Disinformation » Global Warming

Man Arrested For Stealing Chile’s Jorge Montt Glacier

JacobSloan — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:00:46 +0000

A fascinating environmental crime. A man stole a five-ton portion of the fast-vanishing glacier, a national monument — the ice was to be used to create the most rarified of illegal cocktails — a drink which will be impossible post climate-change. Via the Guardian:

Police in Chile have arrested a man on suspicion of stealing five tonnes of ice from the Jorge Montt glacier in the Patagonia region to sell as designer ice cubes in bars and restaurants.

Local media reported that last Friday police intercepted a refrigerated truck with an estimated £3,900 worth of illicit ice allegedly bound for whiskies, rums and cocktails in the capital Santiago. Authorities have accused the driver of theft and are considering adding violation of national monuments to the charge sheet.

Is It Too Late? The Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice Is Releasing Huge Fountains of Methane

Good German — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 01:45:12 +0000

Keep in mind that methane affects the atmosphere in multiple ways, and that another major Ice Age might be what’s really in the works. Steve Connor reports in the Independent:

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane — a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide — have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

In an exclusive interview with the Independent, Igor Semiletov, of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.

“Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we’ve found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It’s amazing,” Dr Semiletov said. “I was most impressed by the sheer scale and high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them.”

Coming to a Theater Near You: The Greatest Water Crisis in the History of Civilization

Good German — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:17:38 +0000

William deBuys writes at TomDispatch:

Consider it a taste of the future: the fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have made life unpleasant, if not dangerous, from Louisiana to Los Angeles. New records tell the tale: biggest wildfire ever recorded in Arizona (538,049 acres), biggest fire ever in New Mexico (156,600 acres), all-time worst fire year in Texas history (3,697,000 acres).

The fires were a function of drought. As of summer’s end, 2011 was the driest year in 117 years of record keeping for New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana, and the second driest for Oklahoma. Those fires also resulted from record heat. It was the hottest summer ever recorded for New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, as well as the hottest August ever for those states, plus Arizona and Colorado.

Virtually every city in the region experienced unprecedented temperatures, with Phoenix, as usual, leading the march toward un-livability. This past summer, the so-called Valley of the Sun set a new record of 33 days when the mercury reached a shoe-melting 110º F or higher. (The previous record of 32 days was set in 2007.)

And here’s the bad news in a nutshell: if you live in the Southwest or just about anywhere in the American West, you or your children and grandchildren could soon enough be facing the Age of Thirst, which may also prove to be the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization. No kidding.

Global Carbon Emissions Reach Record 10 Billion Tons

Good German — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:34:24 +0000

Via ScienceDaily:

Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by 49 per cent in the last two decades, according to the latest figures by an international team, including researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia.Published December 4 in the journal Nature Climate Change, the new analysis by the Global Carbon Project shows fossil fuel emissions increased by 5.9 per cent in 2010 and by 49 per cent since 1990 — the reference year for the Kyoto protocol.

On average, fossil fuel emissions have risen by 3.1 per cent each year between 2000 and 2010 — three times the rate of increase during the 1990s. They are projected to continue to increase by 3.1 per cent in 2011.

Total emissions — which combine fossil fuel combustion, cement production, deforestation and other land use emissions — reached 10 billion tonnes of carbon* in 2010 for the first time. Half of the emissions remained in the atmosphere, where CO₂ concentration reached 389.6 parts per million. The remaining emissions were taken up by the ocean and land reservoirs, in approximately equal proportions.

Cooling The Future: Artificial Glaciers?

JacobSloan — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:27:24 +0000

BLDG BLOG examines the emerging field of ice engineering, which may prove more and more useful as naturally-occurring ice formations recede:

The city of Ulan Bator, Mongolia, will attempt to keep itself cool over the summer by way of a kind of artificial glacier.

According to the Guardian, this “geoengineering trial” will try to “’store’ freezing winter temperatures in a giant block of ice that will help to cool and water the city as it slowly melts during the summer.” Project directors “hope the process will reduce energy demand from air conditioners and regulate drinking water and irrigation supplies.” The cool air will presumably be pumped through the city via a continuous and monumental network of ducts.

The project aims to artificially create “naleds” — ultra-thick slabs of ice that occur naturally in far northern climes when rivers or springs push through cracks in the surface to seep outwards during the day and then add an extra layer of ice during the night. Fascinatingly, naleds have already been used as foundations for infrastructural projects elsewhere; in North Korea, for instance, the Guardian reports, the military has utilized naleds “to build river crossings for tanks during the winter and Russia has used them as drilling platforms.”

