If You Don't Buy Into The Environmental Religion Be Prepared To Pay The Price

The pop-environmental movement is as much a religion as a political persuasion.   One need only look at the following exchange in a newspaper, The Bellingham Herald, for a demonstration of how purported “scientists” are willing to pervert their science in pursuit of their religion.

I actually find some humor in this; when I was young it was considered climate change denial to dispute that North America would be covered by an ice sheet sometime in the near future.  Having run “hot” and “cold” maybe the next heresy will be to oppose the idea that a static, or lukewarm, condition can be achieved. 

Temperature on the hottest day of the year in the U.S. and Canada - 1872

Anyway, read this and weep:

WWU faculty find overwhelming scientific evidence to support global warming

Published: March 31, 2013

By WWU GEOLOGY FACULTY — COURTESY TO THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

On March 26, 2013, a long-retired faculty member of our department, Don Easterbrook, presented his opinions on human-caused global climate change to the Washington State Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee at the invitation of the committee chair Sen.   Doug Ericksen, R.-Ferndale.   We, the active faculty of the Geology Department at Western Washington University, express our unanimous and significant concerns regarding the views espoused by Easterbrook, who holds a doctorate in geology; they are neither scientifically valid nor supported by the overwhelming preponderance of evidence on the topic.   We also decry the injection of such poor quality science into the public discourse regarding important policy decisions for our state’s future; the chair of the committee was presented with numerous options and opportunities to invite current experts to present the best-available science on this subject, and chose instead to, apparently, appeal to a narrow partisan element with his choice of speaker.

We concur with the vast consensus of the science community that recent global warming is very real, human greenhouse-gas emissions are the primary cause, and their environmental and economic impacts on our society will likely be severe if we don’t make significant efforts to address the problem.   Claims to the contrary fly in the face of an overwhelming body of rigorous scientific literature.

We intend no disrespect to Easterbrook personally.   We appreciate his previous service to our department and to Western.   His present appointment as emeritus professor was made in light of his long-standing history at WWU.   But people of the state of Washington need to understand that Easterbrook’s ideas on anthropogenic global warming have not passed through rigorous peer review in the scientific literature.   Additionally, Easterbrook’s claims in this forum and elsewhere require the existence of a broad, decades-long conspiracy amongst literally thousands of scientists to falsify climate data and to prevent publication of opposing research.   This opinion demonstrates a profound rejection of the scientific process and the fundamental value of rigorous peer review, and is also simply wrong.

Science thrives on controversies; it rewards innovative, unexpected findings, but only when they are backed by rigorous, painstaking evidence and reasoning.   Without such standards, science would be ineffective as a tool to improve our society.   It is worth acknowledging that nearly every technological advance in modern society is a direct result of that same scientific method (think the Internet, airplanes, antibiotics, and even your smartphone).

Easterbrook’s views, as exemplified by his Senate presentation, are a stark contrast to that standard; they are filled with misrepresentations, misuse of data and repeated mixing of local vs.  global records.   Nearly every graphic in the hours-long presentation to the Senate was flawed, as was Easterbrook’s discussion of them.   For example, more than 100 years of research in physics, chemistry, atmospheric science and oceanography has, via experiments, numerous physical observations and theoretic calculations, clearly demonstrate – and have communicated via the scientific literature – that carbon dioxide is a powerful greenhouse gas; its presence and variations in Earth’s atmosphere have significant and measureable impacts on the surface temperature of our planet.   Alternatively, you can take Easterbrook’s word – not supported by any published science – that the concentration and effects of carbon dioxide are so small as to not matter a bit.

In a specific example, Easterbrook referred to a graph of temperatures from an ice core of the Greenland ice sheet to claim that global temperatures were warmer than present over most of the last 10,000 years.   First, this record is of temperature from a single spot on Earth, central Greenland (thus it is not a “global record”).   Second, and perhaps more importantly, Easterbrook’s definition of “present temperature” in the graph is based on the most recent data point in that record, which is actually 1855, more than 150 years ago when the world was still in the depths of the Little Ice Age, and well before any hint of human-caused climate change.

