Nature, not Humans, rules the Climate

A month has passed since the “Gang of Four” sent their letter to the IPCC demanding they reverse their view on global warming. Piers Corbyn, one of the four, said on May 11th: “We have as yet received no response from the IPCC which is astounding since the matter is of such great importance. I do not believe they can give an adequate response.”

Why am I not suprised?

The Guardian tells us today that world CO2 levels have reached a record high. Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 ppm, the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14 ppm – the fourth year in the past six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5 ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.

But now comes the big question. With the CO2 levels soaring, why won’t the temperatures rise? There is something rotten with this global warming…

CNN reports that The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is installing a new IBM supercomputer in order to accelerate research into climate change. The supercomputer, known as a Power 575 Hydro-Cluster, is the first in a highly energy-efficient class of machines to be shipped anywhere in the world, with a peak speed of more than 76 teraflops. Does that mean you can call it a “huge flop”?

While the death count in Myanmar is still rising, Al Gore takes the opportunity to score.

“We’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.”

It was just a matter of time before someone tied the Myanmar tragedy to global warming. And who else could be more appropriate for the job than the Goracle?

Gore claims global warming is forcing ocean temperatures to rise, which is causing storms, including cyclones and hurricanes, to intensify. Disastrous cyclones have of course been around long before global warming. If Gore bothered to open a history book before his mouth he might have found this list:

Deadliest tropical cyclones in history

Rank. Name / Areas of Largest Loss, Year, Ocean Area, Deaths:
1. Great Bhola Cyclone, Bangladesh 1970 Bay of Bengal 550,000
2. Hooghly River Cyclone, India and Bangladesh 1737 Bay of Bengal 350,000
3. Haiphong Typhoon, Vietnam 1881 West Pacific 300,000
3. Coringa, India 1839 Bay of Bengal 300,000
5. Backerganj Cyclone, Bangladesh 1584 Bay of Bengal 200,000
6. Great Backerganj Cyclone, Bangladesh 1876 Bay of Bengal 200,000
7. Chittagong, Bangladesh 1897 Bay of Bengal 175,000
8. Super Typhoon Nina, China 1975 West Pacific 171,000
9. Cyclone 02B, Bangladesh 1991 Bay of Bengal 140,000
10. Great Bombay Cyclone, India 1882 Arabian Sea 100,000
11. Hakata Bay Typhoon, Japan 1281 West Pacific 65,000
12. Calcutta, India 1864 Bay of Bengal 60,000
13. Swatlow, China 1922 West Pacific 60,000
14. Barisal, Bangladesh 1822 Bay of Bengal 50,000
15. Sunderbans coast, Bangladesh 1699 Bay of Bengal 50,000
16. Bengal Cyclone, Calcutta, India 1942 Bay of Bengal 40,000
17. Canton, China 1862 West Pacific 37,000
18. Backerganj (Barisal), Bangladesh 1767 Bay of Bengal 30,000
19. Barisal, Bangladesh 1831 Bay of Bengal 22,000
20. Great Hurricane, Lesser Antilles Islands 1780 Atlantic 22,000

Nota bene: Almost all of these happened before our CO2-emissions skyrocketed.

Moreover, less than a month ago, the hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unveiled that hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise during the next two centuries. His novel technique for predicting future hurricane activity suggests that, even in a dramatically warming world, hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise during the next two centuries.

Monsieur Gore should freshen up his knowledge. And if he really cares about the Burmese people, he could go there to help instead of exploiting their tragedy to sell more copies of his new book.

Many environmentalists seem to long back to the times long gone, when nature ruled and humans lived in awe of everything. They argue that nature has an intrinsic value and that all created things are equal and should be equally respected.

But the truth is that over 99 percent of all species that have ever existed on Earth have perished because of nonhuman factors. Nature doesn’t care about biodiversity. It us, humans, who value biodiversity because it reflects the state of the world we currently live in. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Without us, the beauty of nature would not exist.

Our environment includes all of our surroundings. We arrange these surroundings to improve the environment and thus make it more useful to ourselves. Our resources expand over time as a result of our increasing knowledge.

