Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth, Thursday, May 28, 2009
Among the many catastrophes that are to befall our world due to global warming, the imminent demise of coral reefs is one of the worst. According to climate change proponents, as waters warm the ocean’s reefs will bleach out and die, leaving the seas aquatic deserts, devoid of life. Now comes news that scientists have discovered live, healthy corals on reefs already as hot as the oceans are supposed to get 100 years from now, according to IPCC predictions. Looks like the corals didn’t read the IPCC reports.
Climate catastrophists have warned that more than half of the world’s coral reefs could disappear in the next 50 years, in large part because of higher ocean temperatures caused by climate change. Supposedly, corals—tiny sea creatures that, working together, manage to build gigantic ocean reefs—are so delicate that a shift in water temperature of little more than 1 degree Celsius can cause them to whither and die. Corals create the most diverse ecosystems in the oceans: the beautiful and vibrant tropical reefs. If corals were to go extinct, the repercussions would likely affect all life on Earth.
Corals live in a symbiotic relationship with tiny, single-celled algae. It’s a partnership, with the corals provide a home for the algae and the algae provide nourishment for the corals. Rising temperatures can stress the algae, causing them to stop producing food. The corals evict the deadbeat algae, spit them out to fend for themselves. Without their algal partners, the reefs die and turn stark white, an event referred to as coral bleaching.
In a report this month in Marine Ecology Progress Series, Stanford University scientists have found evidence that some coral reefs are adapting and may actually be able to shrug off the worst of the IPCC’s predicted global warming. They discovered that some corals resist bleaching by hosting types of algae that can handle the heat, while others swap out the heat-stressed algae for tougher, heat-resistant strains.
“The most exciting thing was discovering live, healthy corals on reefs already as hot as the ocean is likely to get 100 years from now,” said Stephen Palumbi, a professor of biology and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “Corals are certainly threatened by environmental change, but this research has really sparked the notion that corals may be tougher than we thought.”
For their investigations, Palumbi and Tom Oliver, a former student, traveled to Ofu Island in American Samoa. Ofu, a tropical coral reef marine reserve, has remained healthy despite gradually warming waters. In cooler lagoons, Oliver found only a handful of corals that host heat-resistant algae exclusively. But in hotter pools, he observed a direct increase in the proportion of heat-resistant symbionts, suggesting that some corals had swapped out the heat-sensitive algae for more robust types. “These findings show that, given enough time, many corals can match hotter environments by hosting heat-resistant symbionts,” Oliver explained.
Heat resistant Corals Ignore Climate Change Threats 335x205 graph128c aj
The whole matter of coral delicacy is a bit puzzling, since reef building corals have been around since at least the Permian period. All corals in the sea, particularly the familiar kinds that form reefs, have hard external skeletons. In a 2006 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of researchers led by Allen Collins dated the origin of stony corals to between 240 and 288 million years ago, much more closely matching the fossil record of corals than earlier estimates.
This means that corals survived the worst ever mass extinction event in the history of Earth—the Permian-Triassic Extinction, 251 million years ago—and lived through the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. During this span of nearly 200 million years, CO2 levels were 5-10 times higher than they are now with temperatures as much as 10ºC higher than today.. After surviving the event that killed off the dinosaurs, corals have remained the ocean’s primary reef builders during the Cenozoic era, roughly the past 63 million years. Scientists should have known that any creatures who can live through all that are tough enough to put up with slight fluctuations in water temperature.
Heat resistant Corals Ignore Climate Change Threats Phanerozoic Temperature
Careful scientific observation has revealed another over hyped horror story, put forth as an effect of global warming, to be inaccurate. True, many reefs do bleach and die, but others recover or strains of organism that are better adapted to altered local conditions move in. This is the way nature works. Given all the rapid temperature excursions in the past, the changing ocean temperatures and sudden influxes of fresh water from giant glacial lakes, wouldn’t you suspect that corals were a bit tougher than they seem—perhaps not as individuals but as a species or genus? While I do not believe that the IPCC’s predictions regarding global warming are accurate, it is nice to know that coral will be sticking around regardless.
Like all the other hype that surrounds global warming, the demise of the world’s coral has been greatly exaggerated. Once more the puffed-up, overwrought reports from the IPCC have been shown for what they are: committee generated collections of half truths and wild speculation buttressed by poor science and guesswork. I have never seen so many people, claiming to be scientists, so seemingly bent on destroying science’s reputation with the public. I fear we will not soon recover from this regrettable episode—and a whole generation of young people will turn their backs on science and engineering, dismissing them as the work of charlatans and frauds.
Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and, above all, stay skeptical.
The final paragraph (my embolding) says it all!! _________________ Tooth Fairy denier
Santa Clause Denier
Man-made Climate Change Denier
Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 3889 Location: North Down, N. Ireland
Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 8:45 pm Post subject:
I have to say it makes - in its own way - a pleasant surprise that after 16 pages item7 has finally pulled some "science" out of the bag in support of his case.
I use "scare quotes" because of course it's not real science, it's just that item7 thinks it is. Probably because of the big words and the graphs.
Which at least doubles if not triples the satire value of his emboldened last quote.
A professional comic would never have dared.
Now personally, going by previous form, I believe that they're all just meaningless monkey squiggles in item7's view, if we imagine item7 to be, for the purposes of this analogy, a Shakespeare-chasing random hominid typewriter pounder. But he surely deserves a chance for swilling around in the denier sewer the way he does for so long.
So before ripping several new bowel evacuation ports in item7's last few posts, I'd just like to ask if there is any particular point in the panoply of standard rancid denialism expressed in his last three posts he's prepared to defend.
I'm guessing - assuming silence or posting yet more vacuous corporate financed dross isn't his wisest chosen option - that it's the PhD that'll appeal.
But then it might just as easily be that to item7 all of it is just equally baffling monkey squiggles, and the monkey will just keep hitting that 'submit' button. _________________ Dissolution of the Global Corporations.
It's the only way.
I Wish the Earth Were Warming – It Would Save a Lot of Lives
by Vin Suprynowicz
First, if the earth was warming at a rate of about 1 or even 2 degree per century in recent decades, there are reasons to believe that’s slowed or stopped. One of those reasons is that the “global warming” fanatics have abruptly shifted their rhetoric, adopting instead the new nonsense euphemism “climate change.” This is a clear attempt at inoculation: If it turns out the globe is indeed cooling again, they will merely take their same pre-set, ulterior agenda – huge energy tax hikes to finance bigger government, cripple capitalism, and destroy the freedom-giving automobile, instead forcing everyone to pile like lemmings into “mass transit” – and declare that an identical agenda is now needed to fight “global cooling” … and that we dare not waste any time in debate! Hee-haw!
Furthermore, even if the earth did warm a bit in recent decades, there’s no reason to believe man’s activities played a substantial role. Carbon dioxide is not a particularly effective greenhouse gas, nor the most prevalent. (Water vapor is.) Furthermore, the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide generated by man’s activities is infinitesimal. Astronomers tell us that when the earth undergoes modest global warming, Mars does, too. It’s unlikely Mars gets warmer because anyone there is burning coal or driving SUVS. The more likely culprit for the parallel warming of the two planets is solar activity.
And third, even if the earth is warming and mankind somehow contributed to the process, no regulations promulgated by the U.S. government can have any useful impact, since the U.S. government has no authority over the activities of fast-industrializing India and China, where new coal-fired generators come on line weekly.
But let us, for the sake of argument, stipulate to all three flimsy (though required, if their theory is to hold water) links in this chain. Let us pretend, in other words, that we are the “skeptical reporters” of today’s Washington Post and New York Times, and stipulate that 1) The earth is warming noticeably and will continue to do so for centuries; 2) carbon dioxide generated by mankind plays a dominant role in this process, and 3) some set of expensive, draconian regulations which can be promulgated and enforced by the EPA or a high-handed U.S. White House can end or substantially reduce global warming.
OK. We’re still left with an important question: Should that be done? That is to say: Is there any scientific reason (science fiction films with computer-generated tidal waves flooding the Empire State Building to the 30th floor do not count) to believe that moderate global warming, in the range of 1 to 4 degrees centigrade over the next couple of centuries, will do more harm than good to the health and safety of mankind?
And the answer is, um … no.
“The maximal increase in atmospheric CO2 from combustion of hydrocarbon fuels cannot harm human health directly,” points out Howard Maccabee, Ph.D., M.D., in the November, 2008 newsletter of the group he heads, the Tucson-based Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. Rather, “The hypothetical mechanism of harm” now being used to justify EPA intervention under the “Clean Air Act,” is through global warming.
“Many scientists dispute the predictions from the U.N. IPCC computer models,” Dr. Maccabee notes. However – here’s the killer – “even if the models are correct, warming would be a net benefit to human health. Hence the EPA has no legitimate authority to regulate CO2 emissions.”
The doctor then proceeds to spell that out.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (a political organization, please note, not a scientific one) gives an average temperature increase of 4.5 Centigrade as a worst-case scenario. There is historical precedent for increases of this magnitude, Dr. Maccabee points out. Stalagmite proxies in South Africa indicate increases of up to 4 C in the Medieval Warm Period (formerly called the Medieval Climate Optimum). Because of the urban heat island effect, large cities have shown temperature increases as much as 3 C (e.g. Tokyo 1876–2004) to 4 C (New York City 1822–2000). We thus have data to evaluate the health effects of climate change.
