Here is a prime example of the ongoing effort to stifle the scientific inquiry into the real causes of global warming. This time an "environmental advocacy group" called Focus the Nation is taking their totally unscientific, biased message to college campuses across the country. They say, again, that the "debate is over". They insist now is the time to act, to limit "greenhouse gas" emissions.
Well, what nonsense! This is all based on the UN's flawed IPCC report and the political machinations of Al Gore's true believers. "Focus The Nation" is basing their efforts on what some experts call the biggest scam, or swindle, in history.......promoting the MYTH of man-caused global warming. Now they're trying to brainwash our eager, but naive youth.
We will try to reveal the truth. The articles, comments, essays, and science reproduced here on this blog reveal some of the truth. Spread the word.
Peter
Global Warming Teach-In Coming to Campuses Nationwide
By Evan Moore CNSNews.com Correspondent January 23, 2008(CNSNews.com)
- On Jan. 31, the environmental advocacy group Focus the Nation will hold a teach-in on more than 1,000 college campuses nationwide to discuss solutions for global warming. The event is based on the premise that scientific debate about the existence of global warming is "over." Many critics, however, say the teach-in is an attempt to end debate and advance "draconian" public policies.
In an interview with Cybercast News Service, Alex Tinker, public relations director for Focus the Nation, said the idea behind the teach-in model is inclusion: It "engages students across all disciplines on a campus, not just the usual suspects who would come to a special environmentally oriented event, so that you can actually reach an audience big enough to reach that critical mass to get real legislation passed in Washington."The teach-in, as defined by Focus the Nation's Web site, "is a day when an entire school turns its attention to a single issue -- when faculty, students, and staff put aside business as usual, and focus the full weight of campus engagement on one topic."
Tinker noted that the majority of hosting universities are not planning on halting classes altogether, but many are planning on incorporating the message of the teach-in into the content of regularly scheduled classes."The premise behind Focus the Nation is that 'The science is in. Global warming is real," said Tinker. "There's no longer a meaningful scientific debate about whether or not global warming is caused by human kind - the debate should be about what policy solutions we need to enact to address it."
Tinker said Focus the Nation is encouraging students to adopt policy solutions they deem prescriptive and to lobby their congressmen on global warming. Some of the solutions that Focus the Nation offers include a tax on emissions, increased support for biofuels, and the creation of 1 million new "green jobs" - workers who would service America's infrastructure to be more ecologically friendly.
Critics blast George C. Landrith, president of Frontiers of Freedom, a conservative think tank, criticized Tinker and Focus the Nation. "I've talked to way too many scientists - many of whom are on the IPCC [the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] - who look at the data and don't see a human footprint," Landrith told Cybercast News Service. "They don't see this as something that we're causing, and they don't see this as catastrophic. They see it as natural and largely benign. We definitely and absolutely disagree with the idea that 'science is certain, the debate is over, blah blah blah.'"
"If the debate were over, there wouldn't be literally hundreds of scientists stepping up and saying 'No, this is wrong,' and people like Al Gore and his ilk wouldn't be working so hard to make sure that they cut off discussion," said Landrith. "The truth is that they're engaging in polemics, not science."Fluctuations in climate have always occurred throughout history, he said. In the latter part of the 20th century there was a "modest, one degree warming," said Landrith, which is "well within the natural norms." Before Congress adopts "draconian regulatory regimes" to supposedly fight global warming - killing thousands of jobs in the process - we need to ensure "we have our science right," he said.
Some reaction
George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va., will host another Focus the Nation teach-in on Jan. 29. In an interview with Cybercast News Service, the university's press secretary, Dan Walsch, said, "This is an issue that a number of faculty members are heavily interested in, on a professional and personal level," and after a series of meetings, the school decided to hold the teach-in.Walsch added that the school does not have a policy position on global warming.
Dane Styler, managing director of Connect2Mason, a Web site focusing on the GMU community, told Cybercast News Service that students had just returned to school on Tuesday and there was not much campus buzz on the teach-in. He noted, however, that GMU has devoted itself to eco-friendly measures for the past few years. These include developing a sustainability office to highlight measures on campus to improve the college's environmental impact. Styler said he thinks global warming is real, manmade, and poses a threat to civilization. "The data's there," he said.
"We're producing enough gasses and chemicals that there's actually been a change in the [atmospheric] temperature." Celia Taylor, a GMU alumna, disagreed with Styler but told Cybercast News Service that she was nonetheless pleased with her alma mater. "Even if I disagree on the stance on the issue, I have always applauded Mason for being involved," she said. "Doing so not only makes the institution a national name but also involves, engages, and encourages its students to think critically, even to disagree," Taylor said."I will continue to vocalize my support of the school and its involvement in current issues at the same time that I vocalize my disagreement on this particular issue," she added.
source:
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
A Call For The End Of The Phony IPCC and Their Predictions of Global Warming
Here are some powerful statements about the future of the IPCC, global warming, and climate change.
Peter
Dr Vincent Gray, a member of the UN IPCC Expert Reviewers Panel since its inception, has written to Professor David Henderson, to support the latter’s call for a review of the IPCC and its procedures.
Dr Gray wrote: Thank you for your latest article containing your analysis of the limitations of the IPCC and your belief that it is possible for it to be reformed. I have been an "Expert Reviewer" for the IPCC right from the start and I have submitted a very large number of comments on their drafts. It has recently been revealed that I submitted 1,898 comments on the Final Draft of the current Report. Over the period I have made an intensive study of the data and procedures used by IPCC contributors throughout their whole study range. I have a large library of reprints, books and comments and have published many comments of my own in published papers, a book, and in my occasional newsletter, the current number being 157.
I began with a belief in scientific ethics, that scientists would answer queries honestly, that scientific argument would take place purely on the basis of facts, logic and established scientific and mathematical principles. Right from the beginning I have had difficulty with this procedure.
Penetrating questions often ended without any answer. Comments on the IPCC drafts were rejected without explanation, and attempts to pursue the matter were frustrated indefinitely. Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound.
Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt.
The only "reform" I could envisage, would be its abolition. I wonder whether I could summarize briefly some of the reasons why the scientific procedures followed by the IPCC are fundamentally unsound. Some of you may have received more detail if you received my recent NZClimate Truth Newsletters (see under “Links” on this website).
The two main "scientific" claims of the IPCC are the claim that "the globe is warming" and "Increases in carbon dioxide emissions are responsible". Evidence for both of these claims is fatally flawed.
To start with the "global warming" claim. It is based on a graph showing that "mean annual global temperature" has been increasing. This claim fails from two fundamental facts 1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any period, has ever been made. How can you derive a "global average" when you do not even have a single "local" average? What they actually use is the procedure used from 1850, which is to make one measurement a day at the weather station from a maximum/minimum thermometer. The mean of these two is taken to be the average. No statistician could agree that a plausible average can be obtained this way. The potential bias is more than the claimed "global warming."
2. The sample is grossly unrepresentative of the earth's surface, mostly near to towns. No statistician could accept an "average" based on such a poor sample. It cannot possibly be "corrected" It is of interest that frantic efforts to "correct" for these uncorrectable errors have produced mean temperature records for the USA and China which show no overall "warming" at all. If they were able to "correct" the rest, the same result is likely And, then after all, there has been no "global warming", however measured, for eight years, and this year is all set to be cooling. As a result it is now politically incorrect to speak of "global warming". The buzzword is "Climate Change" which is still blamed on the non-existent "warming".
The other flagship set of data promoted by the IPCC are the figures showing the increase in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. They have manipulated the data in such a way to persuade us (including most scientists) that this concentration is constant throughout the atmosphere. In order to do this, they refrain from publishing any results which they do not like, and they have suppressed no less than 90,000 measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide made in the last 150 years. Some of these were made by Nobel Prizewinners and all were published in the best scientific journals.
Ernst Beck has published on the net all the actual papers. Why did they do it? It is very subtle. Brush up your maths. In order to calculate the radiative effects of carbon dioxide you have to use a formula involving a logarithm. When such a formula is applied to a set of figures, the low figures have a greater weight in the final average radiation. The figure obtained from the so-called "background figure" is therefore biased in an upwards direction.
My main complaint with the IPCC is in the methods used to "evaluate" computer models. Proper "validation" of models should involve proved evidence that they are capable of future prediction within the range required, and to a satisfactory level of accuracy. Without this procedure, no self-respecting computer engineer would dare to make use of a model for prediction. No computer climate model has ever been tested in this way, so none should be used for prediction.
They sort of accept this by never permitting the use of the term "prediction", only "projection". But they then go ahead predicting anyway. There is a basic logical principle that a correlation, however convincing, is not proof of causation. Most scientists pay at least lip service to this principle, but its widespread lack of acceptance by the general public have led to IPCC to explore it as one of their methods of "evaluating" models.
