Ann Coulter "gets" radiation hormesis



Greenies love to pump up the radiation scare as a lever to attack nuclear power and nuclear deterrence but it's been known since before WWII that ionizing radiation can have health benefits




When It Comes to Global Warming, the News Media Only See What They Want

by John Ziegler

“The global warming debate is over!”  That has been a common battle cry from the political left and the news media for years now. As a conservative who is inherently skeptical of any media-driven “conventional wisdom” (mostly because they almost always turn out wrong), this declaration has always made me chuckle for several reasons.

First, as I recently asked Democratic congressman John Yarmuth on my syndicated radio show: If the left is so confident that they’ve “won” this debate (personally, I don’t recall that we ever really even had one), why in the world would they want so badly for it to be over? If I was really humiliating my opponents on an issue both in reality and in perception, I would want to keep that discussion going as long and as often as I possibly could.

The fact that the left refuses to engage in any debate on global warming — and wants the matter closed yesterday — makes me extremely suspicious that they aren’t actually so confident that they are right, or that they are winning. When they go a step further and call those who disagree with them “deniers” and equate them with “blasphemers” or those who claim the Holocaust didn’t really happen, like a bully who has nothing to back up his bravado, it makes me think they have some extreme insecurities.

But last week broke new grounds in the lengths people will go to cut off any dissent on this issue, which many have used to hinder business production in extremely significant ways. And the news media’s curious lack of a negative reaction is also telling.

President Obama, while speaking to the graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy, declared “climate change” to be one of the primary threats to our national security. Given the precarious state of the world, that would have certainly elevated the topic way beyond what it deserved even if it was based reality, but the president hardly stopped there. He went on to utter what I consider the single-most absurd statement a president has made in prepared remarks in my memory:

"If you see storm clouds gathering or dangerous shoals ahead you don’t just sit back and do nothing. You take action to protect your ship, to keep your crew safe. Anything less is negligence. It is a dereliction of duty. So to with climate change. Denying it or refusing to deal with it endangers our national security. It undermines the readiness of our forces."

There is simply no other rational way to interpret those words than that the commander-in-chief of our armed forces told those entering into a branch of our military that it is a “dereliction of duty” just to even “deny” the existence of man-made climate change. So there is no confusion, he had to be referring to the man-made variety of climate change because presumably there is nothing any of us can do to “take action” against “normal” climate change, which has happened since the beginning of time.

What the president did there was outrageous even if he was somehow completely correct on the underlying issue. He was telling future members of our military that it is effectively a “thought crime” to disagree with him on a topic that is both inherently extremely political as well currently impossible to prove either way.

I would like you to consider what the media reaction to similar statement made by George W. Bush would have been like. Can you imagine if Bush had told the graduating class at West Point that it was a “dereliction of their duty” to “deny” the existence of Jesus Christ? Twitter would have broken and the cable networks would still be in a 24/7 frenzy.

While most on the left will scoff at such an analogy, I would maintain that belief in catastrophic anthropogenic climate change has all the hallmarks of a religion. Regardless, what even the left cannot dispute is that the mainstream news media almost completely overlooked the ludicrousness of Obama’s statements. A simple Google search of “Obama Deny Climate Change Dereliction of Duty” shows that only news sources considered “conservative” made a big issue out of his words.

This type of omission is usually the tactic the news media uses most effectively to maintain the status quo in the climate debate. After all, how can a debate that is “over” ever be reversed when any and all data points which would lead one in the other direction are aggressively ignored?

This past week provided two other classic examples of the omission phenomenon. The most dramatic occurred in the Texas/Oklahoma area where massive flooding drenched an area which had been in a severe drought since 2011.

I am quite sure that some of the global warming believers, much like religious zealots, will see the two water-logged states as further proof that their faith in man-made climate chaos is justified. However, I believe the opposite is true.

In 2013, USA Today, among many major news outlets to focus on the issue, published a special report on how global warming was exacerbating the supposedly historic drought in Texas and that “likely do more damage in the future.” Well, that drought is amazingly now officially over less than two years later.

This, in a remotely logical world, would leave only two options: 1) Global Warming has been fixed; or 2) The report was a piece of garbage using a natural cycle to promote a political agenda. I asked the reporter via Twitter if she intended on retracting the piece now that the supposedly global warming-caused drought is over so incredibly quickly, but shockingly I got no response.

Nowhere in the news media was there any indication that this drought data point, which has recently been used to score points in the global warming debate, had been effectively been proven to have been illegitimate. The news media ignored the same development with regard to Florida’s horrific drought of 2006-07 which has since been doused, except for the very southern tip of the state (which is ironically still drier than normal because of the pronounced lack of hurricanes produced by Global Warming lately).

Also this past week, most of the news media managed to somehow overlook a report by Forbes which indicated that one of the basic foundations of the global warming religion is based in a falsehood. It turns out that NASA satellite data now indicates that the polar ice caps have not actually receded at all since that information started to become available in 1979 (all data pools in this realm are so incredibly shallow as to be roughly the equivalent to trying to determine the final baseball standings based on only the first game of the season). Making this even more remarkable is the fact that 1979 was at the end of a cooling period and therefore should have been a year from which icecap reseeding would be more obvious.

But see, the global warming fanatics will tell you that it is all much more complicated than it appears. That one must be an “expert” (preferably one who owes their career progression to being part of the global warming “pack’) to properly interpret the data. That common sense has no place in this discussion. That extreme weather examples are only allowed to used if they support one side of the argument (and ALL unusual weather somehow fits perfectly into global warming theory). That you are humiliating yourself if you dare to “deny” or even question the obvious reality and imminent danger of man-made climate change.

Sorry. I am not buying it. And the more the news media pretends the other side doesn’t exist, and the political left continues to intimidate and scare instead of engaging in legitimate debate, the more confident I will be that this whole issue is mostly just hot air.

SOURCE





EPA Expands Authority Over America's Waterways

More than a year after initially proposing it, and despite efforts by congressional Republicans to block such a move, the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, citing authority under the Clean Water Act, enacted a new rule that gives the federal government additional control over waterways. “The Obama administration issued a rule on Wednesday putting more small bodies of water and wetlands under federal protection to ensure clean drinking supplies,” The Wall Street Journal reports, a power grab that “is estimated to put about 3% more waterways throughout the U.S. under new federal jurisdiction.”

Obama officials say they’re simply maximizing existing legal authority. According to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, “This rule is about clarification, and in fact, we’re adding exclusions for features like artificial lakes and ponds, water-filled depressions from constructions and grass swales.” However, the Journal adds, “The rule seeks to require those kinds of permits for only those waterways that have physical features of flowing water.”

And that’s exactly the concern, explains Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw: “The physical feature of flowing water? Depending on the conditions, the slope of the land and how much it rains on any given day, that could apply to pretty much anything.” Moreover, “People who own property adjacent to or including swampy areas with poor drainage can (and already have) run afoul of the feds if they want to improve the drainage to dry out a section for construction or just a better looking lawn.”

As Mark Alexander wrote last month, Democrats, led by the powerful EPA, leverage environmental concerns to conceal their real agenda — the constriction of free enterprise. Their objective is to incrementally implement centralized economic control through regulatory requirements justified by ever-expanding “mandates.” In implementing its newest rule — “one of nearly 10 that the EPA is slated to complete in coming months,” the Journal notes — the agency is essentially saying, “Trust us.” That’s a dangerous thing to oblige when Liberty is at stake.

SOURCE





The Age Of Disinformation

James Spann

I have been a professional meteorologist for 36 years. Since my debut on television in 1979, I have been an eyewitness to the many changes in technology, society, and how we communicate. I am one who embraces change, and celebrates the higher quality of life we enjoy now thanks to this progress.

But, at the same time, I realize the instant communication platforms we enjoy now do have some negatives that are troubling. Just a few examples in recent days…

I would say hundreds of people have sent this image to me over the past 24 hours via social media.



Comments are attached… like “This is a cloud never seen before in the U.S.”… “can’t you see this is due to government manipulation of the weather from chemtrails”… “no doubt this is a sign of the end of the age”.

Let’s get real. This is a lenticular cloud. They have always been around, and quite frankly aren’t that unusual (although it is an anomaly to see one away from a mountain range). The one thing that is different today is that almost everyone has a camera phone, and almost everyone shares pictures of weather events. You didn’t see these often in earlier decades because technology didn’t allow it. Lenticular clouds are nothing new. But, yes, they are cool to see.

No doubt national news media outlets are out of control when it comes to weather coverage, and their idiotic claims find their way to us on a daily basis.

The Houston flooding is a great example. We are being told this is “unprecedented”… Houston is “under water”… and it is due to manmade global warming.

Yes, the flooding in Houston yesterday was severe, and a serious threat to life and property. A genuine weather disaster that has brought on suffering.

But, no, this was not “unprecedented”. Flooding from Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 was more widespread, and flood waters were deeper. There is no comparison. In fact, many circulated this image in recent days, claiming it is “Houston underwater” from the flooding of May 25–26, 2015. The truth is that this image was captured in June 2001 during flooding from Allison.

Flood events in 2009, 2006, 1998, 1994, 1989, 1983, and 1979 brought higher water levels to most of Houston, and there were many very serious flood events before the 1970s.

On the other issue, the entire climate change situation has become politicized, which I hate. Those on the right, and those on the left hang out in “echo chambers”, listening to those with similar world views refusing to believe anything else could be true.

Everyone knows the climate is changing; it always has, and always will. I do not know of a single “climate denier”. I am still waiting to meet one.

The debate involves the anthropogenic impact, and this is not why I am writing this piece. Let’s just say the Houston flood this week is weather, and not climate, and leave it at that.

I do encourage you to listen to the opposing point of view in the climate debate, but be sure the person you hear admits they can be wrong, and has no financial interest in the issue. Unfortunately, those kind of qualified people are very hard to find these days. It is also hard to find people that discss climate without using the words “neocon” and “libtard”. I honestly can’t stand politics; it is tearing this nation apart.

