The Casual Doubter

Just Goes to Show that Being an Elected Official Does Not Guarantee Intelligence

2010-04-02T18:53:00.007-05:00

The United Nations Want 36 Trillion Dollars And They Want The Commitment Right Now

2010-04-01T12:09:00.003-05:00

IPCC Chairperson Rajendra Pachauri welcomed the COP 15-CMP5 conference attendees in Copenhagen on December 7, 2009, with a simple request.

All he wants is for the worlds political leaders to give the United Nations 3% of the global GDP before 2030.

"To limit average temperature increase at 2.0 and 2.4 degrees C, the cost of mitigation by 2030 would not exceed 3% of the global GDP."

A quick Internet search finds that the 2008 global GDP was estimated at 60.6 Trillion Dollars.

Three percent of 60.6 Trillion Dollars equals 1.818 Trillion Dollars.

Multiply that by the twenty years between now and 2030, and we get 36.36 Trillion Dollars.

A pittance. Pocket change.

The most telling aspect of this attempted bureaucratic money grab is the complete absence of any specifics as to how exactly the United Nations is planning on spending this little allowance.

Feel free to peruse the thousands upon thousands of bureaucratic reports from the United Nations, the United Nations Environmental Programme, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Meteorological Organisation, the United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and see if you can find one reference that identifies one specific way that the 1.818 Trillions Dollars is to be spent.

It would be appropriate that we, as nation members of the United Nations, start looking critically into this issue and the role of the United nations in this massive political and bureaucratic global warming fraud.

While sceptics have done an admirable job of deftly taking apart the flimsy "science" of the IPCC and global warming, the larger political picture must be addressed. We must focus on the United Nations and their man made global warming agenda.

National governments are what is now standing between the United Nations and the fulfillment of their cash grabbing agenda. National governments will, in the next few years, maybe even in the next few months, be making the decisions as to how much of our economies they are willing to sacrifice for the cause, and how much of your standard of living they are prepared to give away on your behalf.

In these economically depressed times, how much of your already reduced standard of living are you willing to let your government give away to the United Nations to mitigate non-existent man made global warming?

I would strongly suggest we make our views known, in no uncertain terms, to our national political representatives. And right now.

I Would Prefer to Trust Science

2010-03-31T17:42:00.001-05:00

I'd like to trust science, and generally I do.

But, it seems that, whenever I get curious about a particular point of science, I have to track down the actual paper or study that was published, and research the backgrounds of the scientists who wrote the paper one by one for undeclared conflicts of interest. Then I have to find out who funded the study and whether or not the funders are in a conflict of interest on the topic in question. Then I have to read the paper and sort out the methodology and data and try to ascertain whether or not it makes scientific, or statistical, or plain old common sense. Then I have to compare the findings to existing science and see if there are contrary views and the reasons why. Then I may be able to draw a conclusion as to whether or not the science holds up.

Why would a layman be expected to or have to do all that? Doesn't the label "peer-reviewed science" imply that all these things have been carefully vetted? Am I duplicating efforts?

Are scientists not supposed to declare conflicts of interest when they submit papers to journals? Not always. Some scientific journals, a small few, demand some declaration of conflicts of interest. Most just ask for it. Many don't bother with it at all. And even when it is required, it falls upon the individual scientists to provide it, to volunteer it. If they don't declare any conflicts of interest, no one asks or investigates what the scientist provides. Omissions are never challenged. Ever.

Do researchers not declare who the research funders are?

Sometimes, not always. Often the funders jump through all kinds of hoops to hide the fact that they are funding the study. Often "donations" are made to apparent non-profit groups who then "fund" the research. Many non-profits are no more than another office in a for-profit group's marketing department. Many more times, the funders operate out in the open, with no one ever questioning their motives or obvious conflicts of interest. It simply never becomes a publicly discussed issue.

Why should laymen have to concern themselves with the details, methodology, data and statistics used in research papers?

Simply because some researchers fudge numbers. Some use very questionable methods and data. Fraud is not uncommon. Some scientists have been known to seek to "hide the decline" and use "tricks" and add "artificial adjustments" to make the data do what they need it to do. And them some, usually the same people, do everything they can to avoid releasing the data or their methodology for fear of being found out, even going so far as to evade Freedom of Information laws.

But isn't the peer review process supposed to weed out such shenanigans?

Yes. That is true. The peer review process should catch any and all attempts to subvert science through the use of poor and fraudulent methodologies, data and manipulations. But obviously peer review in the climate sciences is somewhat.... errr... lacking? I'll be generous and leave it at "lacking". The Climategate episode has done nothing if it hasn't clearly shown how the entire aspect of "science" in the climate "sciences" is definitely "lacking".

Why would you have to compare the finding from one research paper to other ones? Isn't the newer science better? Doesn't the new science make the old science false?

It is always a good idea to step back and have a look at the history of a given scientific issue. Review what was before and compare it to what is now. CO2 as a driver of temperatures was fairly well understood well before the recent global warming scare started in around the 1990's. That there are over 30,000 studies in global climate research and fewer than a thousand that actually references man made global warming in any manner, shows that there is a lot of climate science that doesn't really even consider man made CO2 as being anything other than a negligible factor in the climate. Several hundred recent papers from the same several dozen scientists has leaned more and more towards CO2-caused man made global warming. Most science, from most other climate scientists, doesn't.

