Polar Bear populations are growing!!!

When will the Global Warming lies finally become impossible to sustain? Surely we have to be getting close...

Latest news from Canada. We all know that the Polar Bears, the poster animals of Global Warming, are in imminent danger, right? Well, not according to scientists that study them. In fact the ongoing study from Canada found that their numbers have actually increased from 850 in mid-1980's to 2100!!! The animal is so threatened that it's more than doubled it's numbers in 20 years. Some crisis, I tell you.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0503/p13s01-wogi.html

The Sinful Habits of Eco-preachers

Just as Al Gore picks up the Oscar for his sci-fi mockumentary "Inconvenient Truth" we learn that his personal energy consumption is 20 times higher than average. He uses 2 times more electricity each month than the average American family uses in one year!

Gore maintains he offsets his emissions through buying carbon credits from the company run by non other than Al Gore himself! What a nice little spinner.

Prince Charles not to be outdone booked the entire first and second class on the jet plane to fly to New York to accept a green prize from Al Gore.

Perhaps the most telling quote comes from Laurie Davis one of the producers of Inconvenient Truth. When asked about her apparent hypocrisy of demanding we all live less but still flying her private jet on holidays, she said:
"Yes, I take a private plane on holiday a couple of times a year." But it's OK because: "I feel horribly guilty about it."

Most rational people have to conclude that global warming is a farce, an ideology pushed upon us by those that preach the end of the world is nigh while jetting around, accepting prizes and making money like they will live forever. It is faith whose preachers demand the world makes sacrifices that they can't and won't make themselves.

Andrew Bolt has more.

Global Warming: The Need for Control

I have been musing about the issue of Global Warming for a while now. I am a self-confessed sceptic. I do not deny the fact of global warming, it is quite certain that the climate showed a slight upward trend of about 0.6C in the last 100 years or so. In the same time CO2 emissions have increased. In the absence of better explanation most scientists have linked the two. So far I have not seen any conclusive proof that higher CO2 levels do in fact cause higher temperatures. Most predictions of future calamities come from computer models that are only as good as the assumptions that go into them. Moreover, the sheer range of the future temperature predictions such as IPCC's 1.8 - 6.4 over the next 100 years makes these predictions almost useless in any meaningful analytic sense.

Leaving the science out of the equation for a moment, why do so many people embrace GW despite the large uncertainties that exist? I believe one explanation is our need for control. In the days of old when traditional religions ruled, we would've simply concluded that God is warming up the planet and would've asserted control by prayer. Oh heavenly Father, let us pray for the globe to cool... In a modern secular society where efficiency of prayer has been comprehensively discredited we need to assert control by other means and rituals. We insist our politicians must sign inter-planetary CO2 bans no matter how futile; we install solar panels, wind turbines, buy carbon offsets and convince ourselves that small things can make a real difference. One such exercise in futility was last weekends Earth hour in Sydney. Launched with much fanfare by environmentalists and Green politicians, Earth Hour's organisers have signed up around 2000 businesses and numerous individuals to turn off their lights for one hour last Saturday night to help avert climate change. The practical result of this gesture was to cut as many greenhouse gasses as generated by just two return flights from Sydney to London... As useless as it gets. British GW preacher Sir Nicholas Stern currently touring Australia could've achieved half of such cut by simply staying at home.

People want to believe that by showing green virtue they can bring about a stable climate and avert the coming catastrophe. This is clearly wishful thinking. Our climate is in constant flux. It has changed over millennia and will continue to do so. Even ambitious agreements such as Kyoto will at best achieve 0.07 C reductions in global temperature by 2050, that's if all that we know about CO2 is absolutely correct. It is barely plausible that we can control the climate in a way that would deliver the sort of climate we desire. Still, accepting that we have no impact on climate leaves us in the mercy of Nature (Gods) and makes us feel venerable. We need to be in the driver's seat. Doesn't matter how flawed and preposterous the sheer suggestion that we can control the climate is, it is still better than idea of being at the climate's mercy. We need to pray...

