You might as well legislate earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

Brett,

Completely off topic, but NSIDC put out a mid-month update with some explanation of this season's melt and unexpectedly-thick first-year ice that I thought was interesting.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

"Why is it so difficult to get climate policies passed?"

Because no one really believes that a bunch of glorified weathermen can predict the future
and because as more time goes on
it becomes ever more obvious that the people pushing it the hardest
are making a profit from it.

Simple; because people don't want their tax dollars wasted chasing non-solutions to non-existent climate "crises," and elected officials understand that they will likely be drawn and quartered in the ballot box if they jump on the AGW lunatic fringe bandwagon and start wasting the taxpayers' money accomplishing absolutely NOTHING.

Again we see that the alarmists are trying to have adopted the new mantra climate change instead of the almost defunct global warming.

Doesn't anyone else see the dishonesty here ?

Hopefully, we will notice the fading away of CO2 as the evil one and get back to fighting REAL pollution! !

And during all of this "two step", nobody will say that they were wrong, wasted billions of dollars or are not responsible for the pain and suffering of billions of people in collapsed economies throughout the world.

Instead, responsibility and accountability of AGW will be morphed back into REAL issues of fighting pollution and responsible use of all our natural resources .........EVERYONE WINS !....except, of course, those unfortunate unintended consequences which will be skillfully pushed aside and forgotten by the politicians ! ! ! !

Flat earther's, meaning those who blindly follow a fabricated consensus, will naively follow the next fad and maybe ..... just maybe, trip onto something real, measurable and provable such as fighting pollution and responsible use of all our natural resources.

There are an immeasurable amount of pollutants infecting our earth, water AND air ......Why are we so neurotic about only CO2? ....a natural, necessary and vital chemical compound for our existence. Scary thought ....isn't it? ? .......

Unfortunately, the day you will have to buy bottled water and refrain from breathing outside air (because it will be too thick), it will be too late ......

CO2 is the least of our worries! It is merely the current tool for social influence and manipulation. How much time, effort and money have been re-routed away from real and productive environmental projects toward AGW .....oops I mean climate change ....oops I mean climate standard variability ......oops I mean extreme weather variance .....oops ...... well you know what I mean ..........

Travis,

Thanks for the link. It would appear that yet another previously unknown negative feedback has been discovered.

So why is the first-year ice thicker than anticipated? Sparse snow cover last winter may have hastened its growth: less snow on the ice means less insulation from the frigid winter air, and faster ice growth. Much of the snowfall over the Arctic Ocean occurs in early autumn, but early last autumn much of the Arctic Ocean was still ice-free and could not collect snow. Once the ice formed, it grew quickly.

Amazing that the world has managed to survive for billions of years without government funded scientists there to protect it.

The implication of this July 17 article is that when NSIDC was making their "ice-free pole for the first time in human history" predictions a few weeks ago, they hadn't bothered to consider the actual thickness of the ice.

They also apparently didn't bother to consider this guy, who swam in open water at the pole last summer.
http://www.wwf.org.uk/annualreview/0607/high_0000004620.asp

Here's one of the reasons it is hard to make progress on this issue. I know some of you won't be interested, except in shooting the messenger or excluding this kind of information. I've extracted some of it; please note especially the part marked with *** (link at end)

"A reluctant whistle-blower" (by David Rado, BBC)

"when I was told that it was possible that the film-maker might try to portray himself as the "David", being ganged up against by the "Goliath" of the scientific establishment, I reconsidered.

I'm simply a person, unconnected with any environmental or scientific group, who believes that a public service broadcaster should not be allowed to deceive the public about science - particularly on issues that have profound implications for our future.
....
A friend told me there was a global conspiracy involving nearly all of the world's governments, most of the world's scientists and the media to convince the public that there is a major human influence on climate when they were well aware there was no evidence for this.

I am a natural skeptic, and find it hard to take conspiracy theories seriously; but out of respect for my friend I decided to research the issue in depth.

After reading hundreds of scientific papers and summaries I was struck by the quite extraordinary amount of evidence - and more importantly, the many completely independent lines of evidence that all point in the same direction - that human greenhouse gas emissions are indeed profoundly changing the climate, and that the problem is going to become extremely serious in the long run unless emissions are cut drastically.

