The Hard Look

Selling Nutrient Credits

I don’t think Gerry Connolly is innately mean-spirited or wasteful, so I discount his plan not to sell nutrient credits as simply uninformed.  See here for background on how Fairfax County will generate and be able to sell the excess amount of nutrients it takes out of waste water to other municipalities who aren’t as rich or as lucky. 

Gerry thinks that some folks will take advantage of available pollution credits to put off building wastewater treatment plants, and slow down clean-up of the Bay and our local waters.  He thinks he’s striking a blow for the environment.  Actually he isn’t.  He’s just refusing to profit from our own wealth and he is punishing his future constituents south of the Occoquan.

Climate Change is a Coin Toss?

A lead author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment on Climate Change admits that that his organization achieves only 50 per cent accuracy in its climate forecasts and that this is as good as any other forecaster around the world.  In other words, climate forecasting, on which the alarmism of the world rests, offers no better prediction than flipping a coin.

Dr. James A. Renwick, a New Zealand surface climate and atmospheric circulation scientist for the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric research,  is one of the lead authors of Chapter 3: of the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report.  That chapter is titled “Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change.”  He is one of the experts who predict climate changes decades and centuries into the future.  Here are a few of his recent statements about the science of climate prediction:

"Climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well."

"The weather is not predictable beyond a week or two."

As The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition reminds us, "The link between climate and weather is well known: climate is determined by averaging weather variables over an extended period (usually 30 years) at one place or for a region. How can there be any faith in climate predictions by officials who admit they are unable to forecast the weather beyond a week or two?”

Good question.

Prophecies Of Doom That Didn’t Occur

     At a recent gathering of our family clan, several of the nieces & nephews put on their serious faces and asked about doom-mongering in general and global warming alarmism in particular.  They also wanted some legitimate sources to which they could turn for a balanced discussion of these issues.   I told them I’d put something up on my blog, so here it is.

    As for the legitimate sources, you can find a list of books and websites at the end of this post.  On doom and gloom, for a way to understand the future, let’s look at the past.  Several of my colleagues have put the following list together.  Most of them come from Wallace Kaufman's book "No Turning Back (Basic Books, 1994)".   As well, Some of this comes from a piece by Gary Alexander that is fun to read and which explains how one person of my generation finally broke free from the overwhelming drum-beat of doom that has sounded in our ears since our childhood in the 1950’s.  See: “Welcome to “Apocaholics Anonymous” – Join Me in a Crusade for Panic-Free Living.”   

     Before giving you the list of prophecies that didn’t come true, let me introduce you to two scientific statements that set the stage for the list.  In Science last week, Jonathan Gregory of the University of Reading is quoted as advocating the use of “scientific hunches”, while the biggest U.S. global warming alarmist, James Hansen of NASA, rejects the word “hunch” and wants to call these speculative guesses “insights” and wants to promote them over hard science.  They, and several others whose income or notoriety is tied to climate alarmism, believe the public and decision-makers should concentrate most attention on the most extreme estimates of harm.  See the Science article here: In contrast, let’s look back thirty-five years to see how little things change.  Then the editor of Britain's prestigious journal Nature summed up the main assumption of the doom promoters of the 1960s and 70s: "Their most common error is to suppose that the worst will always happen."  (Maddox, 1972).  In the thirty-five years since Dr. Maddox punctured the doom-makers balloon, the worst has not come to pass.  Indeed, beginning with Malthus, over the past 200 years, the worst has not come to pass.  Here’s the list of what didn’t happen: