Coca Cola promotes the "endangered" polar bear mnyth

Some of their propaganda below.  A good reason to buy Pepsi, it seems to me

A polar bear first graced a Coca‑Cola poster in 1922, and since then we’ve had an affinity with the great icon of the ice. That’s why we’ve teamed up with WWF to launch Arctic Home, a campaign to help protect the bears’ natural habitat.

Polar bears depend on Arctic ice to hunt, roam and raise cubs - but the ice is melting and the future of this species is under threat. Through our campaign, we’ll be raising awareness and money to help WWF conserve the bears’ precious Arctic home.

Over the next three years, Coca‑Cola will pledge €3million; this sum, along with money donated by consumers, will go towards working with local communities and government, supporting scientific research and helping to reduce conflict between people and bears. Efforts will focus on the Last Ice Area, a particular stretch of the Arctic that is larger than France and Spain combined.

SOURCE





Chevy Volt Follows Stupid 2012 with Stupider 2013

You find it hard to believe that a mostly-owned subsidiary of the United States government and the Obama administration- like GM is- could get any stupider than say Fannie Mae, or Federal Reserve Bank.

Yes, that’s tough competition, but in the “idiocy” category GM seems to be the ruling champion.

Not only have they lost substantial amounts of taxpayer dollars, they have managed to do it while generating record profits even though they still have an unfunded pension liability of over $100 billion. The pension liability is more than twice as large as the company’s current valuation on the stock market.      

GM has now all but admitted that in it’s current iteration, the Chevy Volt- the car on which the company says it pinned all its hopes and dreams- is dead.

That could be a sign of progress, but alas, no.

Because as a result they have introduced a Cadillac version of the Volt power plant just to make the stupidity a bit pricier.

As of now it’s unclear if spontaneous engine compartment fires will be included in the Cadillac luxury version just as they were in the original Chevy Volt or if rich liberals will have to pay more for that option.

What is clear is sales are struggling, with the Volt reaching only 38 percent of its sales goal for 2012, despite incentives that make the Volt a loss leader amongst “green cars.” And if you thought sales were bad in the USA, they were even worse in Europe and Asia.

According to Greencarreports.com, “[j]ust 1,336 Volts found buyers outside the States during the portions of the year the car was on sale--against 23,461 in the U.S. Of those, 1,225 of them were sold in Canada. China and Europe together accounted for only 111 Volts.”

Remember: This was the European car journalists’ “Car of the Year” for 2012, which just goes to show you that Europeans feel about the same regarding their journalists and the Chevy Volt as Americans do about their journalists and the Chevy Volt.

So now GM’s plan is to make the Volt more expensive, because the Obama administration understands that richer liberals are just stupider with their money. Rich liberals went out and voted a tax increase for themselves after all, campaigned for it, embraced it; argued, in fact, that the biggest problem in all of the world is that the government doesn’t have enough of our money.  

What better way to reward them then to figure out another way to fleece them out of more money that they don’t value?

But this time the fleecing will come with Onstar Navigation, leather seats and a dual DVD players.  Maybe shortly they can come out with an Escalade version?

Like most government enterprises, however, GM has decided that it doesn’t want to completely ignore bilking the middle-class.

That why they have announced that the next version of the Chevy Volt is going to far cheaper.

“Instead of shoehorning the electric powerplant into a conventional GM compact-car platform,” reports USAToday, “the next Volt will be purpose-built. That will allow the ability to better package the batteries and other specialized components, says Mark Reuss, president of GM North America. He spoke Wednesday night at Automotive News' World Congress here in Detroit.”

The result will be a car that’s more affordable for working class dudes like you and me.

I’m not exactly sure why they wouldn’t have made the car “purpose-built” in the first place to make it as affordable as possible.

But perhaps like the tax increase that was supposed to be aimed just at the rich, had we known they were going conjure up one “affordable” for all of us, no one would have voted for them.

Because no one was just itching for the payroll tax hike.

And I’m guessing that most everyone would agree that buying a $30,000 car that gets 35 miles between all-night, plug-in charges is just stupid.

Even for middle class liberals.

