Carbon footprint. Go green. These are a few phrases that recently have become part of our vernacular. We hear them every day. The president says them. School teachers use them. Tele-vision shows play them. Each of these phrases has a connection to one problem many believe every person on the plant shares: Global warming.
However, there is a large community of scientists who do not agree with this theory on global warming. While everyone knows what global warming is, many do not know there is a rebuttal out there.
According to globalwarming.com, “The premise of global warming is that industrial growth coupled with non-structured methods we as humans use to sustain ourselves has created a situation where our planet is getting hotter by the minute. We have seemingly negatively affected our environment by a cycle of harmful processes that now seem to be feeding upon themselves to exponentially increase damage to our ecosystem.”
Edward F. Blick was once a professor at the University of Oklahoma in the School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, the School of Meteorology, the College of Medicine and the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering. Blick holds an M.S. degree in aeronautical engineering and a Ph.D. in engineering science. He has served as an Air Force weatherman, has worked for Lockheed Missile and Space Co. and McDonnell Aircraft Corp., and has consulted for several corporations and government agencies such as NASA and the Air Force.
In a phone interview Blick explained global warming as follows: “What they say is that as man has started using fossil fuels in the middle 1800s ... these fossil fuels have carbon in them. When the fuel is used up ... and comes out as exhaust, it comes out as H2O, which is water, and CO2, which is carbon dioxide.”
Global warming, also called anthropogenic global warming, which means global warming caused by man, is said to be a result of the exhaust made by the burning of fossil fuels. “The thing is, the CO2 goes up into our atmosphere and increases the CO2, which is there naturally, producing the greenhouse effect,” said Blick.
Globalwarming.com describes the greenhouse effect as occurring when “solar radiation either bounces off of or is radiated forth from the Earth and instead of passing through our atmosphere and outward into space, is absorbed by all kinds of extra amounts and extraneous gases and particles ... from there the process repeats itself until we have a global version of a car with the windows rolled up parked in the noonday sun.”
On Feb. 25 William Happer, Cyrus Bogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University spoke before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “Without greenhouse warming, the Earth would be much too cold to sustain its current abundance of life,” said Happer. “However, at least 90 percent of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player.”
Happer went on to say there is little argument within the scientific community that “a direct effect of doubling the CO2 concentration will be a small increase of the Earth’s temperature — on the order of one degree.”
Scientists may agree twice the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would only raise the Earth’s temperature one degree, but what if man more than doubles the amount of CO2? “Burning all our remaining fossil fuels cannot double the CO2, but only increase it by 20 percent,” said Blick.
“But what about the frightening consequences of increasing levels of CO2 that we keep hearing about?” said Happer. “In a word, they are wildly exaggerated.”
Even though the Earth’s temperature was rising slowly beginning about 200 years ago until recently, many experts say, “So what?” “Climate is changing, always has and most likely always will until that thermonuclear engine in the sky, the sun, goes out,” said Gary England, chief meteorologist for KWTV news Channel 9. “That’s what climate does. It changes.”
Happer and Blick both said the recent warming period began around 1800. “(It began) at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2,” said Happer. “There have been similar and even larger warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels.”
Happer, Blick and England all said over the past 10 years there has been a consistent global cooling, not warming.
Blick said it is mostly politicians who are warning the world of impending global warming. “How many scientists are involved? Probably very few,” said Blick. Blick said several natural forces appear to be lining up to bring a period of very cold weather to the planet. One of those natural forces is sunspots. “We’re in what is called sunspot cycle 23,” said Blick.
During a part of the sunspot cycle when there are few sunspots, the weather gets colder. “The sun has had few sunspots the past year or so,” said England. “The sun is quiet. The last time this went on for years we ended up with the little ice age for many years.” “The evidence is that right now, the sunspot measurements are so low, they haven’t been this low in about 100 years,” said Blick.
Blick said if a cold period is coming, people should be aware and preparing for it. “Cold kills,” said Blick. “And yet our politicians are telling us it’s going to get hot. They’re preparing for the wrong battle.”
Even though these and other experts say it’s getting colder, people are still hearing the polar ice caps are melting. “More recently ... people found a big problem with the data from a satellite that is used to estimate Arctic ice coverage,” said England. “It was a 500,000 square kilometer error ... in reality, we find now that ice coverage is not collapsing.”
England said the same researchers also discovered a large number of rural weather stations around the world were shut down. If only urban temperatures are reported, it might seem the average temperature went up even if it didn’t because urban areas always are warmer than rural areas.
These experts do not believe we currently are in a warming period, but they also do not believe that we can create enough CO2 to do any damage. In fact, they say an increase in CO2 could be a good thing. “Increased CO2 actually increases crop production,” said England. “When CO2 drops to less than 150 (parts per million) plants will commence failing. If the plants die, then the livestock die and then guess who is next?”
“CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison,” said Happer. “Plants and our own primate ancestors evolved when the levels of atmospheric CO2 were about 1,000 ppm, a level that we will probably not reach by burning fossil fuels, and far above our current level of about 380 ppm.”
Happer said human exhaled breath contains a CO2 level of 40,000 ppm, a much higher level than is in the atmosphere. Happer also said it has been said CO2 is a cause of increased heat. “(Former Vice President) Al Gore likes to display graphs of temperature and CO2 concentrations over the past million years or so, showing that when CO2 rises, the temperature also rises,” said Happer. “If you look carefully at these records, you find that first the temperature goes up, and then the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere goes up. There is a delay between a temperature increase and a CO2 increase of about 800 years.”
An example of a rise in temperature causing a rise in CO2 is the ocean. When the temperature rises, more ocean water evaporates, causing more of the water vapor and, as Happer said, 90 percent of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds, not CO2.
Blick said Gore travels around giving presentations and has even written books about global warming, even though he has no academic training in science. “Al Gore will not debate anybody. He says the debate is over,” said Blick. “I would love to debate Al Gore ... I’d be glad to go to court in defense of no global warming. I’d win easily.”
Most likely Blick won’t get his opportunity to debate Gore, or to go to court in opposition to anthropogenic global warming. The debate is likely to continue.
“With respect to the discussion on global warming, I say there are no simple answers to such an extremely complex issue,” said England. “No matter how many models they wave in the air and no matter how dire their predictions about our impending doom, they don’t know.”
Happer said there are more important things to focus on than a global crisis that may not even exist. “I regret that the climate change issue has become confused with serious problems like secure energy supplies, protecting our environment and figuring out where future generations will get energy supplies after we have burned all the fossil fuel we can find,” said Happer. “We should not confuse these laudable goals with hysterics about carbon footprints.”
England said controlling climate is not something the human race can accomplish with ease. “The following numbers are approximate,” said England. “The Earth spins at the equator at 1,038 mph; the Earth moves around the sun at 67,000 mph; our solar system travels around our galaxy at 558,000 mph and our galaxy is moving through the universe at 666,000 mph. So, right now you may be moving at 1,292,000 mph, and Washington, D.C., says they’re going to control our climate. I don’t think so.”
SOURCE
When the Inmates are in Charge
By Alan Caruba
If you ever wondered what it would be like if seriously deranged people were close to the seat of power in America, you can stop wondering. In January, the Competitive Enterprise Institute issued a three-page memorandum. William Yeatman, the author of the memorandum, had serious concerns about the nomination of Dr. John P. Holdren to be the White House Science Adviser. This position heads the Office of Science and Technology Policy which, in official lingo, “serves as a source of scientific and technological analysis and judgment for the President with respect to major policies, plans and programs of the Federal Government.”
“John Holdren’s 40-year record of outlandish scientific assertions, consistently wrong predictions, and dangerous public policy choices make him unfit to serve as White House Science Adviser,” warned Yeatman.
Just how crazy is Holdren? On April 8, according to the Associated Press, Holdren said that “global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.” Holdren suggested that one option includes “shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.”
The last time anything of this nature was discussed, it was called “a nuclear winter” in which the debris from a nuclear war would fill the atmosphere and keep the Sun’s warming and nourishing rays from getting through.
According to Holdren, “It’s got to be looked at. We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.” Holdren believes that the Earth is in the grip of global warming, but the difference between belief and science is that the latter demands proof. Take, for example, the data our weather satellites have been sending back since 1998 all of which points to a cooling Earth.
Twice during the interview, Holdren compared global warming to being “in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in a fog.” The truth, however, is that Holdren is a genuine cuckoo who probably checks under the bed every night to make sure the bogyman isn’t there.
Yeatman described him more charitably as a “chronic alarmist”, citing just a few of his paranoid fantasies. In 1971, Holdren predicted that “some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century.” We are now safely into a new century and the only catastrophe is the Obama administration.
The really neat thing about making catastrophic predictions is that they always take place way into a future. In 1986, Holdren was predicting that global warming would cause the deaths of one billion people by 2020. This is eight years beyond 2012 when devotees of the ancient Mayan calendar predict the end of the world will occur. Neither are likely to occur.
In 1998 Holdren warned that we just can’t go on using energy fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal that represent nearly one hundred percent of everything we and everyone else uses now and will into the future. These days we hear President Obama blathering away about “clean energy”, but there is reality and there is the increasingly weird world of the White House.
In a recent article, Robert Bryce, one of the nation’s leading authorities on energy, pointed out that “Oil now provides nearly 40 percent of America’s total primary energy use. It also provides nearly all of the energy needed for the transportation sector. Coal and natural gas together provide about 50 percent of America’s primary needs.”