In 1995, Thomas Gale Moore published the first of his pioneering efforts, “Why Global Warming Would be Good for You,” and in 1998, “Health and Amenity Effects of Global Warming.” He estimated that a temperature increase of 2.5 C in the U.S. would cause a drop of 40,000 deaths per year from respiratory and circulatory disease, based on U.S. Mortality Statistics as a function of monthly climate change.
In 1997, the Eurowinter Group (W. R. Keatinge, G. C. Donaldson, et al.) published “Cold Exposure and Winter Mortality from Ischaemic Heart Disease, Cerebrovascular Diseases, Respiratory Diseases and all Causes in Warm & Cold Regions of Europe,” DDP points out, again in their newsletter of November, 2008. “This was a landmark study that elucidated the mechanisms of serious illness from cold, which are dominated by hemoconcentration, which increases blood viscosity (’sludging’). This can cause death from blockage of vessels serving the heart and the brain, accounting for half of all excess cold-related mortality.”
This was followed by “Heart Related Mortality in Warm and Cold Regions of Europe: Observational Study” in the British Medical Journal in 2000 – hardly a fringe or flaky publication. These two studies examined mortality as a function of mean daily temperature in Athens, London, and Helsinki, providing the most comprehensive collection of evidence that mortality decreases as temperature increases, over most of the current climate range in Europe.
In 2006, A.J. McMichael et al. assume, in “Climate Change and Human Health: Present and Future Risks,” that the maximum daily mortality in higher temperature periods will be equal to or greater than the maximum mortality in cold periods, resulting in heat-related deaths increasing far more than the lives saved by warming of the cold periods. But “This hypothesis is inconsistent with U.S. data showing that mortality due to cardiac, vascular, and respiratory disease in winter is seven times greater than in summer,” Dr. Maccabee and Doctors for Disaster Preparedness now report. “This ratio is about nine to 10 in Europe, from the data of Keatinge, et al.”
The most comprehensive daily all-cause mortality data as a function of the day of the year is from Deschenes and Moretti in 2007. Mortality is maximum in January and minimum in the warmest months of July and August. “This data strongly indicates that warming of average daily temperatures would cause a decrease in mortality in winter far greater than the slight increase of mortality from summer heat,” the DDP conclude.
In early 2008, the Department of Health of the UK released “Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK 2008,” an update of previous reports from 2001/2002, edited by Sari Kovats. They used IPCC models that predicted 2.5 C to 3 C mean temperature increases in the U.K. by 2100. They found that there was no increase in heat-related deaths from 1971–2002, despite warming in summers, suggesting that the UK population is adapting to warmer conditions. But cold-related mortality fell by more than a third in all regions. The overall trend in mortality for the warming from 1971–2002 was beneficial. They state, in summary, that “Winter deaths will continue to decline as the climate warms.”
“The data from the Eurowinter Group (Lancet 1997) on mortality versus temperature can be used for a quantitative estimate of mortality benefits from warming,” DDP conclude. “This would lead to an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 fewer deaths in the U.S. per year for a 1 C temperature rise. This can be compared to 30,000 deaths per year from breast cancer, 30,000 for prostate cancer, or about 40,000 from motor vehicle accidents.”
Furthermore, “Heat deaths often represent “displacement” (i.e. weakened people die a few days or weeks before prior expectation), but deaths due to cold usually result in months to years of life lost,” the newsletter points out. “Thus the benefits in life expectancy from warming in cold periods may be much more than nine times greater than life span lost in warm periods.”
And that’s before we even look at the advantages of being able to grow food closer to the Arctic Circle.
Global warming (if it should continue) will save lives – lots of them. Nor is this counterintuitive. Since our early ancestors developed and prospered in warm climates – most likely in equatorial Africa – why shouldn’t it hold true that our species will do best in moderately warmer climates?
Humans are masters of adaptation, but it still takes a lot more work to survive in the cold. The “climate change” we should really worry about is the next Ice Age, which could see everything north of Columbus, Ohio covered by an ice shelf a mile thick.
Do the “global warming” fanatics think we can prevent that by burning lots of coal and putting lots of miles on our SUVs? If so, shouldn’t we start right now, just in case?
Meantime, can someone explain again why Barack Obama gets to play “commander-in-chief of the auto industry,” wave his magic wand, and declare that an industry already in bankruptcy will have to charge an extra $1,500 per vehicle to limit CARBON DIOXIDE emissions to “fight global warming” … when it turns out global warming would save human lives?
The full text of Dr. Maccabee’s comments, together with figures and references, are posted at ddponline.org. Dr. Maccabee’s presentation on this subject at the 2008 DDP meeting is also available on CD and DVD.
May 29, 2009
Vin Suprynowicz [send him mail] is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of The Black Arrow. Visit his blog.
CONTROL & LOSS OF FREEDOM: ULTIMATE GOAL OF THE GLOBAL WARMING LOBBY
By William Hunt, M.S., June 1, 2009, NewsWithViews.com
Every proposal of the Global Warming/Climate Change lobby involves control. The control of energy production, use by individuals, corporations and governments, and the control of the design, type and the use of devices that use energy.
Naturally, this is to control the use of energy by the ordinary citizen. President B. Hussein Obama used 9,000 gallons of aviation kerosene to visit Iowa on Earth Day. The hypocrisy of that can be felt in the very air. Do as I say, not as I do.
Other politicians and celebrities are similar and if they truly believed what they say, they would be the first to conserve, but despite their rhetoric, they use resources at rates hundreds to millions of times that of the ordinary citizen, but I digress.
The restrictive control of how you or others use energy now is being aimed to extend to all petroleum products and use.
This translates to restrictions on the use of gasoline, diesel, kerosene, heating oil, bunker oils, lubricating oils, coal, natural gas, propane, butane and hundreds of other primary energy products. Electrical energy— mostly generated from aforementioned coal and petroleum products, as well as hydroelectric generation will also be controlled plus the consumer’s ability to use the electricity will be controlled. The net result of such controls will be increased prices on everything that requires energy to manufacture, build, produce or use. In other words, every sort of economic and home activity will be more expensive.
The proposed “Cap and Trade” is emblematic of this “let’s control energy” mindset and has a long history, with similar proposals being the darling of environmental groups for more than a decade. In 2007, Congress unsuccessfully introduced legislation to cap greenhouse emissions and trade “carbon credits”.
In 2008, the UK’s House of Commons in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Congress decided to eliminate the incandescent light bulb to cut “carbon emissions” and reduce energy use. (However, the House of Commons didn’t take the increased amount of energy required to mine the rare earth metals, build the electronics and other components required by compact fluorescents.)
California’s failed attempt in 2008 to modify their law (Title 24, Subchapter 2, Section 112) to make it mandatory that all thermostats respond to RF signals from the state to control minimum and maximum settings. Reason prevailed in that it would have required a monstrous amount of infrastructure that would far, far exceed any possible cost or energy savings of such a system.
In 2008, the State of Oregon floated the idea of adding a GPS to every car and gas pump to determine taxes because so many energy-efficient cars were supposedly cutting into the taxes collected. (This was a lie, of course, as 2008 saw the addition of 10% ethanol, which reduced vehicle mileage by an average of 30%).
The problems with these speak for themselves: incandescent bulbs do not cause epileptic seizures or eye strain as many alternative lighting sources do. PCTs, or programmable thermostats connected to a state network would be vulnerable to ecoterrorists wanting to “send a message”, such as turning off the heat in those parts of the state that have cold weather or shutting down the air conditioning when it’s 120°.
It would cost billions in infrastructure to fit gas stations and other places with GPS receiver/computing equipment to download GPS information. The GPS system would make it less attractive to drive fuel-efficient cars as these would pay more taxes per gallon than other vehicles. The real reason for the GPS system would be to see where people drive and while this could have beneficial uses, ultimately, it would be used for nonlegitimate purposes, such as tracking political opponents or even modifying the data in their systems to make it seem as if they had done illegal or scandalous things, given the fundamental nature of many of those currently in power in Oregon.
The Federal government and many states, including Oregon, California and Washington are poised to adopt “cap and trade” and “carbon taxes”. Ostensibly to “save the world” by reducing carbon dioxide.
Cap and Trade
Cap and trade has been used to “control” pollutants like sulfur dioxide and now the left wants to use it to control petroleum use. It should be noted however, that what the EPA is calling success in “controlling” sulfur dioxide emissions is largely the result of the decline in much of the Northeast’s industrial base, which reduced the use of coal for fuel and in steel production. In addition, the closing of older steel plants in the late 1970s and early 1980s which were built during the 1880s, and replacing some of them with new plants with modern emission controls reduced SO2 emissions, as well.
The basic mechanism of cap and trade is to provide incentives for coal-electric power plants and other sulfur dioxide producers to modernize, but only to a certain point. A total amount of pollution was selected as a “cap” for emissions and then the sulfur dioxide emitters were a preselected amount of pollutants that they could emit or they could they could “trade” this amount of pollution, i.e., sell it to another emitter in the form of pollution “credits”, in the event that they didn’t need it and some other emitter couldn’t afford to reduce its emissions.
