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COP 10 Nagoya ends with a weak agreement

October 29, 2010

The much touted COP10 conference in Nagoya Japan ended today with an agreement to continue to have such conferences.  It is a relatively weak agreement and in practical terms the conference agreed to  targets of protecting 17% of the world’s land surface – up from the current 13% , and 10% of the oceans (as already existing) by 2020.

The BBC reports:

Many poorer countries say they do not have the resources to implement such targets. Developed nations agreed to establish mechanisms for raising finance to help them – which could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars per year by 2020.

They are required to have a plan to raise such sums in place by 2012, when Brazil will host the second Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The trickiest issue – the agreement on sharing profits from the development of products drawing on genetic resources in developing countries, known as Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) – was resolved after developed nations, led by the EU, made some crucial concessions.

In particular, they agreed that the measures should cover anything made from this genetic material, technically known as “derivatives”. They had previouslty argued for a much narrower scope.

Japan looks set to emerge with credit, having steered the tough negotiations through its final hours.

“What the Japanese government really wants to do here is to get agreement so they can be proud of the Nagoya CBD,” said Wakao Hanaoka, oceans campaigner with Greenpeace Japan.

“What is really needed, since the Japanese government has just started its role of chairing the CBC intil 2012, is to keep doing what they have promised to international society.”

 

 

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Posted in Alarmism, Biodiversity | 1 Comment »

“COP10hagen”: UN Biodiversity conference is just about money

October 28, 2010

With 2 days left the quotations from news reports today about the goings-on at COP 10 Nagoya are interesting:

  1. Developing nations in Africa and elsewhere in the world have called for a system under which they could seek compensation over benefits derived from genetic resources that originated in developing nations during the age of exploration by former colonial rulers – Yomiuri Shimbun
  2. A Namibia-sponsored proposal to create a benefit-sharing fund was seen as a compromise, as the southern African country characterized the move as softening previous approaches on the issue. Such a fund would be created with a portion of the benefits derived from genetic resources worldwide to ensure fair benefit-sharing. The Namibian proposal is said to have the support of 53 African nations. – Yomiuri Shimbun
  3. International biodiversity negotiations taking place in Nagoya, Japan, have been given a much-needed boost, with the announcement of US$2 billion in funding over the next three years from Japan to help implement the outcomes of the discussions. Nature
  4. While ministers from the developed countries eagerly announced money their countries were contributing, the fact that most of it was a part of aid funds already committed, was not mentioned. The outstanding issue – known as Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) – is the extent to which profits will be shared between poor nations and pharmaceutical and cosmetics firms from rich countries who use developing societies’ traditional knowledge and medicinal plants. Sify
  5. Elsewhere in the EU, governments with shaky budgets – Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain – have been reluctant for the bloc to commit additional funds beyond the roughly €1bn a year that it has spent on biodiversity since 2002. The Guardian

The objectives of this conference are merely vague platitudes. Just as with the UN Climate change conferences it is money that is at stake. 5,000 people have gathered in Nagoya for this conference/ jamboree. But it is likely – hopefully – to be as fruitless as last year’s Copenhagen climate change talks.  Nature reports that “in the corridors, the nickname “COP-10-hagen” is brewing”.

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The End is Nigh!

October 26, 2010

Various headlines today tell their own story:

  1. Global Warming to Bring More Intense Storms to Northern Hemisphere in Winter and Southern Hemisphere Year Round
  2. As Arctic Warms, Increased Shipping Likely to Accelerate Climate Change
  3. Thermogeddon: When the Earth gets too hot for humans
  4. Space tourism could have big impact on climate
  5. WARMER ARCTIC SPELLS COLDER WINTERS, and finally
  6. Colorado climate scientists tell Ken Buck: Global warming is not a ‘hoax’

The scam is unravelling.

 

 

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Some species extinction is necessary – and COP10 Nagoya is not

October 26, 2010

Species, like an ideal gas, expand to fill the space available to them. Most species – so far -have had a life of less than 10 million years though some (the living fossils) may exist for hundreds of millions of years. More species have become extinct over the years than are in existence today. It is stated that over 99% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. The death of a species is nearly always due to competitive pressure from other species or by a change in their surrounding conditions that the species fails to adapt to. There have been at least 5 so-called mass extinctions over geological time — though in each case sufficient species remained so that evolution and development could continue in new directions. If the dinosaurs had not become extinct then man would probably never have evolved. If man ever does become extinct then it will surely provide the room for the possible development of some other species.

