Is the Icelandic volcano due to global warming?

Scientific American has reported that global warming may cause an increase in volcanic eruptions, due to increased magma formation at lower pressures as glaciers melt.

This caught my attention because I used to work as a volcano researcher and igneous petrologist.

That report said that about 10 percent of Iceland’s biggest ice cap, Vatnajokull, has melted since 1890 and the land nearby was rising about 25 millimetres (0.98 inch) a year, bringing shifts in geological stresses.

They estimated that the thaw had led to the formation of 1.4 cubic km (0.3 cubic mile) of magma deep below ground over the past century.

At high pressures such as under an ice cap, they reckon that rocks cannot expand to turn into liquid magma even if they are hot enough. “As the ice melts the rock can melt because the pressure decreases,” she said. Sigmundsson said that monitoring of the Vatnajokull volcano since 2008 suggested that the 2008 estimate for magma generation was “probably a minimum estimate. It can be somewhat larger.”

Interesting theory, but does it work quantitatively? Magmas, as with most solids, do show a direct relationship between the melting point and pressure. As the pressure increases, so does the melting point. (Ice is a noticeable exception to this, and shows an inverse relationship. The reason that people can ice skate is because the pressure under the blade creates a thin later of melted ice which lubricates the surface.

Below is a phase diagram of a basaltic magma similar to that found in Iceland, showing the relationship between temperature and pressure. The melting temperature does decrease at lower pressures. From 100 km depth to 0 km the melting point drops about 300°C. That is about 3°C / km. Ice is about one third as dense as basaltic magma, so the loss of 1 km of ice lowers the melting point by about 1C, or less than 0.1%.

More precisely, this study from the Carnegie Geophysical Institute did an empirical measurement of the relationship for one basaltic mineral – diposide. They found the relationship to be

Tm = 1391.5 + 0.01297 * P

Where Tm is the melting point in degrees C and P is the pressure in atmospheres. One atmosphere pressure is equal to about 10 metres of ice, so one additional metre of ice increases the melting point by about 0.0013°C. The loss of 100 metres of ice would therefore lower the melting point by about one tenth of a degree. The thickest ice in Iceland is only 500 meters thick, so complete loss of all ice would only alter the melting point by about 0.5°C, or less than 0.05%.

The geothermal gradient of the earth is typically about 40°C per km, so a 0.5°C change in temperature is equivalent to a depth change of about 20 metres. Near mid-ocean ridges this gradient is steeper, so the equivalent depth change in Iceland would be less than 20 metres. Is it credible that a 0.5°C decrease in the melting point could stimulate excess volcanic activity? Short answer – no. Volcanic activity is caused by magma rising to the surface, not glaciers melting. However, the loss of the glaciers would reduce the amount of steam and ash generated. Ash is formed when magma is cooled and fractured by steam. So the loss of the glaciers would reduce the size of the steam/ash cloud and make the Iceland volcanoes behave more like Hawaii volcanoes.

In short, the loss of all ice in Iceland would make the volcanoes less destructive.

SOURCE (See the original for links, graphics etc.)







Are earthquakes becoming more frequent?

Despite the Haiti earthquake and the recent one in China -- plus smaller ones elsewhere, the Warmists have yet to claim that earthquakes are increasing due to global warming. They WILL get around to it however, so here is what the U.S. Geological Survey says about it:

We continue to be asked by many people throughout the world if earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant.

A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. In 1931, there were about 350 stations operating in the world; today, there are more than 8,000 stations and the data now comes in rapidly from these stations by electronic mail, internet and satellite.

This increase in the number of stations and the more timely receipt of data has allowed us and other seismological centers to locate earthquakes more rapidly and to locate many small earthquakes which were undetected in earlier years. The NEIC now locates about 20,000 earthquakes each year or approximately 50 per day. Also, because of the improvements in communications and the increased interest in the environment and natural disasters, the public now learns about more earthquakes.

According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 17 major earthquakes (7.0 - 7.9) and one great earthquake (8.0 or above) in any given year.

