No Home, No Job and No Hope - Time to Act

We have a strange attitude towards homelessness. We are all clearly against it and think that something must be done, but rarely do anything ourselves.

Municipal governments are against it, have no authority or mandate or funds dedicated to it, but build affordable housing anyway with taxpayers money, then ask regional and national governments to support them. Regional and national governments provide funds for affordable housing, both to municipalities and to charitable organizations, and some affordable housing gets built, but homelessness persists.

A true example of a vicious circle.

One cause of homelessness is our complete inability as a society to know what to do with those who are mentally ill. We used to have hospitals and centres where those troubled within themselves were kept and occasionally cared for. While sometimes the treatments provided were more experiments with drugs, power cords and music, sometimes they also made a difference. They were not pretty places – I used to work in one and, believe me, they were not arts centres or blissful heavens of tranquility – but at least they gave those not able to care for themselves shelter, warmth and food. When these places were deemed cruel and inhospitable and “care in the community” became the mantra of the do-gooders, the patients were turned loose onto communities without the “care” provision. They are one source of homeless people.

A second are those who, for whatever reason, have turned to drink and drugs as a way to cope with the travails of their lives. At some point, the drink or the drugs have taken over their lives and it has led to them not being able to afford or sustain shelter. The street becomes their home.

A third, smaller but nonetheless disconcerting group, is the runaway. Teenagers who can no longer tolerate the impertinence of their parents or the rivalry with siblings or the abuse from peers run away to find a new space in which they can find out who they are and secure solace in the anonymity of a new start. Rarely does this lead to the solution they sought; often it leads to abuse, prostitution, degradation and poverty. The street is both their prison and their lost hope.

A final group, now fast growing, is those who are victims of the recession. The disposed, the desperate, in indebted. Some seek shelter with family and friends, but eventually their network is exhausted and they sleep in their car or van, in parks or on the street. Some are working poor – holding down a part-time job, but unable to afford a home or have to trade food and clothes for shelter.

Some of the homeless try to get out of the cycle of poverty – but the number of working poor and homeless is growing. Some find homes, but cannot keep them and find themselves back on the streets weeks or months later, even more desperate than they were before – they tasted what the future could be like, but the taste soured and became an acid despair, sometimes in more ways than one. Others do make it out of street-sleeping and start to pull themselves together, but they need support and constant reinforcement to sustain their new life. It is not easy, however it turns out.

In any major city in North America, homelessness is a challenge in search of a solution. Each day, good people with strong commitments work to ease the pain of homelessness, to provide temporary shelter and solace and do what they can. But still they come. Each month, politicians at all levels renew their commitments and speak eloquently about solutions and support, provide some funds and make a difference to a few people. But still they come.

It is time we tackled this problem. A stimulus package aimed at solving homelessness in Canada – rebuilding and restoring our mental health system with sensible medium term care and treatment to tackle those on the street because the care in the community is not there; new counselling services and support centres for teenagers who cannot cope with their lives, their parents and their crumbling social world; new approaches to drink and drugs; new work opportunities in social programs and public services to provide some work opportunities; a concerted effort to make Canada a home-full country.

Now that would be something.

.

Economic Impact of Cap and Trade on US Economy

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis used an econometric model of the U.S. economy to measure the projected impact of the cap and trade bill now before Congress and found that by 2035 it would:

• Reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion;
• Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by more than 1,900,000;
• Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation;
• Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent;
• Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent;
• Raise an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500;
• And increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 more per person — again after adjusting for inflation.

Just imagine this analysis being half right - its very serious. Gains in emissions ? Almost none. As one Democrat has said the bill is "environmental socialism" - all pain for almost no environmental gain.

Mr Speaker

In 1695 Sir John Trevor, Speaker of the House of Commons in the English parliament, was forced to resign due to corruption. He had accepted a bribe. He did however retain his role as a senior judge – Master of the Rolls.

This will not be the fate of Michael Martin, current speaker of House, who has just announced his resignation. He is embroiled in a scandal in which the political parties have colluded to create an expense and favour regime which can only be described as imbued with largess. The scheme, overseen by a committee of the House Chaired by the Speaker and managed day to day by servants of the House, permits such things as: payments for mortgages in second homes for MP’s even though the mortgage no longer exists; payments for furniture, refurbishment; payments for some staff, including spouses and offspring; payments for decoration and repairs. So far, some seventy MP’s have been “outed” for what the public see as outrageous payments and for “fiddling” while the country burns its way through debt and recession.

