Monday, March 31, 2008

A New Book On The Myth of Man-Caused Global Warming And How It Came To Be......

Here is an important new book, worth reading and incorporating into our growing body of knowledge about the myth of man-caused global warming and how it has come to be.
Peter


Thursday, March 27, 2008
Must-Read Global-Warming Book [Sterling Burnett]
About a year ago, Canadian environmentalist and journalist Lawrence Solomon began a series of articles in the National Post examining the credentials of and arguments made by scientists and economists labeled “deniers” by various environmentalists, a number of mainstream environmental reporters, and some politicians. Solomon, true to the finest tenets of his profession, sought the truth concerning whether there was in fact a consensus on the headline-grabbing issue of global warming, or whether in fact any “real” scientists actually dissented from the Al Gore/UN line that global warming is happening, is largely caused by humans, and threatens all manner of catastrophies.As many people — policy wonks and fellow travelers — on this blog are well aware, dissenting scientists are not in fact rare: There are serious scholars whose views should, but too often do not, inform the debate.

Solomon’s columns were important because they brought this message to a wider audience. As Solomon’s knowledge grew, he found that the genre limits of newspaper writing precluded an adequately in-depth exploration of these skeptical scientists’ important observations. Accordingly, selecting some of the scientists discussed in his columns, Solomon has written a book: The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**and those who are too fearful to do so.

As a jacket blurb puts it, “What he found shocked him. Solomon discovered that on every “headline” global warming issue, not only were there serious scientists who dissented, consistently the dissenters were by far the more accomplished and eminent scientists.”

This book does not attempt to settle the science, or show that humans are or are not responsible for the present warming trend, or settle what we can expect the future harms/benefits of continued warming (or cooling) might be. Rather, the genius of the book is that it shows in a manner accessible to a lay audience that uncertainties concerning each important facet of the “consensus” view on warming abound, and that the dissenting views are at least as plausible (and often more compelling) than the IPCC/Gore camps.

The Deniers, examines what should be the active debates concerning the plausibility of the argument that human CO2 emissions (or CO2 per se) is a driver for climate change, what role the sun may play in warming, what role the present warming trend (and human activities) play in hurricane and tropical/parasitic disease patterns, and the reliability of the climate models, among other issues. In addition, Solomon notes the harsh treatment that many scientists have endured simply because they followed the scientific method, the evidence from their research, and their own consciences, all of which led them to the conclusion that this or that facet of the global-warming consensus view was woefully incomplete or flat-out wrong. This treatment has had the effect intended by global warming scaremongers — to shut down promising areas of research and to silence credible critics.

As I put it in an earlier column:
The term skeptic has historically been a badge of honor proudly worn by scientists as indicating their commitment to the idea that in the pursuit of truth, nothing is beyond question, every bit of knowledge is open to improvement and/or refutation as new evidence or better theories emerge.

However, in the topsy-turvy field of climate science, “skeptic” is a term of opprobrium and to be labeled a skeptic is to be dismissed as a hack. Being a skeptic concerning global warming today is akin to being a heretic in the Middle Ages — you may not be literally burned at the stake, but your reputation will be put to flames.In response, many scientists whose research calls into question one or more of the fundamental tenets of global warming orthodoxy, have learned to couch their conclusions carefully.

They argue, for instance, that while their research does not match up with this or that point in global warming theory, or would seem to undermine this or that conclusion, they are not denying that humans are causing global warming and they cannot account for the discrepancy between their work and the theory’s predictions. These scientists have learned the hard lesson that when reality and the theory conflict, for professional reasons, they’d better cling to the theory: shades of Galileo recanting his theory that the earth revolves around the sun under pressure from the Inquisition.

Though there are many good books on global warming, The Deniers is among the most effective in showing how science is being fundamentally undermined in the current politicized atmosphere of climate research. In addition, like no other book or paper I know, it provides a concise but thorough overview of the myriad weaknesses of the consensus view, the quality and substance of the criticisms of that view, and the stellar qualifications of those scientists labeled derisively as “deniers.”

This book should be read by anyone who seriously wants to understand where and why substantive debate remains concerning climate change and why there is so much vitriol surrounding what until recently was a relatively quiet, unheralded, or unnoticed (except by its practitioners) field of science. If a person could read only one book this year on climate change, this is the one I’d pick.

CO2 Acquittal.....Innocent Of Accusations Of Being The Cause Of Global Warming

I think this is worth reading and studying......go to the source to read Dr. Glassman's complete article.
Peter


CO2 ACQUITTAL
source
Rocket Scientist’s Journal
… UNDER CONSTRUCTION …

THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD
ABSTRACT
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well‑known but under‑appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2‑rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere.
Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation. Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase. If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere.

