Argentina to produce climate-resistant super wheat in world first
In this newsletter:
1) Record global wheat production expected, FAO
Grain Central, 9 October 2020
2) Heat-tolerant crops: Sudan announces largest ever wheat harvest
African Development Bank, 19 October
3) Argentina to produce climate-resistant super wheat in world first
The Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2020
African Development Bank, 19 October
3) Argentina to produce climate-resistant super wheat in world first
The Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2020
4) Brazil expects record harvest
Merco Press, 19 October 2020
5) Best Indian rainfall since 1901 raises hopes for record harvest
Economic Times of India, 1 September 2020
Merco Press, 19 October 2020
5) Best Indian rainfall since 1901 raises hopes for record harvest
Economic Times of India, 1 September 2020
6) Australia prepares for bumper harvest as rain boosts NSW winter crops 300%
The Guardian, 21 September 2020
The Guardian, 21 September 2020
7) Sorry, Google News, climate change is helping end world hunger
H Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, 19 October 2020
8) ‘Green Recovery’ flop: Another UK wind farm deal collapses
The Times, 22 October 2020
The Times, 22 October 2020
9) James Randi: World’s most famous sceptic & climate sceptic dies aged 92
GWPF, 22 October 2020
GWPF, 22 October 2020
Full details:
1) Record global wheat production expected, FAO
Grain Central, 9 October 2020
Improved late-season yield prospects in greater Europe and Australia have lifted the estimate for global wheat production by 5.9 million tonnes (Mt) from the previous Agricultural Market Information Systems (AMIS) estimate released last month.
FAO AMIS world wheat projections in million tonnes.
The net 4.8Mt increase lifts the forecast for the world 2020-21 wheat crop to a record 764.9Mt, pipping by just a few million tonnes the previous records set in 2019-20 and 2017-18 (chart 1).
Full story
2) Heat-tolerant crops: Sudan announces largest ever wheat harvest
African Development Bank, 19 October
Despite coronavirus-related lockdowns, travel and transport restrictions, Sudan has just recorded its largest wheat harvest.
According to Sudanese officials, the nation saw a wheat production level of a 1.115 million-ton harvest from 315,500 hectares of farmland. That’s quite an improvement from just five years ago, when farmers in Sudan working about a quarter-million hectares of land harvested just 472,000 tons of the grain.
Development experts and economists say the nation is on the path to become Africa’s next wheat-sourcing breadbasket, and Sudanese farmers and government leaders are crediting the African Development Bank's Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation program, or TAAT, for delivering the latest technology of heat-tolerant wheat varieties to Sudanese wheat farmers at scale.
Full story
3) Argentina to produce climate-resistant super wheat in world first
The Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2020
Gene-edited wheat is to be grown in Argentina, as the country becomes the first in the world to give the green light on the use of the drought-resistant crop.
Argentina has become the first country to approve the growth and consumption of genetically modified drought-tolerant wheat; Marcelo Manera, AFP
The genetically modified variety flourishes under dry conditions, providing hope for Latin America's largest wheat producer, which has struggled with on-going water stress in recent years.
The new generation of wheat is known as BIOX.BA HB4 and was developed by Trigall Genetics, in partnership with Bioceres BIOX.A and France's Florimond Desprez.
In field trials conducted over the past 10 years, the seed varieties showed an average increased crop yield of 20 per cent during growing seasons affected by droughts.
This is not the first climate-resistant super crop to be approved in Argentina.
Alongside the United States and Brazil, the country has already been planting Trigall's modified soya bean for at least a year.
Full story (£)
Grain Central, 9 October 2020
Improved late-season yield prospects in greater Europe and Australia have lifted the estimate for global wheat production by 5.9 million tonnes (Mt) from the previous Agricultural Market Information Systems (AMIS) estimate released last month.
FAO AMIS world wheat projections in million tonnes.
The net 4.8Mt increase lifts the forecast for the world 2020-21 wheat crop to a record 764.9Mt, pipping by just a few million tonnes the previous records set in 2019-20 and 2017-18 (chart 1).
