...no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming

So says Dr. David Evans, former consultant (1999-2005) to the Australian Greenhouse Office.

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.
[...]
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.

The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.

But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot.

Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.

2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.

3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.

4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.
[...]
So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.

In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.
[...]

Wheels about to fall off the APS bus?...

We reported earlier on a development in which a journal of the American Physical Society, Forum on Physics & Society, decided to

"... kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, together with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution....

The debate was opened by an invited paper by Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, challenging the conclusions of the UN IPCC report on climate change that is at the root of much of the discourse over global warming. Subsequent to the publication of Viscount Monckton's report, a representative of the Council of the American Physical Society decided that it was necessary for the APS to back-pedal from Monckton's position of plausible deniability of global warming, and it prefaced his article with the following bit of fluff:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions.

Nevermind that the stated purpose of Monckton's article was to form a base point in the journal to advance a dialogue about the topic, a process that the members of the council of the APS could have participated in in a manner which befits a scientific discourse. Rather, the Council has taken a somewhat arcane19th century position common to scientific societies of old in which the Society, like many of its predecessors, has declared a bit of science settled, and attempts, through intimidation and plain puffery, to silence the debate.

Upon noticing this addendum to his article, Viscount Monckton, in a strongly worded email to the president of the Society, Arthur Bienenstock, challenges the statement directly:

"...This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.

Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur's findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council's decision, together with the names of those present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the "overwhelming opinion of the world scientific
community"; and, tertio, that "The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions"? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?

Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?"

That the American Physical Society should even have a position, seeing as it is a constituent organization of scientists, which by the nature of science, will hold widely contrary views on a wide variety of subjects, is in and of itself revealing, but to float out a ridiculously inane statement like "...Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community", speaks both to the credibility of the APS Council, and to the extent that the global warming debate has left the realm of science and become metaphysical. Such a statement is unknowable - "deniers" have been threatened, castigated, fired, and deprived of funding, and of consequence, will be less then sanguine about their true position on the topic. Further, as the addendum to Moncton's article clearly indicates, deniers are in for a rough ride if they offer contrary analysis.

If the science is as settled as the Council of the American Physical Society seems to believe, what are they afraid of? Surely, as scientists, it should be self-evident to them, that if the science is valid, reasoned dialogue on the Forum on Physics & Society will flow only in one direction: overwhelming support for their position.

The Council meddling in the Forum is bizarre and not a bit self-righteous. The Council needs to do more than apologize to Viscount Monckton. It needs to butt out of the debate, and let its membership duke it out in the appropriate scientific fashion.

[h/t SDA]

Update: There are some very interesting leads to follow in the comment section of SDA's blog entry on this. It would behoove those with a real interest in this debate to both spend some time reading Viscount Monckton's paper, the fallout, and some of the other position papers similar to Monckton's. AGW is hardly "settled" science, and since draconian tax and market schemes are (too) rapidly being established, everyone ultimately has a vested interest in the real truth of AGW.

Update II: The following is the discussion and conclusion section of Viscount Monckton's paper. Readers should go back and review his complete paper. As the foregoing illustrates, his perspective is not universally shared (Tim Lambert objects to his math). For clarity, I have broken out the paragraphs of his conclusion so that his presentation style stands out.

Discussion

"We have set out and then critically examined a detailed account of the IPCC’s method of evaluating climate sensitivity. We have made explicit the identities, interrelations, and values of the key variables, many of which the IPCC does not explicitly describe or quantify. The IPCC’s method does not provide a secure basis for policy-relevant conclusions. We now summarize some of its defects.

The IPCC’s methodology relies unduly – indeed, almost exclusively – upon numerical analysis, even where the outputs of the models upon which it so heavily relies are manifestly and significantly at variance with theory or observation or both. Modeled projections such as those upon which the IPCC’s entire case rests have long been proven impossible when applied to mathematically-chaotic objects, such as the climate, whose initial state can never be determined to a sufficient precision. For a similar reason, those of the IPCC’s conclusions that are founded on probability distributions in the chaotic climate object are unsafe.

Not one of the key variables necessary to any reliable evaluation of climate sensitivity can be measured empirically. The IPCC’s presentation of its principal conclusions as though they were near-certain is accordingly unjustifiable. We cannot even measure mean global surface temperature anomalies to within a factor of 2; and the IPCC’s reliance upon mean global temperatures, even if they could be correctly evaluated, itself introduces substantial errors in its evaluation of climate sensitivity.

The IPCC overstates the radiative forcing caused by increased CO2 concentration at least threefold because the models upon which it relies have been programmed fundamentally to misunderstand the difference between tropical and extra-tropical climates, and to apply global averages that lead to error.