One problem was that the emitting plant or manufacturer had incentive to modernize only so far, unless the cap was periodically reduced, which it was not. Some emitters voluntarily reduced their emissions quickly when their situations made sense to do it and could sell their pollution allowance to someone else. In a way, it moved pollution from one area to another.
Because every mechanism for efficiently-producing energy except for hydroelectric and nuclear power requires the combustion of hydrocarbons, the United States is locked into coal for 50% of its power and natural gas had been 22%, but the most recent EIA figures are suspect— The January 2009 report’s numbers literally don’t add up when you calculate the ones listed— Coal is claimed to have gone from 50% to 30% in one year by these “figures,” for example.)
What the left wants to do is to cap the total amount of carbon dioxide and thus all fuels— the amount of energy that you, the consumer use, and the total amounts that industry and commerce use— in the same way that was done with sulfur dioxide. Credits for carbon dioxide emissions would be traded the same way.
The whole point of Cap and Trade is to reduce you and to punish you, the user for using energy. It would be a complete disaster for the economy as every alternative thus suggested by the left either doesn’t exist yet, can’t exist because of basic physics or is hopelessly inefficient.
Carbon Taxes will Control Energy Use Like Never Before
Another, direct method for controlling our energy use, carbon taxes will tax carbon dioxide emissions. Initially, they might take the form of a straightforward tax, probably on tons of carbon dioxide emitted. However, in order to buy votes, every special interest group, every business type, every industry will have their own rates, exemptions and other special tax statuses and quickly it will be a mess like the rest of the tax code. Or, it would be initially enacted in such a fashion as to “punish” large emitters of carbon dioxide, like coal electric plants. (Obviously this would be a disaster as half of our electrical power comes from coal.)
Like Cap and Trade, the idea of Carbon Taxes is to punish the use of fossil fuels— control of energy.
What’s next in control of energy use? Congress requiring you to take a vital capacity test and then tax you for carbon emissions based on how much you breathe? It’s getting that ridiculous when groups want to control your thermostat by remote control.
Dire Results
These and indeed, all other measures suggested by politicians, regulators and NGOs to deal with global warming are about controlling what you do with your life by controlling energy. They avoid the issues of energy supply, the consumer’s need for energy and the economy’s need for energy. Cap and trade and carbon taxes do nothing to actually “stop” the emissions of carbon dioxide, so they cannot rationally claim that is why they are putting such devices into place. All such things do is to raise the price consumers have to pay for basic needs. They harm the poor most of all by hitting them by raising the costs for basic costs like heat, light, water, sewer, food, gasoline for commuting to work, and every consumer good— clothes, soap, cars, everything.
California’s Example- The Great Sponge
So, what happens when a state becomes a “green” dream like the people advocating for all of this energy control?
It ceases to be industrial, businesses suffer, manufacturing and production of goods and services crash. Production of natural resources crash. Protection of natural resources crash. Welfare roles swell. Government agencies increase their oversight of pretty much everything. California is the archetype.
California has become a parasite in many ways. It has become dependent upon other states for its water, oil, natural gas, electricity, wood and tax money.
Roughly half of the resources that it consumes come from other states. California once led the nation in technology and innovation of all sorts— electronic, medical, chemical, engineering, computers— you name it, it happened in California first.
Once an economic dynamo that drew people from every state for jobs and a better life, California is a textbook case for why socialism coupled with false environmentalism cannot work. Because of its environmental lobby wanting everything to be “green”, California merely imports what it needs from other states, producing less and less in return. Let someone else produce what we need… This year, reality finally started shining through the clouds of marijuana smoke with 11.2% unemployment and the Assembly’s budget problems.
To use one of the environmentalist’s buzzwords— this is “sustainable”?? For California to go from providing most of its own needs to importing what they need— this is what “being green” is all about?
Isn’t this exactly the opposite of what the environmental movement claims they want?
Oregon is following hard in California’s footsteps. Businesses are failing and fleeing the state. Washington is not far behind.
So, what happens when Congress shuts down the states that provide the resources for the state that no longer will produce their own?
Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 3889 Location: North Down, N. Ireland
Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:27 am Post subject:
Is there no level of unsubstantiated speculative corporate opinion and transparently moronic industry spin for "business as usual" that item7 doesn't swallow hook line and sperm, then repeat here? _________________ Dissolution of the Global Corporations.
It's the only way.
Let him be, Chek. As Philip K. Dick would say, "To fight the Empire is to become infected by its derangement. Whoever defeats the Empire becomes the Empire..."
For all the talk of global warming skeptics that we who believe it is happening treat it with a religious zealotry, I can honestly say I see more frothing-at-the-mouth disdain for the other side's opinion coming much, much more often from the skeptics than the believers. _________________ "What about a dance club that only let in deaf people? It would really only need flashing lights, so they'd save a lot of money on music." - Dresden Codak
Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 3889 Location: North Down, N. Ireland
Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:19 pm Post subject:
Hi TmcM, welcome back - haven't seen you around these parts for a while.
There's some sense in what you're saying (which I take to be let the item7's of this world fester away to themselves), but you see, since you're last residence here ... I've become evil.
As item7 never tires of pointing out. I should've recognised it beforehand of course, when I first began finding that stubbing out cigarettes in kittens' eyes was a good laff.
But these days I settle for doing what I can toward helping Big Al acquire a humungous mansion, one that burns as much energy as New York City on New Year's Eve, preferably scammed off the backs of the poor.
As for me, I'm hoping that if I can just get to be evil enough, a nice cushy job awaits in some rich corporation somewhere. Don't tell me that with all that advanced financial acumen exposed by the global budget meltdown there isn't somebody out there who can't turn a profit from burning down orphanages.
To that end, here's a cheerful little piece.
The educationally undernourished cognescenti will no doubt spot the scam straight away. Eastern Australia is after all a very, very, very long way away. Certainly too far to be worrying about ...unless California also is of any importance to you. Or East Africa etc. etc.
"Why the climate catastrophe leaves no room for pragmatism".
"Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road tells of a homeless man and his son tramping through a lifeless, blackened, post-apocalyptic landscape. In February 2009, in a blaze of unprecedented and unstoppable fury, McCarthy’s dystopia became manifest in Melbourne’s north-east hinterland.
Yet the politics of global warming in Canberra become ever more surreal. Either the two major parties are truly ignorant of the consequences of their policies or they are guilty of a criminal failure. Neither has got to first base on climate, failing even to elaborate a target - a maximum temperature increase - against which their performance might be measured.
While Prime Minister Rudd acknowledges that ‘we need to build a low-pollution, clean energy economy’, his policies remain alarmingly deficient. His carbon trading scheme will not reduce Australia’s emissions. Treasury modelling assumes the large-scale purchase of carbon permits overseas so that, while the number of pollution permits issued in Australia may fall, total emissions will rise. In any case, the extra volume of coal flowing through two new export facilities approved by Labor will increase global carbon pollution by more than Australia’s total greenhouse gas output.
The climate debate in Canberra is embedded in a culture of failure, with the scientific imperatives that should determine the speed and depth of action ignored. The laws of physics and chemistry, which allow an understanding of planetary warming, are deemed open for political negotiation, as if climate policy were a wage case or a Senate deal. As the Prime Minister said when launching the carbon trading policy at the National Press Club in December 2008, ‘We will be attacked from the far-Right for taking any action at all. We will be attacked from parts of the far-Left for not going far enough by refusing to close down Australia’s coal industry. The government believes we have got the balance right.’
The Murdoch editorials the next day were full of praise: Rudd’s approach was common sense, took account of the real world, was prudent, cautious, flexible. But the belief that the laws of science can be balanced against the demands of business might more appropriately be described, like the activists who interrupted Rudd’s launch suggested, as an appeasement of Australia’s worst polluters. The government appears to not understand that the planet cannot be traded off, that doing ‘something’ but not enough will still lead to disaster, because climate is a binary problem. Like a large-scale war, you apply enough resources to win - or you lose.
‘We’ve reached a point where we have a crisis, an emergency, but people don’t know that’, says the world’s best known climate scientist, James Hansen of NASA. ‘There’s a big gap between what’s understood about global warming by the scientific community and what is known by the public and policymakers.’ In 2008 Hansen warned, in testimony given to the US Congress, that the ‘elements of a “perfect storm”, a global cataclysm, are assembled’.
Serious climate change impacts are happening both more rapidly and at lower global temperature increases than anticipated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If the present level of greenhouse gases is maintained, the ensuing warming will be sufficient to produce, among other outcomes, the loss of the Himalayan glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet, leading to a seven-metre sea level rise and jeopardising the lives of two billion people.
