Silencing Dissent

Global warming has become a big-ticket item in the eyes of its supporters. At stake are research funds, jobs and the ability to control lives all over the globe. Most climatologists agree that over the last century, the Earth's average temperature has risen about one degree Celsius.

The controversy centers around the source of the temperature change -- manmade or natural causes. Global warming alarmists hold the view that it's manmade emissions of CO2 that's driving climate change, and they seek to suppress any dissent suggesting other causes.

According to the July 16 Washington Times, Michael T. Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), sent a threatening missive to Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, which read: "Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on."

The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce and the Department of Energy are all members of ACORE. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, held hearings on the matter. Following the hearings, the senator sent letters to the agencies asking them to "reconsider their membership in ACORE."

Speaking at the American leg of Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Get rid of all these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies." Referring to skeptics of manmade global warming, he said, "This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors." Traitors are either shot or imprisoned. I wonder which Robert Kennedy has in mind for the skeptics.

University of Oregon's George Taylor holds the title of state climatologist. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski wants to take that title from Taylor. The governor said Taylor's skepticism interferes with Oregon's stated goals to reduce greenhouse gases, the accepted cause of global warming in the eyes of a vast majority of scientists.

Earlier this year, the Weather Channel's Dr. Heidi Cullen called for the decertification of weathermen who were skeptical of manmade global warming. Grist Magazine's staff writer David Roberts said that his solution for the "bastards" who were members of what he termed the global warming "denial industry" is, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg."

"Global warming driven by greenhouse gas pollution (but ultimately by greed, racism and lying) is killing our Planet," says an article in Media With Conscience. It goes on to say, "Our Planet, the Earth -- is under acute threat from Climate Criminals threatening the Third World with Climate Genocide and the Biosphere with Terracide (the killing of our Planet)." Sen. Inhofe maintains a website citing these and other many examples of attacks on skeptics of manmade global warming. (See http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=04373015-802a-23ad-4bf9-c3f02278f4cf)

This kind of suppression of different ideas and dissent is simply the tip of a much larger iceberg that has many of its roots on today's college campuses. Suppression of ideas is far more dangerous to our civilization than manmade global warming -- real or imagined. Given the horrible history of brutal attempts to silence people who have different ideas or dissent from the conventional wisdom, those of us in the academic and scientific communities ought to openly repudiate and condemn the efforts to silence global warming skeptics. This is particularly so in light of the mounting evidence that manmade CO2 emissions have little or nothing to do with climate change. (See http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=c5e16731-3c64-481c-9a36-d702baea2a42)

Previously posted elsewhere, however this subject requires it's on thread.

Global Warming Hysteria

Despite increasing evidence that man-made CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas and contributor to climate change, politicians and others who wish to control our lives must maintain that it is.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Rep. John Dingell wants a 50-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline. We've heard such calls before, but there's a new twist. Dingell also wants to eliminate the mortgage tax deduction on what he calls "McMansions," homes that are 3,000 square feet and larger. That's because larger homes use more energy.

One might wonder about Dingell's magnanimity in increasing taxes for only homes 3,000 feet or larger. The average U.S. home is around 2,300 square feet, compared with Europe's average of 1,000 square feet. So why doesn't Dingell call for disallowing mortgage deductions on houses more than 1,000 square feet? The reason is there would be too much political resistance, since more Americans own homes under 3,000 square feet than over 3,000. The full agenda is to start out with 3,000 square feet and later lower it in increments.

Our buying into global warming hysteria will allow politicians to do just about anything, upon which they can muster a majority vote, in the name of fighting climate change as a means to raise taxes.

In addition to excuses to raise taxes, congressmen are using climate change hysteria to funnel money into their districts. Rep. David L. Hobson, R-Ohio, secured $500,000 for a geothermal demonstration project. Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., got $500,000 for a fuel-cell project by Superprotonic, a Pasadena company started by Caltech scientists. Money for similar boondoggles is being called for by members of both parties.

The bottom line is, serious efforts to reduce CO2 will lead to lower living standards through higher costs of living. And it will be all for naught because there is little or no relationship between man-made CO2 emissions and climate change.

There's an excellent booklet available from the National Center for Policy Analysis (ncpa.org) titled "A Global Warming Primer." Some of its highlights are:

"Over long periods of time, there is no close relationship between CO2 levels and temperature."

