THE CO₂ BOOGEYMAN
Noted Scientists, Climatologists and Ron Blast Global Warming

THE REAL CAUSE

The poor old Scandinavian moose is now being blamed for climate change, with researchers in Norway claiming that a grown moose can produce 2,100 kilos of methane a year -- equivalent to the CO2 output resulting from a 13,000 kilometer car journey.

Now poor moose are being blamed for global warming.
Norway is concerned that its national animal, the moose, is harming the climate by emitting an estimated 2,100 kilos of carbon dioxide a year through its belching and farting.Norwegian newspapers, citing research from Norway's technical university, said a motorist would have to drive 13,000 kilometers in a car to emit as much CO2 as a moose does in a year.Bacteria in a moose's stomach create methane gas which is considered even more destructive to the environment than carbon dioxide gas. Norway has some 120,000 moose. Note: Cows pose the same problem.

“People like to complain about the weather,” goes the old saw. This is especially true nowadays as bad weather becomes an excuse for the climate alarmist-friendly media to trot out its manmade global warming boogeyman.

The alarmists seem to need thinly-veiled headlines – such as the Washington Post’s “Across Globe, Extremes of Heat and Rain” (Aug. 8) and the New York Times’ “Warming Threatens Farms in India, U.N. Officials Says” (Aug. 8) – as two more studies published this week in the journal Science and the discovery of an embarrassing temperature error rained on their parade.

In the first study, UK researchers claim to have “improved the forecasting skill of a global climate model by incorporating information about the actual state of the ocean and the atmosphere, rather than the approximate ones most models use.” The new model predicts that warming will slow during the next few years but then speed up again, and that at least half of the years after 2009 will be warmer than 1998 – the warmest year on record according to global warming legend (more on that later).

“A common criticism of global climate models, particularly for predicting the coming decade, has been that they only include factors, such as solar radiation, atmospheric aerosols and greenhouse gases, which are affected by changes from outside the climate system [while neglecting] internal climate variability that arises from natural changes within the system, like El Niño, fluctuations in ocean circulation and anomalies in ocean heat content,” researchers said.

This internal variability could lead to short-term changes, especially regionally, that are quite different from the warming predicted to occur over the next century by global climate models, said researchers.

While the researchers want us to believe that climate modeling has advanced, it really has not.

First, and as an overarching comment, if existing climate models are so prone to error, then why would Congress want to rely on them as a basis for enacting energy price-hiking and economy-harming laws and regulations?

The new model predicts that, during the coming decade, average global temperature will be 0.3 degrees Centigrade (plus/minus 0.21 degrees Centigrade) higher than the 2004 average temperature.

But can mathematical models really estimate global temperature change within 0.3 degrees Centigrade when we don’t even know what the average global temperature is to within 0.7 degrees Centigrade?

As NASA’s alarmist-in-chief James Hansen admits, we have no definition of what we are trying to measure in the context of average global temperature. “For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 57.2 degrees Fahrenheit, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58 degrees Fahrenheit and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse,” says Hansen.

For a dimmer view of the concept of average global temperature, consider the thoughts of renowned theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson who says that average land temperature is “impossible to measure… is a fiction… nobody knows what it is… there’s no way you can measure it.”

The UK researchers (and most other climate alarmists) are even wrong on the matter of 1998 being the warmest year on record – at least for the U.S. According to a new analysis which discovered an error in a NASA dataset, 1934 is the new warmest year on record for the U.S. In fact, four of the warmest 10 years in the U.S. date from the 1930s while only three date from the last 10 years. This is an embarrassing setback for alarmists, especially since about 80 percent of manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions occurred after 1940.

In the second Science study, Desert Research Institute scientists report that increased levels of industrial pollution (soot) in Arctic snow during the late-19th and early-20th centuries may have caused the warming occurring in that region at that time. The researchers say the soot reduced the reflectivity of snow and ice, allowing the surface to absorb more energy from the sun.

If true, that line of reasoning may be relevant to the ongoing Arctic warming trend.

Though alarmists attribute that warming trend to increased atmospheric CO2, this argument seems easily batted aside by the observation that there is little correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature in the Arctic region.

Could ongoing Arctic deposition of soot be a possibility? You might not think so because U.S., Canadian and Western European industries now operate under strict soot control regulations. But what about China? After all, it burns more coal than the U.S., EU and Japan combined – typically without the emissions controls of developed nations

A 2006 New York Times article, entitled “Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow,” reported that soot emissions from the thousands of Chinese coal-burning factories and power plants waft across the Pacific Ocean and are easily detectable in the U.S. Northwest. The Desert Research Institute scientists note in their paper that, “Some models suggest that a large fraction of Arctic pollutants originate in south Asia.”

If you’re worried about polar bears floating on melting chunks of ice, clamping down on CO2 emissions from SUVs may do absolutely nothing to alleviate that concern.

Because of the many questions about the science used to inflate the climate-worry bubble – and as reported on the Fox News Channel show Special Report (Aug. 7) – my Web site JunkScience.com is offering quite a nice prize to the first person who can scientifically prove that humans are causing catastrophic global warming. But it’s going to take a lot more than ominous weather reports to win the “Ultimate Global Warming Challenge.”

DID YOU KNOW THAT COLD KILLS AND WARMING SAVES LIVES?  IF NOT . LEARN WHAT GORE IGNORES!

    A fact-finding trip to Greenland has renewed Sen. Barbara Boxer’s desire to pass legislation aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions, according to the senator who has been promising such legislation since early in her term as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Boxer, a California Democrat, took nine members of her committee to Greenland July 27-29 to tour glaciers, ice shelves and fishing villages in the arctic nation which is home to 10 percent of the planet’s ice.
    … Boxer said icebergs “are heading to the Atlantic Ocean at a speed twice as fast as in 1985; melting at a rate that will lead to sea-level rises with disastrous consequences unless we act to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide that have already caused the temperature in Greenland to rise four degrees since 1988.”[i]
    She said increased temperatures are driving polar bears into villages where they are killed because they pose a risk to humans. She also said fishermen in the region are being forced to adapt to changes in fish habits as a result of the warming.[ii]
    Boxer said the trip reminded her that “I have a responsibility to move not to lessen the impacts of severe global warming.”[iii]
    Several bills have been drafted that would address carbon emissions through cap-and-trade systems. Boxer has promised since April that she will move legislation through her committee as soon as a bill exists that could pass the narrowly divided Senate.[iv] More recently, she pledged to use the momentum created by former Vice President Al Gore’s[v] Live Earth concerts to push for action on climate change. …
    Not everyone who went on the trip was convinced that what senators were looking at was the result of man-made global warming. In a blog post on the Environment and Public Works Committee website Monday, Marc Morano, a spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), pointed to several studies that question human contribution to global warming. Inhofe did not travel to Greenland with his committee colleagues, but Morano, a former reported for Cybercast News Service, went as his representative.
    “Recent research has found that Greenland has been warming since the 1880’s, but since 1955, temperature changes at Greenland stations have been colder than the period between 1881-1955”, Morano wrote.
    A 2006 study carried out by Denmark’s Aarhus University found that Greenland’s glaciers have been melting for the past century, since before man-made carbon emissions were a factor, he noted. A 2006 Los Alamos National Laboratory study found the rate of warming in Greenland was higher in the 1920s than the 1990s. Other studies Morano cited found that while low elevation ice sheets are thinning, higher elevation interior ice sheets are thickening. A 2003 Harvard University study found that the Earth was warmer during the Medieval Warm Period (800-1300 AD) than it is today.
    “These studies suggest that the biggest perceived threat to Greenland’s glaciers may be contained in unproven computer models predicting a future catastrophic melt,” Morano wrote, noting that U.N. scientist Jim Renwick has acknowledged that “half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don’t expect to do terrifically well [in forecasting what will happen].”
    Boxer acknowledged Morano’s presence on the trip … But she said she was confident that all the senators ended the trip accepting that man-made global warming is responsible for Greenland’s changes.[vi]
    Morano … told Cybercast News Service, “what all the senators and I saw was nothing more than natural climate variability and normal summer melt of Greenland’s glaciers.”

Global Warming Skeptics Advance, says Inhofe by Katherine Poythress, CNSNews, August 3rd, 2007 …

    Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) … told approximately 400 conservative students Thursday morning that despite attempts to silence global warming critics, the ground of the climate change debate is starting to shift their way, giving their views more exposure and effect. … He then named a host of scientists from around the world who are critical of global warming, including MIT’s professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen who calls the fear of man-made global warming “silly.”
    … [Mike Morano] “There are 2,000 scientists affiliated with the U.N., and only 52 wrote the last summary for policymakers. Of those 2,000, they include skeptics [of global warming] like Richard Lindzen and Pat Michaels.”
    Inhofe also referred to a letter 60 prominent scientists sent to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2006, in which they claimed the Kyoto Protocol of the 1990s was a regulatory measure written out of ignorance and which is now unnecessary based on modern scientific discoveries.[vii]
    …Inhofe cited an e-mail sent by ACORE President Martin Eckhart … “It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America.[viii] Inhofe said he has written four letters challenging the EPA, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Commerce to withdraw their memberships from ACORE.
    “With anyone who is threatening like that, something has to be done,” said Inhofe. “If you don’t have the truth, if you don’t have logic, if you don’t have science, you call names and you threaten.”[ix] …
    Inhofe admitted his stance on global warming is unpopular, even with some in his own party. And he himself used to tow the global warming line until a few years ago, he said, when he began researching the Kyoto Protocol and its potential economic effects. The $300 billion tax needed to implement the treaty in 1997 would have been the largest tax increase in two decades, Inhofe said. In his research, Inhofe discovered there were many scientists who criticized the entire premise on which the Kyoto Protocol was based. …
    Inhofe attributed what he calls the “myth” of global warming to an ulterior power-driven motive, described by former European Union Environment Minister Margo Wallstrom. She asserted that “Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big business worldwide,” said Inhofe.

Pat Michaels, linked above comments:

    Scientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (C) in 50 years. All this has to do with basic physics, which isn’t real hard to understand. It has been known since 1872 that as we emit more and more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, each increment results in less and less warming. In other words, the first changes produce the most warming and subsequent ones produce a bit less, and so on. But we also assume carbon dioxide continues to go into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate. In other words, the increase from year-to-year isn’t constant, but itself is increasing. The effect of increasing the rate of carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with the fact that more and more carbon dioxide produces less and less warming compels our climate projections for the future warming to be pretty much a straight line. Translation: Once human beings start to warm the climate, they do so at a constant rate.

Thursday , August 09, 2007
By Steven Milloy

People like to complain about the weather,” goes the old saw. This is especially true nowadays as bad weather becomes an excuse for the climate alarmist-friendly media to trot out its manmade global warming boogeyman.

The alarmists seem to need thinly-veiled headlines – such as the Washington Post’s “Across Globe, Extremes of Heat and Rain” (Aug. 8) and the New York Times’ “Warming Threatens Farms in India, U.N. Officials Says” (Aug. 8) – as two more studies published this week in the journal Science and the discovery of an embarrassing temperature error rained on their parade.

In the first study, UK researchers claim to have “improved the forecasting skill of a global climate model by incorporating information about the actual state of the ocean and the atmosphere, rather than the approximate ones most models use.” The new model predicts that warming will slow during the next few years but then speed up again, and that at least half of the years after 2009 will be warmer than 1998 – the warmest year on record according to global warming legend (more on that later).

“A common criticism of global climate models, particularly for predicting the coming decade, has been that they only include factors, such as solar radiation, atmospheric aerosols and greenhouse gases, which are affected by changes from outside the climate system [while neglecting] internal climate variability that arises from natural changes within the system, like El Niño, fluctuations in ocean circulation and anomalies in ocean heat content,” researchers said.

This internal variability could lead to short-term changes, especially regionally, that are quite different from the warming predicted to occur over the next century by global climate models, said researchers.

While the researchers want us to believe that climate modeling has advanced, it really has not.

First, and as an overarching comment, if existing climate models are so prone to error, then why would Congress want to rely on them as a basis for enacting energy price-hiking and economy-harming laws and regulations?

The new model predicts that, during the coming decade, average global temperature will be 0.3 degrees Centigrade (plus/minus 0.21 degrees Centigrade) higher than the 2004 average temperature.

But can mathematical models really estimate global temperature change within 0.3 degrees Centigrade when we don’t even know what the average global temperature is to within 0.7 degrees Centigrade?

As NASA’s alarmist-in-chief James Hansen admits, we have no definition of what we are trying to measure in the context of average global temperature. “For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 57.2 degrees Fahrenheit, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58 degrees Fahrenheit and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse,” says Hansen.

For a dimmer view of the concept of average global temperature, consider the thoughts of renowned theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson who says that average land temperature is “impossible to measure… is a fiction… nobody knows what it is… there’s no way you can measure it.”

