More idiocy from the Greens

From The Star

Greens' climate plan sees 12-cent tax at the pump
Carbon toll is to avert climate "catastrophe", says May

OTTAWA–The Green party wants Canadian drivers to pay an extra 12 cents a litre at the gas pumps as the price of averting environmental "catastrophe."

Leader Elizabeth May is boasting that her party is the only one politically brave enough to call for carbon taxes that would discourage automobile use and finance other tax cuts that would allow consumers to make smarter environmental choices.

"Right now, the Green Party of Canada is the only Canadian political party prepared to state this obvious reality," May said yesterday. "We will use those carbon taxes to reduce taxes elsewhere."

May rolled out her party's environmental plan yesterday in part to coincide with the G-8 meeting starting today in Germany, where Canada's action on this issue – or lack of it – is a major story.

The Green leader had harsh words for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his announced intentions to be a "bridge" between countries that have signed on to the Kyoto air quality accord and the United States, which hasn't.

"If we stop being with the rest of the world and start siding with George Bush, we are global saboteurs and that's what Mr. Harper is doing right now in Germany," May said.

The environmental challenge is similar to the space race about 50 years ago in which then-president John F. Kennedy said the United States would put a man on the moon, May said.

"He couldn't prove it when he said it. He could mobilize the resources, fix the political will, and engage the public's spirit and imagination in a bold, collective venture," she said. "Surely we can do the same thing for purposes of survival."

I’ve seen this silly comparison so many times before. It’s really getting old.

“If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we……cure cancer?”

..find a cure for AIDS?”

...stop hurricanes?”

...keep earthquakes from happening?”

...eliminate world hunger?”

...eliminate poverty and ignorance?”

and now

...stop global warming?”

So all we need to do is throw a bunch of money and engineers at any problem and it will magically be solved. Well, that actually can work if you already know the solution to the problem. We had all the science needed to put a man on the moon by the 19^th century. The equations were all known and solved. The “space race” in the 1960s was just a matter of developing the technology needed to implement the solutions. The Apollo 13 astronauts themselves, when asked by Mission Control who was driving replied, “Isaac Newton is in the driver’s seat.” However, none of these other systems are well understood. We don’t know all the science involved in climate, let alone how to “fix” it or if it even needs to be fixed. And I might remind Ms. May that one country’s climate “catastrophe” is usually another’s windfall. Why should only Westerners get to decide what the entire earth's climate should be?

After reading this article, I began to wonder about the sanity of the world in general and the U.S. in particular. Maybe we should force everybody in government and the media to just answer this one simple question:

Which of these things should we really be worried about?

This is not at all likely:




This is:



These things won't kill you:



These will:




This will take care of itself with no effort on your part:



This won't:



Well?

But will it rain in Dubuque tomorrow?

Sweeping changes to global climate seen by 2100: study

Note: all of the links in the following article were put in by Breitbart.com, not me

Many of the world's climate zones will vanish entirely by 2100, or be replaced by new, previously unseen ones, if global warming continues as expected, a study released Monday said.

And what kind of study is this? Wait for it.............

Rising temperatures will force existing climate zones toward higher latitudes and higher elevations, squeezing out climates at the colder extremes, and leaving room for unfamiliar climes around the equator, the study predicted.

The sweeping climatic changes will likely affect huge swaths of land from the Indonesian rainforest to the Peruvian Andes, including many known hotspots of diversity, disrupting local ecological systems and populations.

"Our findings are a logical outcome of global warming scenarios that are driven by continued emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases," said Jack Williams, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of the paper.

"The warmest areas get warmer and move outside our current range of experience and the colder areas also get warmer and so those climates disappear."

Williams and colleagues from the University of Wyoming based their predictions on computer models that translate carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions into climate change. The emissions' estimates were taken from a report issued by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in February.

Bingo!!!!

The models suggest that the climate zones covering as much as 48 percent of the earth's landmass could disappear by 2100.

Classic weasel wording.

By that point, close to 40 percent of the world's land surface area would also have a "novel" or new climate, according to the climate models.

New (or "novel") in terms of what? The climate of the central US has been shallow inland sea, semi-tropical swamp, glacier, temperate forest, and semi-arid grassland depending on what part of the past 70 million years you look at. Which of these is novel, again?

Even if emission rates slowed due to mitigation strategies, the changes would still affect up to 20 percent of the earth's landmass in each scenario, the authors said.

As a geographic phenomenon, the disappearing climates would likely affect tropical highlands and regions near the poles including the Colombian and Peruvian Andes, Central America, African Rift Mountains, the Zambian and Angolan Highlands.

???????????????? What does this even mean? Climate changes all the time, but it never disappears.

The trend poses the greatest threat to areas of rich, but threatened, animal and plant life, in regions such as the Himalayas, the Philippines and African and South American mountain ranges. The changes could threaten some species with extinction and also displace or fragment local human populations.

All areas, I might add, that are extremely active tectonically, and thus subject to rapid changes due to earthquakes and volcanic activity.

As for new or novel climate zones, the phenomenon will largely affect the tropics or sub-tropics, such as the Amazonian and Indonesian rainforests, where even subtle temperature variations can have far-reaching effects, Williams said.

Such as ?? Come on, you can scare us more than that!

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Who should be thouroughly ashamed of themselves.

The previous link to the movie The Great Global Warming Swindle no longer works. Go here to see it. And this is what will probably happen to all the scientists who participated: (via Cox and Forkum)



The intimidation seems to have already begun.

They're getting desperate in cloud-cuckooland
the following is probably a reaction to this (the Great Global Warming Swindle program on Britain's channel 4)
See the video here

from AP news

Warming Report to warn of coming drought

By Seth Borenstein

WASHINGTON (AP) - The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.

At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.

Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.

How do they know these things with such certainty when meteorologists admit that they don’t know how much precipitation falls around the world now, what form it’s in, or even where it falls? And when I say “don’t know”, I mean precisely that. Their estimates are not even in the ballpark. Since this, unlike anthropogenic CO₂,is actually important in determining the climate, you would think they would be a little less dogmatic in theor pronouncements.