Climate Skeptic Admits He Was Wrong

majestic — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:14:17 +0000

Muller demos a Van de Graaff generator.

You have to admire a scientist who stands up and admits he backed the wrong strain of dogma. The LA Times reports on Richard Muller’s change of heart:

Remember when scientists who had cast doubt on global temperature studies boldly embarked on an effort to “reconsider” the evidence?

They have. And they conclude that their doubt was misplaced.

UC Berkeley physicist Richard Muller and others were looking at the so-called urban heat island effect — the notion that because more urban temperature stations are included in global temperature data sets than are rural ones, the global average temperature was being skewed upward because these sites tend to retain more heat. Hence, global warming trends are exaggerated.

Using data from such urban heat islands as Tokyo, they hypothesized, could introduce “a severe warming bias in global averages using urban stations.”

In fact, the data trend was “opposite in sign to that expected if the urban heat island effect was adding anomalous warming to the record. The small size, and its negative sign, supports the key conclusion of prior groups that urban warming does not unduly bias estimates of recent global temperature change.”…

[continues in the LA Times]

New Study Says Global Warming Is Real

majestic — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:11:43 +0000

Author: Robert A. Rohde (CC)

CNN labels the study a “blow to skeptics”:

An independent study of global temperature records has reaffirmed previous conclusions by climate scientists that global warming is real.

The new analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project examined 1.6 billion temperature reports from 15 data archives stretching back over 200 years in an effort to address scientific concerns raised by climate skeptics about the data used to inform reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Researchers found “reliable evidence” of a rise in average world land temperatures of one degrees Celsius since the mid-1950s.
“Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the United States and the UK,” professor Richard A. Muller, Berkeley Earth’s scientific director said in a statement.

“This confirms that these studies were done carefully and that potential biases identified by climate change skeptics did not seriously affect their conclusions,” Muller added…

[continues at CNN]

CERN Scientists Back Alternative Climate Change Theory

majestic — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:13:35 +0000

For those of you who think that all scientists subscribe to the “global warning is caused by humans” theory, some very prominent exceptions are making some noise, now led by the boffins at CERN, reports Anne Jolis in the Wall Street Journal:

In April 1990, Al Gore published an open letter in the New York Times “To Skeptics on Global Warming” in which he compared them to medieval flat-Earthers. He soon became vice president and his conviction that climate change was dominated by man-made emissions went mainstream. Western governments embarked on a new era of anti-emission regulation and poured billions into research that might justify it. As far as the average Western politician was concerned, the debate was over.

But a few physicists weren’t worrying about Al Gore in the 1990s. They were theorizing about another possible factor in climate change: charged subatomic particles from outer space, or “cosmic rays,” whose atmospheric levels appear to rise and fall with the weakness or strength of solar winds that deflect them from the earth. These shifts might significantly impact the type and quantity of clouds covering the earth, providing a clue to one of the least-understood but most important questions about climate. Heavenly bodies might be driving long-term weather trends.

The theory has now moved from the corners of climate skepticism to the center of the physical-science universe: the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN. At the Franco-Swiss home of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, scientists have been shooting simulated cosmic rays into a cloud chamber to isolate and measure their contribution to cloud formation. CERN’s researchers reported last month that in the conditions they’ve observed so far, these rays appear to be enhancing the formation rates of pre-cloud seeds by up to a factor of 10. Current climate models do not consider any impact of cosmic rays on clouds.

Scientists have been speculating on the relationship among cosmic rays, solar activity and clouds since at least the 1970s. But the notion didn’t get a workout until 1995, when Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark came across a 1991 paper by Eigil Friis-Christensen and Knud Lassen, who had charted a close relationship between solar variations and changes in the earth’s surface temperature since 1860…

[continues in the Wall Street Journal]

Global Warming ‘Could Trigger Alien Attack’

majestic — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 12:09:18 +0000

Emma Woolcott for TG Daily:

Maybe NASA believes that the little green men really are green – one of its scientists has collaborated on a report suggesting that the Earth’s rising levels of greenhouse gases could provoke an alien attack.

Using spectrometry, extraterrestrials could detect changes in Earth’s atmosphere and deduce that we’re out of control, the report suggests. It’s one of a number of scenarios discussed in the paper, written by Shawn Domagal-Goldman of Nasa’s Planetary Science Division and Pennsylvania State University academics.

