With the Kyoto Treaty, writes Joseph Potts, government and science have found each other, and the spawn of this marriage look set to destroy global wealth on a scale that will render the greatest of history’s wars trivial by comparison. The ultimate outrage of all this is that the people who are subjected to the ravages of the wrong-headed policies promoted by these self-seekers are taxed to pay for the production of this junk science to begin with. [Full Article]
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/3243/kyoto-science-serves-the-state/
Kyoto: Science Serves the State
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The whole tone of Mann’s site (www.realclimate.org) is set by the first sentence;
“Climate science is one of those fields where anyone, regardless of their lack of expertise or understanding, feels qualified to comment on new papers and ongoing controversies.” Yes, Dr. Mann, it is precisely because you and your colleagues have taken of into the ether of statistic-handling that ordinary folks, who stand a good chance of having their lives and livelihoods fundamentally altered, have tried to press you for more information on how you handled your data and drew your conclusions. Dr Mann has failed the basic test taught to me by the nuns back in elementary school – “Show your work”.
The Kyoto Treaty makes me wish I believed in zero-sum economics, so that the damage done to the economies of the countries that adopted it would result in our gain.
Likening scientists to priests may make some toes curl but it certainly sits well with me. I hardily agree.
But – as I comment frequently to articles that gnash teeth over the State and its encroachments on liberty, the root is – why do the majority of the people need ‘priests’ in the first place? It seems every culture in recent history (i.e. the ones we can fairly well chronicle – say the last 2,000 years) has had priests of one form or another, the people voluntarily place their heads in the yokes as well as those who would not volunteer. Until libertarian minded people can find a way to change this, without resorting to force, all the complaints of the results doesn’t accomplish much. Superstition just manifests in a new form.
Is there consensus amongst Austrian’s that the “scientfic consensus” regarding global warming is bunk?
To me it appears that “aggregrate demand” and “empirical models” drive today’s scientific process, and not “The law of unintended consequences”.
“Since “PC” algorithms choose weights that maximize variance, the method re-allocates variance so that
hockey stick shaped series get overweighted. In effect, the MBH98 data transformation results in
the PC algorithm mining the data for hockey stick patterns.”
http://www.climate2003.com/pdfs/2004GL012750.pdf
I’ve taken 9 weeks of basic econometrics, and even I know how to easily manipulate data to whatever conclusions I want. I can just imagine what statistical wizardry an “expert” can produce to claim that the sky is falling.
Disproving global warming will have no effect on governments such as Canada’s, who are using Kyoto not to save the planet but as an excuse to raise taxes on energy and get more loot to distribute – mostly to themselves and their friends. The resulting economic devastation will result in even more strident calls for government intervention, to provide income replacement, invest in new industries, etc. Those programs will cause still more problems, which will begat even more government programs. And so on to hell in a hybrid car.
Do-it-yourself Climatology;
The CO2 content of the atmosphere is about 360ppm.
We currently burn the equivalent about 100 million barrels of oil per day. (Oil + coal + natural gas).
Asssuming that atmospheric pressure at sea level is 14 lbs/sq inch, the earth is a sphere of radius 4000 miles, that the atomic numbers of C, H and O are 12, 1, and 16 respectively and the simplifying that oil hydrocarbons are of the form C(n)H(2n+2) where n is less than 20, how much CO2 ppm increase show we expect from burning fossil fuels?
How does this compare to CO2 produced by human respiration?
In the past, CO2 levels have been as high as 1200ppm. (After the meteor impact, it has been estimated that the CO2 content was as high as 3500ppm). If we feed these numbers into the the current climate computer models, what would they predict for a change in global temperature? Since none of the models give the same results what are the high-low ranges of prediction? Do the numbers make sense, or do the predict that the surface temperature of the earth would rise above 100 C?
See http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Kyoto_Count_Up.htm
(Sorry, with HTML: Kyoto Counter)
Educate a man in how to be responsible, and that man will educate you in generosity.