But as long as we’re indulging in doom and gloom, let’s not forget the other horrible effects of “global warming: the increased shortage of prostitutes in Bulgaria and all the things on this list.

For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.

The draft document by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change focuses on global warming's effects and is the second in a series of four being issued this year. Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials.

Not scarey enough yet, I guess.

"Things are happening and happening faster than we expected," said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the many co-authors of the new report.

The draft document says scientists are highly confident that many current problems - change in species' habits and habitats, more acidified oceans, loss of wetlands, bleaching of coral reefs, and increases in allergy-inducing pollen - can be blamed on global warming.

Not quite the same thing as their earlier certainty. Don’t worry, they’re back to that in the next paragraph.

For example, the report says North America "has already experienced substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from recent climate extremes," such as hurricanes and wildfires.

Like the devastating 2006 Atlantic hurricane season. I have a feeling these particular examples may disappear from the final draft if anyone with two brain cells sees them. Hurricane frequencies and wildfires are two things which have been shown to have absolutely no relation to warming. Wildfires are an entirely natural phenomenon and the only reasons they have become more destructive in recent years are poor forest management practices and increased building density in the Southwestern US. Hurricane frequency follows a Poisson Distribution, the implications of which are here. They’re not related to surface temperatures, either.

But the present is nothing compared to the future.

[snip] I have left out the list of computer-induced hallucinations which constitute climate prediction these days. Go read them if you want. I'll wait.

This report - considered by some scientists the "emotional heart" of climate change research - focuses on how global warming alters the planet and life here, as opposed to the more science-focused report by the same group last month.

Excuse me. I just spilled coffee all over my computer. “Science focused”???????? I missed the science in the Summary for Policymakers last month. It’s supposed to be in the full report, which hasn’t been released yet. “Emotional heart”?????????????? I don’t dispute that scientists have emotions or that they should express them, but they should confine that sort of thing to their friends and families. I don’t CARE how they feel about global warming. This is science. Stick to the facts. Oh, I forget, they don’t have any.

"This is the story. This is the whole play. This is how it's going to affect people. The science is one thing (and obviously not a thing we agree with – ed.) This is how it affects me, you and the person next door," said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver.

YAY! Somebody has it right! It is just a story, a work of fiction. As far as horror stories go, it’s not nearly up to the standards of Poe or LeFanu, but I would rate it as middling science fiction, maybe on the level of Asimov.

Many - not all - of those effects can be prevented, the report says, if within a generation the world slows down its emissions of carbon dioxide and if the level of greenhouse gases sticking around in the atmosphere stabilizes. (News flash – methane already has been stable for several years- ed.) If that's the case, the report says "most major impacts on human welfare would be avoided; but some major impacts on ecosystems are likely to occur."

The United Nations-organized network of 2,000 scientists was established in 1988 to give regular assessments of the Earth's environment. The document issued last month in Paris concluded that scientists are 90 percent certain that people are the cause of global warming and that warming will continue for centuries.

So we’re supposed to torpedo the world’s economies, including those that are just getting developed in Africa, because these guys and their computer generated fantasies are 90% certain about catastrophic AGW. Would you risk bungee jumping if the operator was just 90% certain that the rope is short enough for you? Or buy a car that the dealer was 90% certain would not explode on your way home? That means that there’s a one in ten chance that it will. There’s a reason why statisticians use the 95% confidence level as the standard by which you can say that some outcome is likely. But I seriously doubt any statisticians were consulted for this particular boondoggle. I don’t think a reputable statistician would have let this pass.

Again, for the sake of humanity, someone PLEASE take the computers away from these people.

A Confederacy of Dunces - the 101st post for the CC

from CNS news

Here Comes 'Climate Crisis Action Day'
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
March 08, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Environmental activists and liberal politicians will join forces in Washington, D.C., on March 20 for the first "Climate Crisis Action Day," which is billed as a "carbon-neutral global warming event."

Snicker.

Speakers at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol will include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and others concerned about climate change.

"Visuals will include a giant inflatable earth on fire, hybrid cars, and thousands of advocates in crimson T-shirts," the news release said.

Environmental groups that are sponsoring the event expect thousands of Americans to come to the Capitol to meet with their senators and representatives -- and "urge them to support swift, steep reductions in global warming pollution and protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."

Are they all going to walk to DC? Will they stay only in buildings with no concrete in them (concrete production is a large source of CO2) and only eat food grown in DC that doesn't have to be transported? Will they refrain from (ahem) eliminating? (CO2 and methane emissions!) If one of them gets injured or ill, will they refuse to be transported in an ambulance or to be treated by people who drove in one? I'll bet the red t-shirts they'll all be wearing weren't made by hand, either. And I'll also wager that the Park Police or whoever gets to clean up after this event will end up with bags and bags full of plastic water bottles. Do 'environmental activists' have any clue at all how the world really works?

Questions (and answers) to be addressed at the event include:

• Why must we act now to fight global warming?
  Activists' answer: "Science tells us that we can prevent the worst effects if we cut emissions enough to keep temperatures from rising more than 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit above today's levels." (Skeptics say the science has been hyped beyond what the facts support.) ;
• 
  
• If ALL the restrictions in the Kyoto treaty were implemented, not only would the US and European economies be destroyed, we would possibly save 0.06C (0.11F) worth of warming. And that's only if the climatologists have got the warming effects of CO2 right to begin with, which I doubt.
  
  
• What is at stake?
  Answer: "The Arctic and other pristine public lands face thawing, drought, forest fires and other warming effects. Sea level rise could create millions of 'eco refugees' as people flee coasts." (Scaremongering, some Americans insist.) ; And they would be exactly right.
  
  
• What can we do?
  Answer: "Support investments in efficiency and renewable energy, reduce global warming pollution, and protect the Arctic wilderness." (Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will "shut down the machine we call America," says Sen. James Inhofe, a leading critic of the argument that human activity is causing climate change.) He's also exactly right.
  

