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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Snow blankets Israel

Headline News

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
by Staff Writer

A strong winter storm blanketed much of northern Israel and towns at higher elevation in central and southern Israel - such as Jerusalem - with a moderate layer of wet snow early Wednesday morning.

The snow and slush brought public transportation in Jerusalem and northern communities to a standstill, and resulted in a day off school for local youth.

By mid-afternoon, most of the 6 inches of snow that had accumulated in Jerusalem had melted, though temperatures remained near freezing and meteorologists predicted even heavier snowfall into the evening and overnight.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Polar Bear Express

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
January 29, 2008

Global warming is becoming a new unified field theory for environmentalists, a crisis so urgent and profound that it even justifies leaping the democratic process. Consider the political campaign to prod the Bush Administration to list the polar bear as an endangered species -- even though many proponents admit it isn't endangered at all.

This game began with a 2005 lawsuit against the U.S. Interior Department from pressure groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council. Their demand was that the polar bear be designated as "threatened" -- that is, at risk for extinction in the foreseeable future -- under the 1973 Endangered Species Act.

No one disputes that higher temperatures in the bear's Arctic habitat have disrupted the sea ice that bears use to catch food and breed. The problem is that polar bear populations have been rising over the last four decades, and may now be at a historic high. This is the result of conservation management, including international agreements on trophy hunting and federal safeguards like the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The warmists say current numbers count for little because climate-change models anticipate even more Arctic melting. But these projections are speculative, and tend to underestimate the dynamism of the environment. Animals adapt to changing conditions, which might mean a shift in population patterns to areas where pack ice is more robust year-round. And the reduction in ice cover may be the result of cyclical wind circulation patterns and natural variability, not exclusively warming trends.

The scientific questions are complex -- and that ought to rule out premature, simplistic answers. Naturally, it's having the opposite effect. The more honest activists basically concede that a listing is a P.R. ploy to "raise awareness," or achieve other ends, or something.

Even if the Interior Department does rule in favor (a decision is expected in the next few weeks), it's not clear how the Endangered Species Act could help. Usually its remedies involve "critical habitat," which means prohibiting the development or even use of much private land to protect a species, like the spotted owl. But there's no way to designate the same for disappearing sea ice; and besides, all the existing protections of polar bear habitat would still apply, and couldn't be extended much further anyway.

The logical -- and dangerous -- leap here is that the greens are attempting to rewrite the Endangered Species Act without actual legislation. If the "iconic" polar bear is classified as threatened, then their gambit could lead to all sorts of regulatory mischief. Never mind that even drastic world-wide reductions in carbon emissions over the next decade or so wouldn't have the slightest effect on ice melt.

But it's hard to imagine any precautions that would satisfy the greens, short of a total ban on offshore drilling. No doubt that will be confirmed when all this ends up in court, but the least the Bush Administration can do now is avoid handing additional ammunition to the litigants.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Ethanol from Corn: A Solution to Oil Dependence?

(Link to entire UN article above)

By Paritosh Kasotia

Many researchers and consumer advocates are skeptical about ethanol as an economically viable energy source. A study by the University of Minnesota, in the United States, finds that even if every acre of corn were used to produce fuel and not food, ethanol would still only supply about 12 per cent of America’s motoring fuel. Many researchers are also calling the corn-based ethanol the least sustainable biofuel. Additionally, there are unaccountable costs associated with ethanol production, such as long-term agricultural operations, infrastructure and investment, including water, land and energy. The Governments of developed countries spend hefty sums of money in subsidies to encourage ethanol production. In the United States, the Government has spent $51 billion between 1995 and 2005, which is twice as much as wheat subsidies and four times that of soybean subsidies. Despite all that, the ethanol industry has shown only mediocre results.

One of the biggest criticisms of ethanol comes from University of Minnesota economists C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, who claim that growing ethanol for fuel can disrupt the food production for human consumption, as it would take vast acres of land. They also claim that increase in food prices due to ethanol demand could cause as many as 600 million more people to go hungry worldwide.

An article in Rolling Stone, “The Ethanol Scam: One of America’s Biggest Political Boondoggles”, by Jeff Goodell mentions that the demand for corn used for ethanol production in the United States has disrupted the food economies of many countries. Since the United States supplies two thirds of all global corn exports, the effect of rising costs of corn is being felt by other countries in the world. For example, in Mexico, tortilla prices have jumped 60 per cent, resulting in food riots. Similarly, big importers of corn, such as Japan and Egypt, fear that a reduction in corn export could disrupt their livestock and poultry businesses.

The high demand for corn has increased its price, which, in turn, affects the price of wheat and rice. This phenomenon, according to the Earth Policy Institute, could result in food riots and political instability in lower-income countries that import grains, such as Indonesia, Mexico and Nigeria, among others.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Study: Global Warming May Reduce Atlantic Hurricanes

Link to entire article above

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Global warming could reduce how many hurricanes hit the United States, according to a new federal study that clashes with other research.

The new study is the latest in a contentious scientific debate over how man-made global warming may affect the intensity and number of hurricanes.

