Archives for November 2007

New Climate Bill (Lieberman-Warner) Gets Critiques from Unexpected Sources

Excerpt: Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards: “Worst of all, [Lieberman-Warner] gives away pollution permits to industry for free – a massive corporate windfall – instead of doing what is right and selling them so that we can use these resources to invest in clean energy research and help regular families go green,” Edwards said on November 1.

Climate Bill Will Cost ‘Hundreds of Billions of Dollars’ – Lieberman Concedes

Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), the co-author of Lieberman-Warner: “It’s hard to imagine that [Lieberman-Warner] will not cost – over time — these two sectors (electric power and industrial), hundreds of billions of dollars to comply with the demands of this bill,” Senator Lieberman said November 1 during the EPW subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection mark up.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan on cap-and-trade approach: “Cap-and-trade systems or carbon taxes are likely to be popular only until real people lose real jobs as their consequence,” Greenspan said. “There is no effective way to meaningfully reduce emissions without negatively impacting a large part of an economy.” “Jobs will be lost and real incomes of workers constrained,” Greenspan wrote in his new book, The Age of Turbulence.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Lieberman-Warner “fatally flawed.” The Lieberman-Warner bill “does not adequately preserve American jobs and the domestic economy,” wrote Chamber Executive vice president for government affairs R. Bruce Josten in an October 31, 2007 letter to Senators Lieberman and Warner. “The bill requires American companies to undertake dramatic emissions reductions-15 percent below 2005 levels in 2020, and 70 percent by 2050-regardless of whether its economic competitors do the same, at least prior to the year 2019. By then much of the United States’ energy-intensive industry could be gone, having either shut down or moved overseas,” the Chamber letter stated.

Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) responds: “[The Lieberman-Warner climate control] bill, if enacted into law, would impose the equivalent of the largest tax increase in America history – larger than the Clinton-Gore 1993 tax increase…To have a major Democratic Presidential candidate oppose Lieberman-Warner this strongly reveals the bill’s serious economic flaws. Senator Lieberman’s candid admission this week that the bill would cost ‘hundreds of billions of dollars,’ was yet another wake up call about the costs that will be imposed on American families.”

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=fd428211-802a-23ad-4eac-86b46feb55af&Issue_id=

Actress fails to sale SUV after expressing guilt: ‘I feel like a bad human being’

Excerpt: TV show Heroes star Hayden Panettiere is a phenomenal activist for the welfare of animals. We’ve profiled many of her campaigns here on ‘razzi — including her latest visit to Japan to help dolphins. Unfortunately, those efforts — and her commitment to living a greener lifestyle — are being overshadowed by the massive vehicle she continues to drive around town. Just this week there were several blog posts around the web pointing out this hypocrisy; and here’s the rub: Hayden knows it’s an issue. Here’s a quote from earlier this summer, “‘Why am I selling it? [her Porsche Cayenne SUV] Because I feel like a bad human being, and I hate to say this, but when you’re an actor and in the spotlight, people watch what you do, people watch what you drive, watch what you say. And it feels to me — I’m into charities and into those kind of things — so I feel like if I’m trying to make a change and everything else and voice my opinion, then at least I can be driving a good, healthy car.’”

Sadly, it doesn’t appear that the actress has taken her own advice and she continues to be berated every time she’s caught filling up at the pump. So Hayden — donate or sell the SUV for charity, buy a used biodiesel beauty, and leave those criticisms behind. Better yet, invest in an electric car, grab a solar array for charging, and impress the hell out of us with a zero emissions strategy to save the world! Ah, life imitating art.

Hayden Panettiere Fails To Deliver On SUV Sale

IPCC Expert Reviewer (Nobel Winner) Claims Global warming skepticism proliferating in Europe (Hans Labohm is an independent economist. Together with Dick Thoenes and Simon Rozendaal, he is co-author of ‘Man-Made Global Warming: Unraveling a Dogma’.)

Excerpt: Climate skepticism has now gained a firm foothold in various European countries.

Denmark:

In Denmark Bjørn Lomborg stands out as the single most important sceptical environmental ist, defying the political correctness which is such a characteristic feature of his home country, as well as other Nordic countries.

Germany:

In Germany EIKE (Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie, Jena: http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/) has been established – still in its infancy, but nevertheless. Moreover, a group of German climate sceptics has written something which could be called a consensus among many climate sceptics: Climate Manifest of Heiligenroth (See: http://www.klimamanifest-von-heiligenroth.de/klimaman-e.html). Furthermore there are many climate sceptical websites in Germany. For those who like visual thrills and possess a basic command of the German language, Konrad Fischer’s website might be fun: ‘Videos and films concerning the greenhouse swindle and climate terror’ (http://www.konrad-fischer-info.de/7video.htm)

Sweden:

In Sweden, despite its high standards of political correctness, there is a very vocal group of climate sceptics, which regularly publish in ‘Elbranchen’. In September 2006 they organized a seminar: ‘Global Warming – Scientific Controversies in Climate Variability’. This meeting was hosted by the Royal Technical High School in Stockholm and chaired by its rector, Peter Stilbs (See: http://gamma.physchem.kth.se/~climate/). Even Swedish TV has aired a debate on the issue. For those who have some command of the Scandinavian languages, see: http://webbtv.axess.se/index.aspx?id=229: Veckans Debatt: Global uppvärming: Vad säger vetenskapen. In Italy the Bruno Leoni Institute has espoused climate scepticism (http://www.brunoleoni.it/).