Michael Martin’s offenses are threefold. The first is that he is the public face of the House of Commons. As Speaker his primary role is to protect the integrity and honour of the House. Both are in tatters. The second offense is that he sought, though legal means and others, to keep the expenses of MP’s from ever being made public. He used his authority to steer a legal challenge to the Freedom of Information Act aimed at exempting MP’s expenses from disclosure. His final offence is that he failed to read the mood of the country and of the Commons. Over twenty MP’s had signed a no confidence motion against him and there was a minor, if typically polite and very British, rebellion against him in the House yesterday when he read a statement which ignored the issue of his own culpability in these matters.

He will go before the summer recess in a few weeks and a new Speaker will be chosen, The odds are heavily in favour of a very different voice – that of Frank Field. A former Cabinet Minister who has made a career of being a Labour Party MP critical of his own party and whose standing has risen so that he is now thought more highly of than when he was in Cabinet. More significantly, through journalism, he has developed a firm commitment to the underdog and has integrity – something desperately needed in the House.

Changing the Speaker will not change the mood of the country – which is palpably viscous. The normally sedate BBC program Question Time was amongst the most raucous shows in BBC news history, rivaling Jerry Springer. The public are in the mood for a hanging.

Changing the Speaker will also make little difference to the underlying issue, which is now the complete loss of confidence in the House and the honesty of MP’s. Only an election will affect this and Gordon Brown, the beleaguered Prime Minister, knows that calling an election now would seal the fate of his Government and his party for at least a generation. While David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, will win, he will do so with a smaller majority than would have been the case before the scandal broke – some of his own colleagues are amongst the worst offenders in the expense scandal.

These are momentous days in British political history, but they are unpleasant. We can expect more turbulence and an emergency landing before the House can take flight again.

Politics, Compromise and the Cap and Trade Scheme in the US

When laws are passed in the United States they are usually subject to so many compromises that it is not uncommon for the original intention of the legislation to be lost.

This appears to be the case with the new version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, issued on 15th May 2009. This bill sets emissions reduction targets for 2020 at 4-7% below 1990 levels by 2020 – considerably less than the 15-20% targets set by other jurisdictions, including the EU. While the 2050 target is substantial – an 83% reduction on 1990 levels – setting long-term targets which are demanding is easier than setting short term targets that will require immediate sacrifice and significant change.

The Bill also creates a cap and trade regime in which some 85% of the emissions permits are given away and only 15% of these permits are auctioned. Companies that secure permits through either allocation or purchase may then trade them for profit. Obama had seen 100% of these permits being auctioned and had planned to use the resultant $650 billion over ten years to pay for a tax credit aimed to offset the higher energy costs that will result from cap and trade and reduce the number of people moving into energy poverty. These tax credits – an essential part of the low carbon economy – will have to be funded by other means, probably through deficit funding.

The problem with giving away so many permits, as has been found in the European Trading Scheme, is that the price for carbon traded in the market is set unrealistically low. By auctioning the permits, the scheme begins with a realistic market value for a tonne of Carbon – thought to be $50 or more. By giving so many permits away, the price fluctuates in a price range below that which requires firm to change their carbon emitting behaviour.

Also included in the Bill is permission for firms to buy offsets - project based reductions – but these are limited to 2,000 million metric tons CO2 equivalent per year or 30% per cent of U.S emission reduction, split evenly between domestic and international offsets. Domestic offsets do not include Green Buildings offsets. There are provisions for emissions reductions from reduced deforestation through what are known as “allowance set-asides”.

The Bill will likely achieve several things. Congress could finally pass a bill focused on climate change and head into the December world summit on climate change in Copenhagen with something to work from. Second, it will significantly increase energy and supply chain costs, only partly offset by tax credits and other social security payments. Third, it will create a new bureaucracy – regulating carbon emissions – and a new financial services business – carbon credit trading. Finally, it will do little to cut emissions.

