Re: [asa] John Houghton on AR4

At 06:11 PM 3/4/2007, Rich Blinne wrote:

>Sir John Houghton is largely responsible for
>awakening evangelicals to the need for action on climate change.

@ It's amazing he still has any credibility
after he said that "human induced global warming
is a weapon of mass destruction at least as
dangerous as chemical, nuclear or biological
weapons that kills more people than
terrorism." ~ John Houghton Monday July 28, 2003

Comment:

"Get the butterfly net before you read this
column. You won’t want to waste any time afterward.

“I have no hesitation in describing global
warming as a weapon of mass destruction,” said a
British climate scientist this week.

John Houghton, a former member of the United
Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, wrote in a July 28 commentary in the
British newspaper The Guardian that human-induced
climate change is at least as dangerous as
“chemical, nuclear or biological weapons, or
indeed international
terrorism.”
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/comment/0,9236,1007302,00.html

Likening global warming to terrorism, Houghton
wrote “this weapon knows no boundaries. It can
strike anywhere in any form -- a heat wave in one
place, a drought or a storm surge in another.

“Nor is this a problem for the future. The 1990s
were probably the warmest decade in the last
1,000 years … The U.S. mainland was struck by 562
tornadoes in May,” Houghton continued (no doubt hyperventilating).

“Pre-monsoon temperatures this year in India
reached a blistering 120 degrees, 9 degrees above
normal. Once this killer heat wave began to
abate, 1,500 people lay dead -- half the number
killed outright in the September 11 attacks on
the World Trade Center,” he added.

Houghton appeared to come up for a breath of
sanity with the phrase, “While no one can ascribe
a single weather event to climate change with any
degree of certainty,” he quickly submerged back
into the depths of bizarre hyperbole, “the
parallels between global climate change and
global terrorism are becoming increasingly obvious.”

Well, the only obvious parallel is that global
terrorists and the global-warming pushers both
seek to accomplish their agendas by scaring the public.

Houghton’s assertion that the 1990s was the
warmest decade in the last 1,000 years
(<http://clickit.go2net.com/search?cid=307797&site=srch&area=is.clicktracking&shape=link&cp=info.foxnws&clickurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.foxnews.com%2Finfo.foxnws%2Fredirs_all.htm%3Fpgtarg%3Dwbsdogpile&ext_qcat=web&ext_qkw=the%201990s%20was%20the%20warmest%20decade%20in%20the%20last%201,000%20years>search)
draws out the question, “Why was it so warm 1,000 years ago?”

Since there were no power plants, factories or
automobiles back then, that warm period was
obviously natural climate change
(<http://clickit.go2net.com/search?cid=307797&site=srch&area=is.clicktracking&shape=link&cp=info.foxnws&clickurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.foxnews.com%2Finfo.foxnws%2Fredirs_all.htm%3Fpgtarg%3Dwbsdogpile&ext_qcat=web&ext_qkw=natural%20climate%20change>search).
So why should we leap to the conclusion that any
1990s warming is definitely manmade?

Of course, it’s not even clear that any
measurable “global warming” has really occurred,
much less that it’s human-induced.

Satellite and weather balloon measurements of
atmospheric temperatures since the 1970s actually
indicate slight cooling to no change. To the
extent any significant warming may have occurred
during the 20th century, most occurred before
1940, while most greenhouse gas emissions
(<http://clickit.go2net.com/search?cid=307797&site=srch&area=is.clicktracking&shape=link&cp=info.foxnws&clickurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.foxnews.com%2Finfo.foxnws%2Fredirs_all.htm%3Fpgtarg%3Dwbsdogpile&ext_qcat=web&ext_qkw=greenhouse%20gas%20emissions>search)
occurred after 1940 -- so there’s no apparent cause-and-effect relationship.