The complete loss of eight million square kilometres of Arctic sea ice in the northern summer is considered inevitable in the near future, and the Greenland ice sheet has probably already passed its tipping point. These events, when added to carbon cycle feedbacks (where terrestrial and oceanic stores of carbon become sources of atmospheric carbon), may well kick the climate system into run-on warming, helping to create an aberrant new climate many degrees hotter. By the middle of the century, rapid economic and carbon emissions growth could produce Arctic amplification (a warming of the polar north more than three times the global average) sufficient to trigger large-scale destabilisation of vast quantities of permafrost carbon. The game would then be over, and further action to mitigate human emissions pointless.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the climate science adviser to the German government and the EU, says that ‘we are on our way to a destabilisation of the world climate that has advanced much further than most people or their governments realise’, so much so that our survival depends on whether we can draw down carbon dioxide to 280 parts per million, compared to the present level of close to 390 parts per million.
In other words, the task - put most simply - is to stop emitting greenhouse gases and to cool the planet. This requires emergency action. For high-polluting nations such as Australia, annual emissions cuts in the range of 8 to 10 per cent a year are likely to be necessary, while 5 per cent or more of world production may be required for a sustained period to build a global renewable energy system and a low-pollution economy. Ian Dunlop, formerly a senior oil, gas and coal industry executive and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, says: ‘Honesty about this challenge is essential, otherwise we will never develop realistic solutions. We face nothing less than a global emergency, which must be addressed with a global emergency response, akin to national mobilisations pre-WWII or the Marshall Plan … This is not extremist nonsense, but a call echoed by an increasing number of world leaders as the science becomes better understood … In the face of catastrophic risk, emission reduction targets should be based on the latest, considered, science, not on a political view of the art-of-the-possible.’
An imaginative, large-scale emergency program comparable in scope to a war economy needs courageous, transformative leadership. As a sustainable society is built, Australians face the challenge of living better by consuming less, while ensuring the transition is just and that it impacts least on the most disadvantaged nations and members of society.
This understanding was reflected in the first national climate action summit, held in January 2009 in Canberra, with five hundred participants declaring: ‘We face a climate emergency. Our vision is to work together at emergency speed to restore in a just way a safe climate in time for all people, all species and all generations.’ The summit emphasised the need for broad alliances with the capacity to inflict real political pain on the major parties, and a commitment to non-violent direct action against the fossil fuel industry, with not just a handful but hundreds and thousands of citizens engaging in a popular revolt against government and high-polluting companies.
Many local climate action groups have evolved out of the sustainability and land management movements to emphasise practical sustainability - household and community renewable energy projects, tanks and water recycling, permaculture - and the government’s solar panel rebates have also encouraged many newer groups. But at the climate action summit, there was a clear recognition of the need to build political support for emergency action on climate.
In Australia, this community-based climate action movement is supplanting the large, corporatist green advocacy groups in providing leadership and ideas based on a realistic assessment of the science and the required urgency of our response. Greenpeace is the only big group so far to adopt the climate emergency meme. Other groups face a political crisis, since the immediate challenge involves constructing a determined political revolt in circumstances where public support for government action is broad but shallow, rather than advocating policy.
After Labor’s election, the political pressure eased as the larger climate groups switched to developing detailed policies, assuming a government willing to listen. For its part, the government only gave real access to climate advocates prepared to support its ‘clean coal’ policy. Such groups were taken for a ride during 2008, and were left devastated by the appalling policies announced at the year’s end.
The US environmental strategist and former deputy-director of Greenpeace Ken Ward neatly sums up the process: ‘We have approached the problem by pre-negotiating with ourselves on behalf of our opposition … We calculate what concessions are necessary to placate whichever interest, power, or nation it is thought must be mollified, and then devise a scheme to fit within those limits’. One large Australian environment group calls it putting the science ‘through a political filter’. Ward says we must ‘stop seeking and celebrating dinky achievements’ because ‘nothing that we are doing, nor even seriously contemplating, comes anywhere near such a massive transformation, yet every actor on the political stage … downplays the terrible realities and trumpet small-scale solutions wrapped in upbeat rhetoric … We are racing toward the end of the world and have no plan of escape, but it is considered impolite to acknowledge that fact in public.’
To date, many of the policy players - including business, unions and welfare groups - are supporting action only so long as it does not hurt their constituencies in the short term, an approach that quickly reduces to sectoral self-interest and political equivocation. Too much climate alliance building has been about box ticking and elite-to-elite relationships, rather than committing participants to large-scale action to educate, resource and mobilise affiliated organisations and individual members. Some of the leading labour movement figures in the climate debate have been engaged in special pleading and a defence of the coal industry, though a more enlightened group has recognised that radical change is necessary and focused on the need for just transition programs for their members. Welfare groups, judging by the output of reports and the character of their public statements, have been more concerned about actions to reduce emissions not being inequitable than they have been about the actual impacts of global warming on poor people. It is an inversion of priorities that led several to oppose the introduction of feed-in tariffs for solar panels.
In advocating a climate emergency, the community climate action movement is, for the moment, at odds with most of those engaged in the climate debate in Australia. Most intellectuals and public commentators, lacking any significant engagement with environmentalism, seem bewildered by global warming. Most seem to not understand that contemporary climate science observations and projections tell us that failure will produce a world in which there will be no place to hide.
Few intellectuals appear terrified enough by the coming climate apocalypse to engage wholeheartedly with an issue that is unrelentingly disturbing. It forces us not only to look at what we think and say, but at how we live. It is confronting, for example, to recognise that the overseas conferences, festivals, retreats and holidays to which we look forward have become indefensible carbon indulgences. For many of those who could take a public role in building support and creating a movement for transformative action, climate is still just another issue.
In Australia, one political party, the Greens, has been ahead of the environment lobby in taking up the challenge of putting the science before political pragmatism. The Greens’ role is crucial, as they move closer to taking lower-house seats from Labor, particularly in inner metropolitan areas. Such a result - like more devastating climate impacts themselves - would jolt Labor into climate policy reality, as would scientists - the most credible voice in the public debate - advocating with greater clarity and common purpose, free of the reticence which constrained them during the Howard era.
The obstacles to building a post-carbon society are principally cultural and political, not technological and economic. Transformative political action and leadership is necessary and possible - and has arisen before at times of crisis. Climate is now the biggest crisis of them all, requiring a great social and economic upheaval, a revolt against the corporate interest, the cultural comfort and political incapacity that are driving us to catastrophe, sooner than most of us recognise.
Part one of 6. The rest are easily linked from that youtube page. English sub-titles in part. _________________ Tooth Fairy denier
Santa Clause Denier
Man-made Climate Change Denier
Climate Change: Science Manipulated Natural causes of global warming are much more significant than manmade changes
By Syun Akasofu, 6/3/2009 2:07:30 PM
* 1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wants to claim that the global average temperature has unexpectedly and abruptly increased during the 20th century after a gradual cooling from the year 1000, and that this unexpected increase of the temperature is mostly man-made-the greenhouse effect of CO2.
* 2. For their purpose, the IPCC ignored the fact that the Earth went through a cold period called "the Little Ice Age" from 1400 to 1800.
* 3. The Earth has been recovering from the Little Ice Age from 1800 to the present. A recovery from a cold period is warming. It is mostly this warming that is causing the present climate change and it is not man-made. If they admit the existence of the Little Ice Age, they cannot claim that the global average temperature unexpectedly increased from 1900.
* 3a. In addition to the steady recovery from the Little Ice Age, there are superposed oscillatory changes. The prominent one is called the multi-decadal oscillation.
* 3b. In fact, most of the temperature change from 1800 to 2008 can be explained by the combination of the recovery from the Little Ice Age and the multi-decadal oscillation. If the recovery from the Little Ice Age continues, the predicted temperature rise will be less than 1°C (2°F) by 2100, not 3~6°C.
* 4. Because the warming began as early as 1800, not after 1946 (when CO2 in the atmosphere began to increase rapidly), the Little Ice Age was a sort of unwanted and inconvenient fact for the IPCC. (In their voluminous IPCC report, the Little Ice Age was mentioned casually only once, referring to it as "the so-called Little Ice Age.")
* 5. There are a large number of observations that the Earth has been recovering from the Little Ice Age from 1800 on, not from 1946 when CO2 is the atmosphere began to increase rapidly. For example:
* Receding of glaciers in many part of the world
* Receding of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean
* Change in freezing/melting dates of northern rivers and lakes
* 6. There is no firm observational confirmation that CO2 is really responsible for the warming during the last century. It is simply and assumption or hypothesis that the IPCC has presented as a fact.
* 7. The IPCC claims that supercomputer studies confirm the hypothesis.
* 8. Supercomputers cannot confirm their hypothesis, since they can simply "tune" their computer programs so as to fit the observations.
* 9. Although the IPCC predicted that by the year 2100 the temperature will increase 3~6°C, the temperature has stopped increasing after 2000 and shows even a decreasing sign.
* 10. Thus, their prediction failed even during the first decade of the present century, in spite of the fact that CO2 is still increasing.
* 11. This means that their CO2 hypothesis and computer programs are shown to be incorrect, proving that the program was tuned.
* 12. Why? Because they ignored natural causes of climate change, such as the recovery from the Little Ice Age and the multi-decadal oscillation.
* 13. The stopping of the warming is caused by the fact that the multi-decadal oscillation, another natural cause, has overtaken the recovery from the Little Ice Age.
* 14. In fact, the same thing happened in 1940, and the temperature actually decreased from 1940 to 1975, in spite of the fact that CO2 began to increase rapidly in 1946.
