The global warming cycle has repeated itself throughout the earths history when there weren't any humans on the earth. In my opinion this global warming panic is just a way to scare people into buying expensive carbon credits which I think is a fraud aimed to line the people selling the credits pockets with gold. In the long run some of the ideas that these global warming extremists are going to force some of the people living in the poorer nations of the world to starve to death.
It just creates a bunch of jobs.....there are alot of things that create jobs for no good reason other than to move $$....preferably into ones pocket......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Faster Arctic melting surprises scientists Some fear globe now past tipping point BY SETH BORENSTEIN The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years. Greenland’s ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer’s end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press. “The Arctic is screaming,” said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government’s snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo. Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040. This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.” So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst-case scenarios presented by computer models? “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming,” said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. “Now, as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines.” It is the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, responsible for man-made global warming. For the past several days, government diplomats have been debating in Bali, Indonesia, the outlines of a new climate treaty calling for tougher limits on these gases. What happens in the Arctic has implications for the rest of the world. Faster melting there means eventual sea level rise and more immediate changes in winter weather because of less sea ice. In the United States, a weakened Arctic blast moving south to collide with moist air from the Gulf of Mexico can mean less rain and snow in some areas, including the drought-stricken Southeast, said Michael MacCracken, a former federal climate scientist who now heads the nonprofit Climate Institute. Some regions, such as Colorado, would likely get extra rain or snow. More than 18 scientists told The AP that they were surprised by the level of ice melt this year. “I don’t pay much attention to one year … but this year the change is so big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you’ve got to stop and say, ‘What is going on here?’ You can’t look away from what’s happening here,” said Waleed Abdalati, NASA’s chief of cyrospheric sciences. “This is going to be a watershed year.” 2007 shattered records for Arctic melt in the following ways: 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA today. That’s 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005’s record. A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That’s nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It’s an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated. The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. Another first: the Northwest Passage was open to navigation. Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004’s total. Alaska’s frozen permafrost is warming, not quite thawing yet. But temperature measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly four-tenths of a degree from 2006 to 2007, according to measurements from the University of Alaska. While that may not sound like much, “it’s very significant,” said University of Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky.
Faster Arctic melting surprises scientists Some fear globe now past tipping point BY SETH BORENSTEIN The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years. Greenland’s ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer’s end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press. “The Arctic is screaming,” said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government’s snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo. Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040. This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.” So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst-case scenarios presented by computer models? “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming,” said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. “Now, as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines.” It is the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, responsible for man-made global warming. For the past several days, government diplomats have been debating in Bali, Indonesia, the outlines of a new climate treaty calling for tougher limits on these gases. What happens in the Arctic has implications for the rest of the world. Faster melting there means eventual sea level rise and more immediate changes in winter weather because of less sea ice. In the United States, a weakened Arctic blast moving south to collide with moist air from the Gulf of Mexico can mean less rain and snow in some areas, including the drought-stricken Southeast, said Michael MacCracken, a former federal climate scientist who now heads the nonprofit Climate Institute. Some regions, such as Colorado, would likely get extra rain or snow. More than 18 scientists told The AP that they were surprised by the level of ice melt this year. “I don’t pay much attention to one year … but this year the change is so big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you’ve got to stop and say, ‘What is going on here?’ You can’t look away from what’s happening here,” said Waleed Abdalati, NASA’s chief of cyrospheric sciences. “This is going to be a watershed year.” 2007 shattered records for Arctic melt in the following ways: 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA today. That’s 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005’s record. A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That’s nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It’s an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated. The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. Another first: the Northwest Passage was open to navigation. Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004’s total. Alaska’s frozen permafrost is warming, not quite thawing yet. But temperature measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly four-tenths of a degree from 2006 to 2007, according to measurements from the University of Alaska. While that may not sound like much, “it’s very significant,” said University of Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky.
Skeptical Scientists Urge World To ‘Have the Courage to Do Nothing' At UN Conference
BALI, Indonesia - An international team of scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore, descended on Bali this week to urge the world to "have the courage to do nothing" in response to UN demands.
Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher, had a blunt message for UN climate conference participants on Monday.
"Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants.
"The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,)" Monckton added. (LINK)
Monckton also noted that the UN has not been overly welcoming to the group of skeptical scientists.
"UN organizers refused my credentials and appeared desperate that I should not come to this conference. They have also made several attempts to interfere with our public meetings," Monckton explained.