I'd like to trust science. But when the background of the alarmist scientists all contain egregious inherent global warming research conflicts of interest. And the funders of the studies are in blatant conflicts of interest. And the methodologies and data do not make scientific, or statistical, or physical, or mathematical, or plain old common sense, or are born from processes that don't even come close to standard scientific practices. And when there is nothing even remotely resembling a consensus in the science. And when the journals who publish the alarmist research fails to flag basic scientific flaws in the research. Well, the climate science cannot be trusted.

I would honestly rather trust science, but insofar as the climate science goes, I simply can't.

Politics, Environmentalism and "Science" - The Italian Connection

2010-03-28T19:33:00.006-05:00

Have you ever heard the name Aurelio Peccei? No? Neither had I until just a few days ago. That is exceedingly interesting considering that Aurelio Peccei has had such a profound effect on you, your family, your wallet and your future.

Aurelio was born way back in 1908 and he had the misfortune of having met his maker in 1984, which, as you will see is quite ironic.

Aurelio was a very capable and successful industrialist, having rebuilt the auto maker Fiat after the second world war. He then went on to create Concorde Fiat in South America and later he turned the office machinery manufacturer Olivetti around and made it a very successful enterprise.

Let's examine his accomplishments and his connections to the global warming movement.

The Politics

In 1968 Aurelio was instrumental in founding The Club of Rome. The goals of The Club of Rome can be found here. The Club of Rome is a major player in world politics with special emphasis on influencing the world response to the perceived threat of global warming. This is a part of their short term plan:

International Conference on Mobilising Social Change to Achieve a more Equitable and Sustainable World

Background and Objectives

To focus on the issue of social transformation, the Club of Rome will convene in Basel in June 2010, a high-level expert conference on the topic: “Mobilising social change to achieve a more equitable and sustainable World.” This conference is an essential component of the Club of Rome’s programme of international research and consultation to define the elements of “A New Path for World Development.”

The two day conference will bring together a high-level group of around forty practitioners, experts and officials from across the world. The participants will come from a wide range of fields of expertise, including, the social sciences, religious institutions, education, government, city management, business, the media and civil society. The conference will be followed by a public event where the results can be more widely presented and discussed.

Besides making intellectual progress in understanding the fundamental importance of attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviour in the new conditions of the 21st century, the conference is intended to produce practical insights and proposals for policy and action. The Club is positioned to insert the conclusions and recommendations of the Conference directly into the policy process through many channels, in particular through GLOBE International, an organisation of senior legislators from the G20 countries.

The aims of the conference are:

to clarify the goals of social transformation to create conditions for the re-orientation of societies and economies onto an equitable and sustainable path;

to propose how the necessary changes in attitudes, values and behaviour can be encouraged in different cultural contexts;

to recommend how governments and city authorities, business and financial institutions, education, the media and civil society can contribute to motivating the necessary social transformations.

In fact, underlying the crises in the fields of economics, finance, environment and development lies a deep moral and social crisis. The issues on which the Conference is focused are therefore of fundamental importance: how must attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviour be transformed to lay the foundations for a new economy and a new society which will be more just and inclusive and more respectful of the natural systems on which we depend.

The Environmentalism

At about the same time as Aurelio was setting up the Club of Rome, he became a leading figure with WWF the World Wildlife Fund. The WWF has recently seen some unwelcome press when it was revealed that the IPCC used some highly questionable grey science that originated from WWF sources. WWF is an international NGO, a non-governmental organisation that essentially reports to no one. They have huge resources mostly gotten from UN and other governmental sources. They are big players at IPCC conferences.

These are some of their expectations from the IPCC's Copenhagen conference:

Developing countries as a group should pledge to reduce their actual emissions substantially
by deviating by at least 30 % below a business as usual pathway by 2020, including
REDD, provided they receive guaranteed adequate finance, technology and capacity
building support from industrialized countries.

They should put forward Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions ( NAMAs ) and develop
visionary long-term strategies : Low Carbon Action Plans ( LCAPs ), the roadmaps to their
transition to low-carbon economies by 2050.

And this:

To create the right incentive structures, REDD will need substantial and predictable amounts
of funding, starting immediately, reaching US $ 42 bn per year in the long-term. Developed
countries should commit to provide such funding – both for developing national
REDD systems and for the subsequent actual reduction of emissions – as part of the overall
financial set-up described below.

And this:

Substantial flows of secure and predictable public funding additional to overseas
development assistance (ODA) targets, to be provided by developed countries, and
delivered through well-governed and effective funding mechanisms under the authority
and guidance of the supreme body of the new Copenhagen Protocol. This funding
should be in the order of at least US $ 63 bn per year in 2013-2017 increasing to at least
$ 100 bn per year by 2020.

The "Science"

Aurelio's biography states the following: "As a result of activities that started in the 1960s and continued into the 1970s, Peccei was one of the principal architects of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria in 1972."

From IIASA's website:

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is a multi-national, independent organization devoted to interdisciplinary, policy-oriented research focusing on selected aspects of environmental, economic, technological and social issues in the context of global change. IIASA’s research is organized around fields of policy importance rather than academic disciplines and serves as a neutral forum for sustained investigation and discussion of global and international issues.