I. INTRODUCTION
Carbon dioxide, a benign gas, is now the hyper–volatile fuel of public policy, media hype, and world politics. Climatologists, undeterred by their inability to predict even the dominant features of the earth’s climate record – the ice ages and the glacial periods – have nonetheless scored a political coup by cobbling together three selected bits of science into a cataclysmic prediction: man is on the verge of destroying life on the planet.
The three cobblestones are (1) a smattering of greenhouse gas physics, (2) half a million years worth of data from Vostok ice cores and (3) half a century of data from Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 monitoring. Presented here are new results from analysis of the second, the Vostok data, reductions which have a profound effect on the other two legs of the global warming stool, on the role of carbon dioxide, and ultimately on public policy.
CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION
II. VOSTOK DATA
A. CLIMATOLOGISTS’ VIEW OF VOSTOK DATA
B. VOSTOK REMAPPED
III. MODELING VOSTOK CO2 CONCENTRATION
A. CLIMATOLOGISTS CAN’T ACCOUNT FOR ATMOSPHERIC CO2
B. SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATION: SOLUBILITY PHYSICS APPEARS TO ACCOUNT FOR ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION
C. FITTING SOLUBILITY PHYSICS TO VOSTOK MEASUREMENTS
D. THE OTHER STRAIGHT LINE FIT AND CORRELATION
E. MEASURING AND MODELING THE LAG IN THE CO2 DATA
F. LAG-COMPENSATED CO2 RECORD
G. FINDING THE OPERATING POINT FOR THE VOSTOK CO2 RECORD ON THE SOLUBILITY CURVE
H. THE CO2 CONCENTRATION IN THE VOSTOK ICE CORE DATA IS IMPRINTED BY THE PHYSICS OF THE SOLUBILITY OF CO2 IN WATER
I. ERROR ANALYSIS SHOWS THE PHYSICS OF CO2 SOLUBILITY IN WATER REPRESENTS VOSTOK DATA BETTER THAN ANY POLYNOMIAL
IV. CONCLUSIONS
A. A NEW MODEL FOR ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE
B. CARBON DIOXIDE SHOULD NO LONGER DRIVE PUBLIC POLICY
C. GREENHOUSE CATASTROPHE MODELS (GCMs)
D. WHAT CLIMATOLOGISTS NEED TO DO
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dr. Glassman has a BS, MS, and PhD from the UCLA Engineering Department of Systems Science, specializing in electronics, applied mathematics, applied physics, communication and information theory. For more than half of three decades at Hughes Aircraft Company he was Division Chief Scientist for Missile Development and Microelectronics Systems Divisions, responsible for engineering, product line planning, and IR&D. Since retiring from Hughes, he has consulted in various high tech fields, including expert witness on communication satellite anomalies for the defense in Astrium v. TRW, et al, and CDMA instructor at Qualcomm. Lecturer, Math and Science Institutes, UCI. Member, Science Education Advisory Board. Author of Evolution in Science, Hollowbrook, New Hampshire, 1992, ISDN 0-89341-707-6. He is an expert modeler of diverse physical phenomena, including microwave and millimeter wave propagation in the atmosphere and in solids, ballistic reentry trajectories, missile guidance, solar radiation, thermal energy in avionics and in microcircuit devices, infrared communication, analog and digital signals, large scale fire control systems, diffusion, and electroencephalography. Inventor of a radar on-target detection device, and a stereo digital signal processor. Published A Generalization of the Fast Fourier Transform, IEEE Transactions on Computers, 1972. Previously taught detection and estimation theory, probability theory, digital signal processing.
© 2006 JAGlassman. All rights reserved.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Study Shows The More People Know About Science The Less Concerned They Are About Global Warming

I think these scientists are misinterpreting the meaning of their data. People who are "informed" about global warming are not "apathetic", they just do not believe the fear and hysteria being promoted by the true believers of man-caused global warming.

I also think this is why people like Al Gore continually say "the debate is over", and there is a scientific "consensus" that man is causing global warming, when they know full well there is not. They know an educated public will not believe the hype and alarmism, so they want to stifle debate, and hide the truth. That is why they also avoid open and honest debate. They are not interested in science and finding the truth, or even protecting the environment. The environmental industry is into power and control, pure and simple.
Peter

source:

Increased Knowledge About Global Warming Leads To Apathy, Study Shows
ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2008) — The more you know the less you care -- at least that seems to be the case with global warming. A telephone survey of 1,093 Americans by two Texas A&M University political scientists and a former colleague indicates that trend, as explained in their recent article in the peer-reviewed journal Risk Analysis.
"More informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming," states the article, titled "Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the USA."

The study showed high levels of confidence in scientists among Americans led to a decreased sense of responsibility for global warming.
The diminished concern and sense of responsibility flies in the face of awareness campaigns about climate change, such as in the movies An Inconvenient Truth and Ice Age: The Meltdown and in the mainstream media's escalating emphasis on the trend.

The research was conducted by Paul M. Kellstedt, a political science associate professor at Texas A&M; Arnold Vedlitz, Bob Bullock Chair in Government and Public Policy at Texas A&M's George Bush School of Government and Public Service; and Sammy Zahran, formerly of Texas A&M and now an assistant professor of sociology at Colorado State University.

Kellstedt says the findings were a bit unexpected. The focus of the study, he says, was not to measure how informed or how uninformed Americans are about global warming, but to understand why some individuals who are more or less informed about it showed more or less concern.

"In that sense, we didn't really have expectations about how aware or unaware people were of global warming," he says.
But, he adds, "The findings that the more informed respondents were less concerned about global warming, and that they felt less personally responsible for it, did surprise us. We expected just the opposite.

"The findings, while rather modest in magnitude -- there are other variables we measured which had much larger effects on concern for global warming -- were statistically quite robust, which is to say that they continued to appear regardless of how we modeled the data."
Measuring knowledge about global warming is a tricky business, Kellstedt adds.

"That's true of many other things we would like to measure in surveys, of course, especially things that might embarrass people (like ignorance) or that they might feel social pressure to avoid revealing (like prejudice)," he says.
"There are no industry standards, so to speak, for measuring knowledge about global warming. We opted for this straightforward measure and realize that other measures might produce different results."

Now, for better or worse, scientists have to deal with the public's abundant confidence in them. "But it cannot be comforting to the researchers in the scientific community that the more trust people have in them as scientists, the less concerned they are about their findings," the researchers conclude in their study.
Adapted from materials provided by Texas A&M University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Polar Bears And Skullduggery By Environmentalists

Here is a prime example of how the (American )environmental industry plays insidious games with the laws in order to achieve their goals. It seems their primary objective it to control, tax, or destroy American industry. Please read the following article about the effort to have polar bears declared an "endangered species".