The IPCC overstates the value of the base climate sensitivity parameter for a similar reason. Indeed, its methodology would in effect repeal the fundamental equation of radiative transfer (Eqn. 18), yielding the impossible result that at every level of the atmosphere ever-smaller forcings would induce ever-greater temperature increases, even in the absence of any temperature feedbacks.

The IPCC overstates temperature feedbacks to such an extent that the sum of the high-end values that it has now, for the first time, quantified would cross the instability threshold in the Bode feedback equation and induce a runaway greenhouse effect that has not occurred even in geological times despite CO2 concentrations almost 20 times today’s, and temperatures up to 7 ºC higher than today’s.

The Bode equation, furthermore, is of questionable utility because it was not designed to model feedbacks in non-linear objects such as the climate. The IPCC’s quantification of temperature feedbacks is, accordingly, inherently unreliable. It may even be that, as Lindzen (2001) and Spencer (2007) have argued, feedbacks are net-negative, though a more cautious assumption has been made in this paper.

It is of no little significance that the IPCC’s value for the coefficient in the CO2 forcing equation depends on only one paper in the literature; that its values for the feedbacks that it believes account for two-thirds of humankind’s effect on global temperatures are likewise taken from only one paper; and that its implicit value of the crucial parameter κ depends upon only two papers, one of which had been written by a lead author of the chapter in question, and neither of which provides any theoretical or empirical justification for a value as high as that which the IPCC adopted.

The IPCC has not drawn on thousands of published, peer-reviewed papers to support its central estimates for the variables from which climate sensitivity is calculated, but on a handful.

On this brief analysis, it seems that no great reliance can be placed upon the IPCC’s central estimates of climate sensitivity, still less on its high-end estimates. The IPCC’s assessments, in their current state, cannot be said to be “policy-relevant”. They provide no justification for taking the very costly and drastic actions advocated in some circles to mitigate “global warming”, which Eqn. (30) suggests will be small (<1 °C at CO2 doubling), harmless, and beneficial.

Conclusion

Even if temperature had risen above natural variability, the recent solar Grand Maximum may have been chiefly responsible.

Even if the sun were not chiefly to blame for the past half-century’s warming, the IPCC has not demonstrated that, since CO2 occupies only one-ten-thousandth part more of the atmosphere that it did in 1750, it has contributed more than a small fraction of the warming.

Even if carbon dioxide were chiefly responsible for the warming that ceased in 1998 and may not resume until 2015, the distinctive, projected fingerprint of anthropogenic “greenhouse-gas” warming is entirely absent from the observed record.

Even if the fingerprint were present, computer models are long proven to be inherently incapable of providing projections of the future state of the climate that are sound enough for policymaking.

Even if per impossibile the models could ever become reliable, the present paper demonstrates that it is not at all likely that the world will warm as much as the IPCC imagines.

Even if the world were to warm that much, the overwhelming majority of the scientific, peer-reviewed literature does not predict that catastrophe would ensue.

Even if catastrophe might ensue, even the most drastic proposals to mitigate future climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would make very little difference to the climate.

Even if mitigation were likely to be effective, it would do more harm than good: already millions face starvation as the dash for biofuels takes agricultural land out of essential food production: a warning that taking precautions, “just in case”, can do untold harm unless there is a sound, scientific basis for them.

Finally, even if mitigation might do more good than harm, adaptation as (and if) necessary would be far more cost-effective and less likely to be harmful.

In short, we must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing."

Integrity of the historical weather record.

Scientific measurements over long periods of time may not have high reliability indexes. This should be self-evident and assumed, but in today's digital readouts, computerized analysis and modeling, there is insufficient scepticism in the integrity of data. Indeed, it was recognized when the very first digital readout lab devices began to be used in the late '60s and early '70s, that there was a belief that the reported number was inherently more accurate than a calibrated scale. It took some time to educate technicians that instrument calibration was as important to digital readout devices as it was to metered devices.

As the reports of fudged data surface on DEW (Distant Early Warning) line stations across Canada, the very real problems of data collection are highlighted, as is the reliability of models and prognostications that derive from that data.

Error creep in analysis regimes is a problem which standard tests and techniques may not remove. In fact, the introduction of an assumption to account for a possible error circumstance, regardless of how elegant it is technically or scientifically, still introduces a modicum of error all its own. Back in the early days of mainframe computer programming, we used to call this problem an "error cascade" - it was readily evident in linear programming systems when each error input or calculated compounded the importance of the error, to the point where the results were absolutely meaningless. Many times, the error results were spectacular in their presentation; other times very subtle. Many scientists have had to dine on professional crow when someone pointed out a fault in their analysis path. In part, that is the very nature of peer review in science, and is both a blessing and a curse.

