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Open thread 9/1
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted Sept. 1, 2007 at 1:06 a.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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123 Comments
‘Study Predicts More Severe U.S. Storms’
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070830/D8RBKO5G0.html
“As the world warms, the United States will face more severe thunderstorms with deadly lightning, damaging hail and the potential for tornadoes, a trailblazing study by NASA scientists suggests.”
NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies:http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/moist_convection.html
Global warming IS mostly caused by humans,http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
“Because we don’t think about future generations, they will never forget us.” Henrik Tikkanen.
Harold Brooks, a top scientist at NOAA’s severe storms laboratory in Norman, Okla., has soon-to-be-published studies finding results similar to the new NASA study, especially when it comes to hail. Some of the severe hail that should be increasing could be baseball-sized and come down at 100 mph, “falling like a major league fastball,” he said.
He said it’s not possible to predict more tornadoes will result from climate change, however.
Jerry Mahlman, who used to be NOAA’s top climate model expert, said that a decade ago then-Vice President Al Gore asked if global warming could cause more tornadoes. Then as now, Mahlman said that’s something that’s just too detailed to derive from complex climate models.
Mahlman, a scientist who has long warned about the dire consequences of global warming, cautions against going overboard on climate change links: “I’m beginning to suspect that global warming is dynamically much less sexy than people want it to be.”http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070831/NEWS04/708310364/1024/NEWS04
Jerry Mahlman, former longtime director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab:
“It is encouraging that some NOAA managers have had the wisdom to back away from the current NOAA Adminstration’s attempts to support the very naive arguments from the hurricane forecasting community who asserted that, somehow, there is essentially no connection between the well-documented increasing warmth of the upper ocean temperatures (in all three major equatorial ocean basins) andintensity of hurricanes.
Perhaps the kindest comment on this is that the NOAA leadership had essentially no experience with the exceptional, and globally accepted, relationship between increased equatorial temperatures and tropical cyclone intensity increases, a result pioneered by NOAA. Thanks to the exceptional courage of Thomas Knutson, a very respected NOAA climate and hurricane scientist, the ideologically driven distortion of the truth about the relationship between hurricane intensity increases and warming ocean temperatures has been thoroughly refuted.”http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/03/jerry-mahlman-goes-upside-heads-of.html
Mercy sakes… Kansas posts a link favorable to Global Warming… Are my eyes deceiving me??
Oh well LOL
Actually no Chas, if you carefully read what was pasted.
I did read your first link… Havent bothered with the second one yet… Might not, its getting late…
“back away from the current NOAA Adminstration’s attempts to support the very naive arguments from the hurricane forecasting community who asserted that, somehow, there is essentially no connection between the well-documented increasing warmth of the upper ocean temperatures (in all three major equatorial ocean basins) and intensity of hurricanes.”
Hmmmm looks like Mahlman is please that they are backing AWAY from the idea that there is no connection between ocean temps, and intensity of hurricanes…
That means Mahlman is sticking to the idea that there IS a connection… Gee, its right there in black and white…
WTG Cosmos!!
Evidently Chas, you never ran any marathons as you aren’t a finisher.
Read the concluding paragraph.
“Thanks to the exceptional courage of Thomas Knutson, a very respected NOAA climate and hurricane scientist, the ideologically driven distortion of the truth about the relationship between hurricane intensity increases and warming ocean temperatures has been thoroughly refuted.”
Of course, Chas is never wrong and even when he is wrong he refuses to admit it.
Sort of like claiming if the wife dies first the husband will get no social security comment he went on for a couple of days about. Even the attorney Vaughn Tolle told Chas he was wrong.
All that says is that Knutson and Mahlman are in disagreement…
Yep time for a beer and bed… When Kansas cant put up opposition, he goes after the poster, instead of the post…
Go ahead, have your fun… Later, dude…
Because Chas, if I don’t, you’ll fill up an entire page and then some on fifty ways why you weren’t wrong. re: the SS issue.
What Vaughn Tolle said was that the rules had CHANGED… that it used to be that a surviving widower could not collect on SS benefits… But since the rules CHANGED… now they can…
And Chas said, that Vaughn had solved the dilemma… which indeed he did…
Hey, dummy, YOU brought up an issue long dead, NOT ME!!
See, there he goes again.
Your claim not only included your father’s ss but all ss claims.
Go back and read it.
Go have your beer Chas. You’re brain isn’t quite pickled enough.
See, there you go… bringing SS into this discussion… I am not playing that game…
My father was NOT eligible to collect off of my mother’s benefit, since SHE didnt make more income than HE did… Vaughn Tolle also pointed that out to EVERYBODY….
Go look it up!!
Now, it’s Miller Time!! Nite!!
Actually Chas,
I had posted the link to the Social Security website at least 3 different times and every time you tryed to wiggle your way out of it doing little more than constantly saying that you are right.
I asked you several times to post a link or proof and you refused.
It took 2 days of posting the same thing to you over an over again before you FINALLY admitted you were wrong.
You tried to say I was confused, change the subject, ignore my posts, refuse to post any proof, over and over again for 2 days.
Don’t act like it was all some misunderstanding now!
Please note the TACTICS used by the troll Kansas.
His rutlandherald link is IDENTICAL to my apnews link.
The troll Kansas first focuses on the uncertain future U.S. dangers re “potential for tornadoes”.
Then the troll Kansas tries to shift to “hurricane intensity”.
And then the troll Kansas shifts to personal attacks, like:”Evidently Chas, you never ran any marathons as you aren’t a finisher.”
“Because we don’t think about future generations, they will never forget us.” Henrik Tikkanen.
Cosmos,
Tactics?
You refuse to actually discuss the science.
All you do is post your links and say anyone who disagrees is a liar or hack.
That’s because cosmos is not a scientist and can’t discuss what he posts become he would look like the fool he is.
Oh and cosmos, I didn’t make those statement, scientists made those statements.
The former boss of the NOAA where your climate modeler works made those statements about hurricanes.
A scientist, certified PhD Meteorologist who works for NOAA made those statements about tornadoes.
Real scientists that worked on the same data as your hyperlink climate modeler made those statements.
Even the scientists you claim are the authority on man-made global warming issues are disputed by the scientists who work in the same facilities.
I would say that cosmos and his scientists have a credibility problem. :)
Nathan,
PLEASE use your Marine, and/or electrical engineering education to defend the “TACTICS” used by AGW “deniers”, such as Bob Carter.
Carter seems to believe that humans live at about SIX kilometers above sea level.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/04/bob_carter_claims_its_not_warm.php
De Ominibus Dubitantum
OK I went and looked up the link that Kansas was referring to, and then typed in google supporting links.
What Mehlman was talking about was the DENIAL of global warming and their scientists being muzzled from talking PRO-warming stances on the basis of politics (assumedly from the Bush administration who was at the time, denying global warming).
“NOAA, which once exemplified the constructive relationship between science and government, has become an instrument of what author Chris Mooney calls “the Republican war on science.” And, in this war, the public is the real casualty. ”
http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/news/news_detail.cfm?id=97
“”"Harold Brooks, a top scientist at NOAA’s severe storms laboratory in Norman, Okla., has soon-to-be-published studies finding results similar to the new NASA study, especially when it comes to hail. Some of the severe hail that should be increasing could be baseball-sized and come down at 100 mph, “falling like a major league fastball,” he said.
He said it’s not possible to predict more tornadoes will result from climate change, however.”"”
That would not be possible. There might be a hail stone that big every now and then but you would never see a hail storm with stones that big falling all over the place. Such a storm whould do massive damage- probably more than a hurricane- and kill hundreds if not thousands of people. I work on cell phone equipment and I have seen the damage that even small chunks of ice falling off antenna towers can do and it ain’t pretty. If you had a hail storm like that, it would destory every home and vehicle in its path. That is why it is impossible.
“Don’t argue with idiots, people won’t know who is and who isn’t.”