The models are so full of inaccurately known parameters and equations that it is comparatively easy to "fudge" an approximate fit to the few climate sequences that might respond. This sort of evidence is the main feature of most of the current promotional lectures. The most elaborate of all their "evaluation" techniques is far more dubious. Since they have failed to show that any models are actually capable of prediction, they have decided to "evaluate" them by asking the opinions of those who originate them, people with a financial interest in their success. This has become so complex that many have failed to notice that it has no scientific basis, but is just an assembly of the "gut feelings" of self-styled "experts".
It has been developed to a complex web of "likelihoods", all of which are assigned fake "probability" levels. By drawing attention to these obvious facts I have now found myself persona non grata with most of my local professional associations. Surely, I am questioning the integrity of these award-winning scientific leaders of the local science establishment. When you get down to it, that is what is involved.
I somehow understood that the threshold had been passed when I viewed "The Great Global Warming Swindle". Yes, we have to face it. The whole process is a swindle, The IPCC from the beginning was given the licence to use whatever methods would be necessary to provide "evidence" that carbon dioxide increases are harming the climate, even if this involves manipulation of dubious data and using peoples' opinions instead of science to "prove" their case.
The disappearance of the IPCC in disgrace is not only desirable but inevitable. The reason is, that the world will slowly realise that the "predictions" emanating from the IPCC will not happen. The absence of any "global warming" for the past eight years is just the beginning. Sooner or later all of us will come to realise that this organisation, and the thinking behind it, is phony. Unfortunately severe economic damage is likely to be done by its influence before that happens.
Last Updated ( Friday, 14 December 2007 )
Peter
Dr. Gray has a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Cambridge University, England
and has had a long career as a research scientist in Britain, France,Canada,
New Zealand and China. Dr. Gray has published over 100 scientific
papers on energy and materials, plus a dozen in climate science.
SUPPORT FOR CALL FOR REVIEW OF UN IPCC
Dr Vincent Gray, a member of the UN IPCC Expert Reviewers Panel since its inception, has written to Professor David Henderson, to support the latter’s call for a review of the IPCC and its procedures.
Dr Gray wrote: Thank you for your latest article containing your analysis of the limitations of the IPCC and your belief that it is possible for it to be reformed. I have been an "Expert Reviewer" for the IPCC right from the start and I have submitted a very large number of comments on their drafts. It has recently been revealed that I submitted 1,898 comments on the Final Draft of the current Report. Over the period I have made an intensive study of the data and procedures used by IPCC contributors throughout their whole study range. I have a large library of reprints, books and comments and have published many comments of my own in published papers, a book, and in my occasional newsletter, the current number being 157.
I began with a belief in scientific ethics, that scientists would answer queries honestly, that scientific argument would take place purely on the basis of facts, logic and established scientific and mathematical principles. Right from the beginning I have had difficulty with this procedure.
Penetrating questions often ended without any answer. Comments on the IPCC drafts were rejected without explanation, and attempts to pursue the matter were frustrated indefinitely. Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound.
Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt.
The only "reform" I could envisage, would be its abolition. I wonder whether I could summarize briefly some of the reasons why the scientific procedures followed by the IPCC are fundamentally unsound. Some of you may have received more detail if you received my recent NZClimate Truth Newsletters (see under “Links” on this website).
The two main "scientific" claims of the IPCC are the claim that "the globe is warming" and "Increases in carbon dioxide emissions are responsible". Evidence for both of these claims is fatally flawed.
To start with the "global warming" claim. It is based on a graph showing that "mean annual global temperature" has been increasing. This claim fails from two fundamental facts 1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any period, has ever been made. How can you derive a "global average" when you do not even have a single "local" average? What they actually use is the procedure used from 1850, which is to make one measurement a day at the weather station from a maximum/minimum thermometer. The mean of these two is taken to be the average. No statistician could agree that a plausible average can be obtained this way. The potential bias is more than the claimed "global warming."
2. The sample is grossly unrepresentative of the earth's surface, mostly near to towns. No statistician could accept an "average" based on such a poor sample. It cannot possibly be "corrected" It is of interest that frantic efforts to "correct" for these uncorrectable errors have produced mean temperature records for the USA and China which show no overall "warming" at all. If they were able to "correct" the rest, the same result is likely And, then after all, there has been no "global warming", however measured, for eight years, and this year is all set to be cooling. As a result it is now politically incorrect to speak of "global warming". The buzzword is "Climate Change" which is still blamed on the non-existent "warming".
The other flagship set of data promoted by the IPCC are the figures showing the increase in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. They have manipulated the data in such a way to persuade us (including most scientists) that this concentration is constant throughout the atmosphere. In order to do this, they refrain from publishing any results which they do not like, and they have suppressed no less than 90,000 measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide made in the last 150 years. Some of these were made by Nobel Prizewinners and all were published in the best scientific journals.
Ernst Beck has published on the net all the actual papers. Why did they do it? It is very subtle. Brush up your maths. In order to calculate the radiative effects of carbon dioxide you have to use a formula involving a logarithm. When such a formula is applied to a set of figures, the low figures have a greater weight in the final average radiation. The figure obtained from the so-called "background figure" is therefore biased in an upwards direction.
My main complaint with the IPCC is in the methods used to "evaluate" computer models. Proper "validation" of models should involve proved evidence that they are capable of future prediction within the range required, and to a satisfactory level of accuracy. Without this procedure, no self-respecting computer engineer would dare to make use of a model for prediction. No computer climate model has ever been tested in this way, so none should be used for prediction.
They sort of accept this by never permitting the use of the term "prediction", only "projection". But they then go ahead predicting anyway. There is a basic logical principle that a correlation, however convincing, is not proof of causation. Most scientists pay at least lip service to this principle, but its widespread lack of acceptance by the general public have led to IPCC to explore it as one of their methods of "evaluating" models.
The models are so full of inaccurately known parameters and equations that it is comparatively easy to "fudge" an approximate fit to the few climate sequences that might respond. This sort of evidence is the main feature of most of the current promotional lectures. The most elaborate of all their "evaluation" techniques is far more dubious. Since they have failed to show that any models are actually capable of prediction, they have decided to "evaluate" them by asking the opinions of those who originate them, people with a financial interest in their success. This has become so complex that many have failed to notice that it has no scientific basis, but is just an assembly of the "gut feelings" of self-styled "experts".
It has been developed to a complex web of "likelihoods", all of which are assigned fake "probability" levels. By drawing attention to these obvious facts I have now found myself persona non grata with most of my local professional associations. Surely, I am questioning the integrity of these award-winning scientific leaders of the local science establishment. When you get down to it, that is what is involved.
I somehow understood that the threshold had been passed when I viewed "The Great Global Warming Swindle". Yes, we have to face it. The whole process is a swindle, The IPCC from the beginning was given the licence to use whatever methods would be necessary to provide "evidence" that carbon dioxide increases are harming the climate, even if this involves manipulation of dubious data and using peoples' opinions instead of science to "prove" their case.
The disappearance of the IPCC in disgrace is not only desirable but inevitable. The reason is, that the world will slowly realise that the "predictions" emanating from the IPCC will not happen. The absence of any "global warming" for the past eight years is just the beginning. Sooner or later all of us will come to realise that this organisation, and the thinking behind it, is phony. Unfortunately severe economic damage is likely to be done by its influence before that happens.
Last Updated ( Friday, 14 December 2007 )
New Science Observations Show Carbon Emissions Do Not Cause Global Warming
The following paper describing observed scientific facts shows why the myth of man-caused global warming is rapidly falling apart. Don't just take my word for it, read what a prominent Climate Scientist, Dr. David Evans has to say. (Go here to see his graphs and the complete article: http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/devansco2.pdf
Peter
New Observations Show Carbon Emissions Don’t Cause Global Warming
Dr David Evans (david.evans@sciencespeak.com)
11 December 2007
Current Summary of Crucial Evidence
Background
A paper I wrote that briefly describes the history of why we used to believe that carbon
emissions caused global warming, and how we got to where we are now in the debate:
http://mises.org/story/2571
Ice Core Data Reverses — 2003
First crucial point, 2003. We've all seen Al Gore’s movie. It was the early, low
resolution ice core data first gathered from 1985 to 2000 that convinced the world that
CO2 was the culprit: CO2 levels and temperature rose and fell in lockstep over the last
half a million years, to the resolution of the old ice core data (data points over a
thousand years apart). We assumed that CO2 levels controlled the world’s
temperature.
