What do we see when we use THREE centuries of temperature data?

German geologist Dr. Friedrich-Karl Ewert has asked that question and answered it. He notes that the German weather bureau has temperature records going back as far as 1701 so decided to use them all to calculate temperature changes over time. He found nearly as many cooling trends as warming trends -- giving an overall temperature change that is so small as to be best described as temperature stability.

Below is the introduction to an almost completely ignored press conference that he gave at the recent Bonn pow-wow. I also have the graphs accompanying the presentation and reproduce the first of them below.

The captions are in German but what he shows is the average temperature change over the period available for various centres. In brown are centres where there was warming and in blue are centres where there was no change or cooling. You can see that in all but a few cases the changes were in fractions of one degree Celsius, with the total changes in blue almost cancelling out the total of changes in brown and red.

No doubt various criticisms could be made of Dr Ewert's methods -- averaging time periods of different lengths etc. -- but Warmists are in much the same boat. As is well-known, James Hansen refuses outright to reveal the details and rationale of the methods he uses to account for various difficulties -- which surely speaks for itself

I have tidied up the German English somewhat below

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 13th Session of AWG-KP and 11th Session of AWG-LCA, 2 to 7 August 2010 in Bonn/Germany. Contribution by EIKE (Europaisches Institut fuer Klima und Energie). Press Conference:

Long-term temperature readings disprove man-made global warming

by Dipl.-Geol. Dr. Friedrich-Karl Ewert, Bad Driburg/Germany, Mail: ewert.fk@t-online.de)

Introduction

Temperature readings permit us to portray temperatures in the past and to correlate their development with influencing factors in order to check whether scenarios figured out for the future might be realistic - or not. For instance: the IPCC's postulation that anthropogenic CO2 will cause within the forthcoming decades a tremendous global warming cannot be true if already now worldwide cooling is taking place in spite of ongoing emissions.

It is surprising that temperature readings carried out during the 18th and 19th century have not yet been considered although they are available from 1701 onwards as monthly and annual averages in wetterzentrale.de [The German Weather Bureau].

The author evaluated data from 46 stations worldwide and generated temperature curves with their trend-lines. They were used to ascertain the annual change rates of the temperature variations. These changes do not confirm the wide-spread conviction of a global climate change but identify merely rather small temperature variations. They yielded a slight warming in approx. two thirds of several regions but likewise a slight cooling in the others.

The positive experience gained with this first evaluation motivated one to determine the trends of NASA-temperature curves from 776 stations located all over the world. Stations established already in 1880 were preferably analysed. It became evident that warming within the pre-industrial age also occurred faster than nowadays. Invariable trends or even cooling were diagnosed for 74% of all stations, although with differences from continent to continent. These trends superimpose periodical temperature variations of second order and regional differences. Only 18.8% of the stations recorded warming, of which a substantial portion belongs still to the category of urban development since only very few and very clear cases were assigned to the Urban Heat Island Effect. Contrary to computer based scenarios - and hence contrary to what is generally believed -- anthropogenic CO2 is meaningless because its influence is not recognizable. Of course this result complies with the basic laws of physics and is not really surprising.



Received via email




The Week That Was (To September 25, 2010)

Excerpt from Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)

Apparently re-invigorated by its August holiday, this week Congress renewed its anti-energy proposals. Several senators introduced a bill requiring a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) that 3% of US electricity be generated by renewable by 2012 and 15% by 2021. Fred Singer discussed RES in his August 7 Science Editorial in TWTW. Government favored industries, such as solar and wind industries, require such a bill. The subsidies found in the stimulus bill run out at the end of this year and these the favored industries could not stand up to price competition from coal or natural gas. Nuclear and hydro are also out of favor.

As discussed previously in TWTW, American prosperity was built on reliable affordable energy, especially electricity. With reliable electricity, came great efficiency. Manufacturing can be conducted with precision, office workers could depend that the lights would turn on, elevators would work, and high tech industries could rely on dependable computer power. Solar, and particularly wind, give none of this. And the required generation from back-up sources uses these sources inefficiently. Also, there are serious questions weather wind generation actually reduces carbon dioxide emissions.

