KFAN Rube Chat

Bravo, Dan. Too bad this is about all the criticism you'll likely hear about these ''concerned citizens'' and their ''message.''

What? You're not down with the faux concern and the music? You must want more global warming, then.

I'd have to say that I consider myself fairly left of center (and do think the global warming is a serious problem), but that I agree with Dan's blog wholeheartedly.  The way many liberals have treated this issue trivializes and sensationalizes what is actually a serious problem, but (I'm sorry) not the most important issue facing us right now.  This is about commercialism, star power climbing up on a moral pedestal, and making money.  In short, it's greedy money-making machine, exactly the sort that liberals have been conditioned to hate!

You'd have to be pretty ignorant not to think that all the crap we put in the air hasn't had some gradual effect on the environment.  And consdering that I can get a sunburn standing outside for only 15-20 minutes, along with the increased frequency and magnitude of certain natural disasters (like hurricanes), there's enough anectodal evidence to persuade even the biggest doubters.  But a crappy rock concert and piece-by-piece advice on conservation isn't going to do it.  We need real change, and it will require the type of investment in alterative energy sources that allowed this country to put a man on the moon in the 1960's, 66 years after man developed mechanized flight.  Unfortunately, oil interests and politics aren't likely to allow that to happen.

One caveat about the blog...while our citzenry should absolutely be concerned about bin Laden and Islamic extremism, it isn't fair to rip supporters of other domestic or global causes simply because they're not yelling about terrorism right at this very minute.  We don't live in Sparta--we're capable of fighting wars and evolving as a civilization at the same time.

I'm honestly curious as to what prompted Dan to take a break from cursing strollers and weathermen long enough to go out and attend something like this.

Right on Dan!  I watched a couple of hours of the various performers.  I was muttering about the private jets they all took and the carbon credits they must have purchased.

If they are all wound up about global warming, then they should do something about it.  (Maybe even ditch the private planes!)  I agree that global warming is something we need to address, but they did nothing to advance the issue.

I'm also very tired of the Bush bashing that relates every problem in the world to him.  Bush has made some stupid decisions and has not handled Iraq well, but their really are bad people out there.

If the Dems want to have the next President, they may want to distance themselves from the celebs.  I think the Dems have an excellent chance to win the next election a further advance their cause, but a bunch of hypocritical musicians will not help them at all.

Nice job, Dan!  As for the global warming being a serious problem, water vapor makes up about 95 percent of the "greenhouse gases".  If it is a man-made problem, we'd better cut back on our usage of steam.  Perhaps they should have worn shirts with a line through the sun.

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You are right, Dan. Macy Gray performed in Rio de Janeiro, and I am not sure if freedom of speech is a right in Brazil like it is here in the states. Shame on Gray and her backing band for letting its views on politics known to a global audience. And, yes, because they neglected to have a shirt with the words Bin Laden, Terrorism, etc., it must mean they must support those people and ideas.

She should just stick to singing songs, I mean, she is an entertainer -- what gives her the right to have political views? It is like saying a radio talk show host has a right to his opinion, too!

I don't know what was more laughable on Saturday, a bunch of musicians feeling good about themselves for telling us to take a stand against global warming (so long as we don't compromise their rock 'n' roll lifestyle,) or Prince lining his pockets three different ways on a day other musicians were trying in their feeble way to do something for the benefit of the planet.

Also, the shirt that said Cheney with a line through it was actually spelled "Chaney".

I'm so sick of these musicians and hollywood stars saying their political opinions (Macy Gray), and we wonder why the world thinks the US is a joke, look at what these idiots do....  I also like how Al Gore said the most dangerous thing facing us right now is Global Warming... haha what a joke, what about Terrorism and Bin laden??? No threat at all??  

Great blog. How these people are asked those questions on why don't they protest the obvious is rather stunning. It's too bad you wrote that on this blog. Get this into the NYTs, lol.

How they ARE NOT asked those questions.

Most boring concert ever watched...worse even that Woodstock crap from the 90's

Somebody tell Jon Bon Jovi to stick to acting.

amen, brother.

What a joke!  The real sad part is that people actually believe this stuff as fact!  The earths climate has been rising and falling since the beginning of time, far before combustion engines.  Yes, we have all heard about "global warming" but does anyone bother to do research?  Most of the top climatologists in the world right this off to the normal earth cycle of climate.  We are still well within the normal range of temperature that has been PROVEN by scientific study.  There is no evidence proving humans have anything to do with the fluctuation in temperature.  Also, we get beat down about having "Hybrids" and more fuel efficient cars.  Do you realize that cars make up less than 5% of the carbon emmisions produced by humans every year?  So how are more fuel efficient cars going to make a dent?  That is less than the carbon emmisions from cow flactulants.  Don't believe me?  Look it up.  Al Gore is the largest public proponent of this crap.  Does anyone realize that he has a major stake in one of the larger companies selling carbon offsets?  He could stand to make a lot of money by selling his fabricated story.  Also, in "An inconvinient truth" they speak of Polar Bears drowning and the population declining.  A flat out lie.  Canada's version of the DNR states that Polar Bear populations have been growing and are the highest they have been in many years.  Also, a Polar Bear can swim 100 miles, I don't think drowning is something that is happening.  These same people pushing the alternative energy sources don't want to listen about how nuclear energy, when managed properly, is the cleanest, most efficient fuel source know to man.  As a side effect of government mandates for renewable fuels, di anyone notice how gas is at one of it's highest rates in history?  I don't know about you guys, but if my largest customer said the were going to cut usage of my product by at least 1/3 in the next 10-20 years, I would jack up the prices also, so I could make money while it was still there.  Also has anyone noticed how the price of milk, beef, cheese, etc has gone up lately?  That is because these farmers use corn to feed thier animals and because of the push for E-85 gas, the price of corn has risen.  Meaning the farmers have to raise the price of thier product to remain profitable.  I challenge you all to actually look into the viewpoints about global warming that are not being shoved down your throat by the mainstream media.  You will be amazed at what you find.  Global Warming is the biggest scam pulled on the world population ever.

Dan, I think you under estimate how many, as you say, "complete, blithering live-under-a-rock morons" there are out there.  

For example, take the guy who posted under the name "Danny Noonan"  His post is laughable and a very close representation of the opinion of many idiots out there who just choose to ignore and make up facts about global warming.  He says: "Most of the top climatologists in the world right (sic) this off to the normal earth cycle of climate."  Enter a google search for "scientific opinion on climate change" and see what the top scientists and climatologists think about this issue.  You'll find the prevailing scientific opinion is that humans are a significant factor behind global warming.

I hate to call out Dan's producer Mr Fun Joe Anderson, but I remember a couple months ago listening to the radio on a day that was colder than usual, Mr Fun mocked the idea of global warming because it was cold that day.  I do recall Dan said he thought the issue of global warming was real, but Mr Fun left the impression he thought global warming was a joke because of that day's weather.  Apparently not understanding the difference between weather and climate.  I rarely listen to KQRS, but on their morning show not long ago, again I heard them mocking the issue of global warming on a colder than average day.  Tom Bernard said something about how he believes the concept of global warming is a myth.

Certainly the live earth concert might not have been the best way to raise the issue.  It's probably more of a way for performers to promote themselves as against global warming than promote the issue itself, and so from that standpoint I agree with Dan.  I also would have made sure the messages were strictly related to that issue, and not allowed the shirts with a line through Bush and Cheney because that alienates Republicans who also believe we need to do something about global warming.

With that said....Why criticize somebody for something they DIDN"T say?  Just because you're against global warming or against Bush/Cheney doesn't mean you need to also make sure everyone's aware you're also against Bin Laden, Islamist fascism, terrorism.   I mean...if somebody claims they're FOR Al-Qaeda or something like that, then I can understand.  But otherwise, can't we just assume we're all against Bin Laden and terrorism?

Hey dogslaughatme, do you think that when a google search is done that it brings up most recent stories in the media?  The media has only given 1 side of the story.  Do you realize we were 1 day away from setting a record for most consecutive days below 0 in the history of MN this year?  And the day we went above, it was 1 degree.  So is that weather or climate?  Also, do you realize that we are well within the earths normal range of temperature flucuation?  Do you also realize there are NO hard facts tying any terperature change with humans?  You regurgitate what you hear on TV without taking an objective look.  Do you realize that one of the same organizations crying about global warming right now was saying in 1970 that we were on the verge of an ice age?  Also, do you realize that cars make up less than 5% of the CO2 emmisions by humans every year?  Cow flactulants account for more.  I'm stating facts, I request that you do the same or just shut up

Am I allowed to post a thought on this page even though I dont have a really cool looking picture next to my name?

