http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/should-public-sector-jobs-come-first/?emc=eta1
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/obamas-job-proposals/?emc=eta1
Paul Krugman recently called for an emergency program, perhaps a small-scale version of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration that would offer low paying public-service employment. A large share of the current stimulus package has gone to state governments, with the aim of preventing more layoffs among public sector workers and in public education. Should saving these government and education jobs be a priority? Is there a way to establish a public program quickly enough to employ the newly jobless? Would this be an efficient way to stimulate job creation?
The NY Times "Room for Debate" blog is first attached and asks some heavy hitters what they think about this issue. The responses are interesting. Read especially James K. Galbraith, an economist at UT Austin (and the son of John Kenneth Galbraith) who typically has his feet on the ground and finds some satisfaction in what we're doing to save the economy now relative to what his father advocated.
We have also attached a refreshingly brief summary of the Obama job proposals from the NY Times "Economix" blog. Within the "bullets", one can click on various perspectives of economists like Mark Zandi (much listened to and rightly so) and/or institutions with an interest in those proposals.
A moment on Galbraith: his perspective is that, as economics, the stimulus is working, but as politics, it is failing because in politics "part-way doesn't count." With 7 million jobs lost and 15 million people now out of work, people care about VISIBLE RESULTS - and they've not seen them yet. The question isn't whether we've turned a corner. It's how do we get all the way back to high employment, even in 5 years? We'd need nearly 250,000 new jobs every month for 60 months!!
So the problem isn't how best to choose between revenue sharing, infrastructure, public jobs and a payroll tax holiday. It's how to get all those things done - and also how to support small business and non-profits, to help students and to ease older workers into retirement.
There is a "Read more..." drop down that allows further review of Galbraith's comments and we strongly recommend what he has to say there about human resources and making "...no little plans."
Our fear in prior posts has been that we're back in 1937 and we haven't done enough (for those of you who are economic historians). World War II saved the economy then (with huge sacrifices) so things did not get back to growing until 1945, 8 years later. Obama's Chicago Booth School behavioral economists know that. That's why we have the new job proposals.
The American educational system needs more (and better) teachers. We can't spend too much on that. Saving a teacher's job or adding teacher jobs is "priceless". If that is any part of further stimulus, it should be applauded.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Good News
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB125993225142676615-lMyQjAxMDI5NTA5NTkwMzUyWj.html
Over the last two years (from that dismal November/December, 2007 period) there has not been much in the way of "good news" on the economy. Yesterday's much anticipated announcement by the BLS was some solid good news. The color graphs in the article we've attached from today's WSJ do an excellent job of highlighting the key positives:
Job Losses Slow - November data showed 11,000 jobs lost. Some analysts actually thought that was a misprint (thinking it had to be 111,000)! Obviously, that is the fewest jobs lost since the recession began 2 years ago. In addition, upward revisions showed that 159,000 fewer jobs were lost in September and October than were previously thought.
Temporary Hiring Picked Up - November data showed temporary hiring up 52,400. That is the 4th straight month for that key indicator.
Average Workweek - The length of the average workweek expanded from 33 to 33.2 hours. That this key indicator expands at all is important.
The overall unemployment rate dropped from 10.2% to 10% but that number may be an erratic one as the economy comes back (some economists expect it to get as high as 10.5%) because other key rates that affect it could bump it back up. The closely watched U6 rate (unemployed plus discouraged) dropped in November from 17.5% to 17.2%, a very good sign. But, if some of those formerly "discouraged" workers who are now back on the market don't find work, they'll be bumping the active unemployed numbers up.
Overall, November marked the 23rd straight month of overall job losses. There were 15.4 million Americans unemployed in November, more than twice as many as when the recession began.
So, while Stephen Stanley of RBS refers to these data as a "game changer" that should fundamentally alter perceptions regarding the economy, we prefer to be cautiously optimistic.
Over the last two years (from that dismal November/December, 2007 period) there has not been much in the way of "good news" on the economy. Yesterday's much anticipated announcement by the BLS was some solid good news. The color graphs in the article we've attached from today's WSJ do an excellent job of highlighting the key positives:
Job Losses Slow - November data showed 11,000 jobs lost. Some analysts actually thought that was a misprint (thinking it had to be 111,000)! Obviously, that is the fewest jobs lost since the recession began 2 years ago. In addition, upward revisions showed that 159,000 fewer jobs were lost in September and October than were previously thought.