If these people are really serious about being 'carbon neutral' (whatever that means) and reducing CO2 emissions, they should stop getting themselves all riled up. That only makes a person's breathing rate go up and causes him to release more CO2. Fortunately, all this angst is just plain irritating to sensible people and it doesn't make any difference at all to the earth. No matter how much the 'climate activists' whine and stamp their little feet, the earth is going to go through its natural cycles of warmth and cold until the sun exhausts its hydrogen supply, goes into the red giant stage and consumes the inner planets of the solar system. I wonder if anyone will claim that human beings cause THAT.

Sponsors of Climate Crisis Action Day include: Alaska Wilderness League, Earthjustice, Harris Lithographics Incorporated, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, National Audubon Society, NRDC Action Fund, SaveOurEnvironment.org, Sierra Club, Washington City Paper, The Wilderness Society and 94.7FM The Globe.

Many other groups are listed as "supporters."

See title of post.

Another horrible consequence of global warming

Staff shortages in brothels!

Brothel owners in Bulgaria are blaming global warming for staff shortages.

They claim their best girls are working in ski resorts because a lack of snow has forced tourists to seek other pleasures.

Petra Nestorova, who runs an escort agency in Sofia, said: 'We have hired students, but they are temps and nothing like our elite girls.'

Why was this not foreseen in either "An Inconvenient Truth" or the IPCC Summary for Policymakers? I'm sure the UN wouldn't have any trouble finding volunteers to investigate the situation.

Salvation for the eco-sinner
via Iowahawk

To whet your appetite:

The definition of hubris

Climate Panel Recommends Global Temperature Ceiling, Carbon Tax
By Peter Heinlein United Nations 28 February 2007

A panel of scientists has presented the United Nations a detailed plan for combating climate change. VOA's correspondent at the U.N. Peter Heinlein reports the strategy involves reaching a global agreement on a temperature ceiling.

A group of 18 scientists from 11 countries is calling on the international community to act quickly to prevent catastrophic climate change.

In a report requested by the United Nations and partially paid for by the privately funded U.N. Foundation, the panel warns that any delay could lead to a dangerous rise in sea levels, increasingly turbulent weather, droughts and disease.

More dispatches from fantasyland. All these are the products of wildly inaccurate computer models coupled with the desperate need of researchers for publicity and grant money.

The report was issued three weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that global warming is real and caused in large part by human activity. But unlike the IPCC report, this latest document makes policy recommendations.

Panel member John Holdren of Harvard University says the world must be mobilized immediately to avoid catastrophe. "Climate change is real, it's already happening, it's already causing harm, it's accelerating and we need to do something about it, and we need to do something about it seriously, starting now. Our specific conclusions are that if the world were to go past the point of an increase above pre-industrial temperatures greater than 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius, we would be in a regime where the danger of intolerable and unmanageable impacts on well-being would rise very rapidly," he said.

Where does he think world temperatures were during the Cretaceous? Are the “intolerable and unmanageable impacts” that he fears the re-emergence of dinosaurs and huge insects? Warm temperatures are generally very good for living things which the last time I checked included human beings. And what, precisely, are we supposed to do about climate change anyway, most of which is NOT caused by humans (see the end of the Cretaceous)? In spite of his statements in this article, the man does not appear to be an idiot. Take a look at his background here. Notice he is the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy. Enough said.

The panel's recommendations include a series of steps to cut the rate at which temperatures are rising. Chief among them are a global agreement on an acceptable ceiling for temperature rise and finding ways of adapting to cope with the damage already done.

This idea has got to be the all time winner for hubris. Now a few privileged human beings get to decide what the earth’s temperature should be. Where are the ancient Greek gods when you need them? Or have they already started the process of our destruction by driving these guys mad? And what damage has already been done? Maybe things like the greening of the Sahara region? Global warming has been good for the people in the Sahel, why should we want to stop it? Do they get a say in what the global temperature should be?

Holdren, however, says even these measure will achieve very little unless they are accompanied by a global tax on greenhouse gas emissions. "We don't think ultimately society will get it right in terms of the full range and scope of activities needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, until there is an additional incentive in the form of a price on greenhouse gas emissions, either through a carbon tax or a cap and trade approach," he said.

AHA! Now we get to the REAL reason for the this report and its hype. And just who would collect these taxes? The U.N.? And what would they be spent on?

The United States is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses, but is not a party to the cap and trade system contained in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

It’s greenhouse GASES. And refusing to sign Kyoto was the smartest thing Bill Clinton ever did

Nevertheless, the Bush administration has set a target of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent by 2012, and is spending $3 billion a year on climate change research.

What a waste. I thought conservatives were against unnecessary federal spending.

Peter Raven, the head of the Sigma Xi Scientific society and co-author of the latest report, says success in limiting the effects of global warming will require private sector leadership, and a combined effort by the U.S. and the international community. "The private sector is doing a very good job, and kind of leadership we're calling for from the United Nations and international organizations and the kind of leadership the United States is moving towards will both be key ingredients in that," he said.

Much as I respect Dr. Raven’s credentials as a botanist, he is neither an economist nor an atmospheric scientist and I don’t know why he would be asked to coauthor such a report. Always beware scientists who make pronouncements in areas outside their disciplines.

A U.N. spokesman says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is considering calling a summit meeting on climate change later this year. Environmental activists are calling on Mr. Ban to play a leading role in the process of negotiating a successor to the Kyoto agreement, which expires in 2012.

It's all about US!! US!!! US!!!! And money. LOTS of money.

I think I'll go lie down now.

Child abuse in Britain

Global warming concerns are keeping children awake at night

Half of young children are anxious about the effects of global warming, often losing sleep because of their concern, according to a new report today.

A survey of 1,150 youngsters aged between seven and 11 found that one in four blamed politicians for the problems of climate change.

I would love to see the actual questions in this survey.

Are you doing enough?

Of course you aren’t.