The UK researchers (and most other climate alarmists) are even wrong on the matter of 1998 being the warmest year on record – at least for the U.S. According to a new analysis which discovered an error in a NASA dataset, 1934 is the new warmest year on record for the U.S. In fact, four of the warmest 10 years in the U.S. date from the 1930s while only three date from the last 10 years. This is an embarrassing setback for alarmists, especially since about 80 percent of manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions occurred after 1940.

In the second Science study, Desert Research Institute scientists report that increased levels of industrial pollution (soot) in Arctic snow during the late-19th and early-20th centuries may have caused the warming occurring in that region at that time. The researchers say the soot reduced the reflectivity of snow and ice, allowing the surface to absorb more energy from the sun.

If true, that line of reasoning may be relevant to the ongoing Arctic warming trend.

Though alarmists attribute that warming trend to increased atmospheric CO2, this argument seems easily batted aside by the observation that there is little correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature in the Arctic region.

Could ongoing Arctic deposition of soot be a possibility? You might not think so because U.S., Canadian and Western European industries now operate under strict soot control regulations. But what about China? After all, it burns more coal than the U.S., EU and Japan combined – typically without the emissions controls of developed nations

A 2006 New York Times article, entitled “Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow,” reported that soot emissions from the thousands of Chinese coal-burning factories and power plants waft across the Pacific Ocean and are easily detectable in the U.S. Northwest. The Desert Research Institute scientists note in their paper that, “Some models suggest that a large fraction of Arctic pollutants originate in south Asia.”

If you’re worried about polar bears floating on melting chunks of ice, clamping down on CO2 emissions from SUVs may do absolutely nothing to alleviate that concern.

Because of the many questions about the science used to inflate the climate-worry bubble – and as reported on the Fox News Channel show Special Report (Aug. 7) – my Web site JunkScience.com is offering quite a nice prize to the first person who can scientifically prove that humans are causing catastrophic global warming. But it’s going to take a lot more than ominous weather reports to win the “Ultimate Global Warming Challenge.”

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

Himalayan glaciers are melting - but not nearly
as fast as the fanciful notion of global warming will have you believe.
A new study in the Aug. 2 issue of the British
science journal Nature found that the solid
particles suspended in the atmosphere (called
"aerosols") that make up "brown clouds" may
actually contribute to warmer temperatures -
precisely the opposite effect heretofore claimed by global warming alarmists.

"These findings might seem to contradict the
general notion of aerosol particles as cooling
agents in the global climate system .," concluded
the Nature news article summing up the study.

Based on data collected by unmanned aerial
vehicles over the Indian Ocean, researchers from
the University of California, San Diego and NASA
reported not only that aerosols warmed
temperatures, but they also increased atmospheric
heating by 50 percent. This warming, they say,
may be sufficient to account for the retreat of the Himalayan glaciers.

Putting aside the fact that the Himalayan
glaciers have been retreating since 1780 - some
70 years before the onset of the current
post-Little Ice Age warming trend and 100 years
before the onset of significant global
industrialization - full appreciation of the
significance of the researchers' finding requires
a brief trip down recent-memory lane, one,
incidentally, that no media outlet reporting this finding bothered to make.

Global warming alarmism is rooted in the idea
that ever-increasing manmade emissions of
greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, cause
global temperatures to warm. This idea, however,
doesn't match up very well against real-world observations.

During the 20th century, for example, while
manmade carbon dioxide emissions steadily
increased from about 1940 to 1975, global temperatures cooled.

Global warming alarmists, such as the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
try to counter this observation by claiming that
aerosol particles in the atmosphere - like soot
and sulfates from fossil fuel combustion, and
dust from volcanic eruptions - can mask the
warming effect of greenhouse gases and cool the
planet by reflecting solar radiation back into space.

So then, which is it? Do aerosols cool or warm the planet? Can they do both?

The correct answers to these questions are not as
important as the fact that they are unanswered
and will likely remain so for some time to come.

At the very moment that Congress considers
enacting energy-price-raising and economy-killing
legislation to regulate greenhouse gases based on
the idea that human activity is harming global
climate, the new aerosol study underscores
(again) how little we understand whether and how
human activities actually impact global climate.

Consider other recent research that ought to give
our arm-chair climatologists in Congress pause.

In May, researchers reported in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences that the rate
of manmade carbon dioxide emissions was three
times greater during 2000 to 2004 than during the
1990s. But while humans may be burning more
fossil fuels than ever before, that
ever-increasing activity isn't having any sort of
discernible or proportionate impact on global temperatures.

In April, researchers from the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory reported in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences that forests
in northern regions - those north of the line of
latitude that runs through southern Cuba - will
warm surface temperatures by an estimated 10
degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.

Last October, Swedish researchers reported that
cosmic-ray-caused changes in cloud cover over a
five-year period can have 85 percent of the
temperature effect alleged to have been caused by
nearly 200 years of manmade carbon dioxide
emissions. They estimated that the temperature
effects of cloud cover during the 20th century
could be as much as seven times greater than the
alleged temperature effect of 200 years worth of
additional carbon dioxide and several times
greater than that of all additional greenhouse gases combined.

Would it be considered "piling on" to remind
Congress that last year's hurricane season
predictions - that is, a 95 percent chance of a
very active season - turned out to be a total
bust? If hurricane experts armed with
supercomputers can't predict a regional storm
season six months into the future, why would
anyone think that they can project global climate
trends for the next 100 years?

These are just some of the things that
climatologists have learned or have been proven
wrong about in just the past year.

Given the myriad scientific holes in the manmade
global warming hypothesis and allowing for the
inevitable future discoveries about climate, it
seems quite absurd for Congress to proceed on
global warming as if, in Al Gore's words, "There
is no longer any serious debate over the basic
points that make up the consensus on global warming."

The new aerosol study doesn't show that climate
alarmists may be just a little off course - it
shows that they may be 180 degrees off.

If manmade global climate change is something
worth fretting over - and it's not at all clear
that it is - the aerosol study opens up the
possibility for an entirely new hypothesis for
global warming with aerosols as the culprit. Yet
up to now, the "consensus" crowd has portrayed
aerosols in the opposite light as cooling agents.

When so-called "consensus" can be that far off,
it would seem that there's plenty of room for serious debate.en Sings the Renewable Energy Blues

Friday , July 27, 2007
By Steven Milloy

Rockefeller University’s Jesse Ausubel introduced his new article on renewable energy by openly worrying about “hereticide” — the all-to-common historical phenomenon of putting heretics to death.

As a long-time Green, Ausubel has good reason to be concerned given his article condemns renewable energy as “wrecking” the environment.

“Renewables are not green,” is how Ausubel begins the article published in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology. It’s a remarkable statement coming from someone who beat his fellow Greens to global warming alarmism by at least 10 years.

Ausubel’s Rockefeller University bio says that he “was one of the main organizers of the first U.N. World Climate Conference (Geneva, 1979) which substantially elevated the global warming issue on scientific and political agendas” and that he “played major roles in the formulation of both U.S. and world climate-research programs.”

Ausubel’s remarkable article, however, may very well cost him whatever exalted status he may have had in the Green movement, which is likely to brand him an out-and-out traitor to the cause.

But the Green’s loss is a big gain for the rest of us — particularly those interested in sensible energy and environmental policy as opposed to ill-considered, pie-in-the-sky hopes for a renewable energy-powered civilization.

Ausubel calculated the amount of energy produced by various renewable energy sources — including hydroelectric, biomass, wind and solar power — in terms of power output per square meter of land disturbed.

If you could collect the average annual rainfall of the 900,000-square-kilometer Canadian province of Ontario — about 680,000 billion liters of water — and store it behind a dam 60 meters tall, you would produce about 11,000 Megawatts of electricity — which is only about 80 percent of the output of Canada’s 25 nuclear power stations, Ausubel says.

In other words, this works out to a power production rate of 0.012 watts per square meter of land. It would take 1 square kilometer of land to provide enough electricity for about 12 Canadians, according to Ausubel, who says this inefficiency is a key reason for the reduced demand for hydroelectric power.

Biomass is an even worse renewable source of energy than hydroelectric power in terms of ecological harm.

Large-scale power generation from biomass would require that “vast areas be shaved or harvested annually,” Ausubel says. It would take 2,500 square kilometers of prime Iowa farmland to produce as much electricity from biomass as from a single nuclear power plant.

“Increased use of biomass fuel in any form is criminal,” Ausubel stated in a media release. “Every automobile would require a pasture of 1-2 hectares.” He added.

Wind power? While it’s much less land intensive than biomass, that’s not saying much. A 770-square-kilometer area would only produce as much electricity as a single 1,000 Megawatt nuclear plant.

A wind farm the size of Texas would be required to extract, store and transport annual U.S. energy needs. “Every square meter of Connecticut” would have to be turned into a wind farm to provide all of New York City’s electricity demands.

Solar power is also quite a land hog. As photovoltaic cells are only 10 percent efficient and have seen no breakthroughs in 30 years, U.S. electric consumption would require a 150,000-square kilometer area of photovoltaics, plus additional land for electricity storage and retrieval.

The photovoltaic industry would have to step up its production by 600,000 times to produce the same amount of power as that generated by single 1,000 Megawatt nuclear plant.

Aside from land misuse, Ausubel also raises the other undesirable consequences of renewables: wind power produces low-frequency noise and thumps, blights landscapes, interferes with TV reception, and chops birds and bats; dams kill rivers; and solar power would require that large areas of land be essentially “painted black” with photovoltaic cells.

In terms of resource use, the infrastructure of a wind farm takes five to 10 times the steel and concrete used in a 1970-vintage nuclear power plant.

The first part of Ausubel’s heresy closes with a sobering assessment: “Cheerful self-delusion about new solar and renewables since 1970 has yet to produce a single quad of the more than 90 quadrillion BTU of total energy the U.S. now yearly consumes. ... Let’s stop sanctifying false and minor gods and heretically chant ‘Renewables are not Green.’”

The second part of Ausubel’s heresy, which will have to be addressed in more detail at another time, is his prescription for nuclear power.

Greens traditionally oppose nuclear power wherever and whenever they can. Even those Greens that say it’s time to consider nuclear power seem to be paying no more than lip service to the concept — witness the lack of progress on greenhouse gas-free nuclear power despite all the hoopla about the supposed fossil fuel-caused manmade climate change.

But Ausubel says that, “Like computers, to grow larger, the energy system must now shrink in size and cost. Considered in watts per square meter, nuclear has astronomical advantages over its competitors.”

In a time when those who question the Green agenda are scurrilously defamed and routinely intimidated — just for the sin of expressing contrary opinions — the Green Ausubel should be applauded for having the courage to stand up and speak the truth: that renewable energy wasn’t, isn’t and ought not ever be.

 BIG BUSINESS TO MAKE BIG BUCKS PROMOTING GLOBAL WARMING WHILE YOU PAY FOR IT
       Carbon Offsets Rip Off                                                                        Global Warming’s Trillion Dollar Giveaway

Shamelessly abusing lingering September 11th and nascent Iraq anxieties, he argues that the roles of "reason, logic and truth" have been eroded from the American decision-making process.  This lack of focus and clarity, charges Al Gore, is personified by an administration that ignores expert advice, circumvents analysis and debate, and suppresses evidence to promote predetermined, agenda driven policies.

What's most confounding about these stinging allegations is that they were penned by the very same man whose Oscar awarded fear-exploitation-film proclaimed - in a gross distortion of prevailing evidence and facts -- that:

    "Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet's climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced -- a catastrophe of our own making."

Indeed, Gore's cataclysmic forecasts of worldwide famine, rising sea-levels, vanishing species, et al, are themselves the very epitome of the same agenda-driven, illogical, expert advice cherry-picking, closed debate, unfounded fear-mongering he devotes the majority of his recent Bush-bashing book to deriding.

For over 15 years, Al Gore has painstakingly ravaged all non-anthropogenic (NA) climate change theories (solar, cosmic, volcanic, etc) along with those scientists advancing them.  During that same period, he has helped craft a worldwide global warming orthodoxy which holds the misdeeds of homo sapiens sacrosanct to its dogma and has pulverized anyone in its self-righteous path "without regard to the evidence, the facts, or the public interest." (See Gore's Grave New World)

Reason, Logic, Analysis and Debate

Can there truly exist any reason in such visceral antagonism to natural causation hypotheses given that solar fluctuations throughout retrievable history (observed as sunspots, auroras, etc) tend to sympathize with available climate proxies (e.g. tree-ring chronologies, glacial core and sea sediment samples and other repositories of plant and animal materials)?

In his recent National Post essay, noted Paleoclimatologist R. Timothy Patterson lends voice to the countless researchers who suggest not:

    "Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change."

Patterson cites numerous studies correlating variances in solar output with shifts in solar wind, which in turn impact upon galactic cosmic ray atmospheric penetration and, ultimately, cloud formation on Earth.  Increased solar output thereby warms the planet in 2 ways -- by direct radiation and decreased cloud cover.  Conversely, when the sun is less bright:

    "More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change."