Time to spice things up. Why is it that Republicans spend all their time thinking of really creative ways to save me money and democrats spend their time creating hysteria?

Hopefully Dan has satisfied his reactionary side by giving air time to Limbaugh lackey Ted Nugent yeaterday. Wow, was that insightful...a right-wing water carrier disparaging hippies and saying the 60's weren't as great as they are made out to be.

Maybe today we can listen to Janine Garofolo talk about the idea that maybe Reagan wasn't a great president, or Neil Cavuto saying that he doesn't think Hillary Clinton would make a good president. The airwaves aren't already full enough of this bile.

Next time you get pissed at a bunch of left-leaning posers at a concert, Dan, don't attempt to take personal vengeance by putting a self-righteous preaching strident partisan on the air for two segments. It was some of the worst radio I've ever heard in this time slot, other than when Charch fills in.

Hey Danny Noonan.

Actually, yes, google searches do bring up the most recent stories in the media.  It's not that hard to figure out.  But regarding global warming you don't need stories from the last 24 hours, you can do a search and find plenty of news coverage from the last few months that says over and over again the leading scientists and climatologists have come to a consensus that global warming is real and is very likely caused, or at the very least influenced, by humans.  This was a conclusion reached by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN organization made up of scientists that produces reports which face extensive scientific review.  Check them out at http://www.ipcc.ch/  If you want to hide behind "the media is lying" argument, fine.  It's a stupid argument but you're entitled.

In your first post you said "Most of the top climatologists in the world right this off to the normal earth cycle of climate."  OK, back up your statement then.  Provide a link to a source from a reputable news source that reports what you said.

By the way....you said we were 1 day away from setting a record for most consecutive days below 0 in the history of MN this year.  That may or may not be true, but I hate to break it to you... that's an indication of weather.  NOT climate.  You're talking about a few days during the year in a very specific part of the globe. The fact you would bring that up justs backs up my theory that you don't know a damn thing about global warming.

Climate would be more like the average temperature in the entire US for a whole year.  Guess what....The 2006 average annual temperature for the U.S. was the warmest on record according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center.  Look it up.  http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2772.htm  Your "it was really cold in a small part of the united states for a few days" argument is just plain stupid.

And you seem to be proud of your statement that cars make up less than 5% CO2 emissions.  So what?  I don't know what your source is, or if that's true or not, but it doesn't refute whether global warming exists or not.

Once again, you are missing the point.  Global climate change may be happening.  But it has been happening since the beginning of time!  There is no proof that humans are doing anything to cause it.  And if you had half a brain, you would realize that your statement above proves that it is not fact.  A concensus is an agreeance of opinion, not fact.  Here is a link with many stories as credable as any of yours   http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/?gclid=CJD2sunLpI0CFReRgQodi1xXsw .
   http://www.abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3061015&page=1

Let me know if you would like more

Heys Dogs,
Here is another
  http://www.junkscience.com/news/robinson.htm
 
and another
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHjczyA75jU

and another
   http://www.look-to-the-skies.com/global_warming.htm

and another
   
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_global_warming_consensus

Hey Danny Noonan,

Well at least this time you didn't say something like "it was really cold in MN for a few days back in January...therefore global warming doesn't exist".

When I said you should provide links, I said to provide links that support your claim that: "Most of the top climatologists in the world" write off global warming as a normal earth cycle.  You haven't, because the prevailing opinion among top climatologists and scientists is that humans have an impact on global warming.  Of course there are some scientists that disagree, but they are by far in the minority.  You gave a link to a wikipedia site that listed scientists opposing global warming.  

Well, here's a wikipedia source that lists ORGANIZATIONS, as opposed to individuals, who believe there is global warming and that humans are very likely a significant source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

For every scientists who doesn't believe in global warming, or thinks humans have little to no affect, theres at least 10, probably more, who disagree.

Your first link was a conservative think tank, not a reputable news source.  Who cares....I could provide plenty of organizations who disagree.

Your second link was an article from ABC's John Stossel.  First of all, this is an opinion piece meant to shamelessly sell his book, not a news story.  But what's funny is that the article actually proves my point.  Stossel reluctantly acknowledges the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change attributes global warming to humans, however Stossel writes: "But the IPCC only said it is likely that we have increased the warming."  Actually, Stossel is wrong, it says "VERY likely", which means at least 90% probability.

Here's an article from the exact same website that states the overall scientists conclussion.  http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/wireStory?id=2843292

Your other links are a joke.  You could probably provide thousands of links from places that say there's no global warming.  But you can't escape the prevailing opinion among scientists.

I don't frequent message boards too often.  But when I have, there's always a conservative guy like Danny Noonan who mixes incoherent thoughts with name calling and opinions that are not thought out and just spits out what he's heard from Rush Limbough.

Danny noonan, according to your Rubechat profile you've made over 2,800 posts.  Good God...get a life.

Dogs,
Are you retarded?  Did you ever read any of the things tied to the links?  From "right wing think tanks" like NASA?  The people who have spent the most time studying our atmosphere and beyond.  And just because it doesn't agree with your political viewpoint does not make the source not reputable.  If you wanna play that game, I could say that everything you posted was from left wing think tanks.  Come up with a better argument than that.  Since you were too lazy and short sited to read the links I provided, I will paste some of it here

Believe global warming is not occurring

Timothy F. Ball, former Professor of Geography, University of Winnipeg: "(The world's climate) warmed from 1680 up to 1940, but since 1940 it's been cooling down. The evidence for warming is because of distorted records. The satellite data, for example, shows cooling." (November 2004) [5] "The temperature hasn't gone up. ... But the mood of the world has changed: It has heated up to this belief in global warming." (August 2006) [6] "Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. ... By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling." (Feb. 5, 2007) [7]

[edit] Believe accuracy of IPCC climate projections are inadequate
Scientists in this section conclude that it is not possible to project global climate accurately enough to justify the ranges projected for temperature and sea-level rise over the next century. They do not conclude specifically that the current IPCC projections are either too high or too low, but that the projections are likely to be inaccurate due to inadequacies of current global climate modeling.

Roger A. Pielke, Senior Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) wrote: “Humans are significantly altering the global climate, but in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of carbon dioxide. The IPCC assessments have been too conservative in recognizing the importance of these human climate forcings as they alter regional and global climate. These assessments have also not communicated the inability of the models to accurately forecast the spread of possibilities of future climate. The forecasts, therefore, do not provide any skill in quantifying the impact of different mitigation strategies on the actual climate response that would occur.”
Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute: "The blind adherence to the harebrained idea that climate models can generate 'realistic' simulations of climate is the principal reason why I remain a climate skeptic. From my background in turbulence I look forward with grim anticipation to the day that climate models will run with a horizontal resolution of less than a kilometer. The horrible predictability problems of turbulent flows then will descend on climate science with a vengeance." [9]
Antonino Zichichi, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Bologna and president of the World Federation of Scientists : "models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are incoherent and invalid from a scientific point of view". [10]

[edit] Believe global warming is primarily caused by natural processes
Scientists in this section conclude that the observed warming is more likely attributable to natural causes than to human activities.