In it, researchers link warming waters, especially in the Indian and Pacific oceans, to increased vertical wind shear in the Atlantic Ocean near the United States.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Why 'Global Warming' is Not a Global Crisis

Special to the Hawaii Reporter
By Christopher Monckton
1/22/2008

I earned my Nobel Peace Prize by making the United Nations fix a deliberate error in its latest climate assessment. After the scientists had finalized the draft, UN bureaucrats inserted a new table, but with four decimal points right-shifted. The bureaucrats had multiplied tenfold the true contribution of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise. Were they trying to support Al Gore’s fantasy that these two ice-sheets would imminently cause sea level to rise 20ft, displacing tens of millions worldwide?

How do we know the UN’s error was deliberate? The table, as it first appeared, said the units for sea-level rise were being changed. But the table was new. There was nothing to change from. I wrote to the UN that this misconduct was unacceptable. Two days later, the bureaucracy corrected, relabeled and moved the table, and quietly posted the new version on its Web site. The two ice sheets will contribute, between them, over 100 years, just two and a half inches to sea-level rise. Gore had exaggerated a hundredfold; the UN tenfold. Hawaii is not about to disappear beneath the waves.

The High Court in London recently ordered the British Government to correct nine of the 36 serious errors in Al Gore’s climate movie before innocent pupils were exposed to it. It was Gore who, in 1994, announced that Mars was covered in canals full of water. This notion had been disproved before his birth. It was Gore who recently spent $4 million of the profits from his sci-fi comedy horror movie on a luxury condo just feet from the supposedly rising ocean at Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco. No surprise that he and the mad scientists with whom he has close financial and political links are under investigation for racketeering -- peddling a false prospectus to investors in his “green” investment corporation by distorting climate science even after the UK judge’s ruling.

It is not so well known that the UN’s climate reports are also error-packed and misleading.
To begin with, the UN denies that global temperatures were warmer than today in the medieval warm period. It overlooks the dozens of peer-reviewed papers that establish this fact, and continues to rely on the bogus and now-discredited “hockey-stick” graph by which its previous assessment in 2001 had tried to rewrite history.

It was also warmer than today in Roman times, and in the Minoan warm period or Holocene climate optimum, when temperatures were warmer than today for 2000 years in the Bronze Age, firing the emergence of great civilizations worldwide. In each of the four previous interglacial periods, temperatures were 10F warmer than today’s. For most of the past half billion years, temperatures were nearly always 12.5F warmer than the present. So the warming that has now stopped (there has been no statistically significant warming since 1998) was well within the natural variability of the climate.

The only chapters in the UN’s 1,600-page ramblings that are worth close analysis are those which consider “climate sensitivity” -- how big is the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature? The scientific debate centers not, as the Greens try to suggest, on whether adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause warmer weather (it will), but instead on how much warmer the weather will be. So the only variable that truly matters in this debate is lambda -- the “climate sensitivity parameter.” Here are just some of the UN’s errors and exaggerations in calculating lambda.

First and foremost, the UN’s crafty definition of lambda allows it to overlook the fact that the oceans -- 1,100 times denser than the atmosphere at the surface, and many times denser still at depth -- soak up a good proportion of any additional radiant energy in the atmosphere (see papers by Lyman et al., 2006; Schwartz, 2007). The oceans cancel a great deal of “global warming,” because the next Ice Age will arrive long before the oceans lose their capacity to take up heat from the atmosphere.

Next, the UN has unwisely repealed the Stefan-Boltzmann radiative-transfer equation, the fundamental astrophysical law that relates changes in radiant energy to changes in temperature. The entire debate is about exactly that matter. Yet in 1,600 pages the UN does not mention this crucial equation once. Result: the UN’s “no-feedbacks” value of lambda is way too high. As an eminent physics professor pointed out to me recently, if the UN were correct, global surface temperature would now be 20F higher than it is.

It gets worse. The UN’s computer models predict that in the tropics the rate of increase in temperature five miles above the surface will be three times the rate of increase down here. But 50 years of atmospheric measurement, first by balloon-borne radiosondes and then by satellites, show that the air above the tropics is not merely failing to warm at three times the surface rate: for 25 years it has been cooling. The absence of the tropical mid-troposphere “hot-spot” indicates that the computer models -- expensive guesswork -- on which the UN’s rickety case is founded are, in a fundamental way, misunderstanding the way the atmosphere behaves (Douglass & Knox, 2004; Douglass et al., 2007).

On top of the “radiative forcings” from greenhouse gases, the UN says the mere fact of temperature change will cause more change still, through what it calls “feedbacks.” The UN has hiked the feedback multiplier by more than 52 percent since its 1995 report, without quite saying why. Shaviv (2006) and Schwartz (2007) calculate that the sum total of all feedbacks is either nil or very small; Wentz et al. (2007) report that the UN has missed out two-thirds of the cooling effect of evaporation in its assessment of the water-vapor feedback; Spencer (2007) finds that the cloud albedo feedback, which the UN says is strongly positive, is in fact negative; Ahlbeck (2004, 2005) says the CO2 feedback has been enormously exaggerated.

I have mentioned a dozen scientific papers. I could have mentioned hundreds more that challenge the UN “consensus.” There has never been and can never be a scientific consensus on climate change. Lorenz (1963), in the landmark climate paper that founded chaos theory, stated and proved his famous theorem that the long-run evolution of mathematically chaotic objects like the climate cannot be predicted unless one knows the initial state of the object to a degree of precision that is in practice unattainable. Whenever you hear anyone recite the propaganda mantra “The Science Is Settled,” laugh at his redneck scientific illiteracy. The science can never be settled.