Is it logical, therefore, to disregard all possible forces beyond mankind-emitted CO2 based primarily on hypothetical computer models?  Or reasonable to brand those arguing the gas's contribution or suggesting an alternate cause and effect relationship (oceans warmed by NA forces produce more CO2, rather than manmade CO2 causing the warming) as duplicitous shills of big oil interests?

Particularly when, as Patterson points out:

    "By comparison [to solar influence], CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales."

So why do so many scientists continue to sing the Al Gore C-shanty?

Reid A. Bryson, the Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin's Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences knows a thing or two about the subject. As recipient of only the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education, he is often referred to as the father of modern scientific climatology, much as Al Gore ought be credited as the father of modern hysterical climatology. And, while the professor considers all the hype over Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) "a bunch of hooey," he certainly appreciates that:

    "There is a lot of money to be made in this. If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.'"

Given these patently extortive efforts to circumvent analysis and debate, how can the alarmist marching tune, "the debate is over," possibly resonate as either reasonable or logical in anyone's ears?

The Truth about the IPCC

Adding a false sense of legitimacy to the over-hyping of CO2's potential greenhouse gas (GHG) effect on warming is the oft-Gore-quoted yet woefully compromised Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  These United Nations based "consensus builders" summarily dismiss solar activity in favor of more politically favorable culprits.

One former member and current outspoken critic of the panel testified to its bias before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in May of 2001. As I wrote following the release of the Working Group I Summary in February of this year, Dr. Richard Lindzen swore that, based on his experiences as a member, the IPCC was actually created specifically to support negotiations concerning CO2 emission reductions and would accept no contrary findings from its members:

    "...throughout the drafting sessions, IPCC ‘coordinators' would go around insisting that criticism of models be toned down, and that ‘motherhood' statements be inserted to the effect that models might still be correct despite the cited faults.  Refusals were occasionally met with ad hominem attacks. I personally witnessed coauthors forced to assert their ‘green' credentials in defense of their statements."

Perhaps it's the IPCC's assessment that they and only they already know the truth and can little afford allowing expert advice or facts to interfere with it.

To be sure, there's nothing to be gained by blaming either NA forces or the most abundant of the atmosphere's GHG's - naturally occurring water vapor. Yet, there's everything to be gained (fear yields regulation which, cleverly crafted, yields untold political power) by blaming a byproduct of human advancement - CO2.    Both the UN and their EU kick-line are all too well aware of this progression, as are their newly restored majority cheerleaders in the U.S Congress.

It's no wonder the rebuke of Carbon is such a high priority to them: Between corrupt cap and trade schemes and the specter of limitless U.N regulatory powers, Karl Marx himself couldn't have envisioned a better potential wealth redistribution plan -- truth be damned.

And the Consequences

Among the many "consequences" of Global Warming alarmists portend, perhaps the most dramatic and overly hyped is a catastrophic sea-level rise resultant to melting glaciers, mountaintops and icebergs.

Gore believers were outraged when this year's IPCC Fourth Assessment cut previously inflated estimates of such rise completely in half.  But even these relaxed numbers now appear to have been cooked in order to promote predetermined, agenda driven policies.

Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner is the head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University in Sweden and, unlike any of the IPCC report writers, a bona fide expert on sea level changes.  Dr. Mörner questions the IPCC use of computer based models to produce desired sea-level predictions which contradict the observable physical measurements of his fellow geologists.

Furthermore, the Doctor scathingly charged, in a recent interview, that the IPCC applied arbitrary "correction factors" to predictive data graphs, thereby artificially creating the illusion of uplift.  The models would then match their own sea level observations based on tide gauges which themselves were a deliberate fraud:

    "IPCC chose Hong Kong, which has six tide gauges, and they chose the record of one, which gives 2.3 mm per year rise of sea level. Every geologist knows that that is a subsiding area. It's the compaction of sediment; it is the only record which you shouldn't use. And if that figure is correct, then Holland would not be subsiding; it would be uplifting. And that is just ridiculous. Not even ignorance could be responsible for a thing like that."

Mörner describes myriad additional IPCC falsifications and even the destruction of a tree on a Maldive Island by IPCC hacks in an effort to suppress evidence that their sea-rise predictions were pure baloney.

So much for regard to evidence, facts, and the public interest, huh Al?

The Architects of Anxiety and Fear

As fear of impending doom plays such a crucial role in hysteria-building, it's no wonder that AGW has been blamed for everything from lighthearted Costa Rican Frog Die-Offs, Australian cockroach migration, Swedish beetle-infestation, Great Britain's puffin decline, a rise in hay fever and even staff shortages at Bulgarian brothels to deadly serious outbreaks of Malaria, Dengue Fever, West Nile Virus and Cholera, the killer Indian Ocean tsunami, and even this week's Lake Tahoe wildfires.

In fact, when U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon wrote a WaPo piece this month actually blaming the genocide in Darfur on AGW, his was, not all that surprisingly, not the first.  In fact, back in April, Stephan Faris had suggested in an Atlantic Monthly article that:

    "The violence in Darfur is usually attributed to ethnic hatred. But global warming may be primarily to blame."

And yet, it is the Bush administration's alleged use of fear to further its agenda that Gore's book targets when the author cites Barry Glassner, a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, who:

    "argues that there are three techniques that together make up ‘fearmongering': repetition, making the irregular seem regular, and misdirection. By using these narrative tools, anyone with a loud platform can ratchet up public anxieties and fears, distorting public discourse and reason."

Say, Al, how about the repetition of the counterfeit phrase "the science is settled," when in fact thousands of papers are published on the subject each year? Or, perhaps, making the irregular concept of a gas essential to life on Earth (CO2) actually representing a life-adverse pollutant seem regular? Or how about the misdirection of claimed "consensus" among panelists when scientists with reasoned yet contrarian evidence, facts and theories are systematically denounced, defunded, demoted and, ultimately, demonized?

Are these not the same narrative tools for ratcheting up anxieties and fears and distorting public discourse that you speak of, Al - with which you and your doomsday legions launch your own implacable assaults on reason each and every day?

Note: Emphasis added throughout.

The impact of cosmic rays on the climate could be greater than scientists suspect after experiments showed they may have a pivotal role in cloud formation.

Researchers have managed to replicate the effect of cosmic rays on the aerosols in the atmosphere that help to create clouds. Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist in Denmark, said the experiments suggested that man’s influence on global warming might be rather less than was supposed by the bulk of scientific opinion.

Cosmic rays — radiation, or particles of energy, from stars, which bombard the Earth — can create electrically charged ions in the atmosphere that act as a magnet for water vapour, causing clouds to form.

Dr Svensmark suggests that the Sun, at a historically high level of activity, is deflecting many of the cosmic rays away from Earth and thus reducing the cloud cover.

Clouds reflect the Sun’s rays back into space and are considered to have an important cooling effect. However, if during periods of high activity the Sun’s magnetic field pushes a greater proportion of cosmic rays away from the Earth, fewer clouds will form.

The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, concentrates on how ions are created and behave in the atmosphere when cosmic rays from stars hit it.

Cosmic rays were replicated by the use of ultraviolet light that were turned on and off in both short bursts and long exposures to create ions. The researchers found that the presence of ions encouraged the formation of clusters of molecules.

In the atmosphere these clusters of ozone, sulphur dioxide and water are understood to act as aerosols in attracting water vapour, culminating in the formation of clouds.

The number of clusters, according to the report, is proportionate to the number of ions present, which in turn depends on the frequency of cosmic rays reaching the Earth.

“The experiment indicates that ions play a role in nucleating new particles in the atmosphere and that the rate of production is sensitive to the rate of ion density,” the report concluded. “One might expect to find a relationship between ioni-sation and cloud properties. This feature seems to be consistent with the present work.”

The report added that the ions were likely to generate a reservoir of clusters of aerosol molecules in the atmosphere that “are important for nuclea-tion processes in the atmosphere and ultimately cloud formation”.

The findings are unlikely to change radically the views of mainstream climatologists. Nevertheless, a team of scientists will shortly begin a larger experiment at a particle accelerator in Europe in the hope of learning more about the effects of cosmic rays on cloud cover.

According to the Intergovern-mental Panel for Climate Change, by far the biggest influence on climate change is the level of greenhouse gases released by mankind, largely through the use of fossil fuels.

Peter Stott, of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre and one of Britain’s leading climate scientists, said that Dr Svensmark’s theory should be taken “with a cellar of salt”. Small, localised effects on cloud formation might be possible but he dismissed the suggestion of cosmic rays being responsible for global warming.
 

Friday , June 29, 2007
By Brit Hume

Computer Models

A noted climate scientist who is part of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, now says computer models cannot predict future climate — and he says the IPCC is not in the climate prediction business.

Kevin Trenberth of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research wrote on a nature magazine blog that the U.N.'s dire forecasts about the dangers of global warming are not climate predictions.

He says they are "what if" projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. And he admits the computer models don't even consider things such as the recovery of the ozone layer.

He writes — "The current projection method…can not work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle...The science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate."

Several state climatologists--researchers officially charged with gathering, analyzing, and disseminating climate and weather information for the states--are being pressured by global warming alarmists to silence or change their skeptical views on global warming alarmism.

Pressure has reached the point of threatened job reprisals, including removal from their positions, for state climatologists who continue to cast doubt on global warming.

Governor Intervenes

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D), for example, has confirmed he wants to take the title of state climatologist away from Oregon State University's George Taylor--a two-time president of the American Association of State Climatologists. Taylor's offense, according to Kulongoski, is in asserting that most of the small global warming we have seen in recent decades is the result of natural climate variation.

Kulongoski fears Taylor's scientific opinion undermines the state's stated goal of preventing global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

State Sen. Brad Avakian (D-Beaverton), a Kulongoski ally, is sponsoring a bill to give the governor the power to appoint the state climatologist.

The state legislature created the position in 1991 as part of a state climate office at Oregon State University. To avoid political interference with the process, the legislature delegated the appointment of the office to Oregon State University.

The university appointed Taylor to the position when it was first created, and he has held the position since 1991. Avakian's bill would change that.

Ignoring Science, Governor

In Delaware, State Climatologist David Legates is under fire for joining several other authors in a friend-of-the-court brief against the State of Delaware's legal efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Legates has argued there is a great deal of uncertainty concerning the extent to which human activities are driving the recent warming cycle.

As a result of scientific doubts he has expressed regarding global warming alarmism, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is seeking to remove Legates from office, even though the University of Delaware currently evaluates state climatologist candidates and makes appointment decisions based on scientific rather than political factors.

In an effort to end the controversy, Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D) sent a letter to Legates stating that while his views on warming don't represent the position of the executive branch, the governor appreciates his ongoing work and that of the state climate office.

Despite Minner's stated support, Legates said the Department of Natural Resources is still attempting to have him removed.

Virginia Gov Pressures Prof

The disturbing developments in Oregon and Delaware follow on the heels of similar intimidation in Virginia.

In late 2006 Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) began an investigation of Virginia State Climatologist and University of Virginia Prof. Dr. Patrick Michaels. Michaels is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and is widely cited as one of the most publicly visible skeptics of the view that human actions are likely to cause a climate catastrophe.

Michaels believes human actions, primarily fossil fuel use, are contributing somewhat to the present warming, but he has argued that future warming will be modest and is unlikely to result in serious harm to humans or the environment.

Michaels' scientific conclusions have raised the ire of environmental activists, prompting Kaine to investigate ways to remove him from his position as state climatologist. When it became clear that Michaels worked for the University of Virginia and not the governor, Kaine's office sent a letter to Michaels asking him to make it clear that when he speaks or writes about climate change he is speaking for himself and not for the state.

Scientists Concerned

Colorado State Climatologist Roger Pielke summarized on his Web log the fear these recent developments have raised in the scientific community. Calling the attempts to remove Taylor and Legates "unprecedented," Pielke wrote, "These are very chilling developments and should be resisted and objected to by anyone who values the free expression of scientific views. ... The use of governors to stifle alternative scientific views is what governments have done in the past to suppress free speech.

"The move to remove them from their positions because they do not espouse a particular viewpoint on climate change reflects negatively on the politicians who are abusing their power to enforce their views," Pielke continued. "Regardless of your perspective on the role of humans in the climate system, their attempt to force political correctness on any science issue should be vigorously repudiated."

Support Offered

Dan Simmons, director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council, condemned efforts by global warming alarmists to squelch debate raised by state climatologists. In an interview for this article, Simmons said, "In January, global warming alarmists charged that the Bush administration is muzzling scientists, and yet they failed to complain that at the state level alarmists are muzzling scientists with whom they disagree. This politicization of science must stop."

Simmons added, "Those who want to muzzle scientists should be ashamed of themselves. The scientific process should be about being able to explore unpopular ideas, not conforming scientific views to match a particular governor's point of view."