Full story
2) Heat-tolerant crops: Sudan announces largest ever wheat harvest
African Development Bank, 19 October
Despite coronavirus-related lockdowns, travel and transport restrictions, Sudan has just recorded its largest wheat harvest.
According to Sudanese officials, the nation saw a wheat production level of a 1.115 million-ton harvest from 315,500 hectares of farmland. That’s quite an improvement from just five years ago, when farmers in Sudan working about a quarter-million hectares of land harvested just 472,000 tons of the grain.
Development experts and economists say the nation is on the path to become Africa’s next wheat-sourcing breadbasket, and Sudanese farmers and government leaders are crediting the African Development Bank's Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation program, or TAAT, for delivering the latest technology of heat-tolerant wheat varieties to Sudanese wheat farmers at scale.
Full story
3) Argentina to produce climate-resistant super wheat in world first
The Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2020
Gene-edited wheat is to be grown in Argentina, as the country becomes the first in the world to give the green light on the use of the drought-resistant crop.
Argentina has become the first country to approve the growth and consumption of genetically modified drought-tolerant wheat; Marcelo Manera, AFP
The genetically modified variety flourishes under dry conditions, providing hope for Latin America's largest wheat producer, which has struggled with on-going water stress in recent years.
The new generation of wheat is known as BIOX.BA HB4 and was developed by Trigall Genetics, in partnership with Bioceres BIOX.A and France's Florimond Desprez.
In field trials conducted over the past 10 years, the seed varieties showed an average increased crop yield of 20 per cent during growing seasons affected by droughts.
This is not the first climate-resistant super crop to be approved in Argentina.
Alongside the United States and Brazil, the country has already been planting Trigall's modified soya bean for at least a year.
Full story (£)
4) Brazil expects record harvest
Merco Press, 19 October 2020
Brazil expects its 2020-2021 grain harvest to beat the record set by the newly completed season by 4.2%, according to an initial forecast released by the state-owned National Supply Company.
The coming grain harvest is estimated to reach 268.7 million tons, or 11 million tons more than the previous harvest of 257.7 million tons.
Conab also projects a 1.3 percent expansion in cultivated area to 66.8 million hectares, an increase of 879,500 hectares.
The output of soybean, Brazilian agriculture's main export, is estimated to reach 133.7 million tons, maintaining Brazil's ranking as the world's leading producer of the legume.
Full story
Merco Press, 19 October 2020
Brazil expects its 2020-2021 grain harvest to beat the record set by the newly completed season by 4.2%, according to an initial forecast released by the state-owned National Supply Company.
The coming grain harvest is estimated to reach 268.7 million tons, or 11 million tons more than the previous harvest of 257.7 million tons.
Conab also projects a 1.3 percent expansion in cultivated area to 66.8 million hectares, an increase of 879,500 hectares.
The output of soybean, Brazilian agriculture's main export, is estimated to reach 133.7 million tons, maintaining Brazil's ranking as the world's leading producer of the legume.
Full story
5) Best Indian rainfall since 1901 raises hopes for record harvest
Economic Times of India, 1 September 2020
New Delhi: The monsoon has roared back in August with excess rain of 26%, and is likely to be among the wettest since 1901, when the weather office started recording official data.
Rainfall is already at a record in India’s mid-latitude states including Mahrashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Odisha. This region, which the weather office categorises as ‘central India’, has received an all-time high of 482.8 mm rainfall this month.
The surge in rainfall, following a weak July, has raised hopes of a record harvest of summer-sown, or kharif, crops, although there are concerns about floods, particularly in Madhya Pradesh, which is an important area for oilseeds and pulses.
From a shortage of 2% at the start of the month, monsoon rainfall since June 1 now stands at 10% above normal, spearheaded by the southwest monsoon remaining active in western India throughout the month. Rains in north India were also normal, after a disastrous July that saw the region suffer a 26% rain deficit.
Full story
7) Sorry, Google News, climate change is helping end world hunger
H Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, 19 October 2020
At the top of search results today for “climate change,” Google News is promoting an article claiming climate change is causing world hunger. However, data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) clearly show global crop production and food stocks have increased significantly and steadily during recent years and decades as the Earth modestly warms.
Climate change is helping end world hunger, not making world hunger worse.
