Climate Change

[MC 1]

Source.

 

That Famous Consensus

SATURDAY, 7TH FEBRUARY 2009

 

Yet another example of the ‘research’ masquerading as science that is used to reinforce the man-made global warming fraud. One of the difficulties the green zealots have had is that Antarctica has been not warming but cooling, with the extent of its ice reaching record levels. A few weeks ago, a study led by Professor Eric Steig caused some excitement by claiming that actually West Antarctica was warming so much that it more than made up for the cooling in East Antarctica. Warning bells should have sounded when Steig said

 

What we did is interpolate carefully instead of just using the back of an envelope.

 

To those of us who have been following this scam for the past two decades, ‘interpolate carefully’ makes us suck our teeth. And so it has proved. Various scientists immediately spotted the flaw in Steig’s methodology of combining satellite evidence since 1979 with temperature readings from surface weather stations. The flaw they identified was that, since Antarctica has so few weather stations, the computer Steig used was programmed to guess what data they would have produced had such stations existed. In other words, the findings that caused such excitement were based on data that had been made up.

 

Even one of the IPCC’s lead authors sniffed a problem:

 

‘This looks like a pretty good analysis, but I have to say I remain somewhat skeptical,’ Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research said in an e-mail. ‘It is hard to make data where none exist.’

 

Well, yes. But then the invention of data that does not exist and the obliteration of data that does exist has been precisely how the man-made global warming scam has been perpetrated right from the get-go. The most egregious example of this was the piece of ‘research’ that underpinned the entire IPCC/Kyoto shebang from 2001 when it was published -- the so-called ‘hockey stick’ curve, which purported to show a vertiginous and unprecedented rise in global temperature in the 20th century.

 

The problem with pegging such a rise to the evils of industrialisation had always been the Medieval Warm Period, during which global temperatures were warmer than in modern times. So the ‘hockey stick’ study dealt with that by simply managing to airbrush out the Medieval Warm Period and its subsequent corrective Little Ice Age altogether. Some seven centuries of global history were simply excised from the data -- because an algorithm had been built into the computer programme which would have created a ‘hockey stick’ curve whatever data were fed into it.

 

This shoddy research was subsequently torn apart so comprehensively that it has been called the most discredited study in the history of science (and has been quietly dropped by the IPCC, leaving man-made global warming theory with no more substance than the grin on the face of the Cheshire Cat. Go here, here and here for a history of the titanic battle that ensued over its unmasking). The creator of this discredited ‘hockey stick’ curve was Michael Mann. And guess what? Michael Mann was a co-author of the Steig study of Antarctica.

 

‘Contrarians have sometime grabbed on to this idea that the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling, so how could we be talking about global warming,’ said study co-author Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. ‘Now we can say: no, it's not true ... It is not bucking the trend.’

 

And now as Andrew Bolt has noted Steve McIntyre, who with Ross McKitrick uncovered the ‘hockey-stick’ nonsense in the first place, has delivered the coup de grace to the Steig/Mann Antarctica claim. Steig used data from a weather station called Harry. Bolt observes:

 

Harry in fact is a problematic site that was buried in snow for years and then re-sited in 2005. But, worse, the data that Steig used in his modelling which he claimed came from Harry was actually old data from another station on the Ross Ice Shelf known as Gill with new data from Harry added to it, producing the abrupt warming. The data is worthless. Or as McIntyre puts it:

 

Considered by itself, Gill has a slightly negative trend from 1987 to 2002. The big trend in ‘New Harry’ arises entirely from the impact of splicing the two data sets together. It’s a mess.

 

With their reputations thus disappearing faster than the snows of Kilimanjaro, the zealots have become hysterical. Mann attacks a prominent sceptic, Lawrence Solomon, for citing the scientists’ criticisms of the Antarctica study, and is in turn answered by Solomon -- an exchange reproduced in Canada’s Financial Post, for which Solomon writes, here and here. Mann repeatedly accuses Solomon of lying. In doing so, he has left himself dramatically exposed. Claiming that Solomon

 

repeatedly lies about my work

 

he cites as evidence of this that his ‘hockey stick’ study was

 

vindicated in a report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences

 

and seeks to back up this assertion by citing the way the media reported this study as

 

‘Science Panel Backs Study on Warming Climate’ (New York Times), ‘Backing for Hockey Stick Graph’ (BBC), and so on.

 

This is, to put it mildly, disingenuous. While it is certainly true that the media reported it in this sheep-like way -- thanks in part to the manner in which the NAS chose circumspectly to spin its own conclusions -- it is nevertheless the case that in every important particular the NAS actually agreed with the McIntyre/McKitrick criticisms. Far from vindicating the ‘hockey stick’ graph, the NAS said that although it found some of Mann’s work ‘plausible’, there were so many scientific uncertainties attached to it that it did not have great confidence in it. Thus it said that

 

Mann et al. used a type of principal component analysis that tends to bias the shape of the reconstructions

 

and that they had downplayed the

 

uncertainties of the published reconstructions...Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that ‘the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium.’

 

What Mann also does not say in his diatribe is that a subsequent House Energy and Commerce Committee report chaired by Edward Wegman totally destroyed the credibility of the ‘hockey stick’ study and devastatingly ripped apart Mann’s methodology as ‘bad mathematics’. Furthermore, when Gerald North, the chairman of the NAS panel -- which Mann claims ‘vindicated him’ – and panel member Peter Bloomfield were asked at the House Committee hearings whether or not they agreed with Wegman’s harsh criticisms, they said they did:

 

CHAIRMAN BARTON. Dr. North, do you dispute the conclusions or the methodology of Dr. Wegman’s report?

