Conference Board Tells Big Fat Global Warming Lies

[the reporter]

I think most people, whether they know anything about the science involved, have decided that more than twenty years of lies about “global warming” have failed to demonstrate it is happening or likely to occur any time soon.

Most have concluded, quite sensibly, that the Earth is warmed by the Sun and that there isn’t a damned thing we could do about it, if it either warmed or cooled. Moreover, movies showing the Statue of Liberty drowning beneath the waves are about as believable as the “Planet of the Apes” film that showed it washed up on a beach.

So why is the Conference Board, a corporate business think tank, wasting its time announcing, as it did on September 7, that “Growing scientific evidence is confirming that the world’s climate is radically changing and that human activity is now contributing to global warming.” The answer is that the Conference Board, in league with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Environmental Defense, has sadly been sucked into the Great Global Warming Scam (GGWS).

Obviously, no one among the leadership of the Conference Board has a clue about the real science that refutes the GGWS. Instead, they have relied upon a panel of scientists with impressive credentials and affiliations with major universities. However, there are many more scientists with equally impressive credentials that have carefully examined climate records and concluded global warming claims are a complete subversion of the known facts.

The Conference Board report concludes that, “The Earth—for whatever the exact reasons—is on a trajectory toward an ever warmer climate.” Someone should tell the Conference Board that the Earth has been warming since the last Ice Age ended eighteen thousand years ago. Someone should tell the Conference Board that, in the 1970s, environmentalist scientists were predicting a new Ice Age was just around the corner.

Most telling is that wonderful aside “for whatever the exact reasons” that tells us that the Ph.D.s who put the report together were, as always with the GGWS, fudging the fact that the Sun will decide the Earth’s temperatures and not “human activity.” Naturally, though, the Board’s announcement says, “Participating scientists in the report strongly believe that ‘a reduction in human-caused emissions is an essential step in any overall strategy for dealing with climate change.”

“Human-caused emissions” does not, one presume, include all that methane that vast herds of cattle and other herbivores emit daily. These are the GGWS code words for reversing industrialization, i.e., the burning of fossil fuels for the production of, well, everything. It is the raison d’etre of the United Nations Kyoto Protocols on Climate Change. The United States has firmly rejected it. The Russian Federation wants nothing to do with it. And both China and India are exempt from it! Its impact on developing nations would be devastating and it would reverse the prosperity of industrialized nations.

The Conference Board report cites the usual elements of the GGWS. It talks of ocean warming and the rise in sea levels though it notes that, “both the rate and the amount of sea level rises are, as with most other climate change patterns, subject to uncertainty.” Not really, in 2001 Cecile Cabanes calculated sea-level rise for the last half-century around the world and concluded that in Bangladesh for example, in the last fifty years, it has risen an infinitesimal seven-tenths of an inch! The only uncertainty one should entertain is the level of idiocy the Conference Board report reflects.

The report worried that spring is now arriving (gasp!) on the average, 2.5 days per decade earlier than it did a century ago, but fails to note that, between 1850 and 1950, the Earth warmed about one degree Fahrenheit and then stopped warming! We’ve already had a half-century since then and if spring is arriving early, who cares?

The report worried about mountain glaciers such as those in Montana’s Glacier National Park, “which account for about ten percent of the world’s surface water, are melting.” Let’s make this as easy to understand as possible. In the summer, glaciers melt. If you check out data from the National Climatic data center, you would discover that average summer temperatures over Western Montana showed absolutely no warming trend in the last century.

The thing that got my attention was the way the Conference Board report came out at the same time that the September issue of "National Geographic" magazine devoted itself to the same GGWS hogwash. It, too, is filled with the same balderdash and gibberish. Patrick J. Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, spotted 35 significant errors put forth as scientific truths. Shame on "National Geographic."

This coordination of the assault on the truth about the Earth’s climate is a hallmark of environmental organizations and accounts for each new or revised scare campaign they manufacture in their never ending attack on the vast improvement of life on Earth resulting from free market economies and the products and services that result.

Disdain and contempt for human life is the rampant theme of environmentalism. You are still more likely to be threatened by a raging hurricane or a blizzard than from SUV’s, pesticides, or the use of coal, oil and natural gas to light, warm or cool your home or apartment.

As the latest phase of the Great Global Warming Scam heats up, you can always use the latest Conference Board report to start a nice blaze in your fireplace if you have one, but remember, this will constitute yet another form of “human emissions.”

[MarkuisMellvile]

A fine example of someone using counter-arguments to exaggerated statements/ evidence of naiivety by a body acknowledging the influence humans have on the atmosphere to refute the general concensus.

Too cryptic for ya?

The link between carbon dioxide concentration and the temperature of the planet is easily proven.

That, since the industrial revolution, the emission of CO2 has accelerated is similarly obvious.

