On Global Cooling
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
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This came as a very long email; too long to put in the normal mail, so I have made it a report. It has a lot of information in it.
Warning of Global COOLING – Climate Fears a ‘Fraud’ – Newsweek’s Silliness – Arctic Ice Scare Slapped Down – Round up
A sampling of articles in past few days. June 30, 2008 – Round Up
Australian astronomical Society warns of global COOLING as Sun's activity 'significantly diminishes'
[ See also: Sun: Still quiet, over two months since a cycle 24 spot seen
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/
2008/06/28/sun-still-quiet-over-two-
months-since-a-cycle-24-spot-seen/ ]
Australian astronomical Society warns of global COOLING as Sun's activity 'significantly diminishes'
Cooling coming 20 Comments | 0 Trackbacks | Permalink Andrew Bolt Blog Andrew Bolt
Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 12:05am
Excerpt: A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia has a warning to global warming believers not immediately obvious from the summary: Based on our claim that changes in the Sun’s equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun’s orbital motion about the barycentre, we propose that the mean period for the Sun’s meridional flow is set by a Synodic resonance between the flow period (~22.3 yr), the overall 178.7-yr repetition period for the solar orbital motion, and the 19.86-yr synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn. Or as one of the authors, Ian Wilson, kindly explained to me: It supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 - 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by ~ 1 - 2 C. Oh. Global cooling coming, then. Obvious, really.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/
index.php/heraldsun/comments/cooling_coming#35743
Link to full paper: http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/138/paper/AS06018.htm
Flashback: 'Global Warming Will Stop,' New Peer-Reviewed Study Says - Global Warming Takes a Break for Nearly 20 Years?
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_
id=A17DEFA8-802A-23AD-4912-8AB7138A7C3F
Flashback: Cooling Underway: Global Temperature Continues to Drop in May - 'Significantly Colder' - 16-month temperature drop of -0.774°C!
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_
id=53DE09DC-802A-23AD-4EC4-C8ACCD44A47D
Flashback: Global Warming Erased? 2008 Global Temperatures Similar to 1940 – June 25, 2008 Excerpt: By Richard Courtney, DipPhil, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant.) Excerpt: Richard S Courtney says that the temperature is similar to 1940. […] The global temperature fell from 1940 to 1970, rose from 1970 to 1998, and fell from 1998 to the present (i.e. mid-2008). This is 40 years of cooling and 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940.”
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/pgutis/
public_enemies.html#comment1189
Flashback: Earth's 'Fever' Breaks: Global COOLING Currently Under Way
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_
id=5CEAEDB7-802A-23AD-4BFE-9E32747616F9
Geophysicist calls man-made climate fears ‘a fraud’ and ‘hysterical scare tactic’ (By Dr. David Deming is a geophysicist and associate professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma who has published peer-reviewed climate studies)
Excerpt: Global warming is a fraud and a hysterical scare tactic. Recent warming trends are very modest, and well within the range of natural variation. Predictions of future warming are based on speculative computer models whose accuracy cannot be evaluated or even tested. Sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere is at the highest level since satellite monitoring began in 1979. Last summer there was record low snowmelt in Antarctica. During April this year, 1,185 new all-time record low temperatures were recorded at U.S. weather stations. Given these facts, it is difficult to see how global warming can be real, or how we can be in the middle of a "climate crisis." But when these data are related to environmentalists, there is no sense of relief. Instead, it makes them angry that they might be deprived of their primary excuse to make war on civilization.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/
2008/jun/29/getting-sensible-on-energy
Atmospheric scientist Dr. Roy Spencer: Global Warming: Has the Climate Sensitivity Holy Grail Been Found?
Excerpt: The following is a simplified version of a paper entitled "Chaotic Radiative Forcing, Feedback Stripes, and the Overestimation of Climate Sensitivity" I submitted on June 25, 2008 for publication in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Here are the conclusions I have come to: 1) Current satellite estimates of climate sensitivity have a spurious BIAS in the direction of HIGH SENSITIVITY. (2) This bias is probably due to small, natural fluctuations in cloud cover causing contamination of the true climate sensitivity signal. (3) The true climate sensitivity only shows up during those shorter periods of time when non-radiative forcing (e.g. evaporation) is causing a relatively large source of temperature variability, compared to that from cloud variability which "tries" to push the diagnosed line slope toward zero (borderline unstable climate system). […] Furthermore, there is a very important implication of what I have presented here for the PAST warming we have observed, that is, the approximate 1 deg. C warming over the last 100 years. IF the climate sensitivity really is low (somewhere approaching the feedback parameter of 8 Watts per sq. m. per deg. C estimated here) then manmade greenhouse gas emissions are NOT SUFFICIENT to explain the observed warming in the last 100 years. […] Finally, what I have presented above represents both empirical and theoretical evidence for what many people (meteorologists and laypersons alike) have been wondering for a long time.... "Couldn't most of this global warming simply be part of a natural cycle?"
