230707 Marc Moranos’ Round-up – July 23, 2007
Report: Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” bought ‘absurdly low’ $480 worth of carbon offsets
Excerpt: The movie's producers, Paramount Classics and Participant Productions, announced that they purchased offsets from broker NativeEnergy to compensate for 100 percent of the CO2 emissions from the air and ground transportation, hotel use, and production and promotional activities associated with the movie. So how many offsets supposedly compensated for the CO2 sins of Al Gore and the dozens of individuals credited with producing a movie shot in Nashville, Los Angeles, and Beijing? According to a Web site release from NativeEnergy – which has since been removed – it only cost 40 tons of offsets (worth about $480) to make “An Inconvenient Truth” carbon neutral. It’s an absurdly low figure given that the making of a 30-second television commercial can easily produce 50 tons and the movie “Syriana” – another NativeEnergy project – was supposedly offset with 2,040 tons worth of offsets. When I called NativeEnergy to inquire about the 40-ton figure and the Web page that mysteriously disappeared, I was rebuffed and told that the company “does not share information about its clients without their consent.” This immediately made me wonder why the producers of “An Inconvenient Truth” either withheld or revoked their consent since so many of NativeEnergy’s other clients’ offset purchases are so prominently touted on the company’s web site. NativeEnergy told me I would have to go through Paramount's legal department to obtain the necessary consent. Despite repeated attempts, Paramount never returned my calls – quite odd given the Oscar-winning producers’ mission and audacious self-acclaim of pioneer status as the world’s first carbon-neutral documentary. NativeEnergy still boasts on its web site about offsetting “100 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution” associated with “An Inconvenient Truth” – but there’s still no mention – let alone any “carbon accounting” – of what that “100 percent” actually represents.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290066,00.html
'Great Global Warming Swindle' producer responds to attacks: 'I was warned a middle-class fatwa would be placed on my head'
Excerpt: Why were Jones and co expending such energy and resources attacking one documentary? We are told the global warming theory is robust. They say you'd have to be off your chump to disagree. We have been assured for years, in countless news broadcasts and column inches, that it's definitely true. So why bother to stamp so aggressively on the one foolish documentary-maker - who clearly must be as mad as a snake - who steps out of line? < > I am convinced that it's because global warming is first and foremost a political theory. It is an expression of a whole middle-class political world view. This view is summed up in the oft-repeated phrase "we consume too much". I have also come to the conclusion that this is code for "they consume too much".
People who believe it tend also to think that exotic foreign places are being ruined because vulgar oiks can afford to go there in significant numbers, they hate plastic toys from factories and prefer wooden ones from craftsmen, and so on.
http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,22105154-7582,00.html?from=public_rss
Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv debunks recent ‘no Solar-climate link’ study
Excerpt: To begin with, [the new solar report claims] that solar activity decreased after 1985. This may almost be correct for the sunspot number (which remained the same) and perhaps correct for other solar activity proxies, but this is not correct for the cosmic rays. As is apparent from the first two figures above and below, the 1990 solar maximum caused a larger decrease in the cosmic ray flux, which implies that the temperature should have been higher in the 1990's than in the 1980's. This leaves a discrepancy between the solar maximum of 2001 which was weaker than the solar maximum of 1990, and the observed temperature increase. So why has the temperature continued increasing even though the solar activity diminished? This has to do with the second point, which is very important, but totally ignored by L & F. L & F assume (like many others before) that there should be a one-to-one correspondence between the temperature variations and solar activity. However, there are two important effects which should be considered and which arise because of the climate's heat capacity (predominantly the oceans). First, the response to short term variations in the radiative forcings are damped. This explains why the temperature variations in sync with the 11-year solar cycle are small (but they are present at the level which one expects from the observed cloud cover variations... about 0.1°C). Second, there is a lag between the response and the forcing. < > Incidentally, this is not unlike a very well-known effect from everyday life. Even though the maximum radiation from the Sun is received near noon time, the maximum daily temperatures are obtained a few hours later in the afternoon. If we were to correlate the falling radiation between say noon and 3 pm (or between June 21 and July-August), to the increasing temperature over the same period, we would conclude that solar radiation causes cooling! This is exactly what L & F are doing. They are ignoring the fact that over the 20th century, solar activity increased tremendously (see the third figure below). So, even though the 2001 maximum is weaker than the 1990 maximum, we are still paying for the extra heat absorbed over several decades, from the middle of the 20th century.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/07/nir-shaviv-why-is-lockwood-and-frohlich.html
‘24’ TV Star Kiefer Sutherland: ‘Global Warming Is A Crime For Which We Are All Guilty!’
Excerpt: Star Kiefer Sutherland has already filmed a public service announcement which begins: "Global warming is a crime for which we are all guilty!"
