founder of Weather Channel: Where's the global warming

[Brucelee]

Has global warming stopped?
David Whitehouse

Published 19 December 2007

21 comments Print version Listen RSS 'The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 and every year since 2001'


Global warming stopped? Surely not. What heresy is this? Haven’t we been told that the science of global warming is settled beyond doubt and that all that’s left to the so-called sceptics is the odd errant glacier that refuses to melt?

Aren’t we told that if we don’t act now rising temperatures will render most of the surface of the Earth uninhabitable within our lifetimes? But as we digest these apocalyptic comments, read the recent IPCC’s Synthesis report that says climate change could become irreversible. Witness the drama at Bali as news emerges that something is not quite right in the global warming camp.

With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months.

But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.

In principle the greenhouse effect is simple. Gases like carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere absorb outgoing infrared radiation from the earth’s surface causing some heat to be retained.

Consequently an increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases from human activities such as burning fossil fuels leads to an enhanced greenhouse effect. Thus the world warms, the climate changes and we are in trouble.

The evidence for this hypothesis is the well established physics of the greenhouse effect itself and the correlation of increasing global carbon dioxide concentration with rising global temperature. Carbon dioxide is clearly increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a straight line upward. It is currently about 390 parts per million. Pre-industrial levels were about 285 ppm. Since 1960 when accurate annual measurements became more reliable it has increased steadily from about 315 ppm. If the greenhouse effect is working as we think then the Earth’s temperature will rise as the carbon dioxide levels increase.

But here it starts getting messy and, perhaps, a little inconvenient for some. Looking at the global temperatures as used by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK’s Met Office and the IPCC (and indeed Al Gore) it’s apparent that there has been a sharp rise since about 1980.

The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has relentlessly risen from 370ppm to 380ppm). This means that the global temperature today is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued.

For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.

The explanation for the standstill has been attributed to aerosols in the atmosphere produced as a by-product of greenhouse gas emission and volcanic activity. They would have the effect of reflecting some of the incidental sunlight into space thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. Such an explanation was proposed to account for the global cooling observed between 1940 and 1978.

But things cannot be that simple. The fact that the global temperature has remained unchanged for a decade requires that the quantity of reflecting aerosols dumped put in our atmosphere must be increasing year on year at precisely the exact rate needed to offset the accumulating carbon dioxide that wants to drive the temperature higher. This precise balance seems highly unlikely. Other explanations have been proposed such as the ocean cooling effect of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

But they are also difficult to adjust so that they exactly compensate for the increasing upward temperature drag of rising CO2. So we are led to the conclusion that either the hypothesis of carbon dioxide induced global warming holds but its effects are being modified in what seems to be an improbable though not impossible way, or, and this really is heresy according to some, the working hypothesis does not stand the test of data.

It was a pity that the delegates at Bali didn’t discuss this or that the recent IPCC Synthesis report did not look in more detail at this recent warming standstill. Had it not occurred, or if the flatlining of temperature had occurred just five years earlier we would have no talk of global warming and perhaps, as happened in the 1970’s, we would fear a new Ice Age! Scientists and politicians talk of future projected temperature increases. But if the world has stopped warming what use these projections then?

Some media commentators say that the science of global warming is now beyond doubt and those who advocate alternative approaches or indeed modifications to the carbon dioxide greenhouse warming effect had lost the scientific argument. Not so.

Certainly the working hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming is a good one that stands on good physical principles but let us not pretend our understanding extends too far or that the working hypothesis is a sufficient explanation for what is going on.

I have heard it said, by scientists, journalists and politicians, that the time for argument is over and that further scientific debate only causes delay in action. But the wish to know exactly what is going on is independent of politics and scientists must never bend their desire for knowledge to any political cause, however noble.

The science is fascinating, the ramifications profound, but we are fools if we think we have a sufficient understanding of such a complicated system as the Earth’s atmosphere’s interaction with sunlight to decide. We know far less than many think we do or would like you to think we do. We must explain why global warming has stopped.

David Whitehosue was BBC Science Correspondent 1988–1998, Science Editor BBC News Online 1998–2006 and the 2004 European Internet Journalist of the Year. He has a doctorate in astrophysics and is the author of The Sun: A Biography (John Wiley, 2005).] His website is www.davidwhitehouse.com

[cvhs18472]

Since global warming is a topic that each side of the argument thinks that the others are morons for not being able to see what is happening , and until we get a long ( 1000's of years ) record of climate and weather so that the information that we are looking at will give us true answers, I think that we should talk about racing and going fast.

[CJ_Boxster]

Now is it nessesary to have 2 global warming threads started by the same user? lol

[FTD]

I think that we should talk about racing and going fast.

Agreed.
Talking about GW reminds me of my life as a Political Science major: A lot of research and hypothesis plugged into theories and none of them are repeatable in condition / controls so no proof ever comes of any of it. Just a lot of talking and theorizing and writing papers about it. E-yiy.

[Brucelee]

Since these birds are leaning heavily on anything that looks like it emits CO2, I believe this is relevant to folks who own and love SPORTS CARS! :)

Before we have our right to drive the cars we love taken away or taxed to death, we might all want to educate ourselves as to whether this is a real or imagined threat. Otherwise, those who take action will prevail.

If you don't want to read about this issue that sits at the nexis between sports cars, science (I hope) and politics, feel free to pass on the thread. :)

[Brucelee]

Now is it nessesary to have 2 global warming threads started by the same user? lol


There is only one. This one. I closed the other.

:)

[baseball]

It doesn't matter what side you're on. The debate has left the scientific realm and has now entered the political arena. At this point the side with the most influential people will win the debate.

[Brucelee]

It doesn't matter what side you're on. The debate has left the scientific realm and has now entered the political arena. At this point the side with the most influential people will win the debate.


You may be right on that score.

Too bad, I like science, real science.

:)

[bmx672]

Mean while I'm going to fly my private jet around the world and give my Nobel Prize speaches.

[Brucelee]

I am going to download this bad boy.




U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

Senate Report Debunks "Consensus"

Complete U.S. Senate Report Now Available: (LINK)
Complete Report w/out Intro: (LINK)

INTRODUCTION:

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.


The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.



Even some in the establishment media now appear to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists. In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics "appear to be expanding rather than shrinking." Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bite the dust.” (LINK) In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has "co-opted" the green movement. (LINK)


This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new “consensus busters” report is poised to redefine the debate.


Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.



“Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media,” Paldor wrote. [Note: See also July 2007 Senate report detailing how skeptical scientists have faced threats and intimidation - LINK ]



Scientists from Around the World Dissent



This new report details how teams of international scientists are dissenting from the UN IPCC’s view of climate science. In such nations as Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia, New Zealand and France, nations, scientists banded together in 2007 to oppose climate alarmism. In addition, over 100 prominent international scientists sent an open letter in December 2007 to the UN stating attempts to control climate were “futile.” (LINK)



Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. Patterson noted that the notion of a “consensus” of scientists aligned with the UN IPCC or former Vice President Al Gore is false. “I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority.”

This new committee report, a first of its kind, comes after the UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri implied that there were only “about a dozen" skeptical scientists left in the world. (LINK) Former Vice President Gore has claimed that scientists skeptical of climate change are akin to “flat Earth society members” and similar in number to those who “believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona.” (LINK) & (LINK)


The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts in diverse fields, including: climatology; oceanography; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore.


Additionally, these scientists hail from prestigious institutions worldwide, including: Harvard University; NASA; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the UN IPCC; the Danish National Space Center; U.S. Department of Energy; Princeton University; the Environmental Protection Agency; University of Pennsylvania; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the International Arctic Research Centre; the Pasteur Institute in Paris; the Belgian Weather Institute; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; the University of Helsinki; the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., France, and Russia; the University of Pretoria; University of Notre Dame; Stockholm University; University of Melbourne; University of Columbia; the World Federation of Scientists; and the University of London.


The voices of many of these hundreds of scientists serve as a direct challenge to the often media-hyped “consensus” that the debate is “settled.”



A May 2007 Senate report detailed scientists who had recently converted from believers in man-made global warming to skepticism. [See May 15, 2007 report: Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics: Growing Number of Scientists Convert to Skeptics After Reviewing New Research – (LINK) ]

[Brucelee]

Gore has been criticized for excessive home energy usage at his residence in Tennessee. His electricity usage is reportedly 20 times higher than the average American household.


Senator Inhofe told Gore at the hearing. “There are hundreds of thousands of people who adore you and would follow your example by reducing their energy usage if you did. Don’t give us the run-around on carbon offsets or the gimmicks the wealthy do.”
It has been reported that many of these so-called carbon offset projects would have been done anyway. Also, carbon offset projects such as planting trees can take decades or even a century to sequester the carbon emitted today. So energy usage today results in greenhouse gases remaining in the atmosphere for decades, even with the purchase of so-called carbon offsets.
Senator Inhofe asked Gore, “Are you willing to make a commitment here today by taking this pledge to consume no more energy for use in your residence than the average American household by one year from today?”
Senator Inhofe then presented Vice President Gore with the following "Personal Energy Ethics Pledge":
As a believer:

-that human-caused global warming is a moral, ethical, and spiritual issue affecting our survival;

-that home energy use is a key component of overall energy use;

-that reducing my fossil fuel-based home energy usage will lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions; and

-that leaders on moral issues should lead by example;

I pledge to consume no more energy for use in my residence than the average American household by March 21, 2008.”

Gore refused to take such a pledge.

[Brucelee]

For the record, I have a flour. bulb in my yard. The town says I can pay $85 and they will 'recycle" it or I can drive two towns over and wait in line to drop it off in the HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITY! Soon we will all be doing this with every bulb in our house?

How does this make sense again?

God, to get a job as a lawmaker. It is like dying and going to heaven.