http://www.weatherquestions.com/
Climate-Sensitivity-Holy-Grail.htm
Comic Relief: Newsweek's Begley: Global Warming Is a Cause of This Year’s Extreme Weather
Newsweek's Begley: Global Warming Is a Cause of This Year’s Extreme Weather
Excerpt: It's been easier to connect global warming to rising temperatures than to extreme weather events—and even the former hasn't been easy. Only in this decade have "attribution" studies managed to finger greenhouse gases as the chief cause of the rising mercury, rather than a hotter sun or cyclical changes. […] Global warming has left its clearest fingerprint on heat waves. Since the record scorcher of 1998, the average annual temperatures in the United States in six of the past 10 years have been among the hottest 10 percent on record. Climatologists predict that days so hot they now arrive only once every 20 years will, by midcentury, hit the continental United States once every three years. Scientists also discern a greenhouse fingerprint in downpours, which in the continental United States have increased 20 percent over the past century. […] But they are also rising due to global warming, causing a complicated cascade of changes in air circulation that shuts down rainfall. Hurricanes have become more powerful due to global warming.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/143787
Reality Check: Here are 4 quick rebuttals to this Newsweek's latest
silliness. 1) Sharon Begley of Newsweek unhinged. She really is trying to
outdo her previous shoddy reporting. Her track record for climate reporting
is comical. See: Newsweek's Climate Editorial Screed Violates Basic
Standards of Journalism - August 2007 -
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_
id=38d98c0a-802a-23ad-48ac-d9f7facb61a7
2) If only Begley had bothered to read the actual data contained in a June 2008 report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. A sampling of what the report reveals includes: Hurricanes declining, no long term increases in drought - There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms - There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters - There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record. But all of the above appear to be INCREASING in unverified climate models. Computer models predictions are not evidence. For full report see: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3588
3) If only Begley had bothered to read this report from a meteorologist:
Midwest Floods and ‘Completely Unjustified’ Climate Change Fear Mongering –
By Mike Smith is a certified consulting meteorologist and a Fellow of the
American Meteorological Society He is CEO of WeatherData Services, Inc., an
AccuWeather Company, based in Wichita.) Excerpt: The EDF proclaimed: Did
Humans Cause the Midwest Flooding? In the piece, EDF’s James Wang writes,
“Another element [of the Midwest floods] may be global warming, which
increases the probability of extreme weather events like torrential rain.”
[...] And, it leaves us to ponder a key question: Does the science justify
tying the Midwest floods to Global Warming? My answer? An emphatic “no.” […]
The contention that “warming” is linked to catastrophic Midwest floods is
relatively easy to test. Here’s how: What were the temperatures during this
and similar floods in the region? When the atmosphere creates weather it is
responding to the conditions that exist in the lower atmosphere at the time
of the event - temperatures, pressures, humidity, etc. [...] The record
Midwest floods of 1993 and 2008 occurred after periods of rapid cooling. The
warmest year, 1998, did not have Midwest floods anywhere near the magnitude
of those in 1993 and 2008. It is my judgment the attempt to link the 2008
floods to Global “Warming” is completely unjustified. Full report here:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/
2008/06/22/midwest-floods-and-unjustified-climate-change-fears/
4) Newsbusters: Newsweek’s Begley makes erroneous hurricane claims:
Excerpt: Such facts pertaining to the Midwest floods eluded Begley, much
as they did with her following declaration: "Hurricanes have become more
powerful due to global warming." Really, Sharon? That's not what hurricane
experts such as William Gray <http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4403>
and Christopher Landsea
<http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/
archives/science_policy_general/00031
8chris_landsea_leaves.html> believe. In fact, if you've been
paying attention, even some of the folks cited by Nobel Laureate Al Gore
have changed their minds concerning a connection between global warming and
tropical storms including Kerry Emanuel <http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/5693436.html>
and Tom Knutson <http://www.startribune.com/19054939.html>
. But why should their opinions matter when you're on a roll? Of course, the
last time Begley was so reckless with her reporting, one of her colleagues,
contributing editor Robert J. Samuelson, called
<http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/
2007/08/12/newsweek-editor-calls-
global-warming-deniers-story-fundamentally-misl> the piece
"fundamentally misleading" and "highly contrived." We can only hope her most
recent addition to this debate is similarly derided.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/
06/29/newsweek-blames-midwest-floods-global-warming
#
What Exclusive? UK Independents’ Shock Article on Arctic Ice Debunked:
Excerpt: Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole - Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change - It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
Counter: See the details here
<http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/04/
abc-news-recycles-same-idiotic-global.html> , and note that the
New York Times ran (and then retracted) a similar story back in August 2000.