At first glance, one would think the goal is to preserve and protect polar bears. Why would anyone oppose that? They're cute and cuddly, when cubs anyway, and they don't harm anyone. So what is the big deal? Well the issue is far more complex. The following article is written by a law professor, intimately familiar with the endangered species act.

If polar bears are declared "endangered" (which most agree they are not), this will open the door to innumerable lawsuits affecting almost every industry or activity that produces carbon dioxide, which "everyone" agrees causes global warming, which melts sea ice, which endangers polar bears habitat. Therefore, all activity producing carbon dioxide must, by the endangered species law, be curtailed. Hopefully, those making these decisions will see what is really going on with the movement to have polar bears declared "endangered". I hope this also wakes people up to the games the environmental industry plays.
Peter

Polar bears...."Aw....we're not really endangered, are we?"


source:

PBIP: The Approach and Outbreak of Polar Bear-Induced Paralysis
By Hugh Hewitt
Thursday, March 27, 2008
In January of 2007, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service published a proposed rule in the Federal Register intending to notify the public and seek their comments on the idea of adding the polar bear to the list of threatened and endangered species.

A raft of comments came in, and the government's biologists went off to consider them.
The Service returned to the Federal Register a second time, in October of 2007, and requested more comments. The window closed again.
More than 670,000 comments have been received urging that the polar bear be listed as a "threatened species."

Ask yourself why there was such an outpouring of comments for such an obscure issue.
A variety of environmental groups orchestrated the tsunami of testimonials to the desperate condition of the polar bear because they understand—as much of the public and Congress does not—that a listing of the polar bear will have vast implications, and may in fact be a backdoor to implementation of the Kyoto protocol.

By way of background, I have practiced natural resources law since I left the Reagan Administration in early 1989. Wetlands, jurisdictional waters, and endangered species are my areas of expertise, and if you ever need a lesson on the Stephens' kangaroo rat, the Delhi sands flower-loving fly, the California gnat catcher, the Desert tortoise or any of a couple dozen other plants and animals throughout the west that are protected under the federal or state Endangered Species Act, drop me an e-mail.

All of those species and many more have fairly predictable aftermaths of their listing --a period of great confusion about where they live and breed, what can and cannot be done near them, and lots of meetings and negotiations with federal officials over habitat conservation plans, Section 7 consultations etc. There are lots of landowners and businesses that lose a lot because of this law, but in the past, the impact zone of a listing was at least limited to the area in which the listed species lived.

That won't be the case with any listing of the polar bear, which is why it is the focus of so much zeal among the groups. The reach of the listing wil be immense because of the rationale offered for its protection.

The proposed listing states that the polar bear may be threatened because it is losing the ice it needs to live on due to climate change. If the government agrees with the models that project a dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice over the next few decades, and further agrees that this loss would imperil the polar bear's survivability, the bear gets listed.

Once listed, the Federal Endangered Species Act is very clear: Any federal action that might impact the polar bear must be reviewed by the U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service under Section 7 of the Act.

What sort of federal actions? The most obvious would be any activity on or near Arctic ice, but that's not the gold ring the environmentalists are reaching for.
They will argue that every federal permit that allows directly or indirectly for increased emissions of hydrocarbons is a federal act that might impact the polar bear --every port expansion, every refinery opening or repair, every Army Corps of Engineers permit that allows for more homes or office buildings to rise.

Don't believe me. Believe the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the suit filed to force the listing. From the Center's website:
“Protection under the Endangered Species Act will provide concrete help to polar bears and could revolutionize American climate policy. Since U.S. resistance to curbing greenhouse gases has allowed other countries to shirk their responsibilities as well, major changes in American policy are likely to have a powerful domino effect, catalyzing change in climate policy worldwide. The polar bear’s protected status will require a new level of environmental review before oil and gas development continue in polar bear habitat in the American Arctic. Even more critically, because it is illegal to harm threatened species or jeopardize their survival, the polar bear listing could mean that all U.S. industries emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases — and requiring a federal permit to do so — will come under the purview of the Endangered Species Act. From polluting power plants in the Midwest to auto manufacturers, a vast array of industries may have to clean up their acts to give the polar bear a chance to survive.”

They will do more than argue that a listing has these impacts. Once listed, the polar bear will launch a thousand law suits as the groups search for judges and opportunities to assert that hydrocarbon emission reduction must be apart of every federal permit and that those reductions must be negotiated by and approved by the already understaffed and overwhelmed U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The advocates of the listing know the stakes, which is why they have filed suit in federal district court in the Northern District of California to force a decision. That's why California Senator Barbara Boxer is demanding that the Secretary of the Interior act.
What is amazing is that industry seems almost wholly unaware of this debate. I e-mailed a senior vice president of a major coal company asking what he thought about the controversy, and he sent me back a polite, straightforward reply that he didn't think it would affect his industry much.

The groups have achieved strategic surprise.
If the industries wake up any time soon, they will have to move to intervene in the lawsuit filed to require the listing decision be made, and to demand a reopening of the record in order to make sure that this year's temperature and ice data are included, and that the models relied on to predict ice loss through mid-century be examined against this year's data. They will also have to begin to mount the obvious due process challenges to a scheme to radically extend the reach of a 1973 law that was never intended to work this way but which has grown steadily via a series of aggressive judicial interpretations. There are other Constitutional and Administrative Procedures Act challenges as well, which should be lodged in the District of Columbia Circuit, not in the Ninth Circuit.

And Secretary Kempthorne should resist the pressure from the left to rush to a listing decision. Too few people knew this has happened, and too much is at stake on a too little-reviewed or understood set of facts.

