When London is submerged and New York is awash...

[Don Klipstein]

In article <10uneem3ttggj1b@corp.supernews.com>, Guy Macon wrote in part:

Other famous quotes that never were:

The Bible: "The Lion shall lay down with the lamb."

What the bible actually said: The wolf and the lamb shall lie down
together, and the lion shall eat straw.

The Bible: "Eve ate the apple."

The fruit of the tree of good and evil was not specified in the bible,
but the bible does say that Eve ate it and shared it with Adam.

- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

 

[Guy Macon]

Lets look atbthose CO2 figures again:

year CO2 max min
ppmv val val

2000 369 372 367 Source: Mauna Loa
1995 361 364 358 Observatory, Hawaii
1990 354 357 351
1985 346 349 343
1980 339 341 336
1975 331 334 328
1970 326 328 323
1965 320 322 318
1960 317 320 314
----------------------
-2000 274 279 269 Source: Vostok ice core
-4000 270 278 257
-7000 252 262 239
-8000 257 262 252
-9000 259 266 252
-14000 245 250 235
-18000 193 198 183


Note on Vostok ice core data: "These measurements indicate
that, at the beginning of the deglaciations, the CO2
increase either was in phase or lagged by less than ~1000
years with respect to the Antarctic temperature, whereas
it clearly lagged behind the temperature at the onset of
the glaciations."

Source: _Historical carbon dioxide record from the Vostok
ice core_, J.M. Barnola, D. Raynaud, C. Lorius, Laboratoire
de Glaciologie et de Géophysique de l'Environnement, France ,
N.I. Barkov, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Russia

"High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that
carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts
per million by volume 600 +/- 400 years after the warming
of the last three deglaciations."

Source: _Ice Core Records of Atmospheric CO2 Around the
Last Three Glacial Terminations_ Hubertus Fischer, Martin
Wahlen, Jesse Smith, Derek Mastroianni, and Bruce Deck,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Science, 283, 1712-1714

Fact #1: The CO2 has been rising for 18,000 years.

Fact #2: The CO2 changes *lag behind* the temperature changes.

Fact #3: Causes do not happen after effects.

Conclusion: The CO2 rise cannot possibly be the cause of the
temperature rise. The temperature rise might be the cause of
the CO2 rise, or they might both be effects of some third
factor (like solar output).

 

[Guy Macon]

The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame
By Michael Leidig and Roya Nikkhah (18 July 2004)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting
hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time
during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing
radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate
changes.

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck
Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who
led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over
the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

"The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few
hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively
recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."

Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of
"greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to
the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to
say which had the greater impact.

Average global temperatures have increased by about 0.2 deg
Celsius over the past 20 years and are widely believed to be
responsible for new extremes in weather patterns. After pressure
from environmentalists, politicians agreed the Kyoto Protocol in
1997, promising to limit greenhouse gas emissions between 2008
and 2012. Britain ratified the protocol in 2002 and said it would
cut emissions by 12.5 per cent from 1990 levels.

Globally, 1997, 1998 and 2002 were the hottest years since
worldwide weather records were first collated in 1860.

Most scientists agree that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels
have contributed to the warming of the planet in the past few
decades but have questioned whether a brighter Sun is also
responsible for rising temperatures.

To determine the Sun's role in global warming, Dr Solanki's
research team measured magnetic zones on the Sun's surface known
as sunspots, which are believed to intensify the Sun's energy
output.

The team studied sunspot data going back several hundred years.
They found that a dearth of sunspots signalled a cold period -
which could last up to 50 years - but that over the past century
their numbers had increased as the Earth's climate grew steadily
warmer. The scientists also compared data from ice samples
collected during an expedition to Greenland in 1991. The most
recent samples contained the lowest recorded levels of beryllium
10 for more than 1,000 years. Beryllium 10 is a particle created
by cosmic rays that decreases in the Earth's atmosphere as the
magnetic energy from the Sun increases. Scientists can currently
trace beryllium 10 levels back 1,150 years.

Dr Solanki does not know what is causing the Sun to burn brighter
now or how long this cycle would last.

