ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF DISGRACEFUL GREENIE "SPIN" FROM THE MEDIA

To Greenies, if there is a bit of ice melting anywhere it is all due to global warming. They will be monitoring the defrost cycle on my refrigerrator next. And the media report below relies on the impressions of native people. By contrast, the scientific report following relies on the thermometer

"In 2002-2003, a six-mile stretch of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier broke off and drifted silently out of the fjord near Ilulissat, Greenland's third largest town, 155 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Although Greenland is the prime example, scientists say the effects of climate change are noticeable throughout the Arctic region, from the northward spread of spruce beetles in Canada to melting permafrost in Alaska and northern Russia.

Indigenous people who for centuries have adapted their lives to the cold, fear that the changes, however small and gradual, could have a profound impact. "We can see a trend that the fall is getting longer and wetter," said Lars-Anders Baer, a political leader for Sweden's indigenous Sami, a once-nomadic people with a long tradition of reindeer herding".






ALASKA IS NOT WARMING UP

"Pineapple from Alaska? - The Arctic melts and the industrial countries keep watching" was the title of a dramatic press release published by the Global Conservation Organization WWF after the publication of the "Arctic Climate Impact Assessments" report (ACIA). This report claims that human induced greenhouses emissions are the cause of the global temperature rise.

However, a closer look at the facts is amazing: the temperature in Alaska has been almost constant for 27 years. This and other information can neither be found in the WWF publications nor in the ACIA report.

In 1976, a temperature rise of 1.7 øC within one year was observed. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is considered to be the reason for this. Since 1977, the mean annual temperature in Alaska has been almost constant.

Temperatures of the recent past:

Reliable measurement data for Alaska have only been available since 1949. The Alaska Climate Research Center (2) analyzed the temperature development and worked out the curve below.





(Mean annual temperatures, temperature trends for the whole period (dashed green curve), mean five yearly average (brown) and yearly averages for the period from 1949 to 1975 (blue) and 1977 to 2003 (blue))

This temperature curve holds some surprises: Since 1977, the mean annual temperature in Alaska has been almost constant. One single temperature leap in 1976 caused a temperature increase of 1.7 øC in only one year. The authors state that such a non-linear trend can hardly be linked to the linear increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. It is rather believed that the temperature leap was caused by a phase shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) in 1976. Then, the PDO shifted from a negative to a positive phase, and, according to the authors, this lead to higher temperatures in Alaska.

Temperatures of the past 2000 years

Feng Sheng Hu et al. analyzed sea sediments in Lake Farewell to determine the temperatures of the past 2000 years. The reason why they decided to conduct this study is that the lack of reliable climate information covering longer time periods makes it difficult to understand nature and the reasons for the current warming. The results of their study are shown in the diagram below



The curve shows three comparable warm periods for the years 0 to 300, 850 to 1200 and for the 20th century. According to the temperature curve in the diagram, the current global warming trend is not unusual and, when seen in the context of the past 2000 years, not even unexpected".

More here

And note also this scientific report showing that Greenland specifically is in fact COOLING.






Hurricane Katrina and the need to hold on to Enlightenment values.....

A good post lifted from Prof. Stott:

The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina was NOT caused directly by God; nor was it caused by Mr. Bush, nor the Great Satan of America; nor was it a divine punishment of a wicked city steeped in vice and corruption.

Hurricane Katrina was an entirely normal atmospheric phenomenon, the science of which has been known for a long time, that affected an old city, built below sea-level and on a swamp, with many wooden buildings and a large percentage of disadvantaged, poor people. The event was not even 'chaotic', in that New Orleans lies within the standard track of many late-Summer hurricanes. In 1965, the city was likewise struck by Hurricane Bets(e)y (now recalled in a play), which flooded the steets to a depth of 2m and which killed over 70 people.

Moreover, despite the media feeding-frenzy, Hurricane Katrina was not a particularly strong hurricane, varying between 2-4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. In power, for example, it was no match for Hurricane Camille (Category 5, with winds of over 200 mph) which hit Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi in August 1969, killing some 275 people. And the most recent peak in hurricane activity still lies within the late-1930s and 1940s.

In the future, we are well aware that hurricanes will again affect the towns and cities of the Gulf of Mexico coastline. This is a fact, although the precise timing, direction, and strength of these hurricanes can not be known in advance. The only human culpability - if it is of any value at all to think in such anthropocentric terms - in the current tragedy is the failure to recognise the inevitability of this natural reality and to exercise enough effort and money to plan landscapes that can cope with the predictable risk. However, such fall-short failures in planning can not be laid at the feet either of God or of a single human being - even Mr. Bush, certain utterly ridiculous and dangerous German politicians please note.

We are currently living in increasingly dark days, in which religious fundamentalism - from perverted forms of Christianity and Islam to 'modern' environmental paganism (not to mention sheer stupidity) - are challenging our hard-won Enlightenment understanding of the world, an understanding that has helped to release humankind from the bondage of superstition and irrationality. We are wilfully confusing the different philosophical spheres of science and religion. Suffering remains the deepest question of theology, and it lies at the heart of theology to ask: "How is such suffering allowed to happen?". By contrast, the physical mechanisms of Hurricane Katrina are neither theological nor political; they are totally explicable in the terms of known Enlightenment science, and we must hold on to this fact in this dimming world of mental fear, one in which a self-indulgent media [see my final quote below] is too ready to pander to older and more fickle 'gods'.

The Enlightenment has helped to set us free, granted in a naturally dangerous world, but also one that is wonderful to understand. We must resist with every intellectual sinew those who would plunge us back into the world of capricious and dangerous 'gods' and simplistic and over-simplified evil.

"Ecrasez l'infame!"

And the most disgraceful statement of all? It is possibly this from Jon Snow, if, that is, he has been correctly reported in today's The Times - the sneer is so crass one can hardly believe that, as a newscaster, he could spout it: "Best of all, though, was the contribution of Jon Snow, enthroned as the objective voice of British media at Channel 4 News, who chortled: 'How ironic that the world's No 1 polluter is now reaping the 'rewards' that so many have warned would flow.'" I think it nearly merits a formal complaint to the broadcasting authorities.

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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.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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