"Lead-Free" - The International Environmental Boondoggle

In honor of today being the unofficial "L day" I'm posting this item that came to my attention last Monday.

In case you wonder what might have happened if the Kyoto Protocol had been adopted and implemented world wide, consider what happened when the EU unilaterally determined that the lead in solder used to produce electronic devices is a "hazardous substance" and mandated its elimination from all products marketed in Europe by the July 1, 2006.

On Monday a colleague emailed several of us a list of issues related to lead-free electronics manufacturing that was provided to him by our assembly vendor. Before reading the attachment I had no idea just how disruptive this lead-free process business is. Why would we voluntarily evolve into a process that is less reliable, more expensive, fraught with extra hoops to jump through and, by the way, is WORSE for the environment?

This all stems from an EU directive called the "Reduction of Hazardous Substances" directive, or "RoHS" adopted January 27, 2003. Here's what I found when I investigated.

From “The ultimate in fatuity” on EU Referendum blog (based in UK):

According to the authors, "The study presents extensive data that show that heavy metal concentrations in leachate and landfill gas are generally far below the limits that have been established to protect human health and the environment."

By then, it was too late – the "train had left the station" and the momentum for new legislation was too great. But, by 2005, the US Environmental Protection Agency had got its act together and produced a 472-page report, assessing the full, life-cycle environmental impact of banning lead solder.

From this work, it emerged that when the impact of mining and refining substitutes was taken in to account, the higher energy consumption in using the lead-free solders, which require higher temperatures, and all the other issues were factored in, the banning of lead – far from having a positive impact on the environment (and worker health) – actually had a significant negative impact. Amazingly, though, this work had never been done by the EU and the legislation was, by then, already in place.

And then there are the long-term reliability concerns. Also from the EU Referendum blog:

On the basis of this charade, proprietors of firms not obeying this cretinous law can face unlimited fines and imprisonment yet, worryingly, there are still many serious doubts about the reliability and suitability of lead solder substitutes, so much so that military equipment has been exempted.

And this isn’t just some mad right-wing anti-environment rant. In the comments on the blog is a reference to this article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch quoting a Canadian environmental scientist who doesn’t support lead-free:

But not all lead is the same. Lead in paint and gasoline is easily absorbed into human cells. Lead in metallic forms such as solder is not.

In addition, evidence indicates that soldered lead, once inside landfills, does not leach out into drinking water, said Laura Turbini, a materials science faculty member at the University of Toronto.

Turbini has studied and tried to help diminish the impact of industry on the environment since the days of CFCs in refrigerators. Her presentations declare "humanity is off course" environmentally. She also strongly advocates recycling electronics. But she does not support lead-free.

"From cradle to grave," Turbini said, "lead-free soldering is not better for the environment." Replacements for lead solder cost more to mine and require more energy to use and produce.

As for “state mandated deadlines for compliance” are we sure there are, or will be, any? Consider this, also from the news article:

No U.S. firm is legally bound to use lead-free solder. Only California has any restrictions on lead, and no federal laws are pending. But not conforming to European standards means giving up a lucrative market, and potentially that of China and Japan. China is expected to announce a restriction policy soon.

But since our market is exclusively the U.S. and not even Canada, much less Europe or East Asia, it appears that we should do everything possible to avoid lead-free like the plague. The problem with this strategy is that component manufacturers, forced to comply with RoHS by customers who market products in Europe and eager to avoid the added cost of parallel leaded and lead-free product lines, are gradually discontinuing the leaded components.

And so we have a world-wide economic and environmental travesty all because one man, the EU minister of state for energy, Malcolm Wicks, signed the final RoHS document declaring, "I have read the regulatory impact assessment and am satisfied the benefits justify the costs."

And angry-left nutjobs worry that we are sliding into a monarchy!

Take the disruptions, cost increases and environmental unintended consequences of this and multiply them by ten, or even a hundred, and you'll have an idea of what Kyoto could have wrought.

(Click "Continue Reading" to see the list of issues related to lead-free soldering processes.)

