BORIS: IF YOU WANT TO BE GREEN – KILL A COW

[Misanthrope]

Absolute top quality stuff from the man who should be our leader:

If you want to be green – kill a cow
By Boris Johnson
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 11/01/2007

Stop, stop. I can feel the guilt building up already. I can feel the self-loathing welling in my skull, the horror at my appallingly affluent consumerist lifestyle.

In just a few short months, I will be taking the whole family off on holiday again, and once again our plane will contribute to the cat's cradle of CO2 that is swaddling the globe. Out of the nozzles of the Rolls-Royce turbo jets the lethal vapours will spew into the defenceless stratosphere, and, far beneath us, a startled look will pass over the features of another poor polar bear as he plops through the deliquescing floes.

I must atone! I must make a sacrifice! I must offset my emissions and appease the great irascible Sun-god as he prepares to griddle us all. I had heard somewhere that you could be "carbon-neutral" by planting trees before you fly. That's right. Shove in a few poplars, I was told, and bingo, you can feel all good about your skiing holiday or your winter break in Tunisia.

So I dialled up the eco-websites and — what's this? It turns out they have got it all wrong! Guilt-stricken Western holidaymakers and others have so far paid £300 million to have trees planted in their name by carbon offset companies, and the whole thing turns out to be a complete nonsense.

It now appears the scientists think the trees just make things worse. Far from soaking up your share of CO2, most trees in non-tropical areas are thought to trap heat and thereby increase global warming.

Aaaargh! Bad trees! Killer trees! But what can I do to exculpate my sin? Here I am, a caring, modern, green politician, proposing some time before the end of this year to take about six people in a plane for no better purpose than simple recreation. Like Tony Blair, I must deal with the hate and rage of the new green puritans; and also, it goes without saying, I genuinely want to make amends for any damage I am doing.

So I have done my homework, and I have come up with a far more effective solution. As ever, I have consulted the ancient texts, and have been reminded that the Greeks and Romans were also convinced of the importance of making a sacrifice before any tricky voyage. You will recall that the Greek task force for Troy actually killed Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, in the hope of guaranteeing good sailing weather — with bad consequences for Agamemnon's conjugal relations.

Now we are only taking a family holiday, and I don't think Zeus or Jupiter would desire anything so extreme. A single cow would be about right. If I were an ancient Roman setting out on a family holiday, I would get some old milker and do her up as if for a party. She'd have her hair washed and combed and cut, and there would be ribbons and purple woollen fillets about her horns.

Then my chums and I would decently cover our heads and we'd drone loads of stuff in Latin and chuck some sacred meal about the place; and then one of us would hold a handful of food under the poor old girl's nose, and as she bent her head to snuffle it up we would take this — praise be! — as a sign that she had assented to her death, and at that auspicious moment she would be whopped hard on the side of the head and her throat would be cut; and then Jupiter would nod, and Olympus would tremble, and the whole family would be able to go off on holidays with a clear conscience.

And the funny thing is that, if we wanted to pay our debt to the great green earth-goddess Gaia, and neutralise the ill-effects of going up in a plane, then, as far as I can see, killing a cow is still exactly the right thing to do, two thousand years later.

I mean it. There are 1.3 billion cows on this planet, and every year each cow produces about 90kg of methane, and as greenhouse gases go, methane is about 24 times worse than CO2 in sealing the heat in the air. According to a recent report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, agriculture produces 18 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent — and that, my friends, is more than is produced by the entire human transport industry.

Think of it: for every cow you killed, you would be ridding the world of 90kg of methane a year — easily enough, surely, to justify an Easyjet flight.

Now it may be that you are repelled by the idea of killing a cow, and you may think that the poor farmers will only be driven to breed a new one to replace it. But there are still plenty of other things you could do that would make more sense than planting trees with these carbon offset companies. You could make sure that your house was properly insulated.

You could turn down the central heating and wear more sweaters; and if you really wanted to tackle global CO2 emissions, you would campaign for nuclear energy, since power production is responsible for 24 per cent of global emissions.

Or better still you could help do something to stop Third World countries from burning the forests, which produces 18 per cent of CO2.

But, of course, people aren't interested in these kinds of facts. They want the religion. They want the sweet moralistic feeling of telling someone to stop doing something. They want to be able to rage about Chelsea Tractors and Tony Blair's flights, and they want to give vent to their feelings of disgust at the whole triumph of Western consumerist capitalism; and what worries me is that, in the end, the moralising mumbo-jumbo becomes more important than the scientific reality.

We face huge decisions, such as whether or not to allow scientists to use human genetic material in animal cells; and I want those decisions taken on the basis of whether or not the advance can help cure disease, not on the basis of "Frankenbunny" headlines.

We should cease our pagan yammering for sacrifice, and look at what the science really demands. It is a sign of our terrifying ignorance that so many would still prefer to plant a heat-producing tree than see the wisdom of the ancients, and kill a flatulent cow.

www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/01/11/do1101.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_11012007

[thebigone]

Never mind killing the cows at least they are useful, culling a few billion people from the planet would do the world a power of good. Bring on the bird flu.

[Misanthrope]

Agreed, I hate people, and too many people are breeding too much.
Ever notice how stupid people breed more?

Anyway, here's some more stuff for the misguided green "Nazis" trying to reduce all our lifestyles down to one level of mediocrity.

Copied below is a memorandum, written by Prof Will Alexander.

It's rather long, but it's a very good read and includes his experience of the trend to stifle debate and silence dissent by the True Believers....



Memorandum 1/07
Collapse of current climate change theory
Will Alexander
1 January 2007
Email alexwjr@iafica.com


Current climate change theory, internationally as well as nationally, is fundamentally and provably in error.


mybrainhurts said:
Sorry, can't copy picture


Sesriem area of the Namib Desert after the rains. This photograph illustrates the remarkable resilience of desert vegetation to wide variations in climate. Photo by Lutz Ebrecht, 24 February 2006.


Background to this memorandum

I believe that 2006 will be recorded in history as the year when climate change alarmism reached its peak and started to disintegrate. By the end of 2006 the signs of its imminent collapse were already evident. I believe that the disintegration will be complete and irreversible within the next 12 months. The error margin around this prediction is considerably less than that about the alarmist prediction of desertification of large regions of the African continent as a result of global warming.
The single event that will be associated with the collapse will be the failed Nairobi conference held in November 2006. The proof of the fundamental errors in current climate change theory will be found here in South Africa where each and every one of the alarmist predictions made during the past four years has been shown to be false. The predictions not only failed, but the opposite occurred.

My professional objective#

My principal objective during the past 36 years of my professional career was to research, develop and apply multi-site hydrometeorological time series analyses. These were required for a number of purposes including water resource development and management, the design of structures exposed to floods, and natural disaster mitigation measures with emphasis on the plight of the underprivileged communities of Africa.
The numerical characterisation of variability and extremes in these processes, from whatever cause, was an essential requirement. My broad studies provided insights that eluded the studies of those with narrower, climate-related objectives.

Chain of events

The scientific low point in international climate change studies occurred in September 2006 when the Royal Society, once the world’s most respected scientific institution, wrote to the oil giant Esso, the UK arm of ExxonMobil demanding that the company withdraws support for dozens of groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

The letter continued: "I would be grateful if you could let me know which organisations in the UK and other European countries have been receiving funding so that I can
work out which of these have been similarly providing inaccurate and misleading information to the public."

This followed an earlier letter to the press: "We are appealing to all parts of the UK media to be vigilant against attempts to present a distorted view of the scientific evidence about climate change and its potential effects on people and their environments around the world. I hope that we can count on your support."

[Sources: The Guardian of 20 September 2006 and The Daily Telegraph.]

In October two US Senators made similar threats.
What was the motivation for these unprecedented and thoroughly unscientific pronouncements?

The Royal Society’s edict was followed within weeks by the publication of the comprehensive Stern Review on 29 October 2006. This in turn was published a just week ahead of the Nairobi conference from 5 to 17 November. Are we expected to believe that this sequence at the very highest level of climate change science was a pure coincidence?
I find it very difficult to believe that the Royal Society’s edict was not intended to clear the way for the publication of the Stern Review which in turn immediately preceded the Nairobi conference. Their purpose was to prevent the delegates from being exposed to critical comments by others.

The UK PM Tony Blair threw his weight behind the Stern Review. We have reached the tipping point in climate change he told the world. The UN Secretary General appeared briefly at Nairobi to urge countries to take drastic action to curb undesirable greenhouse gas emissions (GGEs).

He told the conference:

This is not science fiction. These are plausible scenarios, based on clear and rigorous scientific modelling. A few diehard sceptics continue trying to sow doubt. They should be seen for what they are: out of step, out of arguments and out of time.

In the background the EU and the president of France threatened trade penalties against imports from those countries that failed to comply. Many of us in this part of the world were concerned that the poor developing countries of Africa and elsewhere would succumb to the pressures. We need not have worried.

All these efforts failed spectacularly. The developing nations refused to commit themselves to enforce the onerous GGE restriction measures. Their arguments were simple. The costs were too high. Poverty reduction and the upliftment of their peoples through energy-demanding industrial and transport activities had a much greater priority on their limited financial resources. Lurking in the back of their minds was the suspicion that the affluent EU nations were using climate change alarmism to suppress the rising economic competitiveness of the major developing nations, particularly India and China.

Africa in the middle

The poor developing countries of Africa in particular, with their struggling economies, were caught in the middle. Other than South Africa, industrial production is minimal in these countries. Exports of agricultural products are inhibited by subsidies provided by the EU to its own farmers. But there is one thing that Africa does have and that is its large undeveloped mineral resources.

