The price of dissent on global warming
By David Bellamy
When I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn't believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions. According to official data, in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that?
The sad fact is that since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming, I've not been allowed to make a television program. My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: "I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?"
It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on children's program Blue Peter, and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn't think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy, so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line, and I wasn't doing that.
At that point, I was still making loads of TV programs and I was enjoying it greatly. Then I suddenly found I was sending in ideas for TV shows and they weren't getting taken up. I've asked around about why I've been ignored, but I found that people didn't get back to me. At the beginning of this year there was a BBC show with four experts saying: "This is going to be the end of all the ice in the Arctic," and hypothesising that it was going to be the hottest summer ever. Was it hell! It was very cold and very wet and now we've seen evidence that the glaciers in Alaska have started growing rapidly, and they have not grown for a long time.
I've seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies: CO2 is not the driver. The idiot fringe has accused me of being like a Holocaust denier, which is ludicrous. Climate change is all about cycles. It's a natural thing and has always happened. When the Romans lived in Britain they were growing very good red grapes and making wine on the borders of Scotland. It was evidently a lot warmer.
If you were sitting next to me 10,000 years ago, we'd be under ice. So thank God for global warming for ending that ice age; we wouldn't be here otherwise.
People such as former American vice-president Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming, which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you've got no proof. And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that CO2 has anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The science has, quite simply, gone awry.
In fact, it's not even science any more; it's anti-science. There's no proof, it's just projections, and if you look at the models people such as Gore use, you can see they cherry-pick the ones that support their beliefs. To date, the way the so-called Greens and the BBC, the Royal Society and even political parties have handled this smacks of McCarthyism at its worst.
Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there's nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist. And how were we convinced that this problem exists, even though all the evidence from measurements goes against the fact? God knows.
Yes, the lakes in Africa are drying up. But that's not global warming. They're drying up for the very simple reason that most of them have dams around them. So the water once used by local people is now used in the production of cut flowers and vegetables for the supermarkets of Europe. One of Gore's biggest clangers was saying that the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was drying up because of global warming.
Well, everyone knows, because it was all over the news 20 years ago, that the Russians were growing cotton there at the time and that for every tonne of cotton you produce you use a vast amount of water. The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I'm still an environmentalist, I'm still a Green and I'm still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming "problem" that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world.
Being ignored by the likes of the BBC does not really bother me, not when there are bigger problems at stake. I might not be on TV any more but I still go around the world campaigning about these important issues. For example, we must stop the destruction of tropical rainforests, something I've been saying for 35 years. Mother nature will balance things out, but not if we interfere by destroying rainforests and overfishing the seas. That is where the real environmental catastrophe could occur.
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EU CLIMATE BILL IN DOUBT AS REBELLION GROWS IN GERMANY
German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced calls from fellow conservatives Sunday to fight to water down a European Union climate pact until the recession-wracked economy is moving again.
Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer said in an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that he had written to Merkel calling on her to back away from EU climate protection goals to be approved next month for a time. "The carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction targets at the EU level must be organised so they do not endanger jobs," said Seehofer, whose state is home to such German automakers as BMW and Audi. "The automobile industry needs more room to manoeuvre in its implementation" of the targets, he said. "What good are multi-million-euro fines (for violating emissions rules) if at the end of the day the jobs are gone?"
German Economy Minister Michael Glos, also of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, agreed that Germany could ill-afford to make a priority of climate protection with the economy hobbled by the global financial crisis. "It is not the time to burden the economy with excessive environmental targets," he said.
And the conservative premier of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff, also called for a two-year hiatus for the EU climate package, which is to be passed at a Brussels summit of EU leaders in three weeks.
Merkel is a champion of the EU's climate change plan, having brokered a vow last year by EU leaders to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the Social Democrats, junior partners in Merkel's fractious left-right ruling coalition, rejected the conservatives' calls for exceptions out of hand. "It is astounding how backwards the debate about climate change is in the Union," he told Saturday's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, ruling out exceptions for sectors such as automobiles or energy. He said it was only sensible for industry to cut its spending on energy during an economic downturn.
During a German-Italian summit last week, Merkel warned that the global financial crisis could cause leaders to renege on their environmental pledges made in March 2007 under the German EU presidency. "The goals of 2020 remain, but let's see how we can meet them" without putting too much pressure on a weak economy, she said.
Official data released this month showed Germany has slipped into recession for the first time in five years, just as the 15-nation eurozone fell its first-ever recession.
Source
FORGET HOT AIR ON CLIMATE BILL: KING COAL IS BOOMING IN THE UK
Britain is poised to expand its coal mining industry, despite fears that the move will lead to a rise in climate change emissions and harm communities and the environment.
Freedom of information requests and council records show that in the past 18 months 14 companies have applied to dig nearly 60 million tonnes of coal from 58 new or enlarged opencast mines. At least six coal-fired power stations are planned. If all the applications are approved, the fastest expansion of UK coal mining in 40 years could see southern Scotland and Northumberland become two of the most heavily mined regions in Europe.
The demand for new mines is being driven by dramatic increases in the price of coal. This has quadrupled in two years and has risen by 45 per cent since the start of this year. Opencast, or surface, mines are much cheaper than deep mines, but those living nearby can suffer years of pollution.
The increase in mining will embarrass the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, who is arguing that Britain must reduce carbon emissions. Ministers must soon decide whether to approve a controversial new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent, the first in 30 years. 'Attention has been focused on the decision at Kingsnorth, but over the past 18 months local authorities have approved more than 24 new opencast mines and 16 expansions of existing mines,' said Richard Hawkins, of the Public Interest Research Centre (Pirc), which conducted the study.
'There is a clear contradiction between the government's 80 per cent target for climate change emissions cuts and investment in new coal. With industry and government saying carbon capture and storage is at least 20 years away, this shows that the 160m tonnes of carbon dioxide released by burning this coal would not be captured,' he said.
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WIND FARMS BECALMED BY FINANCIAL TURMOIL
The Lynn and Inner Dowsing wind farms, off the east coast of England, are a flagship project for their operator Centrica, the UK energy group, and for Europe. Its 54 Siemens turbines have a total capacity of 180 megawatts, making Centrica the leading company in Britain, and Britain the leading country in the world for offshore wind power.
Offshore wind is a vital part of what Jos‚ Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, has described as the "third industrial revolution": the transformation of the energy industry to cut greenhouse gas emissions and the European Union's reliance on gas and oil. If the EU is to hit its target of deriving 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, offshore wind will play a crucial role.
Centrica has big plans to join that revolution, building a total of 1,600MW of offshore wind capacity. Yet those plans are under threat. Centrica has said it is reviewing that programme, which would demand a further œ4bn ($6bn) of investment, as the cost of building offshore wind farms has soared.
Similar stories are being played out across the EU. As the credit crunch bites, utilities are going over their investment plans to see whether they are still viable; not just for renewable energy but for all projects. Several, including Eon of Germany and Iberdrola of Spain, have warned they are likely to slow the rate at which they are investing.
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GREEN FASCISTS IN BRITAIN
The Green Party was forced to admit today that two of its former leading lights were on a list of British National Party members leaked on the internet this week.
The party conceded this morning that Keith Bessant, a two-time parliamentary candidate, and Rev John Stanton, a former local party chairman, had defected to the far-right nationalist organisation.
Doctors, prison officers, teachers and a Buckingham Palace servant were among the 12,000 names published in a blog post on Sunday. The leak has caused recriminations within the party and a nationwide search for members working secretly in the public services.
A spokesman for the Green Party claimed today that Mr Bessant was in the BNP not because he was a racist but because he felt they had better environmental policies.
"He formed the opinion that the BNP climate change policy was more radical than ours," he said.
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Florida boaters say ethanol is harming engines
There's an ailment afflicting boats in Florida and elsewhere with symptoms of poor performance and clogged fuel systems. The problems may be staved off by preventive measures, but boat owners caught off guard may face repairs that can cost hundreds of dollars -- or even thousands. The culprit is ethanol in gasoline, required in Florida following passage of a law this past spring that gasoline contain 10 percent ethanol, which is called E10 fuel, by the end of 2010. A half-dozen other states have similar laws.
By early summer, gas stations statewide began receiving E10 fuel. Notices on pumps say the gas can contain 10 percent ethanol or less. Marinas and airports are exempt and can sell ethanol-free gas. But since spring until recently, many marinas had no choice but to accept E10 fuel. Apart from that, many people with boats on trailers pull up at the gas station or fill portable gas tanks for cheaper fuel, unwittingly setting themselves up for potential disaster.
Ethanol is alcohol, and one characteristic of alcohol is that it attracts water, and therefore pulls moisture into vented fuel tanks in boats. If the E10 fuel sits long enough, the water and ethanol separate from the gas, and can cause poor engine performance and damage the fuel system.
A second and equally damaging trait of alcohol for boats is that it is a solvent. The ethanol loosens fuel varnish build-up and rust in the fuel tank and that gunk gets carried into the fuel system, potentially clogging and damaging parts, such as carburetors and fuel injectors.
Two lawsuits, in California and Florida, have been filed to date against oil manufacturers that produce E10 fuel, on the basis the companies knew of potential harm to boat engines and failed to warn the public. "They had to have known," said Jeffrey Ostrow, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who filed the Florida lawsuit in August in U.S. District Court in South Florida....
Some marinas and boat yards in Florida began noticing something strange this past summer. Boaters were calling or coming in asking what could be wrong with their engines. Their boats would idle but wouldn't throttle up to full performance. Some boats broke down and required towing in. "We're seeing one or two people a day come in," said Glen Harris, parts manager at Naples Boat Mart on Airport-Pulling Road. "And a lot of the local people."
Ethanol-blended gas hit service stations in the spring and early summer, so local boaters were the first to fill up portable gas tanks from gas stations with E10. They were the first to experience problems, he said. "It hit me and I do everything I was supposed to do right but ethanol got to me," Harris said. "A lot of people don't believe you at first." He anticipates winter residents returning now and getting boats out of storage will be the next group to experience problems.
Just as boats may sit and the separation of the gas and ethanol in the tanks can lead to problems, there are reports that homeowners are facing similar problems with their lawn equipment.
A second issue with ethanol is that it cleans everything it has contact with, from whatever point it is mixed in with gas at the refinery or tanker and it carries all those contaminants to a boat's fuel tank, said Rush of San Carlos Marine. Those contaminants can clog fuel filters and the injection system. "You will limp in if you can even get home," Rush said. "A lot of the repair bills come from the intrusion of water and contaminants in the water," said Kaestner of Matanzas Marine.
There also are reports that ethanol can cause polyester resin in older fiberglass fuel tanks to degrade to create a gunk that clogs the fuel system. "Pre-1991 fiberglass tanks are the most affected," Kaestner said.
Boat owners need to be diligent about preventive measures or avoid E10 fuel entirely, he and other marine service operators say. If a boat doesn't have a water separating fuel filter, it's prudent to add one that is a 10-micron filter and change it frequently, he and others say. "I went down to the Keys in July with my personal boat and I went through three water-separating fuel filters," Rush said, referring to his 17-foot flatbeds boat with a 115 Yamaha engine. "At the first sign (of trouble), I changed it and put in a new filter. I did three in two weeks." He keeps spares on his boat with each filter running $18.95...
The Naples City Dock began receiving E10 fuel on May 26 but has been ethanol free since the end of October, dockmaster Mike Klein said. "We were basically forced to take ethanol in the beginning because they did not want to have separate tanks at any of the ports," he said. "Ports did not set aside a tank for ethanol free. I knew (the law) excluded marinas but that was all we could get."...
"I cannot find gas without ethanol to purchase," said Lou Penido, harbormaster of Port of the Islands Marina in southeast Collier County. "It wasn't available. My problem is I don't sell many gallons, I have to buy from suppliers close by."
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Monday, November 24, 2008
Second Mann hockeystick produced entirely from a small, atypical and corrupt sub-group of proxies
Ever since his original "hockeystick" graph of the global temperature trend was discredited, Michael Mann has been trying to justify himself by producing a second, less challengeable hockeystick graph. His latest effort is dissected in the very thorough and detailed article briefly excerpted below. Excerpts below are the abstract plus mention of what the proxies central to Mann's new hockeystick consist of. By using data known to be corrupted, Mann has certainly done nothing to redeem his reputation.
by Willis Eschenbach
Mystery solved. The three in red at the top, and one further down, are all the Tiljander lake sediment series, which are known to be corrupted. Once we remove the four Tiljander proxies, it is obvious that the whole edifice is built on a few closely related high-elevation, moisture limited pine trees located in the southwestern US. These tree rings make up no less than 19 of the 21 remaining top proxies after Tiljander is removed. In other words, the bristlecones are back and with a vengeance.
I guess the deal is that no self-respecting paleoclimate reconstruction would be complete without the bristlecone pines (PILO), which make up no less than 12 of the remaining top 21 (after Tiljander is removed). In addition we have the bristlecone's cousins, the limber pine (PIFL) and the foxtail pine (PIBA). All of these records contain are from similar ecosystems and contain similar signals. The overwhelming majority were collected by Graybill. His work has been called into serious question by LInah Abadneh's thesis, wherein she was unable to replicate his results.
If I ran the zoo, I'd throw out all of those high altitude pine tree ring records. They are known to have problems, their use has been recommended against, and the principal investigator's work is under a cloud. I would omit them.
More here (See the original for links, graphics etc.)
Global cooling hits Britain hard
Traffic chaos as Britain's big freeze brings blanket of snow - and there's more to come
Only the bravest - or foolish - motorists were out and about early yesterday as snow blanketed parts of the country. As much as 4in (10cm) fell in parts of East Anglia, leaving this stretch of the A47 in Norwich to be negotiated with extreme caution. Conditions were made even more hazardous after heavy downpours froze, covering roads in layers of ice. A stretch of the M62 in Greater Manchester was forced to close
The weekend's bitter weather caused mayhem across large swathes of the country, with some roads blocked off and others covered in a sheet of ice by the subsequent downpours. As temperatures dropped to as low as minus 6.1C (21F) police were called to dozens of accidents as black ice made conditions treacherous.
Whilst children up and down the country built snowmen and threw snowballs large parts of the nation shivered in temperatures colder than Moscow (-2C/28.4F), Helsinki (-3C/26.6F) and Berlin (2C/35.6F)....