In effect, many of our political leaders would have us believe that the 21st Century prosperity can be obtained by replacing the dependable family car with an expensive to purchase and operate exotic car that often does not start and frequently dies in heavy traffic when it is needed the most. It may be a burden on others, but it makes the politicians "feel good" they have "done something" to address a non-existent problem.

We can fully expect that such legislation will be supported by the chorus claiming that climate extremes demonstrate the need for action. Another claim will be to reduce oil imports for foreign countries; but, as mentioned in a previous TWTW only 1.1% of electricity generation comes from oil. And, of course, we will be bombarded with green jobs - which economic studies show are extremely expensive, temporary, and, generally, foreign-based. (Please see articles under "Subsidies and Mandates Forever."

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

Renewable Electricity Standard is in full force in California. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) decreed that in 10 years California must obtain 33% of its electricity from alternative sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal. California has 12% unemployment. Those pointing out that California can ill afford further job losses, that cost and benefits reports issued from CARB are hopelessly opportunistic, and that citizens will suffer from increases electricity rates are branded as being on the payroll of the oil industry and opposed to clean air.

SOURCE




DOMINATING ROLE OF OCEANS IN CLIMATE CHANGE

Guest Editorial by Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt (Harrison H. Schmitt is a former United States Senator from New Mexico as well as a geologist and former Apollo Astronaut)

The scientific rationale behind the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed massive intrusion into American life in the name of fighting climate change has no scientific or constitutional justification. This hard left excursion into socialism, fully supported by the Congressional Leadership and the President, has no basis in observational science, as has been discussed previously relative to climate history, temperature, and carbon dioxide.

In addition, oceans of the Earth play the dominant role in the perpetuation and mediation of naturally induced change of global climate.[1] Density variations linking the Northern and Southern Hemisphere portions of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through the Southern Ocean drive the primary circulation system that controls hemispheric and global climate. Differences in temperature and salt concentration produce these density variations that circulate heat around the planet. For the last several years in this circulating environment, the sea surface temperature of the oceans appears to be leveling off or decreasing[2] with no net heat increase for the last 58 years[3] and particularly since 2003[4] and possibly since 1990[5]. The long-term climatic implications of this recent broad scale cooling are not known.

Density increase due to evaporation in the North Atlantic creates a salt-rich, cold, deepwater current that flows south to join the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Upwelling from that Circumpolar Current brings nutrient and carbon dioxide-rich deep seawater into the upper Southern Ocean. This Southern Ocean water then moves north toward the equator where it joins a warm water current flowing from the North Pacific, through the tropics and the Indian Ocean, and then northward through the Atlantic to become the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream flows into the North Atlantic where, as part of a continuous process, wind-driven evaporation increases salt concentration and density and feeds the deepwater flow back to the south. Natural interference in the normal functioning of the ocean conveyor can occur. For example, melting of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, accumulation of melt-water behind ice dams, and abrupt fresh water inputs into the North Atlantic cause major disruptions in global ocean circulation. [6]

The oceans both moderate and intensify weather and decadal climate trends due to their great capacity to store solar heat as well as their global current structure, slow mixing, salinity variations, wind interactions, and oscillatory changes in heat distribution over large volumes. [7] The Northern Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), [8] the El Nino-La Nina Southern Pacific Oscillation (ENSO), [9] the long period anchovy-sardine Southern Pacific Oscillation, [10] the Gulf Stream Northern Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), [11] the Indonesian Through-Flow (ITF), [12v the Agulhas Current[13], and other related ocean currents and cycles have demonstrably large, decadal scale effects on regional as well as global climate. [14]

Possibly the greatest oceanic influence on global climate results from the full hemispheric reach and scale of the Southern Ocean's Circumpolar Current as it circulates around Antarctica and between the continents of the Southern Hemisphere. [15] In particular, the northward migration of the cold to warm water front off South Africa during ice ages may restrict warm, salty water of the western Indian Ocean's Agulhas Current from entering the South Atlantic and eventually amplify ice age cooling in North America and Europe. [16]

In several major portions of the global ocean heat conveyor, natural variations in heating, evaporation, freshwater input, [17] atmospheric convection, surface winds, and cloud cover can influence the position and strengths of related, but local ocean currents near the continents. This variation in current positioning, therefore, modifies carbon dioxide uptake and release, storm patterns, tropical cyclone frequency, [18] phytoplankton abundance, [19] drought conditions, and sea level rise that drive the reality of, as well as our perceptions of climate change.