Company x’s Lead – Free Process Issues
1. Lead-Free assemblies are less reliable: Company x says we should expect 30% more solder joint failures in a lead-free process.
a. Through-hole joints will not be filled up to IPC-Level 1, but should conform to the IPC Level-2 soldering standard.
b. Our QA group should expect to see less flow and poorer overall solder joints. These joints are more susceptible to mechanical stress and vibration.
c. Tin solder will “grow” thin shards (whiskers) over time. These whiskers can eventually short higher density designs
2. Lead-Free assembly processes cost more: You will see why as you read the issues here.
3. Gold PCBs: Company x prefers Immersion Gold on top of Nickel. Company x is having issues soldering to our Immersion Silver boards:
a. The silver oxidizes fairly quickly, so the PCB shelf life isn’t very long with silver
b. Company x uses a lot of cardboard, which is one of silver’s worst enemies. They try to be careful, but find they still set a lot of bare boards directly on cardboard.
c. The flux isn’t powerful enough to break down the silver oxide when soldered
d. The lead-free solder doesn’t adhere well to silver even when it is not oxidized
Company x prefers 180-200 micro-inches of Nickel over the copper and 3-8 micro-inches of Gold over the Nickel. This finish has a good shelf life, doesn’t react with materials used in handling and storage, and readily adheres to the tin solder.
It may cost us more per board up-front, but Company x is saying due to the soldering issues, it saves us money on the overall assembly.
4. High-Temp FR-4: Most assembly houses request a higher temperature rated FR-4 material for lead-free processing. Company x hasn’t seen any PCB issues due to the higher oven temperatures yet. However, de-laminating and warping may occur, especially on PCB areas with few parts. Data Circuits/Merix hasn’t charged us more for this material in the past, so I suggest we start using it on all of our PCBs.
5. High-Temp Parts: Company x has settled on 245 C as their lead-free oven temperature. Many aluminum electrolytic capacitors and connectors will be destroyed at these temperatures. I have found that many ROHS rated aluminum electrolytic capacitors aren’t specified to handle this temperature and are rated to only 235-240 C, especially the larger caps. All of the parts we want to run through a lead-free reflow process must handle at least 245 C, although 260 C is preferable, but hard to obtain in the larger caps. Due to the higher oven temperatures required for lead-free reflow, we must re-evaluate each part in the assemblies we want to become lead-free.
6. Hand soldering is difficult: Lead-free solder not only requires a higher temperature to flow properly, but it doesn’t wet, flow, or adhere as well as lead based solder. Interestingly, soldering iron tips only last 8-10 hours due to the aggressive tin reaction to the tips themselves. To increase the soldering temperature, the soldering iron tips are larger which makes it more difficult to solder small parts. Company x has asked us to change the following in our designs:
a. Increase annular rings around hand-soldered holes or anything we will want to ever be re-worked. 15-20 mil per side is desirable. Use elliptical holes for finer-pitch parts.
b. Try to always use thermal rings to connect pads (SMT and thru-hole) to ground planes and copper pours. The pads must get hotter for good reflow and direct plane/copper connections pull that heat away.
7. Wave Soldering:
a. Only boards stuffed completely with lead-free parts can run through a lead-free wave soldering process. Otherwise the lead will contaminate the solder, costing upwards of $50K to empty, clean, and refill the wave soldering pot. So we must be absolutely certain all of our parts are lead-free before we request a lead-free wave process. Lead-free wave soldering requires a higher temperature pre-heater for the board, which is not desirable.
b. Due to higher reflow temperatures, Company x does not want to run parts through the wave soldering process for a second reheating. Many parts won’t survive a second re-heating, which is 500C. To prevent damage to SMT parts on the bottom side of the PCBs, they are using “selective wave fixtures” that attach to the boards and only exposes the parts needing wave soldered. These fixtures costs $300-$400 although they may need several to allow them to continue running boards as other fixtures cool enough to be handled. The fixture rules are:
i. No SMT component on the bottom side of the PCB can extend more than 0.125" from the PCB surface. If they are taller, then a more expensive fixture can be built (double layer) or they will have to hand solder the parts. Either way costs us more for assembly.
ii. All SMT parts should be at least 0.100" away from the parts to be wave soldered. This leaves room for the fixture to fit tightly to the PCB. Obviously all of the parts can’t adhere to this rule. In these cases, we should provide build instructions to specify to either glue the intruding part to the PCB and wave solder it (indicating it can handle the heat for a second pass) or to have them hand solder the part to the PCB after the wave process.
8. Pre-Fabrication DFM Review: Company x wants 24 hours to review our PCB artwork before fabrication. This allows them time to review the board and suggest changes for better manufacturability. This also gives them time to look at some of the parts to see if they can handle the lead-free processes and high-pressure post-washing.

August 30, 2006

Saturday Was Climate Change

Yet nobody told Samizdata. Or maybe it's the time difference.

In The Church of Global Warming Robert Clayton Dean offers some fun for the skeptics:

How can you tell who someone's god is? You look to see whose name they invoke as the cause of all things, good or bad. By that standard, the god of the devout Left is Global Warming; here is the Psalm of Al, from which the faithful constantly quote (King James Version):

1. Great storms ravage our cities, and the wise man saith: Global Warming hath done this.

2. Drought keepeth all storms at bay, and the wise man saith: This also hath Global Warming done.

3. Global Warming maketh the oceans rise; it maketh deep snow to fall;

4. Flood and fire, feast and famine, typhoon and tornado, hail and lightning, all things good and bad that come from sky or sea, Global Warming hath made them all.

5. And when our homes are beneath the waves, we shall know that Global Warming in its wrath hath seen our sins.

6. For our vehicles that glut themselves on oil, for the trees we cut and land we clear,

7. For the cooling and heating of our houses, for the plowing and harvesting of our fields, we are punished.

8. Whenever we burn carbon and release it into the air, we shall know that Global Warming seeth it, and is wroth.

9. O man! Thou hast flouted the great god of the sky, and by three degrees of temperature we shall be burned,

10. For Global Warming is a jealous god, and small and annoying is man.

In the comments, one Perry E. Metzger, offers a thoughtful libertarian view of global warming that brother Silence might enjoy:

I'm about as radical a libertarian as one can find, but I'm also educated in the sciences, and so far as I can tell, global warming is not a myth.

I don't see how the usual batch of knee jerk socialist responses are going to fix the issue. I'm also not exactly a fan of the "everyone drive less and use more efficient lightbulbs!" pabulum.

However, it is stupid to deny scientific facts. Yes, you can find plenty of web sites that will cite very biased information and claim global warming is a myth, just as you can find web sites that claim that evolution is a myth and provide "evidence" for it, but at this point, there is a mountain of reproducable studies that say the issue is real.