* 15. It was said at that time that a new ice age was coming even by some of those who now advocate the CO2 hypothesis.
* 16. If the IPCC could include the physical processes involved in the recovery from the Little Ice Age and the multi-decadal oscillation, they could have predicted the stopping of the temperature increase.
* 17. However, they could not program processes for the recovery from the Little Ice Age and the multi-decadal oscillation, because the causes of the Little Ice Age, or the recovery from it, or the multi-decadal oscillation are not known yet. There are many unknown natural changes, including the Big Ice Ages.
* 18. Thus, the present state of climate change study is still insufficient to make accurate predictions of future temperature changes. Climate change studies should go back to basic science, avoiding interference from special interest groups, including the mass media.
* 19. Unfortunately, I must conclude that the IPCC manipulated science for its own purpose and brought the premature science of climate change to the international political stage, causing considerable confusion and advancing the completely unnecessary "cap and trade" argument.
* 20. What is happening now at many climate change conferences is simply an airing of the struggle between the poor countries trying to seize money from the rich countries, using the term "climate change" as an excuse.
* 21. We should stop convening useless international conferences by bureaucrats and pay much more attention to environmental destructions under global capitalism. There is no reason to alarm the general public with predictions of catastrophic disasters caused by the CO2 effect; and the mass media should stop reporting premature science results.
* 22. Basically, what is really needed are effective energy saving efforts by all countries.
Footnote: The hockey stick figure, which played the important role in the IPCC report of 2001, has not officially been withdrawn yet, although it has since been found to be erroneous.
Syun Akasofu is with the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Fairbanks, AK
Conclusion? The IPCC is a political organisation set up to peddle a gigantic LIE!!! _________________ Tooth Fairy denier
Santa Clause Denier
Man-made Climate Change Denier
June 4, 2009
Short Circuiting The Scientific Process - A Serious Problem In The Climate Science Community
Filed under: Climate Models, Climate Science Op-Eds — Roger Pielke Sr. @ 7:00 am
There has been a development over the last 10-15 years or so in the scientific peer reviewed literature that is short circuiting the scientific method.
The scientific method involves developing a hypothesis and then seeking to refute it. If all attempts to discredit the hypothesis fails, we start to accept the proposed theory as being an accurate description of how the real world works.
A useful summary of the scientific method is given on the website sciencebuddies.org.where they list six steps
* Ask a Question
* Do Background Research
* Construct a Hypothesis
* Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
* Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
* Communicate Your Results
Unfortunately, in recent years papers have been published in the peer reviewed literature that fail to follow these proper steps of scientific investigation. These papers are short circuiting the scientific method.
Specifically, papers that present predictions of the climate decades into the future have proliferated. Just a two recent examples (and there are many others) are
Hu, A., G. A. Meehl, W. Han, and J. Yin (2009), Transient response of the MOC and climate to potential melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet in the 21st century, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L10707, doi:10.1029/2009GL037998.
Solomon, S. 2009: Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online before print January 28, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0812721106
Such studies are even reported in the media before the peer reviewed process is completed; e.g. see in the article by Hannad Hoag in the May 27 2009 issue of Nature News Hot times ahead for the Wild West.
These studies are based on models, of which only a portion of which represent basic physics (e.g. the pressure gradient force, advection and the universal gravitational constant), with the remainder of the physics parameterized with tuned engineering code (e.g see).
When I served as Chief Editor of the Monthly Weather Reviews (1981-1985), The Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences (1996-2000), and as Editor-in-Chief of the US National Science Report to the IUGG for the American Geophysical Union (1993-1996), such papers would never have been accepted.
What the current publication process has evolved into, at the detriment of proper scientific investigation, are the publication of untested (and often untestable) hypotheses. The fourth step in the scientific method “Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment” is bypassed.
This is a main reason that the policy community is being significantly misinformed about the actual status of our understanding of the climate system and the role of humans within it.
CHURCHVILLE, VA—No country in the world would risk as much for “global warming” as New Zealand if it goes ahead with the cap-and-trade energy taxation installed by Helen Clarke’s now-departed Labour Government.
New Zealand’s economy is almost completely dependent on its farm exports: lamb, dairy products, beef and high-end white wines. Half of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from cattle and sheep. If New Zealand taxes its cows and sheep hundreds of dollars per animal for methane emissions and manure handling fees, Argentina would almost immediately displace New Zealand’s farm exports. Argentina has more grass, more cattle, the potential for more lambs, a surging wine industry—and no Kyoto obligations.
Based on U.S. and Australian “discussions,” a 500-cow dairy might have to pay $250,000 per year for cattle emissions and manure handling permits, plus a hefty increase in its costs for low-carbon electricity and diesel. An Argentine dairy would pay none of these increased costs—and every dollar of cost differential would be a further incentive for Argentine dairymen to expand their exports at the expense of New Zealand.
That would leave Kiwi cities like Auckland and Christchurch without visible means of support.
I said this recently to several New Zealand government ministers and business leaders at a private dinner in Wellington. My message was not welcomed. John Key’s new government seems to understand that New Zealand’s economy would be at terrible risk from carbon taxes—but its voters apparently don’t realize it.
The Clark government told New Zealand voters that the cost of “leading the world” with a carbon tax would be about $150 per year. That figure is laughably low. The British government now admits its new carbon tax law could cost as much as $27,000 per UK family.
The Key government has temporarily suspended the cap-and-trade, but has not dared repeal it. Meanwhile, Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is installing his own cap-and-trade, and playing footsie with President Obama on “solidarity” with a U.S. carbon tax. If Australia and the U.S. agreed on some benchmark carbon tax, most New Zealanders would expect their country to join in.
Never mind that the earth’s global warming stopped after 1998 because the sun has gone into a startling quiet period. That’s why New Zealand’s many glaciers have been growing recently instead of receding. Never mind that even full member compliance with Kyoto would “avoid” only about 0.05 degree C of warming over the next 50 years—by the alarmists’ own math.
The urbanites in New Zealand don’t really appreciate the sophisticated management that juggles pastures and feed crops that produce milk, cheese and Merino wool. They love the wine, but don’t understand the massive per-acre investments needed to turn their grapes into award-winning vintages.
Meanwhile, Obama’s U.S. government has just punished New Zealand with trade-distorting dairy export subsidies--because our corn ethanol program has pushed our cost of dairy feed too high. World corn prices have doubled in real terms, and may go higher as our ethanol mandates keep rising. That jacks up the U.S. cost of “alternative fuels” even further--while New Zealand will have to file a well-justified case against America under the World Trade Organization rules.
Ah, what a tangled web we’re weaving, rather than admit the Emperor of Global Warming has no clothes.
Alaska's Hubbard Glacier advancing 7 feet per day!
10 May 09 – This past week, climatologist Cliff Harris of the Coeur d’Alene Press received an astounding report from Yakutat, Alaska, concerning the Hubbard Glacier. The glacier is advancing toward Gilbert Point near Yakutat at the astonishing rate of two meters (seven feet) per day!
“The Army Corp of Engineers special Web site for the Hubbard Glacier - www.glacierresearch.com - contains some absolutely amazing photos of the advancing glacier,” says Harris. “One can easily see the expanding wall of ice. It's HUGE!” (The website may tell you that viewing is restricted, but if you keep clicking on stuff you’ll find the secret.)
“Even the dedicated global warmists need to know the truth about the recent extended period of global cooling caused by our 'SILENT SUN,' Harris continues.
'When' and 'if' the Hubbard Glacier eventually closes the Russell Fjord, the fjord will fill with fresh water, becoming a 30-mile-long lake creating a new 40,000-cubic-feet-per-second river system. This will have an extremely 'negative' economic impact on Yakutat and the surrounding regions. It's possible that at the shocking rate of seven feet per day in its advancement, the Hubbard Glacier could close the fjord by later this summer, or even prior to that time, if the current rate of advancement speeds up, say to perhaps 10 or 12 feet per day.
“Not only has our 'SILENT SUN,' almost completely devoid of sunspots, been at least partially responsible for the expanding glaciers in Alaska, Norway and elsewhere, but 'Ole Sol' is likewise, in my not-so-humble climatological opinion, to blame for our recent colder, snowier and wetter spring seasons in North Idaho and the surrounding Inland Empire.
“Heavier snows -- up to six inches or more above 5,000 feet -- have accumulated in the nearby mountains on a daily basis since early May. It may be mid June or later before Glacier Park's 'Going-to-the-Sun Highway' opens. (Next week, we'll take a look at what's happening to the glaciers in the park. Are they also beginning to expand? Find out the truth in just seven days.)”
Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 10:12 am Post subject: About the UN
As somebody that has worked for the UN for many years in the past, I can tell you that the IPCC's analysis of AGM is pretty much worthless. UN bodies exist for the following reasons:
i) to funnel tax paying funds through seemingly good causes to western corporations;
ii) to justify their existence, to continue to exist, no matter what;
iii) to control, through scare tactics, and facilitate the take over of the NWO.
