Allister Heath
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Allister Heath The Business Hot Air Cool Heads – 20 September 2004 Pay Heed to the Misery of Micawber, Ms Hewitt – 26 September 2004 The Squalid Politics of Squandered Aid – 16 January 2005 ALLISTER HEATH is Deputy Editor of The Business,a London-based Sunday newspaper. He also writes regularly for The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday and The Spectator, London. Before joining The Business in 2002, he was Editor of The European Journal, a monthly public policy magazine. Allister Heath was born and raised in France. He holds a BSc in economics from the London School of Economics and an MPhil in economics from Oxford University. had anything to do with global warming, Sadly, he refused to examine any of the HOT AIR COOL HEADS a point that even the New York Times scientific or economic evidence.“Climate 20 September 2004 acknowledges. The scientific consensus is change has happened in the past through that there are periods when there are a a variety of natural causes. But I am lot of hurricanes, and others with far persuaded that human activity is a major It should have been a great news story: fewer, and that these cycles are the result factor in the changes we see today,” he July 2004 was the coolest month in four of natural forces. The worst decade for said. and a half years and the coolest July in hurricanes was the 1940s. roughly 12 years, according to a team of Why exactly he didn’t explain. Presumably eminent and well-respected scientists. The truth is that while the earth is in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when the The global temperature was 0.21°C below probably getting a little bit warmer, we earth went through a bout of global the 20-year average, satellite still don’t know whether any of this is cooling, Mr Howard would have been measurements reveal. This follows a June being caused by man-made activity, or “persuaded” by the conventional wisdom temperature about 0.02°C below average; whether it is mostly up to natural of the time (encapsulated by the famous there is plenty of evidence that August fluctuations. And even if the latter is true, Newsweek story of 28 April 1975 entitled was cooler than usual. a hard-headed economic analysis shows “A Cooling World”) that we were due for a that we would be better off doing devastating new ice age. Had the report discovered a massive nothing about global warming for the increase in global warming, its findings time being. Only one thing is clear in the Unquestionably, there has been a rise in would have made every television news debate on global warming: the science the amount of carbon dioxide in the bulletin in the world. But the report from and economics are fiendishly complex. atmosphere compared with pre-industrial the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s times: levels are up from about 280 parts Earth System Science Centre disappeared Needless to say, this view is shared by few per million by volume (ppmv) to without a trace, simply because it went leading politicians, especially in Europe. approximately 375ppmv today, with the against one of the modern Last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair and bulk of the increase occurring since 1950, establishment’s most dearly held Michael Howard, the Conservative Leader, when it was 310mmpv. prejudices: that the earth is getting called for reductions in carbon dioxide warmer and that man is to be blamed for emissions, the implementation of the Standard thermometer-based recordings it, and the consequences will be Kyoto treaty and a shift to costly and have also recorded an increase in catastrophic. unreliable renewable energy. temperature at or near the surface of the earth over the past 100 years or so. The A similar short-sightedness has plagued Mr Howard’s speech was especially rise is probably about 0.6 degrees Celsius, Europe media’s coverage of the terrible disappointing, filled with meaningless which so far is not particularly significant. tornados that have hit Florida in recent sound bites such as “no one can opt out The evidence of a close link between weeks: few serious scientists believe they of the fight against global warming”. carbon dioxide emissions and 5 2005 Frédéric Bastiat Prize for Journalism Finalists Allister Heath temperature is weak: the bulk of the using balloon and satellite measurements 45% of its cap in the first half of the 20th increase in surface temperature took instead of ground data. At worst, satellites century, a period of natural warming. place before 1950, suggesting that it was show that the climate is currently 0.3 From 1953 to 1976, when the earth cooled, largely formed by natural phenomena. degree hotter then during the 1951 to Kilimanjaro lost another 12% - its slowest 1980 average, itself distorted given the rate of the past 100 years. This suggests In the popular imagination, the increase global cooling of the time. that the current melting could be due to in so-called greenhouse gases will be natural cycles, a theory shared by many accompanied by a proportional rise in the There is also plenty of evidence that scientists. greenhouse effect and hence a rise in changes in the intensity of the sun’s temperatures. This is not necessarily true. radiation plays a very important role in The simplistic certainty of the global Of course, carbon dioxide traps infrared changing the earth’s climate. In fact, warming crowd is inexcusable: people radiation and enhances the greenhouse leading scientists now agree that solar who have an interest in the environment effect of water vapour, thus keeping the variability has emerged as the most need to do the hard work and read up on earth form cooling down. plausible explanation for the Medieval the latest research, including that which warming of the 11th and 12th century: as goes against their prejudices. This is But after a certain concentration of well as for the little ice age of the 17th especially important if they are seeking to greenhouse gas is reached in the century. impose huge taxes on petrol and atmosphere, its effect may begin to wane traditional energy sources which will – a bit like a sponge, which ceases to suck In recent work, Gerard Bond and a change the way of life of the western up additional water after it is full. And research team at the Lamont-Doherty world. It is time for the greens to grow up: according to a study in Geophysical Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, they must debate with sceptics, rather Research Letters, the greenhouse effect studied iceberg debris on the floor of the then insult their motives. may be weakening due to changes in North Atlantic. They found that the world cloud cover. has gone through nine global warmings, Reprinted from The Business © 2004. followed by nine global coolings in the Even more radically, Richard Lindzen of the past 12,000 years. PAY HEED TO THE MISERY OF Massachusetts Institute of Technology MICAWBER, MS HEWITT believes that cloudiness may be It now seems likely that they were all responding to climate change: high caused by a 1,500-year cycle in the 26 September 2004 altitude clouds that block outgoing intensity of the sun’s radiation. The radiation decrease as temperatures correlation between earth climate Patricia Hewitt, Britain’s trade and increase, suggesting that the earth (measured by iceberg debris) and solar industry secretary, should spend more operates a self-regulatory mechanism of activity (gauged by tree rings and ice time reading Charles Dickens – and pay astonishing complexity. Dozens of recent cores) is remarkably high. It could well be special attention to the wise words of Mr research papers have postulated related the case that the current slight increase in Micawber in David Copperfield. theories or found other problems with the global temperature is due exclusively to standard view; clearly, we remain far from more intense solar activity. Micawber, an eternal optimist and one of understanding how the atmosphere the cuddlier of Dickens’ characters, was works and retains heat. What remains unknown, however, is the nevertheless forced to learn the hard way exact mechanism the sun uses to about the laws of economics:“Annual We don’t even know if the earth is influence the climate. An earlier income twenty pounds, annual heating up: it will simply not do to rely hypothesis – that variations in North expenditure nineteen and six, result exclusively on traditional thermometer Atlantic Ocean currents were responsible happiness. Annual income twenty measurements. These are incapable of for global climate change – is now being pounds, annual expenditure twenty providing an accurate gauge of global incorporated into the more general pounds nought and six, result misery”, as temperature because they ignore large sunspot theory: currents probably amplify he famously put it before being thrown parts of the earth’s surface, especially the fluctuations in the sun’s intensity. into jail for failing to repay his debts. oceans. Even the standard claim that man-made Today, Micawber’s famous quip is more Average temperatures in places such as global warming is leading glaciers and ice valid then ever; translated into London, Paris or New York are caps to melt, threatening a huge rise in contemporary English, it is a variation on undoubtedly higher today then they were sea levels, is open to question. One study the “no such thing as a free lunch” theme 100 years ago; there has also been an found that sea ice has declined by about popularized by Milton Friedman, the undoubted significant change in the 33% over the past 135 years, but that most Nobel-prize winning economist.