What do I think should be done about it? "Leave the market alone."

Let the market switch us to solar and nuclear power as the price of fossil fuels goes up and as the price of other technologies go down. My biggest worry is that insane greens who have a completely irrational hatred of nuclear power (burning coal pollutes the world far worse) will block it.

Libertarians should not be denying scientific fact. We should instead spend our time combating the religious impulse of people to think the modern world is evil and that we must repent for our sins by living cruddy lives and waiting for (in their minds) our inevitable and justified doom at the hands of a wronged Gaia.

I'm a bit more skeptical than Metzger, but his words are consistent with the new jk manifesto: believe or don’t, but don't use it to stop modernity.

UPDATE: The comments, as usual in the Samizdata post are superb. They run heavily skeptical, but they are bright and informed.

UPDATE II: Except for mine, I tried to bring Dr. Popper inito it, as his "Open Society and its Enemies" appears in their logo. But I muffed the html. Harrumph.

Posted by jk at 3:43 PM | Comments (3)

But rick tennesen thinks:

global warming liberals who smoke...how much do you think the net smoking of people in the world contributes to this phenomenon?

they will quickly pass on this as it can only the the fault of big business.

Posted by: rick tennesen at August 30, 2006 9:39 PM

But silence dogood thinks:

Good post on Samizdata for sure, good to see the debate reaching a higher level.

You mentioned the yellow sphere in the sky and how can we humans have more influence that the sun? Space may be the answer, we're 93 million odd miles closer.

Posted by: silence dogood at August 30, 2006 11:24 PM

But jk thinks:

I must quote the famed astrophysicist Eric Idle here: "Orbiting at 19 miles per second, so it's reckoned, the Sun which is the source of all our power."

As the Sun is recognized to be the sole source of heat, the proximity argument fails to move me. I once saw a comparison of solar activity to temperature which correlated quite closely.

Thanks for the comment, Rick, and welcome to the blogroll. The Keystone Staters continue to dominate...

Posted by: jk at August 31, 2006 10:02 AM

August 26, 2006

Warmer... Cooler.... etc.

Saturday has apparently degenerated into global warming climate change day here at ThreeSources.com

UPI

Abdusamatov and his colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences astronomical observatory said the prediction is based on measurement of solar emissions, Novosti reported. They expect the cooling to begin within a few years and to reach its peak between 2055 and 2060.

"The Kyoto initiatives to save the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off until better times," he said. "The global temperature maximum has been reached on Earth, and Earth's global temperature will decline to a climatic minimum even without the Kyoto protocol."

Can we settle on a direction here?

Posted by AlexC at 2:50 PM | Comments (6)

But johngalt thinks:

But it's clear there is "no debate amongst serious scientists" that global warming is real and poses a threat to Earth.

Posted by: johngalt at August 27, 2006 12:10 PM

But silence dogood thinks:

So with published articles running thousands to one supporting versus refuting global warming you figure it's about a draw? I know I am alone around here, but to review the facts, there are multiple independent sources of data showing warming of the earth and lower atmosphere, lab tests that show the IR absorbing capability of CO2, and fairly simple chemical equations showing CO2 as a byproduct of combustion. Can we completely and irrefutably connect the dots? No. Will we ever? Perhaps not, when your "system" is basically the entire world we live in with all of the variables that suggests. Valid discussion still exists on the topic, but the amount of BS hoisted out there by the "refuters" borders on the ridiculous. To be clear, recent and current models do predict actual measurements we are seeing, the global cooling JK often refers to from the '70's was a very short lived prediction at the very beginning of the study of climate change, and water vapor is part of all of these studies, in fact there are wavelengths of IR that pass through water vapor but are absorbed by CO2 so while the concentration of these gases relate to each other, their affects can still be additive.

So while I agree with JK that more research is needed I disagree with the notion that no policy decision should be made at this time. I don't see it as a leap of faith to accept the theory that we have the capability to upset the balance of nature, small scale evidence of that is all around. The points of discussion should be more about what the opportunities are for greener energy, for economic as well as environmental reasons. Even taking the most cynical attitude that this global warming is a liberal myth and nothing more than environmental marketing, good marketing is a proven money maker and investing some of our energy dollars away from oil and gas exploration and toward "greener" sources seems like a very good bet.

Posted by: silence dogood at August 28, 2006 2:51 PM

But jk thinks:

You just wanted to comment 'cause we have your favorite password today.

The reasons that you describe support Global Warming as a theory. I just think it ignores two small things: the amount of plant life on this planet and that hot, round thingy in the sky. These variables make computer modeling difficult at best.

I've seen zero studies where predictions matched future data but many results where they shoehorned exigencies to fit theory. That is one step above "making stuff up."

In the post below, I point to serous flaws in the theory vs. data sphere, by two people who believe in man-made global warming. To defer to Dr. Popper again, science is not a democracy. You probably had 1000-to-one scientists believing Aristotelian dynamics. But they didn't settle it by election, Signori Galileo apocryphally dropped some stones off a tower.

No, it would not hurt to invest some money in other technologies; private firms likely should. But that is NOT what the climate change lobby is calling for. A large contingent are anti-moderns who want to impede progress and punish prosperity. When they will come out and admit the Kyoto treaty is one of the stupidest ideas of all time and seek -- like the folks in my post below -- some realistic solutions based on science and not politics, I might just surprise you and climb aboard.