This is not an unbiased group of scientists. They are synonymous with the IPCC. Here is a short excerpt from their 2008 annual report:

2007
IIASA scientists share the Nobel Peace Prize with authors of the IPCC reports and Al Gore for “their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

Literally ALL of their work involve environmental and global warming. From their `What is IIASA?` page:

IIASA's Research
IIASA’s research investigates the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. The researchers, some 200 mathematicians, social scientists, natural scientists, economists, and engineers, develop assessment and decision-support methodologies, global databases, and analytical tools to study the issues. IIASA concentrates its research efforts within three core research themes:

    * Environment and Natural Resources;
    * Population and Society;
    * Energy and Technology.

The Italian Connection

Aurelio Peccei may not be the founder and the father of the modern global warming scam, but he certainly has had a direct connection to the Unholy Trinity of the movement.

There is much more to this story. Stay tuned.

Global Warming Ideology

2010-03-25T19:01:00.005-05:00

Global Warming ~~Science~~ Ideology

The blogosphere is abuzz with news of a massive global organisation set up and designed to operate on behalf of global warming advocacy and activism. This organisation was set up quietly and designed to operate under the publics radar.

Globe International is an international organisation of elected officials. Politicians. It has operated since 1989 in near complete obscurity from the general public.

Steve McIntyre from Climate Audit describes Globe Int. this way:

Globe International is an off-balance sheet “private company” funded predominantly by governments and NGOs. As a private company, I guess that it is unaccountable. It brings legislators together – with a particular concern to the advancement of climate change legislation. Its webpage contains glowing testimonials from leading politicians.

The initial scandal, reported by James Delingpole, was that Lord Oxburgh, who was recently appointed – on the UK's Royal Society’s recommendation – to lead one of the two official enquiries into Climategate, was deeply involved with Globe International and thus was in blatant conflict of interest. Yet another Climategate whitewash of an enquiry.

But that is now only a side show to the main attraction. The real question is who is Globe International. Really.

There are all kinds of questions about how this group operates outside of any governmental scrutiny while getting all kinds of funding from the same governments.

Numerous blogs are exploring these and other issues.

All I want to do is introduce the major players.

Globe is an acronym for Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment.

These are members of the Board of GLOBE

Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, President of GLOBE International - Labour Party
Senator Serys Marly Slhessarenko, President of GLOBE BRAZIL - PT (Workers Party)
Hon Bryon Wilfert MP, President of GLOBE Canada - Liberal Party
Mr Anders Wijkman MEP, President of GLOBE EU - (EPP-ED) European People's Party (EPP Group)
Deputy Serge Poignant, Acting President of GLOBE France - Union for a Popular Movement
Mr Michael Kauch MdB, Acting President of GLOBE Germany - Free Democratic Party
Hon Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu MP, President of GLOBE India - Shiv Sena
Senator Antonio D’Ali, Acting President of GLOBE Italy - House of The Freedoms
Representative Yoshio Yatsu, President of GLOBE JAPAN - Liberal Democratic Party
Deputy Victor Shudegov, President of GLOBE Russia - A Just Russia
Hon Langa Zita MP, Acting President of GLOBE South Africa - African National Congress (ANC)
Hon Graham Stuart MP, Vice-President of GLOBE UK - Conservative
Mr Steen Gade MP, President of GLOBE EU - Danish Socialist People's Party

Interesting set of characters, wouldn't you say?

A Perfectly Transparent Global Warming Lie

2010-03-24T14:26:00.011-05:00

A quick check of the news this morning found the following headline from the Indian Express:
"New Moore no more: rising sea claims island in Bay of Bengal"

And this one from the Christian Science Monitor:
"Global warming as peacemaker? Disputed island disappears under rising sea."

And even the Associated Press picked it up:

"Disputed isle in Bay of Bengal disappears into sea"

And, of course, the BBC covered it:
"Disputed Bay of Bengal island 'vanishes' say scientists"

Google news shows no less than ~~232~~ 402 news articles related to this disappearing island. And pretty much every article repeats the following:

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Professor Sugata Hazra of the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University in Calcutta.

Anyone wishing to visit now, he observed, would have to think of travelling by submarine.

Professor Hazra said his studies revealed that sea levels in this part of the Bay of Bengal have risen much faster over the past decade than they had done in the previous 15 years.

And he predicts that in the coming decade other islands in the Sundarbans delta region will follow New Moore, or South Talpatti, beneath the waves.

This article, the allegations, and the press coverage on this story is remarkable. It is remarkable for a number of reasons.

Firstly.... the central "fact" of the article is amazingly and transparently false.

The "island" did not disappear due to rising sea levels. And one does not need to be a scientist to show global warming and sea level rise had nothing to do with it's disappearance.

This island was 3.5 km long and 3 km wide, and was located 2 km from the mouth of the Hariabhanga river which is part of the massive river delta system in Bangladesh, bordering on India. The island "appeared" in 1974. It is a sediment island. A big sand bar.

In the original article we read this:

The New Moore island was first noticed in 1974 in satellite images but experts claimed the island was more than 50 years old. The island surface was only two metres above the sea level.

Hazra said the island was clearly visible in satellite images until 1987 after which it started diminishing in size. And now there is no trace of the island, he said.

Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that sand bars and sediment islands are continually appearing and growing and then diminishing in size and disappearing in the massive river deltas of the world. Just like coastlines will erode in some places and grow in other places. These are the natural cycles of our planet's coastlines and deltas. Changes in water flows, sediments in the flows and oceans currents are all part of the cycles of coastlines and river deltas.