The Google-promoted article, published by InkStick Media, is titled “Climate Change Is Hampering Our Ability to Combat World Hunger.” The article claims there has been an increase in world hunger since 2014, the article blames this human-caused climate change. The author quotes Swedish diplomat Jan Eliasson saying the world needs to “make peace with nature.” Unless we do so, the author warns, “Today, without a global effort we will certainly lose the battle for survival.”
Even if it were true that there has an increase in world hunger since 2014, the blame would be on political instability and corrupt centralized governments in Third World countries, not crop production or climate change. The FAO’s recent “Cereal Supply and Demand Brief”clearly shows both cereal crop production and cereal stocks have steadily increased since 2014, and have increased dramatically since 2010 (See the figure Below).
FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, August 10, 2020.
Cereal grains include the Big Three food staples of corn, wheat, and rice, as well as some similar crops. Corn (maize), rice, and wheat by comprise 66 percent of global human food consumption. Also, just 15 crops provide 90 percent of the humanity’s food energy intake. Cereal grains make up nine of those 15 crops. As shown above, the FAO reports cereal grain production set new records seven of the past 10 years.
Looking ahead, the online agriculture news service World-Grain.com recently published a story, “IGC projects record output for corn, wheat and soybeans,” highlighting the International Grains Council’s findings that it expects global yields of corn, rice, soybeans, and wheat to set new records again in 2020, despite the pandemic.
Global warming lengthens growing seasons, reduces frost events, and makes more land suitable for crop production. Also, carbon dioxide is an aerial fertilizer for plant life. These factors combined have resulted in the largest decline in hunger, malnutrition, and starvation in human history.
Although 700 million people worldwide still suffer from persistent hunger, the United Nations reports the number of hungry people has declined by two billion people since 1990.
To the extent hunger has increased some over the past few years, poor infrastructure, political corruption, internal conflicts, and war – not long-term human-caused climate change – is to blame.
As much as the media and climate alarmists may try to equate climate change with crop failures and hunger, the fact is global crop yields set new records virtually every year in response to beneficial ongoing warming.
The surge in rainfall, following a weak July, has raised hopes of a record harvest of summer-sown, or kharif, crops, although there are concerns about floods, particularly in Madhya Pradesh, which is an important area for oilseeds and pulses.
From a shortage of 2% at the start of the month, monsoon rainfall since June 1 now stands at 10% above normal, spearheaded by the southwest monsoon remaining active in western India throughout the month. Rains in north India were also normal, after a disastrous July that saw the region suffer a 26% rain deficit.
Full story
6) Australia prepares for bumper harvest as rain boosts NSW winter crops 300%
The Guardian, 21 September 2020
Wettest winter in the state since 2016 has brought ‘an incredible turnaround’ for grain growers hit by drought
Australia is preparing for a bumper harvest after one of the worst droughts on record with New South Wales leading the way, predicting a 300% year-on-year increase.
Fuelled by above average rainfall between March and August, winter crop production in the state is predicted to rise 49% above the 10-year average to 2019-20.
It means Australia’s overall production will increase by 60% year on year, raising hopes that the industry will drive the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery.
The wet winter has helped drag much of the state out of prolonged drought, with the Department of Primary Industries saying “much of NSW is well positioned for longer-term recovery.”
And that has meant farmers are expecting a spectacular winter harvest this year, with Dr Cheryl Kalisch Gordon, senior grains and oilseeds analyst at Rabobank echoing a forecast for huge gains.
Full story
The Guardian, 21 September 2020
Wettest winter in the state since 2016 has brought ‘an incredible turnaround’ for grain growers hit by drought
Australia is preparing for a bumper harvest after one of the worst droughts on record with New South Wales leading the way, predicting a 300% year-on-year increase.
Fuelled by above average rainfall between March and August, winter crop production in the state is predicted to rise 49% above the 10-year average to 2019-20.
It means Australia’s overall production will increase by 60% year on year, raising hopes that the industry will drive the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery.
The wet winter has helped drag much of the state out of prolonged drought, with the Department of Primary Industries saying “much of NSW is well positioned for longer-term recovery.”
