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John Abraham’s Critique Devastates the Florid Lord’s Denier Diatribe

Christopher Monckton, the self-celebrating Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, toured Canada and the U.S. last year calling the world’s best climate scientists and activists “liars” for setting out their concerns about the dangers of climate change. In his presentations and his PowerPoints, Monckton was graceless and taunting in tone, making fun of Al Gore’s accent along with his science. The record now shows that Monckton was also wrong – and frankly, wrong is such a way that he himself must be found to be either a flagrant and shameless liar or the most incompetent compiler of information since church scholars gathered to argue for the flatness of the earth.

The new critique was assembled by John P. Abraham, an engineering professor at St. Thomas University in St. Paul Minnesota. A diligent – even painstaking – researcher, Abraham is also unreservedly respectful in his own presentation, giving Monckton the benefit of every doubt.

The facts, however, are less accommodating. As Prof. Abraham demonstrates time and again, Monckton has consistently misinterpreted, misrepresented or flat-out lied about his “evidence” arguing against the theory of human-induced global warming. He has mangled references, misrepresented findings, cobbled together unattributed graphs and staked his case to critically compromised scholars.<!–break–>

Monckton has already revealed himself as someone whose capacity to be antisocial goes well beyond mere rudeness. This new presentation should be required viewing for anyone who regards him as even vaguely credible on climate science. Take the time: you will find he is anything but.

First argument: Operation Green Hunt, Land Acquisition & Resource Grab, through state, is happening in the central part of country which is mostly inhabited by the indigenous population. The very same people are actually living in harmony with environment; they worship and protect Mother Nature. In the typical “Climate” Activist way I can say that these people have lowest or negative “Carbon Footprint”. (Can someone calculate the carbon footprint of “Savior” of the world Mr. Al Gore?). Destruction of their sustainable lifestyle through war and other mechanisms is unacceptable on all grounds. They are the people who are a real inspiration for the “environmentalists”. Their land is supposed to be acquired through “Operation Green Hunt” collaborative effort of state and corporations. The forest and agricultural land after encroachment by these two players will be used for mining, setting up polluting industries like sponge iron and steel, thermal power plants etc. These are the most disastrous and ecologically destructive tasks, which are unacceptable to “Climate” Activist for that matter to all those who are working on environmental issues. Apart from that the production and use of arms and ammunition is highly carbon intensive.
In developing countries like India environmental activism is more than a conservation effort or symbolic acts. The very livelihood of the people here, which is sustainable, is dependent on clean and peaceful environment. The war will not only take the lives of the people but the flora and fauna in the area will also be destroyed. So for us it becomes extremely important to oppose this inhuman operation.

Second argument: Let’s check the name of the organization “Indian Youth Climate Network”, “Indian” as an Indian how can we accept the displacement and genocide of our very own people, who are living the most sustainable life on earth even more than the “Climate” Activist. “Youth”, Youth is always defined as a group of those who don’t adapt to the given circumstances they always seek for change. How can the youth of this nation keep his/her mouth shut when injustice is happening in present circumstances with co-citizens? Now “Climate”, Climate word is not only related to the average pattern of weather, it is also used as a metaphor for example “Political or Economic Climate”, here this has nothing to do with atmosphere. When we talk about climate we need to talk about the issues which are relevant to the climate of different socio-economic spheres.

Third argument: This is based on humanitarian grounds. We are not Maowadi or Maoist sympathizers. Our sympathy is with the people who are suffering because of war between the state and ultra left militia. The war and injustice is unacceptable to the residents of this country where great spirits like “Buddha”, “Kabir”, “Bullah Shah”, “Mahatama Gandhi” were born. We appeal to all parties to abjure violence and become a part of dialogue so that sustainable, participatory and ecologically sound democracy can be reinstated in this country.

I will conclude with the words of my colleague Mr. Rishab Khanna
“I think all of us are aware about the naxal problem, and I am sure most of you know that it is the most pressing threat to our internal security. Most of the mining and deforestation in this country is happening in the naxal belt so it is related the climate justice issue. The indigenous people are fighting for forest and other sensitive ecosystems. It is our duty to support their struggle, even if it means by participating in the event or spreading the word about the event.
Mr. Prashant Bhushan and Dr. Vandana Shiva are very senior activists (there are a lot of others as well who endorsed and participated in this event) and respected all over the world for their commitment to environmental justice.

All I know is that the constitution of our country confer the right to life to its citizens (under article 21). We cannot be ignorant to the killings of our brothers and sisters by our own tax money!”

With deep regards
Kabir Arora
Indian Youth Climate Network

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In a wonderfully silly update of the (Canadian newspaper the) National Post’s campaign of climate change denial, columnist Lorne Gunther (picked up here in the Edmonton Journal) argues that global warming has ended – and to prove it, he imagines the earth as an out-of-control Toyota which he decides has run out of gas.