Any strategy to try and “guide” the future development of humankind must  – it seems to me – include for the expansion of the species  and cannot be based on the stagnation of the species. It is inevitable that less successful species will die out in the face of this competition. To merely conserve a species to continue its existence in a Zoo (and there is no nature reserve or wildlife park which is not ultimately just a zoo) without any room for the development or growth of that species may satisfy some deep seated aesthetic, human urge, but it is of no significance  in terms of development of either the species being protected or of the human species. Why then is there so much fuss about the possible extinction of some current species today?

Intentionally terminating a species merely for the sake of terminating that species ought then to be “wrong”. And so it is; except when mankind perceives that the quality of life of the human species is jeopardised by the existence of that other species. There are no qualms therefore in the eradication – or the attempted eradication – of parasites, viruses, bacteria or the tsetse fly or certain types of mosquitoes.

That it is desirable that tigers and lions or other species that are threatened by competition with humans continue to exist, is driven primarily by aesthetic values. If human aesthetics desire the preservation of such species in reservations, then that is perfectly allowable. But such “protected” species are effectively frozen in time and have no space for expansion or evolution. They are effectively removed from being active contributors to the “web of life”. Furthermore the dependence of man as a species on the diversity of other existing species is decreasing. As we increase the use of IVF, or genetically engineered crops, or animal-cloning or selective animal breeding programmes, the dependence of mankind on the ad hoc food-chains that exist is reduced. (I observe that the use of the words “natural” or “unnatural” here are meaningless. The intervention of humans in any “natural” process  is not more “unnatural” than breeding cows or creating over 200 breeds of dogs. Since humans are part of “nature” then anything humans do is – by definition – “natural”). As drugs – which may have first been extracted from some particular plants – are synthesised and tailored to meet human needs the dependence upon the plant species disappears.

The objectives of the Biodiversity conference currently being held in Nagoya are the most inconsequential platitudes which are irrational, unscientific and merely exhibit a “woolly” sentimentality.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) entered into force on 29 December 1993. It has 3 main objectives:

  1. The conservation of biological diversity
  2. The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity
  3. The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.

What is not addressed at all is why the conservation (or more correctly the stagnation) of biological diversity is something to be desired and by which species. I take it as axiomatic that the ultimate beneficiary must be the human species – if not necessarily individual humans. (Here too I would observe that it is by ensuring benefits to individuals that we shall probably do the greatest good for the species). The conservation of a species for the sake of conservation is just as wrong as the extermination of a species for the sake of extermination.

The Convention states

As demographic pressures and consumption levels increase, biodiversity decreases, and the ability of the natural world to continue delivering the goods and services on which humanity ultimately depends may be undermined.

This would imply an acceptance that other species exist only to serve the human species. The conclusion then must be that if a species does not contribute to the supply of goods and services for man then it is redundant as a species. If such a redundant species becomes extinct it may be aesthetically displeasing but it is of no consequence for the advancement of the human species. The second objective “the sustainable use of the components of biodiversity” then means that as human ingenuity and intervention ensures the supply of goods and services needed (whether by farming techniques or fish farming or cattle and poultry breeding or by synthetic techniques), then other species which were contributing to such supply become redundant.

The 3rd objective regarding “fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources” has really nothing at all to do with the diversity of species and instead is an issue of distribution of the benefits of exploiting other species. For example, it is the issue of drug companies from developed countries extracting medicinal materials from plants only found in developing countries and of ensuring that monetary benefits also find their way to the country in which the plant grows. But once the medicinal materials can be synthesised the plant – as a species – becomes redundant.

Sometimes it is claimed that  biodiversity is needed to maintain the gene pool. But to what end do we need this gene pool where genes do not cross species boundaries? This makes no sense unless one is trying to ensure the evolution and development of replacement species once humans are extinct. It is also claimed at times that we know so little about the various interactions between species that it would be dangerous to allow any species to become extinct. But this is mere alarmism. Focusing on real benefits to humans in need of food or medicine or water or space would be much more constructive than harping on “not doing something” for fear of unknown and unquantifiable dangers.

