080807 Marc Morano’s Round-up– August 8, 2007
UK Guardian: Global warming predicted to cause more earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and tsunamis & may lead to global cooling!
(Written by Bill McGuire, director of the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre and author of “Surviving Armageddon: Solutions For a Threatened Planet” (Note: This is not a joke!)
Excerpt: Never mind higher temperatures, climate change has a few nastier surprises in store. Bill McGuire says we can also expect more earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and tsunamis. < > The solid earth also became restless, with an increase in volcanic activity, earthquakes, giant submarine landslides and tsunamis. At the rate climate change is accelerating, there is every prospect that we will see a similar response from the planet, heralding not just a warmer future but also a fiery one. < > But how can rising sea levels cause volcanoes to erupt? The answer lies in the enormous mass of the water pouring into the ocean basins from the retreating ice sheets. The addition of over a hundred metres depth of water to the continental margins and marine island chains, where over 60% of the world's active volcanoes reside, seems to be sufficient to load and bend the underlying crust. This in turn squeezes out any magma that happens to be hanging around waiting for an excuse to erupt. It may well be that a much smaller rise can trigger an eruption if a volcano is critically poised and ready to blow.< > It may be no coincidence that one outcome of increased volcanic activity is likely to be a period of falling temperatures, as a veil of volcanic dust and gas reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface. Maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something. It really would be worth listening before it is too late.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/07/disasters
NASA’s James Hansen Temperature Data Error Discovered
(Note: This is a developing and story of potentially huge magnitude)
Excerpt: Steve McIntyre: I http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1854observed recently that Hansen’s GISS series contains an apparent error in which Hansen switched the source of GISS raw from USHCN adjusted to USHCN raw for all values January 2000 and later. For Detroit Lakes MN, this introduced an error of 0.8 deg C. I’ve collated GISS raw minus USHCN adjusted for all USHCN sites (using the data scraped from the GISS site, for which I was most criticized in Rabett-world). Figure 1 below shows a histogram of the January 2000 step for the 1221 stations (calculated here as the difference between the average of the difference after Jan 2000 and for the 1990-1999 period.) < > NASA admists Error: “When we did our monthly update this morning, an offset based on the last 10 years of overlap in the two data sets was applied and our on-line documentation was changed correspondingly with an acknowledgment of your contribution. This change and its effect will be noted in our next paper on temperature analysis and in our end-of-year temperature summary.” (Stay tuned for this developing story)
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1868
Renowned scientist: Climate fears 'predicted by computer models simply cannot happen'
(Professor Nils-Axel Mörner, a leading world authority on sea levels and coastal erosion. Professor Mörner was head of the Department of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University. From 1999 to 2003, he was president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution. INQUA, the International Union for Quaternary Research. Mörner has published a booklet entitled "The Greatest Lie Ever Told," to refute claims of catastrophic sea level rise.
Excerpt: "When we were coming out of the last ice age, huge ice sheets were melting rapidly and the sea level rose at an average of 1 metre per century. If the Greenland ice sheet stated to melt at the same rate - which is unlikely - sea level would rise by less than 100 mm - 4 inches per century. So the rapid rise in sea levels predicted by computer models simply cannot happen."
The booklet refers to observational records of sea levels for the past 300 years that show variations - ups and downs, but no significant trend. Actual records of tide gauges at Tuvalu for the last 25 years, and at Vanuatu since 1993 show no traces of a sudden rise in their sea levels. "This ought to be of relevance to New Zealanders in view of the false claims by Al Gore in his film 'An Inconvenient Truth' that South Pacific islands are 'sinking' and their in habitants have had to flee to your very own country. You know there has been no such evacuation. I can assure you there have been no rises in sea levels, so you should ask yourselves how much else of what Gore says is similarly false," said Professor Mörner.
In 2000, Professor Mörner led a team of INQUA sea level specialists to investigate claims of rising levels at the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean. "What we found was that sea levels were relatively stable between 1790 and 1970, but that around 1970 there was a fall in sea levels of 20 to 30 cm, and since then the levels have remained stable."
