Obama and global warming

President Obama says potentially historic flood levels in North Dakota are a clear example of why steps need to be taken to stop global warming. Heavy rain and blizzards have caused eight rivers in the state to swell to flood levels and emergency management officials are warily watching the Red River, which could surpass record levels late this week.

"If you look at the flooding that's going on right now in North Dakota and you say to yourself, 'If you see an increase of two degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there?'" Obama told reporters at the White House Monday. "That indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously."

Full story here.

Global warming is to blame for the floods in North Dakota? Puh-leeze!

Can anyone say melting ice from an unusually cold winter and spring rain? Hello?

Earth Hour. So What?

I will be taking the RedState pledge today, on Earth Hour.

I do solemnly swear that I will honor Earth Hour by turning on every light in my residence at 8:30 p.m. on March 28, 2009, for one hour. God said, “Let there be light.” Who are we to argue?

Nobody keeping himself/herself in the dark for an hour is going to make an ounce of difference to the planet. All it does is make you feel good about yourself. Yeah, go ahead, give yourself a pat on the back.

But how exactly have you saved the planet?

Shivering Al Gore

Who among you bought into the global warming crap? Has this winter changed your mind? No? Then you are fanatical indeed!

This ice sculpture of a shivering Al Gore is pretty amusing!

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — A critic of global warming is responsible for the icy glare Al Gore is giving this Alaskan community.

Local businessman Craig Compeau on Monday unveiled an ice sculpture of the 2007 Nobel Prize winner and leader in the movement to draw attention to climate change and global warming.

The 8 1/2-foot-tall, 5-ton bust of the former vice president dominates a downtown street corner from its perch on the back of a flatbed truck.

Compeau says he's a "moderate" critic of global warming theories. He used the unveiling of the sculpture to invite Gore to Fairbanks to explain his global warming theories.

He says it will stand through March unless it melts before then. It was 22 degrees on Monday.

Gore could not immediately be reached for comment Monday night.

Oil is NOT a fossil fuel!

I first heard the notion that oil is not a fossil fuel from a radio program. The people talking about it sounded pretty convinced of the fact and Doug thinks they had some valid points.

Read the following article and see if you are convinced that indeed oil is a renewable energy much like geothermal energy. The paragraph highlighted in blue seems pretty convincing to me!

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Oil is NOT a fossil fuel and AGW is non-science

by Peter J. Morgan

We all grew up believing that oil is a fossil fuel, and just about every day this ‘fact’ is mentioned in newspapers and on TV. However, let us not forget what Lenin said – “A lie told often enough becomes truth.” It was in 1757 that the great Russian scholar Mikhailo V. Lomonosov enunciated the hypothesis that oil might originate from biological detritus. The scientists who first rejected Lomonsov’s hypothesis, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, were the famous German naturalist and geologist Alexander von Humboldt and the French chemist and thermodynamicist Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac, who together enunciated the proposition that oil is a primordial material erupted from great depth, and is unconnected with any biological matter near the surface of the Earth.

With the development of chemistry during the nineteenth century, and following particularly the enunciation of the second law of thermodynamics by Clausius in 1850, Lomonosov’s biological hypothesis came inevitably under attack. In science, a hypothesis is merely somebody’s attempt to explain something. It is merely that – an attempt. In the scientific method, a hypothesis is also an open invitation for somebody else to discredit it by using physical evidence to demonstrate that the hypothesis is flawed, or incorrect – that is how scientific knowledge is advanced. Einstein is reputed to have remarked that just one fact was all that was needed to invalidate his theory of relativity.

The great French chemist Marcellin Berthelot particularly scorned the hypothesis of a biological origin for petroleum. Berthelot first carried out experiments involving, among others, a series of what are now referred to as Kolbe reactions and demonstrated the generation of petroleum by dissolving steel in strong acid. He produced the suite of n-alkanes and made it plain that such were generated in total absence of any “biological” molecule or process. Berthelot’s investigations were later extended and refined by other scientists, including Biasson and Sokolov, all of whom observed similar phenomena and likewise concluded that petroleum was unconnected to biological matter.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the great Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev also examined and rejected Lomonosov’s hypothesis of a biological origin for petroleum. In contrast to Berthelot who had made no suggestion as to where or how petroleum might have come, Mendeleev stated clearly that petroleum is a primordial material which has erupted from great depth. With extraordinary perception, Mendeleev hypothesised the existence of geological structures which he called “deep faults,” and correctly identified such as the locus of weakness in the crust of the Earth via which petroleum would travel from the depths. After he made that hypothesis, Mendeleev was abusively criticised by the geologists of his time, for the notion of deep faults was then unknown. Today, of course, an understanding of plate tectonics would be unimaginable without recognition of deep faults.