Also lending support for the continued independence of state climatologists is U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma, ranking member and former chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Responding to the ongoing assault on state climatologists, Inhofe stated, "Suppressing scientific debate by threatening state climatologist positions, calling for Nuremberg-style trials and decertification of skeptics, are all signs of a growing desperation by the global warming alarmists. Climate skeptics continue to be vindicated as more and more scientists and policymakers realize the inconvenient truth that global warming alarmism is unsustainable."

Posted in Science at 8:44 pm by drywind

Climatologists and Meteorologists who are are established and cannot be the target of punitive revenge by the eco-political community or the bribery of eco-political motivated government grants are coming out in increasing numbers against the unscientific view that humans must be causing global warming. On such scientist is the father of modern climatology himself, Reid Bryson.

    Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize “outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment.” He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. Wisconsin Energy Cooperative, May 2007

Well, here’s what Dr. Bryson says about the eco-religious view called "science" by such elitists as Al Gore.

    “Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past,” he told us in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?”

    “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”

The sad truth is that you are only likely to read these views in small journals and blogs, while the giant Hollywood eco-communist machine produces propaganda that would make George Orwell blush. Welcome to the Brave New World where science is used for political power grabs under the guise of "being green."

Unknown Energy Surges Continue to Hit Planet, Global Weather Systems in Chaos

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to the Russian Academy of Sciences

An increasingly panicked global effort is now underway by the worlds top scientists to understand an unprecedented series of ‘blasts’, energy surges,  which the planet has been taking from as an yet unknown source which has been bombarding Antarctica with cosmic rays and disrupting Northern Hemisphere weather systems on a global scale.

The first of these cosmic ray blasts occurred nearly 5 years ago and have been increasing in their frequency and intensity since the end of November. The once normally darkened skies of the Northern Hemispheres Arctic regions are now in twilight due to these blasts. Wayne Davidson, from the Canadian Government's weather station at Resolute Bay, located in the Arctic Circle, says about this mysterious lighting, "The entire horizon is raised like magic, like the hand of God is bringing it up.”

On December 1, 2004 the largest recorded blast sent not only shockwaves through the world scientific community but also through the Northern Hemisphere resulting in one of the largest weather events in recorded human history when 86,800 square miles of China was shrouded in fog, bringing transportation systems (especially air travel) to a virtual standstill throughout the country.

As reported by the BBC in this article from October, 2002, “German scientists have found a significant piece of evidence linking cosmic rays to climate change. They have detected charged particle clusters in the lower atmosphere that were probably caused by the space radiation. They say the clusters can lead to the condensed nuclei which form into dense clouds.”

These German scientists from the from the Max Planck Institute of Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg go on to say that their measurements "have for the first time detected in the upper troposphere large positive ions with mass numbers up to 2500", and "Our observations provide strong evidence for the ion-mediated formation and growth of aerosol particles in the upper troposphere."

What they hadn’t expected to happen though has been the large scale occurrences of this over the past few weeks, to include China on December 2nd and 14th and then India on the 21st, which is due to both China’s and India’s reliance on fossil fuels and the continuing degradation of their air quality.

The effects of these blasts have also been felt throughout the rest of the Northern Hemisphere resulting in such freak occurrences as, hurricane force winds in Paris , Germany, Canada, Russia, England and the United States on an almost simultaneous basis.  Accompanying these hurricane force winter winds have been the massive cold fronts following them dropping normal winter lows to record lows throughout the entire Northern Hemisphere.

Though not yet at a point to acknowledge this publicly, some of the world’s top scientists are beginning to see an astrophysical correlation between these cosmic ray  blasts to our planet and an ever increasing number of global events relating to atmospheric explosions of inbound meteors, such as those in Indonesia, where a meteorite was picked up by their Air Forces radar, China, where a meteorite explosion turned ‘night into day’ and Washington D.C. where one police official stated,  "It looked like a ball of fire falling out of the sky."

The world’s top scientists have begun coordinating with Dr. Eun-Suk Seo from the United States University of Maryland, and her team, in a ‘search’ for answers to the origin of these cosmic ray blasts directed from an unknown origin in space towards the South Pole and disrupting our global weather systems.

Under Dr. Eun-Suk Seo her and her international team’s direction NASA launched a stratospheric balloon on December 20th from Antarctica’s McMurdo base and have stated, “The balloon, following circulation of winds high, will sail around the ice continent for about three weeks. During this time, data of great scientific interest will be gathered. These data concern flows of charged particles of highest energy (cosmic rays) coming from Space.”

But as one Russian scientist said to us, and who wished to remain anonymous, “Why this game?  We all know what’s happening.” an apparent reference to the fact though these events are well known to both world governments and the scientific establishments they are beyond the understanding of the general public at large.

Whatever the end results these experiments reveal for these scientists, it remains an undisputed fact that this world of ours is facing a type of global cataclysmic event buried in our common geological past, and maybe, as some social scientists report, in our common ancestral memory also.

Bob Carter

June 18, 2007

WITH understandable reluctance, Prime Minister John Howard recently donned the political hair-shirt of a carbon trading system.

On the same day, NASA chief Michael Griffin commented in a US radio interview that "I am not sure that it is fair to say that (global warming) is a problem that we must wrestle with".

NASA is an agency that knows a thing or two about climate change. As Griffin added: "We study global climate change, that is in our authorisation, we think we do it rather well.

"I'm proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote, battle climate change."

Such a clear statement that science accomplishment should carry primacy over policy advice is both welcome and overdue.

Nonetheless, there is something worrying about one of Griffin's other statements, which said that "I have no doubt . . . that a trend of global warming exists".

Griffin seems to be referring to human-caused global warming, but irrespective of that his opinion is unsupported by the evidence.

The salient facts are these. First, the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this eight-year-long temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2.

Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).

Third, there are strong indications from solar studies that Earth's current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades.

How then is it possible for Griffin to assert so boldly that human-caused global warming is happening?

Well, he is in good company for similar statements have been made recently by several Western heads of state at the G8 summit meeting. For instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel asserts climate change (i.e. global warming) "is also essentially caused by humankind".

In fact, there is every doubt whether any global warming at all is occurring at the moment, let alone human-caused warming.

For leading politicians to be asserting to the contrary indicates something is very wrong with their chain of scientific advice, for they are clearly being deceived. That this should be the case is an international political scandal of high order which, in turn, raises the question of where their advice is coming from.

In Australia, the advice trail leads from government agencies such as the CSIRO and the Australian Greenhouse Office through to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations.

As leading economist David Henderson has pointed out, it is extremely dangerous for an unelected and unaccountable body like the IPCC to have a monopoly on climate policy advice to governments. And even more so because, at heart, the IPCC is a political and not a scientific agency.

Australia does not ask the World Bank to set its annual budget and neither should it allow the notoriously alarmist IPCC to set its climate policy.

It is past time for those who have deceived governments and misled the public regarding dangerous human-caused global warming to be called to account. Aided by hysterical posturing by green NGOs, their actions have led to the cornering of government on the issue and the likely implementation of futile emission policies that will impose direct extra costs on every household and enterprise in Australia to no identifiable benefit.

Not only do humans not dominate Earth's current temperature trend but the likelihood is that further large sums of public money are shortly going to be committed to, theoretically, combat warming when cooling is the more likely short-term climatic eventuality.

In one of the more expensive ironies of history, the expenditure of more than $US50 billion ($60 billion) on research into global warming since 1990 has failed to demonstrate any human-caused climate trend, let alone a dangerous one.

Yet that expenditure will pale into insignificance compared with the squandering of money that is going to accompany the introduction of a carbon trading or taxation system.

The costs of thus expiating comfortable middle class angst are, of course, going to be imposed preferentially upon the poor and underprivileged.

    * Professor Bob Carter is an environmental scientist at James Cook University who studies ancient climate change
 

The leader of a group of Canadian scientists says global warming isn't the biggest climate threat to the planet — global cooling is.
Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre director R. Timothy Patterson writes in the Financial Post that core samples from the bottom of deep western Canadian fjords indicate climate change correlates to solar cycles of varying lengths — and show little correlation between climate change and carbon dioxide levels.
Patterson writes that the sun will begin its weakest solar cycle of the past two centuries by the year 2020. He says that could lead to unusually cool conditions that could threaten agriculture in extreme northern regions. Global cooling isn't a new idea — a famous TIME Magazine article raised the possibility of another Ice Age — back in 1974.
FOXNews.com
Thursday , June 21, 2007
By Brit Hume
Global Cooling

Out DAMN SPOT

 WATCH  TWO MOVIES ON GLOBAL WARMING POLITICS
 

   AL'S LIES    HOT AIR
According to one poll, 25% of Americans think the sun goes around the Earth.and they believe Al Gore.
 

     MORE LIES

Warming Is A Joke
 

NASA QUESTIONS MAN'S INTERFERENCE WITH CLIMATE

Clinton's Proof Of Global Warming

Enviromentalist Say No To Poor Nations

 FOOD IMPACT HAS STARTED

Scientists Urge Gore to Cool His Global Warming Rhetoric
Written By: Bonner R. Cohen
Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: June 1, 2007
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
 

While basking in the afterglow of having his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, awarded an Oscar, former vice president Al Gore is finding his rhetorical flourishes on the subject of global warming aren't always welcome, even among his supporters in the scientific community.
 

Scientists Cite Inaccuracies

"I don't want to pick on Al Gore," Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told an audience at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, "but there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data."

Easterbrook is one of several scientists quoted in the March 13 issue of the New York Times as being uncomfortable with some of Gore's statements on global warming. Gore--whose movie and other statements on global warming invariably depict a planet heading toward catastrophe unless emissions of greenhouse gases are substantially reduced--is provoking a backlash among scientists who see his alarmism as harmful to public discourse.

Some scientists who are not necessarily hostile to the notion that humans should take action to halt global warming nevertheless shy away from many of Gore's dire predictions of an impending "climate crisis."

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, told the Times of growing unease among his colleagues with Gore's exaggerations. While praising Gore for "getting the message out," Vranes wondered whether the former vice president's presentations were "overselling our certainty about knowing the future."

Gore, who regularly invokes a "scientific consensus" on global warming when conjuring up visions of melting ice caps and rising sea levels brought on by the burning of fossil fuels, routinely dismisses his critics as either uninformed or industry shills.
 

Irritating Real Scientists

One of Gore's key advisors on global warming is James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Hansen, who is widely credited with bringing the issue to the public's attention at a carefully staged Senate hearing in 1988, acknowledges Gore's presentations contain "imperfections" and "technical flaws," although he praises Gore's overall performance on the issue.

Gore's predictions of a planet doomed by greenhouse gas emissions have gotten under the skin of more than a few scientists, however. "He's one of these guys that preach the end-of-the-world type of things," observed hurricane expert Dr. William Gray at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans in April. "I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," said Gray.
 

No Basis in Fact

In an interview for this story, Dr. Patrick Michaels, visiting climate scientist at Virginia Tech University and a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, noted, "the major theme in Gore's book is that we will have a crisis caused by the rapid melt of ice in Greenland. I don't think it has any real basis in an objective read of the refereed literature.

"The models that predict a melting of Greenland's ice take about 1,000 years to get rid of just half the ice, even assuming carbon dioxide levels four times higher than pre-industrial levels," Michaels added.

"Keep in mind that carbon dioxide levels are currently less than 40 percent above pre-industrial levels," Michaels continued. "Does anybody really believe that we will be a fossil fuel economy long enough to reach the carbon dioxide levels necessary to melt Greenland in a thousand years?"

Bonner R. Cohen (bonnercohen@comcast.net) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, DC and author of The Green Wave: Environmentalism and its Consequences, published by the Capital Research Center.

Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide
Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?

By Timothy Ball

Monday, February 5, 2007

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was one of the first Canadian Ph.Ds. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.

What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on?

Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.

No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don't pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?

Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. "It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species," wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.

I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.

I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.

In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?

Personal attacks are difficult and shouldn't occur in a debate in a civilized society. I can only consider them from what they imply. They usually indicate a person or group is losing the debate. In this case, they also indicate how political the entire Global Warming debate has become. Both underline the lack of or even contradictory nature of the evidence.

I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, "State of Fear" he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.

Another cry in the wildenerness is Richard Lindzen's. He is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology - especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans. Yet nobody seems to listen.

I think it may be because most people don't understand the scientific method which Thomas Kuhn so skilfully and briefly set out in his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." A scientist makes certain assumptions and then produces a theory which is only as valid as the assumptions. The theory of Global Warming assumes that CO2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since humans were producing more CO2 than before, the temperature would inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started, and effectively became a law.

As Lindzen said many years ago: "the consensus was reached before the research had even begun." Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.

Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.

Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be. Until you have re-examined any issue in an attempt to find out all the information, you cannot know how much misinformation exists in the supposed age of information.

