It wasn’t until the end of his speech that Gore got to the subject of climate change. He identified it as a cause of erratic weather, including the unusual tornadoes and massive flooding that hit Iowa this summer.
The meltdown of Britain's nuclear capacity is largely responsible for an alarming tightening of electricity supplies that is forecast to start at the beginning of November, as demand rises sharply for the winter, and to continue until at least the end of the month.
An independent nuclear analyst, John Large, said last night: "It's all in a pretty sad state. The reactors are starting to break up; they are becoming knackered. There comes a point when you simply have to turn the things off.
"We have been lucky for two years with mild winters, but if we have a cold snap then I can see the lights blinking off."
The National Grid insists there should be enough power even if there is a harsh winter, though it admits to "a lot of uncertainty" in its projections. But independent analysts warn of a real danger of shortages, saying the nuclear crisis is largely to blame.
Ed Mayo, the chief executive of Consumer Focus – the new official consumer body, which started work last week – said that supplies would be "tighter over the coming period than they have ever been".
David Hunter, an analyst with the independent energy consultants McKinnon & Clarke, which advises companies on how to minimise their energy costs, added: "Not very much has to go wrong to turn the situation towards brownouts and blackouts."
He pointed out that Britain has a maximum of 70-75 gigawatts (gW) of electricity available from its own sources. Last week, he added, 18gW of that was out of action – partly because of the nuclear crisis (which he called "very serious"), partly because of lesser problems with coal- and oil-fired plants, and partly through routine maintenance, bringing the total down to 52-57gW. Yet in a cold snap demand could rise to 60-62gW.
On March 2-4 2008, more than 500 scientists, economists, and policy analysts from around the world met in New York City for the inaugural International Conference on Climate Change. The audio recordings of all 103 presentations from all five tracks (paleoclimatology, climatology, impacts, economics, and politics) are now available on a 35-CD set. It is clear that there is no scientific consensus on the causes and consequences of climate change nor on the direction of the changes.The recordings are also available online here.
The complete set is available from The Heartland Institute for $119.
Call (312) 377-4000 to order, or use the online order form at http://www.heartland.org/newyork08/proceedings.html.
So much for sea level rise:
The ‘lost’ beach where the Romans landed 2,000 years ago to begin their invasion of Britain has been uncovered by archaeologists. The remains of the shingle harbour were buried beneath 6ft of soil nearly two miles inland from the modern Kent coast.
It lies close to the remains of the Roman fort of Richborough near Sandwich, one of the most important Roman sites in England and once the gateway to the British Isles.
Daily Mail: ‘Uncovered, the ‘lost’ beach where the Romans got a toehold on Britain’
After my close encounters with Lieberman and Giuliani, I left the debate venue to meet up with my friend Patrick who had gone to a downtown arena to a viewing party sponsored by the Republican party. "You shoulda been there, Jane. It was like some kind of parallel universe, like that time when we got off the plane in Kabul and suddenly found ourselves right in the middle of an entirely different culture. And they all applauded at the strangest things -- like when Palin stated that global warming was a natural thing and not necessarily man-made."
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) and Nobel Prize Winner, will be awarded the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa and deliver the 2008 Wallace Wurth Memorial Lecture entitled: “Our Vulnerable Earth - Climate Change, the IPCC and the role of Generation Green” at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, on Thursday, October 23, 2008. Read more here.
President Klaus pointed out several factors in global warming alarmism that pose a threat to democracy:
1. The discussion of global warming and the process of dealing with it "is in the hands of a group of climatologists (and other related scientists) who are highly motivated to look in one direction only because a large number of academic careers has in the last couple of years evolved around the idea of man-made global warming."
2. It is "also in the hands of politicians who maximize the number of votes they seek to get from the electorate on the basis of whatever idea they could profit from. And the idea of man-made global warming is very seductive, politically promising and expedient."
3. As a consequence of political decisions, the process is controlled by "bureaucrats of national and more often of international institutions who try to maximize their budgets and years of careers regardless the costs, truth and rationality."
4. It is also greatly influenced by an industry spawned by global warming alarmism. This industry manipulates the policymaking process to obtain vast government subsidies and bolster its own interests.
