General news – Page 569

Category: General news

Managing director of Ebono Institute and major sponsor of The Generator, Geoff Ebbs, is running against Kevin Rudd in the seat of Griffith at the next Federal election. By the expression on their faces in this candid shot it looks like a pretty dull campaign. Read on

The real Himalayan scandal

However, what is really worrying about the report is how little it has to say about the future of the Himalayas-Hindu Kush, a region on which nearly 40% of the world’s population depends for water. There was a striking lack of useful data on the possible fate of the largest store of fresh water outside the poles – and no available fieldwork, it would appear, on glaciers that feed all the major river systems of Asia.

There is a further worrying unknown: what impact might the loss of the Himalayan glaciers have on the monsoon, on which food security in south Asia depends? When the report was under preparation, it seems that the science of this region – one of the world’s most sensitive and volatile – was a black hole.

There are reasons for this lack of data. There are tens of thousands of glaciers that are difficult and expensive to get to. They are scattered across three major weather systems and countless microclimates. The countries in which they lie are not good neighbours and have little history of scientific co-operation.

To be a glacier scientist in tropical and temperate zones requires both scientific training and mountaineering skills. In most of the Himalayas, those with mountaineering skills are tribal people, and those with scientific training middle-class and urban. Since the glaciers lie in some of the most sensitive security regions in the world, scientists from elsewhere can find their work frustrated by national security suspicions.

Studying the glaciers, until recently, was not a high priority. Unlike the Alps, the Himalayas has a patchy photographic record and the history of scientific glaciology is short. Climate modelling is unreliable across big variations in altitude, and in the Himalayas it needs to be tested against data collected on the ground. But the collection of even basic data is sparse: for instance, weather stations on the Qinghai–Tibet plateau were located in towns so as to be easy to read. The result was that nothing was known about precipitation at high altitude, where the glaciers are.

This is one of the most complex regions on earth, and there are confusing local variations, such as in the Karakoram, where glaciers are advancing. But this anomaly does not alter the overall picture of retreat that affects 80% of the region’s glaciers, a retreat recorded by the Chinese Academy of Science’s extensive inventory.

The people of the region know that climate change has long-term implications for their water and food security. In the short term, it threatens the energy supplies of all the nations that rely on hydropower to fuel their economies.

Farmers in Nepal are already reporting new pests and diseases. Kyrgyzstan, scientists predict, will lose 80% of its water supply. Pakistan and India’s great rivers may become seasonal, and their monsoons erratic. The Yangtze and Yellow rivers will lose volume. The pace and pattern of glacier retreat is urgent, and needs to be understood through science – not dismissed by ignorant sceptics.

Hedegaard says now is not the time for carbon tax

“It would be wrong timing at this stage to turn to the tax tool,” Hedegaard told the European Parliament, before adding that “it could come later”.

The EU already has a cap-and-trade scheme in the form of its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), but green groups have consistently criticised the scheme, arguing that the cap on emissions is too high and as a result the price of carbon has not risen to a level where it will spur investment in renewable energy.

The US, Japan, and Australia are all proposing to emulate the EU and introduce their own cap-and-trade scheme. However, the model is facing growing opposition with a number of economists and businesses arguing that a carbon tax would prove both simpler and more effective at curbing carbon emissions.

The UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change last year advised the government to intervene in the ETS and introduce a hybrid model that would effectively impose a floor price on carbon, while a number of energy firms have also argued that they need a set carbon price in order to justify future clean tech investments.

Meanwhile, one of the most vocal advocates of a carbon tax, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hansen, this week stepped up his campaign against US proposals for a cap-and-trade scheme, issuing an open letter to the head of a carbon trading summit in New York, arguing that cap-and-trade schemes represent a “path focused on corporate greed”.

