"Global warming" scare-mongering revisited.

In the last issue of National Observer, I wrote on "global warming" scare-mongering. (1) At several points, I had to employ phrases such as "at the time of writing" because events were changing fast. (2) There have since been several important developments, both internationally and within Australia, on the matter.

This sequel to that article stems from the view that there are few more important topics in Australia today. Wrong national decisions, resulting from populist and ill-informed pressures, could wreak serious damage on our economy and future living standards of our descendants.

In what follows, I first give a brief retrospect, sketching the lead-up to my preceding article. Next, I examine the Stern Report (3) in more detail. The processes of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (4) in publishing (in part!) its Fourth Assessment Report are then considered. Finally, I note some related political developments, before concluding with some general observations.

RETROSPECT

In 1992, the so-called Rio Earth Summit resulted in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Subsequent meetings of the contracting parties to that convention, including Australia, led to the 1997 negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol, whereby those developed nations ratifying it agreed to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, and carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) in particular. In 2005 this treaty, signed by Australia but not ratified either by it or, more importantly, by the United States, came into force when finally ratified by Russia.

Meanwhile, in 1990, 1995 and 2001 the IPCC had issued its First, Second and Third Assessment Reports. These advanced its thesis that global temperatures were rising steadily, and that this was due principally to anthropogenic (i.e., man-made) causes--notably the growing use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). These Assessment Reports claimed, increasingly shrilly, that the rising concentration of atmospheric C[O.sub.2] was directly responsible for rising global temperatures. Using highly complex computer models of the atmospheric and other processes involved, projections (which however were increasingly treated as predictions) were also made of the likely future consequences if effective action were not taken to rein in the growth of, and stabilise, the atmospheric concentration of C[O.sub.2].

These likely consequences ranged widely. They included melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps (which between them contain about 95 per cent of the world's frozen water); melting of the (floating) Arctic sea-ice; "shutting down" of the Gulf Stream; growing frequency of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and floods; disruption of world food supplies; spread of "tropical" (sic.) diseases such as malaria; rising sea-levels as the ice caps melt, with inundation of low-lying areas; displacement of people living in such areas; destruction of animal habitat (those cuddly-looking polar bears again!); and so on.

Because projections of future C[O.sub.2] emissions depend, inter alia, on projections of world economic growth, the IPCC Assessment Reports involved not only the work of climatologists to underpin the basic "science", but also of economists to undertake those economic growth projections. (5)

For many years, some prominent economists, such as Professor William Nordhaus, (6) have extensively researched the potential costs and benefits that might arise from a world warming in line with IPCC projections/predictions. In doing so they have accepted, at least for purposes of their calculations, the underlying "science".

In July 2005, the (UK) House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs issued an impressive report on these topics. (7) It too largely accepted the IPCC-determined "science". However, its conclusions about the risk-assessment processes involved, particularly the relative costs of abatement versus mitigation measures, were significantly at odds with the rising tide of IPCC-inspired opinion. It expressed concern "that UK energy and climate policy appears to rest on a very debatable model of the energy-economic systems and on dubious assumptions about the costs of meeting the long-run target of 60 per cent reduction in C[O.sub.2] emissions". It called on the government "to improve substantially (a) the cost estimates being conveyed to the public and (b) the manner of their presentation". It urged, further, "that explicit comparisons be made between the monetary cost of adaptation measures and their benefits", benefits", and considered that "the Treasury should become directly involved itself, making its own economic assessment of the issue".

Without acknowledging that call, the UK government, in July 2005, did institute what looked like such an assessment under the direction of Sir Nicholas Stern. (8) His report was formally submitted on 30 October 2006. However, in keeping with the Blair Government's modus operandi, its conclusions had been widely disseminated to appropriately compliant journalists before publication. (9) To say that those conclusions were alarming would be a huge understatement. Yet, as I hope to show, this is an essentially fraudulent document.

Nevertheless, the Stern Report provided both a dramatic and timely stage setting for the release in February, 2007 of the IPCC's next instalment. So let us now examine what it said.

THE STERN REPORT

The four key elements of the Report were:

* Its wholehearted acceptance of the IPCC's "science" on global warming.