As the active faculty of the Western Washington University Geology Department that he lists as his affiliation, we conclude that Easterbrook’s presentation clearly does not represent the best-available science on this subject, and urge the Senate, our state government, and the citizens of Washington State to rely on rigorous peer-reviewed science rather than conspiracy-based ideas to steer their decisions on matters concerning our environment and economic future

At least Don Easterbrook has the guts to stand up to the new religion!

Temperatures on the coldest day of the year in the U.S. and Canada - 1872

Easterbrook disputes WWU faculty global warming opinions 

By DON EASTERBROOK — COURTESY TO THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

"WWU faculty find overwhelming scientific evidence to support global warming."  Of course there is overwhelming evidence of global warming! Everyone agrees! But that doesn't prove it was caused by carbon dioxide! The authors fail to understand: Of the two periods of global warming this century, the first, and warmest, occurred before rise in carbon dioxide; Twenty periods of global warming occurred over the past five centuries; The past 10,000 years were warmer than present; Multiple periods of intense warming (20 times more intense than recent warming) occurred 10,000-to-15,000 years ago.   All of these happened long before rise in carbon dioxide, so could not possibly have been caused by carbon dioxide.   The Bellingham Herald opinion column is a diatribe against me personally (just read the slurs and innuendos) containing misrepresentations, no real data to support their contentions, and displays an abysmal ignorance of published literature.   The reason becomes apparent when you realize that not a single one of the 13 Western Washington University authors has ever published a single paper on global climate change and none have any expertise whatsoever in climate issues.   Their claim that my publications "have not passed through rigorous peer review" is false.   Virtually all of my 180 publications were peer-reviewed.   The real joke here is they "fully support the 2007 IPCC report," but Donna Laframboise in 2011 documented that 30 percent of the references used were not peer-reviewed, so using their own standard, they would be forced to reject the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report!  The authors claim that "CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas" that has "significant and measureable impact on surface temperature." Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but it has little impact on temperature because it makes up only 0.038 percent of the atmosphere, has changed only 0.008 percent since carbon dioxide rose after 1945 (if you double nothing, you still have nothing), and accounts for only 3.6 percent of greenhouse warming.   Carbon dioxide is incapable of changing global temperature by more than a fraction of a degree.   The authors "decry the injection of such poor quality science into the public discourse." I work with 20 of the world's top scientists, including atmospheric physicists, astrophysicists, geologists, and marine geophysicists who wouldn't waste time working with me if my research was "of poor quality." The authors claim that my work requires "broad, decades-long conspiracy ....to falsify climate data."In 1999, NASA data showed the 1930s were the hottest decade of the century and 1936 the hottest year.   In 2012, NASA subtracted temperatures from the 1930s data and added to recent temperatures to claim that recent years were "unprecedented and the warmest ever recorded." Check NASA data tampering at http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/data-tampering-at-ushcngiss/.   This lies behind all of the false claims that recent global warming is "unprecedented."The authors claim a "vast consensus of the science community." However, 31,487 U.S.   scientists (including 9,000 with doctorates) with degrees in atmospheric, Earth sciences, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science have signed a statement that reads: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." Check names and expertise at http://www.petitionproject.org/.   Signatures of 1.5 million scientists would be required to achieve the claimed "vast consensus" of scientists! The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chairman admitted that 80 percent of the people involved in the panel were not even scientists! The WWU faculty was challenged to debate the issues.   The response from David Hirsh was: "I don't want the media to present both sides of an issue." "Well, the problem is it's not 'my' science.   I do not now, nor have I claimed to be an expert in climate science.   The question was would I support a debate-type forum to be hosted at WWU? I would not." He went on to say that he didn't want to debate because he had not addressed any of the scientific issues, but supported the personal attack.   So what can we conclude about The Bellingham Herald opinion column? Perhaps more than anything it shows that amateurs with no expertise in climate issues are way out of their league and would be wiser to stick to their own areas of expertise, hard rock geology.   In the end, nature will tell us who is right and that is happening right now as the climate continues to cool with no warming in 15 years.