SOURCE








NCAR’s missing heat – they could not find it any-where

I briefly satirized the Trenberth/NCAR "missing heat" claim yesterday but Roger Pielke gives it a full examination:

There was a remarkable press release 0n April 15 from the NCAR/UCAR Media Relations titled" “Missing” heat may affect future climate change. The article starts with the text

BOULDER—Current observational tools cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on Earth in recent years, according to a “Perspectives” article in this week’s issue of Science. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) warn in the new study that satellite sensors, ocean floats, and other instruments are inadequate to track this “missing” heat, which may be building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system.

“The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later,” says NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, the lead author. “The reprieve we’ve had from warming temperatures in the last few years will not continue. It is critical to track the build-up of energy in our climate system so we can understand what is happening and predict our future climate.”

Excerpts from the press release reads

“Either the satellite observations are incorrect, says Trenberth, or, more likely, large amounts of heat are penetrating to regions that are not adequately measured, such as the deepest parts of the oceans. Compounding the problem, Earth’s surface temperatures have largely leveled off in recent years. Yet melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice, along with rising sea levels, indicate that heat is continuing to have profound effects on the planet.”

“A percentage of the missing heat could be illusory, the result of imprecise measurements by satellites and surface sensors or incorrect processing of data from those sensors, the authors say. Until 2003, the measured heat increase was consistent with computer model expectations. But a new set of ocean monitors since then has shown a steady decrease in the rate of oceanic heating, even as the satellite-measured imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy continues to grow.”

Some of the missing heat appears to be going into the observed melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as Arctic sea ice, the authors say.

Much of the missing heat may be in the ocean. Some heat increase can be detected between depths of 3,000 and 6,500 feet (about 1,000 to 2,000 meters), but more heat may be deeper still beyond the reach of ocean sensors.”

Trenberth’s [and co-author, NCAR scientist John Fasullo], however, are grasping for an explanation other than the actual real world implication of the absence of this heat.

* First, if the heat was being sequestered deeper in the ocean (lower than about 700m), than we would have seen it transit through the upper ocean where the data coverage has been good since at least 2005. The other reservoirs where heat could be stored are closely monitored as well (e.g. continental ice) as well as being relatively small in comparison with the ocean.

* Second, the melting of glaciers and continental ice can be only a very small component of the heat change (e.g. see Table 1 in Levitus et al 2001 “Anthropogenic warming of Earth’s climate system”. Science). Thus, a large amount heat (measured as Joules) does not appear to be stored anywhere; it just is not there.

There is no “heat in the pipeline” [or "unrealized heat"] as I have discussed most recently in my post: Continued Misconception Of The Concept of Heating In The Pipeline In The Paper Vermeer and Rahmstorf 2009 Titled “Global Sea Level Linked To Global Temperature”

Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo are not recognizing that the diagnosis of upper ocean heat content changes (with it large mass) makes in an effective integrator of long term radiative imbalances of the climate system as I discussed in my papers:

Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.

and

Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335.

The assessment of ocean heat storage changes in Joules is a much more robust methodology to assess global warming than the use of small changes in the satellite diagnosis of radiative forcing from the satellites which have uncertainties of at least the same order. Trenberth and Fasullo need to look more critically at the satellite data as well as propose how heat in Joules could be transported deep into the ocean without being seen.

Much more HERE





Some facts in reply to the latest official assertions

Martin Rees, president of The Royal Society, and Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, penned a letter last week to the Financial Post in which they regurgitated many of the favorite bromides of the global warming movement, blaming mankind for rising global temperatures and warning of a coming climate catastrophe unless there is a radical reduction in human CO2 emissions.

Most of their assertions are either unproven or demonstrably false. Neither author was inventive enough to concoct any new anthropogenic global warming (AGW) fictions for public consumption. Everything was straight from the man-is-destroying the planet AGW template.

Let’s analyze several of the myths rehashed by these heavyweights of science.

Article continues below this advert:

Myth: “. . . neither recent controversies [Climategate e-mails], nor the recent cold weather, negate the consensus among scientists: something unprecedented is now happening. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising and climate change is occurring, both due to human actions.”

