Y2Kyoto....Have We Reached Peak Snake Oil?

Well I think it's finally happened. Every once in a while all the planets align, critical mass is achieved and a mighty confluence occurs. As far as Kyoto is concerned I think this past week signals the apex of leftard lunacy that is "climate change". But how can this be?

Well, with most issues driven by the leftosphere one need only look towards Hollywood for direction. Yesterday the high priest of climate change, Al Gore, was honored with an Oscar for his rousing performance in An Inconvenient Truth. Never one to shy away from hyperbole, Gore had this to offer.

"It is the overriding world challenge of our time," Gore said. "I really hope the decision by the academy to honor the work by director Davis Guggenheim and these producers will convince people who did not go see it before to see the movie and learn about the climate crisis and become a part of the solution."

For those of you who have yet to view Gore's opus, I encourage you to do so. It's a hoot! Al manages to include a bit on being robbed of the presidency by GWB ( presumably this crisis would have been prevented by a Gore administration), tugs at our heartstrings with an animated image of the impending flooding of ground zero, trumpets the the scientific certainty of global warming cause and effect and links the ferocity of hurricane Katrina to the global warming crisis.

While I could spend hours deconstructing much of this tripe, lets focus on the Katrina claim. This introduction from the Denver Post.

You'll often hear the left lecture about the importance of dissent in a free society.

Why not give it a whirl?

Start by challenging global warming hysteria next time you're at a LoDo cocktail party and see what happens.

Admittedly, I possess virtually no expertise in science. That puts me in exactly the same position as most dogmatic environmentalists who want to craft public policy around global warming fears.

The only inconvenient truth about global warming, contends Colorado State University's Bill Gray, is that a genuine debate has never actually taken place. Hundreds of scientists, many of them prominent in the field, agree.

Gray is perhaps the world's foremost hurricane expert. His Tropical Storm Forecast sets the standard. Yet, his criticism of the global warming "hoax" makes him an outcast.

"They've been brainwashing us for 20 years," Gray says. "Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was."

Gray directs me to a 1975 Newsweek article that whipped up a different fear: a coming ice age.

"Climatologists," reads the piece, "are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change. ... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."

Thank God they did nothing. Imagine how warm we'd be?

Another highly respected climatologist, Roger Pielke Sr. at the University of Colorado, is also skeptical.

Pielke contends there isn't enough intellectual diversity in the debate. He claims a few vocal individuals are quoted "over and over" again, when in fact there are a variety of opinions.

What? Opposing views within the scientific community? Pray tell. I know this is a hell of a read but there is some interesting narrative buried deep within this report.

The U.S. landfall of major hurricanes Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005 and the four Florida landfalling hurricanes of 2004 (Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne) raised questions about the possible role that global warming played in these two unusually destructive seasons.

The global warming arguments have been given much attention by many media references to recent papers claiming to show such a linkage. Despite the global warming of the sea surface that has taken place over the last 3 decades, the global numbers of hurricanes and their intensity have not shown increases in recent years except for the Atlantic (Klotzbach 2006).

The Atlantic has seen a very large increase in major hurricanes during the 12-year period of 1995-2006 (average 3.9 per year) in comparison to the prior 25-year period of 1970-1994 (average 1.5 per year). This large increase in Atlantic major hurricanes is primarily a result of the multi-decadal increase in the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation (THC) that is not directly related to global temperature increase. Changes in ocean salinity are believed to be the driving mechanism. These multi-decadal changes have also been termed the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).

There have been similar past periods (1940s-1950s) when the Atlantic was just as active as in recent years. For instance, when we compare Atlantic basin hurricane numbers over the 15-year period (1990-2004) with an earlier 15-year period (1950-1964), we see no difference in hurricane frequency or intensity even though the global surface temperatures were cooler and there was a general global cooling during 1950-1964 as compared with global warming during 1990-2004.

Although global surface temperatures have increased over the last century and over the last 30 years, there is no reliable data available to indicate increased hurricane frequency or intensity in any of the globe’s seven tropical cyclone basins. Meteorologists who study tropical cyclones have no valid physical theory as to why hurricane frequency or intensity would necessarily be altered significantly by small amounts (< ±1oC) of global mean temperature change. In a global warming or global cooling world, the atmosphere’s upper air temperatures will warm or cool in unison with the sea surface temperatures. Vertical lapse-rates will not be significantly altered. We have no plausible physical reasons for believing that Atlantic hurricane frequency or intensity will change significantly if global ocean temperatures continue to rise. For instance, in the quarter-century period from 1945-1969 when the globe was undergoing a weak cooling trend, the Atlantic basin experienced 80 major (Cat 3-4-5) hurricanes and 201 major hurricane days. By contrast, in a similar 25-year period of 1970-1994 when the globe was undergoing a general warming trend, there were only 38 major hurricanes (48% as many) and 63 major hurricane days (31% as many) in the Atlantic basin. Atlantic sea-surface temperatures and hurricane activity do not necessarily follow global mean temperature trends.