Moreover, ***all of the papers I read disputing this premise used the cherry picking of evidence as a tactic. Many of them recycled long discredited myths, while others used statistically flawed techniques, in an apparent attempt to massage data in order to support their desired conclusions.

This also led me to find a number of high profile websites devoted entirely to peddling misinformation about climate - many of them run by, and most of them funded by, lobby groups that campaign against action on climate change. Many of these lobby groups are partly funded by sections of the fossil fuel industry.***

So my friend was right that there are many people actively engaged in a well-funded attempt to subvert mainstream science and to mislead the public; although he seems to have been mistaken about which side is doing most of the subverting.

So by the time I watched Swindle, after all the reading I'd done, I was flabbergasted by both its brazenness and its unprecedented number of deceptions.

We have a right to expect broadcasters not to set out to mislead us; ...

Where Channel 4 claimed the film was an attempt to give a minority a voice, I saw it as a systematic attempt to deceive the public, an out and out propaganda piece masquerading as a science documentary."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7517444.stm

I also recommend a number of the other links provided on the BBC page.

Why is it so difficult to get climate policies passed?

People are all for action when they think somebody else is going to foot the bill. As soon as they realize it's their money being used, they have second thoughts.

The reality is that any climate change action will be expensive but nobody knows if they will have the desired effect.

Skeptics are skeptical for many reasons, not the least of which is whether or not carbon emissions are really the cause of climate change? Skeptics correctly point out the cause of the recent warming is not known and spending money on the wrong thing won't help.

Even if carbon emissions are the primary cause of climate change, it's still doubtful whether any of the proscribed actions will have any effect and cost-effectiveness doesn't seem to be a factor for any of the recommended actions.

Anybody who's been around the block at least once should know about the law of unintended consequences and also should also know the government's track record for actually accomplishing anything. If you want to throw increasing amounts of money at a problem with no end in sight, the government is a wonderful way to accomplish that. (This applies to all governments, BTW, and not just the current administration.)

Interesting articles on whether we should panic about climate change or not...

Existential risk and democratic peace

Understanding the climate ostrich

Great Churchill quote:
"An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity."

Environmental legislation came to being in the 60s and 70s and sprang from grassroots movement of concerned citizens. The threats were easy to understand, severe and nearby. The causes were often easy to identify.

More recently threats have often been identified by scientists. The problems are more complicated, chronic and global. The causes include hard to fix (and pleasant) things like carbon-heavy lifestyles.

Opposition to domestic legislation faded after the Dirty Dozen where sent home from Congress. The rest of that body soon got the message.

Opposition to global warming and sustainability solutions has been well organized, making up for their lack of good arguments and valid science.

The world's leading country lead in the adoption of clean air, water, acid rain and ozone problems. The US has wasted a decade under the current administration. The political landscape will be very different in 2009.

Patrick,

You're right, they hadn't anticipated the negative feedback. However, their prediction is still a significant possibility given the noted lack of extremely thick multi-year ice. The three charts on the left hand side of the page showing ice thickness since 2006 indicates that the ice near the north pole is thinner this year than it was the past two years. Does this mean that the north pole will be ice free? No, but the possibility should not be summarily dismissed.

Also, by "ice free" they mean more than just there being a place where someone can swim. Large cracks miles long and perhaps a mile or so wide are not uncommon around the north pole at any given time during the summer. They're not caused by melting ice, but rather by the winds causing ice to shift and break under pressure.

What some scientists have predicted for this summer is a different case, though they have suggested the possibility that the "ice free" zone would form somewhere else and be able float over the pole. This year's thinner ice should be more vulnerable to getting pushed around by the wind, which I think is why they link that possibility to the warming of the Arctic.

Also worth note: although the lack or insulating snow was a negative feedback, it did not prevent the ice from being thinner this year than it was last year; it simply resulted in ice that was not as thin as scientists had expected. First-year ice in the Arctic Basin was about 0.5 meters thinner this Spring than it was last Spring.

Weather Watcher:Good to see you back in the heat.

