News Snippets From All Beats

China is reportedly in the grip of global cooling.  Hail storms have killed 14 people thus far and injured 180, with more dangerous weather in the forecasts.  In Beijing, day literally turned to night as another storm lashed the city at about noon today.  The footnote that makes this story news?  This is June 16, 2009.

The Heartland Institute will be hosting the second International Conference on Climate Change in New York City March 8 - 10, 2009. Over 70 leading scientists are scheduled to confront the global warming theory with new research that contradicts it.¹ Also invited to attend is geologist and former astronaut Harrison Schmitt who resigned from the Planetary Society after it blamed mankind for warming the planet.  According to Schmitt, the “global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making.”²  With perspective like that you’d think the guy stood on the moon and looked back; and he did.

Note:

^1. The Heartland Institute, “Global Warming: Was It Ever Really A Crisis?” International Conference on Climate Change, March 8 -10. February 15, 2009. http://www.heartland.org/

^2. Associated Press, “Former astronaut speaks out on global warming,” February 15, 2009. http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/general/view/2009_02_15_Former_astronaut_speaks_out_on_global_warming/srvc=home&position=recent

Here is how it would work: 1) huge new green taxes are to be levied on everyone and everything that moves or stands still. 2) the money goes to Washington for politicians to spend it on stimulus packages to bail out businesses that have gone broke because of the cost the new taxes have added to doing business. 3) this further stains on the economy causing industry to implode and collapse. 4) the dramatically reduced industrial activity has no affect on climate change due to the main factors responsible: such as volcanic activity, cyclical changes in ocean temperature, and the influences from outside the solar system such as the impact that cosmic rays have on cloud production.  5) politicians determine the reason for failing to control the climate is that taxes were not high enough, and the new little ice age we are experiencing is more global warming.

You can get this ridicules stuff here, or you can get from people who work at NASA.  No joke.  According to NASA scientist Jim Hansen, a leading climate expert, Barack Obama has only four years to save the earth, and he is calling for the precipitous actions outlined above by demanding step one be taken immediately.

Global Warming - “Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.” In the first place, computer models touted to be near inerrant failed to predict the current plunge in temperatures.  The global warming faithful no doubt hoped that the dropping mercury and rising snow levels which began last winter would be an anomaly and minor inconvenience to their inconvenient spoof, but the cooling continues through this winter.  Secondly, natural forces such as ocean currents, which man cannot find a dial to control, have rightly diminished the idea of humans affecting climate.  Thirdly, hundreds of scientists, including meteorologists, are finding the nerve and resolve to speak out openly against the politics of fear and intimidation that under gird the preposterous lie that mankind is driving the weather to his detriment, and only government mediation in the form of oppressive taxes and lifestyle restrictions can save the planet.

The sun is unusually quiet as it begins to enter an expected solar maximum. Every eleven years the sun normally goes through a solar cycle and by now it should be ratcheting up activity, but instead it’s holding an uncharacteristic two-year calm. The last cycle peaked in 2001, and this one should peak in 2012. The cycle alternates between minimum and maximum solar activity. Maximums are characterized by an increases in sunspots and solar flares which adversely affect satellite technology, and even regional power grids here on earth. This is one of the reasons why scientists pay close attention to the sun. Another reason for close observation is that both the solar minimums and the maximums also drive climate patterns.¹

The last time a solar maximum remained flat for an extremely long period the earth experienced the little ice age which occurred approximately from 1350 through 1850. There is no way to accurately forecast how long the current phase of solar inactivity will continue, but if it lasts for another period of 50 years, as it did when it ushered in the little ice age, New York Harbor could freeze over again, and shorter growing seasons might produce famines, as happened in Europe, again.

Nevertheless, the theory of anthropogenic global warming will not go quietly into the freezer. Some scientists persist in their contention that, come what may, humans will still be causing global warming. It will just be chilling in the background; sort of doing something, but not really doing anything. Sort of like now.

Notes:

1. Science Daily, “Sun Goes Longer Than Normal Without Producing Sunspots,” Science Daily, Jun 9, 2008.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609124551.htm

 

The U.S. Department of Interior made history this afternoon by invoking the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to protect the polar bear from global warming. This is the first time the ESA has been used to protect a species from human generated CO2, and the implications bode ominous for the human race. While there are said to be provisions in the designation that will offer protections to power companies and other businesses,¹ it is unlikely that individual consumers will be afforded protection from this sweeping legislation.

Ostensibly, motorists could be forced to have their vehicles fitted with monitoring devices that record aggressive green-house driving habits and relay that data to federal agencies that could, in turn, mail out citations to drivers in the same way that speeders get ticketed by red light cameras. Even before these evasive controls are implemented, a new ESA tax could be added at the gas pump to modify driver behavior. Of course, this is only speculation

Yet, the probability of these federally mandated causes and effects are much clearer to trace than the murky science behind claims that the polar bear is endangered; even from natural climate cycles, much less from anthropomorphically induced global warming.

Notes:

^1. H. Josef Hebert, “US lists polar bear as threatened species,” Breitbart.com, May 14, 2008.

2. DOI News Release: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D90LJ4BO2&show_article=1

Residents in Denver, Colorado have been participating in a voluntary program to reduce vehicle CO2 emissions. Two transmission devices using a cellular telephone network to transmit driving data are installed on the car. Driver behavior is then tracked and sent to servers and recorded to generate driver profiles. After a month, drivers can access a secure server to see how “driving habits contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.”¹ These devices have already been installed on all Denver city and county vehicles.

The devices measure “aggressive driving, engine idling, and speeding.”² The stated goal of the program is to identify aggressive green-house driving and modify that behavior. “Denver’s bet is that its citizens are eager to participate in this Community-based program to address the global warming problem.”³ It’s a bet they’ve hedged with propaganda and high-tech to cash in on coming new green-house violation surcharges to be added to traffic tickets. As more and more cities look for ways of balancing budgets with new taxes and fees, look for more green-house voluntary programs like these to be initiated and then converted to vehicle codes.

Notes:

^1. Denver Colorado, “Driving Change…Denver: Reduce Your Vehicular CO2 Emissions,” (overview). February 2008.

https://www.drivingchange.org/Downloads/DC_datasheet_012908.pdf

^2-3. Denver Colorado, “Driving Change…Denver: Reduce Your Vehicular CO2 Emissions,” (whitepaper). February 2008.

https://www.drivingchange.org/Downloads/DC_whitepaper_program.pdf