Evidently you never been to Oklahoma Ken where hail the size of baseballs smash windshields, destroy rooves and generally put every car dealership in the area on notice for massive hail damage sales.
That size of hail has been happening since my Grandfather’s memory and his father (my g-grandfather.) It’s nothing new about huge hail.
I’ve heard stories of softball size hail, but never personally witnessed it on the Weather or seen it.
I have been hit by a shower of golfball size hail in Ohio while jogging and yeah it hurt. Was right before a tornado hit about 15 miles away.
Wiping out the roo industry, and leaving humans as the only bipedal marsupials in Oklahoma?
“Because we don’t think about future generations, they will never forget us.” Henrik Tikkanen.
And I should care, why?
Door King,
There are no bipedals in Okie land, they drag their knuckles heaving themselves forward in a chimp-like fashion. :)
(inserts Sooner song)
Dear Kansas:
And: Those boys in Oklahoma roll their joints all wrong.They’re way too skinny and way too long.But I’m no holy roller, so I just use a bong.Those boys in Oklahoma roll their joints all wrong.
–cross canadian ragweed
I have been hit by a shower of golfball size hail in Ohio while jogging and yeah it hurt. Was right before a tornado hit about 15 miles away.
Posted by: Kansas
Pray tell why were you out jogging when a tornado was just 15 miles away? Is that very smart in anyone’s book?
Well, he MIGHT have gotten stuck out in the storm… I had that happen once at the golf course out by the Airport here… car got all kinds of demolition damage from hail that day… Back in 1993?? I think??
“If you had a hail storm like that, it would destory every home and vehicle in its path. That is why it is impossible.”
Posted by: Kev | September 01, 2007 at 07:15 AM
Using Kev’s logic(sic), F5 tornandoes are “impossible”.
Pray tell why were you out jogging when a tornado was just 15 miles away? Is that very smart in anyone’s book?
Posted by: maidmarion | September 01, 2007 at 12:29 PM
Because it was a 10 mile jog and the storm moved in rather fast.
Hey Kev,
Welcome to Kansas. In the early ’90s I heard a loud crash on my roof. I went outside and while I was looking at the roof a huge piece of ice fell out in the street. I realized what was happening and ran into the house.
Looking out at our lake every few seconds a huge piece of ice, cantaloupe size and bigger would fall and it looked like a depth charge going off. A tornado that hit out on west Kellogg was forming over my house at the time.
Then in ‘93, I think, we had a terrible hail storm hit the west side of town. Every car in the parking lot of my wife’s clinic at Second and West was totaled out. My wife’s 300ZX was totaled, broke every piece of glass in it. Hail stones the size of grapefruit came down at a 45 degree angle in an 85 mile an hour wind.
They knocked down fences and garages. They came through roofs and destroyed TVs. Over a quarter million dollars of damage was done to our building, it tore up the air conditioner units on the roof.
Algore wasn’t able to help us. He was too busy at the time screwing up my air conditioner in order save the ozone.
Hank
Kev, you really aren’t from around here are you?
“De Ominibus Dubitantum”
Posted by: the TROLL Kansas | September 01, 2007 at 03:10 AM
Why should I doubt that the file extension “.mt” stands for mid troposphere???
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/04/bob_carter_claims_its_not_warm.php
I wasn’t referring specifically to your entry.
It was actually directed at Nathan.
Doubt Everything. Be skeptical until there is sufficient proof not correlation but confirmation.
It no longer becomes science when it is preached. It becomes a religion.
Hank, that ‘93 storm was the one that totaled my car out at Pawnee Prairie Golf Course… Made mincmeat out of my Park Avenue…
Hey Chas,
Momma cried! She loved her 300ZX! I had to go to th bank in Goddard and I took my pickup because it had more gas. I came back into a ‘war zone’. There were piles of hail stones like snow drifts.
The hail knocked one of the rear view mirrors off Joyce’s car! It was an ‘86, but it was in very good shape. We just had it repainted and I had just put on a new set of Parelli radials.
Our last ‘go fast’ machine.
Hank
And what does Bob Carter’s INCORRECT use of mid troposphere data prove? That he is either clueless about climate science, or dishonest.
Considering the other “errors” he has made, there is no doubt that he has ZERO credibilty re climate science.
I remember that one, Hank, it did a lot of major damage along West street, including the Fox building.2 years ago Dave and I were sitting out on the deck and could see a tornado ON THE GROUND to the West, there were no sirens going, so I called in and they told me there were no tornados showing on the radar…but it was there, we even took pictures of it. Doesn’t make we very trusting of the weather guys who are watching for this stuff or their equipment.
Yeah cosmos, Tim Lambert a computer geek’s blog, used to dispute scientific work.
Okay cosmos, (wink wink) anything your non-scientific mind wants to believe.
Perhaps the term mid tropospheric is bothering you?
NOAA appears to like using the term. Perhaps all the entropy of radiant forcing heat production is getting to warm for your brain?
Do you have something against clouds or diffusion cosmos?
Yeah Mary don’t you LOVE it when they argue with you on the flipping phone to dispatch. I’ve had that happen too.
No, you shouldn’t always trust the weather guys, which is why I am usually more cautious than the ones who always cry about the weather report interruptions.
A hail storm of even a few minutes of duration of baseball sized ice chunks falling en masse to the earth would destroy almost every wooden structure. Not just the roof tiles but the entire roof structure would be busted. Cars would not only lose windows but would be so damaged that they would be totalled- not just a scratch and dent sale. Anybody hit by such a stone on the head would most likely be killed instantly. It would destroy trees and severely danage the electrical grid. I have seen bad hail storms but the stones were, at the most, golf ball size- which can do plenty of damage themselves.
“”"Then in ‘93, I think, we had a terrible hail storm hit the west side of town. Every car in the parking lot of my wife’s clinic at Second and West was totaled out. My wife’s 300ZX was totaled, broke every piece of glass in it. Hail stones the size of grapefruit came down at a 45 degree angle in an 85 mile an hour wind.”"”
I don’t doubt what you say but I lived in Kansas from 1958 until 1979 and I never saw hail that big there.
Kansas,
Are you trolling… or just very STUPID?
The mid troposphere (MT) and lower troposphere (LT) are two different regions.
The MT is not showing warming, as the greenhouse hypothesis predicts — BUT the LT is showing warming.
Bob Carter incorrectly used the MT data to claim that the LT was not warming.He used the WRONG data set.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/04/bob_carter_claims_its_not_warm.php
“”"Evidently you never been to Oklahoma Ken where hail the size of baseballs smash windshields, destroy rooves and generally put every car dealership in the area on notice for massive hail damage sales.”"”
Hail only destroys “rooves” in England. The USA calls them roofs in the plural.
I read it cosmos and it also can be explained the way entropy works.
Heat to cold, not the other way around.
Even with radiant factors thermodynamics can’t be denied.
But again, Lambert is a computer geek and not a climatologist. One guy on the blog who was in on the paper made some comments, evidently Tim Lambert had no reply to him because Tim Lambert is not a climate scientist and didn’t know what he was talking about.
The data set error was mentioned by that guy and there were no counters by Tim Lambert. Evidently Lambert took the ball and ran with it, even though it was corrected later.
But you wouldn’t understand such things cosmos since you are not a scientist.
When someone steps on someone’s throat, you’re there to cheerlead them on and call them denialists.
Where are your peer reviewed papers cosmos?
Oh yeah, you don’t have any do you. :)
Slow blog day huh Kansas?
Cosmos blowing his hot global warming wind again.
My God, we have real down to Earth issues to worry about!
1. National Defense.2. Secure our borders.3. Deal with 20 million illegal immigrants and 500,000 illegal immigrant FUGITIVES!4. Solve the Social Security Fiscal Crisis.5. Make America Energy Independent so we don’t have to rely on foreign governments to fuel our TV’s, PC’s, and SUV’s.
Where’d Chicken Little go?
Isn’t the sky still falling?
Hey Kev,
In my experience, the larger the hail stones, the fewer that actually fall.
