I wanted to reply to the two Australians who commented on this article: Can Africa Topple Australia in the Contest To Build the World’s Biggest Telescope?

All I got, however, was this: “Comment Submission Error. Your comment submission failed for the following reasons: Text entered was wrong. Try again.”

This summary rejection is somewhat puzzling, since the error is meaningless, and the preview worked fine. [UPDATE: After several more attempts, I appear to have succeeded in posting my comment. Looks like the Captcha widget was broken for a time, and it was this “text” that the error referred to. The comment remains invisible, however, with no indication of whether it is merely being moderated.]

However, because I think it’s important, I’ll post my comment on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope here:

Frankly, the SKA shouldn’t be built, except with private money. Not in South Africa, and not in Australia. There. Having got libertarian principles out of the way, let’s get to business.

It is true that Africa is considerably poorer, somewhat less politically stable, and composed of several more countries, than the island colony of Australia. The same is true for South America, Asia, and indeed Europe.

And nevermind McGruder’s blackness, or the dark skins of most Africans. Racist reasons for building it, or not building it, belong in previous centuries. Africa might move on, if the people outside Africa who incessantly disparage it would do so.

If anyone needs investments like these, it’s the 750 million people of Africa, many of whom are cursed with economies that Western do-gooders, along with vogueish socialism at home, have made dependent on foreign aid and debt relief. Africans suffer as a result of inadequate basic infrastructure and difficulty in securing basic education for their children. Not that some major economies in the West aren’t heading for the same socialist malaise, so there’s no need to whitewash reality.

Projects like the SKA will contribute to the development of physical infrastructure (like electricity and telecommunications), political infrastructure (like the SADC customs union that continues to make slow progress), and social infrastructure (like education).

In terms of the standard of its scientists, the sophistication of its economy, and the development of its politics, Africa is quite capable of hosting a Big Science project such as the SKA. It has problems, sure, but motives to solve them trump negativity and despair. No politician in Africa (well, very few) would be stupid enough to put at risk a major project with international visibility such as the SKA.

Unlike the two Australian gentlemen who commented above, I will decline to speculate on a country I do not know. Australia’s virtues or shortcomings are not mine to judge. I’m sure it’s a splendid place, full of shiny, happy people. However, they might show the same courtesy towards others. If anything, short-sighted and ill-informed comments by people who haven’t a clue about the reality of Africa should provide added impetus for siting the SKA in Africa.

I live in Africa, by choice. As a columnist, I am frequently critical of the socialism and corruption that so often hurts Africans. And while the West has a lot to answer for in this respect, I believe Africa should sweep its own doorstep first. But to do that, it needs brooms. And indeed doorsteps.

If anyone in Africa were sceptical of the local capacity to operate a major facility like this, and their reasons weren’t knee-jerk racism, I’d probably be among them. However, I’m not sceptical. I believe anything is possible in Africa. I have faith in the ingenuity and dedication of its people. I believe, based on the scale and sophistication of numerous other industrial and scientific projects, that Africa has the technical and organisational ability to make the SKA an ongoing success.

Most importantly, I believe hosting the SKA can only make Africa a better place for everyone in it.

And that is worth more than all the stars in the sky.

I’ll bet if the Science Insider blog was hosted in Africa, by an African, its comment system would have worked.

I recently wrote a series of columns on Mann-made climate change and the email leak scandal over at The Daily Maverick: Pop goes the hot air balloon, Climate fraud kills people and Pray Copenhagen fails.

In response, I’ve been getting a lot of comments and criticisms in various forums. Some, like Twitter, are really not well suited to answering complex questions. So here’s a sort of FAQ that addresses the most common “buts” I hear: Climate clarity.

Wishing everyone a prosperous and free 2010.

The decision to add the polar bear to the list of threatened species, on the basis that global warming threatens its habitat, is dangerous, and it’s going to hit Americans — and anyone who buys American products or relies on American investment capital — in their pockets. Not only trade, but similar decisions made by other countries or by international bodies, will spread this damage worldwide.