SOURCE




Obama's Carbon Dioxide Lies

By Alan Caruba

The utter desperation of the “Warmists”, the advocates of global warming—now called climate change—is evident in a recent “study” reported in the Daily Caller in which “an international team of researchers” concluded that “earthworms could be contributing to global warming.” Earthworms!

That's how stupid they think the public is.

It is useful to know the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, the object of much fear-mongering by Greens and Warmists. According to Wikipedia, “Air is the name given to the atmosphere used in breathing and photosynthesis. Dry air contains roughly (by volume) 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1%. While air content and atmospheric pressure vary at different layers, air suitable for the survival of terrestrial plants and terrestrial animals is currently only known to be found in Earth's troposphere and artificial atmospheres."

The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is extraordinarily low compared to its other elements. Edmund Contoski, the author of the award-winning “Makers and Takers”, a study of how wealth and progress is created or thwarted, has noted that “Not only is carbon dioxide’s total greenhouse effect puny, mankind’s contribution to it is minuscule. The overwhelming majority (97%) of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere comes from nature, not from man.”

Not only are worms contributing to the CO2 in the atmosphere, but Contoski notes that “Volcanoes, swamps, rice paddies, fallen leaves, and even insects and bacteria alone emit ten times more carbon dioxide than all the factories and automobiles in the world. Natural wetlands emit more greenhouse gases than all human activities combined.” Contoski’s data is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy which also notes that 98% of all the carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed again by Nature.

According to a February 5 Wall Street Journal article, President Obama’s forthcoming State of the Union speech “will lay out a renewed effort to combat climate change that is expected to include using his authority to curb emissions from existing power plants…Mr. Obama is likely to signal he wants to move beyond proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules on emissions from new power plants and tackle existing coal-fired plants…”

There is not a scintilla of evidence that reducing carbon dioxide to avoid global warming has any basis in science, but ample evidence that Obama sees it as a way to reduce the nation’s capacity to generate the energy—electricity—it requires for economic growth. The effort to impose a carbon tax would suck more wealth out of the private sector while fueling the government’s insatiable desire for more funding.

The administration’s efforts to maintain this absurd, baseless notion were on full display when a report was released in January by the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, claiming that “humans have so altered the composition of the atmosphere that the next glaciation (ice age) has now been delayed indefinitely.” The northeastern states were hit with a monster blizzard in February.

In late December, The Heartland Institute brought together fourteen conservative think tanks and advocacy groups to urge Congress to oppose carbon taxes. In a letter sent to all U.S. Senators and Representatives, they pointed out that a new tax on carbon content of fossil fuels would be a job killer and raise energy costs across the board, “hurting every industry and every consumer.” The letter noted that carbon is already taxed enough and that U.S. carbon emissions are already declining, but the bottom line is that reducing U.S. emissions will have no effect at all on the so-called climate change. Why? Emissions from China, India, and other developing nations are rising rapidly.

The irony of this is that more carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere would contribute to healthier forests and jungles, and most importantly, to increased crop yields that provide food for mankind and livestock, as well as all other creatures that consume vegetation as part of their diet. Carbon dioxide is Nature’s fertilizer for vegetation from a single blade of grass to a giant Sequoia tree.

There is no “consensus” among scientists regarding global warming and many, like those warning about earthworms, have misled Americans and others around the world with the greatest hoax of the modern era.

Since 2008, the U.S. has wasted nearly $70 billion on “climate change activities.” A report by the Congressional Research Service revealed that, from fiscal years 2008 through 2012, the federal government spent $68.4 billion to “combat climate change.” In addition, the Department of Defense spent $4 billion on the same futile, idiotic efforts when, in fact, humans play no role whatever in the changes occurring in the Earth’s climate. The Earth has actually been COOLING since around 1998 and that is entirely the result of less solar radiation. Those billions are an obscene waste of taxpayer funding.

Obama is lying. And he is using the Environmental Protection Agency to advance his lies as they produce more and more regulations whose sole purpose is to shut down existing coal-fired utilities and render impossible the construction of more utilities using coal in a nation that has centuries-worth of affordable coal reserves for the generation of more electricity to serve our energy needs. He is no friend of any other fossil fuel if the delay of the XL Keystone pipeline is any indication.

Energy, indeed, energy independence and the wealth and prosperity that would be generated is within our grasp. The only person standing in the way is Barack Hussein Obama.