Temporary Hiring Picked Up - November data showed temporary hiring up 52,400. That is the 4th straight month for that key indicator.
Average Workweek - The length of the average workweek expanded from 33 to 33.2 hours. That this key indicator expands at all is important.
The overall unemployment rate dropped from 10.2% to 10% but that number may be an erratic one as the economy comes back (some economists expect it to get as high as 10.5%) because other key rates that affect it could bump it back up. The closely watched U6 rate (unemployed plus discouraged) dropped in November from 17.5% to 17.2%, a very good sign. But, if some of those formerly "discouraged" workers who are now back on the market don't find work, they'll be bumping the active unemployed numbers up.
Overall, November marked the 23rd straight month of overall job losses. There were 15.4 million Americans unemployed in November, more than twice as many as when the recession began.
So, while Stephen Stanley of RBS refers to these data as a "game changer" that should fundamentally alter perceptions regarding the economy, we prefer to be cautiously optimistic.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Oil Supplies
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112002619.html?referrer=emailarticle
Now that we have the Al Gore pretenders on the run, perhaps we can go back to oil and a responsible search for it that can be accomplished closer to home without harm to the environment.
Every time we read that we're running out of oil, or we're polluting when we're trying to find it, or we're polluting when we're using it, my suggestion is that someone needs to slow down the debate and use some facts. Thanks to the government stimulus programs, we are protecting the "marsh mouse" in, or near San Francisco so we can all feel comfortable that the ecosystem is politically protected. We are living on a life line of container ships that, as Dr. Lawrence Redlinger so brilliantly pointed out last week in one of our seminars, ply the seas back and forth to other continents while using the dirtiest (cheapest) form of diesel oil for power. That's an easy example of what can be fixed - upgrade the power plants of the ships that service the U.S. by retrofitting, if that's even necessary, to use clean diesel power and require new container ships to use other versions of cost effective power plants. For example, we already have jet engines powering the largest luxury cruise ships to great effect (those ships are faster and more maneuverable while burning cleaner). But don't add to the government bureaucracy to "police" the power plants of container ships
George Will's article attached refers to the correlation between the natural momentum of government to creep toward further regulation and people's fears that they need protection. To quote Will: "Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism."
Let's go to oil. Canada has (by some estimates) more oil than Saudi Arabia. Their oil sands pollute. Canada supplies more oil to the U.S. than any other country. What should the U.S. do? We'll leave that question open ended. The U.S. has more natural gas and coal than it needs for the next 50 years (at least). And, while U.S. politicians worry about the dangers to the "marsh mouse" of pumping oil off the east or west coasts, China is drilling 22 miles away from Miami. Modern technology is such that potential spills are far less problematic than they used to be.
So, the EPA announces this week that it's going to get the carbon by regulating CO2. This announcement was just in time for Copenhagen. Now, I'm not one of those fancy climate scientists, but my thought is that we exhale CO2 when we "breathe". So, what's next, no soda because we have an obesity epidemic?
Now that we have the Al Gore pretenders on the run, perhaps we can go back to oil and a responsible search for it that can be accomplished closer to home without harm to the environment.
Every time we read that we're running out of oil, or we're polluting when we're trying to find it, or we're polluting when we're using it, my suggestion is that someone needs to slow down the debate and use some facts. Thanks to the government stimulus programs, we are protecting the "marsh mouse" in, or near San Francisco so we can all feel comfortable that the ecosystem is politically protected. We are living on a life line of container ships that, as Dr. Lawrence Redlinger so brilliantly pointed out last week in one of our seminars, ply the seas back and forth to other continents while using the dirtiest (cheapest) form of diesel oil for power. That's an easy example of what can be fixed - upgrade the power plants of the ships that service the U.S. by retrofitting, if that's even necessary, to use clean diesel power and require new container ships to use other versions of cost effective power plants. For example, we already have jet engines powering the largest luxury cruise ships to great effect (those ships are faster and more maneuverable while burning cleaner). But don't add to the government bureaucracy to "police" the power plants of container ships
George Will's article attached refers to the correlation between the natural momentum of government to creep toward further regulation and people's fears that they need protection. To quote Will: "Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism."
