Can Kyoto pass this test?

NATIONAL POST

Can Kyoto pass this test?: Implementing Kyoto could do serious damage to the Canadian economy. So before Parliament ploughs ahead, here are four simple questions that must be answered

Thu 12 Sep 2002
Page: FP15
Section: Financial Post: Editorial

Before Parliament ploughs ahead with ratification of the Kyoto accord, the deal should have to pass four simple tests. That's not too much to ask. After all, the price of implementing the international climate treaty could be as high as $4,000 in lost income per Canadian family, perhaps more. Hundreds of thousands stand to lose their jobs and businesses. A Kyoto-induced recession is a real possibility. Besides, its defenders insist the treaty is incontrovertible. Surely, then, it can withstand mere human tests.

Here are the four: Is the globe really warming? If it is, will the warming be harmful? Is human activity causing the warming? Can Kyoto stop it?

Is the globe really warming?

From 1860 to 1940, the Earth warmed about 0.6 degrees C, long before the widespread industrialization and SUVs that are today blamed for global warming. There's little evidence it's warmed much since. If anything, from the '40s to the '70s, it cooled. Indeed, so confident were the majority of scientists then that the cooling was an irreversible trend -- just as global warming is said to be today -- many predicted an Ice Age was on its way.

Oh sure, some official scientific body or other has declared each year for the past five or 10 to be "the hottest on record." We've even been told the 1990s were the hottest decade of the past 1,000 years. Tuesday, the summer of 2002 was proclaimed Canada's "hottest ever." But such pronouncements are based on the less reliable of the principal methods used to measure temperature -- thermometers on the Earth's surface. NASA's eight, far more accurate, weather satellites, have shown no appreciable warming since 1979 when they were placed in polar orbit.

Even Earthbound thermometers don't show much warming in the past 70 years -- perhaps another half-degree Celsius. Most of the catastrophic warming we hear about from environmentalists exists only in models on supercomputers. It is not warming that has happened, or is happening, but rather warming that software predicts will happen -- if the programmers have all the inputs right, which they probably don't. The environmentalists are happy, though, to let media reports about record heat feed the public's misconception that disastrous warming is already upon us. It helps fatten their donations and grants, and makes it easier to sell their political demands for more regulation and central planning.

There are several weaknesses in the surface readings. For one, they cover just under half of the Earth's surface. Warming -- or cooling -- going on over vast areas of wilderness or oceans is never detected. For another, a large number of weather stations that were constructed out in the country, have since become surrounded by metropolises. Large cities produce their own "heat islands," which cause surface readings to show artificial and misleading warming. Then there is the human factor; not all those who gather temperature information are as diligent and precise as they ought to be. Even the thermometers themselves may be off by as much half a degree, up or down.

NASA's "birds," on the other hand, take more than 300,000 readings daily (versus 7,000 surface readings), and they take them over the entire surface of planet, as often and as accurately in the middle of the Pacific, the Gobi and the Nahani as in the centre of Vancouver or Hong Kong. There was some glee among environmentalists two years ago when they detected a glitch in the satellites' methods. Initially, the scientists in charge of them had failed to account fully for the fractions of millimetres of downward drift that occur in their orbits each year. But even after correcting for this decay, the satellites have detected no appreciable warming during their 23 years in service.

Will warming be harmful?

It's likely any warming in the past 150 years is a return to more normal temperatures rather then a harbinger of coming disaster. Before the mid-19th century, the Earth was in the grasp of a Little Ice Age, five centuries of unusually cold temperatures. Just as there is no reason to fear the thaw that follows winter, there is no reason to wring our hands over this warming, either.

Moreover, the Little Ice Age followed what is known as the Medieval Warm Period. Indeed, before it became politically incorrect to suggest warming might be good for humankind, the warm period was referred to as the Medieval Optimal -- the implication being that warmer is better.

