Global Warming or Global Cooling? What is Coming?

I find it strange that liberal environmentalists, who believe human beings need to conform to nature and natural processes, say that we need to interrupt global warming to avoid mass dislocation and disaster. That seems contradictory, but they make the argument on the basis of their belief that we humans have interfered with nature and need to undo our misdeeds.

The evidence says otherwise.

Is this real or an elaborate hoax? Breaking News Story: Hadley CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released

The details on this are still sketchy, we’ll probably never know what went on. But it appears that Hadley Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown

I’m currently traveling and writing this from an aiprort, but here is what I know so far: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Joe Bastardi RE: Katrina Army Corps Ruling

AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] asked me to post his thoughts on the recent court ruling faulting the Army Corps of Engineers for the flooding at New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Because all of Joe's blogs are on our subscription Pro site he was unable to post this publicly without doing it here. I haven't researched this topic enough to have an opinion myself, though if you post a (rational) Comment I will forward all Comments to Joe, and, should he respond, I will post responses here.

DISCLAIMER: (Just like when I rant...) These are the opinions of Joe Bastardi and may not reflect those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com.

GOVERNMENT TO BLAME FOR KATRINA FLOODING? HOW ABOUT BUILDING MUCH OF CITY NEAR OR BELOW SEA LEVEL SURROUNDED BY 86-DEGREE WATER?

The ruling that shoddy management by the Army Corp of engineers of a navigation channel seems to me to be a classic case of simply trying to find one cause for something that has multiple causes.

Here, look at this article.

Now let me, since it was on national TV on Friday p.m. before Katrina that I told people to get out of New Orleans, weigh in on this.

1) Katrina was not because of global warming. If you want to play that card, then explain why it weakened from a 5 to a 3 before landfall, something that may have happened multiple times in seasons like 1915-1916 as we didn't have constant recon then. So no global warming finger.

2) The city is lucky to be alive in the first place. Someone has got to say it, and out of respect for what happened there, I have kept my mouth shut except in talks I give, but face it, you build a city near or under sea level, and surround it with water that can support Category 3, 4 or 5 hurricanes, what do you expect to happen? The dirty little secret that no one wants to address but I will, is New Orleans was lucky. The attack by Katrina was not a full frontal assault, but a pincer movement that spared the city the prime devastation. Push water back west to the north of the city, then have the northwest wind blast it back in. However, if you get the track of the 1947 hurricane and it's as strong as Katrina, then the city would be devastated probably beyond repair. I don't know if people understand that. The track from the east-southeast hitting NORTH of the mouth of the Mississippi and moving right over the town would push the 20- to 30-foot surge, not 9-12 feet like Katrina, back through lakes Bourne and Pontchartrain with the full fury of the storm passing directly over the city.

... (AccuWeather)

High Capital Costs Plague Solar (RPS mandates, cost dilution via energy mixing required) Part III

Solar power has one major advantage over its more ubiquitous cousin wind power: electricity that is  generated during peak demand hours (hot, sunny, air conditioned afternoons). Such makes solar attractive to utilities that value such capacity for peak shaving, cost aside.

The problem of wind is shown by this example. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) leads the nation with more than 8,000 MW of installed wind capacity, yet their resource planning–tasked with keeping the lights on–“counts 8.7 percent of wind nameplate capacity as dependable capacity at peak.”

The limited usefulness of wind and solar is reflected by their low system capacity factors. For example, the capacity factor of a typical utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) or concentrating solar project (CSP) is still limited to about 25% compared to the average for U.S. nuclear power plants of 91.5% in 2008, with many nuclear plants operating at or above 100%.

Also, given the lower capacity factors, the amortized cost of transmission per unit of energy carried is almost four times as high given the wide difference in capacity factors. We explored this systematic problem earlier.

The physics of solar energy production, without subsidy, will continue to conspire to keep the first cost and operating costs of the solar option higher than conventional approaches to producing electricity, especially when the cost of transmission is included in the equation. The capital cost of all the solar technologies are about $6,000/kW and higher (sharp-eyed readers will note that I’ve increased this number from the $5,000/kW estimate provided in earlier posts—the reason is discussed shortly) and projects are moving forward only in particular regions within the U.S. with tough RPS requirements and large subsidies from states and the federal government.