 

DR. NORTH. No, we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report.

 

DR. BLOOMFIELD. Our committee reviewed the methodology used by Dr. Mann and his co-workers and we felt that some of the choices they made were inappropriate. We had much the same misgivings about his work that was documented at much greater length by Dr. Wegman.

 

WALLACE: ‘the two reports were complementary, and to the extent that they overlapped, the conclusions were quite consistent.’ (Am Stat Assoc.)

 

As Mark Twain might have put it, there are three kinds of lies -- lies, damned lies and global warming science.

[MC 1]

Oops.

Source.

 

 

Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor

 

By Alex Morales

 

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.

 

The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.

 

“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’

 

The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.

 

The center said real-time data on sea ice is always less reliable than archived numbers because full checks haven’t yet been carried out. Historical data is checked across other sources, it said.

 

The NSIDC uses Department of Defense satellites to obtain its Arctic sea ice data rather than more accurate National Aeronautics and Space Administration equipment. That’s because the defense satellites have a longer period of historical data, enabling scientists to draw conclusions about long-term ice melt, the center said.

 

“There is a balance between being as accurate as possible at any given moment and being as consistent as possible through long time-periods,” NSIDC said. “Our main scientific focus is on the long-term changes in Arctic sea ice.”

 

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.

 

Last Updated: February 20, 2009 08:15 EST

[MC 1]

Source.

 

(Editorial)

 

The Oscars are Important

by Rodney Lee Conover

 

 

 

While watching the Academy Awards last night, I got to thinking about what an important role the Oscars play in our global community. And of course, there’s no more blatant case in point of Hollywood’s positive impact on society than Al Gore’s 2007 Oscar win for his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” What a speech too, huh? Just listen: “My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It’s not a political issue; it’s a moral issue…”

 

And solve it he did! Just look at what’s happened since that magical evening:

 

*All the major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA GISS, UAH, RSS) recent data shows that over the past year global temperatures have dropped.

*The University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center reports that global sea ice levels are now equal to those of 1979. Polar Bears are back baby!

*The US National Climatic Data Center says China had its coldest winter in 100 years and the fact that Hillary went there was pure coincidence.

*This year, much of North America was hit by the heaviest snowfall since the 1960s. It snowed in Baghdad (of course, the American Military presence kind of explains that), but it snowed in Las Vegas! What are the odds?

*Lastly, well-intentioned, decent people traveling to Global Warming summits are having their flights canceled in droves, due to icy build up on the wings of private jets.

 

People, what I’m saying here is – in a nutshell: Al Gore must be stopped.

Now, I’m no Al Gore fan, (In 2000, he got the most votes and still lost – talk about a loser), but let’s give him his due. The reality is that his efforts to stop global warming have not only been an incredible success, but in fact, have been TOO good. Great job, dude, but it’s been really, really cold lately. I mean did you or did you not see the strip-club scenes in “The Wrestler?” … ‘nuff said.

But how could Al Gore know he could accomplish the impossible so quick and effectively? Even he must have been a bit shocked when nearly the entire major media fell in line and began parroting his sage-like theory – I mean, hypothesis – I mean, scenario – I mean, presumptions – I mean, ruse – I mean, um facts… Yes, incontrovertible facts. And indeed, Mr. Gore the debate was over, until you and your brave followers over-corrected the fever of the planet and sent us plunging toward frosty Armageddon.

The telltale signs are everywhere – from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest… (actually I swiped that from a June 24th, 1974 Time Magazine article, sorry).

Sadly, now we must stop you, Al Gore the Good. We must rise up against the forces of accepted wisdom and put an end to your selfless caring before we all freeze our asses off. Because if we don’t act now and decisively, no amount of Leonardo DiCaprio movies, Sheryl Crow rallies, Springsteen concerts, or Barbara Streisand blogs can save us from the impending girth of ice we’ll soon find ourselves covered by.

Now, you’ll notice I left Scarlett Johansson off the list there. That was on purpose. Scarlett: You can say anything you want, doesn’t matter. Just be out there. For me. That goes double for you Jennifer Aniston; you can say or do anything your saddened, but virtuous heart desires. Hey, screw those guys who dumped you, anyway — they’re idiots! Bunch of lame douche bags, if you ask me. You need to date a normal guy, Jen. Did I mention I love dogs?

 

… Mmm. Where was I?

Oh yeah, thanks to the power of Al Gore, we’re all gonna die from anthropogenic global cooling. So – everyone – start having babies. Breathe out more. Farmers - feed your cows more bean burritos. More drilling! More mining! More smelting! And for god sakes GM – do NOT cancel production of the Hummer. What are you, an anti-earth, terrorist organization or something?

I don’t know. Maybe President Obama can stop him… Like Angelina Jolie’s last line in The Changeling: “Now, there’s hope…”

[Hihomumio 168]

You've been posting some good articles here MC. I haven't really followed the global warming stuff but I'm trying to get caught up on it (with a little help from my friends ) because what I'm reading lately is making me wonder what's true about that theory and what isn't.