Fact: First, there is no so-called “consensus among scientists.” More than 31,400 American scientists, 9,029 with PhD degrees and 3,803 with specific training in atmospheric, earth and environmental sciences, have signed a petition urging the United States government to reject any cap-and-trade agreement placing limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the petition, “The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”

Moreover, scientific inquiry is not based on “consensus.” If it were, science still would be wedded to Ptolemy’s theory placing the earth at the center of the universe, with the sun, moon, planets, and stars revolving about it in circular orbits. His theory was the consensus belief of the time.

Real science is driven by investigation, not consensus. Scientists develop a hypothesis, which is subjected to rigorous testing. Eventually it may evolve into a formal theory, which is exposed to further testing and experimentation by scientists determined to challenge or disprove it.

Unlike their “consensus” brethren, scientists worthy of the label carefully search for data that might actually contradict their theory so they can test it further or refine it. The "science is settled" soothsayers, on the other hand, select only data that tends to support their theory, while steadfastly ignoring any data that disagrees with it. The AGW-consensus-bound scientists are not practicing science; they are pushing advocacy.

Myth: “The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising and climate change is occurring, both due to human actions.”

Fact: Although human activity has contributed to rising levels of CO2, there is no empirical or physical evidence to support the contention that man-caused CO2 has caused the planet to warm. The estimated 0.7 Celsius increase in average global temperature during the past century can be just as easily explained by changes in albedo and ocean currents such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, El Nino-Southern Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

As former Navy Meteorologist Dr. Martin Hertzberg observes:

“It is shown that modest changes of at most one to two percent in the Earth’s albedo brought about by modest changes in cloud cover, are sufficient to account for the observed average temperature changes of the last century . . . It is implausible to expect that small changes in the concentration of any minor atmospheric constituent such as carbon dioxide can significantly influence that radiative equilibrium.”

Moreover, during the last eight years, from 2001 to 2009, the temperature trend shows a decrease of 0.52 degrees Celsius per century, despite rising CO2 levels, falsifying the IPPC model projections of continued warming triggered by human activity.

Increases in solar activity also have affected temperatures, and not just on our planet. As Earth warmed during the last century, astronomers also saw evidence of rising temperatures on Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto in the form of shrinking of CO2 ice caps, moons changing from solid ice to liquid, and frozen nitrogen turning to gas.

During the same time period, CO2 percolated out of the warming ocean on Earth (just as it foams out of a warming glass of carbonated beverage) and increased the amount of atmospheric CO2. So it is just as reasonable to conclude – without resorting to jerry-rigged models – that an active sun, not mankind, was the source of both the increase in global temperature and atmospheric CO2.

By the way, 33 U.S. states reported record high temperatures from the 1880s to 1930s, during a period when far less CO2 was expelled into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels than has been released during the past 50 or 60 years.

Along with the recent eight-year temperature decline, 20th-century temperature records undermine the theory that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise.

As engineer Dan Pangburn observes, "Average global temperatures for over a century have trended down, then up, then down, then up, then down, while average annual atmospheric CO2 levels have always risen since 1800. Lack of correlation demonstrates lack of causation."

But such facts have not deterred climate-model-addicted scientists whose careers and funding depend on the existence of AGW. In order to coax higher temperatures from what amounts to a tiny increase in CO2-induced warming, scientists have managed to discover an amplification effect, called “feedback,” which they say multiplies the impact of carbon dioxide emissions. One of the gospels of the global warming religion, the theory of positive feedback states that a small temperature increase from rising carbon dioxide levels is amplified by the increase in water vapor caused by the temperature rise. The eventual result is runaway global warming.

Fortunately, the theory of CO2-generated runaway warming is falsified by geological records. During the late Ordovician period, the planet plunged into the Andean-Saharan ice age, while atmospheric carbon dioxide soared to 4,400 parts per million (ppm), nearly 10 times today’s level. Where was the runaway greenhouse effect? Obviously, there must be other influences besides atmospheric carbon dioxide that affect global temperatures.

Ice core records

Antarctica’s Vostok ice core samples clearly show CO2 levels lagging temperature increases by 800 years, plus or a minus 200 years. Apparently, as temperatures increased, the oceans “out-gassed” CO2 as they, too, warmed. Some climatologists claim the CO2 out-gassing then “amplified” the warming. But the amplifier effect is based on unproven assumptions (enter the climate models, again) about the strength of the CO2-induced warming.

