GREENIES ONLY COUNT SUMMER ICE AND SNOW!

Record winter snowfall does not count, apparently!

Much attention has been paid to the disappearance of ice and snow in the Polar Regions and mid-latitudes in the Northern hemisphere in recent years attributed to global greenhouse gas warming. Of course in the summer, the snow and ice cover retreats to the highest latitudes. Satellite (NOAA CPC) data suggest that the summer levels of polar ice have been at unusually low levels in recent years, perhaps the lowest since the 1930s and 1940s (Polyakov, 2004).

Regardless of the changes in the summer season, the snow and ice have come roaring back each year in the early fall, and winter levels of ice and snow across many parts of the hemisphere are higher than they have been in many years and in some places in over a century.

Here in the U.S., it all started in March of 1993, when the "Storm of the Century" brought heavy snowfall (up to 4 feet) from Alabama to New York and New England with losses that totaled $7.6 billion and approximately 270 deaths. Then the "Blizzard of '96" in January deposited 1 to 4 feet of snow over the Appalachians, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast; followed by severe flooding in parts of same area due to rain and snowmelt inflicting approximately $3.5 billion damage and 187 deaths.

That winter, the snows started early and never stopped coming. All-time seasonal snowfall records were set in dozens of cities in the east and central states including Boston (107.6" or 286% of normal), New York City (75.6 inches of 276% of normal), Philadelphia (63.1 inches or 303% or normal) and Baltimore, MD (63.5 inches or 303% of normal)

In the last few years, all time single storm records were shattered in the northeast cities. Just this last winter, on February 11-12th 2006 a blizzard set new all-time snowstorm record for Central Park in New York City with 26.9 inches. On February 17-18, 2003 a snowstorm set new all-time snowfall record for Boston with 27.5 inches. Another blizzard on January 24-25 2005 brought 22.5" at Boston's Logan Airport, along with high winds, 6 foot drifts and bitterly cold temperatures. Many measurements near Logan were 27-28" and the storm was compared by many to the blizzard of '78.

Boston since 1992/93 had had 5 years that rank among the top 10% snowiest winters in over 130 years of record, including numbers 1, 3, 5, and 7. If you do a 12-year running mean of average snowfall, the period from 1993/94 through 2004/05 for Boston, the average is the highest in the entire record dating back to the 1880s. New York City (with annual snowfall data back to 1869), for the first time ever, had four successive years with over 40 inches of snow the last four winters. Its four-year running mean is the highest its entire 137 year record.

A few years ago you might recall, the Mt. Baker Ski Area in northwestern Washington State reported 1,140 inches of snowfall for the 1998-'99 snowfall season ending June 30, 1999. This was a new world record for seasonal snowfall.

Not just a local phenomenon

When you look at the Northern Hemispheric winter snow data (recorded back to 1967) you see a recent similar heavy snowfall trend. The average snowfall during the October to March period of 2002/03 exceeded the previous records set in the infamous cold and snowy period of the late 1970s.

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JEREMY CLARKSON REPLIES TO THE GREENIES

Mr. Clarkson is a popular BBC motoring journalist. He loves cars as much as Greenies hate them



For many years I've poked fun at environmentalists, fondly imagining that my opposition to their nonsense was about as ineffectual as Denmark's opposition to American policy in the Middle East. Oh sure, the eco-people sprang out of the bushes from time to time to plant a custard pie in my face, in the same way that a 16-stone man might leap out of bed at night and swat a particularly annoying bluebottle.

And yes, when I make jokes about gassing badgers, funny little men with curious downloading habits go onto the internet and put my name and address in their To Be Killed folders. But despite this I've always felt like a bit of beef dripping in a big vat of tofu. No, really. The eco-ists have the ear of the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, the whole of the BBC, most of the country's newspapers, every single university campus and nearly every government in the world. Whereas I have the ear of the Ford Capri Owners Club. Which is comprised of half a dozen men in Dennis Waterman-style leather bomber jackets.

Last week, however, it transpired that I may be more of a nuisance than I imagined. Jonathon Pot-Porritt, the former director of Friends of the Earth, who now heads the government's UK Sustainable Development Commission, says he can't get his message across because everyone's too busy watching me driving round corners too quickly on Top Gear. He called me a bigoted petrolhead and said that anyone who shuts me up should be given a knighthood. Now I've seen Goodfellas, and as a result I know that "shutting someone up" is Martin Scorsese speak for having someone killed. Crikey. A man in the government wants me dead. And it's not like they haven't done this kind of thing before . . . So I'd just like to say, if my body is found in a wood at some point in the not too distant future, it wasn't suicide. Tell Lord Hutton that Swampy Porritt did it.

