Airhead California organization promotes global warming with a "bounty"

"A funded campaign asserting that over 95% of American scientists believe that global climate change is real and is most likely caused by humans has been launched with a $5,000 bounty on TruthMarket, the site that enables grassroots, crowd-funding of challenges to political, commercial and science misrepresentations

TruthMarket, a division of Truth Seal Corp., today announced that registered member, Ellen Davis, launched a campaign challenging climate change deniers to prove that more than 5% of credible American scientists dispute global warming or that it is likely caused by humans. The first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that significantly fewer than 95% of qualified American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause will win the $5,000 bounty."

More HERE

Greg Jefford has claimed the reward.  Here's what he sent to Truth Market:

"Provide verifiable evidence that significantly less than 95% of American scientists believe in the reality of Global Climate Change and that humans are a likely cause."

My question: "Where are the definitions of 'verifiable,' 'evidence,' 'significantly,' 'believe in,' 'reality,' 'Global Climate Change,' and 'likely cause'?

We already know from the Zimmerman survey in 2008 of 10,257 scientists with a participation rate of 30.7%, that 97% of a final 79 respondents believed that human activity could have an impact on a change in the global mean temperature. Compared to this, the Global Warming Petition Project has been signed by 31,487 American scientists (over 9,000 with a Ph.D.) who believe:

“There is no convincing scientific evidence that the 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”.

Inasmuch as 31,000 American scientists is a far, far larger number than ~30.7% of 10,257 American scientists (3,146), and since 9,000 Ph.D.s is a much larger group than Doran's 2831 Ph.D.s in his entire survey, it's pretty well verified, at least by surveys, that significantly fewer than 95% of American scientists "believe" in Global Climate Change (if this is defined as anthropogenic global warming and/or cooling, whichever happens to be the more convenient argument to make at any particular time). By comparing self-attested belief in these global climate change matters between two groups of self-selected (in their response) American scientists, we see that almost 10 to 1 American scientists do NOT "believe" either in a danger posed by "Global Climate Change" (or else why would you even be concerned about it?) or that humans have any discernible influence.

So you should really award that money to me. If Doran and Zimmerman's 2 question survey was sufficient for the Global Climate Change folks to claim vindication of their belief regarding support among scientists, then the voluntary signature of the Global Warming Petition Project is as valid a method of demonstrating the opposite belief.

You can send me the check at my registered address on your site.

The whole thing is obviously just a stunt so Greg might be waiting a while for his check




Sea Ice Sets All Time Record High

Antarctica has broken the record for the greatest sea ice extent ever measured at either pole.



If current trends continue, the Earth will be completely covered with ice much faster than the climate models predicted.

SOURCE  (See the original for links)



Your Future, Courtesy of Climate Activists

The head of research at a prominent UK climate facility believes that those of us who use refrigerators and drive cars will need to be coerced into altering our lifestyles.

All the mixed messaging out there regarding global warming sure is confusing. We’re frequently told that there are “simple, low-cost solution[s]” and “easy ways” to curtail our energy consumption. The implication is that anyone who won’t go to such trivial effort to save the planet must be both irrational and irretrievably selfish.

But don’t be fooled. The UK ‘s Guardian newspaper is currently highlighting the views of prominent climate activists. These paint a starkly different picture of the kind of sacrifices we’re all expected to make – and provide a glimpse of the future these activists have in store for us. It’s a future few of us would consider tolerable.

Kevin Anderson (whom I’ve previously described as the ‘ration card man’) assures us that “the future does not have to be…bleak” while at the same time declaring that we “desperately need” “major changes in our lifestyle.” The high carbon-dioxide emitting turkeys, he says, “are going to have to vote for a low-carbon Christmas.”

