I LOVE ALL YOU PSEUDO-SCIENTISTS! ALL YOU WANT IS TO ALTER OUR ECONOMY INTO A "COMMAND" Marxist? ECONOMY (PROVE ME WRONG!). YOU WANT TO IGNORE THE OVER 13,000 SCIENTIST WHO PUT THEIR NAME ON THE LINE RECENTLY, SAYING THAT ANY GLOBAL WARMING WAS NOT, I SAY AGAIN N-O-T CAUSED BY HUMAN, I REPEAT AGAIN "HUMAN" ACTIVITY!
AS A MATTER OF FACT, 85% OF THE CO2 EMMISIONS ARE C-A-U-S-E-D BY THE OCEANS, AND MOST OF THE REST FROM VOLCANIC ACTIVITY!
Y-O-U ARE SELLING OUT OUR ECONOMY TOO SOON BY NOT ACKNOWLEDGING THAT THE WONDERFUL TRUTH CALLED "CAPITALISM, I.E. THE MARKETPLACE, WILL ANSWER THE QUESTIONS YOU ARE APPARENTLY ASKING.

--MIKE--

Market fundamentalism, like Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Marxist, and other forms of fundamentalism are all ideologies, i.e. belief systems that attempt, with varying degrees of success, to make acolytes feel like they have "it" - an overarching explanation of reality.

They function as a form of salve, but fail in their quest ultimately. Market fundamentalism is even now being proven to be an outmoded belief system across the globe.

By the way, Mike, would that petition you are citing be from the group in Cave Junction, Oregon? As an Oregonian I find it quite amusing that this piece of misinformation is still floating around on the Web - it's been around for years now - and it keeps getting repeated over and over, especially on Fox and talk radio shows. That does not make it proof of anything, by the way. Nice try, though. By the way, did anyone ever tell you that using the cap lock feature on your computer, rather than making you convincing, actually makes you look kinda silly?

Hi Glen, I thought you decided not to post comments from idiots like --MIKE-- anymore. Don't these people have enough places on the internet to spout their crap? God I'm so sick of this subspecies.
Sorry for the rant.
Peter

Peter,
Given the topic was skeptic thought, and the fact that this was such the epitome of skeptics' dearth of intellectual prowess, I let it through for grins. I remove many, many of these sort of posts a week. It shows what we are up against.
Glen

When I was a boy, we were taught that each generation had responsibilities to assume and duties to perform with regard to the acknowledgement and acceptance of the challenges that are present at that time, so that the next generation can have a chance at a better life. Under no circumstances, would it be correct to pose as willfully blind, hysterically deaf or electively mute in the face of any challenge, as many too many in my not-so-great are doing in these days.

What has happened to the misguided leaders of my generation? So many in the elder generation have determined to let the looming challenges in our time fall into the laps of our children. At least to me, today's leaders show an astonishing unwillingness to examine the prospects of a good life for those who directly follow us, let alone coming generations.

After my single, not-so-great generation finishes the `missions' (ie, fools' errands) the leading, self-proclaimed "masters of the universe" among us have set before the human community, what resources will be left for our children to consume; how many more people will have to share what remains of the dissipated and degraded resources; where will they find clean air to breathe, clean water to drink? I shudder when thinking about what our children might say about what we have done so poorly and failed to do so spectacularly, all for sake of selfishly fulfilling our insatiable desires for endless material possessions and freedom without responsibility.......come what may for the children, coming generations, global biodiversity, the environment and Earth's body.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001

That "Oregon Petition" has been around for a few years now. The list of signers has been available in the public domain for at least the last four years.

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) Petition Project
List of Signers
http://www.oism.org/pproject/

Out of curiosity, I started with "Signers A" in the left-hand links column on this page. I conducted a search on the PhD's only. If I couldn't locate information on Page One of the search results I moved on to the next PhD as my time for this sort of project is pretty limited.

