The Missing Link: Climate Change vs Free Trade

Firstly, it is worth noting that the corporate/business ties to the whole "Green" movement are nothing new. It is a capitalist reality that no economic enterprise will be taken up unless you can translate it into profits. As much as I am opposed to the capitalist ideology, I think it at least a good thing that they are taking up more environmentally friendly endeavors. It is also nothing new that the move to combat global warming will, in fact, produce more greenhouse gasses and pollution. I suggest reading the various articles on energy published by Mother Jones in 2008. To build the infrastructure and make the transition to renewable energy will first require immense use of the the energy and technology already available.

I'm not so convinced that trade restrictions are a solution that will be accepted, practically speaking. I think it a better approach to promote nations' self-sufficiency, especially for food and encouraging local merchants, etc. By relying on local produce, the need for trade of certain goods is reduced. Of course this is a highly complicated process, involving changes in government political and economic policies, as well as individual consumers' choices, and a delicate balancing act especially for countries who have been conditioned by "structural adjustment programs" to rely on exports. I do not mean to over-simplify.

As for the comments about global warming being a hyped-up ploy, I am personally unsure of what to make of the "scientific debate." I do trust in the arguments of indigenous peoples who describe very dramatic and concrete environmental changes taking place that are affecting their traditional livelihoods. And I do not discredit the literal washing away of tiny island nations. My argument, regardless, is that is noes not matter one bit if "global warming" is just a natural minimal occurrence or a disastrous effect caused by human activity. Neither of those negate the indisputable fact that pollution and environmental degradation is out of control and that an international economy sustain by non-renewable resources cannot go on forever. Very practically and very bluntly, I don't give a damn about these idiots arguing about whether global warming is real or not, because humans are destroying the environment regardless.

The real missing link, Sharma, is any evidence that the C02 warms the earth.     For just two minutes, let's actually be scientific about the GLOBAL WARMING THEORY.  Let's look beyond the hype, you know, let's actually look at the facts on the ground and in the air and oceans.  Copied in full below is a recent BBC News article and other sources, including the New York Times, on how this theory & the climate computer models which predicted catastrophe have not held up to real world data. ***The earth has NOT been warming for 11 years now even thought C02 has been increasing. The global warming theory has been proven false. The mainstream news media is only now reluctantly coming to grips with this.   The New York Times, for example, tells us we won’t know for sure whether there’s any global warming danger for another few years (quote below) but the writing is on the wall with the most recent data indicating we're actually at the beginning of a global COOLING period, citations and quotes below. 

This global warming theory is not only a crock, it’s dangerous because it is giving those who get to decide how the resources of the globe are currently spent an excuse to waste our resources on more expensive forms of energy when cheaper forms are not, in fact, causing any global warming.   Instead of creating expensive new forms of energy, our efforts should be targeted to getting energy to the 25 percent of humanity still forced to live without electricity as quickly (and by necessity as cheaply) as we can.  That's because the lack of electricity is not just an inconvenience for 1/4 of us, it kills 4,100 people each day (see http://whatnewsshouldbe/id8.html )  Those without electricity have no choice but to live like cavemen, burning stuff in their unventilated homes for light and to cook, and breathing in all the resulting smoke kills 4,100 people, mostly women and children, each day.  You know, TODAY, not 50 years from now but TODAY, AND EVERY DAY.  So, while well meaning people worry and work to save the world from a future speculative threat now shown to be bogus (global warming), the well meaning do nothing to stop a CURRENT, REAL environmental pollution threat that kills 4,100 daily and are actually making it more difficult for those desperate for electricity by trying to force more expensive alternative energies on those who can least afford them - and all for a reason that is now proving to be scientifically unsound.   

Sharma, you got one thing right:  “The global debate, dominated by a handful of international NGOs, have managed to very deftly shift the entire development discourse to climate change” and this is horrible because climate change a/k/a global warming is NOT a real or present threat.   YOU AND THE LEFT HAVE BEEN SOUNDING THE WRONG ALARM.   THE DANGER IS NOT GLOBAL WARMING.    THE DANGER IS THE LACK OF ELECTRICITY KILLING 4,100 HUMAN BEINGS EACH DAY AND THE CURE IS GETTING THE CHEAPEST FORM OF ELECTRICITY TO PEOPLE WITHOUT IT YESTERDAY TO STOP THE SLAUGHTER. 

Come on Sharma , and others, it’s time to get on the right bandwagon, the one based on a solid scientific foundation, not founded on computer models whose predictions don’t come true! There’s real and unnecessary death caused by energy pollution each and every day but is has NOTHING to do with global warming. EVERYONE DESERVES TO HAVE ELECTRICITY.. But does the left know that getting electricity to people didn’t even make the list of UN Millennium Goals? In their own words: “Unfortunately the international community has not taken this issue serious enough to establish a specific target for energy services in the framework of the MDGs.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20061006211258/http://www2.undp.org.yu/files/news/20041119_energy_poverty.pdf

 Will you help the one quarter of humanity forced to live without electricity as quickly as humanly possible to stop this unnecessary daily slaughter?  Familiarize yourself with the latest scientific findings, referred to immediately below for your convenience, demonstrating the global warming theory is all wet and open your eyes so we can lay to rest this incredible weapon of mass distraction from real and present dangers.

 Angie
http://www.WhatNewsShouldBe.org
Angie@WhatNewsShouldBe.org

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What happened to global warming?
By Paul Hudson
Climate correspondent, BBC News
10/9/09

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?

During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.

Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth's warmth comes from the Sun.

But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.