Schulte (2008: in press) reviewed 539 papers on “global climate change” in the scientific journals. Only one paper mentioned that “global warming” might be catastrophic, and even that paper offered not a shred of evidence for the supposed apocalypse.

Bottom line: a recent peer-reviewed paper (Lindzen, December 2007) says all the UN’s climate sensitivity estimates should be divided by three. We don’t have a climate problem. The correct policy to deal with a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing. Don’t let your legislators in Hawaii waste time on this non-problem. The real problem of the 21st century will not be “global warming” but resource depletion, starting with oil. Let your lawmakers do some real work, and get to grips with that.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Climate change violates one of Newton’s Laws

(Link to entire article above)

Written by William York

Friday, 04 January 2008

The claim that the science debate over climate change is settled violates the most important of Newton’s Laws. This violation is not of the famous Laws of Motion but of a little known set of derived bylaws, Newton’s Laws of Experts, a major contribution to understanding social dynamics.

Newton’s Laws of Motion may be simply stated as:

First Law: every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force;

Second Law: the rate of change of momentum is directly proportional to the applied force; and

Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The bylaws, Newton’s Laws of Experts, are as follows:

First Law: every expert persists in his state of rest or opinion unless acted upon by an external grant;

Second Law: the rate of change of opinion is directly proportional to the applied grant; and

Third Law: for every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.

The First Law of Experts is well known and can be demonstrated in countless universities, institutes and research bodies. There are two major influences. First, the need to appear relevant to the wants of society means engagement in the great issues of the day. This has been brought on by well intentioned but misguided policy that assumes innovations, financial, technical or other, spring fully developed from academic research and national needs should determine the areas of research interest.

The second and much more worrying influence comes from the coupling of politics to science. The academy has a natural bias towards the left as its business is overthrowing old ideas and generating new interpretations and understanding. If this is coupled to saving the planet and giving rise to a better world then there is a resonance between politics and academia.At the present time there are three issues that resonate with at least parts of the academy: climate change, genetically modified organisms and nuclear power. In each case, it is arguable that the scientific understanding on the political side is selective, frequently ignorant and often presented in terms that startle the public.

As a result governments, often subject to marginal politics, have created opportunities for endless grant applications for any research perceived as relevant to these issues. As a further result, academia has responded by setting up special institutes or university departments and, with knowledge of the availability of large research grants, has applied for and received funding.It is often the case that the envisaged research was not aimed at the target set by the government, but simply represents the dressing-up of a proposal in a way which would attract the grant.This discussion leads to the Second Law of Experts. There is no doubt that large grants, leading to the establishment of new institutes, departments or divisions, have the effect of moving experts into positions where they will represent these new initiatives. The lifetime of these organisations is subject to the continuous feeding from grants, so there is every incentive to emphasise the importance and relevance of the research, thus providing strong and positive feedback.

The Third Law of Experts is one that is most commonly encountered in the Law. Expert witnesses are frequently called by both sides for explanations. So, rather than experts advising the bench, each side presents the most favourable explanation that helps its own case.The present major concern of society is climate change. Why this is so is best understood in the words of H.L.Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore:The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

The effect of the political interest in climate change has been the violation of Newton’s Third Law.Where are the experts speaking against the position that climate change is caused by human activity? They are scarcely to be seen or heard at this time. Within the academy, one expert will not willingly place himself between another expert and a grant-giving body, unless he has immunity from subsequent retribution. There are examples of those who have taken the contrary view being hounded by colleagues, being unable to secure research grants and even calls for them to be removed from their positions.

However Newton’s Laws are eternal and immutable. The violation of the Third Law will be only temporary as slowly scientific observation and understanding will get the better of the present situation.From the above analysis, it is a firm conclusion that the climate change debate is distorted in its presentation and that its alleged scientific conclusions are unsound. Only when the Third Law is satisfied will we finally understand.

This writer would not like to estimate how long this will take. Rather he would suggest that we all heed the advice of another sage, this time from Hollywood, where Sam Goldwyn is supposed to have said that he never liked making predictions, particularly about the future.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

AL GORE REFUSES TO TAKE THE PERSONAL ENERGY ETHICS PLEDGE

Link to US Senate Site Above

UPDATE: Hollywood Celebrities Challenged To Take The "Gore Pledge"

In the spirit of Earth Day, Senator Inhofe issued a challenge to all Hollywood global warming activists...To read more, click here. Senator Inhofe discussed his Earth Day challenge to Hollywood and the "Gore Pledge" on Fox and Friends, to watch click here.

Click Here for Link to Chart

During the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on March 21, 2007, “Vice President Al Gore’s Perspective on Global Warming,” former Vice President Al Gore refused to take a “Personal Energy Ethics Pledge” to consume no more energy than the average American household

The pledge was presented to Gore by Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. At the hearing, Senator Inhofe showed Gore a frame from Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” where Gore asks viewers:
“Are you ready to change the way you live?”

