Finally--A Warm Day!

The year 2011 is now forty-four days old.  That doesn't mean much, fully expectable and all that.  What is important is today is the very first of those forty-four days where the temperature has actually reached a normal high value.  All the other days, each miserable bloody cold one of them was below normal--as much as thirty-seven degrees.

In this pattern the Geek's canyon has mirrored the experience of much of the US in this, an alleged La Nina winter.  Record cold, snowfall from some Norse hell, frozen pipes, never ending chilblains, teeth chattering without letup.  And, according to the advocates of anthropogenic climate change, all the result of global warming.

The Geek has been following the We-Are-All-Going-To-Fry campaign since its opening days back in 1997.  That was the year he first saw the (in)famous "hockey stick" graph resulting from the statistical prestidigitation and mathematical thaumaturgy of "climate scientist" Michael Mann.  The graph purports to demonstrate that all manner of global warming had occurred during the years following World War II and thus resulted from the increased use of fossil fuels.

Being a historian the Geek couldn't help but notice that the flat part of the stick--the handle covering the past several centuries did not show the signs of the Late Roman Warming period or the Medieval Warming or the Little Ice Age from which clutches the world escaped in fits and starts in the middle of the Nineteenth Century.  The Geek was sore amazed.  These events were all well known.  They are in all the history books--even Western Civ texts such as may have been used when Dr Mann was an undergrad.  He might even have seen references, but, apparently the magic of statistics was capable of removing even the most well documented, long duration experiences from the human record--if a compelling reason to do such exists.

Of course, compelling reasons to send centuries down the memory hole exist for Dr Mann and others of his persuasion.  These include professional status, research money, the gaining of influence on the movers and shakers of the planet.  Scientists are no more immune to the appeals of money, power, and status than members of other occupations.

The Geek's suspicions regarding the agenda driven nature of "climate science" were solidified in recent years by a recurrent trope--The Science is settled!  Now, there is one thing which separates true scientific inquiry from all other forms of human investigation.  That thing is simple.  It is that nothing is ever "settled" in science.  Even long standing theories with a repeatedly demonstrated capacity for robust descriptions and predictions is open to challenge.  Indeed, one suspects there are eager young guns out there in scienceland hoping to find a fatal flaw with Newtonian mechanics, or quantum realities of "spooky action at a distance."

In religion any matter can be settled.  It takes only a central authority with the power to bind, the authority to investigate, the ability to punish, to read out of good standing any who proclaim heterodox beliefs.  The same applies to politics.  Or social and fraternal groups.  It does not apply to science.

We know from the emails of "Climategate" notoriety that Dr Mann and his fellows such as those at East Anglia University did attempt to bar the heterodox from publication or attendance at international conferences.  We know as well that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) did constitute a small group empowered with the ability to define the acceptable.  The IPCC might have concealed its actual small size ( a couple of dozen main authors at most) behind an impressive wall of apparent mass mob size, but the insiders, the climate vatican as it were, was smaller by far than the College of Cardinals.  Smaller and far more potent in terms of defining dogma, ruling dissent out of bounds, and limiting the nature of the debate.

The IPCC was not alone in its hijacking of science.  It had any number of very potent facilitators most of which can be found littering the corridors of power in assorted national governments to say nothing of the ever ambitious United Nations bureaucracy.  For assorted reasons including ideology, personal needs, money, the list goes on, politicians and bureaucrats signed on to the IPCC headed crusade to limit human freedom, redistribute wealth, accretate power to central governments or international organizations and generally muck up the global economic dynamics.

Fast, rash actions were justified by the cry, "The science is settled!"  As the sounding of alarms, the pointing at clear and present danger is great for circulation and ratings, there is no surprise that the global media joined in the crowd sourced hysteria.  Scientifically illiterate or dishonest journalists assisted the process, giving a high platform for the approved gloom and doom bunch while marginalizing any with the wit and courage to dissent.

Never did the media ask even the most basic questions regarding the allegedly settled science.  In the ready acceptance of the basic contention of the global warming cabal, no one from the media, for example, inquired why the designated bad guy was carbon dioxide.  It is a matter of the most elementary sort that water vapor is a far more potent "greenhouse gas" than is carbon dioxide.  Water vapor is responsible for roughly seventy-five percent of the heat retention and downward reflection effects collectively described by the term "greenhouse" while carbon dioxide causes scarcely three percent of the effect.  Even methane whether from natural organic decay or the flatulence of cows and other large herbivores causes a greater impact--some twenty percent of the total.

Why did not one MSM inquire into this?  Even now when the EPA is seeking to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and accusing the Republicans in the House of promoting public health threats by seeking to defund the regulatory effort has not one MSM bothered to investigate just how little impact on global warming the much maligned but central to all vegetable life little molecule actually has.

Nor has the scientific press been any better.  One might expect that journals purporting to present science to the informed layperson might have done more to underscore just how little is known about the mechanisms which drive climate.