In Part I, we reviewed the enormous scale and capital cost considerations of PV projects and then introduced the standard taxonomy of central solar power generating plants. By far the favored technology for utility-scale projects is the CSP option that either produces thermal energy used to produce electricity in the familiar steam turbine process or by concentrating the sun’s thermal energy on an air heat exchanger to produce electricity via an air turbine. In Part II, we reviewed a sampling of recent solar projects.

This final post explores the latest cost solar project cost data and then rising interest in hybrid projects that combines these two solar energy conversion technologies with conventional fossil-fueled technologies. Hybrid projects offer the opportunity for utilities to reduce fuel costs, while simultaneously helping utilities cope with onerous renewable portfolio mandates.

Creative Electricity Accounting

Renewable energy does generate a larger portion of the world’s electricity each year but the reported numbers are misleading. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA, a trade organization that promotes solar energy technologies) recently released its 2008 Year in Review report wherein the organization estimated the solar industry growth over the past year. According to SEIA’s number, the total capacity of the solar industry grew by 1,265 MW in 2008, up from 1,159 MW installed in 2007, a modest increase. However, since my first post in early October where I first referenced this report, a closer look at the numbers reveal much creative accounting in SEIA’s numbers. Their mistake, and it’s a doozie, is they sum the electrical production of a photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) systems that produce electricity with the thermal energy production of solar water heating. No can do. [Read more →] (Robert Peltier, MasterResource)

Shocking! $124 Billion For Electric Car Subsidies

Ed. Note: This article first appeared on Geoffrey Styles' blog, Energy Outlook.

Electrification Roadmap cover from the Electrification Coalition

Perhaps it's merely a sign of the times, when a billion is the new million and firms in many industries have found it easier to get capital from the government than from bankers, bondholders and shareholders, but the price tag implicit in the recommendations of a new cross-industry group formed to promote electric vehicles is startling even in this context. Although I couldn't find the total anywhere in the lengthy report from the Electrification Coalition, the Washington Post tallied the combined cost of their proposals at $124 billion in new government incentives, over and above the billions already being spent under the stimulus bill and other programs to support the R&D, manufacturing, and infrastructure for plug-in electric cars, and to subsidize consumer purchases of them. The frustrating part of this is that I'm in general agreement that electric vehicles probably represent the long-term future of cars. However, I don't believe anyone can know this with sufficient certainty, any more than they knew a few years ago that fuel cell cars were the answer, or in the late 1990s that diesel hybrids were the answer. The report also raises basic questions about how new industries should be built, and at whose expense. (Energy Tribune)

Feature: On stupid ideas to "cool the planet"

Video: The Goracle on geothermal temperatures

The world polar bear population is at a modern high and growing.

Mitch Taylor, a Canadian polar bear biologist, puts the population currently at around 24,000, up 40% since 1974. Taylor says that, contrary to environmentalist hype, climate change, particularly in the Arctic, is not pushing them to the brink of extinction.

Other countries recognize the economic importance of domestic energy resources. We are in fact the only industrial country to put our reserves off-limits. We need to change that before our economic and energy position becomes truly unbearable.

Levis. Original jeans. Original hypocrisy.

Levi Strauss & Co. is so worried about CO2 emissions that it quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protest over the Chamber’s opposition to climate legislation.

But if Levi Strauss were really concerned about CO2 levels, it would also go out of business.

According to the company’s own analysis, a typical pair of the company’s jeans is responsible for about:

• 70 pounds of CO2 emissions;
• 750 gallons of water use; and
• 111 kilowatt-hours of electricity use.

About 450 million pairs of jeans are sold in the U.S. annually. Of this amount, about one-third are sold by Levi Strauss.

Simple math indicates, therefore, that Levi Strauss annual sales of jeans are responsible for about:

• 7.5 million tons CO2 emissions — equal to the annual emissions of 625,000 SUVs;
• 112 billion gallons of water use — about the annual water use of 879,000 homes; and
• 1.67 gigawatt-hours of electricity use — about the annual use of 150,000 average homes.

