Climate & Environment Review: July 20, 2007

Climate & Environment Review
July 20, 2007

Climate & Environment Weekly is brought to you by The Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP). CSPP is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization.

CSPP relies on scientific experts in many nations and the vast body of peer-reviewed literature to help lawmakers, policy makers, and the media distinguish between scientific findings that are agenda-driven and those that are based on accepted scientific methods and practices. In a timely manner, the Center's Science Watch Team alerts policy makers, the media, and the public to unreliable scientific claims and unjustified alarmism which often lead to public harm. We strive for a fair and balanced examination of science.

Global Warming Debate Upside-Down: Antarctic Update
No presentation of global warming is complete without a visual of some gigantic
block of ice moving away from Antarctica – throw in a few penguins looking at the
disappearing ice and ... it works every time...

Climate Change in Florida: Is There a Human Footprint in Florida's Climate History?
Florida’s governor Charlie Crist opened his 2007 legislative session by announcing
Florida’s Climate Change Summit to be held July 12-13 in Miami. Governor Crist remarked, “I
am persuaded that global climate change is one of the most important issues that we will face
this century. With almost 1,200 miles of coastline and the majority of our citizens living near
that coastline, Florida is more vulnerable to rising ocean levels and violent weather patterns
than any other state...

Covert enviro strategy
The global warming alarmists' bell has been answered, but that is not good enough for environmentalists. State by state they not only are convincing elected officials to address climate change, but they are also placing their own advocates in positions that will push policies on a snoozing populace like smart growth, subsidies for renewable power sources, fuel surcharges, and higher taxes on electricity...

Abrupt Climate Change
Climate alarmists are always talking about abrupt climate changes resulting from earth's rising temperature passing some ominous "tipping point" that triggers the occurrence of more numerous and severe storms, floods and droughts...

Drought - What Is Its History? Are We More Vulnerable Today If Historical- Or Paleo-Droughts reoccur?
There are two books (with one a two volume set) that provide an excellent summary of the threat of drought that we face even in the absence of human intervention in the climate system. Indeed, it is unlikely that mitigation of CO2 emissions alone would have much of an effect on our risk, since we are i) only effecting one aspect of the climate system by CO2 increases, and ii) the increased levels of atmospheric CO2 could be just as easily be moving us away from drought conditions, since there is no skill in year or longer time scales in predicting this climate regime...

UN warns it cannot afford to feed the world
Rising prices for food have led the United Nations programme fighting famine in Africa and other regions to warn that it can no longer afford to feed the 90m people it has helped for each of the past five years on its budget...

What global warming, Australian skeptic asks
Bob Carter, a professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia), is a paleontologist, a stratigrapher, and a marine geologist. He has been chair of the National Marine Science and Technologies Committee, director of the Australian Office of the Ocean Drilling Program, and chair of the Earth Sciences Discipline Panel of the Australian Research Council...

Intense Landfalling Tropical Cyclones of Northeast Australia
The authors developed a 777-year-long annually-resolved record of landfalling tropical cyclones in northeast Australia based on analyses of isotope records of tropical cyclone rainfall in an annually-layered carbonate stalagmite from Chillagoe (17.2°S, 144.6°E) in northeast Queensland...

Economic Climate Changes
Congress is considering global warming legislation to require substantial cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the inescapable byproduct of the fossil fuels -- coal, oil, and natural gas -- that supply 85 percent of the world's energy. China, India, and every other developing country refuse to limit their emissions because they fear CO2 controls more than global warming. What do they know that our lawmakers don't?..