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Earth Day at Harvard

One volcano eruption produces more greenhouse gases than mankind has produced… ever.

By Andrew Sridhar, The Harbus

The “Green” movement has reached a fever pitch, and this was true on Earth Day at Harvard Business School. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is prepared to take serious steps to curb emissions of carbon dioxide. As such, the case for manmade climate change should be evaluated on its merits, especially at HBS.

Many people at HBS probably marked Earth Day with a mixture of sermonic emails, feel-good gestures, and tree planting. The time has come for some perspective.

With Earth Day’s inaugural celebration in 1970 environmentalists began warning of three impending crises, each of which turned out to be somewhere between grossly exaggerated and patently false: overpopulation, mass starvation, and global cooling. That alone should give us pause. As we all know, though, past results are not indicative of future performance.

The environmental movement’s focus for several years has been on global warming, which was renamed “manmade climate change” for two reasons. First, the new name covers all fluctuations in climate so as to never go out of style. Second, it blames the alleged perpetrator, since man’s supposed causing of climate change necessitates and makes possible our doing something about it.

There are, however, a few flies in the climate change ointment.

Global temperatures have increased less than one degree centigrade since 1880. Yes, read that sentence again if necessary. This fact is seldom disputed. Some just choose to depict this trend on charts with scales that exaggerate the magnitude of the change.

The Earth cooled between 1940 and 1970 despite a rapid increase in greenhouse gas emissions during the period.

Global temperature fluctuations are quite volatile, and it is difficult to discern a true trend. The four major temperature-tracking outlets reported that global temperatures dropped around 0.70C in 2007.

Numerous studies demonstrate that rises in temperature actually precede increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, nullifying the environmental movement’s favorite cause-effect relationship.

One volcano eruption produces more greenhouse gases than mankind has produced… ever.

The IPCC even admits that its models are far from conclusive, saying in its 2007 report, “The long term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” Still convinced?

The left’s success in propagating fears about global warming is not altogether surprising. After all, protesting “Big Oil” sounds like more fun than going to a manmade climate change dissent rally. Not to mention, beautiful celebrities (and not-so-beautiful vice presidents) preach to us daily about our solemn duties in the war on our own excesses.

But former Vice President Al Gore, who is much celebrated in the Generation Investment Management case (LCA), has some credibility problems. For instance, he has maintained a personal carbon footprint that is twenty times that of the average American. His movie, An Inconvenient Truth, was cited by a British judge for nine significant errors, including his claims about the melting of polar ice caps. (Antarctic sea ice is actually up over 40% since 1980.) Finally, Gore felt the need to pirate computer graphics from the movie The Day After Tomorrow for one of the movie’s hallmark scenes.

At the same time, the lengths to which the environmental movement goes are not all that surprising given how they view this issue: Man sinned. We will all die because of our sins. Some all-powerful being must save us from our own self-caused damnation. Sound familiar?

An apocalyptic crisis linked to our energy consumption enables government to control nearly every aspect of corporate and personal life. The new administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently took the first step in finding that carbon dioxide constitutes a pollutant. Taxes (aka “cap and trade”) will be used to reduce productive output and enrich government. As the most industrious in our society are handicapped for the greater good, so, too, will be the most developed nations in the world. Countries like the United States will finally pay their penance, and the dream of Scandinavian style socialism can become reality for all. When these are the stakes, global warming begins to look all too convenient.

At an institution such as Harvard that prides itself on challenging dogma, I find it puzzling that the religion of environmentalism is left unscathed. In RC case discussions of Ecosecurities and 2006 Hurricane Risk (FIN1) and recently of Generation (LCA), the foundational assumption has been that manmade climate change is a bona fide doomsday crisis with scant effort or time given to exploring this notion.

You might ask, “But why should we waste time to appease a fringe minority?” First, the number of skeptics at HBS is larger than you might think. Many students are simply intimidated by the zealotry and sheer numbers of faculty and students that make up the majority. After all the oft-used term “global warming denier,” implicitly compares skeptics of climate change science to those who deny the Holocaust (which is an actual post facto verifiable event as opposed to a postulated one).

