Deforestration Abates

This is a welcome bit of information to act as an anecdote to the more hysterical reports of past years. In a way it is unsurprising. Central governments need their tax revenue and illegal cutting is all about operating out of government oversight and taxation. Obviously, if the local government cannot collect taxes on these logs and new fields, then there is slim chance they can hope to regulate the practice.

Thus the economic necessity of central governments is doing what all the laws and police can never quite do.

Slash and burn will continue until the farmers are encouraged to adopt biochar and are given homestead rights on that basis. At which point it will disappear in a hurry.

It was my lot to once visit a site in the jungles of Borneo a couple of decades ago. It was situated on a small river with a good flow a few miles inland. I saw a steady stream of logs tied up in small booms of perhaps several logs each with a logger riding each boom down to the sea. In the river mouth, there was a tramp ship collecting these logs and loading them. At best the local constabulary had speed boats thirty miles away and easier fish to fry. I got the distinct impression that no one asked too many questions.

I am sure today that the mill exists and that the tramp is no longer collecting logs and who ever comes down that river may even be paying taxes.

INTERVIEW-Global forest destruction seen overestimated
Fri Aug 21, 2009 3:46pm EDT

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN2165866

By Stuart Grudgings

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 21 (Reuters) - The amount of carbon emissions caused by world forest destruction is likely far less than the 20 percent figure being widely used before global climate talks in December, said the head of the Brazilian institute that measures Amazon deforestation.

Gilberto Camara, the director of Brazil's respected National Institute for Space Research, said the 20 percent tally was based on poor science but that rich countries had no interest in questioning it because the number put more pressure on developing countries to stem greenhouse gases.

"I'm not in favor of conspiracy theories," Camara told Reuters in a telephone interview on Friday.

"But I should only state that the two people who like these figures are developed nations, who would like to overstress the contribution of developing nations to global carbon, and of course environmentalists."
A lower estimate for carbon emissions from deforestation would have an impact on the Copenhagen talks, where preserving forests is a top item on the agenda.

The summit will negotiate a follow-up to the Kyoto climate change treaty that could introduce forest credit trade to cut developing nation deforestation.

Camara, who stressed that he thought Brazil's deforestation rates remain too high, said recent calculations by his institute using detailed satellite data showed clearing of the world's biggest forest accounted for about 2.5 percent of annual global carbon emissions.

Given that the Amazon accounts for about a quarter of deforestation globally, a figure of about 10 percent for total emissions caused by forest destruction is likely to be more accurate, Camara said.

The 20 percent figure used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was based on calculations from sampling of forests by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), he said.

The FAO method came up with an average annual figure of 31,000 sq km (12,000 sq miles) deforested in the Amazon from 2000-2005. But Brazil's method of using satellite images to measure deforestation "pixel by pixel" was far more accurate and showed a figure of 21,500 sq km for the period, Camara said.

DEFORESTATION HEADING LOWER

For 2005-2009, the FAO estimate was double the correct figure, Camara said.

"The FAO grossly overestimated deforestation in Brazil and there are papers that show that such overestimation is also true for many other countries, including of course Indonesia."

Indonesia is among the world's biggest deforesters.

Camara said he was skeptical of any deal involving Brazil being rewarded for "avoided deforestation" because the average rate of destruction remained far too high.

"Deforestation in 2004 was 27,000 sq km and let's say in 2009 it is 10,000 sq km. It is not fair to say that we avoided 17,000 sq km of deforestation in as much as our current level is still too much, and 90 percent of that is illegal," he said.

"The concept of avoided deforestation is a weak concept. It would not stand up to scrutiny."Deforestation of the Amazon, which makes Brazil one of the biggest global carbon emitters, is on course to fall sharply in the August-to-July annual period in which it is measured.

Satellite data shows that new, large deforested areas are about half the area they were in the previous year, when total deforestation was 12,000 sq km.

"We are hopeful that deforestation will go down. In areas where deforestation had been high in previous years, like Mato Grosso and Rondonia state, it is relatively under control," Camara said.

The government has taken steps to crack down on illegal deforestation over the past year. Falling deforestation may also be due to the fall in commodity prices over the past year, reducing the incentive for farmers and ranchers to clear land. (Editing by John O'Callaghan)

Mapping Ocean Heat Flux

This is truly odd and highly suggestive. Here we have a measurable switching behavior rather than a fuzzy trend line. This is very important because actual global temperature declines are clearly switching events.

The example of the switch in the late seventies coincides with a steady improvement in our northwest climate since. This is a subjective impression, but the northern hemisphere has had a surplus of atmospheric heat since about that time.

I do not know how significant that this is and I am sure that it is too soon. We also do not understand the mechanism itself.

However a switching mechanism is quite able to dump us into a little ice age tomorrow morning. It may be made worse by the odd nasty volcano, but in fairness, with very rare exceptions, their impact lasts a year or two.

That does mean something odd is happening to the oceanic heat engine that we know nothing about and cannot anticipate.

I would like to get a handle on what induced this last event. I would really like to understand cause and effect. The build up may be quite gradual but the switching behavior acts like catastrophic changeover somewhere.

Why would heat flow change direction three times? How does this happen if solar input is a constant? Are we noting the effects of an injection of deep Antarctic cold waters across the equator itself?

This last idea makes some sense. It has been noted that the Antarctic has been getting colder over the past decades. This means a buildup of deep colder waters south of the equator. It is plausible that this periodically is injected into the northern hemisphere to redress balance. Let us propose that a normal injection is into the Pacific and this happens perhaps every fifty years of so and is largely responsible for global cooling.

Let us then propose that a rare occasion is an injection instead into the Atlantic. This delivers the little ice age and similar events. My point is that a periodic readjustment in the global heat sink by way of an injection across the equator nicely rebalances the books.

That it goes occasionally astray into the Atlantic is also a natural system.

I think that we can tentatively accept this bit of evidence as a first hard contribution to a robust model of heat transfer through the ocean. It does not answer the question but it does confirm we need to look here.


Changes In Net Flow Of Ocean Heat Correlate With Past Climate Anomalies


by Staff Writers
Rochester NY (SPX) Aug 21, 2009

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Changes_In_Net_Flow_Of_Ocean_Heat_Correlate_With_Past_Climate_Anomalies_999.html

Physicists at the University of Rochester have combed through data from satellites and ocean buoys and found evidence that in the last 50 years, the net flow of heat into and out of the oceans has changed direction three times.