Here are the results on the first 13 PhD's for which information was available:

Roger L. Aamodt, PhD
National Cancer Institute

Hamed K. Abbas, PhD
USDA ARS CG&PRU
141 Exp Station Rd - PO Box 350
County Roads 265 and 272
Stoneville, MS 38776-0350
Phone: (662) 686-5313
FAX: (662) 686-5218
Email: hamed.abbas@ars.usda.gov
Term: 08/02/2007 - 07/30/2008

Ursula K. Abbott, PhD
Professor Emerita, Animal Science
UC Davis, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Refaat A. Abdel-Malek, PhD
Currently, Dr. Refaat A. Abdel-Malek is Vice Chairman and a member of the Board of Directors of MWH Global, Inc. Prior to the merger of Harza Engineering Company and Montgomery Watson, Inc., Dr. Abdel-Malek was President and Chief Executive Officer of Harza Engineering Company, an international engineering and environmental consulting firm.

Riaz F. Abdulla, PhD
Director of Research Acquisition
Eli Lilly and Company
Indiana

Philip H. Abelson, PhD
(April 27, 1913 – August 1, 2004)
American physicist, editor of scientific literature, and science writer.

Ahmed Aburahmah, PhD
Senior Traffic Engineer, City of San Diego
E-mail: aaburahmah@sandiego.gov

Daniel T. Achord, PhD
Ortho Diagnostic Systems, Inc., Raritan, NJ

Ava V. Ackerman, DVM
Belmont Pet Hospital
Belmont, California

Robert K. Adair, PhD
Sterling Professor of Physics, Emeritus
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Brian D. Adam, PhD
Professor, Oklahoma State University
Department of Agricultural Economics

Philip Adams, PhD
Massey College
Bachelor of Veterinary Science 1979
Philip Adams BVSc ’79 has been self-employed in a private, small animal practice in Christchurch for 22 years

Gail D. Adams, PhD
University of Oklahoma
Emeritus Professor, Medical Radiologic Physics Graduate Program

Anyone care to do a similar search on another 5 or so names on the list?

I thought I would keep going until I found someone whose credentials reflected completion of even a Bachelors degree in climatology or one of the atmospheric or marine or earth sciences. I gave up after an hour's search process.

How could one generation go so wrong? Here are some of the ways.

First, the leaders in my generation of elders wish to live without having to accept limits to growth of seemingly endless economic globalization, of increasing per capita consumption and skyrocketing human population numbers; our desires are evidently insatiable. We choose to believe anything that is politically convenient, economically expedient and socially agreeable; our way of life is not negotiable. We dare anyone to question our values or behaviors.

We religiously promote our widely shared and consensually-validated fantasies of `real' endless economic growth and soon to be unsustainable overconsumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities, and in so doing deny that Earth has limited resources and frangible ecosystems upon which the survival of life as we know it depends.

Second, my not-so-great generation appears to be doing a disservice to everything and everyone but ourselves. We are the "what's in it for me?" generation. We demonstrate precious little regard for the maintenance of the integrity of Earth; shallow willingness to actually protect the environment from crippling degradation; lack of serious consideration for the preservation of biodiversity, wilderness, and a good enough future for our children and coming generations; and no appreciation of the vital understanding that humans are no more or less than magnificent living beings with "feet of clay."

Perhaps we live in unsustainable ways in our planetary home; but we are proud of it nonetheless. Certainly, we will "have our cake and eat it, too." We will own fleets of cars, fly around in thousands of private jets, live in McMansions, exchange secret handshakes, frequent exclusive clubs and distant hideouts, and risk nothing of value to us. We will live long, large and free. Please do not bother us with the problems of the world. We choose not to hear, see or speak of them. We are the economic powerbrokers, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and the many minions in the mass media. We hold the much of the world's wealth and the extraordinary power great wealth purchases. If left to our own devices, we will continue in the exercise of our `inalienable rights' to outrageously consume Earth's limited resources; to recklessly expand economic globalization unto every corner of our natural world and, guess what, beyond; and to carelessly consent to the unbridled global growth of human numbers so that where there are now 6+ billion people, by 2050 we will have 9+ billion members of the human community and, guess what, even more people, perhaps billions more in the distant future, if that is what we desire.

We are the reigning, self-proclaimed masters of the universe. We enjoy freedom and living without limits; of course, we adamantly eschew any talk of the personal responsibilities that come with the exercise of personal freedoms or any discussion of the existence of biophysical limitations of any kind.

We deny the existence of human limits and Earth's limitations.

Please understand that we do not want anyone presenting us with scientific evidence that we could be living unsustainably in an artificially designed, temporary world of our own making....a manmade world filling up with gigantic enterprises, virtual mountains of material possessions, and boundless amounts of filthy lucre.

