Who is Paul Potts?

This is a must see video… and worth 3:36 minutes of your time.  Take a shy unassuming carphone salesman with a self esteem problem.  Put him in front of a national TV audience (in Great Britian) and what do you get?

A very big surprise, a lot of tears, and a standing ovation.

Advertisement

Immenent Peril

Who knows what to believe?  As reported here.

What special interests drive the authors of this report:

In a densely referenced scientific paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A some of the world’s leading climate researchers describe in detail why they believe that humanity can no longer afford to ignore the “gravest threat” of climate change.

Courier Mail “High Price for Load of Hot Air”

Another skeptic…

The full article

The salient facts are these. First, the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this eight-year-long temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2.

Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).

Let Us Talk About Kilimanjaro

The authoritative “climate change” web site Real Climate has a long and extensive article on tropical glacier retreats.  You can read it here.

One of the quesitons they ask is KILIMANJARO: ICON OR RED HERRING?  They basically believe the their is a cause and effect relative to global warming and glacier retreat. 

From The Guardian Newspaper global warming scare experts

The snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

The white top of Africa’s highest mountain has become an icon, instantly recognisable, but Kilimanjaro’s snows are disappearing at an alarming rate. The 5,896m (19,340ft) mountain – its name, in the local Chagga tongue, means ‘that which cannot be conquered’ – is destined to lose all its snow within a decade, meteorologists predict. The great peak, which once glowed ‘unbelievably white in the sun’ according to Hemingway, will turn an uninspiring dirty brown, a victim of global warming caused by ever-increasing amounts of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. At present, 10,000 people a year take the hike up ‘Kili’; how the loss of the snow will affect this tourist trade is uncertain. Far more worrying is the plight of the local people, whose way of life is now under threat because of drought.

Kilimanjaro’s shrinking snow not sign of warming

If we are now convinced the Kilimanjaro is not suffering the effect of man made climate change why are we still so sure about the glaciers?  What if we find a reasonable explanation for the glacier errosion – like the ice age is over (get a sense of humor). 

If the hysterics at The Guardian, and Barabara Streisand, are convinced that Kilimanjaro is loosing it’s snow cap because of human activity and then other evidence shows the loss of the snow cap is because of solar activity then what is a simple guy like me supposed to believe?

Don’t we need to know more?

Sahara desert frontiers turn green

Sahara desert frontiers turn green

Satellite pictures of northern Africa show that areas lost to the Sahara desert during decades of drought are turning green again.

Analysis of images show deserts retreating in a broad band stretching from Mauritania to Eritrea, according to research in British magazine New Scientist.

The driving force behind the retreat of the deserts is believed to be increased rainfall.

Compare that to this headline:

Climate change behind Darfur killing: UN’s Ban

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the slaughter in Darfur was triggered by global climate change and that more such conflicts may be on the horizon, in an article published Saturday. “The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change,” Ban said in a Washington Post opinion column.

What is a person to think. Are we expected to accept that global warming real when we are constantly presented with such conflicting information and reports?

Meanwhile trying to explain the behavior of deserts is just as difficult as explaining the behavior of a teenager.  Here is an article on the formation of the Sahara desert.

Sahara desert born 4,000 years ago

Using a new computer simulation of the Earth’s climate, German scientists say that the Sahara underwent a brutal climate change about 4,000 years ago.

Over a very short time scale – possibly as short as 300 years – it went from grasslands with low shrubs to the desert we are familiar with today. Summer temperatures increased rapidly and rainfall almost ceased. The change devastated many ancient cultures and caused those that did survive to migrate elsewhere.

Scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research say that the desertification of the Sahara was one of the most dramatic changes in climate over the past 11,000 years.

The loss of agricultural land to the desert may have been one of the reasons why early civilisations developed along the valleys of the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Feedback mechanism

Slight climate alterations caused by subtle changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun were amplified by a climatic feedback mechanism.

Some 9,000 years ago the tilt of the Earth’s axis was 24.14 degrees; today it is 23.45 degrees. Today, the Earth is closest to the Sun in January. Nine thousand years ago, our planet was closest to the Sun at the end of July.

The changes in the tilt of the Earth occur gradually. However, the interplay of atmosphere, ocean and landmass can react to these changes in abrupt and severe ways.

The climate model suggests that land use by man was not an important factor in the creation of the Sahara.

What is my point?  The information is contridictary and we don’t know what is going on.  Of course the researchers could be wrong.  I have not seen their models and really have no idea if and when the earth’s axis changed.  So if you have these models please share them with us.

2007 Hurricane Season

According to the web site “Stop Global Warming“:

Catastrophic Weather
Super powerful hurricanes, fueled by warmer ocean temperatures are the “smoking gun” of global warming. Since 1970, the number of category 4 and 5 events has jumped sharply. Human activities are adding an alarming amount of pollution to the earth’s atmosphere causing catastrophic shifts in weather patterns. These shifts are causing severe heat, floods and worse.

The 2006 Hurricane season was predicted to be one of the worst on record.