Gales gusting at 50mph forced the cancellation of ferry services between Holyhead and Dublin whilst ice and snow caused the closure of the eastbound section of the M62 between junctions 21 and 22 in Greater Manchester. Heavy snow fell in Scotland, the North of England and down the east coast from North Yorkshire to Suffolk. In Oxfordshire and Cumbria the temperature dropped to minus 6.1C (21F). Among the next coldest areas were Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, at minus 5.7C (21.7F) and South Farnborough in Hampshire at minus 4.8C (23.36F).
London, which last month saw the first October snow for 74 years, was also carpeted by a layer of snow - only for it to be replaced hours later by freezing rain.
The cold front has prompted bookmakers William Hill to slash the odds of a white Christmas in London from 8/1 to 6/1. William Hill, which has reported record betting on a white Christmas, cut the odds on snow falling on Christmas in London from 8/1 to 6/1 while Ladbrokes is offering 9/2. William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams said: 'We have never had so much money in the book with over a month to go. If it snows, we will be paying out millions to our customers.'
Source
Weather Channel Fires Entire Global Warming Broadcast Team
I guess global warming isn't economically feasible after all!
Cullen you'll remember called for Nuremberg style trials for climatologists who dared to doubt the religion of global warming. What goes around comes around babe!
Source (See the original for links)
Interview with skeptical but polite climatologist
Through a video link, President-elect Barack Obama addressed a climate change conference convened today by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles, saying he would more aggressively tackle the problem of climate change than the Bush Administration. But behind the politics of global warming, scientists are engaged in a robust debate about the effects of manmade CO2 in our atmosphere. Joining us now is a researcher involved in the debate over climate change. Robert Balling Jr is a professor in the climatology program of the School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University. He has served as a climate consultant to the United Nations Environment Programme and served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Robert, welcome to the KVMR evening news. I want to start by asking -Can you maybe describe the debate that's going on among scientists and in peer reviewed journals and otherwise, over the issue of climate change?
RCB: Well I'll do that, just as soon as you tell me what happened in the Civil War. It's kind of a big question - if you were to go to a library or look at any top of the line science journal, you would quickly discover that every element of the greenhouse issue has its folks who seem to be supportive of certain ideas, and others who are not. The most fundamental questions, like, is the planet warming - in reality there's quite a debate about that very subject; as I tell people, you would just discover that the climate change issue is very much more complicated than it is often presented to the public. And that's somewhat the message I have on the circuit, is that no matter what thing you ask about, you find out there's an incredible story behind it and quite a debate going on in the scientific community.
KVMR: Well, let's just step back and tackle that question - "is the planet warming, and how do we know?" To me it's scientists collecting data and then drawing conclusions based on that data, right? well, is the planet warming?
RCB: Yes and no. We have a -- there are a number of ways that the planetary temperature is taken - there are satellites that measure microwave emissions that come from the low atmosphere (those are directly related to the temperature of the low atmosphere, these polar orbiting satellites that allow for a global temperature to be measured); balloons are launched all over the world every day, the balloon record can give us a sense of the planetary temperature; and then there are literally millions of thermometer records from all over the world, and they're not perfect by any means but they can all be averaged and get another sense of the planetary temperature; the good news is they're all very highly correlated.
So it would seem easy, is the earth warming or not? If you said how about the last 30 years, the answer's absolutely, all three of those primary ways that we measure the temperature of the earth show warming. But if you said how about for the last 6 years from 2002 to present, all three show cooling. So you could answer the question a thousand different ways - if you said is the earth warming and you mean the last 100 years, the answer's yes; if you mean the last 1000 years the answer may not be yes, or if you mean how about the last million years, the answer is well, we've actually been rather cold the last million years. So that question is not as easy to answer as it sounds at first glance.
KVMR: So it's really trying to take and analyze and see some sense and consistency to trends in temperatures.?
RCB: Yes, even if you could show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earth was warming over the last 30 years, and I think scientists have, we know that the climate system varies quite naturally. I mean clearly we've had ice ages come and go, we've had warm periods come and go, and it's hard given the natural variability of climate to say what we have seen over the last 30 years is absolutely related to the buildup of greenhouse gases.
There are people who talk about fingerprints; the warming of the surface does seem to be in the right places - it's in the winter, the high latitudes, night, land areas, where the models tell us we should see it, but the models also tell us we should see a lot more warming above the surface and that warming hasn't been seen. So on the one hand you see this fingerprint, and then another analysis you don't see the fingerprint.
KVMR: I've attended the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union - AGU - for the past 7 years, and I go by the graces of my wife who is a scientist, but I also go as a reporter; I saw Al Gore speak there a couple years ago, and he was very well received as a champion of spreading the word about climate change and global warming. He sort of qualified his remarks to the scientists - perhaps you were there, you are a member of the AGU - saying he's not a scientist, he's a politician, and he was looking to bridge those two worlds; and by the reception he got from the standing-room-only group of scientists, it appeared that most people agreed with him. How do you feel about Al Gore and what he has done in terms of raising awareness about climate change?
RCB: Well there's no doubt he's a politician first, and there's no doubt he spends a lot of time raising awareness of the issue. I saw the film that he put out, and I believe that if at any moment if you said ok, let's stop the film right there, and now lets go critically examine what he just said; it's as I mentioned in the beginining, what we would find out over and over that what he just said is accurate according to some subset of scientists; and what he just said is not consistent with the research findings from a number of other scientists.
Sometimes in the film he'd make very simplistic statements that I think most scientists would feel ill at ease with, and at other times he would say things that most of us would be at ease with. Of course he's going to get a standing ovation, these are human beings, they're going to be polite to speakers, there's no question - if Al Gore keeps the issue alive, and you are a scientist who is in line to receive substantial federal grants, you might stand up and clap as well. If I'm in the audience I would certainly receive his message well, I'd be respectful, but again I don't think he accurately represents the state of science. I mean, even if you were to download the IPCC technical summary
KVMR: (which you contributed to)
RCB: (yeah I have in the past, there's no question about that)- if you were to download the technical summary and read it, you would immediately sense that the IPCC is saying things that are not consistent with some of the points that Gore makes. But I welcome him to the debate, I'm not one to sit back and tell somebody "I don't want to hear your message", the more messengers the better.
But he has been, no question, a very powerful figure in raising awareness of the global warming issue - to the extent that the awareness has been raised - and you can look at some various polls of where global warming really stands in the eyes of the American public, and you can make a case that given all this raising awareness it didn't work, it didn't really raise the awareness that much.
KVMR: It seems that people are polarized over this issue; I've heard people say that climate change is not happening, and we had a congressional candidate on here saying the climate change is the product of alarmists, and.
RCB: I don't know if it's the product of alarmists, but I can get for you astrophysicists at Harvard who could explain to you that variations in the earth's temperature are very closely related to variations in the output of the sun; and some of these people believe that what we have seen in recent decades is solar related; and even this cooling that we've seen recently in global temperature is often explained away as a reduction in solar output.So it's not just a matter of people calling each other names - there are very credible scientists at MIT and Harvard, and Stanford and elsewhere who are writing in a way that would put them in the skeptical camp, which is enormous by the way.
KVMR: You really wouldn't get this in popular culture, this really isn't making it into the mix; it seems that it's a slam dunk for climate change.
RCB: I don't really believe that. I mean, you can turn on the radio in Phoenix Arizona, for probably 8 hours a day, some of your brothers in talk radio are talking about global warming, and making fun of it, and interviewing scientists who are skeptical - I never think that the skeptical viewpoint doesn't get its airing, at all. I've had every opportunity to be on, you name it, and I think the skeptical message has definitely been aired and the American public has heard it. I think to this day, when you ask many Americans what they think of the issue, they still laugh it off they sort of make fun of Gore, they make fun of the issue, and I think they do get that from some of the champions of talk radio.
Source
Stubborn glaciers fail to retreat, awkward polar bears continue to multiply
Second only to the melting of the Arctic ice and those "drowning" polar bears, there is no scare with which the global warmists, led by Al Gore, more like to chill our blood than the fast-vanishing glaciers of the Himalayas, which help to provide water for a sixth of mankind. Recently one newspaper published large pictures to illustrate the alarming retreat in the past 40 years of the Rongbuk glacier below Everest. Indian meteorologists, it was reported, were warning that, thanks to global warming, all the Himalayan glaciers could have disappeared by 2035.
Yet two days earlier a report by the UN Environment Program had claimed that the cause of the melting glaciers was not global warming but the local warming effect of a vast "atmospheric brown cloud" hanging over that region, made up of soot particles from Asia's dramatically increased burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Furthermore a British study published two years ago by the American Meteorological Society found that glaciers are only shrinking in the eastern Himalayas. Further west, in the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram, glaciers are "thickening and expanding".
Meanwhile, all last week, ITV News was running a series of wearisomely familiar scare stories on the disappearing Arctic ice and those "doomed" polar bears - without telling its viewers that satellite images now show ice cover above its 30-year average, or that polar bear numbers are at record level. But then "polar bears not drowning after all - as snow falls over large parts of Britain" doesn't really make a story.
Source
Scientists urge Indonesian symposium 'to avoid the hysteria of global-warming alarmists'
In this article Dr. Willie Soon, geo-scientist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, and Lord Christopher Monckton, chief policy adviser to the Science and Public Policy Institute in Washington DC., urge the assembled scientists to avoid the hysteria of global-warming alarmists, and instead study solar activity.
Carbon dioxide is not an air pollutant. It is plant food. All life on Earth depends on it. It is natural. It forms the bubbles in bread, champagne, and Coca-Cola. You breathe it out, and plants breathe it in.
The Earth contains a lot of CO2, but the atmosphere contains so little that the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) rightly calls CO2 a "trace gas". A scientific mystery is why the air does not hold more CO2 than it does. Half a billion years ago, there was almost 20 times today's CO2 concentration.Most farmers would prefer to grow crops under much-higher concentrations of CO2 than today's 385 parts per million-less than 1/25 of 1 percent of the atmosphere. To feed the world, low CO2 concentration is not such a great idea. High concentrations are better, and they cause no harm. Experiments have shown that even delicate plants such as orchids thrive at CO2 concentrations of 10,000 ppm.That is why U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia has declared that if CO2 is to be labeled an "air pollutant", then so must Frisbees and flatulence.
What about the danger of overheating the Earth by CO2? Al Gore is spending $300 million telling us "global warming" will be a catastrophe. Yet a survey of 539 scientific papers containing the words "global climate change" and published between January 2004 and February 2007 found not a single one that provided any evidence that "global warming" would be catastrophic. It does not matter how many scientists or politicians say that more CO2 will cause a catastrophe. To true scientists, what matters is whether any real-world data support the idea.
If CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas, we would have seen a great warming trend in Indonesian temperature history. We haven't. Recent temperatures, according to the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, have been scarcely warmer than they were 70 to 100 years ago. Instead of a strong warming trend, the Indonesian data are dominated by year-to-year changes and natural oscillations every 50 to 100 years.It is remarkable to find documents on the Internet, circulated by WWF-Indonesia, trying to scare the unsuspecting public by saying the temperature in Indonesia has "increased by 0.3§ C" over the twentieth century and that one can expect additional warming of 0.1 to 0.3§ C per decade for the next 20 to 100 years.
In a humid, equatorial nation such as Indonesia, with annual temperatures between 23§ and 32§ C, there is little chance of seeing those predicted warming trends, or any of the predicted changes in rainfall. Professor Mezak Ratag of the Indonesia National Agency for Meteorology & Geophysics says, The output from different models is often different and sometimes contradictory. For example, [a UK climate model] predicts increases in temperature and decreases in precipitation for Indonesia, while [a German model] predicts an increase in both temperature and precipitation.When climate models say that both increased and decreased rainfall are possible, they are not actually making any predictions.
Worse, climate scientists from Stanford University and the University of Washington in the United States recently admitted that the islands of Java and Bali are not even represented as land in many global-circulation models [used by the IPCC].
The 100-year mean temperatures over the period 1901-2000 for March-April-May, June-July-August, September-October-November, and December-January-February are 26.2, 25.6, 26.1, and 25.9§ C, respectively. This confirms the clear dependence of the basic climatology of Indonesia on the arrival and relative intensity of the sun overhead. More sun means warmer weather, and vice versa. It is as simple as that.More sun also means more rain, except that during the December-January-February season there is an additional large contribution from the northwest monsoon and the southward migration of the inter-tropical rainbelt.Look to matahari (the sun in Bahasa Indonesia) rather than CO2 as the key player in Indonesia's climate.
Cutting CO2 emissions by sharply curtailing the use of gasoline and other fossil fuels will make no difference to the weather. It will merely lead the foolish to feel good about "saving the planet". Even if the planet needed saving, all proposed mitigation measures would be futile. It would be cheaper and less irresponsible to adapt to warmer weather as-or rather if-necessary.We have already seen food prices double and triple worldwide because the "green" movement told us biofuels would "save the planet". Science, however, demonstrates that biofuels have a bigger carbon footprint than does gasoline.
Foolish mitigation measures that owe everything to political fashion and nothing to scientific rigor are already harming the world's poor. It is time to stop the hysteria about CO2 before anyone else gets hurt-or even killed
Source
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.
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Ever since his original "hockeystick" graph of the global temperature trend was discredited, Michael Mann has been trying to justify himself by producing a second, less challengeable hockeystick graph. His latest effort is dissected in the very thorough and detailed article briefly excerpted below. Excerpts below are the abstract plus mention of what the proxies central to Mann's new hockeystick consist of. By using data known to be corrupted, Mann has certainly done nothing to redeem his reputation.
by Willis Eschenbach
Abstract: A new method is proposed for determining if a group of datasets contain a signal in common. The method, which I call Correlation Distribution Analysis (CDA), is shown to be able to detect common signals down to a signal:noise ratio of 1:10. In addition, the method reveals how much of the common signal is contained by each proxy. I applied the method to the Mann et al. 2008 (hereinafter M2008) proxies. I analysed all (N=95) of the M008 proxies which contain data from 1001 to 1980. These contain a clear hockeystick shaped signal. CDA shows that the hockeystick shape is entirely due to Tiljander proxies plus high-altitude southwestern US "stripbark" pines (bristlecones, foxtails, etc). When these are removed, the hockeystick shape disappears entirely.
