Dash of Calabash

By Dennis T. Avery

Now it’s not just the sunspots that predict a 23-year global cooling. The new Jason oceanographic satellite shows that 2007 was a “cool” La Nina year—but Jason also says something more important is at work: The much larger and more persistent Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has turned into its cool phase, telling us to expect moderately lower global temperatures until 2030 or so.For the past century at least, global temperatures have tended to mirror the 20-to 30-year warmings and coolings of the north-central Pacific Ocean. We don’t know just why, but the pattern of the last century is clear: the earth warmed from about 1915 to1940, while the PDO was also warming (1925 to 46). The earth cooled from 1940 to 1975, while the PDO was cooling (1946 to 1977). The strong global warming from 1976 to 1998 was accompanied by a strong and almost-constant warming of the north-central Pacific. Ancient tree rings in Baja California and Mexico show there have been 11 such PDO shifts since 1650, averaging 23 years on length. (more…)

From BBC News:

China has already overtaken the US as the world’s “biggest polluter”, a report to be published next month says.

The research suggests the country’s greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the US in 2006-2007.

Read more here.

Free-market types have good reason to worry when they hear about pro-environment CEOs.  After all, the trend right now is for CEOs to compromise their own companies’ bottom lines by engaging in corporate philanthropy, especially questionable efforts to combat global warming.

That’s why this interview with T.J. Rodgers is so refreshing.  Rodgers is the CEO of the company which owns solar-power manufacturer SunPower, and he is proud to be considered “green.”  However, he despises corporate philanthropy, and agrees with Milton Friedman that charity should be an individual endeavor and not a corporate one.  He makes a great case that a company can be pro-environment without hurting its profits.  He also separates fact from fiction in the global warming debate; analyzes the greenhouse gas plans of McCain, Gore, and Obama; and compares different alternative energy sources (to quote Rodgers, “Ethanol?  Total waste.”).

A lighthearted parody political ad points out that the global polar bear population has doubled over the last four decades.Produced by the National Center for Public Policy Research and Citizens United.

The Polar Bear and the Endangered Species Act

Should Indian drivers be denied a $2,500 car to offset CO2 generation of wealthier nations?

Read the article from the Competitive Enterprise Institute by clicking here

From the Associated Press:

The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The study challenges the rush to biofuels as a response to global warming.

The researchers said that past studies showing the benefits of ethanol in combating climate change have not taken into account almost certain changes in land use worldwide if ethanol from corn — and in the future from other feedstocks such as switchgrass — become a prized commodity.

“Using good cropland to expand biofuels will probably exacerbate global warming,” concludes the study published in Science magazine.

Read more here.

From Kenneth Green at TCS Daily:

Common sense should tell us that good policies produce more in benefits than they cost us. Unfortunately, common sense has left the building when it comes to climate policy. Asserting (somewhat absurdly) that America’s economic and geopolitical competitors, such as China and India, are just waiting for “U.S. moral leadership,” several voices are renewing their call for domestic cap-and-trade legislation to control greenhouse gases. (more…)

Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world’s temperature for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures, Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS and assuring and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply-which can be addressed at a fraction of the cost and save millions of lives within our lifetime. He asks why the debate over climate change has stifled rational dialogue and killed meaningful dissent.

You can find a link to the Lomborg’s website by clicking here

An interesting question from John Baden at TCS Daily:

We have just ended the season when every environmental group to whom we’ve contributed, the NWF, WS, Sierra Club, and others, sends appeals for more funds. If you have ever contributed to these groups, you’ve no doubt been approached to join the Global Warming Crusade.

Will this crusade become America’s Fourth Great Awakening? The First Awakening fostered the American Revolution by providing pre-Revolutionary America with a radical and democratic social and political ideology. The Second applied Christian teaching to politics. Stressing social reform as part of God’s plan, it amplified abolitionist sentiments and helped precipitate the Civil War. The Third Great Awakening of the late 1800s and early 1900s gave rise to the reforms of the “social gospel” movement and fostered Progressive Era reforms.

Climate change has generated a movement to unite secular Greens who revere Gaia with Christian followers. A decade ago, Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, suggested it: “The environmental movement for the past quarter of a century has made no more profound error than to misunderstand the mission of religion and the churches in preserving the Creation.” He and other Green leaders found common cause in the recent Bali climate conference.
(more…)

Bloomberg.com has an interesting bit about global warming sceptics in France:

The most conspicuous doubter in France is Claude Allegre, a former education minister and a physicist by profession. His new book, “Ma Verite Sur la Planete” (“My Truth About the Planet”), doesn’t mince words.

He calls Gore a “crook” presiding over an eco-business that pumps out cash. As for Gore’s French followers, the author likens them to religious zealots who, far from saving humanity, are endangering it. Driven by a Judeo-Christian guilt complex, he says, French greens paint worst-case scenarios and attribute little-understood cycles to human misbehavior.

Read the whole story here.