Back to my point… many professional meteorologists feel like we are fighting a losing battle when it comes to national media and social media hype and disinformation. They will be sure to let you know that weather events they are reporting on are “unprecedented”, there are “millions and millions in the path”, it is caused by a “monster storm”, and “the worst is yet to come” since these events are becoming more “frequent”.

You will never hear about the low tornado count in recent years, the lack of major hurricane landfalls on U.S. coasts over the past 10 years, or the low number of wildfires this year. It doesn’t fit their story. But, never let facts get in the way of a good story…. there will ALWAYS be a heat wave, flood, wildfire, tornado, tyhpoon, cold wave, and snow storm somewhere. And, trust me, they will find them, and it will probably lead their newscasts. But, users beware…

SOURCE






The real climate threat to our national security

National security, the Seattle oil rig, hypocrisy, and Greenpeace’s dirty money

Ron Arnold

President Obama had it all wrong in his recent commencement address at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. He warned that climate change “deniers” endanger our national security – insisting that denial “undermines the readiness of our forces.”

In fact, climate change true believers are the real threat to our national security. That includes the notorious Seattle mob of Greenpeace “kayaktivists” who were recently paddling around Puget Sound, in kayaks made from petroleum, trying to stop Shell Oil’s Polar Pioneer Arctic drilling rig from making a layover at the Port of Seattle to gear up for Alaskan waters.

When thwarted by the Coast Guard’s 500-foot no-approach cordon, the Greenpeace canoe crowd left the harbor and took to the streets, where they blocked supplier access to the rig until city police dispersed them.

These angry picketers are the threat. They undermine America’s share of the Arctic Ocean’s estimated 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its oil reserves. That fuel could power the military as well as civilians.

How can slogan shouters endanger America’s national security when their targets are civilian oil rigs? Shell’s rigs will draw needed attention to the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in an ocean filling with Russia’s growing Arctic supremacy. This month, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a Senate appropriations committee hearing that the U.S. military Arctic defense policy is falling short.

The United States lacks ships able to operate in or near Arctic ice. We have only two medium icebreakers, one of which is nearly a decade past pull date. Russia has 40 big icecap-crunchers, 25 of them nuclear-powered, including one battleship-size beast ominously named 50 Years of Victory (but it takes tourists to the North Pole for 15-day cruises at $30,000 and up).

Our entire Alaskan Arctic coast has no U.S. military base, not one. Russian jets make nearly monthly incursions to the Air Defense Identification Zones off the coast of Alaska. Interceptors have to fly to the north coast from Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks (500 miles) or all the way from Elemendorf AFB in Anchorage (725 miles).

President Putin strategically laid claim to great swaths of Arctic oil and gas with deployed rigs. He has activated the Northern Fleet – two-thirds of the entire Russian Navy – as a strategic military command. And he has assigned a 6,000-soldier Russian Arctic warfare unit to the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, with next generation fighter aircraft in addition to advanced S400 Triumf anti-aircraft systems. An Arctic military reconnaissance drone base 420 miles off mainland Alaska is operational.

In February, President Obama seemed to have adopted the Greenpeace strategy of roll over and play dead, when he stripped Alaska of vast stores of its oil and gas wealth, by reducing offshore drilling and declaring most of the 19.6-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off limits to oil production. Yet his administration approved a conditional permit for Shell’s Arctic oil exploration.

The United States “may be 40 years behind” Russia, Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski told Defense Secretary Carter. This spring, the U.S. Northern Command is supposed to release a report that is expected to militarize the existing 2013 National Strategy for the Arctic Region. However, according to the strategy, as reported by Foreign Policy Journal, “the Navy’s role will primarily be in support of search and rescue, law enforcement, and civil support operations.”

Shell’s oil rigs provide peaceful reasons for our warships and planes to patrol the Arctic in counterbalance to Russia. Carter told Murkowski, “The Arctic is going to be a major area of importance to the United States strategically and economically to the future.”

Research by Chicago-area Heartland Institute found a secret beneath Greenpeace’s anti-oil ruckus: it is funded by oil-drenched millions from investments in ExxonMobil, Chevron, PetroChina and dozens of other fossil fuel firms, ironically including shares of Royal Dutch Shell, owner of the rig docked in Seattle.

According to Foundation Search, the top Greenpeace donor is the leftist-run David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which paid them a total of $2,146,690 since 2000. The deceased electronics mogul’s foundation managers boast 2013 assets of $6.9 billion.

They have invested enormous working capital into Anadarko Petroleum, Apache Corporation, Arch Coal, Carrizo Oil and Gas, Chevron, ConocoPhilips, Devon Energy, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, Phillips66, Questar, Tesoro, Valero Energy, World Fuel Service (a defendant in lawsuits over the 2013 oil train explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec that killed 47 people), and many others. They pay Greenpeace from the profits.

Second-ranked Greenpeace donor is the leftist-funding Arcus Foundation, which gave the Rainbow Warrior security threats $1,055,651 since 2007. Established by ultra-green billionaire Jon Stryker, Arcus’ 2013 assets totaled $169,472,585 – with working capital injected into China Petroleum, ExxonMobil, PetroChina, Royal Dutch Shell and TransCanada (the “tar” sands pipeline company). It also paid Greenpeace from its fossil fuel profits.

The list of foundations giving oil profits to Greenpeace goes on and on – and Greenpeace goes on and on hypocritically taking those oil profits to undermine America’s real energy future.

This cabal could redeem itself instantly: they could just stop using any fossil fuels right now.

Via email





Australia: Action on damage to the GBR

I love reading the far-Left "New Matilda".  They are such crooks.  The article below is critical of the conservative Abbott government in being slow to prosecute an erring Chinese shipping company.  It TOTALLY omits to mention that the accident happened during the Leftist Rudd regime and that the Leftists had 3 YEARS to do something but did nothing.  If they had a shred of decency the Matildas   would be CONGRATULATING Abbott.  But there's no decency in Leftism -- only rage, hate anger and lies

The Abbott government is finally moving to sue a Chinese shipping company that destroyed a section of the Great Barrier Reef in 2010. But Greens Environment spokesperson, Larissa Waters wants action on repair. Thom Mitchell reports.

The federal government is suing a Chinese company which caused “the largest known direct impact on a coral reef” when one of its ships ran aground in the Great Barrier Reef off Rockhampton in 2010.

The Chinese-registered Shen Neng 1 ran aground on April 3 in 2010, and “despite ongoing attempts to have the ship’s owner pay for damages, the Commonwealth was unsuccessful in securing funds from the ship owner or its insurer to clean-up and remediate the site”.

Yesterday, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) announced that the government has been left with “no alternative but to take legal action in the Federal Court”.

“This has been a great disappointment, particularly given the nature and scale of the incident, and GBRMPA remains concerned about the long-term health of the shoal,” said Dr Russell Reichelt, the Authority’s Chairman.

“The Commonwealth is seeking damages from the ship’s owner for the cost of remediation of the shoal or, as an alternative, orders requiring remediation of the shoal by the ship’s owner.”

A government report into the incident, handed down in June 2011, examined the affect the ship’s grounding had on the reef.

“The vessel grounding caused significant impacts to the habitats of Douglas Shoal, with extensive areas of severe physical damage to, and destruction of, the shoal habitats and considerable contamination by toxic chemicals,” the report found.

Around 115,000 square metres of the shoal were “severely damaged or destroyed” as the ship remained grounded for nine days, and 400,000 more square metres suffered “patchy or moderate” damage.

In a statement yesterday, Dr Reichelt said contamination from toxic chemicals was of ongoing concern.

“Contamination of sediments by tributyltin, a highly toxic component of anti-foulant paint now banned in Australia for current use, was severe, although highly patchy,” according to the GBRMPA report.

“Strong mixing of the waters over the shoal will mean that the effects of this contamination may be spread very widely, well beyond the area of direct contact with the ship's hull.

“There was also significant pollution by oil, and by oil dispersants, at the time of the grounding,” with oil found on islands up to 25 kilometres from the grounding site.

The government’s announcement that it will go to the courts to try to seek funding for rehabilitation comes off the back of allegations on Tuesday that it has so far failed in that task.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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Swedish glaciologist casts doubt on the claim that air bubbles found in ice cores represent the true level of CO2 at the time the ice was laid down

Below find a machine translation from the original Swedish.  Note that it is already well-known that air bubbles in ice cores steadily degenerate over time. See here.  I questioned the reliability of ice-core studies here on 25th

This diffusion leads to my hypothesis that the levels of carbon dioxide and methane that one gets from ice cores are systematically low. In the second part of the hypothesis assumed amount diffusively leakage depend on temperature due to precipitation should vary with temperature. The residence time of a gas bubble in the transition zone can be the average of several thousand years in the interior of Antarctica, where annual precipitation is very small. If precipitation decreases because of lower temperature also increases the residence time of the gas bubbles in the transition zone of increased diffusive loss of gas as a result, and vice versa. This is, in my hypothesis, the reason that carbon dioxide and methane curves have the same shape as the temperature curve from ice drill cores.

The question now is whether the scientific literature can give any guidance about my hypothesis. I have browsed the literature and found some interesting things. Apart from diffusion in the firn, which have been studied carefully, so the diffusion of the gas molecules in the ice are not attracted little interest until recent years. It has been considered that this diffusion is so slow that it can not affect the results.

But Ikeda Fukazawa et al. (2004) found the theoretical path through the so-called molecular dynamic simulation of diffusion in ice crystals of molecules of oxygen, nitrogen, methane and carbon dioxide occurs by a different mechanism than previously thought. This meant new values ​​of diffusion coefficients that were several orders of magnitude larger than previously thought.

Ikeda Fukazawa et al. (2005) then developed a model for the diffusion of nitrogen and oxygen through klatratis (ie ice with gas bound as clathrates, no bubbles) which they used to study the loss of gas from the heap conditioned ice cores from Antarctica raised in a Japanese ice drill projects. They demonstrated that the ratio of nitrogen and oxygen in as little as three years changed because of the diffusion of klatratpartiklarna in the ice to the open air. They concluded that this result has important implications for the reconstruction of atmospheric composition using ice cores.