Mystery solved. The three in red at the top, and one further down, are all the Tiljander lake sediment series, which are known to be corrupted. Once we remove the four Tiljander proxies, it is obvious that the whole edifice is built on a few closely related high-elevation, moisture limited pine trees located in the southwestern US. These tree rings make up no less than 19 of the 21 remaining top proxies after Tiljander is removed. In other words, the bristlecones are back and with a vengeance.
I guess the deal is that no self-respecting paleoclimate reconstruction would be complete without the bristlecone pines (PILO), which make up no less than 12 of the remaining top 21 (after Tiljander is removed). In addition we have the bristlecone's cousins, the limber pine (PIFL) and the foxtail pine (PIBA). All of these records contain are from similar ecosystems and contain similar signals. The overwhelming majority were collected by Graybill. His work has been called into serious question by LInah Abadneh's thesis, wherein she was unable to replicate his results.
If I ran the zoo, I'd throw out all of those high altitude pine tree ring records. They are known to have problems, their use has been recommended against, and the principal investigator's work is under a cloud. I would omit them.
More here (See the original for links, graphics etc.)
Global cooling hits Britain hard
Traffic chaos as Britain's big freeze brings blanket of snow - and there's more to come
Only the bravest - or foolish - motorists were out and about early yesterday as snow blanketed parts of the country. As much as 4in (10cm) fell in parts of East Anglia, leaving this stretch of the A47 in Norwich to be negotiated with extreme caution. Conditions were made even more hazardous after heavy downpours froze, covering roads in layers of ice. A stretch of the M62 in Greater Manchester was forced to close
The weekend's bitter weather caused mayhem across large swathes of the country, with some roads blocked off and others covered in a sheet of ice by the subsequent downpours. As temperatures dropped to as low as minus 6.1C (21F) police were called to dozens of accidents as black ice made conditions treacherous.
Whilst children up and down the country built snowmen and threw snowballs large parts of the nation shivered in temperatures colder than Moscow (-2C/28.4F), Helsinki (-3C/26.6F) and Berlin (2C/35.6F)....
Gales gusting at 50mph forced the cancellation of ferry services between Holyhead and Dublin whilst ice and snow caused the closure of the eastbound section of the M62 between junctions 21 and 22 in Greater Manchester. Heavy snow fell in Scotland, the North of England and down the east coast from North Yorkshire to Suffolk. In Oxfordshire and Cumbria the temperature dropped to minus 6.1C (21F). Among the next coldest areas were Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, at minus 5.7C (21.7F) and South Farnborough in Hampshire at minus 4.8C (23.36F).
London, which last month saw the first October snow for 74 years, was also carpeted by a layer of snow - only for it to be replaced hours later by freezing rain.
The cold front has prompted bookmakers William Hill to slash the odds of a white Christmas in London from 8/1 to 6/1. William Hill, which has reported record betting on a white Christmas, cut the odds on snow falling on Christmas in London from 8/1 to 6/1 while Ladbrokes is offering 9/2. William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams said: 'We have never had so much money in the book with over a month to go. If it snows, we will be paying out millions to our customers.'
Source
Weather Channel Fires Entire Global Warming Broadcast Team
I guess global warming isn't economically feasible after all!
"NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the "Forecast Earth" environmental program during the middle of NBC's "Green Week," as well as several on-camera meteorologists. The layoffs totaled about 10 percent of the workforce, and are among the first major changes made since NBC completed its purchase of the venerable weather network in September.
The layoffs affected about 80 people, but left the long-term leadership of the network unclear, according to a source who requested anonymity due to the continuing uncertainty at the station.
Among the meteorologists who was let go was Dave Schwartz, a Weather Channel veteran and a viewer staple due to his lively on camera presentations. USA Today reported that meteorologists Cheryl Lemke and Eboni Deon were also let go.
The timing of the Forecast Earth cancellation was ironic, since it came in the middle of NBC's "Green Week," during which the network has been touting its environmental coverage across all of its platforms. Forecast Earth normally aired on weekends, but its presumed last episode was shown on a weekday due to the environmentally-oriented week.
Forecast Earth was hosted by former CNN anchor Natalie Allen, with contributions from climate expert Heidi Cullen."
Cullen you'll remember called for Nuremberg style trials for climatologists who dared to doubt the religion of global warming. What goes around comes around babe!
Source (See the original for links)
Interview with skeptical but polite climatologist
Through a video link, President-elect Barack Obama addressed a climate change conference convened today by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles, saying he would more aggressively tackle the problem of climate change than the Bush Administration. But behind the politics of global warming, scientists are engaged in a robust debate about the effects of manmade CO2 in our atmosphere. Joining us now is a researcher involved in the debate over climate change. Robert Balling Jr is a professor in the climatology program of the School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University. He has served as a climate consultant to the United Nations Environment Programme and served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Robert, welcome to the KVMR evening news. I want to start by asking -Can you maybe describe the debate that's going on among scientists and in peer reviewed journals and otherwise, over the issue of climate change?
RCB: Well I'll do that, just as soon as you tell me what happened in the Civil War. It's kind of a big question - if you were to go to a library or look at any top of the line science journal, you would quickly discover that every element of the greenhouse issue has its folks who seem to be supportive of certain ideas, and others who are not. The most fundamental questions, like, is the planet warming - in reality there's quite a debate about that very subject; as I tell people, you would just discover that the climate change issue is very much more complicated than it is often presented to the public. And that's somewhat the message I have on the circuit, is that no matter what thing you ask about, you find out there's an incredible story behind it and quite a debate going on in the scientific community.
KVMR: Well, let's just step back and tackle that question - "is the planet warming, and how do we know?" To me it's scientists collecting data and then drawing conclusions based on that data, right? well, is the planet warming?
RCB: Yes and no. We have a -- there are a number of ways that the planetary temperature is taken - there are satellites that measure microwave emissions that come from the low atmosphere (those are directly related to the temperature of the low atmosphere, these polar orbiting satellites that allow for a global temperature to be measured); balloons are launched all over the world every day, the balloon record can give us a sense of the planetary temperature; and then there are literally millions of thermometer records from all over the world, and they're not perfect by any means but they can all be averaged and get another sense of the planetary temperature; the good news is they're all very highly correlated.
So it would seem easy, is the earth warming or not? If you said how about the last 30 years, the answer's absolutely, all three of those primary ways that we measure the temperature of the earth show warming. But if you said how about for the last 6 years from 2002 to present, all three show cooling. So you could answer the question a thousand different ways - if you said is the earth warming and you mean the last 100 years, the answer's yes; if you mean the last 1000 years the answer may not be yes, or if you mean how about the last million years, the answer is well, we've actually been rather cold the last million years. So that question is not as easy to answer as it sounds at first glance.
KVMR: So it's really trying to take and analyze and see some sense and consistency to trends in temperatures.?
RCB: Yes, even if you could show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earth was warming over the last 30 years, and I think scientists have, we know that the climate system varies quite naturally. I mean clearly we've had ice ages come and go, we've had warm periods come and go, and it's hard given the natural variability of climate to say what we have seen over the last 30 years is absolutely related to the buildup of greenhouse gases.
There are people who talk about fingerprints; the warming of the surface does seem to be in the right places - it's in the winter, the high latitudes, night, land areas, where the models tell us we should see it, but the models also tell us we should see a lot more warming above the surface and that warming hasn't been seen. So on the one hand you see this fingerprint, and then another analysis you don't see the fingerprint.
KVMR: I've attended the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union - AGU - for the past 7 years, and I go by the graces of my wife who is a scientist, but I also go as a reporter; I saw Al Gore speak there a couple years ago, and he was very well received as a champion of spreading the word about climate change and global warming. He sort of qualified his remarks to the scientists - perhaps you were there, you are a member of the AGU - saying he's not a scientist, he's a politician, and he was looking to bridge those two worlds; and by the reception he got from the standing-room-only group of scientists, it appeared that most people agreed with him. How do you feel about Al Gore and what he has done in terms of raising awareness about climate change?
RCB: Well there's no doubt he's a politician first, and there's no doubt he spends a lot of time raising awareness of the issue. I saw the film that he put out, and I believe that if at any moment if you said ok, let's stop the film right there, and now lets go critically examine what he just said; it's as I mentioned in the beginining, what we would find out over and over that what he just said is accurate according to some subset of scientists; and what he just said is not consistent with the research findings from a number of other scientists.
Sometimes in the film he'd make very simplistic statements that I think most scientists would feel ill at ease with, and at other times he would say things that most of us would be at ease with. Of course he's going to get a standing ovation, these are human beings, they're going to be polite to speakers, there's no question - if Al Gore keeps the issue alive, and you are a scientist who is in line to receive substantial federal grants, you might stand up and clap as well. If I'm in the audience I would certainly receive his message well, I'd be respectful, but again I don't think he accurately represents the state of science. I mean, even if you were to download the IPCC technical summary
KVMR: (which you contributed to)
RCB: (yeah I have in the past, there's no question about that)- if you were to download the technical summary and read it, you would immediately sense that the IPCC is saying things that are not consistent with some of the points that Gore makes. But I welcome him to the debate, I'm not one to sit back and tell somebody "I don't want to hear your message", the more messengers the better.
But he has been, no question, a very powerful figure in raising awareness of the global warming issue - to the extent that the awareness has been raised - and you can look at some various polls of where global warming really stands in the eyes of the American public, and you can make a case that given all this raising awareness it didn't work, it didn't really raise the awareness that much.
KVMR: It seems that people are polarized over this issue; I've heard people say that climate change is not happening, and we had a congressional candidate on here saying the climate change is the product of alarmists, and.
RCB: I don't know if it's the product of alarmists, but I can get for you astrophysicists at Harvard who could explain to you that variations in the earth's temperature are very closely related to variations in the output of the sun; and some of these people believe that what we have seen in recent decades is solar related; and even this cooling that we've seen recently in global temperature is often explained away as a reduction in solar output.So it's not just a matter of people calling each other names - there are very credible scientists at MIT and Harvard, and Stanford and elsewhere who are writing in a way that would put them in the skeptical camp, which is enormous by the way.
KVMR: You really wouldn't get this in popular culture, this really isn't making it into the mix; it seems that it's a slam dunk for climate change.
RCB: I don't really believe that. I mean, you can turn on the radio in Phoenix Arizona, for probably 8 hours a day, some of your brothers in talk radio are talking about global warming, and making fun of it, and interviewing scientists who are skeptical - I never think that the skeptical viewpoint doesn't get its airing, at all. I've had every opportunity to be on, you name it, and I think the skeptical message has definitely been aired and the American public has heard it. I think to this day, when you ask many Americans what they think of the issue, they still laugh it off they sort of make fun of Gore, they make fun of the issue, and I think they do get that from some of the champions of talk radio.
Source
Stubborn glaciers fail to retreat, awkward polar bears continue to multiply
Second only to the melting of the Arctic ice and those "drowning" polar bears, there is no scare with which the global warmists, led by Al Gore, more like to chill our blood than the fast-vanishing glaciers of the Himalayas, which help to provide water for a sixth of mankind. Recently one newspaper published large pictures to illustrate the alarming retreat in the past 40 years of the Rongbuk glacier below Everest. Indian meteorologists, it was reported, were warning that, thanks to global warming, all the Himalayan glaciers could have disappeared by 2035.
Yet two days earlier a report by the UN Environment Program had claimed that the cause of the melting glaciers was not global warming but the local warming effect of a vast "atmospheric brown cloud" hanging over that region, made up of soot particles from Asia's dramatically increased burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Furthermore a British study published two years ago by the American Meteorological Society found that glaciers are only shrinking in the eastern Himalayas. Further west, in the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram, glaciers are "thickening and expanding".
Meanwhile, all last week, ITV News was running a series of wearisomely familiar scare stories on the disappearing Arctic ice and those "doomed" polar bears - without telling its viewers that satellite images now show ice cover above its 30-year average, or that polar bear numbers are at record level. But then "polar bears not drowning after all - as snow falls over large parts of Britain" doesn't really make a story.
Source
Scientists urge Indonesian symposium 'to avoid the hysteria of global-warming alarmists'
In this article Dr. Willie Soon, geo-scientist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, and Lord Christopher Monckton, chief policy adviser to the Science and Public Policy Institute in Washington DC., urge the assembled scientists to avoid the hysteria of global-warming alarmists, and instead study solar activity.
Carbon dioxide is not an air pollutant. It is plant food. All life on Earth depends on it. It is natural. It forms the bubbles in bread, champagne, and Coca-Cola. You breathe it out, and plants breathe it in.
The Earth contains a lot of CO2, but the atmosphere contains so little that the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) rightly calls CO2 a "trace gas". A scientific mystery is why the air does not hold more CO2 than it does. Half a billion years ago, there was almost 20 times today's CO2 concentration.Most farmers would prefer to grow crops under much-higher concentrations of CO2 than today's 385 parts per million-less than 1/25 of 1 percent of the atmosphere. To feed the world, low CO2 concentration is not such a great idea. High concentrations are better, and they cause no harm. Experiments have shown that even delicate plants such as orchids thrive at CO2 concentrations of 10,000 ppm.That is why U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia has declared that if CO2 is to be labeled an "air pollutant", then so must Frisbees and flatulence.
What about the danger of overheating the Earth by CO2? Al Gore is spending $300 million telling us "global warming" will be a catastrophe. Yet a survey of 539 scientific papers containing the words "global climate change" and published between January 2004 and February 2007 found not a single one that provided any evidence that "global warming" would be catastrophic. It does not matter how many scientists or politicians say that more CO2 will cause a catastrophe. To true scientists, what matters is whether any real-world data support the idea.
If CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas, we would have seen a great warming trend in Indonesian temperature history. We haven't. Recent temperatures, according to the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, have been scarcely warmer than they were 70 to 100 years ago. Instead of a strong warming trend, the Indonesian data are dominated by year-to-year changes and natural oscillations every 50 to 100 years.It is remarkable to find documents on the Internet, circulated by WWF-Indonesia, trying to scare the unsuspecting public by saying the temperature in Indonesia has "increased by 0.3§ C" over the twentieth century and that one can expect additional warming of 0.1 to 0.3§ C per decade for the next 20 to 100 years.