Khabibullo Ismailovich Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovskaya Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the supervisor of the Astrometria project of the Russian section of the International Space Station: "Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy - almost throughout the last century - growth in its intensity...Ascribing 'greenhouse' effect properties to the Earth's atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated...Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away." (Russian News & Information Agency, Jan. 15, 2007 [11]) (See also [12], [13], [14])
Sallie Baliunas, astronomer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "[T]he recent warming trend in the surface temperature record cannot be caused by the increase of human-made greenhouse gases in the air." (Capitalism Magazine, August 22, 2002)[15] Baliunas and Soon wrote that "there is no reliable evidence for increased severity or frequency of storms, droughts, or floods that can be related to the air’s increased greenhouse gas content." (Marshall Institute, March 25, 2003) [16]
David Bellamy, environmental campaigner, broadcaster and former botanist: "Global warming is a largely natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can’t be fixed."[17]
Reid Bryson, emeritus professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison: "It’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air." [18].
Robert M. Carter, geologist, researcher at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia: "The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown." (Telegraph, April 9, 2006 [19])
George V. Chilingar, Professor of Civil and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California: "The authors identify and describe the following global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate: (1) solar radiation ..., (2) outgassing as a major supplier of gases to the World Ocean and the atmosphere, and, possibly, (3) microbial activities ... . The writers provide quantitative estimates of the scope and extent of their corresponding effects on the Earth’s climate [and] show that the human-induced climatic changes are negligible." (Environmental Geology, vol. 50 no. 6, August 2006 [20])
Ian Clark, hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: "That portion of the scientific community that attributes climate warming to CO2 relies on the hypothesis that increasing CO2, which is in fact a minor greenhouse gas, triggers a much larger water vapour response to warm the atmosphere. This mechanism has never been tested scientifically beyond the mathematical models that predict extensive warming, and are confounded by the complexity of cloud formation - which has a cooling effect. ... We know that [the sun] was responsible for climate change in the past, and so is clearly going to play the lead role in present and future climate change. And interestingly... solar activity has recently begun a downward cycle." (The Hill Times, March 22, 2004 [21])
Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology, Western Washington University: "global warming since 1900 could well have happened without any effect of CO2. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon and global temperatures should cool slightly until about 2035" [22]
William M. Gray, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University: "This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet little understood. Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential."[23]) "I am of the opinion that [global warming] is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people." [24]) "So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing—all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more."[25])
George Kukla, retired Professor of Climatology at Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in an interview: "What I think is this: Man is responsible for a PART of global warming. MOST of it is still natural." (Gelf Magazine, April 24, 2007) [26]
David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware: "About half of the warming during the 20th century occurred prior to the 1940s, and natural variability accounts for all or nearly all of the warming." (May 15, 2006 [27])
Marcel Leroux, former Professor of Climatology, Université Jean Moulin: "The possible causes, then, of climate change are: well-established orbital parameters on the palaeoclimatic scale, ... solar activity, ...; volcanism ...; and far at the rear, the greenhouse effect, and in particular that caused by water vapor, the extent of its influence being unknown. These factors are working together all the time, and it seems difficult to unravel the relative importance of their respective influences upon climatic evolution. Equally, it is tendentious to highlight the anthropic factor, which is, clearly, the least credible among all those previously mentioned." (M. Leroux, Global Warming - Myth or Reality?, 2005, p. 120 [28])
Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: global warming "is the biggest scientific hoax being perpetrated on humanity. There is no global warming due to human anthropogenic activities. The atmosphere hasn’t changed much in 280 million years, and there have always been cycles of warming and cooling. The Cretaceous period was the warmest on earth. You could have grown tomatoes at the North Pole"[29]
Tim Patterson [30], paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada: "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?" [31][32]
Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology, The University of Adelaide: "We only have to have one volcano burping and we have changed the whole planetary climate... It looks as if carbon dioxide actually follows climate change rather than drives it". [[33]]
Frederick Seitz, retired, former solid-state physicist, former president of the National Academy of Sciences: "So we see that the scientific facts indicate that all the temperature changes observed in the last 100 years were largely natural changes and were not caused by carbon dioxide produced in human activities." (Environment News, 2001 [34])
Nir Shaviv, astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: "[T]he truth is probably somewhere in between [the common view and that of skeptics], with natural causes probably being more important over the past century, whereas anthropogenic causes will probably be more dominant over the next century. ... [A]bout 2/3's (give or take a third or so) of the warming [over the past century] should be attributed to increased solar activity and the remaining to anthropogenic causes." His opinion is based on some proxies of solar activity over the past few centuries. [35]
Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia: "The greenhouse effect is real. However, the effect is minute, insignificant, and very difficult to detect." (Christian Science Monitor, April 22, 2005) [36] "The Earth currently is experiencing a warming trend, but there is scientific evidence that human activities have little to do with it.", NCPA Study No. 279, Sep. 2005 [37]. “It’s not automatically true that warming is bad, I happen to believe that warming is good, and so do many economists.” (CBC's Denial machine @ 19:23 - Google Video Link)
Willie Soon, astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "[T]here's increasingly strong evidence that previous research conclusions, including those of the United Nations and the United States government concerning 20th century warming, may have been biased by underestimation of natural climate variations. The bottom line is that if these variations are indeed proven true, then, yes, natural climate fluctuations could be a dominant factor in the recent warming. In other words, natural factors could be more important than previously assumed." (Harvard University Gazette, 24 April 2003 [38])
Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the University of London: "...the myth is starting to implode. ... Serious new research at The Max Planck Institute has indicated that the sun is a far more significant factor..." (Global Warming as Myth [39])
Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center: "Our team ... has discovered that the relatively few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth’s surface temperature. During the 20th Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed the world to warm up. ... most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud cover." [40]
Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa: "At this stage, two scenarios of potential human impact on climate appear feasible: (1) the standard IPCC model ..., and (2) the alternative model that argues for celestial phenomena as the principal climate driver. ... Models and empirical observations are both indispensable tools of science, yet when discrepancies arise, observations should carry greater weight than theory. If so, the multitude of empirical observations favours celestial phenomena as the most important driver of terrestrial climate on most time scales, but time will be the final judge." (In J. Veizer, "Celestial climate driver: a perspective from four billion years of the carbon cycle", Geoscience Canada, March, 2005. [41], [42])

[edit] Believe cause of global warming is unknown
Scientists in this section conclude it is too early to ascribe any principal cause to the observed rising temperatures, man-made or natural.

Syun-Ichi Akasofu, retired professor of geophysics and Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks: "[T]he method of study adopted by the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is fundamentally flawed, resulting in a baseless conclusion: Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Contrary to this statement ..., there is so far no definitive evidence that 'most' of the present warming is due to the greenhouse effect. ... [The IPCC] should have recognized that the range of observed natural changes should not be ignored, and thus their conclusion should be very tentative. The term 'most' in their conclusion is baseless." [43]
Claude Allègre, geochemist, Institute of Geophysics (Paris): "The increase in the CO2 content of the atmosphere is an observed fact and mankind is most certainly responsible. In the long term, this increase will without doubt become harmful, but its exact role in the climate is less clear. Various parameters appear more important than CO2. Consider the water cycle and formation of various types of clouds, and the complex effects of industrial or agricultural dust. Or fluctuations of the intensity of the solar radiation on annual and century scale, which seem better correlated with heating effects than the variations of CO2 content." (Translation from the original French version in L'Express, May 10, 2006 [44])
Robert C. Balling, Jr., director of the Office of Climatology and a professor of geography at Arizona State University: "t is very likely that the recent upward trend [in global surface temperature] is very real and that the upward signal is greater than any noise introduced from uncertainties in the record. However, the general error is most likely to be in the warming direction, with a maximum possible (though unlikely) value of 0.3 °C. ... At this moment in time we know only that: (1) Global surface temperatures have risen in recent decades. (2) Mid-tropospheric temperatures have warmed little over the same period. (3) This difference is not consistent with predictions from numerical climate models." (George C. Marshall Institute, Policy Outlook, September 2003[45])
John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, contributor to several IPCC reports (answering to "If global temperatures are increasing, to what extent is the increase attributable to greenhouse gas emissions from human activity as opposed to natural variability or other causes?"): "No one knows. Estimates today are given by climate model simulations made against a backdrop of uncertain natural variability, assumptions about how greenhouse gases affect the climate, and model shortcomings in general. The evidence from our work (and others) is that the way the observed temperatures are changing in many important aspects is not consistent with model simulations." [46]
William R. Cotton, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at University of Colorado said in a presentation, "It is an open question if human produced changes in climate are large enough to be detected from the noise of the natural variability of the climate system." [47]
Chris de Freitas, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland: "There is evidence of global warming. ... But warming does not confirm that carbon dioxide is causing it. Climate is always warming or cooling. There are natural variability theories of warming. To support the argument that carbon dioxide is causing it, the evidence would have to distinguish between human-caused and natural warming. This has not been done." (The New Zealand Herald, May 9, 2006 [48])
David Deming, geology professor at the University of Oklahoma: "The amount of climatic warming that has taken place in the past 150 years is poorly constrained, and its cause--human or natural--is unknown. There is no sound scientific basis for predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty. If the climate does warm, it is likely to be beneficial to humanity rather than harmful. In my opinion, it would be foolish to establish national energy policy on the basis of misinformation and irrational hysteria." (Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, December 6, 2006 [49])
Richard Lindzen, Alfred Sloane Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences: "We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 °C higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds). But--and I cannot stress this enough--we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO2 or to forecast what the climate will be in the future." [50] "[T]here has been no question whatsoever that CO2 is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas — albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in CO2 should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed." (San Francisco Examiner, July 12, 2006 [51] and in Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2006, Page A14)
Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville: "We need to find out how much of the warming we are seeing could be due to mankind, because I still maintain we have no idea how much you can attribute to mankind." (George C. Marshall Institute Washington Roundtable on Science and Public Policy, April 17, 2006 [52])

[edit] Believe global warming will benefit human society
Scientists in this section conclude that the rising temperatures that are occurring will be of little impact or a net positive for human society.

