GREENLAND AND THE "SINKING" AIRCRAFT

I need someone to explain to me how this is consistent with global warming: A flight of American military aircraft were forced down onto the Greenland icecap by bad weather in 1942. Exactly 50 years later, some enthusiasts went back to salvage the downed aircraft. They succeeded. But where did they find the aircraft? Geographically, the aircraft were quite close to where they had landed. The icecap had not moved much. But they were under 268 feet of ice!

That sounds an awful lot like a thickening icecap to me, not a shrinking one! I certainly cannot see how the aircraft could have sunk down 268 feet into solid ice! It seems to me that the aircraft stayed right where they were while the snow fell and the icecap gradually grew over the top of them -- and grew not just a few feet thicker but 268 feet thicker!

I guess that the icecap could have melted away at the bottom as fast as it grew at the top but why would it do that and where would the water go? And how could it remain water under such freezing conditions?





PREACHING GREEN JIHAD: "THE TIME HAS COME FOR DESTROYING THOSE WHO DESTROY THE EARTH"

Excerpts below from a Special Report in Nature 440, 136-137 (9 March 2006): "Church joins crusade over climate change". Also see below some information about Green Jihadist De Witt and his dubious theology.

Fire and brimstone are coming to the aid of US science, as evangelical scientists and their allies in the religious community embark on a battle against climate change. "The time has come...for destroying those who destroy the Earth," says Calvin DeWitt, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, quoting from the Scriptures. The Bible teaches stewardship of the planet, he says, which is partly why 86 prominent US evangelical Christians last month signed the 'Evangelical Climate Initiative' calling for mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions.

The movement began in 2000, when 50 evangelical scientists - including DeWitt - signed a statement calling for policy-makers to take steps towards reducing the threat of climate change. It is a rare move in the United States, where environmentalists and the religious community often find themselves in opposite camps. Climate activists hope the initiative will have the political clout to help sway President George W. Bush's administration towards mandatory emissions cuts. Bush has not signed up to the international Kyoto Protocol on regulating greenhouse gases. Instead, he is promoting clean-energy technologies through agreements such as the six-nation Asia-Pacific partnership. Yet many of Bush's core supporters are religious conservatives.

Evangelicals are a powerful social force in the United States, with the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) boasting 30 million members. 'Evangelical' is an umbrella term encompassing more than 50 denominations whose members typically believe in Jesus Christ and that the Bible is the authoritative word of God. The NAE has not officially endorsed the climate initiative, but many of the organization's leaders believe it represents a growing consensus that climate change is a matter for concern.

Climate researchers are watching the movement with optimism. Jim White, a University of Colorado geochemist who studies ice sheets in Greenland, says that it will almost certainly accelerate public support for action on climate change. "To have a group that has historically fought the notion come around - I think that does impact on the public's thinking," he says.

And it is this public support that some believe could influence conservative legislators. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, based in Arlington, Virginia, says that the lack of significant public demand for action on climate has hampered acceptance by members of Congress. "So I think the evangelical initiative is welcomed by all," she adds.

John Houghton, a leader in the Christian environmental movement (see 'The man who preaches science' ), says the task is particularly hard in the United States. He lectures frequently to international audiences and says that, outside the United States, he rarely encounters resistance to the validity of climate-change science. But leaders of the initiative feel the science is now solid enough to convince even the unbelievers. "If there was not such an overwhelming scientific consensus, we probably wouldn't be able to get traction on this issue in our community," says Ball.

A union between evangelicals and scientists was only a matter of time, says DeWitt, who has written at length on "evangelical environmentalism". Raised in the Christian Reformed Church, he grew up believing that investigation of the natural world goes hand in hand with biblical theology. Not until he went to college did he become aware of the divide between the two communities. "We've built this illusion that we can talk about ourselves on the one hand and the environment on the other hand," says DeWitt.

For many evangelicals, the flashpoint was the growing realization that climate change could wreak its worst effects on the poorest countries, in the form of heat waves, floods and tropical diseases. Sea-level rise could immerse low-lying regions, and agricultural productivity could be sharply reduced in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa. More than ever, evangelicals are viewing their call to respond as a biblical and moral imperative. "It's a bigger question now," says DeWitt. "Do you really answer to the creator of Heaven and Earth?"

