This letter is published in the name of free speech and diversity of opinion. The opinions expressed are not necessarily held by the Association or by its members but we welcome an expression of all sides of the debate.
Geopolitics of Climate Change
In the western nations there is a strong popular belief that mankind is causing global warming, and that natural climate change has ceased. We are told that man-made climate change will determine our future, with warmer climates, increased droughts, and rising sea levels. The media have become advocates in support of this view, and contrary debate is suppressed. Western governments now plan to “stop” climate change, an arrogant idea that has already caused enormous costs. In my view it is all a scientific scandal, a political farce, and a financial calamity. Meanwhile, certain other nations are profiting by the popular delusion in the west, notably Russia, and China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
The Russian Academy of Sciences rejects the UN/IPCC view that the combustion of carbon fuels causes global climate change. The Russian government is alert to the fact that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and regard emissions trading as financial game playing. Air pollution in cities, and global climate change, are scientifically separate matters.
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions. Russia was not an original signatory, for scientific reasons. Even though they regarded the IPCC conclusions as wrong, Russia finally signed the Protocol, for commercial purposes. It was evident to the Russians that western governments were being stampeded by false prophets, that the many of the actions proposed in western nations were scientific nonsense, and enormously harmful to their economies.
The financial opportunities for Russia were truly enormous. Because of the decline in Russian industry with the end of the cold war, carbon emissions had declined. This was a credit under the Kyoto Protocol. The total value of Russian carbon credits was estimated at $40 to $60 billion. But if future negotiations to extend the Kyoto Protocols were to collapse, the carbon credits would be worth nothing. The Russian energy giant Gazprom moved quickly to bundle carbon credits with contracts for sale of natural gas and oil to Europe. Russia became the world’s largest exporter of oil and natural gas.
Russia is now very active in energy supply to Europe, helped by carbon trading. It is all quite business-like and pragmatic. Europe now buys over 40% of its oil and gas from Russia, Germany 80%. . The demand is rising rapidly, and almost all the increase is from Russia. Because of environmental concerns, Europe is not building any new coal or nuclear electricity generation, and using gas for electricity generation. Plans for new electricity generation in Britain also depend on Russian gas.
The future of the EU is now heavily dependent on Russia. Europe simply cannot cut itself off from Russian oil and gas. Europe is concerned about this, but helpless. It has all been a Russian geopolitical victory, made possible by the popular delusion in the west about climate change. The Russian incursion into Georgia, and their confident rejection of EU and US criticism, reveals the new geopolitical reality. Meanwhile, it seems that the Russian government has not moved to pass legislation to implement the Kyoto Protocol domestically.
Lance Endersbee 10 Dec 2008
I applaud your contribution to free speech by publishing an article you probable do not agree with. Rather rare these days in this debate.
However, I am inclined to agree with Lance Endersbee. The notion that we can control the climate remains faintly absurd, with the IPCC case resting on some very poor and/or speculative geology. As it is in the stratigraphic record that almost all past climate records are to be found, geologists are not exactly trespassing in this debate. Assuming that brittle glacial ice is a perfect leak-proof container for CO2 for three quarters of a million years, is, for starters, a bit daring. Assuming that the cores from Vostok and Dome C. still have not leaked after you lift them un-pressurised from 3 kms should amuse some engineers in turn. Two phase shifts are involved for that CO2. Etc., etc. Likewise, non-isostatic rebound sea level rises may have something to do with the work of 50 million centrifugal pumps, labouring mightily to lower aquifers. The volumes match fairly well.
In support of Professor Endersbee’s observation on the link between sea surface temperatures and CO2, if you take the record back further, it completely refutes the IPCC contention that atmospheric CO2 has risen smoothly since the start of the industrial revolution. Your readers my care to check, via Google, the remarkable discovery by Ernst-Georg Beck that there are some 90,00 atmospheric CO2 records, dating back to 1854, taken by three Nobel prize-winning chemists, inter alia, that show a very different picture. But as far as they can be matched, the CO2 graph Herr Beck has generated still follows sea surface temperatures, in full support of Professor Endersbees observations. There is a very marked sst peak in 1940, followed two years later by the peak of a large atmospheric CO2 increase The old records are from different places and by different methods and workers, so one should perhaps smooth the graph Herr Beck has published. That smoothed graph is very close to the sst one.
My own guess is that deep geomagnetic field shifts, generated at the core-mantle boundary, are at least one of the major drivers of climate change. The global map of the largest shifts in the vertical strength of the magnetic field shows a remarkable match with the regions of major global surface warming above, from GISS satellite data, to wit the Antarctic Peninsula region in the south and a large, shifting zone usually centred on about the Lena River in Eastern Siberia in the north. Anthropogenic greenhouse warming has no explanation at all for the locations, of those temperature hotspots. They are a long way from our CO2 sources, and longitudinal re-concentration of CO2 to achieve that warming, is in particular very far-fetched. It seriously offends the laws of thermodynamics, I think it is fair to say. If interested further, Google
http://www.freewebs.com/psravenscroft/
It loads slowly and merely makes a preliminary case, for which my apologies.
Peter Ravenscroft,
Geologist,
Closeburn, Queensland.
Thank-you for your detailed contribution. I found it most interesting and if you are ever down this way maybe you could be a guest speaker. It is sad that the best the establishment can come up with is a new TAX. It is a bit scary but Alex Jones has a hard hitting video out called the OBAMA DECEPTION and within that, the objectives seem very clear. You can watch it online or download and make your own DVD from prisonplanet.tv I personally hope that Alex Jones is wrong about Obama but for now he does seem to be well and truly in the hands of the Wall Street gang as all his cabinet are all the Wall Street brigade. No captains of industry or any other sector represented. It will be hard for the recent G20 to solve any problems as THEY are the problem!
Another good insight as to how and why no real effective action is forth coming on so called climate change or what I call a Pollution Problem is the recent ABC radio national’s background briefing. MOSTLY BLOODY AWEFUL. Please listen to this hard hitting program heard every Sunday at 9:10am. Aunty:The abc really excelled on this particular program. It really does hit the nail as to how this mess happened and the mind set behind it.
Thanks again Ian. Secretary