“These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets,” the authors write.

“A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand.”

In some places the authors get really carried away – one wonders how many of them are frustrated would-be Hollywood screen-writers.

If we did get attacked by aliens, they suggest, it’s possible that another bunch might fly in to save us…

[continues at TG Daily]

Heat Wave Due To “Exceptionally Strong” Air Mass

Pelliciari — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:51:36 +0000

Photos: Alex E. Proimos

Today has been the coolest day all week in the Northeast of the US. The Midwest, Northeast and Southern parts of the country have been experiencing consecutive days of high temperatures and humidity which have contributed to many deaths throughout the country. What is the cause of this cantankerous heat and is it an indication of future affects of global warming? The National Geographic reports:

A stubborn high-pressure system is the culprit behind the dangerously high heat wave that’s been baking much of the U.S., experts say.

The high-pressure system—a large area of dense air—is being held in place by upper-level winds known as the jet stream. Within the system, dense air sinks and becomes warmer, and since warm air can hold more moisture than cooler air, there’s also very high humidity. (Learn more about Earth’s atmosphere.)

Stationary high-pressure systems aren’t unusual during the summer, according to Eli Jacks, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

But what sets this system apart is its size and strength.

“It’s exceptionally strong and very wide, covering thousands of miles from border to border and from the Rocky Mountains to the East Coast,” Jacks said.

[Continues at National Geographic]

Al Gore’s New Reality Show: 24 Hours Of Reality

Pelliciari — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:24:19 +0000

Al Gore has a new reality program, 24 Hours of Reality, set to air its first live-stream on September 14. In his continuing campaign to raise awareness about global climate changes this program is a new step towards provoking action. The program will run 24 hours around the globe in multiple languages and featuring scientists, executives, celebrities and citizens around the world.

[More at The New York Times]

Ted Turner: Climate Change ‘Most Serious … Problem Humanity Has Ever Faced’

majestic — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:50:05 +0000

Pete Winn reports on Mr. Turner’s statements for CNS News:

Media mogul Ted Turner says climate change is “probably the most serious–and, in all fairness, the most complex–problem that humanity has ever faced.”

He added: “It is really easy to understand how some people don’t get it, because it’s so complex and complicated.”

Turner took part in a telephone news conference on Thursday, held by his United Nations Foundation on the island of Svalbard, one of the northernmost regions of Norway.

His comments came in response to a question posed by reporter Sunny Lewis of the Environment News Service about how to change the minds of climate change skeptics…

[continues at CNS News]

Food Ark: Will Seed Banks Save Our Sources of Food?

BananaFamine — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 07:01:34 +0000

“Experts estimate that we have lost more than half of the world’s food varieties over the past century”. Charles Siebert writes in National Geographic:

Svalbard Vault Mountain (Cutaway). Illustration: Global Crop Diversity Trust

A crisis is looming: To feed our growing population, we’ll need to double food production. Yet crop yields aren’t increasing fast enough, and climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties we’ve come to depend on for food. Luckily we still have the seeds and breeds to ensure our future food supply — but we must take steps to save them.

Six miles outside the town of Decorah, Iowa, an 890-acre stretch of rolling fields and woods called Heritage Farm is letting its crops go to seed. It seems counterintuitive, but then everything about this farm stands in stark contrast to the surrounding acres of neatly rowed corn and soybean fields that typify modern agriculture. Heritage Farm is devoted to collecting rather than growing seeds. It is home to the Seed Savers Exchange, one of the largest nongovernment-owned seed banks in the United States.

Story continues at National Geographic.

New Little Ice Age In Store Next Decade?

JacobSloan — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:04:34 +0000

The Telegraph says we may enter a short mini-Ice Age in the next decade due to low solar activity. Consider it Mother Nature giving us a temporary reprieve from global warming so that we have time to set things right:

Sunspot activity, which follows an 11-year cycle, is due to peak in 2013 after which it will start to wane slightly. But astronomers think the next upswing will be less intensive than normal, or could fail to happen at all. That could affect weather on Earth because low solar activity has been linked to low global temperatures in the past.

Three studies, presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s solar physics division, all point towards declining sunspot activity into the next decade.

Between 1645 and 1715 almost no sunspots were observed, a solar period which came to be called the Maunder Minimum. During those decades Europe suffered frequent unusually harsh winters, and the time was later termed the Little Ice Age.

