Global Warming

[Soldier4Christ]

Global Warming Is The Reason For Everything!!


Roy Spencer at TCS Daily, writes of the absence of Atlantic hurrincanes this year:

    Yet, now at mid-August, we have had only three named tropical storms, compared to nine by this date last year. Normally, we would have had one hurricane by now, and we have not had any so far, so by that measure we are actually below normal.

Roy Spencer is not aware that the “below normal” hurricane activity is the result of global warming caused by man and this will cause a crisis of epic proportions.

He goes on to discuss the reason why:

    Hurricanes require warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs), and last year the tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures were running well above normal. Global warming was the explanation given by most ‘experts’ the media interviewed.

Again, the sea surface temperatures were running “well above normal” last year because of global warming caused by man and that caused a crisis of epic proportions.

What is going on right now?

    But now those same regions that had anomalously warm SSTs last year are — gasp! — near normal.

Again, Roy Spencer is clearly not aware that the sea surface temperatures are “near normal” because of global warming caused by man and that is causing a crisis of epic proportions.

[Soldier4Christ]

Britain hires Gore to advise on 'global warming' 
Report: Climate change will devastate economy on scale of world wars, Depression

 Unchecked global warming will devastate the world economy on the scale of the world wars and the Great Depression, a British government report said Monday, as the country launched a bid to convince doubters that environmentalism and economic growth can coincide.

Britain hired former Vice President Al Gore, who has emerged as a powerful environmental spokesman since his defeat in the 2000 presidential election, to advise the government on climate change _ a clear indication of Prime Minister Tony Blair's dissatisfaction with current U.S. policy.

 Blair, President Bush's top ally in the Iraq war, said unabated climate change would eventually cost the world between 5 percent and 20 percent of global gross domestic product each year. He called for "bold and decisive action" to cut carbon emissions and stem the worst of the temperature rise.

"It is not in doubt that, if the science is right, the consequences for our planet are literally disastrous," he said. "This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime."

The report emphasized that global warming can only be fought with the cooperation of major countries such as the United States and China, and represents a huge contrast to the Bush administration's wait-and- see global warming policies.

Sir Nicholas Stern, the senior government economist who wrote the report, said that acting now to cut greenhouse gas emissions would cost about 1 percent of global GDP each year. He recommended a "low- carbon global economy" through measures including taxation, regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon trading.

"That is manageable," he said. "We can grow and be green."

Bush kept America _ by far the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming _ out of the Kyoto international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, saying the pact would harm the U.S. economy. The international agreement was reached in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 and expires in 2012.

Blair made his displeasure with U.S. environmental policy clear when he signed an agreement this year with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to develop new technologies to combat the problem. The measure imposed the first emissions cap in the United States on utilities, refineries and manufacturing plants in a bid to curb the gases that scientists blame for warming the Earth.

The prime minister and the report also said that no matter what Britain, the United States and Japan do, the battle against global warming cannot succeed without deciding when and how to control the greenhouse gas emissions by such fast-industrializing giants as China and India.

Stern's 700-page report said evidence showed "that ignoring climate change will eventually damage economic growth."

"Our actions over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century," he said.

The report said at current trends average global temperatures will rise by 3.6 to 5.4 degrees within the next 50 years or so, and the earth will experience several degrees more of warming if emissions continue to grow.

It said such warming could have effects such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels, declining crop yields, drinking water shortages, higher death tolls from malnutrition and heat stress, and widespread outbreaks of malaria and dengue fever. Developing countries often would be the hardest hit.

The report acknowledged that its predictions regarding GDP relied on sparse data about high temperatures and developing countries, and placed monetary values on human health and the environment, "which is conceptually, ethically and empirically very difficult."

Treasury Chief Gordon Brown, who is expected to replace Blair as prime minister next year, said Britain would lead the international effort against climate change, establishing "an economy that is both pro- growth and pro-green." He called for Europe to cut its carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2020 and 60 percent by 2050 _ and Blair's government on Monday said it would propose a British law to that effect.

Under the 1997 Kyoto accord, 35 industrialized nations committed to reducing emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

But Britain is one of only a handful of industrialized nations whose greenhouse gas emissions have fallen in the last decade and a half, the United Nations said Monday.

The U.N. said Germany's emissions dropped 17 percent between 1990 and Britain's by 14 percent and France's by almost 1 percent.