"It is a circus here," agreed Australian scientist Dr. David Evans. Evans is making scientific presentations to delegates and journalists at the conference revealing the latest peer-reviewed studies that refute the UN's climate claims.
"This is the most lavish conference I have ever been to, but I am only a scientist and I actually only go to the science conferences," Evans said, noting the luxury of the tropical resort. (Note: An analysis by Bloomberg News on December 6 found: "Government officials and activists flying to Bali, Indonesia, for the United Nations meeting on climate change will cause as much pollution as 20,000 cars in a year." - LINK)
Evans, a mathematician who did carbon accounting for the Australian government, recently converted to a skeptical scientist about man-made global warming after reviewing the new scientific studies. (LINK)
"We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don't cause global warming. We have the missing [human] signature [in the atmosphere], we have the IPCC models being wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years," Evans said in an interview with the Inhofe EPW Press Blog. Evans authored a November 28 2007 paper "Carbon Emissions Don't Cause Global Warming." (LINK)
Evans touted a new peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists appearing in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society which found "Warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence." (LINK)
"Most of the people here have jobs that are very well paid and they depend on the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. They are not going to be very receptive to the idea that well actually the science has gone off in a different direction," Evans explained.
[Inhofe EPW Press Blog Note: Several other recent peer-reviewed studies have cast considerable doubt about man-made global warming fears. For most recent sampling see: New Peer-Reviewed Study finds 'Solar changes significantly alter climate' (11-3-07) (LINK) & "New Peer-Reviewed Study Halves the Global Average Surface Temperature Trend 1980 - 2002" (LINK) & New Study finds Medieval Warm Period '0.3C Warmer than 20th Century' (LINK) For a more comprehensive sampling of peer-reviewed studies earlier in 2007 see "New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears" LINK ]
‘IPCC is unsound'
UN IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports since its inception going back to 1990, had a clear message to UN participants.
"There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any effect whatsoever on the climate," Gray, who shares in the Nobel Prize awarded to the UN IPCC, explained. (LINK)
"All the science of the IPCC is unsound. I have come to this conclusion after a very long time. If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails," Gray, who wrote the book "The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001," said.
"It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics, and the mathematics," he added.
‘Dangerous time for science'
Evans, who believes the UN has heavily politicized science, warned there is going to be a "dangerous time for science" ahead.
"We have a split here. Official science driven by politics, money and power, goes in one direction. Unofficial science, which is more determined by what is actually happening with the [climate] data, has now started to move off in a different direction" away from fears of a man-made climate crisis, Evans explained.
"The two are splitting. This is always a dangerous time for science and a dangerous time for politics. Historically science always wins these battles but there can be a lot of causalities and a lot of time in between," he concluded.
Carbon trading ‘fraud?'
New Zealander Bryan Leland of the International Climate Science Coalition warned participants that all the UN promoted discussions of "carbon trading" should be viewed with suspicion.
"I am an energy engineer and I know something about electricity trading and I know enough about carbon trading and the inaccuracies of carbon trading to know that carbon trading is more about fraud than it is about anything else," Leland said.
"We should probably ask why we have 10,000 people here [in Bali] in a futile attempt to ‘solve' a [climate] problem that probably does not exist," Leland added.
‘Simply not work'
Owen McShane, the head of the International Climate Science Coalition, also worried that a UN promoted global approach to economics would mean financial ruin for many nations.
"I don't think this conference can actually achieve anything because it seems to be saying that we are going to draw up one protocol for every country in the world to follow," McShane said. (LINK)
"Now these countries and these economies are so diverse that trying to presume you can put all of these feet into one shoe will simply not work," McShane explained.
"Having the same set of rules apply to everybody will blow some economies apart totally while others will be unscathed and I wouldn't be surprised if the ones who remain unscathed are the ones who write the rules," he added.
‘Nothing happening at this conference'
Professor Dr. William Alexander, emeritus of the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a former member of the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, warned poor nations and their residents that the UN policies could mean more poverty and thus more death.
"My message is specifically for the poor people of Africa. And there is nothing happening at this conference that can help them one little bit but there is the potential that they could be damaged," Alexander said. (LINK)
"The government and people of Africa will have their attention drawn to reducing climate change instead of reducing poverty," Alexander added.