Professor Mörner said that scientists and policy-makers addressing the way that climatic changes may affect future world living standards and patterns should be guided solely by actual observations and the lessons of the world's climate history. They should stop relying on computer models that have failed to make accurate predictions even a few years ahead.
"Right now, we are at a peak of the current sunspot cycle, and so there is more risk of cooling of the earth's atmosphere than there is of any warming, let alone catastrophic warming. There is absolutely no justification for burdening people with the huge financial costs of seal level rises that cannot happen, carbon taxes or emission charges, or for placing unwarranted restrictions on the way we live our lives.
"Instead, people in positions of political authority should be paying greater and more urgent attention to clear and present problems such as earthquakes, tsunamis, clean air, clean water and the elimination of diseases such as malaria and AIDs," said Professor Mörner.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0708/S00012.htm
Are Gore and Newsweek’s Climate Change ‘Deniers’ Accusations Coordinated?
Excerpt: Is this a coordinated attack designed to incite anger in citizens that polls show are not as upset about this issue as the left and their media minions? < > Coincidence, or a coordinated campaign by the left to stifle the growing number of scientists around the world who are speaking out and writing articles refuting anthropogenic global warming theories whilst inciting the public's anger? After all, neither Gore nor Newsweek chose to address the billions of dollars being spent by global warming alarmists to elicit international hysteria concerning this issue, and how such funds dwarf what is going to skeptical scientists and writers to add a modicum of balance to the discussion. As Marc Morano, Communications Director for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), pointed out in his http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=38d98c0a-802a-23ad-48ac-d9f7facb61a7rebuttal to Newsweek's disgraceful piece, "proponents of man-made global warming have been funded to the tune of $50 BILLION in the last decade or so, while skeptics have received a paltry $19 MILLION by comparison." < > Has the June failure of the G-8 to impose CO2 emissions caps, and the July failure of Gore's Live Earth concerts, scared alarmists about the future of their cause? Have polls consistently showing that Americans aren't getting nearly as hysterical about this issue as Gore and his sycophants in the media want discouraged believers to the point that a new tactic is being tested? < > What seems new is the timing of this Newsweek piece coincident with Gore's statements in Singapore, along with skeptics now being referred to as deniers. As such, this bears watching.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/08/08/are-gore-newsweek-s-climate-change-deniers-accusations-coordinated
CNN: Newsweek accused of equating climate skeptics with Holocaust deniers
(Note: this article appeared on CNN’s website, hope for the mainstream media yet!)
Excerpt: Newsweek equates global warming skeptics with Holocaust deniers and accuses reputable scientists of being paid to create confusion in the face of consensus. Galileo is once again on trial. Even the supporters of global warming hype found the title of Newsweek's Aug. 13 attack on skeptics, "The Truth About Denial," offensive. The use of the word "denier" is deliberate, an attempt to paint as either crazy or corrupt what Al Gore has proclaimed as Truth. Reputable scientists have been accused by a major news magazine of being paid to lie. "Let's be blunt," said Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. "This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system."
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/IBD-0001-18734869.htm
U.N. head invites Czech president to global warming conference – Expect ‘Shocking’ Speech!
Excerpt: Czech President Vaclav Klaus will address a conference on global warming in late September in New York as he has been invited by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the event, Klaus's spokesman Petr Hajek told CTK Tuesday. Klaus is known as a fierce challenger of both the human factor in and the widely forecast effects of global warming. He opposes the views advocated by people like Al Gore, arguing that the "hysteria" surrounding the warming issue threatens freedom and democracy. One of his slogans is that freedom, not climate is endangered. He regularly lashes out against "ambitious environmentalism." < > Klaus told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) last week that he plans to deliver a very radical speech in New York.