Third, most of our top rank experts appear not to have found adequate ways of communicating to the family of humanity what people somehow need to hear, see and understand: the rapacious dissipation of Earth's limited resources, the relentless degradation of the planet's environment, and the approaching destruction of the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by the human species, when taken together, appear to be proceeding at breakneck speed toward the precipitation of a catastrophic ecological wreckage of some sort unless, of course, the world's colossal, ever expanding, artificially designed, manmade global political economy continues to speed headlong toward the monolithic `wall' called "unsustainability" at which point the runaway economy crashes before Earth's ecology is collapsed.

Who knows, perhaps we can realistically and hopefully hold onto the expectation that behavioral changes in the direction of sustainable production, per human consumption, and propagation are in the offing.....changes that save both the economy and the Creation.

Thanks, Zephyr......

The so-called "Oregon Petition" originated from a father-son duo with no particular background in climate science who lived in Cave Junction, Oregon, an area inhabited by a motley collection of Christian Fundamentalists, aging ganja growers, and some California retirees.

Anyone could sign, regardless of whether they had academic (or other) credentials. Lots of people did..........especially when it was posted online.........and very few had any relevant experience in the field. Anyone care to sign a petition started by me? I will say whatever I want to.......

If this is representative of the best that the skeptics can muster, why would anyone in the media bother to pay attention to them?

Hello,

As a physicist, I'm concerned that data is frequently cherry picked in
order to support preconceived conclusions. The information about global
warming is one of the most blatant examples. Consider some of the other
things the data is telling us:

1) During prior interglacials, the temperature was as much as 3C warmer
than today, while CO2 levels were much lower.

http://www.palisad.com/co2/temp.jpg

2) Zoom in on the recent past (10K years) and see that the peak temperature
of the current interglacial (1.5C warmer than today) was about 8K years
ago and the peak energy (high temperature for centuries) was about 4500
years ago. Examining the trends of short term mins and maxs indicates
that cooling and not warming is the more likely long term trend.

http://www.palisad.com/co2/recent.jpg

You might also notice that entering and leaving these peaks resulted in
a larger temperature change per unit time than we've seen since, even
when compared to measured, short term year to year changes. This points
out a very common error in much of the analysis, which is the failure to
recognize a difference between changes in 1000 year averages, 100 year
averages and instantaneous year to year changes. For example, the claim
that the temperature is changing faster than ever before and the 'hockey
stick'. If we normalize measured contemporary temperature changes to
changes in a running 100 year average, current changes are dwarfed by
changes that have occurred in the past. You should also notice that the
much higher temperatures of prior interglacials represent averages
integrated over 1000 years or more!

3) Autocorrelation of measured ice core CO2 to itself and temperature to
itself reveals the same periodic forcing influences, which correspond to
known periodicity in the variability of the Earths orbit and axis.

4) Correlation of CO2 changes to temperature changes unambiguously shows
that CO2 changes in response to temperature changes and not the other
way around.

5) The current interglacial has lasted longer than previous ones, although
it has been a little cooler and more stable. This seems to be due to a
confluence of coincidence, where some of the orbital mechanical forcing
effects are rising, while others are falling, where as during prior
interglacials, they happened to be rising at the same time. This seems
to have happened before and is the likely cause for the shift in
glaciation periodicity that occurred about a million years ago. Many
anthropologists believe the relatively stable climate we are lucky enough
to be alive during is the primary factor that's led to the rise of
civilization. This would seem to indicate that relatively stable warmth
is more beneficial than harmful.

6) The atmospheric absorption spectrum indicates that the relevant CO2 band
(15u) is already completely opaque. Higher concentrations widen the band
slightly, but this is quantifiably too small to account for any
appreciable forcing. Doesn't anybody believe on conservation of energy
anymore? Where's all this energy coming from that's supposed to be
causing warming?

http://www.palisad.com/co2/nom.jpg

BTW, the gray line is the calculated energy spectrum of the Earth, as
seen from space and based on remote sensing measurements of surface and
cloud conditions which are then filtered by atmospheric absorption and
is equivalent to the expected 255K. You might also notice the
relatively transparent window centered near the Earth's surface
temperature.

