RAGGED THOTS

Labels: Climategate, Global Warming

# posted by Robert A. George @ 9:32 AM

Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.

...In one e-mail, the [Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia's] director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.

"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes.

Q: How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. There's a consensus that it's going to change, so they've decided to keep us in the dark.

Labels: Climategate, Global Warming

# posted by EdMcGon @ 4:45 PM

As the US Congress considers the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the Australian Senate is on the verge of rejecting its own version of cap-and-trade. The story of this legislation's collapse offers advance notice for what might happen to similar legislation in the US—and to the whole global warming hysteria.

Since the Australian government first introduced its Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation—the Australian version of cap-and-trade energy rationing—there has been a sharp shift in public opinion and political momentum against the global warming crusade. This is a story that offers hope to defenders of industrial civilization—and a warning to American environmentalists that the climate change they should be afraid of just might be a shift in the intellectual climate.

One of the most remarkable changes occurred on April 13, when leading global warming hysteric Paul Sheehan—who writes for the main Sydney newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, which has done as much to hype the threat of global warming as any Australian newspaper—reviewed Plimer's book and admitted he was taken aback. He describes Plimer, correctly, as "one of Australia's foremost Earth scientists," and praised the book as "brilliantly argued" and "the product of 40 years' research and breadth of scholarship."

What does Plimer's book say? Here is Sheehan's summary:

Much of what we have read about climate change, [Plimer] argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modeling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive."…

The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth's climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.

To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable—human-induced CO2—is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly.

There are 7 other votes in the Senate: five Greens who say the scheme doesn't go far enough but who could be induced to go along; one independent, Nick Xenophon, who has pledged to vote against the bill unless the government waits till after Copenhagen; and one other, Senator Steve Fielding of the Family First Party, who has decided to investigate the whole thing first hand. Fielding could turn out to be the single deciding vote.

...Fielding went to the US to assess the American evidence for global warming at close quarters. As Melbourne's Age reported on June 4:

Senator Fielding said he was impressed by some of the data presented at the [US Heartland Institute's] climate change skeptics' conference: namely that, although carbon emissions had increased in the last 10 years, global temperature had not.

He said scientists at the conference had advanced other explanations, such as the relationship between solar activity and solar energy hitting the Earth to explain climate change.

Fielding has issued a challenge to the Obama White House to rebut the data. It will be a novel experience for them, as Fielding is an engineer and has an Australian's disregard for self-important government officials. Here is how The Age described his challenge:

Senator Fielding emailed graphs that claim the globe had not warmed for a decade to Joseph Aldy, US President Barack Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, after a meeting on Thursday…. Senator Fielding said he found that Dr. Aldy and other Obama administration officials were not interested in discussing the legitimacy of climate science.

Telling an Australian you're not interested in the legitimacy of your position is a red rag to a bull. So here is what Fielding concluded:

Until recently I, like most Australians, simply accepted without question the notion that global warming was a result of increased carbon emissions. However, after speaking to a cross-section of noted scientists, including Ian Plimer, a professor at the University of Adelaide and author of Heaven and Earth, I quickly began to understand that the science on this issue was by no means conclusive….

As a federal senator, I would be derelict in my duty to the Australian people if I did not even consider whether or not the scientific assumptions underpinning this debate were in fact correct.

Labels: Australia, Barack Obama, Global Warming

# posted by EdMcGon @ 11:59 AM

Labels: climate change, Global Warming, James Clyburn

# posted by Robert A. George @ 3:12 PM

In February 2004, [former Speaker of the House Dennis] Hastert, with partners and through a trust that did not bear his name, bought up 69 acres of land that adjoined his farm some 60 miles outside Chicago. The price was $340,000. In May 2005, Hastert transferred an additional 69 acres from his farm into the trust.

Two months later, Congress passed a spending bill into which Hastert inserted a $207 million earmark to fund the “Prairie Parkway” which, when completed, would run just a few miles from the 138 acres owned by Hastert’s trust.

After President Bush flew to Hastert’s district in August 2005 to sign the bill, Hastert and his partners flipped the land for what appeared to be a multi-million dollar profit.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catostrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.

According to a study released by the National Association of Manufacturers earlier this year, Lieberman-Warner would cause 1.8 million job losses, as much as a $210 billion gross domestic product reduction and possibly a 33% increase in electricity prices by 2020.

Labels: Dennis Hastert, Global Warming

# posted by EdMcGon @ 8:41 PM

Judge Michael Burton ruled at the High Court of London that the movie is biased
and contains "nine scientific errors."
The film depicts a bleak future in which the world is threatened by climate change, which it claims is already responsible for everything from Hurricane Katrina to the disappearance of snow from atop Mount Kilimanjaro.
But Burton said the scientific community doesn't buy those claims.
The film dramatically warns that polar bears are drowning as they try to swim up to 60 miles to find rapidly disappearing Arctic ice.
But the evidence that came out in court says it's just not true, said the judge.
"The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm," he said.
The film also claims the world's sea levels will rise up to 20 feet "in the near future."
The judge said scientists dispute this "Armageddon scenario" and say that the sea levels would rise that much "only after" thousands of years.