To help Levi Strauss save the planet, then, the answer is clear: we should go naked and it should go broke. (Green Hell)

White House encouraged by climate bill status

WASHINGTON, Oct 22 - The White House is encouraged by progress on a climate change bill in the Senate and is working to advance it even if a December deadline passes, an aide to President Barack Obama said on Thursday.

Carol Browner, Obama's top adviser on climate and energy issues, told Reuters that White House officials were reaching out to Democratic and Republican senators in an aggressive push to move the bill forward.

"There have been some bipartisan conversations that we find very encouraging," Browner said in an interview. "We are going to continue to do everything in our power to keep this moving."

If a law is not passed by the time U.N. talks on a global warming pact begin in December in Copenhagen, the United States would still have a strong position on the issue in the negotiations, she said.

"Wherever we are in the process, we will be able to manage in Copenhagen."

Browner, who has expressed doubts that a bill would become law by December, said U.S. negotiators would stress Obama's domestic initiatives on climate change and renewable energy since coming into office. (Reuters)

"We'll have been in office by the time we get there, what, 10 months? And yet if you look at what we've accomplished, its quite significant," she said.

Okay... what would that be? The economy is in the toilet, the greenback is under threat as the global reserve currency, unemployment is sky high but pales into insignificance compared with the deficit -- how am I doing so far?

Climate bill crunch time

A climate change bill will get top billing Friday with a critical meeting among Democratic leaders to set a timeline for debate, a major speech by President Barack Obama and release of a crucial impact study by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, the lead sponsor of a Senate climate bill, plans to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday to set a timeline for committees to finish work on the legislation – possibly as soon as Thanksgiving. And Environment and Public Works Chairwomen Sen. Barbara Boxer said she plans to release new sections of the climate bill that she co-authored with Kerry on Friday. The release of her bill comes as the EPA is set to release a study of the economic impact of the Senate version of the global warming legislation. (Politico)

U.S. public support for AGW orthodoxy dropped by 14 percentage points since 2008

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has published their newest numbers documenting the changing opinions about global warming in the U.S.

Pew, The Guardian, Associated Press, a WSJ blog I, II, Wash. Indep., Dakota Voice

The October 2009 numbers are mainly compared with the results in April 2008: I will refer to 2008 and 2009.



The American worries about global warming cooled down, Pew Research Center showed, even as Pew Center on Global Climate Change attempted to gather its last worriers again.

Is there solid evidence that the Earth is warming [at all]?

In 2008, "Yes" was chosen by 71% of the respondents. Now it is 57% only: a drop by 14 percentage points. You may want to know that both in 2006 and 2007, the figure was at 77% - a drop by 20 percentage points in 2 or 3 years.

Is there solid evidence that the Earth is warming because of human activity?

In 2008, the "Yes" score was at 47%, i.e. almost one half agreed with the basic AGW statement. In 2009, the number dropped to 36%, i.e. by 11 percentage points. About one third of Americans believe in man-made global warming today - which makes this religion less popular than creationism. ;-)

If we extrapolate this trend, the number of AGW believers in the U.S. will become negative in five years. ;-)

Is it serious?

The "very serious" group went from 44% to 35% between 2008 and 2009, "not too serious" went from 13% to 15%, "not a problem" went from 11% to 17%, the last two "largely unworried" groups combined went from 24% to 32%.

GOP, DEM, IND: party lines

» Don't Stop Reading » (The Reference Frame)

Global Warming Isn’t The Worst Issue Facing Africa

Life in Africa is often nasty, impoverished and short reports Fiona Kobusingye. “AIDS kills 2.2 million Africans every year according to WHO (World Health Organization) reports. Lung infections cause 1.4 million deaths, malaria 1 million more, intestinal diseases 700,000. Diseases that could be prevented with simple vaccines kill an additional 600,000 annually, while war, malnutrition and life in filthy slums send countless more parents and children to early graves.” (1)

She adds, “Yet Africans are told the biggest threat they face is global warming. Conferences, news stories, television programs, class lectures and one-sided ‘dialogues’ repeat the claim endlessly. They are told using oil and petrol, even burning wood and charcoal, will dangerously overheat our planet, melt ice caps, flood coastal cities, and cause storms, drought, disease and extinctions.” Africans are told climate change threatens humanity more than all the diseases listed above.