There can be little doubt that China saw the threats of these restrictive and punitive measures by the EU as a golden opportunity. A week before Nairobi the African heads of state were invited to Beijing. After a lavish ceremony, trade agreements were signed and other forms of economic and technical assistance were offered with no strings attached. There was no longer an incentive for the African countries to accept the onerous GGE control measures or fear the EU’s reactions. Since then South Africa has also entered into trade agreements with India and Brazil. Neither of them are Kyoto signatories.
Nairobi precipitated the formulation of new alliances in many fields, including research in the natural and applied sciences. These countries will no longer be dependent on the wealthy nations for new and probably prejudiced research. They are on the road to being able to develop their own research and evaluate that of others, particularly in the field of climate change.

Now it is the turn of the EU countries to be left in the shade. And they are feeling the lack of warmth. Their latest move is to try to persuade the African nations that undemocratic China has ulterior motives. The concept of democracy in many African countries with their heterogeneous philosophies and cultures differs substantially from that of the developed world. So this argument is futile.

Back in the UK

Back in the UK, the Stern Review provided a wonderful opportunity for green alarmists. They demanded the implementation of drastic measures to reduce GGEs, including a prohibition on the expansion of major airports in an attempt to prevent the rapid expansion of polluting air traffic. There can be no doubt that if they succeed this would be a very severe blow to the economic competitiveness of the UK industries and businesses.
Then the cracks in climate alarmism started developing. The UK government announced that it would go ahead with airport expansions. It became clear that the UK authorities were unlikely to implement the drastic measures detailed in the Stern Review. In this situation, what weight will other countries place on the Stern Review’s recommendations? Stern’s position became intolerable. He resigned.

What can we expect from Europe in 2007?

The Kyoto Protocol, supported by the Stern Review was intended to be the first step in a series of increasing (and costly) GGE reduction measures. Will the committed nations continue to abide by the increasingly onerous conditions and in so doing slowly lose their economic competitiveness in the presence of the rapidly rising economies of the developing world?

Stern’s recommendations were unequivocal. The system will fail if all nations do not comply with the restrictive measures. There is no way that the rest of the world is likely to implement these measures in the foreseeable future. This is a stalemate position.

There is still one more outstanding event. The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since its establishment 18 years ago was due to be published in February. It now seems that this has been postponed until May. We can only surmise that some difficulties have arisen. Unlike the third assessment report published in 2001 that generated little opposition, there are many in the applied and engineering sciences out there waiting to demolish the largely academic arguments unsupported by believable evidence of the predicted consequences of global warming, one by one.

The science of climate change

Science often begins with an observation, (an apple falls off a tree). A theory is developed, (gravity). The theory can be tested, (dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa). It can then be applied in practice, (launching rockets into space). Theories can be expanded, modified, verified and occasionally be rejected when the predictions based on the theory fail.

Climate change theory is based on the observation that undesirable greenhouse gas emissions, principally carbon dioxide, are discharged into the atmosphere as by-products when carbon fuels (mainly coal and oil) are used to develop electricity, drive land and air transport, and in heavy industries such as the manufacture of cement, steel and aluminium.

These GGEs inhibit outgoing radiation. Global temperatures gradually rise as a result of this greenhouse effect. So far so good. At this stage, there are two competing theories. The second is that the observed increase in atmospheric temperatures is not the result of the greenhouse effect but is principally the result of changes in the receipt of the solar energy that drives the climatic processes. I will return to this alternative theory later.

There are four broad levels of the adverse consequences of global warming. I include the word ‘adverse’ as climate alarmists have an unwritten policy of deliberately avoiding the beneficial consequences and hoping that this omission will be overlooked by their audiences. These are separate theories but are collectively included under the umbrella of climate change and incorporated in global climate prediction computer models.
The first level is the direct consequences of the increase in atmospheric temperature. These consequences include the melting of the polar ice sheets and the retreat of glaciers. They are measurable.

The second level is the effect of this increase in atmospheric temperature on the atmospheric and oceanic poleward energy redistribution processes. These are not directly measurable.

The third level is the consequence of the changes in the energy redistribution processes on global rainfall. Its consequences in turn are river flow and floods. Droughts are not processes in themselves but are the consequence of the absence of rainfall and river flow over a period of time.

It is very important to note that these sub-consequences are within the science of applied hydrology under the general term of hydrometeorology. They have been thoroughly studied by generations of civil engineers. As will become evident, climatologists ignored these extensive and well-documented studies and drew conclusions that are remote from reality. For example, the phrase ‘intensification of the hydrological cycle’ is meaningless and will not be found in any hydrological textbook.

The hydrometeorological processes are all measurable. There is a wealth of data, (many thousands of station years), geographically as well as in time. Strangely, or perhaps not, climate alarmists completely ignored all this data. It is not at all clear why they relied on proxy data from tree rings and ice cores when there is this wealth of real-world data published by the responsible national authorities that are of direct interest in climate change studies.

The fourth level is the consequences of the undesirable changes at the above levels on the processes on the natural environment, more specifically the loss of habitat and species of our unique fauna and flora. Increases in malaria and other climate-related diseases are in this category.