Let's go to oil. Canada has (by some estimates) more oil than Saudi Arabia. Their oil sands pollute. Canada supplies more oil to the U.S. than any other country. What should the U.S. do? We'll leave that question open ended. The U.S. has more natural gas and coal than it needs for the next 50 years (at least). And, while U.S. politicians worry about the dangers to the "marsh mouse" of pumping oil off the east or west coasts, China is drilling 22 miles away from Miami. Modern technology is such that potential spills are far less problematic than they used to be.
So, the EPA announces this week that it's going to get the carbon by regulating CO2. This announcement was just in time for Copenhagen. Now, I'm not one of those fancy climate scientists, but my thought is that we exhale CO2 when we "breathe". So, what's next, no soda because we have an obesity epidemic?
More Stimulus
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704107104574570331372941594-lMyQjAxMDA5MDAwMjEwNDIyWj.html
We have chronicled in prior posts (note the "plural") how Paul Krugman and Warren Buffet have concluded separately that more money needs to be pumped in to the economy, that the "stimulus program" was not enough. Others joined them in that position. One needs to look no further than an unemployment rate of 10.2% (or an "underemployment rate of 17.5%) to see that the potential for a "double-dip" recession is there.
When the Federal Government begins to conclude this, we see articles like the one attached authored by Christina Romer who is Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Dr. Romer's article was written to "position" the President's White House meeting yesterday on employment. As opposed to Lawrence (don't call me "Larry") Summers, for whom many (including this author, the entire female faculty at Harvard, and others) have little use, Christina Romer has the respect of most people even though she practices the dismal and imprecise science of economics.
Dr. Romer suggests in her remarks that the the stimulus did, indeed, turn around the economy as evidenced by the majority of "professional forecasters" agreeing with her position (these would be the same people who did NOT predict the financial collapse). More importantly, she quotes the Congressional Budget Office (no friend to the White House or either political party) as concluding that 3rd quarter GDP was up 1.2% to 3.2% over what it would have been had there been no stimulus. In addition, she quotes the CBO as in agreement that between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs were created by stimulus money (directly or indirectly). While there is some dispute about the jobs numbers, there is little dispute about the GDP numbers.
However; Dr. Romer goes on to point out that, despite these successes, the job market remains weak. She sees American businesses as hesitant to hire while producing more with fewer workers. She is, as she says, looking for large and small businesses to come in off the sidelines to "boost job creation." She mentions that the government could provide "incentives" to help small businesses invest, grow and create jobs. This would include measures to restore the flow of credit for small businesses and targeted tax cuts. Her whole position, with these and other suggestions that she has, is that moderate and targeted investment by the government might be leveraged into significant employment gains and purchasing power by small businesses.
She should be applauded for her position and, hopefully, something will come of it. As we said in our prior post, small businesses and new businesses are where most job creation takes place.
The original stimulus program (inclusive of all the money that was spent beyond the $787 B) was
not enough. The original stimulus program was supposed to keep unemployment at 8% or less. It did not. Dr. Romer's suggestions provide a way to supplement that stimulus without appearing to go back to Congress and admitting to failure. Most importantly, her ideas do something for employment.
We have chronicled in prior posts (note the "plural") how Paul Krugman and Warren Buffet have concluded separately that more money needs to be pumped in to the economy, that the "stimulus program" was not enough. Others joined them in that position. One needs to look no further than an unemployment rate of 10.2% (or an "underemployment rate of 17.5%) to see that the potential for a "double-dip" recession is there.
When the Federal Government begins to conclude this, we see articles like the one attached authored by Christina Romer who is Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Dr. Romer's article was written to "position" the President's White House meeting yesterday on employment. As opposed to Lawrence (don't call me "Larry") Summers, for whom many (including this author, the entire female faculty at Harvard, and others) have little use, Christina Romer has the respect of most people even though she practices the dismal and imprecise science of economics.
Dr. Romer suggests in her remarks that the the stimulus did, indeed, turn around the economy as evidenced by the majority of "professional forecasters" agreeing with her position (these would be the same people who did NOT predict the financial collapse). More importantly, she quotes the Congressional Budget Office (no friend to the White House or either political party) as concluding that 3rd quarter GDP was up 1.2% to 3.2% over what it would have been had there been no stimulus. In addition, she quotes the CBO as in agreement that between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs were created by stimulus money (directly or indirectly). While there is some dispute about the jobs numbers, there is little dispute about the GDP numbers.
