Do I detect the first tiny rumblings of a paradigm shift in climate-change science?

(Comment lifted from Prof. Stott)

"The greenhouse effect must play some role. But those who are absolutely certain that the rise in temperatures is due solely to carbon dioxide have no scientific justification. It's pure guesswork." [Henrik Svensmark, Director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research, Danish National Space Center, joint author of the new research, as quoted in The Copenhagen Post (October 4)]

Yesterday, some extremely important new research on climate change was quietly released. Few newspapers picked it up, The Daily Telegraph (October 4) and the Copenhagen Post (October 4) being but slight exceptions, both carrying only brief reports. This key research, long in gestation, and embargoed until October 4, appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A (October 3). Here is the press release:

"'Do electrons help to make the clouds?'
By H. Svensmark, J.O.P. Pedersen, et al. (doi:10.1098/rspa.2006.1773)*

Using a box of air in a Copenhagen lab, physicists trace the growth of clusters of molecules of the kind that build cloud condensation nuclei. These are specks of sulphuric acid on which cloud droplets form. High-energy particles driven through the laboratory ceiling by exploded stars far away in the Galaxy - the cosmic rays - liberate electrons in the air, which help the molecular clusters to form much faster than atmospheric scientists have predicted. That may explain the link proposed by members of the Danish team, between cosmic rays, cloudiness and climate change."

And here is the link to the report from the Danish National Space Center: 'Getting closer to the cosmic connection to climate' (October 4). One especially eminent science writer has already declared: "The implications for climate physics, solar-terrestrial physics and terrestrial-galactic physics are pretty gob-smacking....."

I say, watch this space. Slowly, but surely, this revelation could well open a can of wormholes in climate-change science.

The reason is simple. The experiment ties in beautifully with the brilliant work of geochemist, Professor Jan Veizer of the Ruhr University at Bochum, Germany, and the University of Ottawa in Canada, and Dr. Nir Shaviv, an astrophysicist at the Racah Institute of Physics in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who for some time have been implicating cosmic rays and water vapour, rather than carbon dioxide, as the main drivers of climate change. Indeed, they have put down 75% of climate change to these drivers.

Cosmic rays are known to boost cloud formation - and, in turn, reduce temperatures on Earth - by creating ions that cause water droplets to condense. J n Veizer and Nir Shaviv calculated temperature changes at the Earth's surface by studying oxygen isotopes trapped in rocks formed by ancient marine fossils. They then compared these with variations in cosmic-ray activity, determined by looking at how cosmic rays have affected iron isotopes in meteorites.

Their results suggest that temperature fluctuations over the past 550 million years are more likely to relate to cosmic-ray activity than to CO2. By contrast, they found no correlation between temperature variation and the changing patterns of CO2 in the atmosphere.

But the mechanism remained far from understood.....until now. For it seems that the Danish team may well have discovered that mechanism.

Do I detect the first deep and quiet rumblings of a long-term paradigm-shifting piece of work?

Indeed, I sense the first minute bounce in a new Kuhnian curve. Of course, for the moment, the work will be drowned out by the clamour of the Great Grand Global Warming Narrative. After all, it is the last thing the committed - and politicians like Cameron, Campbell, and Gore - want to hear. May I thus encourage all readers of EnviroSpin to work especially hard to bring the significance of this vital research to as many journalists and politicians as possible? Thank you. It is time to begin to change the paradigm.





NUREMBERG-STYLE TRIALS PROPOSED FOR GLOBAL WARMING SKEPTICS

A U.S. based environmental magazine... is now advocating Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming. Grist Magazine's staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the "bastards" who were members of what he termed the global warming "denial industry." Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg."

Gore and Moyers have not yet commented on Grist's advocacy of prosecuting skeptics of global warming with a Nuremberg-style war crimes trial. Gore has used the phrase "global warming deniers" to describe scientists and others who don't share his view of the Earth's climate. It remains to be seen what Gore and Moyers will have to say about proposals to make skepticism a crime comparable to Holocaust atrocities.

The use of Holocaust terminology has drawn the ire of Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. "The phrase `climate change denier' is meant to be evocative of the phrase `holocaust denier,'" Pielke, Jr. wrote on October 9, 2006 . "Let's be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system," Pielke, Jr. explained.

The article Global Warming: The Chilling Effect On Free Speech last week in Spiked Online addresses this new found penchant by environmentalists and some media members to charge skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming with "crimes against humanity" and urge Nuremberg-style prosecution of them.

Source




REALITY CHECK: GLOBAL WARMING CUTS NO ICE WITH EUROPE'S AIR TRAVELLERS

Europe's business and leisure travellers are largely unmoved by the howls of political protest against the aviation industry's contribution to global warming, latest figures from aviation analysts OAG suggest. Demand for air travel is at its highest October level since 9/11.

Worldwide, the number of flights timetabled for this month is three per cent higher than in October last year. However, the number of air services to and from Europe is up nine per cent - airlines plan to operate nearly 7,300 more flights than in October 2005.

Using sophisticated "yield management" systems to predict global travel patterns, airlines are this month looking to fill more than 87 million seats on flights to, from and within Europe.

"While it may once have been considered something of a luxury, air travel in the 21st Century has become an economic necessity," says Duncan Alexander, managing director Business Development at OAG. "Any move towards additional travel taxes, either at national or supranational level, seems certain to be hugely unpopular, if not commercially damaging."