Posted by: jk at August 28, 2006 4:32 PM

But silence dogood thinks:

Guess I better get another one in before my favorite password expires!

Point taken concerning Mr. Galileo, but if I had quoted a UP article from the Russian Academy of Sciences would you have rushed to support me? My point was that you can find hundreds of papers that make the opposite case and yet this is the one you cling to.

So, you know greenhouse gases exist, it is this effect of our atmosphere that keeps us from looking like Mars. You know that the primary two are water vapor and CO2 and it is easy to measure the increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Further it is proven that CO2 absorbs IR and we see evidence of warming from melting ice and shrinking glaciers. From here however you are not willing to even entertain the concept that we could be changing our environment as a whole? Maybe the dots aren't all connected, but there sure are a lot of dots.

I can't speak for this climate change lobby but I do know that there is lots of discussion of alternative energy. This is not no energy, but alternate sources and systems. I think you demonize too much the whole topic based upon the shoutings of a few fringe elements.

Posted by: silence dogood at August 29, 2006 12:29 AM

But jk thinks:

Go Blue Devils!

Back to Popper. A thousand articles supporting a theory are not as important as one refuting it. Thousands supported Aristotelian, then Newtonian mechanics, the final word was Mr. Einstein's Special Relativity in 1905.

I'm not saying the Russian paper is somehow dispositive of Global Warming. To be fair, this is Alex's post and JohnGalt's comment. I will say that it reinforces my opinion in the post below that we do not know enough to affect policy.

I might demonize the environmental movement -- they give me a lot of material. I'm cool with alternative energy sources and continued research. overturn Raich v Gonzales and let the hemp people power our cities. But the Sierra Club and other K Street environmental groups want us to all live in Manhattan densities and return everything else to the wild. There is a huge anti-modernity base in that movement. Were it expunged, I would probably sign up.

Posted by: jk at August 29, 2006 10:04 AM

But johngalt thinks:

My intent was to transparently bait Silence on this post. He's been absent far too long 'round here.

But my comment is valid: Silence has said before that there is "no debate amongst serious scientists" that man-made global warming is real, and he apparently continues to do so.

JK and Karl Popper's excellent points about science and democracy address the veracity of the theory. My point regarded the claim that the debate was settled at all, without regard for whether that "consensus" is (or was) wrong.

I'll certainly give a little credit to the scientific wherewithall of the Russian Academy of Sciences astronomical observatory. After all, it's not the "astrological" observatory.

Posted by: johngalt at August 29, 2006 2:59 PM

Global Cooling

Blog brother AlexC sends me a link to a Q and O blog post on global warming.

Written by Dale Franks (neither a Q nor and O), the post captures my position very well. Silence and I have talked past each other on these pages about whether global warming exists. While I remain skeptical, I am going to change my pattern. The point is not to argue against its existence, the point is to argue that we don't know enough to make policy decisions.

Franks nails this:

The Argo data on ocean cooling over the past few years merely highlights that problem. Over the past few years, about 20% of the warming of the past 50 years has simply disappeared. Apparently, it just radiated away back into space, since we can't seem to find any of that heat down here.

Why did the cooling occur?

By what mechanism was the heat transported away?

Will this current cooling trend continue, or reverse itself?

What are the global climate implications if the cooling continues, or conversely, the implications if it reverses itself, and begins warming again?

Aren't these questions important? Or should we dismiss them because they don't conform to the orthodoxy?

Franks, as it happens, does indeed believe in global warming and he believes that it is to some extent man-made.

I'm skeptical of both those assertions but agree with Franks that until we can codify and quantify what is happening and what causes it, we cannot "fix" it. If we are causing global warming by using so much battery power, those damn hybrid drivers will have to answer up.

I'm a big fan (I know I've bored you before) on the epistemology of Dr. Karl Popper. I don't know how much he created and how much he documented, but he defines the procedures where scientific theory progresses to acceptance or is discarded.

The first step is predictive power. Einstein’s Special Relativity made several predictions that were not testable at the time of its creation. Over time, experiments have been done, and they all support the predictions of Special Relativity. Ergo, it is commonly accepted (though Popper points out theories can only be disproven, never really proven).

The original global warming theorists made predictions based on computer modeling. It would start at the poles, reduce the length of the cold season in the cold climes, and proceed at a steady rate. Facts have not supported this prediction at all. warming has started at higher elevations, warmer climes, and has not been steady: CSU climate scientists point out two years of ocean cooling.

This is a very important observational study of changes in climate system heat content. While the models predict a general montonic increase in ocean heat content (e.g. see (Figure 1) ), the new observations in Lyman et al 2006 show an important decrease. The explanation of this temporal change in the radiative imbalance of the Earth’s climate system is a challenge to the climate science community. It does indicate that we know less about natural- and human-climate forcings and feedbacks than concluded in the IPCC Reports.

More research. We are all in agreement.

Posted by jk at 11:05 AM

August 4, 2006

One for The Other Side

I've posted before about MIT Professors, Bjorn Lamborg, and other scientists who are concerned that outrageous Global Warming claims are unfounded.

It's only right that I offer a "fair and balanced" link to a Reuters Story about a new convert.

"We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels. It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air."