These unexpected results led to several new studies. Ahn et al. (2008) used a clever method to study the diffusion of carbon dioxide in the real klatratis from Antarctica, but from a coastal ice drill station with high annual rainfall. They were able to confirm that the diffusion of carbon dioxide in the ice were bigger than previously thought but still one or two orders of magnitude smaller than in firnen at a depth of nearly 300 meters. At greater depth at this site, about 940 m, estimated the other hand, the diffusion occurred as fast as in firnen. One must therefore where a significant leveling of carbon dioxide concentrations variations. But they also emphasized that their calculations only to the diffusion in the ice, while it is possible that diffusion can also take place in water-filled grain boundaries between the ice crystals.

Bereiter et al. (2009) also used the diffusion model according to Ikeda-Fukazawa et al. (2004) to study diffusionsförlust of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the stored up ice cores of klatratis from the interior of Antarctica, as Vostok. Their simulations line with the observed changes in oxygen-nitrogen ratio after 2, 4, 6 and 38 years. The carbon dioxide content also affected under the simulation but in this case diffused carbon dioxide is relatively slower than nitrogen and oxygen so that the effect was too high values ​​of carbon dioxide concentration.

Bereiter et al. (2014) have simulated what this diffusion model has implications for the equalization of carbon dioxide concentrations variations in ice from the Antarctic interior. They concluded that the countervailing power of carbon dioxide variations in the oldest ice at a depth of 2700 m was 5% (in such an application is the driving force for diffusion very small and large diffusion distances).

The UN climate panel's latest scientific report (IPCC 2013), the aforementioned discussion in the scientific literature on diffusion effects in connection with ice cores is not treated. These discussed the articles that dealt diffusionsproblemen in connection with the ice cores (Ikeda Fukazawa et al. 2004, 2005: Ahn et al., 2008; Bereiter et al. 2009) are not included in the report (IPCC 2013) reference list.

The UN Climate Panel writes the following about ice drill cores (IPCC 2013 p. 391):

As a complement to the instrumental data provide air trapped in polar ice a direct measure of the concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases, although this has leveled off due to the diffusion of firnen (Joos and Spahni, 2008; Köhler et al., 2011).

Only the influence of diffusion in the firn treated in Joos and Spahni (2008) and Kohler et al. (2011), any discussion of the diffusion of gases in the ice during firnlagret are not in these articles.

What does this mean for my hypothesis? First, it is important to keep in mind that the diffusion that my hypothesis relates occurs from gas bubbles at high pressure to open pores at atmospheric pressure, the diffusion distances through the ice are small, at least fractions of mm, and the time when the diffusion can be effectively is of the order of hundreds of years. The articles of the literature review shows significant diffusion of diffusion in many etc. after a few years. Secondly, it is important that the data available is both uncertain and incomplete so that something truly vital if the hypothesis can not be said.

It is important to understand both the similarity and the difference between diffusion through the ice from a klatratpartikel to the atmosphere and the diffusion from a pressurized gas bubble. Let us compare a klatratpartikel and a gas bubble with the same composition of the gas mixture. Diffusion of gas molecules from the particle or bubble will be determined by how much concentration is right on the boundary of the ice-free dissolved gas molecules.

In klatratpartikeln seems chemical forces on the gas molecules that are not in the gas bubble. These forces act more strongly to molecules of carbon dioxide than the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen. They reduce the concentration at the particle surface and therefore reduces the diffusion rate which means that diffusion of carbon dioxide at a disadvantage compared with oxygen and nitrogen in relation to when we have the gas bubble in place. Carbon I judge from the data in Bereiter et al. (2009) that this effect increases koldioxiddiffusionen approximately twenty times from the gas bubble compared to klatratpartikeln.

The effect of the loss of gas from klatratis by diffusion in the storage of ice cores is thus according to the analysis of Bereiter et al. (2009) that it would get to high carbon dioxide levels. But the diffusion of carbon dioxide from gas bubbles in the transition zone should go about twenty times faster than from klatratpartiklar so it is quite possible that you get the reverse effect of gas bubbles lose gas to the open pores in the transition zone where the bubbles and open pores are about each other. If so, we will systematically low values ​​of the concentrations of both carbon dioxide and methane leads to the second part of my hypothesis also a good explanation as to why carbon dioxide and methane curves are so similar temperature curve, as I described in last Friday's blog post.

My conclusion is therefore that I have found in the literature rather strengthens my hypothesis than weaken it. It is now clear that one must expect that the diffusion of gas molecules in the ice have significant effects. But it is not some big rashes in either direction for my hypothesis as long as the understanding and the data that they discussed diffusionseffekterna is so uncertain and incomplete (eg no knowledge at all about the diffusion of water-filled grain boundaries in the ice).

SOURCE





Leaving the Church of Environmentalism

By Alan Caruba

In March 2009 while the Environmental Protection Agency was rushing to fulfill a presidential campaign pledge to document that carbon dioxide (CO2) and five other greenhouse gases endangered public health and the environment, a longtime employee, Alan Carlin, put out a 93-page report challenging the science being cited and the drift of the agency from its initial role to one captured by fanatical activists and alarmists, treating environmentalism more as a religion than based in science.

At the time Carlin was a 72-year-old analyst and economist who, as The New York Times put it, “had labored in obscurity in a little-known office at the Environmental Protection Agency since the Nixon administration.” His EPA career would span 38 years.

The website for his new book, “Environmentalism Gone Mad” says, “Dr. Alan Carlin is an economist and physical scientist with degrees from Caltech and MIT and publications in both economics and climate/energy, who became actively involved in the Sierra Club in the 1960s as an activist and Chapter Chairman. This led to a career as a manager and senior analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency.”

As he says in the preface “The purpose of this book is to explain why I changed from my lifelong support of the environmental movement to extreme skepticism concern their current primary objective of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide.”

“Although I and the many other climate skeptics are now referred to as ‘deniers’ by the climate alarmists, that does not change the science—and there is no valid scientific basis for the alarmists’ catastrophic climate predictions—or justify their fantastically expensive and useless ‘solution.’”

Carlin went from being a dedicated environmentalist, based on its initial philosophy of conservation, to an observer of the movement that was taken over and distorted to advocate falsehoods about global warming and a transition from fossil-fuels to “clean energy” meaning wind, solar and bio-fuels. As an economist he understood how absurd it was to suggest rejecting fossil-fuels, the key element of modern industry and society.

“The climate alarmists,” says Carlin, “have now been making their apocalyptic predictions for almost thirty years and it is now possible to compare their predictions with actual physical observations.”  Suffice to say all the predictions of a significantly higher temperature—the warming—have been wrong.

In fact, the Earth has been in a natural cooling cycle since 1998 and shows no indication of warming

Predictions about the North and South Poles melting, a major rise in ocean levels, increased hurricanes and other climate events have been wrong along with countless other climate-related apocalyptic predictions.

Having observed how the EPA has functioned for more than three decades, Carlin warns that its current “environmental policy has been hijacked by radicals intent on imposing their ideology by government fiat on the rest of us whether we like it or not…If environmental policy is based on government fiat or ‘green’ policy prescriptions the results have been and are very likely to continue to be disastrous.”

At 625 pages, Carlin’s book takes the reader from his early days as a Sierra Club activist and chapter leader to being an EPA outcast, denounced for telling the truth about the false claims of global warming, climate change, and what is now being called extreme weather.

As an economist, Carlin is particularly upset that “the Obama Administration’s climate/energy policy is wasting very large sums on non-solutions to minor or non-problems.”  The book has come along as President Obama has been flogging “climate change” as the greatest threat to the nation and the world.

“It has been long recognized that weather is chaotic," says Carlin. While we operate within the four seasons, the weather that occurs can only be predicted in the most general terms. Suggesting that humans actually have any effect on the weather is absurd.

That is why the predictions made by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and all the others based on computer models are, by definition, worthless. Computer models cannot predict anything about the vast chaotic global climate system. Even today, meteorologists are mystified by the actions of clouds which can form and disappear in minutes.

It’s useful to keep in mind that climate is measured in centuries, while the weather is reported as what is occurring today and forecast, at best, for no more than a week. Weather records are maintained for purposes of comparison and within the larger context of determining the Earth’s climate cycles. Like those in the past, the present cooling cycle is based on a comparable one of the Sun that is producing lower levels of radiation. You don’t need a Ph.D. in meteorology to understand this.

Carlin does not hesitate to excoriate the blather put forth by the alarmists; particularly their claims that the weather is affected in any significant fashion by human activity and development in particular. “There is simply no evidence thus far that the normal activities of man have or will result in catastrophic outcomes for either man or nature.”

The actions the alarmists call for do nothing to enhance and benefit our lives. They drive up the cost of energy and food. They ignore how dependent modern life is on the use of fossil fuels.

“Despite all the lavish funding by liberal foundations and the federal government on their global warming doctrine-inspired programs, the radical environmental movement has long since gone so far beyond rationality that it is counter-productive in achieving its own ends.”

So long as it remains heavily funded and backed by the federal government, we must, like Carlin, speak out against environmental extremism. We must elect new people to govern in a more realistic, science-based fashion. We must urge our current legislators to rein in the rogue Environmental Protection Agency.

SOURCE





Up to 99% of Everest's glaciers could be gone by 2100

And pigs might become airborne -- it's just modelling nonsense

Glaciers in the Everest region of the Himalayas could be almost completely eradicated by 2100 due to greenhouse gas emissions, scientists have warned.

Models show that a decrease of 99 per cent by the end of the century is likely if emissions continue to rise, and even 70 per cent is possible if emissions are reduced.

The study paints a grim picture of the impact of climate change on the world's highest peak.

The research was carried out by scientists from Nepal, the Netherlands and France.

They studied weather patterns in the atmosphere and then created a model of conditions on Everest to determine the future impact of rising temperatures on its glaciers.

'The worst-case scenario shows a 99 per cent loss in glacial mass... but even if we start to slow down emissions somewhat, we may still see a 70 per cent reduction,' said Dr Joseph Shea of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Kathmandu, who led the study.

Increased temperatures will not only increase the rates of snow and ice melt, but can also result in a change of precipitation from snow to rain at critical elevations, where glaciers are concentrated.