After further research, in 2000 – 2003 new high resolution ice core results (data points
only a few hundred years apart) allowed us to distinguish which came first—rising
temperature or rising CO2? We found that temperature changes preceded CO2
changes by an average of 800 years. So temperature rises caused the CO2 rises, and
not the other way around as previously assumed. The world should have started backpedalling
away from blaming carbon emissions in 2003:
http://www.noe21.org/dvd2/Global%20Warming%20FAQ%20-
%A0%20temperature.htm
Greenhouse Signature Missing — 2007
Second crucial point, August 2007. Each possible cause of global warming causes the
atmosphere to warm at different latitudes and altitudes — that is, each cause will
produces a distinct pattern of hot spots in the atmosphere, or “signature”. The
greenhouse signature is very distinct from the others: warming due to greenhouse
would cause most warming in the tropics at about 10 km up in the atmosphere:
Greenhouse Signatures (IPCC AR 4, 2007, Appendix C)
As of August 2007, we’ve measured where the warming is occurring using satellites
and radiosondes (weather balloons). The observed signature is nothing like the
greenhouse signature — the distinct greenhouse signature is entirely missing:
Observed Warming
Of course, these observations need to be repeated by other researchers before we can
be completely sure, but they are made by top-notch researchers and reported in top-of the-
line peer-reviewed journals so at this stage they look solid. Recent radiosondes
have confirmed the results so far.
This article from August 2007 is a hard read, but the results are new, it is the most
accessible so far, and is much easier to understand than the raw scientific papers:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/whatgreenhouse/mo
ncktongreenhousewarming.pdf
Where the IPCC Models Went Wrong — 2007
So why did we go wrong? Another set of recent observations partly explains why the
UN climate models got it so wrong.
Doubling atmospheric CO2 from the pre-industrial level of 280ppm up to 560ppm
(which is roughly were the IPCC says we will be in 2100) is calculated to raise the
world’s air temperature by 1.2C in the absence of feedbacks such as convection,
evaporation, and clouds. This is what you would get if the air was like in a flask in a
laboratory. Everyone roughly agrees with that calculated result.
But the modellers assumed that increased warming would cause more rainfall, which
would cause more clouds high up in the atmosphere — and since high clouds have a
net warming effect, this would cause more warming and thus more rainfall, and so on.
This is one of the main positive feedbacks that causes the UN climate models to
predict a temperature rise due to a CO2 doubling of 3.2C (their central estimate), of
which we have already experienced 0.7C.
Roy Spencer is a top-class scientist who has spent a few years closely observing
temperatures, clouds, and rainfall. In September 2007 he reported that in reality
warming is associated with fewer high clouds. So the feedback due to high clouds is
actually negative. Reversing this feedback in the IPCC models lowers their estimates
of warming for a CO2 doubling by about 1.5C.
As Spencer says with such understatement: "Global warming theory says warming will
generally be accompanied by more rainfall. Everyone just assumed that more rainfall
means more high altitude clouds. That would be your first guess and, since we didn't
have any data to suggest otherwise ...". Science is about observational evidence
trumping theoretical calculations, which is exactly what is happening here:
http://www.uah.edu/News/newsread.php?newsID=875
Warming Already Waning
The only temperature data we can trust are satellite measurements, and they only go
back to 1979. (Ground-station data is corrupted by an unknown amount of urban heat
island effect.) Satellite temperature data shows that there has been no warming in the
southern hemisphere, and that the warming trend in the northern hemisphere has
waned since 2001:
Global Satellite temperatures (1979 – late 2007, updated Jan 2008)
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe.html
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSNHem.html
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSSHem.html
(Gratuitous advice for those whose jobs depend on the idea that carbon emissions
cause global warming: Find another job to pay your mortgage and feed your kids!)
Three Stages of Knowledge and the IPCC
Our scientific understanding of global warming has gone through three stages:
1. 1985 – 2003. Old ice core data led us to strongly suspect that CO2 causes global
warming.
2. 2003 – 2007. New ice core data eliminated previous reason for suspecting CO2.
No evidence to suspect or exonerate CO2.
3. From Aug 2007: Know for sure that greenhouse is not causing global warming.
CO2 no longer a suspect.
The IPCC 2007 Assessment Report (the latest and greatest from the IPCC) is based on
all scientific literature up to mid 2006. The Bali Conference is the bureaucratic
response to that report. Too bad that the data has changed since then!
Peter
New Observations Show Carbon Emissions Don’t Cause Global Warming
11 December 2007
Current Summary of Crucial Evidence
Background
A paper I wrote that briefly describes the history of why we used to believe that carbon
emissions caused global warming, and how we got to where we are now in the debate:
http://mises.org/story/2571
Ice Core Data Reverses — 2003
First crucial point, 2003. We've all seen Al Gore’s movie. It was the early, low
resolution ice core data first gathered from 1985 to 2000 that convinced the world that
CO2 was the culprit: CO2 levels and temperature rose and fell in lockstep over the last
half a million years, to the resolution of the old ice core data (data points over a
thousand years apart). We assumed that CO2 levels controlled the world’s
temperature.
After further research, in 2000 – 2003 new high resolution ice core results (data points
only a few hundred years apart) allowed us to distinguish which came first—rising
temperature or rising CO2? We found that temperature changes preceded CO2
changes by an average of 800 years. So temperature rises caused the CO2 rises, and
not the other way around as previously assumed. The world should have started backpedalling
away from blaming carbon emissions in 2003:
%A0%20temperature.htm
Greenhouse Signature Missing — 2007
Second crucial point, August 2007. Each possible cause of global warming causes the
atmosphere to warm at different latitudes and altitudes — that is, each cause will
produces a distinct pattern of hot spots in the atmosphere, or “signature”. The
greenhouse signature is very distinct from the others: warming due to greenhouse
would cause most warming in the tropics at about 10 km up in the atmosphere:
Greenhouse Signatures (IPCC AR 4, 2007, Appendix C)
As of August 2007, we’ve measured where the warming is occurring using satellites
and radiosondes (weather balloons). The observed signature is nothing like the
greenhouse signature — the distinct greenhouse signature is entirely missing:
Observed Warming
(US CCSP 2006 p.116 fig. 5.7, confirmed by more measurements published in 2007)
There is no hotspot in the tropics at 10 km up, so now we know that greenhouse
warming is not the (main) cause of global warming — so we know that carbon
emissions are not the (main) cause of global warming.
There is no hotspot in the tropics at 10 km up, so now we know that greenhouse
warming is not the (main) cause of global warming — so we know that carbon
emissions are not the (main) cause of global warming.
Of course, these observations need to be repeated by other researchers before we can
be completely sure, but they are made by top-notch researchers and reported in top-of the-
line peer-reviewed journals so at this stage they look solid. Recent radiosondes
have confirmed the results so far.
This article from August 2007 is a hard read, but the results are new, it is the most
accessible so far, and is much easier to understand than the raw scientific papers:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/whatgreenhouse/mo
ncktongreenhousewarming.pdf
Where the IPCC Models Went Wrong — 2007
So why did we go wrong? Another set of recent observations partly explains why the
UN climate models got it so wrong.
Doubling atmospheric CO2 from the pre-industrial level of 280ppm up to 560ppm
(which is roughly were the IPCC says we will be in 2100) is calculated to raise the
world’s air temperature by 1.2C in the absence of feedbacks such as convection,
evaporation, and clouds. This is what you would get if the air was like in a flask in a
laboratory. Everyone roughly agrees with that calculated result.
But the modellers assumed that increased warming would cause more rainfall, which
would cause more clouds high up in the atmosphere — and since high clouds have a
net warming effect, this would cause more warming and thus more rainfall, and so on.
This is one of the main positive feedbacks that causes the UN climate models to
predict a temperature rise due to a CO2 doubling of 3.2C (their central estimate), of
which we have already experienced 0.7C.
Roy Spencer is a top-class scientist who has spent a few years closely observing
temperatures, clouds, and rainfall. In September 2007 he reported that in reality
warming is associated with fewer high clouds. So the feedback due to high clouds is
actually negative. Reversing this feedback in the IPCC models lowers their estimates
of warming for a CO2 doubling by about 1.5C.
As Spencer says with such understatement: "Global warming theory says warming will
generally be accompanied by more rainfall. Everyone just assumed that more rainfall
means more high altitude clouds. That would be your first guess and, since we didn't
have any data to suggest otherwise ...". Science is about observational evidence
trumping theoretical calculations, which is exactly what is happening here:
http://www.uah.edu/News/newsread.php?newsID=875
Warming Already Waning
The only temperature data we can trust are satellite measurements, and they only go
back to 1979. (Ground-station data is corrupted by an unknown amount of urban heat
island effect.) Satellite temperature data shows that there has been no warming in the
southern hemisphere, and that the warming trend in the northern hemisphere has
waned since 2001:
Global Satellite temperatures (1979 – late 2007, updated Jan 2008)
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe.html
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSNHem.html
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSSHem.html
(Gratuitous advice for those whose jobs depend on the idea that carbon emissions
cause global warming: Find another job to pay your mortgage and feed your kids!)