This week the heat index, the perceived temperature based on both air temperatures and humidity, reached 115 Fahrenheit in some regions of the U.S. East Coast.[providing] "the most convincing evidence I've seen on global warming in a long time."

This from 700 Club Atmospheric Physicist Pat Robertson. Okay, I'm convinced.

Hat-tip: Taranto

Posted by jk at 4:37 PM

July 28, 2006

Stop Discussing, You're Confusing People

If you include frequent commenters, we have a pretty broad spectrum of views on climate change, though we certainly lean skeptic.

I'm all for continued research, just don't let the 535 Atmospheric Physicists in the District of Columbia decide. Here's TCS with a report on two Congressional hearings.

Only Wegman [Edward J. of George Mason University] and his colleagues found -- as did a National Academy of Science's panel previously -- that Mann's statistics were fundamentally flawed. They were prone -- as two Canadians, Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre, found in an ad hoc statistical investigation -- to create hockey stick shaped graphs.

Rather than accept that result, Democrats on the committee went on the offensive, pummeling Wegman -- who voted for Al Gore in 2000 -- as a stooge of the big business and calling the hearing itself a sham. "We don't debate gravity any more," Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington argued, ignorant of string theory, "and we should not debate whether there is a human contribution to climate change." He went on to suggest that the press not report alternative views. "The press is creating doubt where there isn't any," he argued.

Shhhh! Stop discussing the issues, you're confusing people...

Posted by jk at 11:36 AM | Comments (3)

But jk thinks:

Mort Kondracke, on "The Beltway Boys" (Et tu, FOXNews?), said "This is the warmest first six months in the US since they've kept records, beating 2005."

Fred Barnes: "So?"
Mort: "Global Warming is real!"
Fred: "But it's not made --" [roll end credits]

Every time any weather record is broken, global warming is proven.

Posted by: jk at July 30, 2006 1:22 PM

But johngalt thinks:

Global Warming is expected to end on Wednesday, with forecast high temperature in the upper 70's... in JULY! Prepare for the coming ice age. Hey... I'm theer-ee-ul!

Posted by: johngalt at July 31, 2006 1:12 PM

But jk thinks:

When we conflate weather and climate, we're being willful and ignorant. But it's okay when they do it. I haven't quite figured that out.

I have been waiting and watching for ManBearPig for months. That is sooo funny. "Kids, I don't want you hanging around with that ex-Vice-President any more."

Wednesday, however, will be August.

Posted by: jk at July 31, 2006 3:17 PM

July 22, 2006

Carbonized Cash

Redstate points to a ludicrous idea from "do-gooders."

Here's the premise: Britain and other countries are thinking about mandating emissions-trading programs for business. But, says Miliband, individuals -- not business -- account for almost half of all of Britain's emissions through their use of planes, trains, automobiles, electricity, various heating fuels -- and, presumably, belching and exhaling. "Imagine a country," says Miliband, "Where carbon becomes a new currency."

All I can imagine is an economy where the government gives people these credits. Controlling "capital" as it were.

Sounds like a recipe for a disaster.

Posted by AlexC at 2:32 PM | Comments (4)

But johngalt thinks:

And to think that Silence chastised us for suggesting that exhaling might be made illegal. Under this proposed plan (only in Britain for now, thank NED) a little girl could only blow on dandelions if she had enough government coupons.

Posted by: johngalt at July 23, 2006 12:52 AM

But jk thinks:

My inner economist likes the idea of cap-and-trade to control pollutants. Its a good way to control something if you've decided it warrants government control. I had posted about Martin Feldstein’s similar plan for gas credits (http://www.threesources.com/archives/002899.html).

We will be forced to decide whether we want to use state coercion to control CO2. Forces of anti-modernity will use global warming to try and return us to penis-sheaths and Gilligan's Island technology.

I'll add a local report. It's hot around here. In July. Freaky...

Posted by: jk at July 23, 2006 11:44 AM

But Silence Dogood thinks:

I was really chastising the commercial for appearing to claim that without fossil fuels we would all become starving people grinding corn with a stick. Alternative energy can and does provide us with the same creature comforts we have now, that is precisely the point. I am not sure where the vast 'anti-modernity" crowd is, JK can you point me in their direction? Are they the anti-matter of the vast right wing conspiracy? By the way, I missed chastising JK also for his comment a bit ago that he could use short term stats to show global warming, say from December to June. Best of luck with that - think southern hemisphere.

Posted by: Silence Dogood at July 24, 2006 12:51 AM

But jk thinks:

Silence, if I can pick the time period I can certainly pick the hemisphere. I like your idea, though. I'll do a two part study, the North, then the South. I concede that there is much to debate on the global warming question. In a way that's my point, that it is unsettled.

I will not for a second, however, accept that there is not a large, well funded, and vocal alliance that is dedicated to opposing modernity. I'd accuse mainstream groups like The Sierra Club or Wildlife Refuge. Even if you disagree with that, can you say the "new economics foundation" does not fit my description? http://www.threesources.com/archives/003133.html or scroll down to July 20.

Posted by: jk at July 24, 2006 10:38 AM

July 14, 2006

Climate Con

Climate consensus? A report commissioned by the House Energy Committee, due to be released today, refutes the "hockey stick" as being a small slice of available data. The WSJ Ed Page calls it WSJ.com - Hockey Stick Hokum (Paid link, sorry!)

