EPA’s new MATS rule is not based on scientific evidence of benefit from the reduction of mercury emissions; it is nothing but a ruse. The U.S. Government’s “war on coal” claims to be a “war on mercury.” 

While the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” (MATS) rule is supposed to reduce exposure to “mercury” emissions, this is just a pretext; the real intent is to control “carbon” emissions, or carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, to be more precise.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, signed by nearly 100 nations a few months ago, aims to reduce emissions of mercury and mercury compounds, (i.e. “total mercury”) to the atmosphere. The Convention derives its name from the town of Minamata Japan, where the “Minamata disease,” a form of neurological poisoning was observed in Japan in the 1950’s and later on also in other locations in Japan.

The Minamata disease was determined to result from “methyl-mercury,” a derivative of the element mercury. Methyl-mercury, in contrast to elemental mercury is a also a common product of microbial action upon other dissolved mercury compounds, especially in ocean and lake sediments of low oxygen content; more on that further down.

With EPA’s use of “mercury” as a way to regulate the coal-using industry it behooves us to look at the whole mercury situation in more detail. What could be the problem with EPA’s attempt to reduce “mercury”?

Mercury or CO2?

EPA uses “mercury emissions” as a convenient mechanism to regulate and discourage the use of coal for electricity generation and heating. However, EPA’s real intent is to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that President Obama frequently terms “carbon pollution.”

The mercury rule is nothing but a red herring to control fossil fuel-derived energy production which is claimed to contribute to “climate change.”

A recent headline in the New York Times says “Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans from Polar Melt.” Other newspapers propagated the story with titles like “Ice sheet collapse ‘unstoppable,’ scientists warn” and “Huge Antarctic ice sheet collapsing.”

The marked slowdown in the past decade of the warm Atlantic Ocean currents that bring mild weather to northwestern Europe may be caused by natural variation and not anthropogenic climate change, as has been previously suggested.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is part of the great ocean ‘conveyor belt’ that ceaselessly circulates sea water, heat and nutrients around the globe. In particular, it transports large amounts of warm water from the tropics to the poles, warming the British Isles and maritime northern Europe along the way (see ‘Current affair’). But since 2004, ocean sensors have detected a significant decline in the strength of the currents and a cooling of the subtropical Atlantic as a result. From mid-2009 to mid-2010, for example, the circulation slowed to two-thirds of its usual strength — and some oceanographers suggested that the drop caused the harsh weather in the United Kingdom and western Europe that winter (see Nature 497, 167–168; 2013).

Climate scientists had speculated that the slowdown is linked to man-made climate change. But an analysis presented last month by a team of British scientists at the annual assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna suggests that the AMOC’s slowing could just be part of natural oceanic fluctuations.

With global temperature data now available for the first three months of 2014, an interesting trend has clearly emerged: global cooling. No longer is it just a hypothesis.  For the first quarter of each calendar year since 2002, it is effectively a fact at reasonably strong statistical significance.  Here is the data:

That downward trend since 2002 has a p-value of 0.097 (r=-0.48), which is below the p=0.10 (90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}) threshold used in many climate science studies for statistical significance, and very close to the standard p=0.05 (95{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}) threshold generally employed across the physical and biological sciences.  The same level of statistical significance is obtained regardless of whether parametric or non-parametric trend analysis methods are employed.

Some readers may be looking at this plot and thinking that the global climate data since 1880 looks a lot like a cycle, with a stable period (of neither warming nor cooling) of, say, 140 years in length between the approximately 70-year long alternating cool and warm periods.  It certainly has that appearance.  If such is the case, we would expect a return to “normal” January-March global temperatures by 2050, give or take a decade or two.

In the United States, the January-March 2014 temperature was well below the 20th-century average.  There has been no statistically significant trend in January-March temperatures in the contiguous USA since 1980.  None, for 35 years and counting.  The same lack of trend applies for the December-February temperatures.  Depending on how you define winter, either – or both – of these timeframes is considered the wintertime period.

So there has been absolutely no change in wintertime temperatures in the United States since before Reagan was president, and yet the The Guardian is reporting that the latest National Climate Assessment finds climate change to be a “clear and present danger” and that “Americans are noticing changes all around them … Winters are generally shorter and warmer.”

2014 sees a rise in the number of scientists supportive of the idea of an Electric Universe, a concept that flies in the face of conventional cosmology. Piers Corbyn, world leader in long range weather forecasting, was one of an array of impressive speakers at the EU2014 Electric Universe Conference, New Mexico, helping generate the sparks.

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The characterful British astrophysicist Corbyn cuts an avuncular figure on stage at the EU Albuquerque venue. The plain-speaking Londoner kicked off a zestful presentation by quoting Niels Bohr who famously once said about his atomic theory, “Is it crazy enough?” Corbyn’s point was that the consensus never advances science and often what seems “crazy” at the time has a tendency to prove such mavericks correct.

Anti-establishmentarianism to one side, Corbyn delivered a most informative and entertaining presentation on our planet’s complicated meteorological system and how it reacts to solar and electromagnetic effects from space. The Weatheraction.com frontman Corbyn said that standard meteorology (SM) was consistently failing in outlook, theory, and practice.

“Climate change nonsense ‘theory’ and dangerous policy is part of a bigger problem,” laments Corbyn, who has a legion of loyal customers subscribing to his long range weather forecasting service. He is among a growing number of highly-credentialed independent scientists who say climate science and standard meteorology is in crisis. For too long computer modelling reliant on unrested, untestable hypotheses held the ascendant. A world-leading independent long-range weather forecaster, Corbyn is dismissive of the junk climate computer models that failed to predict the current trend towards apparent global cooling.

And as with other EU speakers, Corbyn’s message was that an empirical approach (evidential) was preferable, as opposed to the ideological approach promoted by corrupt self-interest groups. Even the non-scientists among us are now asking –  isn’t the evidence-based approach best?

The thrust of Corbyn’s argument is that mainstream science academies have become servants of political paymasters. As such, they are no longer reliable agents for the advancement of science. But government science will always serve government policy, not the other way round. That is the nature of the beast as we move inexorably deeper into a post-normal era that desperately needs new science bodies set apart and not beholden to national governments.

If you live in the northern climes, as I do, spring is an overpowering force. After a long winter and weeks of nature seemingly in an eternal slumber, spring arrives overnight, without warning and drawn-out preludes.

In its latest entry on “health repercussions for Canadians of a changing climate” in the Globe and Mail newspaper, Karen McColl raises the alarm bells on “substantial increases in occurrences of extremely hot seasons” in Canada. Apparently, “Clean Air Partnership [CAP], a non-profit that addresses climate-change issues, says maximum temperatures in Toronto are expected to rise 7 C over the next 30 to 40 years.” That is a remarkable claim. A predicted 7 degrees Celsius increase in maximum temperatures over a 30-year period in Toronto equates to a rate of 23.3 degrees Celsius per century. To say that is insanely large would be an understatement.

So how does the historical trend in maximum temperatures for Toronto compare with this hysterical claim? The results are not promising for the Globe and Mail. Using the benchmark Environment Canada Adjusted and Homogenized Canadian Climate Data (AHCCD) database, the mean of daily maximum temperatures during the summer months in Toronto has not increased one bit since 1920. In other words, over the past century, the mean maximum summertime temperatures in Toronto exhibit absolutely no trend. None whatsoever.

One of the world’s most eminent climate scientists – for several decades a warmist – has defected to the climate sceptic camp.

Lennart Bengtsson – a Swedish climatologist, meteorologist, former director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg and winner, in 2006, of the 51st IMO Prize of the World Meteorological Organization for his pioneering work in numerical weather prediction – is by some margin the most distinguished scientist to change sides.

For most of his career, he has been a prominent member of the warmist establishment, subscribing to all its articles of faith – up to and including the belief that Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick was a scientifically plausible assessment of the relationship between CO2 emissions and global mean temperature.

But this week, he signalled his move to the enemy camp by agreeing to join the advisory council of Britain’s Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the think tank created by the arch-sceptical former Chancellor Lord Lawson.

Though Bengtsson is trying to play down the significance of his shift – “I have always been a sceptic and I think that is what most scientists really are” he recently told Germany’s Spiegel Online, denying that he had ever been an “alarmist” – his move to the GWPF is a calculated snub to the climate alarmist establishment.

Attempts to get critical information from agents of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meet with little success. Why? They claim immediate response to their work is mandatory for planetary survival and time is running out.

Here is what Slater reported on March 30 2014.

In a new U.N. report released on Monday morning (Japan time) scientists come to a stark conclusion: Unless the world changes course immediately and dramatically, the fundamental systems that support human civilization are at risk.

If true, surely the world has the right to know every bit of information used for this conclusion, but that hasn’t happened. There’s a contradiction between orchestrated publicity raising the threat, but silence, obfuscation, and outright denial regarding questions about important data, process, and methodology. Suspicions are driven by natural curiosity and desire for complete openness in science, but also by their behavior to date.

What have they got to hide? A great deal, as the leaked Climate Research Unit (CRU) emails attest. CRU countered challenges to their views by setting up the PR web site RealClimate and controlling information such as William Connolley’s editing of Wikipedia entries. Publicly they played the victim card claiming they were ordinary scientists trying to do their work but overwhelmed, possibly deliberately, by Freedom of Information requests. The requests occurred because they refused to provide answers and information. A siege mentality was apparent from the start.

For those who still have a difficult time with why the basis of the climate science version of the greenhouse effect, which creates political alarmism, is a fraud, THIS IS WHY!! (and yes that is me yelling!):

Are they really that stupid to not understand it?  That is exactly what their model is pretending to do:

The public, after decades of global warming advocacy, now called “climate change”, has begun to conclude that claims of a massive warming trend were dubious and that real climate change is the natural response of the planet to forces well beyond any impact of the human race.

The fact is that the Earth has been in a cooling cycle for some 17 years based on lower rates of solar radiation as the Sun undergoes one of its natural cycles, a reduction in the number of sunspots or magnetic storms on its surface.

The May 5th edition of the National Review devotes its cover story to “The Case Against Michael Mann: The Hockey Stick and Free Speech” by Charles C.W. Cooke because the creator of the “hockey stick” graph purporting a massive warming is suing the magazine, commentator Mark Steyn, along with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Rand Simberg. In his suit, filed in the D.C. Superior Court, Mann asserts that “in making the defamatory statement” they acted intentionally, maliciously, willfully, and with the intent to injure Dr. Mann, or to benefit (National Review) and Steyn.”

Mann is asserting a “narrow form of libel that American law prohibits” said Cooke. “As a seminal Supreme Court case, New York Times v. Sullivan, outlined in 1964, using the law of libel, to drag journalists into court for expressing their sincere views on matters of major public importance is entirely inconsistent with our ‘national commitment to principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide open.’”

Mann’s feelings are hurt and he believes that any criticism of the questionable science he applied to the creation of his now-famous global warming graph is libel. I believe the court will conclude that using the charge of libel to silence his critics is wrong. That’s what makes the case important, in particular for a basic principle of science, and in general for the public understanding that global warming and/or climate change depends on vigorous debate.

Final fed climate report will present dire picture … The Obama administration is more certain than ever that global warming is changing Americans’ daily lives and will worsen – conclusions that scientists will detail in a massive federal report to be released Tuesday. – AP

Dominant Social Theme: Times are grim and getting hotter.

Free-Market Analysis: The US government is reportedly about to release the grimmest study yet of climate change/gobal warming. Of course, these studies are not the same as “evidence.” They are a compilation of data and opinion.

The same sort of approach is used to create the famously controversial UN IPCC climate reports. Yet it is very difficult to prove climate changes except in hindsight – and probably over centuries. Current efforts at ascertaining climate change study decades, and do so using questionable analysis.

Nonetheless, reports continue to be issued by the UN and Western governments – especially the US – that continually emphasize the disasters that global warming is creating.

The Connolly Scientific Research Group is a family-run independent entity based in Ireland and has provided fascinating new research and analysis on the global warming controversy.  Principia Scientific International has corresponded with Dr. Ronan Connolly, an award-winning scientist, and believe the group provides valuable new analysis in the climate debate. 

Roy Spencer’s post on “Skeptical Arguments that Don’t Hold Water” is all about defending the basis of alarm.  Every single one of his points is in defence of the basis of alarm, and it might have been copied directly from an alarmist source such as Gavin Schmidt or Michael Mann.

 Let’s go through his sophistry:

1. THERE IS NO GREENHOUSE EFFECT. Despite the fact that downwelling IR from the sky can be measured, and amounts to a level (~300 W/m2) that can be scarcely be ignored; the neglect of which would totally screw up weather forecast model runs if it was not included; and would lead to VERY cold nights if it didn’t exist; and can be easily measured directly with a handheld IR thermometer pointed at the sky (because an IR thermometer measures the IR-induced temperature change of the surface of a thermopile, QED)… Please stop the “no greenhouse effect” stuff. It’s making us skeptics look bad. I’ve blogged on this numerous times…[].

Roy, a colder source of heat does not heat up a warmer source of heat.  And the surface atmosphere stays warm overnight because of its large thermal mass and that of the ground.  It is basic physics…things do not cool down instantaneously.  And it is a simple calculation to perform. Empirical data demonstrates that the radiation from the colder atmosphere does not warm up the warmer surface, and the reason it is this way is because of the laws of thermodynamics – cold does not heat up hot.  An IR thermometer operates on the principles of a differential – if the target is cooler then the voltage differential on the thermopile is negative and the response curve is calibrated to report a corresponding temperature.  Cold does not heat up hot.  It doesn’t matter if you blog about it – cold doesn’t flow heat to hot.

2. THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT VIOLATES THE 2ND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. The second law can be stated in several ways, but one way is that the net flow of energy must be from higher temperature to lower temperature. This is not violated by the greenhouse effect. The apparent violation of the 2nd Law seems to be traced to the fact that all bodies emit IR radiation…including cooler bodies toward warmer bodies. But the NET flow of thermal radiation is still from the warmer body to the cooler body. Even if you don’t believe there is 2-way flow, and only 1-way flow…the rate of flow depends upon the temperature of both bodies, and changing the cooler body’s temperature will change the cooling rate (and thus the temperature) of the warmer body. So, yes, a cooler body can make a warm body even warmer still…as evidenced by putting your clothes on.

This is classic sophistry.  A “two-way flow” of energy results in a one-way flow of heat only, with heat flowing only one way, from hot to cold.  The cold does not heat up the hot while the hot is heating up the cold.  It is only heat flow from hot to cold, with the balance of the energy flow, the differential between the hot and cold temperatures, determining the intensity or rate of heat flow, which determines how quickly the cold object changes temperature.  When the cooler object warms up, this does not require the warmer object to warm up also.  The cool and warm object come to equilibrium and energy then flows through the cold object to its other extremities.  Putting your clothes on traps air between the skin and clothes, and this air then gets heated up by your skin, which then makes youfeel warmer.  The clothes are not responsible for creating heat, or adding heat energy or temperature to you.  Your oven doesn’t get hotter because the turkey gets cooked.