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/07/21/24-star-global-warming-crime-which-we-are-all-guilty
UK science chief advocates getting rid of a few billion people to save Earth
Excerpt: The new head of the Science Museum has an uncompromising view about how global warming should be dealt with: get rid of a few billion people. Chris Rapley, who takes up his post on September 1, is not afraid of offending. 'I am not advocating genocide,' said Rapley. 'What I am saying is that if we invest in ways to reduce the birthrate - by improving contraception, education and healthcare - we will stop the world's population reaching its current estimated limit of between eight and 10 billion. Article continues 'That in turn will mean less carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere because there will be fewer people to drive cars and use electricity. The crucial point is that to achieve this goal you would only have to spend a fraction of the money that will be needed to bring about technological fixes, new nuclear power plants or renewable energy plants. However, everyone has decided, quietly, to ignore the issue.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2132089,00.html
Cameron Diaz teams up with Gore for 'save the earth' TV show
Excerpt: Diaz explains, "It is an exciting opportunity for young adults from around the world to inspire change because the planet needs a good publicist."
http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news?id=35109
Seagulls fat, 'infertile' from fast food
Excerpt: SEAGULLS gorging themselves on greasy junk food in Hobart are so fat it is affecting their reproduction. University of Tasmania researcher Heidi Auman has found that silver gulls feeding on fatty scraps being thrown to them from seaside cafes has caused them to become overweight.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22082956-1244,00.html
Scientists document UN IPCC 'bias' Documentation Of IPCC WG1 Bias by Roger A. Pielke Sr. and Dallas Staley - Part II
Excerpt: Several types of forcings—most notably aerosols, land-use and land-cover change, and modifications to biogeochemistry—impact the climate system in non-radiative ways, in particular by modifying the hydrological cycle and vegetation dynamics. Aerosols exert a forcing on the hydrological cycle by modifying cloud condensation nuclei, ice nuclei, precipitation efficiency, and the ratio between solar direct and diffuse radiation received. Other non-radiative forcings modify the biological components of the climate system by changing the fluxes of trace gases and heat between vegetation, soils, and the atmosphere and by modifying the amount and types of vegetation. No metrics for quantifying such non-radiative forcings have been accepted. Non-radiative forcings have eventual radiative impacts, so one option would be to quantify these radiative impacts.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/07/20/documentation-of-ipcc-wg1-bias-by-roger-a-pielke-sr-and-dallas-staley-part-ii
Greenland melt fears put in perspective by the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Excerpt: Greenland: Until around 4500 BC, the remains of the mighty ice cap which had been left over from the last ice age covered parts of Arctic Canada and blocked the way to Greenland. The first people arrived in the northernmost part of Greenland in around 2500 BC, and in the course of a few hundred years the ice-free part of the island became home to an Arctic tribe of hunters known as the palaeo-Eskimos. The warmer climate which appeared once the ice had gone allowed the population to increase rapidly.
Towards the end of the 10th century the climate became warmer, and the change affected all those living in the northern hemisphere. Much of the ice in the seas around the Canadian archipelago disappeared, and baleen whales moved into the area to search for food. Eskimo whalers from northern Alaska sailed east in their large, skin-covered boats and reached Greenland in the 12th century. To see the massive significance, check out this map of the Arctic: http://www.athropolis.com/map2.htm
These "large skin covered boats" were not ice-breakers, but yet they came from Northern Alaska to Greenland.
http://www.um.dk/Publikationer/UM/English/Denmark/kap7/7-1-19.asp
CNN's Miles O'Brien Insists Global Warming Debate is Over
Excerpt: J.C. WATTS: I can't talk for John McCain, but I can talk for me. I don't believe the Earth is melting because of carbon emissions.
MILES O'BRIEN: Well, you're not paying attention to the science, J.C. You're definitely not paying attention.
WATTS: You've got science on both sides of this.
O'BRIEN: No, you don't. No, you don't. The scientific debate is over, J.C., we're done.
WATTS: It's your position.
O'BRIEN: No, no, no. That's not, that's science. That is science. The science is out there.
WATTS: It's political science. It's political science.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2007/07/23/cnns-obrien-insists-global-warming-debate-over
'Arctic Tale': Global warming goes family friendly
Excerpt: "Arctic Tale" is clearly aimed at the same audiences that flocked to "An Inconvenient Truth," which chronicled Al Gore's climate campaign, and "March of the Penguins," which followed the life cycle of rugged inhabitants from the other frozen end of the world.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/23/arts/ice.php
Children team up to battle global warming
http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/21/stories/2007072159710200.htm
Global warming on Muslim agenda
Excerpt: God does not love polluters. That's the word from a high-ranking Muslim community leader slated to address a weekend conference that will take a stand against terrorism, suicide bombings and all forms of violence, including those against the environment.
"Global warming is one of the most important challenges of our generation," said Toronto's Naseem Mahdi, missionary in-charge and national vice-president of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Canada. "The Holy Koran speaks against pollution."
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2007/07/21/4356930-sun.html
Are we falling for the great green con?