Soon after the end of World War II, the Soviet dictator, Stalin, realised that the then Soviet Union needed its own substantial oil reserves and production system if it was ever again called upon to defend itself against an attacker such as Hitler’s Germany. In 1947, the Soviet Union had, as its petroleum ‘experts’ then estimated, very limited petroleum reserves, of which the largest were the oil fields in the region of the Abseron Peninsula, near the Caspian city of Baku in what is now the independent country of Azerbaijan. At that time, the oil fields near Baku were considered to be “depleting” and “nearing exhaustion.” During World War II, the Soviets had occupied the two northern provinces of Iran, but in 1946, they were forced out by the British. By 1947, the Soviets realised that the American, British, and French were not going to allow them to operate in the Middle East, nor in the petroleum producing areas of Africa, nor Indonesia, nor Burma, nor Malaysia, nor anywhere in the Far East, nor in Latin America. The government of the Soviet Union recognised then that new petroleum reserves would have to be discovered and developed within the U.S.S.R..

Stalin’s response was to set up a task force of top scientists and engineers in a project similar to the Manhattan Project – the top-secret US program to develop the atom bomb during WWII – and initially under the same secrecy, and charged them with the task of finding out what oil was, where it came from and how to find, recover and efficiently refine it.

In 1951, the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins was first enunciated by Nikolai A. Kudryavtsev at the All-Union petroleum geology congress. Kudryavtsev analysed the hypothesis of a biological origin of petroleum, and pointed out the failures of the claims then commonly put forth to support that hypothesis. Kudryavtsev was soon joined by numerous other Russian and Ukrainian geologists, among the first of whom were P. N. Kropotkin, K. A. Shakhvarstova, G. N. Dolenko, V. F. Linetskii, V. B. Porfir’yev, and K. A. Anikiev.

During the first decade of its existence, the modern theory of petroleum origins was the subject of great contention and controversy. Between the years 1951 and 1965, with the leadership of Kudryavtsev and Porfir’yev, increasing numbers of geologists published articles demonstrating the failures and inconsistencies inherent in the old “biogenic origin” hypothesis. With the passing of the first decade of the modern theory, the failure of Lomonosov’s eighteenth century hypothesis of an origin of petroleum from biological detritus in the near-surface sediments had been thoroughly demonstrated, the hypothesis discredited, and the modern theory firmly established.

An important point to be recognised is that the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abiotic petroleum origins was, initially, a geologists’ theory. Kudryavtsev, Kropotkin, Dolenko, Porfir’yev and the developers of the modern theory of petroleum were all geologists. Their arguments were necessarily those of geologists, developed from many observations, and much data, organised into a pattern, and argued by persuasion.

By contrast, the practice of mainstream, predictive modern science, particularly physics and chemistry, involves a minimum of observation or data, and applies only a minimum of physical law, inevitably expressed with formal mathematics, and argues by compulsion. Such predictive proof of the geologists’ assertions for the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins had to wait almost a half century, for such required the development not only of modern quantum statistical mechanics but also that of the techniques of many-body theory and the application of statistical geometry to the analysis of dense fluids, designated scaled particle theory.

To recapitulate, Stalin’s team of scientists and engineers found that oil is not a ‘fossil fuel’ but is a natural product of planet earth – the high-temperature, high-pressure continuous reaction between calcium carbonate and iron oxide – two of the most abundant compounds making up the earth’s crust. This continuous reaction occurs at a depth of approximately 100 km at a pressure of approximately 50,000 atmospheres (5 GPa) and a temperature of approximately 1500°C, and will continue more or less until the ‘death’ of planet earth in millions of years’ time. The high pressure, as well as centrifugal acceleration from the earth’s rotation, causes oil to continuously seep up along fissures in the earth’s crust into subterranean caverns, which we call oil fields. Oil is still being produced in great abundance, and is a sustainable resource – by the same definition that makes geothermal energy a sustainable resource. All we have to do is develop better geotechnical science to predict where it is and learn how to drill down deep enough to get to it. So far, the Russians have drilled to more than 13 km and found oil. In contrast, the deepest any Western oil company has drilled is around 4.5 km.