Except that this gent’s commitment to the democratic process – in which we all actually get to vote and to determine our own fates – is less than inspiring. High emitters, he says will need to be coerced into getting with the program. I am not making this up. Here are his very words:

the poor, even as they strive to buy fridges and drive cars, are not to blame. It is those already leading high-carbon lifestyles that need to instigate or be coerced into a radical transition to a low carbon future. This is the real challenge… [bold added; backup link]

So what form will that coercion take? This is important. Is he talking about fines? Imprisonment? Re-education camps? What ethical and legal boundaries is this tyrant-wannabee not prepared to cross?

By no stretch of the imagination is Anderson a marginalized voice whose anti-social, anti-democratic ravings don’t matter. This man is the head of climate research at the UK’s Tyndall Centre. He is a professor at Manchester University. If his remarks about coercing others have sparked an outcry from appalled colleagues at either institution I’ve yet to hear about it.

But let us give him his due. He does appear to be leading by example:

I haven’t flown for almost eight years – and that will have to continue. I have halved the distance I drive each year and have significantly changed how I drive. I’ve done without a fridge for 12 years, but recently relented and joined the very small proportion of the world’s population that has a fridge – this I may have to reverse! I’ve cut back on washing and showering – but only to levels that were the norm just a few years back. All this is a start but it is not enough. [bold added]

Please notice that final line. Anderson hasn’t boarded a plane in eight years. He has gone without a refrigerator for 12. He bathes less frequently. The distance he drives diminishes continually. And still, he tells us, these measures are merely the beginning.

All of these restrictions, all of these daily privations, are – in his words – “not enough.”

Welcome to your future as envisioned by climate activists. More to the point, welcome to the future these people want your children and grandchildren to endure. And all in the name of preventing a highly speculative, decades-into-the-future, by-no-means-assured climate catastrophe.

SOURCE




Cats and dogs must go!

People around the world are worrying about their carbon footprint. But what about their furry friends' carbon pawprints?

Consider the numbers: there are currently around 1 billion pet cats and dogs worldwide (not to mention hundreds of millions of stray ones), and pet ownership rates are vastly higher in western countries. About 40% of US households own at least one dog, compared with about 6% of Chinese homes.

However, the gap is closing fast, as the number of pets and the demand for food and other goodies in developing countries spiral. In India, dog ownership is growing annually at double digit rates, while in Vietnam and Thailand, the number of dog owners increased by around 50% between 2004 and 2007.

The ecological consequences of pets are significant when you consider the land needed to produce the energy and resources required for a large dog are equivalent to that of a four-wheel drive Land Rover; a medium dog is equivalent­ to a VW Golf. Or so say Brenda and Robert Vale, authors of the provocatively titled Time to Eat the Dog. Among many reason­able observations they note that we face real problems “when everyone starts to have a big car, big house, big family and a big dog”. They also note that many pets in the west have larger ecological­ footprints than humans in some developing countries.

The rising affluence of pets is becoming a problem. Joe Nicora
So, while the rising population of pets is significant enough, the rising affluence of pets is also important. The range of products and services hitting the market and encouraging pet owners to humanise their pets is staggering. There are dog houses with reverse-cycle air conditioning, some with flat screen TVs, and there are DVDs specifically catering to the tastes of different animals. From pet treadmills to electric blankets, a spiralling number of online stores and big box pet warehouses are selling aspirational pets an energy-intensive good life.

As pet owners decide that “what’s good for me is good for my pet”, they are creating a large, powerful and emissions-laden industry. In the United States alone, pet care is currently a $50 billion industry, having almost doubled in a decade. It is a microcosm­ of the same problem occurring with humans as developing countries become more affluent.

At the heart of the decadence is the trend towards “luxury” pet food, and the biggest beneficiaries are the four corporations that dominate the booming pet care industry and control 80% of its largest component – the global pet food market.

With pet faeces reportedly making up 4% of waste to landfill in some cities, clearly a great deal of pet food is being made. The food itself requires hundreds of millions of tonnes of meat and grain, as well as vast amounts of energy, most of it drawn from fossil fuels. It then has to be tinned, bagged and transported to all points of the planet.