The COP10 conference in Nagoya seems to be going the way of the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 – and that is probably a very good thing.

That the success of humans as a species is reducing the habitat for and the viability of other species is obvious.

That this is “unnatural” or undesirable is nonsensical.

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Posted in Alarmism, Biodiversity, Science | 2 Comments »

Increased snowfall in the Antarctic over the past 30 years: Must be global warming

October 26, 2010

When Good Measurements become Bad Science

Analysis of ice cores, drilled at Law Dome just inland from Australia’s Casey Station in the Antarctic shows increased snowfall in the Antarctic over the past 30 years.

http://news.curtin.edu.au/news/wa-drought-linked-to-greater-snowfall-in-the-antarctic/

Dr Tas van Ommen, Principal Research Scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division in Hobart will be presenting his research results from the analysis of ice cores during a seminar ‘Antarctic Ice Cores and Australian Climate’ at Curtin University on Monday 25 October.

But inevitably global warming is then invoked on the basis of speculation and correlations.

Analysis of ice cores drilled at Law Dome, a site just inland from the Antarctic Casey station, has revealed that snowfall variability may be linked to climate in the Australian sector of the Southern Ocean and southwest Western Australia.

Dr van Ommen said the ice cores provide a record of annual variations in snowfall and provide a record that stretches back over 750 years.

“Over the past 30 years, the cores indicate that there has been a significant increase in snowfall in that area,” he said.

“This inversely correlates to the occurrence of a significantly lower rainfall and subsequent drought that has been experienced in the southwest of Western Australia. “So when there’s extra moisture at Law Dome, the same circulation pattern is starving Western Australia of moisture.”

Further work is underway to explore these connections and understand the reasons behind them. However, these events of greater snowfall in the Antarctic and drought in WA also coincide with human induced changes in the atmosphere that may be contributing to global warming.

“The snowfall increase we see in the last 30 years lies well outside the natural range recorded over the past 750 years,” Dr van Ommen said.

The item only becomes newsworthy because of this “coincidence” and the speculation that this increased snowfall may be linked to the drought with reduced precipitation in Western Australia which may be linked to “global warming” !!

Coincidences and inverse correlations do not a science make!

But the tag “global warming”  brings in the funding.

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That man-made carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate trends is irrational

October 24, 2010

 

Variations in temperature, CO 2 , and dust fro...

Vostok Ice core: Image via Wikipedia

 

One of a series of debate articles  in Ny Teknik by Professors Björnbom and Ribbing brings a refreshing whiff of sanity into the “closed and settled” science of global climate change. They conclude:

“To now stubbornly stick to the hypothesis that man-made carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate trends, is irrational in the headwinds from a growing number of critical articles based on measurements.”

Pehr Björnbom, Professor Emeritus, Chemical Engineering, KTH

Carl-Gustaf Ribbing, Professor Emeritus, Solid State Physics, Uppsala University

A free translation of their article is reproduced below:

Azar, Eriksson, Tjernström and Westerstrand, AETW, write: “strange that on the basis of only one study … rejecting decades of research “. This is a misleading summary of many years of development. For our article, and the references to the PDF version, showing a lower climate sensitivity than that shown by the UN’s Climate Change organisation, the IPCC, is not a new phenomenon. In less than ten years, the IPCC’s high values have been  disputed, partly because global warming has been lower than was predicted.

Instead of reducing the excessive carbon dioxide sensitivity the aerosol contribution has been increased to reduce climate sensitivity. In principle it is better to use measurements from high altitude, rather than parameter dependent adaptations to climate models to the Earth’s surface temperature.

AETW write about the glacial cycles that it is “.. very difficult to explain how Earth’s temperature can vary by as much as five degrees … between an ice age and a non-glacial climate when sensitivity is … one degree or less. ” It is “very difficult” only with today’s climate, which shows that the narrow focus on “explaining” the climate variations of carbon dioxide leads to absurdities.
We wonder why Per Ribbing blames us for over-simplification? What we are against is precisely the unilateral selection of the carbon dioxide created by human activity to be the dominant factor in climate regulation. We assert the contrary, that a half-dozen natural factors govern the very complex climate system. It will probably never be scientifically possible to completely describe this chaotic system.
Spencer and Braswell are making great progress with their phase diagram, so that variations in the natural driving forces can be separated from the feedbacks. This gives a higher correlation and a more accurate value of climate sensitivity: 0.6 degrees without the aid of climate models.
This uncertainty gives the obvious; that values can increase or decrease for longer periods than any measuring period. To now stubbornly stick to the hypothesis that man-made carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate trends, is unreasonable in the headwinds from a growing number of critical articles based on measurements.