Sherwood Idso, former research physicist, USDA Water Conservation Laboratory, and adjunct professor, Arizona State University: "[W]arming has been shown to positively impact human health, while atmospheric CO2 enrichment has been shown to enhance the health-promoting properties of the food we eat, as well as stimulate the production of more of it. ... [W]e have nothing to fear from increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and global warming." ("Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World", co2science.org, Nov, 2003, p. 30 [53])
Patrick Michaels, state climatologist, University of Virginia: "scientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (C), plus or minus a mere quarter-degree...a modest warming is a likely benefit."[54]



And another


GLOBAL WARMING: MYTH VS. REALITY

A few years ago, President Bill Clinton, addressing a group of meteorologists at the White House, said that "Global warming is a fact, and human activity is the cause."

Just recently, the U.N. came out with the IPCC report that said that Humans are the cause of Global warming.  

Those two statements above are misleading, false, and CANNOT be backed up with scientific fact!

This may be a harsh reality in light of all of the recent news stories, but quite frankly, any supposed warming of the atmosphere may be coming from the hot air of politicians and environmental groups that are feeding us misinformation.  Human activity is the least contributor of problems to the climate, and global warming, does not exist the way we have been led to believe.

First of all, what is global warming? According to current scientific definition, it is an increase in the temperature of the planet over many years of time.  Unfortunately, there is currently no set amount of degrees, and no set amount of time. Has this happened? Yes, and no. It all depends upon WHERE the temperatures are measured.  In large cities, the temperatures have risen slightly, but in other areas, the temperatures have dropped.  The  increases are within the Earth's natural variation of temperature. Yes, there have been warmer winters and summers, and the temperature in the large cities has increased slightly, but throughout the years, there has been no significant change in the Earth's temperature.

Keep in mind, that the variations in climate over the years is due to natural causes, more than human interaction. Changes in the Sun's energy output, rotation of the Earth, revolution of the Earth, and debris from comets, meteors, and asteroids, actually have an effect on the climate. Add to that, dust from earthquakes and volcanoes, and we have even bigger impact from natural events. One volcanic eruption for example, puts more pollution into the atmosphere than ten years worth of human activity.

And what about this so called "man-made" pollution? We have all heard about it. But Is it causing the Greenhouse Effect, creating global warming, etc.?  Hardly.

Most of the so called "greenhouse gasses" have natural sources; volcanoes, animal and plant respiration, and the oceans. The proponents of this greenhouse effect tell us that carbon dioxide is the main problem, and we should be spending billions of dollars trying to cut back on emissions from cars, factories, etc. According to governmental agencies, to cut back these emissions of twenty percent in the next ten years, we would have to spend about 100 billion dollars a year. And that would still leave one of the biggest polluters untouched; trees.

Yes, trees and plants only clean the air while they are growing. Once fully grown, they actually give off carbon dioxide!  The carbon is incorporated into carbohydrate compounds and stored in plant tissue. When the trees and forests are fully grown, the Carbon Dioxide is released back into the air. Also, fallen leaves and branches give off Carbon Dioxide. That "haze" that makes the Smokey Mountains such a beautiful sight, is composed of natural compounds of which much of it is Carbon Dioxide.

Not to worry however, because carbon dioxide is not the main greenhouse gas that we have to worry about; water vapor is. But the environmentalists and the politicians can't do anything about it since it occurs naturally from evaporation, so they tell us that carbon dioxide is the problem. Keep in mind, that if we didn't have the small natural greenhouse effect that the water vapor gives us, the temperature on the Earth would be like that on Mars, where a warm day would be zero degrees!

Of all the Carbon Dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, 51 percent is from plants and trees, 45 percent from the oceans, and only three percent from the burning of fossil fuels!

Surprisingly, this much maligned "Greenhouse Gas" accounts for only 0.035 percent of our atmosphere. The real problem 'Greenhouse Gas" again, is actually water vapor, which accounts for about two percent of our atmosphere. However, it occurs naturally in our atmosphere, due to ocean and water evaporation, and since the global warming folks can't stop it, they ignore it and pick on the Carbon Dioxide instead. According to scientists with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, "Water Vapor is the predominant greenhouse gas, and plays a crucial role in the global climate system".

The whole thing in a nutshell, is that the Earth's environment and it's climate are very complex, and to really understand what is happening, we must weed out the political, environmental, and media propaganda, and examine the facts. It is very hard to solve a problem, when one does not exist, and as far as global warming and human cause goes, there is no problem to be found, therefore there is none to solve.

***

Even a casual study of climate change during the last few hundred years, shows that there is a possibility that the Earth is still recovering from the Little Ice Age. This recovery may explain much warming due to unknown causes that has occurred even during the present interglacial period; the warming rate of this recovery may be as much as 0.5°C/100 years from about 1700 to the present. This is comparable with the rate of 0.6°-0.7°C/100 years, which the IPCC claims to be due to the greenhouse effect. Many glaciers in the world began to recede starting about 1700, and sea ice in the Arctic Ocean began to recede starting in 1800, so these phenomena began long before 1940 when CO2 began to increase rapidly.

In addition, there was one obvious temperature rise from 1920 to 1940, and even a decrease from 1940 to 1975, at the same time as CO2 began to increase rapidly. It is inconceivable that the IPCC did not carefully examine the rise between 1920 and 1940. The rate and magnitude of the increase was similar to those after 1975. Their conclusion should be very tentative until the causes of the 1920-1940 rise can be identified. There is no conclusive evidence that the rise after 1975 is different from the 1920-1940 rise.

by Syun-Ichi Akasofu, International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks

***

The global-warming hypothesis, however, is no longer tenable. Scientists have been able to test it carefully, and it does not hold up. During the past 50 years, as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen, scientists have made precise measurements of atmospheric temperature. These measurements have definitively shown that major atmospheric greenhouse warming of the atmosphere is not occurring and is unlikely ever to occur.

The temperature of the atmosphere fluctuates over a wide range, the result of solar activity and other influences. During the past 3,000 years, there have been five extended periods when it was distinctly warmer than today. One of the two coldest periods, known as the Little Ice Age, occurred 300 years ago. Atmospheric temperatures have been rising from that low for the past 300 years, but remain below the 3,000-year average.



Consider what this means for the global-warming hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts that global temperatures will rise significantly, indeed catastrophically, if atmospheric carbon dioxide rises. Most of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has occurred during the past 50 years, and the increase has continued during the past 20 years. Yet there has been no significant increase in atmospheric temperature during those 50 years, and during the 20 years with the highest carbon dioxide levels, temperatures have decreased.

Arthur Robinson and Zachary Robinson, chemists at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

***

According to Professor Bob Carter,an environmental scientist at James Cook University who studies ancient climate change:

"The salient facts are these. First, the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this eight-year-long temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric C02."

"Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric C02 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent)."

"Third, there are strong indications from solar studies that Earth's current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades."

***

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

***

Conveniently overlooked by global warming alarmists, the sun may very well be the most significant factor in changes in our planet's climate. Sami Solanki, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany states, "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures." Increases and decreases in solar activity also seem to correspond with warming and cooling periods throughout the last 1,000 years.

***

William Gray of the Atmospheric Science Department at Colorado State University argues the notion of consensus (of scientists believing in Human induced Global Warming) is "one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people."

***



SCIENTISTS OPPOSING THE MAINSTREAM OF GLOBAL WARMING (Wikipedia)

Click HERE to see scientists opposing the Global Warming Scenario.