It should be obvious that data analysis dependent on historical records or observations, in the absence of clarity in oversight and methodology, is going to be fraught with error cascades. Oral histories, observations decades or centuries old, will commonly be shrouded in the lint of error. As the DEW line example illustrates, the researcher of the record for which methodologies are published, may not even understand that the error exists. If the anomalous data doesn't deviate too far from the "expected", then its error will likely be understated. Worse - if error is suspected, then the widely divergent data is frequently discarded. Sometimes, that divergent data is valid.

There are significant error cascades in the data packs upon which most of the "global warming/climate change" hysteria is based. Many of the conclusions drawn about anthropogenic global warming are simply not supportable. More worrisome, the crafting of "carbon trading" based public fiscal policy, based on the assumptions in AGW hypotheses, is not only foolhardy, its foolish.

Some years ago, a retailer I worked for part-time when I going to school, used to tell me about the annoying mandatory surveys Statistics Canada ("Statscan") used to send them about retail sales business. The surveys were used to "snapshot" the state of the economy. They took not a small amount of the retailer's time to complete and return, and besides, his view was that his business was none of Statscan's. He would take the form and stuff whatever numbers came into his head at the time, and send it in. Time and time again.

Wheels begin to fall off Al Gore's bus.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"

In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, "I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC's 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central 'climate sensitivity' question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method."

According to Monckton, there is substantial support for his results, "in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low."

[...]

Since this story broke, furious backpedaling appears to have occured amongst those who are "grant enabled": "After publication of this story, the APS responded with a statement that its Physics and Society Forum is merely one unit within the APS, and its views do not reflect those of the Society at large. "

Lotsa fun over this going on at Junk Science. For added weekend amusement take the "bare/bear facts" course further down Milloy's page.

Now too, might be a good time to start buying up the world's supply of lithium, as we are likely to see a "cap and trade" program on psychotropic drugs for bi-polar bears. It appears that Steve Milloy may have found a patron school for his Junk Science department. Good Lord.

Reclassifying Censorship

Ezra Levant has begun to report on his attendance as an invited speaker before the U.S. Congress' human rights caucus meeting he attended July 11, 2008:

"Asma Fatima is the Second Secretary of the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington, D.C. She was on the panel with me at the U.S. Congress's human rights caucus meeting yesterday.

[...]

She wants Western countries to ban critical comments about Islam -- and she mentioned the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in particular. It was well pointed out by others on the panel that Western defamation law deals with the vindication of improperly besmirched reputations using the truth, as determined by courts of law -- but when it comes to clashing religions, the truth of any faith is in the heart of the beholder. The only legal system that would hold the Koran to be "the truth", and subordinate every other faith beneath the Koranic truth, would be a sharia legal system, such as that in Saudi Arabia. In other words, she wants to replace our secular legal systems with a Muslim legal system. I appreciated the honesty.

[...]

Fatima's demands for an end to the "defamation" of "Islam" was undone masterfully by two of my fellow panellists. The first was Zia Meral, of Turkey, who pointed out that the real "hurt" we ought to be looking at was not Fatima's hurt feelings, but the real physical hurt suffered by Islam's dissidents and he described, in gruesome detail, how non-Muslims -- and worse, apostates -- are dealt with in Muslim countries from Sudan to Malaysia to Saudi Arabia. I will not recount the horrific details....

"...we’re a laboratory for bad ideas."

Says Ezra Levant in a speech made to the U.S. Congress's bi-partisan human rights caucus, as an expert witness.

"...When it comes to censorship, we’re a laboratory for bad ideas. And the coalition between foreign trouble-makers and domestic busy-bodies is an idea that is spreading here, too.

[...]

So why should Americans care? I can think of three reasons. And what should Americans do? I can think of two things.

1. Americans should care because Americans have always cared about liberty around the world, especially political and religious liberty. It is one of America’s greatest characteristics: a love for the well-being of other countries. Being a Good Samaritan is in your nature, and the world is freer because of it.

2. America should care because what happens in Europe and Canada soon comes – or tries to come – to the U.S. When it comes to censorship, we’re a laboratory for bad ideas. And the coalition between foreign trouble-makers and domestic busy-bodies is an idea that is spreading here, too.

3. Despite your First Amendment, human rights commissions are popping up all over the U.S.

The city of Philadelphia’ s “human relations” commission has a staff of 33, and a multi-million dollar budget. Last year, they prosecuted Geno’s Steak House because they put up a sign asking customers to order their Philly Cheese Steaks in English. We might agree with Geno’s sign or disagree. But to have a government agency prosecute them is a threat to the First Amendment. And, if it’s a steak house today, it could be a news magazine tomorrow. And if it’s do-gooders today, I can assure you it won’t be for long.

So what can Americans do?