One in seven of those questioned by supermarket giant Somerfield said their own parents were not doing enough to improve the environment.

The most feared consequences of global warming included poor health, the possible submergence of entire countries and the welfare of animals.

Most of those polled understood the benefits of recycling, although one in 10 thought the issue was linked to riding a bike.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Pete Williams, of Somerfield, said: "Concerns over our environment dominate the media at present and kids are exposed to the hard facts as much as anybody.

[choke] Hard facts ?? HARD FACTS????????? SHOW ME THE FACTS!!!

"While many adults may look the other way, this study should show that global warming is not only hurting the children of the future, it's affecting the welfare of kids now.

No, YOU’RE hurting their welfare now by scaring them about nothing.

"By raising awareness amongst today's young, hopefully we are improving our chances of reaching a solution.''

Translation: “By frightening kids and thus bothering their parents, we’ll be able to justify more taxes and less personal freedom now”

The study marked Somerfield's drive to reduce the eight billion plastic bags wasted by UK households every year.

And exactly what does that have to do with climate change?

If an older sibling or uncle was terrifying your child with monster stories to the point where the child couldn’t sleep, what would you do? In my house, at least, the uncle would be persona non grata until he stopped and at least tried to undo the damage by admitting that he made it all up. An older sibling would do all that plus face some additional punishment for being a jerk. All this “global warming” hype is just a monster story told by jerks to frighten the weak minded. All these so-called “consequences” of climate change are mere fantasies generated by computer models and publicized by grant-hungry “scientists” (and power hungry politicians). Why are these people allowed to get away with this? And why do they think it’s acceptable to target children? I know, I know, to get at their parents. Can you imagine Winston Churchill, back when nobody believed him about the threat from the Nazis, starting a campaign to tell Britain’s children that Hitler was going to come over and kill them all in their sleep? That would have got their parents on board with the war, right? Of course not; it probably would have ended his political career, and yet the Nazi threat was real and imminent in the 1930s. People (Nazis and other bad guys) were responsible for the situation then, and people (the Allies) had to fix it. Global climate change is not caused by people and there is nothing people can do to “fix” it. So STOP the scare stories already.

From the “You’ve GOT to be kidding” files

A short intermission in the climate circus

Smoke detectives are taking over the streets

By Christopher Hope, Whitehall Editor

Thousands of council officers will be on the streets this summer, patrolling bars, restaurants and shops to police the smoking ban.

Smokers' campaigning groups said the scheme would be a "complete waste of public money". The British Beer and Pub Association said the plan was "heavy handed".

The new smoke-free rules come into force in England on July 1, when people will be banned from smoking in workplaces or enclosed public areas. However, there might be confusion about the application of the rules.

A home owner is allowed to smoke at home but not if a work colleague arrives to discuss a business plan.

Similarly, home owners can smoke if friends are invited, but not if caterers are there to help with the food and drink.

A smoking shelter outside an office might also be outlawed by the smoking police if it has doors or walls around it. Publicans who turn a blind eye could be fined up to £2,500 "for failing to prevent smoking in a smoke-free place".

Local authorities have been granted £29.5 million to raise awareness about the rules. However, they can pay for staff, who will be able to issue on-the-spot £50 fines to people and take court action against premises if they flout the law.

Officers will be able to sit among drinkers undercover and photograph and film people. A Government-funded course is expected to train 1,200 council employees in the next few months, with more to follow later.

Ian Gray, the policy officer for the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and chief trainer for the Government course, said: "Most councils will take a softly, softly approach at first. But there will be some occasions when action has to be taken and I am sure the officers will not shy away from that.

"These officers do not have to identify themselves when they go into premises and they can film and photograph people to gather evidence although this may not be appropriate in many cases."

How Orwellian can you get?

In Nottingham, about 30 officers will patrol the city, including new staff and environmental health officers.

The council is also exploring the possibility of getting street wardens, who help the local police force, to ensure the ban is enforced.

In Liverpool, there will be a core team of about 20 to 25 staff, although about 200 staff are expected to patrol the city in the first few days of the ban. Liverpool City Council official Andy Hull told the BBC: "We want to make our presence felt, and while we will probably just issue warnings on the first day, we won't be afraid of making an example of people or businesses."

Can you imagine this? 200 staff on the streets to enforce a SMOKING BAN. I guess enforcing the laws against robbery, thuggery, and general mayhem is just not that important.

Steve Dowling, the director of public protection at Nottingham City Council, said: "We have about 100 wardens and they could keep an eye on whether people are smoking in pubs as they go about their other duties." A Department of Health spokesman said the money was provided over two years.

She added: "It's up to local authorities how they spend the cash but action could include helping local businesses prepare for July 1, ensuring that they know what they need to do.

"Building awareness is vital to the successful implementation of the smoke-free policy. That's why government, centrally and locally, is working hard to ensure businesses and the public are aware of what going smoke-free means."

Well, the British DID invent the “nanny”. Now they’re going to let her run the entire country.

Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest, said: "The idea of getting public officials to snoop on people is distasteful." A spokesman for the British Beer and Pub Association said the plan was "elaborate".

News of the increased number of smoking snoopers comes after The Daily Telegraph revealed that there were just three uniformed police officers on the streets in some towns at night.

Aside from the political implications of spying on one’s own citizens and monitoring their personal behaviour, the whole thing is doubly outrageous because it’s based on such terrible science. There is NO EVIDENCE that second hand smoke causes cancer or any other disease. Surprised? Well, if you’ve been following the debate on global warming, you should already know how activists work to suppress data that doesn’t support their agenda. The anti-smoking lobby has known about this lack of evidence for years, and they still manage to shape public policy just by scaring people into thinking that their lives are at risk every time they smell a cigarette. I HATE to see science misused yet again for an activist agenda.