Environmentalists failed to convince the US legislature to enact draconian new laws to enforce costly measures whose benefits are at best speculative. Having failed to make their case, they fall back on what appears to be an innocent and even noble regulatory decision. They know listing the polar bear as threatened opens the door for litigation to enforce their ideas about carbon dioxide emissions on others, on the basis that any such emissions contribute to the destruction of the polar bear’s habitat.

Bloomberg’s Kevin Hassett says “this action will almost surely go down in history as the turning point in the global warming debate”. In an editorial titled Polar Bear Ruling to Bring Tsunami of Lawsuits, he writes:

Environmental groups are already preparing legal challenges. Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity told USA Today last week that the Endangered Species Act requires agencies now to address greenhouse gases, and warned that “we can and will go to court to enforce the law.”

Not only big companies will feel it. In theory, they could sue you for the car you drive, or the air-con you install in your home. And you won’t have a big company’s crack squad of expensive lawyers to protect you from the attack dogs of the green left. In short, this is a big deal. A very big deal.

At least we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that these superior beings (environmentalists, not polar bears) are obviously smarter than the rest of us, and care more too. So perverting the judiciary to achieve their political aims is a small thing when they’re saving the world from certain destruction. In fact, perhaps we should start a Fascist Party, so they can protect us from ourselves.

The poor panda, which really is endangered, had no chance. It was never, ever, going to be this profitable to the cause.

Shock. Horror. SMS messages are more expensive than data transmission from the Hubble Space Telescope. So says a scientist at the University of Leicester.

Problem is, academics are often surprisingly ignorant of economics, whether in theory or in practice. This — and the fact that most haven’t ever worked for a private firm in the real world — may explain the appeal of radical-left politics among university faculties across the world.

This fellow, probably an excellent scientist, is an excellent example. He doesn’t recognise as simple fact that price has no relation to cost. None whatsoever. You cannot derive price from cost, nor infer cost from price. Impossible, unless the price is regulated.

(The scientists at physorg.com don’t know much about writing headlines, either, but we can let that slide since they don’t presume to write media analysis.)

Space scientist says texting is four times more expensive than receiving scientific data from space

A University of Leicester space scientist has worked out that sending texts via mobile phones works out to be far more expensive than downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Dr Nigel Bannister’s calculations were used for the Channel 4 Dispatches programme “The Mobile Phone Rip-Off”.

He worked out the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from Hubble — and compared that with the 5p cost of sending a text.

He said: “The bottom line is texting is at least 4 times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that.”

He went on to explain that text messages comprise 140 bytes, which is £374.49 per megabyte.

He concludes: “Hubble is by no means a cheap mission — but the mobile phone text costs were pretty astronomical!”

Undoubtedly. We’ll let that pun slide too, but note that he’s not exactly comparing apples with apples, is he? My PC is also more powerful and expensive than the computer that drives the Hubble. Does that mean… what does that mean?

As Dr Bannister points out, data transmission from Hubble is measured in megabytes. Text messages are very many individual small messages, that have to be routed around the network separately. A similar comparison will find that internet access is vastly cheaper, per byte, than text messages, and that comparison likewise misses the point completely.

It may well be true that text messages are a ripoff. But a comparison with Hubble transmissions doesn’t make the point.

Price is simply an agreement between two people on the subjective value to one party of something the other has. If something cost me nothing to acquire, and has no real inherent value, but I then sell it at auction, did I rip anyone off? If item one cost me a million, but I can’t sell it for more than a hundred bucks, am I being ripped off? If identical item two cost me ten bucks, but I sell it for a hundred, are the tables now turned? Cost is one decision factor (of many) for a seller, because the seller may want to cover it, as one condition of agreeing to a transaction at a given price. Knowing the cost might also be a decision factor for the buyer, because he may choose to procure or produce the services or goods himself if he thinks that doing so will have more value. But cost is not, it is never, the basis or justification for a price in a free market. “Cost-plus” is a regulatory abomination, not a means by which price is discovered in a free market. And finally, there’s no such thing as a “fair” or “unfair” profit. By definition, in a voluntary exchange, the profit is fair no matter how high or low it is, otherwise the exchange wouldn’t have taken place.