Human life has never been easy. In the Middle Ages, we lived in constant fear. Starved, filthy and wearing the same clothes day in and day out, we dwelled in dirt plagued by insects. Using cow dung as cooking fuel could hardly be considered healthy.

The modern 18th century man lived in cold, overcrowded houses and threw garbage out on the street to rotten. Rats were spreading diseases. The plague and cholera were killing thousands. At the end of the 18th century, as agriculture became more efficient, feeding the family got easier. But the diet was still meager and unhealthy. Due to lack of good storage facilities, food often turned sour or rotten.

The 19th century was a dream in comparison. But still, food options were limited and fruits only available in summer time. Food poisoning was common. Children died or became invalids following illnesses now preventable by vaccination. We didn’t know what was going on in the world. In order to listen to some music, we had to go to a concert – if we could afford it.

In the rich modern world, we have eradicated extreme poverty and hunger. Everyone has access to a rich and varied diet thanks to mechanized agriculture, fertilizers, pesticides, genetic engineering, better storage facilities and advanced logistics.

We have plumbing and garbage trucks. Home appliances help save valuable time and allow us more leisure. Material richness does not necessarily create happiness, but if we are to be happy at all, we need a longer and healthier life with plenty of choices. We don’t serve nature, nature serves us.

According to the International Herald Tribune, the EU now urges religious leaders to do more to fight climate change.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that churches, mosques and temples all have a role to play to help save the planet. “Climate change obliges all of us to take urgent action,” Barroso said.

The Archbishop of Church of Sweden, Anders Wejryd, has already made a false start by inviting a select group of internationally recognized opinion-makers from different faiths, cultures and continents to a climate summit to be held in Uppsala, Sweden, in November 2008.

Is this some desperate tactic to get us to finally succumb to the hypothesis of man-made global warming? If science doesn’t work, try faith. Faith does not need any evidence. And there truly is no evidence for AGW.

“It’s Getting Hot in Here” is an activist blog about AGW. In its latest entry, Phil Aroneanu writes:

Remember that number global warming deniers throw around — those 500 scientists that have supposedly signed onto a letter denying the existence of anthropogenic climate change? 500. It’s a number you hear on the nightly news near the end of many stories on climate change, and it’s also a number invented by the Heartland Institute, one of Washington’s most conservative thinktanks.

As it turns out, that the number is a fabrication. Our friends over at DeSmogBlog sent questionnaires to each signer, and received back some interesting quotes.

According to It’s Getting Hot in Here, a large number of the signers were shocked when told that their names were on the “deniers” list. A few scientists are quoted: Dr Ming Cai, Dr. Paul F. Schuster, Dr. David Sugden, Dr. Gregory Cutter.

Now I am sorry to say, but NONE of these names are on the list of those who signed the Manhattan Declaration. You can check for yourselves at the ICSC site.
New addition:

As stated in the 1st comment, the 500 are to be found on a list by Dennis T. Avery from September 2007. Not in the Manhattan Declaration, as I first thought. But since the latter also comprises of 500 + names and is related to Heartland Institute, I drew the wrong conclusion. I am sorry for that.

I will ask Dennis Avery about the document. Meanwhile, may I would only like to bring to your attention that there are more than 500 scientists who doubt in AGW. The Manhattan Declaration endorsers are to be found here. There is also a list by the US Senate, naming more than 400 scientists who do not agree with the AGW-hypothesis.

UK Telegraph reports: “Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said. Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a “lull” for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged. This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.”

The UK Telegraph article by reporter Charles Clover noted the significant deficiencies in UN climate models: “The IPCC currently does not include in its models actual records of such events as the strength of the Gulf Stream and the El Nino cyclical warming event in the Pacific, which are known to have been behind the warmest year ever recorded in 1998.”

However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.

But if natural variations are able to offset the man-made warming, is then our contribution to climate change significant? Also, if nature now (temporarily) cools the Earth, why shouldn’t the recent warming be natural as well?

I think that Al Gore should plan for an alternative occupation.