That leaves “clean energy”, solar and wind power, “but together,” Bryce notes, “these sources currently provide about 0.16 percent of Americans total needs.” It should also be pointed out that solar, wind, and ethanol production would not exist were it not for huge government subsidies and mandates for their use.
Both President Obama and Holdren think “clean energy” should receive billions of dollars while the White House does everything in its power to destroy the nation’s oil and coal industries.
The Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, recently said that windmills off the East Coast “could generate one million megawatts of power, roughly the equivalent of 3,000 medium coal-fired power plants, or nearly five times the number of coal plants now in the United States.”
The reality, however, is that there aren’t 3,000 coal fired plants operating. There isn’t even half that number. The Institute for Energy Research estimates that, to achieve Salazar’s insane goal, there would have to be 309,587 giant 3.15 megawatt wind turbines spread over 1,800 miles of coastline or about 172 turbines per mile of coastline. And, of course, the wind would have to blow 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Are these people crazy? You bet! Are the inmates in charge of the asylum? Yes, indeed.
They aren’t the only ones. The American Meteorological Society and several other otherwise respected science groups have completely lost their wits. The AMS wants to explore “geoengineering’s potential to understand its limits and to avoid rash deployment.”
Geoengineering? Remember that Star Trek movie that featured the “Genesis” machine that could convert a dead planet into one with grass and trees, rivers and oceans? When the AMS starts talking about geoengineering, it is strictly into cloud cuckoo land.
Absolutely nothing humans can or should do to mess with the unimaginably huge forces that determine the Earth’s atmosphere should even be contemplated. It is insane! It’s beyond science fiction. It is global genocide. Holdren has been urging “population control measures” since the 1960s.
In 1969, Holdren wrote that it was necessary “to convince society and its leaders that there is no alternative but the cessation of our irresponsible, all-demanding, and all-consuming population growth.” This is another way of saying that there are too many people sharing the planet with Holdren and he has been thinking about that “problem” for a very long time.
So have others in the Obama White House and, in terms of energy use, their “solution” is to make energy so expensive that people will stop driving, starting using mass transit, or just telecommute without going anywhere ever again. Forget about air conditioning and other aspects of modern life.
They intend to achieve this by scaring everyone with global warming talk and by claiming carbon dioxide is a “pollutant”. Then they intend to have the Environmental Protection Agency regulate it. Then they will tax it in the form of cap-and-trade “carbon credits” that must be purchased by all forms of industry and business in America. The costs will be passed along to consumers.
Billions would flow to a government that already is spending trillions in a mad scheme to fix the financial crisis.
What ever happened to just doing nothing? Sometimes when there is no problem, doing nothing is the most brilliant answer. There is no global warming. And, left alone, the financial crisis would correct itself in time. Everything the government is currently doing was tried in the 1930s and it just prolonged the Depression and made it worse!
In the meantime, loonies like Dr. John Holdren will be whispering into Obama’s ear about “shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.”
SOURCE
What's the Carbon Footprint of a Pizza?
For President Obama, quite a lot higher than the average American.
When you're the president of the United States, only the best pizza will do - even if that means flying a chef 860 miles. Chris Sommers, 33, jetted into Washington from St Louis, Missouri, on Thursday with a suitcase of dough, cheese and pans to to prepare food for the Obamas and their staff.
He had apparently been handpicked after the President had tasted his pizzas on the campaign trail last autumn.
'It's surreal, it's a huge honour,' said Mr Sommers, who owns Pi restaurant in St Louis. 'It will be a casual lunch and hopefully we'll have a chance to say hello to the president.'
Mr Somers was accompanied by this business parnter Ryan Mangilardo who will help prepare the dinner for 140 this evening. It will feature his signature dishes - ten deep dish and ten thin crust creations.
He is also planning a pizza especially for the president - the Hyde Park topped with chicken and hot sauce.
Exit question: Who paid for the trip and how is this different than CEOs flying to D.C. on their private jets for hearings?
SOURCE
Obama trying to stop investment in conventional sources of power
Hello blackouts up ahead!
Businesses must not sink money into high-carbon infrastructure unless they are willing to lose their investments within a few years, the US lead negotiator on climate change has warned.
In the Obama administration’s starkest rebuke yet to industry over global warming, Todd Stern, special envoy for climate change at the state department, said “high-carbon goods and services will become untenable” as the world negotiates a new agreement to cut carbon emissions.
Investors should take note, he warned, that high emissions must be curbed, which would hurt businesses that failed to embark now on a low-carbon path. “How good will the business judgment of companies that make high-carbon choices now look in five, 10, 20 years, when it becomes clear that heavily polluting infrastructure has become deadly and must be phased out before the end of its useful life?”