It seems extraordinary that in a time when there is both a constant stream of domestic climatic catastrophes, disturbing signs of increasing global warming and feverish political electoral passion, little attention has been paid to any connection between these phenomena.
The nation, after all, has seen an apparently unending stream of truly devastating floods, ferocious hurricanes, debilitating agricultural droughts, widely destructive forest fires accentuated by dry brush —for several years, and at the same time, many reputable environmental scientists have linked these occurrences to global warming. And directly or indirectly to man-made or man-accentuated global warming at that.
Prominent Republicans, noted for their lack of interest in and support for science generally — such as Senator Inhofe, Governor Palin, and yes, President Bush — have been notoriously lackadaisical in their approach to global warming and apparently unwilling to see its connection to our continuing climatic misfortunes. Or to make significant efforts to counter global warming.
It is thus singularly ironic that the areas most distressed by hurricanes, floods, droughts and the like are largely “red state” areas that have been generally supportive of such nay-sayers to global warming. Could the unfortunate and suffering citizens of those areas not be seen to be the victims of some sort of cruel poetic justice?
Strange also that partisan Democrats have not seized upon this argument, in their election presentations.
Dr. A. N. Feldzamen
Ithaca
...Global warming is man made, or we are certain it is man made, or the “science is settled” that it’s man made — ditto. There’s only one legitimate opinion you can have about that now, and it’s the one the eco-terrorists want you to have. If you’ve got a different one, and you run for a high public office, it’ll be a pretty short run.
The current economic and political system is unsustainable and responsible for the huge degradation of the environment, says [some guy].(Answer: The speaker is actually Canadian Marxist-Leninist candidate Julian Ichim.)
"Production for the sake of production and waste that's so common in the West is responsible for the destruction of the world. Here in North America we have to make decisions quickly. Do we want to have clean air and water? Do we want to be able to live or be able to just enrich our pockets?" he asks.
Its hard to fully correlate recent activity with Arctic temperatures. In fact, in the last three or four years (see above) we have seen decreasing Arctic temperatures, not increasing ones. But never-the-less, this ice picture is often used as exhibit #1 to prove anthropogenic warming. The "tipping point is near" cry supporters of the theory that Earth's climate, unlike nearly every other long-term stable natural system, is dominated by positive feedback (and ignoring anecdotal evidence that the Arctic experienced similar melting in the 1930s).
It is normal for Magellanic penguins, which spend months in the ocean, to leave their colonies in southern Argentina and ride the plankton-rich frigid waters of the Falkland Current, which flows north up the coast of South America from Antarctica, in search of sardines. The eddies from a second current, the Benguela of southwest Africa, travel across the Atlantic toward Brazil. While the penguins would normally turn back when they hit the warmer Benguela waters, the current has been "exceptionally cold" this year, Braga said. Adding to this, the Falkland Current, fortified by strong winds, has been particularly powerful.
Q: Do advocates believe industries will eventually embrace the plan?
A: Some businesses will find it cheap to reduce their emissions and sell their allowances to emit CO2 on the market, Owens said.
Others can use "offsets," in which they invest in projects such as reforestation, landfill gas management or management of agriculture manure, which would reduce CO2 emissions.
Under the regional cap-and-trade proposal, up to 49 percent of all emission reductions occurring from 2012 to 2020 can come from use of offsets.
"That is going to spur a lot of innovation as well. People will think of all kinds of ways of doing offset projects so as to not require imposition of new control technologies," Owens said.
The lobbyists were getting good signals from the Government and thought their preferred version was over the line. What they didn't count on was State Energy Minister Peter Batchelor, who thought the scheme too generous and costly. In cabinet, Batchelor went head to head with Environment Minister Gavin Jennings and won.
Batchelor's version goes something like this: householders get 60 cents a kilowatt hour — which is generous compared with the 17 cents we pay on electricity bills — but only for the energy exported to the grid. This is called a net feed-in tariff. Batchelor also excluded community groups and businesses from the scheme and limited it to 2 kilowatts.