* Its apocalyptic predictions as to the consequences for the human race if effective action were not taken to halt the otherwise "inevitable" soaring temperatures resulting from economic-growth-related C[O.sub.2] emissions.

* Its striking assertion that, without preventive action, the economic costs "will be equivalent to losing at least 5 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) each year, now and forever" (with the effects falling disproportionately more heavily on the world's poor).

* Its comforting (sic.) assertion that these predicted dangers could however be averted by measures that would "only" reduce world growth by about one per cent per annum.

As to the "science", there is no trace of skepticism in the Report. In one sense, that was reasonable for a report by economists, who simply accepted the IPCC thesis as their starting point. Even so, it was strange then that the UK government chose to undertake the inquiry, and Stern to rush it through to publication, while the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) was still in train. As noted below, the conclusions of 4AR--to the extent that they have so far been revealed--differ appreciably from their 3AR predecessor. Stern was thus basing his report on "science" that the IPCC itself was changing even as he wrote. And that leaves aside other recent scientific developments which, to any intelligent layman, appear worth considering but which the IPCC itself has also chosen to ignore.

It might not be going too far to say that the Stern Report has produced a fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. To Pestilence, War, Famine and Death it has added Carbon Dioxide Emissions. If not checked, Stern says, they will produce economic and social disruption "on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century".

These assertions derive from the Report's calculations that, without preventive action, (10) the world will suffer huge economic damage. This will stem from rising sea-levels, increasingly frequent extreme weather events, and so on. Totting them all up, Stern suggests that if such "a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimate of damage could rise to 20 per cent of GDP or more" within about two centuries from now.

Having posed this dire threat, Stern then holds out the hope that, if we sinners can only agree to mend our ways, salvation can after all be had at what he sees as a modest cost. If we are willing to sacrifice (although he does not use that word) about one percentage point per annum from the growth rate of global GDP, (11) all will be well. Emissions of C[O.sub.2] will be reduced, the growth of C[O.sub.2] concentrations in the atmosphere will taper off, and Planet Earth, along with those who dwell on it, will be saved.

There's just one problem: the quality of Sir Nicholas's Report itself, on which this Doomsday scenario is based.

In my earlier article I noted that, even then, the Report had already "been subjected to utter ridicule--criticism of the most damaging, authoritative and immediate kind, such as I cannot ever recall of any document of such allegedly high level provenance". For example:

* On 1 November 2006, Nigel Lawson (12) attacked the Report's economics in trenchant terms as "scare-mongering". The Report, he said, "adds disappointingly little ... apart from a battery of essentially spurious statistics based on theoretical models and conjectural worst cases". It "is clearly no basis for policy decisions which would have the most profound adverse effect on people's lives, and at a cost which Stern almost certainly underestimates".

* On 2 November, world-renowned Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg focused on "Mr Stern's core argument that the price of inaction would be extraordinary and the cost of action modest". (13) Lomborg's review, all the more damaging because it does not challenge either the underlying "science" or the claim that global warming/climate change is anthropogenically induced, describes the Report as seeming "hastily put together, with many sloppy errors". Its argument is "selective" and "its conclusion flawed". Stern, he says, is guilty of "cherry-picking statistics to fit an argument". Whereas "the most well-recognized climate economist in the world", Professor William Nordhaus, estimates that "3 per cent will be wiped off global GDP if nothing is done", Stern, by not one but a whole series of statistical fudges, purports to derive a damage assessment of 20 per cent of GDP. There is more, but you get the picture.