I was greatly influenced several years ago by Aaron Wildavsky's book "Yes, but is it true?" The author taught political science at a New York University and realized how science was being influenced by and apparently misused by politics. He gave his graduate students an assignment to pursue the science behind a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern. To his and their surprise they found there was little scientific evidence, consensus and justification for the policy. You only realize the extent to which Wildavsky's findings occur when you ask the question he posed. Wildavsky's students did it in the safety of academia and with the excuse that it was an assignment. I have learned it is a difficult question to ask in the real world, however I firmly believe it is the most important question to ask if we are to advance in the right direction.

Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. He can be reached at letters@canadafreepress.com

Fears of Melting Polar Ice Are Discredited
Written By: James M. Taylor
Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: June 1, 2007
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
 

Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are losing little if any ice mass, thus having very little impact on global sea level, results from several recent studies show.

Andrew Shepherd of the University of Edinburgh and Duncan Wingham of University College London examined data from 14 satellite-based estimates of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet volume taken since 1998. According to the scientists, who published their findings in the March 16 issue of Science magazine, the ice sheets are affecting sea level somewhere between a rise of 1.0 millimeters per year and a fall of 0.15 millimeters per year.

Examining the data for Greenland and Antarctica, the two scientists concluded, "Our best estimate of their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year of ice, enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters per year. This is only a modest contribution to the present rate of sea-level rise of 3.0 millimeters per year."
 

Minuscule Effect

The Shepherd and Wingham estimates mean less than an inch-and-a-half of sea level rise due to polar ice melt over the entire next century. "Yet even this unimpressive [estimate of] sea level increase may be far too large," said Craig Idso, founder and former president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.

"For although two of Greenland's largest outlet glaciers doubled their rates of mass loss in less than a year back in 2004, causing many climate alarmists to claim that the Greenland Ice Sheet was responding much more rapidly to global warming than anyone had ever expected, Howat et al. report--in the very same issue of Science as Shepherd and Wingham--that the two glaciers' rates of mass loss 'decreased in 2006 to near the previous rates'," Idso continued.

"And these observations, in their words, 'suggest that special care must be taken in how mass-balance estimates are evaluated, particularly when extrapolating into the future, because short-term spikes could yield erroneous long-term trends,'" Idso said.
 

Ice Sheet Stabilized

In the March 30 issue of Science, still more evidence indicated there is no reason to fear rising sea levels resulting from polar ice melt. Four scientists from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Texas studied a sedimentary wedge (also known as a "till delta" of rocks and sediment) deposited by West Antarctica's Whillans Ice Stream.

The scientists determined the sedimentary wedge will prevent the West Antarctic ice sheet from sliding into the Antarctic Ocean any time in the foreseeable future.

The sedimentary wedge, the scientists explain, "serves to thicken the ice and stabilize the position of the grounding line," such that "the ice just up-glacier of the grounding line is substantially thicker than that needed to allow floatation, owing to the restraint from friction with the wedge." As a result, the scientists conclude, "the grounding-line will tend to remain in the same location despite changes in sea level (until sea level rises enough to overcome the excess thickness that is due to the wedge)."

The four scientists then conclude that a substantial rise of sea level would be required to budge the sedimentary line and destabilize the ice sheet. "Sea-level changes of a few meters are unlikely to substantially affect ice-sheet behavior," the scientists report.
 

Further Confirmation

In a separate article in the same issue of Science, John B. Anderson, a scientist at Rice University, concluded, "at the current rate of sea-level rise, it would take several thousand years to float the ice sheet off [its] bed."

Additionally, a study by five scientists also published in the March 30 issue of Science reports the ice thickness caused by the sedimentation line will tend to stabilize it against "any other environmental perturbation."

The scientists report, "Large sea-level rise, such as the ~100-meter rise at the end of the last ice age, may overwhelm the stabilizing feedback from sedimentation, but smaller sea-level changes are unlikely to have synchronized the behavior of ice sheets in the past."

"Cumulatively and individually, these studies show once again that global warming alarmism and scientific reality are in serious conflict," said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Iain Murray. "In an effort to scare the American public into reducing their emissions, Al Gore and his fellow alarmists talk about 20 feet of sea level rise, while science shows that is pure fantasy."

James M. Taylor (taylor@heartland.org) is managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

 THIS WILL KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF A REVOULT AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING

 More Hot News to Cool Off CO₂

Former German Chancellor Calls For End of Media Hysteria Over Global Warming
June 4th, 2007
Former German Chancellor Calls For End of Media Hysteria Over Global Warming

Most climate change watchers are aware that leaders from the eight most developed nations will be meeting in Germany this week to discuss, among other things, issues related to global warming.

With a delicious sense of irony, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt put his two cents into this debate with comments that will surely not be reported by America’s alarmist media even though he was somewhat speaking to them.

As reported by Deutsche Welle (emphasis added, h/t Benny Peiser):

    Meanwhile, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for an end to the “hysteria” over global warming in the lead-up to the summit. The topic is “hysterical, overheated, and that is especially because of the media,” Schmidt told Germany’s Bild daily.

    There has always been climate change on earth, Schmidt said.

    “We’ve had warm- and ice-ages for hundreds of thousands of years,” he said, and added that the reasons behind the multiple climate changes have been “inadequately researched for the time being.”

    To assume that global climate change can be altered by any plans made at the Heiligendamm summit is “idiotic,” he said.

Manmade global warming is a hoax, and all the lefties are in on it.

In the '70s, scientists and politicians and the Hollywood elites (most notably, Ted Dansen) looked through a tiny window onto the geological history of climate change and saw what appeared to be the next Ice Age looming on the horizon. They promptly proceeded to warn us that we would be totally irresponsible unless we began doing something about it and RIGHT AWAY! Catastrophic global cooling was a reality that could not be ignored.

More recently, scientists and politicians and the Hollywood elites (most notably, Al Gore) looked through a slightly bigger (but still tiny) window onto the geological history of climate change and concluded just the opposite - that catastrophic global WARMING was upon us and we had better act fast to do something about it.

What both of these incidents demonstrate is that it is never wise or prudent to make prognostications based upon a limited subset of the facts involved in a given situation. What we now know about global climate change is that the Earth's climate cycles continually from warm and hot to cool and cold at least every fifteen hundred years. What we know now is that global warming PRODUCES more CO2 in our atmosphere. And what we know now is that we still DON'T KNOW why the Earth warms and cools as it does.

If the Sun does not cause the warming that we know occurs, then we do not have the foggiest idea *what* causes global warming, although we can say with certainty that CO2 does NOT (CO2 increases ALWAYS lags warming by approx. 800 years and cooling begins DESPITE THE EVER-CONTINUED RISE IN CO2). Conversely, we cannot say what causes global cooling either, but, again we know that it is NOT CO2.

For the honest scientist in this debate, if he/she does not know, then he/she says "I don't know". For the other scientists, one can only guess at their motivations while we know that they are not motivated by any love of science.

For part 2 of this hoax, I now present exhibit A, another liberal hoax - the hoax of "unbiased mainstream media."

Now enter the MSM. MSMers all march to the same drum, so if one of them reports a lie as fact, they are all likely to report the same lie as fact. Because the MSM is so liberal, any liberal "cause celeb" gains instant traction. Never mind that a few minutes of investigative reporting would turn up the lie in the details. The Global Warming Hoax represents the saddest, sorriest performance of the MSM to date. At no point do they question, only parrot. At no point do they investigate, only forward what they've been sent. At no time do they even ask themselves why it is that the Emperor's new clothes look so terribly flimsy - they simply continue to report how fine and majestic the clothes are.

Because MSMers do not hesitate to grill conservatives for breathing the same air as liberals, we can logically use this as a benchmark. When MSMers DON'T question, then they are not reporting but propagandizing instead.

My only question is this: How much longer must we endure this hoax? How long before we get to the "excuses" phase of this whole debacle (ex. "we HAD to hype global warming so that businesses would feel the pressure to get off their butts and start making life better for us all.")

"We only did it to help raise awareness about our national security!" is another one I expect to hear (and retch at!) shortly thereafter.

How long do we have to wait before the MSM begins their requisite "soul-searching" and introspection to determine why they were so easily led down this path of public disservice in the first place? How long before they excuse themselves for their good intentions and pat themselves on the back for upholding the public trust by lying to us - you all know this is coming too!

How long, America?

How long before you tune them out and turn them off and, finally, shut them up?
Source: http://bigbrab.townhall.com/

By EPW Blog

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Growing Number of Scientists Convert to Skeptics After Reviewing New Research

Following the U.S. Senate's vote today on a global warming measure (see today's AP article: Senate Defeats Climate Change Measure,) it is an opportune time to examine the recent and quite remarkable momentum shift taking place in climate science. Many former believers in catastrophic man-made global warming have recently reversed themselves and are now climate skeptics.  The names included below are just a sampling of the prominent scientists who have spoken out recently to oppose former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, and the media driven "consensus" on man-made global warming.

The list below is just the tip of the iceberg.  A more detailed and comprehensive sampling of scientists who have only recently spoken out against climate hysteria will be forthcoming in a soon to be released U.S. Senate report. Please stay tuned to this website, as this new government report is set to redefine the current climate debate.

In the meantime, please review the list of scientists below and ask yourself why the media is missing one of the biggest stories in climate of 2007.  Feel free to distribute the partial list of scientists who recently converted to skeptics to your local schools and universities. The voices of rank and file scientists opposing climate doomsayers can serve as a counter to the alarmism that children are being exposed to on a daily basis. (See Washington Post April 16, 2007 article about kids fearing of a "climactic Armageddon" ) The media's climate fear factor seemingly grows louder even as the latest science grows less and less alarming by the day. (See Der Spiegel May 7, 2007 article: Not the End of the World as We Know It ) It is also worth noting that the proponents of climate fears are increasingly attempting to suppress dissent by skeptics. (See UPI May 10, 2007 article: U.N. official says it's 'completely immoral' to doubt global warming fears )

Once Believers, Now Skeptics ( Link to pdf version )

Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States, converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006. Allegre, who was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, now says the cause of climate change is "unknown" and accused the "prophets of doom of global warming" of being motivated by money, noting that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!" "Glaciers’ chronicles or historical archives point to the fact that climate is a capricious phenomena. This fact is confirmed by mathematical meteorological theories. So, let us be cautious," Allegre explained in a September 21, 2006 article in the French newspaper L'EXPRESS. The National Post in Canada also profiled Allegre on March 2, 2007, noting "Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution." Allegre now calls fears of a climate disaster "simplistic and obscuring the true dangers" mocks "the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man's role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters." Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" in which the scientists warned that global warming’s "potential risks are very great."

Geologist Bruno Wiskel of the University of Alberta recently reversed his view of man-made climate change and instead became a global warming skeptic. Wiskel was once such a big believer in man-made global warming that he set out to build a "Kyoto house" in honor of the UN sanctioned Kyoto Protocol which was signed in 1997.  Wiskel wanted to prove that the Kyoto Protocol’s goals were achievable by people making small changes in their lives. But after further examining the science behind Kyoto, Wiskel reversed his scientific views completely and became such a strong skeptic, that he recently wrote a book titled "The Emperor's New Climate: Debunking the Myth of Global Warming."  A November 15, 2006 Edmonton Sun article explains Wiskel’s conversion while building his "Kyoto house": "Instead, he said he realized global warming theory was full of holes and ‘red flags,’ and became convinced that humans are not responsible for rising temperatures." Wiskel now says "the truth has to start somewhere."  Noting that the Earth has been warming for 18,000 years, Wiskel told the Canadian newspaper, "If this happened once and we were the cause of it, that would be cause for concern. But glaciers have been coming and going for billions of years."  Wiskel also said that global warming has gone "from a science to a religion" and noted that research money is being funneled into promoting climate alarmism instead of funding areas he considers more worthy. "If you funnel money into things that can't be changed, the money is not going into the places that it is needed," he said.

Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv, one of Israel's top young award winning scientists, recanted his belief that manmade emissions were driving climate change. ""Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. In fact, there is much more than meets the eye," Shaviv said in February 2, 2007 Canadian National Post article. According to Shaviv, the C02 temperature link is only "incriminating circumstantial evidence." "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming" and "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist," Shaviv noted pointing to the impact cosmic- rays have on the atmosphere. According to the National Post, Shaviv believes that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100 "will not dramatically increase the global temperature." "Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant," Shaviv explained. Shaviv also wrote on August 18, 2006 that a colleague of his believed that "CO2 should have a large effect on climate" so "he set out to reconstruct the phanerozoic temperature. He wanted to find the CO2 signature in the data, but since there was none, he slowly had to change his views."  Shaviv believes there will be more scientists converting to man-made global warming skepticism as they discover the dearth of evidence. "I think this is common to many of the scientists who think like us (that is, that CO2 is a secondary climate driver). Each one of us was working in his or her own niche. While working there, each one of us realized that things just don't add up to support the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) picture. So many had to change their views," he wrote.