"As a result of [global] warming, Arctic sea ice is melting very rapidly," plaintiffs argue in their suit. They continue:
"In 2007 the Arctic sea ice hit a new record minimum, fully one million square miles below the average minimum sea ice extent between 1979-2000. There was less ice in the Arctic in September, 2007 than more than half of the world's leading climate models project for 2050. Some scientists now say summer ice could disappear entirely as early as 2012.
Polar bears cannot survive the loss of their sea-habitat."

Plaintiffs are making arguments about the approach of catastrophe and the Court does not have before it any challenge either to the assertions about the models or the appropriateness of using the ESA to impose Kyoto on an unpersuaded country.

Hugh Hewitt is a law professor, broadcast journalist, and author of several books including A Mormon in the White House?: 110 Things Every American Should Know about Mitt Romney.
Be the first to read Hugh Hewitt's column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com delivered each morning to your inbox. Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

More Really Inconvenient Truths About The Myths Involved In Global Warming

The most popularly held ideas used to perpetuate the myth of man-caused global warming, are totally bogus, as explained in the following article. It seems these truths can not be repeated enough. The truth-deniers and alarmists in the environmental industry are deeply entrenched.
Peter


(source)

For Al Gore, the Truth Really Is Inconvenient
Tom Harris takes apart Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" in an article in Canada's National Post.It begins:
Albert Einstein once said, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."While the gods must consider An Inconvenient Truth the ultimate comedy, real climate scientists are crying over Al Gore's new film. This is not just because the ex-vice-president commits numerous basic science mistakes. They are also concerned that many in the media and public will fail to realize that this film amounts to little more than science fiction.

Gore's credibility is damaged early in the film when he tells the audience that, by simply looking at Antarctic ice cores with the naked eye, one can see when the American Clean Air Act was passed. Dr. Ian Clark, professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa (U of O) responds, "This is pure fantasy unless the reporter is able to detect parts per billion changes to chemicals in ice." Air over the United States doesn't even circulate to the Antarctic before mixing with most of the northern, then the southern, hemisphere air, and this process takes decades. Clark explains that even far more significant events, such as the settling of dust arising from the scouring of continental shelves at the end of ice ages, are undetectable in ice cores by an untrained eye...

I especially appreciated the quotation section. A sample:
"I can assure Mr. Gore that no one from the South Pacific islands has fled to New Zealand because of rising seas. In fact, if Gore consults the data, he will see it shows sea level falling in some parts of the Pacific." -- Dr. Chris de Freitas, climate scientist, associate professor, University of Auckland, N.Z.

"We find no alarming sea level rise going on, in the Maldives, Tovalu, Venice, the Persian Gulf and even satellite altimetry, if applied properly." -- Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, emeritus professor of paleogeophysics and geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden.

"Gore is completely wrong here -- malaria has been documented at an altitude of 2,500 metres -- Nairobi and Harare are at altitudes of about 1,500 metres. The new altitudes of malaria are lower than those recorded 100 years ago. None of the "30 so-called new diseases" Gore references are attributable to global warming, none." -- Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, unit of insects and infectious diseases, Paris, comments on Gore's belief that Nairobi and Harare were founded just above the mosquito line to avoid malaria and how the mosquitoes are now moving to higher altitudes.

"Our information is that seven of 13 populations of polar bears in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (more than half the world's estimated total) are either stable or increasing..... Of the three that appear to be declining, only one has been shown to be affected by climate change. No one can say with certainty that climate change has not affected these other populations, but it is also true that we have no information to suggest that it has." -- Dr. Mitchell Taylor, manager, wildlife research section, Department of Environment, Igloolik, Nunavut.

"The oceans are now heading into one of their periodic phases of cooling.... Modest changes in temperature are not about to wipe them [coral] out. Neither will increased carbon dioxide, which is a fundamental chemical building block that allows coral reefs to exist at all." -- Dr. Gary D. Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, Calif.

"Both the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps are thickening. The temperature at the South Pole has declined by more than one degree C since 1950. And the area of sea ice around the continent has increased over the last 20 years." -- Dr. R.M. Carter, professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.

Go here to read additional quotations and the entire article

Monday, March 17, 2008

No Consensus About Causes of Global Warming

The results of this study are vastly different from those who continually say there is a "consensus" about the causes of global warming. We're being deceived. The question is why?
Peter

Causes of Climate Change Varied: Canadian Poll Show No Consensus
By Gordon Jaremko, edmontonjournal.com
Only about one in three Alberta earth scientists and engineers believe the culprit behind climate change has been identified, a new poll reported today. The expert jury is divided, with 26 per cent attributing global warming to human activity like burning fossil fuels and 27 per cent blaming other causes such as volcanoes, sunspots, earth crust movements and natural evolution of the planet. A 99-per-cent majority believes the climate is changing. But 45 per cent blame both human and natural influences, and 68 per cent disagree with the popular statement that “the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled.”

The divisions showed up in a canvass of more than 51,000 specialists licensed to practice the highly educated occupations by the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta. “We’re not surprised at all,” APEGGA executive director Neil Windsor said today. “There is no clear consensus of scientists that we know of.”
The only agreement among professionals is “we should do everything we can” to understand climate, adapt structures such as buildings and bridges to change and reduce human contributions to harmful trends, Windsor said. The survey received 1,077 replies or a sample rated as an accurate portrait of the occupational groups’ views to within three percentage points 19 times out of 20, APEGGA reported. Alberta Environment helped design the poll and will give the results to the provincial government, association spokesman Philip Mulder said. APEGGA is planning an “environmental summit” with other concerned agencies on Alberta climate change causes, effects and adaptations.
-->

Friday, March 14, 2008

Mid-East Pictures

Wonderful children
Friendly people

Precious water


Hard living

A hard life



A tractor, irrigation, water?