“Do the numbers make sense, or do the predict that the surface temperature of the earth would rise above 100 C?”
None of the models will predict that because the effect is roughly logarithmic. If so much CO2 is needed to raise the temperature one degree you will need to double it to get another degree rise and double it again and again and so forth.
And seeing as how water vapour overwhelms all other greenhouse gasses what tends to happen is the heating is mostly in the dry air. On this planet dry air tends to be cold air….
So what could be better?
Then there is the extra plant yields. Then there is the staving off of glaciation.
“….and the spawn of this marriage look set to destroy global wealth on a scale that will render the greatest of history’s wars trivial by comparison.”
Seems like an overblown statement? I would have assumed so just a little while back. But when we also take yields and glaciation into account we see that Joseph Potts is not mucking about here.
We MUST win this one.
“Disproving global warming will have no effect on governments such as Canada’s”
Extraordinary isn’t it. That Canada and Russia of all places would choose to involve themselves in this. Do they ever think about what could happen if the scheme is wonderfully successful?
“Boy: Where did those rocks come from Dad?
Man: The ICE brought them Son.
Boy: Where has the ICE gone Dad?
Man: GONE TO GET SOME MORE ROCKS.”
Although there are a multitude of countries exempted from meeting emissions targets under Kyoto,
I will mention only three countries who, through exemption or non-ratification, are not bound by The
Kyoto protocol. These countries are: India, China and the USA.
Collectively, these countries comprise more then one third of the total global human population and
by as soon as 2010, will produce considerably more then half of all human industrial co2 emissions.
The G8 has inadvertently created a global air pollution catastrophe as a result of the major shift in
global manufacturing in favour of both China and India. It is this economic shift which is the driving
force behind the increasing energy needs of these two countries. As meeting our collective Kyoto
targets will undoubtedly require the purchase of carbon credits from either or both of them, this
increased infusion in capital will, most certainly, only hasten the construction of more co2 causing
energy infrastructure without the tight pollution controls present throughout the G8.
Even if Canada were to cease to exist from a co2 standpoint, our co2 output would be more then
replaced by increases in output from China in six months or less. China is second only to the US in
co2 emissions and is expected to surpass the US in as little as three years. China is currently
building a new coal-fired electrical generating plant at an average rate of one PER WEEK and
intends to keep up this pace for the foreseeable future!
What is even more alarming is the fact that although the new plants built by the government have the
latest pollution controls, these are most often not used because maintenance of these systems is
expensive and the power needed to operate them is badly need elsewhere. New Coal generation is
being built so fast that Beijing is unable to track many of the plants they themselves have not
sanctioned. These private facilities likely have no pollution controls of any kind! The same holds
true for India!
China’s air is currently so polluted that it kills an estimated 400,000 Chinese citizens every year!
Of the world’s twenty most polluted cities, 16 are in China! The sulphur-dioxide emissions from
China cause acid rain in neighbouring countries and as far away as Canada!
As late as 1980, China was a net exporter of oil. Today, they import 40% of their requirements
and that percentage will only increase. Yet we continue not only to necessitate, but to finance this
energy consumption and pollution indirectly economically and now through Kyoto – directly! What
is even more obscene is the fact that China and India will use the very “carbon credit†money they
get from Canada to by Canadian oil so they can pollute even more at our expense!
Although I have concentrated mostly on China, the three countries mentioned above who are not
bound by The Kyoto Protocol, will between them, build an estimated 850 new coal fired electrical
generating stations by 2012. This will more then negate any co2 reductions required under the Kyoto
Protocol by all other signatory nations combined! The result: A substantial and perhaps irreversible
increase in atmospheric co2 not to mention other more harmful pollutants as well!
Although I concur fully that there are a host of reasons why humanity must stop using fossil fuels in
the very near future. The chance that The Kyoto Protocol is the mechanism by which that can happen
is both slim and none!
Sincerely,
Sean Holt.
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