JohnGalt:You make a good point. But what are we going to do? First we know that without CO2 the Earth would be Ice. We know that the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the warmer we will get. The arctic completely melting in three years is a little strange, don't you think. The fires in California is another indicator of global heating.
Islands in the South seas are losing land by feet. Many coral reefs(the great barrier reef) are dying by acidification from the abundance of CO2, and from human waste that is polluting oceans from those sinking Islands. The traditional stallers like Steve Rowland have no answers, but declare father my God and Mother my Earth and lets just skip it all for a while. We are in an emergency for several reasons, the first is the demand for oil. Since this demand and price must increase what solutions are left.
Solar, which has been recently reported by MIT will become extremely efficient. Wind ,either by windmills or cylinders less efficient and bad for soils, and of course Daniel Boones Pickens, who will start talking about natural gas. It's 45% less carbon than using coal, but has delivery issues. We use it now with electric for turbines.
All of these alternatives, or additions can work simultaneously to lower our energy costs. We need more energy then ever for our technologies but I think an open minded consensus, and not a do or die mentality would help. To build off shore drilling rigs, is not an immediate answer because of conservation laws, and state laws. BY the way, conservation laws started when in the 40's and 50's people were starting to find cancers from drinking water due to Illegal dumping of about anything a plant would need to discard in your local river. So it was greed not conservationists who closed that loop. Pollution is everyone's responsibility. Finally: I don't think I would call this planet mother earth. How about mother the villain and man the fool. We grow up in America and the bar for us is high. We expect the best, because we are. There is however a real disconnect between man and nature. The world was created before us and will live on after us. Don't you feel you owe something to our planet for all that we have gotten and prospered. We must start looking for alternate energy because we have no choice. That should be the sober starting point. The problem is that Al Gore is offering to many solutions to an abundance of problems and issues. Americans don't actuate alternatives like super cells. One day at a time
will be the only way we can work through these issues, and nuclear fission should start tomorrow.
Until then I will look for a smaller car to drive.
AGW is not an insane idea, nor are skeptical retorts. What is insane, are people who hold dearly to their position, because it is the only one they know. Or care to find out. This is not progress for anyone. Just stupidity.
KIPP

WeatherWatcher | July 21, 2008 2:52 PM;

1. Dave Rego critiques this film at www.amazon.co.uk members review site and has some specific examples because what you provided was nothing but opinion. He was more specific at amazon and his issues include:

a) Issue 1: "...the film tried to pretend that Kyoto is a conspiracy by the West to prevent the developing world from developing - despite the fact that the developing world has *no* emissions reductions targets under Kyoto. Look up Kyoto in any good online encyclopedia."

Response: This is supposition and whether it's true or not has no impact on science. I suppose the direction to go to an online encyclopedia was so you could fall into the fold of the Wikipedia Global warming "master editor". Oh, and who is that master editor? None other than William Connolley, who so gladly "..agreed to peer review.." Mr. Rego's complaint. How nice of him.

See the following which discusses the infamous Mr. Connolley: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/03/who-is-
william-connolley-solomon.aspx

b) Issue 2: "....another example, a clip was shown of sea ice in the Arctic retreating in summer and expanding in winter, but this was portrayed as "evidence" that the ice caps are not melting - i.e. it tried to confuse in the viewer's mind average changes in sea ice from one year to the next with the changes that occur each year between summer and winter! This sort of sleight of hand was used constantly all the way through the programme."

Response: Confuse the viewers? My word! Didn't see the film, but is that anything like Al Gore showing the healthy polar bears perched as high as they could on a small ice berg and suggesting they could be drowning? perhaps they were, hmmm, searching for dinner?

c) Issue 3: "As I say I could list more than 100 similar distortions: obviously there isn't room here, but the online encyclopedia article on the film links to many good articles by others who document many of them."

Response: So William Connolley at Wikipedia will set us straight?

d) Issue 3: "This fact is well documented and is in the public domain, it is not controversial. For instance, look up the contributors' names and Exxon in a search engine for some of the details."

Response: Very good. Following all the talking points is he? I'm glad no one is checking on Al Gore's financial interests.... If you receive a dollar from an oil company your bad, but it's Ok to receive 10 dollars from an Environmental group or be conflicted by carbon trading profits such as from Generation Investment Management LLP, (http://www.generationim.com/) (Gore's wouldn't be the Chairman of the Advisory Board per chance?)

e) Issue 3: "This lack of disclosure of conflicts of interest is particularly important because of the overwhelming evidence that has come to light (see for instance the Union of Concerned Scientists' website) that some sections of the fossil fuel industry, together with the lobby groups that they fund, have been running a very well-funded misinformation campaign to reduce public support for cutting greenhouse gas emissions."