Will Alexander of the University of Pretoria, South Africa, points out that since the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 not a single person in South Africa has died as a result of provable climate change. But thousands have died from poverty-related starvation, malnutrition and disease. He says, “How dare those who call themselves scientists deliberately suppress this information? How dare they ignore the suffering of all these people? How dare they steadfastly refuse to participate in multidisciplinary studies where their alarmist theories can be demonstrated to be without foundation?” (2) (Jack Dini, Hawaii Reporter)

Smoke And Mirrors

It's official. Rich countries continue to pollute more than ever, and this is evident from the greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) figures released by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Developed countries emitted 12.8 per cent more GHGe in 2007 than in 1990, the base year for calculating emissions according to the Kyoto Protocol, despite many of them agreeing to cut back emissions under the protocol's mandate. The US's CO2 emissions have increased by 20 per cent in 17 years. Yet India, with its track record of comparatively less pollution, is a target for rich countries. It is accused of aggravating climate change as an emerging economy. (Times of India)

'Climate change fight shouldn't hit development' - Focus of India’s efforts will be targeted towards achieving time-bound outcomes related to energy efficiency.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today asserted that developing countries “cannot, and will not” compromise on development in the context of climate change.

“The challenge before the developing world is how to achieve our developmental goals while at the same time minimising ecological costs. Our per capita consumption of primary energy is less than one-fourth of the world average and our per capita emission of CO2 is among the lowest in the world. Moreover, the energy intensity of our output has been continuously declining in the last 30 years,” said Singh while addressing the New Delhi High Level Conference on Climate Change here today.

In the run-up to the Copehnagen summit, India also asked rich nations to make “serious” efforts to bring down their greenhouse gas emissions to tolerable levels. The climate change summit in Copenhagen in December is expected to deliberate and finalise a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to tackle global warming.

“I have stated earlier that we stand committed to ensure that our per capita carbon emissions will never exceed the average of the per capita carbon emissions of developed countries. Equating GHG emissions across nations on a per capita basis is the only just and fair basis for a long-term global arrangement on climate change which is truly equitable,” he reiterated. (Business Standard)

And just in case anyone didn't get it: Indian emission will meet economic aspirations, says PM

In the face of growing global pressure on limiting carbon dioxide emission, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Thursday said that Indian emission will continue to rise to meet national economic aspirations. (Deccan Herald)

A little known 20 year old climate change prediction by Dr. James Hansen – that failed badly

The news today from the Pew Institute tells us that many Americans are backing away from the predictions of catastrophic climate change. This may be because many predictions simply haven’t come true.

Most, if not all, WUWT readers know Dr. James Hansen of GISS. He’s credited with jump starting the debate in 1988 with his now famous “sweaty” testimony before Congress in June 1988. See more about the stagecraft of that event here.

Readers might be tempted to think that I’m going to point out the discrepancies between the three different model scenarios that Dr. Hansen presented to Congress in 1988, as shown below. But these model projections are very well known. I’m talking about something else entirely.

Hansen's 3 model scenarios compared to temperature records from RSS (satellite) and GISS (surface). Graphic: Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit

In Dr. Hansen’s case, he’s been living the life of a scientist in the media spotlight since, giving thousands of interviews. He’s also taken on the role of activist during that time, getting himself arrested this year for obstructing a public highway.

He likely doesn’t remember this one interview he gave to a book author approximately 20 years ago, but fortunately that author recounted the interview on Salon.com. What is most interesting about this particular Hansen interview is that he dispenses with the usual models and graphs, and makes predictions about what will happen in 20 years to New York City, right in his own neighborhood. Sea level figures prominently.

Here’s the interview. (WUWT)

Advanced Biofuels Will Stoke Global Warming: Study

LONDON/WASHINGTON - A new generation of biofuels, meant to be a low-carbon alternative, will on average emit more carbon dioxide than burning gasoline over the next few decades, a study published in Science found on Thursday.