The global average temp has risen more since the industrial revolution than at any time since the last ice age. Coincidence? Most would say not!

Therefore, that human activity is contributing to the rate at which our climate alters, is a logical conclusion.

Yes, many scaremongerers do inflate claims of anthropogenic influence and climate forcing, but then the dismissal of every claim supporting climate change by people is singularly unconstructive.

Both sides should stop bickering over inaccurate conclusions, and get on with the mutually beneficial job of reducing antropogenic environmental impact.

Juvenile name calling is fine for the naysayers, but the rest of us should grow up and get on with it!

[debs]

I agree, the longer we debate the obvious the less time we have to actually make postive changes to half this process and limit any damage that will result from climate change.

It does make you wonder the motives of people who write this kind of article. The facts clearly show that global warming is happening. This kind of thing does nothing for progressing the plans to minimise damage caused by climate change.

[fireandrain]

Originally Posted by adi

It does make you wonder the motives of people who write this kind of article. The facts clearly show that global warming is happening. This kind of thing does nothing for progressing the plans to minimise damage caused by climate change.

I often wonder what the people who oppose Kyoto would have us do but you seldom hear anything about this. Anyone know?

[MarkuisMellvile]

Originally Posted by fireandrain

I often wonder what the people who oppose Kyoto would have us do but you seldom hear anything about this. Anyone know?

Many say that it is the larger populations of India and China who need to solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions, but don't accept that for this to happen we rich nations must allow the transfer of technology to industrialising countries.

One step on from these selfish idiots is something called the clean development mechanism and joint implementation system, whereby projects can be implemented in listed countries, by private businesses from rich nations, with funding from the UN or WMF. This has benefits for both the business supplying the technology and the recipient community, but it isn't ideal.

The 'alternative' to Kyoto compliance is carbon trading. Countries can buy and sell certificates or permits to emit CO2. For example, huge emitters (America being the worst per head of population) can pay low emitters (lets use Tanzania) quota of CO2 (or a proportion of it). As the low emitter is unlikely to produce more CO2 than it keeps in terms of permits, neither side is fined for exceeding its allowance and the money moves from (in this example) the US to Tanzania.

This results in a stabilisation of global emissions, but restricts the ability of the poor nation to expand its energy infrastructure because it would then break its commitment to emit less CO2. It also allows the greedy nation to continue to pollute unchecked and provides no real incentive to improve energy efficiency or reduce consumption.

Hope this helps.

[reality]

I think the success of any carbon trading mechanism would rest purely on the freedom of countries to trade without intervention from a higher source. If the market is left to operate as a free market then the prices will hone in on something fair for both countries.

After all, if you're a poor country and the US are desperate to buy more credits then you can charge more for that credit, to the point where the US might even be encouraged to emit less co2 into the atmosphere.

[MarkuisMellvile]

Originally Posted by reality

After all, if you're a poor country and the US are desperate to buy more credits then you can charge more for that credit, to the point where the US might even be encouraged to emit less co2 into the atmosphere.

There is enough spare capacity in the less energy-intensive economies that the Industrialised World can continue to increase its consumption through this century.

I'd like to believe that a free market would work for the greater good but this sounds implausible.

In it's simplest form, supply and demand do have that effect on prices, but over time (as wealth is gained from such a variety of sources) the market becomes distorted to the detriment of the less affluent.

Expecting affluent CEOs to voluntarily influence environmental improvement is naiive. Unless they can see a financial and strategic reason to invest, they simply won't do it.

Getting international agreement on fiscal incentives is also very unlikely, but more plausible than expecting people who've worked for years to amass their fortunes (or been given it never having done a day's hard work in their life) to suddenly change the way they see their impact on the global community.

Good morning by the way.

[reality]

In it's simplest form, supply and demand do have that effect on prices, but over time (as wealth is gained from such a variety of sources) the market becomes distorted to the detriment of the less affluent.

There comes a time when you have to ask nations to stand on their own two feet. If a country is getting billions from the developed world from carbon trading and proceeds to waste that money and not build up their own industries then how long can the world continue to bank roll them?

Countries such as India (and China to come) already take a significant proportion of skilled work from the developed world. If countries spend the money they receieve wisely (as opposed to on armed forces/war) then they too can prosper.

Expecting affluent CEOs to voluntarily influence environmental improvement is naiive. Unless they can see a financial and strategic reason to invest, they simply won't do it.

Quite agree. Assigning a monetary value to carbon would help to this end though wouldn't it?

Getting international agreement on fiscal incentives is also very unlikely, but more plausible than expecting people who've worked for years to amass their fortunes (or been given it never having done a day's hard work in their life) to suddenly change the way they see their impact on the global community.

We agree again, which is why a free marker is better because it relies on no unilateral agreement, but rather on nations throughout the world gaining a benefit, either in financial terms or carbon terms.