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Thursday, December 13, 2007
BALI, Indonesia -- European nations on Thursday threatened to boycott U.S.-led climate talks next month unless Washington accepts a range of numbers for negotiating deep reductions of global-warming emissions at a U.N. conference here.
The move raised the stakes as delegates from nearly 190 nations entered final-hour talks on Bali aimed at launching negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The United States, Japan and several other governments refuse to accept language in a draft document suggesting that industrialized nations consider cutting emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020, saying specific targets would limit the scope of future talks. The European Union and others say the figures reflect the measures scientists say are needed to rein in global warming and head off predictions of rising sea levels, worsening floods and droughts, and the extinction of plant and animal species. "No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting," said Sigmar Gabriel, top EU environment official from Germany, referring to a series of separate climate talks initiated by President Bush in September. "This is the clear position of the EU. I do not know what we should talk about if there is no target." The U.S. invited 16 other major economies, including European countries, Japan, China and India, to discuss a program of what are expected to be nationally determined, voluntary cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions. The Bush administration views the major economies process as the main vehicle for determining future steps by the U.S. -- and it hopes by others -- to slow emissions. But environmentalists accuse the U.S. of trying to undermine the U.N. process. The talks in Bali are scheduled to wrap up Friday. U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said he was worried the U.S.-EU deadlock could derail the process and that a final "Bali roadmap" would contain an agreement to negotiate a new climate deal by 2009, but may not include specific targets for emission reductions. "I'm very concerned about the pace of things," he said. "If we don't get wording on the future, then the whole house of cards falls to pieces." The United States delegation said while it continues to reject inclusion of specific emission cut targets, it hopes eventually to reach an agreement that is "environmentally effective" and "economically sustainable." But haggling over numbers now was counterproductive, said Jim Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The United States is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the only major industrial country to have rejected Kyoto, which expires in 2012. It has been on the defensive since the conference kicked off on Dec. 3. Pressure has come even from a one-time ally on climate, Australia, whose new prime minister urged Washington to "embrace" binding targets, and from former Vice President Al Gore, who won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for helping alert the world to the danger of climate change. But U.S. Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky, the head of the American delegation, told reporters that the conference was simply the start of negotiations, not the end."We don't have to resolve all these issues ... here in Bali," she said. That did not satisfy environmentalists, who accused Washington of standing in the way of a meaningful deal -- and not just on the inclusion of emissions targets. In the end, however, all parties agree it is vital that the U.S. is on board. "Everyone wants the United States in so badly that they will be willing to accept some level of ambiguity in the negotiations," said Greenpeace energy expert John Coequyt. "Our worry is that we will end up with a deal that is unacceptable from an environmental perspective." The Kyoto Protocol requires 37 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by a relatively modest average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Bush has argued that the pact would harm the U.S. economy and cutbacks should have been imposed on poorer but fast-developing nations such as China and India.
Dec 12, 2007 Snowcover Increased Rapidly Even Before December By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM
Even before the flurry of snow and ice storms in December, the hemispheric snowcover rapidly increased in November so by the end of the month (week 48 of the year), we were above the average shown in the red dashed line according to Rutger’s Snowlab. In fact we already ranked 15th highest in the 42 years records have been kept. With the snow so far this month and expected in the next week, we will rise in the rankings.
Of course, the AGW PR machine picks these times when the last thing on people’s mind is global warming, as they sit in the dark and cold ice covered homes to issue press releases (http://news.aol.com/story/_a/accelerating-arctic-melt-worries-experts/20071211220409990001) warning the arctic melting is accelerating with potentially disastrous consequences. The young scientists and agenda driven journalists and politicans have no sense of history. This has happened before - most recently in the 1930s to 1950s and relates to ocean warming cycles and not greenhouse gases. Never a mention of nor any explanation for the record high ice extent in Antarctica at the same time.
Let’s hope they return from their junket to Bali and find their driveway looking like this.
Dec 11, 2007 Whatever Happened to Solar Power? By Michael Schirber, LiveScience
Over the course of a day, the amount of energy in sunlight striking the continental United States is more than 2,500 times the amount of the nation’s daily electricity consumption. Despite this potential, solar power is far behind other renewables, making up just 0.07 percent of the U.S. energy portfolio, according to the Department of Energy.
Almost all cells in current use are made of silicon. Although silicon is abundant in sand, it must be processed to make it usable in solar cells and computer chips. In fact, the current high demand from the electronics industry for silicon wafers has caused a shortage of high-grade silicon, which means the solar industry could have even more trouble trying to become competitive.