"It will be a gathering of 'Gore-ites,' so they're going to be shocked that they invited me 'by mistake,' too. And I'm going to give a very tough speech," he told the radio.
http://launch.praguemonitor.com/en/143/czech_national_news/10522/
Book authors go off the grid to save the planet
Excerpt: A number of authors have gone off the grid for a year, reducing their consumption and carbon footprint. They document the experiment, and then, in a slightly atavistic gesture, their publishers deliver it in traditional dead-tree form for you to consume. < > The trend includes http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Barbara+KingsolverBarbara Kingsolver's best-selling "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life," in which the author's family pledged for a year to eat only food produced on its farm; http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Alisa+SmithAlisa Smith and http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=J.B.+MackinnonJ.B. Mackinnon's "Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally," and http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Colin+BeavanColin Beavan's forthcoming book about his yearlong pursuit of a "No Impact" lifestyle.
http://www.nysun.com/article/60056
Walter E. Williams: Silencing Dissent
Excerpt: Speaking at the American leg of Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Get rid of all these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies." Referring to skeptics of man-made global warming, he said, "This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors." Traitors are either shot or imprisoned. I wonder which Robert Kennedy has in mind for the skeptics. University of Oregon's George Taylor holds the title of state climatologist. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski wants to take that title from Taylor. The governor said Taylor's skepticism interferes with Oregon's stated goals to reduce greenhouse gases, the accepted cause of global warming in the eyes of a vast majority of scientists.
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/WalterEWilliams/2007/08/08/silencing_dissent
Where's the Global Warming debate?
Excerpt: In January, Times-Herald readers were subjected to a seven-day fire storm of global warming propaganda. This is from the initial spark: "As the political and social debate raged" over climate change, "the scientific debate was over." I'm confused. Where and when did this multi-faceted debate take place? How did I miss it? Is it unreasonable of me to assume that a debate of this magnitude would take place, at least in part, in my local paper? We've seen considerable argument that global warming is man-made presented in these pages over the years, articulated down to the most minute detail. Call me naive, but I thought that debate meant the airing of both sides of an issue. The only references to the opposing view in the Times-Herald are remarks such as this: "Although there are still a few skeptics ..." I can't, for the life of me, remember a single news article or editorial presenting the often coherent argument from the skeptic's point of view, even in abbreviated form.
http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_6572549
A Steak Shortage Hits N.Y. caused by eco-fuels
Excerpt: The country's effort to move away from a dependence on foreign oil and embrace green initiatives appears to be behind a change in one of New York's purest traditions, the menu of the classic steakhouse. The production of ethanol, which is made from corn, is one major reason classic cuts of prime beef are becoming more and more expensive, an analyst at the cattle market analysis firm Cattle-Fax, Tod Kalous, said. "It's getting worse," the owner of Ben Benson's Steakhouse, Ben Benson, said. "The problems the ranchers are having are making it more difficult because feed is getting more expensive."
http://www.nysun.com/article/60032
EU back away from draconian plans for curbs on car emissions
Excerpt: The European Commission is backing away from its draconian plans for curbs on car emissions, bowing to intense pressure from Berlin and the German auto industry. Gunther Verheugen has put pressure on the European Commission to alter the plans Fresh drafts of the EU's hotly-contested legislation have ditched the original ceiling of 130 grams of carbon-dioxide per kilometre by 2012 for the average fleet of each car company, which posed a serious threat to the German trio of Porsche, BMW, and Daimler - all relying on powerful models.The new proposals opt instead for a series of categories that create higher CO2 allowances for heavier cars, according to a report in Germany's Handelsblatt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/08/08/cncommis108.xml
Father and Son Duo Decide to Fight Global Warming With a Reusable, All-Purpose Cotton Bag
Excerpt: The idea for Dave and Ryan Beaumont's Earthsack, a reusable, all natural cotton bag, started with Earth Day. The father and son team wanted to find a way to help the environment and contribute to the fight against global warming.
Soon after beginning their research on simple ways people could help reduce global warming, Dave received his issue of Time magazine. Inside was an article listing numerous things people could do to help the Earth. No. 24 was "Just say no to plastic bags." The pair decided to start there.
http://pr-gb.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7225&Itemid=9