 

So I'm curious. Who here, posting on FCC, believes that the global warming talk is baloney? I'd love to see more people's opinions on this--I know there are other places where I could find out more but I like FCC and the posters here and would like to know what you think.

[TubaGirl 7]

You've been posting some good articles here MC. I haven't really followed the global warming stuff but I'm trying to get caught up on it (with a little help from my friends ) because what I'm reading lately is making me wonder what's true about that theory and what isn't.

 

So I'm curious. Who here, posting on FCC, believes that the global warming talk is baloney? I'd love to see more people's opinions on this--I know there are other places where I could find out more but I like FCC and the posters here and would like to know what you think.

I think it's baloney. I think it's a classic example of cherry picking data, and researchers, to fit your theory.

[BobbyD 2]

You've been posting some good articles here MC. I haven't really followed the global warming stuff but I'm trying to get caught up on it (with a little help from my friends ) because what I'm reading lately is making me wonder what's true about that theory and what isn't.

 

So I'm curious. Who here, posting on FCC, believes that the global warming talk is baloney? I'd love to see more people's opinions on this--I know there are other places where I could find out more but I like FCC and the posters here and would like to know what you think.

I definitely believe in it. I think it's idiotic for all of us to walk around this world and not think that our waste(pollution, nuclear, medical) and greed wouldn't have a negative effect on our environment and wind up affecting other organisms and the planet's weather patterns.

 

We are organisms who can take natural resources and turn them unnatural...so that's not going to affect the planet we live on?

[Hihomumio 168]

Hi BobbyD!

 

Please tell me something--what about the info that's been coming out saying that it's more of a natural phenomenon? Do you think that has any merit or not? Like I said, I don't really know what to make of all of this stuff, but I find the info I've seen here in this thread as well as little things I've seen elsewhere really make me wonder about this. Especially since the global warming theory opens up a whole new line of business for people to get rich on. Your points also make sense to me too and I do believe that there is damage being caused by humans, but I'm trying to look at this strictly from a scientific perspective rather than factoring in what problems we've added into the mix.

 

Just to make sure I'm clear, I just want to say that I really would like to know more about this subject but I am not looking to challenge or debate this, just discuss it with others and ask questions. I know that people believe in global warming and others don't believe in it and I'm not trying to sway anyone in either direction---just trying to figure out what I think about the whole thing. Any help figuring it out is much appreciated

[Hihomumio 168]

You've been posting some good articles here MC. I haven't really followed the global warming stuff but I'm trying to get caught up on it (with a little help from my friends ) because what I'm reading lately is making me wonder what's true about that theory and what isn't.

 

So I'm curious. Who here, posting on FCC, believes that the global warming talk is baloney? I'd love to see more people's opinions on this--I know there are other places where I could find out more but I like FCC and the posters here and would like to know what you think.

I think it's baloney. I think it's a classic example of cherry picking data, and researchers, to fit your theory.

 

 

This is the reason why I want to know more about it because I can see how this could apply from both believers and non-believers. What is the truth?

[MC 1]

You've been posting some good articles here MC. I haven't really followed the global warming stuff but I'm trying to get caught up on it (with a little help from my friends ) because what I'm reading lately is making me wonder what's true about that theory and what isn't.

 

So I'm curious. Who here, posting on FCC, believes that the global warming talk is baloney? I'd love to see more people's opinions on this--I know there are other places where I could find out more but I like FCC and the posters here and would like to know what you think.

I think it's baloney. I think it's a classic example of cherry picking data, and researchers, to fit your theory.

 

 

This is the reason why I want to know more about it because I can see how this could apply from both believers and non-believers. What is the truth?

 

I'm not an expert, but from what I've read.... the climate is changing but it doesn't have anything to do with what we do or not do. Scientists are finding that the planet is cyclical. There are written histories of past cold spells and hot spells. The monks kept meticulous records.

 

What got me is when the environmentalists had to further their cause using fear. Gore is chief among those fear mongers. Add guilt and we'll pony up for sure, right? (Well, not all of us). Too bad the satellite crashed this week. It may have helped us disprove the nonsense. Bottom line for me is that we're living on a planet that changes. For perhaps the first time in history, not only is everything meticulously recorded, but we also can communicate instantly with most of the planet. So ideas (or false ideas) spread like wildfire, and all they need is a nugget of truth (like ice disappearing somewhere) to make it sound like everything they say is true. It's a BIG BUSINESS! They have a vested interest in keeping this myth alive.

 

I continue to post articles regarding this topic because I think it's important for us to keep open minds regarding what's real and what's not. Check out this next article.

[MC 1]

Source.

 

 

February 23, 2009, 12:31 PM

Gore Pulls Slide of Disaster Trends

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

 

Former Vice President Al Gore is pulling a dramatic slide from his ever-evolving global warming presentation. When Mr. Gore addressed a packed, cheering hall at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago earlier this month, his climate slide show contained a startling graph showing a ceiling-high spike in disasters in recent years. The data came from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (also called CRED) at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels.

 

The graph, which was added to his talk last year, came just after a sequence of images of people from Iowa to South Australia struggling with drought, wildfire, flooding and other weather-related calamities. Mr. Gore described the pattern as a manifestation of human-driven climate change. “This is creating weather-related disasters that are completely unprecedented,” he said. (The preceding link is to a video clip of that portion of the talk; go to 7th minute.)