These shifts in the balance of heat absorbed from the sun and radiated from the oceans correlate well with past anomalies that have been associated with abrupt shifts in the earth's climate, say the researchers. These anomalies include changes in normal storm intensities, unusual land temperatures, and a large drop in salmon populations along the western United States.

The physicists also say these changes in ocean heat-flow direction should be taken into account when predicting global climate because the oceans represent 90 percent of the total heat in the earth's climate system.

The study, which will appear in an upcoming issue of Physics Letters A, differs from most previous studies in two ways, the researchers say. First, the physicists look at the overall heat content of the Earth's climate system, measuring the net balance of radiation from both the sun and Earth. And second, it analyzes more completely the data sets the researchers believe are of the highest quality, and not those that are less robust.

"These shifts happened relatively abruptly," says David Douglass, professor of physics at the University of Rochester, and co-author of the paper. "One, for example, happened between 1976 and 1977, right when a number of other climate-related phenomenons were happening, such as significant changes in U. S. precipitation."

Douglass says the last oceanic shift occurred about 10 years ago, and that the oceans are currently emitting slightly more radiation than they are receiving.

The members of the team, which includes Robert Knox, emeritus professor of physics at the University, believe these heat-flux shifts had previously gone unnoticed because no one had analyzed the data as thoroughly as the Rochester team has.

The team believes that the oceans may change how much they absorb and radiate depending on factors such as shifts in ocean currents that might change how the deep water and surface waters exchange heat.
In addition to the correlation with strange global effects that some scientists suspect were caused by climate shifts, the team says their data shows the oceans are not continuously warming-a conclusion not consistent with the idea that the oceans may be harboring "warming in the pipeline." Douglass further notes that the team found no correlation between the shifts and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

"An interesting aspect of this research is that no reference to the surface temperature itself is needed," says Knox.

"The heat content data we used, gathered by oceanographers, was gleaned from temperature measurements at various ocean depths up to 750 meters." The team also found that the radiative imbalance was sufficiently small that it was necessary to consider the effect of geothermal heating. Knox believes this is the first time this additional source of heat has been accounted for in such a model.

The team notes that it's impossible to predict when another shift might occur, but they suspect future shifts might be similar to the three observed. Both Douglass and Knox are continuing to analyze various climate-related data to find any new information or correlations that may have so far gone unnoticed.

Synthetic Trees to Gather CO2

Somehow this one is a bit difficult to choke down. The startling item is that so much CO2 can be collected. It does not promise to convert it into something g conv3enien so we are still left with a disposal problem. Not a solution that competes with biocharing crop residue and plowing it into the field.

We are given too little technical information here to devel0ope any comfort regarding method. So we cannot comment much.

This article also chatters about algae and paint jobs, so it is clear that the reporter is new to the subject also.

Therefore we better wait for a more detailed story that is not a recycled press release. At the end of the day, we want the CO2 been used.

Long before a strategy like this is adopted; a strategy of simply planting trees will be long implemented not so much for the substantial CO2 locked up but for all the additional benefits provided.


How planting forests of fake trees across Britain could fight global warming

By

Daily Mail Reporter

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1209358/How-forests-fake-trees-Britain-fight-global-warming.html

Last updated at 12:27 PM on 27th August 2009

Forests of artificial 'trees' should be planted across Britain to soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to a report into climate change.

Engineers claim 100,000 of the devices which would be two-thirds as tall as a wind turbine - would remove the carbon emissions of every car, lorry and bus in Britain.

The call comes in a study by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers into how technology could prevent climate change. It says using technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere could buy the world vital time.

The future? The artificial trees pictured in between the giant wind turbines would help soak up carbon dioxide

The institution says a single synthetic tree costing £15,000 could capture ten tons of carbon dioxide from the air every day, making it thousands of times more efficient at absorbing CO2 than a real tree.

The trees would be coated with synthetic materials that absorb CO2, which would then be removed and stored underground in depleted oil and natural gas reservoirs. The institution wants millions of pounds to be invested in research on technology to beat the threat of global warming to Britain.

The study also calls for buildings to be lined with pots of algae that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. The algae could then be used as green biofuels for cars.

Painting buildings white can also help reduce the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the Earth, keeping it cool.

The report says attempts to prevent global temperatures rising are doomed, predicting they could increase as much as 6c by 2100, creating food and water shortages, sea level rises and massive refugee crises.

Author Dr Tim Fox said: 'Geo-engineering may give us those extra few years of transition to a low- carbon world and prevent any one of the future climatechange scenarios we all fear.'

Read more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1209358/How-forests-fake-trees-Britain-fight-global-warming.html#ixzz0Pc9DnHP4

In Conan's Land

As I have made clear in my postings, the ice age polar ice cap needed to be centered on the pole as much as possible to minimize growing imbalance in the crust. We have already dealt with the real slipperiness of the crust itself and shown that this objection is no objection at all.

We have asserted that humanity chose to trigger a crustal movement about 12900 BP in order to position the crust in such a way as to induce the full effect of the Gulf Stream and usher in the Holocene. This was clearly a precisely targeted event induced by a Comet strike on the pole itself. It is literally too good to be true if it was not planned deliberately.

However, it appears that a similar crustal movement occurred coincident with the peak of the ice age at around 19,000 BP that was a natural outcome of the building imbalance of the crust and though a random event, it did begin the process of deglaciation itself, but not nearly so effectively as the 12,900 BP event which completed the job in a couple of millennia.

The best evidence for this occurring is simply the fact that the second event was planned at all. You would only try that if you knew it would work.

A little bit of Pleistocene geography now needs to be reconstructed. Firstly, the temperate zone was the home of our known Pleistocene menagerie of mammoths, bison, mega lions, huge bears and of course humanity. Because it was in the temperate belt a long growing season was available. However it was all dominated by glacial weather that kept temperature variation changing over several degrees making agriculture very difficult and unlikely.

In Eurasia, this zone was most of two thousand kilometers wide and several thousand kilometers long. It was well watered and replete with ample plant fodder to support the massive herds. There were also ample semi protected valleys in which humanity could commence pastoralism and perhaps even some garden plot agriculture. The human population was likely huge because of the ease of big game hunting.

Secondly, the Indian sub continent was positioned on the equator and had a climate similar to the Amazon, Indonesia and the Congo. Human populations would have been organized as hunter gatherers as common in these regions. Successful agriculture has only occurred on tropical soils with the advent of terra preta in the Amazon five thousand years ago and more recently with some application of modern capital intensive methods.