SOURCE




A “Hiroshima” of energy

Al Gore, who evidently never learned that the metric unit of energy is the joule, has been bleating the factoid that Anthropogenic Global Warming is the equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs a day of energy added to the planet.

Climate Sanity has done the number-crunching so I don't have to.

Presumed extra CO2 forcing: This value is highly debatable, but I will play along with a commonly quoted warmist value: 0.6 Watts/m2 = 0.6 Joules /( s m2 )
Surface area of the Earth: 5.1 x 1014 m2
Seconds in a day: 86,400 s / day
Yield of Hiroshima bomb: 15 kilotons of TNT
Kilotons of TNT to Joule conversion: 4.2 x 1012 Joules / kilotons of TNT

Crunching through the numbers I get about 420,000 "Hiroshimas" of energy per day. But what's missing from that number is context:

Average insolation at the surface of the Earth: 250 W/ m2 = 250 J / s /m2

...which means that normal sunlight is the equivalent of 175 million "Hiroshimas" of energy a day. Al's getting all hot and bothered over an increase of one quarter of one percent* -- and that's assuming his original number for "forcing" is correct. (Al Gore? Exaggerate? Surely you jest.)

Someone should point out to Al that his Tennessee mansion burns 1/100 of a Hiroshima of energy every year. Assuming he's lived there 20 years, that's 1/5 of a Hiroshima from just one of his several dwellings. A Gulfstream IV burns about 26,000 pounds of jet fuel for an eight-hour flight; at 43 MJ/kg that's another 1/60th of a Hiroshima for each round trip to Europe. I think we can safely assume that Prince Albert has made 60 such flights in his globe-trotting career. Maybe we should call him "Hiroshima Al."

Bottom line: when you hear someone measuring energy in "Hiroshimas," you know they're trying to push an emotional button, not a rational one. Don't be awed by the figures; insist on comparative figures for context. And if you should by some unfortunate chance happen to hear an Al Gore presentation, be sure to ask him how many Hiroshimas of energy he used to get there.

SOURCE



Extreme Climate Change Events: Early 1950's

Unlike the 1950's, when a severe weather event was just called 'bad weather,' now days these events are identified as climate change or climate disruption, caused by humans. Every new hurricane, blizzard, flood and forest fire is quickly labeled as the new normal, which infers a similar event/disaster must never have happened before.
Unfortunately, for the climate ignorant, the 1950's were not an era of stable climate conditions and unchanging temperatures. Although the black & white TV entertainment was fairly simple back then, that period's climate and weather were just as complex...and deadly... as our current 21st century variety.

Below is a list of early 1950's "climate change" events and disasters that were originally identified as bad weather; and, interestingly, climate issues the previous generation of scientists were worried about at that time. A simple review of this list provokes, justifiably, a common sense climate-epiphany: my god, it's the same old, same old.

1950: "Climate Change - World Is Warming"

1950: No Snow In New England Region Devastates Winter Recreation Business

1950: European Countries Finance Antarctica Research To Investigate Warming Earth

1950: Strange Atmospheric Events Affect World's Weather

1950: Hurricane Sweeps Along New England Coast - 60 MPH Winds, Mountainous Waves

1950: 1,000 Villages In Pakistan Destroyed By Flooding

1950: Cold Wind And Dust Storm Sweep Over Bombay, India

1950: Record Rain In Queensland, Australia

1950: Minnesota, N. Dakota & Nebraska Regions Swamped By Flooding

1950: Wild Bushfires Scorch 60 Square Miles of Colorado

1950: Pine Beetle Population In Idaho Forests "Building Up To Alarming Proportions"

1950: Floods In Brazil & Ecuador Take 150 Lives - Train Plunges Off Washed-Out Bridge

1950: Oregon Heat Wave Breaks Temperature Records

1950: Oklahoma's Dust Bowl Region Struck By New Drought

1950: Nine Die In Midwest Dust Storm

1950: 3rd Dust Storm This Year Strikes Wheat States

1950: Scientists Say Earth Warming And Glaciers Melting

1950:  Great Appalachian Storm Wreaks Havoc On 22 States - Massive Rainfalls and Blizzard