"For the problem with An Inconvenient Truth is that it is well-made propaganda for the global warming cause rather than well-made climate science. Nowhere does Mr Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet. Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change. This is not surprising, for no such evidence yet exists".  "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."  "Yet we do not read about natural climate change in the everyday news. Instead, newspapers, radio and television stations bludgeon us with a merciless stream of human-caused global-warming alarmism, egged on by a self-interested gaggle of journalists, environmental lobbyists, scientific and business groups, church leaders and politicians, all of whom preach that we must "stop climate change" by reducing human CO2 emissions. Professor Bob Carter, Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University.

***

25 "Truths" left out of GORE'S INCONVENIENT TRUTH (By Iain Murray, National Review Online)

1. Carbon Dioxide’s Effect on Temperature. The relationship between global temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2), on which the entire scare is founded, is not linear. Every molecule of CO2 added to the atmosphere contributes less to warming than the previous one. The book’s graph on p. 66-67 is seriously misleading. Moreover, even the historical levels of CO2 shown on the graph are disputed. Evidence from plant fossil-remains suggest that there was as much CO2 in the atmosphere about 11,000 years ago as there is today.

2. Kilimanjaro. The snows of Kilimanjaro are melting not because of global warming but because of a local climate shift that began 100 years ago. The authors of a report in the International Journal of Climatology “develop a new concept for investigating the retreat of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers, based on the physical understanding of glacier–climate interactions.” They note that, “The concept considers the peculiarities of the mountain and implies that climatological processes other than air temperature control the ice recession in a direct manner. A drastic drop in atmospheric moisture at the end of the 19th century and the ensuing drier climatic conditions are likely forcing glacier retreat on Kilimanjaro.”

3. Glaciers. Glaciers around the world have been receding at around the same pace for over 100 years. Research published by the National Academy of Sciences last week indicates that the Peruvian glacier on p. 53-53 probably disappeared a few thousand years ago.

4. The Medieval Warm Period. Al Gore says that the “hockey stick” graph that shows temperatures remarkably steady for the last 1,000 years has been validated, and ridicules the concept of a “medieval warm period.” That’s not the case. Last year, a team of leading paleoclimatologists said, “When matching existing temperature reconstructions…the time series display a reasonably coherent picture of major climatic episodes: ‘Medieval Warm Period,’ ‘Little Ice Age’ and ‘Recent Warming.’” They go on to conclude, “So what would it mean, if the reconstructions indicate a larger…or smaller…temperature amplitude? We suggest that the former situation, i.e. enhanced variability during pre-industrial times, would result in a redistribution of weight towards the role of natural factors in forcing temperature changes, thereby relatively devaluing the impact of anthropogenic emissions and affecting future temperature predictions.”

5. The Hottest Year. Satellite temperature measurements say that 2005 wasn't the hottest year on record — 1998 was — and that temperatures have been stable since 2001 (p.73). Here’s the satellite graph:


6. Heat Waves. The summer heat wave that struck Europe in 2003 was caused by an atmospheric pressure anomaly; it had nothing to do with global warming. As the United Nations Environment Program reported in September 2003, “This extreme weather [sic] was caused by an anti-cyclone firmly anchored over the western European land mass holding back the rain-bearing depressions that usually enter the continent from the Atlantic ocean. This situation was exceptional in the extended length of time (over 20 days) during which it conveyed very hot dry air up from south of the Mediterranean.”

7. Record Temperatures. Record temperatures — hot and cold — are set every day around the world; that’s the nature of records. Statistically, any given place will see four record high temperatures set every year. There is evidence that daytime high temperatures are staying about the same as for the last few decades, but nighttime lows are gradually rising. Global warming might be more properly called, “Global less cooling.” (On this, see Patrick J. Michaels book, Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media.)



8. Hurricanes. There is no overall global trend of hurricane-force storms getting stronger that has anything to do with temperature. A recent study in Geophysical Research Letters found: “The data indicate a large increasing trend in tropical cyclone intensity and longevity for the North Atlantic basin and a considerable decreasing trend for the Northeast Pacific. All other basins showed small trends, and there has been no significant change in global net tropical cyclone activity. There has been a small increase in global Category 4–5 hurricanes from the period 1986–1995 to the period 1996–2005. Most of this increase is likely due to improved observational technology. These findings indicate that other important factors govern intensity and frequency of tropical cyclones besides SSTs [sea surface temperatures].”

9. Tornadoes. Records for numbers of tornadoes are set because we can now record more of the smaller tornadoes (see, for instance, the Tornado FAQ at Weather Underground).

10. European Flooding. European flooding is not new (p. 107). Similar flooding happened in 2003. Research from Michael Mudelsee and colleagues from the University of Leipzig published in Nature (Sept. 11, 2003) looked at data reaching as far back as 1021 (for the Elbe) and 1269 (for the Oder). They concluded that there is no upward trend in the incidence of extreme flooding in this region of central Europe.

11. Shrinking Lakes. Scientists investigating the disappearance of Lake Chad (p.116) found that most of it was due to human overuse of water. “The lake’s decline probably has nothing to do with global warming, report the two scientists, who based their findings on computer models and satellite imagery made available by NASA. They attribute the situation instead to human actions related to climate variation, compounded by the ever increasing demands of an expanding population” (“Shrinking African Lake Offers Lesson on Finite Resources,” National Geographic, April 26, 2001). Lake Chad is also a very shallow lake that has shrunk considerably throughout human history.

12. Polar Bears. Polar bears are not becoming endangered. A leading Canadian polar bear biologist wrote recently, “Climate change is having an effect on the west Hudson population of polar bears, but really, there is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear (sic) to be affected at present.”

13. The Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream, the ocean conveyor belt, is not at risk of shutting off in the North Atlantic (p. 150). Carl Wunsch of MIT wrote to the journal Nature in 2004 to say, “The only way to produce an ocean circulation without a Gulf Stream is either to turn off the wind system, or to stop the Earth’s rotation, or both”

14. Invasive Species. Gore’s worries about the effect of warming on species ignore evolution. With the new earlier caterpillar season in the Netherlands, an evolutionary advantage is given to birds that can hatch their eggs earlier than the rest. That’s how nature works. Also, “invasive species” naturally extend their range when climate changes. As for the pine beetle given as an example of invasive species, Rob Scagel, a forest microclimate specialist in British Columbia, said, “The MPB (mountain pine beetle) is a species native to this part of North America and is always present. The MPB epidemic started as comparatively small outbreaks and through forest management inaction got completely out of hand.”

15. Species Loss. When it comes to species loss, the figures given on p. 163 are based on extreme guesswork, as the late Julian Simon pointed out. We have documentary evidence of only just over 1,000 extinctions since 1600 (see, for instance, Bjørn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist, p. 250).

16. Coral Reefs. Coral reefs have been around for over 500 million years. This means that they have survived through long periods with much higher temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations than today.

17. Malaria and other Infectious Diseases. Leading disease scientists contend that climate change plays only a minor role in the spread of emerging infectious diseases. In “Global Warming and Malaria: A Call for Accuracy” (The Lancet, June 2004), nine leading malariologists criticized models linking global warming to increased malaria spread as “misleading” and “display[ing] a lack of knowledge” of the subject.

18. Antarctic Ice. There is controversy over whether the Antarctic ice sheet is thinning or thickening. Recent scientific studies have shown a thickening in the interior at the same time as increased melting along the coastlines. Temperatures in the interior are generally decreasing. The Antarctic Peninsula, where the Larsen-B ice shelf broke up (p. 181) is not representative of what is happening in the rest of Antarctica. Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, Professor Emeritus of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, acknowledges, “Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems.” According to a forthcoming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate models based on anthropogenic forcing cannot explain the anomalous warming of the Antarctic Peninsula; thus, something natural is at work.

19. Greenland Climate. Greenland was warmer in the 1920s and 1930s than it is now. A recent study by Dr. Peter Chylek of the University of California, Riverside, addressed the question of whether man is directly responsible for recent warming: “An important question is to what extent can the current (1995-2005) temperature increase in Greenland coastal regions be interpreted as evidence of man-induced global warming? Although there has been a considerable temperature increase during the last decade (1995 to 2005) a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for period of warming to arise. The observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within a natural variability of Greenland climate.” (Petr Chylek et al., Geophysical Research Letters, 13 June 2006.)

