“IT is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century. One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them haven’t noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat.
Climate & Climate Change
Masses Protest for More Government
Hundreds of environmental activists took to the streets of Australia’s main cities on Saturday, saying the Labor government was not doing enough on climate change. The protests came ahead of a vote in the upper house Senate next week on the government’s planned emissions trading scheme, which the protesters regard as inadequate. Read more here.
Hot City or Global Warming?
An analysis of the historical temperature data for the state of Victoria in Australia, including the city of Melbourne, suggests an Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect but no general warming trend.
Urban Heat Island versus Global Warming – A Study of One Region
By Michael Hammer
CITIES represent concentrations of commerce and energy use. This energy release raises the temperatures in the immediate vicinity. Cities are also areas where there is intense development with extensive masonry constructions, skyscrapers, paved surfaces and little vegetation.
In Defence of ‘Heaven and Earth’
IN the following open letter to the President of the Australian Academy of Science, William Kininmonth explains that the science of climate change is ‘not settled’ and if the scientific community is to get to a position where it can confidently prediction future climate it will be necessary to both understand why and how the climate system has varied in the past, and to have a robust computer construct of the climate system. Given so far we have neither, the recent very public criticisms of Ian Plimer’s new book ‘Heaven and Earth’ are not logical or consistent.
More on the ‘Sceptics Conference’ in Washington
Stressing the need for reporters to do a much better job on their fact-checking, Dr Michaels dissected assertions such as that 49 percent of the US is in drought conditions, that California bushfires are a result of global warming, and that warming will cause a decline in crop yields and a 3-foot sea-level rise – he demonstrated that, despite their widespread media currency, such claims are wildly in error. Read more here.
Noah’s Ark Revisited
“An alliance of pro-carbon sceptics and fundamentalists is retarding 11th hour attempts at mitigation of dangerous climate change,” according to Andrew Glikson from the Australian National University.
Dr Glikson’s latest article is entitled ‘Noah’s Ark Revisited’ and decries all the mainstream media attention recently heaped on Ian Plimer from the University of Adelaide and Steve Fielding from the Australian parliament – both now suggesting the earth is not about to flood.
Of course Al Gore and Bono have been preaching something else for a long time as Blunt by Knutz explains in his latest cartoon.
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Notes and Links
NOAH’S ARK REVISITED, By Andrew Glikson http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2009/06/08/noah-s-ark-revisited
Blunt’s Cartoon Revisited, by Knutz
Al’s face in biblical-beard and wearing a wrap around with all its cataclysmically, religio-climate metaphors – Bono fetching the water for Noah while he pours over the Ark’s charts (nee hockey stick graph) and extracts cash from gullible passengers –
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.