Russian skepticism again: "Cold spell soon to replace global warming"

Woeful though their politics have always been, there is nothing wrong with Russian science

(By Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute)

Stock up on fur coats and felt boots! This is my paradoxical advice to the warm world. Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect. The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases.

The real reasons for climate changes are uneven solar radiation, terrestrial precession (that is, axis gyration), instability of oceanic currents, regular salinity fluctuations of the Arctic Ocean surface waters, etc. There is another, principal reason-solar activity and luminosity. The greater they are the warmer is our climate.

Astrophysics knows two solar activity cycles, of 11 and 200 years. Both are caused by changes in the radius and area of the irradiating solar surface. The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. Real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer.

This is my point, which environmentalists hotly dispute as they cling to the hothouse theory. As we know, hothouse gases, in particular, nitrogen peroxide, warm up the atmosphere by keeping heat close to the ground. Advanced in the late 19th century by Svante A. Arrhenius, a Swedish physical chemist and Nobel Prize winner, this theory is taken for granted to this day and has not undergone any serious check.

It determines decisions and instruments of major international organizations-in particular, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Signed by 150 countries, it exemplifies the impact of scientific delusion on big politics and economics. The authors and enthusiasts of the Kyoto Protocol based their assumptions on an erroneous idea. As a result, developed countries waste huge amounts of money to fight industrial pollution of the atmosphere. What if it is a Don Quixote's duel with the windmill?

Hothouse gases may not be to blame for global warming. At any rate, there is no scientific evidence to their guilt. The classic hothouse effect scenario is too simple to be true. As things really are, much more sophisticated processes are on in the atmosphere, especially in its dense layer. For instance, heat is not so much radiated in space as carried by air currents-an entirely different mechanism, which cannot cause global warming.

The temperature of the troposphere, the lowest and densest portion of the atmosphere, does not depend on the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions-a point proved theoretically and empirically. True, probes of Antarctic ice shield, taken with bore specimens in the vicinity of the Russian research station Vostok, show that there are close links between atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and temperature changes. Here, however, we cannot be quite sure which is the cause and which the effect.

Temperature fluctuations always run somewhat ahead of carbon dioxide concentration changes. This means that warming is primary. The ocean is the greatest carbon dioxide depository, with concentrations 60-90 times larger than in the atmosphere. When the ocean's surface warms up, it produces the "champagne effect." Compare a foamy spurt out of a warm bottle with wine pouring smoothly when served properly cold.

Likewise, warm ocean water exudes greater amounts of carbonic acid, which evaporates to add to industrial pollution-a factor we cannot deny. However, man-caused pollution is negligible here. If industrial pollution with carbon dioxide keeps at its present-day 5-7 billion metric tons a year, it will not change global temperatures up to the year 2100. The change will be too small for humans to feel even if the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions doubles.

Carbon dioxide cannot be bad for the climate. On the contrary, it is food for plants, and so is beneficial to life on Earth. Bearing out this point was the Green Revolution-the phenomenal global increase in farm yields in the mid-20th century. Numerous experiments also prove a direct proportion between harvest and carbon dioxide concentration in the air.

Carbon dioxide has quite a different pernicious influence-not on the climate but on synoptic activity. It absorbs infrared radiation. When tropospheric air is warm enough for complete absorption, radiation energy passes into gas fluctuations. Gas expands and dissolves to send warm air up to the stratosphere, where it clashes with cold currents coming down. With no noticeable temperature changes, synoptic activity skyrockets to whip up cyclones and anticyclones. Hence we get hurricanes, storms, tornados and other natural disasters, whose intensity largely depends on carbon dioxide concentration. In this sense, reducing its concentration in the air will have a positive effect.

Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man's influence on nature is a drop in the ocean.

Earth is unlikely to ever face a temperature disaster. Of all the planets in the solar system, only Earth has an atmosphere beneficial to life. There are many factors that account for development of life on Earth: Sun is a calm star, Earth is located an optimum distance from it, it has the Moon as a massive satellite, and many others. Earth owes its friendly climate also to dynamic feedback between biotic and atmospheric evolution.

The principal among those diverse links is Earth's reflective power, which regulates its temperature. A warm period, as the present, increases oceanic evaporation to produce a great amount of clouds, which filter solar radiation and so bring heat down. Things take the contrary turn in a cold period.