One in Six Americans Could be Directly Impacted by 2006 Hurricane Season

STATE COLLEGE, PA, May 15, 2006-The AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center, led by Chief Forecaster Joe Bastardi, today released its 2006 hurricane season forecast. An active hurricane season appears imminent, which could have major repercussions for the U.S. economy and the one in six Americans who live on the Eastern Seaboard or along the western Gulf of Mexico.

Active Atlantic hurricane season in 2006, but fewer landfalls

The current record Atlantic cyclone year will be followed by yet another highly active season, though Americans can expect fewer major hurricanes to make landfall in 2006, top experts said.
A total of 17 tropical storms, including nine hurricanes, should form in the Atlantic basin in 2006, as compared with a record-setting 26 tropical storms and 14 hurricanes this year, said leading experts William Gray and Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University.

The result was something much less catastrophic

The 2006 Atlantic hurricane season was an event in the annual cycle of tropical cyclone formation. This season was unusual in that no hurricanes made landfall in the United States of America. It started on June 1, 2006, and officially ended on November 30, 2006. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the Atlantic basin.

One system, Tropical Storm Zeta from the 2005 season, continued through early January, only the second time on record that had happened. Tropical Storm Alberto was responsible for 2 indirect deaths when it made landfall in Florida. Hurricane Ernesto caused heavy rainfall in Haiti, and directly killed at least 7 people in Haiti and the United States. Four more hurricanes formed after Ernesto, including the strongest storms of the season, Hurricanes Helene and Gordon. However, no tropical cyclones formed in the month of October, the first time this had happened since the 1994 season.

Following the intense activity of the 2005 season, forecasts predicted the 2006 season would be very active, though not as active as 2005. However, in 2006, a rapidly-forming El Niño event, combined with the pervasive presence of the Saharan Air Layer over the tropical Atlantic and a steady presence of a robust secondary high related to the Azores high centered around Bermuda, contributed to a slow season and all tropical cyclone activity ceasing after October 2.

NOAA is issued the following 2007 forecast

NOAA’s 2007 Atlantic hurricane season outlook indicates a very high 75% chance of an above-normal hurricane season, a 20% chance of a near-normal season, and only a 5% chance of a below-normal season. This outlook is produced by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center (CPC), National Hurricane Center (NHC), Hurricane Research Division (HRD), and Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC). See NOAA definitions of above-, near-, and below-normal seasons.

The outlook calls for a very high likelihood of an above-normal hurricane season, with 13-17 named storms, 7-10 hurricanes, and 3-5 major hurricanes. The likely range of the ACE index is 125% to 210% of the median. This prediction signifies an expected sharp increase in activity from the near-normal season observed in 2006.

An expected sharp increase from 2006 activity?  No doubt given the low activity in 2006 we may see an increase in 2007.  If that happens the hysterics will begin claiming definate proof of “climate change” causing havoc, but will conveniently forget the miserable 2006 forecast.  If the 2007 forecast is as miserable as the 2006 forecast the hysterics will claim that 2 years of faulty forecasts is no indication of the real effect of “climate change”. 

Will we get an energy bill?

The Enviromental News Network had this article that does a very good job of allowing both sides of the energy bill debate present their issues.  People are beginning to doubt that we will get a bill before the July 4th recess.

After reading it once it comes down to this.

Democrat sponsors want energy companies to generate 15% of their power from renewable sources and are offering $13.7B in tax breaks for such generation – but also for other things so they are not dedicating all this funding to offset these costs.

The bill would require power companies to increase use of wind turbines, solar panels, biomass, geothermal energy or other renewable sources to produce at least 15 percent of their electricity by 2020. Only about 2.4 percent of the country’s electricity is produced that way now.

Well one has to like that.  Good goal.  What will it cost?

That is exactly what the GOP is concerned about.

Opponents argued that some regions of the country couldn’t meet the requirement and that it would cause electricity prices to increase in those areas, especially across the South.

So the GOP tried to add a measure that would allow electric companies to meet these standards by constructing nuclear power plants.  The amendment was defeated.  Why?

There is a lot of debate on this issue.  Can the South afford this bill and do they have the natural resources to generate 15% of their electricity this way?  Yes they do!  No they don’t!  It is like watching my kids.

The GOP is afraid that these utilities would end up buying credits to meet their obiligations.  Current cost is $.02 per kilowatt-hour.  Hmmm.  I wonder who stable that price is.  I doubt it is stable at all.  Look at California and Europe.  I know I am comparing carbon and sulfer dioxide trading.  Those commodities swing wildy in valuation and are unpredictable – we are talking 450% flucutations – some say even higher.  So I don’t see that as a viable option.

The Committee Chairman disputes this with his own facts and figures citing a report that would raise prices by only 1% and touting the technological advances that industry would make to meet this challenge.

The bill also attempts to increase mileage standards over and above what was agreed upon in the last energy bill.  I honestly think that the Democrats should give that a rest.  The Senate had a hard battle over that last time and they got something done.  No need to get bogged down in that debate again, and the Senate owes the auto industry some predictablity.

In addition, Virginia’s senior Senator, Mr. Warner, wants the Senate to allow Virginia to drill for natural gas off their coastline.  No way says NJ Sen. Robert Menendez, saying it would “cause a ripple effect … and the consequences can be very significant.” He added, “This would leave other states helpless. ”  The article doesn’t explain what the hell he means.