But Joanna Haigh professor of atmospheric physics at Imperial College London, cautioned: “In any case, the cooling effect is only ever temporary. When the sun’s activity returns to normal, the greenhouse gases won’t have gone away.”

Australia’s ‘Kill A Camel’ To Cut Pollution Concept

Pelliciari — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 20:23:01 +0000

Photo: Dan Searle (CC)

How can we curb the emission of greenhouse gases? Get rid of a bunch of camels, apparently. Via Physorg:

Australia is considering awarding carbon credits for killing feral camels as a way to tackle climate change.

The suggestion is included in Canberra’s “Carbon Farming Initiative”, a consultation paper by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, seen Thursday.

Adelaide-based Northwest Carbon, a commercial company, proposed culling some 1.2 million wild camels that roam the Outback, the legacy of herds introduced to help early settlers in the 19th century.

Considered a pest due to the damage they do to vegetation, a camel produces, on average, a methane equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide a year, making them collectively one of Australia’s major emitters of greenhouse gases.

In its plan, Northwest said it would shoot them from helicopters or muster them and send them to an abattoir for either human or pet consumption.

[Continues at Physorg]

Genetically Induced Drought-Resistant Corn Could Feed Our Future

Pelliciari — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:33:42 +0000

Photo: JLantzy

Could genetic modification be the only way to save our food during the drought-full future? The Scientific American reports:

Climate change has yet to diminish crop yields in the U.S. corn belt but scientists expect drought to become more common due to global warming in coming years. That could impact everything from the price of food to the price of fuel planet-wide. As a result, for the last several years agribusiness giants like Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta have been pursuing genetic modification to enable the corn plant to thrive even without enough rain. And now the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering approving a new corn hybrid genetically engineered to thrive on less water—the first time such a corn strain would be available.

“Working on something like drought is more complex than introducing a trait like insect resistance,” says plant breeder Bob Reiter, vice president of biotechnology at Monsanto, the company seeking approval for the new strain. “We have screened through thousands of genes in the past several years, more than in the entire history for the herbicide-resistant or insect protection.”

Monsanto researchers, working with German chemical giant BASF Corp., settled on a gene called “cold shock protein B” that is native to the microbe known as Bacillus subtilis, a soil bacteria whose special skill is to shut down, for years if need be, when environmental conditions such as drought would otherwise kill it. The new gene won’t confer that capability to corn but rather will help to maintain normal growth even when the crop is provided with less water than normal.

[Continues at Scientific American]

Wikileaks Cables Show Race To Carve Up Arctic

BananaFamine — Sat, 14 May 2011 19:38:14 +0000

BBC News reports:

Secret US embassy cables released by Wikileaks show nations are racing to “carve up” Arctic resources — oil, gas and even rubies — as the ice retreats.

They suggest that Arctic states, including the US and Russia, are all pushing to stake a claim.

The opportunity to exploit resources has come because of a dramatic fall in the amount of ice in the Arctic.

The US Geological Survey estimates oil reserves off Greenland are as big as those in the North Sea.

The cables were released by the Wikileaks whistleblower website as foreign ministers from the eight Arctic Council member states – Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland – met in Nuuk, Greenland on Thursday to sign a treaty on international search-and-rescue in the Arctic and discuss the region’s future challenges.

The cables claim the Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller joked with the Americans saying “if you stay out, then the rest of us will have more to carve up in the Arctic”.

For more information, see original article.

The Vatican Takes on Climate Change

bluemana — Tue, 10 May 2011 03:29:29 +0000

Eric Bangeman writes on ars technica:

The Vatican Pontifical Academy of Sciences has just released a strongly worded report (PDF) on global climate change demanding in the strongest possible language that humans act decisively to avert a coming crisis. “We call on all people and nations to recognize the serious and potentially reversible impacts of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants,” says the report. “If we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us.”

The report was not authored by the Pontifical Academy itself; rather, the Vatican convened a group of scientists with relevant experience, along with a few Nobel Prize winners. The group’s focus was on increasing evidence of glacier retreat, and the report ended up focused on its causes. The group’s co-chair, Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, used a somewhat controversial name for the “man-made” geologic era in which we are now living: the “Anthropocene.”