The Great Global Warming Swindle

On Thursday 8 March at 9pm GMT British Channel 4 will screen a new controversial documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle". The film's main argument is simple - Global Warming has become such powerful political force that alternative views and explanations are suppressed.

The film hears from a number of prominent scientists that dispute the link between CO2 and climate. It also looks at the impacts of CO2 restrictions on the world's poorest people. This wonderful quote comes from James Shikwati, Kenyan director of the Inter Region Economic Network:
"The rich countries can afford to engage in some luxurious experimentation with other forms of energy, but for us we are still at the stage of survival.I don't see how a solar panel is going to power a steel industry, how a solar panel is going to power a railway network, it might work, maybe, to power a small transistor radio."

I admire Channel 4 for having the guts to commission such bold documentary. I have no doubt that it will be smeared by the AGW proponents. Despite the repetitive cries of debate being over, the real debate on Global Warming is just beginning. Channel 4's film must be applauded for questioning the dogma.

More from Channel 4's official website.

Cosmic Connection

Astrophysicist Nir Shariv, one of Israel's top young scientists, describes the logic that led him -- and most everyone else -- to conclude that SUVs, coal plants and other things man-made cause global warming.

Step One: Scientists for decades have postulated that increases in carbon dioxide and other gases could lead to a greenhouse effect.

Step Two: As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century while greenhouse gases proliferated due to human activities.

Step Three: No other mechanism explains the warming. Without another candidate, greenhouses gases necessarily became the cause.

However after carefully looking at the evidence Nir no longer believes that CO2 is to blame for current warming.

Nir believes that cosmic rays provide a more plausible explanation. In another study, directly relevant to today's climate controversy, Dr. Shaviv reconstructed the temperature on Earth over the past 550 million years to find that cosmic ray flux variations explain more than two-thirds of Earth's temperature variance, making it the most dominant climate driver over geological time scales. The study also found that an upper limit can be placed on the relative role of CO2 as a climate driver, meaning that a large fraction of the global warming witnessed over the past century could not be due to CO2 -- instead it is attributable to the increased solar activity.

CO2 does play a role in climate, Dr. Shaviv believes, but a secondary role, one too small to preoccupy policymakers. Yet Dr. Shaviv also believes fossil fuels should be controlled, not because of their adverse affects on climate but to curb pollution.

Cosmic ray theory is gaining some traction since Danish National Space Center experimentally proved that cosmic rays create cloud nuclei and therefore influence the climate by altering the number of low altitude clouds (current climate models cannot model cloud behavior). The theory is taken seriously enough for CERN to conduct their own experiment similar to Danish. The results will be out in the first part of the year.

The Solar System is Warming

Strange things have been noticed by the astronomers. Some of the planets in the Solar System are undergoing global warming.

Mars is warming: here and here

So is Jupiter

And so is Pluto: here and here.

Now this can be the proof that recent warming on Earth is caused not by human CO2 emissions but by some mechanism that we currently don't understand. Cosmic Ray theory experimentally proven by Danish Space Center and soon to be tested by CERN is one plausible explanation:

Alternatively, if you take the current consensus position, you have to conclude that the problem is much worst than first thought and our SUV's are warming up the Solar System!!!

The Church of Global Warming and Al the Latter-Day Saint

The religious nature of environmentalism is once again in the spotlight thanks to Al Gore's Oscar win. This year's Oscars were the first "green Oscars". It was undoubtedly a farce themed around sin and search for redemption. How else can we describe the spectacle of Gargantuan consumers of energy with their Hollywood mansions, limousines and private jets basking in the warm glow of Al's green halo and feeling superior to the great unwashed for being driven a couple of meters to the red carpet in Priuses (or is it Priusae?). The theme of environmental redemption was further highlighted by every guest receiving one years worth of carbon offsets in their Oscar goody bag. How easy, they can now sin for the whole year guilt free!