Governments and companies are pouring billions of research dollars into advanced fuels made from wood and grass, meant to cut carbon emissions compared with gasoline, and not compete with food as corn-based biofuels do now.

But such advanced, "cellulosic" biofuels will actually lead to higher carbon emissions than gasoline per unit of energy, averaged over the 2000-2030 time period, the study found. (Reuters)

Carbon advantage of biofuels may be overstated

The world's policymakers and scientists have made a critical error in how they count biofuels' contribution to human-generated greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Science.

Although the article addresses a wonkish subject -- how to measure the environmental impact of energy sources such as ethanol and wood chips, which absorb carbon as they grow but release it back into the atmosphere when they're burned -- it has broad implications. The method undercounts the global-warming contribution of some bioenergy crops, the team of 13 researchers wrote, because it doesn't factor in what sort of land-use changes might occur to produce them.

"We made an honest mistake within the scientific framing of the debate, and we've got to correct it to make it right," said Steven P. Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund and one of the paper's authors.

When calculating the greenhouse-gas emissions limit, government officials in the United States, Europe and elsewhere do not count the carbon that biofuels release when they are burned. But carbon is released when a producer clears and burns trees, even to grow a crop destined for the biofuels market. Officials also established a legal system that limits emissions from energy use but not from land-use activities such as clearing forests.

In recent months, researchers have begun to worry that bioenergy crops could replace the world's forests and savannahs on a huge scale unless climate policies start to take full account of how these crops' production affects greenhouse-gas concentrations. None of the major climate regimes -- including the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union's carbon market and the House-passed climate bill -- account for the carbon released by changing land use for biofuels. (Juliet Eilperin, Washington)

Study: Accounting error undermines climate change laws

An important but fixable error in legal accounting rules used to measure compliance with carbon limits for bioenergy could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging deforestation, according to a new study by 13 prominent scientists and land use experts published in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Science.

The error affects the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union's Emissions Trading System, and is written into a U.S. climate change bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June. (Princeton)

They’d Shoot Trees, Wouldn’t They? Climate Laws Encourage Deforestation, Scientists Say

The law of unintended consequences strikes yet again.

Global plans to tackle climate change, from the Kyoto Protocol to the recently-passed Waxman-Markey bill, have a fatal flaw: They essentially encourage large-scale deforestation, which pretty much undermines the whole idea of curbing greenhouse-gas emissions in the first place.

That’s the argument from a new paper published in Science today, written by Princeton University’s Tim Searchinger and others. The upshot? Clearing out forests to use the wood for bioenergy clearly has an environmental cost, but that’s simply not accounted for in any of the prevailing climate-change programs. Kyoto, the European cap-and-trade plan, and the House climate bill all treat bioenergy as carbon-neutral; nobody counts the effect of disappearing forests. (WSJ)

Poll: Americans more skeptical of anthropogenic global warming

Oh my... Hurricane Katrina Victims Have Standing To Sue Over Global Warming

For years, leading plaintiffs’ lawyers have promised a legal assault on industrial America for contributing to global warming.

So far, the trial bar has had limited success. The hurdles to such suits are pretty obvious: How do you apportion fault and link particular plaintiffs’ injuries to the pollution emitted by a particular group of defendants?

Today, though, plaintiffs’ lawyers may be a gloating a bit, after a favorable ruling Friday from the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which is regarded as one of the more conservative circuit courts in the country. Here’s a link to the ruling.

The suit was brought by landowners in Mississippi, who claim that oil and coal companies emitted greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming that, in turn, caused a rise in sea levels, adding to Hurricane Katrina’s ferocity. (See photo of Bay St. Louis, Miss., after the storm.)

For a nice overview of the ruling, and its significance in the climate change battle, check out this blog post by J. Russell Jackson, a Skadden Arps partner who specializes in mass tort litigation. The post likens the Katrina plaintiffs’ claims, which set out a chain of causation, to the litigation equivalent of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”

The central question before the Fifth Circuit was whether the plaintiffs had standing, or whether they could demonstrate that their injuries were “fairly traceable” to the defendant’s actions. The defendants predictably assert that the link is “too attenuated.”