"Humans contribute approximately 3.4 percent of annual CO2 levels" compared to 96.6 percent by nature.

"There was an explosion of life forms 550 million years ago (Cambrian Period) when CO2 levels were 18 times higher than today. During the Jurassic Period, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, CO2 levels were as much as nine times higher than today."

What about public school teachers frightening little children with tales of cute polar bears dying because of global warming? The primer says, "Polar bear numbers increased dramatically from around 5,000 in 1950 to as many as 25,000 today, higher than any time in the 20th century." The primer gives detailed sources for all of its findings, and it supplies us with information we can use to stop politicians and their environmental extremists from doing a rope-a-dope on us.

Big Corn and Ethanol Hoax

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline.

Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be shipped by truck, rail car or barge. These shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.

Ethanol is 20 to 30 percent less efficient than gasoline, making it more expensive per highway mile. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce the ethanol to fill one SUV tank. That's enough corn to feed one person for a year. Plus, it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel -- oil and natural gas -- to produce one gallon of ethanol. After all, corn must be grown, fertilized, harvested and trucked to ethanol producers -- all of which are fuel-using activities. And, it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. On top of all this, if our total annual corn output were put to ethanol production, it would reduce gasoline consumption by 10 or 12 percent.

Ethanol is so costly that it wouldn't make it in a free market. That's why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers. In fact, there's a double tax -- one in the form of ethanol subsidies and another in the form of handouts to corn farmers to the tune of $9.5 billion in 2005 alone.

There's something else wrong with this picture. If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil? Brazilian ethanol, by the way, is produced from sugar beet and is far more energy efficient, cleaner and cheaper to produce.

Ethanol production has driven up the prices of corn-fed livestock, such as beef, chicken and dairy products, and products made from corn, such as cereals. As a result of higher demand for corn, other grain prices, such as soybean and wheat, have risen dramatically. The fact that the U.S. is the world's largest grain producer and exporter means that the ethanol-induced higher grain prices will have a worldwide impact on food prices.

It's easy to understand how the public, looking for cheaper gasoline, can be taken in by the call for increased ethanol usage. But politicians, corn farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money. The top leader in the ethanol hoax is Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the country's largest producer of ethanol. Ethanol producers and the farm lobby have pressured farm state congressmen into believing that it would be political suicide if they didn't support subsidized ethanol production. That's the stick. Campaign contributions play the role of the carrot.

The ethanol hoax is a good example of a problem economists refer to as narrow, well-defined benefits versus widely dispersed costs. It pays the ethanol lobby to organize and collect money to grease the palms of politicians willing to do their bidding because there's a large benefit for them -- higher wages and profits. The millions of gasoline consumers, who fund the benefits through higher fuel and food prices, as well as taxes, are relatively uninformed and have little clout. After all, who do you think a politician will invite into his congressional or White House office to have a heart-to-heart -- you or an Archer Daniels Midlands executive?

If we ignore it, it'll go away!

Personally, I think we're too late to do anything. It'll continue to be argued about until the it's in everyone's faces (i.e. land disappearing, famine, etc.). Got land in Florida or near the coasts? Sell now while you can!

Like we look back at the dinosaurs, I wonder whatever the dominant species in a few hundred million years from now will conclude caused our extinction!

If the dinosaurs would have just car pooled a little bit more!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn them!!!!!!!!!!

The Sky Falls on Environmental Myths

When I told a friend that I was writing a column attacking the environmental movement, she immediately replied, "How can you be against the environment?" I am not against the environment. I am against the environmental movement: a movement rooted in a Chicken Little ideology of scare tactics, lies, pseudoscience, and a flagrant disregard for individual liberties and private property rights. Let's debunk some of theis movement's myths and examine the true roots of the Greens' ideology and agenda.

Myth #1: Global Warming: Despite the rantings of the apocalyptic ecoprophets, the actual temperature records, taken in North America and Western Europe, show no significant or consistent upward trends. There is, instead, a series of highs and lows. According to the Greenhouse theory, the increase in carbon dioxide emissions since the beginning of the Industrial Age should have increased average temperatures by two to four degrees Celsius over the last 100 years. In reality, temperatures have only increased a paltry 0.5 degrees Celsius.