Europe has had a cap and trade system for sometime – since 2006 in fact. Despite this, emissions from industries required to cap and trade have continued to rise. They rose 0.4 percent in 2006 over the previous year, and 0.7 percent in 2007. A major reason for this, the analysts suggests, was governments alloating too many trading permits to polluters when the market was created – a mistake that the Obama administration is about to repeat. In Europe, over allocation of “free” permits led to a near-market failure after the value of the permits fell by half. This also called into question the validity of the cap and trade system.

Offsets were also allowed by the European system, as will be permitted under the Bill now before the US congress. Many were attracted by the UN sanctioned offsets, but serious doubts have been cast on their effectiveness. Most of the funds are allocated to third world countries for forestry and other projects intended to capture carbon, but some of the funds have been siphoned off into other activities and the impact of the projects in terms of carbon storage is minimal. The chief concern is that this “buying of carbon penances” does nothing to change emissions behaviour in the company buying these offsets.

Cap and trade is a way of avoiding the real issue: the need to tax carbon if the intention is to change human and organizational behaviour. This is why many “green” organizations and researchers oppose cap and trade – they don’t see it as leading to the substantial emissions reductions they see as needed to “save the planet”. A flat tax on carbon - $50 a tonne or more - would force industries to change their behaviour and spur the development of new technologies for transport, buildings and energy production. If each individual person, as well as the companies or organizations they worked for, had to pay for the carbon they emitted, then a low carbon economy would emerge, these campaigners suggest. What is more, emissions would go down quickly as the costs of emitting would be quickly obvious to all.

Take an example. A business executive living with a husband and two children in California who has to travel as part of their employment is likely to account for at least 7 – 9 tones of carbon each year. At $50/tonne they would pay a tax of $350 to $450 year plus additional costs for heating, natural gas, gasoline and other energy sources. They would also pay more for all goods, since transportation costs for goods would also increase. We can estimate the impact at around $1,500 a year on an individual. On a small transport company with twenty trucks, they may also have to pass on to consumers around $35,000 a year in carbon taxes. Such sums would get people’s attention. Cap and trade, however, is like derivatives, I doubt whether anyone can really explain what these are as they walk around Safeway or Next – its hidden and away from view.

As the US sees no short term emissions reductions from its cap and trade, it will start to want to sell more permits and create a real market. It will face fierce opposition from industry, especially the transportation and energy sectors. It will also face a backlash from tax payers who will have seen higher costs without any social or environmental benefit. What the American Clean Energy and Security Act will do is delay the real debate about emissions and the environment until the next Obama administration, when the environment will likely be a more urgent issue for some.

The Decline and Fall of Politics in Britain

The three major political parties in Britain are reeling from a public backlash against them. The symptom is a scandal over expense claims by elected members of parliament. These include claims for digging out a moat, refurbishing chandeliers and reimbursing mortgage payments that had never been made. It’s a mess, and will likely lead to a major upset in the June 4th local and European elections. It has already led to a cabinet resignation and its increasingly likely that the Speaker of the House will suffer a no confidence vote this coming week in Westminster. He will then have to resign. There will also be more cabinet resignations and a cabinet shuffle.

All of this is a symptom of a deeper issue – the growing inability of politicians to show leadership through integrity and their own ethical behaviour. All expenses claimed were “within the rules”. The problem is, the over generous rules were not the basis to guide behaviour. The disease here is the absence of integrity and ethical behaviour, whatever the rules, amongst politicians.

The people are angry. They have a chance to show this in just a few weeks when Britain elects its local councilors and members of the European Parliament. It is very likely that the beneficiaries of this anger will be three non mainstream parties - the British National Party (BNP), the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the Green Party.

The BNP is a right wing organization. They dislike Jews. They dislike of international capitalism, the USA, gender equality, homosexuals and liberal democracy. They are in favour of massive reduction in immigration into the UK and of returning many who have settled in Britain back to their “own” countries. The leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, has been very cunning in repositioning his party as a all-purpose anti-Establishment national front, rather than as a slightly less intellectual version of the Sturmabteilung. But don’t mistake the reality: this is the Oswald Mosley fascist party in a twenty first century guise. Griffin recently suggested that British born citizens with Asian parentage were not really British. Despite its racialist and protectionists views, the party has a core support amongst white working class voters and may benefit significantly from the backlash against the mainstream parties.