Mathematician & engineer Dr. David Evans, who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government, recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. "I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical," Evans wrote in an April 30, 2007 blog. "But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker -- better temperature data for the last century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds," Evans wrote.  "As Lord Keynes famously said, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’" he added. Evans noted how he benefited from climate fears as a scientist. "And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990's, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet!  But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed," Evans wrote. "The pre-2000 ice core data was the central evidence for believing that atmospheric carbon caused temperature increases. The new ice core data shows that past warmings were *not* initially caused by rises in atmospheric carbon, and says nothing about the strength of any amplification. This piece of evidence casts reasonable doubt that atmospheric carbon had any role in past warmings, while still allowing the possibility that it had a supporting role," he added. "Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. The science of global warming has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly supports carbon emissions as the cause of global warming, to the point of sometimes rubbishing or silencing critics," he concluded. (Evans bio link )

Climate researcher Dr. Tad Murty, former Senior Research Scientist for Fisheries and Oceans in Canada, also reversed himself from believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic.  "I stated with a firm belief about global warming, until I started working on it myself," Murty explained on August 17, 2006.  "I switched to the other side in the early 1990's when Fisheries and Oceans Canada asked me to prepare a position paper and I started to look into the problem seriously," Murty explained. Murty was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary."

Botanist Dr. David Bellamy, a famed UK environmental campaigner, former lecturer at Durham University and host of a popular UK TV series on wildlife, recently converted into a skeptic after reviewing the science and now calls global warming fears "poppycock." According to a May 15, 2005 article in the UK Sunday Times, Bellamy said "global warming is largely a natural phenomenon.  The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can’t be fixed." "The climate-change people have no proof for their claims. They have computer models which do not prove anything," Bellamy added. Bellamy’s conversion on global warming did not come without a sacrifice as several environmental groups have ended their association with him because of his views on climate change. The severing of relations came despite Bellamy’s long activism for green campaigns. The UK Times reported Bellamy "won respect from hardline environmentalists with his campaigns to save Britain’s peat bogs and other endangered habitats. In Tasmania he was arrested when he tried to prevent loggers cutting down a rainforest."

Climate scientist Dr. Chris de Freitas of The University of Auckland, N.Z., also converted from a believer in man-made global warming to a skeptic. "At first I accepted that increases in human caused additions of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere would trigger changes in water vapor etc. and lead to dangerous ‘global warming,’ But with time and with the results of research, I formed the view that, although it makes for a good story, it is unlikely that the man-made changes are drivers of significant climate variation." de Freitas wrote on August 17, 2006. "I accept there may be small changes. But I see the risk of anything serious to be minute," he added. "One could reasonably argue that lack of evidence is not a good reason for complacency. But I believe the billions of dollars committed to GW research and lobbying for GW and for Kyoto treaties etc could be better spent on uncontroversial and very real environmental problems (such as air pollution, poor sanitation, provision of clean water and improved health services) that we know affect tens of millions of people," de Freitas concluded. de Freitas was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, "Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases."

Meteorologist Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970’s ( See Time Magazine’s 1974 article "Another Ice Age" citing Bryson: & see Newsweek’s 1975 article "The Cooling World" citing Bryson) has now converted into a leading global warming skeptic. In February 8, 2007 Bryson dismissed what he terms "sky is falling" man-made global warming fears. Bryson, was on the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. "Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?" Bryson told the May 2007 issue of Energy Cooperative News. "All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air," Bryson said. "You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide," he added. "We cannot say what part of that warming was due to mankind's addition of ‘greenhouse gases’ until we consider the other possible factors, such as aerosols. The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past century, but to my knowledge this data was never used. We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question -- too important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a scientific problem," Bryson explained in 2005.

Global warming author and economist Hans H.J. Labohm started out as a man-made global warming believer but he later switched his view after conducting climate research.  Labohm wrote on August 19, 2006, "I started as a anthropogenic global warming believer, then I read the [UN’s IPCC] Summary for Policymakers and the research of prominent skeptics."  "After that, I changed my mind," Labohn explained. Labohn co-authored the 2004 book "Man-Made Global Warming: Unraveling a Dogma," with chemical engineer Dick Thoenes who was the former chairman of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society. Labohm was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, "’Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise.’"

Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, of Carlton University in Ottawa converted from believer in C02 driving the climate change to a skeptic. "I taught my students that CO2 was the prime driver of climate change," Patterson  wrote on April 30, 2007. Patterson said his "conversion" happened following his research on "the nature of paleo-commercial fish populations in the NE Pacific." "[My conversion from believer to climate skeptic] came about approximately 5-6 years ago when results began to come in from a major NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Strategic Project Grant where I was PI (principle investigator)," Patterson explained. "Over the course of about a year, I switched allegiances," he wrote. "As the proxy results began to come in, we were astounded to find that paleoclimatic and paleoproductivity records were full of cycles that corresponded to various sun-spot cycles.  About that time, [geochemist] Jan Veizer and others began to publish reasonable hypotheses as to how solar signals could be amplified and control climate," Patterson noted. Patterson says his conversion "probably cost me a lot of grant money. However, as a scientist I go where the science takes me and not were activists want me to go." Patterson now asserts that more and more scientists are converting to climate skeptics.  "When I go to a scientific meeting, there's lots of opinion out there, there's lots of discussion (about climate change). I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority," Patterson told the Winnipeg Sun on February 13, 2007. Patterson, who believes the sun is responsible for the recent warm up of the Earth, ridiculed the environmentalists and the media for not reporting the truth. "But if you listen to [Canadian environmental activist David] Suzuki and the media, it's like a tiger chasing its tail. They try to outdo each other and all the while proclaiming that the debate is over but it isn't -- come out to a scientific meeting sometime," Patterson said. In a separate interview on April 26, 2007 with a Canadian newspaper, Patterson explained that the scientific proof favors skeptics. "I think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is) we're about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere," he said. "The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it's not. The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles."

Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw, took a scientific journey from a believer of man-made climate change in the form of global cooling in the 1970’s all the way to converting to a skeptic of current predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming. "At the beginning of the 1970s I believed in man-made climate cooling, and therefore I started a study on the effects of industrial pollution on the global atmosphere, using glaciers as a history book on this pollution," Dr. Jaworowski, wrote on August 17, 2006. "With the advent of man-made warming political correctness in the beginning of 1980s, I already had a lot of experience with polar and high altitude ice, and I have serious problems in accepting the reliability of ice core CO2 studies," Jaworowski added. Jaworowski, who has published many papers on climate with a focus on CO2 measurements in ice cores, also dismissed the UN IPCC summary and questioned what the actual level of C02 was in the atmosphere in a March 16, 2007 report in EIR science entitled "CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time." "We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels," Jaworowski wrote. "For the past three decades, these well-known direct CO2 measurements, recently compiled and analyzed by Ernst-Georg Beck (Beck 2006a, Beck 2006b, Beck 2007), were completely ignored by climatologists—and not because they were wrong. Indeed, these measurements were made by several Nobel Prize winners, using the techniques that are standard textbook procedures in chemistry, biochemistry, botany, hygiene, medicine, nutrition, and ecology. The only reason for rejection was that these measurements did not fit the hypothesis of anthropogenic climatic warming. I regard this as perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time," Jaworowski wrote. "The hypothesis, in vogue in the 1970s, stating that emissions of industrial dust will soon induce the new Ice Age, seem now to be a conceited anthropocentric exaggeration, bringing into discredit the science of that time. The same fate awaits the present," he added. Jaworowski believes that cosmic rays and solar activity are major drivers of the Earth’s climate. Jaworowski was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part: "It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases."

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor of the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Ottawa, reversed his views on man-made climate change after further examining the evidence. "I used to agree with these dramatic warnings of climate disaster. I taught my students that most of the increase in temperature of the past century was due to human contribution of C02. The association seemed so clear and simple. Increases of greenhouse gases were driving us towards a climate catastrophe," Clark said in a 2005 documentary "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change." "However, a few years ago, I decided to look more closely at the science and it astonished me. In fact there is no evidence of humans being the cause. There is, however, overwhelming evidence of natural causes such as changes in the output of the sun. This has completely reversed my views on the Kyoto protocol," Clark explained. "Actually, many other leading climate researchers also have serious concerns about the science underlying the [Kyoto] Protocol," he added.

Environmental geochemist Dr. Jan Veizer, professor emeritus of University of Ottawa, converted from believer to skeptic after conducting scientific studies of climate history. "I simply accepted the (global warming) theory as given," Veizer wrote on April 30, 2007 about predictions that increasing C02 in the atmosphere was leading to a climate catastrophe. "The final conversion came when I realized that the solar/cosmic ray connection gave far more consistent picture with climate, over many time scales, than did the CO2 scenario," Veizer wrote. "It was the results of my work on past records, on geological time scales, that led me to realize the discrepancies with empirical observations. Trying to understand the background issues of modeling led to realization of the assumptions and uncertainties involved," Veizer explained. "The past record strongly favors the solar/cosmic alternative as the principal climate driver," he added. Veizer acknowledgez the Earth has been warming and he believes in the scientific value of climate modeling. "The major point where I diverge from the IPCC scenario is my belief that it underestimates the role of natural variability by proclaiming CO2 to be the only reasonable source of additional energy in the planetary balance. Such additional energy is needed to drive the climate. The point is that most of the temperature, in both nature and models, arises from the greenhouse of water vapor (model language ‘positive water vapor feedback’,) Veizer wrote. "Thus to get more temperature, more water vapor is needed. This is achieved by speeding up the water cycle by inputting more energy into the system," he continued. "Note that it is not CO2 that is in the models but its presumed energy equivalent (model language ‘prescribed CO2’). Yet, the models (and climate) would generate a more or less similar outcome regardless where this additional energy is coming from. This is why the solar/cosmic connection is so strongly opposed, because it can influence the global energy budget which, in turn, diminishes the need for an energy input from the CO2 greenhouse," he wrote.

More to follow...
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    The recreation industry’s true threats come not from climate change – which has always changed and will always change – but from the so-called global warming ‘solutions’ being proposed by government policymakers. Misguided efforts to ‘solve’ global warming threaten to damage the travel and recreation industry. In short, it is a direct threat America’s way of life. If we cannot fly to remote locations, and if few automobiles are capable of pulling boats, jet skies, and campers, and if RVs become a thing of the past as environmentalists would like, then minor climate fluctuations will have little impact on recreation because Americans will not have the means to recreate.

    I will not belabor my views about the scientific underpinnings of global warming alarmism, other than to make a few observations. The fact that climate fluctuates – changes – is nothing new, and should not be feared. It has always changed, and unless the processes of the planet suddenly stopped, it always will. There is little disagreement that it warmed in the Northern Hemisphere from about 1970’s until 1998, and that since that time, temperatures flattened. And there is general agreement that some human activities such as the building of cities and expanding agriculture, have contributed to this. But there remains much debate in the peer-reviewed scientific literature as to the many factors which may influence climate that is of importance to the question of whether climate fluctuations are natural or caused by humans. But regardless of that debate, a healthy functioning planet means constant changes in our climate.

    There are winners and losers as climate fluctuates. A warming period could be a boon for warm weather destinations like beaches and lakes and a cooling period like we experienced from 1940-1970s could be beneficial for cold weather recreation like skiing and snowboarding. This past winter saw record snows in the Rocky Mountain region as well as an unusually cold spring in Alaska. Currently, we are seeing a Memorial Day snow advisory for the Colorado Mountains. Wyoming being buried in a May snowstorm and parts of Canada are still enduring winter. In addition, South Africa just set 54 new cold weather records with some parts seeing snow for the first time in 33 years as snow and ice continue to fall. And I am not finished. A massive snowstorm in China has closed highways and stranded motorists. And finally, winter has arrived early in Australia as the snow season is off to a promising start for the winter recreation industry.

    But the most verifiable threat to the recreation and travel industry is the unintended consequences of misguided government policy and environmental activists. The chilling effect of guilt that the climate alarmists are attempting to instill in Americans for owning four wheel drive vehicles, flying in an airplane and enjoying travel is enough to harm the industry. For examples of this promotion of misguided policies and guilt, you need look no further than a proposal in April by the UK-based Institute for Public Policy Research, which called for tobacco-style health warnings on airplanes to warn passengers that the plane flight may be contributing to a global warming crisis. The group proposed posting signs on airplanes which read “flying causes climate change.”

    Another example of unintended consequences by climate crusaders was the recent proclamation by a UK grocery store announcing it would usher in ‘carbon friendly’ policies and stop importing food from faraway nations. This proposal may have been popular with wealthy Western environmentalists, but the idea did not sit so well with poor African farmers. As a February 21, 2007 BBC article details:
    “Kenyan farmers, whose lifelong carbon emissions are negligible compared with their counterparts in the West, are fast becoming the victims of a green campaign that could threaten their livelihoods. A recent bold statement by UK supermarket Tesco ushering in ‘carbon friendly’ measures - such as restricting the imports of air freighted goods by half and the introduction of "carbon counting" labeling - has had environmentalists dancing in the fresh produce aisles, but has left African horticulturists confused and concerned.”