Pehr Björnbom, Professor Emeritus, Chemical Engineering, KTH

Carl-Gustaf Ribbing, Professor Emeritus, Solid State Physics, Uppsala University

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Earth is starting to crumble due to global warming !

October 15, 2010

 

The Peteroa (burning bushes) volcano lies at t...

Planchón-Peteroa: Image via Wikipedia

 

Alarmism is alive and well at ENTRIX and at the New Scientist.

When in doubt it seems you can always get a paper published if you put it down to global warming. The key finding in this new paper seems to be that “large-scale glacial melting, including at the end of the Pleistocene, caused a significant increase in the incidence of large volcanic sector collapse and debris flows on then-active volcanoes”.

The Pleistocene is the period from  2.588 million to 12000 years ago. But since there is no explanation for the above finding there is no hesitation in jumping to the conclusion about the present “With current accelerated rates of glacial melting, glaciated active volcanoes are at an increasing risk of sector collapse, debris flow and landslide. These catastrophic events are Earth’s most damaging erosion phenomenon, causing extensive property damage and loss of life”.

The New Scientist then chips in with the headline “EARTH is starting to crumble under the strain of climate change”.

Daniel Tormey of ENTRIX, an environmental consultancy based in Los Angeles, studied a huge landslide that occurred 11,000 years ago on Planchón-Peteroa. He focused on this glaciated volcano in Chile because its altitude and latitude make it likely to feel the effects of climate change before others.

“Around one-third of the volcanic cone collapsed,” Tormey says. Ten billion cubic metres of rock crashed down the mountain and smothered 370 square kilometres of land, travelling 95 kilometres in total (Global and Planetary Change, DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2010.08.003). Studies have suggested that intense rain cannot provide the lubrication needed for this to happen, so Tormey concludes that glacier melt must have been to blame. With global temperatures on a steady rise, Tormey is concerned that history will repeat itself on volcanoes all over the world.

He thinks that many volcanoes in temperate zones could be at risk, including in the Ring of Fire – the horseshoe of volcanoes that surrounds the Pacific Ocean . “There are far more human settlements and activities near the slopes of glaciated active volcanoes today than there were 10,000 years ago, so the effects could be catastrophic,” he says.

Maybe I am just a little cynical but I suspect that the author’s environmental consultancy business would be advantaged by getting a few more studies funded and that would be more likely if catastrophes were imminent. A clear case of a conflict of interest I would think.


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Pachauri stays at IPCC: Ultimately it’s a question of cowardice

October 14, 2010

 

Pachauri's racy thesis

 

The IPCC has just completed its 3 day meeting in Busan. The absence of any courage by any of the delegates or by their Chairman is apparent. Rather than implement all the recommendations of the IAC review they have just accepted all the easy bits and shuffled off the more painful corrections to be studied in committee. The Chairman himself has not had the courage to swallow his overweening pride and return quietly to Almora.  (A psychiatrist might be able to explain the connections between his public utterances and his steamy novel).

The BBC reports:

(The IPCC) meeting in South Korea closed with many other reforms proposed in a recent review being passed to committees for further consideration. Chairman Rajendra Pachauri confirmed his intention to stay in post until the next assessment is published in 2014. In its recent review of the IPCC, the InterAcademy Council (IAC) – an umbrella group for the world’s science academies – highlighted a case in the 2007 assessment where studies projecting rapidly declining crop yields in Africa were given more weight than they merited, in the absence of supporting evidence.

The revised guidance emphasises that in future, authors must assess both the quality of research available and uncertainties within that research.

t urges authors to be careful of “group-think”, but maintains that it “may be appropriate to describe findings for which the evidence and understanding are overwhelming as statements of fact without using uncertainty qualifiers”.