The scientists' main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.

And the results were clear. "Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees.

He 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.

If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.

Ocean cycles

What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to our oceans. They are the Earth's great heat stores.

“ In the last few years [the Pacific Ocean] has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down ”

According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.

The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool
cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).

For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that
means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.

But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has
recently started to cool down.

These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.

So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.

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

So what does it all mean? Climate change sceptics argue that this is evidence that they have been right all along.

They say there are so many other natural causes for warming and cooling, that even if man is warming the planet, it is a small part compared with nature.

But those scientists who are equally passionate about man's influence on global warming argue that their science is solid.

The UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, responsible for future climate
predictions, says it incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new.

In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures - all of which are accounted for by its models.

In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never
increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of
slower warming, or even temporary cooling.

What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global
temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.

To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.

Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers.

But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.

So what can we expect in the next few years?

Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.

It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be
hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).

Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is
possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.

One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing
global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

Published: 2009/10/09 15:22:46 GMT

Other sources:

Here are some other links where the mainstream news media is starting to admit (sometimes very reluctantly) that global warming is not happening, some rather Orwellian too:

"The world leaders who met at the United Nations to discuss climate change on Tuesday are faced with an intricate challenge: building momentum for an international climate treaty at a time when global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years."

Source: Stable Global Temperatures Could Stifle Action on Climate - NYTimes.com
Address : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/science/earth/23cool.html?hp=&pagew...

“Warming might be on hold, study finds – Discovery.com- msnbc.com” -

“[a]ccording to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades.” . . .  Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat.”  

Saturday, March 07, 2009 9:10:06 PM http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29469287/

“An average of all 38 available standard runs from the IPCC shows that models expect a temperature increase in this decade of about 0.2C.   But this is not at all what we have seen. And this is true for all surface temperature measures, and even more so for both satellite measures. Temperatures in this decade have not been worse than expected; in fact, they have not even been increasing. They have actually decreased by between 0.01 and 0.1C per decade. . .Likewise, and arguably much more importantly, the heat content of the world’s oceans has been dropping for the past four years where we have measurements. . . . over the last two years, sea levels have not increased at all – actually, they show a slight drop.over the last two years”  Source: Let the data speak for itself, Björn Lomborg:  
guardian.co.uk,

Address : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/14/climatechange-scienceofclimatechange

"A clearer view of whether the recent temperature plateau undermines arguments for dangerous climate change in the long run should come in a few years, as the predictions made by the British climate researchers are tested. Their paper appeared in a supplement to an August issue of The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.  While the authors concluded that there was a 1 in 8 chance of having a decade-long pause in warming like the current plateau, even with rising concentrations of greenhouse gases, the odds of a 15-year pause, they wrote, are only 5 in 100. As a result, the next few years of observations could tip the balance toward further concern or greater optimism."

Source: Stable Global Temperatures Could Stifle Action on Climate - NYTimes.com
Address : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/science/earth/23cool.html?hp=&pagew...

NATURE magazine:
(Keenlyside et al. 2008
(http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/abs/nature06921.html ). 
"we make the following forecast: over the next decade, the current Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will weaken to its long-term mean; moreover, North Atlantic SST and European and North American surface temperatures will cool slightly, whereas tropical Pacific SST will remain almost unchanged. Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade”
Source: Access : Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector : Nature
Address : http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/full/nature06921.html
See also “Next decade may see no Warming”  (5/1/08)  

Source: BBC NEWS |
Science/Nature | Address : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7376301.stm

My favorite of the Orwellian stuff:

From the NY Times Science – Dot Earth Blog, the title of a recent blog:  

“A Cooler Year on a Warming Planet” at
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/a-cooler-year-on-a-warmi...

And also from the New York Times is a very telling caption which appeared underneath a photo in a story about the global warming debate: 

“Discordant findings aside, the theory of rising human influence on climate endures. “

That's actually a very good summary of how the news media has covered this global warming theory for years - generally ignoring all discordant findings, and these findings just keep adding up until there is nothing left to the global warming myth.

(Caption to photograph appeared accompanying this article: “Climate Experts Tussle Over Details. Public Gets Whiplash at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/science/earth/29clim.html )

Oh, and here’s a good article about how bad the computer modeling  – and that’s the whole factual basis of the global Computer modelling of temperatures - in the Antarctic have proved wildly inaccurate, scientists have admitted

Source: Antarctic ‘not as warm as feared’ – Telegraph
Address : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/05/08/eatemp108.xml

DVD'S ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING YOU SHOULD SEE SO YOU’LL UNDERSTAND HOW SO MANY GOT IT SO WRONG:

See (for free on the internet) the movie which exposed Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" as a scam.  It's called "The Great Global Warming Swindle" and it aired on British television.  See also the just released documentary "Not Evil Just Wrong - The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria".  It was already shown for free on the internet so you can download it from torrent sites.  You're not afraid of seeing if your hard-fast beliefs can survive challenges based on facts and logic, are you?  If not, you should see these movies.   

Angie@WhatNewsShouldBe.org

Most of the left acts and speaks as though any amount of trade is just fine as long as good labor and environmental laws are in place where goods are manufactured.  BUT the environmental cost of moving goods around the globe is generally ignored.  Yep, trade restrictions are what we need.  It should be possible to calculate the real cost of shipping--weight and distance and efficiency of transport--for any object between any two points on the globe.  Just do the math.  Sometimes I stand in the tool aisle at the local hardware store and marvel that something as simple (and heavy) as a hammer now has to be shipped half way round the world. AAAARGH!!