But the Fifth Circuit held that at this preliminary stage in the litigation, the plaintiffs had sufficiently detailed their claims to earn a day in court.

In so holding, the court notably quoted a recent Supreme Court opinion that “accepted as plausible the link between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and global warming” along with the fact that “rising ocean temperatures may contribute to the ferocity of hurricanes.” (WSJ)

Never mind that there is some indication warming reduces tropical storms due to increasing wind shear, let's just look at the carbon cycle for a moment:

According to the IPCC, the "natural" carbon cycle is 210 PgC/yr (Petagrams, or billions of metric tons) each year. To this human activity adds a net 3.3 PgC/yr.

3.3 / 210 * 100 = 1.57%. So, all human activity could be claimed 1.57% "culpable" provided there is really a direct relationship between storms and carbon emissions, right? So, regardless of the impossibility of determining whose carbon dioxide molecules might have been involved, how do we calculate that? Assume Katrina had wind speeds of 150mph (don't argue about whether there were any such sustained speeds after landfall, just go with it) -- 150 * 1.57% = 2.36mph, so human activity was responsible for a gentle zephyr and nature responsible for the rest? If nature was responsible for 147.64mph winds what difference an anthropogenic 2.36mph, even if real?

Lawyers' Next Victim

Which industry will the trial lawyers go after next? A suit filed by Mississippi property owners who had losses from Hurricane Katrina might provide a glimpse of the mischief to come.

In less than a month, two federal appeals courts have reversed trial court decisions to throw out global warming lawsuits.

Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that a class-action suit against energy companies can proceed. In Comer v. Murphy Oil USA, the plaintiffs are alleging that 30 oil, electric and coal companies are liable because they have made products that contributed to the global warming that intensified the effects of Katrina. The plaintiffs are Mississippians whose property was damaged in the 2005 storm.

On Sept. 21, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City reinstated Connecticut v. AEP. In this suit, eight states, the city of New York and three land trusts are seeking an injunction that would order six power companies to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

Both cases are alarming. Courts shouldn't let plaintiffs sue over global warming when it's nothing more than speculation. But the Comer case is cause for greater concern. (IBD)

 

Hurricane Katrina Victims Have Standing To Sue Over Global Warming

I say BRING IT ON. Finally we’ll get to put this absurdity about the connection between global warming and hurricanes to rest, because, it doesn’t exist. I hope the defense will bring in the findings of Ryan Maue at FSU COAPS as shown below.

12-month running sums of Accumulated Cyclone Energy for the entire globe. 1979-current

From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog

For years, leading plaintiffs’ lawyers have promised a legal assault on industrial America for contributing to global warming.

So far, the trial bar has had limited success. The hurdles to such suits are pretty obvious: How do you apportion fault and link particular plaintiffs’ injuries to the pollution emitted by a particular group of defendants? Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Next Move: Suing the Sun for Unseasonably Cool Weather

The New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit, the federal court of appeals where I once clerked, has allowed a class action lawsuit by Hurricane Katrina victims to proceed against a motley crew of energy, oil, and chemical companies.  Their claim: that the defendants’ greenhouse gas emissions raised air and water temperatures on the Gulf Coast, contributing to Katrina’s strength and causing property damage.  Mass tort litigation specialist Russell Jackson calls the plaintiffs’ claims “the litigator’s equivalent to the game ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.’”

In Comer v. Murphy Oil USA, the plaintiffs assert a variety of theories under Mississippi common law, but the main issue at this stage was whether the plaintiffs had standing, or whether they could demonstrate that their injuries were “fairly traceable” to the defendant’s actions.  The court dismissed several claims but held that plaintiffs indeed could allege public and private nuisance, trespass and negligence.  The court also held that these latter claims do not present a so-called “political question” that the court doesn’t have the authority to resolve.  You can read about the Court’s ruling in more detail at the WSJ Law Blog and Jackson’s Consumer Class Actions and Mass Torts Blog.

This is actually the second federal appeals court to rule this way; last month, the Second Circuit (based in New York) held that states, municipalities and certain private organizations had standing to bring federal common law nuisance claims to impose caps on certain companies’ greenhouse gas emissions.  Here’s the opinion in that case, Connecticut v. American Electric Power Company, and you can read a pretty good summary and analysis here.