The margins of uncertainty in the predictions of the consequences of global warming become larger as we move from one level to the next. This uncertainty is readily quantifiable in hydrometeorological studies based on standard statistical analysis procedures, but is ignored by climate alarmists.

Observation theory

There is an alternative route that can be followed when evaluating climate change theory. It is as old as human civilisation itself. The interest is not in global warming per se as the postulated global temperature increase during the next 100 years will be less than that between breakfast and morning tea on a sunny day.

Process theory that lies at the heart of climate change studies can be bypassed altogether and studies concentrated on its consequences. If, for example, during the past century global industrial activity and global air temperatures increased while the average annual rainfall over the African subcontinent decreased in parallel, then it would be reasonable to assume that rising industrial activity resulted in the observed decrease in rainfall. The climate alarmists will have proved their case. QED.
Unfortunately, all the investigations during the past century demonstrated the opposite. In South Africa, one commission of enquiry after the other found no sustained decreases in South African rainfall.

More than 50 years ago the civil engineer D.F. Kokot examined all available data starting with records of the early missionaries. He concluded that there was no evidence of linkages between rising CO2 emissions and corresponding decreases in rainfall and river flow. This remains the view of South African and international hydrological scientists. There is no evidence of substantial changes in river flow world wide that could be attributed to global warming.

Over the years the lengths of the records increased. I was the first to show that the annual rainfall over South Africa progressively increased during the past 80 years at least – well before the commencement of global industrial activity. I also found concurrent increases in open water surface evaporation and river flow. A colleague Johan van Heerden found increases in widespread, heavy rainfall events. These studies negate predictions of decreased rainfall and desertification based on global climate models derived from current climate change theory.

As is their habit, the climate alarmists chose to ignore our well documented conclusions based on the wealth of readily available hydrometeorological data. They continued to maintain that the African subcontinent will become warmer and drier as a result of global warming despite the availability of substantial evidence and high level reports to the contrary.

Gold rush

Climate change research is a lucrative business. My first exposure to the scramble for research funding was in June 2001.

I was invited to attend the Tokyo workshop on Water and Climate on 8-9 June 2001. The invitation was in recognition of my participation in the development of a flood mitigation policy for Mozambique financed by the Japanese government. There were about 200 attendees nearly all of whom were climatologists.

I could not understand the unprofessional alarmism of many of the presentations. I informed the participants that changes of the magnitude contemplated would be undetectable against the background of natural variability and could be accommodated without difficulty in existing engineering design procedures. It was only several months later that I obtained a copy of the draft document issued after the workshop titled Dialogue on Climate Prediction and Water Resource Management dated 5 July 2001. In their response dated 25 July 2001, the WMO strongly objected to the gist of the draft, and made the following comment.

The proposal in its current form and wording is capable of antagonizing water managers who, in fact, are one of the most important target groups for the proposed dialogue. The statement made that “the water management community’s failure to consider the hydrological consequences of emerging climatic trends has lead to serious social, economic and ecological impacts, most often at the expense of the poor”, is unsubstantiated and not suitable to foster dialogue. Water managers repeatedly pointed out that changes in climate of the magnitude currently being simulated by GCMs would easily be accommodated by the management decisions required for dealing with changes in population, land use and environmental regulation.

What was very disturbing was the implication that these climatic trends were already occurring for which there was no evidence, and then the completely unfounded and patently false statement accusing the water management community for not reacting. The title of the document was Dialogue on Climate Prediction and Water Resource Management. South African climate change scientists and the DEAT have done their best to ensure that no such dialogue takes place. How can a group of responsible scientists descend to these unscientific and unethical tactics on a matter of great national and international importance?

This was my first experience of the unpleasant and unprofessional tactics employed by climate alarmists to gain attention and generate research funding.

Untested hypothesis

I was back in Japan in January 2004. I was invited by UNESCO to participate in a workshop in connection with the establishment of a UNESCO institute there. I discussed the climate change problem at the workshop and the unanimous reaction was that it was a non-issue. When I returned to South Africa I wrote to my hosts asking them to circulate the following email to all those who had attended the workshop.

Our discussions at the workshop were very interesting and constructive, but I have a major concern which is related to climate change. I have attached a short memo Climate change – there is no need for concern. As you will see, there is no evidence of adverse effects of global warming in southern Africa, based on a study of 11 800 years of hydrological and meteorological records some of which are now nearly 100 years long, as well as earlier evidence dating back to the 1850s.

This brings me to my appeal. If, as is maintained, global warming has been present for many decades and is increasing, and if global warming has an adverse effect on rainfall and river flow, then the signals of this happening should be present in long records (more than 70 years) that are now becoming available. My analyses of southern African records confirmed that changes were present in many hydrometeorological data sets, but they showed increases in rainfall and river flow, not decreases.

Do any of you perhaps know of similar analyses undertaken elsewhere, and whether or not they show increases or decreases? I was referred to a letter in Nature showing that there were no increases in floods in two rivers in northern Europe. Are there any other examples?