In ‘93, they weren’t wee, or not so wee; they were friggin’ huge!
Hank
Kansas,
So you are very STUPID, and can’t understand that temperatures SIX kilometers up, in the mid troposphere, are NOT lower troposphere temperatures???
Corrections to the satellite data set are a different topic.
Where are Carter’s peer-reviewed CLIMATE papers?http://www.desmogblog.com/rm-bob-carter
Say Cosmos, what were the troposphere temperatures 50 years ago?
5,000 years ago?
cosmos are you very stupid or can you point out where I even the differences between mid and lower troposphere temperatures?
You are just making things up now, claiming I said such things.
Lambert is a computer geek, he has nothing to add to the Climate discussion – he is classified as a professional insulter as he goes from blog to blog making insults.
Sort of like you cosmos.
Must be a real LONG TERM trend I bet.
That troposphere 100 years ago must have been a lot colder.
Or was it just 50 years ago when we measured it for the first time?
Oh, ok, we are looking at global climate change patterns on a 3 billion year old planet, and basing our forecasts on what has happened in the last 50 or maybe even 100 years.
I get it.
Troll Kansas,
You’ve been defending Carter’s op-ed. I already posted that Carter used the WRONG data set.
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/09/open-thread-91.html#comment-81366863
“I get it.”
Posted by: Max
You very obviously do NOT “get it”.
I’m not defending anything cosmos.
For you, a non-scientist to attack other scientists work via a blog link is beyond sad.
It shows what a political hack you are.
Weathermen study the Troposphere all the time, it’s where weather happens!
You didn’t even understand the basics of entropy as it applies of temperature migration when I mentioned it.
Give it up cosmos, you are just a hyperlink hack that loves to insult people via URL.
You have nothing to contribute to the discussion because you are not a scientist.
Tropospheric temperatures vary from region to region depending on their location on the earth. There are a huge amount of factors that affect temperature in the Troposphere and you are calling me stupid?
Perhaps you can stop by a TV station and have a chat with a Weatherman about Troposphere. After you get schooled on the very basic elements, come back and then we can talk.
Kansas,
So you make multiple false personal attacks on me, and avoid the key issue.
Is it scientifically correct to say that GLOBAL temperature trends in the mid troposphere are the same as the lower troposphere?
No! The trends are different.
Carter used the WRONG data set.
Carter is NOT a climate scientist.
Global LT satellite, radiosondes, and surface measurements all show a warming temperature trend.
Your false attacks on me, and Lambert, do NOT change the above facts.
Cosmos,
All you can do is attack those who disagree with you as hacks or liars.
You are hardly one to be talking.
Trends are different? lol
That has to be one of the more humorous statements of the day. I bet you don’t even know why, do you cosmos?
And Bob Carter was either 1) clueless, and did not know the trends are different, or 2) dishonest.
Again!
Trends are different! LMAO!
You are clueless aren’t you cosmos.
Troll Kansas,
The most humourous thing is pathetic, clueless people like you, who believe deceptions from people like Bob Carter.
Point out where I had “belief” in Bob Carter. You can’t can you?
See, cosmos can’t even identify discourse on the matter without assigning some personality quirk to me.
He certainly can’t discuss the science, because he is not a scientist.
Troll Kansas,
Are you admitting that Lambert is correct re Carter, at this page?
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/04/bob_carter_claims_its_not_warm.php
Lambert is a computer geek is hardly qualified to comment on the work of a paleoclimatologist.
I’m not admitting to anything.
You picked Lambert a blog owner, computer geek who is known throughout the Web as a trouble maker and finger pointer.
Lambert isn’t even qualified to give a weather forecast in a rain storm.
To give you folks a clue about Tim Lambert. Tim Lambert was caught making alterations on other people’s Wikipedia entries. Evidently, he is a competent computer geek as he got away with it, for awhile.
Tim Lambert is hate driven for anything that has conservative on it and will do anything and everything to discredit people, including hacking their Websites.
This is the type of person that cosmos puts his faith into. A hacker, a cheater and won who will perform illegal acts on the Web so he can promote his fear mongering throughout the Web.
Tim Lambert teaches computer science at a University. He knows nothing of climate change, never did , never will.
He is a hate mongering hacker.
And this is what cosmos is promoting.
Hilary is stupid, are yall really gonna vote for a democrat, just because you don’t like Bush. What you guys don’t even know, is in 20 years or now, Bush will be looked at in a different light as one of the greatest presidents we ever had. None of the democrap candidates is worth a damn. Our country is gonna go down the drain, just because you mad at the Republicans your gonna vote for some woman, or a black guy, because you want change, what a bunch of sorry reasons to vote. You liberal animal raping nut cases need to be deported. You dang commies what do you want to turn this country into, China?
“I get it.”
Posted by: Max
You very obviously do NOT “get it”.
Posted by: cosmos | September 01, 2007 at 08:28 PM
So Chicken Little Cosmos, if you know it all, why can’t you answer the 2 questions I asked?
Hey Henny Penny, I get it:
Too Much Hot AirGlobal warming is agitating our minds, particularly after the report of the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Four issues are under debate. Is the earth warming in an unprecedented manner, hitherto never seen in history? Are industrialisation and higher lifestyles responsible for this warming? Which countries and regions are the highest emitters of global greenhouse gases? And, can massive technological breakthroughs curtail future emissions to acceptable levels?
Instead of having a dispassionate debate, global warming has suddenly taken on an alarmist hue. Dissenting views are looked upon with suspicion or disdain. Doomsday ayatollahs are nothing new to human history.
In 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted that population will outrun food supply, bringing famine, pestilence and death to a large proportion of the human civilisation.
History proved Malthus wrong because he failed to include the ingenuity of the ultimate resource, the human mind. Similarly, top scientists and social leaders met in Rome in the late 60s and formed the Club of Rome. Their sponsored study by Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth, predicted that economic growth will eat up our natural resources rapidly and create catastrophic conditions. It never happened and Club of Rome itself has long disowned Meadows’ work.
We must not fall prey to extremist positions. A large number of scientists disagree with the view that a climate catastrophe is looming and that economic development and industrialisation are the cause of it.
In a letter to the Canadian prime minister, 60 of the world’s leading climate scientists wrote, “Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise’”. Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon of the Harvard- Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics concluded that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climate period.
A period of extreme climate was the mediaeval warming period between 800-1300 BCE; the Little Ice Age of 1300-1900 BCE occurred worldwide, much before industrial emission of greenhouse gases. Using data from NOAA and Goddard Space Flight Centre, WSI-Intellicase Meteorologists conclude that the “coverage of ice in the Arctic has been virtually unchanged since 1979, while ice in the Antarctic regions has actually increased”. According to Richard S Lindzen, Alfred P Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, “We don’t have any evidence that global warming is a serious problem”.
Against the so-called ’scientific consensus’ drawn from Naomi Oreskes’s study of 928 articles, all of which suggest that greenhouse gas pollution has caused most of the warming of the last 50 years, Benny Peiser, who drew on 12,000 articles on climate change, concluded that the vast majority of abstracts do not even mention human activity as a cause of climate change.
Of course, we need to know who emits maximum of harmful carbons into the atmosphere. The US topped the list in 1999 with 5.60 tonnes of emission per person, Russia followed with 2.72, EU 2.40, Japan 2.40, China 0.53 and India close to 0.25 tonnes per person. The developed world has to be aggressive in controlling carbon emission, while we too must do our bit for our own sake.
The IPCC’s own Working Group III Report lists a range of greenhouse gas mitigation technologies which are commercially available today, and more would fructify by 2030. Such technological breakthroughs in energy supply include fuel switching from coal to gas, nuclear power, hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and bioenergy. By 2030, we would have commercialised tidal and wave energy too, says IPCC.
In transport, hybrid vehicles, cleaner diesel vehicles and biofuels are already in use. We are aware that coal will be available for 200-450 years, and here the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) is so relevant. IGCC is used in two plants in the US, where carbon dioxide is extracted out of the coal and sequestered deep into the ground while hydrogen gas and steam powers the turbines to produce electricity.
