An Honest Climate Debate

New study affirms natural climate change January 25, 2011

New study affirms natural climate change

By Dennis Avery
CFP, January 25, 2011

CHURCHVILLE, VA—It’s nice when people validate your work. Fred Singer and I—co-authors of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years—are currently basking in the glow of a new paper that affirms the earth’s long, moderate, natural climate cycle. The study is by Dr. U.R. Rao, former chair of India’s Space Research Organization. He says solar variations and cosmic rays account for 40 percent of the world’s recent global warming.

Dr. Rao says the data between 1960 and 2005 show lots fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth, due to a periodic expansion of the sun’s magnetic field. The bigger solar magnetic field blocked many of the cosmic rays that would otherwise have hit earth. Fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth meant fewer water droplets shattering in our atmosphere, and thus fewer of the low, wet clouds that deflect solar heat back into space. So the earth warmed.

Fred and I tried to tell the world in 2007 that the moderate 1500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle was the cause of the warming since 1850, based on historic and paleoclimatic evidence. The cosmic ray linkage was put forth in 2008 by Henrik Svensmark of Denmark. The UN’s panel on climate change dismissed that whole approach, claiming the variations in the sun’s irradiance were far too small to account for the rapid warming from 1976–98.

The flaw in the UN reasoning is clear, however. The alarmists claim the global warming since 1976 has been too rapid to be caused by natural forces, and therefore must be man-made. However, the earth’s Industrial Revolution went global after 1945—releasing the first big flush of CO2 emissions. That burst of greenhouse gases should have sharply boosted the earth’s temperatures. Instead, the earth’s temperature declined from 1940–75.

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Global warming is dead, let’s move on January 22, 2011

Global warming is dead, let’s move on

The Australian, January 19, 2011

WE did it. For once, we acted collectively, as humans, huddled together on a fragile planet, rather than as selfish individuals. And we did it: we beat global warming.

So now let’s move on.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, 2010 was Australia’s coldest year since 2001. Since logic tells us the planet can’t be getting hotter and colder at the same time, we can confidently pronounce global warming dead, buried and comprehensively beaten.

This victory happened because individuals pulled together, within nations, and then the nations of the world themselves pulled together. Meetings were held in places such Kyoto. Rousing speeches were made by world leaders. People clapped and felt good about themselves. Documents were signed.

Clearly, with each meeting, each speech, each inked treaty, global warming was pushed back.

Here in Australia, we also did our bit, big time. We declared global warming the great moral challenge of our generation. We talked confidently about doing something or other. (OK, I can’t remember what it was, and we never actually did it, but then we talked about doing something different . . . though maybe not straight away.)

Anyway, it worked, because last year was the coldest year since 2001.

Tim Flannery, Al Gore and others published books and made films. Clearly they deserve a slice of this massive victory over global warming. To them we say: “Thank you, gentlemen, you may now return to private life.”

But now that we know what we can do by dint of collective effort, we should turn to new challenges.

For example, free trade between nations is demonstrably the greatest force there has ever been for the alleviation of poverty, and the equalisation of living standards between nations.

The development of genetically modified crops promises to turn back the tide of hunger and disease in poor countries.

Now that global warming is finished, due attention can be given to these issues.

But before all of that, I think we’ve earned a moment’s pause, just to give ourselves a pat on the back.

We did it. We acted together. We killed global warming.

And now we will never have to hear anything about it, ever again.

The Australian, January 19, 2011