It is routine these days to read in newspapers or hear -- almost anywhere the subject of climate change comes up -- that the 1990s were the "warmest decade in a millennium" and that 1998 was the warmest year in the last 1,000.

This assertion has become so accepted that it is often recited without qualification, and even without giving a source for the "fact." But a report soon to be released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee by three independent statisticians underlines yet again just how shaky this "consensus" view is, and how recent its vintage.

The claim originates from a 1999 paper by paleoclimatologist Michael Mann. Prior to Mr. Mann's work, the accepted view, as embodied in the U.N.'s 1990 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was that the world had undergone a warming period in the Middle Ages, followed by a mid-millennium cold spell and a subsequent warming period -- the current one. That consensus, as shown in the first of the two IPCC-provided graphs nearby, held that the Medieval warm period was considerably warmer than the present day.

The charge is that they airbrushed away hotter periods in the Middle Ages and focus on just part of the curve. I could show temperatures from December to July and show good warming trend as well.

Inconvenient.

Posted by jk at 10:35 AM

July 8, 2006

Fires: Bush's Fault!

"I see this as one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States," said study coauthor Thomas Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Lots of people think climate change and the ecological responses are 50 to 100 years away. But it's not 50 to 100 years away—it's happening now in forest ecosystems through fire."

I guess the science is settled. The Director of Tree Ring Research and all says so in the Journal Science, picked up by Yahoo! News I suggest the increased population in forested areas and the devotion of academics and greens to wilderness preservation spiked in the late 1980s as well. I further suggest that the list of articles on this week's online version of the journal Science is telling:

• Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth
• Natural Disasters: Top 10 U.S. Threats
• Scorched West to Sizzle All Summer, NOAA Says
• In a Twist, Forest Products Viewed as Green Energy
• Snow Melting Earlier In Eastern North America
• Drought Lands Doubled

Not a lot of "up" news this week. I'm sensing a trend.

Posted by jk at 1:43 PM

July 5, 2006

Bush's Fault!

Insty links to some interesting weather news: No Tornadoes Confirmed In Nebraska-Kansas Area This Year

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Hastings are feeling lucky this year.

The 30-county area they serve in central Nebraska and north-central Kansas hasn't had a confirmed tornado for the first six months of this year. That hasn't happened since 1950.

There were two years that came close, 1966 and 1981, when a single tornado was reported during the first half of each year.

"It's quite unusual," said Steve Kisner, warning coordination meteorologist in the Hastings office. "We're glad Mother Nature is keeping everybody safe -- again showing the unpredictability of the weather."

Between five and 10 tornadoes usually hit the office's coverage area between Jan. 1 and June 30, Kisner said.

This might be a good trend, Sugarchuck tells me moving to McCook, NE is a good idea. Weather is one thing that gave me pause. Don't tell everybody, but the Front Range of Colorado has a perfect climate. A few hot weeks in the summer, a few cold weeks in the winter, all four seasons, and 300+ days of sun. I'm never in a rush to give that up.

Damn President, didn't sign Kyoto.

Posted by jk at 12:12 PM

June 26, 2006

Global Warming Consensus

Global Warming advocates like to claim that "the science is settled" and that "there is a consensus in the scientific community" which believes in man-made climate change. To disagree engenders quizzical looks and assumptions that you must be a creationist and a flat-earther as well.

The TCS scientists and columnists are faulted for the substantive funding they receive from petroleum companies. Perhaps that's legitimate, but I do not understand why the converse isn't true: government scientists have an equal or greater stake in perpetuating research.

So, my new buddy is the Alfred P. Sloane Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I don't think anybody ever accused MIT of hiring professors who don't know their science because they're right-wingers. I have quoted Richard Lindzen before, but today he writes in the WSJ Ed page about this consensus which is not a consensus.

When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists "don't have any models that give them a high level of confidence" one way or the other and went on to claim -- in his defense -- that scientists "don't know… They just don't know."

So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the "consensus." Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore's preferred global-warming template -- namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average.
[...]
So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.

First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists -- especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade.

Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce -- if we're lucky.

Posted by jk at 10:39 AM

June 6, 2006

Climate Change

TCS has a good article about climate change. (Not something Gore would want to read; he wants reality to follow his bidding...that comes from his education...influenced by John Dewey...influenced by Immanuel Kant, who said 'reality is a social construct.')

Snowfall here in the Northeast and across much of the Hemisphere relate to decadal scale cycles in the Atlantic and Arctic. Two atmospheric oscillations which generally operate in tandem -- the North Atlantic and Arctic Oscillations -- have significant control over the weather pattern including storm tracks and temperatures in both Europe and the eastern United States.

…

Over the last decade the behavior of the NAO/AO has been similar to the 1930s and 1940s (Taylor, 2005) when the NAO moved from a positive to increasingly negative state. Interestingly, that was the last time the Polar Regions were this warm and the summer polar ice this thin and reduced in coverage (Polyakov et al, 2004). Unlike Antarctica where the ice sits on land, in the arctic it is floating on water and the water from one ocean (the Atlantic) can readily flow beneath the ice and if unusually warm, melt more of the ice from beneath.

As George Taylor summarized on this site in his story "Arctic Sea Ice -- Is It Disappearing?"

