If The Pop-environmental Movement Is So Worried About Greenhouse Gasses Why Don't They Talk About Commercial Aviation?

So, Al Gore and his ilk fly all over the world telling us lesser beings we must do more to reduce greenhouse gasses.  A Kennedy flies in to preach environmentalism to us all.  Climate change activists fly all over the world to rant and rave, predicting the end of life a we know it because each of us maintains a too large carbon footprint.  President Obama helicopters out of the White House to board Air Force One to fly one place or another so he can speechify regarding greenhouse gas reductions.

The Advent Of Commercial Aviation Changed Long Distance Travel Forever

Meanwhile, in the real world, consider:

"Aircraft produce up to 4 percent of the annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels near the Earth's surface as well as at higher altitudes (25,000 to 50,000 feet). Scientists are still studying the effects of increased amounts of CO2 near the Earth's surface and in the upper atmosphere. 

In 1993, a study of toxic emissions at Chicago's Midway Airport revealed that arriving and departing planes released more pollutants than the industrial pollution sources in the surrounding 16-square-mile area. A more recent study at London's Heathrow airport showed that aircraft contributed between 16 and 35 percent of ground level NOx concentrations."

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/fs10grc.html 

or:

"The simple answer is that driving in a relatively fuel-efficient car (25-30 miles per gallon) usually generates fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than flying. In assessing the global warming impact of a trip from Philadelphia to Boston (about 300 miles), the environmental news website Grist.org calculates that driving would generate about 104 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2)—a leading greenhouse gas—per typical medium-sized car, regardless of the number of passengers, while flying on a commercial jet would produce some 184 kilograms of CO2 per passenger. "  

http://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/fly_vs_drive.htm 

or:

http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/policy_guidance/envir_policy/media/aeprimer.pdf

Interesting that emissions per passenger mile are better for autos than for aviation…

At any rate, the question could be asked, “Why is the pop-environmental movement so passionate about a variety of greenhouse reduction approaches but, almost nothing is ever heard about the impacts of commercial aviation on the environment?

No!  Are you trying to tell me junkets to environmental conferences, usually held in fun places to visit, are too much fun to risk?  Say it ain’t so!

Destroy The Forest Products Industry And You Help Destroy The Environment

I've been working way too many hours trying to fend off a serious threat to the environment in my own local area.  That led to my being late on this blog.

The threat is called the Lake Whatcom Reconveyance.

Without boring you about local issues, the Reconveyance has world-wide implications.

Ignoring forest health leads to this as illustrated by an 1800s burned off area



In our area, an effort by the pop-environmental movement has been pursued vigorously for several years to convert nearly 9,000 acres of land dedicated to the timber industry into a park. 

The land was dedicated to the timber industry because of a realization by Washington State legislators that an unhealthy timber industry means an unhealthy environment.

This blog has addressed the issue previously.  Consider:

1. A huge portion of the greenhouse gas emissions released to our atmosphere each year come as the result of forest fires. 
2. Studies estimate 25% or more of the mercury released to the atmosphere each year comes as the result of forest fires.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070109172159.htm
3. Out of control forest fires boil out streams killing fish populations, burn habitat used by endangered species and otherwise cause environmental havoc.
4. And so on...

In the United States particularly, the forest products industry has been devastated by the actions of the pop-environmental movement in recent decades.  As a result, so has the environment.  That is why my own little fight against the Reconveyance in my own local area is a fight to help preserve our environment.

A healthy forest products industry is required to maintain a healthy forest.  If we kill the industry, we help kill the forests.

Too often our reactions to environmental issues are based on emotions rather than science; "Ummm, park good, cut tree bad."  

If this blog does anything at all I hope it helps readers to realize that the discussion of issues about environmental impacts generally involve more complexity than the pop-environmental movements want brought up.  All too often, the real purpose of the discussion is the raising of money rather than the solving of issues and full discussion confuses the donors. 

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.

Environmental Analysis Should Include Examination Of Failing To Perform The Examined Action

Environmental hazard or engine for environmental enhancement?

Remember “acid rain?”

We were all going to die of it once but, only after all our buildings and art works had been eaten away by the nasty stuff.

So all kinds of things were done to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, especially in North America and Europe, with the result that the term “acid rain” is seldom heard anymore.

The reason all that is important is that sulfur dioxide plays a part in cooling the atmosphere.  The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines famously cooled the earth’s temperatures for at least a couple of years by, depending on the source, ½ to a full degree due to the massive releases of SO2 occasioned by the eruption.

Now, if SO2 releases result in global cooling, and we brought about massive decreases in SO2 emissions to the atmosphere in the latter decades of the 1900s, what should be expected?

Maybe, global warming!

Having lived through the acid rain controversy, one bearing remarkable similarities to the more recent discussions about global warming and climate change I can say that in the days when acid rain was going to pour down and dissolve all our faces no one much mentioned the probable result of SO2 reduction; warming of the atmosphere and, thus, the earth.

I’ve been thinking about this recently because locally, in Whatcom County, an incredibly angry discussion has been taking place regarding the permitting of a “coal” port in the county and the subsequent shipping of coal through the county to that port for export to Asian markets.

The discussion is now entering the scoping phase of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that will, purportedly, examine the impacts likely if the port is built and coal shipments to the port result in the shipping of more coal through Whatcom County than is already being shipped.

As a note, coal has been transported by rail through the county for decades with no controversy at all.  The announcement of a new coal port has suddenly made the future shipping of coal the source of all future evils to be visited on residents.

So the thought occurs, if Environmental Impact Statements are science based, purportedly removing politics and emotion from the assessment, shouldn’t the EIS include analysis of what happens if the proposed action does not take place?