Conspicuously absent from any of these articles is any reference whatsoever to any amounts of sea levels rise at that particular location. The Professor claims that "sea levels in this part of the Bay of Bengal have risen much faster over the past decade than they had done in the previous 15 years" which may be factually correct but is statistically and scientifically suspect at best. Especially in the light of the massive fraud uncovered by the Climategate incident and numerous other scandals involving the IPCC and it's "science".

It is reported that the island/sand bar was one to two meters high. So we are expected to suspend reality and expected to believe that the ocean in that one spot rose one to two meters without rising more than a few millimeters anywhere else in the world. That is plainly absurd.

Secondly, the reports are remarkable for the sheer gall of this scientist to publicly proclaim such transparent lie. Honestly, Professor Sugata Hazra, must actually think that we are stupid enough to just take his word that alleged, but not demonstrated, sea level rise was responsible for making this sand bar disappear. It is remarkable that a scientist would vocalize such an absurd and transparent lie for all the world to see. In one fell swoop, this "scientist" has completely and publicly forsaken any semblance of credibility in any field of science. Of course, Professor Hazra depends on global warming funding for a good chunk his income. And he has a history of global warming catastrophe proclamations. The guy is not so much a scientist as he is an activist.

Thirdly, these reports are remarkable for the simple fact that no less than, so far, 232 news organizations and assorted other outlets, have actually picked up the story and published it. Apparently none of of these outlets took the time to do even a basic critical assessment. Either they ignored the obvious absurdity of it, or they couldn't be bothered to critically read the item. Either way, this demonstrates the kind of information that these media outlets blindly propagates to the masses.

This sad episode clearly shows the absolute dearth of real science that warmists have to prove their theory. Without real science, they have to use this kind of blatantly false nonsense to promote their agenda. But they persist nonetheless. Shamelessly they persist.

The Warministas Are Jumping The Shark

2010-03-22T11:15:00.000-05:00

Well, the warmists are back at it, releasing press articles about the myriad ways that our world is falling apart due to man made global warming. But this one seriously takes the cake. I won't say that this is the stupidest announcement they've ever made, because I can't say that I've read them all. There very well could be stupider catastrophic global warming pronouncements out there. I just may not have seen it.

This is the headline (I kid you not):

Flowers losing scent due to climate change

This all come from a Dr Abdul Latif Mohamad in Kuala Lumpur. One has to wonder just where this person got his degree from.

Read the entire story here. It's good for a few laughs.

Even Bill Clinton Doubts Al Gore

2010-03-21T22:29:00.003-05:00

The Wall Street Journal reports that Bill Clinton spoke to the annual Gridiron Dinner as a stand-in for President Barack Obama.

Here is a very telling remark by the Ex-Pres:

... he noted he was speaking on the night before the start of spring, “otherwise known to Al Gore as proof of global warming.”

I'd love to be a fly on the wall the next time these two meet.

The Global Warming Scam Concisely Exposed in 86 Words

2010-03-18T18:57:00.003-05:00

You have made some observations and calculations, which show that humanity is doomed unless it changes its ways. You have total belief in the accuracy of your predictions. Do you:

(a)   Announce your results, but keep your workings secret for fear that someone will criticise them.

(b)   Announce your results, but set up a group of companies to make yourself mega-rich on the back of the scare you have created.

(c)    Drop everything, including secrecy and profit, and devote yourself to saving the human race.

Credit goes to Professor John Brignell for such a wonderfully concise breakdown of the global warming scam.

You can read more of his stuff here.

Nearly Half of the USA Believe Global Warming Threat Exaggerated

2010-03-16T21:54:00.000-05:00

Latest Gallup poll shows that just about half the USA, 48%, believes that the threat of global warming is exaggerated. That is up from 41% in 2009.

Probably more significant is that the percentage of Americans who think most scientists believe global warming is occurring has dropped 13 points from two years ago, and is the lowest since the first time Gallup asked this question back in 1997.

You can find more here.

New Feature - The Skeptics Fact Sheet

2010-03-16T09:27:00.003-05:00

I've started the Skeptics Fact Sheet to create a centralized point-form list of simple global warming facts.

Use this area to submit suggestions, corrections, additions, and criticisms.

Read the Skeptics Fact Sheet page here:

http://casualdoubter.blogspot.com/p/skecptics-fact-sheet.html

Two UK Govt Advertisements Banned For Lying About Global Warming

2010-03-14T12:26:00.007-05:00

The TimesOnline reports that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned two advertisements commisioned by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change, because the adverts exaggerated the potential harm.

Several aspects of this is extremely disturbing.

1) In a post-Climategate world, we have a UK government department still wasting tax money propagandizing on a fraudulent paradigm. What part of the Climategate revelations did they not understand? Actually the question is why are they sweeping Climategate under the carpet?

2) They are using nursery rhymes in these adverts. Why are they propagandizing to children? Lying to children is not what we expect from our elected leaders.

3) Why are they exaggerating their claims? If the effects of global warming are severe, then why exaggerate? Maybe the reality of global warming just isn't scary enough for their purposes. In the context of their claims being supposedly supported by the science, exaggerations by intelligent people, elected officials, governments departments, and others in positions of trust, can only be viewed as lying.