If you think text messaging is too expensive, well, then don’t use it. Set up an alternative. Use instant messaging. Use voice. Stop waffling at your victims friends during movies or sports games. If you use text messaging, you’ve implicitly agreed that the price of a message is fair. Until operators can’t sell enough volumes there’s no reason, financial or moral, to reduce the price.

Instead of deploring the people who make commercial choices of which he disapproves, perhaps our scientist friend should express his gratitude to the involuntary payers of the tax that permits academics, sans economic nous, to download data cheaply from Hubble. And he might note that looking up the etymology of “nous” is pretty cheap, unless you prefer to buy a real, paper dictionary, or you choose to query an online version using text messaging.

One often hears that opponents of climate change alarmism are “deniers” (a slur intended to recall Holocaust denial), are oil-company-funded (as if energy companies don’t need those dollars to polish their green image), are limited to a lunatic fringe (as if lunatic fringes host international conferences and write appeals to the United Nations) and most importantly, claim that they get their facts wrong (ironic, considering the many inconsistencies in alarmism “science”).

Now one alarmist expresses his surprise at the debate on a green website he started. He thought he’d have to cast the net wide to find skeptics, but in reality, is having to actively recruit people willing and able to defend the climate catastrophe orthodoxy. And it’s the “able” part that appears to present the most serious problems. Skeptics are better prepared, better informed and better read than alarmists. They quote better science and argue their cases more effectively, he laments.

I seldom quote entire posts, but this makes for pretty amazing reading:

When I launched the TalkClimateChange forums last year, I was initially worried as to where I would find people who didn’t believe in global warming. I had planned to create a furious debate, but in my experience global warming was such a universally accepted issue that I expected to have to dredge the slums of the internet in order to find a couple of deniers who could keep the argument thriving.

The first few days were slow going, but following a brief write-up of my site by Junk Science I was swamped by climate skeptics who did a good job of frightening off the few brave Greens who slogged out the debate with. Whilst there was a lot of rubbish written, the truth was that they didn’t so much frighten the Greens away — they comprehensively demolished them with a more in depth understanding of the science, cleverly thought out arguments, and some very smart answers. If you want to learn about the physics of convection currents, gas chromatography, or any number of climate science topics then read some of the early debates on TalkClimateChange. I didn’t believe a word of it, but I had to admit that these guys were good.

In the following months the situation hardly changed. As the forum continued to grow, as the blog began to catch traffic, and as I continued to try and recruit green members I continued to be disappointed with the debate. In short, and I am sorry to say it, anti-greens (Reds, as we call them) appear to be more willing to comment, more structured, more able to quote peer reviewed research, more apparently rational and apparently wider read and better informed.

And it’s not just TalkClimateChange. Since we re-launched the forums on Green Options and promoted the “Live Debate” on Nuclear Power, the pro-nuclear crowd have outclassed the few brave souls that have attempted to take them on (with the exception of our own Matt from TalkClimateChange). So how can this be? Where are all these bright Green champions, and why have I failed to recruit them into the debate? Either it’s down to poor online marketing skills, or there is something else missing. I’ve considered a range of theories as to the problem, none of which seem to fit — such as:

Greens are less educated? Nope.
Greens have less time? Nope.
Greens are a little reticent? Nope.
Greens are less intelligent? Definitely nope.
Greens are less passionate? Absolutely nope.
Greens have less at stake? Clearly not.

The only feasible explanation that I can come up with so far is that perhaps Greens are less invested in the status quo, and therefore less motivated to protect it? The other possibility is that we are all completely wrong and we’re deluded — please tell me this isn’t so. So I am hoping that La Marguerite [where this piece was posted — Ivo], with its insightful host and enlightened readership may be able to help shed some light on this peculiar phenomenon?