That made it unattractive to northern hunting cultures that could migrate easily from Central Asia.

We can also surmise from the forgoing that these populations had ample prewarning of the coming impact event of 12,900 BP and were able to properly shelter themselves from the atmospheric shock waves.

Pleistocene Central Asia in particular was thirty degrees in latitude further south and obviously a much moister environment that was rich in food and fodder for the Pleistocene menagerie. It was certainly well populated with human hunters to a density comparable to such societies in Africa. Thus we have a dominant Central Asian culture with a southern tropical perimeter not unlike the surrounds of the Congo and the Amazon. They had plausibly already domesticated cattle to stabilize their lifeway and liberate themselves from following the wild herds were all the predators were.

My point is that the Northern Pleistocene was far richer and dominant than we have ever imagined and once understood in that light the later emergence of derivative populations becomes understandable. This huge areal expanse interacted with a likely host of local tribal groupings on the perimeter that to day are still recognizable as Europeans, Aryans and Chinese with all gradations in between.

The claim in the Vedas that the Indian populations and culture arose from an influx from the ‘Arctic’ and environs then is clearly explained. That influx was ongoing long before the 12,900 BP event, but lacked the necessary large herds to support hunting unless they brought cattle with them. If they brought cattle herds then they would have established large populations early on just as we are doing so in the Amazon today.

The crustal shift northward changed all that into the present climate regime and effectively forced populations out of their old hunting grounds as they dried out. They would naturally have gone south to join their kinsmen.

We have always been assuming geographical association with specific characteristics. The littoral of central Asia was rich and well connected for the mixing of a wide range of characteristics to be able to accommodate all of this in a population that was notably brown skinned but also highly variable.

Thus we can make a first basic generalization about the pre agricultural human populations. There were two obvious lifeways. The one was centered in tropical conditions, of which a modern day example is Papua - New Guinea. Their lifeway engaged in local gardening and small game hunting and inter tribal predatory warfare.

The second dominant lifeway was the temperate big game hunting society with a plausible application of pastoralism. We have images of Conan confronting these monsters with a spear in hand. Somehow, that never happened. Stampeding such an animal over a cliff is much safer or crowding it into a sealable box canyon, or as in Africa, simply dig a really good pit fall. You still need the big spear, but you will not be endangering yourself.

Converting the meat into strips for drying and producing pemmican was surely the principle method of using all such meat. Most of it was tough and needing prolonged stewing otherwise. Obviously a single mammoth would provide many thousands of pounds of fresh meat which could be dried and preserved in fat after pulverizing to produce thousands of individual daily rations. It is realistic to expect a single mammoth to provide a year’s rations for a single hunting band totaling up to twenty members. Pretty good return on a month’s effort.

That also explains the general economy of the plains Indians who maintained buffalo jumps. Once the preserved meat was in place, all other hunting was a pleasant pastime.

Thus we find that the post 12,900 BP world became difficult for the northern populations at the same time that the southern perimeter dried out and became more amenable to the lifeways of pastoralists. Of course they migrated bringing a more productive lifeway with them.

Promotion of Global Warming Derailed

Of course Marc Morano has been the center of dispensing information contrary to the pro global warming material. We have not had a public debate so much as a battle of the apologists.

Again, for the record, the northern hemisphere warmed up quite nicely for a decade or two until 1998. At that point as should be obvious, the northern hemisphere was warm. The sea ice had already been reduced by sixty percent by the warming process. This melt continued for the past ten years because conditions were warmer but also stable. The sea ice is now much further reduced and could easily be eliminated by another cycle of warming or even maintenance of the past decade’s warmth.

Instead, we presently have dropped a degree or so in apparent temperature. Thus it is also plausible that the sea ice is presently on neutral and may swing lower to induce the regrowth of sea ice.

What is completely convincing is the proposition that the climate is been managed with zero regard to the amount of CO2 we dump into the atmosphere. I am using the word zero here because most people seem to have difficulty with approximate, or negligible. To put it as clearly as possible, I do not need haul in CO2 as a cause to explain anything, particularly now when the climate is showing itself to be a hugely independent variable.

After all, if the coincidence of a decadal temperature rise is to be successfully associated with rising CO2 until 1998, how do we explain the effect of twice as much CO2 dumped into the atmosphere since? The warming effect must be much greater! If we accept their simple minded arithmetic, then the only explanation is that we have just staved of a little ice age. We are certainly heading there in terms of logical consistency,

When I started this blog, I began by clearly delinking the two phenomena. I said at the time that such linkage was both weak science and likely to damage the important cause of CO2 management. Such management leads directly to a program of terraforming the Earth. The only problem with that, is that the natural supporters are so called environmentalists who are so biased that they can not do any thing constructive. That leaves the rest of us to push at small beginnings.


http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2597/Exposed-Climate-Fear-Promoters-Greatest-Fear--A-Public-Trial-of-the-Evidence-of-Global-Warming-Fears-Inconvenient-Developments-Continue-to-Mount

Exposed: Climate Fear Promoters Greatest Fear -- A Public Trial of the 'Evidence' of Global Warming Fears! Inconvenient Developments Continue to Mount

'Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated'

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 - By

Marc Morano – Climate Depot

Climate Depot Editorial

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has shocked the global warming debate by its formal call to hold a public global warming trial to decide on the “evidence” that mankind is driving a climate catastrophe. The Chamber seeks to have a complete trial “complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect.” Some are referring to the potential for a global warming trial as the “U.S. Chamber of Commerce wanting to put AGW (anthropogenic global warming) creationism on trial.”

Brenda Ekwurzel of the environmental group Union of Concerned Scientists, is discouraging the idea of a trial. This is the same Ekwurzel who claimed global warming made it “less cool” this summer. See: Climate Fear Promoters Try to Spin Record Cold and Snow: 'Global warming made it less cool' – July 27, 2009

More significantly, it is the same Ekwurzel who badly lost a public debate over man-made climate fears in 2007. See:

Scientific Smackdown: Skeptics Voted The Clear Winners Against Global Warming Believers in Heated NYC Debate – March 16, 2007 & see: Climate Fear Promoters Avoid Debates and Lose When They Engage in Them)

No wonder the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called for a full trial on global warming claims. Desperation time has arrived for the promoters of man-made global warming fears, as the science of man-made climate fears continues to collapse.

In 2009, a series of inconvenient developments for the promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated.