1950: Eroding Beaches In Australia Due to Rapid Sea Level Rises

1950: Rapid Warming In Greenland - Sea Temperatures Up By Several Degrees

1950: Six Nations Send Scientists To Arctic To Investigate Glacier & Ice Cap Melting

1950: Scientist Says Sidney, Australia Climate Getting Hotter

1950: "The World's Weather Is Just Crazy"

1951: "Glaciers, Icebergs melt as world gets warmer"

1951: Slow Moving Blizzard Leaves Iowa City With 27" of Snow

1951: MIT Scientist Correctly Predicts Global Cooling – Based On Sunspots, Not CO2

1951: Bone-Dry Texas Swelters From Heat Wave

1951: Bakersfield, California Life Halted Due To Blinding Dust Storm

1951: Warming of Greenland & Melting Exposes Medieval Farm-Homes Buried Under Ice For Centuries

1951: Hurricane Level Winds Lash America's Midwest - Flash Floods, Snow & Heat Wave!

1951: Kansas River Flood Displaces Over 500,000

1951: Mississippi River Reaches Highest Level For 107 Years

1951: Floods, Drought Ravage China Over 3-Month Period

1951: Fierce Hailstorm & 40 MPH Winds Wreck Apple Crop In Australia

1951: Kansas City Crippled by Missouri River Flood Waters, St. Louis Next

1951: Mount Lamington Eruption Causes 3,000 Deaths

1951: Hurricane Charlie Blasts Jamaica - 150 Dead

1951: Philippines Loses 541 Lives To Typhoon

1951: 100 Degree Heat Wave Lasts For 7 Weeks In Texas

1951: Eastern Airlines Pilot Runs Into A Sahara Dust Storm 700 Miles From U.S. Coast

1952: March 23 - Hundreds Killed In Southern Tornadoes – Flooding On Lake Erie – Blizzard On the Plains

1952: "Worst Ever Seen" Dust Storm Covers The Columbia Basin In State of Washington

1952: Previously Submerged Town Behind Grand Coulee Dam Has Dust Storm

1952: Exodous Begins - Imminent Starvation Due To Drought Facing Mexican Families

1952: Missouri River "Savagery" Causes Massive Flooding In Iowa

1952: Mississippi River Floods - Record Crests In Minnesota & Wisconsin

1952: Norweigan & Alaskan Glaciers Shrunk 50% Since 1902 Says Scientist

1952: Arctic Scientist Says Polar Ice Cap Melting Threatens Australia's Seaports

1952: Many Species Migrate Northward In Northern Hemisphere Due To Warming World

1952: July Extended Heat Wave – 104 Degrees In Norway – 106 In Italy

1952: March Earthquake, Tsunami And Snowstorm Hits Japan

1952: Another Severe Drought In Australia

1952: North East India Floods Submerge 391 Villages

1952: Alaska really is getting warmer

1952: Yugoslavia's Agriculture Suffers From Repeated Drought

1952: Scientist Says Both Polar Ice Caps Melting At Alarming Rate

1952: Billowing Dust Storm Shrieks Across Southwest U.S.

1952: Massive Arctic Warming, Glaciers Lose Half Their Size, Seas Are Ice Free Most Of The Time

1952: Record Rain Pummels Texas After Record Drought

1953: Hurricane's Sea Floods Kill More Than 900 In Europe - Worst Since 15th Century

1953: UK Floods Kill 300, Farmlands Made Infertile From Salt Water

1953: Consensus Among Meterologists: The World Is Warming

1953: Scientists Say Antarctica Ice Melting Rapidly

1953: Australia's 'Atomic" Port Struck by Hurricane - Every Single Builing Damaged

1953: UK Tornado - 89 Deaths

1953: China's Authorities Report Severe Drought Impact

1953: Wisconsin Heat Wave Pales To Heat Wave They Had In 1936

1953: Choking Dust Storm Darkens Most of Texas

1953: Texas Drought Dust Falls In NY's Times Square

1953: Severe Drought - Texas & Oklahoma Declared Major Disaster Areas

1953: West German Drought Close To Drying Up An Important Water Reservoir

1953 Multiple May Tornadoes Pummel Waco, TX - 115 Die

1953: May Tornadoes Roar Through Georgia & Alabama - 24 Dead

1953: 3rd Huge Dust Storm In 10 Days Blasts America's Wheat Areas

1953: June Tornado Rampage Killed Hundreds In Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Texas

