Archive for the ‘Alarmism’ Category
February 24, 2012
Insurance companies are in the business of making perceived risks seem much larger than actual risk. Their profits are directly impacted by increasing the risk perceptions of the party seeking insurance. It is not surprising that they exaggerate the dangers of whatever is being insured against. To be “alarmist” for an insurance company is just good marketing. However much of their marketing and publicity is presented under the cloak of “scientific research”. Any report from an insurance company about future risks and purporting to be an “objective” or “scientific” study needs to be discounted and taken with a very large shovel of salt. Yet, the media often swallow such publicity and merely reproduce their reports with little effort to see through the conflicts of interest.
I have posted earlier about Munich Re and their attempts to suggest that global warming will increase the frequency of natural disasters. Anything to increase the perceptions of risk.
Now JunkScience reports on the case of Kerry Emanuel and his alarmist positions and his connections to Insurance companies:
Based on a request for investigation from JunkScience.com, Nature has forced MIT’s Kerry Emanuel to disclose his employment with insurance companies as a conflict of interest.
In the Feb. 14 Nature Climate Change study “Physically based assessment of hurricane surge threat under climate change,” of which Emanuel is a co-author, the “Additional Interests” section disclosed:
The authors declare no competing financial interests. However, in the interests of transparency we confirm that one of us, Kerry Emanuel, is on the boards of two property and casualty companies: Homesite and Bunker Hill, and also on the board of the AlphaCat Fund, an investment fund dealing with re-insurance transactions. In all three cases, Dr Emanuel receives fixed fees but owns no stocks or shares. Dr Emanuel does not stand to make any personal financial gain through these directorships as a consequence of the reported findings.
There was obvious reluctance in the disclosure from the wording (“no competing financial interests” even though insurance companies are gaming global warming alarmism) to the fact that, despite our asking, we had to find out about the disclosure on our own initiative — i.e., after our initial exchange with Nature, the journal editors stopped communicating with us.
JunkScience also reported that the Consumer Federation of America says in a new report:
…. Although insurers have become adept at shifting the cost of catastrophe losses to others, they still use catastrophic weather events to advocate for measures that would shift risk even more, such as higher rates, or putting more policyholders in pools or created taxpayer-supported entities. Thus, many consumers exposed to catastrophe weather risk are also vulnerable to insurer attempts to unjustifiably increase rates or hollow out coverage…
Tags:climate change, Consumer Federation of America, Insurance, Insurance and alarmism, JunkScience, Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nature
Posted in Alarmism, Business | Comments Off on Insurance Companies and alarmism
February 24, 2012
Global Warming: How to approach the science
pdf > RSLindzen-HouseOfCommons-2012
Seminar at the House of Commons Committee Rooms
Westminster, London
22nd February 2012
RA Lindzen: “‘Global Warming’ refers to an obscure statistical quantity, globally averaged temperature anomaly, the small residue of far larger and mostly uncorrelated local anomalies. This quantity is highly uncertain, but may be on the order of 0.7C over the past 150 years. This quantity is always varying at this level and there have been periods of both warming and cooling on virtually all time scales.
……… …. while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.”
Tags:global warming, House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Richard Lindzen
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | Comments Off on Richard Lindzen’s address at the UK House of Commons
February 23, 2012
I have yet to come across a case where Alarmism and the invocation of the Precautionary Principle to spend billions has been justified. The Precautionary Principle itself is flawed and is usually invoked to justify actions in favour of a political ideology which go against common sense. There are no principles involved. For example the billions spent on “preventing” the alleged Y2K meltdown were shown to have been essentially unnecessary when countries which just did not have the money to spend suffered no significant ill-effects (Ukraine and Romania for example).
The Precautionary Principle: An activist is walking down the street snapping his fingers continuously. A guy stops him and asks, “Why are you snapping your fingers all the time?” The activist answers, “To keep wild elephants away.” “That’s ridiculous!”, says the guy. The activist replies, “Oh, yeah? You don’t see any wild elephants around do you?”
The AGW othodoxy is following the same path where trillions are being spent in following political objectives which have no basis and go against common sense.
Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT has been addressing the UK House of Commons.
The Independent: Is catastrophic global warming, like the Millenium Bug, a mistake?
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Tags:AGW, Alarmism, global warming, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Precautionary Principle, Richard Lindzen
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | Comments Off on Spending billions for no return: AGW alarmism going the way of the Y2K panic
February 23, 2012
The Global Warming priesthood have long experience in fudging data, cheating and suppressing opposing views. But Peter Gleick, a true acolyte of the religion, has now been reduced not only to lying, cheating and stealing but also to forgery and fakery.
The blogosphere has been full of the Fakegate or the Peter Gleick affair for the last week. First he used impersonation and lying to extract confidential documents from Heartland. He clearly has broken some laws. But he found nothing very damaging regarding climate sceptics so he forged a “summary” document so as to be able to add some spice to the affair. He then disseminated the documents widely and these were immediately publicised by a gullible and hypocritical orthodoxy.
Peter Gleick - Faker
Of course Gleick is a climate alarmist and activist and for him and his friends Heartland remains the “villain” and his ends of “exposing” the alleged bad guys apparently justifies his dishonest and criminal means. His authorship of the forged document was recognised by Steven Mosher and Climate Audit just from his writing style and bad punctuation. Needless to say Gleick is considered by the global warming priesthood as an expert exponent of integrity in science research. In this sordid case some are delusional enough to see him as a hero.