Instead, Hansen advocates a form of carbon tax known as a fee-and-dividend approach. Under this model, a gradually rising carbon fee would be collected at source for each fossil fuel. The money raised from the fee would then be passed on to consumers to help them cope with rising energy and fuel prices. It is envisaged that those who chose less carbon-intensive goods and services would make money from the scheme by receiving more through the dividend than they would have to pay in increased energy and fuel bills.

Hansen says in his letter that fee-and-dividend represents a “transparent, honest approach that benefits the public”, arguing that in contrast cap-and-trade imposes “a hidden tax … because cap-and-trade increases the cost of energy for the public, as utilities and other industries purchase the right to pollute with one hand, adding it to fuel prices, while with the other hand they take back most of the permit revenues from the government”.

Meanwhile, Hedegaard told today’s hearing of MEPs that she could support calls for tougher vehicle emission standards.

The EU already has standards in place that require manufacturers to cut emissions from new cars by around 15 per cent by 2015, but Hedegaard said there could be a case for more demanding targets.

“It can be important to try and review – did we go far enough at the time? Because this is a field where technology is really moving very fast,” she said. “Often we’ve seen industry will protest and say it’s going to be extremely difficult, in fact it’s almost impossible. But then it turns out that when we do these things, we can often do it quicker than assessed before, and claimed before, and they can do it even more ambitiously.”

She added that if as expected her nomination is approved she would aim to introduce measures to cut emissions from road freight.

“We still have not done what the EU should do on lorries,” she said. “There will come an initiative on lorries, that will be one of the first things.”

Heated moments mar Monkton

So what will Christopher Monckton bring to this exasperating state of affairs? The former adviser to Margaret Thatcher is in Australia next week, speaking about the flaws of the push for a global solution to global warming. Last year, Monckton blew the whistle on a draft Copenhagen treaty that political leaders seemed keen to keep away from the prying eyes of taxpayers, who will fund the grand promises.

While nothing concrete came out of Copenhagen, the push for global commitments and a foreign aid bonanza continues. And in this respect, Monckton has plenty more to say. He has written to the Prime Minister outlining legitimate concerns that billions of dollars will be wasted on a problem that does not exist.

When Monckton talks about the science he is powerful. Watch on YouTube his kerb-side interview of a well-meaning Greenpeace follower on the streets of Copenhagen last month. With detailed data behind him, he asks whether she is aware that there has been no statistically significant change in temperatures for 15 years. No, she is not. Whether she is aware that there has in fact been global cooling in the past nine years? No, she is not. Whether she is aware that there has been virtually no change to the amount of sea ice? No, she does not. Whether, given her lack of knowledge about these facts, she is driven by faith, not facts. Yes, she is driven by faith, she says.

To those with an open mind, Monckton’s fact-based questions demand answers from our political leaders. To this end, he will impress his Australian audience over the next few days. Unfortunately, while Monckton has mastered the best arts of persuasion, he also succumbs to the worst of them when he engages in his made-for-the-stage histrionics. In Copenhagen, when a group of young activists interrupted a meeting, he berated them as Nazis and Hitler Youth. Elsewhere he has called on people to rise up and fight off a “bureaucratic communistic world government monster”. This extremist language damages his credibility. More important, it damages the debate. You start to look like a crank when you describe your opponents as Nazis and communists. You can see how it happens. Talking to a roomful of cheering fellow travellers, the temptation is to hit the high gear of hyperbole. But if your aim is to persuade those with an open mind, this kind of talk will only turn people away. Warning people about the genuine threat to national sovereignty from a centralised global-warming bureaucracy is one thing. Talking about a new front of communists marching your way is another. It sounds like an overzealous warrior fighting an old battle.

The debate about global warming is as much a political debate as it is about the science. Writing in Macleans earlier this month, Andrew Coyne highlighted the errors made by the global warmists who deride their opponents. “If your desire is to persuade the unpersuaded among the general public, the very worst way to go about it is to advertise your bottomless contempt for your adversaries. That the IPCC scientists reacted in this way shows how unprepared they were, for all their activist enthusiasm, to enter the political arena.”