After the Oscars Al Gore became a centre of big controversy after it was revealed that his electricity consumption was 20 times higher than the national average. But the Big Man explained it was OK because he purchased carbon credits, as it turned out, from himself. See, there is no need for painful lifestyles adjustments and personal sacrifices as long as you buy a carbon offset. Ergo in the church of environmentalism the energy consumption is a sin and the carbon offsets are the modern form of green indulgence.

Michael Crichton once called environmentalism "the religion of choice for urban atheists a perfect 21st Century re-mapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths". While a lot of environmentalists would find this insulting, Rachel Carson, the mother of modern environmentalism, once wrote that "by destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects. Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not". Bruce Crofts of the East Toronto Climate Action Group compared Al Gore to Jesus Christ and said categorically "From my perspective, it is a form of religion. --- The religion for this group is doing something for the environment."

While there is nothing wrong with having religious thoughts and believes, religion must be seen by both believers and non-believers for what it ultimately is - a religion. The problem with so many in the environmental movement is their insistence that environmentalism is not religion but science.

Himalayan glaciers are melting... are they?

The IPCC is saying that Himalayan glaciers are melting. Put himalaya glacier global warming or himalaya glacier climate change into Google and you will get hundreds of thousands of colourfully-alarming pages. "Millions face glacier catastrophe" says the Observer, "Global Warming Triggers Glacial Lakes Flood Threat" says the UN Chronicle... Take home - we are all fucked!!!

But are we? Enter the real experts that study Himalayan glaciers. Believe it or not, there are only about dozen scientists working on India's 9,575 glaciers.

VK Raina is a leading glaciologist and former ADG Geological Society of India. He disputes the IPCC's consensus position that global warming is melting Himalayan glaciers. Raina points out that only 50 out of India's 9,575 glaciers have been properly studied! Nearly 200 years of data coming from these 50 glaciers have not shown anything abnormal.

Raina's views are echoed by Dr RK Ganjoo, Director, Regional Centre for Field Operations and Research on Himalayan Glaciology who also maintains that nothing abnormal has been found in any of the Himalyan glaciers studied so far by him.

Read the article here

Geenpeace under threat

German government has announced its plans to reform taxation laws for charitable organisations. Germany has fairly lax laws when it comes to listing organisation as charity. Special-interest advocacy groups such as Greenpeace can simply list themselves as charities, pay no tax and therefore get a lot more cash for their lobbying activities. Greenpeace's Hamburg office currently uses its tax-free windfall to fund a lot of Greenpeace's programs right around the World. If German taxation regime changes it will pose a threat to Greenpeace internationally.

Let's hope Germany does it. Greenpeace is environmental anti-development, anti-globalisation lobby group, not a charity.

Global Warming Trade-offs

Public policy is all about trade-offs. Everything comes at a cost. Increased investment in one sector often means reduced investment somewhere else. Fore example increased spending on environment may come form decreasing defense or healthcare spending. Jonah Goldberg asks to be very careful when thinking about trade-offs involved in the policy to combat global warming:

In the history of trade-offs, never has there been a better one than trading a tiny amount of global warming for a massive amount of global prosperity. Earth got about 0.7 degrees Celsius warmer in the 20th century while it increased its GDP by 1,800 percent, by one estimate. How much of that 0.7 degrees can be laid at the feet of that 1,800 percent is unknowable, but let's stipulate that all of the warming was the result of our prosperity and that this warming is in fact indisputably bad (which is hardly obvious). That's still an amazing bargain. Life expectancies in the United States increased from about 47 years to about 77 years. Literacy, medicine, leisure and even, in many respects, the environment have improved mightily over the course of the 20th century, at least in the prosperous West.
....
Given the option of getting another 1,800 percent richer in exchange for another 0.7 degrees warmer, I'd take the heat in a heartbeat.


Would you?

