By Richard Palmer, Royal Correspondent,
UK Daily Express
PRINCE Charles was accused of endangering his reputation yesterday after claiming climate change sceptics were “playing a reckless game of roulette” with the world’s future.
In a speech to Euro MPs and business leaders in Brussels, he lashed out at those urging caution in response to apocalyptic warnings about the effects of global warming.
The Prince suggested climate change sceptics were having a “corrosive effect” on public opinion by saying that hundreds of scientists around the world were somehow conspiring to present a false image of man-made global warming in an attempt to destroy the world economy.
Projected Impact Of Global Warming On Europe Negligible
Submitted by
Doug L. Hoffman
Climate change activists have long warned of a bleak and impoverished future due to the ravages of global warming. But evaluating the effects of climate change in the long term is an extremely complex issue. There are no reliable, accurate predictions for future climate, demographic change, economic development, or technological progress. A new study in Proceedings of the National Academies of Science finds that if the climate of the 2080s were to occur today, the annual loss in household welfare in the European Union (EU) would range between 0.2–1%. Furthermore, this minuscule change was derived using aggressive IPCC scenarios for temperature and sea-level rise. Regardless of the claims made by climate change doomsayers, the future is not going to suck after all.
Any impact assessment must take into account incomplete scientific methodologies, data gaps and many sources of uncertainty. In a study to appear in the January 31, 201, issue of PNAS, Juan-Carlos Ciscar and colleagues seek to answer the question “how bad things will be if the IPCC's pessimistic projections for future climate change come true?” at least for one region. In “Physical and economic consequences of climate change in Europe,” they present an integrated assessment of the physical and economic effects of climate change in Europe. The paper's abstract frames the motivation and goals of the study:
Quantitative estimates of the economic damages of climate change usually are based on aggregate relationships linking average temperature change to loss in gross domestic product (GDP). However, there is a clear need for further detail in the regional and sectoral dimensions of impact assessments to design and prioritize adaptation strategies. New developments in regional climate modeling and physical-impact modeling in Europe allow a better exploration of those dimensions. This article quantifies the potential consequences of climate change in Europe in four market impact categories (agriculture, river floods, coastal areas, and tourism) and one nonmarket impact (human health). The methodology integrates a set of coherent, high-resolution climate change projections and physical models into an economic modeling framework.
Reps Posey, Adams and Bishop Join Colleagues in Calling on House Leaders to Reprioritize NASA for Human Space Flight Missions, Drop Climate Change
Source:
U.S. House of Representatives
WASHINGTON - As House leaders examine ways to cut spending and address the ever growing budget deficits that have plagued Washington for years, U.S. Representatives Bill Posey (R-FL), Sandy Adams (R-FL) and Rob Bishop (R-UT) were joined by several other of their colleagues in calling for a reprioritization of NASA so human space flight remains the primary focus of the nation's space agency as budget cuts are considered.
In their recent letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-KY) and Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA), Posey, Adams and Bishop state that while "moving forward under a constrained budget, it will be critical for the Appropriations Committee to produce legislation that is precise in its budget cuts. For years, Presidents and Congress have charged NASA with completing tasks that fall outside the scope of NASA's primary mission.
"Our space program attracts and inspires the world's greatest minds and gives our young people inspiration to excel in math and science. Human spaceflight, however, is not simply a matter of national prestige. Our nation's ability to access space is a critical national security asset and plays an important role in our future economic competitiveness. Space is the ultimate high ground and nations such as China, Russia, and India are anxious to seize the mantle of space supremacy should we decide to cede it."