Charles Manson Breaks Silence: Discussing President Obama, Global Warming And His Followers

Pelliciari — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:24:58 +0000

After twenty years of silence Charles Manson speaks … about the environment. Discussing topics such as President Obama and Wall Street, he emphasizes his concerns for global warming. Manson has gathered yet another group of followers, this time agreeing with his thoughts towards saving the environment, our ‘one world.’ ABC News reports:

Scientists Find First Evidence Climate Affects Tectonic Plate Movement

HAL9000 — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:34:17 +0000

Via Discover:

Geologists have known for years that tectonic plates affect climate patterns. Now they say that the opposite is also true, finding that intensifying climate events can move tectonic plates. Using models based on known monsoonal and plate movement patterns, geologists say that the Indian Plate has accelerated by about 20% over the past 10 million years. “The significance of this finding lies in recognising for the first time that long-term climate changes have the potential to act as a force and influence the motion of tectonic plates,” Australian National University researcher Giampiero Iaffaldano told COSMOS.

The researchers plugged information from research on monsoonal patterns and the Indian Plate’s movement into a model, which indicated that the monsoonal erosion that has battered the eastern Himalaya Mountains for the past 10 million years erodes enough material to account for the plate’s counter-clockwise rotation. By gradually shaving off rocks from the eastern flank and decreasing crustal thickness, the monsoonal rains essentially lighten the load on the eastern part of the Indian Plate, causing the plate to actually turn (at geological speed).

The scientists ruled out the traditional powerhouse behind tectonic movement — mantle convection — because the mantle’s influence works on longer time frames than 10 million years. It doesn’t account, for example, for the Indian Plate’s geologically rapid velocity increase of more than 5 millimeters per year since 3.6 million years ago.

Earth Getting Mysteriously Windier

BananaFamine — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:34:32 +0000

Mason Inman writes on National Geographic:

The world has gotten stormier over the past two decades — and the reason is a mystery, a new study says.

In the past 20 years, winds have picked up around 5 percent on average.

Extremely strong winds caused by storms have increased even faster, jumping 10 percent over 20 years, according to the new analysis of global satellite data.

The study, the first to look at wind speeds across such a large swath of the planet, bolsters some earlier findings, according to study leader Ian Young, of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.

“Some regional studies had found similar results, so we suspected there may be an increasing trend,” Young said.

As Fish Die Off, Jellyfish To Dominate Earth’s Oceans

JacobSloan — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 20:56:07 +0000

Around the globe, fish populations are declining while the number of jellyfish is exploding. Climate change may be “turning back the clock to the Precambrian world, more than 550 million years ago, when the ancestors of jellyfish ruled the seas,” writes Yale Environment 360. Bow down to our future gelatinous overlords:

The world’s oceans have been experiencing enormous blooms of jellyfish, apparently caused by overfishing, declining water quality, and rising sea temperatures. Now, scientists are trying to determine if these outbreaks could represent a “new normal” in which jellyfish increasingly supplant fish.

The Nomura’s jellyfish is a monster to be reckoned with. It’s the size of a refrigerator and can exceed 450 pounds. For decades the hulking medusa was rarely encountered in its stomping grounds, the Sea of Japan.

Then something changed. Since 2002, the population has exploded six times. In 2005, a particularly bad year, the Sea of Japan brimmed with as many as 20 billion of the bobbing bags of blubber, bludgeoning fisheries with 30 billion yen in losses.

Why has the Nomura’s jellyfish become a recurring nightmare? The answer could portend trouble for the world’s oceans. In recent years, populations of several jellyfish species have made inroads at the expense of their main competitor — fish — in a number of regions, including the Yellow Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Black Sea. Overfishing and deteriorating coastal water quality are chief suspects in the rise of jellies. Global warming may be adding fuel to the fire by making more food available to jellyfish and opening up new habitat. Now, researchers fear, conditions are becoming so bad that some ecosystems could be approaching a tipping point in which jellyfish supplant fish.

“When an ecosystem is dominated by jellyfish, fish will mostly disappear,” says ecologist Sun Song, director of the Institute of Oceanology in Qingdao, China. “Once that happens,” he contends, “there is almost no method to deal with it.” Just think of attempting to purge the Sea of Japan of billions of Nomura’s jellyfish, many of them hovering meters below the surface and therefore invisible to satellites or the naked eye. Total jelly domination would be like turning back the clock to the Precambrian world, more than 550 million years ago, when the ancestors of jellyfish ruled the seas.