“They have caused damage and loss of life in the past and pose a future threat, particularly as a consequence of climate change.”
The programme features research carried out by Prof Haslett and Australian tsunami expert Prof Ted Bryant.
They reveal that the local area regularly experiences earthquakes, such as the 4.2 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Folkestone in April 2007. When these earthquakes have occurred in the past with a higher magnitude, eyewitnesses describe what could be interpreted as tsunamis.
Prof Haslett, director of the newly established Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Newport University, said: “Among other examples of Dover Straits tsunamis is the one in May 1382, when a 5.75 magnitude earthquake struck that as well as causing churches to collapse on land, generated waves that damaged ships in port and led contemporary writers to describe the event as a watershake or waterquake.
“Later in April 1580, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake occurred with its epicentre on the seabed close to Calais. Giant waves were reported at the time and hundreds of people were killed when ships were sunk by the waves and the low-lying coastal land around Calais was inundated by the sea.”
The research examines 21 events to hit Britain over the past 1,000 years.
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland has assembled a blocking minority among the European Union members enabling them to stall Brussels' climate package, Polish officials said.
Poland and Greece reached an agreement late on Thursday, following a similar accord with Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, that more debate was needed on the EU's package of climate measures.
Against a backdrop of high gas prices and calls for energy independence, two renewable energy measures on the November ballot claim to offer solutions. Both, however, face uncertain support. Even environmental groups are campaigning against them.
While supporters say Propositions 7 and 10 will lead to cleaner air and cars, groups like the Sierra Club charge the measures could actually hinder the state's move toward using more solar, wind and geothermal energy. In addition, critics say Proposition 10 is designed to enrich corporations without improving the environment.
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In Freeman's view, even if Proposition 7 is imperfect, voters must ask themselves, "Are we in a climate crisis or not?"
SEVEN secondary school pupils are preparing for a trip of a lifetime to Antarctica next month to learn about the damaging effects of climate change.World Climate Report » Antarctica: Warming, Cooling, or Both?
The transition-year pupils from schools throughout the country will form part of a four-week, 60-strong expedition to the frozen continent.
They will take part in projects that include studying the melting ice caps and examining how global warming affects seals.
Led by renowned explorer Pat Falvey, the teenagers will work alongside a team of 10 scientists, including experts from GMIT and Limerick IT.
Mr Falvey said: "It is the biggest educational project ever to go out on global warming and climate change in Ireland from young people.
Incredibly, if you are interested in Antarctica temperature trends from the present back to 1982, the region has cooled. If you go from present back to 1966, the region has cooled. Like it or not, over the past four decades, and during the time of the greatest build-up of greenhouse gases, Antarctica has been cooling!
Ok, so I just read an article about sunspots and the sun is doing exactly what it did preceding the “Little Ice Age.” Many predictions were wrong, and future predictions are pretty much all over the map. Great.Climate Progress » Blog Archive » Moderate Senate Dems build ‘Gang of 16′ to influence cap-and-trade bill
For all the ’science is hard truth’ argument, and I do think science is a great way to find truth, I really do, (go science!) scientists are having a hard time agreeing on anything concering the climate. Of course, if you say you think global warming needs further study, you’re automatically classified as a loon.
Moderate Senate Democrats with close ties to business and organized labor are aiming to take charge of the global warming debate next year.
The “Gang of 16″ represents a critical cross-section of industries and interest groups, including labor, agriculture, coal and manufacturing, setting up an intriguing political dynamic for the next administration and even some of their own party colleagues who typically side with environmental groups. The lawmakers come from the Midwest and Rust Belt and also extend into the Rocky Mountain states…..
Gore is a businessman these days —— sitting on the boards of Apple Computer Inc. and Current TV, the cable and satellite channel he started with investor Joel Hyatt —— "and those take him (to the Bay Area) pretty regularly for board meetings and the like," said his spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider.When he's not in a fossil fuel-powered jet, maybe Gore is relaxing in one of these three homes:
[Al and Tipper] have a new multimillion-dollar home in a tony section of Nashville and a family home in Virginia, and have recently bought a multimillion-dollar condo at the St. Regis condo/hotel in San Francisco.A video of Gore taking a private jet is here.