Together, these act to reduce glacier growth and increase melting in the area.

Glaciers in High Mountain Asia, a region that includes the Himalayas, contain the largest volume of ice outside the polar regions.

The team studied glaciers in the Dudh Kosi basin in the Nepal Himalaya, which is home to some of the world's highest mountain peaks, including Mt Everest, and to over 154 square miles (400 square km) of glacier area.

'Apart from the significance of the region, glaciers in the Dudh Kosi basin contribute meltwater to the Kosi River, and glacier changes will affect river flows downstream,' said Dr Shea.

Dr Shea was part of a team that published a major study last year using satellite imagery to show how Nepal's glaciers had already shrunk by nearly a quarter between 1977 and 2010.

But the latest study, published Wednesday in international scientific journal The Cryosphere, shows the region getting much worse by 2100.

'Once we had tested our model and got the weather patterns right, we increased temperatures according to different emission scenarios for a look at future scenarios,' Dr Shea said.

He said melting glaciers could form deep lakes which could burst and flood mountain communities living downstream.

Dr Shea said shrinking glaciers could also affect water supplies in the Everest region, with lower volumes of snowmelt flowing into the Dudh Kosi river, which provides water for Nepalis downstream.

'The decline during the pre-monsoon period will probably have an impact on any future hydropower projects because there won't be enough rainwater to meet power needs.'

Glacial loss in Nepal raises concerns over future access to water resources, particularly in regions where groundwater is limited and monsoon rains are erratic.

SOURCE





The Sustainability Project

By Rich Kozlovich

On May 23rd the Shanghai Daily ran an article titled, “UN chief sees biodiversity key tosustainable development, ending poverty”.

The article starts out stating that, “UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon on Friday called on everyone to recommit to global action to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss, for people and for our planet, saying that biodiversity is essential to sustainable development and eradicating poverty.”  The article goes on to quote the Secretary-General saying, “Protecting ecosystems and ensuring access to ecosystem services by poor and vulnerable groups are essential to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger."

 And how does Ban think this is going to be accomplished?  The article states, “Ban said reducing deforestation and land degradation and enhancing carbon stocks in forests, dry lands, (Is he advocating the building of dams becuase the environmental movement is against that?) range lands and crop lands generate significant benefits and are cost-effective ways to mitigate climate change.”  He continues saying, “any sustainable development framework must provide conditions for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for more equitable sharing of benefits”.

Souza Dias claims, "Biodiversity underpins all those ecosystem functions and benefits essential to human well-being, not only in terms of our economies, but also for our health, food security, prevention of natural hazards, and our cultural roots”.  He also states that, “biodiversity sustainably can provide solutions to a range of challenges to sustainability and human well-being, including poverty eradication, food security, sustainable production and consumption, water security, disaster risk reduction and climate change.”

For those who don’t follow this stuff you will read these comments and it may sound rational.  But what happens when we take them one at a time, analyze them and then ask what they're really saying and what these statements mean?

First of all sustainable development is indefinable, or unendingly re-definable according the the green whim of the moment, which is common in all things the left promotes, especially when it comes to the green movement.  The word sustainable means to be able to do something over and over again.  What exactly is it that’s not being done over and over again they wish to restore or prevent from disappearing?  What exactly is the current generation destroying for future generations?  They never tell us what isn’t being done over and over again, since they only declare things are unsustainable without any evidence to support these hysterical speculations.  What is it they actually want?   Remember when they claimed using  traditional energy souces was unsustainable?  Which of course meant modern agriculture was unsustainable.  All of that turned out to be blatantly false.  As for biological sustainability - its even less definable and borders on neo-pagan nature worshipping mysticism.  

Are we to assume no species of animal or plant can be allowed to go extinct?  If that’s the case what steps should be taken to prevent that?  Under the Endangered Species Act that requires setting aside “suitable habitat”, which can include ridiculous amounts of acreage.  And it doesn’t stop there.  Anything done around that “suitable habitat zone” can be restricted because some bureaucrat decides it’s detrimental to some bug, or plant that’s been designated as endangered.  That stopped the Keystone Pipeline.  How is that going to reduce hunger and support good economic policy?

Let’s take a look at the comments made by Ban and Diaz.

1.  Ban is quoted saying: “biodiversity is essential to sustainable development and eradicating poverty.”  - If there ever was a logical fallacy – this is it!  Okay, so now we have to ask - why and how? If biodiversity is essential to eradicating poverty there must be some firm logical foundation to support that statement.  What is it?  Just exactly how is biodiversity going to eradicate poverty?  If anything - it will increase it!  Unless of course you reduce the world’s population dramatically, which is the underlying motive of the environmental movement, and that doesn’t really supply an answer to endng poverty.  Poverty has been with mankind for all of human history.  The idea of eradicating poverty is just more leftist utopian blather, and will never be achieved by any of the means discussed.  It’s a red herring to deflect attention from the real goal.  World governance by the most corrupt and incompetent organization the world has ever known.  The United Nations!

2.  “Ban said reducing deforestation and land degradation and enhancing carbon stocks in forests, dry lands, range lands and crop lands generate significant benefits and are cost-effective ways to mitigate climate change.”  - What exactly does “enhancing carbon stocks mean”?  First let’s define REDD+.  “Launched in September 2008, the United Nations Collaborative initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, known better simply as UN-REDD was created with the goal of helping countries implement REDD+ strategies. What are REDD+ strategies? To quote the UN: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) - is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. “REDD+” goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

A key component of the REDD+ strategy, it includes forest management activities such as restoring existing but degraded forests and increasing forest cover through environmentally appropriate afforestation and reforestation.

So this is all about CO2 and the false premise that CO2 is causing catastrophic global warming! Since the incredibly small amount of warming that was taking place ended over 18 years ago it’s now “climate change”, in spite of the fact that levels of CO2 has increased.  The very premise for Ban’s comments is fraudulent.  Ban’s solution to end poverty is to take farm land and turn it into forests.  Did I understand that correctly? Not the Sahara desert, or the Gobi desert, or some other largely “pristine” but desolate area of the world, but areas that are already inhabited with large populations needing agricultural acreage.  Acreage that’s being eaten up with crops to make ethanol.  A policy the UN and the green movement supports.  Does this seem like cognitive dissonance, or is it a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the facts?

3. Ban claims, “any sustainable development framework must provide conditions for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for more equitable sharing of benefits”.  What does, “the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for more equitable sharing of benefits”.  What does that mean? And how is that to be accomplished?  We come right back to the leftist's desire of controlling outcomes that are acceptable to leftist elites.  In effect - when the word’s conservation, sustainability and biodiversity are used by leftists they're nothing more than triggers to promote worldwide socialism under the guise of equitability. In short - it's the same old socialist theme - you are being cheated by the rich so we're going to forcibly take it from them and give it to you.  Just give us the power!

4. Souza Dias claims, "Biodiversity underpins all those ecosystem functions and benefits essential to human well-being, not only in terms of our economies, but also for our health, food security, prevention of natural hazards, and our cultural roots”…..“biodiversity sustainably can provide solutions to a range of challenges to sustainability and human well-being, including poverty eradication, food security, sustainable production and consumption, water security, disaster risk reduction and climate change.”  - First of all there’s no such thing as an eco-system other than the planet itself.  These ‘eco-systems’ they talk about are never stable. Too much rain and plant and animal species are changed.  Too little water and another change will take place.  Forest fires destroy untold acreage and the plants and animals inhabiting the area changes.  Furthermore, species become extinct as a result of being biologically incompetent, and will be replaced by plants or animals that can adapt to change.  How many species have gone extinct?  Over 95% of all species that have ever lived are extinct, and all the species living today will become extinct.  Extinction is the rule, not the exception!

Let’s break down Dias’ thoughts individually.

"Biodiversity underpins all those ecosystem functions and benefits essential to human well-being". That statement is a red herring. What is it he wants to implement?  Controlled habitat that prevents use by humans so certain species will not be effected?
"Not only in terms of our economies", How is this really an economic issue? Explain!

"But also for our health," How is this a health issue? Explain!
"Food security" - How does committing to a UN biodiversity project provide food security? Explain!

"Prevention of natural hazards" - How does biodiversity prevent natural hazards, and what exactly qualifies as a natural hazard, and if they’re natural, how could they be prevented?  Do we really believe global warming causes hurricanes, tornadoes, etc?  We know those claims have been proven false.  Perhaps a commitment to biodiversity prevents earthquakes?

Cultural roots” - And the least definable and least meaningful of them all….cultural roots. What does that mean?  Never change what we do…forever?  End cultural patterns disapproved by the UN? Perhaps it means destroying the US Constitution.  Since the green movement is so hot on "going back to nature" perhaps it means abandoning all the advances that make modern life possible.

Dias claims “biodiversity sustainably can provide solutions to a range of challenges to sustainability and human well-being, including poverty eradication, food security, sustainable production and consumption, water security, disaster risk reduction and climate change.”  

All these sound bites sound appealing, but this is nothing more that another emotional appeal by the left claiming they have the answers that will bring about utopia.  The problem is all they ever deliver is dystopia.  Following a UN sponsored biodiversity program will not end poverty, provide food security, disaster risk reduction (whatever that means) or climate change.  Oh, it will provide “production and consumption” controls, but I don't think anyone except the ruling elite will like that outcome.  Because misanthropic leftists will be telling the world what to produce and how much of it everyone will be allowed to consume.

They will also control how much water you may use and for what.  If we have any delusions about what that will mean then just take a look at what's being done in California (which is facing a devastating drought) with the delta smelt, allowing thousands of gallons of fresh water to flow into the delta for the benefit of a bait fish, while destroying the farms that need it.  

As for climate change?  It’s the greatest fraud perpetrated by any human organization in all of human history.   The mere fact the UN continues to use this as a reason to adopt any of their schemes is a clear demonstration of the deliberate fraudulence behind their sustainable development and biodiversity programs.

Let's not be fooled by clever sounding rhetoric.  The answer is in the history.  The history of the left is filled with tyranny, misery, squalor, suffering, disease and early death, and if the world accepts these deliberate misrepresentations and red herrings of "sustainable development" and "biological diversity" - that's what will follow, and their warnings are as valid as The Monkey Stampede!