In fact, between the 1940s and the mid1970s temperatures were steadily declining. This led environmentalists in the 1970s to predict global cooling and the coming of a new ice age. They blamed the same industrial economy and pollutants then for global cooling that they now blame for global warming. New ice age or melting polar ice caps, the environmentalists can't seem to make up their minds. It seems as long as they have a crisis to fuel their agenda and keep those donations rolling in, they'll preach anything.

As for the claim that the carbon dioxide emission levels of industry are responsible for global warming, here are some facts. Both historic and prehistoric levels of carbon dioxide have shifted and changed without human intervention. Historic increases in carbon dioxide have occurred about the same time as temperature increases, but a careful study of the data shows the rise in temperature preceded the increase in carbon dioxide, not the reverse. In the prehistoric era, carbon dioxide levels were at times ten times what they are today, and that was during a period when life was evolving and taking shape.

Carbon dioxide is actually a minor greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide, methane, hydrocarbons, and aerosol only account for two percent of greenhouse warming. The main greenhouse gas which accounts for the other 98 percent is water vapor. So carbon dioxide's effect is ultimately insignificant, no matter how much industry has created.

Myth #2: The Hole in the Ozone Layer: Contrary to the environmentalists' claims, there is no permanent hole in the ozone layer and no ozone shortage. Ozone is constantly created and destroyed. The interaction of ultraviolet radiation with oxygen molecules is what produces ozone. In the stratosphere, 10 to 40 kilometers above the earth's surface, several tons of ozone are produced every second.

The amount of ozone present at any one time is influenced by many factors. For example, the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the stratosphere (and ultimately producing ozone) depends upon latitude, solar cycle, and season. Concentrations of ozone may differ drastically from one day to the next, sometimes by as much as 50 percent, depending on the weather. Ozone holes are natural reactions to these ultraviolet light variations. Ozone levels can also be affected by the amount of volcanic matter in the stratosphere. Each volcanic eruption emits roughly a thousand times the amount of ozonedepleting chemicals than all the CFCs man has ever produced.

The ozone hole that appeared over Antarctica and caused all the panic is a natural and annual phenomena. The annual ozone hole was first measured in 195657, long before the ozonedestroying CFCs were in common use. The hole appears at the end of the dark, cold Antarctic winter, lasts about three to five weeks, and then disappears. There is no overall or permanent depletion of the ozone layer.

Myth #3: Deforestation and Clear-cutting: America's forests are not vanishing. There are 730 million acres of forest land in the United States today. The growth on those acres is extremely dense, with a total of 230 billion trees (that's 900 trees for each American). When the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, 45 percent of what is now the 48 contiguous United States was covered by mature forest land. Today, 32 percent is still covered by forest, twothirds of the total before the pilgrims arrived.

Contrary to environmentalist propaganda, clearcutting does not leave behind a scarred and barren wasteland. It is usually done in a checkerboard manner leaving behind large areas of forest. The areas where cutting occurs are then replanted. Trees are a valuable commodity, and companies have an incentive not to overcut them. Today, many companies are planting millions of trees on their own land and carefully harvesting them.

Even the U.S. Forest Service admits that, "Drastic as it may seem, clear cutting plays a legitimate and prominent role in scientific forestry. Properly done, it paves the way for a new, unencumbered and hence vigorously growing forest." Clearcutting was even practiced by the Indians, who burned areas to provide a cleared space for new growth, which was favored by animals they hunted such as elk and deer.

Myth #4 Endangered Species: Environmentalists claim that five species go extinct every day, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports that five species, subspecies, and varieties of plants and animals have gone extinct every three and threequarters years since 1620. The fact is that most animals and plants go extinct from natural causes such as climatic changes, food shortages, disease, and competition with more dominant species. It's called survival of the fittest. Some animals are meant to go extinct and some are meant to survive. This is how species perpetuate themselves.

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 represents one of the most irresponsible pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress. The law basically gives the government the authority to stop extinction in all cases, regardless of the cost, by any means necessary. Not every species can or should be protected. Do we really need to save every allegedly endangered insect out there? Many creatures on the endangered species list are not really endangered or even a scientifically defined species at all. Yet, we spend roughly $2.6 million a year for each creature on the list.

The environmentalists use their doomsday predictions as a form of political blackmail. They create these ecobogeymen, hold them over people, and then preach the coming of the apocalypse unless their demands are met. Environmentalists see themselves as the Earth's new vanguard class, uniquely capable of seeing the impending doom while the rest of humanity remains blind to the danger.