In a humid, equatorial nation such as Indonesia, with annual temperatures between 23§ and 32§ C, there is little chance of seeing those predicted warming trends, or any of the predicted changes in rainfall. Professor Mezak Ratag of the Indonesia National Agency for Meteorology & Geophysics says, The output from different models is often different and sometimes contradictory. For example, [a UK climate model] predicts increases in temperature and decreases in precipitation for Indonesia, while [a German model] predicts an increase in both temperature and precipitation.When climate models say that both increased and decreased rainfall are possible, they are not actually making any predictions.
Worse, climate scientists from Stanford University and the University of Washington in the United States recently admitted that the islands of Java and Bali are not even represented as land in many global-circulation models [used by the IPCC].
The 100-year mean temperatures over the period 1901-2000 for March-April-May, June-July-August, September-October-November, and December-January-February are 26.2, 25.6, 26.1, and 25.9§ C, respectively. This confirms the clear dependence of the basic climatology of Indonesia on the arrival and relative intensity of the sun overhead. More sun means warmer weather, and vice versa. It is as simple as that.More sun also means more rain, except that during the December-January-February season there is an additional large contribution from the northwest monsoon and the southward migration of the inter-tropical rainbelt.Look to matahari (the sun in Bahasa Indonesia) rather than CO2 as the key player in Indonesia's climate.
Cutting CO2 emissions by sharply curtailing the use of gasoline and other fossil fuels will make no difference to the weather. It will merely lead the foolish to feel good about "saving the planet". Even if the planet needed saving, all proposed mitigation measures would be futile. It would be cheaper and less irresponsible to adapt to warmer weather as-or rather if-necessary.We have already seen food prices double and triple worldwide because the "green" movement told us biofuels would "save the planet". Science, however, demonstrates that biofuels have a bigger carbon footprint than does gasoline.
Foolish mitigation measures that owe everything to political fashion and nothing to scientific rigor are already harming the world's poor. It is time to stop the hysteria about CO2 before anyone else gets hurt-or even killed
Source
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.
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Sunday, November 23, 2008
Green Obama's official limo is a gas guzzler
The usual Leftist "Do as I say, not as I do". Al Gore take a bow too
On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to get a million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015. His own new presidential limousine will be far from green, however. The Obamobile being prepared for the president-elect is said to be a monster gas-guzzler made by General Motors, the troubled car giant. It will look like a black Cadillac but is built like a tank. A spy photographer who tracks down future car models for magazines snatched pictures of the heavily disguised first-car-in-waiting when it was being road-tested last summer.
The armour-plated car, which has a raised roof, windows up to 5in thick, extra-strength tyres and a body made of steel, aluminium, titanium and ceramics, is thought to be based on a GMC 2500 truck that gets less than 10 miles to the gallon. Three cars are believed to be in production so that two can serve as decoys. While security is paramount - the car is built to survive roadside bombs as well as gunfire - there are hybrid four-wheel drives on the market, such as Ford's Mercury Mariner, which some critics believe could have been adapted for the president.
Most environmentalists are in forgiving mood at the prospect of the greenest US president yet. Obama vowed to press ahead with his plans to reduce CO2 emissions while speaking last week to a bipartisan conference on climate sponsored by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California. Obama repeated his campaign pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 and to invest $15 billion a year on energy-saving technologies despite the economic melt-down. "Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all," Obama said. "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response."
Carl Pope, the director of the Sierra Club, the environmental group, believes that America will soon outstrip Britain and Europe as a model green nation. "It's easier for us to change course quickly because we only have one president," he said. "If America engages on this issue, we'll trump Europe quickly." John Podesta, the head of Obama's transition team, said: "I anticipate [Obama] moving very aggressively and very rapidly on the whole question of transforming the energy platform in the US from high carbon energy to low carbon energy."
Source
Another Dissenter: Astrophysicist says put IPCC reports `in the trash!'
In the only country still debating whether global warming is man-made, according to SJSU professor Alex Gershenson, another contest to discuss it was held Tuesday night at San Jose's Rotary Club. The event, put on by The Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley, saw two speakers on each side of the issue go head-to-head for 90 minutes on the validity of global warming and its attribution to the activities of humans.
"No other civilized, developed country is having these kinds of debates, period," said Gershenson, an environmental studies professor at SJSU. "It is very frustrating. The overall understanding of how science works is very low in this country."
Four individuals presented a large array of graphs and data to the 500-plus attendees in an attempt to demonstrate the validity of their arguments. The team representing the opinion that global warming is man-made, consisting of SJSU professors Eugene Cordero and Alex Gershenson, weighed their arguments on the consensus of opinion within the scientific community. The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commissioned by the United Nations, included 2,500 scientific experts from around the globe. "The IPCC report that just came out states that most of the warming is very likely due to human cause greenhouse gases," Gershenson said.
Despite the scientific prowess of the panel's reports, the team arguing that global warming is not man-made disregarded its validity. "What I'd do with the IPCC report is to put it in the trash can because that's all it's worth," said Dennis Hollars, who holds a doctorate in astrophysics from New Mexico State University. His brazen pronouncement produced an eruption of laughter among the packed audience. Hollars produced a similar reaction from the crowd when, challenged by Gershenson about the inconsistencies of the data in the graphs he was presenting, he claimed to "not care" which one was accurate. It was hard to tell whether the audience was laughing out of the humor of Hollars' delivery, or because they disagreed with him.
One of the central arguments of the side arguing that global warming is a natural occurrence was that temperatures were driving the increase in carbon dioxide, rather than the commonly accepted reverse. "CO2 has never led to an increase in temperature, based on historical record," said Robert Cohen, a certified consulting meteorologist.
This point was countered by Cordero, who cited hundreds of scientific studies that showed that the temperature increase that has occurred over the last 50 years would not be possible without human-produced chemicals.
Hollars, meanwhile, claimed that carbon dioxide was an insignificant component of the earth's atmosphere and that, rather than being the purveyor of doom it is currently viewed as today, it is needed in order for plants to grow. "Mars' atmosphere is about 95 percent CO2 and has no global warming," Hollars said.
Gershenson pointed out that while carbon dioxide may be a very small component of the earth's atmosphere, it is one of only two components that absorbs and traps heat.
At the culmination of the debate, moderator and SJSU professor Genelle Austin-Lett conducted an informal poll of the audience to gauge its reactions to what they had witnessed. Although few people declared to have had their mind changed by the debate, more people who were unsure about the causes of global warming beforehand said that they believed the causes were man-made.
"I thought that the negative side did a good job in giving us evidence, whereas the other side had a little bit of evidence, but then didn't really have a lot to follow up on when they were questioned," said Candice Howsden, a senior communication studies major.
Gershenson said the debate came down to whether you trust the scientists who say that there is a nine out of 10 chance that global warming is man-made. "If I have a child and I have 10 doctors see that child," Gershenson said, borrowing from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's rationale for supporting California's California climate change legislation, "and nine of the doctors that see my child say that the child is sick and one says well, maybe not, I'm going to go with the nine." [Wouldn't it be better to discuss the evidence for the various verdicts? Incorrect diagnoses are common]
Source
Green fascism
One thing I got wrong in trying to answer The Big Question in The Independent this morning, was to say that "one of the most surprising" names on the leaked BNP membership list was that of someone who stood as a Green Party candidate in the 2001 and 2005 elections. What I meant was "one of the names that was not surprising at all", because there has been a philosophical overlap between the "deep" green movement and fascism from the early years of both.
Yesterday, the Green Party admitted that two of its former activists had been exposed as members of the BNP: Keith Bessant, its parliamentary candidate at Cheltenham in 2001 and 2005, and a Rev Stanton.
This reminded me of the origins of the British National Party in the break-up of the National Front in 1980, and the confusion that followed. For a while there were two National Fronts, as well as a growing BNP. The larger NF fell under the influence of Patrick Harrington, the most recent prophet of the "Third Way" before Tony Blair (the phrase has both fascist and centrist antecedents, with Oswald Mosley's New Party and Harold Macmillan both using it in the 1930s).
The NF relaunched itself as the National Democrats in 1995 as a final spasm before lapsing into its present almost moribund state. But that whole phase was heavily influenced by an eco-nationalist message based on the "blood and soil" notion of a smaller, more sustainable, culturally and ethnically homogenous population, a kind of sub-Tolkien Anglo-Saxon fantasy.It is a fantasy that can come uncomfortably close to some of the more backward-looking politics of the fundamentalist wing of the green movement.
Source
Australia: Global cooling hits the State of NSW
Gale force winds and snow in the NSW central-west are keeping State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers busy, just a week from the start of summer. Since Friday, SES crews have responded to 18 requests for assistance in the Blayney, Bathurst, Lithgow and Orange areas. Most of the damage has been caused by falling trees, but local roads are also being monitored after snow falls on Saturday night. The road between Bathurst and Oberon is currently closed but all other roads are open.
SES Central West Region Controller, Craig Ronan, said the weather conditions are particularly unseasonable. "It's very unusual the week before summer to have such weather conditions," Mr Ronan said. "I believe it's supposed to ease this afternoon. "Let's hope it does ease but obviously our volunteers are ready to help and they're willing to help."
The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning for NSW, with a deep low pressure system off the south coast expected to bring gale force winds to most of the state before it moves east late on Sunday. Winds are expected to average 65km/h with peak gusts in excess of 90km/h.
Blizzard conditions are also anticipated in alpine areas of the Southern Tablelands, South West Slopes and the ACT. "As winds continue, I'd say we'll get a few more calls today," Mr Ronan said.
Source
Australia: This Week's Brisbane Storms Due To Global Warming?
Here is that loveabale TV celebrity of Two Men & A Tiny fame, Tim Flannery prediction on March 3rd 2007.
In May last year Brisbane’s water supply dams were hovering at 23%. Rain since August 2007 to current has lifted Brisbane’s water supply dams to 45% and it’s only the start of the wet season.
Agmates reader Margaret tells us that QLD Premier Anna Bligh is blaming this weeks tropical storms on … Climate Change. Margaret said:
University of Southern Queensland professor of climate and water resources Roger Stone agrees with the Premier that the rain is a sign of climate change.
However the Australian Newspaper in the same article speaks with Queensland weather bureau spokesman Gavin Holcombe who states what is obvious to anybody who is a long term Queensland resident:
You can’t win with the global warming alarmist. Dry weather is a sign, wet weather is a sign, hot weather, cold weather it does not matter, its all a sign to the green religion faithful.
Source
Peak oil freaks eat your heart out
A comment from Australia
California car company Tesla Motors is manufacturing it’s Tesla Roadster. The all electric car that is faster from 0-100kms than a Porsche or Ferrari . In the weekend read section of Business Spectator Simon writes:
Why are the world car manufacturers concentrating on building hybrid cars when companies like Tesla can build all electric cars that use no oil what so ever? You can only guarantee one thing, this technology will get better and better and within the next decade we could see the combustion engine the same way as we view the steam engine, as museum pieces. Those that carry on about ‘peak oil’ as they did in the 70’s will once again discover that man’s ability to develop new technologies to replace what was once considered a scarce natural resources (oil) means we never have peak anything.
The electric car that's faster than Porsche and Ferrari
Source
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.
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The usual Leftist "Do as I say, not as I do". Al Gore take a bow too
On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to get a million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015. His own new presidential limousine will be far from green, however. The Obamobile being prepared for the president-elect is said to be a monster gas-guzzler made by General Motors, the troubled car giant. It will look like a black Cadillac but is built like a tank. A spy photographer who tracks down future car models for magazines snatched pictures of the heavily disguised first-car-in-waiting when it was being road-tested last summer.
The armour-plated car, which has a raised roof, windows up to 5in thick, extra-strength tyres and a body made of steel, aluminium, titanium and ceramics, is thought to be based on a GMC 2500 truck that gets less than 10 miles to the gallon. Three cars are believed to be in production so that two can serve as decoys. While security is paramount - the car is built to survive roadside bombs as well as gunfire - there are hybrid four-wheel drives on the market, such as Ford's Mercury Mariner, which some critics believe could have been adapted for the president.
Most environmentalists are in forgiving mood at the prospect of the greenest US president yet. Obama vowed to press ahead with his plans to reduce CO2 emissions while speaking last week to a bipartisan conference on climate sponsored by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California. Obama repeated his campaign pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 and to invest $15 billion a year on energy-saving technologies despite the economic melt-down. "Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all," Obama said. "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response."
Carl Pope, the director of the Sierra Club, the environmental group, believes that America will soon outstrip Britain and Europe as a model green nation. "It's easier for us to change course quickly because we only have one president," he said. "If America engages on this issue, we'll trump Europe quickly." John Podesta, the head of Obama's transition team, said: "I anticipate [Obama] moving very aggressively and very rapidly on the whole question of transforming the energy platform in the US from high carbon energy to low carbon energy."
Source
Another Dissenter: Astrophysicist says put IPCC reports `in the trash!'
In the only country still debating whether global warming is man-made, according to SJSU professor Alex Gershenson, another contest to discuss it was held Tuesday night at San Jose's Rotary Club. The event, put on by The Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley, saw two speakers on each side of the issue go head-to-head for 90 minutes on the validity of global warming and its attribution to the activities of humans.
"No other civilized, developed country is having these kinds of debates, period," said Gershenson, an environmental studies professor at SJSU. "It is very frustrating. The overall understanding of how science works is very low in this country."
Four individuals presented a large array of graphs and data to the 500-plus attendees in an attempt to demonstrate the validity of their arguments. The team representing the opinion that global warming is man-made, consisting of SJSU professors Eugene Cordero and Alex Gershenson, weighed their arguments on the consensus of opinion within the scientific community. The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commissioned by the United Nations, included 2,500 scientific experts from around the globe. "The IPCC report that just came out states that most of the warming is very likely due to human cause greenhouse gases," Gershenson said.
Despite the scientific prowess of the panel's reports, the team arguing that global warming is not man-made disregarded its validity. "What I'd do with the IPCC report is to put it in the trash can because that's all it's worth," said Dennis Hollars, who holds a doctorate in astrophysics from New Mexico State University. His brazen pronouncement produced an eruption of laughter among the packed audience. Hollars produced a similar reaction from the crowd when, challenged by Gershenson about the inconsistencies of the data in the graphs he was presenting, he claimed to "not care" which one was accurate. It was hard to tell whether the audience was laughing out of the humor of Hollars' delivery, or because they disagreed with him.