He says that the increased solar brightness over the past 20
years has not been enough to cause the observed climate changes
but believes that the impact of more intense sunshine on the
ozone layer and on cloud cover could be affecting the climate
more than the sunlight itself.

Dr Bill Burrows, a climatologist and a member of the Royal
Meteorological Society, welcomed Dr Solanki's research. "While
the established view remains that the sun cannot be responsible
for all the climate changes we have seen in the past 50 years or
so, this study is certainly significant," he said.

"It shows that there is enough happening on the solar front to
merit further research. Perhaps we are devoting too many
resources to correcting human effects on the climate without
being sure that we are the major contributor."

Dr David Viner, the senior research scientist at the University
of East Anglia's climatic research unit, said the research showed
that the sun did have an effect on global warming.

He added, however, that the study also showed that over the past
20 years the number of sunspots had remained roughly constant,
while the Earth's temperature had continued to increase.

This suggested that over the past 20 years, human activities such
as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation had begun to
dominate "the natural factors involved in climate change", he
said.

Dr Gareth Jones, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said
that Dr Solanki's findings were inconclusive because the study
had not incorporated other potential climate change factors.

"The Sun's radiance may well have an impact on climate change but
it needs to be looked at in conjunction with other factors such
as greenhouse gases, sulphate aerosols and volcano activity," he
said. The research adds weight to the views of David Bellamy, the
conservationist. "Global warming - at least the modern nightmare
version - is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it and so are a
growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that
the world's politicians and policy-makers are not.

"Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has,
unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the
environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release
increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called
greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to
heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is
poppycock."

Source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/
18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html
(Put it all on one line)

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 06:33:39 +0000, Guy Macon
<_see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_> wrote:

Conclusion: The CO2 rise cannot possibly be the cause of the
temperature rise. The temperature rise might be the cause of
the CO2 rise, or they might both be effects of some third
factor (like solar output).

See:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13

Jon

 

[Guy Macon]

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

Guy Macon wrote:

Conclusion: The CO2 rise cannot possibly be the cause of the
temperature rise. The temperature rise might be the cause of
the CO2 rise, or they might both be effects of some third
factor (like solar output).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13

Let me make sure I know the rules here. Previously you wrote:

"The web page mentioned is NOT peer-reviewed, nor is it
science. It is someone's opinion. I will debate them
*if* you bring them here to debate. ... I've learned a
long time ago that there is no point in debating an
opinion on a web page. It's futile. I'll argue with
someone who can argue back. But not with a web page.
There's no profit in that."

So now all of that is out the window and it IS ok to reference
web pages? I just want to know what the rules are here.

As it turns out, you picked a VERY interesting web page.
leaving asid the gaping holes in the argument it contains,
let's do a bit of domain registration research:

Domain Name:REALCLIMATE.ORG
Environmental Media Services
1320 18th St NW #500
Washington DC 20036

Domain Name:EMS.ORG
Environmental Media Services
1320 18th St NW #500
Washington DC 20036

Domain Name: FENTON.COM
Fenton Communications
1320 18th St. NW
Washington, DC 20036

Domain Name:BUSHGREENWATCH.ORG
Fenton Communications
1320 18th St, NW 5th Flr
Washington, DC 20036
(But the website says "BushGreenwatch is a project
of Environmental Media Services, with support from
MoveOn.org)...

So, Environmental Media Services is Fenton
Communications.

And Fento advertises the following service:

"Strategic Research
Got a smart strategy? Fenton can help you prove it.
We design, organize and execute critical research to
enhance your message and target its delivery. From
background research on your issue to message testing
through focus groups and polling surveys, Fenton will
guide your efforts by helping you:

Understand your target audiences and what moves them

Make the strongest case for your cause using hard evidence

Identify and counter opposition arguments

Pre-test messages to ensure effectiveness"

Hmmm. what does all of the above really mean?
Here is what is going on:

--------------------------------------------

Profile:
Environmental Media Services/Fenton Communications

Websites:
http://www.ems.org
http://www.fenton.com/
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/
http://www.realclimate.org/
http://www.fenton.com/services/stratres.asp