Three Stages of Knowledge and the IPCC
Our scientific understanding of global warming has gone through three stages:
1. 1985 – 2003. Old ice core data led us to strongly suspect that CO2 causes global
warming.
2. 2003 – 2007. New ice core data eliminated previous reason for suspecting CO2.
No evidence to suspect or exonerate CO2.
3. From Aug 2007: Know for sure that greenhouse is not causing global warming.
CO2 no longer a suspect.
The IPCC 2007 Assessment Report (the latest and greatest from the IPCC) is based on
all scientific literature up to mid 2006. The Bali Conference is the bureaucratic
response to that report. Too bad that the data has changed since then!
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Al Gore's Fear Of Global Warming Causing Millions To Starve
We have become so afraid of global warming we are turning food (corn) and cooking oil into fuel, thinking this will save the Earth from the catastrophes associated with global warming and climate change. In the meantime, this causes the starvation and suffering of millions. And they call it a Nobel "Peace Prize"? Good job Al Gore.....your next book should be titled "Unintended Consequences: The Workings Of A Selfish Fool".
Peter
The Food Chain
A New, Global Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories
source:
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: January 19, 2008
KUANTAN, Malaysia — Rising prices for cooking oil are forcing residents of Asia’s largest slum, in Mumbai, India, to ration every drop. Bakeries in the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel sit idle, their owners unable to afford the raw material.
Michael Rubenstein for The New York Times
A PRECIOUS COMMODITY In Mumbai, Rajkanya Kawle, 11, held palm oil for her family’s dinner. The 250 milliliters of oil cost 16 rupees, about 41 cents. More Photos »
This is the other oil shock. From India to Indiana, shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the latest, most striking example of a developing global problem: costly food.
The food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, based on export prices for 60 internationally traded foodstuffs, climbed 37 percent last year. That was on top of a 14 percent increase in 2006, and the trend has accelerated this winter.
In some poor countries, desperation is taking hold. Just in the last week, protests have erupted in Pakistan over wheat shortages, and in Indonesia over soybean shortages. Egypt has banned rice exports to keep food at home, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs.
According to the F.A.O., food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
“The urban poor, the rural landless and small and marginal farmers stand to lose,” said He Changchui, the agency’s chief representative for Asia and the Pacific.
A startling change is unfolding in the world’s food markets. Soaring fuel prices have altered the equation for growing food and transporting it across the globe. Huge demand for biofuels has created tension between using land to produce fuel and using it for food.
A growing middle class in the developing world is demanding more protein, from pork and hamburgers to chicken and ice cream. And all this is happening even as global climate change may be starting to make it harder to grow food in some of the places best equipped to do so, like Australia.
In the last few years, world demand for crops and meat has been rising sharply. It remains an open question how and when the supply will catch up. For the foreseeable future, that probably means higher prices at the grocery store and fatter paychecks for farmers of major crops like corn, wheat and soybeans.
There may be worse inflation to come. Food experts say steep increases in commodity prices have not fully made their way to street stalls in the developing world or supermarkets in the West.
Governments in many poor countries have tried to respond by stepping up food subsidies, imposing or tightening price controls, restricting exports and cutting food import duties.
These temporary measures are already breaking down. Across Southeast Asia, for example, families have been hoarding palm oil. Smugglers have been bidding up prices as they move the oil from more subsidized markets, like Malaysia’s, to less subsidized markets, like Singapore’s.
No category of food prices has risen as quickly this winter as so-called edible oils — with sometimes tragic results. When a Carrefour store in Chongqing, China, announced a limited-time cooking oil promotion in November, a stampede of would-be buyers left 3 people dead and 31 injured.
Cooking oil may seem a trifling expense in the West. But in the developing world, cooking oil is an important source of calories and represents one of the biggest cash outlays for poor families, which grow much of their own food but have to buy oil in which to cook it.
Few crops illustrate the emerging problems in the global food chain as well as palm oil, a vital commodity in much of the world and particularly Asia. From jungles and street markets in Southeast Asia to food companies in the United States and biodiesel factories in Europe, soaring prices for the oil are drawing environmentalists, energy companies, consumers, indigenous peoples and governments into acrimonious disputes.
The oil palm is a stout-trunked tree with a spray of frilly fronds at the top that make it look like an enormous sea anemone. The trees, with their distinctive, star-like patterns of leaves, cover an eighth of the entire land area of Malaysia and even greater acreage in nearby Indonesia.
An Efficient Producer
The palm is a highly efficient producer of vegetable oil, squeezed from the tree’s thick bunches of plum-size bright red fruit. An acre of oil palms yields as much oil as eight acres of soybeans, the main rival for oil palms; rapeseed, used to make canola oil, is a distant third. Among major crops, only sugar cane comes close to rivaling oil palms in calories of human food per acre.
Palm oil prices have jumped nearly 70 percent in the last year because supply has grown slowly while demand has soared.
Farmers and plantation companies are responding to the higher prices, clearing hundreds of thousands of acres of tropical forest to replant with rows of oil palms. But an oil palm takes eight years to reach full production. A drought last year in Indonesia and flooding in Peninsular Malaysia helped constrain supply. Worldwide palm oil output climbed just 2.7 percent last year, to 42.1 million tons.
At the same time, palm oil demand is growing steeply for a variety of reasons around the globe. They include shifting decisions among farmers about what to plant, rising consumer demand in China and India for edible oils, and Western subsidies for biofuel production.
American farmers have been planting more corn and less soy because demand for corn-based ethanol has pushed up corn prices. American soybean acreage plunged 19 percent last year, producing a drop in soybean oil output and inventories.
Chinese farmers also cut back soybean acreage last year, as urban sprawl covered prime farmland and the Chinese government provided more incentives for grain.
Yet people in China are also consuming more oils. China not only was the world’s biggest palm oil importer last year, holding steady at 5.2 million tons in the first 11 months of the year, but it also doubled its soybean oil imports to 2.9 million tons, forcing buyers elsewhere to switch to palm oil.
Concerns about nutrition used to hurt palm oil sales, but they are now starting to help. The oil was long regarded in the West as unhealthy, but it has become an attractive option to replace the chemically altered fats known as trans fats, which have lately come to be seen as the least healthy of all fats.
New York City banned trans fats in frying at food service establishments last summer and will ban them in bakery goods this summer. Across the country, manufacturers are trying to replace trans fats. American palm oil imports nearly doubled in the first 11 months of last year, rising by 200,000 tons.
“Four years ago, when this whole no-trans issue started, we processed no palm here," said Mark Weyland, a United States product manager for Loders Croklaan, a Dutch company that supplies palm oil. “Now it’s our biggest seller.”
Last year, conversion of palm oil into fuel was a fast-growing source of demand, but in recent weeks, rising prices have thrown that business into turmoil.
Here on Malaysia’s eastern shore, a series of 45-foot-high green and gray storage tanks connect to a labyrinth of yellow and silver pipes. The gleaming new refinery has the capacity to turn 116,000 tons a year of palm oil into 110,000 tons of a fuel called biodiesel, as well as valuable byproducts like glycerin. Mission Biofuels, an Australian company, finished the refinery last month and is working on an even larger factory next door at the base of a jungle hillside.
But prices have spiked so much that the company cannot cover all its costs and has idled the finished refinery while looking for a new strategy, such as asking a biodiesel buyer to pay a price linked to palm oil costs, and someday switching from palm oil to jatropha, a roadside weed.
“We took a view that palm oil prices were already high; we didn’t think they could go even higher, and then they did,” said Nathan Mahalingam, the company’s managing director.
Growth in Biofuels
Biofuels accounted for almost half the increase in worldwide demand for vegetable oils last year, and represented 7 percent of total consumption of the oils, according to Oil World, a forecasting service in Hamburg, Germany.
The growth of biodiesel, which can be mixed with regular diesel, has been controversial, not only because it competes with food uses of oil but also because of environmental concerns. European conservation groups have been warning that tropical forests are being leveled to make way for oil palm plantations, destroying habitat for orangutans and Sumatran rhinoceroses while also releasing greenhouse gases.
The European Union has moved to restrict imports of palm oil grown in unsustainable ways. The measure has incensed the Malaysian palm oil industry, which had plunged into biofuel production in part to satisfy European demand.
Another controversy involves the treatment of indigenous peoples whose lands have been seized by oil plantations. This has been a particular issue on Borneo.
Anne B. Lasimbang, executive director of the Pacos Trust in the Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo, said that while some indigenous people had benefited from selling palm oil that they grow themselves, many had lost ancestral lands with little to show for it, including lands that used to provide habitats for endangered orangutans.