 

Now Mr. Gore is dropping the graph, his office said today. Here’s why.

 

Two days after the talk, Mr. Gore was sharply criticized for using the data to make a point about global warming by Roger A. Pielke, Jr., a political scientist focused on disaster trends and climate policy at the University of Colorado. Mr. Pielke noted that the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters stressed in reports that a host of factors unrelated to climate caused the enormous rise in reported disasters

 

Dr. Pielke quoted the Belgian center: “Indeed, justifying the upward trend in hydro-meteorological disaster occurrence and impacts essentially through climate change would be misleading. Climate change is probably an actor in this increase but not the major one — even if its impact on the figures will likely become more evident in the future.”

 

Officials at the disaster center, after reviewing what Mr. Gore showed and said, sent a comment to Dr. Pielke’s blog and to me. You can read their full response below. I sent it to Mr. Gore’s office and asked for his interpretation. Kalee Kreider, Mr. Gore’s spokeswoman on environmental matters, wrote back today:

 

I can confirm that historically, we used Munich Re and Swiss Re data for the slide show. This can be confirmed using a hard copy of An Inconvenient Truth. (It is cited if you cannot recall from the film which is now several years old!). We became aware of the CRED database from its use by Charles Blow in the New York Times (May 31, 2008). So, it’s a very new addition.

 

We have found that Munich Re and other insurers and their science experts have made the attribution. I’m referring you particularly to their floods section/report [link, link] Both of these were published in a series entitled “Weather catastrophes and climate change-Is there still hope for us.”

 

We appreciate that you have pointed out the issues with the CRED database and will make the switch back to the data we used previously to ensure that there is no confusion either with regards to the data or attribution.

 

As to climate change and its impacts on storms and floods, the IPCC and NOAA among many other top scientific groups have indicated that climate change will result in more extreme weather events, including heat waves, wildfires, storms and floods. As the result of briefings from top scientists, Vice President Gore believes that we are beginning to see evidence of that now.

 

CRED is fully aware of the potential for misleading interpretations of EM-DAT figures by various users. This is a risk all public datasets run…. Before interpreting the upward trend in the occurrence of weather-related disasters as “completely unprecedented” and “due to global warming”, one has to take into account the complexities of disaster occurrence, human vulnerabilities and statistical reporting and registering.

 

Over the last 30 years, the development of telecommunications, media and increased international cooperation has played a critical role in the number of disasters that are reported internationally. In addition, increases in humanitarian funds have encouraged reporting of more disasters, especially smaller events. Finally, disasters are the convergence of hazards with vulnerabilities. As such, an increase of physical, social, economic or environmental vulnerabilities can mean an increase in the occurrence of disasters.

 

We believe that the increase seen in the graph until about 1995 is explained partly by better reporting of disasters in general, partly due to active data collection efforts by CRED and partly due to real increases in certain types of disasters. We estimate that the data in the most recent decade present the least bias and reflect a real change in numbers. This is especially true for floods and cyclones. Whether this is due to climate change or not, we are unable to say.

 

Once again, we would like to point out that although climate change could affect the severity, frequency and spatial distribution of hydro-meteorological events, we need to be cautious when interpreting disaster data and take into account the inherent complexity of climate and weather related processes — and remain objective scientific observers.

 

[uPDATE: 5:10 p.m.: I've posted on a more measured effort at climate risk communication.]

 

Also on the disaster-climate front, there is an interesting story in the Washington Post today describing a variegated assemblage of efforts to flee in the face of climate-related threats. Matthew Nisbet pondered how a global warming story without a hot political element made it onto a front page.

 

It’s pretty clear it was the climate-disaster link. There were some things missing from the article, however. As the folks in Belgium explained above, the connection between human-driven climate change and recent trends in disasters remains highly uncertain, even as most climate scientists foresee intensification of floods and droughts and, of course, more coastal flooding with rising sea levels.

 

So while the climate hook might have given this story its “front-page thought,” there’s no examination in the article of simultaneous trends in population growth in poor places, urbanization (people are leaving marginal lands for many reasons) and the like.

 

In the absence of that hook, it’s basically a story about people moving out of harm’s way, something that’s been happening throughout human history.

[BobbyD 2]

Hi BobbyD!

 

Please tell me something--what about the info that's been coming out saying that it's more of a natural phenomenon? Do you think that has any merit or not? Like I said, I don't really know what to make of all of this stuff, but I find the info I've seen here in this thread as well as little things I've seen elsewhere really make me wonder about this. Especially since the global warming theory opens up a whole new line of business for people to get rich on. Your points also make sense to me too and I do believe that there is damage being caused by humans, but I'm trying to look at this strictly from a scientific perspective rather than factoring in what problems we've added into the mix.

 

Just to make sure I'm clear, I just want to say that I really would like to know more about this subject but I am not looking to challenge or debate this, just discuss it with others and ask questions. I know that people believe in global warming and others don't believe in it and I'm not trying to sway anyone in either direction---just trying to figure out what I think about the whole thing. Any help figuring it out is much appreciated

Hihomumio,

 

My buddy...Funny, you posted like I will bite your head off. Now you know I won't bite, unless you want me to. *pops breath mint*

 

I just don't think it's right to be entirely dismissive of either side. But I do firmly believe that if you trash something, it can definitely have an impact on your environment...subsequently to me...that's just a given.