If you've ever been advised to steer clear of a food, beverage, or other
consumer product based on the claims of a nonprofit organization, you've
likely been "spun" by Fenton's multi-million-dollar message machine -- and
Environmental Media Services (EMS) has probably been the messenger.
EMS is the communications arm of leftist public relations firm Fenton
Communications. Based in Washington, in the same office suite as Fenton,
EMS claims to be "providing journalists with the most current information
on environmental issues." A more accurate assessment might be that it
spoon-feeds the news media sensationalized stories, based on questionable
science, and featuring activist "experts," all designed to promote and
enrich David Fenton's paying clients, and build credibility for the
nonprofit ones. It's a clever racket, and EMS & Fenton have been running it
since 1994.

Tired of being nagged about which fish are politically correct to eat?
Fretting about choosing the "right" catch of the day? You just might be
under the influence of SeaWeb and the Natural Resources Defense Council
(both Fenton clients), and their "Give Swordfish a Break!" campaign,
communicated for over two years by the trusty flacks at EMS. Never mind
that Rebecca Lent of the National Marine Fisheries Service said that
Atlantic swordfish "are not considered endangered." The point was to make
SeaWeb and NRDC more believable and trusted when the next big enviro-agenda
came along.

Freaked out about so-called "Frankenfoods"? Worried that biotech corn will
make you glow in the dark? You've probably been exposed to something
harmful, all right -- EMS's anti-biotech message, approved and bankrolled
by the large segment of the "natural" and organic foods industry that
relies on Fenton Communications for its publicity. These include Whole
Foods Markets, Green Mountain Coffee, Honest Tea, Kashi Cereal, and Rodale
Press, a magazine publisher (Organic Style, Organic Gardening, and many
more) that makes millions off of the misguided notion that organic foods
are safer to eat than their conventional or biotech counterparts. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture's position, by the way, is crystal clear. Former
USDA Secretary Dan Glickman has said that "[j]ust because something is
labeled as ‘organic' does not mean it is superior, safer, or more healthy
than conventional food."

Afraid to eat dairy products from cows that have been treated with hormones
to produce extra milk? Scared that the hormone, which the FDA calls
"entirely safe," will make its way into your body and cause cancer or other
irreparable damage? Beginning with a huge press conference in 1998, EMS
pushed that very message relentlessly for over two years. And they did it
on behalf of Ben & Jerry's, a paying Fenton client. Why would Ben & Jerry's
care? Because their ice cream is made with hormone-free milk, and David
Fenton calculated that a little health hysteria would drive customers to
their "alternative" product quite nicely.

It's called "black marketing," and Environmental Media Services has become
the principal reason Fenton Communications is so good at it. EMS lends an
air of legitimacy to what might otherwise be dismissed (and rightly so) as
fear-mongering from the lunatic fringe. In addition to pre-packaged "story
ideas" for the mass media, EMS provides commentaries, briefing papers, and
even a stable of experts, all carefully calculated to win points for paying
clients. These "experts," though, are also part of the ruse. Over 70% of
them earn their paychecks from current or past Fenton clients, all of which
have a financial stake in seeing to it that the scare tactics prevail. It's
a clever deception perpetrated on journalists who generally don't consider
do-gooder environmentalists to be capable of such blatant and duplicitous
"spin."

The first rule of this game is that it's strictly pay-for-play. For a
price, you too can promote your product by maligning the competition with
junk-science smear tactics. To Fenton Communications, you'll be a "client";
down the hall at EMS, though, you'll join the ranks of its "project
partners." And nobody will be the wiser.

Surely by now you know that money makes the world go ‘round, and the globe
doesn't stop spinning for Environmental Media Services just because it
calls itself "nonprofit." EMS exists to make money. It turns a profit for
Fenton Communications by improving the bottom lines of a wide variety of
Fenton clients. Understanding how the money changes hands, though, requires
a shift in focus from Washington to San Francisco, where the Tides
Foundation is based.