20. Sea Level Rise. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not forecast sea-level rises of “18 to 20 feet.” Rather, it says, “We project a sea level rise of 0.09 to 0.88 m for 1990 to 2100, with a central value of 0.48 m. The central value gives an average rate of 2.2 to 4.4 times the rate over the 20th century...It is now widely agreed that major loss of grounded ice and accelerated sea level rise are very unlikely during the 21st century.” Al Gore’s suggestions of much more are therefore extremely alarmist.

21. Population. Al Gore worries about population growth; Gore does not suggest a solution. Fertility in the developed world is stable or decreasing. The plain fact is that we are not going to reduce population back down to 2 billion or fewer in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, the population in the developing world requires a significant increase in its standard of living to reduce the threats of premature and infant mortality, disease, and hunger. In The Undercover Economist, Tim Harford writes, “If we are honest, then, the argument that trade leads to economic growth, which leads to climate change, leads us then to a stark conclusion: we should cut our trade links to make sure that the Chinese, Indians and Africans stay poor. The question is whether any environmental catastrophe, even severe climate change, could possibly inflict the same terrible human cost as keeping three or four billion people in poverty. To ask that question is to answer it.”

22. Energy Generation. A specific example of this is Gore’s acknowledgement that 30 percent of global CO2 emissions come from wood fires used for cooking (p. 227). If we introduced affordable, coal-fired power generation into South Asia and Africa we could reduce this considerably and save over 1.6 million lives a year. This is the sort of solution that Gore does not even consider.

23. Carbon-Emissions Trading. The European Carbon Exchange Market, touted as “effective” on p. 252, has crashed.

24. The “Scientific Consensus.” On the supposed “scientific consensus”: Dr. Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, San Diego, (p. 262) did not examine a “large random sample” of scientific articles. She got her search terms wrong and thought she was looking at all the articles when in fact she was looking at only 928 out of about 12,000 articles on “climate change.” Dr. Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University in England, was unable to replicate her study. He says, “As I have stressed repeatedly, the whole data set includes only 13 abstracts (~1%) that explicitly endorse what Oreskes has called the ‘consensus view.’ In fact, the vast majority of abstracts does (sic) not mention anthropogenic climate change. Moreover — and despite attempts to deny this fact — a handful of abstracts actually questions the view that human activities are the main driving force of ‘the observed warming over the last 50 years.’” In addition, a recent survey of scientists following the same methodology as one published in 1996 found that about 30 percent of scientists disagreed to some extent or another with the contention that “climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes.” Less than 10 percent “strongly agreed” with the statement. Details of both the survey and the failed attempt to replicate the Oreskes study can be found here.

25. Economic Costs. Even if the study Gore cites is right (p. 280-281), the United States will still emit massive amounts of CO2 after all the measures it outlines have been realized. Getting emissions down to the paltry levels needed to stabilize CO2 in the atmosphere would require, in Gore’s own words, “a wrenching transformation” of our way of life. This cannot be done easily or without significant cost. The Kyoto Protocol, which Gore enthusiastically supports, would avert less than a tenth of a degree of warming in the next fifty years and would cost up to $400 billion a year to the U.S. All of the current proposals in Congress would cost the economy significant amounts, making us all poorer, with all that that entails for human health and welfare, while doing nothing to stop global warming.





OH, and By the way....



Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”
Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the national average
 
Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.
 
Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).
 
In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.
 
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.
 
Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.
 
Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.
 
Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.
 
“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.
 
In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.
 


***


GLOBAL WARMING: WHO TO BELIEVE?


One must keep in mind, that temperatures on the Earth will rise, and fall, but are within the normal cycles of our planet's climate. According to scientists at the National Climactic Data Center, the weather and climate during the past 20 years has not been out of the ordinary. And further more, the study of tree rings and cores drilled in the ice caps, going back more than 100 years, has indicated no significant change in the climate. These studies have also indicated that the last big warm-up of the Earth was about 600 years ago, long before there was human interaction from factories, cars, and the burning of fossil fuels.

***

According to the Laboratory of Climateology in Arizona, "environmental disaster is nowhere imminent", and according to Richard S Lindzen from M I T, one of the nations leading experts on atmospheric science, "we don't have any evidence that global warming is a serious problem".

***

Fred Singer, the first director of the United States Satellite Program has another view. IF, and he emphasizes IF, global warming takes place, it could be beneficial. According to him, fears about the rising sea levels are not necessary. New research indicates that increased ocean evaporation due to warming, would lead to more rain, and therefore to more ice accumulation in the polar regions. This in turn, would actually drop sea levels. Also, due to less temperature gradient between the Equator and the Poles, severe weather would be less frequent.



Recent Statements About Global Warming From Scientists



In recent studies, Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics looked at more than 200 studies that examined climate data from such phenomena as the growth of tree rings which are sensitive to climatic conditions and climate change.  They concluded that many records reveal that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climate period. They said that two extreme climate periods-the Medieval Warming Period between 800 and 1300 and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900-occurred worldwide, at a time before industrial emissions of greenhouse gases became abundant.

***

"The climate has warmed in the last century, but this took place before 1940. ...we don't think it was human activity. Satellite records of the temperatures from 3 miles up, do not show any warming at all. Heat Islands caused by urbanization have distorted thermometer temperatures."
(Prof. Fred Singer-Atmospheric Physicist, University of Virginia)

***

"40 years of ice accumulation would have buried the planes under 40 feet of ice." (the planes were under 268 feet of ice.) Why was there so much ice over the planes at a time when global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps were such big news?...Greenland has been cooling for the last 50 years...
(Weatherwise Magazine)

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"We don't even know if man-made aerosols are warming or cooling the planet. Man-Made aerosols tend to be processed out of the atmosphere by clouds within a few weeks."
(NASA Earth Observatory Internet Bulletin)

***

"The coverage of ice in the Arctic has been virtually unchanged since 1979, while Ice in the Antarctic regions has actually increased." Temperatures over time, aligned themselves very well with the variations in the Solar Cycle, ...using temperatures form the 1880's to 1999."
(WSI-Intellicast Meteorologists using data from NOAA and Goddard Space Flight Center)

***

"NOAA research shows that the tropical multi-decadal signal is causing the increased Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995, and is not related to greenhouse warming".(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

***

"I'm saying that the sun has an effect. But I'm also saying it's uncertain how much global warming has to do with the sun and how much is caused by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  The greenhouse effect must play some role. But those who are absolutely certain that the rise in temperatures are due solely to carbon dioxide have no scientific justification. It's pure guesswork." (Danish National Space Center)

***

"You have these news events where people are taken to Glacier National Park or to Alaska, and they are shown a glacier that has been retreating," says Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The assumption is it's global warming. But then you look at the markers and you see that the retreat began around 1820. That's not due to global warming, at least not from man. In other words, these things happen."

***

"Few people contest the idea that some of the recent climate changes are likely due to natural processes, such as volcanic eruptions, changes in solar luminosity, and variations generated by natural interactions between parts of the climate system (for example, oceans and the atmosphere). There were significant climate changes before humans were around and there will be non-human causes of climate change in the future." (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

***

 
"I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. Our big job: look at a large volume of raw data and come up with a public weather forecast for the next seven days. I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can’t find them. Here are the basic facts you need to know: Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab. The climate of this planet has been changing since God put the planet here. It will always change, and the warming in the last 10 years is not much difference than the warming we saw in the 1930s and other decades. And, lets not forget we are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North America and Northern Europe." (ABC-TV Alabama affiliate weatherman James Spann)  

***

"There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle '40s to the early '70s. And there has been warming since the middle '70s, especially in the last 10 years. But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced. Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global-warming thing. But no one asks us. If you don't know anything about how the atmosphere functions, you will of course say, 'Look, greenhouse gases are going up, the globe is warming, they must be related.' Well, just because there are two associations, changing with the same sign, doesn't mean that one is causing the other."(William Gray, hurricane expert and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University)

***

Bernie Rayno, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather said in February 2007, "Our climate has been changing since the dawn of time. There is not enough evidence to link global warming to greenhouse gases."

***

Boston College's professor of geology and geophysics Amy Frappier explained in February 2007, "The geologic record shows that many millions of years ago, CO2 levels were indeed higher - in some cases many times higher - than today." Frappier noted that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere do not consistently continue to have a warming effect on Earth, but gases instead stabilize in the atmosphere and cease having a warming effect. "At some point the heat-trapping capacity of [the gas] and its effect get saturated," said Frappier, "and you don't have increased heating."