The most reliable long-period hurricane records we have are the measurements of US landfalling tropical cyclones since 1900 (Table 8). Although global mean ocean and Atlantic surface temperatures have increased by about 0.4oC between these two 50-year periods (1900-1949 compared with 1956-2005), the frequency of US landfall numbers actually shows a slight downward trend for the later period. If we chose to make a similar comparison between US landfall from the earlier 30-year period of 1900-1929 when global mean surface temperatures were estimated to be about 0.5oC colder than they were during the 30-year period from 1976-2005, we find exactly the same US hurricane landfall numbers (54 to 54) and major hurricane landfall numbers (21 to 21).

We should not read too much into the two hurricane seasons of 2004-2005. The activity of these two years was unusual but well within natural bounds of hurricane variation. In addition, following the two very active seasons of 2004 and 2005, 2006 had slightly below-average activity, and no hurricanes made landfall in the United States. This was only the 11th year since 1945 (67 total years) that the United States had no landfalling hurricanes.

(emphasis mine)

In an act of irony as subtle as a Mack truck Reverend Gore won in the category of best documentary. To steal a line from Steven Colbert, a more appropriate tittle might be An Inconvenient Truthiness. But I digress. I suggest that Al enjoys his Oscar because nothing signals the demise of a cause like an Oscar win.

In 2005 the Oscar buzz centered on A Million Dollar Baby as controversy swirled around the sad case of Terri Chaivo and issues of euthanasia. In 2006 the Oscar hype focused on Brokeback Mountian and Trans America as SSM was touted as the human rights struggle of our times. This year The Academy made a point of lauding their "green initiatives" and of course recognizing Al Gore's hyperbolic power point presentation.

Be afraid Al, be very afraid. When was the last time you heard anything about euthanasia? As far as SSM goes the point is largely moot and if the truth be told the real debate for most folks was a matter of semantics.....marriage vs civil unions. Life goes on.

The self appointed social conscience that is Hollywood centered celebrity has the life cycle and memory of a fruit fly. Meanwhile here in Canada the global warming/climate change rhetoric is championed by our very own fruitfly...Dr. David Suzuki. As the defacto Prophet of the Canadian branch of the Church of Climatology, Dr. Dave demands to be heard. Well we heard you Dave.

Suzuki outdid himself this past week, cranking up the wild eyed rhetoric to a level that would make another famous David blush (that is if he hadn't pushed things a bit too far). David Koresh. If I remember correctly things turned out badly for that particular prophet also.

Suzuki criss crosses the country in a rock star touring bus plastered with his saintly image, preaching to the unconverted. The brave prophet even ventured into the very center of climate evil.....gasp!....Alberta. What he succeeded in doing was exposing his ideological driven ignorance. Well done Dave. A few of his juicier quotes:

"If your premier thinks he's worried about the future -- and he doesn't realize not doing anything about greenhouse gases is going to wreck the economy -- then he doesn't deserve to be a leader," Suzuki said. He was responding to Stelmach's comments Thursday that Alberta's economic growth won't be sacrificed to meet environmental targets of the Kyoto accord.

"Look, you think you need the tarsands to go gung-ho. Albertans have always had the highest standard of living of any province in the country. What the hell do you need all this unlimited expansion, for God's sake? That's crazy," Suzuki told reporters Friday.

"We haven't even begun to apply the brain power to exploit the tarsands the proper way."

There is so much wrong with these ignorant statements I really don't know where to start. Alberta has always had the highest standard of living in Canada? Unlimited expansion? No advancements in oilsands production technology? Stelmach doesn't deserve the mantle of leadership?

Suzuki's powers of omniscience are awesome to behold in the same way a train wreck fascinates. Strangely beautiful in the most destructive way. Besides the glaring historical errors, technical flaws, moral superiority and factual bankruptcy it seems Dave also has some mathematical deficiencies.

Today’s Ottawa Sun has a Q and A session with David Suzuki about his carbon spewing bus tour across Canada and this is one of the questions.