For example, since about 7000 years ago, sea level rise has averaged about eight inches (20cm) per century for a total of about 55 feet (16m). [20] This same approximate rate appears to have held from 1842 to the mid-1980s. [21] The trend in sea level rise between the early 1900s and 1940 showed no observable acceleration attributable to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. [22] Satellite data show an apparent 50% increase of this rate after 1992, but this presumably will slow again soon due to the effects of the current period of global cooling. If the current slow rate of long-term global warming should continue for 100 years, the total sea level rise attributable to worldwide glacier melting and ocean thermal expansion would be no more that about four inches (10cm). [23]

Greenland's ice sheet also plays a cyclic role in sea level changes. In the 1950s, Greenland's glaciers retreated significantly only to advance again between 1970 and 1995, [24] a pattern of retreat and then advance repeated again between 1995 and 2006[25]. Predicting future sea level rise from short-term observation of Greenland's glaciers would seem to have little validity, particularly as there appears to be a half a decade lag in observable melting and accretion responses relative to global temperature variations[26]. The same conclusion now can be made relative to Himalayan glaciers. [27]

There also seems to be little danger of a catastrophic melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that would cause a major rise in sea level. [28] Great uncertainty also exists relative to the natural dynamics and history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet with Ross Sea sedimentary cores suggesting that major cycles of ice cover changes have occurred over the last five million years. [29] Overall, short-term sea level changes relate more to local geological dynamics that to glacial variations. [30]

Compilations of temperature changes in the oceans and seas, as preserved by oxygen isotope variations in shells from cores of bottom sediments, provide a record of natural oceanic reactions to cycles of major climate change back for 1.8 million years. [31] For example, geological analysis of sea level changes over the last 500,000 years show a remarkable correlation with major natural climate change. [32] These data further indicate that the Earth probably is approaching the peak of the warming portion of a normal climate cycle that began with the end of the last Ice Age, about 10, 000 years ago. [33]

The oceans play the major role in removing carbon from the atmosphere. Seawater calcium and various inorganic and organic processes in the oceans fix carbon from dissolved carbon dioxide as calcium carbonate, [34] planktonic and benthic organisms, and inedible forms of suspended carbon[35]. In so doing, these processes constitute major factors in global cycles of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Calcium availability in the oceans, in turn, relates to major geological dynamics, including mountain building, volcanism, river flows, and the growth, alteration, and destruction of crustal plates beneath the oceans.

Over the last 28 million years, marked variations in precipitated seawater calcium isotopes, particularly beginning about 13 million years ago, indicate major changes in sources of calcium rather than major variations in the quantity of atmospheric carbon dioxide. [36] This change in seawater calcium isotopic makeup may relate to events that included the partial deglaciation of Antarctica[37]. As most plant activity requires carbon dioxide, low atmospheric carbon dioxide values would reduce the rate of biologically assisted rock weathering. A limit on such weathering may buffer minimum atmospheric carbon dioxide to between 150 and 250ppm by limiting levels of seawater calcium. [38]

Significant introductions of calcium into the oceans from any source would be expected to result in a drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide to maintain chemical balances in local as well as global seawater. Ultimately, the history of seawater calcium concentrations may explain many of the long-term variations in carbon dioxide levels shown in various studies; however, correlations between calcium dynamics and carbon dioxide levels are not at sufficient geological resolution to make firm, dated correlations.

Slightly increased acidification of the local environments of sea dwelling organisms in the oceans may occur related to the absorption of new emissions of carbon dioxide. On the other hand, in spite of extreme alarmist hand wringing to the contrary[39], loss of ocean carbon dioxide due to naturally rising temperature works to mitigate this trend as will the broad chemical buffering of ocean acidity by both organic and inorganic processes[40].

Iron ion and iron complex concentrations in seawater, mediated by oxidation potential (Eh) and hydrogen ion concentration (pH or acidity), play an additional role in organic carbon fixation. Relatively simple laboratory experiments suggest that increases in ocean acidity might reduce availability of chelated iron in the life cycle of phytoplankton. [41] The complexity of this process in nature, however, and the many other variables that potentially would play a role in iron metabolism, indicate a need for a much more comprehensive experimental analysis before conclusions can be drawn.