***

Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv, one of Israel's top young scientists recanted his belief in manmade emissions driving climate change. "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming," Shaviv said in January 2007. But Shaviv now points to growing peer reviewed evidence that the sun has been driving the temperature changes and said, "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming."

***

Climate Scientist Fred Singer & Environmental Economist Dennis Avery's 2006 book: "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years" details the solar-climate link using studies from peer reviewed literature and "shows the earth's temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings."

***

Niger Calder, former editor of New Scientist, also expressed his view last week that the UN rejects science it sees as "politically incorrect" and the UN denies that "climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis."

***

Panel of Broadcast Meteorologists Reject Man-Made Global Warming Fears in February 2007 - Claim 95% of Weathermen Skeptical "You tell me you're going to predict climate change based on 100 years of data for a rock that's 6 billion years old?" Meteorologist Mark Johnson said. "I'm not sure which is more arrogant, to say we caused (global warming) or that we can fix it," Meteorologist Mark Nolan said.

***

"And more scientists who don't believe in predictions of climate catastrophe need to rise above their fears of losing funding and speak out. Otherwise, this growing storm of global warming hysteria could do some real damage." (Dr. Roy Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's Aqua satellite.)  

***

In response to Al Gore's movie on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," where he hints that Hurricane Katrina is the result of Global Warming, and that more Hurricanes have, and will occur due to Global Warming:

   Subscribing to the theory that the Atlantic Basin is in a busy cycle that occurs naturally every 25 to 40 years, are Chris Landsea, science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, and William Gray and Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, who pioneered much of modern hurricane-prediction theory.
   "There has been no change in the number and intensity of Category 4 or Category 5 hurricanes around the world in the last 15 years," Mr. Landsea said, in a telephone interview from Miami.  Mr. Emanuel of MIT said that, globally, the number and intensity of hurricanes are unchanged over the past 30 years.
   According to NOAA hurricane records going back into the mid-1800s, hurricanes come in cycles. There have been quiet periods, with less hurricane activity, followed every 25 to 40 years by active periods, that last about 25 years. The current active period began in 1995 and is expected to last another 10 to 15 years.
   At Colorado State University, Phil Klotzbach wrote an article, published in the Geophysical Research Letter and concluded that where sea-surface temperature has increased, there is in fact a slight decrease in hurricane activity.
   "With regards to the number of Category 4-5 hurricanes, there has been a large increase in North Atlantic storms and a large decrease in Northeast Pacific storms," wrote Mr. Klotzbach in "talking points" for the paper on his Web site. "When these two regions are summed together, there has been virtually no increase in Category 4-5 hurricanes."


***

"Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." (Letter to Canadian Prime Minister from 60 world leading climate Scientists)**** See the list of scientists below.

1) Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor, isotope hydrogeology and
paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

2) Dr. Tad Murty, former senior research scientist, Dept. of Fisheries
and Oceans, former director of Australia's National Tidal Facility
and professor of earth sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide;
currently adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and
Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

3) Dr. R. Timothy Patterson, professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences
(paleoclimatology) , Carleton University, Ottawa

4) Dr. Fred Michel, director, Institute of Environmental Science and
associate professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University,
Ottawa

5) Dr. Madhav Khandekar, former research scientist, Environment
Canada.
Member of editorial board of Climate Research and Natural Hazards

6) Dr. Paul Copper, FRSC, professor emeritus, Dept. of Earth Sciences,
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ont.

7) Dr. Ross McKitrick, associate professor, Dept. of Economics,
University of Guelph, Ont.

8) Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology, University of
Winnipeg; environmental consultant

9) Dr. Andreas Prokoph, adjunct professor of earth sciences,
University of Ottawa; consultant in statistics and geology

10) Mr. David Nowell, M.Sc. (Meteorology) , fellow of the Royal
Meteorological Society, Canadian member and past chairman of the NATO
Meteorological Group, Ottawa

11) Dr. Christopher Essex, professor of applied mathematics and
associate director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University
of Western Ontario, London, Ont.

12) Dr. Gordon E. Swaters, professor of applied mathematics, Dept. of
Mathematical Sciences, and member, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Research Group, University of Alberta

13) Dr. L. Graham Smith, associate professor, Dept. of Geography,
University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.

14) Dr. G. Cornelis van Kooten, professor and Canada Research Chair in
environmental studies and climate change, Dept. of Economics,
University of Victoria

15) Dr. Petr Chylek, adjunct professor, Dept. of Physics and
Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax

16) Dr./Cdr. M. R. Morgan, FRMS, climate consultant, former
meteorology advisor to the World Meteorological Organization.
Previously research scientist in climatology at University of Exeter,
U.K.

17) Dr. Keith D. Hage, climate consultant and professor emeritus of
Meteorology, University of Alberta

18) Dr. David E. Wojick, P.Eng., energy consultant, Star Tannery, Va.,
and Sioux Lookout, Ont.

19) Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal
consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, B.C.

20) Dr. Douglas Leahey, meteorologist and air-quality consultant,
Calgary

21) Paavo Siitam, M.Sc., agronomist, chemist, Cobourg, Ont.

22) Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology,
Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology

23) Dr. Freeman J. Dyson, emeritus professor of physics, Institute for
Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.

24) Mr. George Taylor, Dept. of Meteorology, Oregon State University;
Oregon State climatologist; past president, American Association of
State Climatologists

25) Dr. Ian Plimer, professor of geology, School of Earth and
Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide; emeritus professor of
earth sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia

26) Dr. R.M. Carter, professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James
Cook
University, Townsville, Australia

27) Mr. William Kininmonth, Australasian Climate Research, former Head
National Climate Centre, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; former
Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission
for Climatology, Scientific and Technical Review

28) Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, former director of research, Royal
Netherlands Meteorological Institute

29) Dr. Gerrit J. van der Lingen, geologist/paleoclim atologist,
Climate Change Consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations,
New Zealand

30) Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, professor of environmental sciences,
University of Virginia

31) Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, emeritus professor of paleogeophysics &
geodynamics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

32) Dr. Gary D. Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study,
Salinas, Calif.

33) Dr. Roy W. Spencer, principal research scientist, Earth System
Science Center, The University of Alabama, Huntsville

34) Dr. Al Pekarek, associate professor of geology, Earth and
Atmospheric
Sciences Dept., St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minn.

35) Dr. Marcel Leroux, professor emeritus of climatology, University
of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks
and Environment, CNRS

36) Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, Unit of Insects and
Infectious Diseases, Paris, France. Expert reviewer, IPCC Working
group II, chapter 8 (human health)

37) Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, physicist and chairman, Scientific
Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw,
Poland

38) Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christianse n, reader, Dept. of Geography,
University of Hull, U.K.; editor, Energy & Environment

39) Dr. Hans H.J. Labohm, former advisor to the executive board,
Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International
Relations) and an economist who has focused on climate change

40) Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, senior scientist emeritus, University of
Kansas, past director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey

41) Dr. Asmunn Moene, past head of the Forecasting Centre,
Meteorological Institute, Norway

42) Dr. August H. Auer, past professor of atmospheric science,
University of Wyoming; previously chief meteorologist, Meteorological
Service (MetService) of New Zealand

43) Dr. Vincent Gray, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The
Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001,' Wellington,
N.Z.

44) Dr. Howard Hayden, emeritus professor of physics, University of
Connecticut

45) Dr Benny Peiser, professor of social anthropology, Faculty of
Science, Liverpool John Moores University, U.K.

46) Dr. Jack Barrett, chemist and spectroscopist, formerly with
Imperial
College London, U.K.

47) Dr. William J.R. Alexander, professor emeritus, Dept. of Civil and
Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Member,
United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural
Disasters, 1994-2000

48) Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences,
University of Virginia; former director, U.S. Weather Satellite
Service

49) Dr. Harry N.A. Priem, emeritus professor of planetary geology and
isotope geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the
Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences; past president of the
Royal Netherlands Geological & Mining Society

50) Dr. Robert H. Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey professor of energy
conversion,
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University

51) Dr. Sallie Baliunas, astrophysicist and climate researcher,
Boston,
Mass.