SOURCE





More solar panel subsidies die

Waste of money in Spain, USA, Britain and Germany and now Australia.  Aussie solar panels suck money from the poor and hand it to the rich

The cost of climate-change-inspired subsidies to boost the installation of rooftop solar systems has forced consumers who don’t have solar panels (the poor people) to pay $14bn to the rich people who do, but the Aussies are coming to their senses.

With 1.4m households having solar panels, Australia has the highest proportion in the world of households with solar panels, but the ill-advised subsidies that allowed them, plus presumably their marketing, outweigh any good they do by $9 billion. Unbelievable.

A report on the electricity market by the Grattan Institute think tank reveals that solar feed-in tariffs, which over-pay owners of solar panels for the power they supply to the grid, have created “a policy mess”. Well, that’s hardly surprising, considering the subsidies were the only financial reason to instal the things.

Anyway, it wants pricing reforms. The electricity price does not increase at peak times, so consumers who don’t have solar panels subsidise those who do, even though solar owners place the same strain on the distribution network. That’s because peak use of power usually occurs in the early evening when (surprise) the sun goes down.

While solar panels have cut emissions they have proved very costly—the equivalent of a carbon price of $170 a tonne. Emissions could have been reduced more cheaply and fairly. The Australian carbon price right now sits at $13.95 a tonne. The electricity regulator will require those with solar panels to pay more than before, so the installation of new solar panels in most capital cities will no longer be profitable.

Climate sceptics have been asking about discrepancies in the economics of solar panels for years. We still have questions about their carbon footprint, but they become moot as solar panels are killed off by economics.

Solar panels are fine in deserts, coral atolls and yachts, but they’ll never securely run a household or a steel mill—especially at night.

SOURCE





Record-breaking plunge into cold weather in Ontario

Looks like global warming missed Canada.  A pity. There's rather a lot of Canada and I am sure they'd like to cut their heating bills

Vineyard owners in Prince Edward County and the Niagara region are assessing the damage from a record-breaking plunge into cold weather late Friday night and into Saturday morning.

Farmers were sent scrambling to prevent frost from killing their fruit. They rented helicopters, turned on wind machines and set bales of hay on fire in an attempt to save what they could.

Some smaller wineries say their crop was practically gutted in the deep-freeze.

Clark Tyler, manager at Harwood Estate Vineyards in Prince Edward County, estimates that a mere five per cent of grapes at his four-hectare vineyard survived the frost.

“It’s just complete and utter devistation, anger and just makes me feel really upset,” said Tyler.

He said some of his friends lost nearly everything.

However, some farmers are hoping for a stroke of luck.

Liz Dobson Lacey, sales manager at Lacey Estates in Prince Edward County, says it will take another several weeks to assess the damage to her grape crop.

“This year was looking like a really great year and in less than six hours that was really taken away,” said Lacey.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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An example of a false premise leading to a foolish conclusiuon

More hayfever is coming! Caused by global warming, of course! The logic leading to that conclusion below is impeccable.  But a basic premise is faulty.  Global warming, feeble as it was, has now stopped completely.  So unless something changes, there will be NO increase of hayfever due to climate events.  Parthenium weed, another North American import, causes a lot of allergic reactions in Australia.  No doubt its spread will be blamed on global warming too

Hay fever misery to increase with global warming: Invasive ragweed to spread pollen further due to climate change.  Climate change could help a notorious invasive weed known to trigger severe allergy attacks to spread and bring misery to hay fever sufferers, experts have warned.

Ragweed, also known as Ambrosia artemisiifolia, is native to North America but since the 1960s has been spreading rapidly across warmer parts of Europe.

It is still rare in the UK, but researchers predict by 2050 it could be scattering pollen throughout much of Britain and northern Europe.  Pollen from the plant not only induces severe allergic reactions but also extends the hay fever season from summer to autumn.

Last year, researchers from the University of Leicester recorded airborne ragweed pollen levels in the East Midlands high enough to cause significant hay fever attacks.

Globally, average surface temperatures have increased by about 0.7°C over the past 100 years, leading to earlier plant growth in many regions.

The trend towards warming has been more pronounced in winter months, resulting in more changes in the timing of spring pollen seasons than those of summer and autumn.

The weed is a far more potent allergy trigger than grass and experts fear it could pose a serious public health problem if it becomes established.

Scientists writing in the journal Nature Climate Change found that *predicted* levels of global warming were likely to create conditions favourable to ragweed across large areas of northern Europe, including the UK.

They concluded: 'Climate change and ragweed seed dispersal in current and future suitable areas will increase airborne pollen concentrations, which may consequently heighten the incidence and prevalence of ragweed allergy.'

The researchers, led by Dr Lynda Hamaoui-Laguel, from the Laboratory of the Sciences of Climate and the Environment in Gif sur Yvette, France, ran computer simulations that forecast a four-fold increase in European ragweed pollen concentrations by 2050.

'Substantial increases' in pollen load were likely to occur in areas such as north-central Europe, northern France and southern England, where ragweed is rare today.

Ragweed is a prolific pollen producer - one plant is capable of generating up to a billion pollen grains per season.  Its wind-blown pollen can travel hundreds of miles and is also resilient enough to survive through a mild winter.

According to the research, depending on the speed of dispersal, pollen levels in some locations could rise as much as 12 times.

The northern spread of ragweed was expected regardless of whether a high or moderate level of global warming occurred.

The scientists added: 'Once established, ragweed is difficult to eradicate because of its long-lived seed, its capacity to re-sprout after cutting and its propensity to evolve resistance to herbicides.

'Our results indicate that controlling the current European ragweed invasion will become more difficult in the future as the environment will be more favourable for ragweed growth and spread, highlighting the need for the development of effective and regionally coordinated eradication programmes.'

Hay fever is known to affect between 10 and 30 per cent of the population worldwide and experts have predicted there could be around 31.8 million hay fever sufferers in the UK by 2030.

In the US, roughly 7.8 per cent of people 18 and over in the US have hay fever.

SOURCE





Something Greenies have taken away

Among the better things in life listed below is a well-pressured shower.  It's third on the list of pleasures. But what the Devil is a a "well-pressured shower"?  It would be a puzzle to me if I had not been in England at various times.  The thin piss of water they call a shower there is a shock to Australians, who like a good downpour on themselves.  Greenies are trying to bring it in here too with regulations about what can be fitted to new-build houses but the average Australian male is handyman enough to drill more holes in the low volume fitting or throw it away and get a proper one from the hardware store.  But for dutiful or tyrannized souls, their showers are not as satisfying as they once were

Getting into bed after a long journey, a well-pressured shower and freshly baked bread: Life's most satisfying everyday pleasures revealed

They say the best things in life are free.  And it turns out many people agree, if a recent Reddit thread revealing life's most simple pleasures is anything to go by.

User curlbenchsquater asked the question to people all over the world, and the poll revealed that back scratches, getting goosebumps from music and causing people to laugh all ranked highly on the list.

Unsurprisingly, many pleasures that came out top on the list were ones that resulted in a sense of physical relief after solving annoyances or irritations.

These included extracting a popcorn kernel lodged in the teeth, back and head scratches, taking bras off at the end of a long day, and also the satisfying first sip of a drink when thirsty.

One user even went so far as to embellish by adding vivid detail to the scenario, stating: 'It's hot outside and the only thing on your mind is an ice cold glass of water. And once you get that sip...'

Several of the simple pleasures were directly linked with creating comfortable or familiar situations.

Falling asleep while it's raining outside came out as one of the top simple pleasures, as did getting in your own bed after a long journey.

Several users agreed on putting on clothes straight out of the tumble dryer, with many citing that the level of warmth was comforting.

Other pleasures that Reddit users agreed on were ones that involved a certain sense of convenience, with opening a book on the right page ranking surprisingly high.

Many users praised the feeling of waking up and anticipating going to work, but instead experiencing the realisation that it's actually the weekend.

Others involved a sense of personal self-achievement, with many agreeing that making someone laugh - in particular a person that they looked up to - made them happy.

Another was merely starting a task and completing it, with one user adding: 'The task or job doesn't have to be sizeable necessarily, but when you complete something such as mowing your lawn of cleaning all of your dirty dishes, it feels good.'

But for others, just savouring their health was simple pleasure enough.

One user wrote: 'It's only when I get sick do I realize how bad I miss the days when I was you know.. not sick.

And another added: 'When you're sick but your nose starts to clear up and you can finally breathe properly.'

LIFE'S SIMPLEST SMALL PLEASURES -- the list

Falling asleep while it's raining outside
Back or head scratches
A shower with good water pressure
Lying in your own bed after a long journey
Fresh baked bread and good quality butter
The first sip of a drink when you're thirsty
Getting goosebumps from a song
Causing someone to laugh that you admire or look up to
Taking your bra off at the end of the day
Starting a task and finishing it
Getting a popcorn kernel out of your teeth
Waking up for work, only to realise it's Saturday
Opening a book on the page you need to be on
Sitting by a fire
Putting on clothes straight out of the dryer

SOURCE





Fred is close to becoming a "Slayer"

Most climate skeptics accept that heat radiation bouncing off atmospheric CO2 molecules could cause some terrestrial warming but argue that the warming concerned is trivial and of no importance to anything.  The Slayers however reject totally any theory of bouncing heat and say that the whole CO2 story is completely illogical.  One of the Slayers below say Fred Singer has got one foot in the Slayer camp.  The Slayer argument is set out here

Converging on the Truth: Atmospheric and space physicist Fred Singer (pictured) published an article in October of 2014 where he concluded that his position is becoming so skeptical of climate sensitivity claims that he is no longer in agreement with the bulk of the skeptical majority. Fred Singer

What Singer originally said in his summary in his article where he discussed the possibility of climate sensitivity to CO2 being close to zero was:

“I should note that I am somewhat out of step here with my fellow skeptics. Few of them would agree with me that the climate sensitivity (CS) is indeed close to zero. I will have to publish the analyses to prove my point and try to convince them. Of course, nothing, no set of facts, will ever convince the confirmed climate alarmists.”