A Lightbulb Tea Party?
Thursday, December 20, 2007

By Steven Milloy

E-Mail Print Digg This! del.icio.us
“No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”

That comment by New York State Surrogate Court Judge Gideon Tucker in 1866 aptly summarizes the so-called “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007,” signed into law this week by President Bush.

First, the law requires auto fuel efficiency standards to increase by 40 percent by 2020. Unfortunately, this goal is presently only achievable by reducing vehicle weight — but lighter cars are deadlier cars. So what’s the purported benefit of mandating 4,000 or more deaths per year?

The law’s supporters claim that it may reduce national oil consumption by about 5 percent (400 million barrels of oil per year). Doing the math, your life is now worth about 100,000 barrels of oil. In touting the law, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “it is an environmental issue, and therefore a health issue… it is an energy issue, and it is a moral issue.”

But what exactly is the morality of risking thousands of lives every year to reduce oil consumption by an inconsequential amount?

RelatedColumn Archive
A Lightbulb Tea Party?Will Al Gore Make Peace With Reality?The Greenest Hypocrites of 2007It's the Sun, StupidU.N. Climate DistractionsFull-page Junk Science Archive
Next, the new law doubles the use of ethanol, likely further distorting agricultural markets and driving up food prices. Animal feed costs are already up 20 percent this year, no doubt contributing to the 5 percent rise in consumer grocery prices.

More cropland dedicated to growing corn means less cropland for other important grains. In observing that its food-price index is higher today than at any time since it was created in 1845, The Economist on Dec. 8 noted that filling up an SUV’s tank with ethanol uses enough corn to feed a person for a year. Although current biofuel use already requires one-third of the U.S. corn crop, the new law mandates even more biofuels. This “commits the nation to decades of competition between food and fuel for the use of agricultural land,” observed the New York Times.

The morality of that competition may be fairly questioned since increased biofuel use isn’t likely to produce environmental benefits or make us “energy independent.” The biofuel mandates — which will require technologies that don’t yet exist on a commercial basis — are touted as cutting U.S. dependence on oil imports by replacing 20 percent of the fuel now used. But only about 17 percent of U.S. oil imports come from the volatile Middle East. A 20 percent pro-rata reduction in Middle East imports would reduce them to 13.6 percent.

It’s difficult to see precisely what national security benefit accrues from such a slight decrease. Even if the as-yet imaginary biofuels were to magically free us entirely from Middle East oil, it is worthwhile remembering that oil is a global commodity, the supply and price of which will always remain heavily dependent on Middle East producers and events. Whether we like it or not, as long as we use oil, its availability and price will be affected by the Middle East. Biofuels, particularly imaginary ones, can’t fix that vulnerability.

Another kick-in-the-teeth to consumers is the new mandate to phase-out incandescent lightbulbs in favor of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). The 100-watt incandescent light bulb will be the first to go in 2012. It’s bad enough that the federal government wants to dictate what sort of lighting we can have in our own homes, but it expects us to pay up for mercury-containing CFLs (up to $5 for a CFL vs. $0.75 for a standard incandescent bulb) which are inferior in quality (harsh institutional white light vs. soft yellow-white light) and function (their light-up is slow and inconsistent, and frequent on/off switching shortens their life), and which require special handling and disposal procedures (you’re not supposed to just throw them away in household trash or vacuum up CFL breakage).

Aside from the energy independence canard and the heavy lobbying by the rent-seeking ethanol/biofuels industry, the law’s driving rationale is the much-dreaded global warming. The auto fuel efficiency standards and CFL provisions, in particular, are supposed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide — if only that really mattered. In addition to the umpteen reasons laid out in previous columns for doubting that manmade emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) play a meaningful role in global climate, a new study in this week’s Nature provides yet another.

Dutch researchers reported that during a period of intense global warming 55 million years ago — somewhat before SUVs and coal-fired electricity — there was a tremendous release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But which came first, the warming or the greenhouse gases?

The researchers report that the warming probably began before the main injection of greenhouse gases took place. Moreover, all this occurred at a time when the average temperature in Canada and Siberia was about 65 degrees Fahrenheit, the Arctic Ocean was as warm as 73 degrees Fahrenheit and atmospheric CO2 levels were already in the range of 2,000 to 3,000 parts per million — 5 to 8 times greater than current CO2 levels.

What should Americans do about all this?

I don’t know the answer, but given that CFLs come from China and are imported and sold by businesses that lobbied Congress for the incandescent bulb ban, something akin to the Boston Tea Party comes to mind. That 1773 event stemmed from Colonist resentment of the British Parliament’s Tea Act — a bill lobbied for by the East India Company so that it could monopolize the American tea market.

I suppose we should be thankful that our dim-bulb politicians will be taking the holidays off — at least we’ll have a month’s respite from meddlesome, if not outright menacing government.


Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert and advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Respond to the Writer

[Brucelee]

I doubt the FOUNDING FATHERS wanted the Fed Govt to tell citizens what kind of candles to burn.

:D

[bmx672]

Brucelee:
+1
+1
and +1

:cheers:

[Brucelee]

Open Kyoto to debate, 60 Scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global
warming (The Financial Post)


April 6, 2006
Click Here for the Link:
An open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

Dear Prime Minister:

As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing
to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so
as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climatechange
plans. This would be entirely consistent with your recent commitment to
conduct a review of the Kyoto Protocol. Although many of us made the same
suggestion to then-prime ministers Martin and Chretien, neither responded, and,
to date, no formal, independent climate-science review has been conducted in
Canada. Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation of the
protocol in Canada will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent
developments in climate science.

Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so
there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future. Yet this is precisely
what the United Nations did in creating and promoting Kyoto and still does in the
alarmist forecasts on which Canada's climate policies are based. Even if the
climate models were realistic, the environmental impact of Canada delaying
implementation of Kyoto or other greenhouse-gas reduction schemes, pending
completion of consultations, would be insignificant. Directing your government
to convene balanced, open hearings as soon as possible would be a most prudent
and responsible course of action.

While the confident pronouncements of scientifically unqualified environmental
groups may provide for sensational headlines, they are no basis for mature policy
formulation. The study of global climate change is, as you have said, an
"emerging science," one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be
many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system.
Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was
created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing
greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about
climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have
concluded it was not necessary.

We appreciate the difficulty any government has formulating sensible sciencebased
policy when the loudest voices always seem to be pushing in the opposite
direction. However, by convening open, unbiased consultations, Canadians will
be permitted to hear from experts on both sides of the debate in the climatescience
community.

When the public comes to understand that there is no
"consensus" among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various
causes of global climate change, the government will be in a far better position to
develop plans that reflect reality and so benefit both the environment and the
economy.


"Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to
convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the
cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due
to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish
from this natural "noise."
The new Canadian government's commitment to
reducing air, land and water pollution is commendable, but allocating funds to
"stopping climate change" would be irrational.
We need to continue intensive
research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable
citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next.
We believe the Canadian public and government decision-makers need and
deserve to hear the whole story concerning this very complex issue. It was only
.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :. Page 119 of 124
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30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that
the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science
continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when
it does not fit with predetermined political agendas.