Spain:

In Spain, the foundation Rafael del Pino has paid attention to climate scepticism in the past, but because of social and political pressure it has felt forced to keep a low profile on this issue over the last few years. (http://www.libertaddigital.com/index.php?action=desaopi&cpn=25151) In the French-speaking part of Europe, individual scientists such as as Marcel Leroux could be mentioned. Moreover, the Molinari Institute has joined the cause of climate scepticism (http://www.institutmolinari.org/index.htm).

Czech Republic

In the Czech Republic, President Vaclav Havel is single-handedly attempting to instil some common sense into public opinion. In Austria the Hayek Institute carries the torch (http://www.hayek-institut.at/english/1183/termine/article/hayek/2035/), while Estonia is represented by Olavi Kärner (http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/).

Netherlands:

In my own country, the Netherlands, the situation has markedly improved. In line with the tradition of consensus-seeking, it has been possible to establish something close to a real dialogue between AGW adherents and the climate sceptics. Personally, I have even been invited by the Nether lands Royal Meteorological Institute (KNMI) to become expert reviewer of the IPCC. As such, I have submitted many fundamental criticisms on the draft texts of the Fourth Assessment Re port of the Panel (AR4). What happened to my comments? To be honest, I have not the faintest idea. Most probably, nothing at all. Nevertheless, in my capacity as expert reviewer of the IPCC, I have also received (a tiny) part of the Nobel price, which has been awarded to Al Gore and the IPCC (yes, thanks for your congratulations). Should I be grateful? I don’t think so.

Both ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and the latest IPCC report labour under cherry-picking, spindoctoring and scare-mongering (Al Gore’s movie more than the IPCC reports). Awarding the Nobel price for such flawed science is a disgrace. But it should be recalled that the Nobel Prize for Peace is being awarded by a group of (five) Norwegian politicians and not by the Swedish Academy of Science, which is always scrupulously investigating the merits of the candidates. The Norwegians are piggybacking on the reputation of the Nobel prizes for science and literature. The method of electing the winner of the Peace prize ensures a political outcome reflecting the current strength of Norwegian political parties. Four out of five members of the parliamentary committee that selected Gore are former cabinet members. The fifth, Mjoes, was president of the University of Tromso. So the Democrat Gore owes his prize to a constellation of Progressives, Social and Christian Democrats and Green socialists. Little wonder Francis Sejersted, past chairman of the committee, admits: ‘Awarding a peace prize is, to put it bluntly, a political act.’

Russia:

Russian scientists are criticising very openly the AGW hypothesis. They do it with a frankness which – in this particular field – is still rare in the ‘free world’. Usually scientists shroud their statements in clouds of caveats. Even the IPCC follows this tradition to a certain extent. But Russian climatologists do not. They simply state that a new little ice age is imminent. Not so long ago it was astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg, who declared that the Earth will experience a ‘mini Ice Age’ in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity. Now it is the climatologist Olech Sorochtin, member of the Russian Academy of Physical Science, who joins him. His message was prominently disseminated by the Russian press agency Novosti, which in the period of the Cold War was generally considered to be a mouthpiece of the Kremlin. (http://de.rian.ru/analysis/20071009/83073114.html). Therefore, it is perhaps not too far-fetched to speculate that this might be a warning signal that the Russians will drop out of Kyoto when its first phase expires in 2012.

Britain:

But Britannia rules the waves. Stewart Dimmock, a Kent lorry driver and school governor, took the government to court for sending copies of Gore’s film to schools. He was backed by a group of campaigners, including Viscount Monckton, a former adviser to Mrs Thatcher. They won a legal victory against ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Mr Justice Burton ruled that the movie contained at least nine scientific errors and said ministers must send new guidance to teachers before it was screened. ‘That ruling was a fantastic victory,’ said Monckton. ‘What we want to do now is send schools material reflecting an alternative point of view so that pupils can make their own minds up.’ Monckton has also won support from the maker of ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’. Martin Durkin, managing director of WAG TV, which produced the documentary, said he would be delighted for his film to go to schools. I have become a proselytiser against the so-called consensus on climate change … people can decide for themselves,’ he said.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=110107A

CBS’s Smith to Bloomberg: ‘Manhattan Will Be Underwater by 2050′

Excerpt: On Monday’s CBS “Early Show,” co-host Harry Smith interviewed New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The liberal mayor has followed in the footsteps of Al Gore and implored the government to take action to address an impending environmental crisis, saying “We need to do something now.” To match Bloomberg’s alarmist rhetoric, Smith added “Manhattan will be underwater by 2050.” Amusingly, even Bloomberg thought that assertion went too far, “There’s a — I don’t know that Manhattan will be underwater, but certainly the environment’s going to be a lot worse that we leave our children.”

