The Huffington Post’s David Roberts has a post up about how the public isn’t scared enough about global warming.   He quotes extensively from Seth Borenstein’s account of the leaked draft of the IPCC WGII report, but the claims he lists don’t all stack up:

A new Gallup poll finds that “most Americans believe it will be a decade or more before the manifestations of global warming begin to wreak havoc.”

Meanwhile, from Seth Borenstein’s account of the leaked draft of the IPCC WGII report (which I wrote about here):

“Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent,” the report says, in marked contrast to a 2001 report by the same international group that said the effects of global warming were coming. But that report only mentioned scattered regional effects.

“Things are happening and happening faster than we expected,” said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the many co-authors of the new report. 

“We predict things will be worse than we previously predicted”–how predictable! Why then are people living longer and healthier? Why are global GDP and global per capita food production increasing? 

And here’s some of the magical delights we can look forward to in coming years:

* Hundreds of millions of Africans and tens of millions of Latin Americans who now have water will be short of it in less than 20 years. By 2050, more than 1 billion people in Asia could face water shortages. By 2080, water shortages could threaten 1.1 billion to 3.2 billion people, depending on the level of greenhouse gases that cars and industry spew into the air.  

This forecast assumes that global warming caused the drying of Africa (desertification) during the past half century. A recent study using the IPCC’s own climate models found that ”greenhouse gas forcing played little or no role in the 1950-99 observed African drying trends,” and forecasts that “natural variability will continue to be the primary driver of [Africa's] low-frequency rainfall variations during the next century.” 

* Death rates for the world’s poor from global warming-related illnesses, such as malnutrition and diarrhea, will rise by 2030. Malaria and dengue fever, as well as illnesses from eating contaminated shellfish, are likely to grow. 

Socio-economic factors typically overwhelm climatic factors in determining people’s risk of exposure to malaria and other diseases. For example, Al Gore claims that Nairobi, Kenya was too cold to have malaria until recent decades. In fact, malaria epidemics were common in Nairobi during the 1920s and 1930s. The recent upsurge of malaria in East Africa is chiefly due to decreased spraying of homes with DDT, anti-malarial drug resistance, and the breakdown of public health systems, not to any ascertainable changes in climate.

 * Europe’s small glaciers will disappear with many of the continent’s large glaciers shrinking dramatically by 2050. And half of Europe’s plant species could be vulnerable, endangered or extinct by 2100. 

If European plants were as climate sensitive as these folks say, then we should already have witnessed tens to hundreds of thousands of extinctions in the 20th century alone. Where are the bodies?

* By 2080, between 200 million and 600 million people could be hungry because of global warming’s effects. 

This is speculative. Many more people could be hungry if global warming policy restricts developing countries’ access to modern forms of energy.

* About 100 million people each year could be flooded by 2080 by rising seas. 

To evaluate this claim, we need to know how many people the IPCC considers to be “flooded” right now, and how many feet of sea-level rise the 100 million figure assumes. Al Gore also warns of 100 million refugees from rising seas in An Inconvenient Truth. But Gore imagines  simultaneous catastrophes in Antarctica and Greenland that raise sea levels by 20 feet. The IPCC WWI Summary estimated only 7 inches to 23 inches of sea level rise in the 21st century. So the 100 million flood victim figure sounds like science fiction to me.   

* Smog in U.S. cities will worsen and “ozone-related deaths from climate (will) increase by approximately 4.5 percent for the mid-2050s, compared with 1990s levels,” turning a small health risk into a substantial one. 

This is silly. With or without global warming, urban air temperatures increase continually as cities growth (the urban heat island effect). But as urban air temperatures have risen, smog levels have significantly declined.  

* Polar bears in the wild and other animals will be pushed to extinction. 

Again, this is speculation. The Arctic was substantially warmer than the present during the Holocene Climate Optimum and warmer still during the Last Interglacial Period. Yet the polar bears (or their remote ancestors) survived.  

* At first, more food will be grown. For example, soybean and rice yields in Latin America will increase starting in a couple of years. Areas outside the tropics, especially the northern latitudes, will see longer growing seasons and healthier forests.  

In other words, we won’t be able to check their doomsday forecasts for a long, long time, because in the foreseeable future, things are going to get better. 

…and the New York Times smacks down the Goreacle for his exaggerations and climate extremism, quoting numerous scientists telling Gore to cool it.  Gore’s responses are typically weak.

Well, maybe not.  But she did just reveal the members of her panel on global warming.  Pelosi wants us to know how important she thinks the panel is, saying “Global warming and energy independence are urgent issues that have profound implications for our nation’s economic competitiveness, natural security, environmental quality and public health.” In fact, it’s so important that the panel will have… er, “no legislative jurisdiction.”  