From a November 2000 Patrick Michaels article <http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=9617>
:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/06/
more-breathtaking-stupidity-from.html
Reality Check: New Study Shows Arctic Cooling Over last 1500 years Canada Free Press Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:00 EST The Living Planet Bee disappearances could get worse, House panel told US: Increase in wild bee swarms in New Jersey Video posted by federal agency captures wolf-bear interaction in Montana park Heatwave Scorches the Balkans Greece to start water shipments to drought-stricken Cyprus next week Fire under the ice: Gigantic volcanic eruption discovered under the Arctic New Arctic Study published in Climate Dynamics, and the work was conducted by Håkan Grudd of Stockholm University's Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology - Published online: 30 January 2008.Excerpt: "The late-twentieth century is not exceptionally warm in the new Torneträsk record: On decadal-to-century timescales, periods around AD 750, 1000, 1400, and 1750 were all equally warm, or warmer. The warmest summers in this new reconstruction occur in a 200-year period centred on AD 1000. A 'Medieval Warm Period' is supported by other paleoclimate evidence from northern Fennoscandia, although the new tree-ring evidence from Tornetraäsk suggests that this period was much warmer than previously recognised." < > "The new Torneträsk summer temperature reconstruction shows a trend of -0.3°C over the last 1,500 years." Paper available here: & Full Paper (pdf) available here:Commentary on new study: World Climate Report: 1,500 Years of Cooling in the Arctic The Arctic is melting, right? There is simply no questioning this pillar of the greenhouse scare, and images of ice melting, polar bears struggling, and indigenous people crying the blues are all part of any self-respecting presentation of global warming. Imagine a study published in a major journal showing that a location in the Arctic has "a trend of -0.3°C over the last 1,500 years."
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/148586-
New-Study-Shows-Arctic-Cooling-Over-last-1500-years
Below are the natural causes of Arctic Warming from our Jan. 2008 U.S. Senate Polar Bear Report.
Excerpt: A NASA study published in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters on October 4, 2007 found “unusual winds” in the Arctic blew "older thicker" ice to warmer southern waters. - A November 2007 peer-reviewed study in the journal Nature found natural cause for rapid Arctic warming. - A January 2008 study in the peer-reviewed journal Science found North Atlantic warming tied to natural variability. - A November 2007 peer-reviewed study conducted by a team of NASA and university experts found cyclical changes in ocean currents impacting the Arctic. - NASA Study Blames Natural High Pressure Leading to More Sunny Days for Arctic Ice Reduction. - A July 2007 analysis of peer-reviewed literature thoroughly debunks fears of Greenland and the Arctic melting and predictions of a frightening sea level rise.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_
id=D6C6D346-802A-23AD-436F-40EB31233026
From UN IPCC scientist Richard Courtney on June 27, 2008
Excerpt: All the North Polar ice is likely to melt because "the North Pole is covered with extensive first-year ice – ice that formed last autumn and winter". But not all the North Polar ice melted last year (If it had then this year would not be the first ice-free year). And all the ice that melted last year has been replaced by the "extensive first-year ice". So, the assumption of all the ice melting this year is that all the older ice will melt in addition to the ice that has reformed since last year. Why should it? Where is the additional heat for melting to come from when global temperature has plummeted this year? The item is not merely speculation: it is unfounded scare mongering that flies in the face of reality. No scientist would say what Serreze is asserted to have said (see above). A scientist would wait the next few weeks to see how much ice did melt and would then endeavor to explain it.
