ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY DIVISION NEWSLETTER 14 MAR. 2016 If you need older URLs contact George at [email protected]. Please Note: “This newsletter contains articles that offer differing points of view regarding climate change, energy and other environmental issues. Any opinions expressed in this publication are the responses of the editor alone and do not represent the positions of the Environmental and Energy Engineering Division or the ASME.” George Holliday A. ENVIRONMENT 1. CLIMATE ALARMISM ON STEROIDS, WE ARE IN A “GLOBAL CLIMATE CRISIS” You just gotta love the phrase “unprecedented shift in temperature”, as if somehow people aren’t able to handle climate shifts say, like the difference in average annual temperature between New York and Miami (which is far greater than that caused by climate change), or the fact that humans simultaneously inhabit Antarctica and Death Valley, CA. No,… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/01/climate-alarmism-on-steroids-we-are-in-a-global-climate- crisis/ Don Shaw 1 2. JJDS Environmental is a full service Quality, Environmental and Safety consulting firm, formed in December 1999, which is dedicated to balancing legal requirements and cost. JJDS Environmental is a certified (SBA) small business located in Doylestown, PA (suburban Philadelphia); we are also a registered military (CCR), EPA, DOE, NASA and TDA contractor. JJDS Environmental's services include quality assurance and control programs, waste minimization/pollution prevention programs, safety and environmental auditing, compliance assistance programs, environmental permitting, USACE plan development and implementation, remediation services, construction oversight, start-up assistance, Environmental Management Systems, education and training programs, operator certification programs, peer review services, USACE/NAVFAC certified quality management, waste disposal contracting, expert testimony and contractor bid package preparation/evaluation. JJDS Environmental personnel include a USACE/NAVFAC Certified Quality Manager. Mr. Feldman, the Owner/Principal, has over 30 years industrial experience and over 20 years environmental experience. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering at New Mexico State University in 1969. Before 2 beginning environmental work Mr. Feldman held a variety of engineering and production positions at industrial facilities. In 1980, he was the Environmental Manager at a large chemical plant in Illinois for Olin Corporation where he was responsible for overall compliance of the plant. Since then Mr. Feldman has held numerous positions in the environmental field with a heavy concentration on compliance monitoring and assistance for a wide range of industrial facilities. Mr. Feldman has been responsible for developing various environmental training tools and compliance assistance programs for both Olin and FMC Corporations. In addition, he has served on numerous industry trade association committees; he was a reviewer of the Chemical Manufacturer's Association RCRA [Resource Conservation and Recovery Act] Subpart CC compliance manual developed in association with EPA, and co-authored and edited CMA's Responsible Care¨ Pollution Prevention Code compliance manual. Mr. Feldman is currently ViceChair of the ASME Hazardous Waste Incinerator Operators Certification Committee and Chair of the Testing Sub-Committee. To view Mr. Feldman's resume "click here" 3. REPORT: BIN LADEN PLANNED TO DESTABILISE AMERICA USING THE CLIMATE ISSUE Guest essay by Eric Worrall Reuter’s reports that the terrorist Osama Bin Laden intended to use the climate issue to spread chaos in the United States, by calling for people concerned about greenhouse gasses to rise up and overthrow the government. According to Reuter’s; Osama bin Laden wrote a letter calling on the American people… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/01/terrorist-plan-to-destabilise-america-using-the-climate-issue/ 3 4. NEW PUBLICATION DEMONSTRATES THAT SCIENTISTS HAVE ROUTINELY EXAGGERATED THE “EVIL TWIN OF CLIMATE CHANGE” AKA OCEAN ACIDIFICATION A new paper published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science puts the issue of “ocean acidification” to the test, and finds that there has been significant exaggeration in the issue. The paper is: Applying organized scepticism to ocean acidification research “Ocean acidification” (OA), a change in seawater chemistry driven by increased uptake of atmospheric CO2… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/01/new-publication-demonstrates-that-scientists-have-routinely- exaggerated-the-evil-twin-of-climate-change-aka-ocean-acidification/ 5. CLIMATE MODELS ARE NOT SIMULATING EARTH’S CLIMATE – PART 4 Guest Post by Bob Tisdale Alternate Title: Climate Models Undermine the Hypothesis of Human-Induced Global