Excerpt: Carbon offset schemes are not only poorly audited but suffer from fundamental flaws. For the truth is that most, if not all, of these ploys have little to do with the environment and everything to do with profits. < > Such schemes sound great, but they are no more than the modern equivalent of buying indulgences, the medieval Roman Catholic practice whereby pious sinners could pay priests to avoid purgatory. Carbon offset schemes are not only poorly audited but suffer from fundamental flaws, which mean that they are unlikely to reduce in any meaningful way carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=470200&in_page_id=1965
New report finds global warming NOT causing greater hurricane-related damages
Excerpt: Last month, Roger Pielke, Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, released the most comprehensive paper ever published on the subject of damage trends in Atlantic hurricanes. The article will appear soon in the peer-reviewed journal Natural Hazards Review. Is the planet warmer than it was? Yes. Is there any trend in hurricane-related damages in the United States, where good records of damages exist? After accounting simultaneously for inflation, population, and property values, no.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11752
Climatologist calls climate 'hysteria' greatest threat to civilization
Excerpt: There is nothing particularly unusual about current weather and climate change – it is generally well within long-term normal patterns. However, the public believes otherwise due to a combination of the way in which people have been taught to view nature, political exploitation of science and the hidden motives of environmental extremists. How did this happen and where are we headed if climate change hysteria continues unchecked?
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming072007.htm
Cries of the warming alarmists deserve skepticism
Excerpt: There is a common thread among these alarmists, besides seeing the worst in all human activity, and that is that they don’t like capitalism. If you can count on one thing whenever a crisis is brought to our attention by these people, it will be that economic activity will have to be ratcheted down — from Sheryl Crow’s urging us to only use one sheet of toilet paper each time we sit down to either stopping the manufacture of SUV’s or making their engines so powerless you couldn’t get out of the right hand lane on Interstate 5. But I guarantee, their lifestyle will not be impacted. (Ever heard of buying carbon credits?) Mr. Craig cited the book “Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning,” by George Monbiot. This is the same George Monbiot who was quoted as saying “Every time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.” With an agenda like that, you have to be suspicious of these people. In conclusion, keep in mind that combustion emissions, CO2, contribute about 2 percent of greenhouse gases. Cow flatulence and dung contribute a larger percentage in methane gas, another greenhouse gas.
http://www.redding.com/news/2007/jul/23/cries-warming-alarmists-deserve-skepticism/
New website promotes global warming skepticism
Excerpt: It doesn’t take much for a rational minded person to soon realize that global warming, now called climate change, is a religious movement of the left; there always has to be to be some looming disaster and if we don’t change our ways we are doomed. The ice age scare of the 70’s comes to mind and we’ve seen where that went. A Word About Consensus. A vast majority of these anthropogenic climate change doomsayers (some say all of them) claim that the debate is over, that scientists are in a consensus. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that the word consensus in the world of science is a foreign concept; indeed it’s a concept of politicians. People that use the mantra that scientists have come to a consensus do so because of laziness and ignorance. These people do not want to understand the science behind the issue and therefore takes the word of scientists at face value, never questioning it as long as it supports their movement. Nothing could be further from the truth.
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/
How not to measure temperature #24 - Worst Station Ever (By Meteorologist Anthony Watts)
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/07/how_not_to_measure_temperature_22.html
Huge Dust Plumes From China Cause Changes in Climate
Excerpt: An outpouring of dust layered with man-made sulfates, smog, industrial fumes, carbon grit and nitrates is crossing the Pacific Ocean on prevailing winds from booming Asian economies in plumes so vast they alter the climate. These rivers of polluted air can be wider than the Amazon and deeper than the Grand Canyon.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118470650996069354-buQPf_FL_nKirvopk__GzCmNOq8_20070818.html
Gore continues to invent scarier and scarier scary scenarios not limited to reality
Excerpt: Gore’s latest theme is that anthropogenically-induced climate change will threaten the very existence of the human species. Wow. What can be more frightful than that!? (Maybe Gore is going after his next Academy Award in the horror category).His point of emphasis seems to be an ill-formed analogy between conditions on Earth and conditions on Venus. It goes something like this (as excerpted from his New York Times editorial on July 1, 2007): We — all of us — now face a universal threat. Though it is not from outside this world, it is nevertheless cosmic in scale. Consider this tale of two planets. Earth and Venus are almost exactly the same size, and have almost exactly the same amount of carbon. The difference is that most of the carbon on Earth is in the ground — having been deposited there by various forms of life over the last 600 million years — and most of the carbon on Venus is in the atmosphere. As a result, while the average temperature on Earth is a pleasant 59 degrees, the average temperature on Venus is 867 degrees. True, Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, but the fault is not in our star; Venus is three times hotter on average than Mercury, which is right next to the Sun. It’s the carbon dioxide. He apparently repeated this nonsense in Aspen this week. < > Is it at all reasonable to bring up conditions on Venus when discussing the current goings on on Earth? No.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/07/20/lost-in-space/
Chrysler pulls SUV ad with electrocuted dog
Excerpt: Chrysler Group apologized on Thursday for an advertisement that showed a dog being electrocuted beside its new Dodge Nitro sports utility vehicle.
The ad, created by BBDO Netherlands which supports Chrysler's sales in the Dutch market, shows a dog being electrocuted after urinating on a Nitro's wheels.
http://www.reuters.com/article/televisionNews/idUSN1943803920070720
New Fingerprint Technique Could Reveal Diet, Sex, Race
http://www.livescience.com/technology/070720_super_fingerprinting.html
Senator Byrd denounces dogfighting enthusiasts:
'The hottest places in hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902295.html