What can't be cured must be endured. It is wise to accept the natural course of things. We have no reason to panic about allegations that ice in the Arctic Ocean is thawing rapidly and will soon vanish altogether. As it really is, scientists say the Arctic and Antarctic ice shields are growing. Physical and mathematical calculations predict a new Ice Age. It will come in 100,000 years, at the earliest, and will be much worse than the previous. Europe will be ice-bound, with glaciers reaching south of Moscow.

Meanwhile, Europeans can rest assured. The Gulf Stream will change its course only if some evil magic robs it of power to reach the north-but Mother Nature is unlikely to do that.

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How did this one slip past the Democrats?

A BBC report below so expect their usual dishonesty about the effects

The US government says it will offer exploration rights for oil and gas in a north-western region of Alaska. The federal Minerals Management Service said it would take bids next month for concessions in the Chukchi Sea, which separates Alaska from Siberia.

But environmental groups fear the effects on wildlife in the region, including the polar bear population. There have been no lease sales for over 15 years and the groups fear further exploration could damage marine life.

Energy exploration in Alaska has always been a tough choice between preserving one of the planet's last great areas of pristine wilderness and the potential for huge profits to be made from its development. The American sectors of the Chukchi Sea are believed to hold 15bn barrels of recoverable oil and over two trillion cubic metres of natural gas. But the authorities had not held a lease sale in the sea since 1991, both due to the difficulties and cost involved in extraction from the Arctic continental shelf and concerns over the environment.

The Minerals Management Service says exploration will not be allowed to take place any closer than 80km (50 miles) from the shoreline, therefore striking a balance between development and protection of coastal resources.

But ecologists say any further exploration could have a major impact on marine life, with polar bears one of the hardest-hit species. The Chukchi Sea is home to one of two populations of polar bears in the US, and their numbers have already been depleted by loss of habitat due to global warming. Many protestors are angry at the timing of the announcement, which comes days before the US Fish and Wildlife Service decides whether to list the polar bear as a threatened species.

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Celebrities slammed for scientific silliness

They should have included Al Gore

WHEN your name's Nicole Kidman or Gwyneth Paltrow, everyone wants to hear what you have to say. But before holding forth on their favourite remedy, celebrities should get their facts straight, experts say. The two Hollywood actresses, along with fashion designer Stella McCartney, are singled out by a charity founded to increase the public's understanding of scientific issues.

Sense About Science warned: "A small group of people in the public eye promote pseudo-science without embarrassment and cannot be dissuaded from it."

Alice Tuff, who helped compile the list of celebrity pseudo-science, said: "Celebrity lifestyles and comments have a lot of social weight. Once in the public domain, it's almost impossible for, say, a toxicologist to eclipse a Stella McCartney or a Gwyneth Paltrow in order to give the public the facts. So the pressure must be there to get it right in the first place."

Kidman is criticised for promoting Nintendo's computer-based mental workout program Dr Kawashima's Brain Training. "I've quickly found that training my brain is a great way to keep my mind feeling young," Kidman said, endorsing the game.

"There is no conclusive evidence showing that the continued use of these devices is linked to any measurable changes and general improvements in cognition," Dr Jason Braithwaite, from Birmingham University, said.

Gwyneth Paltrow was slated for her lack of knowledge of the genetics of cancer after claiming eating certain foods prevents tumours. Scientists said there was little evidence to support her claims.

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More mercury madness

Rick Allnutt has closed all but one section of his funeral home on the north end of town. The chapel is dark and quiet, the reception hall bare. But in the bay out back, two side-by-side ovens rumble as the 1,650-degree heat blasts two corpses into bone and ash.

Allnutt has moved the rest of the business to another location and wants to move his crematory to a site near a cemetery in Larimer County, but he has reached a stalemate with health officials there. They are concerned about what they see as a potential health risk to the living -- mercury being released into the atmosphere from dental fillings of the cremated.

They want him to do something that may be unprecedented in this country: Install a filter on his crematory's smokestack or extract teeth of the deceased before cremation. Allnutt refuses to do either, calling the first option too expensive and the second ghoulish. "I'm not going to be the only one in the world who says I'll pull teeth from dead bodies," he said.

