Climate & Climate Change

“Research into hurricanes in the North Atlantic indirectly suggests that the last 100 years in Australia have been relatively wet. Forget about Greenhouse. Just the normal swings and roundabouts of the climate have the potential to be devastating…

Graham Young writing at his blog Ambit Gambit goes onto suggest that based on a recent paper in Nature entitled ‘Intense hurricane activity over the past 5,000 years controlled by El Nino and the West African monsoon’ governments might consider “spending more taxpayer monies reconstructing paleo-climate, and less modelling future climate scenarios.”

He also comments, “What’s more, in a challenge to vulgar Greenhouse assumptions, there appear to have been more severe hurricanes in the past than the ones we’ve seen recently, even though the sea was colder then.”

The paper in Nature is worth a read: http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/20070525/20070525_02.pdf

“Whatever it costs will be minimal compared to our overall revenues, and we’ll get that back many times over, by running a more efficient company and by growing morale among our employees. This program is a huge morale builder…

“From what we see within our own company and from reading polls, the younger generation gets the issue of climate change completely. I think it will grow our appeal to younger audiences and bond our programming to them.”

That is Rupert Murdoch on embracing a carbon neutral empire and activism journalism. You can read the complete interview here:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/05/16/murdoch/index.html

“University of Washington climate scientist Mark Albright was dismissed from his position as associate state climatologist, just weeks after exposing false claims of shrinking glaciers in the Cascade Mountains.

“Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels had asserted in a February 7 Seattle Times editorial, “the average snow pack in the Cascades has declined 50 percent since 1950 and will be cut in half again in 30 years if we don’t start addressing the problems of climate change now.”

“Albright knew from his research that the Cascade Mountains snow pack had not declined anywhere near what Nickels asserted, and that the snow pack has actually been growing in recent years.

Read the complete article by James Taylor at the Heartland Institute website: http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21207

“TIME Magazine believes that Gore and “global warming” sermons are a great combination. That’s why their environmental doctrines are so very bizarre, I guess.

How bizarre? Try reading TIME Magazine’s “Global Warming Survival Guide” dated, April 9, 2007, and the “51 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference”.

Rule 26: “Plant a bamboo fence”, because it feels good?

Unprecedented levels of idiocy aside, there’s plenty to laugh about. Indeed, I was so moved by the weirdness of it all that I wrote to TIME:

Your comically unbalanced cover story on “global warming” reminded me of why, I, for one, am not a believer. “If droughts and wildfires, floods and crop failures … and the images of drowning polar bears didn’t quiet most of the remaining global-warming doubters,” claimed the hysterical Jeffrey Kluger, “the hurricane-drive destruction of New Orleans did”. Actually, it didn’t. Many scientists have said to blame Hurricane Katrina on global warming is absurd. In Australia’s case, we have had more devastating droughts before. As for “wildfires”, these have more to do with arson than global warming. Could TIME please consider the other side of the story?

My letter, to the editor’s credit, appeared in TIME’s Inbox section under the subheading “Global Hysterics?”

But what really made me laugh was the fact I had to remove my magazine from its plastic wrapper to read the damn thing. (States Rule 24: “Just say no to plastic bags”.)

Meanwhile even the politicised United Nations freely concedes crop harvests are booming. Just analyse the satellite images. TIME must employ lazy reporters.

Read the complete article here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5825

A summary of ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’ — the much awaited third report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — was issued last night.

According to Michael Casy writing for The Guardian:

International delegates reached an agreement early Friday on the best ways to combat climate change despite efforts by China to water down language on cutting destructive greenhouse gas emissions.

The closed-door debate over everything from nuclear power to the cost of cleaner energy ran into the early morning hours with quibbling over wording. But consensus was eventually reached on a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. network of 2,000 scientists and delegates from more than 120 nations.

“It’s all done,” said Peter Lukey, a member of the South Africa delegation. “Everything we wanted to see was there and more. The message is: We have to do something now.”

Read the complete article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6606763,00.html

Download the IPCC report here: http://www.ipcc.ch/

I’m not sure that dumping tons of iron powder in the ocean is going to stop ‘climate change’, but I am hopeful it can reduce atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide:

“The first commercial venture into growing vast plankton blooms big enough to suck carbon from the atmosphere starts this month.

Tons of powdered iron will be poured into the Pacific to induce the growth of blooms big enough to be seen from space. The scheme’s backers believe that the iron seeding technique could radically reduce the carbon in the atmosphere and will open up a multimillion-pound carbon-offsetting industry. Simultaneously, they hope to reverse the decline in plankton levels, which are estimated to have fallen by at least 9 per cent in the past two decades.

Iron seeding is thought to work because it provides a crucial nutrient for plankton growth that is missing or in short supply in up to 70 per cent of the world’s oceans.

As the phytoplankton multiplies it will absorb large quantities of carbon and, if the trials are a success, much of it will sink to the seabed when the microscopic plants die and sink…

Read the complete article here: http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1739124.ece .