But it is not all negative news. The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has served its greater goal by flagging these advertisements and correctly banning them from being aired. This tells us that there are still people in positions of authority that can be impartial and effective.

It will be interesting to see how UK politicians react to the ASA's ban. This may be the beginning of the Battle of the ASA within the UK's political activist community.

The ASA's decision will certainly ruffle some serious feathers in the energy secretariat.

You can find the Times article here.

Global Warming Alarmism Has No Yin Yang

2010-03-12T12:15:00.005-06:00

One of the most profound tenets of philosophy is the concept of Yin Yang. It is used to describe how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Yin yang is complementary opposites within a greater whole. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, although yin or yang elements may manifest more strongly in different objects or at different times. Yin yang constantly interacts, never existing in absolute stasis.

But global warming alarmism has no yin yang. Ask any global warming alarmist and you will soon be told that everything about global warming is bad. There is simply nothing good about global warming. It is a catastrophe no matter what.

CO2 has risen from 280 parts per million 150 years ago, to the current 385 or so parts per million. CO2 is a basic building block of life on Earth. Plants use CO2 in photosynthesis, which gives the plants life. Plant life is the basis for animal life. CO2 means life itself.

CO2, for life as we know it, is a good thing.

Glaciers have been receding steadily since the last Glaciation Period approximately 10 to 15 thousands years ago. Back then there was a massive continental glacier that reached as far south as South Dakota and New York City. Since then global warming has caused the glaciation to recede drastically leading to the development of our modern civilization as we know it. That was a good thing.

Locally, warmists will publicly wail about specific glaciers receding and the horror of it all. The receding glacier is their proof that the world is warming catastrophically and it is presented as if it is an unprecedented event and a certain harbinger of the end of the world. But, quite often, when the glacier has actually receded, we find signs of life under the ice. Human, animal or plant remains that have been preserved for millennia. Signs that at one time, it was as warm as, or even warmer, than it is today in that location. They claim that their receding glacier is proof of man made global warming, but it actually is proof that it has been warmer there in the past, before SUV's and coal plants ever existed. It is proof that previous global temperature fluctuations have occurred due to natural climatic variations.

Receding glaciers are a good thing. Where there is widespread glaciation there is little or no life. And receding glaciers prove that the globes climate changes naturally.

One of the most difficult aspects of climate to predict is moisture levels. You know... precipitation, rain, snow, sleet, hail, etc. But trust me, alarmists will always predict something having to do with precipitation, and it will always be bad. If it is too wet where you are, then global warming will make it wetter. If it is too dry where you are, then global warming will make it drier. Oddly enough, you will never see a global warming prediction that says that a wet area will be improved by becomig drier and a dry area will never get more life-sustaining moisture. Never. Deserts will grow and swamps will expand, and never the twain shall meet.

Sometimes more moisture or less moisture, whichever the case may be, can be a good thing.

Then we get the alarmist predictions that global warming will hamper or even destroy the world’s crops. It has to, it's global warming and we know that there is nothing good about global warming.

Plants love heat. One of the basic measures in agriculture is heat units. It is a way to measure how much heat over a given period of time is available to crops in a given area. The more heat units, the better. Corn and grains are especially responsive to heat units. The further north you go, the more the crops can benefit from additional heat units.

For many in agriculture, more heat units are a good thing.

Global warming alarmists will shrilly tell you how trees are blooming weeks earlier than they use to. But is that a bad thing?

In any area where the temperatures go below freezing at some point during the year, frost dates are very important because the length of the growing season can severely limit the varieties of crops that can be grown there. The length of the growing season is defined from the average last spring frost day to the average first fall frost day. Rising temperatures will cause the average last spring frost to occur earlier and the average first fall frost to happen later. The result is that the average growing season will lengthen. That opens up new crop variety possibilities for northern farmers.

For agriculture, more crops, more varieties and longer growing seasons are all good things.

But no global warming alarmist will admit that there is anything that could be even remotely construed as positive about global warming. And that is all the reason you need to be suspicious of global warming alarmism.

Global warming alarmism simply has no yin yang.

Environmentalism, Language and Good Intentions

2010-03-11T21:08:00.004-06:00

This old nut has been around since 2006 but it's still funny.

Join the global fight to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide.

Check out this site for a few more laughs: http://www.dhmo.org/

It just never gets old.

Ya might be an environmental redneck if.......

2010-03-10T21:05:00.004-06:00

.... you actually think that this makes "green" sense:

http://getgreenracingnow.com/index.html

I know... I know... the mind boggles... that someone would even consider this idea for more than a millisecond. Stop for a few moments and let it sink in. Take as much time as you need. It`s hard to conceive isn`t it?

I guess it just never occurred to them that there probably aren't any road vehicles that could burn more fossil fuels and emit more CO2 for less practical value than those two vehicles and their intended purpose.

Now don`t get me wrong. I enjoy a good car race as much as the next guy. But like the other 6 billion people on the planet, I just never made a ``green`` connection to the sport.

Well, these geniuses will fit right in with the global environmental jet setting crowd. You know those people who range around the world in their fossil-fuel guzzling CO2-spewing private jets to remind us of the great and painful sacrifices that you and I need to undertake to save the world from the imminent CO2 global warming catastrophe.