From 900AD to 1300AD, the Earth was about 4 degrees C warmer than it is now. That's substantially warmer, as much warmer as environmentalists warn us it will become again if we don't start driving pedal-powered cars and permitting them to design our economy.

Yet the Medieval Warm Period was a time of great human advancement and stable climates, rather than the era of pestilence and suffering our environmental high priests predict is in store for us. The early cathedrals and castles of Europe went up at this time. Harvest abounded, wars were few. Thanks to a lack of disease, the population grew. In Asia, the Mongols took advantage of the centuries of warmth to advance their empire halfway across the world. Trade flourished. Silk and spice routes opened.

Only after the climate began to cool were the settlements on Greenland abandoned, after 350 years of habitation. The native civilizations of Central America also began to disappear, along with southern England's vineyards. The Black Plague devastated Europe. And wars of conquest and succession became commonplace.

Moreover, for all the talk about the severity of this summer's drought in Western Canada, it was a piker by historical standards. The worst droughts of the past 2,000 years have occurred during downturns in temperature, not upswings. The worst, between 1680 and 1720, corresponded precisely with the coldest period of the Little Ice Age.

Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the vaunted UN body of scientists that has declared global warming to be real, man-made and bad, in its last official report in 2001, admitted warming might actually boost Canadian agriculture, rather than wipe it out.

Far from being a bane, warming could well be a boon.

Is human activity causing the warming?

Assuming for a moment that global warming is actually occurring and that it will be bad (Otherwise, why would we try to stop it?), is human activity the cause?

Not likely. The warming and brightening of the sun over the past century or so could account for all of the warming -- all of it -- since the end of the Little Ice Age. The trough of the Little Ice Age, the coldest period in the past millennium, occurred during what is known as the Maunder Minimum, a decades-long phase when nearly no sunspot or solar flare activity was recorded. The sun makes day warmer than night, clear days warmer than cloudy and summer warmer than winter. Increased solar radiation in the Pacific causes that ocean to heat and spawn El Ninos. So why is it so outrageous to think the sun is behind warming, and not smokestacks?

Indeed, it's hard to believe man-made carbon dioxide is the cause. Humans produce no more than 5% of all the CO2 released into the atmosphere in a year, and very likely no more than 2%. Rotting vegetation in the rainforest, gas released from oceans, even the natural nocturnal respiration of most living plants together account for 20 to 50 times as much C02 emissions. It's unlikely our tiny fraction is the thumb on the environment's scale.

Can Kyoto stop the warming?

In a word: No.

Kyoto makes no reduction in the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere. At most, it slows the rate at which the concentration grows. Between now and 2020, worldwide CO2 concentrations will increase by 60%, even with Kyoto. Without it, they will rise by perhaps 67 or 68%.

The supercomputer models that the environmentalists rely on for their predictions of a coming climate cataclysm show less than one-tenth of one degree less warming if Kyoto is fully implemented. Without the United States on board (and the United States will not ratify Kyoto), some models show as little as 0.02 degreesC less warming by 2100, even if all the other signatories ratify and implement. That's a rise of, say, 2.98 degreesC over the next century instead of 3.0 degreesC, a difference of just two-one-hundredths of a degree. Whoopee!

Even if the United States were to reverse itself, the effect on temperature would be less the five-one-hundredths of a degree.

Kyoto also doesn't apply to developing countries, only to developed ones. Environmentalists have recently begun to claim the developing world is obliged to live by Kyoto's restrictions. But this is false. Developing countries have signed on to a codicil of the accord that obliges them only to begin cleaning up their emissions after 2012. They don't even have to set targets for reductions until then. By 2012, China, India and perhaps Indonesia will all have outpaced the United States in CO2 and other greenhouse emissions. They are already seven to 10 times greater polluters on a per-dollar-of-GDP-produced basis. By then, they'll just be bigger polluters, period.

If Kyoto's purpose was to save the environment, rather than to also act as a sort of hidden wealth redistribution plan from industrialized countries to developing ones, it would be necessary to make its constrictions apply to all nations.