What good fortune that might be (running out of gas in time to stop before you hit the cliff). But how can we think that our careering planetary heating system – which appears to have it its top speed and has been holding steady for more than a decade – is “out of gas” when we’re pumping the stuff into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate?<!–break–>

Look, for example, at the graph to the right. This is a fuel guage for atmospheric CO2: we’re not running out; we’re topping up.

So, given that rudimentary physics demonstrates CO2 to be a greenhouse gas (which has the effect of holding on to more of the sun’s radiative energy) and given that, by burning fossil fuels and cutting down trees, we are pouring more CO2 into the atmosphere every year, the best scientists in the world have postulated that global average temperatures will likely rise as a result.

And whadaya know: global average temperatures have indeed been rising (per the graph below). The climb hasn’t been quite as steady as the increase in CO2 because, as Gunther might agree, climate is complicated. For example, we also have to consider the influence of the sun, which was raging along in the latter part of the 20th century but has (again as Gunther notes) hit an unusually dead spot lately.

Now, I know that the people who wish warming weren’t real – or could be blamed on something else so we fossil fuel consumers could keep on keeping on – will reiterate Gunther’s goofy argument that warming seems to have stalled. Regardless that nine of the hottest 10 years in recorded history have occurred since 2000, they want to believe that our Toyota is slowing safely, despite the stuck accelerator.

But I invite you all to have a quick read of Bart Verheggen’s great post on this issue. In addition to having pulled together clearer images of the graph at left, he has illustrated exactly how such graphs have been used to misrepresent the science.

Then, before you get back behind the wheel of Gunther’s imagined auto, consider this: knowing that the accelerator is sticky, is it prudent to keep your foot on the gas? Or would it be smarter to take the car in for a check-up – and not with a journalist or a gasoline salesman, but with someone who actually knows something about cars?

If you choose the first option, please honk before you get behind the wheel. It will help the rest of us recognize that you are part of the problem.

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Donald Trump has called for Al Gore to be stripped of the Nobel Peace prize he was awarded for campaigning on climate change. The billionaire tycoon said record-breaking snow storms proved that the former US Vice-President was wrong on global warming, and that policies aimed at tackling carbon emissions were harming America’s economy.<!–break–>

Time is running out and the planet can not wait another year for world leaders to take action. It is an absolute necessity that here in Copenhagen the world leaders gathered here live up to the promises they have been making for the past few months. Promises must be kept! An Agreement must be reached. Too much depends on it! Survival of our planet depends on it!

Today, I caught part of a side event about artists and scientists collaborating together to create climate solutions, and then I ran to a meeting with youth delegates from China and India to try to come up with ways of working together, of collaborating together on events and meetings with our representatives here at COP.

Then, I caught the rail to the Danish Film Institute where Chris and I got tickets for four people to go to the observation room while Al Gore spoke tonight.

Tonight, I went with Will, Nicole, and Jerry to see Al Gore speak about the negotiations. Gore asked, “Is there any message that you’d like me to bring with me to my meeting with the negotiators tomorrow?” This is my chance, I thought to myself. He called on me and time stopped for a second as I realized that I was about to ask Vice President Al Gore a question, but what would I ask? I started out by explaining that I am here in Copenhagen at COP-15 with Expedition Copenhagen and a United States youth delegation of 500, and that he needs to bring up the fact that this is our lives we are talking about, this not just a theory, but something that will impact us and future generations personally.

I hit the train running (again!). This time I had to be back at my apartment in time to do a video conference with my HECUA class back in Minnesota. I swept open the door and flipped on my laptop Skype just in time to get the call from Julia. It was so wonderful to see all of their beautiful faces back in the heartland, doing the important work that needs to be done back at home before we’ve taken our last stand here at the COP15.

Today is “Young and Future Generations Day” here at the International Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen, and I’m here with my wife Wahleah and our two-year-old daughter Tohaana. Along with thousands of other young people, we’re doing everything in our power to convince world leaders to commit to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding international agreement based on a target of 350 parts per million (ppm), which is the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Less than 400 miles away in Oslo, Norway, President Obama is accepting the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” If ever there was a time and place to live up to that honor, now, in Copenhagen is it.

Four former Nobel Peace Prize winners have endorsed a target of 350ppm. On December 12th, 2008, at the international climate talks in Poznan, Poland, Al Gore (2007 winner) said to a huge crowd: “Even a goal of 450 parts per million, which seems so difficult today, is inadequate. We need to toughen that goal to 350 parts per million.”

On December 20th, His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama (1989) wrote: “It is now urgent that we take corrective action to ensure a safe climate future for coming generations of human beings and other species. That can be established in perpetuity if we can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350ppm. Buddhists, concerned people of the world and all people of good heart should be aware of this and act upon it.”