I would also like to suggest to participants that they treat the GCM outputs with great care, and not perpetuate the view that the results of global warming will necessarily be bad. I do not suggest that they take issue with climatologists, but at the same time they should not accept the doom-and-gloom predictions on their face value.

The addressees were some 30 international experts from Europe, Asia and the Americas. The response was that either climate change was a non-issue or an untested hypothesis. Not one of the recipients considered that climate change was a cause for concern.

Ministerial pronouncements

In South Africa, green environmentalists were quick to climb aboard the climate change ox wagon without questioning its destination. They preached that the end of the world was nigh. They had the ear of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, (DEAT). On 15 December 2004 the DEAT issued a press release quoting the minister who addressed an international conference on climate change in Buenos Aires.

Cape Town - Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told delegates to an international conference in Buenos Aires on Wednesday that temperatures could rise between one and three percent by the middle of this century in South Africa. He was speaking at the 10th conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in the Argentinean capital.

Van Schalkwyk said it had also been projected that rainfall would be reduced by between five and 10% in this time. "South Africa cannot afford not to act because climate change will change the way we live," said Van Schalkwyk.

"The increased temperatures and reduced rainfall will have a major impact on our people with health problems like increased skin cancer rates and waterborne diseases."
He also predicted that there would be a drop in food production including an estimated drop of 20% in grain production, the extinction of numerous plant and animal species, and the certainty of prolonged and intense water restrictions.

On 5 May 2005 the office of the minister issued a press release titled South Africa braces for impacts of climate change: major conference to be held in October. The emphases in the following extracts are mine.

It contained a statement that:

The simple truth however is that the climate is everyone's concern, as over the next 50 years it may well define the worst social, economic and environmental challenges ever faced.

It went on to say that:

Climate change could lead to provinces such as Mapumalanga, Limpopo, the North-West, KwaZulu Natal and even Gauteng becoming malaria zones by 2050. In less than 100 years, the research indicates that thousands of plant species may well be extinct starting with a massive reduction in the distribution of fynbos and succulent Karoo biomes. With clean water resources becoming increasingly scarce, small-scale agriculture is likely to be hard hit with less rainfall in certain regions and too much in others. In short, climate change will intensify the worst effects of poverty through losses in biodiversity, agriculture, health and almost every sector of society.

Other postulated threats were rising sea levels and expanding deserts. No solutions were offered. If this view is sound, then South Africa is on the brink of an economic disaster. I can hardly think of a more alarmist statement of national policy. Fortunately all these alarmist predictions are without foundation.

The press release announcing the conference included the statement that climate is everyone’s concern. Those of us who hold views that could have made a positive contribution from the perspective of the applied sciences in the fields of the consequences of climate change, were deliberately excluded from presenting our views at the Midrand Conference held in October 2005. This is from the minister’s opening address.
We will not be derailed from our responsibility to act by endless engagement with fringe scientists... we have reached and passed this in the debate about the science of climate change.

Ministers have their speeches on technical matters written for them. I have written a few myself. Why did the minister’s speechwriters consider it necessary to make this statement? The answer is obvious. A few months earlier my two papers on the development of a climate prediction model and the role of variations in solar activity were published in refereed journals. These are world firsts. Unfortunately, my papers completely undermined current climate change theory. There were other experts who were also prevented from expressing their constructive views at the conference. Attendees, including senior cabinet ministers, were misled.

Sub-continental drought

These ministerial pronouncements were made during a period when South Africa was in the grip of a widespread drought. From 2003 to 2005 the climate alarmists were in their element. Although this was by no means the worst drought on record, they informed the public through the media that one did not have to be a rocket scientist to see that the drought was the consequence of climate change.

The media relished the opportunity with photographs of drifting icebergs and wandering polar bears. International science magazines carried their alarmist reports. Nothing was dying in South Africa as a result of the drought so the media had to show photos of healthy Proteas and other plants that alarmists claimed will disappear within decades. In the absence of proof everybody had to rely on speculation.

My words of caution were brushed aside. My short article Climate change – there is no need for concern was published in the January/February 2004 issue of the Water Research Commission’s magazine Water Wheel. Seventeen scientists responded adversely in a coordinated response in a following edition. I was denied the opportunity to respond to their comments.

Suspect science

With all the above in mind, consider the detailed, 155-page report A status quo, vulnerability and adaptation assessment of the physical and socio-economic effects of climate change in the Western Cape prepared by 15 authors from seven institutions in June 2005, (Midgley et al 2005). Under normal circumstances this report should carry heavy weight. Unfortunately a single fundamental issue on which the report is based is demonstrably false and completely undermines the scientific integrity of the report and all the conclusions drawn from it.

The very foundation of the report is that global warming will reduce rainfall over the whole region. This assumption is based entirely on global climate model outputs, whereas a simple analysis of the long records of the many rainfall stations in the region shows that there has been a general increase in rainfall. Some districts show substantial increases of up to 68% during the period of record. As global warming is reported to have increased steadily during the past century, it follows that rainfall will continue to increase as long as global temperatures continue to rise.