Gleick’s own work is unimportant and lacking any real scientific content. His lack of ethics (apart from his poor writing and general incompetence) is of no great significance. But his behaviour exposes and is in the tradition established by the Hockey Stick crowd (Mann, Jones, Hansen, Trenberth et al) of fudging and cheating and suppression of opposing views.
BREAKING: Gleick Confesses
Peter Gleick Confesses
Gleick’s AGU Resignation
Megan McArdle gives Mosher and the blogosphere props for pointing to Gleick
Peter Gleick Confesses to Obtaining Heartland Documents Under False Pretenses
FakeGate: Just Another Day at Team Green
Fakegate Illustrates Global Warming Alarmists’ Deceit and Desperation
Tags:Climate Audit, climate change, Fakegate, Forgery, global warming, Heartland Institute, Megan McArdle, Peter Gleick, Scientific misconduct
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud | 1 Comment »
February 21, 2012
The key requirement for the method of science is scepticism.
The scientific method is to make falsifiable hypotheses and then to check the hypothesis by gathering the evidence to check the falsifiability.
The IPCC and the Global Warming Orthodoxy have been making alarmist predictions for the last 20 years and their hypothesis comes in three parts:
- That global warming is occurring and will continue for at least the next 100 years
- That human activities are the primary cause of the global warming being observed, and
- That man-made emission of carbon-dioxide is the most significant human activity driving climate change.
In the last 20+ years, comparing actual observations show that each one of these 3 parts of this global warming hypothesis is – at best – oversimplified and – at worst – just plain wrong. “Wrong” in the sense that the causality proposed does not exist and that the mechanisms proposed for the causality are incorrect or non-existent. The IPCC predictions are being proved wrong and it is time to ditch the hypothesis.
IPCC predictions falsify global warming hypothesis
The 27th January article in the Wall Street Journal “No Need to Panic about Global Warming” by a number of scientists displaying true scientific scepticism was immediately criticised by members of the Orthodoxy. The original authors now reply to these criticisms in the WSJ:
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Tags:Alarmism, Falsifiable hyptheses, global warming, IPCC, Scientific misconduct, Wall Street Journal
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Environment, Science | Comments Off on When IPCC model predictions are wrong it is time to ditch the hypothesis
February 20, 2012
Oil production from oil shales in North Dakota is increasing rapidly and the much-heralded “peak” of oil production may have to be postponed. Alarmists will not be pleased.
“Peak Oil” and “Peak Gas” are the points in time where the production of oil and gas respectively reach a peak and then decline to zero. The concept is based on the normal production cycle of an individual well extrapolated to all the oil and gas existing. The fundamental flaw in these hypotheses when trying to apply them to “finite” and exhaustible resources of any product is of course that:
- new sources of the product are discovered
- new extraction technologies enhance what can be recovered from existing sources,
- new technologies make non-viable sources viable
- new technologies allow the synthesis or alternative production of the product (price driven)
- consumption is modified by pricing
Moving peaks
In recent times the development of fracking technology and the discovery of huge deposits of gas-bearing shales together with the discovery of new deep-sea sources of natural gas have pushed the “peak” for gas production beyond the visible horizon and into the distant future (a few hundred years). When – rather than if – methane hydrates become available for gas production, the “peak” will shift further into the future.
In the case of oil there are already many feasible alternatives which are technically feasible but where commercial production by these methods can only be triggered by the sustainable price being higher than the production cost. For example bio-diesel costs are commercial with oil prices above about $70 per barrel but there is a hidden cost in decreased or disrupted food production. Coal liquefaction would need oil prices above $120 per barrel while oil extraction from oil shales and oil sands become commercial at about $90 and $100 respectively. Deep sea wells (new exploration) are increasingly commercial as the price increases.
The alternatives are now coming into play:
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Tags:"Peak" gas, Energy, oil shale, Peak oil, Shale gas
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Gas, Oil, Oil price | Comments Off on “Peak Oil” hypothesis is following “Peak Gas” into oblivion
January 28, 2012
This piece appeared in the WSJ signed by 16 scientists:
No need to panic about global warming
There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.
Editor’s Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:
A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed. ….
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Tags:Alarmism, climate alarmism, global warming, IPCC
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on No need to panic about global warming
January 20, 2012
The dark side of solar energy: Der Spiegel graphic
The price for the headlong rush to renewable energy in Germany driven largely by a rampant Green party now has to be paid. Subsidies have exceeded 100 billion € but nothing of that has reached the consumer. But some developers and some entrepreneurs have made some not so small fortunes.
Der Spiegel is not known for daring to challenge political correctness and has been one of the staunch supporters of the global warming orthodoxy. But even Der Spiegel is apalled:
The costs of subsidizing solar electricity have exceeded the 100-billion-euro mark in Germany, but poor results are jeopardizing the country’s transition to renewable energy. The government is struggling to come up with a new concept to promote the inefficient technology in the future.
(more…)
Tags:Germany, Renewable Energy Law, solar energy subsidy, Solar panel, Subsidy
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Renewable Energy | Comments Off on The dark side of the sun in Germany
The k2p blog 