You know who I'm talking about... Al Gore, the IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, the musicians of the Live Earth rock concerts, and the multi-thousands of assorted scientist/activists who will be jetting off to CANCUN, Mexico, (I kid you not) this November for the next annual IPCC conference.

One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind when I saw that website, is that somehow Al Gore must have some connection to this incredible absurdity. I mean, just one of Al Gore's several houses uses twenty times more energy than an average American home. And an average American home is already way above the global average for energy use.

Yeah... Al Gore has gotta be connected to this somehow. Hypocrisy of this magnitude is almost always connected to Al Gore.

So who are these redne..... err..... environmental racing enthusiasts?

Check out the contacts page on their website. Some person named Kris Moorman at kris@consultbamboo.com appears to the errr.... brains (?) behind the marketing of this particular "green" endeavor.

A quick online search takes us to this website for Bamboo Consulting. If you go to their partners page you will find this link.

Bear with me now, we are almost there.

Now go to their about us link and... voila...

Huh? Huh? What`d I tell you?

Only in Al Gore`s world can we witness such breathtaking displays of cognitively dissonant enterprises as ``The Green Racing Team``.

The Sky Has Fallen..... hasn`t it?

2010-03-10T16:55:00.007-06:00

When Al Gore predicted last year that the Arctic ice mass would disappear within five years, did you believe him? Should you believe him?

With Earth Day fast approaching, the time is right to re-visit some classic predictions. These are from exactly forty years ago. The occasion? Earth Day 1970.

Enjoy.

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”Sen. Gaylord Nelson

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Did they really say that?

2010-03-10T08:03:00.000-06:00

“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land.”
David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

“The answer to global warming is in the abolition of private property and production for human need. A socialist world would place an enormous priority on alternative energy sources. This is what ecologically-minded socialists have been exploring for quite some time now.”
Louis Proyect, Columbia University

"Large-scale hog producers are a greater threat to the United States and U.S. democracy than Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen."
Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

"I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis."
Al Gore, former vice president

"It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty."
Monika Kopacz, atmospheric scientist

“No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister

What they said...

2010-03-09T21:53:00.007-06:00

"There is not such thing as consensus science. If it's a consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't a consensus. Period. The greatest scientists in the world are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. Environmentalism has already killed somewhere between 10-30 million people since the 1970s."

Michael Crichton, Science writer and author 'State of Fear'

"The European Union has established by fiat that a two-degree rise in global temperatures would be quite dangerous. However, this data is not scientifically sound."

Yuri Izrael, Vice President of the International Panel on Climate Change, the body responsible for the Kyoto Protocol

"Unfortunately, the IPCC climate change documents do not provide an objective assessment of the earth's temperature trends and associated climate change….As one of the invited expert reviewers for the 2007 IPCC documents, I have pointed out the flawed review process used by the IPCC scientists in one of my letters. I have also pointed out in my letter that an increasing number of scientists are now questioning the hypothesis of Greenhouse gas induced warming of the earth's surface and suggesting a stronger impact of solar variability and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns on the observed temperature increase than previously believed."
Madhav L. Khandekar, UN scientist, a retired Environment Canada scientist

“I had the privilege of being fired by Al Gore, since I refused to go along with his alarmism....I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect....Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science. The earth's climate is changing now, as it always has. There is no evidence that the changes differ in any qualitative way from those of the past.”

Will Harper, Princeton University physicist, former Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy

“Global warmers predict that global warming is coming, and our emissions are to blame. They do that to keep us worried about our role in the whole thing. If we aren't worried and guilty, we might not pay their salaries. It's that simple.

Nobel Prize Winner For Chemistry, Kary Mullis

The Birth of a Man Made Global Warming Doubter

2010-03-08T17:06:00.012-06:00

A few years back, when the global warming movement was just starting to make serious progress in convincing the world that our planet was in serious peril from man made global warming, myself and several of my friends were hanging out enjoying a good discussion, when one fellow asked me if I thought global warming was something to really be worried about. I shrugged my shoulders and said that I hadn't really looked into it in any detail. It's in the news every day so there should be something to it. Right? The media keep talking about a consensus of scientists from around the world, so it must be true. Right?

Well... being the type to research the hell out of any topic that I was curious about, and being a good hearted soul, and wanting to be environmentally conscious, I resolved to do some fact checking. That evening, within two hours of entering a few words into a search engine or two, I found enough information to raise serious doubts in my mind. I was surprised at how obvious it was, when you looked at both sides of the debate, that the man made global warming science was suspect at best.

The next day I mentioned to my buddy that there was a good chance that the man made global warming hullabaloo could be a scam. He responded with a simple question: Why would scientists do such a thing? Good question. Excellent question. And it caught me a little off guard, as I hadn't looked into it to that extent. So I ventured a guess and said that maybe it had something to do with billions of dollars in research money and a need to continue on that gravy train. Come to find out, with subsequent research, some FIFTY PLUS BILLION dollars has been spent by various governments to research man made global warming to date. That is a whole lotta moola.