As CO2 Science observes, “There is no way to objectively determine the strength of the proposed amplification from the ice core data.” Moreover, during most of the past decade, temperatures have declined while CO2 levels have risen. There has been no runaway greenhouse effect.

The weakness of a CO2-warming correlation confirms the research of Dr. Sherwood Idso, president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. He concluded that "changes in CO2 concentration cannot be claimed to be the cause of changes in air temperature, for the appropriate sequence of events (temperature change following CO2 change) is not only never present, it is actually violated in [at least] half of the record." That is, CO2 levels have been extremely high during ice ages and and periods of relatively cool temperatures, another fact that undermines the global warming alarmists’ pet CO2-causes-warming theory.

Global warming alarmists also ignore the fact that, during the last 600 million years, only the Carboniferous Period and our current age, the Quaternary Period, have experienced CO2 levels less than 400 ppm. Compared to those periods, today’s atmosphere is CO2-impoverished.

So why is there no runaway warming, even at 10 times the recorded levels of the past? One of the answers lies in CO2’s self-limiting absorption characteristic, which follows a logarithmic curve as levels increase. As carbon dioxide doubles, the increase in temperature is the same as the previous increase.

As the research paper “Cold Facts on Global Warming” observes:

“[The logarithmic effect] would be analogous to closing more and more shades over the windows of your house on a sunny day – it soon reaches the point where doubling the number of shades can't make it any darker.”

Even if the concentration of atmospheric CO2 were four to five times current levels, it would produce only a small, incremental rise in the amount of infrared absorption. The large CO2-induced temperature increases predicted by computer models are not supported by results obtained by basic mathematical measurements.

Computer models have become a crutch. William Gray, professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, says the models are incapable of accurately replicating atmospheric conditions – in particular, the effects of cloud cover and precipitation – and therefore, cannot be trusted.

“Most of the rise in temperature from the ‘70s to the ‘90s was natural,” he says. “Very little was down to CO2 – in my view, as little as five to ten per cent.”

Distorted temperature data

Because surface-station temperature data is so poor, we can’t even be certain of the accuracy of the often-cited 0.7-degree Celsius global temperature increase that is supposed to have occurred during the last century. Based on Climategate e-mails and other evidence made public, there is a very real possibility that surface-station data has been manipulated to give the appearance of a warming trend.

Satellite temperature measurements (available since 1979) have been steadily diverging from surface station readings, indicating a warm bias in the surface temperature record, according to a research paper published this week by Intellicast chief meteorologist Joe D’Aleo and former TV meteorologist Anthony Watts, founder of the award-winning WattsUpWithThat science blog.

The authors conclude that the warming trend through the late 1990s was caused not by greenhouse gases, but instead by urbanization and land-use changes. And the warming bias was magnified by the use of improvised and inaccurate data adjustments, along with a huge reduction in the number of Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) reporting stations, many of them eliminated from high-lattitude or high-elevation locations.

“Since these surface changes [urbanization and land use] are not fully adjusted for, trends from the surface networks are not reliable . . . and can no longer be trusted for reliable climate trend assessment,” the authors warn.

Even with the warming bias included, recent temperatures have been declining. But global warming alarmists have found a convenient way to create their fictional “warming trend” by using only the last 30 years of temperature data, writes Pangburn.

”It is often quoted that all (or most) of the highest temperatures on record occurred in the last decade and also that the temperature trend is up. Both of these assertions can be shown to be true, but are misleading. The ‘record’ started with the advent of comparatively accurate and extensive direct measurements and near the lowest temperature of the Little Ice Age. Saying that the latest temperatures are among the highest on record is about as profound as saying that I drove 10,000 miles last year, and the last 10 days were among the greatest distance traveled since the beginning of the year."

Pangburn continues: “[Climatologists] conclude that agt [average global temperature] is rising because the linearized slope for the last 30 years is positive. But this is an artifact of the 30-year assumption. The agt rose sharply for the first 20 of the 30 years, but has been flat or declining since . . . A rising temperature trend is going to be the conclusion if our knowledge is limited to statistical analysis and the 30-year period. However, if the record had started with best estimates of agt during the Medieval Warm Period the linearized trend would be down.”

