From: Competitive Enterprise Institute

By: Marlo Lewis, Jr.

June 11, 2019

A Citizen’s Guide to Climate Change

Climate change is not a hoax, but as a political matter, it is a persistent pretext for expanding government control over the economy, redistributing wealth, and empowering unaccountable elites at the expense of voters and their elected representatives. This pretext rests on three falsehoods:

1. Science has determined that climate change is a “planetary emergency”—a rapidly unfolding global catastrophe.
2. A panoply of market-rigging interventionist policies, called “climate solutions” by their proponents, can deliver meaningful climate protection at reasonable cost.
3. Only deluded science deniers or greedy polluters oppose such policies.

A Citizen’s Guide to Climate Change

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels

The “lie” need not be a total intentional untruth. The “lie” can be a partial truth, intentionally repeated out of context. The “lie” can be an opinion stated and repeated as a fact. The “lie” can be assertion of an excessive degree of certainty about something which is uncertain. The “lie” can be an attempt to raise a level of concern regarding an issue which is out of proportion to the actual perceived threat.

The approach of the United Nations, through the UNFCCC and the IPCC, to the issue of climate change bears a startling resemblance to “The Big Lie”. The approach of some government leaders also bears such resemblance. Climate change is frequently referred to as the “climate crisis”, though there is no evidence that climate change is, or is leading to, a crisis. The US House of Representatives leadership is forming a “Select Committee on the Climate Crisis” to address the issue. The “Green New Deal” has been introduced in both the US Senate and House, accompanied by the assertion that the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t act aggressively now. Government-funded studies assert that fossil energy can be replaced by renewable energy within this time frame, without significant adverse economic consequences.

The US Administration has recently suggested establishment of a Presidential Committee on Climate Security (PCCS) to conduct an independent scientific review of climate science related to the potential adverse impacts of climate change on national security. This suggestion has been met with outrage on the part of numerous climate scientists and numerous politicians supportive of the consensus position on climate change. There has even been an assertion that the proposed effort was “Stalinist” and akin to Lysenkoism. This is clearly hyperbolic reaction, though it is consistent with the long-standing position of the consensed climate science community that “the science is settled”, that “the time for debate is over” and that those who do not accept the consensus are “deniers” and their skepticism is disingenuous.

The controversy over the PCCS is essentially a conflict between the current “state”, as represented by the current Administration, and the previous “state”, as represented by the previous Administration and the embedded elements of the previous Administration commonly referred to as “the deep state”. The PCCS is intended to question “the political, economic and/or military consequences of the “lie”.

It is long past time for a skeptical review and assessment of the current state of climate science and the policy recommendations based upon the climate science.

By: Bob Tisdale

Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate

This book includes graphs of NOAA climate data (precipitation, drought, and near-surface air temperature) for the Contiguous United States, for the 9 NOAA Climate Regions of the Contiguous United States, and for the 48 Contiguous United States individually for the 100-year period of 1919 to 2018.

Many people believe that climate here in the United States has worsened over the last 100 years; others believe it has improved. But which belief does the data from NOAA support for the Contiguous U.S. as a whole?

Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate

NPR recently broadcast and published a piece entitled: “It’s 2050 And This Is How We Stopped Climate Change”. The approach they describe has 3 major elements.

• Mass Electrification
• Urbanization of Everything
• Reduced Emissions from Farming

The piece assumes that the technology required to achieve these 3 elements is available today; and, that the challenge is implementation and the societal changes which must occur in the process. There is no discussion of the steps required to achieve mass electrification, merely the statement that it would take lots more solar, wind and batteries. There is no discussion of how people come to choose to live in urban environments, which would grow enormously in size and population, with attendant increases in ambient temperatures as the result of urban heat island effects. There is no discussion of how farm emissions from the growing of food crops would be reduced, while increasing food production.

Electric vehicles are discussed as a transition from internal combustion engine vehicles to pedestrianized cities with mass transit providing virtually all transportation requirements. Electric over-the-road trucks are recognized as a problem, because of their weight and the limitations of battery technology; and, electrified highways similar to electrified railways and light rail systems are mentioned as a possible solution. There is no discussion of the transition from diesel/electric freight railroad propulsion to electric propulsion. Planes are assumed to continue to be fossil fueled, with their emissions offset by carbon capture and storage.