The staff working at the lower levels of UN organizations are convinced their mission is a good one, and carry out their tasks to the best of their abilities, not realising that at the higher level, the agenda is different. Just look at World Bank (not a UN org, but very much part of the UN/Bretton Woods institutions that control the world) who have been outed several times about their real agenda - and yet their staff still believe they are empowering developing nations, rather than enslaving them.
Climate change is real - it exists - it always has, it always will. I believe that CO2 emissions have contributed almost insignificantly to present day climate change. I wonder who the vikings blamed when they had to desert Greenland because it became colder? Why do humans have to believe that they are responsible for everything? It is this control-freak nature of humans, and their self-loathing, that brings them to be so adamant that climate change is caused by humans. It's a pity, because there are environmental issues far more important than AGW (e.g. GM crops, enforced vaccinations, etc).
When our world leaders take is into recession every 10 years or so, and then come up with the solution requiring even more globalised financial powers, we should smell a rat. When Gordon Brown advocates GM crops to save the hungry - I presume we don't believe he's really interested in saving the hungry? So why would we believe him when he is tellings us that Global Warming is man-made, and that we need to impose new global regulations to fight against it?
And as for Al Gore - he's a walking contradiction.
Alaska's Hubbard Glacier advancing 7 feet per day!
10 May 09 – This past week, climatologist Cliff Harris of the Coeur d’Alene Press received an astounding report from Yakutat, Alaska, concerning the Hubbard Glacier. The glacier is advancing toward Gilbert Point near Yakutat at the astonishing rate of two meters (seven feet) per day!
It's not advancing because it's growing, it's advancing because it's melting and the meltwater is collecting under it and acting like grease on a ship's slipway.
You can imagine at Climate Denier HQ they thought the opposite to retreating glaciers would be advancing glaciers, which must be good, right?
Devised by morons, for morons. _________________ Dissolution of the Global Corporations.
It's the only way.
Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 3889 Location: North Down, N. Ireland
Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:13 pm Post subject: Re: About the UN
jcr911truth wrote:
As somebody that has worked for the UN for many years in the past, I can tell you that the IPCC's analysis of AGM is pretty much worthless.
Is that so? And we should just accept your rather uninformed word for that should we?
jcr911truth wrote:
UN bodies exist for the following reasons:
i) to funnel tax paying funds through seemingly good causes to western corporations;
ii) to justify their existence, to continue to exist, no matter what;
iii) to control, through scare tactics, and facilitate the take over of the NWO.
Oh noes - another NWO theorist.
jcr911truth wrote:
Climate change is real - it exists - it always has, it always will. I believe that CO2 emissions have contributed almost insignificantly to present day climate change.
But much as you are fully entitled to believe any old nonsense you choose, you demonstrate no understanding of how C02 has been identified by the IPCC as the climate change driver with greater than 90% certainty.
jcr911truth wrote:
I wonder who the vikings blamed when they had to desert Greenland because it became colder?
Wherever did you get the idea the Vikings abandoned Greenland because it got colder? There are of course several reasons they did so, but there's only one type of site that automatically pins their fantasy departing from the lush jungles of Greenland on climate. You might for instance look up the age of the Greenland ice sheets before swallowing any more Moncktonesque type drivel.
jcr911truth wrote:
Why do humans have to believe that they are responsible for everything? It is this control-freak nature of humans, and their self-loathing, that brings them to be so adamant that climate change is caused by humans.
Believe it or not, it's to do with identifying causes and effects, research and science, that kind of thing. CO2 wasn't picked out of a hat y'know.
jcr911truth wrote:
It's a pity, because there are environmental issues far more important than AGW (e.g. GM crops, enforced vaccinations, etc).
I find it hard (short of a nuclear exchange) to identify any of the pressing problems facing humanity that beat climate change.
Everything from our agricultural systems to our water resources to our available living space and living conditions depend on climate stability. Without that, all else is moot.
jcr911truth wrote:
When our world leaders take is into recession every 10 years or so, and then come up with the solution requiring even more globalised financial powers, we should smell a rat. When Gordon Brown advocates GM crops to save the hungry - I presume we don't believe he's really interested in saving the hungry?
It seems to me that the only people who fear globalised financial powers are the global corporations who to their benefit from exploiting national loopholes and lead to the situation where massive global corporations pay less tax than one of their average employees.
Why on earth would anyone seek to impose an alien supranational framework on ordinary citizens, and to what possible benefit or end?
It's a nonsensical, scaremongering idea in pursuit of a return that could quite easily be achieved by the less objectionable and just as 'profitable' result of levying governments.
jcr911truth wrote:
So why would we believe him when he is tellings us that Global Warming is man-made, and that we need to impose new global regulations to fight against it?
Just an idea - before 'believing' anything you're told, maybe look into the subject in order to determine its validity.
jcr911truth wrote:
And as for Al Gore - he's a walking contradiction.
You left out that he's also fat. _________________ Dissolution of the Global Corporations.
It's the only way.
Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject: Re: About the UN
chek wrote:
jcr911truth wrote:
As somebody that has worked for the UN for many years in the past, I can tell you that the IPCC's analysis of AGM is pretty much worthless.
Is that so? And we should just accept your rather uninformed word for that should we?
No, don't accept it by all means. It's my opinion on how the UN works, after having worked there a long time. I suspect my opinion has more value than yours, unless you have similar experience.
chek wrote:
Oh noes - another NWO theorist.
I called it NWO so that we knew who we were talking about. I prefer to call them the world's elite - those who control our banks, the Bildeberg, and so on. Are you denying their existence?
chek wrote:
But much as you are fully entitled to believe any old nonsense you choose, you demonstrate no understanding of how C02 has been identified by the IPCC as the climate change driver with greater than 90% certainty.
And you believe that because the IPCC told you so? Right. That shows how little you understand about international UN/Bretton Woods bodies. I suggest you throw away everything you have read by the IPCC, and instead do some reading on these organizations. Policies are made by high up officials in these organizations, not scientists.
chek wrote:
Wherever did you get the idea the Vikings abandoned Greenland because it got colder? There are of course several reasons they did so, but there's only one type of site that automatically pins their fantasy departing from the lush jungles of Greenland on climate. You might for instance look up the age of the Greenland ice sheets before swallowing any more Moncktonesque type drivel.
The Vikings left because the climate changed. I don't know why you refer to that as Moncktonesque type drivel.
chek wrote:
Believe it or not, it's to do with identifying causes and effects, research and science, that kind of thing. CO2 wasn't picked out of a hat y'know.
cause and effect? A bit like NIST perhaps?
chek wrote:
I find it hard (short of a nuclear exchange) to identify any of the pressing problems facing humanity that beat climate change.
Really - the disappearing honey bee is not a problem that warrants as much concern? Of course, if you want to believe everything Al Gore says, you'd have a point .... the IPCC's predictions on the other hand are a lot more sobre.
chek wrote:
Everything from our agricultural systems to our water resources to our available living space and living conditions depend on climate stability. Without that, all else is moot.
Climate Stability? Pish! There's no such thing. There are the words of a control freak.
chek wrote:
It seems to me that the only people who fear globalised financial powers are the global corporations who to their benefit from exploiting national loopholes and lead to the situation where massive global corporations pay less tax than one of their average employees.
rubbish - it's the global corporations that are defining the framework of international regulations! Did you not know that bankers designed our banking system, central banks, FIAT money, and so on?
chek wrote:
Why on earth would anyone seek to impose an alien supranational framework on ordinary citizens, and to what possible benefit or end?
So why are you on this site if you don't understand why they would want to do this?
chek wrote:
Just an idea - before 'believing' anything you're told, maybe look into the subject in order to determine its validity.
right ... like I haven't looked into this at all? I have. The debate is over apparently. Alarm bells are ringing. Reminds me of statements of Bush and Obama telling us to "not tolerate any of those 9/11 conspiracy theories".
Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 3889 Location: North Down, N. Ireland
Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 7:04 pm Post subject: Re: About the UN
jcr911truth wrote:
No, don't accept it by all means. It's my opinion on how the UN works, after having worked there a long time. I suspect my opinion has more value than yours, unless you have similar experience.
This thread isn't on how the UN works but AGW.
From what I've gleaned from your comments so far, likewise your opinion on the topic has little value. Well, that and the UN's required educational standards seem to have fallen alarmingly over the past 30 years. No offence, but bovine excrement claimants are ten a penny round these parts.
jcr911truth wrote:
I called it NWO so that we knew who we were talking about. I prefer to call them the world's elite - those who control our banks, the Bildeberg, and so on. Are you denying their existence?
Of course they're major players. I'm disputing the conspiracist myth of their omnipotence.
jcr911truth wrote:
And you believe that because the IPCC told you so? Right.
Wrong. And from your complete avoidance of any facts whatsoever so far it's clear to me you haven't really understood the mechanism for AGW enough to discuss it.
jcr911truth wrote:
That shows how little you understand about international UN/Bretton Woods bodies. I suggest you throw away everything you have read by the IPCC, and instead do some reading on these organizations. Policies are made by high up officials in these organizations, not scientists.
Quite - the IPCC is there specifically to advise national governments on the most likely social and economic impact of AGW, based on the scientific research. What else did you imagine their job is?
jcr911truth wrote:
The Vikings left because the climate changed. I don't know why you refer to that as Moncktonesque type drivel.
