[cdn-nucl-l] GLOBAL WARMING AND OTHER MYTHS

["Jerry Cuttler" <jerrycuttler@home.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "S. Fred Singer" <singer@sepp.org>
To: <TWTW@sepp.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 8:31 AM
Subject: TWTW Oct 6, 2001


NEW ON THE SEPP WEB:

Putting caps (limits) on the emission of carbon dioxide is a bad idea. CO2
is not a pollutant! Capping is equivalent to rationing, even if one allows
trading of emission permits. It will raise energy costs considerably. So
why not just impose a carbon tax? Because people will rebel, that's why.

see: http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/carbon_caps2.htm

The Week That Was October 6, 2001 brought to you by SEPP

GLOBAL WARMING AND OTHER MYTHS
Outline of an Invited Talk by S. Fred Singer to the 10th European Skeptics
Congress, Prague Sept 9, 2001

What are some of the common features of the Global Warming scare and other
widely spread popular beliefs, like astrology, UFOlogy, harmful effects
from low-level nuclear radiation and from electric transmission lines?

1. A tenuous scientific base. There certainly is an atmospheric greenhouse
effect but is it significant?

2. Selective use of empirical evidence by ignoring contrary data. Weather
satellites, balloon sondes, and a variety of proxy data show no current
warming.

3. Misinterpreting other evidence. Deep-ocean warming, shrinking of
glaciers and of Arctic ice-cover, sea-level rise are all evidence of past
not of current warming.

4. Adjusting theories to fit the preferred scenario. Bringing in adjustable
parameters like aerosols.

5. Manipulating the media. Manufacturing disaster scenarios

6. Quasi-religious fervor, faith-based acceptance of coming catastrophes.

In addition, Global Warming ("the mother of all environmental scares," acc.
to Prof. A. Wildavsky) has special unique features of an economic and
political nature: Money, careers, prestige, power, inter-nation rivalries,
and sovereignty issues.
****************


JACK KEMP HAS IT RIGHT
Letter to the Wash Times 8/8/01 by S. Fred Singer

Jack Kemp has it exactly right (Washington Times, Aug 8, 2001): "The
Achilles' heel of the Kyoto process has always been science, not politics,
and not economics." Economic arguments are fine but they make the White
House look uncaring about the environment.

That's why George Bush and the US delegation were maligned at the Bonn
climate conference, where enviros and media viewed the United States as the
world's major polluter but unwilling to sacrifice because of selfish
concerns about the US economy. We need to convince them that there is no
climate catastrophe and that Kyoto has no real scientific basis.

Of course, the Bonn politicians were playing to their Green constituencies,
without much concern about the drastic economic impacts of Kyoto. By
contrast, at the G-8 meeting in Genoa, President Bush did quite well with
the real leaders of the major industrial nations. These leaders now have
the unenviable task of getting the Kyoto accord ratified and of instituting
legislation to cut back fuel use - by taxes or by rationing - while
protecting their economies and their jobs.

The United States does have an image problem. We must, therefore, make it
clear that CO2 is not a pollutant; in any case, the Kyoto Protocol will
have only a minute impact on CO2 levels and on any future warming -- an
(unmeasurable) reduction of 0.02 degrees C by 2050. And the climate may not
even be warming - at least if we believe the credible evidence.

Jack Kemp's advice is: Show them the science. But the White House and the
rest of the Administration have to be briefed on the facts before they can
convince the Kyoto supporters.

*************

NO ATMOSPHERIC WARMING
Letter to Editor by S. Fred Singer, Wall Street Journal (published on Sept.
10, 2001)

Why the shocked surprise (WSJ Marketplace Aug 29) when Exxon-Mobil CEO Lee
Raymond questions the science behind global warming. Scientists themselves
admit that the evidence is ambiguous: Surface thermometers report a warming
trend but weather satellites, providing the only true global data, show no
atmospheric warming. These negative satellite results are confirmed by
balloon-borne radiosonde measurements and also by a variety of
non-instrumental (proxy) data from tree rings, ice cores, and ocean
sediments.

Mr. Raymond is on a sound basis as well when he questions the effectiveness
of the Kyoto Protocol. There is no dispute at all about the fact that even
if punctiliously observed, it would have an imperceptible effect on future
temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050.

There are additional facts that caused the Senate to reject, without a
single dissenting vote, a Kyoto-like accord in 1997 during the Clinton-Gore
administration: Kyoto is unfair to the United States because it does not
demand sacrifices from many giant nations like China, India, Brazil and
Mexico. And it would be extremely damaging, raising energy prices and costs
of living to US consumers. Estimates range up to $3000 to 4000 annually per
household. Perhaps this is why for three years Mr. Clinton never submitted
the Protocol to the Senate for ratification.

Nothing much has changed since 1997. As President Bush observed on
rejecting Kyoto, the Protocol is "fatally flawed."
*********************

Good news.
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Junk science usually involves the manipulation of statistics to promote
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Statistics aren't science and cannot alone prove the existence of risk

Epidemiology is statistics

Mice aren't little people

Exposure isn't toxicity

The dose makes the poison.