Lest you suspect that I have my own agenda, I don’t smoke myself and I ask that people not smoke in my house because I don’t like the smell of cigarettes. I like the smoke from good cigars and pipe tobacco. If I’m in a restaurant or bar where smoking is allowed (an increasingly rare situation), I accept that I will have to deal with it. If the amount of smoke is a problem, I won’t go back again. If the establishment loses business because the owner permits smoking, the policy will change, guaranteed. There’s no need for laws or ordinances or secret smoking police. And yes, I do realize that where there is a clear risk for harm to others from smoking as there is in hospitals and gas stations, it should be forbidden. And I do know that there is a link between smoking and lung disease IN THE SMOKER that HAS been reliably established. I also realize that it’s none of my business to tell other adults how much personal risk they may choose to assume. I consider being a fighter pilot, cave diving and bungee-jumping way too risky for myself, but if you’re a grown-up and crazy enough to do these things, that’s your business.

Though my initial impulse was to laugh at this article, I find it more and more disturbing as I think about it. It’s only a matter of time before somebody tries to start this sort of thing here in the US. Orwell’s future doesn’t start with a revolution or massive military coup, but with the government intruding itself gradually into regulating people’s personal behavior. After all, we don’t want people to smoke, it’s not good for them. So what’s wrong with trying to discourage the behavior? Then we see people doing other things that “experts” say aren’t good for them – eating too much, drinking too much, living too well, doing the wrong things, or maybe even believing the wrong things. Shouldn’t they be stopped? Don’t we want everybody on the planet to be equally healthy and happy? And if we have scientific “proof” that what they’re doing is bad for them, shouldn’t that be enough to pass a few more laws to make them stop?

Maybe Orwell was just a few decades off.

Hypocrisy, thy name is [insert politician here]

from the New York Times

PELOSI BACKS RESTRICTIONS ON HEAT-TRAPPING GASES

The United States has to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, and mandatory restrictions are the only way to do it, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the House Science and Technology Committee yesterday.

Ms. Pelosi added that even though she had once opposed using nuclear power to supply some energy needs, she now believed that it should be “on the table,” if the disposal of radioactive waste could be settled.

The speaker said she hoped that the House would consider bills on global warming by July 4.

etc., etc. Then we have (from the Washington Times):

PELOSI DEFENDS REQUEST FOR JET

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday defended her bid for a large U.S. Air Force jet to take her home and back to Washington nonstop -- and the White House backed her up.

etc, etc. Read the whole thing if you want.

So its only us peons that need to cut our CO2 emissions to prevent the end of civilization as we know it. Important people like Ms. Pelosi are exempt. Or else their jets don't emit CO2 like all the others. Or they really don't believe the AGW hype themselves, they're using it as an excuse to further their own personal agendas.

For some welcome sanity on historical climate read this.

How To Do Climate "Science"

"No, no!" said the Queen. "Sentence first - verdict afterwards."
-Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

From the IPCC's Procedures for the preparation, review, acceptance, adoption, approval, and publication of IPCC reports:

"Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter."

In other words, the actual reports which contain the science (such as it is) and the data will be edited after the Summary is written, so that the two will be in agreement. And remember that the Summary was itself edited by bureaucrats and various government officials, in secret, yet. And what kind of result do you think they want? Why, one that gives them an excuse to exercise even more control over your daily life, of course.

It's my opinion that most climate "scientists" are completely out of control at this point; unwilling to give up their research grants, media headlines, or their momentary influence on public policy in exchange for standing up for scientific truth. I agree with Dr. Hendrik Tennekes , who writes at Climate Science (in part):

Seventeen years ago, I wrote a column for Weather magazine, expressing my concerns about the lack of honesty, integrity and humility of many climate scientists. “I worry about the arrogance of scientists who claim they can help solve the climate problem, provided their research receives massive increases in funding”, reads one line from my text. Unknown to me, my friend Richard Lindzen was working on his famous paper “Some Cooling Concerning Global Warming”, which appeared in the Bulletin of the AMS at the same time. This was early 1990. It is 2007 now, and I want to ring the alarm bell again. There is a difference, though: then I was worried, now I am angry. I am angry about the Climate Doomsday hype that politicians and scientists engage in. I am angry at Al Gore, I am angry at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists for resetting its Doomsday clock, I am angry at Lord Martin Rees for using the full weight of the Royal Society in support of the Doomsday hype, I am angry at Paul Crutzen for his speculations about yet another technological fix, I am angry at the staff of IPCC for their preoccupation with carbon dioxide emissions, and I am angry at Jim Hansen for his efforts to sell a Greenland Ice Sheet Meltdown Catastrophe. Speaking of Hansen, Dick Lindzen and I wrote a lighthearted April Fools’ Day parody of his concerns, which was published on Fred Singer’s SEPP website (search for Greenland Green Again) last year (view pdf). I can go on much longer, but I will keep my anger in check.

Yes, we desperately need more modesty, integrity, and balance in the climate field right now, but I think things have gone too far. It won't make much difference what scientists do, even if clowns like Hansen recover their wits and withdraw all their unfounded scarey predictions. We've got politicians involved now on a worldwide scale, AL Gore has been nominated for an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize, and sanity has left the building.

I only wish this was Alice in Wonderland, then we'd all wake up and find that it was all just a bizarre dream.

What he says

WHY GLOBAL WARMING IS PROBABLY A CROCK
by James Lewis

As a scientist I've learned never to say "never." So human-caused global warming is always a hypothesis to hold, at least until climate science becomes mature. (Climate science is very immature right now: Physicists just don't know how to deal with hypercomplex systems like the earth weather. That's why a recent NASA scientist was wildly wrong when he called anthropogenic warming "just basic physics." Basic physics is what you do in the laboratory. If hypercomplex systems were predictable, NASA would have foolproof space shuttles --- because they are a lot simpler than the climate. So this is just pseudoscientific twaddle from NASA's vaunted Politically Correct Division. It makes me despair when even scientists conveniently forget that little word "hypothesis.")

OK. The human-caused global warming hypothesis is completely model-dependent. We can't directly observe cars and cows turning up the earth thermostat. Whatever the human contribution there may be to climate constitutes just a few signals among many hundreds or thousands.

