in India published a paper rejecting the 2035 prediction, stating that it would be hundreds of years before the glaciers melted, even if the present warming trend continued. This caused the chairman of the IPCC, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who happens to be Indian, to denounce the Environment Ministry’s report as “voodoo science.”

      It was not until after the Copenhagen conference that the IPCC published an admission of error. They stated, “In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly.” Yet Dr. Pachauri refused to apologize for calling the Environment Ministry’s report “voodoo science.” It was revealed that the 2035 date was based on an interview by New Scientist magazine of a single Indian scientist, who subsequently admitted his statement was “speculative.” The New Scientist article was then referred to in a 2005 WWF report on glaciers, which was cited as the only reference in support of the 2035 date.

      This has caused something of a crisis of credibility for the IPCC, which had insisted all its predictions were based on peer-reviewed science. As it turns out, the most credible scientists who specialize in the subject of Himalayan glaciers believe it would take at least 300 years for them to melt completely, even if it continues to get warmer. Other indefensible statements in the IPCC report then emerged regarding the disappearance of the Amazon rain forest and the collapse of agricultural production in Africa.

      To be continued...
      Last edited by John Reece; 07-18-2014, 05:07 PM.

      Comment


      • #48
        Continued from the last post above ↑

        Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
        Perhaps the most bizarre case of logical disconnect in the climate change hysteria involves the predictions of disaster if the Himalayan glaciers continue to melt. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, predicts that if this happens there will be mass starvation in Asia. The theory goes like this: the meltwater from the glaciers is essential for irrigation of food crops throughout much of Asia. The Ganges, Indus, Mekong, Yellow, Yangtze, and many other rivers flow from the Himalayas, providing water for over one-third of the human population. If these glaciers were to melt completely, there would be no more meltwater for irrigation, and so food production would plummet, resulting in mass starvation. This seems plausible to many people and has been repeated countless times in the media as another “catastrophic” aspect of climate change.

        After hearing Lester Brown speak at length about this doomsday scenario, it dawned on me that his thesis was illogical. On the one hand he is saying the meltwater (from the melting glaciers) is essential for food production, and on the other hand he insists that we must try to stop the glaciers from melting so they will not disappear. Obviously if the glaciers stop melting, there will be no more meltwater from them. So my questions for Lester Brown, and the IPCC, are, Are you saying you want the glaciers to stop melting? Then where would the irrigation water come from? I might add, How about if the glaciers started growing again, reducing water flows even further, perhaps advancing on the towns where the food is grown?

        It has since been revealed that only 3 to 4 percent of the water flowing into the Ganges River is glacial meltwater. Ninety-six percent of the river flow is from snow that fell in the previous winter and melted in the summer, and from rainfall during monsoons. Therefore the people will not likely starve if the glaciers melt completely. A warmer world with higher CO2 concentrations, and likely more precipitation, will allow expansion of agricultural land and will result in faster growing, more productive crops. Forests and crops will grow where now there is only a sheet of ice. I say let the glaciers melt.

        To be continued...

        Comment


        • #49
          Continued from the last post above ↑

          Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
          Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice

          The Arctic and Antarctic regions are polar opposites in more ways than one. Whereas the Arctic is mainly an ocean surrounded by continents, the Antarctic is a large continent, almost centered on the South Pole, surrounded by seas. The Antarctic is colder than the Arctic largely due to its high elevation. The Antarctic ice sheet began to form 20 million years ago and has been a permanent fixture since then, advancing and retreating with the pulses of glaciation over the past 2.5 million years during the Pleistocene Ice Age. The Arctic was largely ice-free until the onset of the Pleistocene and since then has had varying degrees of ice cover as glacial periods have waxed and waned.

          Much has been made recently of the fact that the extent of summer sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk substantially. In September of 2007, typically the low month after summer melting, there was about three million square kilometers of ice cover, about two million less than the average since records were first made. Many pundits immediately predicted that the Arctic would be ice-free in the summer within 20 to 30 years, and that this would be our fault entirely. The fact that the area of ice recovered by about one million square kilometers in 2008 and again in 2009 didn’t dampen the shrillness of their predictions. In September of 2012 the extent of ice cover again reached a record low, but winter ice cover continued to remain relatively steady, close to the average since measurements began.