Warming According to the hypothesis of human-induced global warming; manmade greenhouse gases create an energy imbalance at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, which causes the Earth to retain heat. One of the hypothetical results of that retained heat is… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/01/climate-models-are-not-simulating-earths-climate-part-4/ 6. AGU, EXXON AND THE CORPORATE FUNDING DILEMMA Posted on February 29, 2016 | 173 Comments by Judith Curry . to assess whether our partner/sponsor statements are in conflict with our position statements and accepted scientific consensus. – Margaret Leinen, AGU President Scientists to AGU: Drop Exxon sponsorship The relevant information is compiled [here]. Excerpts: Today more than 100 geoscientists sent the following letter to the President of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) – the world’s largest association of Earth scientists – urging the association to end its sponsorship deal with ExxonMobil. The oil giant is currently under investigation by the New York and California Attorneys General for its long history of climate denial campaigns. Many notable scientists have signed on, including the former director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies James E. Hansen, the former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Harvard Professor James J. McCarthy, Harvard Professor and author of Merchants of Doubt Naomi Oreskes, and Michael Mann– Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. The letter is the most recent example of a growing trend of scientists stepping out of their traditional roles to urge science institutions to cut ties to fossil fuel companies. Excerpts from the actual letter: We, the undersigned members of AGU (and other concerned geoscientists), write to ask you to please reconsider ExxonMobil’s sponsorship of the AGU Fall Meetings. As Earth scientists, we are deeply troubled by the well-documented complicity of ExxonMobil in climate denial and misinformation. For example, recent investigative journalism has shed light on the fact that Exxon, informed by their in-house scientists, has known about the devastating global warming effects of fossil fuel burning since the late 1970s, but spent the next decades funding misinformation campaigns to confuse the public, slander scientists, and sabotage science – the very science conducted by thousands of AGU members. Even today, Exxon continues to fund the American Legislative Exchange Council, a 4 lobbying group that routinely misrepresents climate science to US state legislators and attempts to block pro-renewable energy policies. Just last year, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson downplayed the validity of climate models and the value of renewable energy policies. The impacts of Exxon’s tactics have been devastating. Thanks in part to Exxon, the American public remains confused and polarized about climate change. And thanks in part to Exxon, climate science- denying members of Congress and lobby groups operating at the state level remain a major obstacle to US efforts to mitigate climate change. But by allowing Exxon to appropriate AGU’s institutional social license to help legitimize the company’s climate misinformation, AGU is undermining its stated values as well as the work of many of its own members. While we recognize that some of AGU’s scientific disciplines are deeply tied to the fossil fuel industry, we are also increasingly aware of the tension within our community regarding how we should respond to the urgency of climate change as individual scientists and as institutions. It is time to bring this tension into the light and determine how an organization such as AGU should approach the major challenges of today to ensure that we truly are working for the benefit of humanity. In particular, as the world’s largest organization of Earth scientists, if we do not take an active stand against climate misinformation now, when will we? Further details from ClimateWire (as quoted by Marlo Lewis): AGU’s meeting is the largest earth science conference in the world. It attracts tens of thousands of scientists and requires a conference space so large that it is used by Apple Inc. and Google Inc. for their yearly developer meetings. There are hundreds of sessions on the science of climate change. Exxon Mobil is a prominent sponsor and recruiter at the meeting and paid AGU $35,000 last year. According to Climatewire, one of the signers–Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists– stressed that petitioners are not asking AGU to cancel the sponsorships of all oil and gas companies, just Exxon. “AGU has set an unequivocal policy that restricts accepting funding from organizations that support or engage in misinformation on science,” he said. “That’s as it should be for any scientific