On August 25, 2009, Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC said, “As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I cannot take a position because we do not make recommendations. But as a human being I am fully supportive of [350ppm]. What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a 350 target.”

And on October 23, 2009, two days before what CNN called the “most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history”, Archibishop Desmond Tutu, who has been an ambassador for the 350 campaign and won the Peace Prize in 1984, wrote in USA Today: “Many top scientists agree that there’s a number the world needs to know. It’s 350 — as in 350 parts per million of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The growing consensus is that it’s the most carbon we can have in the atmosphere without causing terrible climate havoc. Since we’re already past that level, at 390 parts per million, it also implies that we need much swifter political action than governments have supported in the past to reverse this trend.”

It is time for President Obama to join them. It may not be the politically pragmatic path, but it is the only path with the potential to lead to peace and prosperity. The climate crisis is a unique challenge in human history and Copenhagen is a unique opportunity to rise to that challenge. As Bill McKibben writes, “the adversary here is not Republicans, or socialists, or deficits, or taxes, or misogyny, or racism, or any of the problems we normally face — adversaries that can change over time, or be worn down, or disproved, or cast off. The adversary here is physics.”

The physics says the limit is 350 ppm. That is the upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if we want Earth to continue to resemble the planet we’ve come to know and love. Despite the fact that we are 390 ppm and climbing and his inaugural promise to “restore science to its rightful place” Obama and the US delegation are negotiating in Copenhagen with a stated target of 450ppm.

Fortunately for us, there are some world leaders who do not view the climate crisis as a primarily political problem. Ninety-two nations, all poor and vulnerable to the early affects of climate change have endorsed a target of 350ppm. President Nasheed of the Maldives has stated “we will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere.” And Ambassador Lumumba, coordinator of the G77 and China Group in Copenhagen made it clear that the $10 billion of “aid” proposed for African countries by Europe and President Obama is ‘not enough for Africa to buy the coffins to bury us in’ if the climate crisis is allowed to continue.

This weekend, people are organizing candlelight vigils around the world calling on world leaders to break through the political logjam. Many will be outside American consulates and embassies, and at Senator’s offices throughout the United States, because without U.S. leadership here, the negotiations will likely fail.

On the Young and Future Generations Day, I look at Tohanna and wonder how she’ll feel in 20 years. Will she look at me and my generation and ask why we didn’t do more? What will I tell her?

If we don’t get this right, right now, what will you, President Obama, say to Sasha and Malia in 20 years? That it wasn’t politically feasible? That we didn’t know the extent of the challenge we were facing?

We know the science. We know the consequences. The United States and you, President Obama, need to continue “to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” and commit to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding agreement based on a target of 350ppm.

This entry is cross-posted at Grist.org.

Posted in Climate Justice, United States, Youth Leaders ]]> http://youthclimate.org/accept-it-in-oslo-earn-it-in-copenhagen-21493/feed/ 0 http://youthclimate.org/how-climate-change-came-to-light-2-19915/ http://youthclimate.org/how-climate-change-came-to-light-2-19915/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:47:29 +0000 admin http://unfcccecosingapore.wordpress.com/?p=941 ]]>

Hi again everyone! Today’s post will be on how climate change came to be recognized by the international community as a pressing global problem, and why exactly it is so problematic.

First and foremost, let us understand what is meant by the term “Climate change”. The term refers to the change in weather patterns over an extended period of time, spanning from decades to millennia. These changes can manifest themselves in the form of melting glaciers and icecaps, changing distribution of vegetation cover and perhaps most famously, rising sea levels.

The science of climate change dates back over 2 centuries. The global warming potential of gases in the atmosphere was first discovered by mathematician Joseph Fourier in 1820. Carbon dioxide was identified as a greenhouse gas through experiments carried out by John Tyndal in 1850 while in 1890 Svante Arrhenius elucidated the exact mathematical relationship between global temperature and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Photo of Svante Arrhenius

By the 1970s, climate change had become a megascience, attracting scientists from diverse fields. Through ice cores extracted from Greenland, concrete proof that carbon dioxide causes global warming was produced. It was found that carbon dioxide dropped to a low of 180ppm during to the worst glacial periods and 280ppm during the warmer years. Since the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased rapidly together with global temperatures to unprecedented levels, and given the scientific proof, it is evident that humans are causing this change in global temperature.

Correlation between Global Temperature and Carbon Dioxide Concentration

With the scientific proof laid out and beyond reasonable doubt. The next step was for the masses to recognize this nascent threat to humanity. This process was catalyzed through documentaries and concerts by high profile members of the community such as policitians (Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth), actors (Leonardo di Caprio’s 11th Hour) and musicians (Live Earth Concert). With the aid of technology, their actions could be seen at every corner of the world, and this greatly abetted the process of generating environmental awareness in people around the world, allowing climate change to be recognized by the international community.