“Finally, some of the pressures internationally have trickled down. Some of the companies are more open to dialogue; they want to talk to communities,” said Ms. Lasimbang, a member of the Dusun indigenous group. “On our side, we are still suspicious.”
Demand Outstrips Supply
As the multiple conflicts and economic pressures associated with palm oil play out in the global economy, the bottom line seems to be that the world wants more of the oil than it can get.
Even in Malaysia, the center of the global palm oil industry for half a century, spot shortages have cropped up. Recently, as wholesale prices soared, cooking oil refiners complained of inadequate subsidies and cut back production of household oil, sold at low, regulated prices.
Street vendors in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, complain that they cannot find enough cooking oil to prepare roti canai, the flatbread that is the national snack. “It’s very difficult; it’s hard to find,” said one vendor who gave only his first name, Palani, after admitting that he was secretly buying cooking oil intended for households instead of paying the much higher price for commercial use.
Many of the hardest-hit victims of rising food prices are in the vast slums that surround cities in poorer Asian nations. The Kawle family in Mumbai’s sprawling Dharavi slum, a household of nine with just one member working as a laborer for $60 a month, is coping with recent price increases for palm oil.
The family has responded by eating fish once a week instead of twice, seldom cooking vegetables and cutting its monthly rice consumption. Next to go will be the weekly smidgen of lamb.
“If the prices go up again,” said Janaron Kawle, the family patriarch, “we’ll cut the mutton to twice a month and use less oil.”
Contributing reporting were Andrew Martin in New York, Anand Giridharadas in Kale, India, and Michael Rubenstein in Mumbai.
Peter
The Food Chain
A New, Global Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories
source:
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: January 19, 2008
KUANTAN, Malaysia — Rising prices for cooking oil are forcing residents of Asia’s largest slum, in Mumbai, India, to ration every drop. Bakeries in the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel sit idle, their owners unable to afford the raw material.
Michael Rubenstein for The New York Times
A PRECIOUS COMMODITY In Mumbai, Rajkanya Kawle, 11, held palm oil for her family’s dinner. The 250 milliliters of oil cost 16 rupees, about 41 cents. More Photos »
This is the other oil shock. From India to Indiana, shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the latest, most striking example of a developing global problem: costly food.
The food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, based on export prices for 60 internationally traded foodstuffs, climbed 37 percent last year. That was on top of a 14 percent increase in 2006, and the trend has accelerated this winter.
In some poor countries, desperation is taking hold. Just in the last week, protests have erupted in Pakistan over wheat shortages, and in Indonesia over soybean shortages. Egypt has banned rice exports to keep food at home, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs.
According to the F.A.O., food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
“The urban poor, the rural landless and small and marginal farmers stand to lose,” said He Changchui, the agency’s chief representative for Asia and the Pacific.
A startling change is unfolding in the world’s food markets. Soaring fuel prices have altered the equation for growing food and transporting it across the globe. Huge demand for biofuels has created tension between using land to produce fuel and using it for food.
A growing middle class in the developing world is demanding more protein, from pork and hamburgers to chicken and ice cream. And all this is happening even as global climate change may be starting to make it harder to grow food in some of the places best equipped to do so, like Australia.
In the last few years, world demand for crops and meat has been rising sharply. It remains an open question how and when the supply will catch up. For the foreseeable future, that probably means higher prices at the grocery store and fatter paychecks for farmers of major crops like corn, wheat and soybeans.
There may be worse inflation to come. Food experts say steep increases in commodity prices have not fully made their way to street stalls in the developing world or supermarkets in the West.
Governments in many poor countries have tried to respond by stepping up food subsidies, imposing or tightening price controls, restricting exports and cutting food import duties.
These temporary measures are already breaking down. Across Southeast Asia, for example, families have been hoarding palm oil. Smugglers have been bidding up prices as they move the oil from more subsidized markets, like Malaysia’s, to less subsidized markets, like Singapore’s.
No category of food prices has risen as quickly this winter as so-called edible oils — with sometimes tragic results. When a Carrefour store in Chongqing, China, announced a limited-time cooking oil promotion in November, a stampede of would-be buyers left 3 people dead and 31 injured.
Cooking oil may seem a trifling expense in the West. But in the developing world, cooking oil is an important source of calories and represents one of the biggest cash outlays for poor families, which grow much of their own food but have to buy oil in which to cook it.
Few crops illustrate the emerging problems in the global food chain as well as palm oil, a vital commodity in much of the world and particularly Asia. From jungles and street markets in Southeast Asia to food companies in the United States and biodiesel factories in Europe, soaring prices for the oil are drawing environmentalists, energy companies, consumers, indigenous peoples and governments into acrimonious disputes.
The oil palm is a stout-trunked tree with a spray of frilly fronds at the top that make it look like an enormous sea anemone. The trees, with their distinctive, star-like patterns of leaves, cover an eighth of the entire land area of Malaysia and even greater acreage in nearby Indonesia.
An Efficient Producer
The palm is a highly efficient producer of vegetable oil, squeezed from the tree’s thick bunches of plum-size bright red fruit. An acre of oil palms yields as much oil as eight acres of soybeans, the main rival for oil palms; rapeseed, used to make canola oil, is a distant third. Among major crops, only sugar cane comes close to rivaling oil palms in calories of human food per acre.
Palm oil prices have jumped nearly 70 percent in the last year because supply has grown slowly while demand has soared.
Farmers and plantation companies are responding to the higher prices, clearing hundreds of thousands of acres of tropical forest to replant with rows of oil palms. But an oil palm takes eight years to reach full production. A drought last year in Indonesia and flooding in Peninsular Malaysia helped constrain supply. Worldwide palm oil output climbed just 2.7 percent last year, to 42.1 million tons.
At the same time, palm oil demand is growing steeply for a variety of reasons around the globe. They include shifting decisions among farmers about what to plant, rising consumer demand in China and India for edible oils, and Western subsidies for biofuel production.
American farmers have been planting more corn and less soy because demand for corn-based ethanol has pushed up corn prices. American soybean acreage plunged 19 percent last year, producing a drop in soybean oil output and inventories.
Chinese farmers also cut back soybean acreage last year, as urban sprawl covered prime farmland and the Chinese government provided more incentives for grain.
Yet people in China are also consuming more oils. China not only was the world’s biggest palm oil importer last year, holding steady at 5.2 million tons in the first 11 months of the year, but it also doubled its soybean oil imports to 2.9 million tons, forcing buyers elsewhere to switch to palm oil.
Concerns about nutrition used to hurt palm oil sales, but they are now starting to help. The oil was long regarded in the West as unhealthy, but it has become an attractive option to replace the chemically altered fats known as trans fats, which have lately come to be seen as the least healthy of all fats.
New York City banned trans fats in frying at food service establishments last summer and will ban them in bakery goods this summer. Across the country, manufacturers are trying to replace trans fats. American palm oil imports nearly doubled in the first 11 months of last year, rising by 200,000 tons.
“Four years ago, when this whole no-trans issue started, we processed no palm here," said Mark Weyland, a United States product manager for Loders Croklaan, a Dutch company that supplies palm oil. “Now it’s our biggest seller.”
Last year, conversion of palm oil into fuel was a fast-growing source of demand, but in recent weeks, rising prices have thrown that business into turmoil.
Here on Malaysia’s eastern shore, a series of 45-foot-high green and gray storage tanks connect to a labyrinth of yellow and silver pipes. The gleaming new refinery has the capacity to turn 116,000 tons a year of palm oil into 110,000 tons of a fuel called biodiesel, as well as valuable byproducts like glycerin. Mission Biofuels, an Australian company, finished the refinery last month and is working on an even larger factory next door at the base of a jungle hillside.
But prices have spiked so much that the company cannot cover all its costs and has idled the finished refinery while looking for a new strategy, such as asking a biodiesel buyer to pay a price linked to palm oil costs, and someday switching from palm oil to jatropha, a roadside weed.
“We took a view that palm oil prices were already high; we didn’t think they could go even higher, and then they did,” said Nathan Mahalingam, the company’s managing director.
Growth in Biofuels
Biofuels accounted for almost half the increase in worldwide demand for vegetable oils last year, and represented 7 percent of total consumption of the oils, according to Oil World, a forecasting service in Hamburg, Germany.
The growth of biodiesel, which can be mixed with regular diesel, has been controversial, not only because it competes with food uses of oil but also because of environmental concerns. European conservation groups have been warning that tropical forests are being leveled to make way for oil palm plantations, destroying habitat for orangutans and Sumatran rhinoceroses while also releasing greenhouse gases.
The European Union has moved to restrict imports of palm oil grown in unsustainable ways. The measure has incensed the Malaysian palm oil industry, which had plunged into biofuel production in part to satisfy European demand.