No work has been focused on, for example, what is known and unknown about the irregularities in solar radiation and how they affect climate.  The sun is a slightly variable star--kind of a small scale, slow action pulsar with regular fluctuations in its radiation budget which are overlain by the waxing and waning of sunspots and solar flares.  All directly and substantially impact both daily weather and long term climate.

It is known that extra-solar ionizing radiation is related directly to the causation of low and mid-level clouds which in turn directly affect weather and climate.  But, the devil is in the details and the details are not well known or understood.

The same applies to the large scale non-explosive volcanic activity occurring in the shallow water of the Western Pacific Ocean.  The heat load directly modifies oceanic currents with consequences which may involve the long cycle oscillations of that ocean or may render the periodic oscillations less important.  We know very little about this critical aspect of climate and weather making.  Indeed, we know remarkably little as yet regarding the overall meshing of the oceans with atmosphere, which meshing is central to all weather, all climate whether routine or extreme.

While we are at it--where are the guardians of the public's sacred right to know when it comes to past climate cycles?  If carbon dioxide drives temperature increases then why have any number of previous periods of global cold, global glaciation been marked by carbon dioxide levels much higher than today's?  Or, why were carbon dioxide levels so much lower back during both the Roman and Medieval Warm periods if it takes increased carbon dioxide to drive higher temperatures?

There are other equally salient matters, bucko, but you get the point.  The deal is simple: There is no settled science.

This is not to say there is no global warming.  There has been.  Ever since the end of the Little Ice Age a century and a half back we have been on a slow warming trend.  The bad news is this trend apparently ended in 1998 (a date accepted even by Dr Mann and Dr Jones of East Anglia.)

A little more global warming would be good for life generally and human life in particular.  The historical record is clear on that.  So also are the data from the historical sciences such as all of those with the prefix "paleo" in their name.

So, a demand to the MSM, politicians, bureaucrats and others of an agenda driven, ideological nature, give us--and science--a break.  Stop insulting intelligence and the truth with assertions regarding "settled science."  And, stop trying to make cold a symptom of excess heat.

Climate Change--The Cesspool That Won't Empty

Yvo de Boer, the Czar of All Anthropogenic Climate Change at the UN, and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which might better be known as The End Justifies the Means Panel are is still nattering, blustering, and attempting to explain some very unpleasant truths. The blustering and nattering is the specialty of Mr de Boer. The IPCC is in charge of smoothing over the hills and valleys of lies with the soft butter of good intentions.

The UN Climate Change Czar has taken the position that the US is somehow "bound" by the rhetorical promises at Copenhagen made by the master of lofty talk, President Obama. The Austrian born Dutch citizen, who is accountable to none outside of the carnival by the Hudson, blew off the reluctance of the Senate to act favorably on the potentially economically crippling "cap and trade" proposal put forward by the ever-so-green Obama administration.

With a serene detachment of the sort which might accompany another proclamation from Mount Sinai, the UN factotum told the press that Americans were slavering and drooling after "green" jobs (as opposed to any job of any color) and would not tolerate a failure to deliver on the Obama promise. Mr de Boer also opined that the Environmental Protection Agency could pick up the ball should the Senate be so ill-advised as to drop it.

In making this Olympian declaration Mr de Boer demonstrated the sublime ignorance of American political realities which only a member of the UN bureaucracy--or a True Believer in the Progressive Agenda--could essay. The "Czar" left aside such bagatelles as the possibility that the Congress might, in the face of an electorate less than thrilled with the current state of play on the Hill and in the Oval, legislatively remove the power to regulate carbon dioxide from the EPA's portfolio. He also ignored both the incompetence of the EPA and the net effect upon informed public opinion of the IPCC's extreme economy with the truth.

Additionally, the detached Mr de Boer overlooked the impact of an increasing awareness on the part of Americans that further sacrifices on its part can be more than offset by the actions of other nations. This is a critical matter which has also eluded the EPA.

To highlight this ground truth and its implications, the Geek invites you to consider the matter of ground level ozone. This noxious form of oxygen is responsible in large measure for the unpleasant phenomenon known as smog. To control the emission of ozone the EPA has not only put in place stringent limits on human activities (such as operating motor vehicles) which result in the production of ozone but is in the process of increasing the limitations.

The EPA also monitors ground level ozone. It is this part of the agency's mission which detains us at the moment. Let's focus on two areas of the United States. One is small and remote. The other is both large and important in all facets of American life.

The small one first. In southern New Mexico there are three counties. They extend from the border between New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico to the northwest. In order they are the El Paso bordering county of Dona Ana, Luna county, and Grant County. With the exception of Dona Ana which centers on the 100,000 person (more or less) city of Las Cruces, the counties are small in population, feature large expanses of either high desert (Luna) or pinion forested mountains (Grant.) None are noted for industry although Grant county still hosts a Phelps Dodge copper smelter currently engaged in reprocessing ancient tailings dumps.