The Tides Foundation is an unusual philanthropy in many ways, not the least
of which is that it gives away other foundations' money. Corporations,
individuals, and other foundations can all use Tides as a pass-through
vehicle, "designating" that their cash be funneled to tax-exempt third
parties. Tides is also unusual in that it runs its own "incubator" for
these nonprofit entities, a subsidiary called the Tides Center that runs
the day-to-day operations of new activist groups so they can focus on
making life difficult for the rest of us. The end result is a "foundation"
that uses its own tax-exemption as a sort of blanket coverage for
newly-formed nonprofits (all of them left-of-center), while funding them
with money that originates somewhere else.

In this arrangement, startup activist groups don't have to risk being
turned down when they ask the IRS for tax-exempt status: they just ride
piggy-back on Tides's exemption, giving them the same privileges extended
to churches and universities without having to satisfy any real
requirements. And big-money donors with anti-corporate or anti-consumer
leanings can readily fund the lunatic fringe without having to disclose
where their money went. They only need mention in their tax returns that a
donation was made to the Tides Center, and their legal obligations are
fulfilled. One more curious side effect of this deal is that
newly-incubated activist groups (what Tides calls "projects") can appear to
have absolutely no expenses of their own for employees, lobbyists, or
fundraising contractors, as Tides officially cuts all the checks.

So while Environmental Media Services was started, and is still run, by
staffers of Fenton Communications, it was officially instituted as a
"project" of the Tides Center in 1994. This gave Fenton some plausible
deniability and initially shielded him from the suggestion that EMS was
just a shill for his clients. It has also provided a ready-made funding
mechanism for foundations, "progressive" companies, and other Fenton
clients who don't want their contributions to EMS noted for the public
record [Editor's note: despite the logistical roadblocks set up by Tides,
our research still has been able to reverse-engineer several million
dollars in foundation grants to EMS].

Of course, anyone ingenious enough to invent such a scheme is also probably
crafty enough to abuse it as well. Consider that the Tides Center paid EMS
president Arlie Schardt over $115,000 in 1998. Fair enough, since he was
technically a Tides employee, in addition to being the "Senior Counselor"
at Fenton Communications and a board member at Friends of the Earth. But
that doesn't explain the $583,727 that Tides paid to Fenton that same year,
which was designated as "public relations" expenses in Tides's tax return.
You see, Tides has never "officially" been a Fenton client, as that would
appear to be a huge conflict. The Fenton Communications web site doesn't
list Tides as a current or former client either. So what was the
half-million-dollar payout for?

We may never find out. But we do know that in the past three tax years
(1998-2000), the for-profit companies "eGrants," Seventh Generation, and
Working Assets (which sells long-distance phone service and brokers credit
cards), have each put over $1 million into Tides. They are all, by the way,
clients of Fenton Communications. So are big-money foundations like the Pew
Charitable Trusts, the David & Lucille Packard Foundation, and the John
Merck Fund. Together, they have contributed another $1.6 million (that we
know of) to EMS, using Tides as a money-funnel.

The big picture, then, is a quasi-money-laundering scheme worthy of a name
like "Tides" (apologies to Procter & Gamble). Fenton Communications'
for-profit and foundation clients put massive amounts of cash into Tides,
and enjoy a healthy tax write-off for their trouble. Tides turns around and
makes huge "grants" to Fenton's nonprofit clients, including the
Environmental Working Group, Natural Resources Defense Council, and SeaWeb
(just to name a few). Tides also funds EMS, which David Fenton uses as a
mouthpiece in order to promote fear campaigns which benefit his other
for-profit clients. EMS makes good use of the "experts" who haunt the halls
of Fenton's nonprofit clients. Tides pays everyone's salary, and even sends
the odd half million dollars to Fenton Communication for its trouble.

The remarkable thing here is that this is all legal, and that it takes this
much concentrated duplicity to produce an effective food scare.

In December of 1998, Environmental Media Services (with several Fenton
Communications staffers in tow) held a press conference with guests
including activist representatives from the Center for Food Safety and the
Consumers Union. Before news cameras and dozens of reporters, this panel of
"experts" warned that "recombinant" Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) given to
cows would render milk harmful to humans, and even cancerous. The Boston
Globe, the New York Times, and ABC News (among others) all ran stories
based on this "breaking news" event suggesting that American consumers
should be suspicious of any dairy products associated with rBGH.