Second and more importantly, the “consensus” that is so heralded by many is but a propaganda tool. As the author Michael Crichton once remarked, “Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.” Meanwhile, closer inspection actually reveals a lack of consensus. Plenty of respectable scientists – like the founder of the Weather Channel, one of Greenpeace’s founders, and numerous veterans of NOAA, NASA, and the IPCC – dispute manmade climate change. While polls of climatologists often show relative agreement, they are increasingly flawed due to sample bias. Furthermore, polls of physicists (i.e. the rock stars of science) show much more skepticism about manmade climate change in comparison.

Consensus has no place in the scientific method. There is not voting in science. All you need is one correct theory validated by repeatable experiments, which has not occurred for manmade climate change. We should also remember that there once was consensus for an Earth-centered universe, bloodletting, a flat world, and alchemy. The poor results of combining “consensus” with the “the sky is falling” include hysterias over SARS, avian bird flu, Y2K, and the ozone hole.

I respect the altruism of environmentalists, but here is a message for all crusaders: You don’t save the world by siding with the crowd. Conventional wisdom by its very definition doesn’t need you. While it was extremely brave of you to wear green to class with at least a thousand other people last Wednesday, causes like common sense, freedom, and economic growth could use a few more champions these days, especially at Harvard Business School.

We would all do well to remember Mark Twain’s words: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Of Arctic Ice and Polar Bears

By Thomas Fuller, SF Environmental Policy Examiner

Those who are most passionate about the threat of global warming have recently been up in arms about melting ice in the Arctic and using the cutest pictures of polar bears to illustrate the threat to nature caused by global warming.Never mind that the population of polar bears is growing (from an estimated 5,000 in 1960 to 22,000 today–see below), and we could make it grow even more quickly by, umm, not shooting them. The pictures we see of the polar bears ‘stranded’ on a small ice floe make them look forlorn, but in fact these bears are either surfing–or fishing. Polar bears swim quite nicely, thank you and rest on the occasional floe, or use it as cover while they look for something to eat.From www.ncpa.org) Interestingly, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an international organization that has worked for 50 years to protect endangered species, has also written on the threats posed to polar bears from global warming. However, their own research seems to undermine their fears. According to the WWF, about 20 distinct polar bear populations exist, accounting for approximately 22,000 polar bears worldwide. Population patterns do not show a temperature-linked decline:

  • Only two of the distinct population groups, accounting for about 16.4 percent of the total population, are decreasing.
  • Ten populations, approximately 45.4 percent of the total number, are stable.
  • Another two populations – about 13.6 percent of the total number of polar bears – are increasing.

The status of the remaining six populations (whether they are stable, increasing or decreasing in size) is unknown.But they make a nice poster… or t-shirt.As for the larger issue of melting Arctic ice, it melted quite rapidly for a year or so. It is now coming back. The problem really is that we have only been able to measure Arctic ice for a short period, and climate cycles have outlasted our measurements. But for those who think that melting Arctic ice is something really out of the ordinary, take a look at this. Submarines have been surfacing in polynyas (er, holes in the Arctic ice…) for quite a while. Thanks to Anthony Watt for doing the hard work for this article–and others, as well. Good source for information, and winner of this year’s Science Blog of the Year.

Al Gore lies to Congress: Part 2 (must read)

By Steve Milloy, Green Hell Blog

It’s a good thing Al Gore didn’t have to raise his right hand and take an oath to tell the truth before he testified on April 24 to the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee about the Waxman-Markey climate bill. GreenHellBlog.com first reported on April 24 that Al Gore lied to the Subcommittee about his personal finances during questioning by Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn. It turns out that Gore also lied to Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, who had asked Gore about his connections with the Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs. While the connection between Gore and Goldman Sachs that Scalise probably was referring to involves David Blood, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who is the co-founder with Gore of the U.K.-based investment firm of Generation Investment Management, the April 27 issue of Fortune unearths a more appalling connection between Gore and Goldman Sachs. In mid-2008 — six months after Gore joined the venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins as a partner — Kleiner Perkins joined Goldman Sachs in financing a company called Terralliance — an oil exploration firm! As Fortune reports,

Kleiner’s dirtying its hands in the oil patch was something of a head-scratcher. Back then the firm had recently hired Al Gore as a partner. But money is money, oil was trading for $140 a barrel, and Terralliance was said to have developed software that reduced the risk of drilling dry holes. It looked as if Terralliance could be a moneymaker for Kleiner, which had sunk a total of $65 million into the venture, an extraordinary sum for a VC firm — possibly its biggest single investment ever.