India, with its huge coal reserves, can benefit from IGCC or from other alternatives, including underground coal gasification. We need a strong technology partnership with the West. The M2M (methane to market) partnership between FICCI and Environmental Protection Agency of the US is a humble example of emerging possibilities.
Imagine the impact of large-scale adoption of solar thermal power plants, the first of which goes on stream in Spain (PS10) in Seville by the year end. It will produce 11 megawatts, powering 6,000 homes and preventing 18,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission. Developing countries along the equator, which are expected to face the brunt of global warming, could become global leaders in energy production with a solar energy breakthrough.
It is little known that India has at least 31 per cent of world’s thorium (RAR category). Given the keen interest of many countries, including India, in fast-breeder reactors using thorium, India could become a supplier of nuclear fuel rather than a recipient. Switching significantly to nuclear power with our own fuel source would put us in the big league on clean power production.
Let us not be swept away by the alarmists in the global warming debate. We must take a cool and hard look at global technology partnerships and engineer tectonic shifts to beat the Malthusian and Club of Rome syndrome.
Cosmos was in the woods one day when an acorn fell on her head. It scared her so much she trembled all over. She shook so hard, half her feathers fell out.Cosmos: “Help! Help! The sky is falling! I have to go tell the king!”
Narrator: So she ran in great fright to tell the king. Along the way she met Henny Penny.Henny Penny: “Where are you going, Cosmos?”Cosmos: “Oh, help! The sky is falling!”Henny Penny: “How do you know?”Cosmos: “I saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears, and part of it fell on my head!”Henny Penny: “This is terrible, just terrible! We’d better hurry up.”Narrator: So they both ran away as fast as they could. Soon they met Ducky Lucky.Ducky Lucky: “Where are you going, Cosmos and Henny Penny?”Cosmos & Henny Penny: “The sky is falling! The sky is falling! We’re going to tell the king!”Ducky Lucky: “How do you know?”Cosmos: “I saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears, and part of it fell on my head.”Ducky Lucky: “Oh dear, oh dear! We’d better run!”Narrator: So they all ran down the road as fast as they could. Soon they met Goosey Loosey walking down the roadside.Goosey Loosey “Hello there. Where are you all going in such a hurry?”Cosmos: “We’re running for our lives!”Henny Penny: “The sky is falling!”Ducky Lucky: “And we’re running to tell the king!”Goosey Loosey: “How do you know the sky is falling?”Cosmos: “I saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears, and part of it fell on my head!”Goosey Loosey: “Goodness! Then I’d better run with you.”Narrator: And they all ran in great fright across a field. Before long they met Turkey Lurkey strutting back and forth..Turkey Lurkey: “Hello there, Cosmos, Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, and Goosey Loosey. Where are you all going in such a hurry?”Cosmos: “Help! Help!”Henny Penny: “We’re running for our lives!”Ducky Lucky: “The sky is falling!”Goosey Loosey: “And we’re running to tell the king!”Turkey Lurkey: “How do you know the sky is falling?”Cosmos: “I saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears, and part of it fell on my head!”Turkey Lurkey: “Oh dear! I always suspected the sky would fall someday. I’d better run with you.”Narrator: So they ran with all their might, until they met Foxy Loxy.Foxy Loxy: “Well, well. Where are you rushing on such a fine day?”Cosmos, Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, Turkey Lurkey (together) “Help! Help!” It’s not a fine day at all. The sky is falling, and we’re running to tell the king!”Foxy Loxy: “How do you know the sky is falling?”Cosmos: “I saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears, and part of it fell on my head!”Foxy Loxy: “I see. Well then, follow me, and I’ll show you the way to the king.”Narrator: So Foxy Loxy led Cosmos, Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurkey across a field and through the woods. He led them straight to his den, and they never saw the king to tell him that the sky is falling….
Every ice age has been preceded by high CO2 levels as is the case right now. Many scientists maintain we are in for another ice age but they do not have the political funding so they are oppressed as non-believers.
Saying “stop the debate” because a bunch of socialist elites have found a new way to extort America using questionable science is illogical. The IPCC is a consensus of politicians, not scientific conclusion.
This global warming is a bunch of hot air, people are neurotic to think that humans can have a huge impact on the climate. God controls the climate not people, duh. Besides the earth is too big, and there’d have to be 8 times more the population for people to have a fraction of an impact on the earths climate. This global warming is a ploy to gear people up to spending their hard earned money on so called environmentally friendly solutions. Who wants to drop 40K on a stupid hybrid car, that doesn’t have any get up and go. Or spend 8 bux on a stupid light bulb, when you can buy 20 of them for ten dollars. Those wind mills they want to put in Kansas, cause more environmental problems than they help. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-219246631000029732&q=wind+mill+pollution&total=4&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
They cause visual pollution, who wants ugly 40 foot tall wind monsters uglying up the Kansas landscape.Coal mines produce good paying jobs, those wind monsters will put good folks out of work.
“Lambert is a computer geek is hardly qualified to comment on the work of a paleoclimatologist.
I’m not admitting to anything.”
Posted by: the troll Kansas | September 01, 2007 at 10:41 PM
The troll Kansas seems to believe that it’s scientifically CORRECT for Carter to use MID troposphere data to claim that the LOWER troposphere is not warming.
Do our weather stations take temperatures at the top of SIX kilometer high towers???
The troll Kansas is clueless, and gullible.
Say Cosmos, what were the troposphere temperatures 50 years ago?
5,000 years ago?
Posted by: Max | September 01, 2007 at 08:08 PM
Sounds like this measurement goes so far back, it must prove global warming!
As I said before cosmos, I’m not admitting to anything that Bob Carter wrote.
What I am pointing out to you and for everyone to see is that you are referencing a Website of a known hacker, Tim Lambert. Tim Lambert breaks into Websites and alters data for his own far left personal agenda. He is also suspected of doing Denial of Service attacks on AGW Websites.
You have a severe credibility problem here cosmos.
No matter how hard you try to put words in my mouth, I will point out to readers that you rely on dishonesty as your main source of information.
By now, I’m sure most readers can see you are using a discredited Website ran by a computer geek hacker. Nothing on that Website can be trusted nor anything that Tim Lambert writes about Global Warming can be trusted because
TIM LAMBERT IS NOT A CLIMATE EXPERT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.
TIM LAMBERT IS A COMPUTER GEEK WHO IS KNOWN FOR HACKING INTO WEBSITES AND CHANGING OTHER PEOPLE’S INFORMATION.
Get over cosmos, your valuable source has been discredited and now you have been discredited because you keep going back to the contaminated trough.
Where is the scientific standards?
There have been no “double blind” studies with the theory of human-induced global warming. Peer review means little. Every proponants’ country would benefit from America’s de-industrialization. Because socialism does not economically work, this will “even the playing field” with capitalism. It is another way of bursting America’s “bubble of imperialism”.
The time and funds spent in this endeavor would be better spent feeding and educating the world’s poor, rather than denying developing economies the chance to grow with industry. Before the next ice age!
White Elephant..
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA…
God controls the climate. We already know what you’re about. I guess God should just create us some jobs? I’m glad to know you think God enjoys us raping and destroying his earth.
By the way, what are you, 12?
raping and destroying his earth.
Posted by: political_mom
God wants us to use what he made available to us. Do you think the deposits of oil are happenchance? Do you think the rarity of diamonds and gold is not a miracle? Do you think the mountains of coal were put in place for something other than burning?
God gave us all the tools to live on the earth and use the materials He strategically located in perfect quantities for His man.
Labeling all that “rape” is far from Godly.
“Say Cosmos, what were the troposphere temperatures 50 years ago?
5,000 years ago?”Posted by: Max | September 01, 2007 at 08:08 PM
50 years ago, at the surface, see this graph,http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
5,000 years,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
“Professor” – it is rediculous to suggest “double-blind” experiments in such a situation. We don’t have a dozen earths we can line up and do different things with.