I can point you to several sources that show that like many other cultures they imported lifestyles and practices beyond the new environment's ability to accommodate, and trashed their surroundings until they were no longer able to sustain settlements. The Innuit survive there to this day through knowing what is sustainable.
But before doing so, I'm interested in the evidence for your unsupported Monckton-style assertion that it was because the climate changed.
jcr911truth wrote:
cause and effect? A bit like NIST perhaps?
A bit early to be introducing stupid strawmen arguments isn't it?
With the undeclared corollary that science isn't to be trusted, you'll get along famously with some factions on this site
jcr911truth wrote:
Really - the disappearing honey bee is not a problem that warrants as much concern?
Without predictable rainfall and fair conditions in predictable places, at predictable times on prepared land, all the honey bees in the world will have little impact on plant survival let alone floral fertility and consequently mass food production. In the grip of increasing desertification (and ignoring the inter-dependence of eco-systems), do you think it more likely they're praying for rain or more bees in eastern Africa? Or southeast Australia?
jcr911truth wrote:
Of course, if you want to believe everything Al Gore says, you'd have a point .... the IPCC's predictions on the other hand are a lot more sobre.
You don't seem to be aware that the IPCC have prepared three event-dependent scenarios of increasing severity, and that when speaking on the subject, Gore is very careful to remain within the scope of those internationally agreed projections.
But you continue on erecting yet another tired ol' Al Gore strawman.
jcr911truth wrote:
Climate Stability? Pish! There's no such thing. There are the words of a control freak.
I take from that comment that, despite having 'looked into it', you have no idea for how many centuries we have adapted to current conditions.
Not only do you make another off-the-wall assertion, but speaking like a true, disconnected city-dweller who has little idea of what sustaining society through farming entails, or how long it's been established and successfully feeding most of the human race. The 'control freakery' you so disparage lies in the required planning in order to maintain the ability to keep feeding a growing population next year, the year after that and the centuries after that.
jcr911truth wrote:
rubbish - it's the global corporations that are defining the framework of international regulations! Did you not know that bankers designed our banking system, central banks, FIAT money, and so on?
Corporate interests are only one group to be taken account of and they attempt to influence via their lobbying network among other ploys. Which is not the complete control fallacy you seem to believe. Even a replacement 'by the people for the people' monetary system will be based on fiat principles.
jcr911truth wrote:
So why are you on this site if you don't understand why they would want to do this?
Since you're asking, I'm here to stop what I consider a paradigm changing event being forgotten and to help campaign for the criminals responsible being brought to justice. So don't start killtowning and avoiding the (trimmed) question with another irrelevant question. You're the NWO theorist I'm requesting a plausible answer from.
jcr911truth wrote:
right ... like I haven't looked into this at all? I have. The debate is over apparently. Alarm bells are ringing. Reminds me of statements of Bush and Obama telling us to "not tolerate any of those 9/11 conspiracy theories".
Have you got anything beyond unconvincing claims of having 'looked into this' and cliche to add to this thread? _________________ Dissolution of the Global Corporations.
It's the only way.
Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 7:43 pm Post subject: wavelengths
No need for the bovine comments Chek.
We're on completely different wavelenghts I see. You are not a scientist, I presume, neither am I. So you believe what you want to believe, and I'll continue to say that what you believe is not at all proven, and politically is highly influenced by global politics, with the backing of environmentalists. You can read as much as you want into this topic, but in the end, they are other people's theories, not yours; you choose to take one person's theory over another person's, like I do.
So I assume you accept CO2 in the past has not been a driver of temperatures, right? Because we were not producing any. The correlation according to Al Gore shows CO2 driving temperatures, but now the IPCC recognize that there had to be some other trigger first. Something caused temperatures to warm, then apparently according to the IPCC's modified version of AGW, the CO2 kicked in and became the main driver of temperature increases (because the warming oceans release CO2 later). Then, lo and behold, some years later, temperatures decreased, even though CO2 had increased. So what caused temperatures to decrease in the past at times of high levels of CO2? Was it because CO2 was not really the main driver of temperature? Or if not, what was the reason?
So what caused temperatures to decrease in the past at times of high levels of CO2? Was it because CO2 was not really the main driver of temperature? Or if not, what was the reason?
Its the sun wot done it! The lack of sunspot activity in recent years will cause significant cooling of the Earth, as has happened in the past, and winters will be more severe in the coming years. The climate alarmists know this which is why "global warming" has become "climate change". They seriously expect people to be suckered into believing that the same human activity which caused "excessive" warming is going to cause cooling now!! They even add absurdities like the Gulf Stream will stop, in order to "explain" this seeming contradiction. Why it even DID for a day or two and they can "prove" it "scientifically"! What next? The Earth will stop spinning? The Moon will fly off to Mars? Don't put anything past the alarmists - they will come out with any drivel to argue their case for humans to be the cause of everything bad. I fully expect them to demand the credit for the current cooling trend by claiming their measures are working. You heard it here first! _________________ Tooth Fairy denier
Santa Clause Denier
Man-made Climate Change Denier
Last edited by item7 on Wed Jun 10, 2009 2:46 am; edited 1 time in total
A Global Temperature Chart Not in Gore’s Movie
By Noel Sheppard
November 12, 2007
So, you think today's temperatures are out of the ordinary?
Nobel Laureate Al Gore does, and strongly made the case in his schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" with all kinds of neat slides and graphs.
Of course, despite incessant claims of a consensus concerning this premise, not everyone agrees.
In fact, climatologist Cliff Harris and meteorologist Randy Mann, who, amongst other things, run a website called Long Range Weather, have created an absolutely marvelous long-term global temperature chart that wasn't in Gore's movie, and every climate alarmist in the media desperately hopes you never see it:
That said, it's great stuff, wouldn't you agree? And, so is this article by Harris and Mann entitled "Could This Cycle ‘Global Warming' Finally Be Winding Down?" (emphasis added throughout):
For many years, following widespread ICE AGE predictions back in the 1970s, we've heard that our planet is warming up "at an alarming rate". A study from the National Academy of Science claims that "global warming is real and has been strengthening since 1981." These scientists say that the leading cause of this latest warming is the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide. They also state that by the year 2100, temperatures may increase by 2.5 degrees to as much as 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit above those of today.
Up until late 2002, much of the Northern Hemisphere north of Latitude 40 was actually becoming GREENER with less total ice. In fact, the average growing season had been extended by around 2 weeks based on satellite data at the time.
BUT, now, we believe that temperatures are beginning to cool again, particularly in north- central Canada where this summer there was only about 2 weeks between damaging freezes from late June into mid-July. One of our Harris-Mann Climatology clients went fishing between July 10-13 in northwestern Saskatchewan and reported "piles of ice" still on the ground in the region and temperatures close to the freezing mark.
Although the recent summers of the early 21st Century have been amongst the hottest and driest on record across most of the U.S., the winter seasons, by extreme contrast, have been some of the coldest in recorded history. For example, Siberia in Russia reported readings of -70 degrees in January of 2001.
Even if our planet is warming up as many scientists claim, we're still much cooler today than we were four to eight-thousand years ago. In fact, there were probably no mid-latitude glaciers about 800 million years ago, because the Earth's climate was so mild at the time.
Temperatures today are primarily measured over concrete surfaces compared to grassy ones years ago. We all know that concrete and asphalt absorb heat and this often results in higher afternoon temperatures, especially when we have conditions of very little wind. During a typical hot, summer day, high temperatures may be as much as 3-7 degrees warmer at the official airport or downtown locations compared to outlying rural areas.
Mann and Harris went on to discuss the heat island effect in a fashion that very much confirms the work of Anthony Watts previously reported by NewsBusters.
With that in mind, the reader is strongly encouraged to read the entire piece.
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 3889 Location: North Down, N. Ireland
Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:46 am Post subject: Re: wavelengths
jcr911truth wrote:
So you believe what you want to believe, and I'll continue to say that what you believe is not at all proven
That's correct, which is why I threw in the 'greater than 90% certainty' line. Just as your doctor can't 'prove' that you'll recover from measles he can know with a degree of certainty all other factors being equal.
jcr911truth wrote:
You can read as much as you want into this topic, but in the end, they are other people's theories, not yours; you choose to take one person's theory over another person's, like I do.
You can also understand the principles involved and see how consistently data from other sources matches it, together with prediction of events were the principle to be correctly applied.
jcr911truth wrote:
So I assume you accept CO2 in the past has not been a driver of temperatures, right? Because we were not producing any.
Despite frequent use as a denier strawman, no climatologist has ever claimed that CO2 is the sole driver of climate, but as levels have climbed to current levels it has become the dominant one. To the extent that solar maxima and minima which cycle over about 12 years have had no effect on global temperatures for over 30 years now, and were last in synch almost 60 years ago.
jcr911truth wrote:
The correlation according to Al Gore shows CO2 driving temperatures, but now the IPCC recognize that there had to be some other trigger first. Something caused temperatures to warm, then apparently according to the IPCC's modified version of AGW, the CO2 kicked in and became the main driver of temperature increases (because the warming oceans release CO2 later). Then, lo and behold, some years later, temperatures decreased, even though CO2 had increased. So what caused temperatures to decrease in the past at times of high levels of CO2? Was it because CO2 was not really the main driver of temperature? Or if not, what was the reason?