I should be worried, I suppose, but mostly I'm rather flattered. For years I've felt like King Canute sitting on the beach, watching helplessly as the tide of eco-offal rolls inexorably towards the shore. But now Mr Pot-Porritt has come out of nowhere to say that I really do have the power to hold back his plans to make trains out of cardboard and create electricity by composting Tories.

I should explain at this point that Pot-Porritt and I have history. I once interviewed him on a television show, and out of common courtesy the producer edited the slot to ensure we both scored an equal number of points. In fact Porritt made a tit of himself, trying to argue that cars were responsible for the then floods in Uckfield, East Sussex. Unfortunately, my mother-in-law lived in Uckfield and I knew full well that the waterlogged high street had nothing whatsoever to do with global warming, and everything to do with the way the local flood plain had been buried under a million tons of Prescott-approved housing. Porritt stammered a lot and was forced to agree. But he said the heavy rain was all our fault. In much the same way that he now says the drought is all our fault. And what's more, he even has Sir David Attenborough on side these days.

Now my respect for The Attenborough as a broadcaster is boundless. He could tell me that I was a giant panda and I'd believe him. He could come on the television and say koala bears can fill in tax forms and I'd stroke my chin, appreciatively. But when he comes on the television to say Sienna Miller's Range Rover has broken the Gulf Stream and overheated a guillemot, well I'm sorry but I just nod off. Because finger-wagging environmentalism, even from the God of the electric fish tank, is catastrophically boring. No honestly. Being told to give up polythene to prevent something that might not happen is like being told to give up drink because it might damage your liver. Yeah but, when you're at a party having a nice time, really: who gives a damn.

I can prove this. Because last weekend the BBC ran a save-the-planet quiz show on BBC1 against Top Gear on BBC2. And guess what? More people watched the planet being savaged than watched a load of weird beards trying to save it.

I offer a piece of advice then to Mr Pot-Porritt this morning. Try living like I do. Don't drop litter. Recycle whatever can be recycled, without talking about it. Grow your own vegetables. Eat meat. Use whatever means of transport is the most convenient. And when you wake to find the sun is shining, call some friends round for a barbecue and be happy. Don't worry about the topsoil and the coral reefs. Remember that in 1900 we lived for an average of 49 years and that now we live to an average of 78. Remember too that we have reduced poverty more in the past 50 years than we did in the preceding 500. And rejoice at the news that all the waste generated by the United States in the whole of the 21st century - all of it - will fit in a landfill site just 18 miles across. You will enjoy your short time here on earth so much more and what's more, if you stop telling us what to do all the time, so will we.

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ENGINEERS UPSETTING THE GREENIES

It may be hard to imagine the world getting so hot that scientists and engineers would design a fleet of 55,000 mirrors, each bigger than Manhattan, and send them into space to deflect sunlight away from Earth. Or that they would mimic a major volcanic eruption in order to cool the melting Arctic, shooting dust and other particles into the upper atmosphere where they would scatter the sun's light away from Earth.

Using geoengineering, the large-scale manipulation of the environment, to combat global warming has been proposed by scientists like Lowell Wood at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. He argues that simulating a volcanic winter -- the cooling that follows major volcanic eruptions like Mount Pinatubo in 1991 -- is the most practical approach to managing global warming. "It appears, of all the things I have heard discussed, to be the most economical and readily implemented," Dr. Wood says.

The idea of interfering with nature in such an aggressive and intentional way is seen as irresponsible by many other scientists and environmentalists. They worry that focusing on high-tech fixes will distract politicians and ordinary citizens from the measures that could be taken today to reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels, which produce carbon dioxide when they are burned. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases act like a solar blanket, trapping heat in the atmosphere. "If we really knew we could do this, there is no question it would lessen efforts to push politicians to reduce carbon dioxide levels," says David Keith, an expert on geoengineering who holds the Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment at the University of Calgary.