A small sampling of developments include: new peer-reviewed studies, real world data, a growing chorus of scientists dissenting (including more UN IPCC scientists), open revolts in scientific societies, more evidence that rising CO2 is a boon for the atmosphere, and the Earth's failure to warm.

In addition,

public opinion continues to turn against climate fear promotion and even activists at green festivals are now expressing doubts over man-made climate fears and a Nobel Prize-winning economist is wishing for 'tornadoes' and 'a lot of horrid things' to convince Americans of a climate threat.

There has been no significant global warming since 1995, no warming since 1998 and global cooling for the past few years. Lack of warming for past decade and recent global cooling, follow a peer-reviewed analysis showing the 20th century was not unusually warm. In addition, a global temperature analysis on April 24, 2009 found "No continents have set a record high temperature since 1974."

The news is so grim for man-made climate fear activists that they are already looking for the next environmental scare to hype! See: AGW RIP? Is It Time for Next Eco-Scare Already? Gore's producer Laure David touts plastic crisis: 'Plastic waste is in some ways more alarming for us humans than global warming' - July 31, 2009 & UK Green Party: 'There exists a more serious crisis than the 'CO2 crisis': the oxygen levels are dropping and the human activity has decreased them by 1/3 or ½'

The environmental activists who are choosing to ride out the unfounded CO2 scare are getting more and more comical and shrill.

Climate campaigner Adam D. Sacks declared in Grist Magazine on August 24, 2009: “We must leave behind 10,000 years of civilization” to deal with global warming."

“If we live at all...'live locally...means we are able get everything we need within walking (or animal riding) distance,” Sacks wrote.

Former Clinton Administration official Joe Romm has also reached the heights of desperation. Romm

claimed on June 6, 2009 that skeptical websites like Climate Depot were spreading “disinformation” that may end up being responsible for “unspeakable misery and/or violence to billions of people!”

The New York Times has also waded into global warming “desperation” territory with an uncritical article touting “national security” fears from global warming. (See:

Climate Depot's Inconvenient Rebuttal to 'National Security' Climate Argument – August 9, 2009)

The Obama EPA has been accused of censoring science in an apparent effort to produce the best science that politics can manufacture. See: EPA further muzzles global warming skeptic Dr. Alan Carlin - August 25, 2009

Other climate fear promoters are using threats and intimidation to silence the climate debate. See: 'Execute' Skeptics! Shock Call To Action: 'At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers' -- 'Shouldn't we start punishing them now?' - June 3, 2009

As the climate fear activists point fingers and regress into amusing rants, the evidence that the global warming fear movement is collapsing -- abounds.

In July 2009, the world's largest science group, the American Chemical Society (ACS) was “startled” by an outpouring of scientists rejecting man-made climate fears, with many calling for the removal of the ACS's climate activist editor.

But the American Chemical Society's scientific revolt is only the latest in a series of recent eruptions against the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming.

Another development in shattering the so-called “consensus” was an Open Letter signed by more than 130 German scientists urging German Chancellor to “reconsider” her climate views. See: 'Consensus' Takes Another Hit! More than 130 German Scientists Dissent Over Global Warming Claims! Call Climate Fears 'Pseudo 'Religion'; Urge Chancellor to 'reconsider' views – August 4, 2009

On May 1 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of over 80 prominent physicists petitioned the APS revise its global warming position. The physicists wrote to APS governing board: “Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th - 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.”

The petition was signed by the prominent physicists, led by Princeton University's Dr. Will Happer, who has conducted 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies. The peer-reviewed journal Nature published a July 22, 2009 letter by the physicists persuading the APS to review its statement. In addition, in 2008, an American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists.

The year 2009 also saw a report from 35 international scientists countering the UN IPCC. See: “Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change”

This year also saw the flow of peer-reviewed scientific papers continue to be published challenging the UN IPCC climate views. as well. See: Peer-Reviewed Study Rocks Climate Debate! 'Nature not man responsible for recent global warming...little or none of late 20th century warming and cooling can be attributed to humans' – July 23, 2009

Peer-Reviewed Study Demonstrates Anthropogenic Contribution to Global Warming Overestimated, Solar Contribution Underestimated - Geophysical Research Letters- March 3, 2009

New Peer-Reviewed Study: Evidence that Global Temperature Trends Have Been Overstated: 'Effects of CO2 on global temp trends may have been overstated in past assessments by some amount' - August 13, 2009

Another New Peer-Reviewed Study: Ocean net heat flow is connected with climate shifts – CO2 not correlated – no 'warming in the pipeline' - August 17, 2009

Science is Settled! CO2 irrelevant in climate debate says MIT Scientist Lindzen: 'We know that CO2 is having very little effect on the climate' - August 18, 2009

'Climate Fears RIP...for 30 years!?'

New peer-reviewed scientific studies now predict a continued lack of global warming for up to three decades as natural climate factors dominate. (See: Climate Fears RIP...for 30 years!? - Global Warming could stop 'for up to 30 years! Warming 'On Hold?...'Could go into hiding for decades' study finds – Discovery.com – March 2, 2009 )

This means that today's high school kids being forced to watch Al Gore's “An Inconvenient Truth” – some of them 4 times in 4 different classes – will be nearly eligible for AARP (age 50) retirement group membership by the time warming resumes if these new studies turn out to be correct. (Editor's Note: Claims that warming will “resume” due to explosive heat in the "pipeline" have also been thoroughly debunked. See: Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. 'There is no warming in the pipeline' )

In addition, many scientists and reports are predicting a coming global cooling. See:

Astronomers: 'Sun's output may decline significantly inducing another Little Ice Age on Earth' - August 15, 2009 & Scientific evidence now points to global COOLING, contrary to U.N. alarmism - August 4, 2009

A March 2009 a 255-page U. S. Senate Report detailed "More Than 700 International Scientists Dissenting Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims." 2009's continued lack of warming, further frustrated the promoters of man-made climate fears.

In addition, the following recent developments further challenged the “consensus” of global warming.

Scientist Dr. William Schlesinger admitted in 2009 that only 20% of UN IPCC scientists deal with climate. Schlesinger said he thought, “something on the order of 20 percent [of UN scientists] have had some dealing with climate.” By Schlesinger's own admission, 80% of the UN IPCC membership has no dealing with the climate as part of their academic studies.

In April 2009, the Polish National Academy of Science “published a document that expresses skepticism over the concept of man-made global warming.”

In 2008, a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian Earth scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled”, with only 26% of the scientists attributing global warming to “human activity like burning fossil fuels.”