It is a shame that the scorecard did not mention the work I did over the past two years as a member of the special Senate Committee on Global Warming (much to the chagrin of many members of my party), nor my long-standing support for stricter enforcement of anti-idling laws, nor the bills I have filed allowing for the operation of low- and medium-speed electric vehicles on local roadways.Alarmist reporter takes a fossil-fueled trip to the annual convention of the Associated Press Managing Editors
My big moment is sharing the podium with the fellow whose group shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore last year. California academic scientist Dr. Richard Somerville co-wrote the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that irrefutably linked human-caused carbon emissions with global warming. He is a delightful fellow in his late 60s, gentlemanly, learned without being dull, and decidedly media savvy. His book, The Forgiving Air, shows considerable skill in explaining detailed research in easy-to-digest terms, something he demonstrates in person, too.
My description of the East Oregonian Publishing Co.'s award-winning climate change series is well received, in part because we are a small media group, but also because we were so early to the topic, driven by Publisher Steve Forrester's 2005 quote that, "Climate change is the biggest, most significant challenge of the 21st century." Giant papers, like the Des Moines Register and San Antonio Express-News, now are running series. Most U.S. mainstream newspaper coverage on climate change is driven by passionate environmental reporters who must battle to convince skeptical editors that localizing this story is worthwhile.
None of the five leaders in the debate can show a single piece of evidence of any global warming over the last 10 years because there simply wasn't any global warming, (the Earth has been cooling for at least the last six years). Yet all of these leaders seem willing to commit large amounts of money to stop global warming.Anyone for a nice energy-efficient bus trip to Malta?
All of the leaders, and the NDP and Green Party in particular, promote themselves as champions of the people, especially the poor, but global warming advocacy only enhances the fortunes of these parties at the expense of the poor. This is demonstrated by the world food crisis caused by biofuel initiatives of the Kyoto accord that have food crops being replaced by the more lucrative fuel crops, resulting in escalating food prices and starvation.
Norm Kalmanovitch, Calgary
With the EU tightening on airline emissions and public opinion likely to grow more critical of air travel, expect people to start travelling shorter distances, thus ruling out those who so far have not minded a three or four hour flight to Malta from say the north of England or Ireland.
As an island in the middle of the Mediterranean there is little for us to gain if European outbound tourists opt for bus, ferry and train means of transport instead of air travel.
First of all, he doesn't have all the answers (a little humility and more confidence in the American people would certainly sound better). He also needs to get his facts straight. In particular, he stated that all climate change is manmade.Watch out for the arrows | MyDesert.com | The Desert Sun
As a meteorologist with 37 years of practical experience and a master's degree in meteorology, I can tell you that is one of the most stupid comments I have ever heard. We can all debate global warming and how much of an impact it has had and will have on our future weather, but not all change is the result of man. If he would question that, have him give me a call.
William R. Young
Palm Desert
As increasing numbers of real scientists are backing away from the manmade global warming hoax, I was surprised to hear Sen. Biden, in Thursday night's VP candidate debate, say global warming is manmade.
Greenland's history proves the opposite. I recently had the opportunity to inspect Greenland from the air. Today it's 85 percent covered with glaciers. In the Renaissance Warming around A.D. 900-1100, when Eric the Red settled in Greenland, it had less than 25 percent glacier cover and crops — even grapes — were grown there.
And on climate change, Edwards noted that "Canada is fully aware of the importance of having all major global emitters (of greenhouse gases) take on meaningful and binding emission reduction commitments in any future international agreement." That's diplomatic code signalling that Canada won't commit to painful cuts until the United States, China, India and others sign up. As if.TheRecord.com - Local - Kennedy Jr criticizes 'defective' power grid
The U.S. and Canadian West could harness enough wind power to supply all the energy needs of North America, even if everyone drove an electric car, he said.
Kennedy envisions a "smart grid" that turns off power to water heaters and electric toothbrushes when they're not being used and repurchases power stored in the battery of an electric car when it's parked at work.
"It's happening right now, and we can do this very, very quickly," he said.