Benny Peiser comments:

"Nature's new friends openly call for violent action: "the time has come...for destroying those who destroy the Earth." What next? Burning heretics and climate sceptics at the stake? In light of the long and violent history of apocalyptic terror against unbelievers, it may only be a question of time when green fear-mongering turns to persecution and physical violence. Nobody should be surprised if Nature's new allies will turn against other sceptics on other issues of their fundamentalist agenda at some stage."

Lowdown on De Witt:

Calvin B. DeWitt, co-founder of the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. DeWitt is also the Director of the Au Sable Institute for Environmental Studies, a Christian environmental stewardship institute in Michigan. The Institute's mission is to "bring healing and wholeness to the biosphere and the whole of Creation." Rounding out DeWitt's credentials is his role as president of the Christian Environmental Council.

DeWitt helped found the EEN in 1993. The EEN claims to be a coalition of mainstream evangelical leaders concerned about the environment. Closer examination of the EEN's connections reveal there is nothing mainstream about it: When the EEN launched a multi-million dollar public relations campaign in January 1996 to convince the American people that the Endangered Species Act is the "Noah's Ark of our day," it was the Washington, D.C.- based Fenton Communications that ran the group's media relations. Fenton Communications has long been a favorite of the far left: During the 1980's, for example, Fenton Communications had contracts with the Christic Institute and the communist governments of Angola and Nicaragua. It was Fenton that managed to talk CBS's "60 Minutes" into reporting as fact an unproven claim by the Natural Resources Defense Council that alar, a chemical used to ripen apples, was a serious cancer risk to children. Horrified parents across the nation quit purchasing apples as a result of the report.

But Fenton Communications isn't the EEN's only questionable association. The EEN's cost of ad production in defense of the Endangered Species Act was underwritten by the Environmental Information Center (EIC), which is a virtual "Who's Who" of liberal Democratic Party politics: Philip E. Clapp, the EIC's executive director, served as a member of the national steering committee of Environmentalists for Clinton-Gore; Mike Casey, the group's media relations director, came directly to the EIC from the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee; and staffer Arlie Schardt served as press secretary for Albert Gore's unsuccessful presidential bid. Board Members of the EIC include Francis C. Beineke of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Douglas Foy of the Conservation Law Foundation.

The EEN operates on a $200,000 annual budget out of the Philadelphia offices of Evangelicals for Social Action, another notoriously liberal "evangelical" counter group. One of EEN's key leaders is Ron Sider, who is president and founder of Evangelicals for Social Action. Sider is also one of the leaders of "Call to Renewal," a religious coalition established to counter the Christian Coalition. Sider was also an outspoken critic of the GOP's "Contract with America," telling Christianity Today that the GOP plans to "slash $380 billion from programs for the poor" while giving "$245 billion in tax cuts to the rich and middle class" -- a statement virtually indistinguishable from the White House line.

While Calvin DeWitt is a professor of environmental studies, he has few credentials as a biblical scholar. Yet DeWitt, it seems, has exploited the Scripture for political purposes. He has done so by quoting verses of Scripture out of their full context in order to promote his own political agenda. He has, for example, asserted that the Bible lays out a series of "stewardship principles." These principles, according to DeWitt, are the earthkeeping principle, the fruitfulness principle, and the Sabbath principle. DeWitt suggests that "stewardship of creation is the care and keeping of the life-sustaining integral system of which people are but a part, which, when fully practiced by all, becomes a way of life, and thus no longer has to bear the label 'stewardship.'"

Take Genesis 1:22 for example: "And God blessed them(the fish and birds), saying, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.'" DeWitt claims this verse means that God gives the first and primary blessing to be fruitful and to multiply to the fish and birds. Building on this, DeWitt posits that since all of the fruitfulness and multiplication blessings are given to all other creatures before humans, then humans are to defer to all creatures. His rationale is that since these are the first blessings given, the creatures come before the humans. But Genesis 2:18-19 contradicts his interpretation of Genesis 1:22: "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.' So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever man called every living creature, that was its name." In addition, Genesis 1:28 explains that God created humans in His image, and gave humans the intellectual and physical capability to "subdue the earth and to have dominion over every living creature that moves upon the earth." Clearly, this particular book (Genesis 1) of the Scripture implies that God gave humans power over the earth and all its creatures.

Another example of DeWitt's intellectual dishonesty is his use of Genesis 2:15: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till and to keep it." DeWitt's interpretation of this verse of Scripture is that God expected Adam to "serve" the garden. However, it seems that DeWitt's interpretation of Genesis 2:15 directly contradicts Matthew 4:10: "Then Jesus said to him, 'Be gone, Satan! for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.'"