A Japan Geoscience Union symposium survey in 2008 reportedly “showed 90 per cent of the participants do not believe the IPCC report.”

Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists' equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: '2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC' & see full reports here & here ]

In addition, there has been failure of the oceans to warm, and Antarctic ice continues to grow. Even the poster child of the warming fear campaign, the Arctic is not cooperating . (See: April 'Arctic sea ice extent within expected range of natural variability' -- ice grew by 'more than the size of Texas over last two years' & UK Met Office: Arctic Ice Changes 'Could Easily be Due to Natural Fluctuations in the Weather' & 'These are good times to be a climate skeptic' - 'Global sea ice extent presently above long-term average' )

New Zealand Climate Scientist Chris de Freitas revealed on May 1, 2009 that "warming and CO2 are not well correlated." de Freitas added, "the effect of CO2 on global temperature is already close to its maximum. Adding more has an ever decreasing effect."

Australian Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer wrote on August 8, 2009: "At present, the Earth's atmosphere is starved of CO2...One big volcanic eruption can add as much CO2 in a day as humans do in a year."

Plimer, who authored the skeptical book Heaven and Earth, added, "On all time scales, there is no correlation between temps and CO2. If there is no correlation, then there can be no causation."

A growing number of scientists challenge the premise of CO2 driving climate change. Professor Dr. Doug L. Hoffman, mathematician, computer programmer and engineer, wrote on August 24, 2009: "There have been ice ages when the levels of Co2 in Earth's atmosphere have been many times higher than today's." Hoffman, who worked on environmental models and conducted research in molecular dynamics, co-authored the 2009 book, The Resilient Earth.

'Climate change issue is about to fall apart'

Many scientists are now realizing that the UN IPCC and the promoters of man-made climate fear are in a “panic” about the lack of global warming, the growing number of scientific defectors and sinking public support. South African UN Scientist Dr. Will Alexander wrote in March 2009, “'The whole climate change issue is about to fall apart...Heads will roll!”

UK scientist Dr. David Bellamy once believed man-made climate fears, but has since reversed his views and become a skeptic. “The ­science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it's not even science any more, it's anti-science, Bellamy said in November 2008.

It is no wonder that the environmental movement is urging its troops to no longer use the term “global warming,” as temperatures fail to cooperate. (See: NYT obtains enviro strategy memo: Stop use of term global warming! ) The man-made climate fear promotion movement has descended into “climate astrology.”

Skeptical scientists generally rally around several key points. 1) The Earth is

currently well within natural climate variability. 2) Almost all climate fear is generated by unproven computer model predictions, which even the UN concedes do not account for half the variability in nature and thus are unreliable. 3) An abundance of peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk rising CO2 fears and, 4) "Consensus" has been manufactured for political, not scientific purposes.

Climate models 'violate basic principles of forecasting'

Since real world observations are not supporting the alleged climate catastrophe, climate fear promoters are instead touting unverified computer models predicting doom 50 or 100 years from now. But even the UN admits the models are flawed and do not account for “half the variability in the climate” and they are instead referred to as “story lines” not even “predictions.” (See: IPCC lead author Trenberth, refers climate models as “story lines.” ) In addition, top forecasting experts say the models violate the basic principles of forecasting. (See: Ivy League forecasting pioneer “Of 89 principles [of forecasting], the UN IPCC violated 72.” )

Other Inconvenient Developments for Climate Fear Promoters:

'No evidence for accelerated sea-level rise' says Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute – December 12, 2008

Report: Sea Level rise 'has stumbled since 2005' – Meteorologist Anthony Watts – December 5, 2008
Renowned Sea Level expert predicts sea level 'will rise in the 21st century by about 8 inches' - April 23, 2009

Global warming may not affect sea levels, study finds - January 11, 2008
Plus see Climate Depot's June 2009 comprehensive sea level report

Many glaciers are advancing:

Alaskan glaciers at Icy Bay advance one-third of a mile in less than a year
Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier advancing
Hubbard Glacier in Alaska Advances
Western Canadian glaciers advance
'Weather variations, not global warming cause Himalayan glaciers to melt' - August 8, 2009
Research Reveals global warming not cause of Kilimanjaro glacier reduction – September 24, 2008

[Editor's Note: Climate Depot is publishing a series of exclusive A-Z fact sheets on every aspect of the global warming debate. Climate Depot has already published comprehensive fact sheets on: the Arctic; RealClimate.org; Climate Models; Sea Level Rise; Climate Threats & Intimidation; Climate Funding; CO2; Global Warming's Global Governance; Amazon and Rainforests; Warming Activists Stuck in Polar Ice; Congressional Cap-and-Trade Bill; Record Cold Temps; Lack of Warming; Report on Obama Admin. Climate Report; Overpopulation Myths; Hurricanes; Climate Astrology; Gore Effect;]

Marc Morano ClimateDepot.comCFACT1875 Eye Street, NWFifth FloorWashington, D.C. 20006202-536-5052Morano@ClimateDepot.com

Sugar Wars

Maybe this is how we should be buying it henceforth :)

The sugar trade has been politically hands off in the USA for a century even in the face of pretty simple and compelling statistics that strongly imply a real need for access management.

A big part of the problem is that the human body resets its sweet tooth as high as availability allows. It is perhaps not quite that bad, but near enough to make a big difference to you and your health. If you never have sugar, a small amount sweetens your food. If you have a lot then you need more to notice the effect. So if you are merely looking for sweetness, a restricted sugar diet is actually a good idea.

The best solution is to impose a blanket portion reduction of sugar content by eighty percent. Most product can be reformulated with glucose if necessary (soft drinks) and safely sweetened with newly approved stevia.

The point I want to make is that our taste buds will reset to accept the much lower sugar exposure. In a couple of years we will wonder what the fuss was about.

I suspect that this article is an early shot across the bows of the upcoming sugar wars.

Aug 25, 2009

Semi-sweet: Americans should cut sugar consumption by more than half, says AHA

By

Katherine Harmon

The average American consumes about 22 teaspoons (355 calories) of added sugar a day, according to a report released yesterday by the American Heart Association (AHA). That amount should be cut down to a maximum of six teaspoons (100 calories) a day for women and nine teaspoons (150 calories) for men, the group recommends.

"For the first time we've created specific recommendations about the amount of sugars that can be consumed in a heart-healthy diet," lead report author Rachel Johnson, of the University of Vermont in Burlington,

told Reuters.