However; Dr. Romer goes on to point out that, despite these successes, the job market remains weak. She sees American businesses as hesitant to hire while producing more with fewer workers. She is, as she says, looking for large and small businesses to come in off the sidelines to "boost job creation." She mentions that the government could provide "incentives" to help small businesses invest, grow and create jobs. This would include measures to restore the flow of credit for small businesses and targeted tax cuts. Her whole position, with these and other suggestions that she has, is that moderate and targeted investment by the government might be leveraged into significant employment gains and purchasing power by small businesses.
She should be applauded for her position and, hopefully, something will come of it. As we said in our prior post, small businesses and new businesses are where most job creation takes place.
The original stimulus program (inclusive of all the money that was spent beyond the $787 B) was
not enough. The original stimulus program was supposed to keep unemployment at 8% or less. It did not. Dr. Romer's suggestions provide a way to supplement that stimulus without appearing to go back to Congress and admitting to failure. Most importantly, her ideas do something for employment.
The New Normal: Jobless Recoveries
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703735004574574311468146726-lMyQjAxMDA5MDAwNDEwNDQyWj.html
We began this decade with a post 9/11 jobless recovery and we're ending it the same way. James Bullard, who is president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, says this is the third consecutive "jobless recovery". As Mark Gongloff argues in the article attached, companies fired workers too aggressively this time, but they show little inclination to rehire, even though the recession has supposedly been over for 5 months. Obviously, globalization and technology have made it increasingly easy for companies to slash labor costs.
As we have indicated in prior posts, the job market is getting "less bad" but we are still losing 125,000 jobs per month (current estimate). The BLS (Bureaus of Labor Statistics) data scheduled for release today should have unemployment holding at 10.2%. If we accept that the current recession began in November, 2007, job losses since then amount to 7.4 million (other estimates are as high as 8 million).
A record 9.3 million people are working part time because there is nothing else available. Since May, more than a million people have left the labor force.
Given all of this, there are 3 numbers that Wall Street will be watching closely in today's BLS announcement:
Temporary Services: Employers added 34,000 temporary jobs last month, the third srtaight month of rising temporary employment. Temps are generally seen as a leading indicator of job market turnaround because they are the last thing employers do to avoid hiring full time employees.
"U6": This is the measure of unemployment that includes people who have stopped actively searching for work, or are working part-time because they can't find full-time work. This number hit 17.5% in October. This is the government's broadest measure of labor underutilization.
Average Work-Week: Like "temps", this is considered a forward looking gauge of the labor market. In both September and October, the average work-week has stayed at 33 hours - that's the lowest level since World War II. Again, employers would rather add to the hours of current employees than hire new ones.
Something could show up in today's BLS numbers that would show more of a positive trend (as has been the case with temps). Looking at average work-week hours could be a clue.
In the meantime, where do the new jobs come from? As we have emphasized in earlier posts small businesses (or new businesses) lead the way but it is hard for them to do that with tight credit. While the White House yesterday was holding a meeting on the job situation, the Treasury Department could have emphasized easing credit to small business ahead of saving the big banks over the past year.
And, on the subject of saving our too big to fail financial institutions, doesn't it seem strange that those same institutions are using and have used bail out money to lobby Congress NOT to pass new regulatory oversight bills? Do we have any idea what we're doing in government?
Have any new oversight agencies been created? Maybe "jobs" could be created in new oversight agencies - there's a concept!
We began this decade with a post 9/11 jobless recovery and we're ending it the same way. James Bullard, who is president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, says this is the third consecutive "jobless recovery". As Mark Gongloff argues in the article attached, companies fired workers too aggressively this time, but they show little inclination to rehire, even though the recession has supposedly been over for 5 months. Obviously, globalization and technology have made it increasingly easy for companies to slash labor costs.
As we have indicated in prior posts, the job market is getting "less bad" but we are still losing 125,000 jobs per month (current estimate). The BLS (Bureaus of Labor Statistics) data scheduled for release today should have unemployment holding at 10.2%. If we accept that the current recession began in November, 2007, job losses since then amount to 7.4 million (other estimates are as high as 8 million).
A record 9.3 million people are working part time because there is nothing else available. Since May, more than a million people have left the labor force.
Given all of this, there are 3 numbers that Wall Street will be watching closely in today's BLS announcement:
Temporary Services: Employers added 34,000 temporary jobs last month, the third srtaight month of rising temporary employment. Temps are generally seen as a leading indicator of job market turnaround because they are the last thing employers do to avoid hiring full time employees.