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2007/11/05/cbs-s-smith-bloomberg-manhattan-will-be-underwater-2050

TV Columnist Slams NBC’s ‘Green is Universal’ Campaign

Excerpt: TV and radio writer Tom Jicha published a scathing review of NBC’s “Green is Universal” campaign.

Rather than focus on the inanity of the cause – which Jicha did eventually address – the piece began by illustrating the delicious hypocrisy inherent in a major television network pretending to be environmentally friendly: You have to wonder if NBC is driven as much by guilt as altruism. Show business is gluttonous when it comes to the use of energy. If you’ve never seen a sound stage, imagine a facility about the size of the Bank Atlantic Center, requiring round-the-clock heating and cooling to safeguard electronic equipment. Then imagine a few dozen of these. That would be one major studio. There are several spread around Los Angeles.Let’s not forget the private jets used to ferry executives and performers hither and yon. When they hit the ground, stretch limos are waiting. Forget what you saw on Emmy night; show business uses hybrids only when cameras are around.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/11/05/tv-columnist-slams-nbc-s-green-universal-campaign

Fizzling hurricane season stokes warming debate

Excerpt: With less than a month left in the hurricane season, and the remnants of Hurricane Noel dissipating off the New England coastline, it appears this season could end up as something of a bust. That wasn’t the outlook a couple of months ago, when this year’s hurricane season threatened to be a whopper. Two Category 5 hurricanes had already crashed through the Caribbean by early September, only the fourth time since 1935 that two of the most powerful category of storms had formed in a single year. And the season, which traditionally peaks in mid-September, was still young. It seemed as if the fears of scientists who believe global warming has increased hurricane activity were being realized. But according to a statistic that scientists use to gauge the overall strength of a season, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index, overall activity for this year almost certainly will come in below average, perhaps by as much as 50 percent. Only a major hurricane could change that now. < > Yet some hurricane scientists who are uncertain whether hurricane activity would already be showing a measurable effect from global warming say having two Category 5 hurricanes in a single season may not be much of a rarity in the Atlantic. There wasn’t satellite coverage of the entire Atlantic basin until 1966. And early flights and satellites weren’t nearly as comprehensive as the modern technology and forecasters that now track these systems. In other words, even as recently as 15 or 20 years ago, it might have been easy to miss a storm that reached Category 5 status for only a few hours, as is often the case. “Obviously, we have many more tools today,” said Lixion Avila, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center. “But 20 years ago we could have easily missed it. Imagine 50 or 100 years ago.” All scientists agree that a single hurricane season cannot make or break an argument for global warming having a measurable impact of hurricanes. Yet after the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons — in the latter year four Category 5 storms formed — there were a flurry of research papers that claimed to demonstrate a conclusive link between climate change and stronger hurricanes. Forecasters expected storm activity to remain high in 2006, but the season proved relatively quiet, with 10 named storms and two major hurricanes. The 2007 season, so far, has continued the trend of having a lower-than-expected ACE index. “The further away we get from 2005, the debate does get murkier,” said Mooney, the author. “I still think there’s reason to think the big picture is changing, and one or two years don’t refute that.”

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5273051.html

Warming scaremongers lap up the cash

Excerpt: The population explosion myth and the global cooling myth came and went. But the global warming myth lingers and lingers. Why? The major difference between the current, lingering global warming hysteria and the other predictions of catastrophe is the United Nations. The U.N. didn’t fully recognize the value of the environment as a funding source until the 1972 Conference on the Environment held in Stockholm, headed by Maurice Strong. By the time global cooling shifted to global warming, the U.N. had created the United Nations Environment Program, and international treaties on wetlands and on endangered species. Global warming was an idea that promised unlimited funds. The 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change and the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change became the global institutions for the collection and redistribution of money. With this money came power, the power to propagandize. Using the IPCC as the perceived “last word” in science, the political arm of the U.N.’s global warming push has churned out tons of global warming propaganda, labeled as “official” scientific findings. In truth, the IPCC’s Executive Reports use just enough science to flavor their projections and, following Stephen Schneider’s advice, “ignore any doubts” that participating scientists may have. Younger people, who did not live through the rise and fall of previous predictions of catastrophe, can be forgiven for not seeing through the current rash of global warming hype. Gray-headed folks have no excuse and should provide leadership to the less experienced. Politicians and scientists, even those who know better, see the current global warming scenario as a funding source and are not about to bite the hand that feeds them. One most interesting observation is this: The university professors, the scientists and the politicians who have historically advanced these mythical catastrophic scenarios are folks who have never lived in the real world. They refuse to acknowledge that real people who deal every day with real problems create ways to master them. It seems way beyond their comprehension to realize that a free market is far more responsive to changing conditions than are government policies.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58480