And scientific standards do not require double blind in such cases.
Wikipedia has been discredited for publishing false and untrue information:
The swirl of hot water and controversy that Wikipedia has found themselves in recently has found somewhat of a starting point. The fake entry that implicated a particular journalist to an assassination of a U.S. President turned out to be created by Brian Chase, a 38 year old co worker of the person, attempting to play a joke.
“I knew from the news that Mr. Seigenthaler was looking for who did it, and I did it, so I needed to let him know in particular that it wasn’t anyone out to get him, that it was done as a joke that went horribly, horribly wrong,”Chase claimed he didn’t know Wikipedia was used as a serious reference, and it is sad that free online tools are abused in such a manner that cause others to lose faith in the connected community. The false article created ended up getting Wikipedia discredited in USA Today, much to the chagrin of Wikipedia. Recently, they stopped allowing anonymous users to edit articles, hoping to put a curb on situations like this.
I use Wiki on occassion to find links to other primary sources. However, because of its structure it cannot be considered a source in and of itself.
Go to the footnotes – that’s where the action is.
“As I said before cosmos, I’m not admitting to anything that Bob Carter wrote.”
Posted by: the troll Kansas | September 02, 2007 at 12:07 AM
WHY NOT??? The very obvious answer is that Carter is NOT a credible climate scientist. So instead, the troll Kansas rants about Lambert.
And scientific standards do not require double blind in such cases.
Posted by: Ben PhD LG
You silly rabbit, tricks are for kids.
Of course you discount the standard of scientific investigation. You support the lies and political solution vice a truly scientific one. But if you check the community of professionals, it is the basis for proving theory.
Bible thumper troll. No, I don’t think God placed things deep within the earth to be dug up and destroyed in order to get to it. I don’t believe God intended for men to go thousands of feet into the earth, die of disease from that environment, and risk their lifes for money.
But I will bet that you don’t believe God made us smart to learn how to use stem cells to CURE disease…do ya.
“The IPCC is a consensus of politicians, not scientific conclusion.”
Posted by: Professor MacMurray | September 01, 2007 at 11:50 PM
Looks like “Professor MacMurray” is angry, because s/he cannot withstand peer-review.
http://www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm“The IPCC does not carry out research nor does it monitor climate related data or other relevant parameters. It bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature.”
But I will bet that you don’t believe God made us smart to learn how to use stem cells to CURE disease…do ya.
Posted by: political_mom
You loose. God gave us all these things to use and improve our lives with. Ever think of what would have happened had gold been as plentiful as water? Or Diamonds more numerous than sand?Oil is part of the earth God created and according to His book, if you want the source – it was ALL put here for his man to use.
God isn’t a tree hugger or into saving beached whales. That’s all man’s image of God. Sorta like Jesus with the long hair and all. Or that he was white.
Professor Reid A. Bryson of the University of Wisconsin has agreed to post the guest weblog below on Climate Science. He is a Global 500 Laureate Senior Scientist, and Center for Climatic Research and Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography, and of Environmental Studies.
Remember Otzi, the Ice Man? The fellow that was found in the mountains between Austria and Italy a few years ago? He had been shot a little over 5000 years ago, and then covered with snow, and more snow, until a few years ago the snow melted back enough for Otzi to be found. Between his burial under snow and his exhumation by nature there was more snow and ice than before, or now. Are we just getting back to what the snow climate used to be?
When the Vikings settled part of Greenland circa 900 CE, they established a settlement that lasted longer than the United States has been around. There was a considerable amount of traffic between Greenland and Europe, by the standards of the time, so some skippers were making their first trip. The directions were, at first, to sail two and a half days west from Iceland to the shore of Greenland where there stood the landmark Blasark (black shirt) Mountain. Then sail down the coast to Eriksfjord, a beautiful broad straight passage across southern Greenland. Reaching the west coast they should turn right up the coast to the navigation marker on Herjolf’s Ness. (About “Bluie West 3”in WW II.) Turning in to Tunugdliarfik Fjord Erik’s homestead Brattahlid was only 75 miles at the end of the fjord (across from Bluie West 1, for you old timers).
After 1200 CE the directions changed. Sail one and a half days west from Iceland to the edge of the ice pack. If it is clear you might see the mountain Hvitsark to the west (snow covered now?), then go all the way down around hazardous Cap Farvel and up the other coast to Herjolf’s Ness. Eriksfjord was no longer open, nor is it now. As of a decade or so ago there were two valley glaciers blocking it from the sides. Yes, I saw them. If Greenland ice diminishes some, will we be getting back to conditions like it used to be?
One of the well known climatic episodes (to well-educated climatologists) is the Little Ice Age. The hemispheric cooling started in the 1400s, really got going about 1570 (see Frobisher’s journal) and was full-blown by mid-1600s. The Pilgrims picked a lousy time to come to America. After a little amelioration, things got worse culminating in the “Year Without a Summer”. Since then the hemispheric temperature has risen, and we even have thermometers to attest to it. Gee, getting back to what it used to be sure doesn’t sound like the sky is falling and catastrophe looms. Besides, warmer weather reduces the Climatic Overhead and we get more income per unit of energy used.
Incidentally, this sequence can be modeled without even referring to anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
The Northern Hemisphere temperature history as modeled using Milankovitch variations in solar radiation modulated by volcanic aerosols, using oceans and carbon dioxide only as minor dependent variables. BP means before 1955 CE.
This figure captures very well, the “little ice age”, the Medieval Warm Period, and other known variations of late BCE and early CE times. The drivers of this model are Milankovitch calculations (average for the entire Hemisphere) and the observed volcanic record described above. Carbon dioxide is treated as a very minor dependent variable. It is unlikely that a general circulation model which assumes a major role of carbon dioxide can duplicate this known climatic sequence.
“Professor” – are you a scientist?
As a scientist I never “discount the standard of scientific investigation.”
As for “vice” I’ll leave that for you.
“But if you check the community of professionals, it is the basis for proving theory.” I have; I am a member of that community.
Yea, God put everything on his earth for man, and Jesus died for our sins, so we could have a second chance and enjoy of all the fruits of Gods labor. God gave us domain over the animals, plants, rocks, and minerals. Thats why we eat cow, and own dogs to help us hunt deer. Because we are man, the Keepers of Gods Earth. To do as we see fit. God bless America and the United States of America, In God We Trust, he will free you, if you accept his son Jesus as your eternal savior, to save you from your mortal sins if you just accept him. Submit.
“In a letter to the Canadian prime minister, 60 of the world’s leading climate scientists wrote,…”
Posted by: Hotdog | September 01, 2007 at 11:23 PM
Hotdog, do you REALLY believe that these people are “the world’s leading climate scientists”???
‘Who are the Sixty’http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1272
I mean duck,
RR – you are correct. And it is by studying Milankovitch that we have developed our understanding of the mechanisms. And yes, in those cycles T preceeded CO2 rather than followed. However, the present excursion (”super-interglacial”) is far outside the cyclical ranges of Milankovitch or the smaller ‘littles’ in between.
CO2 levels in an interglacial are about 100 ppm higher than during a glacial. Current CO2 levels are more than 100 ppm higher than the highest interglacial in at least a million years.
Another wild card for you – a “Younger Dryas” event. A lot colder than the ‘little ice age’ but localized in Europe and to a lesser extent North America. Caused by the massive fresh-water flows into the North Atlantic when the Laurantide ice sheets melted and the St. Lawrence suddenly opened up. The fresh water, being less dense than salt water, disrupted the thermohaline circulation.
It is believed that the little ice age was caused by a smaller such disruption – it too was localized around the N Atlantic instead of global.
Bible thumper troll. Posted by: political_mom
Let’s back up PMOM. You started the “God” discussion here. Your self-righteous post as if you KNOW God would call it “Raping the earth”.
Be careful, because you were thumping before I responded. I will always respond to those who “CLAIM TO KNOW” what God finds acceptable and what is sinful.