          Our knowledge of the extent of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic began in 1979, the first year satellites were used to photograph the Polar Regions on a continual basis. Before 1979 it is not possible to reconstruct the comings and goings of sea ice, as unlike glaciers, sea ice leaves no trace when it melts. There is an implicit assumption among the true believers that the reduction in sea ice observed in 2007 and 2012 is unique in the historical record and that we are now on a one-way trip to an ice-free Arctic Sea (see Figure 7 in online source or Moore's book). Putting aside the fact that mariners consider an ice-free sea a good thing, it is not possible to conclude a longterm trend in the extent of Arctic sea ice from 30 years of satellite observation.

          To be continued...
          Last edited by John Reece; 07-20-2014, 08:00 AM.

          Comment


          • #50
            Continued from the last post above ↑

            Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
            Between 1903 and 1905 the Norwegian Raold Amundsen became the first person to navigate the Northwest Passage in a 47-ton sailing ship equipped with a small gasoline motor. We do not know the extent of ice over the entire Arctic at that time but the fact that a small boat could sail through the passage indicates the present era was not the only time the area of ice was reduced.

            Between 1940 and 1944, years before we had any idea of the extent of sea ice during the summers and winters, a small Canadian trawler named the St. Roch navigated the Northwest Passage twice, from west to east and from east to west. It was not an icebreaker and it had only a 150-horsepower diesel engine and sails. From 1910 to 1940 there was a well-documented rise in the average global temperature of nearly half.

            The extent of sea ice in the Arctic showed a clear downward trend from 1995 to 2007. Since 2007 it has recovered by about one-third over the lowest area. Only time will tell what the trend will be in the coming decades.

            The winter of 2007 saw the greatest extent of Antarctic sea ice since measurements were first taken, coincident with the least extent in the Arctic. Whereas the extent of Arctic sea ice has shown a recent downward trend, the extent of Antarctic sea ice has shown an upward trend.

            While all the media’s and activist’s attention has been on Arctic sea ice, the Antarctic has been playing out its own history in a very different way. The winter sea ice around Antarctica has grown above the average from 1979 to 2008 (See Figure 8). This has proven problematic for believers as it indicates Antarctica is cooling, contrary to what they have been led to believe by predictions based on computer models. In December 2008 Nature published an article claiming the Antarctic was warming. Many climate activists, including Al Gore, seized on this article to bolster their belief in human-caused warming. It turned out that the Nature article had been largely based on a computer model rather than real measurements of temperature. This represented another turning point in the questioning of the science used to claim humans were definitely causing the earth to warm up.

            In 2009 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) published a paper in which it reported sea ice had retreated in one part of the Antarctic Peninsula. The paper made it clear that ice was growing in other parts of Antarctica and it was not clear whether the total amount of ice on and around the continent was shrinking or growing. In Greenpeace-like fashion the USGS then issued a media release claiming the sea ice was “disappearing” in Antarctica and that sea level rise was imminent.

            News services picked up this story, which gave the impression Antarctica was melting away. Perhaps the USGS scientists feel the need to sensationalize their otherwise good research in order to get more funding. I don’t know, but it certainly misleads the public about what is really happening down there

            To be continued...

            Comment


            • #51
              There is much made of sea ice extent. Nothing is being said about volume - which would be a more telling measure.
              Western side of Antarctica has lost a lot of ice, with the other sides extending in area. If western Antarctica sea ice reduces 10 square miles, 100 feet thick and the remainder increases by 50 square miles 10 feet thick, there will have been a net loss of ice, despite the increased area.
              Sea ice increasing or decreasing is of no real significance - it won't change the sea level. A decrease of land ice will affect sea level - and sea levels have been increasing for as long as reliable measurements have been possible. Calculations show that they have been increasing since long before reliable measurements were possible. Based on those calculations, the rate of increase now is double the rate of previous centuries. 3.2 mm pa as opposed to 1.6 mm. It should not pass without notice that dumping large volumes of ice water into the sea will result in some cooling of the oceans - which would result in a temporary increase in sea ice at the high latitudes. This effect would not be felt in the Antarctic because there isn't much land down there .... except for Antarctica itself that is. Cold melt being carried by currents away from western Antarctica toward the east would result in a net cooling effect in the eastern areas.
              Whatever else may be said - rising sea levels are undeniable - and the water contributing to that rise is coming from somewhere. (unless you posit a net rise in the sea floor level.)
              1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
              .
              ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
              Scripture before Tradition:
              but that won't prevent others from
              taking it upon themselves to deprive you
              of the right to call yourself Christian.

              ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

              Comment


              • #52
                Dear Mr Reece,
                Is someone paying you to peddle this devilish drivel?
                “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
                “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
                “not all there” - you know who you are

                Comment


                • #53
                  Continued from post #50 above ↑

                  Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
                  The University of Illinois’ website, The Cryosphere Today, contains the entire record of sea ice since 1979. (The Cryosphere is the area of the earth covered with ice.) Figure 9 (on previous page) shows the global sea ice cover, adding together the Arctic and the Antarctic, from 1979 until the present. This is our total knowledge of the history of sea ice cover on planet Earth. There is no obvious trend up or down because increased ice cover in the Antarctic offsets most of the reduced ice cover in the Arctic. So even the very short record we do have for global sea ice cover provides no evidence of rapid global warming.

                  Coral Reefs, Shellfish, and “Ocean Acidification”

                  It has been widely reported in the media, based on a few scientific papers, that the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will result in “ocean acidification,” threatening coral reefs and all marine shellfish with extinction within 20 years. The story goes like this: The oceans absorb about 25 percent of the CO2 we emit into the atmosphere each year. The higher the CO2 content of the atmosphere, the more CO2 will be absorbed by the oceans. When CO2 is dissolved in water, some of it is converted into carbonic acid that has a weak acidic effect. If the sea becomes more acidic, it will dissolve the calcium carbonate that is the main constituent of coral and the shells of clams, shrimp, crabs, etc. It is one more doomsday scenario, predicting the seas will “degrade into a useless tidal desert,” [text lost from online source]

                  In his latest book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, Bill McKibben claims, “Already the ocean is more acid than anytime in the last 800,000 years, and at current rates by 2050 it will be more corrosive than anytime in the past 20 million years.” In typical hyperbolic fashion, McKibben, the author of the well-know essay, “The End of Nature,” uses the words acid and corrosive as if the ocean will burn off your skin and flesh to the bone if you dare swim in it in 2050. This is just plain fear-mongering.

                  Results of research published in the journal Science by M.R. Palmer et al., indicate that over the past 15 million years, “All five samples record surface seawater pH values that are within the range observed in the oceans today, and they all show a decrease in the calculated pH with depth that is similar to that observed in the present-day equatorial Pacific.” The five samples recorded pH values for 85,000 years ago and for 2.5, 6.4, 12.1, and 15.7 million years ago.

                  First, one should point out that the ocean is not acidic, it has a pH of 8.1, which is alkaline, the opposite of acidic. A pH of 7 is neutral, below 7 is acidic, above 7 is alkaline. Researchers have reported in scientific journals that the pH of the seas has gone down by 0.075 over the past 250 years, “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104 (a change of −0.075). One has to wonder how the pH of the ocean was measured to an accuracy of three decimal places in 1751 when the concept of pH was not introduced until 1909.

                  It turns out that just as with climate science in general, these predictions are based on computer models. But oceans are not simple systems whose components can just be plugged into a computer. First, there is the complex mix of elements and salts dissolved in the sea. Every element on Earth is present in seawater and these elements interact in complex ways. Then there is the biological factor, tens of thousands of species that are consuming and excreting every day. The salt content of seawater gives the oceans a very large buffering capacity against change in pH. Small additions of acidic and alkaline substances can easily alter the pH of freshwater, whereas seawater can neutralize large additions of acidic and alkaline substances.

                  To be continued...

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Continued from last post above ↑

                    Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
                    One of the most important biological phenomena in the sea is the combining of calcium, carbon, and oxygen to form calcium carbonate, CaCO3, the primary constituent of corals and shells, including the skeletons of microscopic plankton. The formation of calcium carbonate is called calcification. All of the vast chalk, limestone, and marble deposits in the earth’s crust are composed of calcium carbonate, which was created and deposited by marine organisms over millions of years. The carbon in calcium carbonate is derived from CO2 dissolved in seawater.