Exactly what may happen in specific ecosystems remains uncertain relative to small increases or decreases in the acidity of ocean habitats or the change in the ratios of dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide. Coral reefs, for example, have been very adaptable over geologic time and extensive research strongly suggests that they adapt well, on a global scale, to climatic changes and the small associated chemical changes in the oceans. [42] So far, research indicates that some organisms benefit and some do not, as might be expected. [43] Indeed, this interplay between losses and gains has occurred many times in the geologic past as nature has continuously adjusted to climatic changes much greater than the slow warming occurring at present. The Earth's vast layers of carbonate rocks derived from carbon fixing organisms, including ancient, now dead coral reefs, as well as deeply submerged coral reefs on existing sea mounts, [44] show that the production and evolution of such organisms remains a continuous, if possibly, locally or regionally punctuated process.

In the face of the overwhelming dominance of the oceans on climate variability, it would appear foolish in the extreme to give up liberties and incomes to politicians in Washington and at the United Nations in the name of "doing something" about slow climate change.

The President, regulators, and Congress have chosen to try to push Americans along an extraordinarily dangerous path. That path includes unconstitutional usurpation of the rights of the people and the constitutionally reserved powers of the States as well as the ruin of economic stagnation. The Congress that takes office in 2011 absolutely must get this right!

SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #28-2010 (Sep 25, 2010)





Radical Environmental Groups Extorting Federal Money with Lawsuit Threats

A federal project comes up, radical groups threaten to entangle it in litigation, the government pays them to go away. Fundraising!

To avoid lawsuits, American tax dollars are being used to pay off radical environmental groups. The groups are using the money to threaten more lawsuits.

Research provided to the Western Legacy Alliance has documented payments of at least $4,697,978 in taxpayer dollars to 14 environmental groups in 19 states and the District of Columbia. These payments are not being made because the radical groups won a legal battle or proved that the federal government was destroying the environment. Instead, they are being made to get environmental groups to go away - supposedly, a better option than forcing these groups to prove their case in court.

And now these same radical groups are extorting millions from major corporations and local governments using the same tactics.

On July 15, 2010, it was announced that the Western Watersheds Project (WWP) and the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA) extorted $22 million from El Paso Corporation to drop their legal protests of the Ruby Pipeline project. Ruby Pipeline is a 680-mile pipeline being constructed across four Western states to bring natural gas from Wyoming to Oregon. As part of the deal, El Paso did not change the route or any other aspect of the pipeline - it just paid ONDA and WWP to go away.

In another case, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) extorted almost $1 million from Alameda County in California in exchange for dropping its protests to a city's residential and commercial development project.

The general theme: money changes hands, development moves forward, and the taxpayers and consumers get stuck with the both the litigation bill and higher fuel, home, and other prices as corporations pass on the extortion payments to the consumer.

Under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), attorneys are only supposed to be paid if they represent the prevailing parties in a lawsuit against the federal government. According to EAJA, a prevailing party must achieve a court-sanctioned change in the position of the federal agency through litigation.

Under other federal statutes with EAJA-like fee-shifting provisions whose funds come out of the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund, attorneys' fees are only to be paid if the attorney achieved some success in the litigation for the plaintiff. Thus, the plaintiffs had to achieve some benefit from the litigation through the courts.

All too often, however, radical environmental groups sue the federal government based on claims that the government engaged in a procedural violation of some federal statute or regulation. In just the last nine years, nine of the hundreds of radical environmental groups filed over 3500 lawsuits against the federal government. Most often, the statutes that the government is claimed to have violated are statutes that require a particular time frame, procedure, or process be followed. These statutes do not force the government to make a certain decision related to an environmental issue.

In many of these cases, these environmental groups do not show any concern about the environment.

The vast majority of groups that claim a concern for the environment do not engage in any on-the-ground environmental work. Rather, if you examine the goals of most of these groups, they intend to stop American industry, hurt security, and restrain independence under all circumstances in all locations. For example: there are groups who claim that cattle contribute to global warming by "belching carbon" as if the internal gas emissions of livestock are any different from the internal working of cats, dogs, or other wildlife. These cases aren't about the environment, but rather about eliminating land use and ownership.