Overall, there was a 2.4 percent rise in emissions by 41 industrialized nations from 2000 to 2004, mostly because former Soviet-bloc countries, whose emissions declined in their economic downturn of the 1990s, increased emissions during the recent four-year period by 4.1 percent.

The British government is considering new "green taxes" on cheap airline flights, fuel and high-emission vehicles.

[Soldier4Christ]

Gore urges Japan execs to fight 'global warming'
'Our planet now has a fever. And it's not going away'

 Former US vice president and environmental activist Al Gore urged Japanese business leaders to set an example for companies around the world in tackling climate change.

"The business leadership of Japan can lead the way and lead the business community of the world," said Gore.

"Your determination to be a part of the solution can be the key to the world successfully resolving this crisis," he told a gathering of the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren).

Gore, who was in Japan to promote his documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth, said Japanese executives could play a pivotal role in persuading the United States to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that aims to restrict the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

"The tipping point for the US is influenced by the business community as much as anything," Gore said.

"And the Japanese business community can have a powerful influence on the shaping of opinions within the US business community," he added.

Gore said an unusually warm winter in Japan and cherry blossoms in the US capital three months early were worrying portents.

"Our planet now has a fever. And it's not going away," he said. "We have a moral obligation to those coming after us."

Japan is a frontrunner in energy-efficient technologies. Earlier Monday its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a two billion dollar aid package to help Asian nations develop energy-saving technology at a summit in the Philippines.

[Soldier4Christ]

He had to go to Japan now because he can't convince anyone of global warming in the U.S. at the moment.

"California citrus faces losses from cold snap"

"Death toll grows as path of ice storm widens"

[nChrist]

 

This global warming here in Oklahoma has given us one of the most harsh winters in many years. Winters in Oklahoma are usually in the 30s and 40s, so these teens and wind chills of less than zero aren't much fun.

Who knows, maybe Al Gore will say that global warming is responsible for all of these winter storms. Regardless, I think that Al needs SERIOUS COUNSELING.   

[Soldier4Christ]

You have Gore pretty well pegged. He has in fact said the weird weather we are getting is because of global warming.

Of course all the global warming advocates deny that the entire world was a tropical climate not long ago. If they did recognize that they may recognize the fact that the world is recovering from a catastrophic condition (global flood).

[Soldier4Christ]

Global warming to swamp Florida?
Some scientists doubt research behind dire scenarios in U.N. report

 A much-debated U.N. report on climate change to be released today raises the specter of rising sea levels and hurricanes that could eventually swamp much of South Florida.

One official this week even suggested the Bahamas could be under water by 2030.

 Dozens of scientists and government experts from 113 countries edited the new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. It is considered by most in the scientific community to be the comprehensive document on climate change, one that could influence government and industrial policy worldwide.

Specifically, experts are looking at predictions of sea level rise over the next 50 years from 2 feet to 10 feet.

A rise of 10 feet could swamp the state's highly populated coastline and send salt water spilling into the freshwater Everglades, said a leading South Florida-based scientist.

"It's an outlying estimate, but a 10-foot rise is within the realm of possibility," said Stephen P. Leatherman, director of the International Hurricane Research Center at Florida International University. "If that happens, not only do you have rising water to the east, but you have saltwater encroachment in the Everglades. It essentially becomes part of the ocean to the west of us.

"At that point, forget about Everglades restoration ... Most of this area is maybe 10 feet above sea level, so if you're talking about a 10-foot rise, and rising tide on top of that, then it's all over."

It would be inconceivable that construction could easily adapt to such a rise, Leatherman said.

"To preserve places like Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, you'd be building high sea walls like they have in New Orleans, and that wouldn't help during storms," he said.

But critics of efforts to mandate industrial controls on carbon emissions, thought to be a leading cause of the warming, are not likely to be silenced by the report.

"This is ... an advocacy group for controls on carbon emissions," said Tom Harris, executive director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, a leading clearinghouse for challenges to the science behind global warming. "We haven't seen the science they're drawing on in this report, and we're not going to see it tomorrow.

"There're over 10,000 reports that come out in any year on climate change ... Our own scientists have raised questions about the data they've seen from the IPCC."