A team consisting of Russian scientists and Dr J. F. Kenney, of Gas Resources Corporation, Houston, USA, have actually built a reactor vessel and proven that oil is produced from calcium carbonate and iron oxide, as detailed on the Gas Resources website.

This is what Dr Kenney has to say about how he came to be involved: “In the first instance, the articles on this website are dedicated to the memory of Nikolai Alexandrovich Kudryavtsev, who first enunciated in 19511 what has become the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins. After Kudryavtsev, all the rest followed. Secondly, these articles are dedicated generally to the many geologists, geochemists, geophysicists, and petroleum engineers of the former U.S.S.R. who, during the past half century, developed modern petroleum science. By doing so, they raised their country from being, in 1946, a relatively petroleum-poor one, to the greatest petroleum producing and exporting nation in the world today. These articles are dedicated specifically to the late Academician Emmanuil Bogdanovich Chekaliuk, the greatest statistical thermodynamicist ever to have turned his formidable intellect to the problem of petroleum genesis. In the Summer of 1976, during the depths of the cold war and at immeasurable hazard, Academician Chekaliuk chose to respond, across a gulf of political hostility, to an unsolicited letter from an unknown American chief executive officer of a petroleum company headquartered in Houston, Texas. Thenafter and for almost fifteen years, Academician Chekaliuk was my teacher, my collaborator, and my friend. [JFK] 1. Kudryavtsev, N. A. (1951) Petroleum Economy [Neftianoye Khozyaistvo] 9, 17-29.”

Needless to say, the last people to tell us the truth about oil will be the oil producers and oil companies, for they of course have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth that oil is a fossil fuel and that it will soon be exhausted, in order to ratchet up the price for as long as they can. And don’t look to the Russians to enlighten the world with the truth about oil either, for they are surely laughing now that the oil price is approaching $US150 a barrel.

A US Public Service Radio interview with Dr Kenney may be heard on the Gas Resources website.

Some may ask “How come all of this isn’t commonly known?” For the answer, one needs to consider what happened to Galileo when he first put forward the hypothesis that rather than the conventional wisdom that the sun revolved around the earth, the earth revolved around the sun. He was branded a heretic and locked up! You are invited to read an excellent article entitled “Cognitive Processes and the Suppression of Sound Scientific Ideas”, by J. Sacherman 1997.

Some may say “Well, even if oil is a renewable resource, mankind should not burn it because the carbon dioxide so produced causes global warming.” My answer to that is that the idea that mankind’s production of carbon dioxide causes global warming is merely a hypothesis, and this has been thoroughly discredited by Prof. Robert Carter and numerous other scientists.

You are invited to listen to a recording of a brief radio interview with Prof. Carter, where he succinctly explains that after spending billions on researching the topic, no climate scientists have ever succeeded in finding any scientifically valid link between man-made carbon dioxide and global warming.. He makes the point that whatever effects mankind’s production of carbon dioxide have on earth’s climate, they are immeasurably small and are swamped by the changes in climate that occur naturally.

You are also invited to view a video of Prof. Robert Carter’s demolition of the “mankind’s production of carbon dioxide causes global warming” hypothesis at where you will see Prof. Carter illustrate five examples of verifiable science that refute the hypothesis. Prof. Carter makes the point that truth in science is never decided by consensus, but if you prefer to believe the pronouncement by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that “2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s IPCC agree that humans are causing a climate crisis”, which is repeated ad nauseam by environmentalists, the press and governments around the world, including ours, then you are invited to read an article where Tom Harris and John McLean tell the truth about this deception and point out that “an example of rampant misrepresentation of IPCC reports is the frequent assertion that ‘hundreds of IPCC scientists’ are known to support the following statement, arguably the most important of the WG I report, namely “Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.” In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”. Almost 60% of the comments received from the 62 expert reviewers of this critical chapter were rejected by the IPCC editors and 55 of the 62 expert reviewers had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial. In my view, seven does not constitute “a consensus of the world’s scientists.”