1953: Drought Dries Up Rio Grande River, Missouri River Is Flooding Montana

1953: Heat Wave Blisters U.S. East of The Rockies

1953: Sweden Takes Steps To Stop Paratyphiod Epidemic

1954: 100 MPH Blizzard Winds Howl Across Nebraska

1954: Scientists Tell Congress That The Arctic Might Be Navigable By 1979

1954: Arctic Permafrost In Canada Melting - Natives Have To Be Moved

1954: Mainstream Media Reports That Past Was Much Warmer Than Current Temperatures

1954: Melting Himalayan Glacier Flooding - 200,000 Homeless

1954: North African Earthquake Followed By More Tremors - 1,340 Deaths In Algeria

1954: Longest Drought Grows To Four U.S. States

1954: Heat Wave In Illinois Registers 112 Degree Temperature - Highest Ever

1954: Dixie First Hit By Dust Storms Then Tornadoes

1954: Drought Turns To Floods In Texas

1954: Worst Floods of Century Devastate Areas of Nepal

1954: Hurricane Carol Stampedes Through New England - 49 Dead

1954: Hurricane Edna Blasts New England & Canada

1954: Hurricane Hazel Strikes Haiti, U.S. & Canada - At Least 1,000 Dead

1954: 8 Hurricanes Wreak Havoc On U.S. During 1954 - Worst Year On Record

1954: Record Heat Wave Brings Death, Destruction

1954: 18 Die In Airliner Crash Caused By Mexican Dust Storm

1954: "UK, Europe Have Worst Summer For Years"

1954: Radioactive Dust Storm Injures 23 Japanese Fishermen

1954: Climate Scientists Say Summers Getting Cooler & Wetter In Australia

1955: "Science Agrees! Our Weather Is Changing"

1955: Heavy snows strike France

1955: "Brisbane Facing Worst Flood In Its History"

1955: Northeast US Hit By The Worst Floods In History – Twice

1955: Iceland Hurricane & Snowstorm Sinks 2 Ships - 40 Men Lost

1955: Blizzard Kills 42 Across The U.S. Great Plains

1955: Long Island Sized Iceberg Breaks Off From Antarctica

1955: Muggy Heat Wave In America But Buenos Aires Has 1st Snowfall In 37 Years

1955: Heat Wave Brings Milwaukee Extreme Temperatures

1955: 51 Los Angeles Residents Die From Heat Wave

1955: Europeans Suffer From Long Heat Wave - 70 Die

1955: 25 Million Indians & Pakistanis Lose Their Homes To Floods

1955: 5-Year Drought Ends With Big Floods - Texas, Colorado & Oklahoma

SOURCE  (See the original for links




A wide-ranging interview with Fred Singer

The Daily Bell is pleased to present this exclusive interview with Dr. S. Fred Singer.

Introduction: Dr. S. Fred Singer (Siegfried Fred Singer) is an American atmospheric physicist, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, which he founded in 1990. Dr. Singer is a prolific author, having published more than 200 technical papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals as well as editorial essays and articles that have appeared in leading publications. Front-cover stories appearing in Time, Life and US News & World Report have featured his accomplishments. Dr. Singer is author, coauthor or editor of more than a dozen books and monographs and has given hundreds of lectures and seminars on global warming, including to the science faculties at Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley and many others. He is elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Geophysical Union, American Physical Society, and American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Daily Bell: Good to meet you. Please give us some background. Where did you grow up and go to school?

Fred Singer: I grew up in Vienna, Austria, left school at the age of 13 and apprenticed at an optical machine shop. I left in 1939, crossing the border into Holland the same day Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia, on March 15, 1939. I continued to England and worked as a teenage optician in Northumberland. I joined my parents in Ohio in 1940, shortly after the London Blitz had started and after the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk.

Daily Bell: You received a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1948 in physics. Why did you get interested in physics? What kind of physics?

Fred Singer: In 1941, I was admitted to Ohio State University and studied electrical engineering; I finished in 1943 and was admitted to Princeton University as a graduate student of physics. It gave me the theoretical background for engineering. My Ph.D. came after service in the US Navy in World War 2 and dealt with cosmic rays, essentially high-energy physics.