Subsequent additional fact checking revealed to me that an entire research industry has grown up around climate alarmism and the more than FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS in funding. Now imagine if these climate scientists were to do research and then publish papers that said that there basically was no scientific basis to man made global warming. Imagine what would happen to all those billions of research dollars, and what would happen to their jobs, their futures, and their mortgages. Needless to say, when a scientist gets a lot of money to specifically research man made global warming, almost invariably he or she will find man made global warming. If he needs to he'll cherry pick the data, or fudge the numbers, of make "artificial corrections", and sometimes even hide the decline. The public record shows multiple instances of such unscientific behavior by climate scientists. Rest assured that however he needs to, the climate scientist will find man made global warming. Because without the horror of man made global warming hanging over our heads, his funding will dry up. He'll be up a creek without a paddle. Out of work. Unemployed.

Getting back to my buddies and our discussion, the really funny thing was the reaction of another one of my friends. This other fellow is a little younger, a little more hip, and a little more from the granola-crunching demographic. His immediate response was something along the lines of: "But isn't it a good idea that we stop or reduce the polluting of the planet? Isn't it good that people are learning about being more green". Needless to say I was a tad appalled. We were discussing the apparently wholesale self-serving corruption and dishonesty of an entire field of science, but he was happy to approve of it because it would lead to people being a little more environmentally conscious. Effectively he was saying that the ends (an entire field of science being corrupted) was an acceptable means to getting people to recycle more, use re-useable grocery bags and reduce their use of automobiles.

My reaction to such a massively corrupted science is complete and utter disgust. This corruption in the climate sciences will do irreparable damage to science as a whole. And that is unforgivable.

Why Carbon Dioxide Can't Possibly Cause Catastrophic Global Warming (Part 3)

2010-03-08T08:02:00.002-06:00

Anthony Watts' "Watt's Up With That" blog has a great article written by David Archibald addressing one of the key reasons why carbon dioxide cannot possibly cause catastrophic global warming.

The key is in the fact that the greenhouse gas effects of CO2 on temperatures is not linear, but logarithmic. If you don't know what that means or implies, the article explains it thoroughly.

See the post here.

Also keep in mind that only approximately 12 parts per MILLION of the CO2 in the air is from man made sources. That is but 1.2 one hundredths of one percent of the atmosphere. Trace amounts.

Why Is There No Press Coverage on the Climategate Scandal in North America?

2010-03-07T22:43:00.002-06:00

Ya gotta watch this video.

Why is the main stream media ignoring the greatest scientific scandal of the millenium?

It boggles the mind.

Why Carbon Dioxide Can't Possibly Cause Catastrophic Global Warming (Part 2)

2010-03-07T12:10:00.002-06:00

Thanks to none other than Al Gore himself, we have proof how carbon dioxide can't possibly cause catastrophic global warming.

Consider this graph from the Nobel Laureate Al Gore's Academy Award winning movie, An Inconvenient truth:

Do you remember the scene where he makes the point that "Boy, do these lines go together", or something along those lines, implying that there is a direct connection between CO2 levels in the atmosphere and global temperatures. Well, he was right. CO2 levels and global temperatures are directly connected. But just not in the way he implies.

If you look closer at the graph you will see that it effectively disproves the point he is trying to make, which is that elevated CO2 levels will catastrophically raise global temperatures.

The red line represents CO2 levels. The white or light blue line represents temperatures. When either goes up, it represents levels or temps going up, lines going down represent levels or temps going down. Going from the left towards the right represents going from the past to the present.

When you look closely at the timeline, you will notice that every time the lines start going up, temperatures start going up first, then CO2 levels follow. Not only does CO2 levels not lead temperatures, but it takes approx. 800 years for CO2 levels to start rising after temperatures begin to rise.

Al Gore wants you to believe that when CO2 levels go up, it causes temperatures to go up. The exact opposite of what the graph shows.

This graph clearly shows that CO2 levels have NEVER led to a rise in temperatures. Ever.

And the absurdities compound. Not only are we to believe that the world behaves in an opposite manner to the reality, Al Gore wants us to believe that CO2 levels will impact the entire globes temperatures and climate within a matter of a few decades. Not 800 years, but a mere few decades.

Al Gore needs to select his proofs a little better. He could start by learning how to read a simple time line graph.

Why Carbon Dioxide Can't Possibly Cause Catastrophic Global Warming (Part 1)

2010-03-07T08:53:00.003-06:00

Carbon dioxide. CO2. Life-giving or evil life-destroying gas?

The very crux of anthropogenic global warming is the idea that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat in the atmosphere. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat is trapped, the warmer the planet becomes and the more hell breaks out. Unfortunately for the alarmists, this is bogus science.

CO2 takes a fundamental role in the existence of life on Earth. Without CO2, there would no flora or fauna as we know it. We'd all be dead. Environmentalists would not exist, nor would there trees for them to hug. Animals, humans included, breath in oxygen and breathe out CO2. Conversely, plants breathe in CO2 and breathe out oxygen. If we remove one of these factors, CO2, oxygen, plants or animals, life as we know it ceases to exist on this planet.

Here is a dumbed down description of the Carbon Cycle:

http://library.thinkquest.org/11226/why.htm

If you read that page, you now know that the carbon cycle uses and re-uses the CO2 and carbon that is already available in the environment. The global warming theory goes that if man were to add more CO2 than is naturally occurring in the atmosphere, the additional CO2 would trap additional heat and thus cause drastic changes in the globe's temperature and thus change the worlds climate. And of course this unnatural addition of CO2 happens to come from evil capitalist humans burning evil fossil fuels to advance their individual evil plans to become rich fat cats on the backs of the working class. Whoa... how'd we get there so fast? Sorry to get political there, but it'll happen. Especially when discussing global warming.