Another controversy involves the treatment of indigenous peoples whose lands have been seized by oil plantations. This has been a particular issue on Borneo.
Anne B. Lasimbang, executive director of the Pacos Trust in the Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo, said that while some indigenous people had benefited from selling palm oil that they grow themselves, many had lost ancestral lands with little to show for it, including lands that used to provide habitats for endangered orangutans.
“Finally, some of the pressures internationally have trickled down. Some of the companies are more open to dialogue; they want to talk to communities,” said Ms. Lasimbang, a member of the Dusun indigenous group. “On our side, we are still suspicious.”
Demand Outstrips Supply
As the multiple conflicts and economic pressures associated with palm oil play out in the global economy, the bottom line seems to be that the world wants more of the oil than it can get.
Even in Malaysia, the center of the global palm oil industry for half a century, spot shortages have cropped up. Recently, as wholesale prices soared, cooking oil refiners complained of inadequate subsidies and cut back production of household oil, sold at low, regulated prices.
Street vendors in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, complain that they cannot find enough cooking oil to prepare roti canai, the flatbread that is the national snack. “It’s very difficult; it’s hard to find,” said one vendor who gave only his first name, Palani, after admitting that he was secretly buying cooking oil intended for households instead of paying the much higher price for commercial use.
Many of the hardest-hit victims of rising food prices are in the vast slums that surround cities in poorer Asian nations. The Kawle family in Mumbai’s sprawling Dharavi slum, a household of nine with just one member working as a laborer for $60 a month, is coping with recent price increases for palm oil.
The family has responded by eating fish once a week instead of twice, seldom cooking vegetables and cutting its monthly rice consumption. Next to go will be the weekly smidgen of lamb.
“If the prices go up again,” said Janaron Kawle, the family patriarch, “we’ll cut the mutton to twice a month and use less oil.”
Contributing reporting were Andrew Martin in New York, Anand Giridharadas in Kale, India, and Michael Rubenstein in Mumbai.
Lies, Lies and More Lies About Global Warming
I hope someone records this and plays it on YouTube for the whole world to see.......and scoff at the continued lies about man-caused global warming.
Peter
'60 Minutes' Preempted This Sunday for Global Warming Hysteria
http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=7494542&msgid=110669&act=DO9V&c=164810&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsbusters.org%2Fblogs%2Fnoel-sheppard%2F2008%2F01%2F19%2F60-minutes-preempted-sunday-global-warming-hysteria
By Noel Sheppard January 19, 2008 - 11:34 ET
Fortunately, most people will likely be watching the Giants-Packers game Sunday evening, and will therefore miss the one-sided hysteria.
However, for those that mysteriously don't switch channels after the Chargers-Patriots game, CBS will offer a special about global warming this Sunday instead of "60 Minutes."
How marvelous.
Nowhere is the evidence of global warming as striking than near the earth's poles. CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley's report brings him to the top and the bottom of the world, where scientists point out the effects of the warming trend. He also speaks to NASA's top scientist studying climate, who says the Bush administration has restricted what he can say about global warming.
This teaser raises many important questions. For instance, will even one of the over 400 scientists that don't believe man is responsible for global warming be interviewed by Pelley? Or, will he exclusively talk to folks that are involved in advancing this yet unproven theory?
Will any of the scientific studies concerning historical ice levels in the Arctic and the Antarctic be sited, or just the satellite data for the past thirty years?
Assuming the top NASA scientist Pelley will be speaking to is the controversial head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hansen, will he be asked about his connection to George Soros? Or that the GISS predicted an ice age back in 1971? Or that Hansen's organization made a huge error in calculating temperatures this decade that was uncovered by Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre?
Speaking of McIntyre, might Pelley ask Hansen about Michael Mann's "Hockey Stick" model which forms the basis of most anthropogenic global warming theories, but has been totally discredited?
Or how about all those weather stations overseen by Hansen's organization that don't meet federal guidelines? Might Pelley bring this up on Sunday, and get the GISS director's view on the subject?
And when Pelley speaks to Hansen about the Bush administration supposedly restricting what he can say about global warming, will Pelley mention the RealClimate website and blog that Hansen is involved with? Or reference all of the articles that Hansen has written concerning this subject while he was supposedly being silenced by the White House?
Finally, will Pelley ask Hansen about his connection to Al Gore, and how the Nobel Laureate's film has been found by a British court to be filled with scientific errors?
Or, will this installment be exclusively filled with one-sided information on this controversial subject with not one shred of balance for the viewer?
Yes, sadly, these were all rhetorical questions.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
Peter
'60 Minutes' Preempted This Sunday for Global Warming Hysteria
http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=7494542&msgid=110669&act=DO9V&c=164810&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsbusters.org%2Fblogs%2Fnoel-sheppard%2F2008%2F01%2F19%2F60-minutes-preempted-sunday-global-warming-hysteria
By Noel Sheppard January 19, 2008 - 11:34 ET
Fortunately, most people will likely be watching the Giants-Packers game Sunday evening, and will therefore miss the one-sided hysteria.
However, for those that mysteriously don't switch channels after the Chargers-Patriots game, CBS will offer a special about global warming this Sunday instead of "60 Minutes."
How marvelous.
Nowhere is the evidence of global warming as striking than near the earth's poles. CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley's report brings him to the top and the bottom of the world, where scientists point out the effects of the warming trend. He also speaks to NASA's top scientist studying climate, who says the Bush administration has restricted what he can say about global warming.
This teaser raises many important questions. For instance, will even one of the over 400 scientists that don't believe man is responsible for global warming be interviewed by Pelley? Or, will he exclusively talk to folks that are involved in advancing this yet unproven theory?
Will any of the scientific studies concerning historical ice levels in the Arctic and the Antarctic be sited, or just the satellite data for the past thirty years?
Assuming the top NASA scientist Pelley will be speaking to is the controversial head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hansen, will he be asked about his connection to George Soros? Or that the GISS predicted an ice age back in 1971? Or that Hansen's organization made a huge error in calculating temperatures this decade that was uncovered by Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre?
Speaking of McIntyre, might Pelley ask Hansen about Michael Mann's "Hockey Stick" model which forms the basis of most anthropogenic global warming theories, but has been totally discredited?
Or how about all those weather stations overseen by Hansen's organization that don't meet federal guidelines? Might Pelley bring this up on Sunday, and get the GISS director's view on the subject?
And when Pelley speaks to Hansen about the Bush administration supposedly restricting what he can say about global warming, will Pelley mention the RealClimate website and blog that Hansen is involved with? Or reference all of the articles that Hansen has written concerning this subject while he was supposedly being silenced by the White House?
Finally, will Pelley ask Hansen about his connection to Al Gore, and how the Nobel Laureate's film has been found by a British court to be filled with scientific errors?
Or, will this installment be exclusively filled with one-sided information on this controversial subject with not one shred of balance for the viewer?
Yes, sadly, these were all rhetorical questions.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Skeptics Fight To Dispel Myth Of Man-Caused Global Warming
Global Warming: The Coming Skeptic’s Revival
FROM: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1438
By Miguel A. Guanipa Thursday, January 17, 2008
The recent U.S. Senate committee report listing 400 scientists who last year openly disputed Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming claims does indeed appear to yield a consensus.
But their consensus is not based in the dubious assertion that a plenary rise in the earth’s temperature described as Global Warming is a settled scientific theory. Neither is this consensus grounded in the bogus claim that the polar bear population is at risk and should be declared an endangered species due to the threat posed by Global Warming; or the incorrect thesis that hurricanes and Global Warming are indisputably linked.
It is also not based on the claim that due to Global Warming, the earth’s glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, which - defying basic laws of chemistry and physics – will eventually cause a massive deluge of coastal sections of the United States, Canada and perhaps other countries, the likes of which have not been heard of since biblical times; or on the purported claim that the most advanced computer models, which are famously incapable of duplicating the legion of natural and artificial variables that regulate even local climate, are fully adequate to forecast the impending global doom so ominously predicted by Al Gore in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”.
And most emphatically, this consensus is not rooted in the infuriating declaration that Global Warming skeptics comprise only a half a dozen or so misguided sell outs to the oil industry, barely outnumbering the few remaining members of the Flat Earth Society, as has been disdainfully stated by the guru of Global Warming hysterics himself.
According to the collective assessment of this eminent group of scientists, no such testimonials meet the most rudimentary standards of good scientific inquiry, or have any basis on fact; therefore no consensus is to be found among the 400 scientists that are listed on this report , other than the nearly unanimous agreement that the claim of Global Warming as a legitimate threat to humanity is more an ideological juggernaut than a proven scientific certainty, fueled predominantly by the politics of fear from the left, and amply lavished with the continued financial support from unwitting governments and moral support from the main stream media.