The UKIP, in contrast, has won political favour with some and has nine elected members in the European parliament, one elected members of the House of Commons and has secured, through defection, two members of the House of Lords. They are focused on getting Britain out of the EU – believing that the growing amount of regulation and law that emanates from Brussels which Britain has to follow is an affront to democracy. They experienced some problems in their troubled history. Their leader, Robert Kilroy-Silk, defected to form his own party - “ego the size of a planet”, as one observer said of Kilroy-Silk at the time. Some initial members were seen to have ties to former right wing organizations – they were removed. They will likely secure a significant number of new votes – enough to secure additional seats in the European parliament.

The Green Party stands for the things you would expect it to stand for – emissions reductions, no nuclear power, no new runways at Heathrow and so on. It is growing in popularity – it has 116 local councilors and two members of the European parliament. It has been gradually growing its vote and gives the impression of being ethical, imbued with integrity and focused on doing the “correct” thing. In the current climate, it should do very well in the coming election.

But none of these parties are significant enough to challenge the stranglehold on power of the Labour Party and Conservatives. The Labour Party have that look right now of a rabbit caught in the headlights of a truck, driven by a man with a long rifle. The Conservatives have dealt with the current politicel mess with more decisiveness and clarity, though it is conservative politicians who can claim the record for stupidity. We are witnessing a spectacle of politics – the final demise of Labour but not with a sense of victory for the Conservatives. The electors will, reluctantly, favour the Conservatives but send strong messages by voting for these three other parties.

It is sad spectacle to watch. Someone should advise the Queen to dissolve parliament and require her Prime Minister to go to the people. It is the first step to cleaning up politics.

Glamour, Substance and Europe - What To Look For on June 8th

Between June 4^th and 7^th the whole of Europe will go to the polls. More accurately, around 40% will. Despite high unemployment, company closures and governments being very active socially, politically and economically, turnout in voting for the 736 members of the European Parliament will remain low. Proportional representation means that voting is for a slate of candidates, rather than a specific one and the parliaments work is largely mysterious to many voters, despite the fact that it can affect many aspects of daily life. Most “ordinary citizens” feel disconnected from the important work of the parliament.

There are several things to keep an eye on when the results begin to appear. The first will be how deep the defeat of the Labour Party in Britain is and what this signals for the future of Gordon Brown, Britain’s embattled Prime Minister. Most of the chattering classes in London see the European election and the local elections in Britain taking place on the same day as marking a turning point in the politics of replacing a Prime Minister. If the defeat is devastating, especially in the local elections and Labour losses are high, key party figures begin to see their own political future on the faces of their fallen European parliamentary colleagues and local councilors. The knives will be out for Gordon. His response will be a reshuffle of his cabinet and a focused attempt to reassert his authority – the scale of the cabinet shuffle being in proportion to the scale of defeat in the local and EU elections. Gordon Brown will survive, but the party will have a full dress rehearsal for its expected defeat in May or June of 2010 when there must be a general election in Britain. Gordon Brown will be “damaged goods” and the internal strife within the Labour Party – something which it excels at – will help secure a victory for the Conservative Party in the 2010 elections.

A second development could be the winning of seats by the British National Party (BNP) and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). The UKIP, which won twelve seats at the last European election, wants Britain out of the EU. The BNP is the new incarnation of Oswald Moseley’s version of the British fascist movement – opposing immigration, EU membership and minority rights and favouring what we may see as a white supremacist position. At the last election the BNP secured just 6.4% of the vote – just 2% short of the votes requires to secure the allocation of a seat.

The third thing to watch is the pattern of voting in Ireland. The Lisbon Treaty, which gives a new constitution to Europe and, amongst other things, significantly strengthens the role of the EU Parliament, was rejected by the Irish voters in a plebiscite. When the votes are counted in June, it may signal a change of heart by the Irish or, more likely, a hardening of their opposition to the new constitution. Some of the parties standing favour Lisbon and some are opposed.

Finally, there is the pattern of voting in Germany. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, faces a Federal election in September of this year. No one party will emerge as an overall winner in these elections and some are suggesting that traditional coalitions may also not be easy to form, given the challenges that Germany faces. Merkel has committed to win a majority for CDU/CSU and FDP (the CDU/CSU's traditional coalition partner) in 2009 – the EU elections will tell whether she is on track to do so. At the last European election, the CDU/CSU won 44.5% of the vote and he FDP 6% - they need to do at least this well to signal an easy victory in September.