Besides, there have been many periods in our climatic history in which CO2 levels have been as much as 10 times higher than they are now, and the Earth has been no warmer. Carbon dioxide levels follow temperature increases, they don't cause them.

So why are the Liberals so intent on bullying ahead with Kyoto, if it fails all four of these tests? Why do all the opposition parties, except the Canadian Alliance, agree, as well as most of the provinces?

Politics. Being "green" attracts votes.

But mostly, support for Kyoto is ideological, even among scientists. The current generation of decisionmakers and thinkers is suspicious of free markets and industry. It worships government and the "public good." Increase the role of government in the equation, and they are instantly placated. That's why the imposition of worldwide regulation of Kyoto calms their fears for the environment even though Kyoto does nothing scientifically. That's why politicians and government-funded scientists like it and why they are sure it will made the world a safer place.
______________________________
Lorne Gunter
Columnist, The Edmonton Journal
Editorial Board Member, The National Post

Index to some of Lorne Gunter's articles

On global warming
On other issues

NEW YORK — Before the United Nations can save the planet, it needs to clean up its own house. And as scandal after scandal has unfolded over the past decade, from Oil for Food to procurement fraud to peacekeeper rape, the size of that job has become stunningly clear.

But any understanding of the real efforts that job entails should begin with a look at the long and murky career of Maurice Strong, the man who may have had the most to do with what the U.N. has become today, and still sparks controversy even after he claims to have cut his ties to the world organization. (Full Story — Off-site)

Fight Kyoto

by Ezra Levant

Book information

Interview with Ezra Levant, author of the new book Fight Kyoto, transcript by J. L. Jackson, broadcast December 9, 2002 on the Cat Country Radio show Agritalk with Jim Fisher.

Make sure you do not miss the excerpt that deals with Maurice Strong, the real power behind Kyoto: "Maurice Strong: A Dr. Evil-style strategist. Owner of a 200,000-acre New Age Zen colony [in Colorado]. Designer of a proposal to "consider" requiring licences to have babies. The architect of the Kyoto Protocol." It is an eye-opener, especially the strong ties to the powers in Canadian politics. For example: Maurice Strong gave Paul Martin his first job during university break "and made him and his family unimaginably rich."

At Ezra Levant's website there are more links to articles that are based on excerpts from his book.

International Man of Mystery: Who Is Maurice Strong?
The adventures of Maurice Strong & Co. illustrate the fact that nowadays you don't have to be a household name to wield global power. ...

Meet Maurice Strong
Maurice Strong: The new guy in your future! By Henry Lamb January, 1997....
Maurice Strong, "Stockholm to Rio: A Journey Down a Generation."

Maurice Strong, Co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Earth Council
Earth Council Alliance

Strong, Maurice F., 1929- . Papers, 1948-2000: Guide
Harvard University Library

Dossier - Maurice Strong
... Policy Research. Maurice Strong. Maurice Strong is a senior advisor to United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Anan.

The Earth Charter's Unholy Ark

With today's emphasis on "honoring the past and imagining the future," many see nothing wrong with redesigning the "memories" of the past to reflect their vision of the future. Many environmental visionaries have called for "new stories" that replace the old truths and redirect our values. The message in this new ark serves the purpose well. It puts new meaning into old memories and usurps the honor inherent in the original. But that's part of the UN plan. There is little appreciation for God's law and His treasured covenant (the binding agreement He made with His people long ago) in our pluralistic, postmodern age.