Not surprisingly, the press event produced by EMS made no mention of the
fact that Ben & Jerry's was both a Fenton client and a major stakeholder in
the debate. Just one year earlier, Ben & Jerry's had made headlines (again,
with a wind-assist from EMS) with a legal settlement in which it would be
permitted to use product labels touting its products' lack of rBGH as an
advantage for consumers. Back then, EMS was very open about its
relationship with Ben & Jerry's, sending out press releases touting the ice
cream maker's "legal victory." Fenton Communications knew full well that
its client was interested in painting rBGH-wielding competitors as cancer
conduits, and EMS was happy to oblige.

What they never told you was that Ben & Jerry's also had to agree to a
disclaimer, which still appears on some ice cream cartons today: "The FDA
has said no significant difference has been shown and no test can now
distinguish between milk from rBGH treated and untreated cows."

http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/110

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 06:47:09 +0000, Guy Macon
<_see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_> wrote:

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck
Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who
led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over
the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

Which isn't to say that it is the dominant cause.

And then notes:

He says that the increased solar brightness over the past 20
years has not been enough to cause the observed climate changes

which *is* consistent with what is currently known...

and then adds,

but believes that the impact of more intense sunshine on the
ozone layer and on cloud cover could be affecting the climate
more than the sunlight itself.

....which is speculation.

Jon

 

[Guy Macon]

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

The site I mentioned is maintained by practicing climate
scientists, though,

Bullshit. You clearly failed to read my reply, where I
exposed them as being hired shills for a PR firm.
Go back and read it again. The domain registrations prove it.

and is pretty good.

No it isn't. It sucks. If you can read that pile of crap
and think that it is "good" you are blind. Please at least
*try* to apply the same standards you apply to the websites
you don't agree with. This sort of thing is beneath you.

 

[Guy Macon]

This, coming from a person without standards?

You might be interested in the fact that I killfile those who
engage in personal attacks.

In case you think "This sort of thing is beneath you" was a
personal attack, I don't agree. I think it was an expression
of confidence that the observed behavior was an anomaly and
that you are better than that.

I have a loose three-strikes policy towards personal attacks.

That's one.

 

[keith]

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 23:56:04 +0000, Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:36:43 +0000, Guy Macon
_see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_> wrote:


Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

| Global warming began 18,000 years ago as the earth
| started warming its way out of the Pleistocene Ice Age
| -- a time when much of North America, Europe, and Asia lay buried
| beneath great sheets of glacial ice.

No.

Global warming effects have been present at least since there was
water and CO2 or any similarly asymmetric molecules in the air.
(O2 and N2, for example, have no warming impact.) So global
warming goes back much, much further than a mere 18,000 years ago.

Why are you switching from "Global Warming" to "Global Warming Effects"
and "Global Warming impact"? Global warming means the globe gets warmer.
Ant that has been happening for 18,000 years. Before that there was
global cooling - the globe getting cooler.

And before that there was global warming again. And before that ...

And so on.

I've no idea what you are complaining about.

Perhaps it has something to do with your bleating about man controlling
such things as stars do.

--
Keith

Jon

 

[Don Klipstein]

In article <10v3h6pjp1dncb4@corp.supernews.com>, Guy Macon wrote:

Greens Concede Kyoto Will Not Impact 'Global Warming'
CBS News Service

As in inadequate - something more severe is needed to do more than slow
down global warming a little?

- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

 

[Don Klipstein]

In article <10v3hh0g8evdr8d@corp.supernews.com>, Guy Macon wrote:

UN Storm Brews over Hurricane-Global Warming Link
January 21, 2005 -- By Timothy Gardner, Reuters

NEW YORK -- A U.S. government hurricane scientist has resigned from
the United Nations' science panel on climate change because, he said,
a lead author in the group had too strongly linked global warming to
hurricanes.

Oceans have enough thermal mass to give a thermal time constant of
something like a century. If humans alter the atmosphere in a way that
raises the temperature of the lower atmosphere by a few degrees, it can
take decades afterwards for oceans to heat up enough to make hurricanes
much worse.
Furthermore, hurricanes would only worsen once the oceans have warmed
up at least as much as the upper half of the troposphere has in addition
to getting significantly warmer than they have been in the past few
decades.