1. The first thing you can do is what you always do: continue to monitor the erosion of freedom around the world, including through Congressional committees like this one. Publish annual reports shaming foreign countries for their abuses of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Put Canada on that list, to let our government know what they’re doing isn’t acceptable.

2. And rededicate yourselves to your First Amendment. Understand that the erosion of freedom doesn’t always happen with a bang – it can happen with a whimper. And that, when it comes to free speech, it’s usually unpopular people who are censored first. But if they can go for a neo-Nazi yesterday, it’s Geno’s Steak House today, and then a Christian pastor or a news magazine tomorrow.

I believe in a pluralist society where I can be Jewish, he can be Christian, she can be Muslim, and we all get along peacefully – we can agree to disagree about political or religious matters. The use of our own Western laws to crush such disagreement, and end healthy debate, is a threat to all of us, and the U.S. Congress should be on guard."

"A Green Anti-Poverty Plan"

"The Liberal Party’s Green Shift announced on June 19th marked the most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years. The ‘shift’ will transfer wealth from rich to poor, from the oil patch to the rest of the country, and from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians." - Kenneth Boshcoff, Lib. Rainy River

So, finally, a frank admission by a Liberal Party member as to what the "Green Shift" is really all about. Silly us, we thought we heard them say "save the environment", and "protect the future for our kids".

Silly us, we assumed, in the age of anthropogenic global warming, Al Gore, and dying polar bears, that the "green" in the "the Green Shift plan" was about greening the earth, not about greening the Liberal money machine.

No, the Green Shift plan is quite simply about stealing the earnings of those who have toiled to make significant amounts in order to give to those who didn't. Maybe. The Liberal Party does not have a strong history in this regard. Strong on promises, not strong on doing. A strategy that is pure Marxism. The Liberal party has spun so far to the left that even the term "socialist" fails to describe their current ideology.

Roughly $9 billion of the $15.3 billion expected to be collected annually in carbon tax revenues would be returned to Canadians earning less than $40,000 annually. This would be done through a combination of income tax cuts and benefits targeted at children, low wage earners, rural residents, and individuals with disabilities.

So let's look at this statement. More than half of the money collected through this tax has nothing to do with environmental "green".

Further, its to be paid out in tax cuts and benefits. That means the money collected will flow to the general revenues of a Liberal Government, not to specific programs about being "green". In other words, there will be no accounting for this money beyond the soporific pointing to this benefit, or that tax relief. Simply and purely, this tax is noting more than a justification to increase federal revenues under a Liberal government beyond that which it accrues today. Much of what is proposed could be funded with present revenues with a reallocation of expenditures. The Canadian government is not especially cash poor. The Liberals in their previous dynasties accrued large fiscal surpluses, and retooled the government to make much of it unaccountable and out of reach of Parliament.

And what of the beleagured Jennifer Wright, CEO of Green Shift Inc. A small environmental company, Ms. Wright runs the risk of losing all of her hard work over 10 years because the Liberals won't show her the common decency of not trampling on her company name, a name the Liberals were well aware of before they decided to appropriate it for their personal use. Dion calls her lawsuit "deplorable"; Wright is fighting for her survival. He quite apparently has no respect for her efforts as a Canadian businesswoman. Maybe this too, reinforces his contempt, and by extension, the Liberal Party's contempt, for business in general. Certainly, the Anti-Poverty Plan is fundamentally contemptuous of the efforts of businesspersons to grow and flourish.

This latest revelation about the Liberal plan certainly makes Ms. Wright's identity predicament even more tenuous; The liberals may have effectively just killed her business.

Its no wonder the NDP have been so quiet. With the Dion Liberals running so fast past them to the left, the NDP are scrambling to find policies that doesn't put them closer to the Conservatives than the Liberals.

Of all the G8 leaders...

[...]

"Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown are disliked at home; George Bush is a lame duck; Silvio Berlusconi is changing the law to indemnify himself; Dmitri Medvedev is regarded as Vladimir Putin's creature and, in any case, Russia does not merit inclusion in the G8 by virtue either of its democratic structures or the size of its economy; Yasuo Fukuda, the host, has just become the first ever Japanese leader to have a censure vote passed against him in parliament.

Of all the leaders, only Stephen Harper - the talented but curiously neglected Canadian prime minister - is able to point to a popular and successful record in office.

Some will regard it as alarming that, in current times, world leadership should rest with Canada. But the Canadian Tories are a model of how to behave during a downturn.

They have kept spending in check and reduced taxes. They are playing their full role in world affairs, notably in Afghanistan.

Rather than canting about saving the world (Mr Harper, in his quiet and courteous way, is a Kyoto-sceptic) they have addressed themselves to curing remediable ills and, above all, to putting their own affairs in order.

If the rest of the world had comported itself with similar modesty and prudence, we might not be in this mess."