The post was written by a fellow named Mark, and he promises a follow-up next week right about now. I picked it up via Tom Nelson via Climate Skeptic.

It raises a lot of interesting points, not least about the sheltered cocoon of comfort in which the green left lives, and in which their PC fashions and prejudices appear to be “universally accepted”.

In one way, he’s right. Those who don’t believe we’re headed for certain apocalypse unless we act now are indeed “invested in the status quo, and therefore … motivated to protect it”. That’s the status quo in which humans are free from costly government bureaucracy, free to own their property and improve it, free to pursue health, prosperity and progress as they subjectively define it, and free to invest their capital to ensure sustainable resource use in the future. This is the status quo which has created a large middle class, has built prosperity that only a century ago would have been undreamed of, has supported substantial population growth despite the alarmist predictions of scientists and the media, has reduced poverty rates and improved the quality of life of rich and poor alike, has doubled life expectancy in 100 years. The status quo which has enjoyed the prosperity to invest in improving the quality of the environment, in contrast, for example, to the state-controlled economies of the Soviet Union, or the poor economies of the developing world, in both of which pollution has been far, far worse than in the capitalist West. And this is the status quo where people are free to continue building on these trends without sacrificing their productivity and future prosperity to a global climate change industry that has more vested interest than any oil company has ever had.

In the final analysis, I’ll stick my neck out and say, yup, “we are all completely wrong and we’re deluded” is pretty much spot-on. Sorry, my good man.

If only to prove that there’s no such thing as “scientific consensus” on climate change, the group of scientists, economists and other prominent consensus-busters that convened in New York issued a declaration summarising its findings last week.

I noted a few days ago that this group, which styles itself the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC, in pointed contrast to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, convened by the United Nations and patronised by green lobbyists and political pressure groups) had rudely been dismissed by a credulous, editorialising media, which promptly got its facts wrong on the Flat Earth Society.

The Manhattan Declaration that emerged from the conference merited hardly any coverage. The exceptions on major media sites that I could find are a column in the Wall Street Journal that mostly makes the valid point that Al Gore makes an easy target, a disputatious item in a column in the New York Times, a couple of blog posts by Melanie Phillips on the Spectator’s website, and a report in The Register that calls the NIPCC the “IPCC’s ‘evil twin’”.

The summary for policymakers — another reference to its politicised counterpart at the UN — is available in PDF format.

Of course, even if there were consensus, it would have no scientific value in and of itself. Science is about observation, hypothesis, experiment, and proof, not about how many people believe this or that incomplete hypothesis. Basing public policy that binds billions and costs trillions on such incomplete hypotheses incurs far more risk than the political pressure groups would claim accompany no action or voluntary action.

The full text of the Manhattan Declaration follows (original link):

Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change
“Global warming” is not a global crisis

We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognising that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed ‘consensus’ among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend –

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as “An Inconvenient Truth.”

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008

Are these points worthy of debate? I think so. No matter what you think about the “scientific consensus”.

By “global warming”, I mean the wider orthodoxy not only that warming is happening, but that it is caused by human activity, that it will lead to catastrophic consequences, that action to change the climate is urgent, that said action consists largely of limiting CO2 emissions and reducing energy use, that such action will be effective, that such action is required of developed and developing countries alike, and that it can only be achieved by using taxation, legislation or other forcible, government-imposed means to make people comply.

A while ago, I listed ten reasons to reject global warming. I’d have to be wrong on all of them before I could rationally consider measures such as cap-and-trade, carbon-tax or other elaborate, invasive and expensive government measures to combat climate change.