And that has meant farmers are expecting a spectacular winter harvest this year, with Dr Cheryl Kalisch Gordon, senior grains and oilseeds analyst at Rabobank echoing a forecast for huge gains.
Full story
7) Sorry, Google News, climate change is helping end world hunger
H Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, 19 October 2020
At the top of search results today for “climate change,” Google News is promoting an article claiming climate change is causing world hunger. However, data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) clearly show global crop production and food stocks have increased significantly and steadily during recent years and decades as the Earth modestly warms.
Climate change is helping end world hunger, not making world hunger worse.
The Google-promoted article, published by InkStick Media, is titled “Climate Change Is Hampering Our Ability to Combat World Hunger.” The article claims there has been an increase in world hunger since 2014, the article blames this human-caused climate change. The author quotes Swedish diplomat Jan Eliasson saying the world needs to “make peace with nature.” Unless we do so, the author warns, “Today, without a global effort we will certainly lose the battle for survival.”
Even if it were true that there has an increase in world hunger since 2014, the blame would be on political instability and corrupt centralized governments in Third World countries, not crop production or climate change. The FAO’s recent “Cereal Supply and Demand Brief”clearly shows both cereal crop production and cereal stocks have steadily increased since 2014, and have increased dramatically since 2010 (See the figure Below).
FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, August 10, 2020.
Cereal grains include the Big Three food staples of corn, wheat, and rice, as well as some similar crops. Corn (maize), rice, and wheat by comprise 66 percent of global human food consumption. Also, just 15 crops provide 90 percent of the humanity’s food energy intake. Cereal grains make up nine of those 15 crops. As shown above, the FAO reports cereal grain production set new records seven of the past 10 years.
Looking ahead, the online agriculture news service World-Grain.com recently published a story, “IGC projects record output for corn, wheat and soybeans,” highlighting the International Grains Council’s findings that it expects global yields of corn, rice, soybeans, and wheat to set new records again in 2020, despite the pandemic.
Global warming lengthens growing seasons, reduces frost events, and makes more land suitable for crop production. Also, carbon dioxide is an aerial fertilizer for plant life. These factors combined have resulted in the largest decline in hunger, malnutrition, and starvation in human history.
Although 700 million people worldwide still suffer from persistent hunger, the United Nations reports the number of hungry people has declined by two billion people since 1990.
To the extent hunger has increased some over the past few years, poor infrastructure, political corruption, internal conflicts, and war – not long-term human-caused climate change – is to blame.
As much as the media and climate alarmists may try to equate climate change with crop failures and hunger, the fact is global crop yields set new records virtually every year in response to beneficial ongoing warming.
8) ‘Green Recovery’ flop: Another UK wind farm deal collapses
The Times, 22 October 2020
A deal for BiFab fabrication yards to build structures for a £2 billion offshore wind farm has collapsed, according to union leaders.
BiFab was to manufacture eight turbine jackets at its yards in Methil, Fife, as part of the Neart Na Gaoithe (NnG) project developed by EDF Renewables.
Gary Smith, GMB Scotland secretary, and Pat Rafferty, the Unite Scotland secretary, used a joint statement to criticise the outcome which they labelled a “political failure”.
They said: “It looks like the Scottish government ministers have walked away from our best chance of building a meaningful offshore wind manufacturing sector, and in doing so has extinguished the hopes of communities in Fife and Lewis who were banking their future prosperity on it.
“It’s a scandalous end to a decade which started with promises of a ‘Saudi Arabia of Renewables’ supporting 28,000 full-time jobs in offshore wind and now finishes in mothballed fabrication yards and no prospect of any contracts or jobs on the horizon.” […]
Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, was also critical of the deal’s collapse which comes after BiFab missed out on other vital contracts. “Following hard on the heels of SSE awarding the £3 billion Seagreen fabrication work to China and the UAE this represents nothing less than an abject failure of government,” he said.
“There ought to be a plan for a green jobs dividend here when renewable energy projects are licensed. Instead of the Scottish government leading a plan for jobs and investment we have seen market forces triumph at the expense of working people. With yards in Scotland lying idle and a skilled workforce able to do this work there is real anger that these workers and communities have been let down.”