- Don Klipstain (don@misty.com)

 

[Don Klipstein]

In article <g3j1v0hl7dcmp3bvm5lb0j03fdi4a891cm@4ax.com>, Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 06:47:09 +0000, Guy Macon
_see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_> wrote:

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck
Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who
led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over
the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

If the Sun is now only recently at a 60 year high, if it continues
upwards in the next 20 years then the next 20 years should have a majority
of the global warming to occur within the period from 60 years ago to 20
years from now.

I thought tyhe Sun was at a historic low in output during the 1970's!

- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 08:30:02 +0000 (UTC), don@manx.misty.com (Don Klipstein)
wrote:

As in inadequate - something more severe is needed to do more than slow
down global warming a little?

Yes, in fact.

Jon

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jonathan Kirwan
<jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote (in <92b5v01jtbm5n76g151f3d4ncnf510hqhp@4
ax.com&gt about 'When London is submerged and New York is awash...', on
Sat, 22 Jan 2005:

For now, we can only say it's a personal dispute about professional
ethics, according to Dr. Landsea.

Typical inter-scientist bitchery. Engineers swear and kick things.
Scientists miaow and scratch.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Paul Burke]

John Woodgate wrote:

Typical inter-scientist bitchery. Engineers swear and kick things.
Scientists miaow and scratch.

I'm definitely in need of a refresher course on swearing. I've run
through all the obvious excretory and sexual ones, tried retro things
like 'sblood! 'snails! Marry! and even foreign ones like Sacre Bleu! and
Merde de Dieu! but nothing seems to get things working these days. And
with typical unit size down from a 19" rackful to a 10mm square PCB,
kicking is getting a lot less satisfying.

Does any British educational establishment run such courses?

Paul Burke

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Paul Burke <paul@scazon.com> wrote
(in <35jtoeF4na0o6U1@individual.net&gt about 'When London is submerged
and New York is awash...', on Mon, 24 Jan 2005:

Does any British educational establishment run such courses?

Every secondary school in the country, and many primary schools.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Richard Henry]

"Guy Macon" <_see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_> wrote in message
news:10v2tfl48dkucec@corp.supernews.com...

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

| Global warming began 18,000 years ago as the earth
| started warming its way out of the Pleistocene Ice Age
| -- a time when much of North America, Europe, and Asia lay buried
| beneath great sheets of glacial ice.

No.

Global warming effects have been present at least since there was
water and CO2 or any similarly asymmetric molecules in the air.
(O2 and N2, for example, have no warming impact.) So global
warming goes back much, much further than a mere 18,000 years ago.

Why are you switching from "Global Warming" to "Global Warming Effects"
and "Global Warming impact"? Global warming means the globe gets warmer.
Ant that has been happening for 18,000 years. Before that there was
global cooling - the globe getting cooler.

Please don't switch topics like that.

Nitpicking noted. Killfiling soon predicted.

 

[Guy Macon]

UN Storm Brews over Hurricane-Global Warming Link
January 21, 2005 -- By Timothy Gardner, Reuters

NEW YORK -- A U.S. government hurricane scientist has resigned from
the United Nations' science panel on climate change because, he said,
a lead author in the group had too strongly linked global warming to
hurricanes.

The issue of whether climate change is leading to increased severity
of hurricanes came to a head late last year at a conference at Harvard
University where researchers, including the school's Dr. Paul Epstein,
said recent storms, droughts and heat waves are probably being caused
by global warming.

The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which evaluates
the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action
concluded in its most recent report that greenhouse gases from autos
and industry contribute to global warming.

Last year's hurricane season produced nine of the storms, six of them
"major" with sustained winds of more than 110 mph . Florida was hit by
four hurricanes, the first time a single state was hit by that many in
one season since 1886.

Oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico are still operating at
reduced rates after September's Hurricane Ivan.

Chris Landsea, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's hurricane research division, said he had resigned
from the U.N's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because a
lead author in the group "gave his own opinion" about the busy 2004
hurricane season at the Harvard conference.

Landsea said Dr. Kevin Trenberth, the lead author and head of climate
analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado,
was introduced at the conference as an IPCC lead author, but then
offered his personal opinions and not those of the IPCC itself.