Over the past century, sea levels have risen one foot, but that rate has doubled in the last two decades, alarming climate scientists. They are especially concerned by recent evidence that shows huge areas of ice disappearing for the first time in centuries in the Arctic and Antarctica.

The melting ice raises sea levels and, with global warming, water gets hotter and expands.

Scientists involved in the IPCC are trying to incorporate concerns that their early drafts underestimate how much the sea level will rise by 2100 because they cannot predict how much ice will melt from Greenland and Antarctica.

In early drafts, scientists predicted a sea level rise of no more than 23 inches by 2100, but that does not include massive ice sheet melts that have been measured over the past few years.

Still, Leatherman says he's cautious about the projections. A pioneering researcher in sea-level rise who has been involved with IPCC reports for three decades, Leatherman said that the more likely scenario is that South Floridians will face a massive effort to stave off beach erosion from moderate rises of 2 to 3 feet.

"It basically means instead of putting enough sand down to fight off a foot, you've got to put much more sand down to keep beaches with a 2-foot rise," he said.

"That's what's going to happen because nobody's going to let prime real estate like the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood just collapse in the water."

The report also will say global warming has made stronger hurricanes, including those that hit South Florida in 2004 and 2005. The panel approved language saying an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 "more likely than not" can be attributed to man-made global warming.

[Soldier4Christ]

Supreme Court's global warming ruling decried as 'politically correct'

A prominent climate-change expert says the Supreme Court's recent ruling in favor of efforts to curb global warming was a classic example of judicial activism. He feels the court's decision, which allows environmental groups to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for refusing to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles, is not only a threat to the auto industry but also to the future of the American economy.



The Supreme Court has ruled that carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. In its 5-4 ruling, the high court held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate so-called greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles.

Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says the ruling has no immediate practical implications, but rather has political ones. "This Supreme Court decision," he explains, "now will cause many people in business and industry -- many of whom have been calling for global warming legislation anyway because they hope to get rich off of it by raising energy prices -- many of them now who have been opposed will say, 'Well, we need to short-circuit the EPA process, and we need Congress to give us some kind of system to regulate emissions that we can actually live with, not some crazy thing dreamed up by EPA."

Before this ruling, Ebell asserts, it was going to be difficult for the Democrat-led Congress to pass comprehensive legislation that limits energy use, raises energy prices, and rations energy. But now, he says, the Supreme Court has fueled the efforts of those who are pushing for mandatory caps on carbon emissions.

According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute official, the high court's liberal justices have bought into the politically correct hype surrounding global warming and have "vastly expanded" the regulatory powers of the executive branch. "They decided what the outcome should be, and then they figured out what legal reasoning they could cobble together to get that outcome," he asserts. "And I think that's the opposite of what legal reasoning should be."

Ideally, legal reasoning "should follow the best arguments for what the law is and then let the outcome be determined by that," Ebell contends. "But I think they did it just the opposite way, and they got the politically correct conclusion," he says.

In rendering their decision, Ebell adds, the Supreme Court justices have basically said Congress did not know that by passing the Clean Air Act it was giving the EPA regulatory authority over everything in the air -- or, as dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia put it, "anything from frisbies to flatulence."

[Shammu]

Stars are on board for a college tour on global warming

By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Sheryl Crow may want to soak up the sun, but she thinks the planet is soaking up too much of it.

On Monday, the popular singer and environmental activist Laurie David began a 13-day, 10-stop tour of southern U.S. colleges to raise awareness of global warming among students.

The tour began in Dallas at Southern Methodist University and continues today in College Station on the campus of Texas A&M University. David said the tour's starting point, which will travel from Texas to Washington, D.C. aboard a biofuel-powered bus, is symbolic.

"Texas is the No. 1 emitter of carbon dioxide," said David, who was one of the producers of former Vice President Al Gore's Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth. "It's the perfect place to start our tour and highlight the problem."

Celebrities take up cause
The "Stop Global Warming College Tour" is part of a rising tide of celebrities — from Leonardo DiCaprio to John Travolta — who have taken up the cause of global warming, calling for regulatory action to limit the human production of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide.

The free, 90-minute event will include remarks by David, a short performance by Crow, clips from An Inconvenient Truth, clips from comedians and a dialogue with participants.

A good-natured protest is anticipated in College Station today as some students planned to hold a "Global Warming Pool Party" by Rudder Fountain on A&M's campus.