Full story (£)
The Times, 22 October 2020
A deal for BiFab fabrication yards to build structures for a £2 billion offshore wind farm has collapsed, according to union leaders.
BiFab was to manufacture eight turbine jackets at its yards in Methil, Fife, as part of the Neart Na Gaoithe (NnG) project developed by EDF Renewables.
Gary Smith, GMB Scotland secretary, and Pat Rafferty, the Unite Scotland secretary, used a joint statement to criticise the outcome which they labelled a “political failure”.
They said: “It looks like the Scottish government ministers have walked away from our best chance of building a meaningful offshore wind manufacturing sector, and in doing so has extinguished the hopes of communities in Fife and Lewis who were banking their future prosperity on it.
“It’s a scandalous end to a decade which started with promises of a ‘Saudi Arabia of Renewables’ supporting 28,000 full-time jobs in offshore wind and now finishes in mothballed fabrication yards and no prospect of any contracts or jobs on the horizon.” […]
Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, was also critical of the deal’s collapse which comes after BiFab missed out on other vital contracts. “Following hard on the heels of SSE awarding the £3 billion Seagreen fabrication work to China and the UAE this represents nothing less than an abject failure of government,” he said.
“There ought to be a plan for a green jobs dividend here when renewable energy projects are licensed. Instead of the Scottish government leading a plan for jobs and investment we have seen market forces triumph at the expense of working people. With yards in Scotland lying idle and a skilled workforce able to do this work there is real anger that these workers and communities have been let down.”
Full story (£)
9) James Randi: World’s most famous sceptic & climate sceptic dies aged 92
GWPF, 22 October 2020
James Randi, the famed magician and the world’s foremost sceptic who devoted much of his career to debunking the paranormal and pseudoscience has died aged 92.
James Randi: “It’s easy enough to believe that drought, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes are signs of a coming catastrophe from global warming, but these are normal variations of any climate.” Photo Richard Shotwell/AP
What you won’t read in the obituaries published in the news media, however, is that he was also an outspoken climate sceptic and critic of climate alarmism.
In his memory, we are publishing excerpts of his 2009 sceptical take on global warming and consensus science.
GWPF, 22 October 2020
James Randi, the famed magician and the world’s foremost sceptic who devoted much of his career to debunking the paranormal and pseudoscience has died aged 92.
James Randi: “It’s easy enough to believe that drought, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes are signs of a coming catastrophe from global warming, but these are normal variations of any climate.” Photo Richard Shotwell/AP
What you won’t read in the obituaries published in the news media, however, is that he was also an outspoken climate sceptic and critic of climate alarmism.
In his memory, we are publishing excerpts of his 2009 sceptical take on global warming and consensus science.
James Randi: AGW Revisited
Though this subject is not one that directly concerns the JREF, I’m very frequently asked if I’ll turn my skeptical eye to it. As a year-end fling, I’ll give it a try. To wit:
An unfortunate fact is that scientists are just as human as the rest of us, in that they are strongly influenced by the need to be accepted, to kowtow to peer opinion, and to “belong” in the scientific community. Why do I find this “unfortunate”? Because the media and the hoi polloi increasingly depend upon and accept ideas or principles that are proclaimed loudly enough by academics who are often more driven by “politically correct” survival principles than by those given them by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Bohr. (Granted, it’s reassuring that they’re listening to academics at all — but how to tell the competent from the incompetent?) Religious and other emotional convictions drive scientists, despite what they may think their motivations are.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — a group of thousands of scientists in 194 countries around the world, and recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize — has issued several comprehensive reports in which they indicate that they have become convinced that “global warming” is and will be seriously destructive to life as we know it, and that Man is the chief cause of it. They say that there is a consensus of scientists who believe we are headed for disaster if we do not stop burning fossil fuels, but a growing number of prominent scientists disagree.
Meanwhile, some 32,000 scientists, 9,000 of them PhDs, have signed The Petition Project statement proclaiming that Man is not necessarily the chief cause of warming, that the phenomenon may not exist at all, and that, in any case, warming would not be disastrous.
Happily, science does not depend on consensus.