If it’s consensus you want before you decide on what the truth is, then go to http://www.petitionproject.org to read about the petition signed by more than 30,000 scientists, more than 9000 of whom hold PhDs. In addition, the International Climate Science Coalition has on its website the Manhattan Declaration and its lists of signatories, There are links there to enable you to view the lists of signatories. These two petitions, in my view, constitute consensus!

Knowing that carbon dioxide does not cause global warming frees us to resume building coal-fired electricity generating stations to meet our growing electrical energy needs. When the cost of eventual decommissioning the plants is factored in, coal is a long way cheaper than nuclear, and with the latest technology in exhaust gas filters and scrubbers, burning coal is much less environmentally unfriendly than it used to be.

We all know what has been happening to food prices, mostly as a direct result of US government subsidies for the production of ethanol from corn.

The current US energy strategy, driven by the erroneous beliefs that oil is a fossil fuel and that its supply will soon be exhausted, and that burning coal causes global warming, is illogical. Given the fact that oil is abiotic and is in continuous production deep down in the earth’s crust, at rates far in excess of what mankind could ever conceivably consume, it makes absolutely no sense for any nation to buy it from foreign sources if it is cheaper to drill for and pump its own – and that is precisely what the US should be doing immediately, without ever needing to go near the wildlife reserves in Alaska.

If the US switched from being a net consumer in the world oil market to becoming a net supplier, the price of oil would plunge, perhaps to around $US30 per barrel, with the result that the world’s economies would boom as never before. Most importantly, people would have confidence to invest in their futures, safe in the knowledge that oil would never run out. An extra bonus would be that the US military-industrial-political complex would no longer feel the need to use military force to control the Middle East’s oil supplies, and neither would any other world power.

A further bonus would be that all subsidies to producers of alternative fuels and energy supplies could be removed, with the result that such production would occur only if it was economically viable, which would mean that most such producers would either cease, or greatly scale down, their businesses.

Each of us in our own small way can now burn as much petroleum product as we can afford to put in our cars and boats, safe in the knowledge that (a) oil is never going to run out and (b) all the extra carbon dioxide we produce will not cause global warming, but will help plants, and hence food, to grow faster, thus helping to feed the billions!

Please feel free to contact your local political representative and urge him or her to put a stop to the lunacy of trying to reduce mankind’s carbon dioxide ‘emissions’, and put a stop to talking about oil as a ‘fossil fuel’.

The sooner people wake up to the non-science of ‘global warming’ and ‘oil is a fossil fuel’ and ‘burning coal and oil is an environmental sin’, the better off we and our children and our children’s children (etc.) will be.

Please feel free to copy and paste the text of this article to all those on your email address list. By doing this, you will help to ensure that so many people will tell their government that they will not put up with the ‘global warming’ nonsense any more, that the whole edifice will collapse, in much the same way that the Berlin Wall was brought down and the Iron Curtain collapsed – without another shot being fired – just as, I might add, I predicted to my high school students during my years spent teaching economics in the early 1980s. Several years later, in 1989, I was in Ludwigshafen, only two weeks before the Berlin Wall came down, and well remember the tears flowing profusely down the cheeks of my elderly East German companions at a ‘new wine’ festival as I told them that the Wall would come down in a few weeks and that there would be “one Germany, very soon!”

Peter J. Morgan B.E. (Mech.), Dip. Teaching, is a Consulting Forensic Engineer, Marine Designer, Technical Writer, Sub-editor & Technical Editor in Auckland, New Zealand. Peter can be reached at: forensic.eng@xtra.co.nz

Global Warming: It is a SCAM

Global Warming: It is a SCAM. Most of you know that I am quite the global warming skeptic but those words are not mine.

Do you know who John Coleman is? He is the founder of The Weather Channel. Those are his words. But how can he say those words when there is a consensus among scientists that there is indeed global warming and that the earth in is peril? Al Gore even won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in creating global warming awareness!

Well, in John Coleman's words: I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

There you have it. Just one of a few sane voices that is not heard enough.

We have been bombarded by the mainstream media about global warming. Even as I write this, the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is holding a hearing, “Youth Leadership on Climate Change.” Like Rush Limbaugh said today, these youths haven't lived long enough to know about any climate change going on around them!

Another dog and pony show in Congress. What a waste of taxpayers' money!

Fires caused by global warming?

Most of you know that I am quite the skeptic when it comes to global warming. A lot of the noise coming from the people who insist that there'll be dire consequences caused by global warming if nothing is done now to stop it, comes from people who don't really know much about the science behind climate change.

Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader, is one such person. He told reporters, "One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming," emphasizing the need to pass the Democrats' comprehensive energy package. What a shameless way to politicize an already difficult situation faced by folks in southern California because of the fires! If ever there is such ignorance displayed by a politician, here is one.

Forest fires in California is not uncommon. It is a yearly occurrence much like the flu is. This time, the Santa Ana winds, which whip dry air from the desert plateau westwards and downwards into southern California, heating up as they descend, blew at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. This is nature at its most ferocious. Put fire into the mix, and we get a lethal combination.

The fires are caused by global warming? Don't make me laugh. Senator Reid, realized his idiotic comment and backed away from it when pressed further by reporters.

Are cows the main cause of pollution or a source of alternative energy?

Compare these two stories about the cows. First story, not good for the us and the cows.

(NewsTarget) Rising gas prices and global warming issues have spurred an increased interest in clean cars, but a report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization suggests that the real culprit for the latter problem isn't the car but the cow.

The 400-page report, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, states that the world's surging cattle herds are the No. 1 threat to the climate, forests and other wildlife, as they cause environmental problems from acid rain and the introduction of alien species to the poisoning of drinking water and the destruction of ocean life. The pollution from cattle ranching washes down into the sea and causes "dead zones" where there is no ocean life. Up to 8,108 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico is such a zone due to beef production wastes washed down by the Mississippi river.

Second story - There is something redeeming about the cow. Who isn't interested in alternative energy? Of course we all are!

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say cows might one day help meet the rise in demand for alternative energy sources.

Ohio State University researchers used microbe-rich fluid from cows to generate electricity in a new, small cellulose-based microbial fuel cell.

Doctoral student Hamid Rismani-Yazdi, lead author of the study, said experiments showed it took two of the new cells to produce enough electricity to recharge an AA-sized battery. That power was produced from the breakdown of cellulose by a variety of bacteria in rumen fluid -- the microbe-rich fluid found in a cow's rumen, the largest chamber of a cow's stomach.

To create power, researchers fill a microbial fuel cell with cellulose and rumen fluid.

"Energy is produced as the bacteria break down cellulose, which is one of the most abundant resources on our planet," said Rismani-Yazdi.

The research -- led by Professors Olli Tuovinen and Ann Christy -- was reported this week in Boston during a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Poison Ivy and Global Warming

This has got to be one of the most ridiculous stories I have heard about global warming recently. Yesterday on the NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, there was a news segment about a bumper poison ivy crop this year. The culprit for the bumper crop? Global Warming! The increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making the poison ivy grow more aggressively. Well! What do you know! Are there any complaints about other green plants that are growing better because of the increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Nooooo!

And then there is this radio and TV commercial by California's ISO Flex Your Power energy efficiency marketing and outreach campaign. The idea of our leaving our kids and grandkids a world that is experiencing the effects of global warming because we didn't do enough about it is ridiculous. Yes, yes, the earth's temperature has gone up a degree celcius or so. But it is not a given fact that the earth is going to stay that way forever.

One of the questions I have been asking is if we are dead certain that there is going to be a serious crisis because of global warming, why are we wasting our time trying to do things that will not have any significant impact on the earth's temperatures, instead of doing something like try to come up with solutions that will help us live through global warming without having to alter our lifestyles drastically? For example, if global warming is going to cause serious droughts in a lot of places, why are we not trying to do something about using sea water to irrigate our farms and provide the water we need if rivers do dry up? How about those ice bound places in the world? What about planning on using those places to grow our crops so we won't be faced with food shortages due to devasted farmlands?

It is hard to get people excited about doing something to reduce global warming when people have no idea what exactly it is going to be liked. Man is adaptable, and if we do indeed have to live through global warming, I am sure that we would not just sit around and moan about our situation. We will do whatever we have to do to survive.

This article called Read the Sunspots by R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON is something to ponder about. The relationship of the fluctuating sun's brightness and the temperatures of the earth were clearly evident by the analysis of the coring samples taken from the bottom of deep Western Canadian fjords. According to Patterson "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."

The science of climate change is not settled yet eventhough many would like to think so. In the words of Patterson, "Climate-change research is now literally exploding with new findings".