A comment by a retired geology Ph.D. on this well-considered piece on the irrationality of the climate change debate (from the felicitously named Rightwing Nuthouse) lists ten more reasons to be skeptical of anthropogenic global warming:

1. It has all the marks of a religion; skeptics are treated like heretics and the spokesman is a Baptist lay preacher.
2. Global warming is now called climate change so it can embrace global cooling, also.
3. It is anti-American since America is biggest producer of CO2.
4. I’ve been through this before in the 1970’s with Global Cooling.
5. As I geologist I know that climate changes take a long time since the earth has a very large thermal mass.
6. Humans have adapted to colder and warmer conditions. Manhattan’s average temperature has increased 7°F in the last 50 years but New Yorkers are not wilting.
7. The data for the earth’s temperature for more than 100 years in the past are very sparse and unreliable.
8. The data for the earth’s temperature for the last 100 years is not much better and practically all of it has to be compensated for the urban heat island effect, vide Manhattan.
9. Other measurements of the earth’s thermal condition, for example, shrinking growing season lengths, are not consistent with global warming.
10. Concomitance is not causation.

I don’t agree with all of them. Point three, for example, should in my opinion read, “It’s anti-development, since development, poverty reduction and prosperity growth are big producers of CO2,” but it makes some good points, especially about the quality of the climate record, the selectivity of factors considered in the overall models, the assumption that correlation implies causation, and the failure to adjust correctly for urban heat islands.

Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit site has been documenting many of these data and statistical problems, prompting in some cases corrections to the official records. See this post on urban heat island adjustments, and see these posts on temperature record errors and corrections, for example. (I covered some of his work inter alia here and here.)

So while Rick Moran makes some good points about our ability to evaluate the scientific basis for climate change theory, even the notion that we just don’t know enough suggests that expensive programmes of enforced action are imprudent, at best. Not to mention that they’re philosophically repulsive to anyone who values individual freedom and bases their views of how best to minimise poverty and maximise prosperity on the vitality of free markets and innovation.

The US Fish & Wildlife Service is considering listing the polar bear as a threatened species, under that country’s Endangered Species Act.

Before blasting this idea as an underhanded ploy by evil environmentalists, it is worth considering the exact meaning of the terms in question. The US criteria are not quite consistent with those of the World Conservation Union (which the cognoscenti abbreviate as IUCN). The latter maintains the famous (or infamous, considering how few of its members have actually gone extinct) Red List of Threatened Species, in which “critically endangered”, “endangered” and “vulnerable”, describing an extremely high, very high or high risk of extinction respectively, are collectively known as “threatened”. By contrast, a “threatened” species under the US law means any species which is “likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range”, and an “endangered” species is one “which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range”. Also, there is much more scope for discretion under the US rules, while the IUCN criteria for the different categories are very specific.

So, on what grounds should the polar bear be listed as threatened? Among the US agency’s own research, a population forecast says much depends on 45-, 75- or 100-year predictions of the extent of Arctic sea ice, and even then, there’s much uncertainty. Besides, that analysis (PDF) has come under attack (PDF) for serious flaws in its methods and analysis. Turns out that after a few years of slight decline in Arctic sea ice coverage, this winter’s Arctic ice is back to normal levels. (Via Anthony Watts, who links to the useful University of Illinois Cryosphere Today site. It also has a cute story about a stolen polar bear photo, reproduced above, which Al Gore and the media used to tell yet another lie: “They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.” Sob sob. Hat-tip: Hard Rain.)

What about polar bear population? Well, it’s pretty much stable, it appears. A National Center for Policy Analysis report entitled Polar Bears on Thin Ice? Not Really!, says that only two of the twenty or so population groups are in decline, which hardly gels with “throughout all or a significant portion of its range”. There’s a picture alongside. The chart illustrates the polar bear populations that are growing, declining, stable and unknown. Hardly looks like a threatened species, does it?

In fact, although the Red List includes the polar bear (and the hippo, which is responsible for more human deaths in Africa than any other large animal), I can’t see which of the criteria it actually meets. The Inuit around Hudson Bay are saying more need to be hunted, because their population is increasing, and in an amusingly headlined article, “Advertisers urged to kill off polar bears,” James Murray reports on a study that finds advertisers should eschew cute pictures of polar bears to burnish their green image.