Without your being specific about what you're referring to, temperature spikes and drops occur because the nature of the climate system is chaotic and not linear. Cyclical Pacific ocean heat engines such as El Nino can vary in strength, such as that which led to the 1998 temperature peak beloved by the denier community. There have also been events such as the shielding effect of airborne particulates generated by industrial activity during the 1940's.
CO2 is not the only temperature forcing mechanism, but is now accepted by the scientific community as currently being the primary one. The proportion of planetary CO2 of anthropogenic origin such as our contribution from fossil fuel burning can be determined by the carbon isotopes involved. _________________ Dissolution of the Global Corporations.
It's the only way.
Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 3889 Location: North Down, N. Ireland
Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 11:00 am Post subject:
item7 wrote:
Even if our planet is warming up as many scientists claim, we're still much cooler today than we were four to eight-thousand years ago. In fact, there were probably no mid-latitude glaciers about 800 million years ago, because the Earth's climate was so mild at the time.
Mild, eh?
I suppose it was for some in-joke that it was named 'The Cryogenian Period' (also known as Snowball Earth). How we all laughed!
And what relevance a period without multi-celled lifeforms has to today, only a dyed in the wool denier like Watts can say.
item7 wrote:
Temperatures today are primarily measured over concrete surfaces compared to grassy ones years ago. We all know that concrete and asphalt absorb heat and this often results in higher afternoon temperatures, especially when we have conditions of very little wind. During a typical hot, summer day, high temperatures may be as much as 3-7 degrees warmer at the official airport or downtown locations compared to outlying rural areas.
Mann and Harris went on to discuss the heat island effect in a fashion that very much confirms the work of Anthony Watts previously reported by NewsBusters.
[/quote]
Really?
So why is measured temperaure rise greatest in the Arctic where there are no "urban heat islands"?
_________________ Dissolution of the Global Corporations.
It's the only way.
Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 11:59 am Post subject: Re: wavelengths
chek wrote:
Without your being specific about what you're referring to, temperature spikes and drops occur because the nature of the climate system is chaotic and not linear. Cyclical Pacific ocean heat engines such as El Nino can vary in strength, such as that which led to the 1998 temperature peak beloved by the denier community. There have also been events such as the shielding effect of airborne particulates generated by industrial activity during the 1940's.
CO2 is not the only temperature forcing mechanism, but is now accepted by the scientific community as currently being the primary one. The proportion of planetary CO2 of anthropogenic origin such as our contribution from fossil fuel burning can be determined by the carbon isotopes involved.
I'm not referring to El nino cycles, or any cycle that is in a relatively short period. I'm referring to cold and warm periods lasting hundreds of years. So the question is, if CO2 becomes part of a feedback loop where warming temperatures cause more CO2 to be in the atmosphere which in turn with the greenhouse effect causes higher temperatures, and hence more CO2, ever higher temps, and so on, why did the temperatures then decline at some point? What other forcings do we have that over-ride the CO2 and bring temperatures back down?
Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 3889 Location: North Down, N. Ireland
Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 12:41 pm Post subject: Re: wavelengths
jcr911truth wrote:
I'm not referring to El nino cycles, or any cycle that is in a relatively short period. I'm referring to cold and warm periods lasting hundreds of years. So the question is, if CO2 becomes part of a feedback loop where warming temperatures cause more CO2 to be in the atmosphere which in turn with the greenhouse effect causes higher temperatures, and hence more CO2, ever higher temps, and so on, why did the temperatures then decline at some point? What other forcings do we have that over-ride the CO2 and bring temperatures back down?
Generally speaking, climate is a planetary heat distribution system with known patterns of heat transferring currents occurring in the oceans and the atmosphere, with the oceans (due to their greater specific heat) doing the bulk of the work. These create established patterns that are known and named (the Gulf Stream and various Ocean Conveyors being examples).
However those patterns aren't set in stone and can be subject to periodic disruption. One example would be the introduction of large amounts of freshwater from melting polar regions, which having a different density to seawater, could influence the flow of warmer ocean currents away from their previously expected circulation pattern.
That would cause falling temperatures in the affected region, leading to the formation of more ice, leading to more solar heat being reflected back into space, leading to lower temperatures, leading to more ice etc. etc.
There's still an element of mystery about what exactly happens at the 'tipping points' but one mechanism “Dansgaard-Oeschger events” at least partially explains what may happen.
"One crucial point has been left unanswered thus far. If DO events are due to ocean circulation changes, what triggers these ocean circulation changes? Some have argued the ocean circulation may oscillate internally, needing no trigger to change. I am not convinced – the regularity of the underlying 1470-year cycle speaks against this, and especially the fact that sometimes no events occur for several cycles, but then the sequence is resumed with the same phase as if nothing happened.
I’d put my money on some regularly varying external factor (perhaps the weak solar cycles, which by themselves cause only minor climate variations), which causes a critical oceanic threshold to be crossed and triggers events. Sometimes it doesn’t quite make the threshold (the system is noisy, after all), and that’s why some events are “missed” and it takes not 1,500, but 3,000 or 4,500 years for the next one to strike. But the field is wide open for other ideas – the cause of the 1470-year regularity is one mystery waiting to be solved".
Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 6:19 pm Post subject: hmm...
Interesting - we are 90% certain that CO2 is causing almost all of the present global warming, and yet there appears to be so much uncertainty as to what causes cyclical changes in climate.
Joined: 30 Nov 2006 Posts: 575 Location: the eyevolution
Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 12:35 am Post subject:
Thought I'd throw this into the ring for pure comedy value. Apologies if it's elsewhere already on here somewhere but it's worth a second look.
It's an article from a leaflet posted through my door entitled -
St. Michael's Ward Liberal Democrat FOCUS
Quote:
Green Party leader compares local holiday makers to knife-wielding criminals.
(I kid you not)
Quote:
Local residents were shocked to hear that the leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, has compared people who fly to Spain on holiday with knife-wielding criminals.
Caroline Lucas, who is also a Green MEP, has suggested that travellers heading to spain are threatening the lives of others - and do as much damage as thugs who stab people in the street.
It's actually from the Daily Mail so I missed it first time round as I haven't read a paper for years.
I think she should be tested on her claim and be locked up with both in a room for half an hour. Or as long as it takes to prove her oh so fatally wrong.
Canada frosts the most widespread in recent memory
Tue Jun 9, 2009 1:54pm EDT
By Rod Nickel
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - The multiple frosts that have blanketed Western Canada in the last week are the most widespread in the top canola-growing province of Saskatchewan in at least five years, the Canola Council of Canada said on Tuesday.
Two overnight frosts last week have already resulted in some Saskatchewan farmers reseeding their canola, a Canadian variant of rapeseed, said Jim Bessel, senior agronomy specialist in the province for the industry group Canola Council.
Other farmers are waiting to see growth signs that would suggest their canola plants have survived the frost, which lasted for up to five hours at a stretch. That new growth is slow to appear with generally cool temperatures holding crop development behind schedule.
"We just don't see a lot of activity happening from a crop development perspective," Bessel said. "(The extent of frost damage) is a really difficult one to call right now ... It's very erratic."
In Manitoba, the frost is the worst in memory for its frequency and area covered, said Derwyn Hammond, the province's senior agronomy specialist for the Canola Council.
"Certainly (it's) the worst year I've seen," said Hammond, who has worked for the Canola Council for 15 years.
With deadlines for full canola crop insurance ranging between June 10 and 20 in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Hammond said he expects most farmers will choose not to reseed.
Cool weather may have actually saved some of the new crop that was at such an early growing stage that it wasn't yet vulnerable to frost, said Doon Pauly, crop specialist for the government of the western province of Alberta.
"It's the equivalent to a frost in the second or third week of May," Pauly said. "That's the bright side."
The downside of the cool weather is that it has left crops in general well behind schedule, he said. The Alberta canola crop is two to three weeks behind development, Pauly said, while the Canadian Wheat Board estimated on Monday that Western Canada wheat and barley crops are at least 10 days behind.
Fields with frost damage can develop bare pockets or a thinned-down plant population that gives weeds more room to grow, said Pauly, adding that some Alberta areas reported frost as recently as Tuesday morning.
But despite frosts and cool weather, it's too early to say if canola yields will suffer, he said.
"Canola is so plastic. If the remainder of June we get good moisture and reasonable heat, the yields can recover."
Of course this is just an isolated incidence of cooling - like all the others. Anyway, everyone knows by now that global warming causes freezing. _________________ Tooth Fairy denier
Santa Clause Denier
Man-made Climate Change Denier
never mind that the climate changes in UK every 20 minutes
Oh dear oh dear. Who's a naughty boy?! You are confusing "climate" with "weather" dontchaknow! Its one of the scammers favourite pieces of drivel. _________________ Tooth Fairy denier
Santa Clause Denier
Man-made Climate Change Denier
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As Philip K. Dick would say, "To fight the Empire is to become infected by its derangement. Whoever defeats the Empire becomes the Empire..."