Heavy industries, such as steelmaking and cement production are assumed either to be equipped with carbon capture systems, or to be relegated to operating elsewhere. The piece leaves the reader to assume that elsewhere means some other nation, rather than off-planet. However, relocating heavy industry to different nations with less stringent emissions requirements is inconsistent with stopping climate change, except on a national level. Unfortunately, emissions of “greenhouse gases” know no national boundaries, so they affect climate as long as they persist anywhere on earth.

Of course, the entire premise of stopping climate change is fanciful. Climate changes. Climate has always changed, as far as we have been able to determine. The natural causes of climate change are not well understood, if at all. The anthropogenic causes of climate change are thought to be better understood; and, it is these causes that the NPR piece addresses.

Stopping climate change resulting from natural causes would require a thorough understanding of the full range of those natural causes, their periodicity, the magnitude of the changes they cause individually and collectively and methods to regulate or offset their effects. The current state of climate science is insufficient to deal with active climate management to avoid natural climate change, even if all of the assumed contributors to anthropogenic climate change were eliminated or offset.

The intent of the NPR piece was to suggest that the path ahead is clear and the endpoint achievable; and, that we should get on with the process without further delay.

From: The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)

By: Dr John R. Christy

Date: May 8, 2019

THE TROPICAL SKIES Falsifying climate alarm

Contents

• About the author ----- vi
• 1- Measuring the greenhouse effect ----- 1
• 2- The importance of the troposphere ----- 2
• 3- Another metric ----- 4
• 4- Hiding the problem ----- 7

THE TROPICAL SKIES Falsifying climate alarm

Numerous efforts to validate the results of climate studies have been hampered by refusal of climate researchers to permit open access to study data, statistical data analysis methods, computer code and other study information. This refusal by climate researchers has spawned numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, resulting in significant delays and occasional lawsuits when FOIA requests were denied.

The efforts of the Committee on Climate Security (CCS) to evaluate the potential impacts of climate change on national and environmental security could be seriously hindered by refusal of climate scientists to provide CCS with access to study information. Therefore, the Administration should establish ground rules regarding cooperation with the CCS; and, new ground rules for funding of future climate science research.

Most US climate science is funded by Executive Branch agencies and much of the research is conducted by these agencies. The CCS is an Executive Branch effort and is entitled to full cooperation in its investigations from other elements of the Executive Branch. The Administration should clearly establish this requirement for cooperation and the consequences of failure to cooperate.

Any agency administrator who refuses to cooperate with the efforts of the CCS should be summarily relieved of duty. Any agency researcher who refuses to cooperate with the CCS should be suspended without pay until such cooperation is forthcoming. Any researcher working on an agency funded program who refuses to cooperate with CCS regarding either current or past programs should have current program funding suspended until such cooperation is forthcoming.

Researchers involved in past studies performed for Federal agencies or conducted with Federal funds who refuse to cooperate with CCS reviews of their studies should be prohibited from participating in or benefiting from future federally funded research programs.

Future Federal Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for climate research should require proposers to agree to provide open access to all aspects of the proposed program, both during the research effort and upon its completion. Any non-compliant proposal should be summarily rejected. Any researcher or research institution which fails to meet this open access requirement upon completion of the research program should be sued for recovery of the Federal funds expended on the program.

No research results not supported by open access to the full program information should be used as justification for any new or expanded regulation. The only exception to this stipulation would be the personal information of study participants in the case of human health studies related to climate.

The Administration can expect significant resistance to the CCS and its efforts, based on the history of resistance to open access in the climate science community. However, the crisis of irreproducibility in climate science research, including the demonstrated inability of federal agencies, including NASA, NOAA and NCEI to reproduce the results of their own research, demands open access and critical review of study results and conclusions.

The severity of the projected future climate catastrophe and the magnitude of the social and economic upheaval proposed to avoid that catastrophe require a far more rigorous approach to climate research than is the case today. That more rigorous approach is long overdue.