In 21 percent of the cases where the federal government has been presented with a potential legal challenge, the government pays the radical group to withdraw its case. There is no court decision and no determination that the environmental group "prevailed." Just a request to withdraw the litigation, accompanied by taxpayer money.

These extortion payments are occurring when roads are widened, bridges are built, water supplies are updated, timber is cut, and fishermen are out to sea. In a time when Americans are looking for work and tax relief, our money should be spent to support American business, not restrain it.

SOURCE






Enviro and Media Agenda on Extreme Weather - State Climatologist Invited, then Uninvited to Rally

David R. Legates, Ph.D., C.C.M

Introduction

On Wednesday, August 25, I was invited by Environment America to speak at its September 8 press conference on "Extreme Weather in Delaware", to promote the release of their new report on the subject at Legislative Hall. Ms. Hannah Leone was pleased to have me speak because my "knowledge on climate change and weather would be a great asset to the event."

On Friday, August 27, I was uninvited from the event by Ms. Leone, who noted that "I believe it is in the best interest of the success of our report that you do not participation [sic] in this event" but "as lead climatologist in the state, your opinion would be beneficial to us." She had earlier indicated to me in a telephone call that she wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page at the event.

I believe that it is in the best interest of the citizens of Delaware that my "knowledge on climate change and weather" is made public, in light of the biases that are potentially inherent in the Environment America report. I say `potentially inherent' because, although I was promised a copy of the report, even after I was uninvited, I have yet to receive it. However, Ms. Leone was kind enough to indicate the premise of the report in her first e-mail to me:

On September 8th we will be holding a press conference around our new Environment America Extreme Weather Report that examines the science linking global warming with hurricanes and tropical storms; coastal storms and sea level rise; flooding and extreme rainfall; snowstorms; and drought, wildfire and heat waves. The report includes snapshot case studies of these extreme weather events that have occurred in the U.S. since 2005, and the damage that they caused, including a case study in Delaware. We do not suggest that these extreme weather events were caused by global warming. Rather, the point of examining the recent extreme weather events - and the economic losses and other negative impacts they caused - is to document why we need to take action to protect against them, including by reducing emissions of pollutants that are changing our climate.

The contradictions and biases evidenced by my communications with Environment America are fascinating. Although they willingly admit that "we do not suggest that these extreme weather events were caused by global warming," they are willing to assert that: (1) average planetary temperatures continue to increase; (2) the frequency and/or intensity of these events are increasing; and (3) reducing `climate changing' CO2 emissions will protect against these events. I will argue that none of these assertions is true.

Conclusions

As a Delaware Native who has lived in this State for almost forty years, I care very much about the Diamond State and its ecology. I too am concerned that we act as good stewards of our environment. As a scientist, I have spent my entire professional career studying weather and climate and trying to understand climate change processes. I am therefore outraged when I see outright misstatements of fact being used for political gain. My concern is that there has been no significant increase in extreme weather - just an increase in its coverage with a more global media and an increase in its hype due to the political ramifications that climate change can have.

Environment America's claim that the alleged increase in extreme weather events can be alleviated by taking action to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide is unfounded. These events have not been increasing in either frequency or intensity and they are clearly not linked to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide. Limiting carbon dioxide emissions will have no effect at all on the frequency or intensity of these events. Unfortunately the negative ramifications of attempting to limit such emissions will be far too real. Our best solution is to make the public more aware of these dangers, provide more timely detection and dissemination of potential extreme weather hazards (in which the National Weather Service and several State agencies have been actively engaged), and encourage people to stop building in hazardous locations, thereby putting the existing population more at risk.

See detailed analysis of all the weather threats claimed by Environment America and other environmental groups, psuedoscientists and mainstream media alarmists here.

It is clear these groups and their media messengers are uninterested in facts or the truth just in communicating the scare message that they think will bring their movement to success. This is just another example of the blatant hypocracy that the public must be made aware of.

SOURCE






Environmentalism - What Has It Become?

