A Chill Wind Blows From Copenhagen

An international conference is set to begin in Copenhagen in December of this year, regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty, scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen. Lord Christopher Monckton, the noted AGW skeptic who has repeatedly and so-far unsuccessfully challenged Al Gore to a climate change debate, spoke recently about this meeting and this treaty, and what he had to say was chilling. The following link is to the blog Global Climate Scan, and I thank them for posting this:

http://www.globalclimatescam.com/?p=572

The video is only about 4 minutes long and I encourage you to listen to it.

Lord Monckton is concerned that this treaty will create a "world government" that will serve to redistribute wealth from the richer, developed nations to the poorer, less developed ones. It also will supersede our own Constitution, according to his interpretation of Article VI, paragraph 2. This interpretation, unfortunately, is shared by other constitutional scholars and by many judges, and there are judicial precedents establishing the fact that treaties can override state and Federal laws and even the Constitution itself. (See this discussion of the failed Bricker amendment from the 1950's.)

I have skimmed the draft copy of the treaty linked by Global Climate Scam. The treaty establishes a set of international goals and obligations, among which is the diminishment of CO2 production by the developed nations and the provision of funds to the less developed nations to develop energy sources that are CO2 friendly as well as provision of funds to help the less developed nations with adaptation to the adverse effects of "climate change", as these less developed nations will likely be the ones most seriously affected by the predicted effects of such "change".

The word "government" is used in the sense of setting up a governance system to control the vast bureaucracies overseeing the large number of carbon mitigation programs, compliance programs, financial funds for various projects, and adaptation processes called for in the treaty. There is no call for anything that one would recognize as a government, with bodies like a legislature, judiciary and the like. Rather there is the "Conference of the Parties", a reference to a committee to be made up by representatives of the signatories to the treaty.

This webwork of bureaucracies and what-not, controlled by the Conference of the Parties, would have under their thumbs a vast portion of the economies of the world. It wouldn't be a complete world government, but it would be a governing structure over a significant portion of the world's economies and thus its peoples. And it would not be directly responsive to any elected body or body of electors. A democracy this isn't; it isn't even close to a democratic republic. But it sounds like it could easily become a demagogic oligarchy.

The draft treaty is 181 pages of scintillating prose --not! It is mind numbing. As a document to establish a government, it is not anywhere near as inspiring as our Constitution, and certainly not as brief. It is also full of placeholders and alternate clauses and even alternate goal levels, which I'm sure are thing that are intended to be finally determined during the meeting in Copenhagen in December. But the overall framework is easy to see (if you don't fall asleep too often while reading it). Let's look at some of the more memorable passages.

Any lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason to postpone or scale down action on adaptation.

Acknowledging that current atmospheric concentrations are principally the result of historical emissions of greenhouse gases, the most significant share of which has originated in developed countries.

Further acknowledging that developed countries have a historical responsibility for their disproportionate contribution to the causes and consequences of climate change, reflecting their disproportionate historical use of a shared global carbon space since 1850 as well as their proposed continuing disproportionate use of the remaining global carbon space.

Warming of the climate system, as a consequence of human activity, is unequivocal.

These are just a few examples of the heavy-handedness of this document. In actuality, the document is separated into sections, and each section has a preamble of sorts in which these ideas are repeated with only minor modifications in the wording. 'Climate change is real, dammit! Man is responsible! And especially those evil developed countries!'

So what are the developed nations to do? A lot, actually. This is a treaty to reduce CO2 levels, and it sets out these goals ad infinitum, but without getting into technical details. If they did that, they'd need to talk to the engineers and the real scientists, who would tell them they have their craniums firmly placed up their rectums, that what they're planning isn't possible. But let's not let technical possibility get in the way of feel-good notions.

For this purpose, Parties shall collectively reduce global emissions by at least 45 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 and by at least 95 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050.

The long-term global goal for emission reductions should be set as a statistically robust ceiling for the average global temperature increase strictly attributable to anthropogenic interference having a global effect, of [x] degrees Centigrade above mid-19th century levels, with per capita accumulative emission convergence between all Parties.

By global emissions they mean CO2. If we have to reduce CO2 emissions to 95% of 1990 levels by 2050, can we do this and still let all 400+ million (by that time) of us breathe? If not, who gets to exhale and who doesn't? Or will we do it on an odd-even day rotation based on birthdates? And when they set that temperature target of x degrees Celsius (come on guys, get with it -- Centigrade was disposed of a couple of decades ago) above mid-19th century levels, I hope they remember that there was a mini-Ice Age just ending in the mid-19th century.