"I found it perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press
conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was
impacting hurricane activity today," said Landsea in the statement. "I
am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to
which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized," he
added.

Trenberth told Reuters he's never said global warming had anything to
do with the number of hurricanes that hit Florida last year or that it
can increase the frequency of hurricanes.

"What we are suggesting is that when a disturbance does form a
hurricane it's apt to be more intense and there's heavier rainfalls,"
he said.

Sea surface temperatures and rainfall averages have risen, he said,
which provides fuel for hurricanes.

"These are all factors related to global climate change and they're
clearly affecting the environment in which hurricanes are forming in,"
he said.

Trenberth said hundreds of scientists contribute to IPCC studies and
that the group includes scientists who dismiss global warming, such as
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen. He
said he would welcome Landsea back to IPCC as an important scientific
voice.

Landsea told Reuters he might return to IPCC one day, but not while
Trenberth was a lead author.

Source: Reuters

 

[Guy Macon]

BBC News: December, 2004

Crichton's climate fear contention

"People to say to me, 'now you're agreeing with President Bush'
- I do so, but only by accident."
-Michael Crichton

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The best-selling author Michael Crichton has explained to the BBC why
he has argued global warming is a nonsense in his new book, State Of
Fear.

The novel - a thriller - is controversial because it challenges
scientific consensus that rapid climate change is being driven by a
build-up of human-produced carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Crichton, most famous as the author of The Andromeda Strain and
Jurassic Park and creator of TV series ER, told the BBC World Service
that he began to look into the subject after reading an article and
feeling it "didn't make very much sense".

"I finally concluded that the difficulty that was occurring on this
page was that the author wanted to say something he wasn't allowed to
say - and what he wanted to say was that global warming wasn't real,"
the author recalls on The Ticket programme.

"I thought, 'that's absurd, isn't it'?"

Disappointing answer

And Crichton said that he had looked at evidence from temperature
records and considered that, "It wasn't anywhere near as impressive as
I thought it would be".

He said that from what he could see, the data appeared to show that
global temperatures had risen three tenths of a degree in the last 30
years; but that for the 30 previous years, temperatures had declined -
while the amount of carbon dioxide being released was increasing.

"I thought, why does the 30 years of decline not count, but the 30
years of increasing temperatures do count as demonstrating this
influence of carbon dioxide?" he argued.
This, he explained, had then caused him to wonder why people were so
concerned about the last 30 years.

"I was extremely disappointed in the answer," he said. "They do
computer simulations and conclude that this is of human origin. The
difficulty that I have with that is that I simply don't believe
computer simulations."

Crichton's books have often examined scientific issues through a
fictional thriller framework, using science to add substance to his
ideas.

Jurassic Park, for example, examined cloning through dinosaurs being
brought to life in the 20th Century, while The Terminal Man looked at
the ever-increasing integration of man and computers.

Data driven

State Of Fear, he contended, was again a work of fiction using fact.
He said that the simplest version of his argument is that a lawsuit
filed now on global warming could not be won - that there would not be
enough evidence to take it to court.

The idea that carbon dioxide emissions are a significant factor in
global warming is the basis for the Kyoto Protocol, which is due to
come into force in February.

The US has not ratified the treaty, with many on the political right
in the country describing global warming as "alarmist."

Crichton said that his own agenda came from what he believed to be
fact, that "almost every aspect of environmental thought has attached
to it a political tag... I think that's madness.

"I think there's only one position, and that is the position that the
data leads you to," he added.

"People say to me, 'now you're agreeing with President Bush'. I do so,
but only by accident.

"I'm not interested in what he thinks; I'm interested in what the data
says."

State Of Fear is published by HarperCollins. It describes how the head
of an environmental group initiates terrorist acts to focus attention
on global warming.

The public is so alarmed at what they see that they are driven to
donate funds to the organisation.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/4105327.stm
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4105327.stm

Published: 2004/12/17 16:29:46 GMT

 

[Reg Edwards]

There's one thing we can be sure about - the Earth has cooled down by more
that 10 degrees C in the last 5 billion years.