Global Warming Revisited

Various recent news headlines claim that this has been the world's warmest winter on record. Yeah. So warm that an Artic trek ended prematurely due to frostbite. And yeah, a religious environmental organization had to brave a storm on their climate change trek in March. Even a Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing called "Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a "Warming of the Planet?" had to be postponed due to inclement weather. That last bit was the most ironic of all the recent stories.

Last night I caught the tail end of ABC's broadcast called The Last Days on Earth on The History Channel. Of the seven apocalyptic scenarios presented, one is caused, you guessed it, by global warming. With melting ice caps sea level will rise 40 feet, it was claimed. The scientists featured in the program all concur that global warming is caused by human activity and that it is imperative we, with the leadership of our politicians, reduce CO2 emissions now.

"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," testified Professor Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist ofCarleton University, before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year.

As I watched the global warming scenario of The Last Days on Earth program last night, there was no mention of past warming/cooling climate cycles, and neither was there any data mentioned, even in passing, of what C02 levels were liked in the previous ice ages. Context was sadly lacking.

That is why a recent documentary by UK's Channel 4 called The Great Global Warming Swindle is so timely. We have been bombarded by hysterical claims of global warming from mainstream media and it is easy to fall into the doom and gloom crowd. Here is a documentary filled with scientific data and quotes from experts on climate science to counter the alarmist environmentalist propaganda that is so widespread in the media.

According to this documentary, CO2 emissions caused by human activity is very small compared to those caused by animals, dead leaves and the sea itself. The data provided in this documentary shows that CO2 levels follow temperature not the other way around.

The idea that man can control the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is simply preposterous to me. Moreover, CO2 is a necessary gas for life on this planet and for anyone to call it a pollutant simply shows his/her ignorance.

It is always interesting to follow the global warming debate. It is very much like a debate on the merits of the different religions. It can get downright dirty! Michael Crichton, well-known author, even suggested that Environmentalism has become a religion for the urban aethiests. Facts are becoming unnecessary in the global warming debate because like religion it has to do with one's faith and beliefs.

Be informed and not fall prey to the global warming alarmists.

Global Warming Hysterics

"I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future."
Ellen Goodman

Ellen Goodman wrote that in her column with The Boston Globe. So I guess,by her definition, I am as bad as those people who deny that the Holocaust ever occured because I don't buy into the global warming hype.

All I know is that earth's temperature has gone up by less than 1 degree celcius in the last century. That, to me, is no cause for alarm. I don't buy into the hype that the warming is "most likely" caused by human activity. The temperature on Mars is said to be rising too, and there are no Martians there to cause any green house gas emissions!

The role of the sun in contributing to the rise in earth's temperature has almost been totally ignored. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, in a research study, claim that the "sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures".

So what if Earth's temperature is rising? Earth is in a constant state of flux - cooling and warming have been a constant in Earth's history. A few degrees warmer than it is today is not all bad. Thomas Gale Moore, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, in summarizing his paper, Warmer Days and Longer Lives, says that " the evidence supports overwhelmingly the proposition that, during warm periods, humans have prospered. They multiplied more rapidly; they lived longer; and they were healthier. If the IPCC is right and the globe does warm, history suggests that human health is likely to improve."

How about this article and this, to counter the global warming hysteria? A "mini ice age"? By all accounts, a mini ice age is more to be feared than global warming.

"Climate science is extraordinarily complex because it is dependent upon the gathering and interpretation of millions of data points. If the National Weather Service has trouble predicting tomorrow’s weather, how can anyone forecast a change in global climate a few years hence?" Ruth Curry

Climate Change Scare

Time Magazine had an issue called Be Worried. Be Very Worried. Al Gore has a movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Former President Bill Clinton even claims that the Republican Party's environmental policies are going to lead to more hurricanes.

We read and hear so much of the hysteria over global warming/climate change. What we hardly ever hear is that when it comes to earth's climate there is not much that man can do to alter it. Man may affect it a little but change? Earth has gone through cold and hot cycles throughout its life without man having to lift a finger.

The following column on CanadaFreePress, expresses the sentiments of a lot of people who don't buy into the climate change hysteria.

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"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists
By Tom Harris
Monday, June 12, 2006

"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?

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. Wibjörn Karlén, 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 Karlén 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," Karlén 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."

Karlén 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 Karlén

Dr. 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.

Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company. He can be reached at letters@canadafreepress.com