A climate sensitivity (CS) close to zero flies in the face of not only the alarmist movement, but the generally accepted theory underlying CO2 climate alarm as well – the radiative greenhouse effect.  And so this is a difficult position to be in because some scientists, such as Singer, are discovering results which are inconsistent with the general expectations.

However, if the radiative greenhouse effect is itself flawed or based on a false underlying ontology, then a result of CS close to zero is exactly what one would expect as a possible consequence.  A CS close to zero falls right into the lap of what the “Slayers” and Principia Scientific International have been saying about the radiative greenhouse effect for years.

The radiative greenhouse effect is indeed based on a false, non-ontological model of the physical and energetic properties of the terrestrial system.  Climate sensitivity is close to zero because it is zero, within the context of the radiative greenhouse effect which originates this concept of climate sensitivity to CO2 in the first place.

My last post is a good starting point, and you can also read the “Fraud of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect” series (scroll down to the first post if you like), to learn more.

Read more by Joseph Postma at climateofsophistry.com

SOURCE





Former IPCC Researcher Questions Fossil Fuel Claims

Says no significant warming for EIGHT THOUSAND years

In a new study, physicist Philip J. Lloyd, a former researcher for the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), suggests global warming can’t necessarily be blamed entirely on greenhouse gases because 20 and 21st century temperature recordings lie within the standard deviation of natural warming.

“Dr. Philip Lloyd, a South Africa-based physicist and climate researcher, examined ice core-based temperature data going back 8,000 years to gain perspective on the magnitude of global temperature changes over the 20th Century. What Lloyd found was that the standard deviation of the temperature over the last 8,000 years was about 0.98 degrees Celsius — higher than the 0.85 degrees climate scientists say the world has warmed over the last century.”

According to Lloyd, “This suggests that while some portion of the temperature change observed in the 20th century was probably caused by greenhouse gases, there is a strong likelihood that the major portion was due to natural variations.”

Kudos to Lloyd for, if nothing else, exercising an open mind. On the other hand, how much are his friends over at the IPCC willing to listen? Even though carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, having just recently surpassed 400 ppm, temperatures haven’t responded in tandem. In fact, temperatures have been flat for nearly 18 and a half years. Which begs the question that the UN still can’t rationally explain: Why are humans suddenly at fault?

SOURCE






18 spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions around first Earth Day 1970, expect more

In the May 2000 issue of Reason Magazine, award-winning science correspondent Ronald Bailey wrote an excellent article titled “Earth Day, Then and Now” to provide some historical perspective on the 30th anniversary of Earth Day. sky is falling

In that article, Bailey noted that around the time of the first Earth Day, and in the years following, there was a “torrent of apocalyptic predictions” and many of those predictions were featured in his Reason article. Well, it’s now the 45th anniversary of  Earth Day, and a good time to ask the question again that Bailey asked 15 years ago: How accurate were the predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970?

The answer: “The prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but spectacularly wrong,” according to Bailey. Here are 18 examples of the spectacularly wrong predictions made around 1970 when the “green holy day” (aka Earth Day) started:

1. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

2. “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal Environment.

3. The day after the first Earth Day, the New York Times editorial page warned, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”

4. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 Mademoiselle. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”

5. “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born,” wrote Paul Ehrlich in a 1969 essay titled “Eco-Catastrophe! “By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”

6. Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”

7. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” declared Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for Earth Day, in the Spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.

8. Peter Gunter, a North Texas State University professor, wrote in 1970, “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”

9. In January 1970, Life reported, “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”

10. Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time that, “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”

11. Barry Commoner predicted that decaying organic pollutants would use up all of the oxygen in America’s rivers, causing freshwater fish to suffocate.

12. Paul Ehrlich chimed in, predicting in his 1970 that “air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” Ehrlich sketched a scenario in which 200,000 Americans would die in 1973 during “smog disasters” in New York and Los Angeles.

13. Paul Ehrlich warned in the May 1970 issue of Audubon that DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons “may have substantially reduced the life expectancy of people born since 1945.” Ehrlich warned that Americans born since 1946…now had a life expectancy of only 49 years, and he predicted that if current patterns continued this expectancy would reach 42 years by 1980, when it might level out.

14. Ecologist Kenneth Watt declared, “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'”

15. Harrison Brown, a scientist at the National Academy of Sciences, published a chart in Scientific American that looked at metal reserves and estimated the humanity would totally run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold, and silver would be gone before 1990.

16. Sen. Gaylord Nelson wrote in Look that, “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”

17. In 1975, Paul Ehrlich predicted that “since more than nine-tenths of the original tropical rainforests will be removed in most areas within the next 30 years or so, it is expected that half of the organisms in these areas will vanish with it.”

18. Kenneth Watt warned about a pending Ice Age in a speech. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

MP: Let’s keep those spectacularly wrong predictions from the first Earth Day 1970 in mind when we’re bombarded  with media hype, and claims like this from the official Earth Day website:

     "Scientists warn us that climate change could accelerate beyond our control, threatening our survival and everything we love. We call on you to keep global temperature rise under the unacceptably dangerous level of 2 degrees C, by phasing out carbon pollution to zero. To achieve this, you must urgently forge realistic global, national and local agreements, to rapidly shift our societies and economies to 100% clean energy by 2050. Do this fairly, with support to the most vulnerable among us. Our world is worth saving and now is our moment to act. But to change everything, we need everyone. Join us."

Finally, think about this question, posed by Ronald Bailey in 2000: What will Earth look like when Earth Day 60 rolls around in 2030? Bailey predicts a much cleaner, and much richer future world, with less hunger and malnutrition, less poverty, and longer life expectancy, and with lower mineral and metal prices. But he makes one final prediction about Earth Day 2030: “There will be a disproportionately influential group of doomsters predicting that the future–and the present–never looked so bleak.” In other words, the hype, hysteria and spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions will continue, promoted by the “environmental grievance hustlers.”

SOURCE





Greenie professor is a Fascist beast

Control, control, control is what he is on about. Says America’s Founding Document Outmoded.  Too much liberty in it

Top Vatican adviser Jeffrey Sachs says that when Pope Francis visits the United States in September, he will directly challenge the “American idea” of God-given rights embodied in the Declaration of Independence.

Sachs, a special advisor to the United Nations and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a media superstar who can always be counted on to pontificate endlessly on such topics as income inequality and global health. This time, writing in a Catholic publication, he may have gone off his rocker, revealing the real global game plan.

The United States, Sachs writes in the Jesuit publication, America, is “a society in thrall” to the idea of unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But the “urgent core of Francis’ message” will be to challenge this “American idea” by “proclaiming that the path to happiness lies not solely or mainly through the defense of rights but through the exercise of virtues, most notably justice and charity.”

In these extraordinary comments, which constitute a frontal assault on the American idea of freedom and national sovereignty, Sachs has made it clear that he hopes to enlist the Vatican in a global campaign to increase the power of global or foreign-dominated organizations and movements.

Sachs takes aim at the phrase, which comes from America’s founding document, the United States Declaration of Independence, that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These rights sound good, Sachs writes, but they’re not enough to guarantee the outcome the global elites have devised for us. Global government, he suggests, must make us live our lives according to international standards of development.

“In the United States,” Sachs writes, “we learn that the route to happiness lies in the rights of the individual. By throwing off the yoke of King George III, by unleashing the individual pursuit of happiness, early Americans believed they would achieve that happiness. Most important, they believed that they would find happiness as individuals, each endowed by the creator with individual rights.”

While he says there is some “grandeur in this idea,” such rights “are only part of the story, only one facet of our humanity.”

The Sachs view is that global organizations such as the U.N. must dictate the course of nations and individual rights must be sacrificed for the greater good. One aspect of this unfolding plan, as outlined in the Sachs book, The End of Poverty, involves extracting billions of dollars from the American people through global taxes.

“We will need, in the end, to put real resources in support of our hopes,” he wrote. “A global tax on carbon-emitting fossil fuels might be the way to begin. Even a very small tax, less than that which is needed to correct humanity’s climate-deforming overuse of fossil fuels, would finance a greatly enhanced supply of global public goods.” Sachs has estimated the price tag for the U.S. at $845 billion.

In preparation for this direct assault on our rights, the American nation-state, and our founding document, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon told a Catholic Caritas International conference in Rome on May 12 that climate change is “the defining challenge of our time,” and that the solution lies in recognizing that “ humankind is part of nature, not separate or above.”

The pope’s expected encyclical on climate change is supposed to help mobilize the governments of the world in this crusade.

But a prestigious group of scholars, churchmen, scientists, economists and policy experts has issued a detailed rebuttal, entitled, “An Open Letter to Pope Francis on Climate Change,” pointing out that the Bible tells man to have dominion over the earth.

“Good climate policy must recognize human exceptionalism, the God-given call for human persons to ‘have dominion’ in the natural world (Genesis 1:28), and the need to protect the poor from harm, including actions that hinder their ascent out of poverty,” the letter to Pope Francis states.

Released by a group called the Cornwall Alliance, the letter urges the Vatican to consider the evidence that climate change is largely natural, that the human contribution is comparatively small and not dangerous, and that attempting to mitigate the human contribution by reducing CO2 emissions “would cause more harm than good, especially to the world’s poor.”

The Heartland Institute held a news conference on April 27 at the Hotel Columbus in Rome, to warn the Vatican against embracing the globalist agenda of the climate change movement. The group is hosting the 10th International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, D.C. on June 11-12.

However, it appears as if the Vatican has been captured by the globalist forces associated with Sachs and the United Nations.

Voice of the Family, a group representing pro-life and pro-family Catholic organizations from around the world, has taken issue not only with the Vatican’s involvement with Sachs but with Ban Ki Moon, describing the two as “noted advocates of abortion who operate at the highest levels of the United Nations.” Sachs has been described as “arguably the world’s foremost proponent of population control,” including abortion.

Voice of the Family charges that environmental issues such as climate change have become “an umbrella to cover a wide spectrum of attacks on human life and the family.”

Although Sachs likes to claim he was an adviser to Pope John Paul II, the noted anti-communist and pro-life pontiff, Sachs simply served as a member of a group of economists invited to confer with the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace in advance of the release of a papal document.