One of the central arguments of the side arguing that global warming is a natural occurrence was that temperatures were driving the increase in carbon dioxide, rather than the commonly accepted reverse. "CO2 has never led to an increase in temperature, based on historical record," said Robert Cohen, a certified consulting meteorologist.
This point was countered by Cordero, who cited hundreds of scientific studies that showed that the temperature increase that has occurred over the last 50 years would not be possible without human-produced chemicals.
Hollars, meanwhile, claimed that carbon dioxide was an insignificant component of the earth's atmosphere and that, rather than being the purveyor of doom it is currently viewed as today, it is needed in order for plants to grow. "Mars' atmosphere is about 95 percent CO2 and has no global warming," Hollars said.
Gershenson pointed out that while carbon dioxide may be a very small component of the earth's atmosphere, it is one of only two components that absorbs and traps heat.
At the culmination of the debate, moderator and SJSU professor Genelle Austin-Lett conducted an informal poll of the audience to gauge its reactions to what they had witnessed. Although few people declared to have had their mind changed by the debate, more people who were unsure about the causes of global warming beforehand said that they believed the causes were man-made.
"I thought that the negative side did a good job in giving us evidence, whereas the other side had a little bit of evidence, but then didn't really have a lot to follow up on when they were questioned," said Candice Howsden, a senior communication studies major.
Gershenson said the debate came down to whether you trust the scientists who say that there is a nine out of 10 chance that global warming is man-made. "If I have a child and I have 10 doctors see that child," Gershenson said, borrowing from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's rationale for supporting California's California climate change legislation, "and nine of the doctors that see my child say that the child is sick and one says well, maybe not, I'm going to go with the nine." [Wouldn't it be better to discuss the evidence for the various verdicts? Incorrect diagnoses are common]
Source
Green fascism
One thing I got wrong in trying to answer The Big Question in The Independent this morning, was to say that "one of the most surprising" names on the leaked BNP membership list was that of someone who stood as a Green Party candidate in the 2001 and 2005 elections. What I meant was "one of the names that was not surprising at all", because there has been a philosophical overlap between the "deep" green movement and fascism from the early years of both.
Yesterday, the Green Party admitted that two of its former activists had been exposed as members of the BNP: Keith Bessant, its parliamentary candidate at Cheltenham in 2001 and 2005, and a Rev Stanton.
This reminded me of the origins of the British National Party in the break-up of the National Front in 1980, and the confusion that followed. For a while there were two National Fronts, as well as a growing BNP. The larger NF fell under the influence of Patrick Harrington, the most recent prophet of the "Third Way" before Tony Blair (the phrase has both fascist and centrist antecedents, with Oswald Mosley's New Party and Harold Macmillan both using it in the 1930s).
The NF relaunched itself as the National Democrats in 1995 as a final spasm before lapsing into its present almost moribund state. But that whole phase was heavily influenced by an eco-nationalist message based on the "blood and soil" notion of a smaller, more sustainable, culturally and ethnically homogenous population, a kind of sub-Tolkien Anglo-Saxon fantasy.It is a fantasy that can come uncomfortably close to some of the more backward-looking politics of the fundamentalist wing of the green movement.
Source
Australia: Global cooling hits the State of NSW
Gale force winds and snow in the NSW central-west are keeping State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers busy, just a week from the start of summer. Since Friday, SES crews have responded to 18 requests for assistance in the Blayney, Bathurst, Lithgow and Orange areas. Most of the damage has been caused by falling trees, but local roads are also being monitored after snow falls on Saturday night. The road between Bathurst and Oberon is currently closed but all other roads are open.
SES Central West Region Controller, Craig Ronan, said the weather conditions are particularly unseasonable. "It's very unusual the week before summer to have such weather conditions," Mr Ronan said. "I believe it's supposed to ease this afternoon. "Let's hope it does ease but obviously our volunteers are ready to help and they're willing to help."
The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning for NSW, with a deep low pressure system off the south coast expected to bring gale force winds to most of the state before it moves east late on Sunday. Winds are expected to average 65km/h with peak gusts in excess of 90km/h.
Blizzard conditions are also anticipated in alpine areas of the Southern Tablelands, South West Slopes and the ACT. "As winds continue, I'd say we'll get a few more calls today," Mr Ronan said.
Source
Australia: This Week's Brisbane Storms Due To Global Warming?
Here is that loveabale TV celebrity of Two Men & A Tiny fame, Tim Flannery prediction on March 3rd 2007.
Environmental researcher Tim Flannery has warned that Brisbane & Adelaide …. home to a combined 3 million people could run out of water by years end.. He said the country was facing a ‘catastrophic’ situation.
‘Even a year ago, this would have been unthinkable,’ Flannery told AFP. ‘I think it’s the most extreme and dangerous situation arising from climate change facing any country in the world right now’
In May last year Brisbane’s water supply dams were hovering at 23%. Rain since August 2007 to current has lifted Brisbane’s water supply dams to 45% and it’s only the start of the wet season.
Agmates reader Margaret tells us that QLD Premier Anna Bligh is blaming this weeks tropical storms on … Climate Change. Margaret said:
Premier Bligh and the AM commentator this morning were both pushing hard the idea that the intense storms in Brisbane were due to global warming. It was PATHETIC how they were talking - as if there was no doubt about it. The ABC is so much a propaganda government media tool it is TERRIBLE.
University of Southern Queensland professor of climate and water resources Roger Stone agrees with the Premier that the rain is a sign of climate change.
ONE of Australia’s leading climatologists has warned the extreme weather that hit southeast Queensland this week is consistent with climate change modelling of weather patterns.
However the Australian Newspaper in the same article speaks with Queensland weather bureau spokesman Gavin Holcombe who states what is obvious to anybody who is a long term Queensland resident:
But back in the 70s and 80s we did have plenty of Novembers which were very wet indeed. I just think people are now thinking of the sort of dry Novembers that we’ve had over the past decade as the norm, but if you look over the long term, there have been plenty of wet Novembers.
You can’t win with the global warming alarmist. Dry weather is a sign, wet weather is a sign, hot weather, cold weather it does not matter, its all a sign to the green religion faithful.
Source
Peak oil freaks eat your heart out
A comment from Australia
California car company Tesla Motors is manufacturing it’s Tesla Roadster. The all electric car that is faster from 0-100kms than a Porsche or Ferrari . In the weekend read section of Business Spectator Simon writes:
Driving an electric car feels like stepping into a jet aircraft after a lifetime of flying little bug smashers with propellers. Eerily quiet, they have a flat torque curve from zero rpm. Putting your foot down - at any speed - commands an instant kick in the back. They operate with ease at US highway speeds. The EV’s only real challenge was range, as a function of the available battery technology. As anyone who watched the movie knows, GM couldn’t kill them off fast enough as soon as CARB lost their nerve in the face of extensive political lobbying from the car industry at the time.
Fast forward to today. Tesla Motors have created an electric sports car for today. It’s the first full production EV since the EV I era and like the EV I, it rocks: 0-100 km/h in less than four seconds. Over 360 km range - far more than most Australian cars in the real world. Silent. Pretty. Zero tailpipe emissions. Able to be charged from solar panels on your own roof.
I had been wanting to buy an EV ever since I was hooked on the GM EV I, all those years ago. So it was no surprise that I became the first (and to date, the only) Australian to order a Tesla Roadster. Mine gets built in Q1 2009.
Why are the world car manufacturers concentrating on building hybrid cars when companies like Tesla can build all electric cars that use no oil what so ever? You can only guarantee one thing, this technology will get better and better and within the next decade we could see the combustion engine the same way as we view the steam engine, as museum pieces. Those that carry on about ‘peak oil’ as they did in the 70’s will once again discover that man’s ability to develop new technologies to replace what was once considered a scarce natural resources (oil) means we never have peak anything.
The electric car that's faster than Porsche and Ferrari
Source
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.
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Saturday, November 22, 2008
Global cooling! Over 200 whales trapped in Canadian ice
At least 200 narwhal whales in Canada's Arctic, trapped by winter ice and facing starvation or suffocation, must be culled, officials say. Hunters from the village of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island discovered the animals trapped near Bylot Island, about 17 kilometres from Pond Inlet, on November 15.
The local hunters are allowed to harvest only 130 whales each year for food, according to standards set by the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans. But department spokesman Keith Pelley said: "It's unlikely the animals are going to survive the winter, so the hunters have been given authorisation to cull them." The hunters have been on the ice slaughtering the whales since Thursday and are likely to accomplish their task over the coming days, he said.
Narwhal are found mostly in the Arctic circle, and are renowned for their extraordinarily long tusk, which is actually a twisted incisor tooth that projects from the left side of its upper jaw and can be up to three metres long.
"A couple of weeks ago, when the ice was still moving, there were quite a few narwhal seen out there in the open water," Jayko Allooloo, chairman of the Pond Inlet hunters and trappers organisation, told public broadcaster CBC. "About a week later, they're stuck."
Community elders and officials feared the whales would die from a lack of oxygen as the ice grew thicker around them, Pelley explained. There are about a dozen areas of open waters where they could come up for air, but it is a tight squeeze for them.
Source
A Global farce? A number of researchers say that despite public opinion, global warming may be a result of natural causes
Article below from the student newspaper of the University of Oregon
If the Greenland icecap melts, the Sahara expands and the Siberian permafrost disappears, don't blame carbon-emitting SUVs or billowing smokestacks, says a group of scientists who claim their research on global warming has been repressed. The explanation, they argue, might be simpler: Mother Nature is just going through her natural cycles.
Researchers from around the world have begun to question the growing acceptance among the public, the media and the scientific community that labels human behavior as the primary cause of global warming.
The researchers who go against the scientific grain on the climate change issue know their ideas are unpopular. In fact, many claim their research is so disliked the rest of the scientific community is working to suppress it in spite of convincing scientific evidence.
They also claim that the suggested effects of global warming are nothing short of "sheer fear-mongering," as Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute put it. The more probable effects of climate change are likely to be much less severe than activists would indicate, researchers say.
These unpopular and inflammatory ideas don't seem to have infiltrated the University of Oregon community. Many professors at the University adamantly insist global warming is man-made and any debate to the contrary is pointless.
While many University of Oregon professors are in the public majority on the global warming issue and in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international group that compiles research and issues reports on climate change, the voice of dissent is surfacing in a growing number of intellectual communities.
In December 2007, a group of more than 400 scientists from more than 24 nations testified that they do not think global warming is man-made. The group, appearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, contested many of the main points that support human-induced global warming and said their skeptical views have been repressed by scientific journals and the mainstream media.
Scientists in the group represented had worked for institutions such as Harvard University, NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of London, Princeton University and the International Arctic Research Centre.
Don Easterbrook, a geology professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, has spent his career studying climate patterns and glaciers in the Cascade Mountains and Greenland. He has concluded carbon dioxide emissions are not causing global warming - natural climate fluctuation patterns are. Easterbrook and his colleague Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, say nature can regulate itself with climate and solar cycles. Compared with other greenhouse gasses such as water vapor, carbon dioxide does not trap heat in a significant way, they say. They say that assuming humans alone have created global warming borders on arrogance.
The two are studying the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a naturally occurring temperature fluctuation in the Pacific Ocean that has been observed by NASA satellite observations. The PDO changes between warm and cold cycles approximately every 20 to 30 years, which changes the cloudiness of Earth, the behavior of the jet stream and subsequently the temperature, according to NASA.
In the abstract for his article "Tropical Pacific decadal variability and global warming," Benjamin Giese, a professor of oceanography at Texas A&M University, writes: "The results suggest that much of the decade to decade variations in global air temperature may be attributed to tropical Pacific decadal variability."
Spencer believes the PDO cycles explain about 75 percent of the climate change during the 20th century. During that time, Earth went through a cold period from 1900-20, was warm from 1920-45, cooled down from 1945-77 and warmed from 1977-98. Spencer and Easterbrook say all of those fluctuations correlate with changes in the PDO.
Global warming may be affected by more than just earthly causes, Easterbrook said. Solar cycles may be having an effect as well. The number of sunspots, or black areas of the sun, range from zero to 170 and the fewer there are, the cooler the Earth is.
Current sun spot activity is very similar to that around 1600 and 1800, which were very cold times in history, Easterbrook said. During the last 500 years, solar cycles have changed between 25 and 30 times, corresponding with climate changes.
According to Easterbrook, 80 to 90 percent of global warming can be attributed to the greenhouse effect of water vapor. University of Notre Dame professor William Evans echoed this observation. "Yes, CO2 is one of several greenhouse gasses, but (it's) not the biggest contributor. Water vapor is," Evans said in an e-mail.
Tim Patterson, professor of Earth sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, told the Canadian Free Press in 2005 that carbon dioxide levels today are 10 times lower than 450 million years ago - when the Earth was the coldest it has been in the past half-billion years.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are currently at 385 parts per million, a rise of about 100 parts per million since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Nevertheless, Easterbrook said current levels are still too negligible to have the effects the scientific community has been attributing to them.
Spencer agreed. He added it is very difficult to prove carbon dioxide is causing global warming because the current warming cycle is the only one in which the gas had a significant presence at all. Just because Earth has warmed while carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere does not mean there is actually a correlation, Spencer and Easterbrook said. "The possibility that global warming is completely natural has never really been investigated," Spencer said.
Although a body of research focuses on the cause of climate change, a group of researchers say the cause is superfluous. To them, the possibility of catastrophe is more important - and it is a possibility that has been drastically exaggerated, they say. In the group that testified before the Senate, some participants were environmentalists who wanted to protest the "fear promotion" they thought global warming activists were using. The problems that global warming can cause - increased sea levels, melted ice caps, endangered arctic species - have been overblown, according to some researchers.
Lewis has analyzed former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore's documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" and found it an example of the "fear promotion" vetted in the Senate hearings. Lewis took to task Gore's three main claims, which he says are overstated and created unfounded fear among the public. The first said the Greenland ice sheet is melting and the moulins, or rivers of melted glacial ice, are destroying the structural integrity of Greenland's glaciers. The second predicts a 20-foot sea level rise and the third predicts a trend of very severe hurricanes.
Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, said none of the predicted problems is new and most have been described inaccurately. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he said, scientists predicted severe hurricanes would be a continuing trend brought on by global warming. The mediocre hurricane seasons of 2006 and 2007 directly refute that claim. Both years had only five hurricanes and two major hurricanes, according to the Pew Center on Global Warming, in contrast to 2005, which had 15 hurricanes and seven major hurricanes.
Burnett also said that while sea levels may rise a few inches during the next century, they have already risen 400 feet since the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago, an increase of three feet per century. That indicates that sea level increases today are nothing out of the ordinary.
George Kukla, a research scientist at Columbia University, said creating fear about global warming is more harmful than the phenomenon itself. He also raised the concern that money and funding were a major motivation behind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's and its allies' focus on disaster scenarios and negative effects of climate change.
"The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid," Kukla said before the Senate.
Much more here
Myths about energy threaten future of nation
Fossil fuels are not ruining the environment, the world is not running out of oil and the U.S. can never be energy independent
Brad Richards, executive vice president of the Mt. Vernon-based Illinois Oil & Gas Association, took issue Thursday in Carmi with "three myths that threaten our country."And in a program of that name, Richards told members and guests of the Kiwanis Club of Carmi that Americans need to focus on reality and not rhetoric as they address their energy needs.
Introduced by Carmi oilman Chris Mitchell, Richards said fossil fuels such as crude oil, natural gas and coal "underpin modern society" and are vital to food production, transportation, healthcare and virtually any other aspect of modern life. Speaking at the club's weekly meeting at The Hickory Stick, he said some environmentalists say global warming is a consequence of the burning of fossil fuels and that the Earth is in peril. Not so, said Richards. He noted that an era known as the Little Ice Age ended about 1850 and the Earth continued to warm through the mid-20th century. And he added that no one really knows why, even though some say the use of fossil fuels was a contributing factor.
He also took issue with the idea that global warming is catastrophic, pointing to data that shows than 7 1/2 times more Europeans died from the effects of heat than the effects of cold during a recent time period. And Richards took on the "polar bear" argument. While admitting that warming has impacted the bears' habitat, he said figures show that there are five times more polar bears living today than in the '60s.
Richards said that accords reached several years ago by several countries' representatives meeting in Kyoto, Japan (and not accepted by the U.S., though he expects the country will accept them during the Obama Administration) would have minimal effect on global warming. Even if all the measures proposed then were implemented and adhered to throughout the 21st century, Richards maintained, the result would be a decline of just .3 degree in average world temperature Fahrenheit by 2100.
Poverty, the speaker told the Kiwanians, is worse than global warming. And he predicted that an enforced reduction in the use of fossil fuels will have a very adverse effect on the economies of Third World nations-and be very costly to the U.S., as well."China isn't worried about CO2 emissions," he said, asserting that the U.S. will be put at a "tremendous disadvantage" if it puts severe restrictions on the use of fossil fuels. Richards said the nation's ultimate goal should not be to reduce greenhouse gases but to improve the quality of life and the environment.
He also took issue with the idea that the world is running out of oil. U.S. crude oil production peaked in the early 1970s and it may well be that world production has peaked recently, he said. But there will be no precipitous decline in production across the globe, he said. Instead, "Supply and demand will reach an uneasy equilibrium. And we'll have a bumpy plateau of production for decades to come; extreme volatility will be the rule."The world is not running out of oil, he said, but it is running out of cheap, easily-found oil. Still, "there's no way to run away from oil" entirely, he cautioned.
Richards told the group that U.S. energy independence is "neither do-able nor desirable." The truth is that the world is becoming more interdependent, he said, and unrealistic talk of energy independence hampers realistic discussion of the matter."It's feel-good talk," he said, but even aggressive development of alternative energy sources wouldn't begin to provide the volume of energy now derived from fossil fuels."The truth is," said Richards, "that we're all married to fossil fuels." And he predicted that this won't change for 30 to 50 years, adding that the U.S. should "accept the reality of energy interdependence."
The club was told that crude oil now provides about 39 percent of the energy that the U.S. uses, natural gas 24 percent, coal 23 percent, nuclear power eight percent and hydroelectric power three percent. And Richards noted that environmentalists don't like any of these sources.Sadly, however, just as the nation can't drill its way to energy independence, it can't build enough windmills or install enough solar panels to replace fossil fuels.
There are encouraging signs. U.S. natural gas production is expected to increase by eight percent this winter to a 35-year high, thanks to higher prices and new technology. What's going on in the U.S. industry is "amazing" and "unbelievable," Richards told the club, with horizontal drilling and other technologies being used to find and exploit huge gas fields.While admitting that John McCain was not the ideal candidate of the U.S. energy industry, Richards made it clear that the industry has little enthusiasm for the president-elect. Barack Obama called for a new windfall profits tax on oil when the price of crude was over $100, Richards said. A similar tax didn't work in the '70s; it increased the nation's dependence on foreign oil, depressed domestic exploration and generated less than 25 percent of what was projected. More of the same could be expected if a new tax were implemented now, he added."Let free markets, not the government, make energy choices," Richards told the crowd.
Asked about the viability of tar sands and oil shales as energy sources, the speaker said they're realistic if crude oil stabilizes at $90 a barrel or so.The impact of the recent drop in crude oil prices was discussed by Mitchell and Kiwanian Scott Pugsley, an executive with Carmi-based Les Wilson, Inc. Mitchell noted that local producers were getting about $128 a barrel in June and July but it fell this week to about $43-the first time since 2005 it had dropped below $50. "How do you budget and plan for that?" he asked, noting that the decline has been a "mess" for local oil companies to deal with. He had expected crude to stabilize in the range of $80 to $90, he said, adding that this would have been a healthy level for the independent domestic oil companies.
Mitchell said his family has been in the oil business for three generations and has "seen some roller coasters." And the business will survive, as well those who "don't get themselves into a bind" by making bad decisions. Pugsley said much of Wilson's business is in drilling for natural gas. And of great concern right now is the restriction on capital, he added. Mitchell also pointed to the recent decision to slow development of an ethanol plant at Mt. Vernon, Ind. The price of crude oil has to remain relatively high in order for these plants to be feasible, he said. But he added that the nation needs a steady, dependable supply of energy, and that wind and solar are uncertain. Richards added that the nation has no good way to store electricity.
Source
Global Warming? Bring it On!
The argument propounded by the dubious United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Anthropogenic (human-induced) Global Warming (AGW) is willfully fraudulent. The report has been vigorously and critically undermined, scientifically denounced and found wanting from both notable scientists here and abroad.
In spite of this fact, it is likely that the new U.S. Democratic Congress and Administration will once again proclaim that they know better than we do about such things. Get ready for them to move surreptitiously under the guise of Global Climate Control in an effort to enhance their own legacies and pocketbooks. To be sure, the Left hears nothing but their own incestuous voices, despite the voices of clarity and reason that abound around them. And there are many, many distinguished dissenters against the charade of AGW. Take for instance the Founder of the Weather Channel and eminent Meteorologist John Coleman who has stated:
There is an abundance of solid data to back these conclusions up. For example, new measurements from the NASA/ESA spacecraft Ulysses show that the sun's current period of low activity goes beyond an extended dearth of sunspots. Solar activity has dropped to the lowest levels since recording began some 50 years ago. Current experts, such as Veizer, Shaviv, and most recently Svensmark et al., and Patterson, suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. They convincingly argue that increased cosmic radiation acts as a catalyst for cloud formation in earth's atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to a general cooling of the world's climate if the pattern persists.
Ironically, during the 1970s while some (including NASA's James Hansen) were hysterically promoting the schizoid fears of a new ice age hitting the world in a few decades, a new frenzy over Global Warming and Climate Change was just beginning at Scripps Ocenaographic Institute in San Diego, CA. It was started by one of their most esteemed scientists Roger Revelle, the father of Oceanography. His work correlated the increases in carbon dioxide, CO2 (a laboratory defined greenhouse gas) to atmospheric warming. Revelle later moved to Harvard and encouraged his students, including Al Gore, to rehash the data.
Since then the research methods have clearly gotten out of hand. Many avenues of research have proven repeatedly useless. Even Roger Revelle understood that there were greater variables at play than the trace gas of CO2.
Before he died, Revelle gave interviews and wrote letters stating that CO2 and its greenhouse effect did not warrant extreme countermeasures. He told Omni Magazine, in March 1984, that "CO2 increase is predicted to temper weather extremes" -- not cause them. One cannot argue that CO2 was a causative factor -- especially since CO2 was apparently following temperature trend -- not moderating it. It seems none of his followers, Gore in particular, heeded his words.
There is a huge problem with the idea that Carbon Dioxide, or CO2, is a globally polluting gas, much less one that causes climate change and global warming. Even though some data seemed to initially substantiate the AGW thesis, these ideas were later proven to be wrong. (Those derived from ice core data were especially damning.) Australian Climatologist Dr. David Evans has done yeoman's work on this issue.
Often forgotten in the argument is the fact that CO2 is only a trace component of the atmosphere. For every million molecules of other gases in the atmosphere (such as nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen), there are only 385 molecules of CO2.
It is a fact that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have varied widely over geological time. The peak was estimated to be some 20-fold higher than at present (+6,000 ppm) -- and the low about 200 ppm below today's. (Everyday office air concentrations often exceed 1,000 ppm CO2.). Meteorologist John Coleman perspicaciously asks:
Increased levels of CO2 has more likely benefited all life forms on the planet, summarizes Coleman. Many other scientists have come to the same conclusion. Robinson, Robinson & Soon, in their cogent 2007 published research paper found here, provided empirical evidence that invalidates AGW alarmists hypotheses. They also found overwhelming support for the general benefits that are derived from natural global warming. Here is the summary of their findings:
Dr. Michael Griffin, the new NASA Administrator, looks at climate change in a refreshingly contrarian fashion. He has stated:
There are other fundamental objections to the AGW theory:
(1) The infamous "Hockey Stick" statistical debacle, nicely summarized here, effectively cherry-picked data from tree rings to estimate temperature change over the past 1000 years. The report erroneously declared that the largest increases in world temperature occurred in the 20th century. These results could not be reproduced by anyone. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) later found the statistical methods first employed inappropriate and the findings bogus.
(2) The reported NASA temperature data glitch discovered by Canadian Computer Analyst Steve McIntyre that wrongly kicked all temperature records up several tenths of a degree was a severe setback for AGW modelers. This software "failure" was overseen by one of AGW's fiercest proponents, the notorious Dr. James Hanson. NASA's GISS and Hanson have recently come under fire again for poor data collection methods and questionable accuracy.
(3) As recently presented in American Thinker, Lord Monckton competently summarizes for us that many of the highly publicized AGW "facts" are simple documented anomalies of natural climate cycling -- designedly misrepresented for the cause of AGW. To wit: The Oceans are not catastrophically rising nor are they warming. In fact, the oceans have been cooling since 2003. The Snows of Kilimanjaro are not melting but ablating because of friction due to a cooling atmosphere and natural cooling trends. The world's 160,000 glaciers are not suddenly receding, but appear to be re-advancing, including those ice shelves in Antarctic and the polar ice sheets, all of which cycle regularly in ice mass. Lord Monckton, a science-journalist, provides even more evidence here.
(4) Finally let us not forget the astute investigation of automated weather stations by US Meteorologist Anthony Watts. Watts painstakingly discovered that a large fraction of the nation's 1,200 stations have been wrongly sited in man-made heat-absorbing centers. (Examples include locations on rooftops, on slabs of heat absorbing concrete, next to air conditioners, diesel generators and asphalt parking lots, even at sewage treatment plants. Some are located in areas experiencing excessive nighttime humidity, and at non-standard observing heights, including one actually sinking into a swamp.) Watts' discovery profoundly undermined the veracity of historical temperature data documented in the United States -- data that had been used by AGW proponents.
There are three indisputable and fundamental facts that were wantonly ignored in the UN's IPCC sham of a report. The UN breathlessly but insidiously "forgot" to include the specifics that:
(1) The Earth has largely benefited by past warming cycle's and that these previous "warmings" had nothing to do with man's activities. These earlier natural cycles were not catastrophic events; they were, in fact, beneficial to all life forms. They provided warmer and longer growing seasons, more areas available for crops, etc. We know, for instance, that Greenland was once green, that Eric the Red planted and grew grapes in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada, that the Romans planted grapes in England, etc.
(2) Solar/Sun Spot activity is the originator of most climatic change and most weather patterns on Earth. It is king. There is no larger factor of influence. CO2 influence is negligible and pales in comparison. CO2 follows the trend of temperature; it does not cause it.
(3) Subordinate to solar activity alone, atmospheric water vapor/cloud formation and movement is the largest known variable that influences temperature changes in the atmosphere of the earth, and the earth's oceans. Water vapor in the atmosphere is around 1000-10,000 times as important as atmospheric CO2.
These three quintessential and pivotal factors are not even discussed in the UN's IPCC report. This exclusion should raise a red flag in any intelligent mind. That's why so many of us are yelling from the rooftops about the absurdity of the report itself! Instead of a true and open discourse, we see the daily dribble from the MSM and various liberally usurped science journals, dishonestly and falsely alleging a "consensus" when there is none.
Indeed, arrayed against the arcane burlesque of the United Nations IPCC with its politically selected 2500 Scientists, of which a core group of 600 exists, and a relatively small number of mediocre "scientists" here and there across the American landscape who have suddenly found notoriety or grant money in the global warming cause, are 31,072+ legitimate and viable scientists (of which I am one) who signed the American Petition Project declaring the Global Warming Hypothesis bogus found here, here and here. We openly refute the UN's conclusions. Here's the Petition Statement we dissenters signed in opposition:
Let me assure you that we're not in good humor, nor take it kindly to be slurred and ridiculed by taking the other side in this debate. And our numbers are still growing. Indeed, we're angry that the vast majority of American Scientists will not be heard by the media. We're dismayed over the fact that the Global Warming fiasco has become politically popular and expedient to those left-wing politicians and power-brokers whose sole aim is to literally tax everything with a carbon footprint and give them control over all life, hidden within their PC guileful pretence to save the planet. They wish to save no one but themselves.