In Christian Environmental Stewardship: Preparing a Way for Action, a paper written by Dr. DeWitt, DeWitt states that "biblical teachings reinforce our responsibility for the care and keeping of Creation: they give the grave warning that those who destroy the Earth themselves will be destroyed (Revelation 11:18)." In this case, DeWitt does not even take one whole verse out of context. Rather, he has the audacity to take one phrase out of one verse out of context. Revelation 11:18, in its entirety states: "The nations raged, but thy wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, for rewarding thy servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear thy name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth." The "destroyers" clause is hardly what DeWitt claims: A reinforcement of humans' responsibility to care for and keep God's creation. Rather, it seems as though God is explaining that those who have chosen not to serve the Lord will be punished. For it is those who have chosen to live their life independent of God who are the true "destroyers of the earth."






CATCH 22: U.K. GREENIES MORE WORRIED ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGY THAN CLIMATE CHANGE

Building new nuclear plants is not the answer to tackling climate change or securing Britain's energy supply, a government advisory panel has reported. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) report says doubling nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing carbon emissions by 2035. The body, which advises the government on the environment, says this must be set against the potential risks.

The government is currently undertaking a review of Britain's energy needs. It regards building nuclear capacity as an alternative to reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. As North Sea supplies dwindle, nuclear is seen by some as a more secure source of energy than hydrocarbon supplies from unstable regimes. Proponents say it could generate large quantities of electricity while helping to stabilise carbon dioxide CO2 emissions. But the SDC report, compiled in response to the energy review, concluded that the risks of nuclear energy outweighed its advantages.

Jonathon Porritt, chair of the SDC, commented: "There's little point in denying that nuclear power has benefits, but in our view, these are outweighed by serious disadvantages. "The Government is going to have to stop looking for an easy fix to our climate change and energy crises - there simply isn't one."

Energy minister Malcolm Wicks, who is leading the government's review, said the SDC's findings made an "important and thorough contribution" to the debate. "Securing clean, affordable energy supplies for the long term will not be easy. No one has ever suggested that nuclear power - or any other individual energy source - could meet all of those challenges," Mr Wicks said. "As the commission itself finds, this is not a black and white issue. It does, however, agree that it is right that we are assessing the potential contribution of new nuclear [plants]."

The Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), the representative body for the UK's nuclear sector, gave the report a more cautious welcome. Philip Dewhurst, chairman of the NIA, said the SDC report was not as negative as they had feared. "What the report is basically saying is that the government has got to make a choice between renewables and nuclear. "The SDC is saying you cannot have both, but of course you can. We support having both renewables and nuclear," he told the BBC News website.

"The key factor about nuclear is its base load which means it keeps working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Everyone would agree that some renewable technologies are intermittent at best."....

More here






A CRAPPY ALTERNATIVE ENERGY IDEA

Scientists in energy-poor Japan said Friday they have found a new source of gasoline -- cattle dung. Sakae Shibusawa, an agriculture engineering professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, said his team has successfully extracted 1.4 milliliters (0.042 ounces) of gasoline from every 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of cow dung by applying high pressure and heat. "The new technology will be a boon for livestock breeders" to reduce the burden of disposing of large amounts of waste, Shibusawa said. About 500,000 metric tons (551,155 U.S. tons) of cattle dung are produced each year in Japan, he said.

Gasoline extracted from cow dung is unheard of, said Tomiaki Tamura, an official of the Natural Resources and Energy Agency. Japan relies almost totally on imports for its oil and gasoline needs.

The team, helped by staff from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology near Tokyo, produced gasoline by adding several unspecified metal catalysts to the dung inside a container and applying a 30-atmosphere pressure and heat of up to 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit), Shibusawa said. Details of the catalysts could not be disclosed, he added. The team hopes to improve the technology so that it can be used commercially within five years, Shibusawa said.

In a separate experiment revealing another unusual business potential for cow dung, another group of researchers has successfully extracted an aromatic ingredient of vanilla from cattle dung, said Miki Tsuruta, a Sekisui Chemical Co. spokeswoman. The extracted ingredient, vanillin, can be used as fragrance in shampoo and candles, she said. Tsuruta said the vanillin was extracted from a dung solution in a pressurized cooker in a project co-organized by a Japanese medical research institute.

Source

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

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

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.

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