Paul

Full Judge’s opinion here.

A landmark decision concerning car companies and global warming was handed down by a federal judge in California on Monday. Yet, most people are likely not going to hear about it, because the ruling goes counter to the media’s agenda.

As reported by the Associated Press : “District Judge Martin Jenkins in San Francisco handed California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s environmental crusade a stinging rebuke when he ruled that it [sic] impossible to determine to what extent automakers are responsible for global-warming damages in California.”

How delicious. But, there was much more about this decision the press will likely keep from people outside of California:

“The court is left without guidance in determining what is an unreasonable contribution to the sum of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, or in determining who should bear the costs associated with global climate change that admittedly result from multiple sources around the globe,” Jenkins write.

The judge also ruled that keeping the lawsuit alive would threaten the country’s foreign policy position.

[…]

“President George W. Bush opposes the protocol because it exempts developing nations who are major emitters, fails to address two major pollutants, and would have a negative economic impact on the United States,” Jenkins wrote in his 24-page decision. To rule in favor of California would undermine the administration’s position, Jenkins said.

Jenkins said it’s up to lawmakers, rather than judges, to determine how responsible automakers are for global warming problems.

Jenkins ruled that a court “injecting itself into the global warming thicket at this juncture would require an initial policy determination of the type reserved for the political branches of government.”

Full blog by Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters is here.

Another article via Marc Morano:

Cherry-picking

“Need more proof that the Big Green Scare Machine is spoon-feeding you
cherry-picked non-science” to further their global warming alarmist
agenda? “Try this,” Marc Sheppard writes at americanthinker.com.

“While news of Arctic ice shrinking to its lowest level on record is
being screamed everywhere … the emergence of colder weather and ice
levels at their highest in almost 30 years on the other side of the
globe has been all but ignored,” Mr. Sheppard said.

“In coming months, you’re sure to hear a lot about how global warming
has created that which has eluded explorers from John Cabot in 1497 to
Henry Hudson in 1609: the fabled Arctic Ocean shipping lane known as
the Northwest Passage.

“And, while it’s true that satellite photos have found an ice-free
corridor along Canada, Alaska and Greenland and Northern Hemisphere
ice at its lowest level since such images were taken in 1978, it’s
also true that Antarctic ice levels (Southern Hemisphere) are at
record highs for that same period.

“That’s right, according to the University of Illinois Polar Research
Group Web site The Cryosphere Today: ‘The Southern Hemisphere sea ice
area has broken the previous maximum of 16.03 million sq. km and is
currently at 16.26 million sq. km. This represents an increase of
about 1.4 percent above the previous SH ice area record high.’

Thanks to Marc Morano for sending me the National Geographic article ‘Mars, Like Earth, Has Cyclical Ice Ages, Study Says’ relating to a new nature paper entitled ‘Dynamics of ice ages on Mars.’

Mars has gone through 40 ice ages during the past five million years that regularly send the planet’s permanent ice sheets cascading toward the equator, then melting backward, a new theory suggests.

The climate changes are likely driven by cyclical fluctuations in the planet’s orbit that alter the amount of sunlight that falls on the planet’s surface, says astronomer Norbert Schörghofer of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Understanding the sun’s exact role in the Martian ice ages could help solve longstanding puzzles about the red planet.

It could also help scientists better understand Earth’s complex climatic systems, which are also affected by orbital variations.

A new paper was published in Nature on 13th September, with Jan Veizer as a co-author, entitled ‘Coupling of surface temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the Palaeozoic era.’

The abstract says:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations seem to have been several times modern levels during much of the Palaeozoic era (543–248 million years ago), but decreased during the Carboniferous period to concentrations similar to that of today. Given that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, it has been proposed that surface temperatures were significantly higher during the earlier portions of the Palaeozoic era. A reconstruction of tropical sea surface temperatures based on the 18O of carbonate fossils indicates, however, that the magnitude of temperature variability throughout this period was small4, suggesting that global climate may be independent of variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Here we present estimates of sea surface temperatures that were obtained from fossil brachiopod and mollusc shells using the ‘carbonate clumped isotope’ method—an approach that, unlike the 18O method, does not require independent estimates of the isotopic composition of the Palaeozoic ocean. Our results indicate that tropical sea surface temperatures were significantly higher than today during the Early Silurian period (443–423 Myr ago), when carbon dioxide concentrations are thought to have been relatively high, and were broadly similar to today during the Late Carboniferous period (314–300 Myr ago), when carbon dioxide concentrations are thought to have been similar to the present-day value. Our results are consistent with the proposal that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations drive or amplify increased global temperatures.