"A number of researchers have suggested that inflows of Atlantic water into the Arctic profoundly affect temperatures and sea ice trends in the latter ocean. Polyakov, et al (2004) are among these. The first sentence of their paper states 'Exchanges between the Arctic and North Atlantic Ocean have a profound influence on the circulation and thermodynamics of each basin.' The authors attributed most of the variability to multidecadal variations on time scales of 50-80 years, with warm periods in the 1930s-40s and in recent decades, and cool periods in the 1960s-70s and early in the twentieth century. These are associated with changes in ice extent and thickness (as well as air and sea temperature and ocean salinity). The most likely causative factor involves changes in atmospheric circulation, including but not limited to the Arctic Oscillation"

…

By the way, this latest mode of the North Atlantic Oscillation is the one that Dr .William Gray talks about that favored the sudden increase in Atlantic hurricane activity since the middle 1990s. Last year, Atlantic temperatures were the warmest on record, helping contribute to the record 28 named storms.

Snowfall has been on the increase in parts of the United States and the world to record proportions in recent years even as summer snow and ice levels reach multi-decadal lows. The changes relate to natural cyclical changes in the Atlantic Ocean and atmosphere that favor both more tropical activity in summer and more snowfall in winters.

The whole article is worth reading. It has some good graphics to help grasp the NAO/AO phenomenon.

Posted by Cyrano at 10:53 AM

June 5, 2006

Who's Stupid?

Jonathan Chait at TNR thinks he has discovered a new intellectual low: the Competitive Enterprise Institute and its anti-global warming ads.

Chait's column, titled On carbon dioxide, conservatives take Americans for fools first establishes his street cred as a lip-curled cynic:

I had always thought that nobody had a lower opinion than I as to the analytical capacities of the American public. Then I discovered the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The institute is a conservative think tank in Washington that is less embarrassed than most conservative think tanks about raking in gobs of money from oil companies and propagating views that happen to comport precisely with those of their donors. It has been running ads attempting to cast doubt on the notion that fossil fuels bear any relation to global warming.

The oil companies'--sorry, I mean the institute's--approach to this challenge is to make people think fondly of carbon dioxide. It turns out to be a deeply misunderstood molecule. "We breathe it out," a narrator explains in one ad. "Plants breathe it in." We see an image of a young girl in pigtails blowing on a dandelion. The ad proceeds to explain that all this good stuff faces some sinister, amorphous peril. "Now, some politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant. Imagine if they succeed. What will our lives be like then?" Plants will suffocate for lack of carbon dioxide! Little girls blowing on dandelions will be thrown into prison!

Can anybody actually believe this?

Over here! Jonathan! The bald guy in the blue shorts! Yes, I believe it!

I think one of the most misunderstood aspects of the Global Warming debate has been the difference between pollution and products of combustion. Perfect hydrocarbon combustion produces CO2 and water. If carbon dioxide had a nice, non-threatening name, like "water" there would be less capacity to whip up furor about it.

Imperfect combustion releases carbon monoxide (CO) and particulates, and Nitrous oxide and nitrous dioxide. Newer, cleaner engines have reduced these impressively and the smog statistics show the effects.

The pernicious thing about reducing CO2 is that you cannot have combustion. And, Mr. Chait, it is a natural compound, and plants do indeed "breathe" it. The difference between curbing CO and CO2 emissions is a world apart and when somebody comes along to educate people on this, they are called names by TNR and have their motives questioned.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the former Vice President of the US, and a man who was nearly President, has released a whopper of a movie that is packed with the most outlandish over-predictions, bolstered predominantly by untruths.

Chait does not mention "An Inconvenient Truth." But he finds time to write a column about a think tank that is using petro-chemical dollars to present their side of the story, which happens to be factual.

The concept is so unpersuasive, even on its own terms, I can't believe that Americans are stupid enough to fall for it. People may be dumb, but if they were that dumb, the world would be a different place. There would be thousands of technicians on call to help us operate our flush toilets. Emergency rooms would be filled with people who attempted to clean out their earwax with steak knives

Well, Mr. Chait, I guess we agree that somebody is stupid.

UPDATE: Watch the ads here

Posted by jk at 1:30 PM | Comments (7)

But jk thinks:

I read the section you mentioned twice when I read the article, the prison terms for little girls convicted of dandecide are Chait's words, not the commercial's. Michael Moore in "Bowling for Columbine" took the accepted-as-over-the-top Willie Horton ad, and added graphics to make it worse. Chait does the same here.

I added links so that you can see the ad. I challenge you to find one thing in it that is factually incorrect or even overblown.

You're tired of overblown rhetoric and welcome rational debate, put 'er there buddy! It is the "warmies" that over-hype and use doomsday scenarios that are unfounded. The rhetoric is 100 times more overblown on the other side.

No, that's overblown. It is only 83.4 times more overblown. I really shouldn't exaggerate.

Posted by: jk at June 5, 2006 5:38 PM

But jk thinks:

And I didn't mean to dodge direct questions. I would not counter the existence of man-made smog.

CO and NOx are clearly poison in all but small quantities, without a trained dentist's supervision. Although they occur naturally, adding more to the atmosphere seems an easier sell as a no-no.

Back 'round to my point. I like this commercial for pointing out the difference. And it gets bonus points for pointing out the lifestyle advantages of using energy for wealth creation.

Posted by: jk at June 5, 2006 6:19 PM

But jk thinks:

And the word I was looking for is "dandeleocide." My mistake.