Click Here for Link to Chart
Gore has been criticized for excessive home energy usage at his residence in Tennessee. His electricity usage is reportedly 20 times higher than the average American household.

Click Here for Link to Chart
Senator Inhofe told Gore at the hearing. “There are hundreds of thousands of people who adore you and would follow your example by reducing their energy usage if you did. Don’t give us the run-around on carbon offsets or the gimmicks the wealthy do.”

It has been reported that many of these so-called carbon offset projects would have been done anyway. Also, carbon offset projects such as planting trees can take decades or even a century to sequester the carbon emitted today. So energy usage today results in greenhouse gases remaining in the atmosphere for decades, even with the purchase of so-called carbon offsets.
Senator Inhofe asked Gore, “Are you willing to make a commitment here today by taking this pledge to consume no more energy for use in your residence than the average American household by one year from today?”

Senator Inhofe then presented Vice President Gore with the following "Personal Energy Ethics Pledge":

As a believer:
-that human-caused global warming is a moral, ethical, and spiritual issue affecting our survival;
-that home energy use is a key component of overall energy use;
-that reducing my fossil fuel-based home energy usage will lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions; and
-that leaders on moral issues should lead by example;

I pledge to consume no more energy for use in my residence than the average American household by March 21, 2008.”

Click Here for Link to Chart
Gore refused to take the pledge.
See Senator Inhofe’s Opening Statement from the hearing

Saturday, January 19, 2008

400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 U.S. Senate Report

Link to full report above

U.S. Senate Report: Senate Report Debunks "Consensus"
Report Released on December 20, 2007
U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (Minority)

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.

Even some in the establishment media now appear to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists. In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics "appear to be expanding rather than shrinking." Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears "bite the dust." (LINK) In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has "co-opted" the green movement. (LINK)

This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new "consensus busters" report is poised to redefine the debate.

Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says

Kate Raviliousfor

National Geographic News

February 28, 2007

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said.

Solar Cycles

Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets.

Mars and Earth, for instance, have experienced periodic ice ages throughout their histories.
"Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov said.

By studying fluctuations in the warmth of the sun, Abdussamatov believes he can see a pattern that fits with the ups and downs in climate we see on Earth and Mars.

Abdussamatov's work, however, has not been well received by other climate scientists.

Link to entire National Geographic Article

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Can trees offset carbon footprint?

Global Warming
USA Today (Magazine)
6/1/2007

How effective are new trees in off-setting the carbon footprint? A study by Lawrence Livermore (Calif.) National Laboratory suggests that the location of the new growth is an important factor when considering such carbon offset projects. For instance, planting and preserving forests in the tropics is more likely to slow down global warming. However, the study also concludes that planting new trees in certain parts of the planet actually may warm the Earth.

New forests in mid- to high-latitude locations could create a net warming effect. Specifically, more trees in mid*latitude locations like the U.S. and most of Europe only would create marginal benefits from a climate perspective, but those extra trees in the boreal forests of Canada, Scandinavia, and Siberia could be counterproductive, maintains atmospheric scientist Govindasamy Bala.

Forests affect climate in three different ways: absorbing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to help keep the planet cool; evaporating water to the atmosphere and increasing cloudiness, which also helps keep the planet cool; and absorbing sunlight (the albedo effect), thus warming the Earth. Previous climate change mitigation strategies that promote planting trees only have taken the first effect into account.

"Our study shows that only tropical rain forests are strongly beneficial in helping slow down global warming," Bala notes. "It is a win-win situation in the tropics because trees in the tropics, in addition to absorbing carbon dioxide, promote convective clouds that help to cool the planet. In other locations, the warming from the albedo effect either cancels or exceeds the net cooling from the other two effects"

The study concludes that, by the year 2100, forests in mid and high latitudes will make some places up to 10[degrees]F warmer than would have occurred if the forests did not exist. However, the authors caution that the cooling from deforestation outside the tropics should not be viewed as a strategy for mitigating climate change.

"Preservation of ecosystems is a primary goal of preventing global warming, and the destruction of ecosystems to prevent global warming would be a counterproductive and perverse strategy," concludes study co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C.

COPYRIGHT 2007 Society for the Advancement of Education
This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

Myths and Facts

MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.

FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.

MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.

MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.

MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.

FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect".

Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.

MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.

FACT: The computer models assume that CO2 is the primary climate driver, and that the Sun has an insignificant effect on climate. You cannot use the output of a model to verify or prove its initial assumption - that is circular reasoning and is illogical. Computer models can be made to roughly match the 20th century temperature rise by adjusting many input parameters and using strong positive feedbacks. They do not "prove" anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover.

MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are: 1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.

MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.

MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.

FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.

MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.

MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.
Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.

More FACTS and MYTHS? See what Professor deFreitas has to say. Click here.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Blast From the Past

Monday, January 14, 2008

By Brit Hume

The man credited with convincing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair about the dangers of global warming — now says green activists are actually hurting their own cause. Media reports say former chief scientific adviser Sir David King claims environmentalists are — "Keen to take us back to the 18th or even the 17th century."

King says the only way to beat global warming is by relying more on nuclear, wind, and other power sources — and use genetically modified food. He says aviation has been unfairly scapegoated — and that many attempted fixes by environmentalists just make things worse.