This diverse assembly of Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptics (or Holocaust deniers as Ellen Goodman from the Boston Globe would call them) include experts from the fields of paleontology, chemistry, Chemical engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Agriculture, Astrophysics, Oceanography, Atmospheric Science, Geology, Meteorology, and Economics, to name a few. Many of them are also recent converts who once called themselves staunch believers in A.G.W.
A good number of them are former draft reviewers of the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report they have now happily disowned as dangerously speculative, as it portends to mandate drastic policy measures for signatories from world governments in order to stop the impending catastrophe presumably looming in the horizon.
Their collective body of work on the science of Global Climate consists of thousands of research studies and peer reviewed papers in myriad reputable scientific publications and academic institutions.
Their consensus is based in the scientifically verifiable notion that – stop the presses – periodic Hemispheric warming (and cooling) of the earth are natural cyclical phenomena, caused primarily by fluctuations in the sun’s electro-magnetic radiation, water vapor, and a host of other culprits meaner than the rise in carbon dioxide levels, which is actually an effect rather than a cause of warming. This natural cycle has taken place - and will continue to take place - over millennia. This means that the net impact that man - in all his industrial fury - has over any significant climate variations, is no more distinguishable – as a contributing former meteorologist puts it – than a “fart in a hurricane”.
The scientists have also expressed concern over how their voices are being suppressed, by a media that routinely ridicules them for having contrarian views. They also contend that stripped of its thin veneer of scientific legitimacy, the theory of A.G.W. is nothing more than an ideological doctrine, and a dangerous one at that, for it tries to set itself as authoritative, arbitrarily excluding other dissenting views, by questioning the motives and belittling the academic credentials of those who express any suspicion of its tenets, and generously rewarding those who espouse them, while healthy debate is summarily stifled on an issue that could have serious and lasting global economic and social repercussions.
Much to their regret, it appears that vast sums of money will continue to be misspent by ill-informed bureaucracies intent on funding quixotic attempts to solve a problem that never existed and alleviate an apocalyptic crisis that will never transpire, the prophetic summons of which - to their astonishment - earned Al Gore an appendix in the pages of history as a proud recipient of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
Additionally, these scientists affirm that most of their colleagues concur with them but will simply not speak out because they fear their livelihoods will be affected by the withdrawal of research grants, as it has already happened to some who have expressed skepticism on the issue.
But primarily, and justifiable so, these scientists are most concerned with the damage that is being done to the credibility and reputation of the scientific endeavor by many of their profit and public recognition driven colleagues and questionable sources of wisdom like Al Gore, who use their political platform, celebrity status, and the media to promote a theory which, curiously enough, is so fiercely guarded from exposure to legitimate scientific scrutiny.Thus they hope that as the science of Global Climate evolves, and as the dire prediction of Global Warming alarmists fail to come to pass, perhaps they will again be granted a better forum, and healthy debate will resume – as it should in all the sciences.
As for Al Gore, other than taking the opportunity to admit he has some serious explaining to do to the scientific community, not to mention his adoring liberal fans and the rest of the world, he should probably return to doing whatever it is he does when he is not combing his hair or polishing his many ill-gotten accolades so decoratively arrayed on his fire place mantel.
Posted 01/17 at 12:43 PM Miguel.Guanipa@sunlife.com
FROM: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1438
By Miguel A. Guanipa Thursday, January 17, 2008
The recent U.S. Senate committee report listing 400 scientists who last year openly disputed Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming claims does indeed appear to yield a consensus.
But their consensus is not based in the dubious assertion that a plenary rise in the earth’s temperature described as Global Warming is a settled scientific theory. Neither is this consensus grounded in the bogus claim that the polar bear population is at risk and should be declared an endangered species due to the threat posed by Global Warming; or the incorrect thesis that hurricanes and Global Warming are indisputably linked.
It is also not based on the claim that due to Global Warming, the earth’s glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, which - defying basic laws of chemistry and physics – will eventually cause a massive deluge of coastal sections of the United States, Canada and perhaps other countries, the likes of which have not been heard of since biblical times; or on the purported claim that the most advanced computer models, which are famously incapable of duplicating the legion of natural and artificial variables that regulate even local climate, are fully adequate to forecast the impending global doom so ominously predicted by Al Gore in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”.
And most emphatically, this consensus is not rooted in the infuriating declaration that Global Warming skeptics comprise only a half a dozen or so misguided sell outs to the oil industry, barely outnumbering the few remaining members of the Flat Earth Society, as has been disdainfully stated by the guru of Global Warming hysterics himself.
According to the collective assessment of this eminent group of scientists, no such testimonials meet the most rudimentary standards of good scientific inquiry, or have any basis on fact; therefore no consensus is to be found among the 400 scientists that are listed on this report , other than the nearly unanimous agreement that the claim of Global Warming as a legitimate threat to humanity is more an ideological juggernaut than a proven scientific certainty, fueled predominantly by the politics of fear from the left, and amply lavished with the continued financial support from unwitting governments and moral support from the main stream media.
This diverse assembly of Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptics (or Holocaust deniers as Ellen Goodman from the Boston Globe would call them) include experts from the fields of paleontology, chemistry, Chemical engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Agriculture, Astrophysics, Oceanography, Atmospheric Science, Geology, Meteorology, and Economics, to name a few. Many of them are also recent converts who once called themselves staunch believers in A.G.W.
A good number of them are former draft reviewers of the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report they have now happily disowned as dangerously speculative, as it portends to mandate drastic policy measures for signatories from world governments in order to stop the impending catastrophe presumably looming in the horizon.
Their collective body of work on the science of Global Climate consists of thousands of research studies and peer reviewed papers in myriad reputable scientific publications and academic institutions.
Their consensus is based in the scientifically verifiable notion that – stop the presses – periodic Hemispheric warming (and cooling) of the earth are natural cyclical phenomena, caused primarily by fluctuations in the sun’s electro-magnetic radiation, water vapor, and a host of other culprits meaner than the rise in carbon dioxide levels, which is actually an effect rather than a cause of warming. This natural cycle has taken place - and will continue to take place - over millennia. This means that the net impact that man - in all his industrial fury - has over any significant climate variations, is no more distinguishable – as a contributing former meteorologist puts it – than a “fart in a hurricane”.
The scientists have also expressed concern over how their voices are being suppressed, by a media that routinely ridicules them for having contrarian views. They also contend that stripped of its thin veneer of scientific legitimacy, the theory of A.G.W. is nothing more than an ideological doctrine, and a dangerous one at that, for it tries to set itself as authoritative, arbitrarily excluding other dissenting views, by questioning the motives and belittling the academic credentials of those who express any suspicion of its tenets, and generously rewarding those who espouse them, while healthy debate is summarily stifled on an issue that could have serious and lasting global economic and social repercussions.
Much to their regret, it appears that vast sums of money will continue to be misspent by ill-informed bureaucracies intent on funding quixotic attempts to solve a problem that never existed and alleviate an apocalyptic crisis that will never transpire, the prophetic summons of which - to their astonishment - earned Al Gore an appendix in the pages of history as a proud recipient of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
Additionally, these scientists affirm that most of their colleagues concur with them but will simply not speak out because they fear their livelihoods will be affected by the withdrawal of research grants, as it has already happened to some who have expressed skepticism on the issue.
But primarily, and justifiable so, these scientists are most concerned with the damage that is being done to the credibility and reputation of the scientific endeavor by many of their profit and public recognition driven colleagues and questionable sources of wisdom like Al Gore, who use their political platform, celebrity status, and the media to promote a theory which, curiously enough, is so fiercely guarded from exposure to legitimate scientific scrutiny.Thus they hope that as the science of Global Climate evolves, and as the dire prediction of Global Warming alarmists fail to come to pass, perhaps they will again be granted a better forum, and healthy debate will resume – as it should in all the sciences.
As for Al Gore, other than taking the opportunity to admit he has some serious explaining to do to the scientific community, not to mention his adoring liberal fans and the rest of the world, he should probably return to doing whatever it is he does when he is not combing his hair or polishing his many ill-gotten accolades so decoratively arrayed on his fire place mantel.
Posted 01/17 at 12:43 PM Miguel.Guanipa@sunlife.com
More Scientists Skeptical of Man-Caused Global Warming Speak Out
There is a growing list of scientists expressing their skepticism over the presumption of man-caused global warming and climate change. As it becomes more politically acceptable to express doubt, I think this trend will continue.