                    One might therefore imagine that an increase in CO2 in seawater would enhance calcification rather than destroy it. It turns out this is precisely the case.

                    As is the case with terrestrial plants, it has been thoroughly demonstrated that increased CO2 concentration in the sea results in higher rates of photosynthesis and faster growth. Photosynthesis has the effect of increasing the pH of the water, making it more alkaline, counteracting any minor acidic effect of the CO2 itself. The owners of saltwater aquariums often add CO2 to the water in order to increase photosynthesis and calcification, a practice that is similar to greenhouse growers adding CO2 to the air in their greenhouses to promote the faster growth of plants. The vast bulk of scientific literature indicates increased CO2 in the ocean will actually result in increased growth and calcification, as opposed to the catastrophe scenario pushed by the NRDC, Greenpeace, and many other activist organizations.


                    A long list of scientific publications that support the view that increased CO2 in seawater results in increased calcification can be found on the CO2 Science website. A paper by Atkinson et al., published in the journal Coral Reefs, states that their finding “seems to contradict conclusions ... that high CO may inhibit calcification.”

                    “Ocean acidification” is a perfect example of a contrived catastrophe scenario. The average person does not have a grasp of the complexities of marine chemistry and biology. The activists simply coin a new, scary term like “acidification” and then effectively extort money from people who are concerned for the future. And all this emphasis on the dangers of CO2 tends to divert people from thinking about the real dangers to coral reefs like destructive fishing methods and pollution from sewage.

                    Our little house by the Sea of Cortez in Cabo Pulmo in southern Baja, Mexico, looks out over a National Marine Park that contains the only large coral reef on the west coast of the Americas. Pulmo Reef is a popular dive site, known for its rich abundance of reef fish, many of which school in the thousands. It was after a dive on the reef during our first visit to Cabo Pulmo in 1999 that Eileen and I decided to make a base there. Since then we have dived and snorkeled on the reef many times each year.

                    To be continued...

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Continued from last post above ↑

                      Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
                      In September of 2002 a tropical storm brought torrential rains that dumped over 20 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period. It must have been a once in a 100-year event as the flooding was the worst the locals could remember. A lens of freshwater about 20 feet deep spread out over the reef as a result of the runoff from the mountains. This killed all the coral, as coral cannot live in freshwater. Only the corals below the 20-foot depth of the freshwater layer survived.

                      [graph visible in online source ― omitted here for technical reasons ― shows that] Since the peak during the 1990s, the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones has diminished considerably.

                      For a few years after the event virtually no living coral could be seen in the shallower waters. The reef turned white and became covered in green algae, which in turn resulted in an explosion of sea urchins where there had been very few before. By 2006 the reef began to recover noticeably with nodules of new coral becoming established. Coral polyps from the deeper regions of the reef were recolonizing the shallow waters. The sea urchins died out and fish returned in greater abundance. Today the reef is in full recovery as the coral is now growing substantially each year. It may take another 20 years or more to recover completely, and will only do so if there is not another torrential rainstorm.

                      I imagine some people who believe we are causing catastrophic climate change would suggest we were responsible for the torrential rains that killed part of the reef. I don’t believe we can be so certain, especially as such events have been occurring since long before humans began emitting billions of tons of CO2 each year. And regardless of the storm’s cause, it is comforting to know that the reef can recover despite the dire predictions of the early death of coral reefs worldwide.

                      To be continued...

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Continued from last post above ↑

                        Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
                        Storms, Hurricanes, and Severe Weather Events

                        Everyone likes to talk about the weather and climate activists are no exception. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused so much devastation to New Orleans and the surrounding regions, Al Gore gave a rousing speech in which he predicted hurricanes would continue to become more frequent and more severe as global warming intensified. Since that speech the intensity of global hurricanes has diminished by about half from the peak years of 1993 and 1998. Still, on the cover of his 2009 book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, Al Gore had four fake hurricanes airbrushed onto a photo of the earth from space. He continues to push the fear of hurricanes when it has become clear there is no longer any basis for such concern. In fact, scientists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center predict that global warming will result in not more but fewer hurricanes. Al Gore must be aware of this.