The great shame is that those on the other side of the debate are making precisely the same error. And that is why Monckton’s fact-based concerns are left unaddressed by our political leaders. They have sidelined him from debate. Kevin Rudd has not responded to his letter. Tony Abbott will not meet him. Neither should he. There is no political gain for the Opposition Leader in doing so.

And the reason is clear enough. Inflationary language deflates an argument. Moreover, Monckton is making the worst political error at the worst possible time, right when this debate is slipping from the control of those determined to punish countries for their carbon emissions. Even The Guardian’s resident alarmist George Monbiot admitted last November, “There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease.”

It’s neither denial nor a disease, of course. Just healthy scepticism. And it’s growing in all the right directions for all the right reasons. Scepticism about the science: the revelation that scientists massaged data to suit their case has damaged the public’s trust in the scientific community. Scepticism about the costs: after Copenhagen, we now know more about the grab for a new gravy train of foreign aid from developed nations set to flow to developing countries under the cloak of climate change. Scepticism about the government: the Rudd government will come under increased pressure to explain its rush to implement an emissions trading system ahead of the rest of the world. And scepticism about the role of a campaigning media: even the BBC Trust has called for a review of the BBC’s cheerleading coverage of climate change. What took it so long? Large sections of the Australian media are no less complicit in the same kind of climate change advocacy.

In 2010, healthy scepticism will continue to rise against the global warming alarmists. But only if those such as Monckton treat the public with respect by sticking to the facts and using measured language, not fanciful claims and name-calling.

janeta@bigpond.net.au

Rightwing climate change deniers are all for free speech- when it suits them

This is profoundly ironic, as the very people who make such charges — Melanie Phillips is a good example — spend the rest of their time waging war on political correctness. People should be able to do and say whatever they like, they maintain, regardless of whether it might upset or offend others … until, that is, it upsets or offends them. Then they will rant and rage, insisting (in the name of free speech, mind) that you are absolutely forbidden from calling those who deny climate change deniers, or comparing creationists to flat-earthers.

The most blatant exponent of these double standards is a professor of sociology at the University of Kent called Frank Furedi. Writing in The Australian today, he compares Leo Hickman and myself – who had the temerity both to suggest that manmade climate change is real and to criticise journalists and a Tory MP for claiming that the current cold weather in the UK disproves it – to 16th century witchfinders.

Furedi is the eminence grise of the weird movement that arose from the ashes of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), a Trotskyist splinter that made a name for itself in the late 1970s for disrupting and attacking other leftwing groups. Through its various incarnations – Living Marxism magazine, Spiked, the Institute of Ideas, the Modern Movement and others – this movement has shifted ever further to the right. Today it occupies the furthest fringes of rightwing libertarianism, asserting a doctrine of extreme individualism which would have made Ayn Rand blanch. You would be hard-put to find a movement more antagonistic to protecting people from oppression or protecting the environment from destruction.

Living Marxism (later called LM), which Furedi founded and which was run by the RCP, campaigned against gun control, against banning tobacco advertising and against banning child pornography. It argued in favour of global warming, human cloning and complete freedom for corporations. It defended the corrupt Tory MP Neil Hamilton, denied the Rwandan genocide and supported the Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansers. Its offshoots attack all attempts to protect the environment as “anti-human”, though nothing damages the interests of humans as much as destroying the biosphere.

The movement’s theme, spelled out repeatedly by Furedi and others, was that people should not be seen (in the words of LM’s manifesto) as “fragile victims in need of protection”; instead they should be encouraged to believe that there are no limits to what they can do or say. But oddly, this works only one way. As soon as you criticise them, they become fragile victims in need of protection, tearfully insisting that their critics are witchfinders who have stepped over the limits of acceptable speech.