Ah...the good life


Water is a precious commodity



Plenty of employment (child labor)


Plenty of inexpensive housing


Non-polluting transportation



Beautiful retirement homes


Active nightlife and bar scene


A bit of a drought


Convenient transportation


Public assistance for the homeless


Great food and comradeship


Children appreciative of fresh food.....


Cooperative cooks....


fresh baked bread

Carbon Dioxide "Forcing" Is False Assumption......CO2 Not Causing Climate Change

Since the role of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is central to the entire debate about the myth of man-caused global warming, we should look into this in the utmost detail. Here is what some scientific experts have to say on the subject.
Peter


CARBON DIOXIDE "FORCING" NOT REAL!
The Man-Made Global Warming Crisis CANCELLED!
By John Coleman (jcoleman@kusi.com)
There is no Global Warming taking place at this time. The solar warming of the last few decades has ended and now the Earth is cooling. But the Global Warming doomsayers continue to grab headlines with their International Meetings, Nobel Peace Prize and predictions of disastrous consequences from "CO2forcing."

It all started with this:
The late Dr. Charles David Keeling, when a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was the first to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on a continuous basis. From ice core data it was determined that before the industrial era atmospheric CO2 concentration was between 275 and 280 parts per million (ppm). Carbon dioxide has risen continuously since then, and the average value when Dr. Keeling started his measurements in 1958 was near 315 ppm. By the year 2000 it has risen to about 367 ppmv (that is 367 molecules of CO2 for every one million molecules in the air). Though much of this increase may simply be carbon dioxide degassing from warming oceans (much as you find with your cola as it warms), it is likely that some of this increase is a direct consequence of the use of fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. These fuels virtually powered the industrial revolution and are still the backbone of our modern civilization, providing the power to generate the electricity to cool our homes and offices, provide lights, television, radio and computers, power our cars and provide the heat to keep us from freezing in the winter. While scientists and engineers work to perfect the next generation of power sources, we still absolutely depend on fossil fuel to power our daily lives.

The Global Warming doomsayers say this increase in the CO2 in our atmosphere is producing a
greenhouse effect that will result in runaway Global Warming, melting ice caps and glaciers, flooding the shorelines, destroying our crops and making our planet unlivable. They want us to give up on our modern standard living before new power sources can successfully replace fossil fuels to avoid Armageddon.

Page 19
When other scientists question how only 38 molecules of CO2 out of every 100,000 molecules of
atmosphere can lead to such immediate, irreversible, disastrous consequences, they answer its because of "CO2 forcing". It is exactly that, "CO2 forcing", that these scientists have put into their climate models in the computers to produce the dire results. I have read a dozen complicated research papers on "CO2 forcing". They attempt to explain how the CO2 causes a chain of interactions with the primary greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, water vapor,
to more than double the greenhouse effect that occurs naturally. Without this multiplier, CO2 has no major impact on climate. Despite their efforts, their conclusions are less than convincing.
And, now experts have come forward to totally dismiss "CO2 forcing".

At the United Nations Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change (UN IPCC) Conference in Bali in mid December, Lord Christopher Monckton, an international business consultant specializing in the investigation of scientific frauds, a former adviser to UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher and presenter of the 90-minute climate movie Apocalypse? NO, had a blunt message for conference participants. "Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants. "The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC" Monckton added.

Page 20
At that conference Australian scientist Dr. David Evans is making scientific presentations to delegates and journalists revealing the latest peer-reviewed studies that refute the UN's climate claims. Evans, a mathematician who did carbon accounting for the Australian government, recently converted to a skeptical scientist about man-made global warming after reviewing the new scientific studies. "We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don't cause global warming. We have the proof the IPCC models are wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years," Evans said "Carbon Emissions Don't Cause Global Warming."

UN IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports since its inception going back to 1990, had a clear message to UN participants. "There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any effect whatsoever on the climate," Gray, who
Page 21
shares in the Nobel Prize awarded to the UN IPCC, explained. "All the science of the IPCC is unsound. I have come to this conclusion after a very long time. If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails,"
And climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia reported that they have concluded a study that shows that observed patterns of temperature changes over the last thirty years are not in accord with what the greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors. The say that climate change is natural and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2.

Their results are in total conflict with the conclusions of the UN IPCC, however, they are supported by the results of the US-sponsored Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).
This report is the work of Professor David H. Douglass (University of Rochester), Professor John R. Christy (University of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and S. Fred Singer (University of Virginia).

The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused). Lead author David Douglass said: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”

Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric
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trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”

Co-author S. Fred Singer said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling. They are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth’s atmosphere. In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface and thus the climate.” Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and
pointless. – but very costly.


Here is a link to this excellent paper:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf
/span>
Now that we have seen proof that the infamous hockey stick chart was dead wrong, the warming trend of the 90's has faded into a cooling trend, we know that CO2 forcing is a non-starter and the Arctic ice cap has returned to normal there is no evidence, no scientific case, no grounds for the continuing hype and frenzy in the media about Global Warming. In 20 years, or sooner, there will be lots of red faces and a chorus of "I told you
so"
Much of my supporting research information can be obtained via: http://www.ICECAP.us

Sue Al Gore and Global Warming Fearmongers For Fraud

This is the best idea I've heard for a long time, from John Coleman, meteorologist and founder of The Weather Channel. Search for more comments from Mr. Coleman here.
Peter

Weather Channel Founder: Sue Al Gore for Fraud
Friday , March 14, 2008
The founder of the Weather Channel wants to sue Al Gore for fraud, hoping a legal debate will settle the global-warming debate once and for all.
John Coleman, who founded the cable network in 1982, suggests suing for fraud proponents of global warming, including Al Gore, and companies that sell carbon credits.
"Is he committing financial fraud? That is the question," Coleman said.

