Fact of the Day: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 “Emergency State” Declaring a “global warming emergency state,” actress/songwriter/Democrat political activist Barbra Streisand recently outperformed her fellow global warming alarmist all-stars, including the likes of one-hit wonders Al Gore and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., during a Primetime Live performance on ABC (as reviewed by The Drudge Report Sunday). Interviewed by Diane Sawyer as part of the promotional tour for her new album, Streisand recklessly perpetuates rhetoric not seen since the movie The Day after Tomorrow. Streisand, perhaps not realizing that Europeans leaders, including Britain’s Tony Blair, are dismissing the approach of the Kyoto Protocol, concluded, “I mean, for the United States not to be part of the Kyoto Treaty is unforgivable.” Fact: Long before President Bush took office, the U.S. Senate, with a 95-0 vote in 1997, advised the Clinton-Gore Administration against signing into an agreement that would a) not include developing nations such as China and India, and b) hurt the U.S. economy. Despite this overwhelming response against such an approach, the Clinton-Gore Administration defied the Senate and signed the Kyoto Protocol. Recognizing its political blunder, the former administration never sent the Protocol to the Senate for ratification. It was not the Bush-Cheney Administration that first rejected the Kyoto Protocol – it was, in reality the Clinton-Gore Administration. That rejection is now extending well beyond American shores. Kyoto Support Eroding Support for the Kyoto Accords, even among Europe’s one-time greatest supporters, is waning. Last month at Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative Conference in New York, Prime Minister Tony Blair made a stunning statement that initially went unreported by the press. Blair, as the London Telegraph reported Sunday, made a “U-turn” on Kyoto. The Telegraph reports, “Mr. Blair, who has been seen up to now as a strong supporter of the Kyoto Treaty, effectively tore the document up and admitted that rows over its implementation will ‘never be resolved.’ Regarding future Kyoto like plans Blair stated, ‘To be honest, I don’t think people are going, at least in the short term, to start negotiating another major treaty like Kyoto.” Europe’s Failure to Meet Its Kyoto Targets Prime Minister Blair’s “U-turn” comes as Europe struggles to meet the limits imposed by Kyoto. Robert Samuelson in a Washington Post op-ed on June 29th wrote: “Considering Europeans’ contempt for the United States and George Bush for not embracing the Kyoto Protocol, you’d expect that they would have made major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions -- the purpose of Kyoto. Well, not exactly. From 1990 (Kyoto’s base year for measuring changes) to 2002, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, increased 16.4 percent, reports the International Energy Agency.” Samuelson itemized those increases: France, a 6.9 percent increase; Italy, 8.3 percent; Greece, 28.2 percent; Ireland, 40.3 percent; the Netherlands, 13.2 percent; Portugal, 59 percent; and Spain, a 46.9 percent increase over 1990 levels. The failure of EU nations to meet targets under Kyoto further demonstrates the lack of will or ability by those claiming to be the biggest supporters of reducing greenhouse gasses. Catherine Pearce, global climate change spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth, is correct to ask: “If Britain and the rest of Europe cannot get it right, then how can anyone expect the US or developing countries to?” (John Vidal, “Europe fails to cut greenhouse gas emissions,” The Guardian, 6/18/2005) Hockey Stick Science: How the Foundation of Climate Alarmism Crumbled One week ago, Canada’s National Post printed an op-ed by Dr. David R. Legates titled “Where’s the data?: Holding science to prospectus standards would stop climate researchers from launching misrepresentations like the ‘Hockey Stick’”. Dr. Legates specifically discussed the flaws of the now discredited Mann “hockey stick” graph, which purports to show a tie between anthropogenic emissions and global warming: Ø “The Hockey Stick stands in stark contrast to a long-held view, amply supported by work of other researchers, that the last 1,000 years were characterized by a warm beginning (the Medieval Warm Period), a rapid cooling around A.D. 1500 (the Little Ice Age), and a latter-day recovery from this cooler period. The Hockey Stick became entwined with energy policy when the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] replaced this traditional view and featured the Hockey Stick prominently in its 2001 assessment of climate science -- in a section written by Mann himself. It surprises many to learn that the IPCC assessment often is written by scientists who dominate the debate about specific issues.” Ø “Clearly such scientists have axes to grind and, in Mann's case, he used the IPCC as a forum to promote his own research. Other IPCC authors admonished Mann to include other, less Hockey Stick-like representations in his assessment. They were ignored in the final report, however, and, owing to the influence that the IPCC reports carry, the Hockey Stick became a public icon, enthusiastically promoted by supporters of the hypothesis of greenhouse warming.” Ø “Nature took the extremely unusual step of requiring Mann and co-authors to provide a new archive of data and a new verbal description of their methodology. But even with this revised release, key aspects of the Hockey Stick remain impossible to replicate -- and replication is a hallmark of scientific inquiry. Mann continues to refuse requests for full disclosure, telling The Wall Street Journal that to do so would amount to ‘giving in to intimidation.’” Ø “Moreover, since Mann was the author of the section of the IPCC that touted his own research before others had the opportunity to critically re-examine his work, serious questions must be raised about conflicts of interest within the IPCC and how it came to promote speculative findings that had not been independently evaluated and which since have been shown to be flawed.” Dr. Legates clearly shows the flaws of the Mann graph, which was heavily relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Third Assessment and by climate alarmists around the world attempting to show that anthropogenic emissions are causing global warming. Recent works written or co-authored by Dr. David R. Legates: Ø Chapter 12–Climate and Water: Precipitation, Evapotranspiration, and Hydroclimatological Aspects. Water for Texas, Texas A&M University Press, 149–152. Ø Mathematical Models and Quantitative Methods. Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Oxford University Press, 442–457. Ø Comment on the AMS statement on climate change research. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 84(11):1474. Ø The CERES-Rice Model-Based Estimates of Potential Monsoon Season Rainfed Rice Productivity in Bangladesh. The Professional Geograper, 55(2):259-273. Recent works written or co-authored by Barbra Streisand: Ø Guilty Pleasures (album, with Barry Gibb) Ø Love Like Ours (album) Ø Duets (album) Ø Emotion (album)