But less than one year later, Terralliance has faired poorly, burning through hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Fortune. The salient facts, here, are not that one of Kleiner Perkins investments went south, but the following:

  • Kleiner Perkins and Goldman Sachs had both invested in Terralliance;
  • Given that Terralliance was venture capital-funded by Kleiner Perkins, Goldman Sachs and a few others, Kleiner Perkins and Goldman knew that they were essentially financial partners in Terralliance’s success.
  • Al Gore joined Kleiner Perkins as a partner well before Kleiner Perkins entered into the Terralliance deal.
  • As a Kleiner Perkins partner, Al Gore must have known, if not approved of the Terralliance deal, and that it involved Goldman Sachs. At the very least, under partnership law, such knowledge is legally imputed to him as a partner.
  • Kleiner Perkins investment in Terralliance was not trivial, but perhaps its largest ever in any enterprise. Gore must have known about it.

Getting back to the April 24 House Energy And Environment Subcommittee hearing, when Rep. Scalise asked Gore,

… and I know you’ve got interests with Goldman Sachs.

To which, Gore made facial gestures that virtually implied he had never even heard of Goldman Sachs. Gore then replied,

No.

Rep. Scalise continued,

… well, that’s been reported. If — is that not accurate?

Gore replied,

No. I wish I did, but I don’t.

There you have Gore flatly denying that he had interests with Goldman Sachs when he clearly did. The irony is that during Gore’s exchange with Rep. Scalise, he accused the fossil fuel industry of lying to Scalise and the American people for 14 years. As it turns out, the part of the fossil fuel industry that lied to Rep. Scalise and the American people was none other than Terralliance-investor Al Gore himself. Transcript of Rep. Steve Scalise-Al Gore exchange during the April 24, 2009 House Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing on the Waxman-Markey climate bill.