Guess who gets to pay for all this, by the way? If you guessed the developed countries, you win! Now take a look at your prize. These are just at few of the proposals that are offered in the treaty, and I wouldn't be surprised it they decided to use all of them.

An assessed contribution from developed country Parties based on the principles of equity, common but differentiated responsibilities, respective capabilities, GDP, GDP per capita, the polluter pays principle historical responsibility of Annex I Parties, historical climate debt, including adaptation debt, amounting to [[0.5–1][0.8][2] per cent of gross national product] at least [0.5–1 per cent of GDP]].

Assessed contributions [of at least 0.7% of the annual GDP of developed country Parties] [from developed country Parties and other developed Parties included in Annex II to the Convention] [taking into account historical contribution to concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere]

By 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must be [at least USD 67 billion] [in the range of USD 70–140 billion] per year. [Sources of new and additional financial support for adaptation [must meet the full agreed incremental costs of adaptation and initially be within a minimum range of USD 50–86 billion per annum and regularly updated in the light of new emerging science, financial estimates and the degree of emission reductions achieved.]

A uniform global levy of USD 2 per tonne of CO2 for all countries with per capita emissions higher than [1.5][2.0] tonnes of CO2; the LDCs shall be exempt.

A [global] levy of 2 per cent on international financial market [monetary] transactions to Annex I Parties.

Agreed penalties or fines on non-compliance of developed country Parties with their commitments to reduce emissions and provide support in the form of financial resources, technology transfer and capacity-building.

Limited/reduced time patents on climate friendly technologies.

Those first three look like they are the same thing, and they are. But they are mentioned in the funding process of different parts of the treaty, so I would assume that we are talking about national levies of anywhere from 2-3.5% of GDP, plus hundreds of billions more. The US GDP in 2008 was 14.4 trillion dollars, so 2-3.5% of that would be in the range of 280-500 billion dollars. If I'm wrong and the maximum is only 0.8% of GDP that would still be 115 billion dollars. Per year.

Calculate your carbon footprint! Mine is at least 18 tons of CO2 per year. I was disappointed. I thought it would be bigger than that. My business activities aren't included, however, which is why I said at least 18 tons. Take your number and multiply it by $2. That's your share of the United States' carbon levy. Do you think the USA will pay this for you? Or do you imagine that it will be added on as a line on your 1040?

The limitations on patents is designed to facilitate (read steal) CO2 reduction and energy efficiency technologies so that they can be given to less developed nations to exploit. And of course there would be provisions to fine countries who aren't following the rules.

But what do the less developed countries get to do? They're exempt from the CO2 levy, they (supposedly; think China) don't have CO2 emissions to reduce. So what is their responsibility under this treaty?

Recalling that economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing countries.

So why do these nations get this Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card?

Recognizing that the right to development is a basic human right that is undeprivable.

Funny, I don't remember seeing that one in our Constitution. Our Constitution only guarantees us liberty with which we have the freedom to develop through our own efforts, but not on the backs of anyone else. But I forget that this is being written by the refugees from the discredited global communism movement.

The good news is that none of this nonsense applies to any nation sensible enough to tell these idiots where they can put their freaking treaty. But our President is Barack Obama, and our Senate is dominated by whacked-out weirdo liberal Democrats.

We have been worried about "health care reform" and the Cap and Tax scheme. This lunacy tops them all. We all must do everything in our power to fight this. And we only have a couple of months to do it in.

Blog Action Day 10-15-2009 --- Climate Change, or AGW Twists in the Wind

Blog Action Day #3 is now upon us, and the operators of the movement have chosen, supposedly by a user vote, climate change as the topic for this year. (This did not get my vote.) Though my views on this will not surprise any regular readers (you are out there, aren't you?), I will soldier on. Let's see now -- year 1 was the environment, year 2 was poverty, and now we have climate change. I'm beginning to think that this movement is being run by a bunch of leftists.......