UN Warns Of Cancer From Climate Change

majestic — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:08:49 +0000

Source: Global Warming Art Project (CC)

Scaremongering to create a worldwide carbon tax? Or is this a reality? From the Daily Mail:

Melting glaciers and ice sheets are releasing cancer-causing pollutants into the air and oceans, scientists say. The long-lasting chemicals get into the food chain and build up in people’s bodies – triggering tumours, heart disease and infertility.

The warning comes in a new international study into the links between climate change and a class of man-made toxins called persistent organic pollutants. The study – due to be published next month – says rising temperatures and more extreme weather are increasing human exposure to pollutants around the world, including in Britain.

Scientists are concerned about Persistent Organic Pollutants, or POPs, because they last decades in the environment and accumulate in body tissue. They include pesticides such as DDT and chemicals called PCBs used in electrical goods.

Donald Cooper, of the United Nations Environment Programme which published the report at the UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, said melting glaciers and ice sheets were releasing POPs trapped years ago into the air and seas…

[continues in the Daily Mail]

The Possibility of Hope

Aaron Dames — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 14:07:44 +0000

A great extra from the fantastic movie Children of Men. Modern philosophers, political scientists, and climate scientists weigh-in on the state of the Earth, global politics, militarism, mass-migration, global warming, and the future of humanity.

(For the disinfo regular, I’d recommend the watching the movie The Constant Gardener and the documentary Darwin’s Nightmare, but perhaps you already have…)

Congressman Says He Lost Because He Took ‘Satan’s Side’

majestic — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:37:24 +0000

Rep. Bob Inglis

There’s just nothing you can say that will help me come to grips with a belief in global warning being Satanic. Take it away Congressman (via The Hill):

Rep. Bob Inglis, the defeated South Carolina Republican who is attacking climate skepticism in the GOP ranks, says his belief in global warming put him on “Satan’s side” in some voters’ eyes.

The outgoing lawmaker — who lost his GOP primary in a challenge from the right — told ClimateWire that his views damaged him politically in his district, which is in the northwest part of his state.

Inglis said several of his positions led to his primary defeat at the hands Rep.-elect Trey Gowdy, who went on to win the general election. But his belief in global warming had the most effect, he said.

“The most enduring heresy was just saying that climate change was real,” Inglis said in the ClimateWire account. “That was the one that was most damaging, I’m convinced.”

“For many conservatives, it became the marker that you had crossed to Satan’s side — that you had left God and gone to Satan’s side on climate change,” he added, “because many evangelical Christians in our district would say that it’s up to God to determine the length of Earth, and therefore, you are invading the province of God.”…

[continues at The Hill]

Scientists Vow To Fight Back Against Climate Skeptics

majestic — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:13:41 +0000

Neela Banerjee of the Tribune Washington Bureau reports that The American Geophysical Union plans to announce that 700 researchers have agreed to speak out on the issue. Other scientists plan a pushback against congressional conservatives who have vowed to kill regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Via the Los Angeles Times:

Faced with rising political attacks, hundreds of climate scientists are joining a broad campaign to push back against congressional conservatives who have threatened prominent researchers with investigations and vowed to kill regulations to rein in man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The still-evolving efforts reveal a shift among climate scientists, many of whom have traditionally stayed out of politics and avoided the news media. Many now say they are willing to go toe-to-toe with their critics, some of whom gained new power after the Republicans won control of the House in Tuesday’s election.

On Monday, the American Geophysical Union, the country’s largest association of climate scientists, plans to announce that 700 climate scientists have agreed to speak out as experts on questions about global warming and the role of man-made air pollution.

John Abraham of St. Thomas University in Minnesota, who last May wrote a widely disseminated response to climate change skeptics, is also pulling together a “climate rapid response team,” which includes scientists prepared to go before what they consider potentially hostile audiences on conservative talk radio and television shows. (The effort by John Abraham is separate from the Geophysical Union’s.)

“This group feels strongly that science and politics can’t be divorced and that we need to take bold measures to not only communicate science but also to aggressively engage the denialists and politicians who attack climate science and its scientists,” said Scott Mandia, professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College in New York.

“We are taking the fight to them because we are … tired of taking the hits. The notion that truth will prevail is not working. The truth has been out there for the past two decades, and nothing has changed.”