In fact, Pope John Paul II had worked closely with the Reagan administration in opposition to communism and the global population control movement. He once complained that a U.N. conference on population issues was designed to “destroy the family” and was the “snare of the devil.”

Pope Francis, however, seems to have embraced the very movements opposed by John Paul II.

Sachs, who has emerged as a very influential Vatican adviser, recently tweeted that he was “thrilled” to be at the Vatican “discussing moral dimensions of climate change and sustainable development.” The occasion was a Vatican workshop on global warming on April 28, 2015, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of the Roman Catholic Church. Sachs was a featured speaker.

The plan going forward involves the launching of what are called “Sustainable Development Goals,” as envisioned by a Sustainable Development Solutions Network run by none other than Jeffrey Sachs.

“The Network has proposed draft Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which contain provisions that are radically antagonistic to the right to life from conception to natural death, to the rights and dignity of the family and to the rights of parents as the primary educators of their children,” states the group Voice of the Family.

In July, a Financing for Development conference will be held, in order to develop various global tax proposals, followed by a conference in Paris in December to complete a new climate change agreement.

Before that December conference, however, Sachs says the pope will call on the world at the United Nations to join the crusade for a New World Order.

Sachs says, “Pope Francis will come to the United States and the United Nations in New York on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, and at the moment when the world’s 193 governments are resolved to take a step in solidarity toward a better world. On Sept. 25, Pope Francis will speak to the world leaders—most likely the largest number of assembled heads of state and government in history—as these leaders deliberate to adopt new Sustainable Development Goals for the coming generation. These goals will be a new worldwide commitment to build a world that aims to harmonize the pursuit of economic prosperity with the commitments to social inclusion and environmental sustainability.”

Rather than emphasize the absolute need for safeguarding individual rights in the face of government overreach and power, Sachs writes that the Gospel teachings of humility, love and justice, “like the teachings of Aristotle, Buddha and Confucius,” can take us on a “path to happiness through compassion” and “become our guideposts back to safety.”

Writing elsewhere in the new issue of America, Christiana Z. Peppard, an assistant professor of theology, science and ethics at Fordham University, writes about the “planetary pope,” saying, “What is really at stake in the collective response to the pope’s encyclical is not, ultimately, whether our treasured notions of theology, science, reality or development can accommodate moral imperatives. The real question is whether we are brave enough and willing to try.”

The plan is quite simple: world government through global taxes, with a religious face to bring it about.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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A debate in Canada -- A consensus about consensus?

Canada's "National Post" recently published a critique by Ross McKitrick of the Warmist 97% claim.  That appears immediately below.  The paper also gave John Cook a chance to reply, which he did.  It is here.  The reply, as usual, was heavy on appeals to authority but does not answer the basic challenge that his own data show that only a small minority, not 97%, were clear Warmists.  Under Cook's sloppy methodology, I could be classed as in the 97%!  So Cook's reply amounts to saying that there is a consensus about consensus!  McKitrick also did a brief rejoinder to Cook which is also reproduced below



The con in consensus: Climate change consensus among the misinformed is not worth much

In the lead-up to the Paris climate summit, massive activist pressure is on all governments, especially Canada’s, to fall in line with the global warming agenda and accept emission targets that could seriously harm our economy. One of the most powerful rhetorical weapons being deployed is the claim that 97 per cent of the world’s scientists agree what the problem is and what we have to do about it. In the face of such near-unanimity, it would be understandable if Prime Minister Harper and the Canadian government were simply to capitulate and throw Canada’s economy under the climate change bandwagon. But it would be a tragedy because the 97 per cent claim is a fabrication.

Like so much else in the climate change debate, one needs to check the numbers. First of all, on what exactly are 97 per cent of experts supposed to agree? In 2013 President Obama sent out a tweet claiming 97 per cent of climate experts believe global warming is “real, man-made and dangerous.” As it turns out the survey he was referring to didn’t ask that question, so he was basically making it up. At a recent debate in New Orleans I heard climate activist Bill McKibben claim there was a consensus that greenhouse gases are “a grave danger.” But when challenged for the source of his claim, he promptly withdrew it.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change asserts the conclusion that most (more than 50 per cent) of the post-1950 global warming is due to human activity, chiefly greenhouse gas emissions and land use change. But it does not survey its own contributors, let alone anyone else, so we do not know how many experts agree with it. And the statement, even if true, does not imply that we face a crisis requiring massive restructuring of the worldwide economy. In fact it is consistent with the view that the benefits of fossil fuel use greatly outweigh the climate-related costs.

One commonly-cited survey asked if carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and human activities contribute to climate change. But these are trivial statements that even many IPCC skeptics agree with. And again, both statements are consistent with the view that climate change is harmless. So there are no policy implications of such surveys, regardless of the level of agreement.

The most highly-cited paper supposedly found 97 per cent of published scientific studies support man-made global warming. But in addition to poor survey methodology, that tabulation is often misrepresented. Most papers (66 per cent) actually took no position. Of the remaining 34 per cent, 33 per cent supported at least a weak human contribution to global warming. So divide 33 by 34 and you get 97 per cent, but this is unremarkable since the 33 per cent includes many papers that critique key elements of the IPCC position.

Two recent surveys shed more light on what atmospheric scientists actually think. Bear in mind that on a topic as complex as climate change, a survey is hardly a reliable guide to scientific truth, but if you want to know how many people agree with your view, a survey is the only way to find out.

In 2012 the American Meteorological Society (AMS) surveyed its 7,000 members, receiving 1,862 responses. Of those, only 52 per cent said they think global warming over the 20th century has happened and is mostly manmade (the IPCC position). The remaining 48 per cent either think it happened but natural causes explain at least half of it, or it didn’t happen, or they don’t know. Furthermore, 53 per cent agree that there is conflict among AMS members on the question.

So no sign of a 97 per cent consensus. Not only do about half reject the IPCC conclusion, more than half acknowledge that their profession is split on the issue.

The Netherlands Environmental Agency recently published a survey of international climate experts. 6550 questionnaires were sent out, and 1868 responses were received, a similar sample and response rate to the AMS survey. In this case the questions referred only to the post-1950 period. 66 per cent agreed with the IPCC that global warming has happened and humans are mostly responsible. The rest either don’t know or think human influence was not dominant. So again, no 97 per cent consensus behind the IPCC.

But the Dutch survey is even more interesting because of the questions it raises about the level of knowledge of the respondents. Although all were described as “climate experts,” a large fraction only work in connected fields such as policy analysis, health and engineering, and may not follow the primary physical science literature.

Regarding the recent slowdown in warming, here is what the IPCC said: “The observed global mean surface temperature (GMST) has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years.” Yet 46 per cent of the Dutch survey respondents – nearly half – believe the warming trend has stayed the same or increased. And only 25 per cent agreed that global warming has been less than projected over the past 15 to 20 years, even though the IPCC reported that 111 out of 114 model projections overestimated warming since 1998.

Three quarters of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted.” Here is what the IPCC said in its 2003 report: “In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

Looking into further detail there are other interesting ways in which the so-called experts are unaware of unresolved discrepancies between models and observations regarding issues like warming in the tropical troposphere and overall climate sensitivity.

What can we take away from all this? First, lots of people get called “climate experts” and contribute to the appearance of consensus, without necessarily being knowledgeable about core issues. A consensus among the misinformed is not worth much.

Second, it is obvious that the “97 per cent” mantra is untrue. The underlying issues are so complex it is ludicrous to expect unanimity. The near 50/50 split among AMS members on the role of greenhouse gases is a much more accurate picture of the situation. The phony claim of 97 per cent consensus is mere political rhetoric aimed at stifling debate and intimidating people into silence.

The Canadian government has the unenviable task of defending the interest of the energy producers and consumers of a cold, thinly-populated country, in the face of furious, deafening global warming alarmism. Some of the worst of it is now emanating from the highest places. Barack Obama’s website (barackobama.com) says “97 per cent of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and man-made…Find the deniers near you — and call them out today.” How nice. But what we really need to call out is the use of false propaganda and demagoguery to derail factual debate and careful consideration of all facets of the most complex scientific and policy issue of our time.

SOURCE






Claim that 97% of scientists support climate alarm cannot be supported

In my column I pointed out that people who invoke the 97 per cent consensus often leave vague what is actually being agreed upon. John Cook does this too: Note that his wording is consistent with a range of interpretations, including that greenhouse gases definitely cause only a tiny bit of global warming.

He cannot claim that 97 per cent of scientists believe greenhouse gases cause a lot of warming and that this is a big problem, since the surveys either didn’t ask this, or did but didn’t find 97 per cent support.

Cook, being a PhD student in psychology with a background in communication studies, is hardly in a position to dismiss the membership of the American Meteorological Society as “fake experts.” As to fakery, I would refer readers to the analysis of Cook’s work by social psychologist Jose Duarte, noting that the word “fraud” appears 21 times in that essay alone, and it is not even the harshest of Duarte’s essays on Cook’s discredited methods. Economist Richard Tol has also published detailed excoriations of Cook’s work at as well as in the peer-reviewed literature, as have others.

The Illinois study asked 10,257 Earth Scientists “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” The question was vague to the point of meaninglessness. It only refers to “a,” not “the,” factor; it only refers to “human activity” in general, thus conflating land use change, conventional air pollution emissions and greenhouse gases; and it only refers to “changing” mean temperatures (since 1800), without specifying a portion of the total observed. So someone who thinks greenhouse gases caused only a small fraction of the warming would answer Yes, as would someone who thought they drove it all.

The Illinois authors received 3,146 responses. After seeing the answers they selected only 77 as being relevant, and of these 75 (97 per cent) said Yes. What puzzles me is why two answered No. And why the authors asked 10,257 experts for their views when they only considered 77 qualified to answer.