And the tide turns further. Of the 2500 originally aligned scientists and putative authors of the UN's IPCC report some 500 are no longer faithful to Big Al's errand. Many of these scientists discovered that their individual findings and comments were willfully misrepresented. All participant conclusions were unilaterally changed to adhere strictly to the United Nations objective of building support for world taxation and rationing of industrially useful energy. Since the original IPCC report (and there have been some 4 others now formally issued), the defecting 500 scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. Approximately 100 of these scientists are now open defectors. Others are currently suing the UN for the misuse of their good names and research. It is difficult to see why a thinking person would even consider the IPCC report as legitimate.
The entire IPCC process is but obfuscation by the secular and atheist Left. It has allowed the Left to conflate the vanity of secular opinion with scientific and/or moral truth. There is an easy and immediate remedy for their debacle. Will Rogers stated it simply: "When you are in a hole ... stop digging.... Please!"
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UK Labour Party Councillor Glynn Evans dissents
QUESTION - what is the biggest lie ever told to the public? Answer - that manmade carbon dioxide is responsible for accelerated climate change and global warming. Yes, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but it is only a trace gas that accounts for a small part of the atmosphere and it has had a tendency to warm the climate by about 0.5C during the last century. At this point in time global temperatures are relatively stable.
The Green Party's, and its wider associated movements', assertion that man's continued use of fossil fuels is going to heat the atmosphere to high temperatures in many years to come is wrong. There is no evidence to support this theory. It is time science revisited the manmade carbon dioxide driven global warming theory with some urgency.
At this point in time the green movement would have me burnt at the stake for heresy in challenging orthodox global warming theory, and no, I don't have shares in any oil companies.
Henrik Svensmark, the Danish scientist with research over many years with help from many scientists in all fields of science, has proved that clouds are the main greenhouse gas. The major breakthrough came in 2005 with the SKY experiment at the Danish National Space Centre that clearly demonstrated the pivotal role of cosmic rays and ions in the seeding and formation of clouds that affect climate change and global warming. This would make the manmade global warming theory redundant.
Do we make a bonfire of all our fossil fuels? The answer is no. Global warming is not in man's control.
A full-scale cloud facility is being built in Geneva by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern).
Sustainability is important to make the earth's fossil fuels and nuclear energy last as long as possible to allow scientists to bring forward alternative fuel technologies, if mankind does not achieve this it will be a case of "would the last person to leave earth please turn off the lights".
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UP FOR DEBATE: CARBON COSTS
A sequel to the ballyhooed debate in 2007 over the motion that "Global Warming is Not a Crisis" has been scheduled in New York City in January, this time exploring a new premise: "Major Reductions in Carbon Emissions are Not Worth the Money." Those in favor of the motion (some additions may come, organizers say) will be the "skeptical environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg; Philip Stott, the British biogeographer who has become a prominent critic of global warming worriers; and Peter W. Huber, the Manhattan Institute scholar, lawyer and mechanical engineer who has written that energy waste is unavoidable and beneficial.
Those against will be Daniel M. Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, focused on renewable and "appropriate" energy technology and a senior energy adviser to the Obama campaign; Oliver Tickell, an environmental writer/campaigner in search of what he calls Kyoto2, a framework for controlling greenhouse gases that is effective, efficient and equitable; and Adam Werbach, who gained fame as the youngest president of the Sierra Club (elected at 23), but now is focused on "blue" marketing for business growth framed around sustainability, as the head of Saatchi & Saatchi S. I'll have to ask him about how that works.
More here
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At least 200 narwhal whales in Canada's Arctic, trapped by winter ice and facing starvation or suffocation, must be culled, officials say. Hunters from the village of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island discovered the animals trapped near Bylot Island, about 17 kilometres from Pond Inlet, on November 15.
The local hunters are allowed to harvest only 130 whales each year for food, according to standards set by the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans. But department spokesman Keith Pelley said: "It's unlikely the animals are going to survive the winter, so the hunters have been given authorisation to cull them." The hunters have been on the ice slaughtering the whales since Thursday and are likely to accomplish their task over the coming days, he said.
Narwhal are found mostly in the Arctic circle, and are renowned for their extraordinarily long tusk, which is actually a twisted incisor tooth that projects from the left side of its upper jaw and can be up to three metres long.
"A couple of weeks ago, when the ice was still moving, there were quite a few narwhal seen out there in the open water," Jayko Allooloo, chairman of the Pond Inlet hunters and trappers organisation, told public broadcaster CBC. "About a week later, they're stuck."
Community elders and officials feared the whales would die from a lack of oxygen as the ice grew thicker around them, Pelley explained. There are about a dozen areas of open waters where they could come up for air, but it is a tight squeeze for them.
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A Global farce? A number of researchers say that despite public opinion, global warming may be a result of natural causes
Article below from the student newspaper of the University of Oregon
If the Greenland icecap melts, the Sahara expands and the Siberian permafrost disappears, don't blame carbon-emitting SUVs or billowing smokestacks, says a group of scientists who claim their research on global warming has been repressed. The explanation, they argue, might be simpler: Mother Nature is just going through her natural cycles.
Researchers from around the world have begun to question the growing acceptance among the public, the media and the scientific community that labels human behavior as the primary cause of global warming.
The researchers who go against the scientific grain on the climate change issue know their ideas are unpopular. In fact, many claim their research is so disliked the rest of the scientific community is working to suppress it in spite of convincing scientific evidence.
They also claim that the suggested effects of global warming are nothing short of "sheer fear-mongering," as Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute put it. The more probable effects of climate change are likely to be much less severe than activists would indicate, researchers say.
These unpopular and inflammatory ideas don't seem to have infiltrated the University of Oregon community. Many professors at the University adamantly insist global warming is man-made and any debate to the contrary is pointless.
While many University of Oregon professors are in the public majority on the global warming issue and in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international group that compiles research and issues reports on climate change, the voice of dissent is surfacing in a growing number of intellectual communities.
In December 2007, a group of more than 400 scientists from more than 24 nations testified that they do not think global warming is man-made. The group, appearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, contested many of the main points that support human-induced global warming and said their skeptical views have been repressed by scientific journals and the mainstream media.
Scientists in the group represented had worked for institutions such as Harvard University, NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of London, Princeton University and the International Arctic Research Centre.
Don Easterbrook, a geology professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, has spent his career studying climate patterns and glaciers in the Cascade Mountains and Greenland. He has concluded carbon dioxide emissions are not causing global warming - natural climate fluctuation patterns are. Easterbrook and his colleague Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, say nature can regulate itself with climate and solar cycles. Compared with other greenhouse gasses such as water vapor, carbon dioxide does not trap heat in a significant way, they say. They say that assuming humans alone have created global warming borders on arrogance.
The two are studying the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a naturally occurring temperature fluctuation in the Pacific Ocean that has been observed by NASA satellite observations. The PDO changes between warm and cold cycles approximately every 20 to 30 years, which changes the cloudiness of Earth, the behavior of the jet stream and subsequently the temperature, according to NASA.
In the abstract for his article "Tropical Pacific decadal variability and global warming," Benjamin Giese, a professor of oceanography at Texas A&M University, writes: "The results suggest that much of the decade to decade variations in global air temperature may be attributed to tropical Pacific decadal variability."
Spencer believes the PDO cycles explain about 75 percent of the climate change during the 20th century. During that time, Earth went through a cold period from 1900-20, was warm from 1920-45, cooled down from 1945-77 and warmed from 1977-98. Spencer and Easterbrook say all of those fluctuations correlate with changes in the PDO.
Global warming may be affected by more than just earthly causes, Easterbrook said. Solar cycles may be having an effect as well. The number of sunspots, or black areas of the sun, range from zero to 170 and the fewer there are, the cooler the Earth is.
Current sun spot activity is very similar to that around 1600 and 1800, which were very cold times in history, Easterbrook said. During the last 500 years, solar cycles have changed between 25 and 30 times, corresponding with climate changes.
According to Easterbrook, 80 to 90 percent of global warming can be attributed to the greenhouse effect of water vapor. University of Notre Dame professor William Evans echoed this observation. "Yes, CO2 is one of several greenhouse gasses, but (it's) not the biggest contributor. Water vapor is," Evans said in an e-mail.
Tim Patterson, professor of Earth sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, told the Canadian Free Press in 2005 that carbon dioxide levels today are 10 times lower than 450 million years ago - when the Earth was the coldest it has been in the past half-billion years.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are currently at 385 parts per million, a rise of about 100 parts per million since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Nevertheless, Easterbrook said current levels are still too negligible to have the effects the scientific community has been attributing to them.
Spencer agreed. He added it is very difficult to prove carbon dioxide is causing global warming because the current warming cycle is the only one in which the gas had a significant presence at all. Just because Earth has warmed while carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere does not mean there is actually a correlation, Spencer and Easterbrook said. "The possibility that global warming is completely natural has never really been investigated," Spencer said.
Although a body of research focuses on the cause of climate change, a group of researchers say the cause is superfluous. To them, the possibility of catastrophe is more important - and it is a possibility that has been drastically exaggerated, they say. In the group that testified before the Senate, some participants were environmentalists who wanted to protest the "fear promotion" they thought global warming activists were using. The problems that global warming can cause - increased sea levels, melted ice caps, endangered arctic species - have been overblown, according to some researchers.
Lewis has analyzed former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore's documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" and found it an example of the "fear promotion" vetted in the Senate hearings. Lewis took to task Gore's three main claims, which he says are overstated and created unfounded fear among the public. The first said the Greenland ice sheet is melting and the moulins, or rivers of melted glacial ice, are destroying the structural integrity of Greenland's glaciers. The second predicts a 20-foot sea level rise and the third predicts a trend of very severe hurricanes.
Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, said none of the predicted problems is new and most have been described inaccurately. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he said, scientists predicted severe hurricanes would be a continuing trend brought on by global warming. The mediocre hurricane seasons of 2006 and 2007 directly refute that claim. Both years had only five hurricanes and two major hurricanes, according to the Pew Center on Global Warming, in contrast to 2005, which had 15 hurricanes and seven major hurricanes.
Burnett also said that while sea levels may rise a few inches during the next century, they have already risen 400 feet since the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago, an increase of three feet per century. That indicates that sea level increases today are nothing out of the ordinary.
George Kukla, a research scientist at Columbia University, said creating fear about global warming is more harmful than the phenomenon itself. He also raised the concern that money and funding were a major motivation behind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's and its allies' focus on disaster scenarios and negative effects of climate change.
"The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid," Kukla said before the Senate.
Much more here
Myths about energy threaten future of nation
Fossil fuels are not ruining the environment, the world is not running out of oil and the U.S. can never be energy independent
Brad Richards, executive vice president of the Mt. Vernon-based Illinois Oil & Gas Association, took issue Thursday in Carmi with "three myths that threaten our country."And in a program of that name, Richards told members and guests of the Kiwanis Club of Carmi that Americans need to focus on reality and not rhetoric as they address their energy needs.
Introduced by Carmi oilman Chris Mitchell, Richards said fossil fuels such as crude oil, natural gas and coal "underpin modern society" and are vital to food production, transportation, healthcare and virtually any other aspect of modern life. Speaking at the club's weekly meeting at The Hickory Stick, he said some environmentalists say global warming is a consequence of the burning of fossil fuels and that the Earth is in peril. Not so, said Richards. He noted that an era known as the Little Ice Age ended about 1850 and the Earth continued to warm through the mid-20th century. And he added that no one really knows why, even though some say the use of fossil fuels was a contributing factor.
He also took issue with the idea that global warming is catastrophic, pointing to data that shows than 7 1/2 times more Europeans died from the effects of heat than the effects of cold during a recent time period. And Richards took on the "polar bear" argument. While admitting that warming has impacted the bears' habitat, he said figures show that there are five times more polar bears living today than in the '60s.
Richards said that accords reached several years ago by several countries' representatives meeting in Kyoto, Japan (and not accepted by the U.S., though he expects the country will accept them during the Obama Administration) would have minimal effect on global warming. Even if all the measures proposed then were implemented and adhered to throughout the 21st century, Richards maintained, the result would be a decline of just .3 degree in average world temperature Fahrenheit by 2100.
Poverty, the speaker told the Kiwanians, is worse than global warming. And he predicted that an enforced reduction in the use of fossil fuels will have a very adverse effect on the economies of Third World nations-and be very costly to the U.S., as well."China isn't worried about CO2 emissions," he said, asserting that the U.S. will be put at a "tremendous disadvantage" if it puts severe restrictions on the use of fossil fuels. Richards said the nation's ultimate goal should not be to reduce greenhouse gases but to improve the quality of life and the environment.
He also took issue with the idea that the world is running out of oil. U.S. crude oil production peaked in the early 1970s and it may well be that world production has peaked recently, he said. But there will be no precipitous decline in production across the globe, he said. Instead, "Supply and demand will reach an uneasy equilibrium. And we'll have a bumpy plateau of production for decades to come; extreme volatility will be the rule."The world is not running out of oil, he said, but it is running out of cheap, easily-found oil. Still, "there's no way to run away from oil" entirely, he cautioned.
Richards told the group that U.S. energy independence is "neither do-able nor desirable." The truth is that the world is becoming more interdependent, he said, and unrealistic talk of energy independence hampers realistic discussion of the matter."It's feel-good talk," he said, but even aggressive development of alternative energy sources wouldn't begin to provide the volume of energy now derived from fossil fuels."The truth is," said Richards, "that we're all married to fossil fuels." And he predicted that this won't change for 30 to 50 years, adding that the U.S. should "accept the reality of energy interdependence."
The club was told that crude oil now provides about 39 percent of the energy that the U.S. uses, natural gas 24 percent, coal 23 percent, nuclear power eight percent and hydroelectric power three percent. And Richards noted that environmentalists don't like any of these sources.Sadly, however, just as the nation can't drill its way to energy independence, it can't build enough windmills or install enough solar panels to replace fossil fuels.