But what if global warming is more severe or happens more quickly than scientists predict? The worst-case scenarios are bad enough, and would see cities like Vancouver, New York and Shanghai swamped by rising sea levels caused by melting Greenland and Antarctic ice. Other parts of the world could be periodically devastated by more severe droughts, hurricanes and other weather. "You would like to have a backup system to try. To have an alternative," Mike MacCracken, with the Climate Institute in Washington, said.

Research needs to done, both to determine if geoengineering schemes would work and what unintended consequences they might have, said Dr. Keith, who recently moved to the University of Calgary from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He is working on what may turn out to be an economical way to capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it underground. It sounds more like tinkering than large-scale manipulation, but Dr. Keith considers his work to be geoengineering. But he worries that if he is successful, it will give people a false sense of security. "You don't want people to jump to conclusions that everything can be solved," he said.

When the time comes to make a decision, in 30 or 50 years, Dr. Keith said, politicians will need to know which geoengineering proposals will work and which won't, how much they will cost and what the risks are. "It is essentially a statement of fact, that whatever we do now, people in 2050 are going to think about this. I'm not saying they are going to do it, but they are going to think about this." He has written a number of articles about the options. Mimicking a volcano by shooting particles that scatter light into the upper atmosphere could damage the ozone layer. Using mirrors in space would cause the sun's light to flicker. "That would be distracting," Dr. MacCracken said. To avoid brief, repeated eclipses, one giant mirror would have to be built, but Dr. MacCracken said that would require a manufacturing base on the moon.

John Bennett of the Sierra Club of Canada wondered if it wouldn't be easier to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Edward Teller didn't think so. The father of the hydrogen bomb was also one of the most prominent early proponents of using geoengineering to fight global warming.

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Australian water restrictions now severe

Failure to build dams now biting



The water shortage in southeast Queensland reached crisis point yesterday with the announcement that tough new restrictions would be introduced on June 13. Under the new Level 3 restrictions, residents of Brisbane and most of the southeast region will only be able to use buckets and watering cans to water their gardens and wash their cars. Under the Level 2 restrictions now in place, sprinklers are banned but residents can use hand-held water hoses on alternate days.

SEQWater chief executive Peter Burrows said that based on the expected consumption rates, the region's three main water storages - the Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine dams - would drop to 30 per cent of capacity just before the June 10-12 Queen's Birthday long weekend. Mr Burrows said the combined level of the three dams was down to 30.24 per cent yesterday. The dam levels had been dropping between 1 per cent and 2 per cent over the past month. Storage capacity was expected to hit 30 per cent next Friday or Saturday.

Sprinklers are also banned in Sydney, but hand-held hosing of lawns and gardens and drip irrigation is allowed on Wednesdays and Sundays before 10am and after 4pm. Under permanent water restrictions introduced in Melbourne in March last year, hand-held hosing is allowed at any time and sprinklers can be used between 10pm and 10am.

The Level 3 announcement in southeast Queensland sparked a row between the state Government and Opposition over plans to use recycled water. Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said southeast Queensland residents could be drinking recycled sewage water in two years under a secret state government plan. He said the Beattie Government planned to use a proposed western corridor pipeline for recycled water to pump treated effluent into the Somerset and Wivenhoe dams.

But Peter Beattie said it was not government policy to send recycled water into dams. The Premier said the Government and local councils believed the western corridor recycled water scheme could initially supply the Swanbank and Tarong Power stations, and could later be used for industry and agriculture. But in a joint statement, Mr Beattie and Water Minister Henry Palaszczuk did not rule out the possibility of using recycled water in dams. "Any council plan to put water into dams will need to be (put) first to the community as part of a full and transparent debate," Mr Palaszczuk said.

Source





Radiation vaccination may be possible, say scientists: "Scientists in the United States say it may soon be possible to vaccinate emergency workers against the effects of a nuclear explosion. The researchers have found that a form of gene therapy appears to protect mice from the effects of exposure to radiation. Ever since the September 11 attacks on the United States there have been growing concerns that terrorists may attempt to explode a crude nuclear device, called a dirty bomb. Experts say that such a bomb, made up of nuclear waste wrapped around a conventional explosive, could disperse large amounts of radiation over a city area and that significant numbers of people would die within 30 says of exposure. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have been trying to develop a treatment that would protect emergency workers and others who respond to the scene of such an explosion. In experiments with mice they used a tiny artificial sac to deliver a protective compound to every cell. Twenty-four hours later the mice were exposed to doses of whole body radiation. Those that had been given the gene therapy survived."

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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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