To fill the vacuum, even staunch Communists such as Mikhail Gorbachev call for spiritual revival. They envision a union of religions, all molded and conformed to a global, earth-centered spirituality. The gods, spirits and pantheistic forces of indigenous religions fit right in. Long a promoter of the Earth Charter and its socialist regulations, the former Soviet ruler knows well that strategic visual images inspire the masses and speed transformation. [See The State of the World according to Gorbachev]

So does Maurice Strong, the powerful founder and leader of the Earth Council. Though usually hidden behind the scenes, Strong is no minor player in this global contest for the minds of the masses. He led the UN Environmental Programme, directed the 1972 and 1992 UN Conferences on the Environment and Development, founded Planetary Citizens, directed the World Future Society and founded and co-chaired the World Economic Forum. He is a member of the Club of Rome, trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and Aspen Institute, a member of the UN Commission on Global Governance, and Senior Advisor to the World Bank as well as to UN Secretary General Kofi Anan [See Towards A Rapid Reaction Capability for the UN].

"The real goal of the Earth Charter is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments."

— Maurice Strong

Earth Charter displayed at United Nations

In 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development issued a call for creation of a new charter that would set forth fundamental principles for sustainable development. The drafting of an Earth Charter was part of the unfinished business of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
In 1994 Maurice Strong, the secretary general of the Earth Summit and chair of the Earth Council, and Mikhail Gorbachev, president of Green Cross International, launched a new Earth Charter initiative with support from the Dutch government. An Earth Charter Commission was formed in 1997 to oversee the project and an Earth Charter Secretariat was established at the Earth Council in Costa Rica.

Update 2005 06 17:

2. Is the right to water a new concept within human rights’ legislature?
The right to water is explicitly enshrined in two UN human rights treaties - the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well in one regional treaty – the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The Geneva Conventions guarantee the protection of this right during armed conflict.
In addition, the right to water is an implicit part of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, both of which are protected by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
However, some states continue to deny the legitimacy of this right. In light of this fact and because of the widespread non-compliance of States with their obligations regarding the right to water, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights confirmed and further defined the right to water in its General Comment No. 15.

Adopted on 26 November 2002, this document provides guidelines for States Parties on the interpretation of this right under two articles of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - Article 11 (the right to an adequate standard of living) and Article 12 (the right to health). [Source]

It makes one wonder. Do only women and children have a right to water and to clean water? But then CEDAW is not about women's rights, it is about disfranchising men, and the Conventions on the Rights of the Child are not about the rights of children, they are about disfranchising parents, with both of those objectives serving to implement the international agenda for the planned destruction of the family, so that out of the resulting rubble of civilization a global socialist totalitarian state can be constructed.

Canada's Commitment to Earth Worship at the Roots of Rapid Change to Canadian Law

An exploration of the history of the relationship between Maurice Strong and Paul Martin. Maurice Strong gave Paul Martin his his first job during summer vacation in university, hired him for Power Corporation Canada Ltd. after Martin finished university, and offered Martin a sweetheart deal, the purchase of Canada Steamship Lines, that made the Martin family unbelievably rich.
   Importantly, the article identifies Paul Martin's commitment to support the plan by Maurice Strong, Michael Gorbachev, Kofi Anan and Stephen Rockefeller to impose a universal religion of Earth worship on the world population. The new-age religion is to replace all others.
   The Canadian government provided millions of dollars in funding for the development and goals of Maurice Strong's new-age religion. The Canadian federal government also provided a $161 million in contracts to Canadian Steamship Lines, a corporation that has most of its fleet of about 50 ships registered in Barbados and Liberia and that uses shoddy labour practices.
   Maurice Strong was recently appointed as senior advisor to the Prime Minister's Office. Will he remain in that position during Stephen Harper's reign?

_________________
*"Last year [2003], the federal government insisted it had done only $137,000 in business with Martin's Canada Steamship Lines in the previous 10 years. This week [end of Jan. 2004], of course, it was revealed that that $137,000 had actually been $161 million, including $46 million during Martin's tenure as finance minister."
(Source: "There's rot in the ship of state", Edmonton Journal, Sunday 1 February 2004, p. A14)

It did work. The Liberal Party of Canada won that federal election. Canada will be red for a while longer.

Posted 2002 01 05

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