Across the United States, the issue is cropping up: Do mercury emissions from dental fillings of corpses incinerated in crematories pose a threat? And if so, how should it be handled? In Colorado, it's something that health officials are only now examining, said Mark McMillan, manager of the Department of Public Health and Environment's mercury program. "We're on the cusp of starting to understand it," he said. The cremation industry, on the other hand, insists there's no evidence of danger and calls Allnutt's situation "a dangerous precedent."

At issue are amalgam dental fillings. Amalgam -- an alloy of mercury with another metal such as silver, copper or tin -- is commonly used to fill cavities. When a body is burned, mercury from such fillings vaporizes. Once released into the atmosphere, mercury returns to Earth in rain or snow, ending up in lakes and other bodies of water where it can lead to elevated levels of mercury in fish. In humans, mercury damages the nervous system and can harm childhood development. Power plants, especially those that burn coal, are by far the largest source of preventable mercury releases; Environmental Protection Agency regulations have been adopted to reduce those emissions.

As cremation continues to gain popularity in the United States, the issue may gain more traction. According to the Cremation Assn. of North America, a 2005 survey found 46% of Americans planned to choose cremation, compared with 31% in 1990. Its use varies widely by region: In Nevada and Hawaii, two-thirds of bodies were cremated in 2005; in a number of Southern states, a tenth were.

The EPA does not regulate emissions from crematories, spokeswoman Margot Perez-Sullivan said. It estimates that about 600 pounds of mercury, less than 1% of all mercury emissions, come from crematories in the U.S. every year. (By contrast, the British government requires new crematories to install filters to cut mercury emissions, according to the British Broadcasting Corp. It estimates that fillings account for 16% of mercury emissions in the United Kingdom, where the cremation rate is greater than 70%.)

In recent years, several states have taken stabs at the issue. In Minnesota, state Sen. John Marty repeatedly has sought -- and failed -- to pass a law requiring crematory operators to remove teeth or install filters. He said crematories in Minnesota emit an estimated 68 pounds of mercury every year -- 3% to 5% of mercury emissions in the state. Though coal-fired power plants constitute the greatest problem, Marty said, "we have to go after every source. But it's not easy politically because people are really squeamish about talking about corpses."

In 2005 Maine lawmakers considered, but defeated, a similar bill. Colorado does not regulate crematories' mercury emissions, which state health officials estimate at about 110 pounds per year.

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Wildfires added to climate change hysteria

The year 2007 was the year wildfires joined the cavalcade of events that are supposedly the result of human-caused climate change. Besides Al Gore, who linked wildfires to global warming in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, California Sen. Barbara Boxer emerged as the most prominent doomster to associate fires with climate change. While wildfires raged in her state, Boxer used the tragedy to continue her crusade for severe carbon dioxide controls, asserting before Congress that the fires were "a consequence of climate change."

Boxer warned senators, "We need to do something about global warming or we're going to have that horrible combination of drought, low humidity, high temperatures and terrible winds."

Fellow Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada also used the wildfires as a vehicle to push the global warming agenda. "One reason that we have the fires burning in Southern California is global warming," Reid told reporters in October. At the same time, climate campaigner Bill McKibben confidently advised TV audiences, "This is the kind of disaster we see more and more of as we begin to change the basic physics and chemistry of the planet we live on."

Like Gore's opportunistic references to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the connection between wildfires and global warming is unsubstantiated and designed merely to bolster public support for "taking action on climate change." Californians who are familiar with the history of fires in their state understand that wildfires are neither new, more frequent, nor more severe.

Dr. Stephen J. Pyne, a wildfire expert and professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, writes, "In the United States, few places know as much fire today as they did a century ago. Fires have fled from regions like the Northeast that formerly relied on them for farming and grazing. They have receded from the Great Plains, once near-annual seas of flame, ebbing and flowing with seasonal tides. They burn in the South at only a fraction of their former grandeur. They have faded from the mountains and mesas, valleys and basins of the West."

Trying to totally prevent forest fires may be as misguided as our futile efforts to "stop climate change." Both are a fact of life on a dynamic planet and occurred long before humans evolved to experience them. Adaptation and proper planning for inevitable natural events is the appropriate response, not attempts to play God.

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