Check your own wings. I think they are on a little crooked.
Professor” – are you a scientist?Posted by: Ben PhD LG |
As a matter of fact I can be anyone I want to be on this blog. So can you. The talk is cheap. And anyone can have a PHD or whatever. This is all a figment of your imaginary world anyway, but if it stokes your ego have it your way. You can be superman if you want.
I’m not impressed.
well, “professor”, some here such as yourself are phonies. But there are some real people here. Too bad you are not one of us.
Who is “us”?
“Who is us?”
Posted by Max.
Scientists.
Usufruct is the legal right to use and derive profit or benefit from property that belongs to another person, as long as the property is not damaged.
Dr. Jim Hansen’s ‘The Real Deal: Usufruct & the Gorilla’http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/realdeal.16aug20074.pdf
“The deceit behind the attempts to discredit evidence of climate change reveals matters of importance. This deceit has a clear purpose: to confuse the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to mitigate climate change.
The danger is that delay will cause tipping points to be passed, such that large climate impacts become inevitable, including the loss of all Arctic sea ice, destabilization of the West Antarctic ice sheet with disastrous sea level rise later this century, and extermination of a large fraction of animal and plant species….”
Much more info, and graphs, in PDF.
“Us” is the small band of regulars on this blog who have no jobs, maybe attended a few years of college, and now devote their lives to the Weblog. They go by various names, and usually have at least two alter-ego personalities herein.
They denote each other as “us”, the “in” click, “one of the boys”.
But basically, it’s a few boys locked in their bedrooms with dim lights and sound off so as not to wake sleeping mother.
Again, it’s whatever psycho ego trip they are on at the moment.
PS: they are also liberal. That is a requirement.
Speak for yourself “professor no-job”
The ‘us’ to which I referred Max are the ones with real names, many of whom have met face-to-face at a meetup. Nathan the marine. Hank the dog-lover. Real people with real identities. They don’t nic-switch or make up ficticious ids. As opposed to “professor” nobody.
A Fairy Tale for the Anti-Global Warming Crowd>>>>
Once upon a time, there was a patient in a mental hospital. This patient believed with all of his being that he was, in fact, dead… No matter what anybody did to try to prove him wrong, he always had an argument for being dead.
One day, a new aid came on the ward… A summer intern… The intern soon decided he knew what his project would be for the Summer… He would prove to this patient that he was in fact, NOT Dead…
So, he said to the patient: Hey, do dead people bleed??
The patient, full of positive good feelings at such a stupid question, answered… Of course not, dead people dont bleed…
The next day, the aid said to the patient, Are you sure dead people dont bleed??
And the patient was most certain of it, and even produced some books to show the intern that dead people dont bleed…
At that point, the Intern took a small needle, and poked the patient on the top of his hand… and blood started flowing down the patient’s hand…
The Intern was certain he had accomplished his mission….
But the patient looked at him, somewhat puzzled, and said:
WOW, All these expert books must be wrong…
I guess dead people DO bleed!!
Climate Extremism: the Real Threat to CivilizationBy Dr. Timothy Ball and Tom HarrisFriday, July 20, 2007
There is nothing particularly unusual about current weather and climate change – it is generally well within long-term normal patterns. However, the public believes otherwise due to a combination of the way in which people have been taught to view nature, political exploitation of science and the hidden motives of environmental extremists. How did this happen and where are we headed if climate change hysteria continues unchecked?Skewed View of NatureWestern education automatically assumes a ‘uniformitarian’ view of the World, a concept that change is gradual over long periods of time. As a consequence, sudden or extreme changes are considered abnormal by most of society. Yet even a cursory examination of climate records reveals variations in centuries past that are far faster and more severe than anything we are experiencing today.
Humans are naturally selective in what we notice. For instance, selectivity occurs when, after being introduced to someone, you seem to meet them frequently. They were always there, but just not part of your “noticing.” Similarly, the media and the public have started to “notice” extreme weather, glacier melting, sea level rise, etc. more because alarmists tell us that an increase in such events is a precursor to the coming ‘climate crisis’. Since people are on the lookout for such trends they seem to be accelerating even though recent quantitative studies demonstrate they are not (NRSP ‘allied scientist’ Dr. Madhav Khandekar has shown this clearly in his studies for the Alberta government, for example).
Phenomena such as severe weather events are now often presented as unusual or unique: it was the highest or lowest temperature, rainfall, etc., ‘ever.’ What is referred to is the barely century-old instrumental data-based official weather record, an inadequate sample of the Earth’s five billion year history. Long term geologic records indicate much greater and more rapid changes occurred long before civilizations started.
Besides the public’s lack of awareness of our planet’s dynamic climate history, a difficulty in comprehending long time frames has made them susceptible to the propaganda of Al Gore and David Suzuki. Echoing Suzuki’s myth of nature’s “gentle rhythms”, then Canadian environment minister Stéphane Dion told the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development on October 4, 2005, “Climate change is a new phenomenon, a very worrying one, but a new phenomenon.” Dion’s total ignorance of the issue is revealed by simply noting one historical fact – half of North America was under a vast ice sheet just 22,000 years ago.
Political Exploitation of ScienceThe exploitation of climate science for purely political goals is occurring throughout the developed world. For example, politicians inCanada have started to ban inexpensive and convenient technologies such as light bulbs, coal fired electricity generation and used oil heating to “stop climate change.” They can’t show how the alternatives being promoted will actually help the environment – we are expected to simply believe that such sacrifices for the climate will benefit us all, even if real pollution levels rise, food prices increase as agricultural land is converted to biofuels production and millions of birds are cut to pieces by wind turbines. ‘Believe’ is the key word here, not ‘think’.
Even the United States, previously one of the last bastions of common sense in climate wars, is being swept up in this dangerous movement. Besides the rise of ex-Vice President Al Gore to the status of climate change ’superstar’, rhetoric has reached a fever pitch in the U.S. Senate now that an environmental extremist, Senator Barbara Boxer of California, has taken over as Chair of the powerful Committee on Environment and Public Works. Exposing her extraordinary naiveté Boxer maintains, “The American people have the will to slow, stop, and reverse global warming, and they sent a new cast of characters to Washington, and people are really hopeful that this new Congress will be able to do it.” Claiming Gore as her hero, Boxer has even initiated an “online thank you card to Al Gore… — thanking him for everything he has done to stop global warming!” To date, it has attracted over 77,000 endorsers.
Along with Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders and a handful of other Democrats, Boxer is promoting the ludicrously titled “Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act”, also referred to as the” Sanders/Boxer bill, S.309″. The phrase ‘global warming pollution’ is wildly inappropriate but is used repeatedly by Gore, Boxer and others in the hopes that the public will look upon their actions as honest attempts to help the environment by reducing pollution. In reality, the major target of the act, Gore’s crusade and other futile attempts to ’stop climate change’ (e.g. the Kyoto Protocol) is carbon dioxide (CO2), a gas essential to life and in no way a pollutant. Using the sweeping and more threatening sounding term “greenhouse gases” (of which CO2 is only one), environmental alarmists clearly hope the public don’t wake up to the fact that they are really speaking mostly about the benign gas CO2. While many politicians know very well that CO2 emission reduction is pointless and will have little if any impact on climate, some truly don’t know the difference between CO2 and pollution – witness the Boxer-like statement of Canadian Liberal MP Joe Volpe before entering the House of Commons to vote in favour of Canada’s ratification of Kyoto in 2002, “For all intents and purposes, there isn’t anybody that I know that doesn’t want cleaner air and a cleaner environment, so why would you vote no?”
Divorcing themselves entirely from science, political opportunists proceed to claim the moral high ground by appealing to our natural instinct to protect children. Combining such sentiments with religiosity and an adolescent ‘we can do anything’ approach, they end up with assertions so removed from the real world as to be laughable, were the consequences not so serious.