But King's contentions were dismissed by the head of Greenpeace, who says it is King who is living in the past.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Snow day in the sands of Baghdad

By CHRISTOPHER CHESTER

Associated Press Writer

Fri Jan 11, 3:23 PM ET

BAGHDAD - The flakes melted quickly. But the smiles, wonder and excited story-swapping went on throughout the day: It snowed in Baghdad.

The morning flurry Friday was the first in memory in the heart of the Iraqi capital. Perhaps more significant, however, was the rare ripple of delight through a city snarled by army checkpoints, divided by concrete walls and ravaged by sectarian killings.

"For the first time in my life I saw a snow-rain like this falling in Baghdad," said Mohammed Abdul-Hussein, a 63-year-old retiree from the New Baghdad area.

"When I was young, I heard from my father that such rain had fallen in the early '40s on the outskirts of northern Baghdad," Abdul-Hussein said, referring to snow as a type of rain. "But snow falling in Baghdad in such a magnificent scene was beyond my imagination."

After weathering nearly five years of war, Baghdad residents thought they'd pretty much seen it all. But as muezzins were calling the faithful to prayer, the people here awoke to something certifiably new.

Snow is common in the mountainous Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, but residents of the capital and surrounding areas could remember just hail. And that, only very occasionally.

Summer temperatures in Baghdad are routinely a sweltering 120 degrees and winters generally mild.

But this week has been unusually cold and blustery, with overnight temperatures more than 10 degrees below normal. On Thursday morning, the thermometer hovered around freezing after a low of 27, and the Baghdad airport closed because of low visibility.

"I asked my mother, who is 80, whether she'd ever seen snow in Iraq before, and her answer was no," said Fawzi Karim, a 40-year-old father of five who runs a small restaurant in Hawr Rajab, a village six miles southeast of Baghdad.

"This is so unusual, and I don't know whether or not it's a lesson from God," Karim said.
Some said they'd seen snow only in movies.

Talib Haider, a 19-year-old college student, said "a friend of mine called me at 8 a.m. to wake me up and tell me that the sky is raining snow."

"I rushed quickly to the balcony to see a very beautiful scene," he said. "I tried to film it with my cell phone camera. This scene has really brought me joy. I called my other friends and the morning turned out to be a very happy one in my life."

An Iraqi who works for The Associated Press said he woke his wife and children shortly after 7 a.m. to "have a look at this strange thing." He then called his brother and sister and found them awake, also watching the "cotton-like snow drops covering the trees."

For a couple of hours anyway, a city where mortar shells routinely zoom across the Tigris River to the Green Zone became united as one big White Zone. There were no reports of bloodshed during the snowstorm. The snow showed no favoritism as it dusted neighborhoods Shiite and Sunni alike, faintly falling (with apologies to James Joyce) upon all the living and the dead.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Critics cool to 'smart thermostat' proposal

Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, January 12, 2008

New thermostats in homes and businesses would be fitted with technology that would allow utilities to change a building's temperature by remote control under a proposal being considered by state energy officials.

Yet after a public outcry by critics worried about Big Brother dictating home temperatures, officials with the California Energy Commission said this week that they will change the proposed regulation so that customers would have the option of blocking outside control of their thermostats.

The new "smart thermostats," supporters said, could help ease summertime power emergencies by allowing officials to limit the use of air conditioning.

The revised regulation still will require installation of remote-control thermostats but will allow consumers the option of overriding outside control, commission spokeswoman Claudia Chandler said.

The regulation would apply not only to new buildings but also to replacement or significant retrofit of cooling and heating systems in existing homes and businesses.

The proposal goes before the commission Jan. 30, Chandler said. It is part of the 236-page 2008 edition of the state's building-efficiency standards, which are updated and approved every three years. The commission could approve the thermostat regulation and the other new standards at its Feb. 27 meeting, she said.

The special thermostats, which allow utilities to adjust air conditioning in homes and businesses via radio signals, are meant to be used only during emergencies as a way of avoiding costly and damaging blackouts, Chandler said. She noted that several of the state's utilities, including Pacific Gas and Electric Co., already operate similar voluntary programs in some areas.

Commissioner Arthur Rosenfeld, a physicist famed for his energy-efficiency discoveries at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said he supports changing the proposal because of the "public concern" and because he expects most consumers will agree to grant utilities the authority to control their air conditioners in emergencies.

"Ninety-nine out of 100 will comply anyway," he said, adding that such emergencies occur only about once every 10 years.

Some lawmakers expressed strong misgivings.

"I don't think the CEC (California Energy Commission) should be going into people's homes to control their electricity," said Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, who heads the Assembly committee on utilities and commerce. "The state should provide people with incentives and education to do this on their own."

The committee's vice chairman, Rick Keene, R-Chico, agreed.

"It feels awfully Orwellian to me if you have the utility, with the government's blessing, be able to change the thermostat setting," Keene said.

He said the lack of a clear definition of "emergency event" might allow utilities to cut costs by purposely not buying enough power and then declaring an emergency.

Mindy Spatt, spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based utility consumer watchdog group TURN, said the proposal for remote-controlled thermostats shouldn't "be forced down people's throats."

She also said the program would be expensive and financed by ratepayers. She questioned whether it would be cost-effective.