The greatest casualty of the environmental movement has been the property rights of American citizens. The greatest benefactor has been the Leviathan State. What better way to control someone's property than to subordinate one's private property rights to environmental concerns. Under the guise of "defending the environment," the imperial Congress has been able to enact laws which allow government officials to confiscate private property, levy fines for noncompliance of up to $25,000 a day, prevent owners from using their land, and even jail a land owner who uses his land for any purpose other than that which the government has dictated. This is a clear and obscene violation of the Fifth Amendment which states, "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."

The ideology of the Greens has roots in both fascism and Marxism. The Nazis were naturalists and have been described as "the first radical environmentalists in charge of a state." As political writer David Horowitz wrote, "The enthronement of biological imperatives, of the virtues of blood and soil and the primitive communities of the Volk, the pagan rejection of the Judaeo-Christian God, and the radical anti-humanism featured in the philosophy of the Greens" are all derivatives of the Nazi ideology.

From Marxism, the environmentalists derived their hatred of the free market, private property, and the upper classes. The environment has become the new weapon of choice to attack capitalism. Dolphins and trees have become the new proletariat. In order to achieve the ecological balance the radical environmentalists advocate, it would be necessary to progressively narrow "the gap to reduce the differences between the Earth's wealthiest and poorest inhabitants" until there are "more or less equal shares for all people." Sound familiar, comrade? How ironic that it was the totalitarian regimes of Eastern europe and the soviet Union that had the most horrendous environmental conditions on Earth.

Paul Watson, co-founder of the eco-terrorist group Greenpeace, summed up the true face of the environmental movement when he said, "It doesn't matter what's true; it only matters what people believe is true ... You are what the media define you to be. [Greenpeace] became a myth and a myth-generating machine." Amen.

thank you for postin this thread although most americans won't read it all..the "man-made" global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the world elite to a.)limit we the peoples' growing power with technology by pushing a world-wide carbon tax that is justified as "helping to save the world." b.) unify the human species under one cause..that in these times of chaos will be the catalyst for offering their "New World Order" one world laws(carbon tax included)

youtube..the "great global warming swindle" and educate yourself outside of their lamestream

Move that man to the head of the class.

All things, the Earth included, have cycles.
What many people dont realize, beyond the Global Warming hoax, is that the thinning of our atmosphere and the eventual (impending) reversal of the Earth's magnetic field are two of the major contributing factors which encourage the development of cancer.

Sensationalism.
I wonder that these so called 'professionals' are not ashamed of themselves.

omg..we the people really are waking up at an exponetial rate..earth changes are entering the forums! this is getting interesting..

Chicken Little never had it so good ...

Global temperatures 'to decrease'

By Roger Harrabin
BBC News environment analyst

Global temperatures for 2008 will be slightly cooler than last year as a result of the cold La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

But this year's temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

The WMO points out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C.

While Nasa, the US space agency, cites 2005 as the warmest year, the UK's Hadley Centre lists it as second to 1998.

Researchers say the uncertainty in the observed value for any particular year is larger than these small temperature differences. What matters, they say, is the long-term upward trend.

Rises 'stalled'


LA NINA KEY FACTS
La Nina translates from the Spanish as "The Child Girl"
Refers to the extensive cooling of the central and eastern Pacific
Increased sea temperatures on the western side of the Pacific mean the atmosphere has more energy and frequency of heavy rain and thunderstorms is increased
Typically lasts for up to 12 months and generally less damaging event than the stronger El Nino

La Nina and El Nino are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world.

El Nino warms the planet when it happens; La Nina cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina.

It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.

Mr Jarraud told the BBC that the effect was likely to continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree.

This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.

Watching trends

A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and argue the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.

Cannot play media. Sorry you need to have JavaScript enabled on your browser.

Animation of El Nino and La Nina effects

But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 2008 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.

"When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year," he said. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.

"La Nina is part of what we call 'variability'. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up; the climate on average is warming even if there is a temporary cooling because of La Nina."

Cannot play media. Sorry you need to have JavaScript enabled on your browser.

China suffered from heavy snow in January

Adam Scaife, lead scientist for Modelling Climate Variability at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK, said their best estimate for 2008 was about 0.4C above the 1961-1990 average, and higher than this if you compared it with further back in the 20th Century.