Adaptation is back on the agenda

For most global warming activists adaptation has been a taboo topic. Al Gore describes it as "kind of laziness, an arrogant faith in our ability to react in time to save our skins". However the reality of global warming dynamics is pushing adaptation back on the agenda. Both Stern report (despite its numerous shortcomings) and IPCC are talking adaptation as a viable option. This article in the Nature makes a strong case for adaptation:

First, there is a timescale mismatch. Whatever actions ultimately lead to the decarbonization of the global energy system, it will be many decades before they have a discernible effect on the climate.

Second, vulnerability to climate-related impacts on society are increasing for reasons that have nothing to do with greenhouse-gas emissions, such as rapid population growth along coasts and in areas with limited water supplies.
This is particularly evident in relation to Katrina disaster. While most debate focused on if Katrina was related to global warming, scientist have long warned of inevitability of Katrina-like disaster.

Finally, those who will suffer the brunt of climate impacts are now demanding that the international response to climate change focus on increasing the resilience of vulnerable societies to damaging climate events that - like Katrina - will occur regardless of efforts to mitigate emissions

I very much liked the tropical diseases example in relation to adaptation vs. mitigation:
For instance, one study found that without taking into account climate change, the global population at risk from malaria would increase by 100% by 2080, whereas the effect of climate change would increase the risk of malaria by at most 7%. Yet tropical disease risk is repeatedly invoked by climate-mitigation advocates as a key reason to curb emissions. In a world where political attention is limited, such distortions reinforce the current neglect of adaptation.

Adaptation has another very important strength. Rich countries currently argue over, commit and ultimately miss CO2 mitigation targets. This process is set to continue for the foreseeable future until the large-scale energy alternatives are developed. On the other hand we already have the technology to build protective walls to stop rising seas, set up water infrastructure, make buildings less prone to damage and keep tropical diseases at bay. Even with the best intentions it is easy to miss the CO2 targets, it will be a lot harder to miss a construction schedule.

WWF Polar Bear Report Nobody Reads

Here is a great example of planet emergency created by constant lying and repetition. Nearly every person on the planet by now knows that polar bears are in grave danger. If we don't act now they will be all gone, perhaps even in the next 25 years. Scary!

Even WWF is warning that the bears are under grave threat. However if one looks at their own report predictably called "Polar Bears at Risk" such fears are baseless. Have a look at page 9 which gives a table of various bear population. Out of 14 populations for which the trends have been established only 2 are decreasing, the rest are either stable or increasing.

WWF draws it's dire conclusions of the risks based on the sea ice depletion but such conclusions are hypothetical and presently unsupported by observation data.

Another brave soul speaks out against Gore

More and more people are beginning to challenge Al Gore-style climate hysteria. Professor Bob Giegengack of Penn's Department of Earth and Environmental Science gives sobering assessment of Al Gores doom-preaching documentary "Inconvenient Truth".

"The glossy production is replete with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, and appeals to public fear as shamelessly as any other political statement that hopes to unite the public behind a particular ideology."

Then Gore clicks again to dramatic footage of a collapsing polar ice shelf. "That's irresponsible," Gieg says. "What he's doing is no less than the scare tactics used by people like Karl Rove."

Is CO2 driving the climate or is climate driving the CO2?
the professor maintains, these core samples from the polar ice and ocean floor help show that the Earth?s temperature and the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been in lockstep for tens of thousands of years.
...
Of course, that was long before anybody was burning fossil fuels. So Giegengack tells his students they might want to consider that "natural" climatic temperature cycles control carbon dioxide levels, not the other way around. That's the crux of his argument with Gore's view of global warming - he says carbon dioxide doesn't control global temperature, and certainly not in a direct, linear way.

And this on the effectiveness of CO2 caps by the developed countries:
"the thing he doesn't mention is that there are 2.4 billion people in India and China who have launched a campaign that will increase their energy consumption by a factor of 10. No matter what we do. If we somehow cut our CO2 emissions in half, you wouldn't be able to measure the difference because of the role played by India and China.

"It's over. If CO2 is the problem, we've already lost."

There is plenty of good science in the article that challenges the global warming dogma. I suspect we will see more and more scientists with integrity speaking out in the future. Hopefully soon we'll see that the Emperor has no clothes...