* On 3 November, Max Wilkinson, a former natural resources editor and chief leader writer of The Financial Times, excoriated the Report even more harshly. (14) First, and of crucial importance, nowhere does Stern "reveal what discount rate he assumes to estimate the present value of future disasters". (15) Anyone with the slightest knowledge of cost-benefit analysis knows that the discount rate is central to such analysis. So by any professional economists' standards, Stern's omission is extraordinary. It becomes all the more so when examination of the Report's calculations reveals that "the actual figure used by Sir Nicholas seems to have been between 2 and 3 per cent". This ridiculously low rate is "less than half the rate that the [British] Treasury now uses for assessing large capital projects, and much lower than the private sector would expect". Obviously, a discount rate "more in line with commercial realities ... would make the costs of global warming in 100 years' time appear small or even negligible in present day terms". Moreover, Sir Nicholas cannot have it both ways (despite, I should add, apparently trying hard to do so). If he is to assume a very low discount rate for computing the present value of his distant future damage bill, he cannot (legitimately) use a different discount rate when calculating the costs of his present proposed mitigation and abatement measures. In short, "a new economic framework based on a vision of Armageddon" is unlikely to make any sense.

* Even Martin Wolf, who clearly regards "Nick" as a personal friend, offered only half-hearted support. (16) He too did not question the underlying "science", nor (very surprisingly for such a normally distinguished economic journalist) did he even mention the extraordinary matter of the discount rate. Yet the best he could say of Stern's proposals was that, while "in principle" they would be feasible, "in practice" they are not. "The difficulties to be overcome in creating an effective global regime [including all the big developing countries such as China, India and Brazil] that constrains greenhouse gas emissions over a century are gigantic ...".

What is striking about these (and other such) (17) criticisms is that they appeared so quickly. In other words, the Stern Report is so transparently in error (some would say "rigged") that it took no time at all for the gaping analytical holes in it to be exposed by competent economic journalists.

Still, you might say, these are but journalists: what about the professional economists themselves? Again, there has been no lack of criticism from that quarter, including from Professor William Nordhaus, referred to earlier. On 17 November 2006, he posted a major assessment of the Stern Report. (18) It represents, he said, "a radical revision of global warming economics". However, it "should be viewed as a political document", whose "radical revision arises because of an extreme assumption about discounting". Noting that discounting for these purposes "involves a concept called the pure rate of social time preference" (referred to by economists as "the social discount rate"), (19) Nordhaus points out that the Report "proposes using a social discount rate that is essentially zero" (to be precise, 0.1 per cent per annum). By contrast, his own DICE model assumes a social discount rate "starting at 3 per cent per year and declining slowly to about 1 per cent in 300 years".

Such key differences aside, Nordhaus shows that Stern's own modelling leads to conclusions that he rightly describes as "bizarre". For example, it implies (though it does not state) that if Stern's recommendations were accepted, "global consumption would be reduced by about 14 per cent, requiring a reduction of US$6 trillion per year in current consumption". Where, he not unreasonably asks, would the consumption cuts come from? Moreover, the Report is implicitly advocating (although again, it does not say so) "reducing current consumption to prevent the decline in consumption of future generations that it projects to be much richer than today". As Nordhaus dryly observes, "while this might be worth contemplating, it hardly seems ethically compelling".

Finally, "a most unattractive feature" of the Report, in Nordhaus's view, is that "it puts present decisions on a hair-trigger in response to far-future contingencies". Consider, he says, the military analogy. "Countries might start wars today because of the possibility of nuclear proliferation ahead.... It is not clear how long the globe could survive the calculations and machinations of zero-discount-rate military powers". President Truman, he recalls, complaining that his economists were given to saying "on the one hand, but on the other hand", once famously said that "he wanted a one-handed economist". In that sense, "the Stern Report is a Prime Minister's dream come true".

After that demolition job from such a highly respected quarter, one might have thought that not much more needed to be said. Nevertheless, the most definitive professional critique of the Report was published early this year in a major article in World Economics. (20) Despite its formally polite language, it is utterly damning. First, the economist authors note and agree with the main conclusions "reached by our scientific colleagues" in Part I of the article (see footnote 19 below). "Like them, we would emphasise" that the Report "greatly underestimates the extent of uncertainty as to possible developments", and that "its treatment of sources and evidence is persistently selective and biased". These twin features have combined to make it "a vehicle for speculative alarmism".

Warming to their work, the economists note that, "among other weak-nesses", the Report "systematically overstates projected costs of climate change, partly ... [through] its failure to acknowledge the scope for long-term adaptation to possible global warming". It also "underestimates the likely cost--including to the world's poor--of the drastic global mitigation programme that it calls for". To sum up, "so far from being an authoritative guide to the economics of climate change", the Report "is deeply flawed. It does not provide a basis for informed and responsible policies".