All our models of the earth climate are incomplete. That's why they keep changing, and that's why climate scientists keep finding surprises. As Rummy used to say, there are a ton of "unknown unknowns" out there. The real world is full of x's, y's and z's, far more than we can write little models about. How do you extract the human contribution from a vast number of unknowns?

That's why constant testing is needed, and why it is so frustrating to do frontier science properly.

Science is difficult because nature always has another surprise in store for us, dammit! Einstein rejected quantum mechanics, and was wrong about that. Newton went wrong on the proof of calculus, a problem that didn't get solved until 1900. Scientists are always wrong --- they are just less wrong now than they were before (if everything is going well). Check out the current issue of Science magazine. It's full of surprises. That's what it's for.

Now there's a basic fact about complexity that helps to understand this. It's a point in probability theory (eek!) about many variables, each one less than 100 percent likely to be true.

If I know that my six-sided die isn't loaded, I'll get a specific number on average one out of six rolls. Two rolls of the die produces 1/6 x 1/6 = 1/36. For n rolls of the die, I get (1/6) multiplied by itself n times, or (1/6) to the nth power. That number becomes small very quickly. The more rolls of the die, the less likely it is that some particular sequence will come up. It's the first thing to know in any game of chance. Don't ever bet serious money if that isn't obvious.

Now imagine that all the variables about global climate are known with less than 100 percent certainty. Let's be wildly and unrealistically optimistic and say that climate scientists know each variable to 99 percent certainty! (No such thing, of course). And let's optimistically suppose there are only one-hundred x's, y's, and z's --- all the variables that can change the climate: like the amount of cloud cover over Antarctica, the changing ocean currents in the South Pacific, Mount Helena venting, sun spots, Chinese factories burning more coal every year, evaporation of ocean water (the biggest "greenhouse" gas), the wobbles of earth orbit around the sun, and yes, the multifarious fartings of billions of living creatures on the face of the earth, minus, of course, all the trillions of plants and algae that gobble up all the CO2, nitrogen-containing molecules, and sulfur-smelling exhalations spewed out by all of us animals. Got that? It all goes into our best math model.

So in the best case, the smartest climatologist in the world will know 100 variables, each one to an accuracy of 99 percent. Want to know what the probability of our spiffiest math model would be, if that perfect world existed? Have you ever multiplied (99/100) by itself 100 times? According to the Google calculator, it equals a little more than 36.6 percent.

The Bottom line: our best imaginable model has a total probability of one out of three. How many billions of dollars in Kyoto money are we going to spend on that chance?

Or should we just blow it at the dog races?

So all ye of global warming faith, rejoice in the ambiguity that real life presents to all of us. Neither planetary catastrophe nor paradise on earth are sure bets. Sorry about that. (Consider growing up, instead.)

That's why human-caused global warming is an hypothesis, not a fact. Anybody who says otherwise isn't doing science, but trying to sell you a bill of goods.

Probably.

Here we go yet again

Report has 'smoking gun' on climate

WASHINGTON — Human-caused global warming is here, visible in the air, water and melting ice, and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week.
"The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed all 1,600 pages of the first segment of a giant four-part report. "The evidence ... is compelling."

You’ve got to wonder what was left out in those ellipses. Maybe, “if could find it” or “if we ignore most of it”?

Andrew Weaver, a Canadian climate scientist and study co-author, went even further: "This isn't a smoking gun; climate is a batallion of intergalactic smoking missiles."

First, the word is spelled battalion. And why anything having to do with earth’s climate would be “intergalactic” is mystifying. So what is giving all these guys the vapors?

The first phase of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is being released in Paris next week. This segment, written by more than 600 scientists and reviewed by another 600 experts and edited by bureaucrats from 154 countries, includes "a significantly expanded discussion of observation on the climate," said co-chair Susan Solomon, a senior scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She and other scientists held a telephone briefing on the report Monday.
That report will feature an "explosion of new data" on observations of current global warming, Solomon said.
Solomon and others wouldn't go into specifics about what the report says. They said that the12-page summary for policymakers will be edited in secret word-by-word by governments officials for several days next week and released to the public on Feb. 2. The rest of that first report from scientists will come out months later.
The full report will be issued in four phases over the year, as was the case with the last IPCC report, issued in 2001.

There’s so much wrong in here I don’t know where to start. Since when does science need to be edited by bureaucrats? If these people can’t go into specifics about the data, why are they talking about the report in the first place? Again, if this is real science which is being paid for by our tax dollars, why is it being edited in secret by government officials before being released to the public? And why is the full report not going to be issued all at once? I have my suspicions…….

Global warming is "happening now, it's very obvious," said Mahlman, a former director of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab who lives in Boulder, Colo. "When you look at the temperature of the Earth, it's pretty much a no-brainer."
Look for an "iconic statement" — a simple but strong and unequivocal summary — on how global warming is now occurring, said one of the authors, Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, also in Boulder.
The February report will have "much stronger evidence now of human actions on the change in climate that's taken place," Rajendra K. Pachauri told the AP in November. Pachauri, an Indian climatologist, is the head of the international climate change panel.
An early version of the ever-changing draft report said "observations of coherent warming in the global atmosphere, in the ocean, and in snow and ice now provide stronger joint evidence of warming."
And the early draft adds: "An increasing body of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on other aspects of climate including sea ice, heat waves and other extremes, circulation, storm tracks and precipitation."

Yes, I agree that trying to come up with one temperature for the entire globe is a no-brainer in the sense that if you have a brain you wouldn’t be talking such nonsense. And this wonderful new report is going to have an “iconic statement” about global warming. This has the stench of a marketing department all over it. The “ever-changing” draft report? Why is it changing if the evidence is so incontrovertible? And lastly, we come to the weasel word “suggests”. That’s where they attempt to cover their scientific butts – they make ludicrous and unsubstantiated headline-grabbing claims about human influences on climate, but then say in the fine print that the available evidence merely “suggests” such things.