"U6": This is the measure of unemployment that includes people who have stopped actively searching for work, or are working part-time because they can't find full-time work. This number hit 17.5% in October. This is the government's broadest measure of labor underutilization.
Average Work-Week: Like "temps", this is considered a forward looking gauge of the labor market. In both September and October, the average work-week has stayed at 33 hours - that's the lowest level since World War II. Again, employers would rather add to the hours of current employees than hire new ones.
Something could show up in today's BLS numbers that would show more of a positive trend (as has been the case with temps). Looking at average work-week hours could be a clue.
In the meantime, where do the new jobs come from? As we have emphasized in earlier posts small businesses (or new businesses) lead the way but it is hard for them to do that with tight credit. While the White House yesterday was holding a meeting on the job situation, the Treasury Department could have emphasized easing credit to small business ahead of saving the big banks over the past year.
And, on the subject of saving our too big to fail financial institutions, doesn't it seem strange that those same institutions are using and have used bail out money to lobby Congress NOT to pass new regulatory oversight bills? Do we have any idea what we're doing in government?
Have any new oversight agencies been created? Maybe "jobs" could be created in new oversight agencies - there's a concept!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Sustainable Energy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/23/AR2009112303966.html?referrer=emailarticle
There has to be some middle ground in the efforts we all make to support an energy future. Nobody wants to pollute. While we have pointed out here that the global alarmists need to be controlled lest they drain more money from world economies that could be used to create jobs and feed the starving, we want a future where energy can be created with less pollution.
We were touched by a video that debuted over the weekend about Peter Burns and the work he is doing at the University of Notre Dame's Energy Frontier Research Center. It is part of the University's "What Would You Fight For?" series: http.//video.nd.edu. Burns has developed an approach to convert nuclear waste into clean energy. Clean energy that won't pollute.
What we are willing to support here is nuclear energy. We think it's time has come and we think we need to encourage its use. As the chart in the Washington Post article we have attached shows, 76% of the electrical supply in France is "nuclear". Here in the U.S., its 19%. While we are building wind energy sources, which we also support, we need to build nuclear plants. While the world has suffered Chernobyl and, closer to home, Three Mile Island, today's technology (and training) is more sophisticated.
It has been 13 years since the last nuclear power plant was built in the U.S. An Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House shows nuclear energy more than doubling in the U.S. by 2050 if the legislation is made law. Groups like the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and others have backed off their opposition to "nuclear" because they see it as a "clean" alternative.
Of course, some leading environmental figures like Al Gore remain skeptical of nuclear's promise, largely because of the high cost of building plants and the threat of proliferation. If anything convinces me that my position on this issue is right, it is that Al Gore opposes it. Gore did tell the Washington Post Editorial Board, "I am not anti-nuclear (is that a double negative?), but the cost of the present generation of reactors is nearly prohibitive."
Perhaps more nuclear and less coal?
There has to be some middle ground in the efforts we all make to support an energy future. Nobody wants to pollute. While we have pointed out here that the global alarmists need to be controlled lest they drain more money from world economies that could be used to create jobs and feed the starving, we want a future where energy can be created with less pollution.
We were touched by a video that debuted over the weekend about Peter Burns and the work he is doing at the University of Notre Dame's Energy Frontier Research Center. It is part of the University's "What Would You Fight For?" series: http.//video.nd.edu. Burns has developed an approach to convert nuclear waste into clean energy. Clean energy that won't pollute.
What we are willing to support here is nuclear energy. We think it's time has come and we think we need to encourage its use. As the chart in the Washington Post article we have attached shows, 76% of the electrical supply in France is "nuclear". Here in the U.S., its 19%. While we are building wind energy sources, which we also support, we need to build nuclear plants. While the world has suffered Chernobyl and, closer to home, Three Mile Island, today's technology (and training) is more sophisticated.
It has been 13 years since the last nuclear power plant was built in the U.S. An Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House shows nuclear energy more than doubling in the U.S. by 2050 if the legislation is made law. Groups like the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and others have backed off their opposition to "nuclear" because they see it as a "clean" alternative.
Of course, some leading environmental figures like Al Gore remain skeptical of nuclear's promise, largely because of the high cost of building plants and the threat of proliferation. If anything convinces me that my position on this issue is right, it is that Al Gore opposes it. Gore did tell the Washington Post Editorial Board, "I am not anti-nuclear (is that a double negative?), but the cost of the present generation of reactors is nearly prohibitive."