 

I don't think it takes a scientist or someone with a political agenda(both liberal or Republican sides) to know that pollution will impact our environment and who knows...possibly our weather patterns...Gas from our autos and factories emit pollution....I can't dismiss that as not affecting the planet. Just be open minded to the possibility that we MIGHT be affecting weather patterns...it's not necessary to be confused. What's wrong with keeping an open mind?

 

A debate isn't necessary, I agree. But I would say be open to different viewpoints...and not be closed minded and locked into one side. I guess it's the X-File fan in me...I really don't fully believe either side. I choose to believe that anything's possible.

[Hihomumio 168]

Hi BobbyD!

 

Please tell me something--what about the info that's been coming out saying that it's more of a natural phenomenon? Do you think that has any merit or not? Like I said, I don't really know what to make of all of this stuff, but I find the info I've seen here in this thread as well as little things I've seen elsewhere really make me wonder about this. Especially since the global warming theory opens up a whole new line of business for people to get rich on. Your points also make sense to me too and I do believe that there is damage being caused by humans, but I'm trying to look at this strictly from a scientific perspective rather than factoring in what problems we've added into the mix.

 

Just to make sure I'm clear, I just want to say that I really would like to know more about this subject but I am not looking to challenge or debate this, just discuss it with others and ask questions. I know that people believe in global warming and others don't believe in it and I'm not trying to sway anyone in either direction---just trying to figure out what I think about the whole thing. Any help figuring it out is much appreciated

Hihomumio,

 

My buddy...Funny, you posted like I will bite your head off. Now you know I won't bite, unless you want me to. *pops breath mint*

I just don't think it's right to be entirely dismissive of either side. But I do firmly believe that if you trash something, it can definitely have an impact on your environment...subsequently to me...that's just a given.

 

I don't think it takes a scientist or someone with a political agenda(both liberal or Republican sides) to know that pollution will impact our environment and who knows...possibly our weather patterns...Gas from our autos and factories emit pollution....I can't dismiss that as not affecting the planet. Just be open minded to the possibility that we MIGHT be affecting weather patterns...it's not necessary to be confused. What's wrong with keeping an open mind?

 

A debate isn't necessary, I agree. But I would say be open to different viewpoints...and not be closed minded and locked into one side. I guess it's the X-File fan in me...I really don't fully believe either side. I choose to believe that anything's possible.

 

 

LOL, you crack me up Bobby D!! :4biggrin: I'm going to pm you.

[TubaGirl 7]

Global warming on other planets

 

A new storm and a new red spot on Jupiter hints at climate change, USA TODAY and dozens of other sources explained yesterday. The temperatures are expected to change by as much as 10 Fahrenheit degrees at different places of the globe. At least close to the new spot and to the equator, nothing less than global warming is expected.

 

 

The article has a nice animated pic of Al Gore.

[l1zz1e 0]

I'm in the baloney camp. I think climate changes are cyclical and that those cycles cannot be stopped; though, I could be convinced the cycles could be sped up by our actions. However, I haven't been convinced by any of the alarmist nonsense I've seen so far.

[MC 1]

Source.

 

 

March 02, 2009

The Farce of Global Warming

By Janet Levy

 

With the Obama administration calling for curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and the nation in the grip of the most severe economic downturn since 1929, it would seem prudent to re-examine the debate on the causes of global warming before tossing aside entire industries and technologies in favor of untried, and possibly infeasible and unprofitable, "green" technologies.

 

Wholesale acceptance of human-caused global warming does not, in fact, exist. Indeed, many scientists believe that the highly politicized global warming scare is one of the greatest scams inflicted on the planet. They hold it responsible for enforced political restrictions on legitimate scientific inquiry and dissent and feel that a deliberate attempt has been made to silence prominent atmospheric and climate scientists who offer legitimate criticism.

 

The Politicization of Global Warming

 

The politicization of global warming was at play in February 2007, when in response to a report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) citing human activity as the primary cause of global warming, syndicated columnist, Ellen Goodman, proclaimed global warming an unequivocal, alarming fact. Ms. Goodman, who holds no scientific credentials, exclaimed that global warming deniers were on par with Holocaust deniers.

 

A meteorologist with the Weather Channel, Heidi Cullen, subsequently recommended that the Meteorologist Seal of Approval be revoked for any meteorologists skeptical of the human causation of global warming. And although scientists are far from unanimous in their opinions of human responsibility for climate change, Oregon governor, Tel Kulongoski, went so far as to consider firing the state's climatologist for disagreeing with the U.N. conclusions.

 

Dr. James Hanson, a NASA climate scientist who pioneered the research on global warming and politicized the issue with Al Gore's widely debunked Academy Award-winning movie The Inconvenient Truth, has referred to skeptics as being guilty of "high crimes against humanity and nature." He has called for mass civil disobedience at the coal-fired capital power plant in Washington, D.C.

 

Voices of Dissent

 

Yet, much doubt exists over the IPPC climate change theory. Hanson's own supervisor at NASA claims that Hanson has "gone off the deep end" with insufficient evidence and has violated NASA policies by arguing against the agency's official position on climate.

 

Recently, a group of Japanese scientists from a government advisory panel publicly announced their disagreement with the IPCC report and declared that climate change is driven by natural cycles related to solar activity and has nothing to do with CO2 emissions. The climate modeling used to support claims of man-made global warming was dubbed "ancient astrology" by a program director for the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology.

 

Skepticism over human-caused global warming was also raised as recently as February 25th at a U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing hosted by Senators Barbara Boxer and James Inhofe. There, Dr. William Harper, Princeton University professor and former Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy (1990-1993), presented some of his key findings on climate change. One of just four scientists invited to address the forum, Dr. Harper, who supervised all DOE work on climate change, is a climate crisis skeptic. In his presentation, he noted that 650 prominent international scientists, including both former and current IPCC participants, have challenged the claims made by the 52 scientists who authorized the U.N. panel's report. He also called CO2, a compound singled out by the IPCC as a major contributor to global warming, as, in fact, a beneficial compound essential for life on earth.

CO2 Levels

 

In his analysis of CO2 as a factor in climate change, Dr. Harper affirmed that CO2 is not a cause for alarm, as it is neither a pollutant nor a poison. Indeed, Harper argued that CO2 limitations, such as the 450 ppm (parts per million) standard recommended by the IPCC to "stabilize" CO2 in the atmosphere, will actually damage the environment.

 

According to Dr. Harper, the current warming period (which actually ended 10 years ago) began in 1800 following the close of the little ice age (1300-1650 AD), which was preceded by a Medieval Warm Period (800-1300 AD). Harper noted that the little ice age and the Medieval Warm Period were curiously omitted from the IPCC report and that the Medieval Warm Period was as warm or warmer than today. Clearly at that point in time, global warming had nothing to do with the burning of fossils fuels. Also, Dr. Harper explained that several warmings have existed over the last 10,000 years since the last ice age, thus confirming that climate change has occurred multiple times absent mankind's actions.

 

Furthermore, plants and our primitive ancestors evolved when atmospheric CO2 was 1000 ppm. This compares to our current level of 380 ppm. Dr. Harper reported that higher levels of CO2 benefit the environment because they result in higher crop yield and more drought-tolerant plants. He cited a modern day example: greenhouse operations that are typically maintained at 1000 ppm. In truth, Harper said we are actually in a CO2 famine as most of the earth's CO2 levels throughout the planet's history have been at least 1000 ppm or higher. At these points in time, "the oceans were fine, plants grew, animals grew fine. So it's baffling to me that we're so frightened of getting nowhere close to where we started," he said.

 

 

Dr. Harper also cited examinations of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets as further evidence of his claims. From that data, past temperatures and concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere can be determined. The findings indicate that first temperatures rose and about 800 years later, CO2 levels rose from the CO2 released from warmer oceans. This finding is in direct contradiction to the beliefs of global warming advocates who believe that higher levels of CO2 cause warmer temperatures.

 

The Fallacy of Scientific Consensus

 

 

Dr. Harper, who ironically was fired by Al Gore for disagreeing with his views on climate issues, cautioned the Senate committee members about the dangers of creating a crisis mentality and of demanding or aiming for consensus among scientists on climate theory. He observed that scientific breakthroughs and discoveries have never been determined by consensus, quite the contrary. As an example, he cited the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia when the majority of physicians wrongly believed in a bleeding cure for the disease. A few contrarians noticed that yellow fever victims were more likely to survive by foregoing these ministrations but were summarily ignored. Today, global warming proponents point to the rise in the incidence of malaria and yellow fever as evidence of the ill effects of rising temperatures. However, according to Dr. Harper and other scientists, this phenomenon has more to do with controlling mosquitoes than controlling temperatures.

 

 

The late Michael Crichton had this to say about scientific consensus, "Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels. It is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. The great scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with consensus."

 

Dr. Harper maintains that the current climate crisis is a political creation that does not enjoy consensus but has the backing of the media, influential politicians, certain scientific societies and well-funded non-profit organizations. He cautions that climate warming dogma, absent critical analysis and the presentation of contrary data, is being taught in our schools along with the widespread viewing of the seriously flawed film The Inconvenient Truth.

 

Impact on Our Energy Supplies

 

Contrary to what the media and U.N. have portrayed, no evidence exists that today's climate changes differ qualitatively from in the past. In fact, not global warming but a slight cooling has taken place over the past 10 years which clearly negates the predictions of the IPCC models. As Harper concludes, climate alarmism is unrealistic and more a function of politics than scientific truths. His belief that climate change is driven by natural cycles rather than human activity is gaining currency against the hysteria of global warming doomsayers who want to institute ill-advised energy use and taxation programs that will alter our way of life and harm our economy unnecessarily.

 

Climate change alarmists continue to rail against our use of the conventional sources of energy that have contributed to our economy prosperity. They have amassed significant support in Washington for "cap and trade" taxation schemes and prohibitions on drilling and energy exploration. The United States should not yield to political pressure and penalize energy use in an effort to garner new taxes. Common sense and good science should rule the day and politicians should not let more than 2,340 global warming lobbyists in Washington, clamoring for "cap and trade" regulation, allow us to seriously drag down our already flailing economy. Our economic health and growth should not be sacrificed for an unproven theory that is fast loosing support from the scientific community.

 

Given the present administration's call for legislation to curb greenhouse gas emission allegedly in the service of climate control, the testimony of scientists like Dr. Harper warrants serious consideration.

Edited March 2, 2009 by MC

[MC 1]

Um.... I have nothing against trying to find alternative power sources, but I do have a problem with the Federal Government overriding states and dictating who pays for what. Remember, the whole global climate change farce is about POWER.

 

Senate leader offers plan for `green' power grid

 

Mar 5 03:57 PM US/Eastern

By H. JOSEF HEBERT

Associated Press Writer

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate's top Democrat is proposing special power lines to carry renewable energy—like solar and wind power—from remote places.

 

The Federal government would be able override states and direct where the lines would go and who would pay for them.

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada unveiled his proposal Thursday. It is expected to become part of a broader energy bill the Senate plans to take up in the coming weeks.

 

The green power lines would boost development of solar, wind and geothermal energy projects otherwise cut off from the nation's electric grid. It's also a proposal that Reid acknowledged in a news release would give "an enormous boost" to his own state of Nevada where companies are eyeing large solar projects.

 

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[MC 1]

The government wants to control your thermostat.

[l1zz1e 0]

maybe they should start with the whitehouse since the thermostats have been turned up so they can take off their suitcoats and roll up their sleeves, and Michelle can run around in the middle of winter in tank dresses

 

kinda hypocritical

[Hoyaheel 1,874]

maybe they should start with the whitehouse since the thermostats have been turned up so they can take off their suitcoats and roll up their sleeves, and Michelle can run around in the middle of winter in tank dresses

 

kinda hypocritical

You don't know what their thermostat is set at. There are (many) days when I run around in a short sleeve shirt & boxers at home--in the winter, and our thermostat is set at 64. And no, they're not hot flashes, I'm only 35. I'm just saying--you don't know

[MC 1]

maybe they should start with the whitehouse since the thermostats have been turned up so they can take off their suitcoats and roll up their sleeves, and Michelle can run around in the middle of winter in tank dresses

 

kinda hypocritical

You don't know what their thermostat is set at. There are (many) days when I run around in a short sleeve shirt & boxers at home--in the winter, and our thermostat is set at 64. And no, they're not hot flashes, I'm only 35. I'm just saying--you don't know

 

Source.

 

Obama Cranks Up White House Thermostat: "You Could Grow Orchids In There"

 

 

Uh oh.

 

Hey, remember all that fuss about how Obama was bucking tradition by not wearing his suit jacket in the Oval Office? And how it was going to be much more casual in there? Well, there's this other side to it: energy waste.

 

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

"He's from Hawaii, O.K.?" said Mr. Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. "He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there."

 

Sure, but didn't he spend some time in Chicago? And don't they make their politicians go through some kind of rigorous acclimation training to get used to the cold? Why, just look at these Chicago politician stock photos I've found:

 

In any case, I think Obama wears a suit better than most politicians. Keep the jacket on, I say, and the thermostat down around 68.

 

Another source.

Shared sacrifice for Thee but not for He.

New York Times.

 

...to name a few who carried the story.

Edited March 18, 2009 by MC

[Hoyaheel 1,874]

Let's hope only the Oval Office has the heat cranked up and the rest of the house is lower.....

[MC 1]

Source.

 

Explorers On Global Warming Expedition Stranded in North Pole by Cold Weather

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

PrintShareThis

Three global warming researchers stranded in the North Pole by cold weather were holding out hope Wednesday as a fourth plane set off in an attempt deliver them supplies.

 

The flight took off during a break in bad weather after “brutal” conditions halted three previous attempts to reach the British explorers who said they were nearly out of food, the Agence France-Presse reported.

 

“We’re hungry, the cold is relentless, our sleeping bags are full of ice,” expedition leader Pen Hadow said in e-mailed statement. “Waiting is almost the worst part of an expedition as we’re in the lap of the weather gods.”

 

Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels began an 85-day hike to the North Pole on February 28 to measure sea ice thickness, the AFP reported.

 

With bad weather hampering supply flights, the team is was down to half-rations, battling desperate sub-zero temperatures and unable to proceed, the AFP reported.

 

"It'll be a relief to get our new supplies," Hadow said in a statement Wednesday. "Until (the plane) does arrive, we need to conserve energy and can't really move on."

 

The expedition now expects to arrive at the North Pole in late May.

[l1zz1e 0]

maybe they should start with the whitehouse since the thermostats have been turned up so they can take off their suitcoats and roll up their sleeves, and Michelle can run around in the middle of winter in tank dresses

 

kinda hypocritical

You don't know what their thermostat is set at. There are (many) days when I run around in a short sleeve shirt & boxers at home--in the winter, and our thermostat is set at 64. And no, they're not hot flashes, I'm only 35. I'm just saying--you don't know

 

Source.

 

Obama Cranks Up White House Thermostat: "You Could Grow Orchids In There"

 

 

Uh oh.

 

Hey, remember all that fuss about how Obama was bucking tradition by not wearing his suit jacket in the Oval Office? And how it was going to be much more casual in there? Well, there's this other side to it: energy waste.

 

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

"He's from Hawaii, O.K.?" said Mr. Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. "He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there."

 

Sure, but didn't he spend some time in Chicago? And don't they make their politicians go through some kind of rigorous acclimation training to get used to the cold? Why, just look at these Chicago politician stock photos I've found:

 

In any case, I think Obama wears a suit better than most politicians. Keep the jacket on, I say, and the thermostat down around 68.

 

Another source.

Shared sacrifice for Thee but not for He.

New York Times.

 

...to name a few who carried the story.

 

thanks for finding/posting that MC. I hadn't been here for a couple of days.

 

I would never have posted the comment if I hadn't known there was something to it. I guess I should have googled and linked it at the time.

[MC 1]

thanks for finding/posting that MC. I hadn't been here for a couple of days.

I would never have posted the comment if I hadn't known there was something to it. I guess I should have googled and linked it at the time.

You're welcome. I think what people know depends on which news sources they seek out. That's one of the reasons I post so many things in the political forum. You won't hear any of that stuff on most television news programs. That doesn't mean it's not true or not relevant - it means that the mainstream media doesn't think it's important for you to know, and we all know what their agenda is. Or most of us do anyway. I like to make those decisions for myself.

[MC 1]

Source.

 

April 01, 2009

Our planet is no Arcadia

By Peter B. Martin

 

It wasn't long ago that anyone suggesting that climate warming was questionable didn't register a pulse with the public majority, but now that has changed. More and more people are challenging the dogma of the so-called climate Gurus, and for good reason.

 

With regard to climate warming, politicians are being misled, ecologists are being misled, scientists are being misled and the public is being misled. It is a chain reaction created by spurious science that is fostering unnecessary anxiety and wasting money that could well be spent on more critical matters. For instance, in the current issue of the French magazine "Geo", a questionnaire asked its readers what they thought the most threatening menace over the last 30 years was. The leading answer was global warming; second, with merely 30% of the readers, was terrorism.

 

As a further example of the hysteria generated by global warming alarmists, here is an article that recently appeared in London's Telegraph:

 

"Global warming could cause the West Antarctic ice sheet to collapse, leading to a catastrophic rise in sea levels, scientists claim.... This could cause sea levels to rise by up to seven meters (23ft) within one to three thousand years, wiping out wildlife, flooding low-lying island and coastal areas and changing weather patterns by releasing fresh water into the sea."

 

The article is written in such a way as to suggest that wildlife will be wiped out and lowlands flooded by a some sudden cataclysmic inundation, where animals wouldn't have a chance to move inland to higher ground; when in fact, if it at all did happen, it would be a slow, gradual phenomenon over thousands of years giving plenty of time to make adjustments. Furthermore, sediment studies from the Antarctic floor show that the ice sheet did periodically collapse over a period of a million years yet the world endured.

 

Global warming would be a far more positive occurrence than global cooling would ever be. With the Artic ice pack shrinking it is a windfall for oil exploration and navigation just when it may be most required. The use of a northwest passage for transport would save incalculable amounts of energy in shipping and new oil fields would be an additional supply for ones further south that are nearing exhaustion.

 

In an era when weather forecasting can't even tell with any reliability what the weather will be in a weeks time, much less a month from now, how can people believe we will know the weather in the coming decades, or hundreds of years from now? Reliance on computer-generated estimations is as unreliable as the weather reports are today. All though the ages human history has been affected by major weather changes that lasted centuries and the human race ultimately survived.

 

We know that between the years 450 AD and 1000 the weather was far drier and warmer than it is today, allowing Vikings to navigate the generally calm seas all the way to Greenland and on to Canada. Should the present warming trend continue and amplify, Greenland could be green again and Canada would have a much longer growing season allowing more people to be fed. With no ice to threaten shipping great ports could be opened on Hudson Bay, Labrador and Baffin Island to handle the export of grain.

 

Extreme weather changes, which would have been disastrous to earlier civilizations, can now be tolerated by today's urban civilization with central heating, effective insulation and modern means of transport. And if another ice age were to occur, it would happen over a span of thousands of years giving mankind plenty of time to adjust. Civilizations would slowly retreat southward; as generations succeeded one another, they would slowly make their way north again when the glaciers and ice sheets melted to repopulate the land their ancestors had to abandon.

 

Carbon dioxide has been flagged as a destructive substance, while in fact it is not only essential for life but is also very beneficial to mankind. It is a fact that evolutionary advances increased during warmer and higher CO2 levels than today. Climate-change alarmists and doom mongers proclaim that the present warming trend is due to CO2, while in fact there isn't a worldwide warming trend at all only local warming and the climate overall is actually cooling down. Besides, there isn't necessarily a correlation between rising temperatures and an increase in carbon dioxide, during the last century, when mean temperatures decreased, carbon dioxide actually increased. And what's more, if there were less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plants would be fewer and grow less quickly, making it harder to feed the growing populations. Therefore, if anything, carbon dioxide - rather than be maligned, should be extolled and recognized as evidence of an advantageous climatic evolution for mankind.

 

Our planet is no Arcadia, it is constantly evolving for the better and sometimes for the worse, without man's input; it is presumptuous to imagine man can alter this ever-changing state. And it is ecological vanity to consider spending millions of dollars on trying to control global warming - a futile exercise, particularly during the present financial debacle and deep recession. It would be far more ethical to give it to developing countries in need of aid, medication and food.

It is futile for man to fight climate change; pollution yes, but not the climate. It makes a lot more sense to invest in adapting to it. Legend has it that the magpie was the only bird not to embark on Noah's ark, choosing to "jabber over the drowning world." This wily, intelligent species with its adaptability and survival instinct has flourished for ages through many climate changes without any help from man. It might be a good idea to take a lesson from the magpie and not be panicked by the masses over a non-existent crisis.