New global warming villain fingered: Trees

Excerpt: Forests have long been thought of as an ally in the fight against global warming, but a new study suggests that Canada’s boreal forest may in fact be releasing more greenhouse gases than it absorbs. “The boreal forest, at least in the north-central part of Manitoba, has gone from a weak carbon sink to a weak carbon source,” said Dr. Tom Gower of the University of Wisconsin, whose paper is being published Thursday in the journal Nature. “It is now contributing to atmospheric (carbon dioxide) concentration.” Dr. Gower and his fellow researchers studied a million-square-kilometre stretch of forest around Thompson, Man. The team took field measurements of how carbon moved between the forest and the atmosphere and then used computer modelling and forestry records to suggest how that cycle has changed since the 1950s. Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when they burn or decompose. Although results varied for individual years depending on the severity of the forest fire season, Dr. Gower found that the forest once absorbed, on average, slightly more carbon than it emitted — about five or 10 grams per square metre of forest per year. Now, however, the direction of that flow has reversed. On average, the forest actually emits about two grams per square metre per year. “(The forest) is actually contributing to rising carbon emissions,” Dr. Gower said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071031.wtrees1031/BNStory/National/home

CA Air resources board engineer debunks climate alarm Global Warming Causes Carbon Dioxide

(Air resources engineer, Tom Scheffelin, California Air Resources Board)

Excerpt: When government policy is based on the misinformation of the few, the many will suffer. Engineering and science must be above reproach to support societal decisions. The erroneous scientific consensus regarding global warming is a tool to eliminate necessary debate and stifles future scientific progress. I highly recommend one read all of Michael Crichton’s speeches on his website, but especially “Science Policy in the 21st Century.” Why is the global warming hoax perpetuated? Newspapers and magazines sell. Researchers win grants. Government environmental regulators will keep staff busy — forever. Nonprofits that are unable to accomplish their goals through normal means push misguided global warming legislation. Finally, environmental raiders want to plunder our nation’s wealth through emission trading schemes.

Cyclic global warming is normal and must occur no matter what anyone does or does not do. The most frequent global climate cycle is caused by the ocean’s response to the orbits of the earth and moon. < > Does carbon dioxide affect the climate? Carbon dioxide levels track temperature changes between 300 to 1,000 years after the temperature has changed. Carbon dioxide has no direct role in global warming; rather, it responds to biological activity, which responds to climate changes. Should products be energy efficient, produced with the minimum of materials, energy and cost? Absolutely. But beware future radical government mandates designed to save the planet. What can one do? Elect legislators who do not fall prey to the global warming hysteria. Walk or bicycle as often as possible; the world is a better place when experienced on foot or by bicycle. Grow two ears of corn where before only one ear grew (“Gulliver’s Travels”). Stop worrying over global warming; worry causes poor health. Study geology, it’s fascinating. Enjoy life during this, the most productive, safe and healthful era in the history of mankind. http://www.designnews.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6493634&industryid=43656

Myths, Lies and Deceptions of Climate Change Part 1: The Arctic

Excerpt: According to Al Gore and the IPCC, anthropogenic global warming is solely to blame for the retreat of the Arctic glacier. They point to the fact that the Arctic glacier is at record lows according to satellite measurements. What they conveniently don’t tell us is that we have only been actively monitoring the glacier since 1979 with satellites. An interesting study was conducted in 2000 by Dr. T. Vinje and published in the journal Climate (3) that used a combination of local records and satellite records (in use since 1979) which shows the Arctic glacier runs in cycles of advancing and retreating. The current extent of retreat, according to the study, is still within the normal variation of this cycle. A report on the CNN special Planet in Peril pointed out that over the past two years, the rate of glacial retreat has increased. They reported it as being due to global warming despite all the scientific reports that state otherwise. According to NASA’s Dr. Nghiem “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic” he said. “When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters. The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century,” (4) This observed “unusual” pattern is not really unusual at all.

http://glowarmers.blogspot.com/2007/11/myths-lies-and-deceptions-of-climate.html

A seminar from a Global Warming Skeptic

Excerpt: A Group present the 5th seminar in the series “Global Warming Perspective” This week the seminar will be given by Dr. Willie Soon. Willie Soon is a physicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory. Dr. Soon is a leading climate change skeptic and has published multiple climate-related studies with fellow George Marshall and Harvard-Smithsonian scientist Sallie Baliunas. Title of the Seminar: Global Warming 101: Al Gore’s CO2 theory. A review of the recent refereed literature fails to confirm quantitatively that carbon dioxide (CO2) radiative forcing was the prime mover in the changes in temperature, ice-sheet volume, and related climatic variables in the glacial and interglacial periods of the past 650,000 years, even under the “fast response” framework where the convenient if artificial distinction between forcing and feedback is assumed. Atmospheric CO2 variations generally follow changes in temperature and other climatic variables rather than preceding them. Likewise, there is no confirmation of the often-posited significant supporting role of methane (CH4) forcing, which despite its faster atmospheric response time is simply too small, amounting to less than 0.2 W/m2 from a change of 400 ppb.We cannot quantitatively validate the numerous qualitative suggestions that the CO2 and CH4 forcings that occurred in response to the Milankovich orbital cycles accounted for more than half of the amplitude of the changes in the glacial/interglacial cycles of global temperature, sea level, and ice volume. Consequently, we infer that natural climatic variability notably the persistence of insolation forcing at key seasons and geographical locations, taken with closely-related thermal, hydrological, and cryospheric changes (such as the water vapor, cloud, and ice-albedo feedbacks) suffices in se to explain the proxy-derived, global and regional, climatic and environmental phase-transitions in the paleoclimate. If so, it may be appropriate to place anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions in context by separating their medium-term climatic impacts from those of a host of natural forcings and feedbacks that may, as in paleoclimatological times, prove just as significant.The seminar will take place on November 7 at 3PM in Physics