For a typical home’s electricity needs, the cost of solar panels is several tens of thousands of dollars. Over the lifetime of the panels, this works out to about 30 cents per kilowatt hour, three times what most utilities charge. To reduce this price, much of the current engineering effort is focused on making solar cells from thin films that either use less silicon or replace it with other photovoltaic materials. many experts think this should be the first goal of research and development.
Solar panels were talked about 30+ years ago. It was the big thing. If you listened to the promoters of the solar panels, you would think that they would be everywhere today. NOT!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
There is a new type of solar panel that is very light and very thin like a thick sheet of plastic and it can be put on right over your roof and it will generate more heat and electricity than the old types of solar panels. Maybe in the future we'll be using them to conserve energy.
Stampedes killing walruses As the sea ice shrinks, animals crowd on land BY DAN JOLING The Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — In what some scientists see as another alarming consequence of global warming, thousands of Pacific walruses above the Arctic Circle were killed in stampedes earlier this year after the disappearance of sea ice caused them to crowd onto the shoreline in extraordinary numbers. The deaths took place during the late summer and fall on the Russian side of the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia. “It was a pretty sobering year — tough on walruses,” said Joel Garlach-Miller, a walrus expert for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Unlike seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely. The giant, tusked mammals typically clamber onto the sea ice to rest, or haul themselves onto land for just a few weeks at a time. But ice disappeared in the Chukchi Sea this year because of warm summer weather, ocean currents and persistent eastern winds, Garlach-Miller said. As a result, walruses came ashore earlier and stayed longer, congregating in extremely high numbers, with herds as big as 40,000 at Point Shmidt, a spot that had not been used by walruses as a “haulout” for a century, scientists said. Walruses are vulnerable to stampedes when they gather in such large numbers. The appearance of a polar bear, a hunter or a low-fl ying airplane can send them rushing to the water. Sure enough, scientists received reports of hundreds and hundreds of walruses dead of internal injuries suffered in stampedes. Many of the youngest and weakest animals, mostly calves born in the spring, were crushed. Biologist Anatoly Kochnev of Russia’s Pacific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography estimated 3,000 to 4,000 walruses out of population of perhaps 200,000 died, or two or three times the usual number on shoreline haulouts. He said the animals only started appearing on shore for extended periods in the late 1990s, after the sea ice receded. “The reason is the global warming,” Kochnev said. The reports match predictions of what might happen to walruses if the ice receded, said wildlife biologist Tony Fischbach of the U.S. Geological Survey. “We were surprised that this was happening so soon, and we were surprised at the magnitude of the report,” he said. Scientists said the death of so many walruses — particularly calves — is alarming in itself. But if the trend continues, and walruses no longer have summer sea ice from which to dive for clams and snails, they could strip coastal areas of food, and that could reduce their numbers even further. No large-scale walrus die-offs were seen in Alaska during the same period, apparently because the animals congregated in smaller groups on the American side of the Bering Strait, with the biggest known herd at about 2,500.
Maybe this hasn't been a result of global warming, but more of a result of survival of the fittest and increased hunting regulations? Don't you think that before PETA was around these were getting hunted off much more? And here's an idea, if you have an overpopulation of a creature climbing onto an ice ridge, wouldn't that effectively push the ice down into the water, hence melting the ice from the bottom, and making the ice thinner, therefore breaking off and giving them less room, therefore pushing them closer together and easier to hunt?
And let me guess, give a few months and you'll see these same walruses dying of disease, since the hunters didn't take the dead bodies away and the carcasses become diseased and get eaten off by the surviving walruses?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Global warming forces may target beer, bread First published: Sunday, December 30, 2007
For those who are in haste to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, please consider other sources of the gas:
The head on your beer is produced by carbon dioxide, as are the bubbles in the multimillion soft drinks consumed daily. We produce millions of tons of carbon dioxide in order to have the buzz in carbonated beverages. The holes in a loaf of bread are produced by fermentation. Otherwise, a loaf of bread would be as flat as a pancake. The same is true of cakes and other delights. A host of atmospheric scientists contend this gas is not a contributor to global warming. The socialists of the world and also in this country will have us consuming flat beverages, flat cookies and bread. Where will they end their false crusade? KEN PARKINSON Rensselaer
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