Listing a species that isn’t actually endangered is likely to do as much harm to noble conservation efforts as did Norman Myers’s 1979 statement, based on supposition alone, that 40 000 species would go extinct per year until 2000. Didn’t happen. Yet it was repeated in Al Gore’s 1993 book, Earth in the Balance, and is only one among many hyperbolic prophesies of mass extinction, which simply have not come true, and don’t look likely to happen in the foreseeable future either. They’re a bit like the cults who predict the end of the world. They’ve never been right, but of course, that only strengthens their faith that they have to be right sometime soon.

Despite the lack of evidence that the polar bear is, in fact, threatened, Brendon Frazier of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, says it should be listed not as threatened, but as endangered. In this AFP article, he explains the reason why:

“An endangered listing can affect the sell-off of the oil drilling rights,” Brandon Frazier, a spokesman for global animal welfare group International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said. “The authorities would have to get approval through the Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct drilling if there is an endangered species that inhabits the area.” […]

US lawmakers have proposed listing the polar bear as “threatened”, but IFAW said that did not go far enough. “A ‘threatened’ listing leaves open the possibility for exemptions and doesn’t shut loopholes, such as the one that allows Americans to trophy-hunt for polar bears in Canada and bring their heads and hides back to the US,” Frazier told AFP.

So there’s your reason. Anything to stop the big, bad oil companies from drilling. If the polar bear is under threat, the reason is climate change, which in turn is caused by evil humans, who dare pursue industrial development, scientific advance and economic progress.

That’s what they’re fighting for. If the polar bear gets listed as threatened, this can be used to stop almost any new industrial development, anywhere. Even if the impact is so tenuous nothing but global warming alarmism can rationalise it. If the polar bear gets listed as endangered, then so is the growth in prosperity that has fueled the rising quality of life among rich and poor alike. It’s not about the polar bear. It’s about us. It is, to quote William F. Buckley, about standing athwart history, yelling “Stop!”.

Now who’s the conservative?

This video is funny. But it is so much funnier with the brilliant headline above, which I owe to Luboš Motl, a Czech physicist. His blog is well worth reading frequently; I bet Vaclav Klaus does.

I’ll let Luboš explain in more detail, but simply put, it involves solving a problem that a computer cannot solve in any reasonable amount of time. Enter Simon. Simon is a Jack Russell, not a computer:

I have two Jack Russells and a cat that thinks it’s a Jack Russell. This is going to be fun. “Come, doglets!”

The greedy capitalists are once again going to be on the short end of the stick. The reason? Global warming, of course. Why? Because of hurricanes, as Americans call low-pressure system storms also known, depending on where they occur, as cyclones or typhoons.

As everyone knows, global warming is going to make hurricanes worse, so they’re going to increase the payouts insurance companies have to carry. It will, “generate more storms and more intense hurricanes,” says hurricane historian Jay Barnes of Pine Knoll Shores, North Carolina in paragraph two. Paragraph three continues: “Numerous studies in recent years have found no evidence that the number of hurricanes and their northwest Pacific Ocean cousins, typhoons, is increasing because of the rise in global temperatures.”

Nevermind paragraph three. Let’s try this again.

As everyone knows, global warming is going to cause fewer killer hurricanes, so they’re going to decrease insurance premiums insurance companies will be able to charge.  “Using data extending back to the middle nineteenth century,” the story quotes physical oceanographer and climate scientist Chunzai Wang of the NOAA, “we found a gentle decrease in the trend of U.S. land-falling hurricanes when the global ocean is warmed up.”

An explanation I’ve heard before for predicting fewer and lighter storms is that global warming will decrease the temperature gradient between the poles and the equator, which is the engine driving the atmospheric circulation that causes disturbances such as low pressure systems that could turn into cyclonic storms.

Wang’s explanation is different. He attributes the historical data to increased vertical wind-shear caused by an increased temperature gradient between low-altitude and high-altitude air. Which also makes sense, if the presupposition that global warming is a long-term trend is true (which, of course, it probably is not).