An Inconvenient Truth

Currently, one of the most pressing concerns with regards to climate change is the the rising sea level which threatens low lying coastal cities as gradual encroachment of the shoreline robs the country of precious economically productive land. The situation is especially dire for small island countries, who are at the risk of being completely inundated by the rising sea levels. For them, it is a struggle of survival, and this coming COP, these states have formed the AOSIS (alliance of small island states) to fight for their survival.

Other pressing problems include imminent collapse of ecosystems as species unable to adapt to the warmer climate go extinct at a rate far higher than the natural rate. Proliferation of diseases has also increased as a result of rising temperatures which enable disease carrying micro-organisms expand their geographical reach such as in the case of malaria in Africa. Weather patterns have also become more unpredictable and violent, a trait clearly exhibited by hurricanes in the North Atlantic ocean.

There are many more problems associated with climate change, and we could go on for days if we wanted to cover them all. Those listed above are just some of the major issues, and if you wish to find out more, good readings include Common Wealth by Jeffrey Sachs and The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich, which are both written by seasoned experts in the field of climate change.

Common Wealth

For the last two centuries, climate change has been neglected and even rejected. But we are now running out of time, and our generation needs to act swiftly and decisively. What role would you assume?

Live from COP15

Zhang Yi Tao

ECO Singapore

]]> http://youthclimate.org/how-climate-change-came-to-light-2-19915/feed/ 0 http://youthclimate.org/al-gore%e2%80%99s-new-book-our-choice-a-plan-to-solve-the-climate-crisis-12087/ http://youthclimate.org/al-gore%e2%80%99s-new-book-our-choice-a-plan-to-solve-the-climate-crisis-12087/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:01:41 +0000 Mellow http://unfcccecosingapore.wordpress.com/?p=551 ]]>

Our Choice

So, Al Gore has just released his new book as a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth. A couple of days ago I did an entry on Timothy Luke’s critique of An Inconvenient Truth, which happens to be one of many around. In any case, if any of you were to pick up this book, I’d like to offer some guidelines as to how you may read it critically so that you are not “green washed” without knowing the political knowledge being deployed through such publications.

1. Anglo-American centricism: Look out for the context in which Al Gore has written about solving the climate crisis. We need to apply the solutions somehow to the Asia-Pacific context and better suit solutions to the developing world.

2. Gender: Males and females orientation of this world is different and women are generally more inclined to attach emotions to their actions. Usually such publications, because of its underlying political agenda, neglects to acknowledge the differences between genders or recognize other forms of genders.

3. Photos: Take a good look at the photos used in this publication if you pick it up. I bought An Inconvenient Truth publication because I wanted to take a better look at the photos shown by Al Gore on his slides in the film version. However, these photos are well deployed and used cleverly. We must learn to be critical of these photos and apply our understanding of natural climate change/glacial interchanges when looking at popularist films and videos like this. It is important to understand that photographers may be employed to take photos of a certain sort to represent climate crisis as urgent.

Having said this, it is not that the climate crisis isn’t urgent or that we should not embark on climate action today but that the media can often distort information and cause skepticism among the masses. Images of polar bears drowning is one such example. See the article below:

Polar bears would stand a greater chance of avoiding extinction if people stopped shooting them than if they reduced greenhouse gas emissions, according to a book by a leading environmental sceptic.

Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish professor who achieved international fame with his previous book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, examines and rejects claims by environmentalists and the former president Al Gore that polar bears are drowning because the sea ice they hunt on is melting.

Lomborg says the story about drowning bears is taken from a single sighting of four dead bears the day after an abrupt windstorm. The bears came from a population that was actually increasing, which has been the overall trend in the polar bear population since the 1960s.

He provides evidence that 11 out of 13 distinct populations of polar bears in Canada are either stable or increasing in number.

In his new book, Cool It: the Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming, he quotes a Canadian government biologist who said: “They are not going extinct or even appear to be affected at present.”

Prof Lomborg points out that over the past decades, the global polar bear population has increased dramatically from about 5,000 members in the 1960s to around 25,000 as a result of the regulation of hunting.

Even if a decline in the bear population has taken place since the 1980s, he says, if we try to help them by cutting greenhouse gases we can at the very best avoid 15 bears dying, with realistic option meaning that it is probably only around 0.06 bears per year.

But he says, if we care for stable populations of polar bears, dealing with the 49 polar bears from the same population around Hudson Bay that get shot each year might be a smarter and more viable strategy.

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3309397/Bjorn-Lomborg-Save-polar-bears-by-not-shooting-them.html)

Thus, we must remain critical of popularist notions of climate action and embark on real and material action today!

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