The AGW proponents are running for cover. The cover, in this instance, is by renaming their pet theory climate change as opposed to anthropogenic global warming. The reasons are fairly obvious. First, climate change is shorter, easier to remember and easier to spell, and the supporters of this poor idea certainly have little enough gray matter to spare on such trivial concerns. Second, as the underpinnings of their original theory, that the Earth is rolling up an exponential temperature curve, is giving way beneath them as the planet has been cooling off over the past decade, they can no longer decry the crisis of global warming and not get ridiculed. Third, calling it climate change gives them the ability to claim that they were correct no matter which way the thermometer moves.

That third point so amply demonstrates the absolute bankruptcy of their position ('no matter what happens, we're right, and we all have to do as we say to make things better') that I really don't have to go any further in discrediting them. However, as I am a firm believer in the flogging of dead horses and the blistering incineration of willful ignorance, I shall go on.

To begin, we'll start with recent headlines. Bloomberg News reports: U.S. Northeast May Have Coldest Winter in a Decade. From KTVB.com in Idaho: Quick Cold Snap Fills Up Homeless Shelters -- Boise, ID is already having sub-freezing temperatures before October 1. In Daytona Beach, FL the record low of 58 degrees F was tied on October 1, 17 days early compared to average. Port Huron, MI broke a 74 year old low temperature record on the same date. Both Montana and Idaho are also breaking cold temperature records already this early in the year. Even Pennsylvania is being forecast to have a "possibly damaging early-season snow" at the end of this week.

Game 3 of the MLB National League Division playoff between the Colorado Rockies and the Philadelphia Phillies, scheduled to be played in Denver on October 10, had to be postponed because of bitter cold, sleet and snow. The temperature dipped to 17 degrees F, easily breaking the 104 year old record of 25 degrees set in 1905.

Yes, this is climate change -- changing back to what is normal from more than a decade of abnormally warm temperatures. But since the CO2 levels are not dropping, why are temperatures decreasing? Because the temperature increases had nothing to do with the increased CO2 levels in the first place. (More on this below.)

Two prominent meteorologists have recently gone public in a big way regarding their opposition to the theory of AGW.

Matt Rogers of The Washington Post's Capitol Weather Gang blog a Top Ten list of why he questions the 'consensus' view of AGW. Among these are many items I have covered in previous posts, such as the lack of warming over the last 10 years despite continued increases in CO2 levels, the inadequacies of the AGW computer models (which he believes "are over-estimating anthropogenic (human) forcing influences and under-estimating natural variability (like the current cold-phase Pacific Decadal Oscillation and solar cycles)", and the recent lowering of solar irradiance as indicated by the profound lack of sunspots recently. He adds in a few new wrinkles, like the effect of chaos theory making long-term predictions extraordinarily problematic. And like a true scientist, he complains about the vehement way that any dissenters from the AGW dogma are treated.

Joe Bastardi, Expert Senior Forecaster at AccuWeather and considered to be one of the premier meteorologists in the country, was on The O'Reilly Factor in late September showing several pieces of hard evidence debunking the AGW theory, primarily by revealing that real-world data are contrary to what the AGW computer models say they should be. (The video of that appearance is at the bottom of the page of that link.) In a followup statement posted as an open letter to AccuWeather.com readers, he went on to say:

Unlike many people, I am well acquainted and respect the co2 warming idea, but in its pure form, which actually allows for the cooling coming now! Therein lies the problem. We can't know till after the period that is coming up through 2030 whether co2 is really a player or not. The threat of not only oceanic cycles cooling the earth, but the suns lack of intensity and increased volcanic and seismic activity could mean that as some papers in the early 90s (and dismissed by many) opined we would be as cold as back in the early 1800s. What you see now may just be the beginning. One thing we do know, that we should be skeptical of any future event, no matter what we believe.

I will leave you with this. Common sense dictates that a trace gas needed for life on the planet would not be the cause for destroying life on the planet. Common sense dictates that what has happened before without man can happen again with man. Common sense would dictate that you not believe me, or any one else, but go look for YOURSELF. If its important enough for you to be happy with what I said, or to be mad as all get out at what I said, you owe it to yourself to go read all sides of the argument. To be informed, and not to simply throw stones.

The response of the AGW zealots was what one would expect from zealots. They resorted to name-calling ("Deniers!"), questioning of the intelligence and credentials of the critics, and continued pronouncements that the science is settled without engaging in any kind of reasoned debate. In other words, they simply threw stones. Or they simply refuse to defend their own views against reasoned criticisms:

In what organizers said was a rarity, Gore took half a dozen questions from journalists, including one from Phelim McAleer, an Irish filmmaker who asked Gore to address nine errors in his film identified by a British court in 2007.