Model projections are not evidence

Contrary to the easily refuted assertions of Rees and Cicerone, there is no evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of recent global warming. The warming and cooling cycles of the past are natural and are caused primarily by changes in solar input, oscillating ocean currents, and the chaotic formation of clouds and precipitation – not by CO2-enhanced greenhouse effects.

The only evidence that humans cause global warming” comes from computer models. The creators of models can make them show whatever they want by simply manipulating parameters. They can be useful, but their results are not evidence of anything, writes engineer Willis Eschenbach.

“Evidence is observable and measurable data about the real world. Climate model results are nothing more than the beliefs and prejudices of the programmers made tangible. While the results of climate models can be interesting and informative, they are not evidence.”

The late, great newspaperman and critic H.L. Mencken would have thoroughly enjoyed debunking and attacking the silly ravings of today’s global warming alarmists. The following quote, vintage Mencken, describes perfectly the forces at work behind the AGW scare campaign.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Today’s great hobgoblin appears in the shape of a molecule known as CO2.

SOURCE (See the original for links)






Holocaust analogy used to legitimate nutty idea

The campaign to make ‘ecocide’ a crime sums up the opportunism and censoriousness of the green lobby

Under normal circumstances, someone who started a campaign called Trees Have Rights Too in order to convince the United Nations to adopt a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights, based on the idea that ‘we are all one, life is sacred and love is all’, might reasonably be suspected of being an LSD-tripping hippy.

But it seems that we don’t live in normal times. Because Polly Higgins, an environmentalist barrister and the initiator of the Planetary Rights campaign, was not only included in The Ecologist’s 2009 list of Top 10 Visionaries, but in 2008 she was even invited to address the United Nations. When Higgins launched a campaign last Friday to have ‘ecocide’, the destruction of the natural world, recognised as an international crime, some commentators argued that this confirmed her brilliance and heroism.

At the People’s Climate Conference, which was held in tandem with the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, Higgins explained that we need a paradigm shift, a change in approaches to addressing climate change. She said we need to stop looking at planet Earth as an ‘inert thing’ that can be commoditised, since this only benefits businesses. Instead, we should view the planet as a living being that has intrinsic value. Only when such a mindset prevails can we really ensure that humans will start taking responsibility for the planet.

To say that Marx must be turning in his grave would be to flatter Higgins, whose New Ageism hardly amounts to any substantial supposition. Whatever the usefulness of natural things like flowers, trees and rocks, they are only valuable in so far as they satisfy the needs and wants of human beings – whether that involves cutting down trees for wood, picking flowers to decorate our homes, or climbing rocks to enjoy the view.

To that end, the elements, materials and beings found in nature should be used and ‘abused’ for the benefit of mankind – we should not be forced to protect nature for nature’s sake. Deserts and meadows cannot feel hurt, assaulted or denigrated – they are material things and it is impossible for them to have individual rights. (I’m sure the trees of the world do not mind me saying this.)

Of course, the Trees Have Rights campaign states that natural conservation and protection is for the good of human beings, too, and therefore we all have an interest in putting a stop to pollution and in ensuring nature’s right to restorative justice, as the campaign website puts it (you can tell it has been written by a lawyer). But, in truth, Higgins and other greens who are demanding an end to ‘ecocide’ are elevating what they identify as the needs and rights of nature over the needs and rights of human beings. For them, the primary purpose of humanity is to accept our responsibilities towards the planet, to leave eco-systems alone and, where man has contributed to the alteration of nature, to restore it to its original state – whenever that was.

Here, social progress – great leaps forward that have provided us with material wellbeing, longer life spans, more leisure time and opportunities to pursue individual interests – are reconstituted as ‘pollution’. Man’s interventions in nature are regarded as simply corrosive, hubristic acts of nature-murder that are as abhorrent as the concerted, state-sanctioned extermination of human beings.