Be that as it may, what the Stern Report did provide was a dramatically alarmist made-to-measure backdrop for the unveiling of the IPCC's next instalment.

IPCC DEVELOPMENTS

Before describing the recent IPCC publication processes it is necessary to outline that body's framework. According to its website, (21) the IPCC "has three Working Groups and a Task Force". Leaving the latter aside, the Working Groups are, respectively:

* "Working Group I assesses the scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change".

* "Working Group II assesses the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change, negative and positive consequences of climate change, and options for adapting to it".

* "Working Group III assesses options for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and otherwise mitigating climate change".

The much-publicised document produced by the IPCC last February was treated by most of the media as being its long awaited Fourth Assessment Report. In fact, it was nothing of the kind. Indeed, it was not even the report of one of the three Working Groups, let alone all three of them. Rather, it consisted of a 21-page Summary for Policymakers entitled Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. This document, which purported to be an "executive summary" of the then still draft report of Working Group I (WGI), was formally approved by governmental representatives meeting in Paris and issued on 2 February. WGI's final report will not be issued until after this article is completed, by which time its conclusions will, apparently, have been brought into line with the already published Summary for Policymakers.

Again, while WGII's report, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, has not yet been finalised, a much less highly publicised Summary for Policymakers has already been issued in its case also on 6 April following a meeting of governmental representatives in Brussels.

WGIII's still draft report, Mitigation of Climate Change, will be considered at a meeting in Bangkok on 30 April-3 May. We are told that all three Working Group reports will then be issued.

Even that, however, will not be the end of the matter. The 4AR Synthesis Report, which "integrates the information [in the Working Group reports] around six topic areas", will be reviewed at a seven-week-long meeting of "governments and experts" beginning on 21 May. It is then scheduled for "adoption and approval" at the 27th Session of the IPCC in Valencia, Spain, on 12-16 November 2007.

So there you have it. If you ask members of the lay public, or almost any of our politicians or journalists, whether the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report has yet been published, you will almost certainly be told by everyone that indeed it has, on 2 February last, and that (of course!) it confirmed that the outlook for the world was even more serious than had been thought. Taken in conjunction with the ostensibly alarming imperatives of the Stern Report, the requirements for policy action are now clear. The scientific debate is now "over". (22)

Since the Stern Report has been convincingly shown to be intellectually fraudulent; since none of the IPCC Working Groups (at the time of writing) has yet issued its report; since the 4AR Synthesis Report will not be available until mid-November; and since, meanwhile, a vigorous debate about the science is still proceeding (see below), that conclusion could hardly be further from the truth.

Nevertheless, with all its deficiencies, it is still worth noting some interesting aspects of that 2 February Summary for Policymakers. For example: (23)

* Equilibrium global average warming if C[O.sub.2] is stabilised at 550 ppmv is very likely to be between 1.5[degrees]C and 4.5[degrees]C, and likely to be at least 2[degrees]C above 1750 values. (My italics) These figures, which all incorporate the warming that has already occurred between 1750 and today, are lower than their equivalent 3AR predecessors published in 2001, although for technical reasons direct comparisons are difficult.

* By contrast with 3AR, the IPCC is no longer claiming significant melting of the Antarctic or Greenland ice caps.

* Largely as a consequence, the projected range of sea-level rise over the period to 2100 is now only 18-38 cm. This compares with a range of 9-88 cm projected/predicted in 3AR.

* Essentially, the tendency of the Global Circulation Models to "over-predict" increases in temperatures and sea levels, with those projections not being borne out by subsequent observations, has produced what seems to be a significant re-think within WGI since 3AR.