We hope that you will examine our proposal carefully and we stand willing and
able to furnish you with more information on this crucially important topic.
CC: The Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of the Environment, and the
Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources
- - -
Sincerely,
Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of
Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
Dr. Tad Murty, former senior research scientist, Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans,
former director of Australia's National Tidal Facility and professor of earth
sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide; currently adjunct professor, Departments
of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
Dr. R. Timothy Patterson, professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology),
Carleton University, Ottawa
Dr. Fred Michel, director, Institute of Environmental Science and associate
professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa
Dr. Madhav Khandekar, former research scientist, Environment Canada. Member
of editorial board of Climate Research and Natural Hazards
Dr. Paul Copper, FRSC, professor emeritus, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Laurentian
University, Sudbury, Ont.
Dr. Ross McKitrick, associate professor, Dept. of Economics, University of
Guelph, Ont.
Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology, University of Winnipeg;
environmental consultant
Dr. Andreas Prokoph, adjunct professor of earth sciences, University of Ottawa;
consultant in statistics and geology
Mr. David Nowell, M.Sc. (Meteorology), fellow of the Royal Meteorological
Society, Canadian member and past chairman of the NATO Meteorological
Group, Ottawa
Dr. Christopher Essex, professor of applied mathematics and associate director of
the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.
Dr. Gordon E. Swaters, professor of applied mathematics, Dept. of Mathematical
Sciences, and member, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Research Group, University
of Alberta
Dr. L. Graham Smith, associate professor, Dept. of Geography, University of
Western Ontario, London, Ont.
Dr. G. Cornelis van Kooten, professor and Canada Research Chair in
environmental studies and climate change, Dept. of Economics, University of
Victoria
Dr. Petr Chylek, adjunct professor, Dept. of Physics and Atmospheric Science,
Dalhousie University, Halifax
Dr./Cdr. M. R. Morgan, FRMS, climate consultant, former meteorology advisor
to the World Meteorological Organization. Previously research scientist in
climatology at University of Exeter, U.K.
Dr. Keith D. Hage, climate consultant and professor emeritus of Meteorology,
.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :. Page 120 of 124
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University of Alberta
Dr. David E. Wojick, P.Eng., energy consultant, Star Tannery, Va., and Sioux
Lookout, Ont.
Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific
Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, B.C.
Dr. Douglas Leahey, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary
Paavo Siitam, M.Sc., agronomist, chemist, Cobourg, Ont.
Dr. Chris de Freitas, climate scientist, associate professor, The University of
Auckland, N.Z.
Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology, Dept. of Earth,
Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Freeman J. Dyson, emeritus professor of physics, Institute for Advanced
Studies, Princeton, N.J.
Mr. George Taylor, Dept. of Meteorology, Oregon State University; Oregon State
climatologist; past president, American Association of State Climatologists
Dr. Ian Plimer, professor of geology, School of Earth and Environmental
Sciences, University of Adelaide; emeritus professor of earth sciences, University
of Melbourne, Australia
Dr. R.M. Carter, professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook
University, Townsville, Australia
Mr. William Kininmonth, Australasian Climate Research, former Head National
Climate Centre, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; former Australian delegate to
World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology, Scientific and
Technical Review
Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, former director of research, Royal Netherlands
Meteorological Institute
Dr. Gerrit J. van der Lingen, geologist/paleoclimatologist, Climate Change
Consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand
Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, professor of environmental sciences, University of
Virginia
Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, emeritus professor of paleogeophysics & geodynamics,
Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Gary D. Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, Calif.
Dr. Roy W. Spencer, principal research scientist, Earth System Science Center,
The University of Alabama, Huntsville
Dr. Al Pekarek, associate professor of geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Dept., St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minn.
Dr. Marcel Leroux, professor emeritus of climatology, University of Lyon,
France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment,
CNRS
Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, Unit of Insects and Infectious
Diseases, Paris, France. Expert reviewer, IPCC Working group II, chapter 8
(human health)
Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, physicist and chairman, Scientific Council of Central
Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland
Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, reader, Dept. of Geography, University of Hull,
U.K.; editor, Energy & Environment
Dr. Hans H.J. Labohm, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael
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Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations) and an economist
who has focused on climate change
Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, senior scientist emeritus, University of Kansas, past director
and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey
Dr. Asmunn Moene, past head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological
Institute, Norway
Dr. August H. Auer, past professor of atmospheric science, University of
Wyoming; previously chief meteorologist, Meteorological Service (MetService)
of New Zealand
Dr. Vincent Gray, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse
Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001,' Wellington, N.Z.
Dr. Howard Hayden, emeritus professor of physics, University of Connecticut
Dr Benny Peiser, professor of social anthropology, Faculty of Science, Liverpool
John Moores University, U.K.
Dr. Jack Barrett, chemist and spectroscopist, formerly with Imperial College
London, U.K.
Dr. William J.R. Alexander, professor emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems
Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Member, United Nations
Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000
Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences, University of
Virginia; former director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service
Dr. Harry N.A. Priem, emeritus professor of planetary geology and isotope
geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for
Isotope Geosciences; past president of the Royal Netherlands Geological &
Mining Society
Dr. Robert H. Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey professor of energy conversion, Dept. of
Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University
Dr. Sallie Baliunas, astrophysicist and climate researcher, Boston, Mass.
Douglas Hoyt, senior scientist at Raytheon (retired) and co-author of the book
The Role of the Sun in Climate Change; previously with NCAR, NOAA, and the
World Radiation Center, Davos, Switzerland
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Dietze, independent energy advisor and scientific climate and
carbon modeller, official IPCC reviewer, Bavaria, Germany
Dr. Boris Winterhalter, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of
Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Finland
Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and
Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden
Dr. Hugh W. Ellsaesser, physicist/meteorologist, previously with the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, Calif.; atmospheric consultant.
Dr. Art Robinson, founder, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, Cave
Junction, Ore.
Dr. Arthur Rorsch, emeritus professor of molecular genetics, Leiden University,
The Netherlands; past board member, Netherlands organization for applied
research (TNO) in environmental, food and public health
Dr. Alister McFarquhar, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.; international
economist
Dr. Richard S. Courtney, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC
expert reviewer, U.K.

[Brucelee]

Skeptical Spectator

Scientist Patrick Michaels writes in the American Spectator Thursday that if a major journal reported the planet has warmed twice as much as previously thought it would be front-page news in every paper.

He writes: "But what would happen if a paper was published demonstrating that the planet may have warmed up only half as much as previously thought?" Well, Michaels says nothing would happen. He and fellow scientist Ross McKitrick published a manuscript in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres earlier this month saying just that — that the world has warmed only half as much as previously thought.

Michaels — who is a member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — states that his findings show temperature records should not always be trusted, because many are recorded in urban areas. Michaels says scientists have known for years that urban areas are warmer than rural ones and that temperatures collected in cities are biased.

Michaels says a simple Internet search reveals that with the exception of a few blogs, the only major story about his findings ran in Canada's Financial Post.

[Brucelee]

What if the government allowed you to burn only 25 percent of every tank of gas? Or if Washington made you pour half of every gallon of milk down the drain?

What if lawmakers forced us to bury 95 percent of our energy resources?

That is exactly what Washington does when it comes to safe, affordable and CO2-free nuclear energy. Indeed, 95 percent of the used fuel from America’s 104 power reactors, which provide about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, could be recycled for future use.

To create power, reactor fuel must contain 3-5 percent burnable uranium. Once the burnable uranium falls below that level, the fuel must be replaced. But this “spent” fuel generally retains about 95 percent of the uranium it started with, and that uranium can be recycled.

Over the past four decades, America’s reactors have produced about 56,000 tons of used fuel. That “waste” contains roughly enough energy to power every U.S. household for 12 years. And it’s just sitting there, piling up at power plant storage facilities. Talk about waste!

The sad thing is, the United States developed the technology to recapture that energy decades ago, then barred its commercial use in 1977. We have practiced a virtual moratorium ever since.


Other countries have not taken such a backward approach to nuclear power. France, whose 59 reactors generate 80 percent of its electricity, has safely recycled nuclear fuel for decades. They turned to nuclear power in the 1970s to limit their dependence on foreign energy. And, from the beginning, they made recycling used fuel central to their program.

Upon its removal from French reactors, used fuel is packed in containers and safely shipped via train and road to a facility in La Hague. There, the energy producing uranium and plutonium are removed and separated from the other waste and made into new fuel that can be used again. The entire process adds about 6 percent in costs for the French.

Anti-nuclear fear mongering has proved baseless. The French have recycled fuel like this for 30 years without incident: no terrorist attack, no bad guys stealing uranium, no contribution toward nuclear weapons proliferaton, and o accidental explosions.

France meets all of its recycling needs with one facility. Indeed, domestic French reprocessing only takes about half of La Hague’s capacity. The other half is used to recycle other countries’ spent nuclear fuel.

Since beginning operations, France’s La Hague plant has safely processed over 23,000 tones of used fuel—enough to power France for fourteen years.

Their success has sparked plenty of interest abroad. The French company AREVA has already helped Japan with its reprocessing facility and is currently looking at the feasibility of building a similar plant in China.

The British, Japanese, Indians, and Russians all engage in some level of reprocessing.

Of course, there is still waste involved. But recycling produces much lower volumes of highly radioactive waste, and the French deal with it effectively—placing some waste in short-term, interim storage or preparing the rest for long-term storage in their version of Yucca Mountain.

All is not perfect in France. They are still working to open a permanent geologic storage facility. But the critical issue is that they have an organization to handle used nuclear fuel that allows their program to advance without being held hostage to the politics of geologic storage.

If the United States is serious about reducing CO2 and energy dependence, it must get serious about nuclear power and begin recycling used nuclear fuel.

A viable reprocessing capability not only would give the United States a valuable energy resource, it would reduce the amount of material going to Yucca Mountain. The U.S. has already produced enough waste to nearly fill Yucca’s legal limit of 70,000 metric tons—subsequent studies estimate that its actual capacity is about double that amount and some believe that it is even greater.

It would also put the United States back on the map as a leader in commercial nuclear technology, which today it is not.

Nuclear fuel reprocessing is a safe activity that should be part of America’s nuclear energy program. It can be affordable and is technologically feasible. The French are proving that on a daily basis. The question is: Why can’t oui?

Jack Spencer is a research fellow for nuclear energy policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

[Brucelee]

Clearing the Air About Historic CO2 Levels
If one wants to join the crowd promoting carbon dioxide-caused global warming ("Geochemists Chart Carbon-Dioxide Levels at 650,000-Year High," Marketplace, Dec. 14), delving into geological history doesn't promote the cause well. Historically, high CO2 levels have been a symptom of warming, not a cause.

There have been periods when atmospheric CO2 levels were up to 16 times what they are now, periods characterized not by warming but by glaciation.

Yes, you might have to go back 650,000 years to match our current atmospheric CO2 level, but you only have to go back to the Medieval Warming period that occurred from the 10th into the 14th century to find an intense global-warming episode. This was immediately followed by drastic cooling of the Little Ice Age.

Neither of these events was caused by variations in CO2 levels, but were most likely the result of variations in solar irradiance caused by changes in the sun's magnetic field.

M.A. Kaufman
Geologist, P.E.
Spokane Valley, Wash.

We should fear cooling, not warming. A warmer earth would be good for humans today, as it was 1,000 years ago. However, even more we should fear the unscientific hysteria that attributes all change to humans. Yes, we are putting a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, but no, this has nothing to do with the modest warming we are currently experiencing. The Little Ice Age has come to an end all of its own accord, and humans should be glad.

Richard Marliave
Oakland, Calif.

[Brucelee]

The Heat Is Off

A researcher at Russia's oceanology institute says global warming has peaked — and the planet is now headed for a cooling period that will last through the end of the century.

Oleg Sorokhtin is a fellow of the Russian academy of natural sciences. He writes in an article for the Russian news and information agency that a cold spell will set in by 2012. H believes an even colder period will begin as solar activity reaches a minimum in 2041 — and that it will last 50 to 60 years.

Sorokhtin says warming and cooling are entirely natural processes — independent of human activity. He says the current warming trend is due to changes in things like solar activity, ocean currents, and salinity fluctuations in Arctic waters.

Meanwhile, British weather experts say 2008 will be the coolest year since 2000 because of a drop in sea surface temperatures off the western coast of South America — known as La Nina. But they say this year will still be one of the 10 hottest years on record.