Daily Bell: You've questioned the link between UVB and melanoma rates, and between CFCs and stratospheric ozone loss. Explain, please.

Fred Singer: The link between solar UVB and melanoma is problematic. It is possible that solar UVA is the main cause; UVA is not absorbed by ozone. However, there could be many different causes for melanoma, a serious form of skin cancer. I have never questioned the connection between CFCs and stratospheric ozone loss; my only concern was whether enough CFCs entered the stratosphere to deplete ozone.

Daily Bell: You are well known for denying the health risks of passive smoking. Is passive smoke deadly? Does it cause cancer? What does cause cancer?

Fred Singer: I definitely do not deny the health risks of passive smoking but it is not as deadly as direct smoking. I would not be surprised if passive smoking causes lung cancer and other diseases. However, the analysis done by the EPA is based on poor science and is not in accord with epidemiology. Cancer is produced by all kinds of causes; smoking is definitely one of the major causes.

Daily Bell: Explain your view on global warming and climate change. What's the difference and why?

Fred Singer: Climate change includes both global warming and global cooling, as well as regional changes. It is not known to what extent human activities are responsible for climate change or global warming.

Daily Bell: Please summarize some of your books. What was Global Effects of Environmental Pollution about, for instance?

Fred Singer: My first book dealing with the climate change issue was published in 1970 with the title of Global Effects of Environmental Pollution. It was updated several years later, titled The Changing Global Environment; it is currently being digitized and reprinted by the Springer publishing company. My book The Ocean in Human Affairs deals with the science, history and other aspects of the ocean, including its influence on human exploration. Global Climate Change presents both sides of the global warming debate. My book Greenhouse Debate Continued discusses mainly the shortcomings of the IPCC report of 1990. My book Hot Talk, Cold Science (1997) and its second edition of 1999 describe the evidence against an appreciable human influence on global climate. My co-authored Climate Change Reconsidered assembles peer reviewed papers and other evidence against any appreciable human effect on climate. It can therefore be viewed as responding to the IPCC claim for AGW.

Daily Bell: Thanks. What did you do while you served in the armed forces, and in what capacity did you work in government?

Fred Singer: I enlisted in the US Navy at age 18, hoping to become a radar officer; however, the Navy decided to use me in anti-mine warfare. After the end of hostilities I was detailed to work under the mathematician John von Neumann, designing an early electronic computer.

I've held several government positions: First with the Office of Naval Research as a scientific liaison officer in Europe, then with the Department of Commerce as the first director of the weather satellite service, then at the Department of Interior as deputy assistant secretary of water quality and research, then as deputy assistant administrator of EPA and finally as the chief scientist of the Department of Transportation.

Daily Bell: You were a leading figure in early space research and established the National Weather Bureau's Satellite Service Center. How did that come about?

Fred Singer: research grew out of my high-altitude research with rockets (1946-50). I developed the idea of satellites and was then able to put them into effect as director of the weather satellite program. As a result of my experience in satellites, satellite design, instrumentation and atmospheric physics I was asked to establish the National Weather Bureau's weather satellite service, and set that up in 1962-64. From there I went to the University of Miami to set up a new school: It included oceanography, climate science − and dealt with Earth sciences generally.

Daily Bell: How did you become such a global warming skeptic? Your critics say you are irresponsible for advocating your positions. Are you?

Fred Singer: My skepticism about global warming is purely based on the observed evidence − which shows no appreciable warming while there had been large increases in greenhouse gases. I feel that scientific criticism is the most responsible sort of thing − both from the point of view of science and from the point of view of national policy.

Daily Bell: In 2006 you were named by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as one of a minority of scientists said to be creating a standoff on a consensus on climate change. Was this an unfair charge?

Fred Singer: The CBC forgot to mention that thousands of scientists hold the position that I hold and therefore not a "minority" of scientists, at least not a small minority.

Daily Bell: You argue there is no evidence that global warming is attributable to human-caused increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and that humanity would benefit if temperatures do rise. Why do you feel this is a responsible position to take?

Fred Singer: As far as we can tell, the increase of CO2 has not been producing corresponding warming. For example, there has been no warming in the 21st century − despite the large increase of greenhouse gases.