Gore responded that the court ruling supported the showing of his film in British schools. When McAleer tried to debate further, his microphone was cut off by the moderators.

The BBC asks "What Happened to Global Warming?" They go on to elaborate that the predicted warming hasn't happened and then to discuss why. They mention solar scientist Piers Corbyn who "claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures. He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month." (I wish I could hear more about this now!) Next they mention Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University, who believes that ocean cycles, particularly the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, are responsible for most of the temperature changes that we have observed so far and what we will see in the future. Says Professor Easterbrook:

The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling.

From down-under New Zealand/Australia way comes a study by Chris de Freitas (University of Auckland in New Zealand), John McLean (Melbourne) and Bob Carter (James Cook University) which states that “little or none of the late 20th century global warming and cooling can be attributed to human activity". It is discussed in more non-climatologist language here. The gist of the study is that a shift in the climate in the Pacific Ocean in 1976 altered El Niño and La Niña patterns, resulting in more warming El Niños and fewer cooling La Niñas, thus producing the changes in the observed global temperatures over the last 50 years. This phenomenon of alternating El Niños and La Niñas, called ENSO [El Niño-Southern Oscillation], has been occurring with varying intensities for at least 300 years (see the section on Cultural History and Pre-historic Information), so it seems unlikely that it is being caused solely by the current increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, though scientists continue to debate what actually does cause the phenomenon.

The effects of El Niño and La Niña are well known to even laymen and the two year study has concluded that ENSO is directly related to global temperature rises in recent decades. The authors have been able to directly correlate the past 50 years of average global temperatures with ENSO cycles. Temperatures were found to have lagged ENSO events by approximately seven months consistently. De Freitas said, “We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century.”

Our Southern Hemisphere neighbors also criticize the current state of computer climate models, stating:

Co-author McLean drew attention to the fact that current climate models cannot even accurately reproduce known temperature changes. Previous studies have shown that the climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fall outside acceptable scientific boundaries. McLean said, “When climate models failed to retrospectively produce the temperatures since 1950 the modelers added some estimated influences of carbon dioxide to make up the shortfall.”

They further conclude:

If ENSO is indeed responsible for 80% of global temperature changes, manmade contributions to global warming would appear to be highly insignificant, much like a growing chorus of scientists have been claiming for some time. Australia, much like the United States, is considering cap and trade legislation that would attempt to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by forcing businesses to buy credits for their emissions.

Concerns about the cost to consumers and the negligible effect it would have has the measure stalled in the United States Senate for the time being. Carter specifically addressed carbon trading schemes saying “No scientific justification exists for emissions regulation, and that, irrespective of the severity of the cuts proposed, ETS (emission trading scheme) will exert no measurable effect on future climate."

So what are the geniuses in the U.S. Senate up to? Why, proposing an emission trading scheme, of course! And that particular genius-who-would've-been-President John Kerry said this:

I don't know what 'cap and trade' means. I don't think the average American does. This is not a cap-and-trade bill, it's a pollution reduction bill.

Willful ignorance, Mr. Kerry, willful ignorance. Sure, you don't know what cap and trade means. Because you know it's really a hidden tax, and one of the biggest taxes the Congress has ever considered. So you want to call it a pollution reduction bill, thinking that might hide its true nature. Sorry, Senator, the American people are smarter than that.

Climate change, indeed!

The only climate change we need right now is one where the scientific process once again supersedes ideological dogma, and that scientists are free to announce their findings without ending up in the hot seat. Unfortunately, it seems like it will be a cold day in Hell before that happens anytime soon.

Senate Committee Passes Baucus Bill

The Senate Finance Committee today passed a "health care" reform bill, commonly referred to as the Baucus Bill, along straight party-line votes. (Yes, I know that Olympia Snowe voted for the bill, but as she is only nominally a Republican, my comment stands correct as far as I'm concerned.)