http://www.sbindependent.org/node/2054

Former California State Climatologist Jim Goodridge Analyzes CO2 Fears

Excerpt: The rising values of atmospheric carbon dioxide during the time of the Mouna Loa measurements could clearly be a function of reduced solubility of CO2 in the oceans of the Planet. The source of heat needed to drive the increasing carbon dioxide from the oceans of Earth into the atmosphere is the Sun. The solar irradiance has been measured from orbiting satellites since 1978. Irradiance was highly correlated with the historic sunspot numbers

Guest Weblog: CO2 variation by Jim Goodridge, former California State Climatologist

Report compares impact of global warming to ‘nuclear holocaust’ (AP)

Excerpt: Climate change could be one of the greatest national security challenges ever faced by U.S. policy makers, according to a new joint study by two U.S. think tanks. The report, to be released Monday, raises the threat of dramatic population migrations, wars over water and resources, and a realignment of power among nations. < > Left unchecked, “the collapse and chaos associated with extreme climate change futures would destabilize virtually every aspect of modern life,” said the report, comparing the potential outcome with the Cold War doomsday scenarios of a nuclear holocaust. “Climate change has the potential to be one of the greatest national security challenges that this or any other generation of policy makers is likely to confront,” said the report. Among its contributors were former CIA director James Woolsey, Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling, National Academy of Sciences President Ralph Cicerone, President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta and former Vice President Al Gore’s security adviser Leon Fuerth.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/03/ap/world/main3448408.shtml

IF TREES COULD TALK: CA wildfires are a message from nature ‘telling man to back off’

Excerpt: It just occurred to me that perhaps nature is telling us through these wildfires that it’s resenting the urbanization of mountain and forest areas. Industrialists have carved out fashionable villages, hotels and resorts and other commercial establishments in areas previously untouched, unpolluted and unviolated. Nature wants to claim back its lands and is telling man to “just back off” … or else, man will get what he deserves. A stern warning from nature.

http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/lifestyle/lifestyle/view_article.php?article_id=98556

Global warming blamed for decline in male circumcision in Africa

Excerpt: That evening I learnt of a most remarkable consequence of the drought. The Samburu circumcise their youths in grand ceremonies, which are held every seven years or so, when enough cattle and other foods have accumulated to support such celebrations. Circumcision represents a transition to manhood, and until a youth has passed it he can’t marry. But it’s been 14 years since a circumcision ceremony has been held here. There are now 40,000 uncircumcised young men, some in their late 20s, waiting their turn. All of the eligible young women, tired of waiting, have married older men (multiple wives are allowed), so there are no wives for the new initiates. I could never have imagined that climate change would have such an effect on an entire society. On reflection though, cultures such as the Samburu are intimately linked to their environment, so as these pressures increase it becomes more difficult to maintain long-held traditions.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/seasons-of-change/2007/11/02/1193619117799.html?page=fullpage

Gore congratulates Today show for trek to Antarctica and Greenland

Excerpt: Matt Lauer was in Greenland, at the top of the planet. Literally half a world away, Ann Curry reported from Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. Joining them from a cloud forest on the equator in Ecuador was Al Roker. And putting what they were doing in perspective was Al Gore, the Nobel Laureate and former Vice President. “I congratulate the TODAY Show for doing to the arctic and the Antarctic and the equator, and really going all out to tell this story,” Gore told TODAY co-anchor Meredith Vieira, who was in New York on Monday quarterbacking the unprecedented reporting from the ends of the earth on global warming and climate change. Gore, who also won an Oscar for his film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” said that he’s been trying to tell the story TODAY is pursuing this week for 30 years. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work has given his effort a big boost, he told Vieira. < >

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21637195/

Gore Insults climate scientist John Chisty, calls him ‘Flat-Earther’

Excerpt: But John Christy, who was a member of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with whom Gore shared his Nobel Prize, recently wrote an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal in which he criticized Gore’s dire predictions of the impact of global warming. “I’m sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see,” Christy wrote. Gore said part of the problem of telling the story of climate change is journalism’s determination to give equal time to people who have opposing viewpoints. He said that Christy is no longer part of the IPCC. “He is way outside the scientific consensus,” Gore said. “It’s the old ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ approach,” Gore said. “There are still people who believe the earth is flat. [But] you don’t search out for someone who believes the earth is flat and give them equal time.” Lauer, Curry and Roker found no such flat-earthers, talking instead throughout the morning – as they will for the next two days – to scientists on the ground who are documenting the changes that are happening.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21637195/