A diet high in added sugar—the sort that makes up the sanguine

syrups in sodas and saccharine snacks, rather than the natural sugars found, for instance, in whole fruits—could lead to obesity and cardiovascular disease, as well as diabetes and a host of other illnesses, according to the research compiled by the American Heart Association. And if Americans slim down, Johnson and her colleagues note, the country could shed billions of dollars in health care costs.

The biggest cloying culprit in the U.S. is soft drinks, which account for a third of the added sugars people consume. Next on the list are candies and sugar itself (16 percent) and cakes, cookies and pies (13 percent).

The report also notes that observational research has linked a high-sugar diet with one that's also low in important nutrients.

"Sugar has no nutritional value other than to provide calories," Johnson said in a prepared statement.

For its part, the industry group the Sugar Association did not see a sweet side to the report, issuing a statement that said, "Very few of the cited references by the AHA are directly related to sugars and heart health impacts," Reuters reports.

Diet drinks and

artificial sweeteners might not hold the answer for those with a sweet tooth either, as studies have linked them to increased consumption and weight gain.

The Wall Street Journal's health blog has a handy list for locating the extra sugar in your daily diet.

Anthrophogenic Global Cooling

The nasty news presented into this article is something that should have been accounted for from day one of the great global warming debate. It is really quite simple. CO2 absorbs thermal energy in the 14.77 micron slot. Testing in the early seventies showed this notch in the spectrum to be fully used up to the ninety percent or better level. This means that if all the incoming energy was already been absorbed with the available CO2 to hand and that any increase in CO2 would produce zero effect.

Whatever the interpretation of the role of CO2 in the atmosphere, this alone tells us that it has been optimized already and has nowhere to go.

Besides that this is an excellent exercise in logical thinking regarding the present state of the so called theory. He demonstrates the presence of logical absurdities in the theoretical framework.

I would welcome a scientific argument that counters this particular argument in the of chance that somewhere someone has it all wrong.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL COOLING?

An email from Norm Kalmanovitch [kalhnd@shaw.ca]

There is a very good case to be made for anthropogenic global cooling from CO2 emissions. The beginning of rapid increases in global CO2 emissions started in 1945 with the rapid increase in post war industrialization that has seen CO2 emissions rise from under 4gt/year in 1945, to over 31.5gt/year today. This increase in CO2 emissions over the past 63 years has resulted in over 40 years of global cooling. The only time that there was a decrease in emissions was from 1979 to 1982 when the world was warming.

This forms a positive correlation of sufficient statistical significance to make a reasonable case for this relationship to be valid. Although correlation is not causation, there is nothing in the current science literature database that demonstrates any contrary evidence so based solely on "peer reviewed" science literature (as is the case for AGW), this hypothesis could be taken as valid.

The original paper on this topic by Svante Arrhenius in 1896 can be shown to be in error because at the time quantum physics had not yet revealed the physical process of interaction between the Earth's radiative energy and atmospheric CO2.

The only part of the Earth's thermal radiative spectrum that is affected by CO2 is the 14.77micron band, but Arrhenius, unaware of this fact used measurements limited to only 9.7microns and therefore was not actually measuring the effect from CO2. He also used an experimental source for thermal radiation that was at 100°C, and the radiative spectrum from this source includes the 4.2micron wavelength band of CO2 that is not part of the Earth's radiative spectrum, so he was not measuring the actual effect from the thermal radiation from the Earth.

In 1970 the Nimbus 4 satellite measured the Earth's radiative spectrum showing that the spectral band affected by CO2 had a deep notch in it centred on 14.77microns. This deep notch demonstrated that well over 90% of the possible effect had already been achieved from just the 325 ppmv atmospheric concentration of CO2, so further changes in concentration would have only minor effects, and increases in CO2 concentration could neither be responsible for either global warming or global cooling of any significant degree.

While CO2 concentration increases can be demonstrated to have little further effect on global temperatures, this has no bearing on CO2 emissions because there is no correlation between CO2 emissions and CO2 concentration, and CO2 emissions may alter the global temperature by processes other than changes to the greenhouse effect. It is easily demonstrated that there is no correlation between CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentration. Over the three years from 1979 to 1982 when CO2 emissions were decreasing due to the rapid increase in the price of oil that drastically reduced consumption, there was no change in the rate of increase in atmospheric concentration of CO2 proving that humans were not the primary source for the increase in concentration.

The science literature data base is filled with articles about global warming and CO2, but none of these articles actually relate CO2 emissions to global warming, and just falsely assume that emissions and concentration are interchangeable. All of the articles are based on projections from climate models, which also make this false assumption about emissions and concentration, and these models have yet to demonstrate a result that matches physical observation. This is because models use a contrived CO2 forcing parameter that was clearly not designed on any physical basis either experimental or empirical. In fact there is nothing in all the global warming literature, even the articles about polar bears and melting ice, that can refute the anthropogenic global cooling hypothesis.

Even though there is nothing in the literature data base that can refute the hypothesis of anthropogenic global cooling, the hypothesis can be clearly shown to be false by strict adherence to science protocol and the scientific method. There is clear observational evidence that the Earth warmed from 1975 to 1998 as emissions increased, so even though the world cooled for more years than it warmed with increasing CO2 emissions, these 23 years provide observations contrary to the hypothesis that can't be explained by the hypothesis, and therefore the hypothesis must be abandoned.

Another hypothesis that explains the current global cooling is based on solar cycles and their effect on solar output and changes to the Earth's albedo from cloud cover. The driving mechanism for this is not fully understood, but to date there is absolutely no contrary evidence to the overall hypothesis. There is in fact clear supportive evidence including observational evidence from a project called Earth Shine which measures the Earth's albedo by its reflection on the moon. The albedo measurements show reducing albedo concurrent with global warming, changing to increasing albedo concurrent with global cooling in 1998. (Figure 2 page 21). See

here (PDF).

This is the way science is supposed to work, and while it is a simple matter to falsify the Anthropogenic Global Cooling hypothesis, it should be far easier to falsify the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, because everything stated in the theory is contrary not only to observation, but contrary to established physical principles and physical laws as well. The fact that AGW still exists as a valid hypothesis seven years after the Earth started to cool in spite of the continued rapid increase in global CO2 emissions, is testament to how easy it is to misinform the public with well executed propaganda and media control.