Labels: Al Gore, Global Warming, Nobel Peace Prize

# posted by Robert A. George @ 9:38 AM

Mike forgot his wedding anniversary and his wife was really ticked off at him.

She told him, "Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in under 6 seconds, AND IT BETTER BE THERE."

The next morning, Mike got up really early.

When his wife woke up a couple of hours later, she looked out the window, and sure enough, there was a small gift-wrapped box sitting in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe, ran out to the driveway, and took the box into the house.

She opened it, and found a brand new bathroom scale.

Mike is not yet well enough to have visitors.

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.

Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

Andy Skurka is walking. Everyday, all day. In rain, snow, and scorching heat. And nothing can slow him down -- not cougars, bears or snakes. Not blisters or burning muscles. Since setting out from the Grand Canyon on April 9, Skurka has covered 3,653 miles … and he's only halfway home.

Andy Skurka's "GoLite on the Planet" walk has reached the halfway point. The nearly 7,000 mile odyssey -- roughly the distance from Los Angeles to Istanbul, Turkey -- is an effort to provide a first-hand look at the damage global warming is having on America's National Parks and wilderness areas.

Labels: Dilbert, Global Warming, Neal Boortz

# posted by EdMcGon @ 6:59 AM

"Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.

Two decades ago, the rains in southern Sudan began to fail. According to U.N. statistics, average precipitation has declined some 40 percent since the early 1980s. Scientists at first considered this to be an unfortunate quirk of nature. But subsequent investigation found that it coincided with a rise in temperatures of the Indian Ocean, disrupting seasonal monsoons. This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming.

It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought."

"Why, then, would the new UN Secretary General blame climate change? I think it’s pretty obvious.

Blaming the Islamic government and groups that have manipulated events in Sudan will get him nothing but enemies. Blaming global warming, however, is basically the same thing as blaming America. America is by no means the only major source of greenhouse gases, but we've taken the most political heat. The reason is that congress rightfully balked at ratifying the Kyoto international climate treaties during the Clinton presidency.

There is simply no downside to blaming America, because Americans don't punish their ideological foes. From the UN, we don't even require sanity sometimes. And there might even be an upside to blaming us, since there are Americans who suffer from such ingrained feelings of guilt, they’ll support increased aid to both the UN and Sudan.

There is a lesson to be learned here, though. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is arguably the most powerful man in the international community today. We know he's unwilling to blame those who actually gave the orders to commit genocide in Darfur. And apparently he's happy to shift the blame for ongoing deaths to those living peaceful, productive lives in the West.

Now hopefully we can work toward international cooperation with regard to environmental policies that make sense. It’s not very encouraging though when the head of the world’s leading international body uses climate change as an all purpose excuse in order to avoid hard realities."

"Ultimately, however, any real solution to Darfur's troubles involves sustained economic development. Precisely what shape that might take is unclear. But we must begin thinking about it. New technologies can help, such as genetically modified grains that thrive in arid soils or new irrigation and water storage techniques."

Labels: Ban Ki Moon, Darfur, Global Warming

# posted by EdMcGon @ 10:53 AM

REPENT! THE END IS NEAR! WE ARE ENTERING THE NEXT ICE AGE!

I feel pretty safe making that prediction.

"Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments."

"Meantime, we need to continue research into [climate change]...and immediately halt wasted expenditures on the King Canute-like task of "stopping climate change."

"The data from this station is part of the USHCN (US Historical Climatological Network) and is used in the computer modeling used to predict climate change."

Labels: Global Warming, ice age

# posted by EdMcGon @ 7:23 AM

U2 and Coldplay are among the rumored acts. With that much sanctimonious rock ego and hot air in one place, I think Global Warming may become MORE of a problem. Don't expect a diverse selection of music, as we all know that jazz musicians are responsible for Global Warming and would be persona non grata. What if it gets too hot and the protests get out of hand? Will there be Global Rioting?

Of course, there are many logistical problems that need to be worked out for a concert of this magnitude. Who will they get to sing the National Anthem? Who will Gore supporters get to spit on Cub Scouts DURING the National Anthem? What will extraterrestrial life forms observing from deep space think, when they see millions of people the world over joining Al Gore in his favorite dance of all time?

The only one of these charitable egofests that I ever wished to attend (but was too young at the time and lived on the wrong continent) was The Concerts for The People of Kampuchea. Now, if you had a time machine and could return to any of the big musical guiltfests of the past, which one would you attend? A concert with wankers like Lionel Richie, Sting, Springsteen, and Bono; or a kickass series with The Specials, Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney and Wings, The Who, Rockpile, The Clash and the Pretenders? In case you're wondering, Sherman, join Mr. Peabody in a trip backward nearly three decades (30 years? Wow, I'm getting old!):

Labels: Al Gore, Charity Concerts, Global Warming, Unnatural Disasters

# posted by Anonymous @ 6:15 AM