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we debate what I agree is a very important piece of legislation, a piece of legislation, in my opinion, and many others, that would have very detrimental effects on our economy if it was implemented the way it’s been drafted. We’ve been trying to get a quantifiable grasp on the cost of this bill — how much it would actually cost American families; how many jobs would be created and lost? And we’ve — number one, on the science side, we’ve had very divergent views. We’ve had dozens of experts come, over the last few days, and testify, giving very different opinions on the science. On the economics of it, we have not had the same kind of divergence. In fact, most economists and experts that have testified on the cost acknowledge — in fact, I’ll refer to President Obama’s own budget that was just passed two weeks ago. If you go to page 119 often President’s budget, he’s anticipating generating $646 billion in new tax revenue from this bill. So, clearly, the president expects this bill to generate $646 billion in new taxes that even his own budget director has said would be passed on to consumers… And then, Senator Gore, talk to the numbers that this Congressional Budget Office — and now the president’s budget director, gave to your bill, and how that would relate to this bill in terms of the cost to American families of implementing a cap-and-trade energy tax… MR. GORE: Congressman, you began by denying that there is a consensus on the science. There is a consensus on the science. REP. SCALISE: Well, you must not have been listening to our testimony that we’ve had for the last few days, with dozens of experts that have come in, who have given completely different views. MR. GORE: Well, there – REP. SCALISE: So, I would — I would encourage you to go back and look at the testimony that this committee’s heard. MR. GORE: There are people who still believe that the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona. But – REP. SCALISE: And neither of us are one of those. And I know you like giving those cute anecdotes. This is not a cutsie issue. We’re talking about – MR. GORE: No, that’s, that’s – (Cross talk.) REP. SCALISE: — that could export millions of jobs out of our economy, out of our country. And testimony’s been given just to those numbers. And so we’re talking about a serious consequence that there would be on this country, and the carbon leakage that would occur, where the carbon would be emitted but it would be emitted in China and India, and the jobs would go to China and India. And that’s been testified before this committee in the last few days as well. MR. GORE: Man – REP. SCALISE: So testify about the actual costs. Do you want to – MR. GORE: Man – REP. SCALISE: — talk about the costs? MR. GORE: — man-made — global warming pollution causes global warming. That’s not a cutsie issue. It’s not an open issue – REP. SCALISE: It’s your — and it’s your opinion, obviously. You’ve stated it many times. MR. GORE: It’s the — it’s the – REP. SCALISE: But, would you talk to the cost? MR. GORE: — it’s the opinion of global scientific community. And, more importantly – REP. SCALISE: They’re not in unanimity. There are others on the other side. MR. GORE: — more importantly, more importantly, Congressman, that opinion is the opinion of the scientific studies conducted by the largest corporate carbon polluters 14 years ago, who have lied to you and who have lied to the American people for 14 years – REP. SCALISE: And you talk about carbon — and I’ve got to — I’m running out of time, we talk about carbon polluters. You talk about them. It’s my understanding that back in 1997, when you were vice president, Enron’s CEO, Ken Lay, was involved in discussions with you at the White House, about helping develop this type of policy, this trading scheme. Is that accurate? Is it inaccurate? It’s been reported. MR. GORE: I don’t know. But I met with Ken Lay, as lots of people did, before anybody knew that he was a crook. REP. SCALISE: Right. And clearly you can see why so many of us are concerned about this type of cap-and-trade energy tax that would be literally turning over this country’s energy economy. MR. GORE: I didn’t know him well enough to call him quot;Kenny boy.quot; REP. SCALISE: Well, you — but you knew him well enough to help devise this trading scheme. And, obviously, we know what Enron and these big guys on Wall Street, like Goldman Sachs — and I know you’ve got interests with Goldman Sachs. MR. GORE: No. REP. SCALISE: These people — well, that’s been reported. If — is that not accurate? MR. GORE: No. I wish I did, but I don’t – REP. SCALISE: With executives from — you’re partnered in companies with executives from Goldman Sachs. Well, if you’re not, either way, Enron clearly had an interest in doing this when they were around, and we saw what they did. And when you see the types of people involved in wanting to set up this kind of scheme, you can see why so many of us are concerned about – MR. GORE: Are you – REP. SCALISE: — turning our energy economy over to a scheme that was devised by companies like Enron and some of these Wall Street firms that – MR. GORE: Well, that – REP. SCALISE: — have wrecked our financial economy. MR. GORE: — I don’t really know if you want me to respond to that. I guess what you’re trying to say — you’re trying to – REP. SCALISE: I mean, clearly, there would be – (Cross talk.) REP. SCALISE: — big winners and big losers. MR. GORE: — you’re trying to say — there’s some kind of guilt by association? Is that your – REP. SCALISE: Not association. I’m saying that there are going to be big winners and big losers in this bill. And that’s been discussed by everybody talking — big winners and big losers. But, some of the big winners are some of the very financial experts that helped destroy our financial marketplace. And I think that should be noted, that companies like Enron helped come up with this trading scheme that was invoked – MR. GORE: Enron didn’t – REP. SCALISE: — in cap-and-trade. MR. GORE: — Enron didn’t create this proposal in any way, shape or form – REP. SCALISE: Well, the details are not in this bill – MR. GORE: — that’s a false accusation. REP. SCALISE: — the details are not in this bill, and I would suggest that they are.

'Snow and freezing winds' puts Edmonton's Earth Day on ice

Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON — Mother Nature upstaged Mother Earth in Edmonton this weekend.Earth Day celebrations in the Albertan capital that were planned for Sunday have been postponed because of the cold weather.Organizer Janice Boudreau said exhibitors and entertainers had been pulling out all week as forecasts announced snow and freezing winds.”They did it last year, but they didn’t want to do it again,” she said. “This is supposed to be an enjoyable experience for everyone.”The organizing team will meet Monday to pick a new date, hopefully one during May or June.Boudreau made the decision to put the event on hold on Saturday.”Our philosophy is any day is Earth Day,” she said. “This was not an easy decision to make.”April 22 was International Earth Day.

Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing

‘House Democrats don’t want Gore humiliated’By Climate DepotWashington DC — UK’s Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon. “The House Democrats don’t want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.” According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had “chickened out” and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment’s fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.

“The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore’s sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear,” Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.

