Thursday 15 September 2011

Scientist:" If anything, a few degrees warmer would probably be a net benefit"


"Coral reefs have survived everything from asteroid impacts to ice ages and even extensive reconfiguration of the oceans and continents by plate tectonics. Nevertheless, the self-appointed experts of climate change tell us that coral bleaching due to a barely detectable warming threatens reefs with extinction and is already devastating them through coral bleaching events."
Dr. Walter Starck 

Dr. Walter Starck, one of the pioneers of the scientific study of coral reefs, has written an article that should be compulsory reading for politicians and others, who may not yet have realized that catastrophic human caused climate change is a hoax. Here are a few excerpts:

The idea that a few degrees of warming will somehow wreak havoc on the environment arises from the postmodern mythology of nature as fragile and existing in a delicate state of balance which is vulnerable to collapse at the slightest disturbance. If caused by humans, any detectable effect is described as an impact. (If the words in italics seem familiar in this context it is because you will surely have heard and seen them used many times before. They are all favourites of the eco-salvationists.)
This fairy tale view of nature has found strong appeal with the large population of urban non-producers which our increasing prosperity has spawned. Environmentalism offers them a satisfying sense of righteousness and absolves any need of gratitude for the effort from others their way of life demands or guilt about the massive impact it imposes on nature. In reality, the delicate fragile myth bears little relation to the tough, hard, messy and often tragic struggle which is life in nature. This is also the reality with which primary producers must cope in order for the urban cocoon to exist. Without a constant flow of energy, food and water the condition of life in the huge modern urban areas would become desperate within a few days; and ironically, it is where the naïve demands of climate alarmists would quickly lead if fully implemented.

Without exception, the environmental threats from AGW are entirely hypotheticals. They are things which might or could happen at some uncertain time in the future. They are not things which are demonstrably real now or even ones to which mathematically meaningful probability can be applied for the future.
The only reasonably certain effect of increased CO2 has been a significant greening in arid regions and an increase in agricultural and natural plant productivity attributable to the beneficial effect of increased CO2 on water use and growth by plants. Certainly there is nothing to indicate that the climate a century ago was the optimum for life on Earth. If anything, a few degrees warmer would probably be a net benefit.

Rising Sea Levels
A repeated alarmist claim involves the melting of the polar ice caps and threat of inundation of low lying coastal areas and islands by a rise in sea level of from a meter, to perhaps several, or even many metres, over the next century. The fact that sea level has been rising since the end of the Little Ice Age and the current rate of about 1.7mm per year (i.e. 170mm per century) is no greater than it was a century ago is simply ignored. In the fantasy world of climate sci-fi, predictions based on models always trump real world data.
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Alternative Energy
Proponents of restrictions on the use of fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable energy appear to believe that this is eminently practical and all that it is really needed is to decide to flip some switch from “FOSSIL” to “RENEWABLE”. Things like fundamental physical limitations, resource constraints, economics and the foreseeable potential of known technologies are only boring details which “they” will work out.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, there is simply no form or combination of alternative energy which shows promise of delivering anywhere near the price, utility and availability of fossil fuel. Ships, trucks, tractors, bulldozers, and airplanes are not going to be run on sunbeams and summer breezes. High energy liquid fuel is required and no viable substitute for hydrocarbons from fossil fuels either exists or is currently foreseeable. The most imminent problem we face is not going to be from using too much fossil fuel but from finding enough of it to keep our economy functioning and food on our tables over the decades it will require to develop viable alternatives.
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Dying Reefs
Coral reefs are the oldest and richest of all animal communities. They support a greater diversity of life living closely together than is found anywhere else. Many present day reefs have histories going back millions of years and many of the types of creatures living on them today are also found in very similar form on fossil reefs from over 50 million years ago. Coral reefs have survived everything from asteroid impacts to ice ages and even extensive reconfiguration of the oceans and continents by plate tectonics. Nevertheless, the self-appointed experts of climate change tell us that coral bleaching due to a barely detectable warming threatens reefs with extinction and is already devastating them through coral bleaching events.
What the doomscryers have failed to recognise is that the warm water associated with bleaching events does not come from heating of the atmosphere but is a result of periods of extended calm weather when normal wave driven mixing ceases and a shallow surface layer heats up from the sun. A week or more of calm weather can result in the upper metre or two of the ocean becoming bathtub warm. At the same time wind and wave driven currents also slow or cease and water over the shallow tops of reefs becomes especially warm. Corals on tops of reefs are steeped in this warm water and, as it moves up and down with the tide, large areas of coral can be repeatedly subjected to sudden temperature changes of as much as 5°C or more.
Extended periods of calm are most often associated with El Niño events when the trade winds falter and the calms of the doldrums expand in latitude. The climate models and other studies predict stronger winds from global warming not extended calms.
The strong bleaching events claimed to be due to climate change have all been the result of this kind of El Niño associated calms which have nothing to do with atmospheric CO2 or global warming. Scars from numerous past bleaching events can be seen in the skeletons of corals over the past thousand years and also in fossil corals from millions of years ago.
The claim that recent bleaching events are due to AGW is simply untrue and can only be either ignorance by the experts if they really don’t know any better or deliberate misinformation if they do.

Good News is Unwelcome
A seemingly incongruous characteristic of climate change alarmism and environmentalism generally, is that although their proponents profess to be deeply concerned about threats to the natural world they show no interest in any evidence that a threat may not be as bad as they fear. Strangely, such a possibility not only fails to arouse any hopeful interest, its mere suggestion provokes angry rejection. It is obvious their deepest commitment is not actually to nature but to the threat which affords them purpose, importance, funding, recognition and a delicious sense of righteousness.
In the matter of climate change this aggressive defence of the threat is especially apparent. Any suggestion that the danger may be less than predicted or that some natural cause could be responsible for even a part of the claimed warming is like poking a hornet nest. When the evidence for such a valuable threat resides in less than 1°C of warming, every small fraction of it must be defended at any cost.

Read the entire article here

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