Companies investing in such goods and services – such as coal-fired power plants and gas-guzzling cars – could start to incur heavy economic penalties for their greenhouse gas output. These could include buying carbon permits under a US cap-and-trade system, for which the administration of President Barack Obama is currently attempting to gather support in Congress.
If this stalls, other systems for pricing companies’ carbon output could be brought into play, including regulations on efficiency for cars, buildings and electrical equipment; agreements by which the big emitters in certain sectors are bound to tighten emissions limits; or tax rises.
Cap-and-trade is the White House’s favoured route, and Mr Stern noted that an international market in carbon would “doubtless” have to be part of a new global climate settlement. But he said it was too early to say which other instruments and incentives could be used. “There will need to be a lot of creative thinking, a lot of interaction with the private sector,” he said.
Mr Stern is attending talks in Bonn on a climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol when its current provisions expire in 2012. The talks are the first at which the US has participated as an enthusiastic supporter of a successor.
Mr Stern, in an interview with the Financial Times, said a new treaty – which he insisted could be negotiated this year, at a United Nations climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December – must include developing countries. Under the 1997 Kyoto protocol, emerging economies such as China and India were spared the obligation to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But their output has grown rapidly since, with China overtaking the US as the world’s biggest emitter.
Mr Stern said the main developing countries would need to take steps to curb the growth of emissions, though this could fall short of absolute cuts. “Exactly what form those [commitments] take is unclear, but there will need to be substantial action on the part of leading developing countries if we are going to have any chance of getting in the vicinity of what the science says we need to do,” he said.
One of the possible breaking points for any agreement is over financing. Poor countries want the rich world to commit to providing aid for them to cut their emissions. But so far rich countries have failed to come up with any figures, or a mechanism for achieving the large finance flows necessary.
Mr Stern said: “We are in the middle of trying to work through how a financing package might be constructed ... There might be some that comes from public monies, appropriated monies, but I do not think that will be the core of it. We will doubtless need to use carbon markets in one fashion or another.”
Loan guarantees to private sector companies might be another alternative, he said.
SOURCE
FIDEL CASTRO IS A WARMIST!
Can't say I'm surprised
Former Cuban President Fidel Castro says that climate change is more serious than the international economic crisis that is the main subject of Thursday's G-20 summit in London. "The financial crisis is not the only problem. There's another worse one, because it has to do not with the means of production and distribution but with our very existence. I'm referring to climate change. Both are here and will be discussed simultaneously," Castro said in the latest of his commentaries on current events.
In his column, he analyzed the prospects for the G-20 summit and the imminent negotiations about climate change in Bonn, with quotes from international news agencies and the media in other countries, after in an earlier article he lamented the fact that the Cuban media - all under state control - were neglecting the London conference....
Regarding climate change, Castro recalled that at the Bonn meeting, which will begin on Sunday, Washington will announce a new position and U.S. President Barack Obama has called a forum on energy and the climate for the end of the month.
"Strong contradictions exist regarding the contribution that the economies should make," Castro said, referring to arguments between the rich world and emerging powers such as China and India, whose leaders say the brunt of the cost of reducing greenhouse emissions should be borne by Europe and the United States. He added that while the Antarctic ice cap is melting at a faster rate, the skeptics are crying that "the scientists are exaggerating" and continue to dream "such feeble hopes."
More HERE
Australia: Kids' competition 'is climate change propaganda'
LIBERAL Senator Cory Bernardi has accused Climate Change Minister Penny Wong of pushing "extreme propaganda" on the nation's schoolchildren. Senator Bernardi, who does not disguise his view that man-made climate change is a myth, has attacked a new climate change awareness competition for schoolchildren launched by Senator Wong yesterday.
The competition "Think Climate, Think Change," asks students in years 3 to 9 to use short stories, poems and art work to answer the question "what does climate change mean to me?" First prize is a trip for two to Canberra (the winner and a parent), a Nintendo Wii console, sports kit and Wii Fit pack, and books for the winner's school.
Senator Bernardi slammed the competition. "Encouraging children to look after the environment is laudable aim but this seems to have more in common with the ministry of propaganda than the balanced education of our children," he told AdelaideNow.
"One can only guess that the only children eligible to win this competition will be those who conform to the Rudd Government and Minister Wong's extreme political propaganda about climate change.
"I doubt the competition materials will include any discussion of how the Rudd Government ETS (emissions trading scheme) will export Australian industry overseas and result in hundreds of thousands of job losses for Australian workers."
Ms Wong said the competition came about because children are naturally concerned about the environment and their future. "Schoolchildren from all over Australia have written to me asking about climate change and sharing their ideas," she said. "Young Australians are very well informed when it comes to the issue of climate change - they understand that we need to take action now."
The national competition will open on Tuesday April 24 and close two months later on June 24. Senator Wong said the winner would be invited to pass on their ideas to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and other senior ministers when they are flown to Canberra.
SOURCE
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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