Adaptation is the sensible response to climate change

Attention: News Editors, Political, Science and Environment Reporters

MEDIA RELEASE

Adaptation is the sensible response to climate change

Extreme weather not on the rise and not related to hydrocarbon fuel use

Ottawa, Canada, May 5, 2012: “Climate campaigners at 350.org and their partner organizations are completely off base with Climate Impacts Day,” said Tom Harris, executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) which is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. “Instead of the nonsensical quest to stop climate change to reduce extreme weather events, these groups should focus solely on the real world issues of helping people prepare for and adapt to whatever nature throws at us next.”

“Extreme weather events are generally not on the rise either across North America or across the world,” said Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar, Canadian extreme weather expert and former Environment Canada research scientist. “Extreme events in the past few years are occurring with about the same frequency as they did during the 1945-1977 period when the Earth was generally cooling.”

“The public’s belief that we are experiencing an overall rise in extreme weather is largely due to the intense focus by main stream media on such events when they happen, not an increase in the actual occurrences,” explained Dr. Khandekar. “In this case, the fears of climate campaigners are based more on perception than reality.”

Dr. Khandekar is one of the authors of The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change report (NIPCC – see www.nipccreport.com) released on August 29, 2011 which concluded that “the data reveal there have not been any significant warming-induced increases in extreme weather events.” The report’s authors showed that this was the case whether the phenomenon being studied was precipitation, floods, droughts, storms, hurricanes, fires, or other weather-related events.

Tsunami and tropical cyclone-storm surge expert Professor Tad Murty of the University of Ottawa provided more details, “There has been an approximately 12-fold increase in humanity’s coastal infrastructure around the world in the past 100 years, so it is to be expected that damage from extreme weather events would also rise. However, this does not indicate an increase in either the frequency or intensity of the actual events and specifically I am referring to hurricanes on the globe. In fact, many of the global hurricane parameter records were set decades in the past and there is little sign of increasing overall at present. For example, we are near a 20 year low in the intensity of tropical cyclones worldwide.”

New Zealand-based Terry Dunleavy, ICSC founding chairman and strategic advisor, said, “The UN’s nonsensical attempts to stop climate change have diverted world attention, and hundreds of billions of dollars, away from helping those already being hurt by natural climate variation and weather-related events. The health and wellbeing of people suffering today is infinitely more important than the remote possibility that our greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions might threaten those yet to be born.”

"If the world were to warm significantly due to man-made GHG—a highly unlikely scenario—temperatures at high latitudes are forecast to rise the most, reducing the difference between arctic and tropical temperatures. Since this differential drives weather, we should see less extremes in weather, not more,” concluded ICSC chief science advisor, Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University in Queensland, Australia and author of Climate: the Counter Consensus. “To say ‘The fossil fuel industry is at fault’ for damaging climatic impacts, as the Climate Impacts Day representatives do, is clearly not able to be substantiated.”

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The ICSC is a non-partisan group of scientists, economists and energy and policy experts who are working to promote better understanding of climate science and related policy worldwide. We aim to help create an environment in which a more rational, open discussion about climate issues emerges, thereby moving the debate away from implementation of costly and ineffectual “climate control” measures. Instead, ICSC encourages effective planning for, and adaptation to, inevitable natural climate variability, and continuing scientific research into the causes and impacts of climate change.

ICSC also focuses on publicizing the repercussions of misguided plans to “solve the climate crisis”. This includes, but is not limited to, “carbon” sequestration as well as the dangerous impacts of attempts to replace conventional energy supplies with wind turbines, solar power, most biofuels and other ineffective and expensive energy sources.

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For more information about this announcement or ICSC in general, or to arrange interviews with any of ICSC’s advisors listed at http://tinyurl.com/3pzha26, please contact:

Tom Harris, B. Eng., M. Eng. (Mech. - thermofluids)
Executive Director, International Climate Science Coalition
P.O. Box 23013
Ottawa, Ontario K2A 4E2
Canada

Email: tom.harris@climatescienceinternational.net

Phone: 613-728-9200

Both Professor Carter and Terry Dunleavy, cited in the media release, may also be contacted directly as follows:

In Australia:

Professor Robert (Bob) M. Carter, PhD, Hon. FRSNZ
Chief Science Advisor, International Climate Science Coalition
Emeritus Fellow, Institute for Public Affairs, Melbourne

Marine Geophysical Laboratory
James Cook University
Townsville, Queensland, 4811
Australia

Email: bob.carter@jcu.edu.au

Phone (mobile): +61-(0)419-701-139
Phone (evening): +61-(0)7-4775-1268

In New Zealand:

Terry Dunleavy, MBE, JP
Founding Chairman and Strategic Advisor, International Climate Science Coalition
Hauraki, North Shore City 0622
New Zealand

Email: terry.dunleavy@nzclimatescience.org.nz

Phone: +64 9 4863859 - Mobile: +64 274836688

The ICSC is a non-partisan group of scientists, economists and energy and policy experts who are working to promote better understanding of climate science and related policy worldwide. We aim to help create an environment in which a more rational, open discussion about climate issues emerges, thereby moving the debate away from implementation of costly and ineffectual “climate control” measures. Instead, ICSC encourages effective planning for, and adaptation to, inevitable natural climate variability, and continuing scientific research into the causes and impacts of climate change.

ICSC also focuses on publicizing the repercussions of misguided plans to “solve the climate crisis”. This includes, but is not limited to, “carbon” sequestration as well as the dangerous impacts of attempts to replace conventional energy supplies with wind turbines, solar power, most biofuels and other ineffective and expensive energy sources.

I can give you my confidential home address too, but it must not be published, please - just let me know if you need this.

This release was published on openPR.