Perhaps more nuclear and less coal?
Climategate
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703499404574562123968802420-lMyQjAxMDA5MDMwMDEzNDAyWj.html
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490-lMyQjAxMDA5MDMwMDEzNDAyWj.html
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400-lMyQjAxMDA5MDMwMDEzNDAyWj.html
There is always the temptation to gloat when one sees pompous, self serious and self important people proved wrong. Fortunately for those of us who are like-minded on the subject of "global cooling", both pure data and efforts to "cover up" data (on the part of what were thought to be world class scientists) lead to the inevitable conclusion that little, if any, science supports global warming.
Perhaps that's a start. As Bjorn Lomborg points out (attached), the lack of water for the poor in the shadow of the Himalayas (in this case, Nepal), has been used by Al Gore and others to argue for short term cuts in carbon emissions. Climate activists argue that there is a "link" between melting glaciers in the Himalayas and water shortages elsewhere.
This hypothesis has not been supported by a new report released in November by the Indian government which indicates that the majority of these glaciers are stable or have even advanced. Jeffery Kargel, a glaciologist at the University of Arizona, declared in a November 13 article in "Science" that these extremely provocative findings were consistent with what he has learned independently.
Two things: (1) there is a growing body of knowledge from respected scientists that the world's glaciers are NOT melting; and (2) spending money on helping the poor to keep them from going hungry comes ahead of fancy schemes to get the carbon.
Now, moving on, we find that some of the world's leading scientists have worked in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage "inconvenient" temperature data - this after the disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU. This is the heart of "Climategate" (attached).
To put it bluntly, there was a direct correlation between the research money brought in to the CRU and their conclusions that global warming was occurring from various sources. According to estimates by the HSBC Bank, $94 billion will be spent globally this year on what is called "green stimulus" - largely ethanol and other alternative energy schemes - of the kind from which Al Gore and his partners at Kleiner Perkins hope to profit from handsomely.
Relying on the "dismal science" ("Economics", for those of you who have not heard the term) for a moment, supply creates its own demand. So, for every additional billion in government-funded grants, universities, research institutes, advocacy groups and their various spin-offs have emerged from the woodwork to receive them. And, as the WSJ "Climategate" article so aptly points out, these groups form a kind of "ecosystem" of their own. So, while the Sierra Club and Greenpeace (and so many others) are sincere in their beliefs about what needs to be changed (and soon), the very "science" that backs them up is, to quote one of their own scientists: "garbage".
Here's the best we can say about "climate science": it isn't settled and claims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre. Richard Lindzen is a meteorologist at MIT. His perspective makes sense and it is well expressed in the article attached (WSJ Opinion). Lindzen points out that there is reason to be concerned about what global warming measures are being used because those measures are imprecise: the Global Average Temperature Anomaly (GATA) is always changing. There is general support for the assertion that GATA has increased by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century. But, the quality of the data is poor. Several of the emails from the CRU dealt with how to manipulate the data to maximize apparent warming changes.
The general support for warming, according to Lindzen, is based not so much on the quality of the data, but on the fact that there was a "little ice age" from about the 15th to the 19th century. Thus, it is not surprising that temperatures should increase as we emerged from this episode. With the advancement of the modern industrial age, CO2 has added to warming but not to any major extent.
And, the "environmental models" that did not predict the "...absence of warming for the past dozen years..." are now being modified to justify what they missed and they now predict warming will resume in 2009 (aren't we in 2009?), 2013 and 2030, respectively.
The temptation here is to be sarcastic because it is just not a fair fight but we won't be. Rather, we will follow Lindzen's perspective as he points out that the East Anglia scandal is greater than just the hacked emails from the CRU: namely the suggestion that the very existence of warming, or the greenhouse effect, is tantamount to catastrophe. To Lindzen, it is the grossest of "bait and switch" scams. To him, the notion that complex climate "catastrophes" are simply a matter of response to a single number, GATA, represents a gigantic step backward in the science of climate: many disasters associated with warming are simply normal occurrences whose existence is falsely claimed to be evidence of warming. And, all these phenomena are dependent on the confluence of many factors.
So, what do we have? We have a bunch of scientists looking to manipulate their data to show global warming is the cause of of my aunt's headaches so they can get research grants. And, the mere fact that the scientists think they need to manipulate the data to show warming trends kind of shows, as one of them so correctly stated, that their data is "garbage."