Peter
Below are the latest scientists to be added to the over 400 scientists who dispute man-made global warming claims: (Marc Morano)
1. Chemist and Biochemist Dr. Michael F. Farona, an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Akron and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, critiqued the news media for inadequate reporting about global warming and expressed climate skepticism. “Data, numbers, graphs, trends, etc., are generally missing in supposedly scientific reports on global warming. These articles are usually long on opinions and short on hard data. Phrases such as ‘scientists agree that ...’ scientists doubt that ...’ do not belong in a scientific article. There are more data in Michael Crichton's novel ‘State of Fear’ than in all the global warming articles combined that I have read,” Farona wrote on January 3, 2008.
“There have been at least four interglacial periods, where the glaciers have advanced and retreated. The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago and, in the case of North America, left the Great Lakes in the glacier's retreat. The glaciers are still retreating, so there should not be any great surprise that the sea level is rising. The industrial revolution is about 150 years old, compared to 10,000 years of warming. Can human activities have really made a significant contribution to rising temperatures in that amount of time?” Farona asked.
“We know that the east coast of the U.S. was flooded during the previous interglacial period, so sea level rising and coastal flooding are not unique to this interglacial period. Why now the draconian predictions of coastal flooding as if this has not happened before?” he continued. “What is the relationship between an increased level of carbon dioxide and temperature? Can it be predicted that an increase of so many parts per billion of carbon dioxide will cause an increase of so many degrees? I have not seen any answers to the questions posed above, leading me to adopt a somewhat skeptical view of blaming global warming on human activities.
What puzzles me is the reluctance of climatologists to provide scientific data supporting their dire predictions of the near future if we don't change our ways,” Farona concluded.
2. Award winning meteorologist Brian Sussman, a member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), former member of the AMS Education Advisory Committee, and formerly of KPIX-TV CBS in San Francisco, is the author of the forthcoming book “Global Whining: A Denier’s Handbook.” “Mankind's burning of fossil fuels is allegedly warming the planet. This hypothesis couldn't stand the test of an eighth grade science fair. And if you dare poke holes in the hypothesis you're branded a 'denier,’” Sussman told EPW on January 3, 2008. “Well fine. I'd rather be called a 'denier' than try to push a scheme that would make Karl Marx green with envy,” Sussman added.
3. Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review. Briggs, a visiting mathematics professor at Central Michigan University and a Biostatistician at New York Methodist Hospital, has a new paper coming out in the peer-reviewed Journal of Climate which finds that hurricanes have not increased number or intensity in the North Atlantic.
Briggs, who has authored numerous articles in meteorological and climatological journals, has also authored another study looking on tropical cyclones around the globe, and finds that they have not increased in number or intensity either. Briggs expressed skepticism about man-made global warming fears in 2007. "There is a lot of uncertainly among scientists about what's going on with the climate," Briggs wrote to EPW on December 28, 2007. "Most scientists just don't want the publicity one way or another. Generally, publicity is not good for one's academic career. Only, after reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet," Briggs explained.
"It is well known that weather forecasts, out to, say, four to five days, have skill; that is, they can beat just guessing the average. Forecasts with lead times greater than this have decreasing to no skill," Briggs wrote. "The skill of climate forecasts---global climate models---upon which the vast majority of global warming science is based are not well investigated, but what is known is that these models do not do a good job at reproducing past, known climates, nor at predicting future climates. The error associated with climate predictions is also much larger than that usually ascribed to them; meaning, of course, that people are far too sure of themselves and their models," he concluded.
4. Hydrologist and geologist Mike McConnell of the U.S. Forest Service is a professional Earth scientist who has studied atmospheric pollution, post-wildfire mitigation planning, and groundwater surface water modeling. In 2007, McConnell dissented from the view that mankind has created a climate crisis. “Climate change is a climate system that we have no real control over,” McConnell wrote on December 27, 2007. “Our understanding on the complexities of our climate system, the Earth itself and even the sun are still quite limited. Scaring people into submission is not the answer to get people to change their environmental ways,” McConnell explained. He also dismissed claims that the human race was “the cause of our global warming.”
McConnell wrote, “There is no real basis for this. There is a growing body of scientific literatures outlining that this not to be the case.” He concluded, “Now, if Earth was suffering under an accelerated greenhouse effect caused by human produced addition of CO2, the troposphere should heat up faster than the surface of the planet, but data collected from satellites and weather balloons do not support this fundamental presumption even though we are seeing higher CO2. We ought to see near lockstep temperature increments along with higher CO2 concentration over time, especially over the last several years. But we're not.”
Peter
Below are the latest scientists to be added to the over 400 scientists who dispute man-made global warming claims: (Marc Morano)
1. Chemist and Biochemist Dr. Michael F. Farona, an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Akron and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, critiqued the news media for inadequate reporting about global warming and expressed climate skepticism. “Data, numbers, graphs, trends, etc., are generally missing in supposedly scientific reports on global warming. These articles are usually long on opinions and short on hard data. Phrases such as ‘scientists agree that ...’ scientists doubt that ...’ do not belong in a scientific article. There are more data in Michael Crichton's novel ‘State of Fear’ than in all the global warming articles combined that I have read,” Farona wrote on January 3, 2008.
“There have been at least four interglacial periods, where the glaciers have advanced and retreated. The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago and, in the case of North America, left the Great Lakes in the glacier's retreat. The glaciers are still retreating, so there should not be any great surprise that the sea level is rising. The industrial revolution is about 150 years old, compared to 10,000 years of warming. Can human activities have really made a significant contribution to rising temperatures in that amount of time?” Farona asked.
“We know that the east coast of the U.S. was flooded during the previous interglacial period, so sea level rising and coastal flooding are not unique to this interglacial period. Why now the draconian predictions of coastal flooding as if this has not happened before?” he continued. “What is the relationship between an increased level of carbon dioxide and temperature? Can it be predicted that an increase of so many parts per billion of carbon dioxide will cause an increase of so many degrees? I have not seen any answers to the questions posed above, leading me to adopt a somewhat skeptical view of blaming global warming on human activities.
What puzzles me is the reluctance of climatologists to provide scientific data supporting their dire predictions of the near future if we don't change our ways,” Farona concluded.
2. Award winning meteorologist Brian Sussman, a member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), former member of the AMS Education Advisory Committee, and formerly of KPIX-TV CBS in San Francisco, is the author of the forthcoming book “Global Whining: A Denier’s Handbook.” “Mankind's burning of fossil fuels is allegedly warming the planet. This hypothesis couldn't stand the test of an eighth grade science fair. And if you dare poke holes in the hypothesis you're branded a 'denier,’” Sussman told EPW on January 3, 2008. “Well fine. I'd rather be called a 'denier' than try to push a scheme that would make Karl Marx green with envy,” Sussman added.
3. Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review. Briggs, a visiting mathematics professor at Central Michigan University and a Biostatistician at New York Methodist Hospital, has a new paper coming out in the peer-reviewed Journal of Climate which finds that hurricanes have not increased number or intensity in the North Atlantic.
Briggs, who has authored numerous articles in meteorological and climatological journals, has also authored another study looking on tropical cyclones around the globe, and finds that they have not increased in number or intensity either. Briggs expressed skepticism about man-made global warming fears in 2007. "There is a lot of uncertainly among scientists about what's going on with the climate," Briggs wrote to EPW on December 28, 2007. "Most scientists just don't want the publicity one way or another. Generally, publicity is not good for one's academic career. Only, after reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet," Briggs explained.
"It is well known that weather forecasts, out to, say, four to five days, have skill; that is, they can beat just guessing the average. Forecasts with lead times greater than this have decreasing to no skill," Briggs wrote. "The skill of climate forecasts---global climate models---upon which the vast majority of global warming science is based are not well investigated, but what is known is that these models do not do a good job at reproducing past, known climates, nor at predicting future climates. The error associated with climate predictions is also much larger than that usually ascribed to them; meaning, of course, that people are far too sure of themselves and their models," he concluded.
4. Hydrologist and geologist Mike McConnell of the U.S. Forest Service is a professional Earth scientist who has studied atmospheric pollution, post-wildfire mitigation planning, and groundwater surface water modeling. In 2007, McConnell dissented from the view that mankind has created a climate crisis. “Climate change is a climate system that we have no real control over,” McConnell wrote on December 27, 2007. “Our understanding on the complexities of our climate system, the Earth itself and even the sun are still quite limited. Scaring people into submission is not the answer to get people to change their environmental ways,” McConnell explained. He also dismissed claims that the human race was “the cause of our global warming.”
McConnell wrote, “There is no real basis for this. There is a growing body of scientific literatures outlining that this not to be the case.” He concluded, “Now, if Earth was suffering under an accelerated greenhouse effect caused by human produced addition of CO2, the troposphere should heat up faster than the surface of the planet, but data collected from satellites and weather balloons do not support this fundamental presumption even though we are seeing higher CO2. We ought to see near lockstep temperature increments along with higher CO2 concentration over time, especially over the last several years. But we're not.”
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