Climate & Climate Change

Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, explains that more polar bears can be saved and deaths reduced from malaria through targeted direct interventions rather than initiatives under the Kyoto Protocol.

Largely accepting the IPCC scenarios and costing, the Professor claims:

1. Kyoto would save one polar bear a year. Outlawing the hunting of polar bears could save up to 500 polar bears a year.

2. Kyoto would reduce the risk of malaria by 0.2 percent. Through an investment in mosquito nets and medication the incidence of malaria could be reduced by almost 50 percent within a decade.

Interesting Lomborg also estimates that by 2050 global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But 1,800,000 million fewer people will die from cold.

Read the complete article entitled ‘Chill Out: Stop fighting over global warming here’s the smart way to attack it’ published in the Washington Post on October 7, 2007 here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100501676.html

And what about someone volunteering to review Bjorn Lomborg’s book ‘Cool it’?
http://www.amazon.com/Cool-Skeptical-Environmentalists-Global-Warming/dp/0307266923

The ABC host introduced his regular “Give Me a Break” segment: “You’ve heard the reports. The globe is warming. And it’s our fault. And the consequences will be terrible. But you should know there is another side to this story. And scientists who’ve tried to tell it are often threatened. Which makes me say, ‘Give Me a Break.'”

Read the rest of the NewsBusters report:

ABC’s Stossel Takes on Gore Movie, Talks to Dissenting Scientists

Seems a bit like a mini version of TGGWS.

Thanks to Marc Morano for sending the link.

All advertising for new cars will have to carry cigarette-style “health warnings” about their environmental impact, under a European plan to force manufacturers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Companies that produce the most polluting cars will also have to pay penalties of up to £5,000 per vehicle, with the proceeds used to reduce the cost of the most efficient cars.Advertisements in newspapers and magazines, will have to devote at least 20 per cent of the space to details about fuel economy and CO2 emissions. At the moment manufacturers have to include only basic mpg and CO2 figures in the small print. They do not have to explain what the numbers mean or provide any comparison.

Read the rest of The Times article ‘Carbon health warnings for all new cars.’

Thanks to Marc Morano for alerting me to this article.

In the great, never-cooling debate over the causes and consequences of global warming, it’s always clear whose side Fred Singer is on: not Al Gore’s. Singer, who was born in Vienna in 1924, was a pioneer in the development of rocket and satellite technology and holds a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton.

Now president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project research group (sepp.org), his latest book (with Dennis Avery) is “Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years.” I talked with Singer — who will debate global warming issues with climate scientist Charles Keller Thursday at a sold-out event at Duquesne University — by phone from his offices in Arlington, Va.:

Read the rest of the article ‘Unstoppable skeptic.’

Thanks to Marc Morano for alerting me to this article.

MONDAY’S tax cut announcement by the Coalition means the election campaign is off to a good start. Economic policy has been moved to the top of the political agenda, as it should be.

At the end of the first Kyoto commitment period in 2012, New Zealanders will owe about NZ$4.2 billion – or about NZ$1000 per person. So, in a nutshell, the main effect of Kyoto will be for New Zealand taxpayers to subsidise bad economic policies by politicians in the former Soviet Union. Does Kevin Rudd have similar plans for Australia? History suggests Labor has a strong record of reducing greenhouse emissions. The only prime minister who has managed to do it was Paul Keating in the early 1990s, when he engineered “the recession we had to have” and our emissions levels plummeted. Perhaps this is exactly what Rudd has in mind.

Read the entire article entitled ‘Committing to Kyoto would come at cost’

A Russian scientist claims global warming can be just a temporary inconvenience, since climatic changes show their natural fluctuating patterns and depend on our Sun’s activity level. A Research fellow of the Arctic and Antarctic research and science centre suggests the phenomenon, widely known as global warming, is not more than a natural variation.

The rest of the translated article is here.

The original Russian article is here.

Anyone who speaks Russian should be able to find out his name.

Thanks to Marc Morano for the links.