When, for example, I exposed some of the movement’s entryist (political infiltration) tactics, Furedi compared himself to the victims of fascism, McCarthyism and the Inquisition. I have never come across anyone else who appears capable of such extremes of callous disregard of other people’s interests and whining self-pity. He seems to me to be a classic example of what Arthur Koestler called a mimophant – someone who has the sensitivities of an elephant towards other people and the sensitivities of a mimosa towards himself.

These people can’t have it both ways. Either, unconstrained by political correctness, we should be able to state our views clearly and point out when someone is wrong, or we should treat each other like delicate flowers which should never be criticised. But we can’t demand the right to contradict others while insisting that they’re witch-hunting if they contradict us.

Monbiot.com

Ski property faces meltdown as global warming chills the market

Recent weeks have seen huge snowfalls in the UK, on mainland Europe and across North America, but research by Unesco’s environment programme suggests long-term global warming will push the snowline up worldwide in years to come.

European ski resorts range from very low-lying ones, such as Lillehammer in Norway which is just 180 metres above sea level, to a few approaching 4,000 metres at Chamonix in the French Alps. In North America resorts are generally higher, ranging from 1,500 to 4,000 metres, especially in the most mountainous areas like Colorado.

If scientists are correct, Austria might see the most spectacular change; its snowline will rise a startling 300 metres by 2050. Sooner than that, the French Snow Research Centre says a 1.8C rise in temperature will shorten France‘s snow cover above 1,500 metres from 170 days to 135. Switzerland’s Association of Winter Sports Resorts says its annual season has been cut by 12 days, just since 1995.

There are no authoritative figures on the international ownership of ski homes but between 2004 and 2007, around 70% of all flats and chalets sold in one large resort in the French Alps were bought by Britons, and dozens of British estate agents market ski properties in Europe and North America. Now they – and the developers behind the resorts – are trying to avoid this lucrative market being consigned to history.

“Many ski towns have been trying to ensure that they’re ‘year round’ to attract visitors in the summer as well as the winter,” says Andrew Hawkins of Chesterton Humberts estate agency.

For example, Morillon, near the Swiss-French border, is only 700 metres above sea level and has introduced climbing, walking and biking trails, as well as fishing and boating lake. It even has a snow-making machine. Other resorts have built golf courses at the foot of mountains to attract tourists in summer.

“We’re witnessing an increase of demand for property in European year-round resorts such as Morzine, Les Gets, Chamonix, Serre Chevalier and Deux Alpes,” says a spokeswoman for the British specialist ski estate agency, Erna Low Property.

Britons are also looking at less obvious locations for chalets and apartments in a bid to guarantee snow for their own use and to maximise their lettings seasons.

“North American resorts tend to be purpose-built at high altitudes, as opposed to European resorts that often expand from – but are restricted by – their rural village roots,” says Sean Collins of Pure International, a UK-based estate agency selling ski properties on both continents. He says Canada has a ski season stretching from November to May, contrasting with December to April in the Alps.

Italy, until recently the poor relation of European ski destinations, is enjoying a resurgence with British buyers because its newer resorts are at a high altitude. Cervinia, about 80 minutes from Turin, has skiing up to 3,000 metres.

“A couple of years ago, following poor snow conditions in many resorts, buyers would only consider high altitude resorts or were hesitant to invest at all,” says Gemma Bruce of GK Italian Property, a British agency selling homes in Italy. “Given the excellent snow in the Alps in the last two seasons, pressure on agents and developers for very high altitude properties has lessened. But buyers are more discerning than ever, only considering resorts at high altitudes with large ski areas – more than 150km of runs – and summer activities,” she says.

Unlikely as it seems, the Moroccan ski resort of Oukaimeden – about a two-hour drive from Marrakech with skiing in winter months between 2,600 and 3,200 metres – is expanding rapidly to accommodate increased business, and boasts of its “snow-assured” status in comparison to more established but low-altitude resorts in Europe.