Mr Scaife told the BBC: "What's happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7329799.stm

Thanks for posting the truth. The Green Nazis never let truth get in the way of their agenda.

green nazis! yeah, the elite and their fake fear to socially engineer the world, agenda

it's called the hegelian-marx dialectic.. the governments have used it since the nazis

if the people have a belief, and an opposite idea that they PERCEIVE to be true is introduced to them..they will be momentarily "paralyzed" from cognitive dissonance..then the elite are free to offer the "solution" that they had in mind before they're FABRICATED, "perceived" truth..

their solution for their "man-made" global warming is a world wide carbon tax law....hmm..world law today...world government tomarrow..?

f**k'em..we're wakin up

Global Warming Activist Pressures BBC to Significantly Alter Article
By Noel Sheppard | April 7, 2008 - 09:59 ET

NewsBusters has just learned that a British "climate activist" was responsible for getting the BBC to radically alter its "Global Temperatures 'To Decrease'" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7329799.stm) article last Friday.
As reported Sunday,(http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/06/bbc-changes-temperatures-decrease-article-incite-climate-hysteria) the third paragraph of what previously had been a very balanced piece about how global temperatures have been declining since 1998 was totally reworded in order to make the report just another hysterical climate change pronouncement.

On Monday, Jennifer Marohasy, the director of the Environment Unit at Australia's Institute of Public Affairs, received and published (See Below) an e-mail exchange between the article's author, Roger Harrabin, and a climate activist affiliated with the British Campaign Against Climate Change:



April 07, 2008
The BBC Changes News to Accommodate Activist
Posted by jennifer, at 08:35 PM

I have been emailed the following correspondence, purportedly between an activist, Jo Abbess, and BBC Environment reporter Roger Harrabin. It would appear that the result of the email exchange between the activist and the reporter was that the BBC changed its story. In particular instead of reporting the story as received from the World Meteorological Organisation, the BBC modified the story as demanded by the activist who was concerned that in its original form it supported 'the skeptics' correct observation that there has been no warming since 1998.

From Jo, April 4, 2008

Climate Changers,

Remember to challenge any piece of media that seems like it's been subject to spin or scepticism.

Here's my go for today. The BBC actually changed an article I requested a correction for, but I'm not really sure if the result is that much better.

Judge for yourselves...

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from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:12 AM
subject Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Dear Roger,

Please can you correct your piece published today entitled "Global
temperatures 'to decrease'" :-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7329799.stm

1. "A minority of scientists question whether this means global
warming has peaked"
This is incorrect. Several networks exist that question whether global
warming has peaked, but they contain very few actual scientists, and
the scientists that they do contain are not climate scientists so have
no expertise in this area.

2. "Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007"
You should not mislead people into thinking that the sum total of the
Earth system is going to be cooler in 2008 than 2007. For example, the
ocean systems of temperature do not change in yearly timescales, and
are massive heat sinks that have shown gradual and continual warming.
It is only near-surface air temperatures that will be affected by La
Nina, plus a bit of the lower atmosphere.

Thank you for applying your attention to all the facts and figures available,

jo.

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from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:23 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Dear Jo

No correction is needed

If the secy-gen of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will
decrease, that's what we will report

There are scientists who question whether warming will continue as
projected by IPCC

Best wishes
RH

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from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:37 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Hi Roger,

I will forward your comments (unless you object) to some people who
may wish to add to your knowledge.

Would you be willing to publish information that expands on your
original position, and which would give a better, clearer picture of
what is going on ?

Personally, I think it is highly irresponsible to play into the hands
of the sceptics/skeptics who continually promote the idea that "global
warming finished in 1998", when that is so patently not true.

I have to spend a lot of my time countering their various myths and
non-arguments, saying, no, go look at the Hadley Centre data. Global
Warming is not over. There have been what look like troughs and
plateaus/x before. It didn't stop then. It's not stopping now.

It is true that people are debating Climate Sensitivity, how much
exactly the Earth will respond to radiative forcing, but nobody is
seriously refuting that increasing Greenhouse Gases cause increased
global temperatures.

I think it's counterproductive to even hint that the Earth is cooling
down again, when the sum total of the data tells you the opposite.
Glaringly.