"Since we can't get a debate, I thought perhaps if we had a legal challenge and went into a court of law, where it was our scientists and their scientists, and all the legal proceedings with the discovery and all their documents from both sides and scientific testimony from both sides, we could finally get a good solid debate on the issue," Coleman said. "I'm confident that the advocates of 'no significant effect from carbon dioxide' would win the case."
• Click here to watch video of Coleman on "Fox and Friends."

Coleman says his side of the global-warming debate is being buried in mainstream media circles.
"As you look at the atmosphere over the last 25 years, there's been perhaps a degree of warming, perhaps probably a whole lot less than that, and the last year has been so cold that that's been erased," he said.

"I think if we continue the cooling trend a couple of more years, the general public will at last begin to realize that they've been scammed on this global-warming thing."
• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.

Coleman spoke to FOXNews.com after his appearance last week at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York, where he called global warming a scam and lambasted the cable network he helped create.
"You want to tune to the Weather Channel and have them tell you how to live your life?" Coleman said. "Come on."

He laments the network's decision to focus on traffic and lifestyle reports over the weather.
"It's very clear that they don't realize that weather is the most significant impact in every human being's daily life, and good, solid, up-to-the-minute weather information and meaningful forecasts presented in such a way that people find them understandable and enjoyable can have a significant impact," he said.

"The more you cloud that up with other baloney, the weaker the product," he said.
Coleman has long been a skeptic of global warming, and carbon dioxide is the linchpin to his argument.
"Does carbon dioxide cause a warming of the atmosphere? The proponents of global warming pin their whole piece on that," he said.
The compound carbon dioxide makes up only 38 out of every 100,000 particles in the atmosphere, he said.
"That's about twice as what there were in the atmosphere in the time we started burning fossil fuels, so it's gone up, but it's still a tiny compound," Coleman said. "So how can that tiny trace compound have such a significant effect on temperature?
"My position is it can't," he continued. "It doesn't, and the whole case for global warming is based on a fallacy."
• Click here for John Coleman's briefs on global warming.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Cats In Training....Feline Freedom Fighters



Training cats to become global warming skeptics is hard work.......call them feline freedom fighters......






I work these cats hard.....and they need their rest.......



I call this guy "Leo".....he has great potential.........







My new girl under the watchful eye of Commando Kat....









Old News: Al Gore Is Wrong, There Is No "Consensus"

Dr. William Gray is a respected, renowned hurricane forecaster and college professor. His opinion about the cause of global warming, or climate change, computer models, water vapor and the leading proponent of the myth of man-caused global warming is well-worth considering. Search this blog and you'll find other statements by Dr. Gray. At the very least, this shows there is no "consensus" on global warming......and the "debate" is certainly not over.
Peter

Famed Hurricane Forecaster William Gray Predicts Global Cooling in 10 Years
Expert states ocean cycles will have a more profound effect on climate than CO2; criticizes James Hansen's climate models.

By Jeff Poor Business & Media Institute 3/4/2008 11:47:32 AM
It turns out Al Gore was wrong. The scientists aren’t all in agreement on global warming; thus there is no “consensus.”

Prominent hurricane forecaster Dr. William M. Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, told the audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 4 in New York that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures related to the salinity (the amount of salt) in ocean water was responsible for some global warming that has taken place. However, he said that same cycle means a period of cooling would begin within 10 years.

“We should begin to see cooling coming on,” Gray said. “I’m willing to make a big financial bet on it. In 10 years, I expect the globe to be somewhat cooler than it is now, because this ocean effect will dominate over the human-induced CO2 effect and I believe the solar effect and the land-use effect. I think this is likely bigger.”

Gray, 79, wasn’t sure if he’d be around to see his prediction come true.

“I may not be around by that time,” Gray said. “But, I’ve asked some of my students to put dandelions on my grave if that happens.”

Gray criticized NASA scientist and global warming alarmist James Hansen, calling him “the most egregious abuser” of data. According to Gray, Hansen’s alarmism is exaggerated because the models he uses to predict the increase in global warming count on too much water vapor in the atmosphere.

“[S]o he puts that much vapor in his model and of course he gets this,” Gray said. “He must get upper troposphere where the temperature is seven degrees warmer for a doubl[ing of] CO2. Well, the reason he got that was – why this upper-level warming was there – was he put too much water vapor in the model.”

At the same conference March 3, the founder of The Weather Channel advocated suing carbon traders, including former Vice President Al Gore, to expose what he called “the fraud of global warming.”

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Al Gore's Big Snowjob...A Video


Here is another short video explaining the basis for the myth of man-caused global warming. As others have said, this may be the biggest hoax of all time.
Peter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRaeEIN5Sh8&feature=related

Al Gore Energy Hypocrite Video Ad

Here is a brief reminder of what an energy hypocrite Al Gore is. The short video also highlights the implications of reducing fossil fuel usage to people in developing countries. Al Gore likes to say that stopping global warming is a "moral issue". He's right in the sense that it is immoral for him to make millions from his promotion of the myth of man-caused global warming, while at the same time increasing the misery and suffering of millions of people. We've seen this kind of activity before......in the Stalinist former Soviet Union. Is that where we're headed?
Peter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpWScO4-OH8&feature=user

The Big Corn and Ethanol Hoax....We're Being Sucker-Punched

The ethanol hoax is a drop in the bucket compared to the magnitude of the great global warming scam. Soon they will be taxing carbon dioxide emissions with "carbon credits" or some kind of cap-and-trade scheme. The scare tactics and hysteria generated by the those believing and promoting the myth of man-caused global warming are already creating a worldwide economic disaster, and there is more to come.
Peter

Big Corn and Ethanol Hoax
By Walter E. Williams CNSNews.com Commentary March 12, 2008

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline.

Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be shipped by truck, rail car or barge. These shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.

Ethanol is 20 to 30 percent less efficient than gasoline, making it more expensive per highway mile. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce the ethanol to fill one SUV tank. That's enough corn to feed one person for a year. Plus, it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel -- oil and natural gas -- to produce one gallon of ethanol. After all, corn must be grown, fertilized, harvested and trucked to ethanol producers -- all of which are fuel-using activities. And, it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. On top of all this, if our total annual corn output were put to ethanol production, it would reduce gasoline consumption by 10 or 12 percent.

Ethanol is so costly that it wouldn't make it in a free market. That's why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers. In fact, there's a double tax -- one in the form of ethanol subsidies and another in the form of handouts to corn farmers to the tune of $9.5 billion in 2005 alone.

There's something else wrong with this picture. If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil? Brazilian ethanol, by the way, is produced from sugar cane and is far more energy efficient, cleaner and cheaper to produce. Ethanol production has driven up the prices of corn-fed livestock, such as beef, chicken and dairy products, and products made from corn, such as cereals. As a result of higher demand for corn, other grain prices, such as soybean and wheat, have risen dramatically. The fact that the U.S. is the world's largest grain producer and exporter means that the ethanol-induced higher grain prices will have a worldwide impact on food prices.

It's easy to understand how the public, looking for cheaper gasoline, can be taken in by the call for increased ethanol usage. But politicians, corn farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money. The top leader in the ethanol hoax is Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the country's largest producer of ethanol. Ethanol producers and the farm lobby have pressured farm state congressmen into believing that it would be political suicide if they didn't support subsidized ethanol production. That's the stick. Campaign contributions play the role of the carrot.

The ethanol hoax is a good example of a problem economists refer to as narrow, well-defined benefits versus widely dispersed costs. It pays the ethanol lobby to organize and collect money to grease the palms of politicians willing to do their bidding because there's a large benefit for them -- higher wages and profits. The millions of gasoline consumers, who fund the benefits through higher fuel and food prices, as well as taxes, are relatively uninformed and have little clout. After all, who do you think a politician will invite into his congressional or White House office to have a heart-to-heart -- you or an Archer Daniels Midlands executive?

(Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute. The views expressed are those of the writer.)Copyright 2008, Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Climate Change: Is CO2 the Cause? A Video Presentation

Professor Bob Carter presents..........this is excellent viewing..
Peter


Climate Change: Is CO2 the Cause:

Part 1 of 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI

2/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN06JSi-SW8&feature=related

3/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCXDISLXTaY&feature=related

4/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQQGFZHSno&feature=related

Extent of Glaciation In North America

Solid Line: Approximate extent of glaciation during last (Wisconsin) ice age. Dotted Line: Approximate extent of earlier glaciations.


The Great Global Warming Swindle

The following is the website of the British TV station that created the documentary film titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle". The site explains the film, it's statements and provides excellent graphics.
Peter

First shown on Channel 4 in March 2007This film by the documentary-maker Martin Durkin presents the arguments of scientists and commentators who don't believe that CO2 produced by human activity is the main cause of climate change.
It's a controversial film that was roundly attacked by some scientists and enthusiastically received by others, and the arguments it contains are an important part of the wider debate on the causes of climate change.
The film was shortlisted for the Best Documentary award at the 2008 Broadcast Awards.

The Programme

The Arguments

Watch the Trailer

Your Questions & Answers

Vote

Play the Quiz

Find Out More

Forum

Monday, March 10, 2008

Politics And Global Warming....Why We're Producing Dangerous, Bad Legislation

I've posted many articles here by Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. His is a sound, sane, experienced view on the issues involving global warming and climate change. Do a search for his articles, visit his blog, check out his impeccable credentials.....educate and learn to think critically, for yourselves.
This is one of the most important issues of our time.
Peter


Mar 10, 2008The Political Issue Of Global Warming
By Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science
There was a candid admission in the newspaper Colorado Daily on February 22 2008 with respect to why the global warming issue is being promoted so vigorously in the media and in articles published in science journals. The text from the article “Carbon dioxide: friend or foe? by Evan Sandsmark” has the relevant excerpt:

“Many individuals, including a large portion of environmentalists, believe that a purely technological approach to stablizing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere could lead to social apathy towards climate change. Ted Parsons, a professor at the School of National Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan, writes that the promises of air capture could carry a ‘moral hazard’ because political pressure for near-term efforts to curtail climate change may be reduced. Air capture also addresses one of many factors adversely affecting the environment.

The climate crisis is a powerful tool to motivate change - like checking the ever-expanding global population and excessive resource consumption - and if the urgency of climate change is compromised, other environmental projects may fall by the wayside.”

Thus we have the reasoning as to why the science issues on Climate Science have been mostly ignored - the issue is not about climate science. The goal is to use the term “global warming” (with “climate change” used to make the concept cover all aspects of climate) not to “motivate” change, but to force the public and policymakers to adopt specific policy and political actions that promotes particular agendas.

Clearly, this narrow approach is doomed to produce poor policy decisions. Unless the media starts to recognize this inappropriate use of climate science, we will continue down the road to many actions that will have unanticipated and undesirable consequences.