Hard Questions and Sustainable Solutions with Chris Nelder

Chris Nelder has been writing about the issues surrounding sustainability for over a decade and he makes a very important point that my blog also makes. It is that we have the solutions at hand. They are turning out to be cost effective. We can get on with it and solve our problems.

The fact remains that our leadership do not grasp solutions and lead their implementation. Instead they struggle to preserve position and avoid failure through real action. Much change has happened only in the face of crisis when the population itself is moving to a solution allowing the leader to merely jump in front.

This is the result of intellectual weakness among the leadership. It should be obvious to my readers that the best way to stimulate the economy out of its present malaise is to swiftly build out a national power grid and to supply finance guarantees for wind and geothermal in particular. We need them both and we need them now to supply the energy needed to supply power for the onslaught of electric cars. The arguments in favor of this course of action are compelling and easy.

Yet today our president is a man who cannot understand building wealth, or even be expected to understand compound interest particularly well let alone be handed a wrench to fix something. He must make decisions based on input from a flock of naturally risk adverse advisors. Reagan may not have known that star wars was twenty years early, but his advisors certainly told him, but he understood that the USA could afford an impossible mission while the USSR would be flummoxed.

The USA faces a building crisis in energy that is slowly taxing the American people into a poorer lifestyle. It must be fixed and it can be fixed. What are we waiting for? We are waiting for technically competent leadership. It is high time for show me because everyone is now confused as to where we are all headed. The leftist agenda has been allowed to float like a balloon but is naturally fading as the usual realities settle in.

We badly need to see the pragmatic side of this presidency.




Hard Questions and Sustainable Solutions

By Chris Nelder Friday, August 21st, 2009


The more I probe the hardest questions about the future of energy and our best shot at sustainability, the more I am convinced that the real questions are not about technology, but about human nature.

We have all the technology we need to make homes that produce their own energy. We know how to build high-efficiency rail and sailing ships. We know how to grow food organically and sustainably. We have the science to create economic systems that internalize all effects and operate in a beneficial manner. We've had the quantitative knowledge for decades that we would eventually go into resource and environmental overshoot.

We certainly have the technology to build an all-electric infrastructure entirely powered by renewables. We will crack the storage problem and all the other technical problems. I have no doubt that the technology also exists to build an all-nuclear solution, or even an all-hydrogen solution.

We have the technology to recycle all our water and reclaim all our waste. We could even control our population. . . if we had the will.

We also know what real sustainability means. I don't think I have ever seen it better put than by my friend Paul Hawken in his book, The Ecology of Commerce:

Sustainability is an economic state where the demands placed upon the environment by people and commerce can be met without reducing the capacity of the environment to provide for future generations. It can also be expressed in the simple terms of an economic golden rule for the restorative economy: Leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment, make amends if you do.

The real problem is we don't want to act that way. Virtually no business in existence meets that standard.
Technology and knowledge simply aren't the issue.

We don't want to think about having to put CO2 back in the ground after we burn fuels. We don't want to worry about the waste from our consumption. We don't like to hear about limits to anything we want to do. We don't want to rearrange our stuff, our lifestyles, so that they are truly sustainable. And we certainly don't like anybody telling us we can't have more kids.

In fact we don't even like to think about it. . . so when the subject comes up, we dismiss it with a flip comment like, "So I suppose you want us all to be living in caves and working by candlelight?"

The upwelling of emotions that this topic inspires — especially fear — usually makes a neutral and scientific discussion out of the question.

And from fear, most people leap to faith: faith in the perfect wisdom of free markets, faith in technology, faith in human ingenuity. No rational discussion needed.

Nor is this aspect of human nature a news flash. ‘Twas ever so. At the suggestion of a smart hedge fund manager buddy, I recently put Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War in my reading queue for clues on how humanity actually performs when presented with serious fiscal and resource challenges.

I know some very smart people who are fully armed with the data on resource depletion and peak oil, and who still choose to believe in a cornucopian future where humanity acts wisely, humanely, justly, and in concert with a view toward long-term planning, solving all of our problems without any serious hardship.

This time, they contend, it will be different. After all, aren't we entering the Age of Aquarius, when humanity finally embraces unity and understanding?

Well, forgive me for being skeptical. The degree of cooperation they envisage has no precedent whatsoever in human history, and there are thousands of examples to the contrary.

In fact I was a bit shocked today when I looked back on my first opus on sustainability ("Envisioning a Sustainable Future"), published in my online magazine Better World 13 years ago, and realized that all of the problems are the same now as they were then, only worse: population, energy, water, extinction, environmental destruction, flawed economic theory, global warming, and humanity's problem with long-term planning.

It gave me pause. A long pause. Are all my efforts, and those of my fellow agitators for sustainability, simply battling human nature? And if so, what good is it?

Tantalizing Technologies and Hard Questions

At this point, 13 years later, the questions are even less tangible: How will people respond to the coming changes? Can the political support for truly sustainable solutions be marshaled? Will the economy hold out long enough to accomplish the transformation? And how will declining energy supply impede our efforts?

Certainly, in theory, we could replace 220 million light ICE cars and trucks with electric models, and heavy transport trucks with a combination of biofuels, natural gas, and hydraulic storage technologies. The technology exists. But will we have the investment and primary energy supply to build them, if we simply let the market and politics guide us?

Consider "Cash for Clunkers." Using data and estimates from the New York Times, I calculate that the program pays off in nine years at $70 oil, and in five years at $120 oil. In terms of effective investment in the future, that's really not too bad. (The photovoltaic systems I designed and sold in my previous career typically paid off in more like 20 years, before incentives.)

Even so, Cash for Clunkers was reviled for swapping out over a quarter-million cars for more efficient ones at a mere cost of $1 billion. What are the chances we'll have the political support to do 220 million vehicles that way? Especially if oil gets more expensive and we start having shortages and more heavy industry failures when oil goes into decline a mere two years from now?

Sure, we can run airplanes on "renewable" synthetic diesel fuel made from green waste such as yard clippings, and early investors in such technologies will make a bundle. Rentech's (AMEX:

RTK) recent announcement that it had signed a deal to provide as much as 1.5 million gallons per year of the stuff to eight major airlines sent the stock soaring over 360% in two weeks.

But 1.5 million gallons per year is nothing, and thanks to the transport and handling cost of green waste, it doesn't scale. If it requires transporting massive amounts of the feedstock with diesel-powered trucks, it isn't sustainable either. Need we even discuss recycled fryer oil?