Chandler said the new regulation merely requires that programmable, remote-control thermostats be installed and does not address how they will be used. However, she added, the revision of the proposed regulation will stipulate that remote control of the thermostats cannot shut off air conditioners but can only raise the temperature to a maximum of 88 degrees.
The thermostats are part of a broader energy-saving strategy that includes "smart meters," which tell consumers how much power they're using and the cost of the electricity as it changes throughout the day, Chandler said. The decision on what kind of programs and rules would govern the use of such devices is up the state Public Utilities Commission, she said.

PG&E spokeswoman Nicole Tam said customers should be able to choose whether to participate. The utility had success last summer with a voluntary "SmartAC" program in which about 25,000 customers have remote-control thermostats in the Central Valley and hotter parts of the East Bay, she said.

At San Diego Gas and Electric Co., spokeswoman Rachel Laing said the utility, like Southern California Edison, has a voluntary summer program in which customers can permit remote control of their air conditioners during severe electricity shortages in exchange for credits on their bills, an approach that she said is preferable to rolling blackouts.

"Ultimately, this is actually less intrusive than the current remedy, which is shutting customers off completely," she said.

Laing said the utility will urge state officials to make sure that an "emergency event" be "strictly defined - that this is not just an expensive time (when electricity prices spike up) but a time when the alternative is a blackout."

Southern California Edison implemented its remote-control program six times last summer, spokeswoman Vanessa McGrady said.

Friday, January 11, 2008

A Solution to Man-Made Global Warming

by Pat Sajak

Posted: 01/08/2008

There are apparently tens of millions of people around the world who are convinced global warming is real, and mankind (particularly American mankind) is responsible. Further, they believe utterly catastrophic results are imminent unless we drastically alter our lifestyles -- and soon. These alterations include the things we eat, our transportation, our daily work and leisure habits, and even the number of children we should have. The problem is there are also tens of millions of people around the world who are skeptical of this theory, and, despite one side’s claims the debate is settled, a significant and growing number of climate experts keep challenging their conclusions.

So, those who believe disaster is around the corner face a dilemma: while they’re educating their fellow citizens and demanding governments regulate believers and non-believers alike, the problem continues, and the date of the world’s doom draws ever closer. But there is a solution.

It’s relatively simple, can begin immediately, and will change the dynamics of global warming overnight. Instead of continuing to preach to the rest of us, the true believers need to step forward and set an example. I’m not talking about recycling Evian bottles; I’m talking about giving up cars and moving into smaller houses or apartments, or even forming communes where people can live simpler, more Earth-friendly lives. Yes, I’m talking about living the kinds of lives they want all of us to live.

Such a movement could literally start tomorrow. It would need a leader, of course; someone who could inspire others to choose a more spartan lifestyle. The obvious choice would be Al Gore, who already has a loyal following. If he would eschew large homes, gas-guzzling cars, private jets and the consumption of meat, millions more would likely do the same. If enough people joined the cause, Mr. Gore and his followers would be able to demonstrate the results of this new way of living in very short order. They could lead by example. They could create a movement. They could have uniforms and badges and secret handshakes. The could have their own reality TV show. In short, they could become a major force for change. Carmakers would be driven out of business or forced to dramatically alter their products to meet the demands of this eco-friendly Gorian tsunami. Companies of all stripes would, similarly, have to adapt or perish.

Once the rest of us saw the presumed reversal (or at least slowing-down) of global warming, it would do more to convince us than any lecture or study signed by UN scientists, and it would likely add millions more to the cause. So what if you can’t get one-hundred percent co-operation initially? Wouldn’t half (or a third or a quarter) of the population make a huge difference if they made substantial sacrifices? You could argue it wouldn’t be fair to have some of us going on abusing the planet and leading our lives of consumption and gluttony while others are putting aside the trappings of modern life, but this isn’t about fairness; it’s about survival.

The time for talk is over. The time for action is now. Just think of millions and millions of committed Americans making the personal sacrifices necessary to demonstrate their resolve to combat man-made global warming. And, most important, thanks to their efforts, theory would be replaced by fact. It’s much easier to argue about a study than it is to refute the demonstrable results when the temperature drops and the ocean levels stabilize. When future generations write of the sacrifices of these men and women, they’ll use words like “inspirational” and “heroic”.

And so, I urge the advocates for change to embark on this important mission. Do it for the children. Godspeed.

Mr. Sajak is the host of "Wheel of Fortune" and PatSajak.com.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

As arctic ice melts, South Pole ice grows

Scientists are puzzled, but the phenomenon seems to fit the latest global-warming models.

from the January 10, 2008 Christian Science Monitor edition (link to entire article above)

For decades, the vast expanse of sea ice that surrounds Antarctica each winter, and all but vanishes each austral summer, has languished as the Rodney Dangerfield of Earth's cryosphere.

Antarctic sea ice has gotten little respect, especially compared with its top-of-the-world cousin, or with the enormous ice sheets on Greenland and the Antarctic continent. The sea ice is hard to reach. It has little direct effect on people. And the Southern Ocean was not a cold-war playground for US and Soviet submarines, which amassed a wealth of information on changes in Arctic sea ice before the era of long-term satellite observations.