For pure entertainment, keep an eye on Italy. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, facing divorce from his wife, originally selected several glamorous women with no substantive political background to run for office. It will be interesting to see whether Italians support glamour or substance.

Cap and Trade Dead in the Water?

Democrats in the Congress are deserting Obama’s climate change key legislative agenda – the cap and trade proposal. The most recent deserter is the Chairman of the powerful Agriculture Committee, Colin Peterson (D: Minn). Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) called cap-and-trade "the most significant revenue-generating proposal of our time." Even scientists, like James Hansen and John Lovelock – the leading climate alarmists in the world – oppose the cap and trade legislation. In their view, the cap-and-trade approach is both “ineffectual” and “verging on a gigantic scam.”

There have been several technical analysis of the potential impact of the cap and trade legislation in the US. Most suggest that a full implementation and adherence to the emissions restrictions provisions described by the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill would result only in setting back the projected rise in global temperatures by a few years—a scientifically meaningless prospect. This assumes a reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of greater than 80%, as envisioned in the Waxman-Markey climate bill. It would produce a global temperature “savings” during the next 50 years of about 0.05ºC, assuming India and China also started to cut emissions.

The bill envisions a cap and trade revenue to the US treasury of $400 billion, increase energy costs to a level of app. $3,000 a year more per family and lead to some 800,000 job losses. At least, this is the view of Senator Jim Inhofe – the Senate’s resident climate change skeptic. Pointing out that the vote on this aspect of the budget secured just 39 votes in the Senate – Obama needs 60 for the legislation to become law – Inhofe makes clear that he thinks that the cap and trade scheme is “dead in the water”.

Experience elsewhere – especially the EU – suggests that cap and trade, unless really carefully enacted and enforced, will lead to some people becoming quite wealthy, most people becoming poorer with almost no impact of CO2 emissions. A pharmaceutical company in France, for example, has switched its core business from producing health products to selling carbon credits – its more profitable. They continue to emit exactly what they emitted before the scheme began.

Some law makers in the US are beginning to tout the idea of a carbon tax – along the lines of that implemented in British Columbia. This too is dead in the water. Almost all law makers are opposed to a carbon tax, arguing that it would have substantial negative impacts on the economy in general and “ordinary” families in particular. While the promise is that other taxes would be reduced, the reality of the US debt-ridden economy is that the government needs all of the tax revenue it can get. The suggestion is that a carbon tax would be simpler to administer than a cap and trade scheme. In the history of US tax law, no “simple” tax has remained simple for long – it would get very complex very quickly, with exemptions, different rates for different industries and special cases. It is not going to happen.

Obama has committed to reducing CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 – a cut of 14% on current levels – and then a cut of 80% of the 1990 C02 emissions by 2050. The IPCC has already said that the 2020 target is far too low and should be nearer 25%. The target is important – it reflects the extent of Obama’s commitment and is the lowest target set by any G7 nation. It also represents what Obama thinks is realistic – something other countries do not seem to take into account when setting targets (almost none of which are ever met).

If the cap and trade legislation fails, as looks likely, Obama has released his secret weapon: the Environment Protection Agency. They have ruled that CO2 is a pollutant and falls within their remit to regulate. They will begin to develop regulations, focusing on major polluters first – watch for the coal industry and coal fired energy plants to be targeted – they have already placed a hold on several coal fired powered plants which were about to be approved. Also targeted will be buildings and emissions from transportation. The EPA is a blunt instrument which will enact regulations within existing legislative frameworks, not requiring permission from Congress.

As the US develops its opening position for the Copenhagen Climate Change global summit in December, a failure to pass cap and trade and the setting of very modest targets would signal that the US will not lead the Copenhagen negotiations. Instead, the EU will be the lead organization. According to several diplomatic sources, preliminary work on the summit is not going well. The faltering US legislation and low targets, coupled with the continued challenge by China and India over their role in climate change and the implications of establishing global targets are challenging the diplomats to find a meaningful compromise. Also challenging is the demands of developing nations for an annual payment of $600 billion to compensate them for the impacts of climate change, largely driven by the developed economies. Copenhagen will be a battle, and largely symbolic.