Read Roger’s full post here.
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FACTS That Irrefutably Prove Climate Change Is Driven By Solar Activity

This is hard, measurable, factual data and observations showing variations of solar energy received by the Earth to be the over-ridingly dominant factor controlling changes in global warming and climate change. Computer climate models used to generate the myth of man-caused global warming are merely guesses based on (faulty) assumptions. Facts must outweigh guesses, always.
Peter


By: Dr. Gerhard Lobert, Physicist. Recipient of The Needle of Honor of German Aeronautics
As the glaciological and tree ring evidence shows, climate change is a natural phenomenon that has occurred many times in the past, both with the magnitude as well as with the time rate of temperature change that have occurred in the recent decades. The following facts prove that the recent global warming is not man-made but is a natural phenomenon.

1. In the temperature trace of the past 10 000 years based on glaciological evidence, the recent decades have not displayed any anomalous behavior. In two-thirds of these 10,000 years, the mean temperature was even higher than today. Shortly before the last ice age the temperature in Greenland even increased by 15 degrees C in only 20 years. All of this without any man-made CO2 emission!

2. There is no direct connection between CO2 emission and climate warming. This is shown by the fact that these two physical quantities have displayed an entirely different temporal behavior in the past 150 years. Whereas the mean global temperature varied in a quasi-periodic manner, with a mean period of 70 years, the CO2 concentration has been increasing exponentially since the 1950’s. The sea level has been rising and the glaciers have been shortening practically linearly from 1850 onwards. Neither time trace showed any reaction to the sudden increase of hydrocarbon burning from the 1950’s onwards.

3. The hypothesis that the global warming of the past decades is man-made is based on the results of calculations with climate models in which the main influence on climate is not included. The most important climate driver (besides solar luminosity) comes from the interplay of solar activity, interplanetary magnetic field strength, cosmic radiation intensity, and cloud cover of the Earth atmosphere.
Read more here.
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The Manhattan Declaration of 2008, Freedom From The Myth Of Man-Caused Global Warming

This sums up the position of the hundreds of experts on global warming and climate change who just attended this overdue conference in New York. The debate is not over, there is no scientific consensus that man is causing climate change. The battle must now move into the political realm.
Peter

The Manhattan Declaration - from the 2008 International Climate Conference
2008 International Conference on Climate Change
We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change.

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;
Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognising that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed ‘consensus’ among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:
Hereby declare:
That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend
That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as “An Inconvenient Truth.”

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008. See the Manhattan Declaration here.
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Wednesday, March 5, 2008

The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change

Note that the conference described below received very little coverage in the mainstream media. That alone speaks volumes about who controls the media and why.
Peter


The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM
The opening remarks of the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change by Joseph L. Bast, President of the Heartland Institute site can be seen here. It kicked off the best climate conference I have attended in my 30 years in the professional societies. The two day meeting featured over 100 excellent presentations made by scientists from Australia, Canada, England, France, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and of course the United States. They came from the University of Alabama, Arizona State, Carleton, Central Queensland, Delaware, Durham, and Florida State University, George Mason, Harvard, The Institute Pasteur in Paris, James Cook, John Moores, Johns Hopkins, and the London School of Economics, the University of Mississippi, Monash, Nottingham, Ohio State, Oregon State, Oslo, Ottawa, Rochester, Rockefeller, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the Russian Academy of Sciences, Suffolk University, the University of Virginia, Westminster School of Business (in London), and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

There were keynote addresses by Pat Michaels, Bob Balling, Ross McKitrick, Bill Gray, Tim Ball, Fred Singer, Roy Spencer and John Stossel. All were excellent and very well received. The most inspirational moments though were thanks to an address by the very courageous President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, the only head of state of a major nation who “gets it”. A Ph.D. Economist by education, he was first elected president of the Czech Frepublic in 2003. The text of his speech will be posted in its entirety on the Heartland website shortly but here are a few highlights.

“What I see in Europe (and the U.S. and other countries as well) is a powerful combination of irresponsibility, of wishful thinking, of implicit believing in some form of Mathusianism, of a cynical approach of those who themselves are sufficiently well off, together with the strong possibility of changing the economic nature of things through a radical political project.
As a politician who personally experienced communist central planning of all kinds of human activities, I feel obliged to bring back the already forgotten arguments used in the famous plan versus market debate in the 1930s in economic theory (between Mises and Hasyek on the one side and Lange and Lerner on the other), the arguments we have been using for decades - till the moment of the fall of communism. Then they were quickly forgotten. The innocence with which the climate alarmists and their fellow travelers in politics and mediia now present and justify their ambitions to mastermind human society belongs to the same “fatal conceit.” To my great despair, this is not sufficiently challenged neither in the field of social sciences, nor in the field of climatology. Especially the social sciences are suspicously silent.

We have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society. Now it concerns the whole makind, not just the citizens of one particular country. To discuss this means to look at the canonically structured theoretical discussion about socisalism (or communism) and to learn an uncompromising lesson from the inevitable collapse of communism 18 years ago. It is not about climatology. It is about freedom. This should be the main message of our conference.”

Icecap Note: The attendees left the conference with renewed vigor and enthusiam and many new contacts and ideas. Many told of countless others who wanted to join them but could not get time off from their jobs, could not afford the trip to New York City, or feared their attendance might affect their employment, a sad state of affairs. As I have noted this is not the sum total of the Climate Realists but the tip of the iceberg of what is very likely a silent majority of scientists in climatology, meteorology and allied sciences who do not endorse what is said to be the consensus position. There was a variety of opinions as there should be in science and all were tolerated. There was no group think or stagnant thinking as we find at other so called Climate Conferences. We thank the Heartland and the many other co-sponsors for their efforts in making this possible and so successful.
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