    The BBC article continues:
    “Half of this produce goes to the UK's supermarkets, generating at least £100m per year for this developing country. The dependence on the UK market cannot be underestimated, says Stephen Mbithi Mwikya, chief executive of FPEAK. For Kenya, horticulture is the country's second biggest foreign exchange earner after tourism. ‘This announcement from Tesco is devastating’, says Mr Mbithi.”

    The recent announcement by travel guru Mark Ellingham, the author of the Rough Guide travel book series, that he was now recanting his promotion of worldwide travel is another blow to the travel and recreation industry. Ellingham now says that our addiction to ‘binge flying’ is killing the planet.

    This kind of alarmism should concern the travel and recreation industry, not natural climate fluctuations which mankind has no control over.
    There is even more proof showing that the dangers facing travel and recreation are coming from climate hysteria. The Associated Press on May 16, 2007 reported that ecotourism --the type of travel you would expect environmentalists to endorse--is no more Earth friendly than regular travel due to the long plane flights necessary to bring vacationers to exotic locales. The Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoey is now warning about long distance travel.
    "Long distance travel — especially air travel — is a challenge to all of us. We know that it has serious impacts on the climate," Bjoernoey said.

    I cannot think of a more devastating sentiment to the industry than that. Reduce air travel because of unfounded fears of climate doom. That is the authentic threat not only to the travel industry, but the developing world which depends so much on tourism to improve the life its residents. Clearly, the unfounded fears of a man-made climate catastrophe and the proposed solutions represent the gravest threats to the industry.

    Thank you.

Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.

Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained.

"We're all going to survive this. It's all going to be a joke in five years," he said.

A combination of misinterpreted and misguided science, media hype, and political spin had created the current hysteria and it was time to put a stop to it.

"It is time to attack the myth of global warming," he said.

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."

The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.

However, carbon dioxide as a result of man's activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively.

"That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then," he said.

"We couldn't do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates."

Yet the Greens continued to use phrases such as "The planet is groaning under the weight of CO2" and Government policies were about to hit industries such as farming, he warned.

"The Greens are really going to go after you because you put out 49 per cent of the countries emissions. Does anybody ask 49 per cent of what? Does anybody know how small that number is?

"It's become a witch-hunt; a Salem witch-hunt," he said.

A quote from Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, in the Czech daily Hospodá?ské Noviny, 8 February 2007 (translation Lubos Motl)

Global warming is a myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it’s a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It’s neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it’s an undignified slapstick that people don’t wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the “but’s” are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.

This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.

[...] Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice. [...] Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. [...] Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don’t plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don’t have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don’t appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change.

[...] It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it’s obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism. [...] [W]e know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It’s clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.

It’s also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.
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2   MYTH   Even slight temperature rises are disastrous, ice caps will melt, people will die
 FACT   In the UK, every mild winter saves 20,000 cold-related deaths, and scaled up over northern Europe mild winters save hundreds of thousands of lives each year, also parts of ice caps are melting yet other parts are thickening but this isn’t reported as much (home experiment: put some water in a jug or bowl, add a layer of ice cubes and mark the level — wait until the ice has melted and look again, the level will have fallen). Data from ice core samples shows that in the past, temperatures have risen by ten times the current rise, and fallen again, in the space of a human lifetime.

3   MYTH   Carbon Dioxide levels in our atmosphere at the moment are unprecedented (high).
 FACT   Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, currently only 350 parts per million have been over 18 times higher in the past at a time when cars, factories and power stations did not exist — levels rise and fall without mankind’s help.

4   MYTH   Mankind is pumping out carbon dioxide at a prodigious rate.
 FACT   96.5% of all carbon dioxide emissions are from natural sources, mankind is responsible for only 3.5%, with 0.6% coming from fuel to move vehicles, and about 1% from fuel to heat buildings. Yet vehicle fuel (petrol) is taxed at 300% while fuel to heat buildings is taxed at 5% even though buildings emit nearly twice as much carbon dioxide!

5   MYTH   Carbon dioxide changes in the atmosphere cause temperature changes on the earth.
 FACT   A report in the journal ‘Science’ in January of this year showed using information from ice cores with high time resolution that since the last ice age, every time when the temperature and carbon dioxide levels have shifted, the carbon dioxide change happened AFTER the temperature change, so that man-made global warming theory has put effect before cause — this shows that reducing carbon dioxide emissions is a futile King Canute exercise! What’s more, both water vapour and methane are far more powerful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide but they are ignored.

6   MYTH   Reducing car use will cut carbon dioxide levels and save the planet
 FACT   The planet does not need saving, but taking this on anyway, removing every car from every road in every country overnight would NOT produce any change in the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere, as can be seen using the numbers from Fact 4, and in any case it is pointless trying to alter climate by changing carbon dioxide levels as the cause and effect is the other way round — it is changes in the activity of the Sun that cause temperature changes on earth, with any temperature rise causing carbon dioxide to de-gas from the oceans.

7   MYTH   The recent wet weather and flooding was caused by mankind through ‘global warming’
 FACT   Extreme weather correlates with the cycle of solar activity, not carbon dioxide emissions or political elections, the recent heavy rainfall in winter and spring is a perfect example of this — it occurred at solar maximum at a time when solar maxima are very intense — this pattern may well repeat every 11 years until about 2045.

8   MYTH   The climate change levy, petrol duty, CO2 car tax and workplace parking charges are justifiable environmental taxes.
 FACT   As carbon dioxide emissions from cars and factories does not have any measurable impact on climate, these taxes are ‘just another tax’ on enterprise and mobility, and have no real green credentials.

9   MYTH   Scientists on the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issue reports that say ‘global warming’ is real and that we must do something now.
 FACT   Scientists draft reports for the IPCC, but the IPCC are bureaucrats appointed by governments, in fact many scientists who contribute to the reports disagree with the ’spin’ that the IPCC and media put on their findings.
The latest report suggests that the next 100 years might see a temperature change of 6 Celsius yet a Lead Author for the IPCC (Dr John Christy UAH/NASA) has pointed out that the scenarios with the fastest warming rates were added to the report at a late stage, at the request of a few governments — in other words the scientists were told what to do by politicians.

10   MYTH   There are only a tiny handful of maverick scientists who dispute that man-made global warming theory is true.
 FACT   There are nearly 18,000 signatures from scientists worldwide on a petition called The Oregon Petition which says that there is no evidence for man-made global warming theory nor for any impact from mankind’s activities on climate.
Many scientists believe that the Kyoto agreement is a total waste of time and one of the biggest political scams ever perpetrated on the public … as H L Mencken said “the fundamental aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary” … the desire to save the world usually fronts a desire to rule it.
 

TEN GREEN MYTHS, HANGING BY A THREAD
TEN GREEN MYTHS, HANGING BY A THREAD
BUT WHEN YOU SEE THE SCIENCE — HEY THE MYTHS ARE DEAD
THOSE GREEN MYTHS … GET THEM OUTTA YOUR HEAD

Warming Based On Science Not Politics

Web address: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070428170229.htm
Global warming is goodClimate change - is a fact - without it there would be another Ice

Source: Swedish Research Council
Date: April 30, 2007

Earth's Climate Is Seesawing, According To Climate Researchers

Science Daily - During the last 10,000 years climate has been seesawing between the North and South Atlantic Oceans. As revealed by findings
presented by Quaternary scientists at Lund University, Sweden, cold periods in the north have corresponded to warmth in the south and vice
verse. These results imply that Europe may face a slightly cooler future than predicted by IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The research group, currently consisting of Svante Björck, Karl Ljung and Dan Hammarlund, has retrieved cores of lake sediments and peat along
a north-south transect of Atlantic islands and adjacent land areas: Greenland, Iceland, Faroes, Azores, Tristan da Cunha, Isla de los Estados,
and the Antarctic Peninsula. Based on detailed analyses of geochemistry, mineral magnetism and pollen content, hitherto unknown details of
Atlantic climate dynamics have been resolved.Extensive radiocarbon dating and rapid sedimentation rates in the terrestrial deposits allow a much higher temporal resolution of the data than provided by marine sediment cores.

Our records reflect details of the climatic evolution in the Atlantic region since the end of the last Ice Age to the present day. We would have liked to compare our results to similar data sets from other parts of the South Atlantic, but no other records provide the same degree of resolution, says Professor Björck. After the end
of the last Glacial both Hemispheres became warmer as a result of melting ice sheets, but during the last 9000 years we can identify a persistent "seesaw" pattern. When the South Atlantic was warm it was cold in the North Atlantic and vice versa.

This is most certainly related to large-scale ocean circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. The main current system - "the Great Ocean Conveyor" - is driven by sinking of dense, relatively cold and salty water in the northern North Atlantic. This results in southward-flowing deep-water that is replaced by warm surface water brought to high northern latitudes from the tropics and ultimately from the South Atlantic, says Svante Björck, and continues:

The deep-water formation in the north is dependent on cooling of surface water with a high salt content. If sufficiently large amounts of fresh water are supplied to the North Atlantic, such as from melting ice-sheets or major increases in precipitation, the deep-water formation, and hence the transport of warm surface water from the south, may cease or at least decrease substantially.

This is known to have happened repeatedly during the present Interglacial (the warm period since the last Ice Age). Minor disturbances have taken place in recent time, such as the Great Salt Anomaly in the 1970s, which seriously affected the cod population around the Faroe Islands. Our results from Nightingale Island in the Tristan da Cunha island group, between South Africa and Argentina, for the first time give evidence of warming of the South Atlantic associated with cooling in the north. This is a major breakthrough in palaeoclimate research.

In agreement with most other climate researchers, the Lund group is not concerned about a complete shut-down of the Gulf Stream as envisioned in the
apocalyptic film "The day after tomorrow". However, future warming induced by anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions may influence the system.

We don't know with certainty what will happen. Some attempts at measuring ocean currents suggest a recent weakening of the Gulf Stream, and the
transport of heat to the North Atlantic region may well decrease in the future as a result of increased precipitation. Such a scenario might lead to less warming in Europe than predicted by the IPCC, but we will probably not face an arctic climate, summarizes Svante Björck.

Web address: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070428170229.htm

Source: Swedish Research Council
Date: April 30, 2007

FOXNews.com
Hurricane Forecaster: Oceans Cause Global Warming, Not CO2

Friday , April 27, 2007
 

DENVER —
Hurricane forecaster William Gray said Friday that global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming, and the Earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

Gray, a Colorado State University researcher best known for his annual forecasts of hurricanes along the U.S. Atlantic coast, also said increasing levels of carbon dioxide won't produce more or stronger hurricanes.

He said that over the past 40 years the number of major hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic coast has declined even though carbon dioxide levels have risen.

Gray, speaking to a group of Republican state lawmakers, had harsh words for researchers and politicians who say man-made greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming.

"They're blaming it all on humans, which is crazy," he said. "We're not the cause of it."

Many researchers believe warming is causing hurricanes to get stronger, while others aren't sure.

Gray complained that politics and research into global warming have created "almost an industry" that has unfairly frightened the public and overwhelmed dissenting voices.

He said research arguing that humans are causing global warming is "mush" based on unreliable computer models that cannot possibly take into account the hundreds of factors that influence the weather.

Gray said little-understood ocean currents are behind a decades-long warming cycle and disputed assertions that greenhouse gases could raise global temperatures as much as some scientists predict.

"There's no way that doubling CO2 is going to cause that amount of warming," he said.

Gray also said warming and cooling trends cannot go on indefinitely and believes temperatures are beginning to level out after a very warm year in 1998.

"We're going to begin to see some cooling," he said.

How About Economic Progress Day?
By John Stossel

Last Sunday was marked by an orgy of celebrations of Earth Day, the worldwide annual event intended to "to spark a revolution against environmental abuse."
Even the Bush administration had an Earth Day website, which stated, "< a href="http://earthday.gov/">Earth Day and every day is a time to act to protect our planet".Watching the media coverage, you'd think that the earth was in imminent danger -- that human life itself was on the verge of extinction. Technology is fingered as the perp. Nothing could be further from the truth.John Semmens of Arizona's Laissez Faire Institute points out that Earth Day misses an important point. In the April issue of The Freeman magazine, Semmens says the environmental movement overlooks how hospitable the earth has become -- thanks to technology. "The environmental alarmists have it backwards. If anything imperils the earth it is ignorant obstruction of science and progress. ... That technology provides the
best option for serving human wants and conserving the environment should be evident in the progress made in environmental improvement in the United States. Virtually every measure shows that pollution is headed downward and that nature is making a comeback." (Carbon dioxide excepted, if it is really a pollutant.)
Semmens describes his visit to historic Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, an area "lush with trees and greenery." It wasn't always that way. In 1775, the land was cleared so it could be farmed. Today, technology makes farmers so efficient that only a fraction of the land is needed to produce much more food. As a result,
"Massachusetts farmland has been allowed to revert back to forest." Human ingenuity and technology not only raised living standards, but also restored environmental amenities. How about a day to celebrate that? Yet, Semmens writes, the environmental movement is skeptical about technology and is attracted to
three dubious principles: sustainable development, the precautionary principle, and stakeholder participation.The point of sustainable development, Semmens
says, "is to minimize the use of nonrenewable natural resources so there will be more left for future generations." Sounds sensible -- who is for "unsustainable" development? But as the great economist Julian Simon often pointed out, resources are manmade, not natural. Jed Clampett cheered when he found oil on his
land because it made him rich enough to move to Beverly Hills. But his great-grandfather would have cursed the disgusting black gunk because Canadian geologist Abraham Gesner hadn't yet discovered that kerosene could be distilled from it.

