Is the sea really rising?

Convinced that coastal cities like Jersey City and Hoboken face imminent threat of flooding due to global warming environmental activists from around Hudson County, the state and region, joined officials at a town hall meeting on April 17 to talk about strategies for dealing with it.

Although billed as a panel discussion, the meeting became a pep rally for the controversial New Green Deal – proposed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The event, which drew hundreds of supporters, also strongly supported the concept that allegedly man-made CO2 emissions from industrial and other sources are causing melting of the ice caps and Greenland glaciers resulting in a rise in sea levels.

According to members of the panel that included Phillip Orton, a research professor at Stevens Institute of Technology and a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s six assessment report – and extremely controversial document that seems to support the CO2 theories on impact on global warming.

But Orton cautioned the advocates against assuming the solar and wind power would be enough to accommodate the power needs of the community.

“We might have to keep our nuclear options open,” he said.

Matt Smith, from the Jersey City Environmental Commission, cited growing evidence of human impact on the environment, and quoted two reports, one from the United Nations Commission on Climate Change and another from the United State Naval Academy Climate Change Assessment,

These two reports in the past are the basis upon which the 2012 Paris Environmental Accords were developed and approved by then President Barack Obama, an agreement President Donald Trump later withdrew from.

These two reports later updated several times have also become the fundamental outline for the new green deal, a draconian set of proposals that deal with what many consider to be a national emergency.

While there were no critics of the New Green Deal on the panel, the whole concept of global warming as a man-induced problem has come under scrutiny by a number of scientists, some connected with the fossil fuel industry, but also a number of former supporters of the global warming theories, who have become disillusioned by the politics involved, and question the validity of the science used to project future calamity.

Patrick Moore, co-founder of Green Peace, is quoted as saying the green movement has become big business, and said models projecting the future are based only on the last 100 years. He called this “a blink of an eye” of nature.

Big green vs. big fossil fuel

The green industry has become a big business as corporations seeking to avoid doing actual work to reduce their carbon footprint meet with leaders of various countries to broker deals in what are called carbon agreements that allows them to pass their obligations onto others.

Steven E. Koonin, former secretary for the Department of Energy under Obama is quoted saying the whole is movement political and said the administration had manipulated data to support the theory.

Environmental groups like World Environmental Center act as brokers between international corporations and world leaders to negotiate carbon credits that allowed corporations to avoid actually reducing carbon admissions.

Caleb Rossier of the American University called this “environmental racism” since the rules under the Paris agreement rewarded corporations credits while holding back poor countries from being about the develop.

Critics of the New Green Deal claim that many of the supporters of the theories supporting it have obtained lucrative grants as reward for their support.

While the Paris accord had a vast number of scientific organizations supporting it, the accords are based largely on  a UN panel that originally formed in 1988 and – according to critics – was hijacked by proponents of man caused global warming.

No historic evidence to support massive flooding projections

While Orton claimed at the town hall that some of the rise sea levels was due to human activity, previous IPCC reports appear to contradict him.

Albert Park of James Cook University reported that there was no significant dramatic rate increase in the rise of water levels since 1990. In order projections of massive future flooding to be correct, the rate of water rising must increase each year. While studies show there is a steady small rise in sea levels every year, this rate has not increased – despite the UN climate committee’s projections.

These failed projections over the last 25 years have turned many believers into skeptics, saying there is no scientific basis for future projections of catastrophes. Earlier IPCC assessments projected a rise in the ocean levels by 2100 in inches, not many meters that advocates are predicting.

Advocates at the town hall meeting insisted that the rise of the sea will in danger Hudson County communities in the future, and that local leaders must adopt some of the principles of the New Green Deal to modify the impact of CO2 on the environment. Most of these assumptions are based on the UN Committee which critics said was hijacked by activists when founded in 1988.

Critics claim that a mere 75 scientists – some with little or no expertise in the field -- set the agenda that led to eventual signing of the Paris Accord.

Many critics claim that the UN reports used for the accord were biased. This belief received support from the 2009 scandal called “Climategate” in which leaked emails allegedly showed UN officials deliberately discarding opposing viewpoints in order to come up with a consensus on global warming.

Judith Curry, one of the researchers and supporters of the global warming theory, reversed her position when she saw other arguments, claiming there is not enough proof of a connection between increasing CO2 and global warming.

Finnish scientist Jarl R Ahlbeck, also a former member of Green Peace is quoted saying there so far no real measurement to justify the catastrophic predictions.

Natural or man-made issue?

CO2 is one of a handful of what are called greenhouse gases which means that it tends to retain heat in the atmosphere. But CO2 like methane make up at relatively small part of this group of gases. Water vapor makes up nearly 90 percent of all greenhouse gases.

Former NASS scientist Les Woodcock, a professor of Chemical Thermodynamics at the University of Manchester, said water vapor plays a much more powerful part in global warming than CO2 does.

The theories that back the New Green Deal blame rising CO2 levels – many manufactured by human activity -- for an increase in the temperatures of the planet and contribute to the melting of the ice caps and in particular the melting of glaciers in Greenland. Many believe this melting will dramatically increase the ocean water levels and will eventually overwhelm low-lying coast cities like Hoboken and Jersey City.

While Orton admitted that human-created global warming did not create superstorm Sandy, he did claim that it made the water levels higher.

Critics however sharply question the validity of this claims saying that there is no evidence to date that mankind has contributed to the rise of the sea.

Most scientists agree the glaciers are receding in Greenland and that the sea is rising many some scientists claim it is the result of natural progression that started 18,000 years ago when glaciers receded from all of North America. This melting continued at the same slow pace ever since except for the Little Ice Age when the Gulf Stream altered its course and created a worldwide chill that lasted until 1870 when the world began to return to its previous warm cycle. Critics claim that the current melting is a continuation of what transpired prior to the Little Ice Age and not a result of human activity.

Critics also said there is evidence that CO2 levels were massively higher in the past – including the Roman period, but more importantly, the Medieval Period just prior to the Little Ice Age. Studies supporting their claims show no evidence of global catastrophes as a result

Leighton Steward, an EPA awarded scientist, said he found no historic CO2 impact.

Little or no empirical evidence to support catastrophic claims?

Measurement of the rise of sea levels started in earnest only after the UN initial report in the late 80s, but new advanced satellite testing started in 1993 and showed a steady rise of sea levels of about one eighth of an inch annually, or about the thickness of a nickel. The UN had predicted sharp increases and critics claim that lack physical evidence makes predictions scientifically unsound.

Geoscientist and former UN consultant David Kear said these projections are based on “unfounded unscientific beliefs.”

IPCC’s previous five reports actually support the gradual rise of oceans due to natural causes rather than the man-made arguments made by proponents of the New Green Deal.

UN assessments have changed over time, heated up allegedly by politics. Original studies showed that earth’s temperature rose to its hottest in recorded history from 1920 to 1940, listing 1934 as the single hottest year.

A later UN report – critics claim bowed to pressure of advocates – listed 1998 at the hottest year with later years allegedly exceeding this. But there was a 17 year period called “The Pause” in which there was no increase in temperature, defying many of the UN projections.

Yet even if advocates of the New Green Deal are wrong, anti flooding precautions taken in Hoboken and Jersey City may not be wasted since both cities have built residential development in what are already known as traditional flood zones. Historic storms have been pelting the coast of New Jersey for more than a century as attested to by a superstorm that hit here in 1956 and a storm that flood Hoboken and the PATH system in 1992.

 

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