Is there a return policy on Al Gore's Nobel?
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490-lMyQjAxMDA5MDMwMDEzNDAyWj.html
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400-lMyQjAxMDA5MDMwMDEzNDAyWj.html
There is always the temptation to gloat when one sees pompous, self serious and self important people proved wrong. Fortunately for those of us who are like-minded on the subject of "global cooling", both pure data and efforts to "cover up" data (on the part of what were thought to be world class scientists) lead to the inevitable conclusion that little, if any, science supports global warming.
Perhaps that's a start. As Bjorn Lomborg points out (attached), the lack of water for the poor in the shadow of the Himalayas (in this case, Nepal), has been used by Al Gore and others to argue for short term cuts in carbon emissions. Climate activists argue that there is a "link" between melting glaciers in the Himalayas and water shortages elsewhere.
This hypothesis has not been supported by a new report released in November by the Indian government which indicates that the majority of these glaciers are stable or have even advanced. Jeffery Kargel, a glaciologist at the University of Arizona, declared in a November 13 article in "Science" that these extremely provocative findings were consistent with what he has learned independently.
Two things: (1) there is a growing body of knowledge from respected scientists that the world's glaciers are NOT melting; and (2) spending money on helping the poor to keep them from going hungry comes ahead of fancy schemes to get the carbon.
Now, moving on, we find that some of the world's leading scientists have worked in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage "inconvenient" temperature data - this after the disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU. This is the heart of "Climategate" (attached).
To put it bluntly, there was a direct correlation between the research money brought in to the CRU and their conclusions that global warming was occurring from various sources. According to estimates by the HSBC Bank, $94 billion will be spent globally this year on what is called "green stimulus" - largely ethanol and other alternative energy schemes - of the kind from which Al Gore and his partners at Kleiner Perkins hope to profit from handsomely.
Relying on the "dismal science" ("Economics", for those of you who have not heard the term) for a moment, supply creates its own demand. So, for every additional billion in government-funded grants, universities, research institutes, advocacy groups and their various spin-offs have emerged from the woodwork to receive them. And, as the WSJ "Climategate" article so aptly points out, these groups form a kind of "ecosystem" of their own. So, while the Sierra Club and Greenpeace (and so many others) are sincere in their beliefs about what needs to be changed (and soon), the very "science" that backs them up is, to quote one of their own scientists: "garbage".
Here's the best we can say about "climate science": it isn't settled and claims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre. Richard Lindzen is a meteorologist at MIT. His perspective makes sense and it is well expressed in the article attached (WSJ Opinion). Lindzen points out that there is reason to be concerned about what global warming measures are being used because those measures are imprecise: the Global Average Temperature Anomaly (GATA) is always changing. There is general support for the assertion that GATA has increased by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century. But, the quality of the data is poor. Several of the emails from the CRU dealt with how to manipulate the data to maximize apparent warming changes.
The general support for warming, according to Lindzen, is based not so much on the quality of the data, but on the fact that there was a "little ice age" from about the 15th to the 19th century. Thus, it is not surprising that temperatures should increase as we emerged from this episode. With the advancement of the modern industrial age, CO2 has added to warming but not to any major extent.
And, the "environmental models" that did not predict the "...absence of warming for the past dozen years..." are now being modified to justify what they missed and they now predict warming will resume in 2009 (aren't we in 2009?), 2013 and 2030, respectively.
The temptation here is to be sarcastic because it is just not a fair fight but we won't be. Rather, we will follow Lindzen's perspective as he points out that the East Anglia scandal is greater than just the hacked emails from the CRU: namely the suggestion that the very existence of warming, or the greenhouse effect, is tantamount to catastrophe. To Lindzen, it is the grossest of "bait and switch" scams. To him, the notion that complex climate "catastrophes" are simply a matter of response to a single number, GATA, represents a gigantic step backward in the science of climate: many disasters associated with warming are simply normal occurrences whose existence is falsely claimed to be evidence of warming. And, all these phenomena are dependent on the confluence of many factors.
So, what do we have? We have a bunch of scientists looking to manipulate their data to show global warming is the cause of of my aunt's headaches so they can get research grants. And, the mere fact that the scientists think they need to manipulate the data to show warming trends kind of shows, as one of them so correctly stated, that their data is "garbage."
Is there a return policy on Al Gore's Nobel?
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