Climate Audit: ‘World sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were “unprecedented” for the month of April in over 25 years’
Excerpt: On a global basis, world sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were “unprecedented” for the month of April in over 25 years. Levels are the third highest (for April) since the commencement of records in 1979, exceeded only by levels in 1979 and 1982. This continues a pattern established earlier in 2008, as global sea ice in March 2008 was also the third highest March on record, while January 2008 sea ice was the second highest January on record. It was also the second highest single month in the past 20 years (second only to Sept 1996).
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3066
Even NY Times Douses Hysterical Arctic Claims – Revkin: What’s Really Up With North Pole Sea Ice?
Excerpt: Given the unpredictable short-term dynamics up there, which make the ice subject to vagaries of Siberian winds and a mix of currents, a lot of polar ice experts tell me it’s pretty much impossible to make such a prediction with high confidence. In fact, the Independent’s story — the opening sentences and headline at least — go way beyond what Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center tells the reporter. […]
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/
2008/06/27/whats-really-up-with-north-pole-sea-ice/
Arctic ice melt may be due to undersea volcanoes Excerpt: The Arctic ice
that is supposedly melting, stranding those cuddly looking polar bears, just
might be affected by a wave of volcanic eruptions on the ocean floor under
the Arctic ice cap. AFP reports on the recently-documented volcanoes, but
oddly makes no mention of the possible effect on apocalyptic predictions of
global warming. Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor
deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the
sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday. The eruptions -
as big as the one that buried Pompei - took place in 1999 along the Gakkel
Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles)
from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia. Scientists suspected even at
the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these
volcanic spasms. […] Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light draws our attention
to the report, and makes all the connections AFP studiously ignores: Er, is
it not possible that these volcanic eruptions - going back to at least 1999
- may have played a part in whatever melting there has been of the Greenland
and Arctic ice sheets? […] Do not hold your breath waiting for the major
media to trumpet this dramatic new discovery and the implication that
anthropogenic global warming theory has nothing to do with polar bears.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/
2008/06/arctic_ice_melt_mat_be_due_to.html
Does AP "Science" writer Seth Borenstein not have access to the Internet?
Excerpt: The Associated Press: This summer may see first ice-free North
Pole. Last August, the Northwest Passage was open to navigation for the
first time in memory. Hey Seth <http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2007/12/
attempting-to-sell-global-warming-using.html> --would you PLEASE
read this <http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/search/label/northwest_passage>
, and then stop making that embarrassing claim?!
The Northwest Passage was successfully navigated in 1906, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1944, 1957, 1969, 1977, 1984, 1988, and 2000 (and probably in other years as well).
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/06/
does-ap-writer-seth-borenstein-not-have.html
Scientist cited in alarmist article disowns "vanishing arctic" panic
Excerpt: Mark C. Serreze was the author quoted in most of the stories. He says now: I hope that I will not be pilloried by the community for being a part of this story. From what I can gather, it started with a piece in "National Geographic Online", moved to a piece in "The Independent", another piece on CNN, and then quickly grew out of all reasonable proportion. A positive feedback process. I'll be the first to agree that losing the ice at the north pole this summer would be purely symbolic, but symbolism can be pretty darned powerful.
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2008/06/
greenie-scientist-disowns-vanishing.html
Showing True Colors: RealClimate Activist Gavin Schmidt Responds to Arctic hysteria:
[Response: As we are seeing! We should perhaps tap into it (symbolism) more often. :)- gavin]
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/
2008/06/north-pole-notes/#comment-90890
Scientist Smacks Down Activists At RealClimate.org: By Atmospheric
physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination
Center in Pittsburgh and a founding member of the American Society for Mass
Spectrometry. Excerpt: Quoting RealClimate.org as a reliable source of
information on climate science is like quoting Disneyland.com for reliable
information on mouse behavior. "Real Climate" is a staged and contracted
production, which wasn't created by "scientists", it was actually created by
Environmental Media Services, a company which specializes in spreading
environmental junk science on behalf of numerous clients who stand to
financially benefit from scare tactics through environmental fear mongering.