The good news is that it is getting cooler, the global climate is well within its normal range, the arctic ice is getting thicker and there is growing recognition that climate alarmists, who base most of their arguments on climate change models rather than actual observations, are being revealed as exaggerators and polemicists. It will be an interesting period between now and the end of the year.

Gordon Brown is a Dead Parrot

Gordon Brown is, as Monty Python might say, “a dead parrot” as a Prime Minister. He is amongst the walking dead of British politics. Following his half hour of sunshine in the immediacy of the G20 summit in the first week of April, his decline has been rapid and remarkable.

The fall begin within hours of the summit’s ending. It became clear that the numbers he gave for “new” stimulus activity were a fiction – no new money of any kind for the British economy. Then we moved into full sleaze mode. The British Home Secretary, responsible for all aspects of British law, submitted a claim for expenses which included porn films watched by her husband. As all MP’s expense claims are about to published, but much sleaze is leaking out. Brown then appeared in a bizarre video on You Tube looking like a cross between Simon Cowell and Rasputin, with a bizarre smile. He proposed a cleanup plan for MP’s expenses, which was quickly rejected by all concerned. Worse, it angered his own party.

As if this wasn’t enough for him to appear a plonker, he then proceeded to get confused in the House – leaving and then returning on a run when he remembered he was to make a parliamentary statement –much laughter on the Tory side and shaking of the head on the Labour benches. Several cabinet members began to suggest, off the record, that Brown had lost the plot and it was time for him to go. The Deputy Leader of the party, Harriet Harman, suggested that Labour’s mistakes needed to be atoned for. Former cabinet members also started to suggest that Brown was a dead duck.

Latest polling figures put the Conservative Party, with David Cameron at the head, some 19 points ahead of Labour, fueled by the realization that the April budget figures will lead to a prolonged period of real austerity – cuts in government services, increased taxes and more challenges for health care. If the situation remains the same at the election, which is due before June 2010, Labour would be severely thrashed – the conservatives would have a majority of 170 seats.
The big test will come in June when the Brits goes to the polls for the elections to the European parliament. Normally this is a big yawn, but David Cameron has asked the people of Britain to use this election to show their disgust with Brown – vote to show that you want change. While the total voting will be small, Labour will do badly. It will be a symbolic defeat.

What is important is that Labour MP are now seriously worried about retaining their seats in the coming election – its clear that many will not. Some are already moving to suggest that the party replace Brown before the election – which means he would have to go between now and the middle of July. Brown will not go, so we have trench warfare within the party = more seats will be lost. Brown will shuffle his cabinet in the summer, leading to more disgruntlement – more warfare. More seats lost.
So it doesn’t look at all good for young Gordon. Even Tony Blair is letting it be known that he is not at all happy at how things are going. Its fascinating to watch the decline and fall of someone who should never have been Prime Minister.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Al Gore: “…unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.”

Lord Monckton observes:

My contribution to the 2007 report illustrates the scientific problem. The report’s first table of figures - inserted by the IPCC’s bureaucrats after the scientists had finalized the draft, and without their consent - listed four contributions to sea-level rise. The bureaucrats had multiplied the effect of melting ice from the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets by 10. The result of this dishonest political tampering with the science was that the sum of the four items in the offending table was more than twice the IPCC’s published total. Until I wrote to point out the error, no one had noticed. The IPCC, on receiving my letter, quietly corrected, moved and relabeled the erroneous table, posting the new version on the internet and earning me my Nobel prize. The shore-dwellers of Bali need not fear for their homes. The IPCC now says the combined contribution of the two great ice-sheets to sea-level rise will be less than seven centimeters after 100 years, not seven meters imminently, and that the Greenland ice sheet (which thickened by 50 cm between 1995 and 2005) might only melt after several millennia, probably by natural causes, just as it last did 850,000 years ago. Gore, mendaciously assisted by the IPCC bureaucracy, had exaggerated a hundredfold.