“Waxman knows there has been no ‘global warming’ for at least a decade. Waxman knows there has been seven and a half years’ global cooling. Waxman knows that, in the words of the UK High Court judge who condemned Gore’s mawkish movie as materially, seriously, serially inaccurate, ‘the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view,’” Monckton explained. Monckton has previously testified before the House Committee in March. (See: Monckton: Have the courage to do nothing…US Congress told climate change is not real ) Monckton has also publicly challenged Gore to a debate. (See: Al Gore Challenged to International TV Debate on Global Warming By Lord Monckton – March 19, 2007 )

A call to the Democratic office of the House Energy and Commerce Committee seeking comment was not immediately returned Thursday night.

Related Links:

Monkton’s Report: 35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie

Monckton: Have the courage to do nothing…US Congress told climate change is not real

Al Gore Challenged to International TV Debate on Global Warming By Lord Monckton

The Danger of Environmentalism

By Michael Berliner

EARTH DAY approaches, and with it a grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism.

The fundamental goal of environmentalism is not clean air and clean water; rather, it is the demolition of technological/industrial civilization. Environmentalism’s goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather, it is a subhuman world where “nature” is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion.

In a nation founded on the pioneer spirit, environmentalists have made “development” an evil word. They inhibit or prohibit the development of Alaskan oil, offshore drilling, nuclear power – and every other practical form of energy. Housing, commerce, and jobs are sacrificed to spotted owls and snail darters. Medical research is sacrificed to the “rights” of mice. Logging is sacrificed to the “rights” of trees. No instance of the progress that brought man out of the cave is safe from the onslaught of those “protecting” the environment from man, whom they consider a rapist and despoiler by his very essence.

Nature, they insist, has “intrinsic value,” to be revered for its own sake, irrespective of any benefit to man. As a consequence, man is to be prohibited from using nature for his own ends. Since nature supposedly has value and goodness in itself, any human action that changes the environment is necessarily immoral. Of course, environmentalists invoke the doctrine of intrinsic value not against wolves that eat sheep or beavers that gnaw trees; they invoke it only against man, only when man wants something.

The ideal world of environmentalism is not twenty-first-century Western civilization; it is the Garden of Eden, a world with no human intervention in nature, a world without innovation or change, a world without effort, a world where survival is somehow guaranteed, a world where man has mystically merged with the “environment.” Had the environmentalist mentality prevailed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we would have had no Industrial Revolution, a situation that consistent environmentalists would cheer – at least those few who might have managed to survive without the life-saving benefits of modern science and technology.

The expressed goal of environmentalism is to prevent man from changing his environment, from intruding on nature. That is why environmentalism is fundamentally anti-man. Intrusion is necessary for human survival. Only by intrusion can man avoid pestilence and famine. Only by intrusion can man control his life and project long-range goals. Intrusion improves the environment, if by “environment” one means the surroundings of man – the external material conditions of human life. Intrusion is a requirement of human nature. But in the environmentalists’ paean to “Nature,” human nature is omitted. For environmentalism, the “natural” world is a world without man. Man has no legitimate needs, but trees, ponds, and bacteria somehow do.

They don’t mean it? Heed the words of the consistent environmentalists. “The ending of the human epoch on Earth,” writes philosopher Paul Taylor in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics, “would most likely be greeted with a hearty ‘Good riddance!'” In a glowing review of Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature, biologist David M. Graber writes (Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1989): “Human happiness [is] not as important as a wild and healthy planet … Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.” Such is the naked essence of environmentalism: it mourns the death of one whale or tree but actually welcomes the death of billions of people. A more malevolent, man-hating philosophy is unimaginable.

The guiding principle of environmentalism is self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of longer lives, healthier lives, more prosperous lives, more enjoyable lives, i.e., the sacrifice of human lives. But an individual is not born in servitude. He has a moral right to live his own life for his own sake. He has no duty to sacrifice it to the needs of others and certainly not to the “needs” of the nonhuman.

To save mankind from environmentalism, what’s needed is not the appeasing, compromising approach of those who urge a “balance” between the needs of man and the “needs” of the environment. To save mankind requires the wholesale rejection of environmentalism as hatred of science, technology, progress, and human life. To save mankind requires the return to a philosophy of reason and individualism, a philosophy that makes life on earth possible.