There you will find the word "model" used a million times, for the entire
basis of the Global Warming Hoax is based on computer modeling ( not climate
science ) which has thus far failed to predict anything accurately since day
one. For example, one of their past clients, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, hired
them to create the illusion that Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) was somehow
dangerous, despite the fact that it had been fully tested and approved by
the FDA. After a lengthy national fearmongering campaign by Environmental
Media Services, Ben & Jerry's proudly announced that their ice cream was "BGH-free"...
as if it made any difference. Real Climate has become the Alamo for folks
like the highly discredited Michael Mann, whose original analytical blunder
led to the famous "hockey stick" curve, which helped kick off the Great
Global Warming Hoax after it was picked up by science illiterate Al Gore and
proudly paraded around the globe. The hockey stick was proven to be an
absurd blunder, but by then you couldn't put the genie back into the bottle,
and today we are wasting billions of dollars on a cure for a nonexistent
disease. Perhaps the best summary of "Real Climate" was given by a Harvard
trained atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, who said,
"This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming
believers, wherein any criticism of global warming is given an answer that,
however implausible, is then repeated by the reassured believers."
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/pgutis/
public_enemies.html#comment1178
The UN climate change numbers hoax
Excerpt: It’s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over: “2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis.” But it’s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled. As lies go, it’s a whopper. […] For the first time ever, the UN has released on the Web the comments of reviewers who assessed the drafts of the WG I report and the IPCC editors’ responses. This release was almost certainly a result of intense pressure applied by “hockey-stick” co-debunker Steve McIntyre of Toronto and his allies. Unlike the other IPCC working groups, WG I is based in the US and McIntyre had used the robust Freedom of Information legislation to request certain details when the full comments were released. An examination of reviewers’ comments on the last draft of the WG I report before final report assembly (i.e. the “Second Order Revision” or SOR) completely debunks the illusion of hundreds of experts diligently poring over all the chapters of the report and providing extensive feedback to the editing teams. Here’s the reality. “The IPCC owe it to the world to explain who among their expert reviewers actually agree with their conclusions and who don’t,” says Natural Resources Stewardship Project Chair climatologist Dr Timothy Ball. “Otherwise, their credibility, and the public’s trust of science in general, will be even further eroded.”
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7553
"Prominent Americans among those demanding an end to climate hysteria"
Excerpt: Since its creation in March by the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change has attracted signatories from 40 countries. Although ignored by most media and governments, endorsement for the Declaration has rained in from hundreds of climate experts and other scientists, as well as professional engineers, economists, policy experts, medical doctors and average citizens. The complete Declaration text, endorser lists and international media contacts for expert commentary, may be viewed at http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/media1.php. "The climate change declaration offers Americans of all backgrounds an opportunity to demonstrate that they are increasingly ill at ease with the wild forecasts of Al Gore, James Hansen and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)," said Dr. J. Scott Armstrong, Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. "Such skepticism is entirely appropriate. In our research, we found that the forecasts in the latest IPCC Assessment Report are not the outcome of scientific procedures. They are merely the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by complex writing. Americans must realize that IPCC global warming forecasts have no more credence than saying that the planet will get colder."
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/
index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id
=85&Itemid=1
Climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels: Hansen Unhinged - Having the wrong opinions on climate science constitutes a crime against humanity?
Excerpt: Every climate scientist knows there’s been no — zero — net change in surface temperatures in the last ten years, as shown in the climate history of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Unless you throw in a volcano (there hasn’t been a decent one in the last decade), none of Hansen’s valid 1988 models predict what’s actually happened. He simply predicted too much warming, especially for the last ten years. Why should we believe what he forecasts for the rest of the 21st century? Hansen’s 1988 predictions were flatly wrong about the extent of global warming. Yet on the 20th anniversary of his original testimony, Hansen said that people “should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature” for spreading doubts about the promised global warming holocaust. He named names, too: the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy. Excuse me, Inquisitor Hansen, but what exactly are their crimes against humanity? Being demonstrably wrong about climate science? Speaking of crimes, what about the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from electioneering? In the hotly contested state of Iowa, on October 26, 2004, Hansen gave a public speech in which he stated that “John Kerry has a far better grasp than President Bush on the important issues that we face.” Kerry lost Iowa by a mere 10,000 votes. Yet Hansen persists. He recently said “the 2008 election is critical for the planet. If Americans turn out to pasture the most brontosaurian congressmen,” maybe we’ll be able to save the planet from the doom he envisions this century. Hansen also wants to tax fossil fuels, making them much more expensive than they are already. So even though he predicted too much global warming, and his numbers couldn’t explain the ten-year hiatus we’ve experienced, Hansen keeps trying to sway presidential and congressional contests. And he wants to incarcerate any CEO (or scientist, probably) who casts doubt on his vision in public. The fact of the matter is: Hansen is out of control. NASA employees aren’t supposed to call for tax hikes, endorse candidates, or attack businessmen. Any other federal employee would be warned for doing so, and if he continued, fired (or worse). You have to hand it to him, though: he’s a single, scientific outlier, terrorizing the American people.