As time goes by, the infant science of climatology improves. The Earth
has never experienced the kind of chemical adjustment in the
atmosphere we see now, so it is hard to tell exactly what will happen
based on historical science.

However, the broad sweep is : added GHG means added warming.

Please do not do a disservice to your readership by leaving the door
open to doubt about that.

jo.

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from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:57 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

The article makes all these points quite clear

We can't ignore the fact that sceptics have jumped on the lack of
increase since 1998. It is appearing reguarly now in general media

Best to tackle this - and explain it, which is what we have done

Or people feel like debate is being censored which makes them v
suspicious

Roger

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from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:12 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Hi Roger,

When you are on the Tube in London, I expect that occasionally you
glance a headline as sometime turns the page, and you thinkg "Really
?" or "Wow !"

You don't read the whole article, you just get the headline.

A lot of people will read the first few paragraphs of what you say,
and not read the rest, and (a) Dismiss your writing as it seems you
have been manipulated by the sceptics or (b) Jump on it with glee and
e-mail their mates and say "See ! Global Warming has stopped !"

They only got the headline, which is why it is so utterly essentialy
to give the full picture, or as full as you can in the first few
paragraphs.

The near-Earth surface temperatures may be cooler in 2008 that they
were in 2007, but there is no way that Global Warming has stopped, or
has even gone into reverse. The oceans have been warming consistently,
for example, and we're not seeing temperatures go into reverse, in
general, anywhere.

Your word "debate". This is not an issue of "debate". This is an issue
of emerging truth. I don't think you should worry about whether people
feel they are countering some kind of conspiracy, or suspicious that
the full extent of the truth is being withheld from them.

Every day more information is added to the stack showing the desperate
plight of the planet.

It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics. Their voice is
heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing
the emergence of the truth.

I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.

Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently
educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically
manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.

I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution,
unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your
comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to
happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be
said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.

Respectfully,

jo.

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from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:28 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier

We have changed headline and more

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ORIGINAL
================

Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK
Global temperatures 'to decrease'
By Roger Harrabin
BBC News environment analyst

Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007 due to the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

But experts have also forecast a record high temperature within five years.

Rises 'stalled'

La Nina and El Nino are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world.

El Nino warms the planet when it happens; La Nina cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina.

It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.

Mr Jarraud told the BBC that the effect was likely to continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree.

This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.

Watching trends

A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and argue the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.

But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 1998 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.

"When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year," he said. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.

"La Nina is part of what we call 'variability'. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up; the climate on average is warming even if there is a temporary cooling because of La Nina."

Adam Scaife, lead scientist for Modelling Climate Variability at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK, said their best estimate for 2008 was about 0.4C above the 1961-1990 average, and higher than this if you compared it with further back in the 20th Century.

Mr Scaife told the BBC: "What's happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended."

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Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK

Global temperatures 'to decrease'
By Roger Harrabin
BBC News environment analyst

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years.

The WMO points out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C.

While Nasa, the US space agency, cites 2005 as the warmest year, the UK's Hadley Centre lists it as second to 1998.

Researchers say the uncertainty in the observed value for any particular year is larger than these small temperature differences. What matters, they say, is the long-term upward trend.

Rises 'stalled'

La Nina and El Nino are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world.

El Nino warms the planet when it happens; La Nina cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina.

It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.

Mr Jarraud told the BBC that the effect was likely to continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree.

This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.

Watching trends

A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and argue the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.

Animation of El Nino and La Nina effects

But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 2008 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.

"When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year," he said. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.

"La Nina is part of what we call 'variability'. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up; the climate on average is warming even if there is a temporary cooling because of La Nina."

China suffered from heavy snow in January

Adam Scaife, lead scientist for Modelling Climate Variability at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK, said their best estimate for 2008 was about 0.4C above the 1961-1990 average, and higher than this if you compared it with further back in the 20th Century.

Mr Scaife told the BBC: "What's happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended."

End of email reporting on Jo's activities.

Global Food Riots: Made in Washington, D.C.

by Deroy Murdock
Posted: 04/18/2008
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26090

To paraphrase the late, great William F. Buckley, Jr., someone must stand athwart the federal ethanol program yelling, “Stop!” The emergency brake should be pulled -- NOW -- before ethanol wreaks further havoc.