THE GLOBAL CIRCULATION MODELS (GCM)

At this point, a short comment on those GCMs may be appropriate. Since I first started looking into these matters in 1990 (visiting the then Atmospheric Research Division of the CSIRO to do so), the size, complexity and above all computing power of these models has increased considerably. Moreover, whereas the earlier GCMs purported to model relatively few variables, such as C[O.sub.2] concentrations and temperatures at the Earth's surface, their successors have become more complex. Ironically, in some respects these added sophistications have resulted from the modeller's own need to "explain" why their earlier model projections failed, time and again, to be verified by later observations. To take but one example, the IPCC now "explains" why there was no warming between 1940 and 1975 (indeed, there was a cooling) by pointing to the cooling effect of the sulphates emitted during those years from power station chimneys--a phenomenon first noted, incidentally, by Professor Lindzen. So current GCMs now incorporate a "sulphates emissions" variable.

This is one example of a more general feature of the GCMs. Again and again, they are having to be "tuned" to make their projected versions of climatic change consistent with actual observations. Most recently, the models have been confounded by the fact that, since 1998 (an El Nino "high") there has been no further increase in global temperature. The modellers' response is not to concede that their models are regularly producing inaccurate forecasts of the future, but simply to incorporate an "El Nino" variable in their models.

All this illustrates George Orwell's famous remark that "one has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool". (24) Climatologists' computer models for predicting our weekly weather patterns regularly fail to do so, despite their much enhanced size, complexity and power. Yet these people continue to press their intellectually arrogant claim that they can provide useful results from models purporting to project the weather decades, or even hundreds of years, into the future. (25) It is one thing to play around with such fascinating toys (at taxpayers' expense) and write learned papers about the results for audiences of your fellow academics. It is altogether another thing to pretend that your GCMs provide a genuinely realistic picture of future climate. And it is surely unforgivable to argue that we should set about destroying our economic welfare, now and in the future, to accord with your charlatanism.

THE SCIENCE

All of this would be bad enough if the "science" involved in climate projection/prediction were being conducted on a genuinely scientific basis. In fact, it is not. The climatologists principally involved in the IPCC seem determined to ignore all scientific research but their own, unless (as in the case of Professor Lindzen's work on sulphates) they subsequently find it convenient to incorporate such work as a kind of computer "patch" to "tune" their own earlier faulty models.

There is no space to go into this aspect thoroughly. However, the more one reads the contributions to the scientific debate, the more I, at any rate, become convinced that the IPCC climatological framework is seriously deficient. Among others, two deficiencies in particular are evident: its attempted denial of the historical geological evidence, and its virtual ignoring of the work of the astrophysicists.

In the latter area, one recent development must be mentioned. Remarkable recent work by a group of Danish scientists (26) has shown experimentally that, when cosmic radiation from outer space enters the Earth's atmosphere, the electrons then released can produce cloud condensation nuclei in the lower troposphere that then come together to form low-level clouds. Such clouds are very important in cooling us. (The IPCC climatologists themselves acknowledge--nowadays, though not originally--the importance of clouds, and have sought to incorporate a "clouds" variable into their GCMs; but even they, so far as I know, don't claim to have done so in any convincing manner).

Why is this important? Because it seems to provide experimental evidence for a phenomenon long known to astronomers, namely that sunspot cycles, which have been observed and recorded for many centuries, appear to be closely correlated with our weather. (27)

Solar radiation is of course being emitted constantly from our Sun's surface, but sunspots involve a stepping-up of such radiation. Coming within the path of that radiation, the Earth's electro-magnetic field (or "shield") is affected. In layman's terms, a strengthened Earth electro-magnetic "shield" can be seen as deterring more of the cosmic radiation from coming in from outer space. (28) So if those Danish astrophysicists are right (and my gut feeling is that probably they are), then the relative intensity of sunspots will affect the relative extent of cloud formation on Earth. In broad terms, the Earth will get warmer if less cosmic radiation is getting through its electro-magnetic "shield" to form those cloud condensation nuclei which go to form clouds; and it will get cooler if the opposite is the case.