In addition to the threat of climate change, property sales to Britons in many ski resorts have tumbled because of the recession and weak pound.

In parts of the French and Swiss Alps, “prices of virtually new, top-end properties have plummeted, although this crash is not expected to last,” says Joanna Yellowlees-Bound, who runs Erna Low Property. She is selling flats in the Arc 1950 resort in France for as much as 30% below their 2007 levels, and says she has never seen such reductions in 30 years of selling ski properties.

Rents are also low for some ski homes because of reduced demand from Britons thanks to the strong euro and dollar, and worries over snowfall at low-lying resorts. Ski holiday websites such as sara-residences.com are offering up to 35% off rental costs, plus free ski passes, at resorts in the Alps this month.

Many sites advertise rental prices at Bulgaria’s Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo resorts – where thousands of new apartments have flooded the market in recent years – from just €21 per night. But another website, ski-direct.co.uk, warns that “Bulgarian resorts are at a relatively low altitude; their snow record, early and late season, can be patchy.”

One country where ski chalet owners and resort operators have seen fortunes rise over the past few weeks is Scotland. The best conditions for more than a decade have sparked a boom at Aviemore, Scotland’s biggest resort, where more than 20,000 skiers have taken to the slopes, four times as many as at this time last year. Tourist officials report that ski accommodation bookings are up 500%.

Whatever this winter brings (ski clubs expect perfect conditions because of the widespread snow), the long-term prospects for chalet owners are worrying. Unless, that is, they head for the hills.

United Nations’ blunder on glaciers exposed

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Mr Hasnain, who was then the chairman of the International Commission on Snow and Ice’s working group on Himalayan glaciology, has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research.

The revelation represents another embarrassing blow to the credibility of the IPCC, less than two months after the emergence of leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, which raised questions about the legitimacy of data published by the IPCC about global warming.

One email written by a scientist referred to ways of ensuring information that doubted the veracity of man-made climate change science did not appear in IPCC reports.

Several emails also revealed that some scientists at East Anglia tried to bully colleagues who challenged the theory of man-made climate change.

Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on Himalayan glaciers in the 2007 IPCC report, said on the weekend he was considering recommending that the claim about glaciers be dropped.

“If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, then I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be

removed from future IPCC assessments,” Professor Lal said.

The IPCC’s reliance on Mr Hasnain’s 1999 interview has been highlighted by Fred Pearce, the journalist who carried out the original interview for New Scientist. Pearce said he rang Mr Hasnain in India in 1999 after spotting his claims in an Indian magazine.

“Hasnain told me then that he was bringing a report containing those numbers to Britain,” Pearce said. “The report had not been peer reviewed or formally published in a scientific journal and it had no formal status so I reported his work on that basis.

“Since then I have obtained a copy and it does not say what Hasnain said. In other words, it does not mention 2035 as a date by which any Himalayan glaciers will melt.

“However, he did make clear that his comments related only to part of the Himalayan glaciers, not the whole massif.”

The New Scientist report was apparently forgotten until 2005 when environmental group WWF cited it in a report called An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China. The report credited Hasnain’s 1999 interview with New Scientist. But it was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper.

Despite this it rapidly became a key source for the IPCC when Professor Lal and his colleagues came to write the section on the Himalayas.

When published, the IPCC report gave its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the melting of the glaciers was “very likely”. The IPCC defines “very likely” as having a probability of greater than 90 per cent.

Glaciologists find such figures inherently ludicrous, pointing out that most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of metres thick and could not melt fast enough to vanish by 2035 unless there was a huge global temperature rise.

Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, said: “A small glacier such as the Dokriani glacier is up to 120m thick. A big one would be several hundred metres thick and tens of kilometres long. The average is 300m thick so to melt one at 5m a year would take 60 years.”

Some scientists have questioned how the IPCC could have allowed such a mistake into print. Professor Lal admits he knows little about glaciers.

The Sunday Times. Additional reporting: James Madden