During the recent campaigns, skepticism about climate change became a rallying cry for many Republican candidates. Of the more than 100 new GOP members of Congress, 50% are climate change skeptics, according to an analysis of campaign statements by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank…

Yale University Poll Shows Americans Are Confused On Climate Change

majestic — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:10:40 +0000

Click image to download PDF of full report

I’m not sure which camp the results of this poll by Yale University helps the most, the climate change believers or their sworn enemies, the “deniers:”

Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change reports results from a national study of what Americans understand about how the climate system works, and the causes, impacts, and potential solutions to global warming. Among other findings, the study identifies a number of important gaps in public knowledge and common misconceptions about climate change.

Overall, we found that 63 percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening, but many do not understand why… These misconceptions lead some people to doubt that global warming is happening or that human activities are a major contributor, to misunderstand the causes and therefore the solutions, and to be unaware of the risks. Thus many Americans lack some of the knowledge needed for informed decision-making in a democratic society. For example, only:

57% know that the greenhouse effect refers to gases in the atmosphere that trap heat;

50% of Americans understand that global warming is caused mostly by human activities;

45% understand that carbon dioxide traps heat from the Earth’s surface;

25% have ever heard of coral bleaching or ocean acidification.

Download the full report as a PDF here. Read the rest of the summary here.

Bad News for Super-Villains: Blotting Out The Sun May Soon Be Banned

ralph — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:22:15 +0000

Mr. Burns: Smithers, have The Rolling Stones killed.
Smithers: But sir, the UN is responsible…
Burns: Do as I say!

Bad news for super-villains everywhere. Tim Wall writes in Discovery News:

Blotting out the sun has been the dream of many arch-villains, including The Simpson’s Mr. Burns. Their schemes may soon be foiled by the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity.

Super villains aren’t the only ones who want to shade the Earth from the sun. Blocking some of the sun’s rays could slow climate change by reducing the amount of sunlight warming the Earth, say some researchers, such as Roger Angel of the University of Arizona.

The Convention may consider banning or limiting research into space sunshades. Some question their wisdom. A space sunshade would have a rapid effect on global warming and provide time to develop more permanent measures, they say. The technique has already received serious attention from NASA and other organizations.

But others, such as the ETC group, an environmental and social advocacy group, fear simply blocking the sun is a bandage, meant to cover up the problem, and allow humans to continue using fossils fuels. Another fear is that geoengineering, as techniques like this are called, could have unforeseen consequences on the weather, ecosystem and agriculture.

Physics Professor: ‘Global Warming is the Greatest and Most Successful Pseudoscientific Fraud…’

majestic — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:33:12 +0000

The professor’s letter of resignation speaks for itself and deserves to be reproduced in full, so here it is:

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

10:10 Organization Dumped By Sponsors Over ‘Splattergate’

majestic — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:24:58 +0000

A few days ago the activist climate change organization 10:10 caused a worldwide scandal over their promo video that blows up schoolchildren and others who decline to subscribe to their carbon emission reduction pledge.

Now they’re paying the price, as PrisonPlanet’s Paul Joseph Watson reports that Sony and other former supporters of 10:10 are fleeing in droves:

As a result of the huge backlash in response to the shocking 10:10 Global climate change infomercial, in which children are liquidated for not expressing support for reducing carbon emissions, Sony has been forced to disassociate itself from the eco-fascist group behind the video.

In an email, Sony Europe Director of Corporate Communications Nick Sharples has “taken the decision to disassociate ourselves from 10:10 at this time.”

However, Sony still remains committed to “its objective to reduce carbon emissions,” indicating that the disgraceful PSA has done nothing to shift Sony’s support for the global warming scam.

Environmental groups on both sides of the Atlantic have been busy distancing themselves from the organization in an effort to salvage some tattered shreds of credibility for the global warming movement, keen to disguise the increasingly transparent fact that the climate change agenda is a thin veil for neo-eugenics and population control.

With the credibility of the IPCC at an all time low as the man-made climate change movement increasingly loses the scientific debate while forecasters predict the coldest winter in Europe for 1,000 years, environmentalists are turning to desperate measures in a bid to amplify their propaganda.

But the more extreme the message becomes, the more people are turned off to the notion that carbon dioxide is a planet killer, increasingly knowledgeable of the fact that CO2 is a naturally occurring, beneficial trace gas in the atmosphere, and not a pollutant like smog or Carbon Monoxide.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, global warming skeptics are pointing out that “Splattergate” could become the new Climategate, representing another nail in the coffin of the entire AGW movement…

[continues at PrisonPlanet]