The world's global average temperature has risen about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2005. The two warmest years on record for the world were 2005 and 1998. Last year was the hottest year on record for the United States.

OK, we’ve finally got some data here, let’s analyze this a little further. The US has been keeping surface temperature records for a little less than 200 years. Since it takes people with thermometers to measure temperature and keep said records, that means that temps for the country AS A WHOLE have been measured for less than 100 years. That is NO TIME AT ALL compared to climatic time scales. But let’s look at the “global average temperature” , whatever that means. The error in such a temperature measurement is about 0.7°C, or about 1.4° F. That makes the supposed increase over the past 105 years within the margin of error. I’m NOT IMPRESSED.

The report will draw on already published peer-review science. Some recent scientific studies show that temperatures are the hottest in thousands of years, especially during the last 30 years; ice sheets in Greenland in the past couple years have shown a dramatic melting; and sea levels are rising and doing so at a faster rate in the past decade.

Another weasel word. Others of course show opposite effects.

Also, the second part of the international climate panel's report — to be released in April — will for the first time feature a blockbuster chapter on how global warming is already changing health, species, engineering and food production, said NASA scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig, author of that chapter.

You mean like these things? Geez, EVERYTHING can be blamed on global warming!

As confident as scientists are about the global warming effects that they've already documented, they are as gloomy about the future and even hotter weather and higher sea level rises. Predictions for the future of global warming in the report are based on 19 computer models, about twice as many as in the past, Solomon said.

Will somebody PLEASE take away these people’s computers so they can start using their brains again? NONE of these models can even reproduce the known climate of the recent past, let alone make accurate predictions about the future. Doubling the fantasy does not give you reality any more than doubling the dog doo will give you chocolate cake.

In 2001, the panel said the world's average temperature would increase somewhere between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit and the sea level would rise between 4 and 35 inches by the year 2100. The 2007 report will likely have a smaller range of numbers for both predictions, Pachauri and other scientists said.

You mean he's the head of this panel and he doesn't KNOW? I’m betting that not only will the ranges be smaller but so will the magnitudes.

The future is bleak, scientists said.
"We have barely started down this path," said chapter co-author Richard Alley of Penn State University.

Of course the future is bleak. They can’t keep their research grants coming if they say anything else. This is just climate researcher code for “Got to stay on the gravy train as long as I can.”

I’m looking forward to the release of the report so I can see how much of a boondoggle it really is and spend some quality time making fun of it. Stay tuned!

Surprisingly enough, they're not blaming it on global warming

MILD WINTER RATTLES RUSSIANS

MOSCOW–Russians normally revel in frosty winters, which are credited with helping them fend off invasions from both Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler. So winter's reluctance to appear this year has left them deeply perturbed.

Like much of Europe, Russia is experiencing an exceptionally warm winter, with temperatures reaching 10C, grass in city parks and not a fur cap in sight.

Grey skies have hung over Moscow for weeks, occasionally disgorging bursts of rain that leave the city wet and dreary.

Experts are warning of outbreaks of depression and even the country's animals are frazzled. At the Leningradsky Zoo in St. Petersburg, officials said this week that two of the zoo's five bears and some of its hedgehogs have come out of hibernation weeks ahead of time.

In rural areas, officials have issued warnings to look out for wild bears that might be aggressive after waking up early.

Psychiatrists in Moscow say the lack of sun and snow – which reflects sunlight to brighten short, dark days – is leaving many depressed.

"The clouds, the short days and the lack of light can have a deep psychological effect even on people who are mentally healthy," says Denis Osipov, a psychotherapist at Moscow's Institute for Positive Psychotherapy.

"And without snow, the city looks filthy. It's hard to feel happy when everyone around you looks dirty and miserable," he said.

Osipov says he has been recommending to patients that they spend as much time as they can outside during the day, even if the sky is overcast, and that they eat more fruits and vegetables to make up for a lack of vitamin D, which is manufactured by the body after exposure to sunshine. In extreme cases, he recommends that patients spend short periods of time under sun lamps.

Tatyana Dmitriyeva, director of Moscow's Serbsky Institute for Social and Forensic Psychiatry, suggests that parents not read stories to their children about snowy winters.

"Small children develop depressive conditions when they hear about snow and ice and see mud and rain instead," she told Itar-Tass news agency.

"This December and January have been the warmest since we started keeping weather records in 1879," says Tatyana Pozdnyakova, a spokesperson for the Moscow Meteorological Bureau.

"These kinds of temperatures are more what we would expect in the autumn or spring."

Temperatures in Moscow have climbed above 8C at least four times this month. At an outdoor rink set up on one side of Red Square, city employees are using powerful generators to keep the ice frozen, forcing it to close frequently.

Nearby, the grass along the outer walls of the Kremlin walls is bright green.

In St. Petersburg, the warm weather has led to floods normally not seen until spring. And in the northeastern city of Arkhangelsk, officials are warning of melting permafrost.

Russia is hardly alone, with much of Europe seeing record-high temperatures this winter. World Cup skiing organizers have had to cancel events in the Alps due to the lack of snow.

On Russian television, meteorologists have become the new stars of debate programs, with some saying global warming is killing Russia's famed winters, others that this winter is only a rare exception.

Well, I guess it would have been TOO perfect if someone hadn't dragged global warming in. At least the article admits that there are other possible explanations and really doesn't take sides.

Critics of global warming point out that last year Russia experienced one of its coldest winters on record. Temperatures plummeted to minus 34C in Moscow on Jan. 20 last year, the lowest recorded since 1927.

Weather forecasters in Russia are predicting that temperatures will fall by the end of January and that snow might finally arrive as early as next week.

Accustomed to spending winter weekends skiing, skating and ice fishing outside the city, many Muscovites can hardly wait.

"We bought our little boy a new pair of skis and he keeps asking us when he'll be able to use them," says Evgeny Tikhonov, a 33-year-old furniture maker.

"I keep saying, `Soon, soon,' but he's losing patience."