The documentary entitled The Great Global Warming Swindle aired last week on Channel 4 in the UK. It presents the side of the debate that’s not supposed to exist. It focuses on the evidence that the Sun is the primary driver of climate change. The entire documentary is now up on Google Video.

Jonathan Rauch:

Climate change is real and deserves action, but the problem is nowhere near as overwhelming as the rhetoric commonly suggests.

If you’re not buying “Inconvenient Truth,” you’re denying.

Call it a case of Oscar Envy or simply the road more well-traveled, but Saturday’s Boston Globe featured a headline, “Kerry’s new book hails everyday people saving the environment”. The piece opens by noting that Kerry’s “bitter” defeat inspired him to author an environmental tome about how each of us can do such little yet surprising things to save our planet. From the jet-setting super wealthy presumably. Heck, we just might be a couple more bitter Democratic defeats from achieving Eden. Or at least a full row on the bookshelf.

Kerry menaces his Dutch Uncle role in the upcoming presidential selection promise, intoning “’I'm going to sit with every one of the candidates and I’m going to urge them with every ounce that I have to make this a central issue,’ Kerry said. ‘I think it is critical’.” Oh, ye cynics out there reckoning some Gore line about making environmental salvation “a central organizing principle” of society!

Now, it’s not that these calls don’t carry weight, all coming from the Four-Mansion-Minimum Club. I’m just saying.

Thanks to global warming, the Arctic tundra is being decimated. ..by new tree growth. The horror of it all.

This has the potential for real potty politics.

Oy. 

On Friday, the relevant news wires were buzzing with the claim that “European Union leaders today agreed to binding targets to reduce the bloc’s emissions and boost its renewable energy capacity by 2020.” (see, e.g., Greenwire’s coverage, password required)

The ritual Euro-speak was on full, enthusiastic display. “’We can once again say to the rest of the world, Europe is taking the lead, you should join us in fighting climate change’, said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. He called the deal ‘the most ambitious package ever agreed by any institution on energy security and climate change’.” Yes, you could say that. And most in Brussels generally do, no matter what the facts say.

It should come as no surprise that, upon scrutiny, and as per usual with the ambitious global warming rhetoric of our continental friends, the truth was slightly different. The AP coverage cited above missed a key point: “competence,” which dictates that in fact the binding agreement, like the “binding” Kyoto Protocol, is no such thing (Kyoto’s Article 18 says that it could be made binding, by amendment adopted by the Parties, which when proposed by the Saudis in December 2005 was rebuffed by the EU and Canada).

Thanks to the indispensable Benny Peiser at Liverpool John Moore’s University and host of CCNet, here’s what some of the more in-tune EU media are saying (Spiegel Online translated courtesy of Dr. Peiser):

“Barroso has to rely on the good will of member states….”

It turns out that the EU has no legal power or framework on energy issues that are entirely in the legal responsibility of member states.

May I suggest to Commission President Barroso that he develop a Plan B?

Ethanol is in the news today as Bush announces a new partnership with heavy ethanol producer Brazil.  Ethanol policy is almost comically tangled and complex.  Fortunately, Dr. Scammington is here to explain things for us:

Let’s review the bidding.

Russia’s ratification brought the Kyoto Protocol into effect, though Russia was clear that this was not done for reasons of science. What ever could those reasons be?

Russia has the world’s largest natural gas reserves.

Under Kyoto, companies are forced off of coal onto gas, as the only demonstrated way other than economic collapse to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Russia rules fuel in much of Europe”, with a history of shutting off the spigot.

Gas is increasingly scarce, and the U.S. is increasingly reliant upon Russian gas.

Russia wants to form a natural gas cartel, with Iran and some OPEC pals.

Kyoto is something the U.S. ought to ratify (we signed it already), to improve our energy security…because it also mandates that more windmills and solar panels replace coal.

It just makes sense!

I’m sure we’ll hear some sort of righteous outrage over this story in the New York Times.  Apparently, the Fish and Wildlife Service has told two of its employees not to discuss climate change in an official capacity:

The director of the Fish and Wildlife Service defended the agency requirement that two employees going to international meetings on the Arctic not discuss climate change, saying diplomatic protocol limited employees to an agreed-on agenda.

Two memorandums written about a week ago and reported by The New York Times and the Web site of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Thursday set strict parameters for what the two employees could and could not discuss at meetings in Norway and Russia.

The stipulations that the employees “will not be speaking on or responding to” questions about climate change, polar bears and sea ice are “consistent with staying with our commitment to the other countries to talk about only what’s on the agenda,” said the director of the agency, H. Dale Hall.

They’re not prohibited from talking about the subject, of course (the story says that they’re allowed to discuss their views “over a beer”), they’re just prohibited from talking about in their roles as representatives of the U.S. government–a perfectly reasonable thing.  The pro-global warming policy folks, on the other hand, haven’t exactly been accommodating to scientists who don’t share their views.  