52) Douglas Hoyt, senior scientist at Raytheon (retired) and co-
author of the book The Role of the Sun in Climate Change; previously
with NCAR, NOAA, and the World Radiation Center, Davos, Switzerland
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Dietze, independent energy advisor and scientific
climate and carbon modeller, official IPCC reviewer, Bavaria, Germany

53) Dr. Boris Winterhalter, senior marine researcher (retired),
Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology,
University of Helsinki, Finland

54) Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical
Geography and Quaternary
Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden

55) Dr. Hugh W. Ellsaesser, physicist/meteorolo gist, previously with
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Calif.; atmospheric
consultant.

56) Dr. Art Robinson, founder, Oregon Institute of Science and
Medicine, Cave Junction, Ore.

57) Dr. Arthur Rorsch, emeritus professor of molecular genetics,
Leiden University, The Netherlands; past board member, Netherlands
organization for applied research (TNO) in environmental, food and
public health

58) Dr. Alister McFarquhar, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.;
international economist

59) Dr. Richard S. Courtney, climate and atmospheric science
consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.

60) Dr. Chris de Freitas, climate scientist, associate professor, The
University of Auckland, N.Z.

And I love how you automatically assume I am "right wing" because I don't buy into the global warming scandal.  Do you realize that many of the same people crying global warming now, were crying mini ice age in the 70's?  I don't fall for this "the sky is falling" crap.  And why is it right wing to be sceptical of this?  Didn't Bush just pass a bunch of laws that mandated us cutting our carbon emmisions?  Which caused gas and food prices to rise almost immediatly.  Get a clue you lemming!  Or just go ahead and follow the rest of them off the cliff

Dogs-
Why is it that when you provide a couple of links Danny counters by supporting his own point with sources and then you proceed to tell him that his sources are not reputable, which is your opinion not a fact?? Then you tell him he has no clue and can't logically debate this topic??

Why can't you refute his argument with actual facts?? Instead you choose to just disregard his logic as propaganda and opinion and then tell him he has nothing to back up what he says.

dogslaughatme said: "Of course there are some scientists that disagree, but they are by far in the minority."
Can you prove that? Or is that news outlets that you follow don't give airplay to the "minority" therefore giving you the misconception that those who disagree are in the minority?

If  "global warming" is so concrete, and if so many agree that its there and its human caused and theres no disputing it then why is there so much debate about it??

Lastly:
dogslaughatme said: "Danny noonan, according to your Rubechat profile you've made over 2,800 posts.  Good God...get a life."

Dogs-
Just because he has posted that many times doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't have a life. I have two kids, and my wife works nights sometimes, therefore leaving me at home with them on Friday and Saturday nights. Friday at 10:00 when the kids are in bed and theres nothing on TV I'll tap into the blog-o-sphere. So instead of staying home, parenting, teaching my kids the finer points of baseball, why the Packers suck, and how their grandfather and great grandfathers spilled their blood for this country in the name of freedom, I should pay a babysitter so I can go up to the local watering hole and say I have a life??

For a liberal you sure are passing judgment fast..... Oh I'm sorry did I just pass judgment on you?? Don't you hate it when that happens??

Dogs-
Why is it that when you provide a couple of links Danny counters by supporting his own point with sources and then you proceed to tell him that his sources are not reputable, which is your opinion not a fact?? Then you tell him he has no clue and can't logically debate this topic??

Why can't you refute his argument with actual facts?? Instead you choose to just disregard his logic as propaganda and opinion and then tell him he has nothing to back up what he says.

dogslaughatme said: "Of course there are some scientists that disagree, but they are by far in the minority."
Can you prove that? Or is that news outlets that you follow don't give airplay to the "minority" therefore giving you the misconception that those who disagree are in the minority?

If  "global warming" is so concrete, and if so many agree that its there and its human caused and theres no disputing it then why is there so much debate about it??

Lastly:
dogslaughatme said: "Danny noonan, according to your Rubechat profile you've made over 2,800 posts.  Good God...get a life."

Dogs-
Just because he has posted that many times doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't have a life. I have two kids, and my wife works nights sometimes, therefore leaving me at home with them on Friday and Saturday nights. Friday at 10:00 when the kids are in bed and theres nothing on TV I'll tap into the blog-o-sphere. So instead of staying home, parenting, teaching my kids the finer points of baseball, why the Packers suck, and how their grandfather and great grandfathers spilled their blood for this country in the name of freedom, I should pay a babysitter so I can go up to the local watering hole and say I have a life??

For a liberal you sure are passing judgment fast..... Oh I'm sorry did I just pass judgment on you?? Don't you hate it when that happens??

http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/eco/blownaway.html

http://www.aweo.org/lowbenefit.html

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idarticle=9469
List of global warming activists, now skeptics
Growing number of major scientific figures convert to skeptics after reviewing new research
Wednesday, May 16, 2007By Marc Morano

Following the U.S. Senate's vote today on a global warming measure, there is a shift taking place in climate science. Many former believers in catastrophic man-made global warming have recently reversed themselves and are now climate skeptics.  The names below are just a sampling of the prominent scientists who have spoken out recently to oppose the perceived alarmism of man-made global warming.

The media's climate fear factor seemingly grows louder even as the latest science grows less and less alarming by the day.  It is also worth noting that the proponents of climate fears are increasingly attempting to suppress dissent by skeptics.

Once Believers, Now Skeptics

Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States, converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006. Allegre, who was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, now says the cause of climate change is "unknown" and accused the “prophets of doom of global warming” of being motivated by money, noting that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!" “Glaciers’ chronicles or historical archives point to the fact that climate is a capricious phenomena. This fact is confirmed by mathematical meteorological theories. So, let us be cautious,” Allegre explained in a September 21, 2006 article in the French newspaper L'EXPRESS. The National Post in Canada also profiled Allegre on March 2, 2007, noting “Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution.” Allegre now calls fears of a climate disaster "simplistic and obscuring the true dangers” mocks "the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man's role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters." Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.”

Geologist Bruno Wiskel of the University of Alberta recently reversed his view of man-made climate change and instead became a global warming skeptic. Wiskel was once such a big believer in man-made global warming that he set out to build a “Kyoto house” in honor of the UN sanctioned Kyoto Protocol which was signed in 1997.  Wiskel wanted to prove that the Kyoto Protocol’s goals were achievable by people making small changes in their lives. But after further examining the science behind Kyoto, Wiskel reversed his scientific views completely and became such a strong skeptic, that he recently wrote a book titled “The Emperor's New Climate: Debunking the Myth of Global Warming.”  A November 15, 2006 Edmonton Sun article explains Wiskel’s conversion while building his “Kyoto house”: “Instead, he said he realized global warming theory was full of holes and ‘red flags,’ and became convinced that humans are not responsible for rising temperatures.” Wiskel now says “the truth has to start somewhere.”  Noting that the Earth has been warming for 18,000 years, Wiskel told the Canadian newspaper, “If this happened once and we were the cause of it, that would be cause for concern. But glaciers have been coming and going for billions of years."  Wiskel also said that global warming has gone "from a science to a religion” and noted that research money is being funneled into promoting climate alarmism instead of funding areas he considers more worthy. "If you funnel money into things that can't be changed, the money is not going into the places that it is needed,” he said.

Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv, one of Israel's top young award winning scientists, recanted his belief that manmade emissions were driving climate change. ""Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. In fact, there is much more than meets the eye,” Shaviv said in February 2, 2007 Canadian National Post article. According to Shaviv, the C02 temperature link is only “incriminating circumstantial evidence.” "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming" and "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist,” Shaviv noted pointing to the impact cosmic- rays have on the atmosphere. According to the National Post, Shaviv believes that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100 "will not dramatically increase the global temperature." “Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant,” Shaviv explained. Shaviv also wrote on August 18, 2006 that a colleague of his believed that “CO2 should have a large effect on climate” so “he set out to reconstruct the phanerozoic temperature. He wanted to find the CO2 signature in the data, but since there was none, he slowly had to change his views.”  Shaviv believes there will be more scientists converting to man-made global warming skepticism as they discover the dearth of evidence. “I think this is common to many of the scientists who think like us (that is, that CO2 is a secondary climate driver). Each one of us was working in his or her own niche. While working there, each one of us realized that things just don't add up to support the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) picture. So many had to change their views,” he wrote.

Mathematician & engineer Dr. David Evans, who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government, recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. “I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical,” Evans wrote in an April 30, 2007 blog. “But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions