GREENIES USING THE COURTS TO TIE UP THE WEST

Cheat Seeker has the goods. One excerpt:

"The more significant of the two stories is the LA Times piece, which focuses on a Bush administration proposal to cut critical habitat for two endangered fish species by as much as 80 percent. Bear with me; this really is interesting. Critical habitat is the front in the battle between the grab-everything/sue-everyone faction of the environmental movement and anyone-who-wants-to-build-anything-anywhere. It is a skirmish that shows just how intense and intelligent the radical greens are in their effort to de-populate the West."




Meteorologist Likens Fear of Global Warming to 'Religious Belief'

An MIT meteorologist Wednesday dismissed alarmist fears about human induced global warming as nothing more than 'religious beliefs.' "Do you believe in global warming? That is a religious question. So is the second part: Are you a skeptic or a believer?" said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, in a speech to about 100 people at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. "Essentially if whatever you are told is alleged to be supported by 'all scientists,' you don't have to understand [the issue] anymore. You simply go back to treating it as a matter of religious belief," Lindzen said. His speech was titled, "Climate Alarmism: The Misuse of 'Science'" and was sponsored by the free market George C. Marshall Institute. Lindzen is a professor at MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Once a person becomes a believer of global warming, "you never have to defend this belief except to claim that you are supported by all scientists -- except for a handful of corrupted heretics," Lindzen added. According to Lindzen, climate "alarmists" have been trying to push the idea that there is scientific consensus on dire climate change. "With respect to science, the assumption behind the [alarmist] consensus is science is the source of authority and that authority increases with the number of scientists [who agree.] But science is not primarily a source of authority. It is a particularly effective approach of inquiry and analysis. Skepticism is essential to science -- consensus is foreign," Lindzen said.

Alarmist predictions of more hurricanes, the catastrophic rise in sea levels, the melting of the global poles and even the plunge into another ice age are not scientifically supported, Lindzen said. "It leads to a situation where advocates want us to be afraid, when there is no basis for alarm. In response to the fear, they want us to do what they want," Lindzen said.

Recent reports of a melting polar ice cap were dismissed by Lindzen as an example of the media taking advantage of the public's "scientific illiteracy." "The thing you have to remember about the Arctic is that it is an extremely variable part of the world," Lindzen said. "Although there is melting going [on] now, there has been a lot of melting that went on in the [19]30s and then there was freezing. So by isolating a section ... they are essentially taking people's ignorance of the past," he added.

'Repetition makes people believe'

The climate change debate has become corrupted by politics, the media and money, according to Lindzen. "It's a sad story, where you have scientists making meaningless or ambiguous statements [about climate change]. They are then taken by advocates to the media who translate the statements into alarmist declarations. You then have politicians who respond to all of this by giving scientists more money," Lindzen said. "Agreement on anything is taken to infer agreement on everything. So if you make a statement that you agree that CO2 (carbon dioxide) is a greenhouse gas, you agree that the world is coming to an end," he added.

"There can be little doubt that the language used to convey alarm has been sloppy at best," Lindzen said, citing Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbles and his famous observation that even a lie will be believed if enough people repeat it. "There is little question that repetition makes people believe things [for] which there may be no basis," Lindzen said. He believes the key to improving the science of climate change lies in altering the way scientists are funded.

'Alarm is the aim'

"The research and support for research depends on the alarm," Lindzen told CNSNews.com following his speech. "The research itself often is very good, but by the time it gets through the filter of environmental advocates and the press innocent things begin to sound just as though they are the end of the world. "The argument is no longer what models are correct -- they are not -- but rather whether their results are at all possible. One can rarely prove something to be impossible," he explained.

Lindzen said scientists must be allowed to conclude that 'we don't have a problem." And if the answer turns out to be 'we don't have a problem,' we have to figure out a better reward than cutting off people's funding. It's as simple as that," he said. The only consensus that Lindzen said exists on the issue of climate change is the impact of the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to limit greenhouse gases, which the U.S. does not support. Kyoto itself will have no discernible effect on global warming regardless of what one believes about climate change," Lindzen said. "Claims to the contrary generally assume Kyoto is only the beginning of an ever more restrictive regime. However this is hardly ever mentioned," he added.

The Kyoto Protocol, which Russia recently ratified, aims to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2010. But Lindzen claims global warming proponents ultimately want to see a 60 to 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gasses from the 1990 levels. Such reductions would be economically disastrous, he said. "If you are hearing Kyoto will cost billions and trillions," then a further reduction will ultimately result in "a shutdown" of the economy, Lindzen said.

Source




There Is NO Man-Made Global Warming

By Tom DeWeese

There is no scientific evidence to back claims of man-made global warming. Period. Anyone who tells you that scientific research shows warming trends -- be they teachers, newscasters, congressmen, senators, vice presidents or presidents -- is wrong. In fact, scientific research through U.S. government satellite and balloon measurements shows that the temperature is actually cooling -- very slightly -- 0.037 degrees Celsius. A little research into modern-day temperature trends bears this out. For example, in 1936, the Midwest of the United States experienced 49 consecutive days of temperatures over 90 degrees. There were another 49 consecutive days in 1955. But in 1992, there was only one day over 90 degrees and, in 1997, only five days. Because of modern science and improved equipment, this "cooling" trend has been most accurately documented over the past 18 years. Ironically, that's the same period of time the hysteria has grown over dire warnings of "warming."

Changes in global temperatures are natural. In fact, much of the recent severe weather has been directly attributed to a natural phenomenon that occurs every so often called El Nino. It causes ocean temperatures to rise as tropical trade winds actually reverse for a time. The resulting temperature changes cause severe storms, flooding and even drought on every continent on earth. It's completely natural. El Nino has been wreaking its havoc across the globe since long before man appeared.

How about the reports that the polar ice cap is melting? On Election Day, the Financial Times of London carried the hysterical headline: "Arctic Ice Cap Set to Disappear by the Year 2070." The article stated that the Arctic ice cap is melting at an unprecedented rate. The article is based on a report titled "Impacts of a Warming Arctic," submitted by a group of researchers called the Arctic Climate Impact Assessement (ACIA).

It must be understood just who makes up this so-called group of researchers. The report is not unbiased scientific data. Rather, it is propaganda from political groups that have an agenda. The report was commissioned by the Arctic Council, which is comprised of a consortium of radical envionmentalists from Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. All are nations that possess land within the Arctic Circle. Many of these countries, through the Kyoto Protocol, have a financial stake in pushing the global warming agenda. One of the groups providing "scientists" to the ACIA "researchers" is the World Wildlife Fund, one of the leading chicken-little scaremongers that create junk science at the drop of a news release to terrify us all into proper environmental conduct.

The report is now being used at the global warming meeting currently underway in Buenos Aires to rally the troops and bully the United States into accepting the discredited Kyoto Protocol. We are being warned of killer heat waves, vast flooding and the spread of tropical diseases. Ocean levels are rising, and America's coastlines are doomed, they tell us. Hurricanes and tornadoes have already become more violent, we're warned. Floods and droughts have begun to ravage the nation, they cry. Any change in temperatures, an excessive storm or extended flooding is looked upon as a sure sign that environmental armageddon is upon us. Diabolical environmentalists are using the natural El Nino phenomenon to whip people into a global warming hysteria.

Two kinds of scientists

We are assured by such groups that scientists everywhere are sounding these warnings and that we may only have one chance to stop it. Well, as the debate rages, we find that there are really two kinds of scientists. There are those who look at facts and make their judgments based on what they see and know. Their findings can be matched by any other scientist, using the same data and set of circumstances to reach the same conclusions. It's a age-old practice called "peer review." It's the only true science.

And then, there are those who yearn for a certain outcome and set about creating the needed data to make it so. Usually, you will find this group of scientists greatly dependent on grants supplied by those with a specific political agenda who demand desired outcomes for their money. Let's just take NASA, for example -- the most trusted name in American science. A lot of NASA scientists have fallen into the money trap. Environmental science has become the life-blood of the space program as the nation has lost interest in space travel. To keep the bucks coming, NASA has justified launches through the excuse of earth-directed environmental research. And the budgets keep coming. At the same time, many of NASA's scientists have a political agenda in great harmony with those who advocate global warming. And they're not above using their position to aid that agenda whenever the chance is available.

This was never more clearly demonstrated than in 1992, when a team of three NASA scientists was monitoring conditions over North America to determine if the ozone layer was in danger. Inconclusive data indicated that conditions might be right for ozone damage over North America -- if certain things happened. True scientists are a careful lot. They study, they wait, and many times, they test again before drawing conclusions. Not so the green zealot. Of this three-member NASA team, two could not be sure of what they had found and wanted to do more research. But one took the data and rushed to the microphones with all of the drama of a Hollywood movie and announced in hushed tones that NASA had discovered an ozone hole over North America.

Then Sen. Al Gore rushed to the floor of the Senate with the news and drove a stampede to immediately ban freon -- five years before Congress had intended -- and without a suitable substitute. He then bullied President George H.W. Bush to sign the legislation by saying the ozone hole was over Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush's favorite vacation spot. Two months later, NASA announced -- on the back pages of the newspapers -- that further research had shown there was no such damage. But it was too late. The valuable comodity known as freon was gone forever.

Flawed computer models

Then there are those computer models. Night after night, Americans watch the local news as the weatherman predicts what kind of a day tomorrow will be. These meteorologists, using the most up-to-date equipment available, boldly give you the five-day forecast. But it's well known that even with all of their research and expensive equipment, it really is just a "best guess." There are just too many variables. If the wind picks up here, it could blow in a storm. If the temperature drops there, it could start to snow. The earth is a vast and wondrous place. Weather does what it wants. Yet those who are promoting the global warming theory have the audacity to tell you they can forecast changes in the global climate decades into the future.

The truth is that computer models are able to include only two out of 14 components that make up the climate system. To include the third component would take a computer a thousand times faster than what we have now. To go beyond the third component requires an increase in computer power that is so large, only mathematicians can comprehend the numbers. Moreover, even if the computer power existed, scientists do not understand all the factors and the relationships between them that determine the global climate.

So it's an outrage for the World Wildlife Fund or the Sierra Club to tell you that man-made global warming is a fact and that we Americans must now suffer dire changes in our lifestyle to stop it.

Scientists are not on the global warming bandwagon

And so, too, is it an outrage for the news media to tell you that most true scientists now agree that man-made global warming is a fact. What it doesn't tell you is that roughly 500 scientists from around the world signed the Heidleburg Appeal in 1992, just prior to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, expressing their doubts and begging the delegates not to bind the world to any dire treaties based on global warming. Today, that figure has grown to more than 4,000 scientists. Americans aren't being told that a 1997 Gallup Poll of prominent North American climatologists showed that 83 percent of them disagreed with the man-made global warming theory.

And the deceit knows no bounds. The United Nations released a report at the end of 1996 saying global warming was a fact, yet before releasing the report, two key paragraphs were deleted from the final draft. Those two paragraphs, written by the scientists who did the actual scientific analysis, said:

1. "[N]one of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases."

2. "[N]o study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to ... man-made causes."

Obviously, those two paragraphs aren't consistent with the political agenda the U.N. is pushing. So, science be damned. Global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of the world -- bar none...........

Global raid on American wealth

But perhaps you still are not convinced. Maybe you still cling to the idea that such drastic action is necessary -- that those pushing the global warming agenda are truly in a panic over global warming and are just trying to find a solution. If you are one of these people, ask yourself: Why does the Kyoto Protocol only bind developed nations to draconian emission levels? Undeveloped Third World nations would be free to produce whatever they want. These would include China, India, Brazil and Mexico. Yet 82 percent of the projected emissions growth in future years would come from these countries.

Now ask yourself: If the Kyoto Climate Change Protocol is all about protecting the environment, then how come it doesn't cover everybody? The truth, of course, is that the treaty is really about redistribution of the wealth. The wealth of the United States is, and has always been, the target. The new scheme to grab the loot is through environmental scare tactics. And international corporations that owe allegiance to no nation would bolt America and move their factories lock, stock and computer chip to those Third World countries, where they would be free to carry on production.

But that means the same emissions would be coming out of the jungles of South America instead of Chicago. So where is the protection of the environment? You see, it's not about that, is it?........

More here

***************************************

Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

*****************************************