There are encouraging signs. U.S. natural gas production is expected to increase by eight percent this winter to a 35-year high, thanks to higher prices and new technology. What's going on in the U.S. industry is "amazing" and "unbelievable," Richards told the club, with horizontal drilling and other technologies being used to find and exploit huge gas fields.While admitting that John McCain was not the ideal candidate of the U.S. energy industry, Richards made it clear that the industry has little enthusiasm for the president-elect. Barack Obama called for a new windfall profits tax on oil when the price of crude was over $100, Richards said. A similar tax didn't work in the '70s; it increased the nation's dependence on foreign oil, depressed domestic exploration and generated less than 25 percent of what was projected. More of the same could be expected if a new tax were implemented now, he added."Let free markets, not the government, make energy choices," Richards told the crowd.
Asked about the viability of tar sands and oil shales as energy sources, the speaker said they're realistic if crude oil stabilizes at $90 a barrel or so.The impact of the recent drop in crude oil prices was discussed by Mitchell and Kiwanian Scott Pugsley, an executive with Carmi-based Les Wilson, Inc. Mitchell noted that local producers were getting about $128 a barrel in June and July but it fell this week to about $43-the first time since 2005 it had dropped below $50. "How do you budget and plan for that?" he asked, noting that the decline has been a "mess" for local oil companies to deal with. He had expected crude to stabilize in the range of $80 to $90, he said, adding that this would have been a healthy level for the independent domestic oil companies.
Mitchell said his family has been in the oil business for three generations and has "seen some roller coasters." And the business will survive, as well those who "don't get themselves into a bind" by making bad decisions. Pugsley said much of Wilson's business is in drilling for natural gas. And of great concern right now is the restriction on capital, he added. Mitchell also pointed to the recent decision to slow development of an ethanol plant at Mt. Vernon, Ind. The price of crude oil has to remain relatively high in order for these plants to be feasible, he said. But he added that the nation needs a steady, dependable supply of energy, and that wind and solar are uncertain. Richards added that the nation has no good way to store electricity.
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Global Warming? Bring it On!
The argument propounded by the dubious United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Anthropogenic (human-induced) Global Warming (AGW) is willfully fraudulent. The report has been vigorously and critically undermined, scientifically denounced and found wanting from both notable scientists here and abroad.
In spite of this fact, it is likely that the new U.S. Democratic Congress and Administration will once again proclaim that they know better than we do about such things. Get ready for them to move surreptitiously under the guise of Global Climate Control in an effort to enhance their own legacies and pocketbooks. To be sure, the Left hears nothing but their own incestuous voices, despite the voices of clarity and reason that abound around them. And there are many, many distinguished dissenters against the charade of AGW. Take for instance the Founder of the Weather Channel and eminent Meteorologist John Coleman who has stated:
There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind's activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces.
Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call "Interglacial periods". For the past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period.... [where] the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age. Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming.
Well, it is simply not happening. Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980's and 1990's as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares. That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline. Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years. So, I ask Al Gore, where's the global warming?
There is an abundance of solid data to back these conclusions up. For example, new measurements from the NASA/ESA spacecraft Ulysses show that the sun's current period of low activity goes beyond an extended dearth of sunspots. Solar activity has dropped to the lowest levels since recording began some 50 years ago. Current experts, such as Veizer, Shaviv, and most recently Svensmark et al., and Patterson, suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. They convincingly argue that increased cosmic radiation acts as a catalyst for cloud formation in earth's atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to a general cooling of the world's climate if the pattern persists.
Ironically, during the 1970s while some (including NASA's James Hansen) were hysterically promoting the schizoid fears of a new ice age hitting the world in a few decades, a new frenzy over Global Warming and Climate Change was just beginning at Scripps Ocenaographic Institute in San Diego, CA. It was started by one of their most esteemed scientists Roger Revelle, the father of Oceanography. His work correlated the increases in carbon dioxide, CO2 (a laboratory defined greenhouse gas) to atmospheric warming. Revelle later moved to Harvard and encouraged his students, including Al Gore, to rehash the data.
Since then the research methods have clearly gotten out of hand. Many avenues of research have proven repeatedly useless. Even Roger Revelle understood that there were greater variables at play than the trace gas of CO2.
Before he died, Revelle gave interviews and wrote letters stating that CO2 and its greenhouse effect did not warrant extreme countermeasures. He told Omni Magazine, in March 1984, that "CO2 increase is predicted to temper weather extremes" -- not cause them. One cannot argue that CO2 was a causative factor -- especially since CO2 was apparently following temperature trend -- not moderating it. It seems none of his followers, Gore in particular, heeded his words.
There is a huge problem with the idea that Carbon Dioxide, or CO2, is a globally polluting gas, much less one that causes climate change and global warming. Even though some data seemed to initially substantiate the AGW thesis, these ideas were later proven to be wrong. (Those derived from ice core data were especially damning.) Australian Climatologist Dr. David Evans has done yeoman's work on this issue.
Often forgotten in the argument is the fact that CO2 is only a trace component of the atmosphere. For every million molecules of other gases in the atmosphere (such as nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen), there are only 385 molecules of CO2.
It is a fact that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have varied widely over geological time. The peak was estimated to be some 20-fold higher than at present (+6,000 ppm) -- and the low about 200 ppm below today's. (Everyday office air concentrations often exceed 1,000 ppm CO2.). Meteorologist John Coleman perspicaciously asks:
How can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? How can a trace element possibly be the cause of systemic Global Warming? It can't. That's all there is to it; it can't.... Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.
Increased levels of CO2 has more likely benefited all life forms on the planet, summarizes Coleman. Many other scientists have come to the same conclusion. Robinson, Robinson & Soon, in their cogent 2007 published research paper found here, provided empirical evidence that invalidates AGW alarmists hypotheses. They also found overwhelming support for the general benefits that are derived from natural global warming. Here is the summary of their findings:
1- A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate. There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other green house gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape. There is no reason to limit human production of CO2, CH4, and other minor green house gases as has been proposed.
2- Predictions of catastrophic global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence - actual measurements of Earth's temperature and climate - shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, during four of the seven decades since 1940 when average CO2 levels steadily increased, U.S. average temperatures were actually decreasing.
3- Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge.
4- While major green house gas H2O substantially warms the Earth, minor green house gases such as CO2 have little effect.... The 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature or on the trend in glacier length.
5- Solar activity and U.S. surface temperature are closely correlated...., but U.S. surface temperature and world hydrocarbon use are not correlated.
6- We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if the current natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been much warmer during the past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects. Warmer weather extends growing seasons and generally improves the habitability of colder regions.
7- Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed the Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will not do so in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, however, accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased.
Dr. Michael Griffin, the new NASA Administrator, looks at climate change in a refreshingly contrarian fashion. He has stated:
To assume that [climate change] is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.
There are other fundamental objections to the AGW theory:
(1) The infamous "Hockey Stick" statistical debacle, nicely summarized here, effectively cherry-picked data from tree rings to estimate temperature change over the past 1000 years. The report erroneously declared that the largest increases in world temperature occurred in the 20th century. These results could not be reproduced by anyone. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) later found the statistical methods first employed inappropriate and the findings bogus.
(2) The reported NASA temperature data glitch discovered by Canadian Computer Analyst Steve McIntyre that wrongly kicked all temperature records up several tenths of a degree was a severe setback for AGW modelers. This software "failure" was overseen by one of AGW's fiercest proponents, the notorious Dr. James Hanson. NASA's GISS and Hanson have recently come under fire again for poor data collection methods and questionable accuracy.
(3) As recently presented in American Thinker, Lord Monckton competently summarizes for us that many of the highly publicized AGW "facts" are simple documented anomalies of natural climate cycling -- designedly misrepresented for the cause of AGW. To wit: The Oceans are not catastrophically rising nor are they warming. In fact, the oceans have been cooling since 2003. The Snows of Kilimanjaro are not melting but ablating because of friction due to a cooling atmosphere and natural cooling trends. The world's 160,000 glaciers are not suddenly receding, but appear to be re-advancing, including those ice shelves in Antarctic and the polar ice sheets, all of which cycle regularly in ice mass. Lord Monckton, a science-journalist, provides even more evidence here.
(4) Finally let us not forget the astute investigation of automated weather stations by US Meteorologist Anthony Watts. Watts painstakingly discovered that a large fraction of the nation's 1,200 stations have been wrongly sited in man-made heat-absorbing centers. (Examples include locations on rooftops, on slabs of heat absorbing concrete, next to air conditioners, diesel generators and asphalt parking lots, even at sewage treatment plants. Some are located in areas experiencing excessive nighttime humidity, and at non-standard observing heights, including one actually sinking into a swamp.) Watts' discovery profoundly undermined the veracity of historical temperature data documented in the United States -- data that had been used by AGW proponents.
There are three indisputable and fundamental facts that were wantonly ignored in the UN's IPCC sham of a report. The UN breathlessly but insidiously "forgot" to include the specifics that:
(1) The Earth has largely benefited by past warming cycle's and that these previous "warmings" had nothing to do with man's activities. These earlier natural cycles were not catastrophic events; they were, in fact, beneficial to all life forms. They provided warmer and longer growing seasons, more areas available for crops, etc. We know, for instance, that Greenland was once green, that Eric the Red planted and grew grapes in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada, that the Romans planted grapes in England, etc.
(2) Solar/Sun Spot activity is the originator of most climatic change and most weather patterns on Earth. It is king. There is no larger factor of influence. CO2 influence is negligible and pales in comparison. CO2 follows the trend of temperature; it does not cause it.
(3) Subordinate to solar activity alone, atmospheric water vapor/cloud formation and movement is the largest known variable that influences temperature changes in the atmosphere of the earth, and the earth's oceans. Water vapor in the atmosphere is around 1000-10,000 times as important as atmospheric CO2.
These three quintessential and pivotal factors are not even discussed in the UN's IPCC report. This exclusion should raise a red flag in any intelligent mind. That's why so many of us are yelling from the rooftops about the absurdity of the report itself! Instead of a true and open discourse, we see the daily dribble from the MSM and various liberally usurped science journals, dishonestly and falsely alleging a "consensus" when there is none.
Indeed, arrayed against the arcane burlesque of the United Nations IPCC with its politically selected 2500 Scientists, of which a core group of 600 exists, and a relatively small number of mediocre "scientists" here and there across the American landscape who have suddenly found notoriety or grant money in the global warming cause, are 31,072+ legitimate and viable scientists (of which I am one) who signed the American Petition Project declaring the Global Warming Hypothesis bogus found here, here and here. We openly refute the UN's conclusions. Here's the Petition Statement we dissenters signed in opposition:
"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
Let me assure you that we're not in good humor, nor take it kindly to be slurred and ridiculed by taking the other side in this debate. And our numbers are still growing. Indeed, we're angry that the vast majority of American Scientists will not be heard by the media. We're dismayed over the fact that the Global Warming fiasco has become politically popular and expedient to those left-wing politicians and power-brokers whose sole aim is to literally tax everything with a carbon footprint and give them control over all life, hidden within their PC guileful pretence to save the planet. They wish to save no one but themselves.
And the tide turns further. Of the 2500 originally aligned scientists and putative authors of the UN's IPCC report some 500 are no longer faithful to Big Al's errand. Many of these scientists discovered that their individual findings and comments were willfully misrepresented. All participant conclusions were unilaterally changed to adhere strictly to the United Nations objective of building support for world taxation and rationing of industrially useful energy. Since the original IPCC report (and there have been some 4 others now formally issued), the defecting 500 scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. Approximately 100 of these scientists are now open defectors. Others are currently suing the UN for the misuse of their good names and research. It is difficult to see why a thinking person would even consider the IPCC report as legitimate.
The entire IPCC process is but obfuscation by the secular and atheist Left. It has allowed the Left to conflate the vanity of secular opinion with scientific and/or moral truth. There is an easy and immediate remedy for their debacle. Will Rogers stated it simply: "When you are in a hole ... stop digging.... Please!"
Source
UK Labour Party Councillor Glynn Evans dissents
QUESTION - what is the biggest lie ever told to the public? Answer - that manmade carbon dioxide is responsible for accelerated climate change and global warming. Yes, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but it is only a trace gas that accounts for a small part of the atmosphere and it has had a tendency to warm the climate by about 0.5C during the last century. At this point in time global temperatures are relatively stable.
The Green Party's, and its wider associated movements', assertion that man's continued use of fossil fuels is going to heat the atmosphere to high temperatures in many years to come is wrong. There is no evidence to support this theory. It is time science revisited the manmade carbon dioxide driven global warming theory with some urgency.
At this point in time the green movement would have me burnt at the stake for heresy in challenging orthodox global warming theory, and no, I don't have shares in any oil companies.
Henrik Svensmark, the Danish scientist with research over many years with help from many scientists in all fields of science, has proved that clouds are the main greenhouse gas. The major breakthrough came in 2005 with the SKY experiment at the Danish National Space Centre that clearly demonstrated the pivotal role of cosmic rays and ions in the seeding and formation of clouds that affect climate change and global warming. This would make the manmade global warming theory redundant.
Do we make a bonfire of all our fossil fuels? The answer is no. Global warming is not in man's control.
A full-scale cloud facility is being built in Geneva by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern).
Sustainability is important to make the earth's fossil fuels and nuclear energy last as long as possible to allow scientists to bring forward alternative fuel technologies, if mankind does not achieve this it will be a case of "would the last person to leave earth please turn off the lights".
Source
UP FOR DEBATE: CARBON COSTS
A sequel to the ballyhooed debate in 2007 over the motion that "Global Warming is Not a Crisis" has been scheduled in New York City in January, this time exploring a new premise: "Major Reductions in Carbon Emissions are Not Worth the Money." Those in favor of the motion (some additions may come, organizers say) will be the "skeptical environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg; Philip Stott, the British biogeographer who has become a prominent critic of global warming worriers; and Peter W. Huber, the Manhattan Institute scholar, lawyer and mechanical engineer who has written that energy waste is unavoidable and beneficial.
Those against will be Daniel M. Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, focused on renewable and "appropriate" energy technology and a senior energy adviser to the Obama campaign; Oliver Tickell, an environmental writer/campaigner in search of what he calls Kyoto2, a framework for controlling greenhouse gases that is effective, efficient and equitable; and Adam Werbach, who gained fame as the youngest president of the Sierra Club (elected at 23), but now is focused on "blue" marketing for business growth framed around sustainability, as the head of Saatchi & Saatchi S. I'll have to ask him about how that works.
More here
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.
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Jim Hansen and his twin