Poor Haitians rioted last week outside Port-au-Prince’s presidential palace, forcing Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis’ April 12 ouster. Haitians are enduring food prices 40 percent higher than last summer’s. Some have resorted to eating cookies made of salt, vegetable oil, and dirt. That’s right: Dirt cookies.

Developing-world denizens are taking it to the streets with growling stomachs. In Bob Marley’s words, “A hungry man is an angry man.”

Climbing corn prices have ignited Mexican tortilla riots. Enraged citizens in Egypt and Pakistan -- potential Muslim powder kegs -- also violently have protested premium prices for basic staples. Similar instability has erupted from the Ivory Coast to Indonesia. Resurrecting the defeated “import substitution” model of yore, India and Vietnam are among the nations that lately have prohibited grain exports and imposed government price controls. Kazakhstan, Earth’s No. 5 wheat source, just halted wheat exports, hoping to horde local supplies. One third of the global wheat market is now closed.

High oil prices and growing global food demand fan these flames, but government lit the match. Atop the European Union’s biofuels mandate, America’s 51-cent-per-gallon ethanol tax subsidy (2007 cost: $8 billion) and Congress’ 7.5-billion-gallon annual production quota (rising to 36 billion in 2022) have turned corn farms into monetary printing presses. Diverting one quarter of U.S. corn into motors rather than mouths has boosted prices 74 percent in a year.

Eager to ride the ethanol gravy train, wheat and soybean farmers increasingly switch to corn. Thus, hard wheat is up 86 percent, while soybeans cost 93 percent more. Since April 15, 2007, pricier, grain-based animal feed has helped hike eggs 46 percent. Got milk? You paid 26 percent more. Conversely, meat prices have dropped, as farmers slaughter animals rather than pay so much to feed them.

All this has triggered a race to the top of the grain silo.
On April 9, “the World Bank estimated global food prices have risen 83 percent over the past three years, threatening recent strides in poverty reduction,” the Wall Street Journal noted the next day. “The price of rice, the staple for billions of Asians, is up 147 percent over the past year.”

As ReasonOnline’s Ronald Bailey observed April 8, “the result of these mandates is that about 100 million tons of grain will be transformed this year into fuel…100 million tons of grain is enough to feed nearly 450 million people for a year.” In short, car engines are burning the crops that feed a half-billion people.

President Bush announced on Monday that the United States would provide $200 million in nutritional aid to poor countries ripped by such unrest. This may feed starving rioters, but it perversely requires that Uncle Sam allocate fresh taxpayer money to scour the mess he created by spending $8 billion in ethanol subsidies.

This is like buying a new hangover cure every morning after closing a new bar every night.
Bad enough if this suffering and strife were ethanol’s ransom for dramatic environmental progress. In fact, ethanol is Earth-hostile. Turning forests into corn fields kills wildlife-friendly, CO2-absorbent trees. Nitrogen-based fertilizers yield nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. Irrigating corn strains fresh-water supplies and fills streams with agricultural chemicals.

Enough!

Congress immediately should abolish federal ethanol subsidies, mandates, and the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imports -- including Brazil’s cheaper, cleaner, sugar-based ethanol. If scientists can develop ethanol that neither starves people nor rapes the Earth, splendid. However, this enterprise must not rest upon morally repugnant, ecologically counterproductive, economically devastating, government-ordered distortions.

This is all a sop to U.S. grain growers, arguably the most pampered and endlessly entitled people beside Saudi royalty. Since they are hooked on handouts, here’s one more: In exchange for a two-year federal tax holiday on any income they earn, every actual, tractor-driving corn/biofuel farmer should retreat quietly and let America’s experiment in state-sponsored ethanol enter the Unintended Consequences Hall of Fame.

Compared to the global chaos that ethanol is fueling, this is a tolerable, one-time investment to pry these farmers’ and their Washington enablers’ hands off of our necks.

Mr. Murdock, a New York-based commentator to HUMAN EVENTS, is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

Nobel Prize for Death

by Dr. Arthur Robinson
Posted: 04/17/2008
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26067

And so it has begun. Word is beginning to spill into the news of food riots and starvation in poor countries, as a result of shortages and the resulting high prices for grain. This suffering is a direct result of the unprincipled actions of self-interested people in developed countries who are promulgating the scientifically refuted myth of human-caused global warming.

Frightened by this myth, U. S. federal and state governments have diverted a significant amount of the American grain supply into the production of ethanol -- an entirely counterproductive action that has helped to cause these grain shortages.