The following are brief extracts from the introductory section of the report. The emphases are mine. References to a drier future climate are patently false, as future climate in this region will be wetter, not drier should the present conditions continue.
In this study we have carried out a broad reassessment of the vulnerability of the Western Cape to climate change impacts using a wider range of climate scenarios from more sophisticated climate models …

The future climate of the Western Cape is likely to be one that is warmer and drier than at present according to a number of current model predictions.

A future that is warmer and possibly drier, will encompass a range of consequences that will affect the economy, the livelihoods of the people and the ecological integrity of the Western Cape region.

Projections for the Western Cape are for a drying trend from west to east…[My analyses demonstrate the opposite.]

In a warmer and drier future, the competition for fresh water will increase steeply.
The vulnerability of estuaries to warming and drying is particularly acute …
The impact of climate change manifested by a warmer and drier climate is likely to be a progressive impoverishment in species richness …

A drier environment would restrict the spread of alien invasive species …

The combination of increasing water scarcity, and rising temperatures will also regularly affect sectors of the economy that are particularly dependent on ecosystem goods and services, for example agriculture, forestry and fishing.

All that the authors should have done was to spend an afternoon plotting the rainfall data on graph paper and they would have noticed the very clear increase in rainfall in the region. As a matter of interest, the total water storages in the dams in the region during the month of December starting in 2002 were 87, 66, 48, 73 and 81%. There is no evidence of progressive water scarcity during the past five years. Claims of future water scarcity as a result of global warming have no foundation.

Economic sectors such as insurance, banks (through the underlying secured assets), transport and communication infrastructure and construction may all be affected to some degree by climate change.

Regrettably, this all-inclusive statement illustrates a complete ignorance of how modern society functions.

Climate variability has been linked to variation in solar activity, i.e. the sunspot cycle, (Houghton et al (2001). However, recent analyses by Foukal et al (2005) have called this hypothesis into question, citing the small variation of solar output (0.8%) that can be attributed to the sunspot cycle and the relatively poor ability of instruments to measure accurately these variations.

In 1889, more than 100 years ago, the Knysna forester D.E. Hutchins reported as follows in his book Cycles of drought and good seasons in South Africa.

This confirmation comes from the Cape Town Observatory. The returns for thirty years from the Cape Town Observatory show a close correspondence between sun-spots and temperatures, the maximum of temperature lagging a year behind the minimum of sun-spots. (p17).
At Cape Town, the correspondence between the mean rainfall and mean sunspot frequency has long been an established fact. (p25).

For these reasons we ought to consider the Cape Town Observatory rainfall figures as of great importance to ourselves, an importance enhanced by the fact that they go back to the year 1842. For the three cycles comprised in the period 1842 to 1875 the mean annual rainfall at the Royal Observatory, Cape Town, was: –
During Minimum Sunspot years 21.05 inches.
“ Intermediate “ 23.59 “
“ Maximum “ 27.95 “

Given all this information, based on records extending back as far as 1842, why did these fifteen scientists choose to quote an overseas author’s claim that no linkage existed when the linkage was demonstrated by a Knysna forester more than 100 years ago? All that was needed was for one of these authors to study the rainfall and temperature records and concurrent sunspot activity. Instead they chose to rely on an overseas author who was obviously ignorant of the well-documented, synchronous linkages reported in South Africa and internationally for more than a century.

What does all this tell us about the reliability of publications by these authors and other climate change scientists who hold similar views? It was on this thoroughly unscientific basis that the DEAT minister was persuaded to take drastic action that will inevitably have an adverse effect on the welfare of the people of this country. It also explains why I and others who hold similar views, were deliberately excluded from addressing the Midrand conference.

It would be a tragedy if the 149-page report: A status quo, vulnerability and adaptation assessment of the physical and socio-economic effects of climate change in the Western Cape is accepted without question by the national and provincial authorities. There is a very real possibility of a backlash once it becomes obvious that the basis of the report and the proposed costly and intrusive recommendations have no foundation in science or reality, and are unsupported by large sections of the scientific community.

The organisations listed in this publication should also take note of the damage that this publication and exclusion policy will do to their scientific integrity.

I produced a low key response and was invited to present my views at a meeting to be arranged at Oudtshoorn. The meeting was cancelled as a result of pressures from an unknown source.

By then I was ready to pack my bags but friends and professional colleagues urged me to continue. My own comprehensive studies were at an advanced stage. In 2003 as a consequence of publication setbacks I started circulating information on the progress of my studies by emailed memoranda. Interest grew. I now have a one-way circulation list of just over 100 direct recipients plus many others to whom my memos were forwarded. Many of the recipients disagree with my views. I have not given up hope that we may join hands in the months ahead. I have received no responses to this suggestion.

Consensus?

This is an appropriate point to raise the important concept of consensus in climate change research. The scientists who advised the government authorities, rejected my views and produced the alarmist report on the Western Cape, were honest in their intentions but lacking in their knowledge. This lack of knowledge can be traced back to the policy of denigrating those who hold opposing views. The following is a repeat of the minister’s announcement at the opening of the Midrand conference.