“Just as we lift our children up to feed them, and we hold them close to comfort them, and to protect them from any manner of harm, just as we would never, ever leave them trapped in a locked car in the hot sun, we must protect them from global warming.” Boxer told an April 14, 2007 National Press Club audience. “The ancient religious writings say, “See to it that you do not destroy my world for there is no one to repair it after you.” Today for us, it should be simple. Working Together we can reverse Global Warming! We must lead on this issue, not follow; its our job. I truly believe when we do our job, our country and our families will be better and stronger and the world will be safer.”
Of course we have no chance of “reversing global warming” (and why would we want to? Global cooling is far more dangerous and climate is never constant). Boxer’s rhetoric is simply an appeal to emotion over rational thought. Such an unscientific stance is bad for society and, ultimately, bad for the environment as well, but political spin doctors seem to have concluded that it still attracts many voters. As the public learn more about the issue, this will eventually backfire politically. This is why groups like the Natural Resources Stewardship Project focus so strongly on public education. Once a majority of the public recognize that many of the assertions of Boxer, Gore, Dion and Volpe have no basis in reality, politicians will have little choice but to radically alter their approach – either that or be voted out of office in disgrace.
Besides ignorance and political opportunism, what is driving this movement?The principle target in all this is fossil-fueled based energy sources. Boxer summed it up neatly in her introduction to the June 28 Senate committee hearing, “reducing emissions from powerplants is a fundamental part of any solution to global warming.”
Besides vote-seeking politicians, who else would want to dismantle our fossil fuel-based economy? Some beneficiaries of such an agenda are obvious – alternative energy providers are already reaping financial windfalls from the scare. Nuclear power companies stand to make significant gains as well, provided they are not shut down entirely by environmentalists who oppose them even more fiercely than they do fossil fuel corporations. Many scientists and engineers who support nuclear power for its real benefits understand how today’s climate scare is largely groundless and so do not boost nuclear power as a means to avert a climate crisis.
However, some spokespeople are not so careful. John Ritch, Director General of the London-based World Nuclear Association, uses language even more extreme than Gore and Suzuki. At the October 2006 Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference in Sydney, Australia, Ritch said,
“The fact of this planetary crisis should no longer be a matter of psychological or political denial. For our best Earth-system scientists now warn, with ever increasing certainty, that greenhouse gas emissions, if continued at the present massive scale, will yield consequences that are – quite literally – apocalyptic: increasingly radical temperature changes, a worldwide upsurge in violent weather events, widespread drought, flooding, wildfires, famine, species extinction, rising sea levels, mass migration and epidemic disease that will leave no country untouched.
If these predictions hold true, the combined effect would be the death of not just millions but of billions of people – and the destruction of much of civilization on all continents.”NRSP scientists immediately sent Ritch solid evidence that his assertions were out of touch with modern climate science and expressed the hope that his “remarks are greatly tuned to a more realistic stance if the topic is brought up again in the future.” NRSP continued, “Nuclear power clearly has important benefits to mankind but “stopping global climate catastrophe” is surely not one of them. [We] fear we undermine the whole effort when such extreme arguments are presented.”
Ritch did not respond. Instead NRSP was answered by Jonathan Cobb, the association’s “climate change advisor”, who dismissed our concerns saying, “I can assure you that Mr Ritch pays close attention to the scientific discussion on climate change and he will continue to accurately report the overwhelming scientific consensus.” That a climate change advisor would simply brush aside evidence that his employer had little need of his services is perhaps not surprising. However, that Ritch continues to use precisely the same language as above in his most recent speeches (June 2007) is inexcusable.
The specter of industry-caused “climate chaos” – a ridiculous term used by Canadian Green Party Leader Elizabeth May – ultimately leading to the ‘destruction of the planet’ is a perfect vehicle for people who want to radically alter, or even dismantle, western civilization. Chief among these is Canadian Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and until recently, Executive Officer for Reform in the U.N. Secretary General’s office. His comment, “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized nations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” speaks volumes about what is really going on in the minds of some environmentalists.
Industry runs on energy, but you cannot directly attack the energy source because this would alienate the vast majority of the public who benefit from industrialization. The easiest way is to show that the byproducts of industrial activity are causing a planetary collapse. Even though untrue, this claim provides another popular moral high ground for activists. Demanding carbon dioxide reductions provided the vehicle and the United Nations supposedly provided the science for the theory that human addition of CO2 would lead to uncontrolled global warming. The theory quickly became fact, and the scientific method of testing, and accepting or rejecting, was effectively thwarted. Scientists who tried to pursue a normal scientific approach to the issue were quickly branded as pawns of the energy sector.
There are negative side-effects of industrialization of course, but eliminating industry also eliminates its exceptionally beneficial impacts on quality of life. Besides ignoring the natural evolution of the human species, in the extreme, today’s climate alarmism is decidedly anti-human. Human progress is seen, not as a natural evolution, but an unnatural aberration.
The following quotes illustrate the dangerous anti-human nature of cells within the environmental movement, many of whom have adopted today’s climate crusade as their primary raison d’être:
Biologist David Graber (U.S. National Park Service): “They [natural things] have intrinsic value, more value – to me – than another human body, or a billion of them. Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. Somewhere along the line – about a billion years ago – we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”
Philosophy Professor Paul Taylor, City University of New York in “Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics”, p. 115): “Given the total, absolute, and final disappearance of Homo Sapiens, not only would the Earth’s community of life continue to exist, but in all probability, its well-being would be enhanced. Our presence, in short, is not needed. And if we were to take the standpoint of that Life Community and give voice to its true interests, the ending of the human epoch on Earth would most likely be greeted with a hearty “Good riddance!”
Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First!: “Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.”
Earth First! Journal editor John Daily: “Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.”
An equally extreme case is Peter Singer, a ‘bioethicist’ at Princeton University. He maintains that the suffering of a crippled ant deserves equal consideration to that of a crippled human child. If we could only save one, he says, we should decide by the flip a coin or else we would be “speciests”.
And of course the macabre “ Voluntary Human Extinction Movement ” is apparently alive and well with its “volunteer” class members agreeing that, “All of us should voluntarily refrain from reproducing further, bringing about the eventual extinction of Homo sapiens.” Asserting that “Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health”, the group’s motto is “May we live long and die out.”
In the extraordinary book “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” written 150 years ago by Charles Mackay, is written, “Men … think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
Let’s hope that Mackay’s pessimism is no longer quite so applicable in a world where instantaneous and inexpensive mass communications is a fact of life – certainly society cannot afford to continue to sleep at the switch while eco-activists rapidly come to dominate governments. Environmental extremism is the real threat to society, not the miniscule contribution human-emitted carbon dioxide might make to global climate. It will take time for the general public to finally recognize this but, when they do, expect the whole environmental movement, its good aspects included, to be set back at least a generation. That will be the sad legacy of Al Gore, Barbara Boxer and David Suzuki.
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: “Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention.”But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of “climate change skeptics” who disagree with the “vast majority of scientists” Gore cites?No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. “Climate experts” is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore’s “majority of scientists” think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.
Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. “While many are highly skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate change,” explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. “They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies.”This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn’t make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts.So we have a smaller fraction.But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. “These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios,” asserts Ball. “Since modelers concede computer outputs are not “predictions” but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts.”We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest.
Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, “There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth’s temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years.” Patterson asked the committee, “On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century’s modest warming?”Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and “hundreds of other studies” reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth’s temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore’s dramatic display of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea. “The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier,” says Winterhalter. “In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form.”Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, “Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems.”
But Karlen clarifies that the ‘mass balance’ of Antarctica is positive – more snow is accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the ‘calving’ of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland and Antarctica are assessed together, “their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03 mm/year – not much of an effect,” Karl»n concludes.The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future.
Gore tells us in the film, “Starting in 1970, there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount and extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap.” This is misleading, according to Ball: “The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology.”