One of the protest organizers who will be wearing a bathing suit and bouncing a beach ball is David Bellow a 22-year-old senior majoring in political science who said he remains unconvinced that humans are the major cause of Earth's rising thermostat.

"I really don't agree with celebrities going around telling us not to drive our SUVs when they have 15,000 square-foot mansions and fly in private jets," Bellow said.

Simple message
David and Crow said they are not coming to Texas to place blame, but to offer students ideas on how to become part of the solution.

"I kind of came into this as a normal person who didn't know all the facts, but was very disturbed by what's going on," Crow said. "The thing is, for me, I suffered that panic of, what can I do as one person? I think by speaking out I can represent that large population."

The pair's message is simple: Everyone can do his or her part to curb global warming. If you drive an SUV, that's OK, David said. Just make your next vehicle is a hybrid-SUV, which emits far fewer greenhouse gases. Or replace your lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lightbulbs, which use considerably less power than conventional bulbs.

At the tour's end on April 22, Earth Day, Crow and David will call on the federal government to put an immediate freeze on carbon dioxide emissions in this country, followed by sharp reductions in coming years.

Expressing doubts
The state's climatologist, John Nielsen-Gammon, who also is a professor of meteorology at Texas A&M, said he doesn't expect too many students to be swayed by tonight's tour stop.

"The tour will be most effective in reaching those students who regard global warming as a major problem and want to do something about it, because it will bring like-minded students together and suggest ways of taking action," he said. "But the average student is more concerned about the exam tomorrow than the temperature 100 years from now."

Stars are on board for a college tour on global warming

[Shammu]

Hmmmmm, I wonder why they won't talk about glacier growth in Iceland.

[Shammu]

Hurricane Forecaster Blasts Al Gore Over Global Warming

Written by: Elaine McKewon

The 2007 National Hurricane Conference ended in New Orleans on Friday with its principal speaker unleashing a fiery indictment of former Vice-President and environmental activist Al Gore, climate change science and the mainstream media.

On the same day that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report, professor of atmospheric science William Gray, a hurricane forecaster at Colorado State University, dismissed the scientific consensus that global warming is a real problem, that it is caused by human activity and that it will lead to more intense storms like Hurricane Katrina.

His speech made headlines around the world and overshadowed a week of courses and workshops on advances in disaster management, public preparedness education and emergency communication systems.

“You’ve heard a lot of foolishness over the last couple years,” said Dr Gray. “I think the whole human-induced greenhouse gas thing is a red herring … I see climate change as due to the ocean circulation pattern.” He believes the earth has been in a natural warming cycle for 30 years owing to fluctuations in ocean currents and that temperatures will cool down in another five to ten years as the currents shift again.

He singled out Mr Gore as a “gross alarmist” and said: “He’s one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he’s doing a great disservice and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Yet the latter charge is one that Dr Gray has had to increasingly defend because his theories on climate change have isolated him in the scientific community. He might have problems receiving government grants to conduct his research, and his views are rejected by the overwhelming majority of his peers. His conference speeches are notable for their quotes from Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and science fiction author Michael Crichton, while lacking in references to scientific research.

Critics have said that Dr Gray has not allowed his claims about global warming to be evaluated by the scientific community.  Dr Judith Curry, Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology, told the Palm Beach Post that the merits of scientific theories must be tested by being published in leading journals such as Science and Nature, yet “I have not seen any refered publications written by Bill Gray on this topic during the last few years. Research scientists conduct their exchange of ideas in the peer-reviewed literature and at professional conferences, not through the media.”

Dr Gray also took aim at the news media for reporting the IPCC’s findings, and suggested that the scientific consensus only gets coverage because it “makes a hell of a good story”. On the other hand, media ethics experts insist that it is incumbent on journalists to report evidence-based scientific findings while treating untested fringe theories with caution, which is especially important when science meets politics.

Journalist and author Chris Mooney, who has written extensively on science in politics, has argued in the Columbia Journalism Review that “… scientific consensus can be expected to hold up under scrutiny precisely because it was reached through a lengthy and rigorous process of professional skepticism and criticism. At the very least, journalists covering science-based policy debates should familiarize themselves with this professional proving ground, learn what it says about the relative merits of competing claims, and balance their reports accordingly.”