We will not be derailed from our responsibility to act by endless engagement with fringe scientists... we have reached and passed this in the debate about the science of climate change.

Who are these fringe scientists? This question can only be answered by asking another question – what is the definition of climate change? This question has yet to be answered because it has two components – causes and consequences. While academics are interested in the causes and processes, the rest of the world, including the large body of applied scientists, are interested in the consequences.

When the consequences do not match the predictions, the applied scientists have a legitimate reason for questioning the theory. Yet when they do this they are denigrated as fringe scientists whose research should be discouraged and whose publication submissions rejected. In the absence of justifiable criticism, the climate change protagonists have a free hand to produce their alarmist predictions in the knowledge that they are unlikely to be criticised, and that there is a general consensus of scientists to support them.

The word consensus has been bandied about as though it is some sort of proof. In reality it is no more than a general convergence of views of academics based on publications in the scientific literature. When they venture into the consequences, the climate change scientists are beyond the limits of their expertise and vulnerable to criticism. This criticism is then stifled by actions such as the policy of the Royal Society. While the Royal Society’s intentions may have been honest the society clearly did not consider the consequences of its action. As I explain later it has caused serious damage to the cause that it supported.

There is now a rising resentment from large bodies of those in the applied sciences who point out that there are serious flaws in climate change science. This is demonstrated by serious errors in the alarmist, uncontrolled and unchallenged predictions. This memorandum is an example. In another example, early in 2006 I was one of 61 international scientists in several scientific disciplines who endorsed a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister that included the following statement.

‘Climate Change is Real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate change catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes, and human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from the natural noise.

Turning point

In retrospect, November 2005, exactly a year before the Nairobi conference was a turning point in the whole climate change drama. During that month I was motivated by the request for comment by the Stern Review to produce an extended abstract of my comprehensive studies that were approaching completion. I submitted documents on 24 November 2005 followed by more communications in February, March and April 2006. I received a cold shoulder for my efforts. It was clear that Nicholas Stern had already made up his mind.
It was equally clear from my studies that the drought was about to be broken by widespread, flood-producing rainfall. On 6 November 2005 I issued the first of four flood alerts.

Flood alert

There is a more than 75% probability that widespread floods will occur between now and the end of April, (and a 25% probability that they will not occur).
This prediction (not forecast) has nothing to do with global warming but everything to do with natural climate variability.

This is not a public announcement as I have no wish to raise any alarmist fears. I have attached some information that may be useful to those who may be involved or interested in the subject.

Climatologists disagreed. One called my prediction a joke. (More of this in a later memo.)

The rains came

Heavy, sub-continental rains commenced late in December 2005 and continued in earnest through January and February 2006. The drought was broken, dams filled and the countryside was wetter and greener than at any time in recent memory. A Namibian newspaper published a CD of photos taken by readers.

Episodes of heavy rainfall were experienced elsewhere in South Africa during the year. They were exceptional in the southern Cape during July and August where damage was caused but few lives were lost as efficient disaster management teams took over. The East London area experienced the highest rainfalls in years. The farmers are smiling.

During August, together with family members, I undertook a 6500 km safari through the Kalahari and Namib desert as far as the aptly named Skeleton Coast. My 4X4 was equipped with a tracking device that enabled me to retrieve details of our travels at time intervals measured in minutes and distances in hundreds of metres. My digital camera recorded the time when each photograph and video clip was taken. Together, the time and place of all the photographic material can be retrieved and studied.

I searched for but did not find a trace of deterioration of the natural environment or desertification or loss of species that could be attributed to climate change. The alarmist claims were groundless.

Sporadic flooding continued through the year. A month ago there were floods in KwaZulu Natal. As I write there are more floods in the Kruger National Park area. The widespread rainfall over sub-continental Africa during the past 12 months is solid evidence that supports my earlier flood alert. This exceptionally wet season over this very large region was not forecast by climatologists, all of whom held the opposite view. The claims that global warming will result in the sub-continental climate becoming warmer and drier with resulting desertification and destruction of our Protea and Karoo succulent species are in tatters.

The once vociferous climate alarmists and their green followers remained silent throughout the year as their theories collapsed in front of their eyes.

Proof of the opposite

At this stage I could legitimately and with greater confidence claim the opposite. Increased global warming will result in increased evaporation, rainfall, river flow, and a healthy natural environment with no outbreaks of malaria or crop losses.

If necessary, I could confirm the events of 2006 by contacting the responsible authorities: These are the South African Weather Service (rainfall), the Departments of Water Affairs and Forestry (river flow and the Knysna Forest), Agriculture (crop production), and Health (malaria). I could also contact the relevant national research institutes (environment and biodiversity).

But I would not be honest, because the events of 2003 – 2006 had nothing to do with the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions and everything to do with predictable consequences of variations in solar activity.