In the example of SO2 reductions I have to honestly say the potential for global warming inherent in the scrubbing of the gas from power plant and factory emissions was never discussed so far as I can remember, certainly not extensively.  Had it been talked about we would at least not be as “surprised” as we are about today’s temperature increases.

I wrote in an earlier post about the millions of deaths, mostly in developing countries, caused by the elimination of DDT some decades ago.  Had we discussed the probability of those deaths honestly at the time we may have still banned DDT but we would have also have had to take responsibility for deliberately allowing those deaths to occur.

News Bulletin:  This just in!  Environmental Impact Statement finds travel by air poses unacceptable risks to natural environment.  Air travel suspended - clipper ship futures rise on stock exchange.

In the case of coal, what is the balance between any environmental consequences seen when we ship coal and the environmental consequences both in my neck of the woods and overseas if we do not ship the coal?

These are serious questions.

For example, there are known, and to some extent, measurable consequences to human life and health when an economy goes sour.  Some years ago I researched the issue and, at the time, the best analysis available in the academic world resulted in a calculation that in North America, at least, a $8,000,000 reduction in economic activity resulted in one premature death.

We intuitively know that is the case.  A breadwinner loses a job, comes home and assaults his wife and family.  Recent news in the United States has featured several stories of gunmen recently fired from their jobs bursting into their former places of work and killing one, two or several people.  To the extent the layoff occurred as a result of the on-going depression in the United States, a reduction in economic activity helps account for the premature deaths.

Unfortunately, especially in the United States, the consequences to the environment of not performing an action are seldom discussed.  All the discussion goes to the issue of what is likely to happen if the action is undertaken.

Perhaps it is time to change that.  If we ever want to really enhance our environment, we must change that.

Is Climate Change Beneficial?

Is global warming real?

If global warming is real is it being caused by the actions of humans?

For every billion words written about the two questions, global warming (now reconfigured as “climate change” by the spin doctors) about ten words in total are written about the more valid question, “What does it matter whether the earth’s atmospheric temperatures are warming or cooling?”

If global warming, or global cooling, were not taking place the earth would be in a great deal of trouble.  The earth is just not set up to be static.



Even an 1870's school child understood thermal zones and their importance



 The second question is a silly one as well.  Of course the actions of mankind have some amount of influence on overall warming and cooling.  This blog includes many entries discussing how the inappropriate actions of the pop-environmental movement result in increased releases of carbon to the atmosphere.  In fact, if it could be measured, I believe the pop-enviros are almost certainly responsible for as much climate change as industry is, at least in the United States (see earlier blogs on the greenhouse gas and toxic metals emissions of forest fires).

Politically, of course, the two questions posed above matter a great deal.  In idle moments between inventing the internet and helping to run the United States Al Gore almost singlehandedly invented global warming and, just incidentally, made a great deal of money doing just that.

The pop-environmental movement raises and spends more money each year than the Democrats and the Republicrats (we used to call them Republicans in the United States but now, for the most part, the two parties are pretty much indistinguishable) do in a presidential election year.  A large part of the money raised is provided by raising the specter of death and destruction coming to fuzzy little creatures as the result of climate change.

More significantly, especially in terms of the ability of "environmental" groups to raise money, individuals may be impacted, or be led to believe they are impacted, by climate change. 

American politician Tip O’Neill is famously cited as at least one source for the quote, “All politics are local.”

In terms of global warming, or any other issue, the perceived impact a person feels overcomes all the science surrounding an issue.

By way of example, one of the most influential people in the world is Bjorn Lomborg, a European scientist who’s written devastating critiques of the hysteria surrounding climate change.  It should be noted, the devastation is not due to Lomborg’s positions; instead, Lomborg is hated by the pop-environmental movement because he fearlessly puts forward irrefutable science regarding warming and cooling of the earth's atmosphere.

If you don't already own this book, you should buy it and, more importantly, read it!

Lomborg points out that far more people in the world die each year as a result of cold than die from heat.  But if your 110 year old grandmother dies in the middle of summer on an especially hot day you will, if you are like most people, be forever convinced that global warming killed the old girl.

But Grandma’s death leads to a more important question.

Are there benefits to global warming?  Should we, as Al Gore would try to convince us, automatically assume global warming, or climate change, is a negative thing?

If ten grandmas die from heat, for example, but 20 children do not die from cold have we not benefitted from global warming?

As the atmosphere warms, temperate zones move north and south in terms of the globe.  The area where I live was, a few thousand years ago, covered by a thick sheet of ice.  Now it is home to some of the world’s most livable cities, large expanses of forest and thousands of acres of farmland.  We’ve certainly benefitted from global warming and climate change in Bellingham, Washington.

The movement of the temperate zones opens up incredibly productive lands to agriculture.  It’s no accident that the Canadian northlands are breadbaskets for the rest of the world.

But we concentrate on the downsides of the equation.  Forest composition, for example, changes when the temperate zones move.  Old trees die as their surroundings lose their hospitality to this or that species.  But that is the nature of things.  The sandstone found near Bellingham contains palm frond fossils meaning that before the region was buried in ice, it was covered by tropical forests.  Tropical forests that died at least partly due to climate change. 

Of course climate change is real and, of course the activity of mankind is responsible for at least some small amount of that change. 

What we really need much more discussion about is the possible benefits of climate change and about how we can use some of the tens of billions of dollars we waste on “fighting” the inevitable to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on those who are harmed by the change.

The earth will change with or without us.  If we are willing to use that change in beneficial ways we can build a better future for all human kind.  If we are not willing to adjust to that change, the earth may go about its own change; without us!