RelatedColumn Archive
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The energy bill signed by President Bush last month aims to phase out the use of incandescent light bulbs in favor of the more efficient compact fluorescent or CFL bulbs by the year 2014. But some people say the CFL bulbs are a health risk.

British media report the bulbs have been linked to increased migraines, epileptic seizures and dizziness. One group says the bulbs can cause eruptions of existing skin problems and may even lead to skin cancer. And people with the immune system disease lupus say the bulbs cause them pain and extreme tiredness.

[Brucelee]

Despite the global warming that allegedly imperils the world, it snowed in Baghdad yesterday for the first time in generations. As some have already noticed, the brief warming trend we experienced in the 1990s is over, forcing the moonbat media to descend into self-parody in an attempt to spin its way out of reality.

Here's how Reuters reports on the Baghdad snow:

Climate change is still nudging up temperatures in the long term even though the warmest year was back in 1998 and 2008 has begun with unusual weather such as a cool Pacific and Baghdad's first snow in memory, experts said.


Once again we're reminded that all unusual weather is caused by global warming, which in turn is "blamed mainly on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels." This includes cold weather. Surprisingly, the report isn't accompanied by an invitation to buy carbon credits.

AFP also established its journalistic credentials by managing to dig up someone brazen enough to tell us that global warming causes snow. The Iraqi director of the meteorology department dutifully chirps:

[Brucelee]

Temperature Record of the Week


This issue's Temperature Record of the Week is from Georgetown, SC. During the period of most significant greenhouse gas buildup over the past century, i.e., 1930 and onward, Georgetown's mean annual temperature has cooled by 1.19 degrees Fahrenheit. Not much global warming here!

[Brucelee]

New NASA Temperature Data Yet Another Reason to Re-Assess Global Warming Scare
Faulty data abounds in the foundational arguments of climate change zealots.

By Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris
Business & Media Institute
8/22/2007 1:08:01 PM



Imagine basing a country’s energy and economic policy on an incomplete, unproven theory – a theory based entirely on computer models in which one minor variable is considered the sole driver for the entire global climate system.



This is precisely what Al Gore, Senate Environment Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer and others want their nation to do.



They expect Americans to accept on blind faith the thesis that human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are causing catastrophic climate change. Boxer, Gore and their allies readily resort to emotional bullying against anyone who dares question this dogma.



Their pronouncements – Boxer’s juvenile “the American people have the will to slow, stop and reverse global warming” is a prime example – are merely displays of arrogance that expose their lack of basic science understanding (and their complete disrespect for public intelligence). The policies they advocate are wholly unjustified scientifically and have extraordinarily damaging economic implications for the developed world.



The scientific method, which even grade-schoolers know, provides that science advances through hypotheses based on a set of assumptions. Other scientists challenge and test those assumptions in what philosopher Karl Popper called the practice of “falsibility.” Trying to disprove hypotheses is what real science is all about.



Yet the hypothesis that human addition of CO2 would lead to significantly enhanced greenhouse warming was quickly accepted without this normal scientific challenge.



As Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences said, consensus was reached before the research had even begun. Adherents to the hypothesis began defending the increasingly indefensible by launching personal attacks, essentially trying to frighten scientific opponents into silence.



Much to the frustration of alarmists, however, solid scientific evidence continues to mount against the flawed notion that human CO2 emissions are a problem.



For instance, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) just made significant changes to its temperature records, downgrading the magnitude of recent rises.



This was precipitated by discovery of errors in NASA methodologies by Canadian researcher Steve McIntyre, already well-known for his debunking of the now-infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph that was a fundamental pillar of the 2001 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.


Dr. James Hansen, as director of GISS, is responsible for NASA temperature records. An ardent Gore supporter, Hansen often plays conflicting roles simultaneously. Within one week of the change to the NASA record, he posted a blog diatribe – not officially through his employer’s channels, but as a private citizen.



In his blog post, he claimed the temperature changes were insignificant (in reality, they are highly significant) and likened climate warming skeptics to “court jesters” paid by industry.



Hansen also played this duplicitous game when he made a sensationalist climate change presentation to Congress – also as a private citizen. Such strongly held and outspoken views likely influence, and so are inconsistent with, his activities as a scientist/executive at NASA.



Before McIntyre’s discovery, NASA considered 1998 the warmest year in the continental U.S.; now it is 1934, with 1998 second and 1921 third.



Four of the 10 warmest years on record are now acknowledged to have occurred when human production of CO2 was minimal, in the 1930s. The past decade now includes only three of the 10 warmest years. Will Gore withdraw “An Inconvenient Truth” pending necessary corrections?



A second “proof” of human CO2-caused warming, according to the U.N.’s IPCC, was a claimed increase in global temperatures of about 1°F over 130 years. This was asserted to be outside natural variability. But the uncertainty in the measurements was more than ±0.3°F, meaning possible values could vary by as much as 66 percent of the total change.



The source of this temperature calculation, University of East Anglia’s Professor Phil Jones, has refused to disclose which temperature records were used and how he “adjusted” them. Clearly, the IPCC’s conclusions must be viewed with considerable suspicion until they provide full disclosure on the Jones data.


The meaning of these revelations is clear: computer models are the basis of all forecasts used by alarmists. These models used temperature data that is now known to be suspect or completely wrong. Will Gore, Boxer and the IPCC call for a rational re-evaluation of the global warming scare?



Don’t bet on it – accurate science was never a hallmark of this crusade.







Dr. Timothy Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP.com), is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. Tom Harris is an Ottawa-based mechanical engineer and NRSP Executive Director. Ball and Harris serve as guest columnists for the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute.

[cvhs18472]

When there are only 5 posts out of the 21 threads besides Brucelee's and they basically all say move on, don't you think that it is time to move on with Boxster related items. As the rules say, Please take all political posts to appropiate places. Ed

[Brucelee]

When there are only 5 posts out of the 21 threads besides Brucelee's and they basically all say move on, don't you think that it is time to move on with Boxster related items. As the rules say, Please take all political posts to appropiate places. Ed


I don't see this as political at all. It is really science that we are debating. We are also chatting about folks who will try to impact what and the way you will drive, or if you will drive at all. That is an issue of liberty, not politics.

If you don't like the thread, don't read the thread. It is clearly labled as to what it is. Only those who want to read and comment need do so.


:)

[Brucelee]

By Lewis Smith

E-Mail Print Digg This! del.icio.us
AP


Melting water runs off a glacier in Greenland.
Greenland's ice sheet shrank more rapidly last summer than at any other time in the past 50 years, measurements have shown.

Researchers said the extent of the melt was evidence that the ice sheet was in "inexorable decline" because of global warming.

The researchers found a shift in meteorological patterns over the past 15 years, with a direct correlation being found between Greenland's weather and the generally warmer weather across both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Previously, regional influences had held sway.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.

An international team of glaciologists and climatologists led by Edward Hanna, of the University of Sheffield, England, reached its conclusion after analyzing weather and ice records since 1958.

"Our work shows that global warming is beginning to take its toll on the Greenland ice sheet which, as a relic feature of the last Ice Age, has already been living on borrowed time and seems now to be in inexorable decline," Dr Hanna said. "The question is: Can we reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in time to make enough of a difference to curb this decay?"



Five of the top nine years for meltwater run-off have also taken place since 2000.

The ice sheet was shrinking rapidly because the increasing amounts of snow in the winter were only offsetting about 80 per cent of the ice melt in summer.

The team published its findings in the Journal of Climate.

However, its report acknowledged that temperatures in southern Greenland during the 1930s and 1940s were at least as warm as in recent years.

[cvhs18472]

There is no debating because debate calls for more than one person offering information to prove that they are right and the other side is wrong. No one is saying anything else but get on with life. Global warming is political because it's basis is one group of governments trying to get an advantage over another group of governments with theories which has no provable or disprovable base. All anyone is doing is taking information and extrapolating information based on there thoughts and theories. Lets talk about racing. You know who wins. Lets talk about going fast, lets talk about improving our cars. Lets talk about girlfriends. If Global warming is an approved subject then why is Joe Torre's fittness as a manager not. JMHO Ed

[Brucelee]

This topic is pertinent as it relates to our ability, right or privledge to drive. I believe that science has been made secondary in this discussion by those who have an agenda, which is an agenda not consistent with our retaining our right to drive the cars we like, ie Performance Autos and the like.

I try to bring science into it by my posts and point out the actions being taken that run counter to auto enthusiasts such as ourselves.

I don't see where Joe Torre has anything to do with driving.

If this post is not relevant, neither are any that relate to traffic laws, auto safety, emissions, and any other element of automobiles that involve regulation.

Again, if you don't want to read or post to the thread, you don't have to.

:)

[cvhs18472]

I don't see where Joe Torre has anything to do with driving.

I didn't either but you posted it and when he got the beating down he deserved you then decieded to stop the post. Global warming will not stop us from driving our cars in this lifetime. Vehicles will become more efficient and we will use those as everyday drivers instead of Porsches.





The problem as I interpolate the issue is not global warming, but the supply of fossil fuels. And as my information is the same as everyone elses, it is just what I think and there lies the problem.

No one really has a complete enough block of information to really have a true and accurate answer to the question. In my stat course in college we were broken into two groups and given a set of statistics. One week was the possitive side and the next week was the negative side. Your grade was determined by the amount of compelling evidence you could create with the information. If they teach these things in an Agricultural based college can you imagine the abilities of someone trained. The one true and honest thing I have learned in my 8 years of higher education is that it is all Bull**it. Viva la Freedom.

[Brucelee]

I don't see where Joe Torre has anything to do with driving.

I didn't either but you posted it and when he got the beating down he deserved you then decieded to stop the post. Global warming will not stop us from driving our cars in this lifetime. Vehicles will become more efficient and we will use those as everyday drivers instead of Porsches.