But as a research target, southern sea ice's stock appears to be rising.

Over the past 20 years, southern sea ice has expanded, in contrast to the Arctic's decline, and researchers want to understand why. Many climate-model experiments show the Arctic responding more rapidly than Antarctica as global warming kicks in. But after looking at the latest projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Arctic sea ice is well ahead of the models, and Antarctic sea ice is well behind what the models project," says Stephen Ackley, a polar scientist at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Arctic Warming Partly Due to Natural Causes

Friday, January 04, 2008


WASHINGTON — There's more to the recent dramatic and alarming thawing of the Arctic region than can be explained by man-made global warming alone, a new study found.
Nature is pushing the Arctic to the edge, too.

There's a natural cause that may account for much of the Arctic warming, which has melted sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature.

New research points a finger at a natural and cyclical increase in the amount of energy in the atmosphere that moves from south to north around the Arctic Circle.

But that energy transfer, which comes with storms that head north because of ocean currents, is not acting alone either, scientists say.

Another upcoming study concludes that the combination of both that natural energy transfer increase and man-made global warming serve as a one-two punch that is pushing the Arctic over the edge.

Scientists are trying to figure out why the Arctic is warming and melting faster than computer models predict.

The summer of 2007, like the summer of 2005, smashed all records for loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and ice sheet in Greenland.

In September, the Arctic Ocean had 23 percent less sea ice than the previous record low. Greenland's ice sheet melted 19 billion tons more than its previous record.

The Nature study suggests there's more behind it than global warming because the air a couple of miles above the ground is warming more than calculated by the climate models.

Climate-change theory concentrates on warming of surface temperatures and explains an Arctic that is warming faster than the rest of the world as mostly because reduced sea ice and ice sheets means less reflecting solar rays.

Rune Graversen, the Nature study co-author and a meteorology researcher at Stockholm University in Sweden, said a shift in energy transfer explains the thawing more, including what's happening in the atmosphere, but does not contradict consensus global-warming science.

Oceanographer James Overland, who reviewed Graversen's study for Nature, said the research dovetails with an upcoming article of his which concludes that the Arctic thawing is a combination of the two.

"If we didn't have the little extra kick from global warming, then we wouldn't have gone past the threshold for the change in sea ice," said Overland, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's lab in Seattle.

Other researchers said Graversen's study underestimates the effect of global warming because it relied on older data that stopped at 2001 and wasn't the most accurate.

Overland and scientist Mark Serreze disagree over which effect — man-made or natural — was the big shove that pushed the Arctic over the edge, but they agreed that overall it's a combined effort.

"Think of it as a boxer that's almost going down for the count ... and that one blow to the noggin comes and he's down for the count," said Serreze, a senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Liberty, Incandescent Lightbulbs and the Global Warming Hoax

Liberty, Incandescent Lightbulbs and the Global Warming Hoax

by Rush Limbaugh

January 3, 2008

I hate to tell you that the globally average temperature of the planet has not warmed in six years, and it is still well below 1998.

Yes, 1998 was the most recent hot year, and that was an El Niño year. Right now, we are below even 2002, and the levels of global warming are actually decreasing at this point on this graph that I have. I'm going to send this graph up to Koko at the website so you can look at it, because the graph also contains a little red shaded arrow with an arrow pointing left to right showing Algore's Armageddon, that if global temperatures reach this red shaded area, then we're cooked, we're doomed, we're done; and you can see how far beneath it that we are; and you can see how, since 1998, six years ago, global temperatures have not warmed.

Monday, January 7, 2008

What If All the Ice Melts? Myths and Realities

"What If All the Ice Melts?" Myths and Realities

by Wm. Robert Johnston

"If we keep using cars, the ice caps will melt and we'll all drown!" This is a myth, just as false as fearing the Sun will die as a result of using solar power. However, as often as I hear it--particularly from people who should know better--I thought I would address it here. First, here is a summary of the facts:
  • Despite what you may have been told, it has NOT been proven that human-caused global warming is occurring, and in fact there is substantial reason to reject such claims.
  • The best explanation for the evidence is that whatever global warming trend exists is mostly the result of natural influences like variations in the climate system and variations in solar radiation.
  • The suggestions that human activities will cause significant changes in global temperature and sea level in the next century are flawed predictions which haven't been confirmed by observations.
  • The solutions to this apparently non-existent problem proposed by environmentalists would not have a significant effect on climate, but they would cause a significant amount of human suffering.
  • Based on what we know now, in the next 100 years a rise in sea level of 0.1 meters (4 inches) would not be surprising; those predicting changes of 0.5-2 meters (1.5-7 feet) are using flawed models.
  • If all the icecaps in the world were to melt, sea level would rise about 60-75 meters (200-250 feet). This could not result from modern human activities, and from any realistic cause would take thousands of years to occur.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

GLOBAL WARMING WINDING DOWN?

Read Harris-Mann's Climatology Long Range Weather Analysis. Within the article, they state that if one removed the 15 largest cities, the "concrete and asphalt jungles", from the study, Mother Earth would have actually COOLED OFF about .4 of one degree Fahrenheit in the last six decades!

A Convenient Fiction

April 19, 2007

At the D.C. Premiere: 'A Convenient Fiction'

Attended the Washington, D.C., premiere of the "An Inconvenient Truth, or Convenient Fiction?" the film that refutes and pokes fun at Al Gore's extreme claims in his environmental mockumentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." (Gentle fun. The documentarian, Steven F. Hayward, may be big-boned, as the New York Times describes him, but he appears to not have a malicious bone in his body.)

It was a good event hosted by the Heritage Foundation and the Pacific Research Institute. The film ably demonstrates how Gore picks and chooses only the most dramatic -- and scientifically weak -- projections to forecast doom, and with those projections, demand wrenching economic and societal change. Hayward:

"The problem with Vice President Gore and other global warming extremists is that they distort the science, grossly exaggerate the risks, argue that anyone who disagrees with them is corrupt, and suggest that solutions are easy and cheap. And that's an all too convenient fiction."Hayward makes an important point in describing Gore as a pessimist, afflicted with a Weltschmerz that does not fit well with the reality of politics.

Anyway, Fred Barnes has already done a bang-up job reviewing the film, so rather than rehash his points, we'll just link to his column from The Weekly Standard. And suggest that any teachers who show "An Inconvenient Truth" to their classes should feel themselves compelled by a sense of fairness to also screen the rebuttal.

The movie premieres next Tuesday in New York City. More details here.
Tagged: A Convenient Fiction , Al Gore , Heritage Foundation , Pacific Research Institute , Steven F. Hayward

Antarctica Is Cooling

Antarctica Is Cooling?

by Herbert Inhaber (July 27, 2002)

So the Antarctic is cooling after all. Years of news reports claimed that it was warming, and that gigantic icebergs would calve off and melt, turning New York's Central Park into a pond. But the boy who cried "wolf" cried once too often. It turns out that most of the Antarctic measurements in the past had been taken on a small peninsula, and not over the vast wind-blown expanse of the frozen continent.

Global Warming Hysteria

Global Warming Hysteria

by Walter Williams (September 26, 2007)

What about public school teachers frightening little children with tales of cute polar bears dying because of global warming? The primer says, "Polar bear numbers increased dramatically from around 5,000 in 1950 to as many as 25,000 today, higher than any time in the 20th century." The primer gives detailed sources for all of its findings, and it supplies us with information we can use to stop politicians and their environmental extremists from doing a rope-a-dope on us.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Women Attracted to Men in Sports Cars Cause Global Warming

Well, according to Great Britain's chief scientist, this fascination women have with guys who drive sports cars is causing global warming.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Newsweek 1975 Article: The Cooling World

The Cooling World
Newsweek, April 28, 1975

Here is the text of Newsweek’s 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940. It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels. A PDF of the original is available here. Thanks to Dennis Dutton of dennisdutton.com.

A fine short history of warming and cooling scares has recently been produced.

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but
in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.

“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

—PETER GWYNNE with bureau reports

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Al Gore a prophet; global warming a religion

Al Gore a prophet; global warming a religion

By Cal Thomas

January 2, 2008

You don't have to be religious to qualify as a fundamentalist. You can be Al Gore, the messiah figure for the global warming cult, whose followers truly believe their gospel of imminent extermination in a Noah-like flood, if we don't immediately change our carbon polluting ways.

One of the traits of a cult is its refusal to consider any evidence that might disprove the faith. And so it is doubtful the global warming cultists will be moved by 400 scientists, many of whom, according to the WashingtonTimes, "are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore for publicizing a climate crisis." In a report by Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, these scientists cast doubt on a "scientific consensus" that global warming caused by humans endangers the planet.

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Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert and advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Bear Valley Mountain Ski Resort Snowfall History

How would Al Goreleone explain this snowfall history? In the 1970s, when Newsweek claimed we were heading into a new ice-age, there were several years of below average snowfall. During last year's below average snowfall, people claimed it was further proof of global warming. Climate trends vary dramatically. An average of 30 feet could be the result of 10 feet in year one and 50 feet in year two. Can you say "standard deviation"?

My Rant

The claim that climate change is direct result of man's energy consumption is simply unproven and politically motivated. While they propound lies that certain lightbulbs or cars will destroy the earth and raise ocean levels as much as 20 feet within the next century, fascists, like Al Gore, fly around in their Gulfstream jets and live in homes that use 22 times the energy of an average American's home! Their propaganda is outrageous and potentially catastrophic for the economies of United States, the developed world and developing world.

The proof of global warming or man's influence on climate change is not settled science. Just consider the source of the big lie: the proselytizing hypocritical high priest of the pagan environmental religion Al Gore or the other Kool-Aid drinking climateers from the left such as Learjet liberals, Hollywood high school drop-outs, billonaire elitists, the left-leaning mainstream media, the United Nations, academia, environmental radicals, socialists, other anti-capitalists and so called "researchers", "experts" and/or "scientists" whose paychecks depend upon the apparent existence of the "issue".

United States energy conservation and independence is a worthy goal that should be supported by Republicans, the Democrat Party, true Democrats, Independents and environmentalists. Energy independence is a major national security concern. However, lying to our people, implementing the cap & trade boondoggle which will crush our economy or doing anything that will cause the United States to transfer an portion of its sovereignty to the United Nations is idiotic. Not in my name!
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