"Airlines have become real experts at predicting consumer demand, and this increase is no flash in the pan, but part of an ongoing trend. The number of October flights to and from Europe may be nine per cent higher than a year ago, but it is fully 30 per cent up on October 2001."

The figures are revealed in OAG's latest Quarterly Airline Traffic Statistics, a regular snapshot of airline activity around the world. OAG collates data from more than 1000 scheduled airlines, on a daily basis, to give an overview of anticipated travel demand.

Within Europe, there are big differences between east and west. While the number of October flights on offer within western Europe is two per cent higher this year, there has been a 12 per cent increase in the number of flights between eastern European countries.

At a national level, aviation growth in countries such as Poland, the Baltic states and Turkey far outstrips the increases in more mature markets. The number of October flights to and from Poland, for example, is 18 per cent higher, compared with a five per cent increase for Germany and Italy, three per cent for France, and just one per cent for the UK.

Among the major world regions, air travel to and from the oil-rich Middle East is showing the biggest increase, up 15 per cent against last October. This month sees 12 per cent more flights to and from the Asia-Pacific region and 11 per cent more flights to and from Africa.

Only the Americas are bucking the global trend. The number of October flights to and from the USA and Canada is just two per cent higher than a year ago, while the number of services to and from South and Central America has actually decreased by two per cent.

Source





SEN. INHOFE RESPONDS TO CRITICAL NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee responds below to the October 12, 2006 New York Times global warming editorial titled, "Doubting Inhofe."

My recent speeches detailing the embarrassing 100 year history of the media's relentless climate hype and its flip flopping between global cooling and warming scares must have struck a nerve in the old gray lady of the New York Times. A significant portion of my 50 minute Senate floor speech on September 25th was devoted to the New York Times history of swinging between promoting fears of a coming ice age to promoting fears of global warming. Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods.

The New York Times October 12, 2006 editorial accused me of possessing "a hysteria of doubt" about human caused catastrophic global warming. But in reality, there is no doubt that it is the New York Times that possesses a hysterical and erroneous history of climate alarmism.

Here is a quote from the February 24, 1895 edition of the New York Times reporting on fears of an approaching ice age: "Geologists Think the World May be Frozen Up Again." But on March 27, 1933, the New York Times reported: "America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-year Rise" Then in 1952, the New York Times was back on the global warming bandwagon declaring that the "trump card" of global warming "has been the melting glaciers." And a 1975 New York Times headline trumpeting fear of a coming ice age read: "Climate Changes Endanger World's Food Output."

Now, fast forward to August 19, 2000, the New York Times was so eager to promote fears of the Arctic melting that it cheapened itself with a comical article declaring "The North Pole is Melting." The Times reporter, John Noble Wilford, noted that tourists visiting the North Pole saw open water and declared that "The last time scientists can be certain the pole was awash in water, was more than 50 million years ago." Wow. Pretty convincing stuff -- that is until the Times was forced to retract the story 10 days later and admit nothing unusual had occurred at the pole. No wonder today's Times editorial felt compelled to accuse me of "a hysteria of doubt," it was no doubt a clumsy attempt to distract from their climate reporting legacy of hysteria."

Mainstream Media Reaches Tipping Point

The American people are fed up with media for promoting the idea that former Vice President Al Gore represents the scientific "consensus" that SUV's and the modern American way of life have somehow created a "climate emergency" that only United Nations bureaucrats and wealthy Hollywood liberals can solve. It is the publicity and grant seeking global warming alarmists and their advocates in the media who have finally realized that the only "emergency" confronting them is their rapidly crumbling credibility, audience and bottom line. The global warming alarmists know their science is speculative at best and their desperation grows each day as it becomes more and more obvious that many of the nations that ratified the woeful Kyoto Protocol are failing to comply.

Quite simply Kyoto is dead and panic has gripped the global warming alarmists as they realize that Kyoto was nothing more than a fantasy. The Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Associates estimated Kyoto would cost an American family of four $2,700 annually, yet only reduce temperature by .06 Celsius. Even the "Kyoto Lite" proposal of McCain-Lieberman would have cost American households an additional $810 a year and more than one million jobs would have been lost. Under McCain-Lieberman, electricity prices would have increased 20% and the difference in temperature would have been a mere .029 Celsius. These proposals would affect all Americans, including ranchers, farmers, those in the retail industry and virtually all sectors of the economy. Even the most ardent global warming alarmists now realize that Kyoto and similar proposals are all economic pain for no climate gain.

Evidence of this media collapse can be found in the over 500 e-mails my office received within a few days of my September 25, 2006 Senate floor speech taking the media and climate alarmists to task. Well over 90% of the e-mails and phone calls were positive responses from the grass roots of America and from many scientists who had finally had it with skewed reporting of traditional media outlets like the New York Times. And, it was not just the American people who responded. My speech and its message of mainstream media hype and failure, spread across the globe -- from New Zealand, to England, to Canada to the Bahamas and China. It seems Americans are not alone when it comes to frustration with the relentless and unfounded scientific predictions of climate doom.

Shattering the Scientific Consensus

In April 2006, 60 prominent scientists wrote a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister asserting that the science is crumbling from underneath global warming alarmists:

`Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future.Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary,' the 60 scientists wrote.

`It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas,' the 60 scientists concluded.

Source

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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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