Still, not everyone is pining for freezing temperatures and knee-deep snow.

"Are you kidding?" says 22-year-old student Anya Dolginova when asked if she's bothered by the warm weather.

Strolling Moscow's trendy Tverskaya Street in a short skirt with her jacket open, Dolginova says she doesn't understand how anyone could miss the cold. "This is great. It feels like London. I wish every winter was like this."

I don't know why anybody would be "pining" for a typical Russian winter. The winter here in the eastern US has been very mild so far and the only people depressed about it are utility company executives and those unfortunates who signed up for fixed natural gas rates last summer that are now way too high. If you think about it, the Russians only get one real benefit out of their typical winters. Has the Russian/Ukrainian/EU natural gas dispute started up again? Maybe the Swedes or the French or the Germans are planning another invasion that we in the US don't know about yet to resolve the situation.

I would comment on Dr. Heidi Cullen’s statement that meteorologists who are skeptical of catastrophic AGW should be deprived of their AMS certification, but I gave up on The Weather Channel years ago. Given their steady progress towards disaster infotainment (It Could Happen Tomorrow! [even though whatever it is is highly unlikely {but we won’t say anything about that}]) instead of actual science, this sort of thinking is inevitable. I am very disappointed with Georgia Tech, though. Dr. Cullen is listed under research staff in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. In light of recent publications and statements by the EAS chair, Judith Curry, and other researchers there, maybe it’s not so surprising, though they should really be more honest and take the “sciences” part out of the school’s name and replace it with something more accurate like “alarmists” or “statistics” or just plain “studies”. Or even more accurately, rename it the “E & A Grant Money Furnace”. But onwards to

The poison is in the dose, part 2

Mercury
Carbon dioxide
Iodine
Vitamins (any of them) now called "antioxidants"

Selenium
Fat
Salt
Cholesterol
Oxygen
Water

What do these things have in common? They have all been in the news recently and are all beneficial or harmless AT THE PROPER DOSE and toxic at higher doses. They have also all been needlessly either demonized or hyped in the media so that people have unrealistic fears and/or expectations about them. We looked at what happens to people who don't understand this about water in the previous post, i.e. , it's good for me so drinking a ridiculous amount won't hurt me. The same thing is happening with antioxidants, selenium (a mineral also classified as an antioxidant), and oxygen. Since small amounts of these things are beneficial and one can actually suffer from a vitamin deficiency, than large amounts must be even more beneficial and may even keep you from getting cancer, right? Well, probably not. But that doesn't stop desperate people from believing the hype and overdosing and killing themselves. "Oxygen bars" trade in on this same reasoning, though they haven't managed to kill anyone yet. But a large amount of oxygen is toxic and can cause lung damage and death, as all divers know.

The other things on the list are recognized by most people as toxic, but again most don't realize that this is only when thay are only in certain amounts and in certain forms. Several recent thermometer spills have revealed the silliness surrounding mercury. Yes, mercury vapor is toxic when one is exposed to a substantial amount over a long period of time, but the Occupational Exposure Standard for mercury is .025 mg per cubic meter of air over an 8 hour period. Elemental mercury such as what we find in thermometers has a very low vapor pressure (it evaporates VERY slowly at terrestrial temperatures and pressures), so even if you left the spilled mercury from a thermometer sitting on the floor in a sealed 1 cubic meter room with no air exchange, it would be over a year before enough vapor got into the air to be even marginally hazardous. But we still have silly overreactions and costly cleanups, some even getting the EPA involved.

Anyone who has been conscious for the past ten years knows how dangerous fat and cholesterol are. We see ad after ad for drugs to lower our cholesterol levels and for low fat foods, which we should all consume lest we have heart attacks and die. That there is not much actual evidence at all that high fat diets or high/low cholesterol levels (HDL or LDL) cause heart disease is hardly ever mentioned. That some dietary fat is necessary to good health, and that the body manufactures its own cholesterol independently of what we consume (which is vital for brain cells, BTW) also gets short shrift. Yes, TOO MUCH of anything is bad for you, but that doesn't mean that none at all is better.

Salt seems to be off the radar right now as a health hazard, though we went through a period in the 70s and 80s where it also was deemed dangerous even in small amounts by the health nannies. What's going on with salt right now is salt snobbery - sea salt is better than regular old Morton's, exotic pricey salts supposedly taste better and have more healthy minerals, etc. and don't have that artificially-added-by-evil-corporations iodine (which apparently ruins it for some reason). Again, this is a case where hype defeats reality. No matter where salt comes from it is sodium chloride - NaCl. Evaporating sea water to get the salt leaves you with NaCl, not anything else. It would be amusing to watch people paying ten and twenty times more than they need to for sodium chloride because they think it tastes better (!) than what us ignorant peons buy, but they also seem intent on taking us back to the days of iodine deficiencies, which the added iodine in table salt successfully eliminated. I really don't want to see people suffering with goiter or more mentally retarded young children for such a silly reason.

Lastly, British climate scientists have determined that there is "no safe level" of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They've been playing with their computers again, and even though all climate models, including theirs, have been shown to be wildly inaccurate and incapable of even reproducing the known climate of the recent past, they somehow feel they can make statements like this. Unfortunately for their credibility, atmospheric CO2 is absolutely vital to all living things on this planet except for a few worms around deep sea vents. Plants can't photosynthesize without it and if they can't live, the rest of us are doomed. (Ever hear of "primary producers", guys?) I guess if we were all dead we would be "safe" in that nothing else could ever happen to us, but is this really what these guys are thinking? That since the addition of SOME CO2 in their model drives global temperatures higher IN THE MODEL , then ANY level of CO2 IN THE REAL WORLD is bad? [Hey, you, stop that breathing RIGHT NOW! You're adding CO2 to the atmosphere!] Do they really believe that levels of atmospheric CO2 are all that drive the climate, that it has nothing to do with that round yellow thing in the sky? Can anybody outside of Hollywood or Washington be that dense????

THE POISON IS IN THE DOSE!!!!!!!!!!