By: Clear Energy Alliance

Elements of the consensed climate science community, the consensed climate change commentariat and numerous environmental activist groups have recently been “triggered” by Administration discussions regarding the formation of a Committee on Climate Security (CCS) to critically evaluate whether climate change is a national security and environmental threat. The CCS would be chaired by Dr. William Happer, an eminent physicist with extensive academic and government experience, who is currently a Senior Director at the National Security Council.

The discussions regarding formation of the CCS are occurring against the background of the formation of the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis by the House of Representatives and the fanfare regarding the Green New Deal (GND) recently introduced by Senator Edward Markey (D,MA) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D,NY). The House leadership has clearly accepted the assertion that there is a climate crisis, while the GND describes climate change as an existential threat.

Much of the reaction to the Administration proposal is based on the view of the consensed climate science community that “the science is settled” and that the time for debate is over, which is echoed incessantly by the climate change commentariat. This reaction is exacerbated by the selection of Dr. Happer, who is an acknowledged skeptic regarding catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. The New York Times labeled Dr. Happer as a “climate denialist”, though Dr. Happer clearly does not deny that the earth has a climate. The choice of the term “denialist” is an attempt to isolate and disparage Dr. Happer. The reaction to the CCS is so intense that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D,NY) has threatened to introduce legislation to defund the effort, referring to it as a “fake climate panel”.

The consensed climate science community has a long history of resisting skeptical evaluations of its studies and conclusions by refusing to provide open access to the data on which the studies are based and the statistical analysis methods and computer codes used to analyze the data and reach the study conclusions. These efforts are comprehensively documented in the Climategate emails and in the continuing efforts of Dr. Michael Mann and others to resist skeptical examination of their work.

The CCS bears some similarity to the “Red Team / Blue Team” evaluation effort proposed by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and the “Tiger Team” evaluation suggested by some skeptical climate scientists. The CCS, or a “Red Team” or “Tiger Team” would logically be composed primarily of exclusively skeptical scientists, since the studies they would be reviewing have been performed and peer reviewed by members of the consensed climate science community.

The principal concerns of the CCS would focus on the current inability of climate models to competently model the real climate and produce reliable projections of future climate, since the concerns about catastrophic anthropogenic climate change and any national security risks resulting from such climate change are based on the climate models. The models are currently projecting significantly greater warming than is being observed by either the near-surface or satellite temperature anomaly products.

By: Clear Energy Alliance

The concern regarding potential catastrophic anthropogenic climate change is based upon projected future conditions produced by unverified climate models driven by uncertain climate sensitivity, feedbacks and forcings. Therefore, it is interesting and instructive to periodically assess the accuracy of the climate model projections relative to the observations of global temperature. In this context, it is important to remember that the observations of near-surface temperature are routinely “adjusted” and thus are no longer the actual observations originally recorded. It is also important to remember that the models have been “hindcast” over a prior period, compared to the observations over that prior period and then “tweaked” to minimize the differences between the model output and the observations.

The most famous of the climate models and the model with the longest projection period after “tweaking” is the climate model used by Dr. James Hansen of NASA GISS as the basis for his 1988 presentation to Congress. Hansen modeled three CO2 emissions scenarios:

Scenario A: Continued annual emissions growth of ~1.5% per year

Scenario B: Continued emissions at current (mid-1980s) rates

Scenario C: Drastically reduced emissions rates from 1990 – 2000

Scenario A, which projects the greatest warming based on continued “business as usual” emissions growth, projected a 2018 temperature anomaly of approximately 1.3°C.

Scenario B, which projects more moderate warming based on relative emissions stability in the future, projected a 2018 temperature anomaly of approximately 1.15°C.

Scenario C, which projects the least warming based on drastically reduced emissions in the future, projected a 2018 temperature anomaly of approximately 0.6°C

Emissions since Hansen’s presentation have approximated the emissions path in Scenario A. The observed HadCRUT near-surface temperature anomaly in 2018 was approximately 0.32°C (X in graph), or approximately half of Hansen’s Scenario C projection and approximately one quarter of Hansen’s Scenario A projection. Clearly, Hansen’s model has been falsified.