The Princeton study started with 1,372 experts and found that 97 of the ones they deemed the top-100 publishing scientists in the climatology field were also contributors to the IPCC or had signed statements supporting the IPCC position. Hence 97 per cent yadda yadda. But this study design may simply be a circular argument, since the top climatology journals are not double-blind, so it can be difficult for critics of the IPCC to get their papers published. In other words, this result might simply be a measure of the level of clique-citation and group think in the sample they selected. In this regard it is quite noteworthy that the AMS and Netherlands surveys were anonymous and they found nowhere near 97 per cent support for the IPCC conclusion.

SOURCE





Official Australian research organization is censoring its own scientists

And they lie to cover up the censorship

Patrick Moore

During my tour of Australian capitals last year, speaking about climate change, I was always eager to share a bright spot of news about the world’s driest places.

Your very own CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University, had published a study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in 2013 that deserved wide acclaim. Very few people in my audiences were aware of it, despite the fact the CSIRO had published a synopsis of the paper on its own website titled “Deserts ‘greening’ from rising CO2”.

The paper reported on the work of Randall Donohue of the Land and Water division of the CSIRO and his colleagues who had conducted an 18year study of global vegetation from satellite observations. They determined that from 1982 to 2010 the fertilisation effect from increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere had resulted in an 11 per cent increase in foliage in arid regions across the globe.

This includes large areas of Western Australia, subSaharan Africa, India and the Great Plains of North America. You would think with all the talk of drought and climate crisis this would have made the front page of every newspaper in Australia, and the world for that matter. But no, it appears to be a case of inconvenient truth.

So inconvenient that when the CSIRO revamped its website a few weeks ago it decided to delete the page on the greening deserts in Australia and around the world. I reported this omission to my friend and colleague Paul Evans, of Sydney, who runs communications for the Galileo Movement, the group that helped organise my tour of Australia last October.

He made an inquiry of the CSIRO and received this reply: “Dear Paul, You may be wondering why we changed our website ... The web page “Deserts greening from rising CO2” was published in 2013, and our new website is focused on our current research and services, not on past research and outcomes.”

Does this not beg the definition of current? So 2013 is now ancient history, sort of like alchemy and astrology from the 15th century? And it’s not as if the “greening” has ended. It continues apace and will accelerate as CO2 levels finally rise from near plant starvation levels before the Industrial Revolution to levels that provide a decent meal for our best friends, the photosynthetic plants we depend on for our existence.

This research is critical to our understanding of the actual effect of increased CO2 as opposed to the hypothetical effect.

One could assume from CSIRO’s reply that all references to science done before 2013 have now been purged from the superuptodate CSIRO website. But a quick look tells us otherwise. All you need do is go to the CSIRO page that contains the 2014 report State of the Climate. There you will find that, of the 146 science papers listed to support the concern for changes in the climate, none of them are more recent than 2013 and nearly all of them are older.

The climate report is complete with the usual “homogenised” temperature records and warnings about ocean acidification.

Clearly a double standard has been applied and clearly the CSIRO is effectively censoring its own scientists for daring to find a positive result from increased CO2.

The Australian public, and in particular its science institutions, should demand that this study be reinstated on the CSIRO website with a link from the home page. It is a brilliant piece of work and demonstrates that CO2 is food for plants and that our agriculture and forestry will benefit greatly from increased levels in the air.

During the first 15 years of this century, ever-increasing emissions of CO2 have not produced any statistically significant warming, while they have accelerated the growth of plants, especially in arid regions. The reason higher CO2 is resulting in increased plant growth is because during the past millions of years it had steadily declined to levels too low for plants to realise their full potential.

Higher levels of CO2 have been the norm throughout the history of life. It has been only during recent times (the past few million years) that CO2 had sunk to such low levels that it slowed the growth of plants significantly. Then humans began to put some of it back where it came from in the first place.

People don’t stop to think that the fossil fuels we are burning today are made from plants and plankton that took CO2 from the atmosphere as food for themselves, using solar energy to convert the CO2into sugars. Fossil fuels are 100 per cent organic, were made with solar power, and the byproduct of burning them is food for plants.

The CSIRO’s reply refers to the study of CO2’s fertiliser effect as “past research and outcomes”. Does this mean it has not only deleted the study from its website but also have discontinued this important work? One fears this to be true.

Australians should not only demand that the study be fully reinstated on the website but that the CSIRO be instructed to put it back on its agenda, perhaps this time with a strong focus on how CO2 is benefiting Australian forests and farming.

It’s time to stop demonising CO2 and to recognise it as the giver of life that it is.

The Australian of May 23rd.





Envirofascists fail in bid to revoke GOP senator’s degree

A Washington state senator has survived a campaign by Western Washington University students who demanded their school revoke his master’s degree because he’s not radical enough on global warming.

Doug Ericksen, a Republican and chair of Washington’s Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee, has blocked efforts to force businesses and residents to go green, but he supports voluntary compliance. He opposes mandated cap-and-trade programs and low-carbon fuel standards.

But the effort to yank Ericksen’s degree — he earned his MA in political science and environmental policy at WWU — met with a stiff rebuke last week from the university’s president.

​“We appreciate the good work of Senator Doug Ericksen on behalf of Western Washington University,” said WWU President Bruce Shepard. “Senator Ericksen, a Western alumnus, has proven to be a friend to Western and a strong advocate … The strength of our democracy is that all citizens, including students and leaders like Senator Ericksen, have the freedom of expression to take positions with diverse viewpoints.”

Shepard dismissed “any notion that we might seek to penalize a graduate for the positions they express” as “a disturbing misunderstanding of the intellectual freedoms any university worthy of the name must stand for.  And, protect.”

Ericksen’s critics could not be reached for comment and did not appear to have any formal name or structure. Their crusade was profiled in a local newspaper, the Bellingham Herald.

“Sen. Doug Ericksen is welcome to have whatever political views he wants, but by misinforming the public on the science of climate change, he is undermining the credibility of our own degrees and reflecting poorly on the caliber of education students receive here,” the students said in a statement to the Herald.

The students acknowledged they weren’t trying to change Ericksen’s mind on the issue.

“We’re framing it in a more radical way,” students said of the effort to revoke Ericksen’s degree. “We’re not just trying to have a conversation with him or hold him accountable. We’re trying to revoke his degree and get people to pay attention.”

The group called Ericksen a “climate denier” on a Facebook page that is now deleted,

In a podcast, Ericksen said he felt sorry for the students.

“They’re being fed such a line of propaganda, and it’s such a heavily partisan atmosphere,” he said. “They are Western students, so I guess they can do whatever they want. I’ve tended to ignore it. It’s not a serious issue. I think there’s three of them up there who have been advocating for this. It is what it is. You can respect their right to have their opinion.”

Ericksen has been targeted by environmentalists since 1998, when he first won a seat in the Washington House of Representatives. He was elected to the senate in 2011 and reelected last year. Steyer invested $1 million in the state races, with his primary goal of unseating Ericksen.

SOURCE





Canada: Harper’s emission cuts are pie-in-the-sky

Why is Prime Minister Stephen Harper promising a meaningless reduction target for Canada’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions by 2030?

Last week, he pledged a 30% cut from 2005 levels by 2030.  In 2009, he promised a 17% cut from 2005 levels by 2020.  Today, Canada’s emissions are 3% below 2005 levels, meaning Harper would have to destroy our economy to meet even the less ambitious target.

The same holds true for this latest promise.  It’s not going to happen because Canada is a big, cold, northern, sparsely-populated country with huge oil and natural gas reserves, which relies on fossil fuel energy for our first world standard of living.

The government is also considering carbon trading to meet its target and while it promises to be vigilant in doing so, carbon trading is a global cesspool of fraud and corruption.

It’s as if Harper is in a race with U.S. President Barack Obama to announce unrealistic emission targets.

Last year, Obama made a ridiculous, non-binding pledge to lower U.S. emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025, even though U.S. emissions, according to its Energy Information Administration, will rise in every year of his second term of office, ending in early 2017.

With U.S. emissions now 10% below 2005 levels, Obama’s successor would have to cut them twice as fast as Obama to achieve Obama’s pie-in-the-sky target.

Former prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien both promised to reduce Canada’s emissions to 20% below 1988 levels by 2005, then did nothing to achieve this.

Later, Chretien promised to reduce emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012, knowing he couldn’t achieve it.

When Chretien’s successor, Paul Martin, was tossed from power in 2006, the Liberals were 30% over Chretien’s target and the only way Harper could have met it would have been by undermining our economy.

It’s time for this nonsense to stop.

It’s time for political leaders to stop announcing unrealistic emission reduction targets they know they are never going to meet.

Such political dishonesty — coming from all the federal parties — does nothing to help the environment, cool the planet, or lead to honest efforts to reduce man-made climate change.

SOURCE




Record snow in New Zealand  -- and its still only autumn there

More bitterly cold nights are on the way, as the storm that brought snow as far as Napier is replaced by calmer weather.

The wintry blast closed roads and schools in the South Island as snow fell across many parts of the country, with flurries in Southland, Fiordland and Central Otago, through to a dusting for Wellington, Hawke's Bay and Taupo.

Night time minimum temperatures of -3 degrees Celsius are being predicted for Christchurch on Wednesday and Thursday, with Blenheim dropping to -1C for the next few nights, and Taupo dropping to zero for two nights. Auckland is expected to drop to 6C on Wednesday, with Wellington down to 4C on Monday night.

"I've lived in Napier all my 64 years and I can't recall ever having seen snow in Napier and it was snowing in my yard this morning," Mayor Bill Dalton said.

Dalton pointed out that while it was windy with sleety snow in the air at 7am, by late morning it was a "magnificent, clear, sunny, dead-still" day.

Napier MP Stuart Nash commented on the snow on his Facebook page, complete with a picture.  "Possibly hard to see, but it's actually snowing in Napier. Haven't seen this for a while. Not cold enough to settle."

MetService meteorologist Richard Finnie said Napier was among the most northerly places where snow had been reported on Monday.

Snow in Napier was "fairly unusual" but there had been reports of snow there before, he said.

"There was a band of heavier precipitation that came across there during the night and early morning."

Because it was so heavy it had enabled the snow to come down a bit lower than usual "just for a short period of time".

Had the precipitation come across during the day, snow would probably not have fallen to such low levels, Finnie said. "It's harder to get snow down that low during the heating of the day."

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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