BY MICHAEL R. FOX (Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is a nuclear scientist and a science and energy resource for Hawaii Reporter)

On May 18, 2010 Vice president Al Gore gave an incredibly depressing commencement speech at the University of Tennessee (http://tinyurl.com/2eypqqa). According to Gore, doom was imminent, even if he had to fudge the climate data to make it sound frightening. Glaciers are melting (some are growing, some are receding, as they have for centuries-Antarctica, for example, is growing, sea levels are rising-but very little. Just check with world expert Nils Axel Morner, (http://tinyurl.com/d4zayx). It is difficult to measure Gore's impact on those who were there at Commencement or had read his speech, but it could not have been good.

Then on September 1, an environmental extremist named James Jay Lee took hostages at the Discovery Channel's office in Silver Springs, Maryland. He was armed and claimed also to have explosives with him (http://tinyurl.com/2auvlyn). Lee made some very extreme demands which he posted on the web. (http://tinyurl.com/29nbala).

In the world most of us live in we are accountable for our own actions and beliefs. While some have unfairly suggested that gloomy, depressing, hateful speeches by Al Gore may have influenced Lee's actions, however that would be as easy as it would be wrong. Nobody made Lee kidnap those 3 people in the Discovery Channel's building, nobody made him threaten their lives, and nobody forced him to write his extreme manifesto. Unquestionably, however, there are many in the environmental movement who hold the same extreme views as quoted directly from his manifesto:

1. How people can live without producing more filthy children
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants
3. talk about ways to disassemble civilization
4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed.
5. Broadcast this message until the pollution of the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet!

There is much more but we can see the nature of his extreme, contemptible anti-human views. Hopefully we can all agree that these are very extreme views to be held by a fellow American. We should dismiss him as an extremist, a loner gone off the rails, with little or no political impact on the world, our nation, or those around him. He would have few, if any friends who would share these extremist views.

Consider another person with many similar extremist views. This fellow believed that

1. Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
2. The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
3. Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
4. People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" - in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
5. A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives - using an armed international police force.

You might want to dismiss these extreme statements also, as the words of some angry, anti-human crank. But they aren't. These are the words of Obama's science advisor, a man whom Obama seeks out for such scientific advice. These are the words of Dr. John Holdren. He co-authored the book, "Ecoscience" in 1977, where he wrote those words above. He and co-authors, Dr. Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, wrote this book and put many of their horrendous thoughts in writing. He is now the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology - informally known as the United States' Science Czar.

An extraordinary analysis of Holdren's writings appears at (http://tinyurl.com/26p5422). This is an incredibly detail analyses of Holdren's exact words, and goes right to the exact written source and the exact pages in Ecoscience where Holdren's horrendous quotes, values, and contempt for human life appeared. With the exact words and the exact pages presented, the doubters have no wiggle room.

What on Earth is it about Holdren which Obama approves, and would motivate him to appoint him to high office? Do they share the same values? What is it about the National Academy of Sciences which nominated him for membership in the National Academy of Sciences( NAS)? The NAS is just not that prestigious anymore, and is losing ground. What is it about the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) which elected him their president? Should we conclude that Holdren's belief system of population control, sterilization of women, and the killing of infants is something deserving of the name "Science", and were so compelling that they elected him president by the AAAS?

Should we still presume that the AAAS can be serious about science and the horrendous people it elects to their high offices? Should we ever take seriously any document or policy statement from the National Academy of Sciences, so long as they have demonstrably bad judgment in nominating Holdren and Ehrlich to the NAS membership?

It seems strange that as a society we dismiss the rantings and extreme views of the gunman who held employees of the Discovery Channel hostage, and called for the cessation of producing "filthy children". On the other hand we highly honor a well-connected Ph.D., with similar extreme views, and even appoint him to be the president's science advisor. It makes no sense.

Strangely as a society we dismiss the rantings and extreme views of a gunman who held hostage employees of the Discovery channel, who called for the cessation of producing "filthy children". On the other hand we highly honor a well-connected Ph.D. with similar extreme views, by appointing him to be the president's science advisor. It makes no sense.

However, as Eric Hoffer observed "One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputation." -as quoted by Thomas Sowell in his book, "Intellectuals and Society". Obama should know better. And Americans deserve better.

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

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