Y2Kyoto: Climate McCarthyism
The smear campaign against Professor Richard Tol;
Prof Tol, from Sussex University, is a highly respected climate economist and one of two ‘co-ordinating lead authors’ of an important chapter in the 2,600-page report published last week by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
He has been widely criticised by green campaigners after he claimed that the much shorter ‘summary for policymakers’ – hammered out in all-night sessions between scientists and government officials over a week-long meeting in Yokohama, Japan – was overly ‘alarmist’.
In his view, the summary focused on ‘scare stories’ and suggestions the world faced ‘the four horsemen of the apocalypse’.
He said he did not want his name associated with it because he felt ‘uncomfortable’ with the way the summary exaggerated the economic impact of global warming.
“No wonder the Canadian government finds it necessary to employ a full-time PR agent to help bolster EC’s reputation.”
No climate forecast, whether short-, medium-, or long-term, produced by government weather agencies has been correct. Environment Canada’s (EC) are the worst: less accurate, they admit, than flipping a coin. Nevertheless, government climate forecasts are the basis of all of Canada’s national energy and environment policies.
What would @JustinTrudeau do to fix Harper's failed #climate models? #cdnpoli http://t.co/hzn5Hs4mWV
— Katewerk (@katewerk) April 6, 2014
Y2Kyoto: Little Green Lies
Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements
Abstract
It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric information. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare. From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous.
Or, to put it another way….
Via CFACT
Y2Kyoto: I’ll Miss The Maldives
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Ban Ki-moon praises leadership of small island countries on #climatechange. http://t.co/ShV7fnp8mI pic.twitter.com/3FaBh6CiSM #islands2014
— United Nations (@UN) April 3, 2014
for your viewing pleasure, aerial view of Male, capitol of Maldives. @katewerk @UN @younggreenscan pic.twitter.com/bTTlVN3fZE
— Ima Stinkburger (@ImaBannedd) April 3, 2014
YNoKyoto: An MSNBC Poll Goes Horribly Wrong
Anthony Watts – “When you can’t even get the ultra-left MSNBC crowd to agree with your premise of climate change being a threat, maybe a strike isn’t the answer; maybe it’s just time to just give up.”
Y2Kyoto: State Of Anorexia Envirosa
And Glenn Beck is the crazy one.
In a press release entitled “FACT SHEET: Climate Action Plan – Strategy to Cut Methane Emissions,” the White House laid out its “all-of-the-above approach to develop homegrown energy and steady, responsible steps to cut carbon pollution” as to ensure “a cleaner, more stable environment for future generations.”
One of the “key steps” formulated by the Obama Administration involves working in partnership with the dairy industry, the USDA, EPA and DOE to release a “Biogas Roadmap” outlining “voluntary strategies to accelerate adoption of methane digesters and other cost-effective technologies to reduce U.S. dairy sector greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.”
Related: In this case, E&E Legal was looking for records regarding the EPA’s veto of an already-granted permit to a coal mine in Logan County, W.V. The EPA vetoed the permit to save the mayfly, an insect that the agency says is harmed by surface mining.
Y2Kyoto: The Big Rink They Call ‘Gitche Gumee’
Although the Soo Locks officially opened for the season March 25, no commercial ships have passed through the locks as they are still being escorted across Lake Superior by the Coast Guard Cutters Mackinaw and Katmai Bay. However, the Vessel Traffic Service operated out of Coast Guard Sector Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., has issued a directive to close the upper St. Marys River to navigation because of heavy ice coverage.
I Amuse Myself
BECAUSE THE WORLD NEEDS MORE NORTH KOREA. >>> @JustinTrudeau. "Lights out for #EarthHour!"
— Katewerk (@katewerk) March 30, 2014
The Sound Of Settled Science
Uh oh… “Now even Australia’s ABC is asking questions about the new IPCC report and why Dr. Richard Tol asked his name to be removed from it”
YNoKyoto
If 40 species a day are going extinct, why are they still talking about passenger pigeons?
Global warming is said to be threatening thousands of animal and plant species with extinction. That, at least, is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been predicting for years.
But the UN climate body now says it is no longer so certain. The second part of the IPCC’s new assessment report is due to be presented next Monday in Yokohama, Japan. On the one hand, a classified draft of the report notes that a further “increased extinction risk for a substantial number of species during and beyond the 21st century” is to be expected. On the other hand, the IPCC admits that there is no evidence climate change has led to even a single species becoming extinct thus far.
Related.
h/t Bob H
“Party Like It’s 1699”
We Don’t Need No Stinking Corn Oil
Yet another ‘consensus’ bites the dust.
Growing crops to make “green” biofuel harms the environment and drives up food prices, IPCC admits in dramatic U-turn
No one saw that coming, uh uh.
YNoKyoto: EU leaders delay decision on climate targets
Last month, the European Commission put forward a proposal to set a 2030 target of 40% emissions reduction from 1990 levels. It wanted a quick agreement, by the June European Council at the latest, so that the EU could go to a UN summit in September with a pledge for a globally binding UN deal.
A new global deal is supposed to be agreed in Paris at the end of 2015. An early pledge by Europe could spur other global powers to come forward with pledges in the following months, increasing the chances of a successful outcome in Paris next year.
But today’s discussions were dominated by the issue of energy independence, and leaders who had pushed for early agreement emerged from the Council acknowledging that the plan for agreement in June is now impossible. “At the European level we are facing a tough discussion,” said Werner Faymann, the chancellor of Austria. “For that reason we’ve agreed to discuss in June and to set a line by October for next year’s [Paris] conference.”
Y2Kyoto: I’ll Miss The Polar Bears
I’ve finally had a chance to go through all of the details provided with the 2013 PBSG status table (pdf here). It’s just about all good news, once you wade through the spin. Numbers aside, out of the 13 populations for which some kind of data exist, five populations are now classified by the PBSG as ‘stable’ (two more than 2009), one is still increasing, and three have been upgraded from ‘declining’ to ‘data deficient’ (I explain below why this is a promotion).
That leaves four that are still considered ‘declining’- two of those judgments are based primarily on concerns of overhunting, and one is based on a statistically insignificant decline that may not be valid and is being re-assessed (and really should have been upgraded to ‘data deficient’). That leaves only one population – Western Hudson Bay – where PBSG biologists tenaciously blame global warming for all changes to polar bear biology, and even then, the data supporting that conclusion is still not available.
Y2Kyoto: The Big Rink They Call “Gitche Gumee”
Greypeace
Raster, please: Environmental Groups are Flirting with Extinction
YNoKyoto
Your Moral And Intellectual Superiors
An actual, real-life CTV headline.
…with a comments section gone horribly wrong.
h/t Jim
