Category: Environment

This just in from Environment Canada:

     OTTAWA, June 1 /CNW Telbec/ – Environment Canada today released the summer seasonal outlook for the months of June, July and August. The summer outlook predicts that much of Canada will be warmer than normal.
     Highlights from the Seasonal Temperature and Precipitation Outlook for June, July and August 2007:

     – At this time, ocean influences from EL NINO or LA NINA are weak meaning lower confidence in the summer outlook for both temperature and precipitation.

     – Temperatures are expected to be above average over most of Canada except for coastal regions of Atlantic Canada and British Columbia where the temperatures should be below normal.

     – Near normal temperatures are expected over Nunavut and parts of southern Ontario.

     – Precipitation is expected to be normal to below normal over much of Canada.

     The Seasonal Outlook at times can be beneficial to many users as it offers greater advance notice of possible conditions. Firefighters may consider seasonal forecasts to position staff in areas susceptible to forest fires; merchants to stock up on items such as snowblowers, shovels and generators; farmers to determine the best time to plant their seeds; and commodities markets to trade futures in weather-dependent industries.
     As the accuracy of long-range forecasts varies from region to region and from season to season, we suggest that you consult the skill maps that accompany the latest information on Environment Canada's seasonal outlooks.
     Because weather can vary from one year to the next due to natural variability, it is difficult to attribute these changes to a specific cause.

The Washington Post reports yesterday that:

U.S. Rejects G-8 Climate Proposal

Germany Urges Limiting Emissions, Temperature Increase

U.S. officials have raised a second round of unusually bluntly worded objections to a proposed global-warming declaration that Germany prepared for next month's Group of Eight summit, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Representatives from the world's leading industrial nations met the past two days in Heiligendamm, Germany, to negotiate over German Chancellor Angela Merkel's proposed statement, which calls for limiting the worldwide temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 …

The British government today announced some guidelines and recommendations it believes will help the UK government as it embarks on new regulatory regimes to address issues of climate change. The government was moved to do this in response to a report submitted to it by the Better Regulation Commission (BRC), a government commission.

Among other things, the BRC came up with seven “tests” it believes ought to be applied by policy makers when considering climate change regulation:

1. Ensure climate policy is consistent with a healthy UK economy

2. Government must develop and act consistently with a climate change strategy; avoiding piecemeal announcements

3. Test policy against a carbon price benchmark

4. Carbon policy choices must be efficient; don't do things twice

5. Keep administrative costs to a minimum

6. Do not use climate change as a justification for other policy
goals

7. If it isn't working, change it

The UK government agreed with these rules and added this comment:

The Government agrees with all of these tests and the response is positive on how, if it is not already happening, the government will take each test forward. However the government is only able to agree
in principle to test four ('Carbon Policy choices must be efficient; don't do things twice') because it may sometimes be necessary for several instruments to operate within one particular sector. However, they need to be proportionate, and inter-linkages should not over-burden any one sector. For example, there may be benefits in having energy efficiency policies in order to encourage a prompt response to carbon price signals, and so as to secure climate change and security of supply objectives together.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May just put out the following statement in response to reaction to her comments in which she compared the Harper government’s Green Plan to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of Nazi appeasement in the 1930s.

Statement by Elizabeth May, Leader, Green Party of Canada

“I am dismayed that members of the Harper government have chosen to distort my comments to create a firestorm of controversy designed to distract attention from their failure to live up to Canada's Kyoto commitments.

“I can assure the Canadian Jewish Congress and all Canadians that I did not compare Nazi Germany and the Holocaust to any current issue. The evil of the Nazi regime is without parallel and stands alone for its deliberate, systematic and inhuman genocide.

“George Monbiot, best-selling author of HEAT and respected journalist at The Guardian, echoed the views of many people around the world when he expressed his deep distress at Canada's abdication of responsibility in the current climate crisis. As a failure of leadership and moral courage, he compared it to the appeasement efforts of Neville Chamberlain.

“I made reference to Mr. Monbiot’s statement to highlight the damage being done to Canada’s international reputation, something that should concern all Canadians.

“I deeply regret that the inflamed rhetoric around this issue has caused pain or offence.”

Days ahead of a key report from the United Nations-convened Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon appointed three Special Envoys For Climate Change. The Special Envoys will be tasked with soliciting the views of national leaders on the issue.

The IPCC report out this Friday — the third this year from that group — will suggest ways the world’s governments can reduce or slow global warming and how much it is likely to cost.

The three Special Envoys are:

• Norwegian ex-Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland is the former Chair of the World Commission of Environment and Development, which is best known for developing the broad political concept of sustainable development and two decades ago published a landmark report, “Our Common Future.”
• President Ricardo Lagos Escobar of Chile founded the Foundation for Democracy and Development, which works for sustainable development. Since April 2006, he has been serving as president of the Club de Madrid where he led the organization to increase its involvement in environmental issues.
• Han Seung-soo, the former General Assembly President, currently heads the Korea Water Forum, which works towards sustainable water management in Asia. He served previously in numerous high-level government posts, including Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Minister of Trade and Industry, Chief of Staff to the President and Korean Ambassador to the United States.

Scientists are lobbying UK regulators to prevent the DVD distribution of a documentary that claims global warming is hoax. One of the scientists who is featured in the documentary now says the film is “as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War II.” Again: The guy who said that was actually in the movie.

Here’s your key grafs, from an article earlier this week in The Guardian in Britain:

Move to block emissions 'swindle' DVD

Dozens of climate scientists are trying to block the DVD release of a controversial Channel 4 programme that claimed global warming is nothing to do with human greenhouse gas emissions.
Sir John Houghton, former head of the Met Office, and Bob May, former president of the Royal Society, are among 37 experts who have called for the DVD to be heavily edited or removed from sale. The film, the Great Global Warming Swindle, was first shown on March 8, and was criticised by scientists as distorted and misleading.

In an open letter to Martin Durkin, head of Wag TV, the independent production company that made the film, the scientists say: “We believe that the misrepresentation of facts and views, both of which occur in your programme, are so serious that repeat broadcasts of the programme, without amendment, are not in the public interest … In fact, so serious and fundamental are the misrepresentations that the distribution of the DVD of the programme without their removal amounts to nothing more than an exercise in misleading the public.”
…

The programme featured scientists known as climate sceptics, such as Richard Lindzen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Phillip Stott, emeritus professor at the University of London. It argued that mainstream researchers ignore evidence that counters the consensus that most recent warming is down to human activity. It said there were problems with the computer models that predict future climate change and that solar activity, not greenhouse gas emissions, is to blame for recent warming. Wag TV called the programme a “definitive response to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth”. Scientists complained that the programme makers distorted evidence, and made elementary mistakes such as claiming that volcanoes produce more carbon dioxide than human activities, when in fact they produce less than 2% of that caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

… Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at MIT, and another signatory to the letter, was featured in the film and subsequently said his views had been misrepresented. He called the programme “as close to pure propaganda as anything since world war two” and has complained to Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, about his treatment.

 

I’m an Anglican but this Pope guy sounds like he’s got a plan …

The Vatican yesterday added its voice to a rising chorus of warnings from churches around the world that climate change and abuse of the environment is against God's will, and that the one billion-strong Catholic church must become far greener.

At a Vatican conference on climate change, Pope Benedict urged bishops, scientists and politicians – including UK environment secretary David Miliband – to “respect creation” while “focusing on the needs of sustainable development” … [the rest of the story]

This evening, on another network’s national newscast, the contents of a British documentary called “The Great Global Warming Swindle”  were reported. Many readers of this blog have brought this film to my attention and, as it has been widely available from time to time on YouTube and elsewhere on the Web, I often open my mail client in the morning to find the URL to this documentary in my inbox. Thank you to those of you who have sent this my way. I am always keen to get more information and more context on the climate change story.

But, as I have pointed out to many of you have corresponded with me over this,  “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, which aired in early March on Channel 4 in the UK, has proved to be a swindle itself: The producer of the documentary has admitted that he fabricated some of the data to make his point.

The following article appeared in the British newspaper The Independent on March 17. It was written by the paper's science editor, Steve Connor:

The real global warming swindle

A Channel 4 documentary claimed that climate change was a conspiratorial lie. But an analysis of the evidence it used shows the film was riddled with distortions and errors

A Channel 4 documentary that claimed global warming is a swindle was itself flawed with major errors which seriously undermine the programme's credibility, according to an investigation by The Independent.

The Great Global Warming Swindle, was based on graphs that were distorted, mislabelled or just plain wrong. The graphs were nevertheless used to attack the credibility and honesty of climate scientists . . .

Martin Durkin, who wrote and directed the film, admitted yesterday that one of the graphs contained serious errors but he said they were corrected in time for the second transmission of the programme following inquiries by The Independent.

Mr Durkin has already been criticised by one scientist who took part in the programme over alleged misrepresentation of his views on the climate . . .

Mr Durkin admitted that his graphics team had extended the time axis along the bottom of the graph to the year 2000. “There was a fluff there,” he said.

If Mr Durkin had gone directly to the Nasa website he could have got the most up-to-date data. This would have demonstrated that the amount of global warming since 1975, as monitored by terrestrial weather stations around the world, has been greater than that between 1900 and 1940 – although that would have undermined his argument.

“The original Nasa data was very wiggly-lined and we wanted the simplest line we could find,” Mr Durkin said. . . .

[Read the full story at: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece ]