Even by the negligible standards of the Associated Press and other newswires on the “global warming” issue, the latest article displays exceptional ignorance. Let us answer each of its errors.

“Dangerous Climate Change is Coming”
by Christopher Monckton | April 30, 2009

The Scare:
Two papers published in Nature in spring 2009 say that the rise in global temperature is unlikely to remain below the politically-defined threshold of “dangerous climate change”, if global economic growth continues at its current pace. The papers are based on computer simulations of the climate response to greenhouse-gas emissions.

Policymakers have adopted a goal of keeping the global rise in mean surface temperatures to no more than 2 C° (3.6 F°) above pre-industrial levels.

Myles Allen et al. simulate the mean “global warming” that would result from a given cumulative carbon emission. They conclude that a trillion tonnes of carbon emissions (about 3.7 trillion tonnes of CO2, roughly half of which has already been emitted) produces a “most likely” warming of 2 C° (3.6 F°).

Malte Meinshausen et al. take a slightly different tack by modelling the probability of global temperature rises across a range of greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios. They find that total emissions from 2000 to 2050 of about 1,400 gigatonnes of CO2 yields a 50% probability of exceeding 2 C° warming by the end of the 21st century. Emissions for the last seven years were almost 250 gigatonnes, implying that even without future increases in CO2 emissions the total emissions from 2000-2050 may well exceed this 50% probability.

The Truth:
Nature is one of many “scientific” journals that have openly declared an editorial prejudice in favor of a frankly alarmist viewpoint on the climate.

The scare: For years, scientists, politicians, journalists, academics, and schoolteachers have been fabricating lurid and imaginative disaster stories about the supposed environmental impact of anthropogenic “global warming”. There have been apocalyptic predictions about soaring temperatures, Arctic ice-melt, sea-level rise, hurricanes, extreme-weather events of all kinds, species extinction, etc., etc. These scare stories have little basis in scientific reality: they are pure inventions, usually designed to attract funding or increase circulation.

The scare: In March 2009, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, director of a grand-sounding pressure-group called the “Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research”, said that “global warming” of 7 Fahrenheit degrees would wipe out all but 1 billion of Earth’s 7 billion human population.

Mr. Schellnhuber said, “In a very cynical way, it’s a triumph for science, because at last we have stabilized something – namely the estimate of the carrying capacity of the planet – fewer than 1 billion people.” The planet, of course, is somehow currently carrying seven times that number. The previous month, Dr. James Hansen of NASA had predicted that “global warming” would raise sea level by 75 meters – equivalent to 246 feet.