                        To be continued...

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Continued from last post above ↑

                          Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
                          Sea Level Rise

                          There is conclusive proof that increased CO2 levels will be good for plants both on the land and in the sea. If increased CO2 does make the world warmer, it will almost certainly make it wetter, which will also be good for plants and most animals, including us. Then what is so bad about global warming anyway, whether it is natural or caused by humans? The prospect that sea levels will rise in a warmer world is the main drawback as this would threaten the infrastructure we have built in low-lying coastal areas.

                          The seal level has fluctuated a great deal during the Pleistocene, as ice sheets have advanced and retreated and as temperatures have risen and fallen. At the height of the last glaciation, which ended 18,000 years ago, the sea was about 120 meters (nearly 400 feet) lower than it is today (See Figure 11). There was relatively rapid glacial melting and subsequent sea level rise between 15,000 and 6000 years ago as large, lower elevation ice sheets melted and disappeared. During the past 6000 years, the rise has been slower but steady. In recent times the sea level has risen by about 20 centimeters (8 inches) per century.

                          Clearly human activity was not responsible for the end of the last glaciation, subsequent warming, and the retreat of the world’s glaciers during the past 18,000 years. To date we have no indication that the rate of sea level rise is increasing, whether by natural causes or by our impact on climate. Many predictions of future sea level rise have been based on computer models. In its 2007 report the IPCC predicted sea level would rise between 18 and 59 centimeters (7 to 23 inches) during the next century. The low end is entirely reasonable as this is about equal to the present rate. The high end is three times the present rate and would require a considerable amount of warming during this century. As yet there has been no warming in this century and sea level rise has not been increasing.

                          If the sea were to rise nearly two feet as the IPCC suggests in its extreme case, there would be disruptions to infrastructure and related activities. While natural ecosystems would adapt with little difficulty, coastal infrastructure would definitely be impacted negatively, especially our wharfs, buildings, farms, and industries. It wouldn’t matter whether or not the sea level rise was due to natural or human causes.

                          The 120-meter (400-foot) sea level rise during the past 18,000 years did not damage the environment and was not a significant factor in human survival. We have managed to cope with the 20-centimeter (8-inch) rise over the past century. But we have built vastly more coastal infrastructure over the past century than we have in all of human history, and we will continue to do so during the next century.

                          What should we do about this? Is it wise to assume we are the cause of sea level rise and then to end the activities we think are responsible? Or would it make more sense to plan for a sea level rise of, say, 30 centimeters (12 inches) over the next century. If we are not the cause of sea level rise, which I believe is likely, then there is not much we can do to stop it anyway. If we plan for continued sea level rise at 50 percent above the present rate, we could avoid all or most damage by thinking ahead. We could build the dykes a little higher, not develop suburbs in areas that are susceptible to sea level rise, and generally plan our infrastructure to withstand sea level rise. How could that cause more negative impacts than an 80 percent or larger reduction in fossil fuel use worldwide in the next decade?

                          To be continued...

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Continued from last post above ↑

                            Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
                            Pacific Islands and Sea Level Rise

                            Climate change activists have made great fanfare about the possibility that many island states, such as the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Maldives, will be inundated and disappear due to rising sea levels caused by human-induced climate change. The government of the Maldives has made the case that rich, carbon-emitting industrial nations should provide financial compensation for the loss of their countries. None of the projections of sinking island states has taken into account the fact that most of them are built on coral reefs and atolls and that coral reefs are alive. A recent survey of 27 Pacific Islands, comparing aerial photographs from up to 61 years ago with current photographs, demonstrated that 23 islands maintained the same land area or increased in size, while only four islands suffered a net loss in size.

                            During this period there was a rise in sea level of 2 mm per year. This indicates that the coral is able to grow as fast or faster than the rising sea, and that coral islands grow as a result of coral breaking off and forming reefs that in turn catch more coral and grow in size. Many of the coral islands in the tropics have existed for thousands of years, while during that time the sea has risen by hundreds of feet. It is therefore likely that yet another doomsday scenario regarding the impact of climate change is wildly overblown and may actually have no impact even if the sea does continue to rise.

