Minnkota Power not happy about climate change
Minnkota Power, a generation/transmission cooperative serving electricity consumers in northwest Minnesota and eastern North Dakota, is not happy about climate change and they want their customers to know about it, every other month. A review of their customer newsletter, the Minnkota Messenger, indicates a consistent concern that climate change is a massive environmental sham. Some of it reads like grocery store tabloids and it’s quite interesting how much coverage they give to it, perhaps hoping that quantity will make up for quality. They might do well to read “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.”
- Nov/Dec 2007, p6 - “A Developing Catastrophe”
- Sep/Oct 2007 - break
- Jul/Aug 2007, p9 - “Global Warming: The Rest of the Story”
- May/Jun 2007 - break
- Mar/Apr 2007 - break
- Jan/Feb 2007, p9: “Polar Bears and Climate Change”
- Nov/Dec 2006 - break
- Sep/Oct 2006, p6: “A shaky foundation”
- Jul/Aug 2006, p6: “Another Perspective: Noted scientist weighs in on climate change issue”
- May/Jun 2006, p10: “Political Science: New film puts climate change in headlines”
- Mar/Apr 2006, p10: “Myth: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.”
- Jan/Feb 2006, p10: “An astonishing discovery: Recent finding underscores cautionary approach”
- Nov/Dec 2005 - break
- Sep/0ct 2005, p11 - “A hurricane of misinformation global warming activists turn storms into spin”
- Jul/Aug 2005, p6 - “Earth’s ever-changing climate state geologist offers his perspective”
- May/Jun 2005, p12 - “Alarmist warning; Myth: Carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere are currently at an all-time high.”
- Mar/Apr 2005, p11: “Baliunas debunks Kyoto Protocol”
- Jan/Feb 2005, p12: “Myth: Global warming caused the recent tsunami in Sumatra.”
And the list goes on…
September 10, 2007 at 12:01 pm
GrandForksHerald.com
VIEWPOINT : Global warming — not so uncertain after all
By Allan Ashworth
- 09/10/2007
FARGO - In his Aug. 30 column, David Loer, president and CEO of Minnkota Power, selectively uses scientific information in support of his anti-global warming message (“Inconvenient evidence rebuts warming theory,” Page 4A). In so doing, he misrepresents science and the majority of scientists.
We shouldn’t be too surprised that an energy company executive would try to sway public opinion away from a sensible position on global warming. Unabashedly, he tells us that his purpose is to keep the cost of energy low for his consumers and, presumably, also keep the profits high for the cooperative.
I suspect that if asked, many of Minnkota’s customers would be uneasy with the proposition of cheap energy at any cost, especially if the price included passing the buck to their children and grandchildren.
Loer concedes the world is warming but looks on this as just part of a natural cycle. He points to revised NASA temperature data which shows that for the U.S., several years in the 1930s had temperatures higher than those of some recent years.
Individual record years, however, do not tell the whole story. Since 1880, the trend has been to higher temperatures, and 18 of the past 30 years are the highest on record - not consecutive, but the greatest concentration since record-keeping began.
The most conservative and authoritative federal agency dealing with climate is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce - hardly a bunch of radical climatologists. Their statement appeared before the recent revisions, but it still holds true:
“. . . recent decades appear to be the warmest since at least about 1000 A.D., and the warming since the late 19th century is unprecedented over the last 1,000 years.”
In another example, Loer tries to show that there is no link between rising temperatures and increases in carbon dioxide. He cites ice core records from the end of the glaciation, which show temperature rising before CO2 values start to increase.
The lag is several hundreds of years, but I know of no paleoclimatologists who would then use this evidence as Loer does to imply that CO2 is not involved in the subsequent temperature rise.
Linkages and causes of past climate changes are complex and still poorly understood. But most scientists I know would consider the initial warming after glaciations to be caused by rapid reorganizations of the ocean-atmosphere system (as a result of cyclical variations in energy received from the sun).
Almost to a person, however, they would agree that once carbon dioxide had started to rise, it would magnify warming through a positive feedback loop.
In another misleading statement, Loer states that only 3 percent of the world’s carbon emissions are from man’s activities. But according to NASA, the amount is about 5.5 billion tons annually - not so small.
And most of it accumulates in the atmosphere, because it is being produced at a rate greater that can be used through photosynthesis. The year-by-year accumulation is what causes the majority of scientists to be very concerned.
Loer gives the impression that about half of all scientists do not think that global warming has human causes. But the survey he reports on is not of scientists but of scientific literature. The survey’s author, a medical researcher, reports that most of literature was divided between articles which supported the “consensus” opinion or were neutral to it. The consensus opinion is defined as humans having at least some effect on global climate change.
Only 6 percent of the articles did not support the consensus. In other words, only a relatively small number of scientists reported that global warming was due to natural causes and is not, at least in part, man-made.
I personally know only three scientists who express the opinion that human activities are not involved in global warming. The professional societies I’m involved with - the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union, both with memberships in the thousands - have issued strong position statements that link the burning of fossil fuels to global warming and further stress the need for all of us to be concerned about the future.
I am an optimist by nature and hope that we’ll find economic solutions to solving the global warming problem. The silver lining in Loer’s article is that Minnkota is involved with renewable energy.
Moorhead residents showed us that they were willing to pay a little extra for wind-generated energy. Instead of feeling obliged to selectively misuse scientific information, the challenge to Loer and Minnkota should be to devote their considerable talents and expertise to providing their consumers cleaner energy for the future.
We need them to become part of the solution rather than continuing to be part of the problem.
Ashworth is a geology professor at North Dakota State University and vice president of the International Union for Quaternary Research. The union is an international organization representing scientists - including climate scientists - from 35 countries with interests in the history of the Earth for the past two million years.
May 17, 2008 at 11:57 am
Solar power is the wave of the future for sure. I have well over 1/2 of my household running on solar powered devices, including panels on the roof, and a large array of light illumination products in my yard. I also have a large wind turbine in my yard which so far has cut down my electricty costs by 50%.