I haven't said much about this bill so far. This is mainly because it's hard to comment on a bill that isn't technically written yet, even after it has been voted on. Who knows what will be in the bill when a paper version of it finally shows up? From what little concrete information I have heard about it, it sounds like a pot pourri bill -- let's throw a little bit of everything into a pot and stir it up and see what we get! Unfortunately, since most of what was thrown in the pot was old, worn out, rancid, decaying, or just plain rotten, what they got was something that just smells bad. I've also refrained from paying much attention to this bill as I realize it is simply a starting point for debate, and that the final bill that will ooze out of the Senate to the House-Senate Conference Committee will likely bear little resemblance to the Baucus Bill but will rather be quite like the odious monster that is H.R. 3200.

National Review Online has two good articles currently regarding the current debate.

The first is entitled Obamacare Dissected: Ten things that probably will be in the health-care bill (but shouldn’t), written by Stephen Spruiell. It discusses ten of the more major flaws in the proposals currently being debated (all collectively being referred to as Obamacare, as a convenient shorthand). I'm sure that Mr. Spruiell could write a sequel tomorrow with ten more problems that would be just as critical.

The second is called Real Health-Care Reform: Ten things that ought to be in the health-care bill (but probably won’t), written by Kevin Williamson. Mr. Williamson takes the opposite tack, listing those things we need in a "health care" reform bill but which the Left won't allow or even consider. The first few paragraphs of this article constitute one of the best and easiest-to-understand arguments for why a free-market approach to "health care" reform would be superior that I have ever seen. Wish I'd written it! I do, however, have to laugh when in point# 7 he mentions "the AMA's cartel status" (a cartel that only controls 17% of the market ain't much of a cartel) and "an AMA-certified physician" -- where did this idea that the AMA certifies anything come from? For God's sake, the AMA is a professional association -- it's more like a fancy club than anything else. It has no regulatory authority, and never has had any. And regarding his point #9, Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert has already introduced legislation to try to get this to happen, though that bill won't go anywhere in the current Congress.

Both of these articles are must-reads. So go read them now.

While your there, read this article as well. It has nothing to do with health care, but everything to do with where we are as a country right now, and exactly in how much of the wrong direction we are heading.

Another Potential Casualty of ObamaCare -- Nobel Prizes

Three Americans were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine today for their work in discovering the mechanism of how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.

Aaron Gee at American Thinker (be sure to read the comments!) makes some very interesting observations regarding how President Obama's proposed 'health care' reforms will jeopardize the winning of future Nobel Prizes by Americans. His basic point is that we are winning the preponderance of the Nobels for medicine because so much medical research is done here. And so much medical research is done here precisely because the profit margins of the private marketplace for new medical innovations provide both the motivations and the capital with which this research can be done.

I loved his statement of the fact that "The top 10 U.S. hospitals that conduct clinical trials carry out more trials than all the hospitals in the rest of the world - combined." That gives you an idea of just how far ahead of the rest of the world we are in this regard -- the rest of the world here meaning, for all practical purposes, Europe. (Once you exclude Japan, Israel, and probably Australia, the remainder of the non-European world contributes little to this field.)

So why is Europe so far behind? Gee says it's because "No other country has a working structure that has as much potential for medical research as the US." But the main reason for this is European price controls on the products (drugs, devices, and the like) of that research. It is these price controls that make the European 'health care' systems appear to be so much less expensive than ours. However, one can now see that there is a very substantial hidden cost (to Europe) for being so penny-wise and pound-foolish. (And if you think about it, that expression, referring to pennies and [British] pounds [sterling], coming as it does from England, is just so doubly ironic.)

Gee concludes saying, "The other symptom of a broken marketplace you should expect is fewer US Nobel Laureates in the field of Medicine." But it's what that portends that is more ominous. Not just fewer accolades from Stockholm. Obama's desire for the US to have a more European-style medical care system will mean we'll also have a more European-style medical research system.

By taking away the profit system that funds the research machine of the United States, the advancement of medical innovation will slow to a virtual standstill. No new medicines, no new technologies, no new surgeries will be forthcoming. The continuous increase in life expectancy we have come to expect will come to a grinding halt and may start moving backwards as the waiting lines and rationing this plan must result in leads to delays in and even prevention of life saving care.

How do I know that this is part of the actual goal of the reform plan? Because one of its main developers, Obama 'health care' advisor Tom Daschle, said so much in his book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. As explained in the book, one of the goals is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs.

Mr. Daschle and Mr. Obama have absolutely no conception of what price they are going to make all of us pay for their "cost-savings".

But Aaron Gee does. And now so do you.