Conclusions are either reached or not, but only after an analysis of evidence as found in nature. It’s often been said that once a conclusion is reached, proper scientists set about trying to prove themselves wrong. Failing in that, they arrive at a statement that appears — based on all available data — to describe a limited aspect about how the world appears to work. And not all scientists are willing to follow this path. My most excellent friend Martin Gardner once asked a parapsychologist just what sort of evidence would convince him he had erred in coming to a certain conclusion. The parascientist replied that he could not imagine any such situation, thus — in my opinion — removing him from the ranks of the scientific discipline rather decidedly.
History supplies us with many examples where scientists were just plain wrong about certain matters, but ultimately discovered the truth through continued research. Science recovers from such situations quite well, though sometimes with minor wounds.
I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid. I base this on my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the facts about planet Earth. This ball of hot rock and salt water spins on its axis and rotates about the Sun with the expected regularity, though we’re aware that lunar tides, solar wind, galactic space dust and geomagnetic storms have cooled the planet by about one centigrade degree in the past 150 years. The myriad of influences that act upon Earth are so many and so variable — though not capricious — that I believe we simply cannot formulate an equation into which we enter variables and come up with an answer. A living planet will continually belch, vibrate, fracture, and crumble a bit, and thus defeat an accurate equation. Please note that this my amateur opinion, based on probably insufficient data.
It appears that the Earth is warming, and has continued to warm since the last Ice Age, which ended some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. But that has not been an even warming. Years of warming followed by years of cooling have left us just a bit warmer than before. This conclusion has been arrived at from data collected at some 1,200+ weather stations in the USA, though bear in mind that there are very few weather stations over the vast oceans that cover 70% of our planet, or on the continents Africa, South America, and especially Antarctica.
We can now record temperatures with much better than the former fraction-of-a-degree accuracy we had just a decade ago, but that temperature change appears to be just about half a degree Centigrade.
Our Earth’s atmosphere is approximately 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen. Just .04% is carbon dioxide — a “trace” amount. But from that tiny percentage is built all the plants we have on Earth. CO2 is a natural molecule absolutely required for plant life to survive, and in the process of growing, those plants give off oxygen. We — and all animal life — consume that oxygen and give off CO2. (No, this is not an example of Intelligent Design.) If that balance is sufficiently disturbed, species either adapt or perish. And the world turns…
Yes, we produce CO2, by burning “fossil fuels” and by simply breathing. And every fossil fuel produces CO2. Some products produce more than others, varying with their chemical composition. Methane gas produces less CO2, wood produces more. But almost paradoxically, when wood burns it produces CO2, and when a tree dies and rots it produces yet more CO2. Oceans are huge storage tanks for CO2, but as they warm up, they hold less of the dissolved gas. They release it into the atmosphere, then more of it is absorbed back into the oceans. And as far as humans are concerned, ten times more people die each year from the effects of cold than die from the heat. This a hugely complex set of variables we are trying to reduce to an equation…
It’s easy enough to believe that drought, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes are signs of a coming catastrophe from global warming, but these are normal variations of any climate that we — and other forms of life — have survived. Earth has undergone many serious changes in climate, from the Ice Ages to periods of heavily increased plant growth from their high levels of CO2, yet the biosphere has survived. We’re adaptable, stubborn, and persistent — and we have what other life forms don’t have: we can manipulate our environment. Show me an Inuit who can survive in his habitat without warm clothing… Humans will continue to infest Earth because we’re smart.
Full post
Though this subject is not one that directly concerns the JREF, I’m very frequently asked if I’ll turn my skeptical eye to it. As a year-end fling, I’ll give it a try. To wit:
An unfortunate fact is that scientists are just as human as the rest of us, in that they are strongly influenced by the need to be accepted, to kowtow to peer opinion, and to “belong” in the scientific community. Why do I find this “unfortunate”? Because the media and the hoi polloi increasingly depend upon and accept ideas or principles that are proclaimed loudly enough by academics who are often more driven by “politically correct” survival principles than by those given them by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Bohr. (Granted, it’s reassuring that they’re listening to academics at all — but how to tell the competent from the incompetent?) Religious and other emotional convictions drive scientists, despite what they may think their motivations are.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — a group of thousands of scientists in 194 countries around the world, and recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize — has issued several comprehensive reports in which they indicate that they have become convinced that “global warming” is and will be seriously destructive to life as we know it, and that Man is the chief cause of it. They say that there is a consensus of scientists who believe we are headed for disaster if we do not stop burning fossil fuels, but a growing number of prominent scientists disagree.