7) The IPCC forcing metric *ASSUMES* that all warming since the start of
the Industrial Revolution has been caused by CO2 increases. This seems
a little presumptuous since the start of the IR roughly coincided with
the end of the little ice age. It's been my experience that using an
assumption to show an alleged 'fact', which then is used to justify the
assumption is a classic approach used to justify junk science.

8) Why is water vapor ignored. This contributes almost 2/3 of surface
warming (CO2 is the other 1/3). Combustion produces twice as many water
vapor molecules than it does CO2 molecules. Burning H2 produces only
water vapor. Of course, I understand that regulating evaporation makes
about as much sense as regulating breathing.

9) Why is biology ignored. Life likes warmth, so as it warms and the total
biomass increases, more biomass is decomposing, producing proportional
amounts of CO2 and CH4. This also seems to provide the necessary time
constant between changes in temperature and the changes in CO2 levels
that follow.

10) Runaway warming is precluded by the physics. Not only does
Conservation of Energy preclude it, the primary positive feedback
influence (the ebb and flow of surface ice) stops once the planet gets
warm enough that no more ice shrinkage is possible. Remember, surface
warmth is a local deviation from equilibrium and the Earth must still
appear to be 255K, as seen from space. Of course, the actual required
temperature depends on the sensitivity of the albedo to changes in
surface ice and cloud coverage.

Regards,

George White

George,

I have tried unsuccessfully to track down the site that you purport to link to. Can you help with some additional information about that, as well as your qualifications? I could not find any references to you online.

In addition, can you show us where (specifically) the IPCC "assumes" that all warming since the advent of the industrial revolution stems from CO2 emissions? I don't recall that at all from my own read of the IPCC reports.

I know that the IPCC doesn't "ignore" water vapor (or biology, whatever you mean by that), so I am a bit confused as to what exactly you are talking about here.

Hi,

My logs show many successful accesses of the jpeg's I posted. There
was some stale DNS data floating around a couple of weeks ago, but that
should all be corrected by now. You can try http://216.100.33.35/co2/xxx
instead. If you're still having trouble, I can email you the jpegs.

My qualifications are degrees from Cornell in EE with extensive physics
and math training, mostly related to quantum mechanics and EM. By trade,
I'm a consultant and work primarily with silicon. I've done more modeling
of more kinds of systems than you can possibly imagine and have a intuitive
grasp of feedback control systems. I charge my clients a lot on an hourly
basis, which permits me to dedicate significant time to look into topics
that interest me like climate modeling and theoretical physics. Since I'm
self funded, I only care about getting the science right and don't give a
crap about political agendas, which seems to dominate the global warming
discussion nowadays. Furthermore, I have no vested financial interest in
the outcome of any of this, one way or another, except for wanting to avoid
the unnecessary tax burden that will result from bad policy regarding
global warming.

Regarding IPCC methodology flaws, of course the IPCC won't disclose
them, but you can back them out of the metrics by starting with the
physics.

Start with Stefan-Boltzmann,

E = o*T^4

where E is a power density, o is Stefan's constant 5.6704E-8 W/m^2*K^4, and
T is the temperature.

To increase the surface temperature from 288.4K to 289K, which is the
approximate change of .6C we've seen since the IPCC 'reference', requires a
net increase in surface energy of,

dE = 5.67E-8*((289^4)-(288.4^4)) = 3.3 watts/m^2

The IPCC metric states,

CO2 Forcing = 5.35*ln(C2/C1)

for C2 = 380 and C1 = 180, the metric produces a net forcing of 1.6
watts/m^2. If you add the other anthropomorphic 'forcing' effects from
Methane (.48), Nitrous Oxide (.15), and CFC's (.2), the total is almost 2.5
watts/m^2 which is more than 75% of the required energy increase.

The model I've developed for climate change is a hierarchical
thermodynamic model, which is seeded with remote sensing data from Nasa.
By hierarchical, I mean it starts with Stefan-Boltzmann and each deeper
level must converge to the level above it. The model requires no empirical
constants and is based only on physics and measured constants.