That is one view of the future and I respect it. That may not be how it all plays down. Yes, vehicles will get more efficient but I am not sure these would be the kinds of vehicles that we as consumers want to buy.

I am more concerned that by projecting catastrophe, we will slowly but surely lose the cars that we WANT to buy for cars we HAVE to buy.



The problem as I interpolate the issue is not global warming, but the supply of fossil fuels. And as my information is the same as everyone elses, it is just what I think and there lies the problem.

There is an issue with supplies of fossil fuels but of course, the issue is being framed by many folks (including the media) as one of icebergs melting, animals dying, from GW.

No one really has a complete enough block of information to really have a true and accurate answer to the question. In my stat course in college we were broken into two groups and given a set of statistics. One week was the possitive side and the next week was the negative side. Your grade was determined by the amount of compelling evidence you could create with the information. If they teach these things in an Agricultural based college can you imagine the abilities of someone trained. The one true and honest thing I have learned in my 8 years of higher education is that it is all Bull**it. Viva la Freedom.


I would disagree that it is all BS. And yes, a bright statistician can swing it anyway he wants. It requires rigorous discourse and facts to sep. out what is really going on.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by Brucelee : Today at 12:13.

[Brucelee]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325408,00.html

:D

[Brucelee]

Politicians & the Global warming swindle
Prepare for Cooling, not Warming
By Dr. Tim Ball & Tom Harris Friday, October 5, 2007


The world is cooling. Global temperatures have declined since 1998 and a growing number of climate experts expect this trend to continue until at least 2030. This, happening while carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to rise, is in complete contradiction to the theory of human-induced (anthropogenic) global warming (AGW). The CBC and other die-hard AGW proponents respond by publicizing selected glacial melts and the impact of dramatic but improbable sea level rises, the only warming issues that seem to grab public attention.




“Climate change campaigners are frightened that, if the lid is lifted off the Pandora’s Box of modern day climate science, the vast uncertainties and contradictions in the field will become apparent and public support for multi-billion dollar climate change schemes will quickly die.”
Canadian politicians simply follow along, parroting scientifically unjustified AGW rhetoric while lamenting that “climate change is real!” They either don’t know, or hope the public don’t know, that climate changes all the time no matter what we do.

For most of the world’s plants and animals, humanity included, cooling is a far greater threat than warming. This is especially true for Canada where energy usage, and consequently pollution levels, will rise as temperatures drop. More importantly, if we prepare for warming and it cools, Canada’s food supply is seriously at risk since we are already at the northern limit to agriculture.
Even a small amount of cooling would necessitate increased genetic engineering of crops and animals to sustain ourselves and further cooling still would end much of today’s farming in Canada.

Yet, if we prepare for cooling and it warms, we simply adopt farming practices used to the south of us. It is the case in most parts of the world that adaptation to warming is far easier than adapting to cooling. Canada’s situation is just that much worse due to our latitude.

Despite this very real threat of continued cooling, our leaders still press for developed nations to dramatically curb CO2 emissions to counter possible warming. That the forces driving this backwards policy have little to do with protecting the environment was revealed last week at the UN high level climate summit in New York City. Developed nations were chastised for their emissions record in the opening speech by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon while he had no criticism for developing countries that are responsible for most of the recent growth in worldwide emissions. What is now needed, Ban Ki-moon recommended, is “enhanced leadership by the industrialized countries on emission reductions.” Developing nations are merely to be given “incentives… to act, but without sacrificing economic growth”, he said. China’s foreign minister clearly agreed and advised the forum, “Developed countries should meet their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol,...and continue to take the lead in reducing emissions after 2012.”

But Canada and other developed nations accepted severe targets in 1997 with the understanding that developing countries would follow after the protocol expires in 2012. Now, this is highly unlikely. The next round of UN negotiations starting in December in Bali, Indonesia will undoubtedly formalize new emission restrictions only for the one fifth of the world’s population who live in the developed world. Is it any wonder Osama Bin Laden promotes a UN climate process that threatens to cripple the West, but no one else?

The UN’s approach to climate hasn’t really been about science or ‘saving the planet’ since their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988. Its goals were firmly positioned in the political and emotional arena at the Rio Conference in 1992. Canadian politicians assume the public overwhelming accepts the IPCC’s AGW claims even though polls show this is increasingly not the case. For example, a March 2006 Ipsos Reid poll revealed that 39% of Canadians believe recent climate change to be natural.

Nevertheless, global warming remains a massive, taxpayer-funded ‘industry’ in Canada. Most of the money goes to institutes, policy centers and government departments that effectively block proper scientific investigation. Scientists who study the impact of hypothetical warming are given significant support even though their research is based on the faulty assumption that AGW is proven. In a frightening circular argument their research is then listed as ‘proof’ of the hypothesis. Dissenting science is also excluded from government hearings, the most recent being the Commons committee hearings into the Kyoto Implementation Bill and the Clean Air Act where only AGW-supporting scientists were permitted to testify.

In the late 1980s, the Mulroney government ignored scientists’ advice that fishing quotas should be drastically cut and so implemented policies that led to the depletion of the cod stock with the resultant loss of 40,000 jobs in Newfoundland’s fishing industry. Will today’s Conservative government ignore scientists again and implement unfounded policies that lead to the destruction of Canadian agriculture?

In 2006, sixty-one climate experts asked Prime Minister Harper to order open, unbiased climate science hearings, something that has never happened in Canada. Like Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, Harper ignored their request. He must no longer. It is time to finally lift the lid off the Pandora’s Box of modern day climate science and let the public hear what scientists are really concluding about this complex and immature discipline. With billions of taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake, not to mention the future of our food supply, there is no other ethical choice.

Posted 10/5 at 07:33 AM Email (Permalink)

[Brucelee]

The speeding freight train carrying toxic waste liability for makers, sellers and purchasers of compact fluorescent lightbulbs, or CFLs, was only faintly audible in the distance last spring when this column first warned of it. Now we’re beginning to see that environmentalist-stoked train speed toward its victims, whom President Bush and Congress just finished tying to the tracks.

CFLs and all other fluorescent lightbulbs require special clean-up and disposal procedures because they contain small amounts of mercury, which is neurotoxic at sufficiently high exposures. For example, you’re not supposed to vacuum breakage or toss used bulbs in household trash.

Despite these clean-up and disposal hassles, environmental groups, bulb makers and retailers relentlessly have promoted CFL use as a strategy for reducing electricity consumption and the power plant emissions allegedly causing global warming.

Eco-activist groups, such as Environmental Defense, which historically have agitated to banish toxic substances from homes, workplaces and the environment, surprisingly have said that the mercury in CFLs is nothing to worry about.

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But this new posturing flies in the face of the multitude of scary activist-inspired studies that hyperventilate about potential health risks from the slightest exposures to mercury, not to mention a 1987 article in Pediatrics reporting real-life mercury poisoning of a 23-month old from a broken fluorescent light bulb.

Bush and Congress joined the CFL promotion racket, too. The energy bill enacted last December mandates that traditional incandescent bulbs be phased out starting in 2012. CFLs pretty much are the only alternative.

This activist-business-government marketing juggernaut has succeeded. Wal-Mart alone sold 100 million CFLs last year.

But the partnership is about to implode. As predictable as Lucy pulling away the football from a determinedly charging Charlie Brown, the environmentalists are preparing to turn the tables on the CFL businesses and consumers.

The signal came in a Feb. 17 New York Times editorial entitled "That Newfangled Light Bulb."

The editorial read, in part, "Across the world, consumers are being urged to … switch to [CFLs]. ... Now the question is how to dispose of [CFLs] once they break or quit working … each [CFL] has a tiny bit of a dangerous toxin … almost 300 million CFLs were sold in the U.S. last year. That is already a lot of mercury to throw in the trash and the amounts will grow ever larger in coming years … the dangers are real and growing."

The Times piece continued, "Businesses and government recyclers need to start working on more efficient ways to deal with that added mercury. Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, is raising the cry about the moment when millions of these light bulbs start landing in landfills or incinerators all at once. The pig in the waste pipeline, she calls it."

Aside from the editorial’s implicit targeting instructions for eco-agitators and trial lawyers, I could only chuckle at the editorial’s nod to, and partial disclosure about, Silbergeld. For many years, she was a "senior scientist" with Environmental Defense who, before moving on to left-wing academia, excelled at fomenting dubious scares about "toxic" substances in the environment.

During Silbergeld’s days with Environmental Defense in the 1990s, the group’s pitch to the media was "when fluorescent bulbs are crushed, traces of mercury vaporize and enter the atmosphere. If the lamps are buried, the toxic element seeps into the soil."

Until the Times editorial, the activists and the media had been holding back their customary attacks against mercury-containing fluorescent light bulbs.

In lamenting the bulbs, Clean Water Action told the media in 1997, for example, that the mercury level in tuna is so high that a 35-pound child eating more than 2 ounces a week would exceed the EPA’s "safe" level.

But while CFL-mandating legislation was pending in Congress, the enviros did a temporary flip-flop: Environmental Defense began pooh-poohing mercury concerns stating, "In short, the exposure from breaking a CFL is in about the same range as the exposure from eating a can or two of tuna fish."

Two ounces of tuna used to be a horror, but in the name of CFLs, two cans became no problem.

The Associated Press reported in 1992 that fluorescent light bulbs were helping to "poison the Everglades with toxic mercury, threatening humans [and wildlife]."

In December 2000, a Massachusetts newspaper reported in an article entitled "Environmentalists Call for Mercury Product Ban" that the Massachusetts governor had proposed that trash-burning incinerators develop plans to separate fluorescent light bulbs and other mercury-containing consumer products from waste.

The business fantasy is for the nation’s 4 billion-plus light sockets to sport CFLs. There’s much more ka-ching in selling 4 billion $5 light bulbs as opposed to incandescent bulbs costing $0.75. But what about the mercury problem that may impose substantial liabilities on businesses and consumers faster than CFL light bulbs turn on?