Natural control of insect pests

One of the things I do to put food on the table, both figuratively and literally, is write for a great magazine called Growing. 

http://www.growingmagazine.com/

An article in a recent issue of the magazine deals with an issue of profound environmental significance.  Controlling insect pests, unwanted weeds and pathogens by natural means should be the first line of defense, worldwide, against the predations of those organisms preying on the foodstuffs we all need for survival. 

While the pop-environmental movement gets silly regarding the use of chemicals to control pests – mass starvation would accompany the banning of chemicals just as mass deaths as the result of banning DDT occurred in the 20^th Century – the overuse or unnecessary use of chemicals leads to serious consequences.

At any rate, the following is the first part of the article now available at Growing Magazine.  The entire piece is available at:  http://www.growingmagazine.com/article-9288.aspx

Insects found and recorded in the 1850s during the exploration of the American West.  Some are beneficial, some are not.  Overuse of chemicals can impact both good and bad bugs

Biological control of weeds, plant diseases and insect pests, according to Tony Shelton, Professor of Entomology at Cornell University in New York State, is defined as the use of predators, parasitoids or pathogens to reduce pest populations.  Such agents are commonly called natural enemies.  On the farms and in the forests and grasslands of America today, Dr. Shelton says, “While biological control will not solve all our pest problems, it should be a recognized component of any integrated pest management program.”  Especially regarding farms, Dr. Shelton continues, “Both small and large scale farms can use biological control to reduce traditional pesticides inputs and make the systems more sustainable and less likely to experience pest outbreaks.” 

Why Biological Control?

Some hear a term like “biological control” and automatically dismiss the concept as representing exotic, and narrowly applicable approaches to controlling plant and insect pest populations on farms.  In fact, biological control has been a part of agriculture since the beginning of recorded time.  Advanced biological control using techniques made available by modern science have seen increasing importance in America, and elsewhere, for as much as a hundred years.  A 2008 paper by Dr. Shelton discusses a natural bacterium commonly called Bt, a biological control important to the nation’s corn and cotton industries.  “Bt,” Dr. Shelton wrote, is, “One of agriculture’s best defenses against plant-eating insects…(Bt) can be sprayed on the surfaces of crops to provide temporary protection or can be genetically engineered into the crops to protect against insects throughout the lifespan of the plants. Bt has allowed growers to avoid applying large quantities of much “harder” insecticides.”    

Biological control technologies are also seeing increasing importance as the move to organic farming gains momentum but, beyond organic farms, Dr. Shelton puts forward, “Biological control is an essential component in all cropping systems in use today, but is more effective in some than others.  It is most effective in perennial systems like citrus and forests and in greenhouses, but natural enemies help suppress pest populations in virtually all systems.”

The natural enemies Shelton speaks of include predators, like lady bugs (lady beetles), who consume other insects over their lifetimes, parasitoids, species like some wasps that in an immature stage develop on or inside an insect host and, pathogens, disease causing organisms including bacteria, fungi, and viruses.

Biological Control as part of an integrated pest management system

In promoting biological control of the various pests bedeviling farmers and foresters Dr. Shelton is not suggesting the adoption of a wholesale switch to biological control.  He is promoting the idea that biological control is a pest reduction strategy capable of enhancing the effectiveness of other approaches, reducing the negative aspects of a pest control regimen based strictly on chemicals and, important to any agriculturalist, improving profitability.

According to Dr. Shelton, effective management of insect pests rarely relies on a single control practice.  Instead, a variety of tactics can be used as part of an integrated pest management (IPM) system to attack the problem of pests preying on valuable crops.  “The goal of IPM is not to eliminate all pests,” Dr. Shelton continues.  “Some pests are tolerable and essential so that their natural enemies remain in the crop. Rather, the aim is to reduce pest populations to less than damaging numbers. The control tactics used in IPM include pest resistant or tolerant plants, and cultural, physical, mechanical, biological, and chemical control. Applying multiple control tactics minimizes the chance that insects will adapt to any one tactic.”

Approaches to biological control of pests, insect and plant generally fall into one of three categories with considerable overlap at the boundaries of the techniques: conservation, classical biological control and augmentation.