Posted by: jk at June 5, 2006 7:39 PM

But silence dogood thinks:

No problem JK, the whole premise of the ad is not factual. There is a current attempt to label CO2 as a greenhouse gas, which factually it is. There is no attempt to label it a pollutant, the ad does not point out the difference, it mixes the two completely.

So what is factual in the ad? We do exhale CO2 (no mention of the all important quantities) plants do absorb CO2 (breathing it would require a respiratory system, but I'll give them that one), and the burning of fossil fuels for energy has developed civilization to how we know it today.

Overblown rhetoric? How about the image of the gaunt woman grinding grain with a stick? Kinda ignores a few centuries of civilization don't you think? Even completely removing the use of fossil fuels would still leave us a long way from that, but images of a farmer plowing a field with a horse or a water wheel grinding grain doesn't pack quite the punch of a malnourished woman with a stick. The words are not stated, but the implication is clear that controlling CO2 emissions is going to cause you to take time away from writing code to grind your corn meal with a stick to make your dinner. Ditto for the implication that something as natural as CO2 could not possibly be bad for you.

It is not so much what you say, as how you say it, or for complicated scientific topics like this how you mix pieces of real science with a bunch of so called common sense mumbo jumbo. How dare we allow the mixing of toxic, explosively unstable metals with poisonous chemicals (table salt).

Dandelions are lawn terrorists and combatants and should be locked away indefinitely, and we should contemplate building walls around our lawns to control their movement.

Posted by: silence dogood at June 6, 2006 10:21 AM

But jk thinks:

I strongly disagree that people are not moving to label an regulate CO2 as a pollutant. If not directly, they throw it in a basket with its unfriendly cousins. The point of the ad is to pull it out and look objectively at what it is.

Are you proposing the rock as the technological advance to the stick? Because most of the ones which come to my mind use energy. Yes it's a long way from here to there, but the Institute makes an important point that using less energy is going to cost us.

(Don't knock the stick -- my wife's preparations for Y2K were to buy an old fashioned coffee grinder and some bottled water. We have a wood stove and figured we could live without everything else. The grinder has a place of honor now as the bullet we dodged.)

In the end it baffles me that we see this so differently. They don't say we're going back to the stick, they show the benefits of innovation. VP Gore, conversely, says that the trade center memorial will be underwater. I think we're comparing poetic license to polemic.

Posted by: jk at June 6, 2006 1:34 PM

But silence dogood thinks:

No, I think we will have to disagree on this one. On the cataclysmic scale it is tough to beat total global destruction, or at least massive flooding, but to imply that with limited CO2 emissions we are headed for African subsistence is a bit of a whopper as well. I also extremely dislike the slippery slope argument that CO2 will soon be a full fledged pollutant. If we take the slippery slope concept to its conclusion, we should never decide anything for fear that our politicians will misuse the information.

Everything uses energy JK, at least anything that does work over time. I was simply thinking that stock footage of Amish folk in this country would be a much closer approximation than an image obviously from an impoverished African nation.

Coffee grinder and bottled water, I love it. Conservative you may be, but that is very bohemian.

Posted by: silence dogood at June 7, 2006 2:39 PM

June 1, 2006

Hype for Me, Not for Thee

Josh at The Everyday Economist nails our former VP without even bringing up the ManBearPig. VP Gore says:

“I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) 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.”

Ummmm, okay, but TEE points out:

Now I want you to insert “Iraq” into the parentheses and re-read his statement. Now isn't that what Gore and many Democrats have accused President Bush of doing? So why then does Gore think its okay in this case?

ManBearPig. It's real!

Posted by jk at 12:39 PM | Comments (1)

But Cyrano thinks:

Amen. It's another example which goes to show that Gore's thinking and ideas are based on feeling and what he wants to be true -- not on fact. His ideas are NOT objective, based on what reality and reason say. Accordingly, Gore "takes" himself outside of reality, and therefore outside of moral, practical consideration. (But he obviously grants some recognition to reality, else he could not survive...and he would be certifiably insane, which he is not -- he is simply irrational and immoral.)

Posted by: Cyrano at June 1, 2006 7:02 PM

May 27, 2006

The Coming Global Catastrophe

Borowitz

The election of former vice president Al Gore to the White House could result in a disastrous phenomenon called “global boring” in which millions of people around the world would fall asleep in an unprecedented narcoleptic pandemic.

That is the message of a new documentary about the 2000 Democratic Party standard-bearer that has been produced and narrated by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and is being released in selected cities today.

The documentary, entitled “An Incoherent Truth,” collects moments from some of Mr. Gore’s most mind-numbing speeches to make a persuasive case that a Gore presidency would set off a doomsday scenario of global tedium.

Posted by AlexC at 3:09 PM

Ozone Hole

It's closing.

The good news: In the upper stratosphere (above roughly 18 km), ozone recovery can be explained almost entirely by CFC reductions. "Up there, the Montreal Protocol seems to be working," says co-author Mike Newchurch of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The puzzle: In the lower stratosphere (between 10 and 18 km) ozone has recovered even better than changes in CFCs alone would predict. Something else must be affecting the trend at these lower altitudes.

The "something else" could be atmospheric wind patterns. "Winds carry ozone from the equator where it is made to higher latitudes where it is destroyed. Changing wi