RE: GLOBAL WARMING AS RELIGION AND NOT SCIENCE

An email from Charles Warren Hunt [archeanb@shaw.ca] of www.polarpublishing.com

John Brignell "says it all" on the subject of our apparently failing civilization and science's inability to assure its perpetuation. I want to express my view that the failure in this respect of science commenced about 1958 when editors were demoted and "peer review" became obligatory for publication of papers in most professional journals.

In the first place, peer review is an oxymoron: there are no "peers" for innovation. A typical early example: Galileo's "peers" fixed him good, it might be said.

And the post-1958 crowd do it every day to anything they don't like, which is anything in a field where they think they are the most knowledgeable people. I hardly know where to start to name the scientific nonsense that is taught today as fact in my own field (geology, 62 years experience); and I'm sure it must be the same in other fields.




Caribbean corals and sediments yield clues to hurricane frequency

At the time of Hurricane Katrina, it was universally asserted by Warmists that increased hurricane frequency was intimately linked to global warming. So if the hurricane activity of recent years is in fact normal and not especially high, that must mean that the temperature is normal too and that there is no significant global warming -- or am I missing something?

The recent spike in hurricane activity in the North Atlantic-a trend that some scientists blame on climate change-actually reflects a return to normal frequency after a lull in the 1970s and 1980s, a new analysis confirms.

Between 1995 and 2005, meteorologists recorded an annual average of 4.1 category-3-or-stronger hurricanes in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean. Such hurricanes exhibit steady wind speeds exceeding 178 kilometers per hour. From 1971 through 1994, however, an average of only 1.5 such hurricanes swept through the same region each year, says K. Halimeda Kilbourne, a paleoclimatologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo.

Two factors thought to strongly influence hurricane formation are wind shear-an atmospheric phenomenon in which adjacent layers of air move at different speeds or in different directions-and sea-surface temperature. Strong wind shear tends to rip apart tropical storms before they strengthen into hurricanes, says Kilbourne. On the other hand, a sea-surface-temperature rise can provide more energy to a hurricane as it forms.

Kilbourne and her colleagues studied a variety of marine records to estimate year-to-year variations in wind shear back to 1730. For instance, the luminescence of growth rings in coral under ultraviolet light reveals how much organic matter has been washed from land by thunderstorms, which don't form as readily or as often if wind shear is high. Also, the number of marine microorganisms in seafloor sediment-in particular, that of a species called Globigerina bulloides-indicates the upwelling of nutrient-rich waters, another measure of wind shear at the ocean's surface.

When the researchers looked for correlations between wind shear, other scientists' estimates of sea-surface temperature, and hurricane frequency, they found that wind shear has a much stronger influence in the North Atlantic than surface temperature does. They also found that large variations in hurricane frequency have been the norm, they report in the June 7 Nature.

Overall, between 1730 and 2005, the North Atlantic has experienced an average of 3.25 category-3-or-stronger hurricanes each year, says Kilbourne. However, at least six lengthy intervals since 1730 had hurricane activity comparable to today's. In general, such boosts in hurricane frequency occurred when wind shear was weak. Most periods of low hurricane activity since 1730 were marked by strong wind shear, she notes. Some of these intervals even occurred when sea-surface temperatures were higher than normal.

Other analyses of long-term natural records bolster the connection between strong wind shear and reduced hurricane frequency, says Jeffrey P. Donnelly, a coastal geologist at Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Institution. By studying sediments from a lake in Ecuador and a lagoon in eastern Puerto Rico, he and his colleagues compared the timing of hurricanes during the past 5,000 years with that of El Ni¤os-weather phenomena that increase wind shear over the North Atlantic. The researchers reported in the May 24 Nature that periods with strong, frequent El Ni¤os experienced a lower-than-average number of hurricanes.

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GERMANY THREATENS CHINA AND INDIA WITH TRADE WAR OVER CLIMATE POLICY

Perhaps China should drop a nuke on Berlin. I am sure that would help concentrate minds on reality rather wonderfully. Nobody could do anything about it and a lot of Israelis would think of Exodus 21:24. It won't happen but only an insane Greenie would threaten China

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel has called for punitive duties on imports from polluters if India and China do not move to slow the growth in greenhouse gas emissions. In an interview released Saturday by the news magazine Der Spiegel, he said absolute cuts in emissions could not be demanded from India and China because they needed to raise living standards. "But we can demand from them that they use the aid we offer them to disconnect economic growth from climate damage," he said. If they did not, the West could use a "border tax" on their exports as an incentive.

