Global Warming: From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

New Paper Refutes Walrus-Climate Scare

Walrus Haulouts Are Nothing New

London, 20 October: A briefing paper published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation refutes claims that Arctic walruses are in distress and danger due to global warming.

The paper, written by Canadian zoologist Dr Susan Crockford, assesses the recent mass haulouts of walrus females and calves on the beaches of Alaska and Russia bordering the Chukchi Sea. The events have been blamed by US government biologists and WWF activists on lack of summer sea ice, amplified into alarming scare stories by news media around the world.

Such claims ignore previous haulouts that suggest a different cause. Scientific reports about large walrus haulouts that have occurred repeatedly over the last 45 years show that they are not new phenomena for this region.

At least two documented incidents of similar magnitude have occurred in the recent past: one in 1978, on eastern St. Lawrence Island and the other in 1972, on the western end of Wrangel Island. The 1978 event involved an estimated total of almost 150,000 walrus hauled out within in a small geographic area.

Moreover, sea ice maps for the months when known mass haulouts occurred, compared to years when they did not, suggest no strong correlation with low sea ice levels.

“The WWF and American walrus biologists have categorically linked the Point Lay mass haulout event to global warming, but available evidence suggests that’s alarmist nonsense,” Dr Crockford said.

“Blaming lack of sea ice for recent events ignores the documented factor –large population size – that drove walruses onto beaches en masse in the past, when plenty of ice was available.

Conservation measures have almost certainly led to a spectacular recovery of walrus numbers over the last few years. This suggests that recent mass haulouts are more an indicator that Chukchi walrus are nearing maximum capacity than a sign of impending global warming catastrophe,” Dr Crockford added.

Full paper (PDF) available here


Contacts
Dr Susan Crockford
sjcrock@shaw.ca

Dr Benny Peiser
Director, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
tel: 020 70065827
mob: 07553 361717
benny.peiser@thegwpf.org

Poland To Veto EU’s 40% CO2 Reduction Proposal
New Unilateral CO2 Targets Would ‘Destroy European Industry’ Poland Warns

If the EU summit next week maintains the European Commission’s proposal on reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent by 2030, Poland will have to veto it, Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Janusz Piechociński told Polish Radio on Thursday. “If this initial proposal will look as it does now, then Poland will have no choice but to veto it,” Piechociński said. “For the Polish economy minister and the majority of EU economy ministers the 40-percent option, which destroys half of Europe’s industry, is unacceptable,” he added.--Warsaw Business Journal, 16 October 2014

Poland’s Economy Minister and Deputy PM Janusz Piechocinski has said that the EU’s proposal on CO2 emissions reduction would “destroy European industry”. “Europe shouldn’t be naïve, and it shouldn’t decide on anything which would be harmful for European industry,” Piechocinski told Polish Radio, Thursday morning. --Polish Radio, 16 October 2014

Poland’s largest opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) says it would support a veto by Prime Minister Kopacz on climate change in Brussels next week if the move harmed the Polish economy. Law and Justice’s unusual solidarity with the government comes after Poland’s deputy prime minister and economy minister Janusz Piechociński confirmed on Thursday that if there is no movement on the EC’s proposal at the summit then “Poland will have no choice but to veto it”.--Radio Poland, 17 October 2014

A week before the start of a Brussels summit on climate goals, member states disagree on various points of the so-called climate and energy policy framework for 2030. In the comments on the draft conclusions member states wrote this week – of which EUobserver has seen 22 – the disagreement appears largest on targets for energy efficiency and on which share of energy consumed in the EU should be from a renewable source in 2030. --Peter Teffer, EUobserver, 17 October 2014

Owen Paterson’s GWPF speech is worth noting by the capital markets as it indicates that the current political consensus on energy policy maybe be challenged going forward. In our view the public and political debate is only likely to grow as the inherent contradictions and unforeseen negative consequences of the current policy become more apparent as time goes on. We have long argued that current EU/UK energy policy is deeply flawed and that utility companies and public market investors should be wary of committing further capital to support and deliver it. Advice which has been increasingly accepted in recent times. After all, an energy policy that has the Hinkley Point C contract and off-shore wind as its two flagship achievements must eventually collapse under the weight of its own idiocy. --Peter Atherton, Liberum, 16 October 2014

HURRAH! At last a senior politician has finally plucked up the courage to tell the truth about the Government’s climate change policies – they are ruinously expensive, they won’t keep the lights on and they are deliberately designed to punish the poor and further enrich the wealthy. What we need is an urgent and radical re-think of our energy needs. The useless Climate Change Act and its entirely arbitrary and damaging targets should be scrapped. The punishment of the poor and subsides for the rich should stop. --Bill Carmichael, Yorkshire Post, 17 October 2014

Angela Merkel Casts Doubt Over EU Climate Summit
Britain Needs Political Climate Change To Cut Soaring Energy Bills

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has dampened expectations about the EU climate summit next week. It was “still open whether it would succeed to adopt the Climate and Energy Framework 2030 next week or later,” Merkel said in a government statement to parliament. In light of these differences, the Chancellor called for patience with hesitant countries. It was right, “to take into account the specific circumstances of all member states and not to ask too much of anyone”.Merkel pointed out that EU climate targets would have to be adopted unanimously. Poland in particular is balking at ambitious [unilateral] CO2 targets. --Der Stern, 17 October 2014

Climate change scepticism is on the rise in Europe. Governments are not going to back a planned 40 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2030 at a time when the EU is on its knees economically. Poland has promised a veto, threatening a global domino effect. Citing Polish Radio, Britain’s Global Warming Policy Forum said in a press release that Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Janusz Piechociński believed the plan was suicidal. --The Commentator, 18 October 2014

Owen Paterson also said, [the Climate Change Act] is “the single most regressive policy we have seen in this country since the Sheriff of Nottingham”. He is right, and because his party, and the Liberal Democrats, and Labour, have all agreed to the sheriff’s extortions, they are letting Nigel Farage play Robin Hood. As the theme song of the TV version used to say, “He cleared up all the trouble on the English country scene, and still found plenty of time to sing”. --Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, 18 October 2014

It is a great shame that Owen Paterson had to be sacked as environment secretary to expose what is an expensive futility. But earlier this week, in a wide-ranging speech to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, he tore into Britain’s cross-party consensus on climate change. The real casualties of the West’s green policies aren’t the poor in this country but in the developing world. Aid money that could be going to tackle malaria or to build a health infrastructure capable of containing ebola often goes to dubious green projects. Barack Obama has stopped US aid from helping build any new coal-fired power plants. This policy will literally kill people. --Tim Montgomerie, The Times, 18 October 2014

In a packed hall in Westminster this week, a respected former Conservative cabinet minister railed against his own government. Calling on the 300-strong Westminster crowd to “challenge current group think” and “stand up to the bullies in the environmental movement”, Paterson ended his speech by calling on his own government to “drop the 2050 target” and “repeal” the Climate Change Act. As political speeches go, this was a corker. From the back of the hall, I saw before me a speaker at the top of his game and an audience transfixed. It was passionate, old-school oratory, the likes of which seems rare in contemporary public life. --Liam Halligan, The Daily Telegraph, 18 October 2014