Response: There we go again. The fossil fuel talking point. (...I'm still looking for a nugget of science in his critique...)

f) Issue 4: "Furthermore, the credentials of all of the interviewees, in the subjects that they discussed in the film, were exaggerated: some of them grossly so. Only three of the contributors could by any stretch of the imagination be called leading climate scientists, and one of those three (Carl Wunsch) has stated publicly that the film misrepresented his views on both climate change and on modeling, through selective editing and use of context to make him appear to the audience to be saying the precise opposite of what he was actually trying to convey."

Response: That's good. A different talking point. Only the famous "peers" can be leading climate scientists. If you're not in the club forget about it.

g) Issue 5: "There is all the difference in the world between expressing opinions and fraud. This film falls into the category of fraud."

Response: That's good. When skeptics suggest fraud, you go throw it back at them without even a qualifier.

h) Issue 6: "If you really want to learn about the science of global warming, a good place to start is any of the online encyclopedias."

Response: Come on, he already said go ask Connolley.

2. Once again, lots of subterfuge and absolutely no defense of the science. Why? (pleading now) AGW proponents, you can't be so jaded that you don't notice that you never find any specific and sound defense of the settled theory. All one gets is subterfuge, papers feeding off of unsound assumptions, and trust in incomplete (but pretty) models. It should be in Chapter 1 of every climate textbook and every climate scientist proponent should have it down pat, but instead it all appears as subterfuge, albeit highly enabled by the complexity of the science. That's why folks like me are so damn frustrated that climate science appears to be abusing the scientific trust. Although, perhaps I am jaded that scientists were, somehow, noble creatures.

Jay Alt | July 21, 2008 8:40 PM:

"Opposition to global warming and sustainability solutions has been well organized, making up for their lack of good arguments and valid science."

I know this is a judgment on your part, but how would you classify the massive and well orchestrated campaign in favor of Anthropogenic Co2 induced global warming? Standing back, I am truly awed by the campaign being run by the A-CO2-GW advocacy groups. I actually think they may "succeed".

As you appear to be an advocate, I don't think you should be that concerned, although reading a blog like this one may not help.

Cheers.

Why is it so difficult to get climate change policy passed?

#1: It is a highly complex issue. One Senator said the Warner-Liebermen bill was the largest Governmental legislative bill since the New Deal and and the single allowed amendment had like 600 pages. That's MASSIVE.

#2: Its MASSIVE.

#3: The underlying premise is false.

That's all.

Travis,

There will be more second year ice next year than there was this year. The ice will also be thicker. A couple of pictures are worth a thousand words.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

I call this one "NSIDC can't see the forest for the trees."
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=07&fd=21&fy=1995&sm=07&sd=21&sy=2008

Global Warming or not...peek oil is here and it seems like one hell of a coincidence that just when we have a critical loading of CO2 in the air we are running out of oil, the burning of which has been a big contributer to CO2

"Why is it so difficult to get climate policies passed?"

Because no one really believes that a bunch of glorified weathermen can predict the future
and because as more time goes on
it becomes ever more obvious that the people pushing it the hardest
are making a profit from it.

REPLY: Yeah. And a bunch of fraudulent agenda driven liars as well.

PaulB,
"Unfortunately, the day you will have to buy bottled water and refrain from breathing outside air (because it will be too thick), it will be too late ......"

Alarmsim at its finest, dont you think?

Kipp:

Carbon dioxide is not responsible for the entire greenhouse effect. It also takes a great increase of carbon dioxide to make any difference in the greenhouse effect. This is why the climate models say the real warming comes from positive feedbacks and CO2 only kicks off those processes. This of course, is unverified and does not appear to be an accurate model of how the climate system really works.

CO2 must compete with other greenhouse gases to absorb IR. Water vapor is a broad spectrum GHG while CO2 only absorbs CO2 in specific wavelengths. That's why you hear "the first 20 ppm of CO2 is as effective as the next 400 ppm".

And what are we going to do about climate change? Adapt to it.