Higgins may only have a relatively small band of followers, but her plan to convince the UN to accept ‘ecocide’ as a fifth ‘crime against peace’, which could be tried at the International Criminal Court, chimes with mainstream green thinking. As the Guardian reported, supporters of a new ecocide law believe it could also be used to prosecute ‘climate deniers’.

The terms ‘ecocide’ and ‘climate denial’ of course bring to mind the Holocaust and those revisionist cranks who question its veracity. Environmentalists constantly conjure up Holocaust imagery – on the one hand to stress that climate change is an indisputable evil, and on the other hand to shut down debate on the matter. Anyone who dares to demand that the claims of greens be scrutinised, anyone who questions the severity of the climate threat or argues that how humanity should handle it is up for debate, is put on a par with Holocaust-denying fraudsters. Greens are making use of the fact that the campaign to criminalise Holocaust denial has grown in recent years, consciously putting ‘climate change denial’ on a par with Holocaust denial so that those who question environmentalism can be prosecuted, too.

Never mind hurting the feelings of flora and fauna, tree-hugging, censorship-demanding greens are denigrating the devastating experiences of victims of mass murder by putting them on a par with things like tree-felling and desertification. That is the natural consequence of their putting nature on a par with – in fact even higher than – humankind.

Higgins’ campaign reminds me of a banner at a climate-change demo a few years ago which said ‘trees don’t rape’. The message here is the same: nature is pure, innocent, helpless, while man is repugnant, exploiting, violent. That is, every man who is not already a diehard green, that apparently enlightened kind of individual who assumes he has the right to tell the rest of us that we need to venerate nature, or else.

Instead of flattering tree huggers, it’s time we stopped all this nature-worshipping and added some real fuel to the climate-change debate. One way to do it is by letting us know what you think by sending a response here.

SOURCE





A Week of Green Brainwashing coming up

By Alan Caruba

Brace yourself for a week of Green brainwashing when Thursday culminates in an orgy of Green propaganda called Earth Day.

Be alert to the tons and tons of Green stories in your weekly and daily newspaper of choice, the weekly snooze-magazines, and especially on television where all the local reporters will dutifully interview people who are recycling things destined for a landfill or protesting to save salamanders.

Amidst the deluge will be endless appeals to buy products deemed Green, but which are always more expensive than those that have not been blessed by the Sierra Club.

Your children, in particular, will learn precious little about the way the real Earth functions. Aside from the usual demented “global warming” scenarios guaranteed to give them nightmares, the schools will pretty much abandon efforts to teach anything resembling the way the Earth actually behaves.

With any luck the kids will hear about a Greenland volcano whose eruptions have shut down trans-Atlantic flights because, kids, that’s just one of the horrible things that happens when a volcano goes off. Other times, it destroys all human habitation on a Caribbean island or, as the Philippines’ Mount Pinatubo did in 1991, it not only killed hundreds of people, but put so much pollution in the atmosphere the global temperature actually dropped in the year that followed.

Earthquakes are a natural phenomenon as well. The recent one in Haiti destroyed Port u Prince and has left thousands homeless. An even more recent one in China has had the same affect. Where is the goddess Gaia when you need her? Or maybe she’s angry?

Most certainly, the week will be full of talk about how we’re all going to die from too much carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, but no one is going to die from the 386 parts per billion up there amidst the 95% water vapor.

Forget about “anthropogenic” (produced by man) CO2. The Earth generates 97% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere. We would all surely die if there was no CO2 because everything that’s really green, from a blade of grass to a giant Sequoia tree, depends on it.

The entire Green movement has depended on propaganda from its start around the time that Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” became a bestseller in 1962, even though most of the claims and predictions were and are sheer bunk. The same applies to the 1968 epic, “The Population Bomb”, and comparable Green pseudo-scientific garbage.

Today, environmental groups rake in millions annually by keeping the masses scared and tapping all manner of public funding and infusions from foundations

It will be difficult to avoid articles or hearing this balderdash because the mainstream media around the world has been in the tank for “the environment” since the 1960s, but you can actively screen it from your daily intake of news.

Remind yourself that, aside from mankind as the most active killer of other members of mankind, Mother Nature doesn’t really care which of her wonders will kill you.

SOURCE

***************************************

For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here

*****************************************