Lord Monckton also notes:

“At the very heart of the IPCC’s calculations lurks an error more serious than any of these. The IPCC says: “The CO2 radiative forcing increased by 20 percent during the last 10 years (1995-2005).” Radiative forcing quantifies increases in radiant energy in the atmosphere, and hence in temperature. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 in 1995 was 360 parts per million. In 2005 it was just 5percent higher, at 378 ppm. But each additional molecule of CO2 in the air causes a smaller radiant-energy increase than its predecessor. So the true increase in radiative forcing was 1 percent, not 20 percent. The IPCC has exaggerated the CO2 effect 20-fold.

Why so large and crucial an exaggeration? Answer: the IPCC has repealed the fundamental physical the Stefan-Boltzmann equation - that converts radiant energy to temperature. Without this equation, no meaningful calculation of the effect of radiance on temperature can be done. Yet the 1,600 pages of the IPCC’s 2007 report do not mention it once. The IPCC knows of the equation, of course. But it is inconvenient. It imposes a strict (and very low) limit on how much greenhouse gases can increase temperature. At the Earth’s surface, you can add as much greenhouse gas as you like (the “surface forcing”), and the temperature will scarcely respond. That is why all of the IPCC’s computer models predict that 10km above Bali, in the tropical upper troposphere, temperature should be rising two or three times as fast as it does at the surface. Without that tropical upper-troposphere “hot-spot”, the Stefan-Boltzmann law ensures that surface temperature cannot change much.

For half a century we have been measuring the temperature in the upper atmosphere - and it has been changing no faster than at the surface. The IPCC knows this, too. So it merely declares that its computer predictions are right and the real-world measurements are wrong. Next time you hear some scientifically-illiterate bureaucrat say, “The science is settled”, remember this vital failure of real-world observations to confirm the IPCC’s computer predictions. The IPCC’s entire case is built on a guess that the absent hot-spot might exist”.

John Houghton, second Chairman of the IPCC, wrote in 1994 that ‘unless we announce disasters, no one will listen, setting the tone and focus for the narratives which have followed climate change science and the IPCC since.

Canada and the EU NAFTA Like Deal in the Making

Canadian government officials are in Prague seeking to open talks on a wide-ranging agreement with the EU. While labeled a trade agreement by many, it is in fact much broader. We will wait to see just what the EU will agree to, but make no mistake: it is a significant agreement.

What it will seek to do is more closely align Canada with some of the work of the EU, especially as it relates to sustainable development, the movement of people and intellectual property. Though trade is a strong focus – the EU is Canada’s second largest trading partner after the US, with a total of $109.4 billion (€70.3 billion) in trade in 2007 making Canada the EU’s eleventh largest trading partner – the “soft” agreements on sustainability and labour mobility may be of most interest.

Changing trade arrangements to remove barriers, especially in services, could be mutually beneficial. A study commissioned by the Government of Canada suggests that changed rules could yield $18.26 billion (€11.6 billion) for the EU and $12.9 billion (€8.2 billion) for Canada in terms of additional GDP contributions, with services leading the way. This would require the elimination on tariffs on bilaterally traded goods, easing restrictions on services and opening up competitive bidding on government contracts to EU companies and giving equal access to such contracts for Canadian companies bidding in the twenty seven countries of the EU.

Behind this focus on trade is a desire to strengthen intellectual property protection, a more effective enforcement of labour laws and the focused enforcement of the environmental protection legislation and the freer movement of labour. In particular, there is a desire to make it easier for Canadians to serve as executives for European companies, for there to be much easier arrangements for credential recognition and more efficient tax arrangements for individuals moving between Europe and Canada.

Also on the table is opening up the possibility of increased foreign ownership in media and airlines, the regulation of financial services and the encouragement of foreign direct investment by EU in Canada and Canadian in the EU.

Canada already has several other agreements with the EU – on science and technology, on aviation and on cultural exchanges. This new agreement will be substantial and very comprehensive - all Provinces, except Newfoundland and Labrador, have signed up to the framework for the agreement and have participated in shaping the key agenda for this weeks talks. There are significant concerns, including the implications for Canada’s fisheries and fur trade and for environmental protection under the terms of the treaty. Newfoundland is concerned that EU fishing fleets may have too easy an access to an already stressed fishery while others are concerned that the EU will force Canada into a “green” strategy that is not in keeping with the economic interests of Canada. For many, including the Canada-EU Business Council, the agreement is more substantial than the NAFTA agreement, but is moving through a process of negotiation almost unseen by the public.