While it’s possible that some human-induced
warming may be occurring, Virginia state
climatologist Pat Michaels
(<http://clickit.go2net.com/search?cid=307797&site=srch&area=is.clicktracking&shape=link&cp=info.foxnws&clickurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.foxnews.com%2Finfo.foxnws%2Fredirs_all.htm%3Fpgtarg%3Dwbsdogpile&ext_qcat=web&ext_qkw=Virgina%20State%20climatologist%20Pat%20Michaels>search)
once pointed out in a television debate with
[C------] administration eco-czarina Carol
Browner
(<http://clickit.go2net.com/search?cid=307797&site=srch&area=is.clicktracking&shape=link&cp=info.foxnws&clickurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.foxnews.com%2Finfo.foxnws%2Fredirs_all.htm%3Fpgtarg%3Dwbsdogpile&ext_qcat=web&ext_qkw=Carol%20Browner>search):
“The fact of the matter is if you look at those
temperature records that you keep on citing, you
will see that almost all of the warming takes
place in the absolute coldest, most miserable air
masses in Siberia and northwestern North America
… Great. We've warmed Siberia from minus 40 to minus 38. Big deal.”

If the 1990s were unusually warm, we don’t know
why. Neither do the global-warming pushers.

There is no doubt that May was a big month for
tornadoes -- 562 versus the prior monthly record of 399 reported for June 1992.

But just because May 2003 was a record month for
tornadoes does not mean that global warming was the cause.

Houghton offered no explanation why it took more
than a decade to break the previous record or why
that record was broken by a whopping 41 percent.
Surely the incremental nature of gradual climate change is not the explanation.

Moreover, the number of tornadoes has been rising
for the past 50 years -- because of technology,
not climate change. “As storm spotter and
Doppler-radar
(<http://clickit.go2net.com/search?cid=307797&site=srch&area=is.clicktracking&shape=link&cp=info.foxnws&clickurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.foxnews.com%2Finfo.foxnws%2Fredirs_all.htm%3Fpgtarg%3Dwbsdogpile&ext_qcat=web&ext_qkw=Doppler-radar>search)
networks improve and public awareness increases,
the number of tornadoes is also rising,” says the
National Center for Atmospheric Research
(<http://clickit.go2net.com/search?cid=307797&site=srch&area=is.clicktracking&shape=link&cp=info.foxnws&clickurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.foxnews.com%2Finfo.foxnws%2Fredirs_all.htm%3Fpgtarg%3Dwbsdogpile&ext_qcat=web&ext_qkw=National%20Center%20for%20Atmospheric%20Research>search),
a research program managed by more than 60 universities.

“From 1953 to 1991, an average of 768 tornadoes
were reported per year, but since 1990, records
list over 1,000 tornadoes each year … Spring is
tornado season, with about 50 percent for all
reported tornadoes
(<http://clickit.go2net.com/search?cid=307797&site=srch&area=is.clicktracking&shape=link&cp=info.foxnws&clickurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.foxnews.com%2Finfo.foxnws%2Fredirs_all.htm%3Fpgtarg%3Dwbsdogpile&ext_qcat=web&ext_qkw=tornadoes>search)
occurring from April through June,” adds NCAR.

Five hundred-plus tornadoes may be a record for a
single month, but it’s not so unusual after all.

As to India’s killer heat wave, it sounds like
the Indians need more economic development so
that they can afford better living conditions and better medical care.

In contrast to India, temperatures hit 127
degrees in Palm Springs, Calif., this year with
no reported heat-related deaths. You figure out what the difference is.

If there is a “weapon of mass destruction”
associated with global warming, it’s the global
warmers themselves. Their preferred policy of
energy regulation and restriction would reduce
economic progress and development, especially in the third world.

Since “wealth is health,” it’s easy to see who and what the real threat is.

Global Warming Not a WMD
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,93466,00.html
Friday , August 01, 2003 By Steven Milloy

Steven Milloy is the publisher of
<http://www.junkscience.com/>JunkScience.com, an
adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the
author of
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1930865120/junksciencecom>Junk
Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares
and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).

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Received on Sun Mar 4 22:49:19 2007