Report: UN IPCC to predict ‘Greenland ice sheet will have almost completely disappeared by the end of the century’ (UK Telegraph)

Excerpt: Antarctic will be spared the worst of global warming and its ice mass could even grow, but the Arctic will be devastated by rising temperatures, a major new scientific report will claim. In contrast to earlier fears that ice around the South Pole will suffer widespread melting, the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change says that Antarctica’s ice sheets will remain too cold for widespread melting before the end of the century and are expected to get bigger as more snow falls. The Arctic, by comparison, will suffer widespread loss of sea ice while the Greenland ice sheet will have almost completely disappeared by the end of the century. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/04/eamussels204.xml

Report finds ‘return to near-normal conditions around Greenland after several years of low ice concentrations’ (New report from The International Ice Charting Group)

Excerpt: “Increased export of sea ice from the Arctic Ocean caused a return to near-normal conditions around Greenland after several years of low ice concentrations,” the report stated.

http://alaskareport.com/news1007/do77856_traversing.htm

Zen and the Art of Dumpster Diving

Excerpt: The middle word in the environmental mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle” may have a deeper and more ancient root than some realize.

At least that seems to be the case in an interesting audio segment on “Environment Report,” a weekly public radio and Web-audio program focused on the Great Lakes region. One of the program’s reporters, Kyle Norris, went on one of the regular Dumpster-diving excursions undertaken by a group from the Zen Buddhist temple of Ann Arbor, Mich. The trash squad was seeking goods to spruce up and sell at an annual fund-raising yard sale. (Half of the items ultimately sold were gleaned this way, with the rest donated. About $12,000 was raised). The best pickings consistently come from trash heaps around the fraternities and sororities of the University of Michigan, one trash hunter told Ms. Norris. A priest at the Ann Arbor temple, Haju Sunim (aka Linda Murray), explained that Dumpster diving is actually a modern variant of an ancient tradition by which Buddhist “patched-robe monks” and nuns reclaimed clothing, sometimes from corpses, and would repair garments repeatedly to extend their life as much as possible. “Just taking care of a set of clothing to make it last a long time has a spiritual aspect to it,” she said. \

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi debunks global warming fears:

Excerpt: Katie Fehlinger brings you part two of her interview with our hurricane and long range expert Joe Bastardi. You do not want to miss this one.

http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2007/11/joe_bastardi_interview_part_ii_1.html

‘Global Warming’ as Pathological Science

Excerpt: Trofimko Lysenko is not a household name; but it should be, because he was the model for all the Politically Correct “science” in the last hundred years. Lysenko was Stalin’s favorite agricultural “scientist,” peddling the myth that crops could be just trained into growing bigger and better. You didn’t have to breed better plants over generations, as farmers have been doing for ages. It was a fantasy of the all-powerful Soviet State. Lysenko sold Stalin on that fraud in plant genetics, and Stalin told Soviet scientists to fall into line — in spite of the fact that nobody really believed it. Hundreds of thousands of peasants starved during Stalin’s famines, in good part because of fraudulent science. There is such a thing as pathological science. Science becomes unhealthy when its only real question — “what is true?” — is sabotaged by vested interests, by ideological Commissars, or even by grant-swinging scientists. Today’s Global Warming campaign is endangering real, honest science. Global Warming superstition has become an international power grab, and good science suffers as a result. Freeman Dyson, one of the great physicists alive today, put it plainly enough in his autobiography: “…all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. … I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. … They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.” When the scientific establishment starts to peddle fraud, we get corrupt science. < > Last year MIT Professor Richard Lindzen published an amazing expose in the Wall Street Journal editorial Page. It is called “Climate of Fear: Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.” Why are real scientists not speaking up enough against the Global Warming fraud? Well, some have been fired from their jobs, and others are keeping their heads down: “In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.” If scientists were totally honest, they would memorialize Trofimko Lysenko just like they celebrate Galileo. In some ways, Lysenko’s name should be as well-known as Galileo, as a stern warning of what can so easily go wrong. There are wonderful scientists, who must be honest, or they will fail. And then there are some corrupt scientists who are not honest. It’s really that simple. Scientists can be demagogues, too. We should not pretend that all are what they should be. They’re not. Fortunately, healthy science has all kinds of built-in checks and balances. Pathological science circumvents those. Some scientists rationalize this corruption of their vocation by saying that people can lie for a good cause. The record shows otherwise. Fraudulent science and science journalism has led to AIDS going out of control; to DDT being banned and malaria gaining a new lease on life in Africa; to decades of famines in Russia; to children being badly mis-educated on such basics as reading and arithmetic; to end endless slew of unjustified health scares, like Mad Cow; and to a worldwide Leftist campaign cynically aiming to gain international power and enormous sums of money, based on a simple, unscientific fraud. When the truth-tellers in society begin to sell out and tell lies for some ideological goal, people end up dying.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/global_warming_as_pathological.html