Daily Bell: You are an opponent of the Kyoto Protocol and have said of the climate models that scientists use to project future trends that "models are very nice, but they are not reality and they are not evidence." How is it possible that so many scientists can be so wrong while you are correct?

Fred Singer: I am one of many who oppose the Kyoto Protocol, both for scientific reasons and for economic reasons. It is basically a political document, a treaty based on climate models rather than observed evidence.

Daily Bell: You have been accused of pushing "climate-denier" and "junk science" lines on behalf of large corporate interest groups. Is this fair?

Fred Singer: I have never been supported by any corporation and have therefore developed my work on climate science without any such support.

Daily Bell: The National Center for Public Policy Research lists you as someone who journalists can interview on climate change policy. Why do they offer your name?

Fred Singer: There are many organizations that list me as a source for sound science on the global warming issue.

Daily Bell: Lately, you've appeared to change your mind. You've strongly criticized those who have claimed that (a) the greenhouse effect violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics and that rising carbon dioxide levels do not cause temperatures to rise. Please explain.

Fred Singer: I am opposed to those who criticize the global warming scare, basing it on what I consider to be incorrect physics. CO2 is certainly a greenhouse gas and should produce some increase in atmospheric temperatures but it is so small we cannot detect it. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is sufficient to affect climate but the atmosphere has developed in another direction.

Daily Bell: ... that natural variations in carbon dioxide dwarf human contributions. Comment?

Fred Singer: Over geological history there has been much fluctuation − much greater than any human influences. However, over the last 100 years the source has been largely human.

Daily Bell: You are said to have had a change of heart and have lost patience with many AGW deniers. Is this true? Why?

Fred Singer: I have no use for those who oppose the IPCC based on incorrect science.

Daily Bell: In 1995, as president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (a think tank based in Fairfax, Virginia) you launched a publicity campaign about "The Top Five Environmental Myths of 1995," a list that included the US Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that secondhand tobacco smoke is a human carcinogen. What made you come to the conclusion that the dangers of secondhand smoke are a myth?

Fred Singer: Secondhand smoke may well be a carcinogen; however, the statistical analysis carried out by EPA is full of mistakes.

Daily Bell: You've also criticized radon as fake science. Can you explain?

Fred Singer: It is the considered opinion of experts that radon in low concentration is not a carcinogen.

Daily Bell: You don't believe a hole in the ozone layer is a danger. Why not?

Fred Singer: The so-called hole in the ozone layer is a temporary thinning in the month of October in the Antarctic; I do not believe it is dangerous.

Daily Bell: You recently concluded that unchecked growth of climate-cooking pollution is "unequivocally good news." Why? Because "rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests." Do you stand by this conclusion?

Fred Singer: Agricultural experts pretty much agree that a higher level of CO2 promotes plant growth and makes plants more resistant to droughts and pests.

Daily Bell: Why are so many false myths about science circulated? What is the agenda of those who continue to maintain that the world is warming at catastrophic levels?

Fred Singer: There are many false myths about science that circulate − usually based on insufficient expertise. I have been one of those who attacks smoking as a member of an anti-smoking organization. Cigarette smoking is definitely unhealthy. There are those who warn of catastrophic events from future warming; their aim appears to be to scare the population. I suspect that many are motivated by monetary considerations.

Daily Bell: Are islands drowning?

Fred Singer: As far as I am aware, islands are not drowning.

Daily Bell: Why have you fought this fight? You've been smeared, derided and even slandered. Has it been worth it? Will the forces of climate change win out?

Fred Singer: I think it is worth fighting for sound science even if one is smeared and slandered. My belief is the global warming scare will be over in the matter of a decade or so.

Daily Bell: Will we continue to bury carbon in the ground? Shouldn't this money be spent elsewhere for better causes?

Fred Singer: The idea of burying carbon dioxide in the ground is a bad one, and I hope we do not carry out such projects. There are much better ways of spending the money; the world is full of places that need support.

Daily Bell: Are you winning the good fight?

Fred Singer: I think we are winning a good fight.

Daily Bell: Does the sort of idiocy you've been fighting make you believe humankind is doomed?

Fred Singer: I don't think humankind is doomed, even though this has been predicted many times.

Daily Bell: Thanks!

SOURCE

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