Anyway, I have no real stake in this bill except I hope they come up with a good bill.

The reason I posted this is because it is the first time I actually enjoyed reading a news report on the energy bill debate.  They are usually dry and focus on the partisanship of the different sides.  This was well written and really didn’t have any bones to pick.  Just the facts.

Malthusian Pessimists

Financial Times FT.com
Freedom, not climate, is at risk
By Vaclav Klaus

Published: June 13 2007

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough – irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent – for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now.

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly:

“the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”.

I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.

The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.

Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time temperature changes occur (in both directions).

Due to advances in technology, increases in disposable wealth, the rationality of institutions and the ability of countries to organise themselves, the adaptability of human society has been radically increased. It will continue to increase and will solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.

I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said:

 “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.

The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.

As a witness to today’s worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:

■Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
■Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
■Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
■Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
■Instead of speaking about “the environment”, let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
■Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction
■Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

The writer is President of the Czech Republic

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

The Global Warming Swindle?

That is the name of the first video.  Far from being settled science I think most reasonable people wonder how much we need to regulate CO2 emissions and are not in a panic and sending school children home to have nightmares. 

My neighbor asked a good question.  “What is the basis for George Bush’s CO2 emission reduction at the G8?”  Honestly, I don’t know what the President proposed or why he proposed it.  I can’t even tell you if it is a change in policy.  I will look into it.  However, the Daily Reckoning Blog in Australia has a theory.

By attaching his credibility to the Global Warming hypothesis yesterday, he probably aims to discredit the idea completely. Sly dog!

In the mean time an alternate perspective on Global Warming.

 ________________________________________________

_________________________________________________

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse

North American and European Warming

This information is readily available.  However, many people prefer to think that any evidence or debate about global warming comes with an agenda.

If you doubt Global Warming you are a hack in the pocket of corporations with no real scientific credentials, an apologist, a propagana monger.  If you accept Global Warming then you are among the most credible scientists in the world.  That is really open minded.

One can say they want an open discussion and debate but do they really want open discussion and debate?  I think for the most part they have made up their minds.

A map above shows the number of weather stations for the world for most of the latter half of the 20th century. Notice the lack of coverage in the oceans, deserts, polar regions, and forests. Notice the coverage of North America and Europe.  So what?

The record and data measuring “global” warming is not measuring global warming.  It is measuring North American and European warming.

“It’s very clear we do not have a climate observing system…This may come as a shock to many people who assume that we do know adequately what’s going on with the climate but we don’t.”

Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric research Boulder, CO.

(Of course Dr. Trenberth is just a hack in the pocket of Exxon Mobile.  Right?

The world has less stations now than it did in 1960.

Milankovitch Effect

This observation has been around for over 130 years. Yet, textbooks still tell students the Earth’s orbit around the sun is a fixed elliptical orbit. This is not correct. Variations in the orbit has a termendous bearing on the solar heating and cooling of the earth.

It is accepted by both sides of the debate that the surface temperature of the earth has been changing (back and forth) for thousands of years and has done so without human activity. Ice core samples have shown that atmospheric CO2 varies over time in concert with atmospheric temperatures.

Since Galelio has been studying sunspots (1610 AD) we have known they effect the earth’s surface temperature. What those nifty surface temerature measurements show is that the northern hemisphere surface temperature increases with solar activity.

I have noted in a comment on an earlier post – although no one wants to comment on these facts:

95% of the Greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor (some say as little as 66% and as hight as 85%). The remaining 5% consists of carbon dioxide, methane, etc. of which man contributes 3.2% to 5% the rest occuring naturally.

The fastest growing greenhouse gas is methane (not carbon dioxide). Human activity may cause up to half of methane emmissions. Yet the scinence is contridictary “Long term atmospheric measurements of methane by NOAA show that the build up of methane has slowed dramatically over the last decade, after nearly tripling since pre-industrial times. It is thought that this reduction is due to reduced industrial emissions and drought in wetland areas.” The other half of methane emmissions is naturally occuring. The net life time of methane in the atmosphere is 8.5 years so it has no long term effect on the atmosphere.

CO2 (carbon dioxide) is an important component of regulating the atmosphere because if absorbs infrared radiation – which if it got through would destroy most biological life.

Since the two gases often referred to as the leading cause of global warming are such a small part of the gases that contribute to the green house effect and human activity contributes so little to those two gases I doubt human activity is causing global warming or that we can do much to reduce the effect.

What are we doing to reduce water vapor that make up 95% of the greenhouse gases?  It would seem to me that would be a much easier problem to tackle.  A 1% decrease in 95% of the problem should produce major improvements.  Right?

Finally if one were to compare the 2001 UN report on climate change to the 2007 report one would get the idea that either:

1.  Things have improved vastly over the past 6 years or,

2.  The “predictions” in the 2001 report were extremely flawed.

In the end, the jury is out.  This is not settled science.  Reasonable people who know much more about climate changes do not agree with each others conclusions.

As I said earlier.  One does not have to believe in “North American and European Warming” to be an enviromentalist.