Enhanced guidance on the use of “grey literature” – material not published in peer-reviewed scientific journals – has also been drawn up, and will be finalised by chairs of the IPCC’s working groups in the coming months.

Procedures for correcting errors should they arise were also approved – which means that the most serious error in the 2007 report, on the projected melting date for Himalayan glaciers, can be formally repaired.

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IPCC Meeting opens in Busan. Pachauri to go?

October 11, 2010

It is time for Pachauri to call it a day. Even though the Indian Government is forced to support the discredited Chairman, the recommendation that the Chairman not serve more than one term will probably be followed.

(400 delegates! And the UN meeting has just been held in Beijing. Cancun in November. A gravy train, hot air and not just a few ounces of carbon dioxide!!)

KBS World reports that

The 32nd general assembly of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) opened in Busan today.
Attending the four-day meeting are IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, the heads of the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Program, and some 400 other delegates from 194 countries. The participants will discuss 14 issues, including the publication of the IPCC’s fifth assessment report that will be announced in 2014.

The Times of India believes the Busan meet will decide Pachauri’s fate as IPCC head.

Though the Council had recommended that the “the term of the IPCC Chair should be limited to the timeframe of one assessment”, and Pachauri has already headed one such assessment report, which was released in 2007, the Indian government plans to back the director of The Energy Research Institute (TERI) at the meeting.
But, the Indian representatives at the meeting will ask for immediate implementation of all the other reforms of the committee set up after the Himalayan glacier scandal that had dented the IPCC’s reputation earlier this year.

 

THIRTY-SECOND SESSION OF THE IPCC

Busan, 11-14 October 2010

IPCC-XXXII/Doc. 1

(4.VIII.2010)

Agenda Item: 1

ENGLISH ONLY

 

PROVISIONAL AGENDA

1. OPENING OF THE SESSION

2. APPROVAL OF THE DRAFT REPORT OF THE 31st SESSION

3. IPCC PROGRAMME AND BUDGET FOR 2010-2014

4. THE IPCC 5TH ASSESSMENT REPORT (AR5)

4.1. Scope, content and process for the preparation of the AR5 Synthesis Report

4.2 Progress reports and schedule of AR5 related activities

5. REVIEW OF THE IPCC PROCESSES AND PROCEDURES:

REPORT BY THE INTER ACADEMY COUNCIL

6. ADMISSION OF OBSERVER ORGANIZATIONS

7. RULES OF PROCEDURES FOR THE ELECTION OF THE IPCC BUREAU AND ANY

TASK FORCE BUREAU

8. REPLACEMENT OF MEMBERS OF THE IPCC BUREAU

9. COMMUNCATIONS STRATEGY

10. MATTERS RELATED TO UNFCCC

11. OTHER PROGRESS REPORTS

11.1 Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation

11.2 Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance

Climate Change Adaptation

11.3 Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories

11.4 Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis

(TGICA)

11.5 Development of new scenarios

11.6 IPCC Scholarship Programme

11.7 Implementation of decisions taken at the 30th Session

11.8 Any other progress reports

12. OTHER BUSINESS

13. TIME AND PLACE OF THE NEXT SESSION

14. CLOSING OF THE SESSION


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Vicious attack on Dr. Fred Singer by Der Spiegel

October 9, 2010

Der Spiegel likes to keep its many feet in every possible camp.

In May this year they had published  an article:  How the Science of Global Warming Was Compromised by Axel Bojanowski.

But clearly they feel the need to show how impartial they are and that they can also be as alarmist as the rest of the media !!!!!!

Yesterday they published The Traveling Salesmen of Climate Skepticism by Cordula Meyer which is a vicious attack on Fred Singer and , in passing, on Gerd Weber. From her previous articles, she does not seem to have any special science credentials and clearly is one of the global warming groupies who believes that consensus science is good science : “According to a US study, 97 percent of all climatologists worldwide assume that greenhouse gases produced by humans are warming the Earth”.

‘Science as the Enemy’

A handful of US scientists have made names for themselves by casting doubt on global warming research. In the past, the same people have also downplayed the dangers of passive smoking, acid rain and the ozone hole. In all cases, the tactics are the same: Spread doubt and claim it’s too soon to take action.

Read the whole article if you have the stomach for it.

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