Q: What role should Canada play on the international scene?

A: Canada produces 2% of C02 emissions, but represents just 0.4% of the world’s population.

So we produce four times more pollution per capita than the global average, and because of that, we have an obligation.

Huh? Dr. Suzuki.....I sense a growing credibility gap here.

Meanwhile on the purely political front the freshly minted "green" leader of the LPC, Stephan Dion has orchestrated a piece of strategic legislation that will in retrospect rival the brilliance of Joe Clark's 1978 budget. Specifically Bill C-288, The Koyoto Protocol Implementation Act.

The act demands that the current government produce, within sixty days of passage, a comprehensive plan to meet our Kyoto commitments.

The Liberal MP who authored a bill that could force the government to abide by Canada's Kyoto Protocol commitments calls its passage a huge step forward.
MP Pablo Rodriguez appeared on CTV's Question Period Sunday to discuss Bill C-288.

The bill -- the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act -- passed in the House of Commons this week, and will now go before the Senate. The legislation states that within 60 days of its passage in Senate, the government would have to come up with a plan for meeting the Kyoto targets.

"It means that the government has no choice but to act and meet our Kyoto obligations," Rodriguez told Question Period.

"This is a long process. We started this last March when we saw that the Conservatives were abandoning Kyoto. And it was a huge fight, a huge victory last week, and things are going well now to force the government to meet our Kyoto objectives."

"The Conservatives say that it is impossible but of course they say it is impossible, they don't try," Rodriguez said.

"Parliament said that it is possible, we said it is possible. The Bloc and NDP say it is possible. Other people say it is possible. It will be difficult, require sacrifices and every day we waste it is more and more difficult. So that is why we have to act now."

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said it's time to stop laying blame, and to start taking action.

She echoed recent statements by environmentalist David Suzuki, saying Canada is already legally obligated to abide by Kyoto because it was signed by then-prime minister Jean Chretien.

"The Kyoto targets are already internationally legally binding. What Pablo's bill did was make them domestically legally binding. That is a good thing."

Under Kyoto, Canada agreed to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases to six per cent below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012. Canada ratified Kyoto in 2002 under the former Liberal government.

The Kyoto targets the Liberal government of Jean Cretin signed us up for are attainable, Stephane tells us so. In fact the Liberals have had a plan for years.

Eddie Goldberg, the ultimate Liberal insider recently outlined the subtle brilliance of this plan.

While it's obvious Canada's previous Liberal government bought a pig in a poke when it signed the Kyoto accord, it's nice to have it confirmed.

By Eddie Goldenberg, former prime minister Jean Chretien's top aide, no less.

Last week, Goldenberg told a London audience the Liberals knew they couldn't implement Kyoto when they signed it in 1998 and ratified in 2002, but that it was necessary to push public opinion towards accepting implementation of the controversial treaty on global warming.

"Nor was the government itself even ready at the time with what had to be done," Goldenberg acknowledged.

"I believe that the signing of the Kyoto accord in the face of vigorous opposition served to galvanize public opinion to bring it to where it is today in Canada. In the long run, that will be far more important than whether we can meet all the short-term deadlines in the accord."

Goldenberg argued Chretien succeeded in moving public opinion to the point where, today, Ottawa can take tough action to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Those measures, he warned, will result in "big costs in dollars for business, the consumer and for the taxpayer."

To be sure, leading public opinion is something we expect politicians to do.

But the problem for the Liberals is that they did nothing to implement Kyoto after signing it, with the result that they were 35% behind their own emission target when they lost power.

Combine Goldenberg's comments with Liberal leader Stephane Dion's remarks to the National Post last summer that a Liberal government with him as PM would not be able to meet its Kyoto targets -- or, as Dion put it: "In 2008, I will be part of Kyoto, but I will say to the world I don't think I will make it" -- and it shreds what's left of Liberal credibility on this issue.

Dion's later explanation was that he meant the Liberals couldn't implement Kyoto if they aren't returned to power before 2008.

In other words, if an election is held this year and they win, they could still do it. Right. And pigs can fly.

That is one hell of a green corner you've painted yourself into Stephane! Yep...green alright...greenhorn.

For all the reasons above I think we have hit Peak Snake Oil. In the coming months expect the facts to begin to emerge from the cloud of Smug that these leftards have been spewing.

Is the environment important? Of course!

Can we do without the religious fervor and rhetorical bullshit? Absolutely!

Let the real debate begin.

Syncro