Britons told to buy less, eat leftovers to avert global warming

Excerpt: Britons must swap their wasteful habits with food for the thrifty approach of previous generations by buying less and eating leftovers if the UK is to play its part in averting climate change, shoppers were warned yesterday. The call for a “cultural” move against overshopping was made by Joan Ruddock, the Environment minister, after research showed Britons threw away one third of their food, at an enormous hidden financial and environmental cost. Annually, the UK dumps 6.7 million tonnes, meaning each household jettisons between £250 and £400 worth of food each year. Most of the waste – which nationally costs £8bn – is sent to landfill where it rots, emitting the potent climate- change gas methane. Ms Ruddock, the minister for climate change, warned that, although many people had not made the connection between scraping food into the bin and climate change, waste food presented a bigger environmental problem than packaging. “We cannot fail to do what is necessary,” she said. “At this rate we will not have a place to live which is habitable if we don’t address climate change globally and the UK has to make its contribution.” The Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap), a government-funded agency that has been investigating food waste, complained consumers were, in effect, dumping one in three bags of shopping straight in the bin. Preventing that waste would have the same environmental impact as taking one in five cars off the roads, said Wrap’s chief executive, Liz Goodwin. In an attempt to change attitudes, Wrap has devised a campaign “Love Food Hate Waste”, launched at Borough Market in London yesterday by Ms Ruddock and the TV chefs Ainsley Harriott and Paul Merrett. A slew of prominent chefs including Tom Aikens and Mark Hix, the former cricketer David Gower and the actress Prunella Scales are backing an advertising blitz that encourages people to plan their shopping, use food before it goes off and make meals from leftovers. Appearing on the campaign’s video, the Hell’s Kitchen chef Marco Pierre White recalled that his mother used to make bubble and squeak out of leftovers and called for people to return to more careful ways. “There’s a use for everything. We should show a little more respect for Mother Nature,” he said.

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article3121163.ece

Bloodthirsty bed bugs are back… thanks to global warming!

Excerpt: WATCH out! ‘Global warming’ is causing an invasion of bedbugs in our homes. Town Hall pest control experts are urging householders this week to report any signs of infestation as their numbers grow. A 52 per cent rise in complaints about bugs, alias Cimex Lectularius to Latin scholars, has been reported to local authorities across Britain over the past 12 months. Experts believe rising global temperatures and more foreign travel may be to blame.

http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/content/towerhamlets/advertiser/news/story.aspx?brand=ELAOnline&category=news&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newsela&itemid=WeED29%20Oct%202007%2022%3A20%3A21%3A990

Oceans Cooling

Excerpt: A “La Nina” cooling of sea temperatures is under way in the Pacific Ocean and the phenomenon is likely to persist into next year, the United Nations weather agency said on Wednesday. La Nina, or ‘Little Girl’ in Spanish, is an unusual cooling pattern that usually brings rain to eastern and northern Australia and to Southeast Asia, a major producing region of coffee, cocoa, rubber, sugar, palm oil and rice. In its latest update, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said the sea surface was about 1.5 degrees Celsius colder than normal across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. “We expect that these conditions will continue until the first quarter of 2008,” WMO scientific officer Leslie Malone told a news conference in Geneva. The current event has strayed from normal trends, and has not brought rainfall to the region, Malone said, attributing this to cool sea temperatures across the north of Australia to the Indian Ocean, which had altered expected weather patterns. “As long as this situation continues, it is expected to lead to unusual climate patterns in surrounding continental regions, ones that are atypical of La Nina,” WMO said in its update. “Rains have been unusually heavy in parts of eastern Africa, while dry conditions have persisted in many parts of Australia.” Australia is gripped by its worst drought in 100 years, resulting in crop failures that have propelled wheat prices to record highs. The country last experienced wetter-than-usual weather in 1999 through 2000 as a result of La Nina, which is normally characterized by incessant rainfall, storms and floods. The La Nina weather pattern occurs about every three to five years and often follows El Nino, a warming of Pacific waters, which can also wreak havoc on weather around the world.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/45109/story.htm

More Left-wing activists leave Warming cause, call it ‘politics of fear’ (NY Times)
[The left-wing activist base of the man-made global warming fear movement continues to crumble. This is an astounding article from the New York Times – Note: Also See Inhofe: Left-wing Activists Believe Global Warming has ‘Co-opted’ The Environmental Movement – http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=de6a54bf-802a-23ad-45ed-60ae6f3febe2&Issue_id=

Senator Inhofe in his speech on Oct. 25, detailed how scientists on the political Left are all now questioning man-made climate fears. The activist base continues to become disillusioned with the man-made global warming movement as new peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk fears. See: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84e9e44a-802a-23ad-493a-b35d0842fed8 Inhofe cited Gore political supporters like Ivy League Geologist Robert Giegengack of U. of Penn. and left-wing activist like Prof. Denis Rancourt, Prof. David Noble, Alexander Cockburn, Geophysicist & French Socialist Claude Allegre, Self described Leftist Geologist Peter Sciaky. ]