Hurricane Forecaster Blasts Al Gore Over Global Warming

[Shammu]

Hurricane forecaster says Al Gore does 'great disservice' with film about global warming

Last Update: Apr 7, 2007 5:44 PM

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" Friday for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming.

"He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.

A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray's comments.

Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

Over the past 24 years, Gray, 77, has become known as America's most reliable hurricane forecaster; recently, his mentee, Philip Klotzbach, has begun doing the bulk of the forecasting work.

Gray's statements came the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved a report that concludes the world will face dire consequences to food and water supplies, along with increased flooding and other dramatic weather events, unless nations adapt to climate change.

Rather than global warming, Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.

Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," has helped fuel media attention on global warming.

Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor who had feuded with Gray over global warming, said Gray has wrongly "dug (his) heels in" even though there is ample evidence that the world is getting hotter.

Hurricane forecaster says Al Gore does 'great disservice' with film about global warming

[Shammu]

Are the Global Warming Zealots Walking the Walk on Prevention or Just Blowing Hot Air?

Date: Tuesday, April 10, 2007
By: Joseph C. Phillips,

The other day, while returning home from a morning of running errands, my fourth grade son lamented that we were harming the environment by driving. I offered to pull the car over and let him walk home lest he cause any more damage. He thought about it a moment, then responded that since I was going that way anyway he may as well keep riding. My son is no fool.

Don’t misunderstand. I may have my doubts about manmade global warming, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the environment, nor does it mean I am not open to information. I love clean water and fresh air as much as anyone. I am educating myself everyday. I also recognize, however, that there are trade-offs in life, and I am honest in admitting that there is a price I am just not willing to pay.  One of the primary reasons I am a skeptic is that those preaching impending doom the loudest don’t seem honest about the sacrifices they are willing to make.

Put aside the fact that, for believers in manmade global warming, alternative energy sources do not include nuclear power or that those that question the global warming dogma are shouted down and threatened with Nuremberg-type tribunals. Put aside as well that I am old enough to remember the global cooling hysteria of the 1970’s. The truth is that, like my fourth grader, devotees of manmade global warming are great at talking the talk, but when it comes to actually getting out of the car and walking the no-carbon-footprint walk, they prefer gestures like government control of industry and inventing a new market where one can purchase (and trade) environmental salvation through carbon credits.

Former vice president Al Gore, for instance, one of the chief priests of the new global warming religion, is using electricity as if, well, as if it were truly going out of style. While working tirelessly to warn all of us about the coming Armageddon, he is consuming 20 times the electricity of the average American home. In his defense, he claims that because he is purchasing carbon credits (from a company he owns), he is actually carbon neutral. Nice work if you can get it! Next time you are pulled over for driving while under the influence, calmly inform the officer that while you don’t deny drinking like a fish, you took the precaution of purchasing blood alcohol credits so your level is actually less than the breathalyzer test indicated. In less tony neighborhoods, this is known as a street con.

If you want to know the real costs of a carbon neutral lifestyle, take a gander at a young couple from New York City in the midst of a year-long experiment to live a carbon-neutral life. They burn beeswax candles instead of light bulbs, eat mashed carrots with homemade vinegar, purchase no new clothing, do not use elevators and -- most unfortunately, for my tastes anyway -- use no toilet paper. In short, they are living a pre-industrial lifestyle.

Other than this young couple, I am aware of no one willing to follow them back to the 19th century.  And even this couple hasn’t gone all the way.  They still use a computer, which runs on electricity and plan to publish a book, which will no doubt be made of paper.

I don’t mind my son lecturing me about global warming, even while he and his brothers leave every light in the house burning. In the long run, we all benefit from the conversation. However, if the doomsayers are correct, the cost of reversing the evil of global warming is much higher than the most ardent among them is willing to pay. It is certainly higher than I am willing to pay.

I am putting the listening world on notice: I don’t care how hot it gets; I am not giving up toilet paper!

Are the Global Warming Zealots Walking the Walk on Prevention or Just Blowing Hot Air?

[Shammu]

I am putting the listening world on notice: I don’t care how hot it gets; I am not giving up toilet paper!

I'm with this guy............

[2nd Timothy]

LOL...true.  Global warming sure hasn't lowered my heating bill this year  Its April 14, and the windchill here in Texas is 27-F.  Perhaps when the penguins start lining the shores of Miami Beach, and the polar bears are eating the environmentalists, they will come to their senses.