Similar problems bedevil the alcohol fuels and biofuels, including algae. There are many interesting approaches to both in the lab, but for a long list of reasons (including water availability and the net energy of the processes), they don't scale well. I don't see any of the biofuels making more than a 50% gain from their current paltry levels for a good many years yet — and then we'll be having so many other problems with energy, water, food, and the economy, that the long-term outlook gets very murky.

Sure, we can try to turn to Canada's tar sands and deepwater heavy oil as the good cheap stuff runs out, but a cursory look at their net energy tells us that doing so is an attempt to play the oil game into overtime, not an attempt to do something sustainable. Thinking otherwise is simply

denial.

A straightforward analysis of the data suggest that once we take peak oil, peak gas, and peak coal into account, there may not be enough time left to use cheap fossil fuels for the decades it would take to accomplish a transformation to true sustainability, let alone the human will to do it. And the experience of the last year gives me no confidence at all that the world can smoothly transit this

inflection point in economics.

Yet I want to foster inspiration, not desperation. For most people, hope is as essential to survival as food, water, and air. And there is hope — not for business as usual, but for a much better kind of business. Not for endless growth, but for a more sustainable future.

But I am not one for false hope. I have endeavored to bring a dose of realism to this column for three years now, and I will soldier on. The opportunities to create sustainable solutions and profit from them are probably greater now than they have ever been. It's our task to find them, promote them, invest in them. . . and beyond that, hope for the best.

Until next time,

Chris

Energy and Capital

Late August Sea Ice

Winds have abruptly cleared a lot of the western ice away and sharply reduced the areal extent of the sea ice. I do not know now it stacks up against the past two years but the lateness of the winds has surely allowed for more areal extent than normally expected.

We also get a sense that the thickness is continuing to decline strongly. Therefore if no reversal is experienced or even a substantial slowing of the thickness loss, we are on the way to sea ice dramatics in a couple of years.

A combination of essentially one season ice throughout and a return of 2007 wind conditions would possibly even clear the ice pack out of the Arctic.

This year those same lack of winds kept the Northwest Passage blocked off and have also kept the Northeast Passage closed. Both needed just a bit of luck to be open though. The swift recent clearing of the Bering sea shows that.

One thing that I would like to point out is that the ice is pulling way back from the Russian coast pretty consistently, so while a clear passage is not conveniently available, it is possible for smaller prepared vessels to approach the edge of the ice almost everywhere and to be in position to force their way through the area blocking the Northeast Passage with a slight break in the winds.

Again the map is at:

http://www.socc.ca/cms/en/socc/seaIce/currentSeaIce.aspx

And the graphic chart pretty well tells us that the three year ice is now effectively gone. From now on our sea ice will consist of one and two year ice rotating through the Arctic Gyre. This should grind down to a region of consistent two year ice with a generally smaller region of coverage that will be stable.

We may not get total removal of the ice in any given year but we will also not have any three year ice.

It may also turn out that minimum ice cover looks largely like this. Strong winds may concentrate the ice in a smaller area but do little to the annual coverage produced by the winter freeze.

Chinese Consumer

This report is study on the looming Chinese consumer economy. Remember that the lifestyle we experience today did not materialize on new year’s day in 1950. It was built up incrementally and the process provided a blueprint of successful economic steps that should end with the same results.

So after thirty frantic years of becoming the factory to the world, and you must admit that we needed such a factory, it is timely to shift focus on monetizing the Chinese consumer with rising wages and plenty of opportunity to create small enterprise.

The next twenty years will see China outsourcing their manufacturing needs also to the remaining third world. They have already long since started that program.

It really is that easy and it is well grasped by everyone from government down. What many find hard to grasp is that so long as a single person anywhere can be found to work for sweat shop wages, that person will set the floor on manufacturing costs. I suspect we have perhaps another twenty to thirty years to absorb that labor force and to properly employ them.

The human profit of steady employment will be earned by every human being everywhere and will no longer be an entitlement to a few lucky nations.

China has shown us just how quickly it can happen and India is following the same route just as quickly. Every other country is on notice to perform.

We can anticipate a world of full employment by 2050.

One other comment is in order. The naysayers like to dwell on the limitations of the single pay packet. That pay packet is part of a family’s income and a lot of a subsistence farmer’s income is never monetized. It provides cash on attractive terms to the family and permits internal financing of additional enterprise. That is the real micro finance world that is totally lost to the record keepers.


August 21, 2009

McKinsey Suggests Plan For China Economy to Shift to 50% Household Consumption

Shifting China's economy towards services would do much more than strengthening the social safety net as a way to boost the miserly share of consumption in GDP, McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) said on Friday.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/08/mckinsey-suggests-plan-for-china.html

The 74 page report is here in pdf form and requires a free registration to view it. "If You've Got It, Spend It, Unleashing the Chinese Consumer"The three broad categories for the recommendations are rebalance income and investment (boost 3.4-6%), directly stimulate (boost and expand the social safety net.

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The conventional wisdom is that Chinese spend so little because they have to pay for health and education out of their own pockets and can look forward to at best a flimsy pension. MGI estimated that reducing precautionary savings by reinforcing the social safety net would add only 0.2-1.1 percentage points to China's consumption share by 2025. The smallest impact of the three recommended broad actions.Many of the policy changes that MGI identifies do not directly relate to consumer behaviour but rather aim to encourage more efficient investment and capital allocation, which would ultimately create faster growth in private income. If China could raise the share of services in the economy to South Korea's level of 55 percent -- instead of the government's current goal of 49 percent -- the resulting job and income growth could boost the consumption share by up to 4.8 percentage points

MGI finds that a comprehensive program of reform would also enrich the global economy with $1.9 trillion a year in net new consumption, boosting China's share of the worldwide total to 13 percent—4 percentage points higher than its share without further effort. China's household income would also be 15% higher than current trends. Higher consumption will make China's growth sustainable. The implied increase in GDP would be 0.8-1.2% over the projected 7.7% from 2010 to 2025.MGI set out a wide range of policies that it said could raise the share of private household consumption to 45-50 percent of gross domestic product by 2025, or 6-11 percentage points more than the rate of 39 percent it is likely to reach on present trends. Consumption made up just 35.3 percent of China's GDP in 2008, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Japan's consumption share is 55 percent and the United States' is 71 percent, MGI noted in a report.

If China were to accomplish the transition mapped out by the report, its share of world consumption would increase to 11-13 percent in 2025, up from 9 percent projected today, according to MGI. In the process, China would account for more than a quarter of all new consumption worldwide over the next 15 years.

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