He said the "climate duty" would hit products from nations which refused to take part in international action against climate change. The tax had been discussed within the European Union and Washington had been briefed, he said.

When environment ministers from emerging nations were told in Sweden a week ago that it was under study, they had protested. "Of course it needn"t come to this. The developing countries are now willing to negotiate. That's new," said Gabriel, who has chaired EU environmental policy for the past six months as part of the German EU presidency.

He was asked what would happen if the European steel or aluminium industry collapsed and production moved to China because of laxer carbon-dioxide emissions rules. "We"ll tell them, you have to pay up on your products at the border to the European Union, to the United States and to Japan," he replied.

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LORD LEACH VS LORD MAY ON CLIMATE SCIENCE

A succinct and dignified reproof in the best British tradition

As a non-scientist I cannot have read one-hundredth of the number of scientific articles read by Robert May, yet I am familiar with at least a score (each citing a score more) questioning key parts of the theory that there is a threat of catastrophic man-made global warming. So when Lord May claims (April 6) that "not one" respected scientist is unconvinced, far from persuading me he only makes me doubtful of his other claims.

Moreover, by applying the term "denial" (with all its loaded undertones) to sceptical scientists; by referring to them inaccurately as "well funded" by the oil industry; and by likening those who stress the uncertainties of climate science to unprincipled lobbyists for tobacco companies, Lord May enters on the field of personal vilification - not a suitable place for a distinguished former President of the Royal Society.

There is a great deal more money and acceptability available to consensus scientists than to dissenters. This suggests that the work of the doubters should be taken very seriously, since it brings with it problems both of funding and of exclusion from the friendly embrace of the Establishment. I admire such people, much as I have admired other dissidents like Solzhenitsyn, Pastor Bonhoeffer - oh, and Galileo and Darwin.

LEACH OF FAIRFORD
Matheson & Co, 3 Lombard Street, London EC3

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EMISSION PERMITS BURN EUROPEAN CONSUMERS AS ENERGY PRICES SKYROCKET

Pollution permits, the biggest money-loser for commodity investors this year, are poised for a rebound that may spark a 10 percent jump in electricity costs for the 260 million consumers from London to Bucharest. Prices for allowances that give utilities and factories the right to pump a ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will climb 20 percent in the next 12 months, according to Lueder Schumacher, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort in London.

The reason: Governments are handing out fewer certificates in the three-year program. So-called carbon permits, created to reduce dependence on coal and oil, boosted nuclear plant earnings for E.ON AG, Germany's largest power producer, and Finland's Fortum Oyj.

Companies from steelmaker Arcelor Mittal to industrial gas maker Air Liquide SA face electricity prices that doubled since 2004, a year before the emissions program. Clean energy doesn't come cheap," said Francisco Blanch, the head of global commodities research at Merrill Lynch & Co. in London. "If you want to reduce emissions, you are going to have to pay for more expensive power."

Permits for 2008 ended last week at 22.78 euros a ton, after reaching a 13-month high of 26 euros on May 30, according to Amsterdam's European Climate Exchange, which has the largest share of EU carbon-dioxide trading. Prices may rise to above 30 euros by 2009, according to Dresdner Kleinwort's Schumacher. Per Lekander, an analyst at UBS AG in London, predicts allowances will reach 30 euros next year. By comparison, certificates for the initial, three-year trading phase are almost worthless.

The EU emissions trading program is aimed at reducing carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming. Some 11,400 factories and power sites have been granted emissions permits, which trade on exchanges such as the ECX and the European Energy Exchange in Germany. Holders of surplus credits can sell them to companies that fail to meet their emissions restrictions, which require one permit for each metric ton of carbon dioxide produced.

Increased demand for permits may help increase earnings at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other financial firms, analysts said. Banks and brokerages generated as much as $12 billion in revenue from trading energy and commodities in 2006 [That's a lot of money for paperwork -- money that the average person ends up paying], said Ethan Ravage, a San Francisco-based consultant for the financial services industry. Banks don't disclose profits from emissions trading specifically. ``The gold rush is not over'' for emissions traders, he said by telephone.

FULL STORY here

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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 generally 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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