Ground ozone monitoring shows that over the past three years each of these counties have been out of compliance with the current standards. They would be even more non-compliant under the proposed new standards. Dona Ana is the worst "offender," with Luna in second place, and distant Grant country bringing up the rear of the "law breakers." The EPA has already made the usual threatening noises of fines and loss of federal highway money should the counties and their municipalities not bring the areas into compliance beaucoup schnell!

There is only one difficulty with the EPA's findings, conclusions, and dark hints of penalties to come. None of the counties are responsible for the elevated ozone levels. No. As anyone with access to a map showing prevailing winds could discover in a matter of seconds, these three counties lie downwind of Cuidad Juarez. This Mexican city currently best known for a level of violence exceeded in very few war zones is usually noted for its level of air pollution.

There are no, repeat, NO, effective, enforceable limits on the production of ozone, particulate matter, or any other ingredient of air pollution in Juarez. And, if there were, a little bit of money changing hands ends the "violation."

The EPA with the supreme confidence of a totally out of touch with reality bureaucracy has chosen to ignore the real source of the ozone, instead flexing its muscles on a triad of totally inoffensive American counties. The worthies of the EPA appear completely indifferent to the underlying reality that no amount of American sacrifice, no degree of penalty, no amount of economic deprivation will solve the problem.

Now for the bigger problem. Ground level ozone monitoring shows that there has been a significant increase in the evil chemical despite the severe restrictions which have been in place in California, Washington, and Oregon. To the surprise (and dismay) of all, the level of ozone has increased even as the costs of restriction have elevated. Obviously more costs, tighter standards, more monitoring will not have any effect on the steadily worsening situation.

That gloomy conclusion results from the simple and easily demonstrated fact that the ozone levels rise and fall in tandem with the direction of the prevailing winds. When the winds come from the general direction of Asia (read China) the levels increase, when the winds blow from some other direction, the ozone slips away to the happy low levels resulting from the efforts of the past forty years.

Perhaps because California and its neighbors have a lot more voters than the three miscreant New Mexico counties, the EPA will have to acknowledge its powerlessness in the face of made-in-China ozone. Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps EPA will demand admission to the US foreign policy community.

Not that the foreign policy community of the US is currently underpopulated. Nearly every cabinet department has a seat. The new, expanded National Security Council has a (very large) seat. Then the Congress is amply if usually parochially represented. With so many oars of varying sizes in the murky, choppy waters of foreign affairs it is no wonder that the ship of state so often is in peril of foundering on the rocks of one overseas "crisis" or another.

The introduction of the EPA, or the current administration's climate "czar(s)" will in no way improve our capacity to address any realities which might reside behind the scrim of distortions, junk science, special pleading, and drives-for-power created by the climate change Warriors of the Good Cause. The mere mouthing of "pledges" by the US government or the government of any other country without both a sound basis to justify the needs underlying the "pledges" and a verifiable mechanism of unquestionably reliability and disinterestedness is an exercise in feel-good meaninglessness.

The best that might be adduced in support of making pledges and similar exercises in political masturbation is that such an exercise does far less damage than does invoking the bureaucratic force of some remote, out of touch agency to impose counterproductive sanctions on an innocent public. It is just this that Mr de Boer and his ilk both inside and without the UN desire to do.

Pace Mr de Boer, but the only effective, authentic way to address whatever (if anything) which might reside within and under the term of "anthropogenic climate change" is the slow, messy means of political give and take. This means not only the political process of diplomacy but also, at least in those few countries where democracy reigns in a relatively untrammeled form, the even more messy process of achieving a domestic consensus on what should be done, what might be done, and how to do it.

In turn this requires that folks like Mr de Boer abandon their automatic love affair with top down fiats and diktats. It demands that Mr de Boer and company surrender their reflexive reliance upon central commands. It means there is finally no substitute for trusting the self-organizing, decentralized capacities of an informed public.

An informed public means a public which is not lied to by "scientists" who believe with the terrible sincerity of an al-Qaeda leader in the justice of their desired ends allows for the employment of any means. The perversion and prostitution of the methods of science--including constant testing, constant criticism, constant doubt--cannot be allowed to stand. There can be no more well-intended lies, no more silencing of critics, no more running roughshod over doubts.

A good start in this direction would be the disestablishment of the IPCC. It has no more credibility. It has surrendered all rights to be heard. It must be replaced by an open body which includes all the doubters, the sceptics, the agnostics. True beliefs, compelling agendas, needs for power and prestige will only assure that no informed public can or will exist.

Mr de Boer and others who share his perspective must also go. They do not and cannot accept that bureaucracies do not have all the answers, that central commands are not likely to result in long term success. And, worst of all, they distrust, perhaps even despise the good sense, intelligence, and capacity for effective self-organization of the hoi polloi.

As the soldiers of Cromwell said to the Long Parliament, "You have sat here too long to do any good. Get hence!"