Lawrence Solomon: What I told the Petroleum Club
Excerpt: The fears of cataclysm over global warming are unfounded. There is no consensus on climate change, despite what Al Gore and the UN’s Panel on Climate Change would have you believe. Let me tell you why most people think that global warming is a serious problem. It comes down to one number: 2500. That’s the number of scientists associated with the UN’s Panel on Climate Change that the press reports has endorsed the UN Panel’s conclusions. These are the conclusions that get released in the UN’s mammoth reports every six years or so, and that then dominate the media airwaves for weeks. “2500 scientists can’t be wrong,” the press always says, explicitly or implicitly. Without that number, it would have no basis for the claim that they repeat over and over again — that there’s a consensus on climate change. 2500 is an impressive number of scientists. To find out who, exactly, they were, I contacted the Secretariat of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and asked for their names. The Secretariat replied that the names were not public, so I couldn’t have them. And I learned that the 2500 scientists were reviewers, not endorsers. Those scientists hadn’t endorsed anything. They had merely reviewed one or more of the literally hundreds of background studies, some important and some not, that were part of this immense United Nations bureaucratic process. They did not review the final report or endorse it. Their reviews weren’t even all favorable. I know that from many sources, including from among some of the scientists that I profiled — several of the deniers in my book are among those 2500. And those deniers, and others, generally consider the UN’s work a travesty. There is no endorsement by 2500 top UN scientists. The press has been taken. And so the public has been taken. The extent to which the public has been taken may surprise you. Not only is there no consensus, the scientists who are skeptics — the deniers — have extraordinary credentials, people at the very top echelons of the scientific establishment. They are the Who’s Who of Science. Not only do they disagree with the UN conclusions, they often value CO2 for the benefits it provides the planet — satellite data shows the planet is now the greenest it has been in decades. Until recently, after all, CO2 was universally viewed as Nature’s fertilizer.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/
fpcomment/archive/2008/06/27/lawrence-solomon-
what-i-told-the-petroleum-club.aspx
Apocalypse delayed sea levels falling
Excerpt: And now the seas have stopped rising, too: Gosh, you mean Penny Wong is wrong, and 700,000 Australian homes won’t be drowned? Curses, you really can’t rely on these global warming models, can you? MEANWHILE Samuel’s Blog discovers that if you’re a global warming believer in Melbourne or Sydney, it sure isn’t because you’re unusually warm these days. In fact, checking the hottest recorded day for each month in both cities, he finds not a single record set since 1983.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/
andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/
comments/apocalypse_delayed/
Climate models fail again! Scientist 'startled' to discover 50% of ozone destroyed in lower atmosphere
(Note: So much for 'state-of-the-art climate models.')
Excerpt: Large amounts of ozone -- around 50% more than predicted by the world's state-of-the-art climate models -- are being destroyed in the lower atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. This startling discovery was made by a team of scientists from the UK's National Centre for Atmospheric Science and Universities of York and Leeds. It has particular significance because ozone in the lower atmosphere acts as a greenhouse gas and its destruction also leads to the removal of the third most abundant greenhouse gas; methane. [...] Professor Alastair Lewis, Director of Atmospheric Composition at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and a lead scientist in this study, said: "At the moment this is a good news story -- more ozone and methane being destroyed than we previously thought - but the tropical Atlantic cannot be taken for granted as a permanent 'sink' for ozone.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/
2008/06/080625140656.htm
Grocery store nixes global warming “policy”
Excerpt: Question: Why does a major grocery store chain need a “comprehensive policy addressing climate change”? Answer: They don’t. The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that one the nations oldest and largest grocery firms, Kroger Inc., based in Cincinnati, OH rejected a shareholder proposal which called for the company to develop a comprehensive policy addressing climate change. Having shopped at many a Kroger store myself, I’m glad I won’t be bombarded with climate change messages while I shop. I really don’t need to know what the carbon footprint is on a can of soup or a head of lettuce. Cincinnati-based Kroger (NYSE: KR) operates more than 2,400 supermarkets and multidepartment stores in 31 states. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)roundup Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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2008/06/26/kroger-nixes-global-warming-policy/