So one way or another, there will be either higher payouts or lower premiums. Or lower payouts and higher premiums. Nobody knows. Either way,  insurance companies are screwed. Or not. But then, I guess that’s why they call their business “risk management”. Who’d be stupid enough to try to manage risk? Them capitalists have it coming.

Whatever the facts, we must act now, before it’s too late. Must act. Must act now!

Can we really risk the future of mankind when even the scientists have no clue what’s going to happen? No! We must make commitments! We must make sacrifices! We must atone for our sins! We must make election promises! We must soak the rich, to buy the votes of the poor! No, wait, that’s old. We must do more! We must soak the sensible, to buy the votes of people who risk living in hurricane-prone states! In fact, let’s soak everyone, to buy the votes of the soaked! With enough taxes and subsidies and government funds and wealth redistribution, everyone’s a winner!

That’s exactly what half the US presidential candidates campaigning in states such as Florida are proposing to do. They promise to transfer the risk to the US taxpayer. And, would you believe it, that’s the Republican half. Imagine what the Democrats could get up to. The only way they could improve on this populist glad-handing and socialist redistribution is to outlaw hurricanes that make landfall without the proper government authorisation.

That’s how it always ends with eco-politics. No matter what the data says, you can be sure someone, somewhere, is setting up to fleece you.

I don’t have time to write much today (well, I don’t have time to write much unpaid stuff) so I’ll be a good capitalist and steal something from the socialist radicals over at The People’s Cube. I thought it very funny. I’ll quote some extracts, but it’s worth reading the whole thing.

Industrial Nations Threaten Globe Again

A new menace to the planet has been discovered and validated by a consensus of politically reliable scientists: Anthropogenic Continental Drift (ACD) will result in catastrophic damage and untold suffering, unless immediate indemnity payments from the United Sates, Europe, and Australia be made to the governments of non-industrial nations, to counteract this man-made threat to the world’s habitats.

Science is Unquestionable

The continents rest on massive tectonic plates. Until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 18th century, these plates were fixed in place and immobile. However, drilling for oil and mining for minerals has cut these plates loose from their primordial moorings and left them to drift aimlessly. “The potential for damage is truly catastrophic,” said Hans Brinker, a spokesman for the International Panel on Continental Drift (IPCD). “The continents are adrift due to the ruthless capitalist exploitation of the environment for profit. Unless immediate steps are taken to halt all oil and mineral extraction, we can expect a massive surge in earthquakes and volcanos by next Tuesday.” The representative seemed close to tears during his announcement, a clear indicator of the severity of the threat.

[…]

Data is ‘Air France’ Tight and Undeniable

This widening of the Atlantic is taking place at an astounding rate, according to indisputable IPCD scientific data. Today it costs almost a third again as much to fly an Air France jet from New York to Paris than it did in 1997, a clear indicator that the ocean has indeed increased in size in the past decade. Surface shipping rates have likewise increased dramatically.

“This is a clear and reliable indicator of the speed of ACD,” said Passapotapissalong, “much more so than the global positioning satellite data often cited by ‘Continental Drift Deniers.’ The GPS system was, after all, originally created by the US military to enhance their empire-building program, and we all know who controls the US military.” He paused at this point and pulled his ears out to each side, a clear reference to the ape-like countenance of the American president.

“Although these so-called ’scientists’ claim that there is no GPS data to support the rapid widening of the Atlantic Ocean, they are all employees of American corporations or have been paid to falsify their data by the American government. Air France fuel costs are a much more reliable indicator of distance flown.” He added that he and his right-thinking colleagues had “nothing to gain” by presenting their findings, pointing out that their stipends, expenses and salaries were drawn from the IPCD General Fund, not corporate or government grants.

[…]

I’d like to congratulate and thank the brave, socially-conscious Comrade Betinov for his timely warning.

Hillary is dead. Sir Edmund Hillary, that is, who conquered Mt Everest in 1953 with sherpa Tenzing Norgay. He’ll be remembered, for inspiring awe and derring-do, and being honest enough to admit: “Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary
(b) 20 July 1919, (d) 11 January 2008.
RIP.