Meanwhile, some 32,000 scientists, 9,000 of them PhDs, have signed The Petition Project statement proclaiming that Man is not necessarily the chief cause of warming, that the phenomenon may not exist at all, and that, in any case, warming would not be disastrous.
Happily, science does not depend on consensus.
Conclusions are either reached or not, but only after an analysis of evidence as found in nature. It’s often been said that once a conclusion is reached, proper scientists set about trying to prove themselves wrong. Failing in that, they arrive at a statement that appears — based on all available data — to describe a limited aspect about how the world appears to work. And not all scientists are willing to follow this path. My most excellent friend Martin Gardner once asked a parapsychologist just what sort of evidence would convince him he had erred in coming to a certain conclusion. The parascientist replied that he could not imagine any such situation, thus — in my opinion — removing him from the ranks of the scientific discipline rather decidedly.
History supplies us with many examples where scientists were just plain wrong about certain matters, but ultimately discovered the truth through continued research. Science recovers from such situations quite well, though sometimes with minor wounds.
I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid. I base this on my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the facts about planet Earth. This ball of hot rock and salt water spins on its axis and rotates about the Sun with the expected regularity, though we’re aware that lunar tides, solar wind, galactic space dust and geomagnetic storms have cooled the planet by about one centigrade degree in the past 150 years. The myriad of influences that act upon Earth are so many and so variable — though not capricious — that I believe we simply cannot formulate an equation into which we enter variables and come up with an answer. A living planet will continually belch, vibrate, fracture, and crumble a bit, and thus defeat an accurate equation. Please note that this my amateur opinion, based on probably insufficient data.
It appears that the Earth is warming, and has continued to warm since the last Ice Age, which ended some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. But that has not been an even warming. Years of warming followed by years of cooling have left us just a bit warmer than before. This conclusion has been arrived at from data collected at some 1,200+ weather stations in the USA, though bear in mind that there are very few weather stations over the vast oceans that cover 70% of our planet, or on the continents Africa, South America, and especially Antarctica.
We can now record temperatures with much better than the former fraction-of-a-degree accuracy we had just a decade ago, but that temperature change appears to be just about half a degree Centigrade.
Our Earth’s atmosphere is approximately 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen. Just .04% is carbon dioxide — a “trace” amount. But from that tiny percentage is built all the plants we have on Earth. CO2 is a natural molecule absolutely required for plant life to survive, and in the process of growing, those plants give off oxygen. We — and all animal life — consume that oxygen and give off CO2. (No, this is not an example of Intelligent Design.) If that balance is sufficiently disturbed, species either adapt or perish. And the world turns…
Yes, we produce CO2, by burning “fossil fuels” and by simply breathing. And every fossil fuel produces CO2. Some products produce more than others, varying with their chemical composition. Methane gas produces less CO2, wood produces more. But almost paradoxically, when wood burns it produces CO2, and when a tree dies and rots it produces yet more CO2. Oceans are huge storage tanks for CO2, but as they warm up, they hold less of the dissolved gas. They release it into the atmosphere, then more of it is absorbed back into the oceans. And as far as humans are concerned, ten times more people die each year from the effects of cold than die from the heat. This a hugely complex set of variables we are trying to reduce to an equation…
It’s easy enough to believe that drought, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes are signs of a coming catastrophe from global warming, but these are normal variations of any climate that we — and other forms of life — have survived. Earth has undergone many serious changes in climate, from the Ice Ages to periods of heavily increased plant growth from their high levels of CO2, yet the biosphere has survived. We’re adaptable, stubborn, and persistent — and we have what other life forms don’t have: we can manipulate our environment. Show me an Inuit who can survive in his habitat without warm clothing… Humans will continue to infest Earth because we’re smart.
Full post
The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.
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