From Today’s New York Times Blog: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/climate-change-and-the-politics-of-fear/?hp

Left-wing activists slam Warming movement as ‘politics of fear’

NY Times Excerpt: Is the environmental movement, like the war on terror, premised on a “politics of fear”? In other words, does it try to unify people by scaring them with threats to their basic survival? That was the provocative thesis advanced by Alex Gourevitch, a doctoral candidate in political theory at Columbia University, at a panel discussion on Tuesday evening at the New York Public Library. He was confronted by vigorous dissent from his fellow panelists and from some members of the audience. < > Mr. Gourevitch explained his thesis: Let’s say it: Environmentalism is a politics of fear. It is not a progressive politics. When I say it is a politics of fear, I don’t mean that it just deploys hysterical rhetoric or that it exaggerates threats, which I think it does. I mean it in a much deeper sense. Mr. Gourevitch did not portray himself as a skeptic of climate change, but he argued, “What the science cannot tell you is what our political and social response should be.” Science cannot determine whether humans should focus on mitigation or adaptation, he said. Mr. Gourevitch quoted Al Gore as describing the climate change not only as the most urgent issue of our time, but also as a unique opportunity for current generations to affect the course of history. Mr. Gourevitch summarized this approach as “the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the human need for transcendence.” He added: Environmentalism is not just some politics. It’s a political project, a full-bodied ideology, and one that presents itself in terms of progress and aspiration. But when you look at what this ideology is built on, it’s built on the idea that a collective threat that makes security the basic principle of politics and makes the struggle for survival the basic and central aim of our social and political life. This, to me, is not a progressive politics at all. Most provocatively, Mr. Gourevitch compared the environmental movement to the war on terror, which he said relies on a unity based on fear. He continued: What is it that moves us? It’s not actually ideals. We’re not stirred to action by ideals. We’re compelled by the force of circumstances. It’s the sheer spur of necessity that drives us forward. What’s more, this ostensible politics is really an antipolitics, because the idea is that we should put to one side the conflicts of interest and ideals that are the real cut and thrust of politics. < > Mark Greif, a co-editor of n+1, who recently received his Ph.D. in American studies from Yale, spoke next. He said he agreed with Mr. Gourevitch that “the politics of global warming produces the possibility of left-wing fantasies of a state of emergency in which we wouldn’t have to go through normal politics in order to get things done.” Mr. Greif said he had indulged in these same fantasies. < > Some highlights: Mr. Harbach: “The scariest thing about global warming is how much more scared the experts are than any of us.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer of California delivered a speech in the Senate last week in which she linked global warming to the San Diego wildfires, Darfur, the imminent loss of the world’s polar bears and even a poor 14-year-old boy who died from “an infection caused after swimming in Lake Havasu,” because its water is warmer. Forget arson. Forget genocide. Forget nature. There is no tragedy that cannot be placed at the doorstep of global-warming skeptics.

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘Polar bear pandering’

LONDON – Warnings about the effects of climate change have made most Britons aware of the crisis, but few are willing to make major changes to the way they live, a survey showed on Friday.

Planet Ark: ‘Most Britons Aware But Unwilling on Climate Chang e’

Most people are ready to make personal sacrifices to address climate change, according to a BBC poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries.

BBC News website: Most ready for ‘green sacrifices’

“Consider Fig. 1 showing the negative of the anomaly of atmospheric pressure in Darwin, Australia and used by Trenberth and Hoar (1997) as a measure of the strength of the Walker circulation. Fig. 2 displays the sea surface temperature (SST) Niño3.4 index commonly used as a measure of the strength of El Niño. Trenberth and Hoar(1997) infer that ENSO behavior shifted after about 1970 to more frequent and larger El Niño events. (The change was interpreted as the result of global warming and to be “unprecedented” in the historical record.) Solow (2006), however, noted that their anomalous test period, 1992-mid-1995, in Fig. 1 was not independent of the earlier interval of supposedly normal behavior; he used the subsequently longer record to recalculate the probability that the nature of ENSO had changed in some significant way. His conclusion was, in contrast, that while the test period appears different from the earlier one, subsequently there was essentially no evidence that the nature of the physics had changed. The comparatively dramatic story of the original authors is thus replaced by a much more ambiguous and unexciting, but presumably more soundly-based,description of the nature of ENSO.”

Carl Wunsch: Extremes, Patterns, and Other Structures in Oceanographic and Climate Records

Abstract: The human eye and brain are powerful pattern detection instruments. Coupled with the clear human need to perceive the world as deterministic and understandable, and the often counter-intuitive results of probability theory, it is easy to go astray in making inferences. In particular, many examples exist where attention was called to apparent extreme behavior, whether in time or space series, or in the appearance of unusual patterns, that are just happenstance. Used carefully, and with a residual open-mindedness, it is possible to employ some simple statistical tests to avoid the outcomes of inferring unusual behavior where none is present, nor in rejecting a major finding as being insignificant.

Climate Audit: ‘Carl Wunsch on Self-Deception’