Of course, no real scientist would claim that the work of Dr Svensmark and his colleagues constitutes the definitive answer to our climatic puzzles--still less that, even if it does, it will allow us to make realistic projections of our climate for centuries into the future. Its importance lies in the fact that, whereas the anthropogenic warming thesis is becoming less and less convincing as the years go by, the Svensmark thesis looks highly plausible. And, mirabile dictu, the level of C[O.sub.2] emissions plays no role in it whatsoever.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

During recent months, political developments on these climate change issues, both internationally and within Australia, have come thick and fast. Internationally, for example:

* The UK Government has announced two "targets" for reducing Britain's C[O.sub.2] emissions--a reduction, from levels in the year 2000, of 20 per cent by 2020 (or 30 per cent if the rest of the world joins in), and of 60 per cent by 2050.

* The European Union, while not committing itself in the nearer-term, has also announced a 60 per cent reduction target by 2050.

In Australia, pressures have been mounting for us to take similar leave of our senses. Thus:

* The Labor Party has announced that, if elected federally later this year, it will commit to a programme to reduce C[O.sub.2] emissions by 60 per cent, from their 2000 levels, by 2050.

* The Greens have gone further, advocating a reduction of 80 per cent by 2050. Predictably, this is supported by a gaggle of environmental activist groups, such as the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society.

* The Coalition Government, while not (at the time of writing) committing to any target, has said that it accepts that the threat from climate change is real, and that it will shortly announce measures to address it. Some of those measures may be contained in the 2007-08 Budget on 8 May. Others may follow the government's receipt, by 31 May, of the Report of its Task Group on Emissions Trading.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

The overwhelming impression from all this frenzied chatter is its sheer mindlessness. The Labor Party, for example, while committing itself to the above-mentioned "target" (by a date when all those responsible will have long departed the political scene), has admitted that it has done no modelling of the economic consequences. It has just announced that a Labor-affiliated economist, Professor Ross Garnaut, will undertake such modelling, but his conclusions will not be available until next year. Both Labor and the Greens, when (occasionally) challenged about such recklessness, invariably respond by citing the Stern Report's claim that the economic consequences of inaction will be many times greater than the cost of action. Yet as we have seen, that claim is without foundation.

Thankfully, the Federal Government still seems to retain some degree of sanity in the matter--more specifically, the Prime Minister personally does so. He has said very plainly that his government will not take action that will cost Australian jobs, such as closing down coal-mining, as the Greens--not to mention Labor's environmental spokesman, Peter Garrett--wish to do.

Crucially, neither Labor's nor the Greens' commitments seem to pay any regard to the utter recklessness of such action on Australia's part unless it is accompanied by similar action by the world's major C[O.sub.2] emitters--not merely the Europeans, but the USA, China, India, Brazil and so on. Since the Greens' policies have always been directed to sending us back to commune with nature in the caves in which we would then be reduced to living, that is not surprising. But the Labor Party is still a real political party. For such a party to set out to chase Green preferences by behaving in this manner seems totally irresponsible.

Yet there, at the time of writing, the matter rests.

1. John Stone, "Global warming scare-mongering", National Observer, no. 71, Summer 2006/07, pp. 29-41.

2. Although the article did not appear until somewhat later, due to production time-lags, it was actually filed on 5 February 2007.

3. The Economics of Climate Change, Report to Her Majesty's Government by Sir Nicholas Stern, October 2006.

4. The IPCC was established in 1988 as a joint initiative of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme.

5. At a further remove, economists are also called on to assess the likely economic costs of abatement measures (i.e., action to reduce C[O.sub.2] emissions); the economic costs projected to arise in the absence of such measures (e.g., from all those extra hurricanes and floods); or the likely economic costs of mitigation measures (e.g., building sea-walls or dykes to restrain or hold out those rising sea-levels).

6. Professor Nordhaus is the Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University and a former member (1977 to 1979) of President Carter's Council of Economic Advisers (in which capacity I met him on several occasions during visits to Washington). His DICE model, or Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy, available on his website, is "an integrated assessment model of the economics of global warming".

7. The Economics of Climate Change, Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs, July 2005.

8. After serving (2000-2003) as Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank, in 2003 Sir Nicholas Stern became Head of the Government Economic Service within the British Treasury.

9. To the extent, indeed, that the printed Report actually contained quotes from assorted journalists in praise of it (like those quotes from book reviewers that typically adorn the rear of dust jackets when a book goes to a second printing).