For most of my waking hours during the past four years, I examined a very large and comprehensive hydrometeorological database. I applied the old civil engineering adage – what are these numbers trying to tell me?

The results were clear and unambiguous. My studies solidly confirmed the reports of generations of South African scientists in this field during more than the past 100 years. I had an advantage that none of them had – a longer and more numerous set of data.
Then early in 2006 my path crossed that of Fred Bailey another independent thinker in the UK. His speciality is the behaviour of the components of the solar system. The results of our combined studies show that there is no doubt whatsoever that multi-year climate variability in the African sub-continent, and possibly elsewhere, is directly related to activity within the solar system. The effects of GGEs, if present, are not detectable against this background.

We worked feverishly on the problem in 2006 while I kept a watchful eye on international developments, particularly during the lead-up to the Nairobi conference. Two publications are already in the pipeline. We have since been joined by others with challenging minds. We will not be subdued by edicts of the Royal Society, or threats by two US senators, or by the publicity-seeking Al Gore, or by unsympathetic journal editors.

We have ploughed the fields and sown the seeds of natural climate variability unaffected by human activities. We cannot control or predict the responses of others to our work. Time alone will tell.

Insurmountable problem

South African and international climate alarmists now have an insurmountable problem. Global temperatures continued to increase to abnormally high levels from 2003 through to the end of 2006. The WMO has just released a preliminary report for 2006 confirming that 2006 is set to be the sixth warmest on record, continuing the trend of global warming. Yet in South Africa during 2006 every one of the dire alarmist predictions based on global climate models not only failed to eventuate but the opposite occurred.
On the other hand, my climate prediction model based on statistically significant, well-established multiyear periodicity in the hydrometeorological data, succeeded dramatically.

Loss of faith

In the past, poorer nations of the world had to rely on the research and technological expertise of the few major industrial nations. The competence and integrity of the scientists in these countries, particularly the UK with its post-colonial linkages, were held in high esteem.

During 2006 the politically motivated actions of the Royal Society and the Stern Review caused considerable damage to the reputations of the UK scientists and their institutions. Before and during the Nairobi discussions, offers of technical assistance were made by the affluent countries to those countries that implemented the onerous and costly GGE control measures. It is most unfortunate that the motives behind these promises have now become suspect.

Another cause of the suspicion of the motives of climate change scientists is their continued insistence that variations in solar activity have no meaningful effect on the climatic processes. Although mechanisms themselves have yet to be identified, the causal linkage is beyond reasonable doubt. It is orders of magnitude stronger than the influence of GGEs. The evidence is overwhelming. Denial of the obvious only increases suspicions of ulterior motives.

The future

2007 promises to be an interesting and productive year for many of us who have struggled to overcome human prejudices, and deeply disappointing to others who have succumbed to attractions of climate alarmism.

It is with some sadness that I must report that the DEAT minister’s statement in May 2005:
The simple truth however is that the climate is everyone's concern, as over the next 50 years it may well define the worst social, economic and environmental challenges ever faced.
- is without foundation. The minister, his department, and the people of this country were badly misled.

Budapest declaration on science (1999)

The Budapest declaration on science is an appropriate ending to this memorandum. In 1999, the world’s two highest international scientific bodies, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the International Council for Science (ICSU), held a world conference in Budapest on science for the twenty first century. The conference produced a Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge. The following are passages from the declaration that are directly relevant to the development and application of climate change science. The emphases are mine.

We seek active collaboration across all the fields of scientific endeavour, i.e. the natural sciences such as the physical, earth and biological sciences, the biomedical and engineering sciences, and the social and human sciences.

Today, there is need for a vigorous and informed democratic debate on the production and use of scientific knowledge…Greater interdisciplinary efforts, involving both natural and social sciences, are a prerequisite for dealing with ethical, social, cultural, environmental, gender, economic and health issues.

Scientists have a special responsibility for seeking to avert applications of science, which are ethically wrong or have adverse impact.

The practice of scientific research and the use of knowledge from that research should always aim at the welfare of humankind.

I leave it to readers of this memorandum to consider whether or not those who are involved in climate change studies, and more particularly the Royal Society and public bodies that suppress and ridicule the efforts of those who strive to achieve a balanced view, meet these fundamental requirements of scientific endeavour.

Hopes for the future

It remains my hope that the South African authorities will do what they should have done from the beginning. They should appoint a high level, multidisciplinary commission of enquiry with instructions to examine all aspects of climate variability, from whatever cause, and its likely consequences. The commission should insist on the numerical characterization of the consequences of climate variability so that adaptation measures can be developed and implemented, particularly for our water supplies that are rapidly approaching the limits of development.

Without an impartial, authoritative investigation we in this country will continue to be bombarded by proclamations by prejudiced and politically motivated international publicity seekers and their South African followers who have no care for the welfare of the peoples of the African continent.

WJR Alexander
Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa;
Honorary Fellow, South African Institution of Civil Engineering;
Chief Division of Hydrology and Manager Scientific Services of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry 1970 to 1984.
Member of the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994 to 2000.