Both of these cases, which herald a flood of global warming-related litigation, so to speak, owe their continuing vitality to the Supreme Court’s misbegotten 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA.  The 2006-2007 Cato Supreme Court Review covered that case in an insightful article by Andrew Morriss of the University of Illinois.  (To get your copy of the latest (2008-2009) Review, go here.)

I should note from my own experience at the Fifth Circuit that the panel here consisted of the two worst judges on the court — Clinton appointees Carl Stewart and James Dennis — and one of Reagan’s weakest federal appellate appointments, Eugene Davis.  Even Davis, however, wrote separately to note that while he agreed on the standing issue, he would have affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the suit on a different ground (that pesky proximate cause issue).

I predict that the full (16-judge) Fifth Circuit will review this case en banc –and if not that the Supreme Court will eventually take it up (if the district court on remand doesn’t again dispose of the case on causation grounds). (Ilya Shapiro, Cato at liberty)

Maldives’ president all wet on sea level

On Oct. 17, Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, an island country off the coast of India, held a meeting of his Cabinet underwater to dramatize the risks he says his country faces from rising sea levels caused by global warming. Yesterday, Swedish scientist Nils-Axel Mörner, a specialist in sea level changes, wrote Mr. Nasheed the following letter: (Financial Post)

Study: model in good agreement with satellite temperature data – suggest cooling

TREND ANALYSIS OF SATELLITE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE DATA

Craig Loehle
National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, Inc.
Reprint available from NCASI (PDF)

Abstract

Global satellite data is analyzed for temperature trends for the period January 1979 through June 2009.  Beginning and ending segments show a cooling trend, while the middle segment evinces a warming trend.  The past 12 to 13 years show cooling using both satellite  data sets, with lower confidence limits that do not exclude a negative trend until 16 to 22 years.  It is shown that several published studies have predicted cooling in this time frame.  One of these models is extrapolated from its 2000 calibration end date and shows a good match to the satellite data, with a projection of continued cooling for several more decades.

Figure 6.     Linear plus period model from Klyashtorin and Lyubushin (2003) overlaid on satellite data after intercept shift.  Dotted line is model extrapolation post-2000 calibration period end. a) UAH.  b) RSS.

Figure 6a - UAH data plus model

Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Inequalities About Coal-Fired Power Plants

The proposed 1,500-megawatt Desert Rock facility near Shiprock, NM has been sent back to the EPA for a new air pollution permit. (1) The EPA originally issued a permit in 2008, but under the new administration appealed to the Environment Appeals Board for permission to rescind the permit and the permission was granted on September 25. Needless to say, opponents of coal-fired power plants around the country were quite pleased.

This appears to be the plan for the future. No new coal plants, no new nuclear plants; rather rely on wind and solar for energy while prices go through the roof.

What did the Navajos think about this latest turn of events? The president of the Navajo Nation joined other Native American leaders in assailing environmentalists who have sought to block or shut down coal-fired power plants that provide vital jobs and revenue to tribes in northern Arizona.

“These are individuals and groups who claim to have put the welfare of fish and insects above the survival of the Navajo people when in fact their only goal is to stop the use of coal in the US and the Navajo Nation,” said Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., who presides over America’s largest Indian reservation, which sprawls over three states and claims a population of about 250,000. (2)

In 2005, environmentalists successfully closed the Mojave Generating station in Laughlin, NV after a pollution lawsuit. That shutdown cost the tribe more than $6.5 million per year, and closure of the Navajo Generating Station would wipe out another $11 million. (2)

At this point in time the Navajos would be much better off if they were located in Europe or Asia. Europe, which has led the way in implementing Kyoto Protocol accords will have 40 new coal-fired power plants by 2015. Germany plans to build 27 coal-fired electrical generating plants by 2020 and Italy plans to double its reliance on coal in just five years. (3)

China is building a new coal-fired power plant every week and India will double its coal-based electricity generation by 2020. (3) The combined carbon emissions from the new coal-fired power plants that China and India are building between now and 2012 are five times the total savings of the Kyoto accords. (4) (Jack Dini, Hawaii Reporter)