“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.” Richard P. Feynman

There are numerous climate models other than the Hansen model, most of which are included in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The projections of 90 of these models are compared with each other and with the observations of both the HadCRUT4 near-surface temperature anomaly observations and the UAH lower tropospheric temperature observations through 2013 in the graph below prepared by Dr. Roy Spencer of UAH. As noted above, the HadCRUT near-surface temperature anomaly in 2018 was approximately 0.32°C. The UAH lower tropospheric temperature anomaly in 2018 was approximately 0.23°C. Both of these observed anomalies remain below all but 1 or 2 of the 90 models.

The black line plotted through the outputs of the 90 models is typically referred to as the model mean, or the mid-point of the model outputs in each year. The HadCRUT4 anomaly in 2018 is approximately 40% of the model mean, while the UAH 2018 anomaly is approximately 29% of the model mean. This suggests that the model mean is essentially meaningless, since it is the mean of the outputs of 90 models, 88 of which are already demonstrably inaccurate. Note that these models appear to have been “tweaked” approximately 20 years ago, so that the period of projection is only 20 years, compared to the 30-year period assumed to represent climate.

Clearly these models are being progressively falsified by ongoing observations. Equally clearly, these models are not a solid basis upon which to develop public policies regarding climate change.

By: Clear Energy Alliance

In my commentary “Emissions or Equity”, I discussed the philosophical issues regarding global “greenhouse gas” emissions reductions. Now let’s look at the numbers.

The graph below shows the trends in global emissions for the major emitters through 2016. (NOTE: The version of the graph at the linked source is interactive.) Emissions grew by 1.6% in 2017 and are expected to have grown by approximately 2.7% in 2018.

The emissions of these nations are generally stable to down, with the exception of China and India. China’s emissions have increased by a factor of approximately 3 in the 21st century, while India’s emissions have increased by a factor of approximately 2.5. China’s emissions stagnated after 2010 as a result of an economic slowdown but have now resumed their growth.

The chart below illustrates the percentage of annual emissions in 2014 by country. As shown in the graph above, only India’s emissions continued to grow significantly in 2015 and 2016. US emissions resumed their growth in 2017 and 2018 at approximately 2.5%. China’s emissions also returned to approximately 5% growth, while India’s emissions continued their approximately 6 - 7% growth.

China’s annual emissions are now approximately twice US emissions and are greater than the emissions of the US and the EU combined. China made no commitment to reduce its CO2 emissions as part of the Paris Accords, but rather indicated a willingness to begin reducing emissions after 2030. India took a similar approach to the Paris Accords.

The ten-year time horizon proposed in the “Green New Deal” (GND) for achieving net-zero emissions in the US economy would approximately offset the projected growth of China’s emissions over the same period, thus resulting in no net reduction in global annual emissions. Assuming continuation of India’s annual emissions growth, global annual emissions would continue to increase at a rate of 0.5% per year, depending on the changes in emissions rates among the remaining nations of the globe. Therefore, it appears highly unlikely that global annual emissions would begin to decrease prior to 2030, absent heroic efforts on the part of nations other than the US; and, it appears virtually impossible if the US does not adopt the GND, which also appears highly unlikely.

Adoption of the GND in the US would likely cause significant industrial relocations to nations such as China and India, which have no such plans to reduce emissions prior to 2030; and, no clear plans to begin reducing emissions at that time. Such industrial relocation would likely increase the emissions growth rates in China, India and other nations with no firm emissions reduction plans. This would further add to the increasing emissions rates through 2030.

Adoption of the GND in the US, with its estimated total cost of approximately $100 trillion would also seriously limit the ability of future US administrations to make the expected contributions to the US Green Climate Fund, thus limiting the funds available for renewable energy development in the developing and not-yet-developing nations.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Lady Margaret Thatcher

From: Watts Up With That?

By: Iain Aitken

Date: May 6, 2019

Climate Change Misconceived

"In this essay I propose that there are many things about climate change that the general public, journalists, academics, environmentalists and politicians may think they ‘know’ to certainly be true that are actually, at the least, highly equivocal (or demonstrably false) and that once these misconceptions are corrected perceptions of the issue are (or, at least, should be) transformed. Note that throughout I use the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) definition of ‘climate change’: ‘a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer)’. By ‘global warming’ I mean a rise in the Global Average Surface Temperature of the Earth."

Climate Change Misconceived

The first argument of the consensed climate science community is that global “greenhouse gas” emissions must be reduced to avoid a potential future climate catastrophe if the global average near-surface temperature increase exceeds 1.5°C or 2°C. This argument logically leads to the conclusion that all nations must stop increasing their annual “greenhouse gas” emissions and begin reducing them rapidly towards zero net annual emissions. This logic, while scientifically sound, is judged to be philosophically unsound.

The alternative argument is that developing nations and not-yet-developing nations must be allowed to continue to increase their “greenhouse gas’ emissions to support their continued economic development. The major advocates of this position are China and India, both of which have refused to agree to halt the growth of their emissions until at least 2030. This position is supported by the majority of the members of the Group of 77 developing countries.

The UN, through both the UNFCCC and the IPCC, finds itself on both sides of the issue. In the meantime, global annual “greenhouse gas” emissions continue to rise; and, therefore, global atmospheric “greenhouse gas” concentrations continue to rise as well. The increase in atmospheric “greenhouse gas” emissions cannot be halted until the reductions in emissions by numerous countries match or exceed the annual increases in emissions by numerous other countries. Correspondingly, the increase in atmospheric “greenhouse gas” concentrations cannot be halted until all nations cease adding “greenhouse gases” to the atmosphere.

Therefore, even if the US aggressively pursued the climate change aspects of the “Green New Deal” (GND), global annual atmospheric “greenhouse gas” emissions would continue to increase until the rate of decrease of emissions by the US and other countries decreasing their emissions equaled the rate of increase of emissions by developing and not-yet-developing countries increasing their annual emissions. Global annual “greenhouse gas” emissions would then stabilize and perhaps begin to decline.

However, the atmospheric concentration of “greenhouse gases” would not stabilize until all nations achieved net-zero annual emissions, which is not likely to happen until mid-century, since neither China nor India plans to cease increasing their annual emissions until at least 2030, if then. China is also providing coal generation facilities to a number of other countries, which would also continue to increase their annual emissions as their economies grow.

Of course, it is not possible to accurately estimate the ultimate “greenhouse gas” concentrations which would be reached because most nations’ commitments to reducing emissions are not firm, nor are other nations’ intentions to increase emissions. It is also not possible to accurately estimate the additional increases in the global temperature anomaly which would supposedly result from these increased emissions, since the current climate models do not accurately model the real climate.

In this atmosphere of continued uncertainty, we can expect to continue to be provided with projections of potential future scary scenarios. However, we can expect that these scenarios would be based on our progress in achieving reductions in our emissions, rather than on the lack of progress by developing and not-yet-developing nations.

It would seem that, at least in the minds of some in the consensed climate science community, climate “justice” is more important than climate catastrophe avoidance. If they prevail and we experience a climate catastrophe, at least it would be a “just” catastrophe.

Makes you feel warm all over, doesn’t it?

From: AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

By: Benjamin Zycher

April 2019

The Green New Deal

Economics and Policy Analytics

" The Green New Deal (GND) is a set of policy proposals, some more concrete than others, with the central advertised goal of ameliorating a purported climate crisis by implementing policies that would reduce US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to zero, or to “net zero,” by 2050 in some formulations. In addition, the GND incorporates other important social-policy goals as a means of forging a majority political coalition in support. The GND’s central premise is that such policies—either despite or by reducing sharply the economic value of some substantial part of the US resource base and the energy-producing and energyconsuming capital stock—would increase the size of the economy in real terms, increase employment, improve environmental quality, and improve distributional equity. That is a “broken windows” argument: The destruction of resources increases aggregate wealth. It is not to be taken seriously."

The Green New Deal

Economics and Policy Analytics