If we actually perform the calculation of filtering surface energy by
the absorption spectrum of the atmosphere, accounting for which bands are
associated with which gas, the energy captured by 'greenhouse' gasses works
out as follows:

H20 = 80.2732 W/m^2, fraction = 0.264796
CO2 = 40.9158 W/m^2, fraction = 0.134968
O3 = 4.40975 W/m^2, fraction = 0.0145464
CH4 = 1.20272 W/m^2, fraction = 0.00396741

The effect on the surface is 1/2 of the total captured energy, since
the atmosphere itself is a black body radiator, where half of the energy
heating it is directed at the surface and the other half is directed into
space. The total of the retained energy directed back to the surface is
about 63.35 W/m^2. The total net effect of CO2 on the surface energy, based
on the physics, is only 20.5 W/m^2. The only assumption in the model is
that everything is in equilibrium. To the extent that it's not, it will
get there in a period of time dependent on the appropriate time constant.
All of the time constants, except the ebb and flow of surface ice, are
sufficiently short that they will be invisible in the ice core data and
other indirect measurements of historic climate change.

If we double the CO2 concentration from the current 380 ppm to 760 ppm,
there's a slight widening of the 15u absorption band of CO2, which is the
only one that matters for these purposes, although my simulation accounts
for all of the atmospheric absorption from less than 4u to over 100u. With
everything else held constant, the new captured energy profile per gas
becomes:

H20 = 80.5907 W/m^2, fraction = 0.264796
CO2 = 41.9648 W/m^2, fraction = 0.137884
O3 = 4.42719 W/m^2, fraction = 0.0145464
CH4 = 1.20748 W/m^2, fraction = 0.00396741

In this case, the effect of CO2 on the surface is about 21 W/m^2, or an
increase of only .5 W/m^2. The IPCC forcing metric would predict a net
'forcing' of 7.7 W/m^2, which is about 15 larger than what atmospheric
absorption (i.e. the physics) predicts. The energy retained by the other
gasses increases slightly because of the slightly increased surface
temperature. In fact, the delta T on the surface from doubling CO2 is only
about 0.3C. It's also important to recognize that any effect of changes in
CO2 concentrations acts almost immediately on surface temperatures.

The first flaw in the IPCC's method is characterizing the effects of
'greenhouse' gasses as 'forcing'. None of the effects has a forcing
influence as none actually influences the incident energy, which is *ONLY*
a function of solar irradiance, the average position of the Earth relative
to the Sun and the Earth's albedo. The effect of 'greenhouse' gasses is to
temporarily retain energy near the surface not to add energy into the
system. It's also a significant misrepresentation to characterize these as
'greenhouse' gasses, as that implies a model that doesn't apply, except as
a very rough analogy. The fundamental difference is that a greenhouse
works as a broad band reflector of IR energy, while 'greenhouse' gasses are
narrow band absorbers of IR energy. Even many scientists get confused
about the significance of these important distinctions.

Next, lets characterize the effect of decreased surface ice. Ice has
an albedo of about .7, while tundra has an albedo of about .2. If only 1%
of the Earth's surface changes from ice to tundra, the effect on the global
albedo (excluding cloud coverage changes) would be about (.01*(.7-.2)) or
.005, which translates into a 0.5% change in incident energy since
Esurface=(1-a)*Esun, where a is the albedo. Given the current solar
irradiance of 1370 W/m^2 and estimated albedo of 0.3, a decrease in the
albedo of .005 reflects an increase in the incident surface energy of about
6.8 W/m^2. This increase can actually be considered forcing.

for a=0.3, 959 = (1-.3)*1370
for a=0.295 965.8 = (1-.295)*1370

Dividing by 4 to account for the ratio between the surface area and
area over which incident energy arrives results in a net forcing of about
1.7 watts/m^2 from just a 1% change in surface ice coverage. This is
clearly a far more powerful effect than anything that can be attributed to
mans contributions to the atmosphere when you consider that the surface ice
coverage varies over a very wide range between ice ages and interglacials.

The way the IPCC metrics were derived was by backing out what energy
change was required to affect the observed temperature change and adjusting
the metrics to fit. It's a completely empirical metric based on many
assumptions, primarily the false assumption that greenhouse gas
concentrations drive the climate.