Steve Milloy of junkscience.com has spoken to Veizer:

A new study published in the journal Nature (Sep. 13) crafted to support the notion that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide drive increases in global temperature actually, if read carefully, casts further doubt on that idea.

The story begins in 2000 when the University of Ottawa’s Jan Veizer and others published a study in Nature reporting that their reconstruction (via fossil shells) of tropical sea surface temperatures for that last 550 million years only made sense if carbon dioxide were not the principle driver of climate variability on a geological timescale.

Veizer, along with Nir Shaviv of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, followed up the 2000 paper with a July 2003 study in GSA Today (a journal published by the Geological Society of America). That report said at least 66 percent and perhaps as much as 75 percent of the variance in the Earth’s temperature over the past 500 million years may be due to cosmic ray flux.

Obviously, none of this was good for ever-fragile climate hysteria and the alarmists struck back with the new Nature study, which, surprisingly, includes Veizer as a co-author.

The new study that uses a different method to reconstruct sea surface temperatures from fossil shells claims to report results that “are consistent with the proposal that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations drive or amplify increased global temperatures.”

So has Veizer participated in the debunking of his own work as the new study seems to imply? Hardly.

First, Veizer reluctantly told me the “text” of the Nature study, that is, the above-quoted conclusion, represented a “compromise” between the study’s disagreeing authors where Veizer’s side apparently did all the compromising for reasons that had little to do with the science.

While Veizer didn’t want to elaborate on the politics of the Nature study, he told me “not to take the tone of the paper as the definitive last word.”

Veizer went on to say that the new Nature study has not refuted his original study. The new study, in fact, appears to have confirmed the original study with respect to its most important point that the historical sea surface temperature data indicate atmospheric carbon dioxide does not drive global temperature.

Even if the new study proves to be valid, Veizer says, at most it reduces the statistical variation in sea surface temperature estimated by the original study. This correction, however, has little bearing on the nature of the carbon dioxide-temperature relationship.

Veizer says the basic pattern of reconstructed sea surface temperatures in both his original study and the new study remain inconsistent with notion that atmospheric carbon dioxide drives global temperatures.

If it turns out that the new study reconstructs historical sea surface temperatures more accurately than his original study, Veizer added, it would only represent an increase in the impact of cosmic rays on the climate that was reported in the 2003 GSA Today paper.

There’s another point worth spotlighting in all this. It seems that the politics of global warming including the multibillion-dollar-funding of global warming research resulted in the publication in a prestigious science journal of a “compromise” conclusion that is not supported by the study’s own data.

Yes, I’ve returned from Spain where 2007 was Madrid’s coolest summer since 1997, ranking 37th in the hottest summers since records began 115 years ago, despite predictions that 2007 would be one of the hottest ever. No jelly fish invasion on the Costa Del Sol, and electricity consumption due to air conditioning was down on previous years.

I also discovered a new sceptic called Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country. He says climate is always changing and there is no evidence to support the global warming thesis: “It’s just a political thing, and the lies about global warming are contributing to the proliferation of nuclear energy.” He also claims CO2 emission are good, “Far from provoking the so-called greenhouse effect, they stabilise the climate.”

However, a ‘Junta de Andalucia’ study predicts a 3C rise in temperatures in Malaga by 2100, minimum temperature increases will lead to the loss of certain species, and there could be up to 17 per cent less rainfall.

Check back in 2100 to verify these predictions, given that they didn’t get 2007 right!

The Junta also produced a 10 point ‘climate action plan,’ which includes ‘Urban Planning’ where growth is compact rather than spread out, ‘Green Zones,’ ensuring native trees are used to reduce irrigation and increase CO2 absorption, ‘Mobility and Transport,’ promoting short distance maritime transport, HOV lanes for cars, encouraging bio-fuels and more efficient motoring, ‘Renewable Energies,’ such as the installation of solar energy units in urban areas.

Meanwhile, work has started at Malaga Airport on a second ‘jumbo jet’ friendly runway and terminal building, without delay or ‘climate camp,’ to be completed by the end of 2009. Malaga will then deal with 20 million passengers per year, compared to the current 13 million. Just like elsewhere, Spain majors in climate rhetoric, and minors in action due to economic reality.