Today’s business leaders apparently have forgotten the infamous Superfund program that needlessly and retroactively imposed tens of billions of dollars of costs for pre-1980 waste disposal practices regardless of whether they were legal at the time. CFL-maker GE, in particular, is involved in a senseless $500 million clean-up of industrial chemicals known as PCBs buried long ago in Hudson River sediments.

Imagine the clean-up costs from billions of CFLs disposed in landfills and burned in incinerators across the country. Superfund even imposed bankrupting liability on mom-and-pop businesses. Imagine the peril of home-based businesses that casually toss CFLs in the household trash.

First mercury was dangerous. Then, temporarily, it became no big deal. Now that the Greens have caught us in the CFL trap, they’re reverting to form on mercury — all to cause the sort of chaos resulting in increased government control of our lives.

As Johnny Cash sang, "I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend. …" The question is: Will President Bush and Congress just leave us on the tracks?

[myownwind]

...look guys/gals; if you put the top up, and pipe the exhaust into passenger compartment of your Boxster, eventually bad stuff will happen to the inhabitants.
It might be a bit unpredictable, worse if your cruising down the road at 80 mph, but things won't turn out well because it's too much CO too quickly.
The "real" scientists, not those talking on Fox News or paid by Exxon have already made the arguments you're posting here and verified (in peer reviewed journals, not blogs) that they don't hold water. If you actually want scientific answers, go here: http://www.realclimate.org . These folks aren't meteorologists (weathermen) or oil industry shills (spin doctors) but climatologists who study physics covering the solid Earth up through the ionosphere. Those I've talked to are truly scared at the rate of change (think G's) they're seeing and worried they should have been shouting much louder and sooner.
I love driving; top down, warm wind blowing and hearing those six cylinders whining. I'm backing off a bit lately and riding a bike to work and throwing some PV panels on my roof. I just feel like I owe it to my kids (and theirs) If the science guys are wrong about GW (I prefer the term Global Heating or Climate Chaos) I've done no harm by "easing off the throttle".

[blinkwatt]

Hopefully someone can clear this up for me,I must know if this is a myth or not....(this is a serious question)

I've been told human gas(farts) are contributing to Global Warming,does anyone have proof?

[bmx672]

The only constant on earth is change...
Take care of your families, enjoy your short lives and let the earth do what it does.
When the next ice age comes it really will not matter if you had a solar panel, hybrid car, tree farm etc... or not.

[Brucelee]

Hopefully someone can clear this up for me,I must know if this is a myth or not....(this is a serious question)

I've been told human gas(farts) are contributing to Global Warming,does anyone have proof?


Yes, all human and animal fecal waste products (and their by-products) produce methane gas. Methane gas is a much more potent creator of so-called GG than CO2.

Some eco types have suggested if the entire world were vegetarians, we could eliminate all of the methane coming from cows, which the ecos guys feel are the worst methane offenders.

Then of course, we could eliminate all the human waste too, which wouldn't offend the ecos types one bit.

[Brucelee]

...look guys/gals; if you put the top up, and pipe the exhaust into passenger compartment of your Boxster, eventually bad stuff will happen to the inhabitants.
It might be a bit unpredictable, worse if your cruising down the road at 80 mph, but things won't turn out well because it's too much CO too quickly.
The "real" scientists, not those talking on Fox News or paid by Exxon have already made the arguments you're posting here and verified (in peer reviewed journals, not blogs) that they don't hold water. If you actually want scientific answers, go here: http://www.realclimate.org . These folks aren't meteorologists (weathermen) or oil industry shills (spin doctors) but climatologists who study physics covering the solid Earth up through the ionosphere. Those I've talked to are truly scared at the rate of change (think G's) they're seeing and worried they should have been shouting much louder and sooner.
I love driving; top down, warm wind blowing and hearing those six cylinders whining. I'm backing off a bit lately and riding a bike to work and throwing some PV panels on my roof. I just feel like I owe it to my kids (and theirs) If the science guys are wrong about GW (I prefer the term Global Heating or Climate Chaos) I've done no harm by "easing off the throttle".


If you think the so-called science of Global Warming is settled and only kook differ, you are not really reading ALL of the scientists who study the issue. It is easy to demonize the scientists who disagree as either kooks, right wing types or on the Exxon payroll.

Of course, it is easy to demonize the UN and the IPCC folks also.

Sometime, go read how the IPCC CONSENSUS document for politicians is derived,

It will tell you much about this so-called SCIENCE.

Remember, EVERYONE has an agenda, even you! :D

[myownwind]

Well I suppose the "so-called science" of planetary mechanics isn't settled either and we're still not 'sure' the Earth goes around the sun. To be fair, I know that there are voices out there denying man-made climate change is real.
I looked over a sample of your supporting evidence: "Scientists/Global Warming Skeptics" posted on 12/24.
Let's take a look at your scientists: The first guy is in fact a scientist;
Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of
Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
he has published remarkably little in general and nothing on Global Warming. He references other papers about the changing output of the sun causing our climate signatures (something I strongly considered plausible 5 yrs ago). This mechanism has since been widely refuted with more up to date satellite data

Let's take a guy from the middle of your list: "Dr. Freeman Dyson". Famous author and futurist, not a Climate Scientist (actually not a scientist, AND not a Dr., no PhD).
Dyson describes himself as a professional heretic, so I guess we get as much reasoning from him as any of my teenage kids.

And rounding out the bottom: Dr. Richard S. Courtney, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K

This guy actually IS a kook; has no PhD and is NOT an IPCC "expert reviewer". He seems to crave attention and posts on a lot of Climate Sites. He did make it on to "Stoat's Official Nutters list" http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/ but he doesn't seem all bad to me; "Richard is also an Accredited Methodist Preacher. He is a founding Member of the Christ and the Cosmos Initiative that explores the interactions of religious and scientific ideas."

So, at some point (soon) I hope we can move past the fiction/reality phase and onto what's a good course of action. I think folks here and elsewhere may have good ideas and I'd like to hear what fellow "drive it like you stole it" enthusiasts might come up with.

Cheers.

[bmx672]

Regardless of all the hoopla surrounding global warming...

Please answer me this...
Is human existence better off or worse off, as a whole, if the average temperature rises a few degrees?
Some scientist think it would be better off. Most do not know. Therefore we are being paranoid about something that may be better for humans.

Ponder that while installing the solar panels on your house. You may actually be harming future human existence. :)

[Ofishbein]

Just from memory, I can remember surviving threats of:

Another ice age ('70s)
Legionnaires disease
SARS
Bird flu
Radiation from my TV or video display terminals
Cell phone brain tumors
AIDS
Radon
Killer bees
Red dye #2
Saccharin
Cyclamates
Alar in my apples
Mercury in my tuna
Lyme disease from ticks
2nd hand smoke
Ozone hole
Mad cow
Y2K
and last but not least, the Metric System

I think I'll just sit this one out.

[Brucelee]

Just from memory, I can remember surviving threats of:

Another ice age ('70s)
Legionnaires disease
SARS
Bird flu
Radiation from my TV or video display terminals
Cell phone brain tumors
AIDS
Radon
Killer bees
Red dye #2
Saccharin
Cyclamates
Alar in my apples
Mercury in my tuna
Lyme disease from ticks
2nd hand smoke
Ozone hole
Mad cow
Y2K
and last but not least, the Metric System

I think I'll just sit this one out.
:D
I am with you buddy!

[myownwind]

Regardless of all the hoopla surrounding global warming...

Please answer me this...
Is human existence better off or worse off, as a whole, if the average temperature rises a few degrees?
Some scientist think it would be better off. Most do not know. Therefore we are being paranoid about something that may be better for humans.

Ponder that while installing the solar panels on your house. You may actually be harming future human existence. :)

Well, that's a reasonable question; I'll try to answer as best I can.
As it turns out a "few degrees" is quite a large global average temp change.
It's estimated it was about 2 degrees warmer 125,000 years ago. The oceans were about 15-25 feet higher. So, the Earth has seen such temps, civilization hasn't and the Earth has rarely experienced them as quickly as we're headed (the real worry is the rate of change). The last few times it happened quickly (as far as fossil records show) a lot of every kind of species went extinct (this last point is still being debated).
So, it seems to me that getting warmer, globally, quickly is more likely bad than good.

It's funny, the phrasing of your last point because I was recently up on my roof setting some new shingles and working out the framing for the PV panels. Standing on your roof does lend itself to pondering. I mostly thought about how much better it felt to shave $150/mo off my electric bill, get half the cost paid for by tax breaks (thanks guys) and add the total cost to the resale value of my house. Couldn't figure out why I didn't do it sooner.
Other ponderings (while waiting for my kid to find the tape measure): Ride bike to work 2 days a week; cheaper than a health club membership and I send as little of my money as possible to countries that hate our guts by buying their gas. Plus, I really enjoy those days when I drive the Porsche.

Thanks for moving the discussion forward a little with your question; Sooo, suppose we'll see a "green" Porsche in the future?

Cheers.

P.S. Here's a sample of the good times they're having with the $100/barrel torrent of cash we're sending: http://www.bentbay.dk/dubai_construction.htm

[myownwind]

Quote:

"Just from memory, I can remember surviving threats of:

Another ice age ('70s)
Legionnaires disease
SARS
Bird flu
Radiation from my TV or video display terminals
Cell phone brain tumors
AIDS
Radon
Killer bees
Red dye #2
Saccharin
Cyclamates
Alar in my apples
Mercury in my tuna
Lyme disease from ticks
2nd hand smoke
Ozone hole
Mad cow
Y2K
and last but not least, the Metric System

I think I'll just sit this one out."