This illustrates the second flaw, which is that the effects of the
natural ebb and flow of surface ice, which by the above example is a far
stronger effect and independent of greenhouse gas concentrations, is lumped
in to the IPCC metrics. Surface ice started retreating at the end of the
little ice age, before man started putting any significant amounts of CO2
into the atmosphere. In other words, that switch was already flipped and
will naturally reverse itself and start reinforcing cooling, once
conditions preclude any further net retreat. In the limit, once the ice is
gone, the positive feedback effect goes away and it will start to cool.
While anthropomorphic CO2 will slightly alter the condition that must be
met to flip it, the effect is at least an order of magnitude too small to
prevent the flip at all, and in no way, shape or form is there any
possibility of thermal runaway. We are now close to the historic ice
minimum, so the flip isn't that far away. If you want to see global
warming reverse, all you need to do is wait. At worst, the CO2 man has put
into the atmosphere might accelerate the onset of the next cooling phase by
a few years and increase the minimum temperature by a few tenths of a
degree. It's really too bad that greenhouse gasses don't work the way the
alarmists want us to believe, otherwise, we might have a chance at
mitigating the next ice age.

We can also characterize the ebb and flow of surface ice as the
relative difference between summer and winter. If there's more summer than
winter, ice retreats and if there's more winter than summer, ice advances.
Once ice starts to advance or retreat, there's sufficient hysteresis, owing
to the positive feedback, to require a proportionally larger summer/winter
difference to flip it's direction again. You should also recognize that
the variability in the Earth's orbit and axis produces small net changes in
the difference between summer and winter, which through the advance and
retreat of surface ice will tend to accumulate. This is what we see in
the ice core data.

The third flaw is that there's a pervasive assumption that climate
change is unexpected or that recent changes are larger than normal. The
data clearly indicates that if the surface temperature isn't increasing,
it's decreasing. Similarly, if surface ice isn't advancing, it's
retreating. In fact, the 'steady state' in the climate feedback system is
oscillation around a nominal center. Not only is change expected, it's
required for the system to work. It's similar to the roll back and forth
when an airplane is on cruise control. Digital control has made this much
smaller, but back in the analog days, there was nothing you could do to get
rid of it and if you tried too hard, it tended to make the system less
stable.

An objective analysis of the data where averages integrated over the
same intervals are compared to each other reveals only that the recent
changes in 100-1000 year averages are much smaller than the largest changes
recorded in the ice core data!

If you close the feedback loop, it becomes clear that the positive
feedback effect from the ebb and flow of surface ice maintains the sweet
spot, by keeping it centered between the requirements for freezing and
evaporating water in the presence of arbitrary forcing influences. What
seems to change as the distance from the Sun to Earth changes, is the
relative proportions of time spent during cooler periods and time spent
during warmer periods. The min and max extremes don't seem to change very
much, although the min seems to be more variable than the max.

In addition, the strong negative feedback effects from weather (higher
temp -> more evaporation -> more rain/clouds -> more cooling) acts almost
immediately and is the primary mechanism by which the Earth adjusts itself
in order to maintain the required energy balance and thus temperature
(~255K) as seen from space. It does this through 2 distinct mechanisms,
modifying the cloud coverage, and modifying the cloud top temperatures.
While you also need to account for adding and removing heat from the
thermal mass of the Earth, this time constant is still relatively short
compared to ice core sample periods and on the order of weeks to months,
not centuries. It certainly needs to be fast enough for seasonal changes
to occur.

George

This was stated at the top, "Let's get on with devising and implementing sufficient solutions to save being." Why should America make any changes that will have little effect. If your Environmental Religion is telling you that humans are the problem, then why shouldn't those humans causing the most problem be forced to make the changes? Those humans who are causing the most problem are not Americans. They are Chinese, Russian, and Indian. Is your postion that we will lead by example, and the Chinese, Russians, and Indians will force changes upon thier own cultures because they are so impressed by our Environmentalism. Will this happend before or after they laugh themselves to death over the distruction of the United States Economic System?

Ewoc,

My reply never showed up. I guess the truth that climate change is natural, expected and in fact required didn't get past the censors. Send email to co2forcingfraud@palisad.com and I will forward my reply.

George

George,

To my knowledge the manager of this site does not engage in censorship.

By the way, I found the very same post (i.e. verbatim) that you offered here on a well-known climate skeptic website.

You state that you have no political agenda, other than avoiding any tax impacts of climate policies you disagree with, which would apparently describe any cap and trade system, carbon tax, or in fact any other policies based on the assumption that carbon emissions are actually a problem for our species, since you maintain that there is little or no relationship between GHG emissions and climate. However, it's difficult to imagine how that is not actually a political agenda. Maybe I am just being ignorant, given you background and extensive experience in the field.