President Bush chides us for our "addiction to oil." But under current conditions, using oil makes perfect sense. Someday, if we let the free market operate, someone will find an energy source that works better than oil. Then richer future generations won't need oil. So why deprive ourselves and make ourselves poorer with needless regulation now? Anyway, it's not as if we're running out of oil. That's one of the myths I expose in my new book, "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity". If the price of a barrel of oil stays high, entrepreneurs will find better ways to suck oil out of the ground. At $50 a barrel, it's even profitable to recover oil that's stuck in the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Those tar sands alone contain enough oil to meet our needs for a hundred years.The precautionary principle, popular in Europe,
is the idea that no new thing should be permitted until it has been proved harmless. Sounds good, except as Ron Bailey of Reason writes, it basically means, "Don't ever do anything for the first time."

Stakeholder participation means that busybodies would be permitted to intrude on private transactions. Semmens's example is DDT, which for years would have saved children from deadly malaria, except that "'stakeholders' from the environmental quarter have prevailed on governments to ban the trade in this product."
The first victims of these principles are the poor. We rich Westerners can withstand a lot of policy foolishness. But people in the developing world live on the edge, so anything that retards economic progress -- including measures to arrest global warming -- will bring incredible hardship to the most vulnerable on the planet.
If we care about human life, we should celebrate Economic Progress Day.

John Stossel is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and
Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=how_about_economic_progress_day&ns=JohnStossel&dt=04/25/2007&page=1

Friday , April 06, 2007 AP
 

NEW ORLEANS —
A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" Friday for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming.

"He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.

A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray's comments.

Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

Over the past 24 years, Gray, 77, has become known as America's most reliable hurricane forecaster; recently, his mentee, Philip Klotzbach, has begun doing the bulk of the forecasting work.

Gray's statements came the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved a report that concludes the world will face dire consequences to food and water supplies, along with increased flooding and other dramatic weather events, unless nations adapt to climate change.

Rather than global warming, Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.

    Future climate. Having presented evidence that major changes in past climate were associated with variations in the geometry of the earth's orbit, we should be able to predict the trend of future climate. Such forecasts must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted.

    One approach to forecasting the natural long-term climate trend is to estimate the time constants of response necessary to explain the observed phase relationships between orbital variation and climatic change, and then to use those time constants in the exponential-response model. When such a model is applied to Vernekar's (39) astronomical projections,the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate

Posted on 12/30/2004 9:19:44 AM PST by bedolido

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

 The Story of Two Houses

  Facts vs Fiction on Global Warming April 2007

Time Magazine Reports Coming of the Ice Age

 Benefits of Global Warming Already Started: The glass is half full

Michael Crichton Opinion      Hear or read the debate      Who he is.

 Review of Long Term Global Warming Various Opinions

Solar Bands of Extreme heat Discovered

Climate Change is the name of the Game

 The Real Deal

 My Opinion

Ann's Opinion

Thomas Sowells Opinion

Global Warming Started 10, 000 years ago

HOT_AIR_TO_SPARE

Inconvenient Kyoto Truths

An American Thinker View

  MDV Outlook

  A Libertarian View fron GB

  The New World Order Agenda: Global Warming Could it be the source of heat?

If forrest are benefiting fromWarming, will not Agriculture?

 Response to GW Report

 A Chilling Perspective

  Views from New Zealand: We are cooling off

    Eight Reasons Global Warming is a scam

  Still Waiting (Many Graphs)

  Download Government Report (pdf)

More Government Scientific Reports

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What scientists say

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Fire Or Ice, which shall it be

Causes of Warming

 Junk Science

The Solar Cycle

  The Real Cause
 
 
 

Warming: Sound Science or Science Fiction?" hosted by the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, noted scientists and climatologists from the U.S. and Germany blasted the science behind global warming and the myths that drove the creation of the Kyoto Protocol. Additionally, retired U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop and author Nick Nichols discussed the political ramifications
of basing public policy on politicized science rather than sound science.

Dr. John Christy, a Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, presented evidence from satellites and weather balloons showing that there is no evidence of any trends towards catastrophic warming. His research
shows that the one constant with climate is that it fluctuates. "The weather that people really care about is not changing," said Dr. Christy. "Climate always changes, and everything around us has already survived through tremendous changes in the past and adapted accordingly. Many times you hear
in the press today about the twenty-five years of rapid warming we have had in the climate system, and often what is missing is a perspective on this -- the current rise in temperatures is not unprecedented -- even in this century. The climate has always changed and always will," continued Dr.
Christy.

Dr. Patrick Michaels, a Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and the State Climatologist, pointed out that global warming theorists use computer models which grossly overstate warming. He
said that over 75% of the minor warming fluctuations that have been recorded in recent decades have occurred in Siberia and other extreme cold weather locations in the winter and at night. "Warming Siberia on a cold night in January from -40 degrees to -39.5 degrees is not a problem," said Micheals.
He also said that the chief determiner of the earth's warmth is the sun which varies in its intensity and is not a factor controlled or affected by manmade causes. Dr. Micheals said that the problem with the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty is that "U.S. citizens are being asked to tax themselves based on weather forecasts for 100 years in the future, and to surrender
sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats from other countries."

Dr. Sallies Baliunas, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, cited evidence that variations in the earth's temperatures are natural and that there is strong evidence that these variations are caused, in large part, by cyclical variations in the sun's intensity -- its total light, surface magnetism, and wind of fast-moving charged particles,
or ions. Dr. Baliunas said that it is highly impractical, if not impossible, for current computer models to provide accurate information about future global climate conditions. She said that if all the five million parameters that impact on global climate and their interrelationships were accurately fed into a super computer in an attempt to predict 40 years of future global climate conditions, it would take our best super computers billions of years to calculate the results (1034 years or 10 with 34 zeros following which is longer that the universe is believed to exist). Dr. Baliunas said, "In other words, this can't be done. So as a result, climate simulations must be scaled back, guesses have to made, and we know there are more problems with climate simulations -- we know that we do not know all the natural sources of climate change." Dr. Baliunas also pointed out that our current global climate is cooler than the most recent 3,000-year average for the world.

Dr. Gerd Weber, who studies meteorology and was educated at the Free University of Berlin, criticized the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report for consistently pushing a catastrophic warming scenario despite recent evidence to the contrary. "The IPCC has been developing new scenarios over recent decades without paying attention to
current trends," said Dr. Weber. He also pointed out that in Europe many scientists are afraid to go against the conventional wisdom and so they remain silent rather than correct the misstatements used to support global
warming theory. According to Dr. Weber, even attempts to promote emissions trading are misguided because these systems will lead to "all buyers, and no sellers." "If there are no emissions credits to sell -- and there won't be -- then it doesn't matter how many people would like to buy," concluded
Weber.

Retired Senator Malcolm Wallop, the founder and chairman of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, said that science is too often politicized and corrupted. "The only science those in Washington know is political science, " said Wallop. "Politics needs a crises. The media needs disaster. How do we get
real science in front of them? We have to get good science in front of the public somehow, make good science seem like a crises so that they will pay attention to it," continued Wallop.

George Landrith, president of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, said "Throughout history, the earth has changed. Temperatures have changed. The climate has changed. The one constant in this world is change. Yet,those with a political agenda, tell us that in 2000 it is warmer than it was in 1850 and that man-made CO2 emissions are to blame. But this is simply false.
Roughly 80% of the CO2 about which these folks complain was emitted after 1940. Yet, most of the 0.5¼ C "warming" they blame on man's CO2 emissions occurred between 1850 and 1940. You don't have to be a scientist to understand that CO2 emitted in the 1990s did not cause global warming in the
1850s. A cause-effect relationship implies a sequence - first the cause, then the effect. It simply does not work the other way around."

Nick Nichols, a crisis management expert and author of the recently published "Rules for Corporate Warriors," criticized corporate managers for giving in to pressure campaigns mounted by extreme environmentalists. "On the issue of Global Warming, are we going to fight or appease?" asked
Nichols. "Global Warming scaremongers tell us the victims are the children. This is bunk. Americans need to understand that Kyoto means less jobs and less trade. Poverty victimizes," said Nichols. "Extreme environmentalists spend 22 billion a year promoting anti-free enterprise and anti-democracy ideas," continued Nichols. He also warned against legitimization of the
precautionary principle which he said is used by the Left to trump science and impose unfounded risk avoidance measures. "The Precautionary Principle defies sound science and requires you to prove a negative. You cannot prove
a negative." concluded Nichols.

CONTACT: Jason Wright, Director of External Relations
(Ph: 703-246-0110,E-mail: jwright@ff.org)
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It appears that CO2 levels have been fluctuating without human involvement for at least 500 million years. It is my understanding that carbon dioxide levels are probably higher now than at any time during the last 20 million years but significantly lower if we look back longer than 50 million years. I have seen estimates as high as 2000 ppmv for 200 million years ago.

NOAA estimates that 97% of the atmospheric CO2 created each year is from natural sources and around 3% is from human activities. But carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas when compared to water vapor. In fact, it is estimated that water vapor is responsible for around 95% of the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide adds around 4% to the greenhouse effect. If you take our 3% of that 4%, you end up with a potential 0.12% of the greenhouse effect being attributable to human activity. If you add the Methane, Nitrous Oxide, and other gases that we probably contribute, that percentage of anthropogenic greenhouse effect “jumps” to a whopping 0.28%. Of course, I doubt that we can know to hundredths of a percent but we have a general idea.

That 0.28% probably has some effect. Is it a significant effect? I don’t know but I doubt it. We might be able to spend a bunch of money and reduce that 0.28% somewhat. Would it be worth it? Probably not. Would it be politically possible to get all of the developing countries in the world to join us? Probably not. If Kyoto was fully implemented, would it have any significant effect on global temperatures? The temperature reduction would probably not even be perceptible.

I don’t think that you are being pedantic about the way of measuring the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As long as we all know what the units are, it shouldn’t matter. However, most folks don’t know what ppmv means or that the CO2 concentration is less than five one hundredths of a percent. I prefer ppmv as the measure because it better illustrates that we are talking about a very small number. You can double a very small number and still have a very small number. I can understand that it would be easier to sell the idea that there is a crisis if you talk in terms of percent of increase. I guess we both have our agendas.

I recently saw one “study” that said that the CO2 level is 27% higher than at any point in the last 650,000 years. They somehow failed to mention that our current CO2 levels are low when we look at the last 500 million years. Then it went on to talk about environmental refugees from rising oceans, catastrophic weather, and expanding deserts. They gave the impression that it would happen by 2050.

Without the greenhouse effect that is mostly attributable to water vapor and mostly not influenced by humans, the earth might be 33 C colder. We can only speculate about the effect of doubling carbon dioxide because we don’t totally understand the interaction between water vapor and CO2. The CO2 is such a minor factor that it would be very difficult to judge its influence in the real world. That is why we see models rather than actual measurements.

Comparing current temperatures to those of the last 400 years doesn’t really tell us whether the warming of the last 150 years is anomalous. We would really need to compare the recent warming to the warming that occurred during the Medieval Warm Period (Climate Optimum) to judge that. If the warming back then was similar, then we are probably experiencing a repeat of the same cycle. We don't have reliable temperature measurements that go back that far unfortunately.

I do agree that if there is a change, there must be a cause. And that something causes the cycles. I think that someday we will probably understand all of it. Maybe not in my lifetime.

If the claim can’t be confirmed by observation, then it is an opinion rather than fact. The “crisis denialist” has no obligation to prove that doubling of CO2 will not cause a 2 degree centigrade rise in temperature. That would be contrary to the scientific method and a logical fallacy. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. You cannot claim that there is a global warming crisis and then require skeptics to prove that there isn’t a crisis.

Climate is always changing. I assume that the warming that ended the Little Ice Age will continue on average (with fits and spurts) until we reached the next cooling part of the cycle. Right now, I think that it is reasonable to assume that we might be having a slight influence on climate but that mostly we are along for the ride with nature at the wheel. Imagery alert!

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