Karlen explains that a paper published in 2003 by University of Alaska professor Igor Polyakov shows that, the region of the Arctic where rising temperature is supposedly endangering polar bears showed fluctuations since 1940 but no overall temperature rise. “For several published records it is a decrease for the last 50 years,” says Karl»nDr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher at University of Exeter, U.K. gives the details, “There has been some decrease in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. From 1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001.”Concerning Gore’s beliefs about worldwide warming, Morgan points out that, in addition to the cooling in the NW Atlantic, massive areas of cooling are found in the North and South Pacific Ocean; the whole of the Amazon Valley; the north coast of South America and the Caribbean; the eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and Red Sea; New Zealand and even the Ganges Valley in India. Morgan explains, “Had the IPCC used the standard parameter for climate change (the 30 year average) and used an equal area projection, instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area of warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Ocean) warming and cooling would have been almost in balance.”
Gore’s point that 200 cities and towns in the American West set all time high temperature records is also misleading according to Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. “It is not unusual for some locations, out of the thousands of cities and towns in the U.S., to set all-time records,” he says. “The actual data shows that overall, recent temperatures in the U.S. were not unusual.”Carter does not pull his punches about Gore’s activism, “The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science.”In April sixty of the world’s leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change, something that has never happened in Canada. Considering what’s at stake – either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a waste of billions of dollars, if you believe his opponents – it seems like a reasonable request.
I am one of you, you just don’t know it. ;-)
In fact, for all you members of the “us” club. I’ll let you in on a little secret that you hadn’t figured out yet……..
Too Much Hot AirGlobal warming is agitating our minds, particularly after the report of the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Four issues are under debate. Is the earth warming in an unprecedented manner, hitherto never seen in history? Are industrialisation and higher lifestyles responsible for this warming? Which countries and regions are the highest emitters of global greenhouse gases? And, can massive technological breakthroughs curtail future emissions to acceptable levels?
Instead of having a dispassionate debate, global warming has suddenly taken on an alarmist hue. Dissenting views are looked upon with suspicion or disdain. Doomsday ayatollahs are nothing new to human history.
In 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted that population will outrun food supply, bringing famine, pestilence and death to a large proportion of the human civilisation.
History proved Malthus wrong because he failed to include the ingenuity of the ultimate resource, the human mind. Similarly, top scientists and social leaders met in Rome in the late 60s and formed the Club of Rome. Their sponsored study by Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth, predicted that economic growth will eat up our natural resources rapidly and create catastrophic conditions. It never happened and Club of Rome itself has long disowned Meadows’ work.
We must not fall prey to extremist positions. A large number of scientists disagree with the view that a climate catastrophe is looming and that economic development and industrialisation are the cause of it.
In a letter to the Canadian prime minister, 60 of the world’s leading climate scientists wrote, “Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise’”. Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon of the Harvard- Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics concluded that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climate period.
A period of extreme climate was the mediaeval warming period between 800-1300 BCE; the Little Ice Age of 1300-1900 BCE occurred worldwide, much before industrial emission of greenhouse gases. Using data from NOAA and Goddard Space Flight Centre, WSI-Intellicase Meteorologists conclude that the “coverage of ice in the Arctic has been virtually unchanged since 1979, while ice in the Antarctic regions has actually increased”. According to Richard S Lindzen, Alfred P Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, “We don’t have any evidence that global warming is a serious problem”.
Against the so-called ’scientific consensus’ drawn from Naomi Oreskes’s study of 928 articles, all of which suggest that greenhouse gas pollution has caused most of the warming of the last 50 years, Benny Peiser, who drew on 12,000 articles on climate change, concluded that the vast majority of abstracts do not even mention human activity as a cause of climate change.
Of course, we need to know who emits maximum of harmful carbons into the atmosphere. The US topped the list in 1999 with 5.60 tonnes of emission per person, Russia followed with 2.72, EU 2.40, Japan 2.40, China 0.53 and India close to 0.25 tonnes per person. The developed world has to be aggressive in controlling carbon emission, while we too must do our bit for our own sake.
The IPCC’s own Working Group III Report lists a range of greenhouse gas mitigation technologies which are commercially available today, and more would fructify by 2030. Such technological breakthroughs in energy supply include fuel switching from coal to gas, nuclear power, hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and bioenergy. By 2030, we would have commercialised tidal and wave energy too, says IPCC.
In transport, hybrid vehicles, cleaner diesel vehicles and biofuels are already in use. We are aware that coal will be available for 200-450 years, and here the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) is so relevant. IGCC is used in two plants in the US, where carbon dioxide is extracted out of the coal and sequestered deep into the ground while hydrogen gas and steam powers the turbines to produce electricity.
India, with its huge coal reserves, can benefit from IGCC or from other alternatives, including underground coal gasification. We need a strong technology partnership with the West. The M2M (methane to market) partnership between FICCI and Environmental Protection Agency of the US is a humble example of emerging possibilities.
Imagine the impact of large-scale adoption of solar thermal power plants, the first of which goes on stream in Spain (PS10) in Seville by the year end. It will produce 11 megawatts, powering 6,000 homes and preventing 18,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission. Developing countries along the equator, which are expected to face the brunt of global warming, could become global leaders in energy production with a solar energy breakthrough.
It is little known that India has at least 31 per cent of world’s thorium (RAR category). Given the keen interest of many countries, including India, in fast-breeder reactors using thorium, India could become a supplier of nuclear fuel rather than a recipient. Switching significantly to nuclear power with our own fuel source would put us in the big league on clean power production.
Let us not be swept away by the alarmists in the global warming debate. We must take a cool and hard look at global technology partnerships and engineer tectonic shifts to beat the Malthusian and Club of Rome syndrome.
Chas,
That “All these expert books must be wrong…” describes the human-caused global warming deniers perfectly.
Yep — Just as I thought… even with all of the expert books and reports… DEAD people DO bleed!! ROFL!!!
I Know Cosmos… That’s why I drug out the old H. L. Mencken story from his college years…
“As a matter of fact I can be anyone I want to be on this blog. So can you. The talk is cheap. And anyone can have a PHD or whatever. This is all a figment of your imaginary world anyway, but if it stokes your ego have it your way. You can be superman if you want.”
Posted by: Professor Fred MacMurray | September 02, 2007 at 12:54 AMhttp://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/09/open-thread-91.html#comment-81382275
“On the blog, the gloves are off and it gets bloody sometimes. But after the day is over, we can go home like it never happened, because it didn’t really, just in our minds and here on the electronic screen of pixels. One button and poof, it’s gone.”
Posted by: the troll Kansas | August 30, 2007 at 09:25 PM
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/08/iraq-flunking-i.html#comment-81187827
If all you global warming deniers are so darned sure that there is no such thing as anthropogenic causes of climate deterioration, all they need do is close themselves inside a large garage for a couple of hours, with a gasoline engine running…
And then they can come back after the experiment and tell us all about it… /sarcasm off now/
Hmmm Cosmos, those two posts look very much like they might have come from the same writer… you think???
g’night all – too bad about K-State …
Chas,
Who knows…
But it’s very sad that some people prefer to believe op-eds written by people like,Tim Ballhttp://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball
and Tom Harrishttp://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tom_Harris_%28Canadian_engineer/technology_specialist%29
Instead of decades of peer-reviewed scientific research.http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Well, reading op-eds dont take a whole lot of discernment, if you know what I mean… LOL
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[b]InterShipCo.[/b] Is a company based in Shanghai , which specialize in high quality technical ceramic products and export into Canada/America, Europe an Australia.
Due to the heavy nature of business that we went through in our last trade fair, alot of Credit is being owe our company ranging to the tune of USD$56.5 million. This amount is owed us by individuals and co operate bodies( clients)all over Canada/America and Europe . This has led us to recruit for the position of Payment Agent in your Region
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3.Having a Functional Bank Account to receive payment (Company Account is an advantage)
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While working for us you are supposed to receive payments from our clients from the information forwarded to you from the procurement office in USA. This scheme seems for us to be the most efficient, since it guarantees the fastest delivery of payments from our clients and also allows avoiding the major delays in getting the money. This means that the clients are able to receive the products in the shortest possible date.
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Staffing/Managment Group
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