                            To be continued...

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              Continued from the OP above ↑

                              Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
                              The “Trick” to “Hide the Decline”

                              The most quoted email among the thousands released from the Climatic Research Unit, which led to the “Climategate” crisis, was one from the CRU’s head, Phil Jones, referring to “Mike’s Nature trick...to hide the decline.” Mike is Michael Mann, the creator of the infamous and, to many, discredited hockey stick graph.

                              Nature is the science journal that shows a marked bias in support of human-caused climate change. The “trick” was to discard tree-ring data that did not fit the true believer’s bias, data that showed a drop in temperature in recent decades. These climate scientists clearly colluded to hide the data that showed the decline and to substitute data that indicated unprecedented warming over the past 50 years.

                              In response to the “Climategate” emails the U.K. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee held hearings to determine if Phil Jones and his staff at the Climatic Research Unit had done anything untoward. They concluded that “trick” and “hide the decline” were “colloquial terms used in private emails and the balance of evidence is that they were not part of a systematic attempt to mislead.” This is an obvious whitewash, because whether or not they are colloquial terms, “trick” means “trick” and “hide the decline” means “hide the decline.” The committee did not provide an explanation of what it thought the terms meant in a “colloquial” context. It is amazing what deceptions can be perpetrated in broad daylight by people in responsible positions.

                              Another “independent inquiry” conducted by the University of East Anglia, where the Climatic Research Unit is housed, and supported by the Royal Society, concluded with the statement, “We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit.” The inquiry was headed by Lord Oxburgh, who has deep personal and financial interests in climate policy. He is the chair of a multinational wind energy company and the chair of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association. Missing from the inquiry’s report is the fact that the inquiry did not examine the “Climategate” emails or consider evidence from anyone other than the CRU staff. In this report the “trick” “to hide the decline” was not even mentioned; never mind the many other indications of impropriety that were contained in the emails. Phil Jones himself clearly requested that his colleagues delete previous emails containing damaging information.

                              To be continued...

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                              • #60
                                Continued from the last post above ↑

                                Continuation of excerpts from the publicly available online book chapter titled "Climate of Fear" in Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Published 2013, chapter twenty-one.[graphs and footnote documentation omitted]:
                                The Enigmatic Dr. Lovelock

                                James Lovelock is one of the most insightful and at the same time most enigmatic of scientists. He is certainly one of the leading experts on atmospheric chemistry. Earlier passages in this book have shown Lovelock to be profoundly pessimistic about the future of civilization and the earth’s environment. In an interview in 2006, he stated, “We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma...Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable... a broken rabble led by brutal war lords”. Nice visuals! Cue James Cameron! I feel a Hollywood blockbuster coming on. Yet recently, in the wake of the “Climategate” scandal and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit, Lovelock has had some change of heart.

                                Speaking at the London Science Museum in March 2010 Lovelock said, “It is worth thinking that what we are doing in creating all these carbon emissions, far from being something frightful, is stopping the onset of a new ice age.... If we hadn’t appeared on the earth, it would be due to go through another ice age and we can look at our part as holding that up. I hate all this business about feeling guilty about what we’re doing.” This sounds surprisingly like the line of thinking I challenged him with during my visit to his home in 2002. His other colleagues have undoubtedly raised similar points, that there is a possibility we are a positive force rather than an entirely negative one.

                                It is clear Lovelock was rattled by the revelations in the thousands of leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit. During his first interview after the “Climategate” scandal he stated, “Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I’m not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It’s the one thing you do not ever do.” And he was surprisingly warm toward skeptics, allowing, “What I like about skeptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: ‘Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?’ If you don’t have that continuously, you really are up the creek...If you make a [computer] model, after a while you get suckered into it. You begin to forget that it’s a model and think of it as the real world.

                                Some of his recent statements are chilling. Lovelock contends that, “We need a more authoritative world...even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.” If we are indeed preventing a new ice age, then why is it like a war, and why must we suspend democracy? Perhaps Lovelock just can’t make up his mind which it is, catastrophe or salvation. In any case he provides good reason why brilliant scientists who have been cloistered in labs and research institutes most of their lives should not be running the government.

                                To be continued...

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