There is no intrinsic shortage of food. Since, however, food is perishable; the market produces each year an amount of food comparable to that which will be consumed. Stored food -- primarily grain -- usually suffices to smooth fluctuations due to weather and other factors. Prices fluctuate within a range narrow enough that most of the world’s people have sufficient food at a price they can afford. When, however, a large amount of grain is suddenly withdrawn from the market, severe shortages can result.

This current food shortage is only the beginning.

We have been down this road before. Unprincipled opportunists -- falsely claiming that DDT is dangerous to the environment -- managed to engineer a world-wide ban of DDT. DDT had eradicated malaria from the developed world and was well on its way to eradicating it from the less developed countries at the time this ban of DDT was instituted. The initiation of DDT use against malaria was rewarded by a Nobel Prize, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences estimated that DDT had saved hundreds of millions of lives.

One of the principal political figures who worked to ban DDT was none other than Al Gore.

As a result of the DDT ban, more than 30 million children in Africa and Asia have died from DDT-preventable malaria, and an estimated 500 million adults are today chronically ill from this disease. The ban of DDT was the worst act of technological genocide in human history.

Now, Mr. Gore is the recognized leader of an effort to ban at least 90% of world use of hydrocarbon fuels. Once again, his claims are based upon bogus science and are motivated by personal financial and political self interest. Mr. Gore has been joined by the United Nations and its IPCC process. The goal of the United Nations is clear. It wants the power to tax and ration world energy supplies. This would place essentially unlimited power and money in the hands of the United Nations and cooperating world political entities.

As acts of genocide, the potential effects of the human-caused global warming industry are so profound that the DDT genocide is minor in comparison.

Hundreds of millions of human beings live today on the very edge of existence -- with all of their available resources consumed in the quest for food, shelter, and the minimum necessities of life. Without world technology and the energy that makes that technology possible, these people will slip from the lower rungs of human existence and will die. By abruptly lowering world hydrocarbon use, the human-caused global warmers are going to kill these people.

Politicians in the United States have given us a first taste of the horrible suffering of human beings that is to come. By responding to the myth of human-caused global warming by mildly diminishing American grain supplies -- in a futile, politicized attempt to burn grain as fuel, American politicians have given the world a slight taste of the starvation and slaughter that is to come.

Many people are responsible for promulgating the myth of human-caused global warming – environmentalists, politicians, businessmen, media personalities, and a relatively small band of self-interested scientists. They have done this regardless of an overwhelming body of scientific information that definitively refutes the hypothesis of human-caused global warming. [See Robinson, Robinson, and Soon, Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, available at www.oism.org/pproject for a review and 132 peer-reviewed references to the scientific literature that document this refutation.]

In the case of DDT, the truth did not matter. The Environmental Protection Agency’s own scientific review board had reviewed the scientific literature and proclaimed DDT entirely safe and very useful. In the case of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming, the truth is also becoming increasingly irrelevant, as perceived political reality replaces reality in public discourse.

Al Gore has surpassed himself. Having helped to kill tens of millions of helpless African, Asian, and South American children and to sicken hundreds of millions of other people with his support for the ban of DDT, Mr. Gore is now attempting to deprive the survivors in these same countries of energy -- life-giving energy that makes possible their meager existences.

Industrially useful energy is fungible. It flows back and forth throughout the world with ease. A projected reduction in supply in the United States and an ill-considered reaction to that projection has caused current world food shortages. These shortages are only very small reminders of the vast shortages that will occur if hydrocarbon use is truly curtailed.

No greater act of genocide has ever been proposed in human history than the proposal to abruptly end the use of much of the world’s hydrocarbon energy.

Al Gore and his United Nations retainers have received the Nobel Prize for Peace. The only peace that they are offering to the world’s people, however, is the peace of the grave.

Dr. Arthur Robinson is President and Research Professor of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Our planet is a constantly changing place. Whether this warming is manmade or not, we have to adjust to the changes of our planet. If their are predictions of flooding people need to heed these predictions. If there a predictions of terrible weather heed it, it is better to be safe then sorry.

We will face earth changes that is inevitable. What we do about it is the worry.

Keeping the planet as clean as possible cannot be a bad thing regardless to whether it effect the weather or not. I support keeping our planet clean