Originally Posted by Ofishbein

Yeah, I'm kinda with you here. Our news media is a hysterical bunch.
Of course occasionally the threat is real.
First hand smoke does kill a lot of folks.
AIDS killed a lot of us until we did something about it. In Africa, with lack of medicine and harmful cultural biases they don't look at AIDS as a "threat" it's freakin' devastating.
Last time I was in Australia, they don't just use sunscreen, they cover their skin, heads everything. The ozone hole did repair itself somewhat as a result of limiting Freon but skin cancer "down under" is the highest in the world.

Hey, I totally understand wanting to "sit it out" when we seem to make a crap-tacular
mess of stuff we try to "fix". But, I figured for once I'd turn my natural cynicism down a notch and try something.

Cheers.

[Brucelee]

Chilling Effect
Global warmists try to stifle debate.
February 25, 2008
John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton all promise bold action on climate change . All have endorsed a form of cap-and-trade system that would severely limit future carbon emissions. The Democratic Congress is champing at the bit to act. So too is the Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of companies led by General Electric and Duke Energy.

You'd think this would be a rich time for debate on the issue of climate change. But it's precisely as sweeping change on climate policy is becoming likely that many people have decided the time for debate is over. One writer puts climate change skeptics "in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial," another envisions "war crimes trials" for the deniers. And during the tour for his film "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore himself belittled "global warming deniers" as unworthy of any attention.

Take the reaction to Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg's latest book, "Cool It," which calls for a reasoned debate on global warming. Mr. Lomborg himself leans left, and he opens his book by declaring his belief that "humanity has caused a substantial rise in atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels over the past centuries, thereby contributing to global warming." But he has infuriated environmentalists by saying it is necessary to debate "whether hysterical and head-long spending on extravagant CO2-cutting programs at an unprecedented price is the only possible response." To do so, he says, it will be necessary to cool the doomsday rhetoric, allowing a measured discussion about the best ways forward. "Being smart about our future is the reason we have done so well in the past. We should not abandon our smarts now."

Mr. Lomborg's solution is to avoid discredited cap-and-trade programs, in which developing nations limit economic growth while they fruitlessly try to convince booming economies such as India and China to do the same. His alternative: "Let's focus on research and development. Let's focus on noncarbon-emitting technologies like solar, wind, carbon capture, energy efficiency and also, let's realize the solution may come from nuclear fission and fusion." He laments that the climate change issue has been demagogued by ideological groups on both sides, "and the ones who are making panicky or catastrophic claims simply have better press." At the end of the day, he ruefully acknowledges that potential progress and the sorts of solutions he advocates "are just boring things."

* * *

Let's hope Mr. Lomborg is wrong in his fear that the media are uninterested in showcasing a real debate on climate change. The proof may be found next week, when hundreds of scientists, economists and policy experts who dissent from the "consensus" that climate change requires radical measures will meet in New York to discuss the latest scientific, economic and political research on climate change. Five tracks of panels will address paleoclimatology, climatology, global warming impacts, the economics of global warming and political factors. It will be keynoted by Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who has argued that economic growth is most likely to create the innovations and know-how to combat any challenges climate change could present in the future. (Information on the conference is here.)

The conference is being organized by the free-market Heartland Institute and 49 other co-sponsors, including a dozen from overseas. Heartland president Joseeph Bast says its politically incorrect purpose is to "explain the often-neglected 'other side' of the climate change debate. This will be their chance to speak out. It will be hard for journalists and policy makers to ignore us."

I wonder. Already, environmental groups have sent out their opinion to their media friends that the conference is simply a platform for corporate apologists and can safely be ignored. One group alleges the conference will have "no real scientists" present despite an impressive array of speakers such as Patrick Michaels, a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Critics point out that ExxonMobil gave nearly $800,000 to Heartland between 1998 and 2005 and that the group's board of directors include several people with ties to energy companies. The authors of the blog Real Climate don't engage the issues raised by the conference but instead attack it as stuffed with shills. When Heartland experts tried to respond to those charges, they were blacklisted from the comments section of the Real Climate Web site.

All this has led the Western Standard, a Canadian magazine sympathetic to the global warming skeptics, to predict that "the gathering will be completely ignored, even though it's being held in the news media capital of the world." Let's hope not. Global warming is too important a subject not to debate, and we in the U.S. may rue the day we rushed pell-mell into expensive and shortsighted solutions when much more

[Brucelee]

First hand smoke does kill a lot of folks

This may or may not be true. But I am curious, did you read studies and then examine them, or, did you simply hear this?

I ask because I am curious.

:)

PS-I hate smoking.

[Brucelee]

For the record, I support ALL smoking bans wherever I am going to be.

I hate smoking.




Second-hand Smoke is Harmful to Science
By Michael Fumento
Scripps Howard News Service, Sept. 11, 2003
Copyright 2003 Scripps Howard News Service



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Looking for a surer method of being ripped apart than entering a lion's den covered with catnip? Conduct the most exhaustive, longest-running study on second-hand smoke and death. Find no connection. Then rather than being PC and hiding your data in a vast warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant, publish it in one of the world's most respected medical journals.

That's what research professor James Enstrom of UCLA and professor Geoffrey Kabat of the State University of New York, Stony Brook discovered last May. That's when they reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that their 39-year study of 35,561 Californians who had never smoked showed no "causal relationship between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and tobacco-related mortality," adding, however "a small effect" can't be ruled out.

At this writing there have been over 140 responses on www.bmj.com, and if made into a movie they would be called "The Howling." Many are mere slurs several grades below even sophomoric.

Some demanded the BMJ retract the study because, as one put it, the "tobacco industry will use it." (It didn't). Another made the rather draconian call to ban all use of statistics in science, lest they be put to such wicked purposes as this.

"It is astounding how much of the criticism springs from (personal attacks) rather than from scientific criticism of the study itself," observed one of the few supportive writers. Said another: "As a publisher of the leading Austrian medical online news service, I feel quite embarrassed following the debate on this article. Many postings look more like a witch hunt than a scientific debate."

Sadly, one of the most pathetic responses came from Dr. Michael Thun, vice president for epidemiology and surveillance research at the American Cancer Society. The ACS started the study and formerly collaborated with the authors. Thun claimed that since there was so much exposure to smokers back in the 1950s and 1960s that essentially everybody was a second-hand smoker.

This logic puts the wife of a two-pack-a-day husband in the same category as somebody who once stumbled into a smoky bar. It negates all ETS studies based on spousal exposure including those serving Thun's purposes. But based on the subjects' own recollection decades later in the UCLA study, spousal smoking was indeed a good indicator of their total exposure to second-hand smoke.

One refrain running through the attacks is, "Why take seriously a study that contradicts what everyone already knows?" But "what everyone knows" is wrong. It's the UCLA study that's very much in the majority.

A 1999 Environmental Health Perspectives survey of 17 ETS-heart disease studies found only five that were statistically significantly positive. ("Statistical significance" refers to whether an increased or decreased risk falls outside the bounds of what could be expected by chance.) The lead author? Why, Michael Thun!

Likewise, a 2002 analysis of 48 studies regarding a possible ETS link to lung cancer found 10 that were significantly positive, one that was actually significantly negative, and 37 that like Enstrom and Kabat's were insignificant either way.


This glass of "pure spring" water contains traces of both cyanide and arsenic, but in levels far too low to cause harm.
The reason active tobacco smoking could be such a terrible killer while ETS may cause no deaths lies in the dictum "the dose makes the poison." We are constantly bombarded by carcinogens, but in tiny amounts the body usually easily fends them off.


A New England Journal of Medicine study found that even back in 1975 – when having smoke obnoxiously puffed into your face was ubiquitous in restaurants, cocktail lounges, and transportation lounges – the concentration was equal to merely 0.004 cigarettes an hour. In scientific terminology, that's called a "tiny amount."

Unable to find significant faults in the UCLA study itself, critics repeatedly harped on what Enstrom and Kabat had clearly stated – that some of the funding was from the tobacco industry. As they explained, this became necessary when the University of California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, which was specifically set up to support this type of research, stopped their funding and no other sources were available.

The big bucks go to those who "discover" that ETS causes everything from pimples to piles. Both governmental and private organizations have directed tens of millions of dollars to groups promoting ETS as a killer, perhaps even a greater killer than active smoking! Meanwhile Big Tobacco has essentially extinguished its efforts on ETS, reserving new spending and political capital for other fights.

So give the BMJ and Enstrom and Kabat an "F" for political correctness. But give them an "A" for honesty and courage.

Disclaimer: Neither Michael Fumento nor the Hudson Institute receive money from tobacco interests.

Read Michael Fumento's other work on smoking.

[myownwind]

First hand smoke does kill a lot of folks

This may or may not be true. But I am curious, did you read studies and then examine them, or, did you simply hear this?

I ask because I am curious.

:)

PS-I hate smoking.

Just so we're clear, I was referring to "First" not "Second" hand smoke.
Those "First" studies were pretty much before my time and no I have not read them.
Even with the second hand smoke studies, I've only looked over the abstracts. I'm comfortable with technical writing but I can't handle epidemiological stuff; too much jargon. Still, you might agree that with something like that it's not a matter of simply "hearing it". We take our cues from family members who smoked, wanted to quit but were too addicted and died slowly with lung disease. From simple observations that sucking in a lot of black crap into our throat, lungs and stomach seems like a bad thing--long term.
I'm really not decided about Second Hand Smoke (except I don't want to drive with a smoker).
--

[Brucelee]

Just so we're clear, I was referring to "First" not "Second" hand smoke.
Those "First" studies were pretty much before my time and no I have not read them.
Even with the second hand smoke studies, I've only looked over the abstracts. I'm comfortable with technical writing but I can't handle epidemiological stuff; too much jargon. Still, you might agree that with something like that it's not a matter of simply "hearing it". We take our cues from family members who smoked, wanted to quit but were too addicted and died slowly with lung disease. From simple observations that sucking in a lot of black crap into our throat, lungs and stomach seems like a bad thing--long term.
I'm really not decided about Second Hand Smoke (except I don't want to drive with a smoker).
--


Sorry, I misread this. I don't think there is any credible evidence against direct smoking as a health threat.