Who are the companies encouraging us to humanise our pets with their luxury pet food? Surprising as it sounds, think chocolate, toothpaste and cleaning­ products: the largest pet food manufacturers are Nestlé, Mars, Procter & Gamble and Colgate. Each of these companies would like us to believe that their booming pet care businesses are climate-friendly, but it’s mostly spin behind the earnest-sounding pitches.

More HERE




Indian nutcase is a fervent climate catastrophist but admits we can't predict key climate events

See the last paragraph below

J Srinivasan, professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, goes through his work days secretly hoping for a global major climate crisis. As a leading climate change scientist in India, he knows that the country and the world are inching towards disaster. A serious crisis now would shake up people and make them act, he thinks. "I remember the ozone hole crisis while I was a student," says Srinivasan. "Scientists were talking about it for a long time, but they took action only when the hole appeared over the pole."

Srinivasan has reasons to worry, particularly for India. Some of his colleagues at the IISc have done the first multi-model study of climate change for India for the rest of the century. It makes grim reading, particularly after the year 2030. If the world does not cut down its carbon dioxide quickly, temperatures will rise - compared to pre-industrial times - over the Indian subcontinent by 1.7 to 2 degree centigrade by 2030, and 3.3 to 4.8 degree centigrade by 2080.

Since we have warmed by slightly less than a degree so far, the next 20 years would see an additional warming of nearly 1 degree centigrade. Says Govindaswamy Bala, professor at the Divecha Centre for Climate Change at the IISc: "This is the first multi-model study anyone has done over the Indian sub-continent, and it has shown agreement over historical data."

This study is to be published soon by the journal Current Science. Bala and his colleagues have used the new climate models that are going to be used for the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). They were available around May this year, and the IISc team has been quick to use them to give the first forecasts. All other studies have looked at only one model, and there are large variations between predictions of different models. The average of different models, as done by the current study, shows good agreement with what has happened in the past. So it is considered a more reliable indicator of future climate trends than those predicted by individual models.

The temperature increase has serious consequences for the Indian sub-continent. Water is expected to become scarce, forests to decline and agriculture output to fall. All models forecast an increase in rainfall over the century, but no one can predict how this increase will happen. What would happen if the increase is over the sea, concomitant with a decrease over land? Models also predict increase in rainfall to happen in intense bursts and not spread over a long period. All this would point to a water scarcity over the sub-continent, although the precise amount will depend on how the rainfall is distributed over the country.

In the Current Science study, rainfall - if we do nothing about reducing carbon dioxide - would increase 4 to 5 per cent by 2030 and 6 per cent to 14 per cent by the end of the century. Also shown to increase is the frequency of extreme precipitation.

"We have very little ability to predict rainfall accurately," says Srinivasan. For example, in the last decade, the end of September has been a dry period. This is not in tune with what happened over the last century. No one knows why this happens.

SOURCE





Disaster foretold for the year 3000

A pretty safe prediction.  None of us will be around to see if it happens or not

 Greenhouse gas emissions up to now have triggered an irreversible warming of Earth that will cause sea levels to rise for thousands of years to come, new research has shown.

The results come from a study, published today (Oct. 2) in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, which sought to model sea-level changes over millennial timescales, taking into account all of Earth's land ice and the warming of the oceans -- something which has not been done before.

The research showed that we have already committed ourselves to a sea-level rise of 1.1 metres by the year 3000 as a result of our greenhouse gas emissions up to now. This irreversible damage could be worse, depending on the route we take to mitigating our emissions.

If we were to follow the high A2 emissions scenario adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a sea-level rise of 6.8 metres could be expected in the next thousand years. The two other IPCC scenarios analysed by the researchers, the B1 and A1B scenarios, yielded sea-level rises of 2.1 and 4.1 metres respectively.

More masturbation HERE

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