10. That is, if world economic growth continues on a so-called "business as usual" basis.

11. So that instead of growing at, say, 3 per cent per annum the world grows at 2 per cent. Note however that, since economic growth rates are a product of population growth and growth in real incomes per head, such a one per cent reduction in total growth is in fact a subtraction from growth in real incomes per head (say, from 2 per cent per annum to 1 per cent).

12. Now Lord Lawson, Nigel Lawson was formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer in Mrs Margaret Thatcher's Government. Prior to entering politics he was an outstanding financial and economic journalist with The Financial Times. His critique of the Stern Report, The Economics and Politics of Climate Change: An Appeal to Reason, took the form of a full-scale Lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies, London.

13. The Wall Street Journal, 2 November 2006.

14. Max Wilkinson, "Stern's Report is based on flawed figures", The Financial Times, 3 November 2006.

15. If you are comparing costs of mitigation or abatement measures taken today with the damage predicted to result in (say) 100 years' time if you fail to take such action, you need to use a "discount rate" to take account of the time value of money. For example, if someone promises to give you $100 in 10 years' time if you will give him $100 now, you are unlikely to strike that deal. If however he undertakes to give you $200 in ten years' time (which roughly equates to a 7 per cent compound interest rate), you might well do so.

16. Martin Wolf, "Curbs on emissions will take a change of political climate", The Financial Times, 7 November 2006.

17. For example, see two thoroughly iconoclastic articles by Christopher Monckton (Lord Monckton of Brenchley) in The Sunday Telegraph (London), namely "Climate Chaos? Don't believe it" (5 November 2006); and "Wrong problem, wrong solution" (12 November 2006). At the same time Monckton also issued, under the caption Apocalypse Cancelled, an excellent list of reference papers and articles relating to the "science" of the climate change debate. Monckton, it should be noted, served as Special Adviser to Mrs Thatcher (1982-1986) in the Prime Minister's Policy Unit, 10 Downing Street.

18. URL: http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/SternReviewD2.pdf

19. The social discount rate is "a parameter that measures the importance of the welfare of future generations relative to the present". There is a need to distinguish between the "social discount rate", which measures utility, and the discount rate on goods, or "real interest rate".

20. "The Stern Review: A Dual Critique", World Economics, Vol.7, No.4, October-December 2006. This article fell into two parts--"The Science" (a 32-page assessment by five distinguished scientists, including Professor Richard Lindzen) and "Economic Aspects" (a 31-page analysis by 10 economists, including Ian Castles and Professor David Henderson, whom readers may remember, if for no better reason, from my earlier article).

21. At www.ipcc.ch

22. A revealing insight into that often-heard claim is provided in an August 2006 article "Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better?" by Gil Ereaut and Nat Segnit on the website (www.ippr.org) of the Institute for Public Policy Research, which describes itself as "the UK's leading progressive [read, Leftwing] think tank". In their conclusion, the authors suggest "that, at least for popular communications, interested agencies now need to treat the argument as having been won. This means simply behaving as if climate change exists and is real ...". Indeed, "the 'facts' need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken". (My emphasis). In short, brainwashing in five easy lessons. Incidentally, note their own quotation marks around the word "facts".

23. See, for all this, Christopher Monckton's dissection of that document, Analysis and Summary, February 2007, issued under the auspices of the Center for Science and Public Policy, Washington DC [www.scienceandpolicy.org].

24. George Orwell's essay, "Notes on Nationalism" (1945).

25. See my comments on all this under "Paganism" in my earlier article.

26. Henrik Svensmark, Jens Pedersen, Nigel Marsh and Ulrik Uggerhoj (2006), "Experimental evidence for the role of ions in particle nucleation under atmospheric conditions", published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. A good and not over-technical account of this paper can be found at www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/cosmic_rays_and_climate.html

27. The British astronomer William Herschel suggested a link between sunspots and wheat prices in 1801. Wheat prices in Britain then varied with the yearly harvest, that is, with the weather.

28. More years ago than I now care to remember, my Honours thesis for my Mathematical Physics degree had to do with the mathematics of cosmic-ray showers entering the Earth's atmosphere.