My Dad and Mom both died as a result of smoking. My brother. alive but with throat cancer.

You have my vote on this one.
:eek:

[NickCats]

Gotta play devil's advocate here :

http://www.davehitt.com/facts/

Unfortunately, I am a smoker, and I hope to quit this year, but I do not support the smoking bans.

I understand banning smoking in restaurants, but I think it is ridiculous to ban smoking in bars that don’t serve food.

Nick

[Brucelee]

February 29, 2008
We're Getting Colder, Not Warmer
If only global warming were real. Unfortunately temperatures are determined not by Al Gore's ideology, nor by the authoritarian bureauweenies who seek to exploit it, but by the Sun. Like the climate, the Sun's output naturally fluctuates — and it appears to be on the wane:

All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
In stark contrast to warming, cooling really is a problem:

Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans — and most of the crops and animals we depend on — prefer a temperature closer to 70.
Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
A drop in temperatures would have only one benefit: in light of all the hysterical lies we've been told about global warming, at least a few people might learn better than to believe anything they're told by the media, the government, Al Gore or the United Nations.


World temperatures per the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop on the right.
On a tip from mega.

[myownwind]

February 29, 2008
We're Getting Colder, Not Warmer
...
All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.


World temperatures per the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop on the right.
On a tip from mega.

Actually, the above organizations say nothing of the sort ( at least not anywhere I could find ). Those folks do talk a lot about how much warmer it's getting though.
Here's the latest:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/models/modeldata.html
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080116/

[Brucelee]

GLOBAL WARMING? IT’S THE COLDEST WINTER IN DECADES



ICE-AGE: Frost coated much of Britain yesterday

Monday February 18,2008
By Tony Bonnici Have your say(46)
NEW evidence has cast doubt on claims that the world’s ice-caps are melting, it emerged last night.

Satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature.

It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming.

But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back.

Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October, are almost back to their original levels.

Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year.

The data flies in the face of many current thinkers and will be seized on by climate change sceptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.

A photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg has become one of the most enduring images in the campaign against climate change.

It was used by former US Vice President Al Gore during his Inconvenient Truth lectures about mankind’s impact on the world. But scientists say the northern hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades.

They add that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966.

The one exception is Western Europe, which has – until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10C in some places – been basking in unseasonably warm weather. The UK has reported one of its warmest winters on record.



SEARCH NEWS / SHOWBIZ for:

However, vast swathes of the world have suffered chaos because of some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades.

Central and southern China, the USA and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms.

Even the Middle East saw snow, with Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman and northern Saudi Arabia reporting the heaviest falls in years and below-zero temperatures. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan snow and freezing weather killed 120 people.

In Britain the barmy February weather came to an abrupt halt at the weekend as temperatures plunged to -10C in central England.

Experts believe that this month could end up as one of the coldest Februaries in Britain in the past 10 years.

The freezing night-time conditions look set to stay around -8C until at least the middle of the week.

A Met Office spokesman explained: “There has been little or no cloud cover across England and Wales. So there is a capacity for a fair bit of heat to be able to escape at night.

“It has been warmer in Scotland but that’s because it has been cloudy there.

“Until the weekend the temperatures were in the 14s and 15s, and we will see a return to that later this week, though it will look grey and overcast when the clouds return.”

But he added that there was little chance of snow. He said: “When the rain comes it will get warmer.”

[myownwind]

Wow; from 'The London Daily Express'...
....that's some serious "science news" there.

http://www.express.co.uk/ourpaper/view/2008-03-01

:confused:

Cheers.

[Brucelee]

Wow; from 'The London Daily Express'...
....that's some serious "science news" there.

http://www.express.co.uk/ourpaper/view/2008-03-01

:confused:

Cheers.


Again, this is a traditional tactic of the alarmist. The paper is simply reporting what was released from the agency. Wonder why you didn't see it on CNN?

Would CNN be credible for you? If so, why?

[Brucelee]

Recent cold snap helping Arctic sea ice, scientists find
Last Updated: Friday, February 15, 2008 | 10:17 AM ET
CBC News
There's an upside to the extreme cold temperatures northern Canadians have endured in the last few weeks: scientists say it's been helping winter sea ice grow across the Arctic, where the ice shrank to record-low levels last year.

Temperatures have stayed well in the -30s C and -40s C range since late January throughout the North, with the mercury dipping past -50 C in some areas.

Satellite images are showing that the cold spell is helping the sea ice expand in coverage by about 2 million square kilometres, compared to the average winter coverage in the previous three years.

"It's nice to know that the ice is recovering," Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, told CBC News on Thursday.

"That means that maybe the perennial ice would not go down as low as last year."

Canadian scientists are also noticing growing ice coverage in most areas of the Arctic, including the southern Davis Strait and the Beaufort Sea.

Continue Article

"Clearly, we're seeing the ice coverage rebound back to more near normal coverage for this time of year," said Gilles Langis, a senior ice forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa.

Winter sea ice could keep expanding
The cold is also making the ice thicker in some areas, compared to recorded thicknesses last year, Lagnis added.

"The ice is about 10 to 20 centimetres thicker than last year, so that's a significant increase," he said.

If temperatures remain cold this winter, Langis said winter sea ice coverage will continue to expand.

But he added that it's too soon to say what impact this winter will have on the Arctic summer sea ice, which reached its lowest coverage ever recorded in the summer of 2007.

That was because the thick multi-year ice pack that survives a summer melt has been decreasing in recent years, as well as moving further south. Langis said the ice pack is currently located about 130 kilometres from the Mackenzie Delta, about half the distance from where it was last year.

The polar regions are a concern to climate specialists studying global warming, since those regions are expected to feel the impact of climate change sooner and to a greater extent than other areas.

Sea ice in the Arctic helps keep those regions cool by reflecting sunlight that might otherwise be absorbed by darker ocean or land surfaces

[Brucelee]

Of course, the guy is only a Solar physicist, what does he know?


Thursday, 16 November, 2000, 17:43 GMT
Viewpoint: The Sun and climate change


Satellites now monitor solar activity constantly

By Dr Paal Brekke from the European Space Agency


Natural processes involving changes in the Sun could have at least as powerful an effect on global temperature as increased emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Climate scientists have already looked at changes related to Sun spot activity - a cycle of approximately 11 years - and long-term changes in the Sun's brightness, which has a cycle that lasts for centuries.

They have discounted the effect of both on the temperature increase over the last century because they either happen over too short a timescale, or they are too weak.

But so far they have omitted to take two other factors into account:

Changes in the amount of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun affect the ozone layer. This is a very important part of the atmosphere where lots of chemical reactions take place that govern the way the rest of the atmosphere works;
The Sun's magnetic field and solar wind - mainly in the form of electrons and protons coming out of the Sun - protects the entire Solar System by acting as a sort of shield from cosmic rays (very energetic particles and radiation from outer space).
This shield does not stop all the cosmic rays from getting though, and its effectiveness varies with the long-term changes in the activity of the Sun, which can rise and fall on a timescale of centuries.
Cloud cover

One of the effects that cosmic rays have is to influence how cloudy the Earth is.


So if the Sun undergoes long-term changes in activity - which it does - the amount of cosmic rays reaching the Earth will also vary over the same timescale, and so will the planet's overall cloudiness.

The amount of cloud affects the amount of radiation from the Sun reaching the planet surface, which in turn affects the global temperature.

Data collected from satellites show that the amount of low clouds over the Earth closely follows the amount of cosmic rays reaching the Earth.

The resulting warming due to this effect over the last century could be comparable to the amount of warming people think has been due to the greenhouse effect.

Add to that the other effects due to the Sun, and greenhouse gases become less than 50% responsible for rising global temperatures.

Little effect

The other side of this coin is that reducing greenhouse emissions will have much less effect in halting rising temperatures than some people think, and it might have hardly any effect at all.


Our continued use of fossil fuels could make little difference to the climate

The energy emitted from the Sun drives the climate system, and natural changes in its behaviour can have a far greater effect than human behaviour.

Thus, some people may ask: "So why bother worrying about greenhouse gases, and adding billions to the costs of industry to force them to cut emissions, when it could well be a pointless exercise?"

If the Sun is indeed the main contributor to the recent climate change, the money may be better spent providing clean air in big cities and clean drinking water to the Third World.

The author is a solar physicist serving as the European Space Agency's deputy project scientist for the Esa-Nasa Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (Soho)

[Brucelee]

As arctic ice melts, South Pole ice grows

By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the January 10, 2008 edition

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Gee, the South Pole ice is getting thicker, the Northern Artic ice is back to normal.

What is an alamist to do?


Reporter Peter N. Spotts discusses how scientists often appreciate the beauty of their subject matter.For decades, the vast expanse of sea ice that surrounds Antarctica each winter, and all but vanishes each austral summer, has languished as the Rodney Dangerfield of Earth's cryosphere.

Antarctic sea ice has gotten little respect, especially compared with its top-of-the-world cousin, or with the enormous ice sheets on Greenland and the Antarctic continent. The sea ice is hard to reach. It has little direct effect on people. And the Southern Ocean was not a cold-war playground for US and Soviet submarines, which amassed a wealth of information on changes in Arctic sea ice before the era of long-term satellite observations.

But as a research target, southern sea ice's stock appears to be rising.

Over the past 20 years, southern sea ice has expanded, in contrast to the Arctic's decline, and researchers want to understand why. Many climate-model experiments show the Arctic responding more rapidly than Antarctica as global warming kicks in. But after looking at the latest projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change