One hundred and fifty years ago, or thereabouts, humankind entered into the Industrial Revolution whereby industries were being developed, more fossil fuels were used and cars were invented and were burning even more hydro-carbons. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the CO2 levels were around 280 parts per million. Today's levels have been measured at around 390 parts per million. See here.

So man added 110 parts per million of CO2 to the atmosphere. Or did we? Actually, much of that increase was from natural sources such as volcanoes. The US Dept of Energy calculated in around the year 2000, that man's contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere was in the neighborhood of 11.8 parts per million. I'm going to be generous and round that up to 12 parts per millions for the sake of this discussion.

First, understand that we are talking parts per MILLION. 12 parts per MILLION. By any ones definition, except of course, the alarmist activists, CO2 in parts per million is trace amounts.

If we were to wave a magic wand and remove those man made 12 parts per million from the atmosphere we'd still be left with 378 parts per million of CO2 in the environment. If we were to completely reverse all of our industrial and vehicular CO2 emissions of the last 150 years, we'd still be at 378 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. No solution there. And note that the IPCC, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was/is lobbying for governments to somehow reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. How absurd is that?

A 40 ppm reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere would be equivalent to removing more than three and a quarter times more CO2 than we put there in 150 years of frenetic industrial and automotive activity. The concept is absurd.

12 parts per million is 1.2 one hundredths of one percent of the atmosphere. That is trace amounts. Virtually negligible. I say virtually because it could conceivably make a tiny tiny difference to our climate, but it would be completely undetectable by our temperature measuring devices. When you consider that 150 years of burning millions of tonnes of fossil fuels has only increased the atmospheric CO2 by 12 ppm, you get a sense of just how massive our atmosphere and our planet really is, and how insignificant we really are as humans on this planet.

But, the alarmists will say, cyanide and other poisons can kill at levels in the parts per million range. Well, CO2 is not cyanide. Just like Dan Quayle is no Jack Kennedy and the moon is not the sun, CO2 can not possibly be compared to cyanide or any other poison. CO2 is a life giving gas that is intimately involved in our very existence on this planet.

But here is where things get really absurd. To effect a change in the globes climate, you must not just change the temperature of the atmosphere but you must change the temperature of the oceans and lakes, aka the hydrosphere, as well as the globes combined land mass. The hydrosphere and the land mass function as a massive heat sink that would require massive amounts of energy to change their temperatures by even a minute amount.

The hydrosphere is approximately 250 times the mass of the atmosphere. And the mass of the hydrosphere is but .023% of the planets entire mass.

The concept that the 1.2 one hundredth of one percent of the atmosphere that is man made CO2 could catastrophically change the temperature of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the entire land mass of the globe and thus catastrophically alter the globes climate is frankly absurd.

The Global Warming Hoax

2010-03-06T14:32:00.002-06:00

Yes, the modern day ubiquitous global warming alarmism is a hoax. This not opinion, it is fact. The idea that man can catastrophically alter the entire globes climate by adding a few parts per million of CO2 to the atmosphere is absurd on virtually all possible levels.

Before I begin, let me clear some things up:

I do not work for, nor do I get paid by, the fossil fuel industry. I am not a right winger in my politics, never have, never will be. I am not anti-science and I do not deny science. Now let's get going.

Global warming is real. So is global cooling. Anyone denying either is not aware of the basic nature of our climatic system. Our climate is a chaotic system, and the word chaotic is not just a descriptive term, but a scientific term.

On Wikipedia we find this entry:

Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, physics, and philosophy studying the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. This sensitivity is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.

Note the last sentence. Next time you read about computer models predicting climate more than a few years in the future, remember that fact.

Let's address the very beginnings of the Man-made Global Warming hoax.

In the beginning... well... around about the late 1800's anyways, there was a fellow named Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist. Arrhenius is to this day quoted by climate alarmists to prove that the science is solid due mainly to the length of time that has passed since the theory was first proposed. In other words, they like to claim that we've know for over a hundred years that CO2 causes temperature changes. Theoretically. Supposedly.

This is Arrhenius' bio on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius

If this bio is accurate, then we see that Arrhenius was:

1) Wrong about how much the temps would change from increases or decreases in CO2 in the atmosphere.

2) A controversial scientist from the get go, his dissertation did not impress too many academics.

3) He was politically involved in setting up the Nobel Institutes and prizes, and conspired to ensure that his friends got awards and his detractors did not. Sounds familiar?

4) He himself got a Nobel Prize from the organization he set up. Conflict of interest or what. The Nobel Prizes began as a corrupt self-serving process and continues that legacy to this day.

5) Then there is this: Svante Arrhenius was one of several leading Swedish scientists actively engaged in the process leading to the creation in 1922 of The State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala, Sweden, which had originally been proposed as a Nobel Institute. Arrhenius was a member of the institute's board, as he had been in The Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene (Eugenics), founded in 1909. Swedish racial biology was world-leading at this time, and the results formed the scientific basis for the Compulsory sterilization program in Sweden.

Yep. He fits right in with the likes of Al Gore, Raj Pachauri, the CRU, Penn State's Micheal Mann, GISS's James Hansen, etc. Doesn't he?

Apparently Svante Arrhenius set the tone for modern day global warming alarmists.