Do Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore have some sort of secret competition to see who can guilt the most people into forking over cash for boring documentaries? Sure seems like it. DiCaprio, who has been on a desperate search for respectability since being branded a teen idol in Titanic, just announced that he’ll be writing and producing a documentary about global warming of his own. Take that, Al Gore!

Kinda makes you wish this wasn’t a joke:

On the other hand, if Martin Scorsese wants to make a gritty, brutal, multi-decade epic about the behind-the-scenes true story of global warming (elevator pitch: “It’s like Goodfellas, but with climate scientists and economists!”), we might be on to something.

American Policy Center President Tom DeWeese wonders at the global warming horror stories being fed to children. 

The amount of propaganda poured into the heads of little children in the name of education is astonishing. Case in point: I just received a letter from a little girl in elementary school asking why I don’t believe in global warming. She said her class had watched Al Gore’s outrageous propaganda file, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and then her letter began to spew all of its incredible inaccuracies. 

 The full article includes his detailed letter of response to the little girl. 

Even Sports Illustrated has jumped on the bandwagon with a fretful global warming cover.

But think of the upside: Won’t global warming mean more opportunities for swimsuit issues??

The Stockholm Network reports the following in its newsletter:

Russia’s shutdown of oil supplies to Lithuania last summer seems to have enraged Lithuania to the extent that it is willing to join Poland in blocking talks on EU-Russia oil agreements.

Following a reported leak last July, Transneft, Russia’s state-controlled pipeline operator, shut the Druzhba link to Mazeikiu Nafta, the only refinery in the Baltic states. But there has been speculation that Russia may be using the blockage to lower the value of Mazeikiu, and in this way encourage Poland’s PKN Orlen, which beat Russian rivals to take over the plant, to abandon its acquisition of the refinery.

Deputy Foreign Minister Zygimantas Pavilionis queried Russia’s motives: “The leak can be fixed in several weeks, but eight months have passed already and nothing has happened. It is a political act.” And his concern has been given credence by statements from Transneft stating that examination of the pipeline is ongoing and that supplies would not be resumed earlier than March 2007. In the eventuality that the pipeline cannot be repaired, the construction of a replacement might take up to two years.

Last November, Poland vetoed EU-Russia talks on wide-ranging co-operation, in response to Russia ‘s ban on Polish meat imports.

Dreading over-dependence on Russian energy, the three Baltic States and Poland have agreed in principle on the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania by 2015. The Lithuania Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas said that a deal to build the plant was expected to be signed mid-2008.

Eastern Europe appears determined not to let Russia dominate it again. Nuclear power will help both in that respect and as a ‘no regrets’ solution to reducing greenhouse gases.

Al Gore does not pay himself to purchase carbon offsets, that’s official. But the real story is perhaps even more bizarre:

The confusion, Campbell said, arose because GIM pays to offset the energy use of its operations and the personal emissions of its 23 employees, including Gore.

So, the firm will cover the cost to offset the energy use at Gore’s home, or his global jet travel, as it would the offset cost of any other employee, Campbell said.

GIM, which Gore started with former Goldman Sachs executive David Blood in 2004, uses the Chicago Climate Exchange and the British-based Carbon Neutral Company to cover the high energy use of GIM and its employees.

So he, himself, personally is not actually paying for any carbon offsets at all.

Un-frackin’-believable.

Some global warming-related stories you may have missed:

• British companies involved in the Emissions Trading Scheme enjoy a $1.5 billion profits windfall while energy prices to the consumer increased 72 percent
• Germany at odds with France over emissions reductions (uh-oh!)
• Some Texas mayors upset by Houston mayor’s emissions policies infringing on their cities
• Bank of America sees the dollar signs involved in carbon trading (for an explanation of why this is a cartel, not involving new money, see here)
• Hugo Chavez thinks his country has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia
• Climate scientist Roger Pielke Sr discover what looks like a big mistake in the IPCC summary. Perhaps that’s why they released the summary before the report?

Finally, turning to another environmental risk, the chances of Earth being hit by a significantly-sized asteroid: is the failure to do anything about because we’re too concerned with tax cuts for the rich or because the UN is a bunch of useless dictators? Compare and contrast.

In the Daily Telegraph, Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society, argues that even if other factors than greenhouse gases might play a role in global warming, that’s beside the point:

In a system as complex as the global climate we cannot predict with certainty what will happen in future. However, the risks are potentially so high and evidence that CO2 emissions are interfering with the climate is so strong that delaying action to reduce our emissions until we have absolute certainty would be foolish.

Of course, the judgment about potential risks and foolishness is most emphatically not a scientific one. In a world of trade-offs, other considerations must be assessed, such as the dangers of a global cutback in energy use.

The Director of the Scientific Alliance and the former science editor of BBC News respond.