...
Among many problems, we have an asthma epidemic because of illegal coal-burning plants, towards which governments turn a blind eye. Kennedy said he has three sons with asthma.
"I'm going to be able to watch my child gasp for air on bad air days because someone gave money to a politician."
Kennedy said both U.S. and Canadian elections will be important events for the future of the environment.
"We have Obama running on one side, then we have a couple of insane people running against him," he said, to laughs in the crowd.
"We're thrilled. This is a major milestone for the project," said Mark Milburn, LS Power's director of project development.timestranscript.com - Harper slams Dion plans during N.B. visit
The power plant would give the Ely area a big shot in the arm, Milburn said.
During four years of construction, employment would peak at 1,200 workers and the area would get $100 million in property and sales taxes, Milburn said. After completion, the plant would employ 135 workers and would add $15 million to local tax revenue yearly.
While Ely leaders back the project, environmental groups and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have conducted an intense campaign to stop development of new coal plants in Nevada.
SAINT JOHN - Prime Minister Stephen Harper tailored his ongoing denunciation of Stephane Dion's carbon tax to Saint John yesterday, charging the Liberal plan will devastate the region's energy sector.
Harper also conceded his own plan to regulate the emissions blamed for global warming will raise costs, but ducked a question asking him to outline those costs so voters could compare them with Dion's plan.
"There's nothing that would be worse to the economy of Saint John than the imposition of a carbon tax," said Harper, in Saint John for a brief campaign stop.
Dell has been running a campaign where you could tack on an additional small fee with a new computer purchase to offset the carbon released in running the machine for three years by tree planting. Sounds noble, the price is quite modest, yet less than one per cent of customers are opting in.
Only 300,000 customers opted to pay the levy during Dell's last financial year, which ended in February, said Tod Arbogast, the company's director of sustainable business. ed.z.: A few bucks, that low? Hmm. Dell should just automagically include the fee and be done with it "with every purchase, you are planting climate leveling wonderful and pretty green trees! What's not to like?" and etc some marketspeak. Skip the voluntary part..this is the computer biz, route around the cheapskates.. it would be interesting to be able to do a stealth poll of all their customers to see how "green" they claim to be. Just for fun. I bet the results would be a lot higher than 1% claiming to be green.
On several questions, Biden's depth of experience showed.
That was clearest when the veep candidates discussed global warming: Palin dithered and dodged; Biden hammered home a crisp message. Palin had a problem with the question because she has a problem with the issue. In the past, she has said she doesn't believe global warming is a man-made issue. Thursday night, she said, maybe sorta.
The school hopes to soon meet much of its heating needs with the furnace, which will burn local corn residue, wood chips and possibly grasses to make heat. The $9 million facility, funded by state and federal agencies and agricultural trade groups, could reduce the campus' natural gas needs by 80 percent, saving $270,000 annually.As a commenter noted, what's the return after accounting for maintenance, labor, interest, insurance, etc? Is it vastly more environmentally sound to burn the cornstalks rather than plowing them under?
Together with the wind turbine, a second one in the works and a planned power-generating steam turbine, the Morris campus envisions reducing its carbon dioxide output from 12,000 tons in 2004 to 2,000 tons in 2010.
Because most of its energy will then originate in renewable sources and not fossil fuels, the campus will be "carbon neutral" or even "carbon negative," said Lowell Rasmussen, Morris' vice chancellor for finance and facilities. That's a green transformation few public or private organizations will have achieved.
At one point, Young compared the debate to global warming.Ben Verwaayen, former CEO of BT, swallowed Gore's scam hook, line, and sinker
"There's a lot of difference of opinion on this within the (economists) themselves. It's sort of like global warming. Is it occurring or is it not occurring? If it's occurring, then what has - what is the solution?" he said.
"Is this the solution? Some people say no, some people say yes."
Following the ‘fantastically important’ report by the development economist and former chief economist at the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Stern, he says all of a sudden climate change was no longer a set of beliefs – it became the core of everything a business weighs up in terms of risks and mitigation.
GENEVA—A man with a piece of food stuck in his beard is currently addressing an auditorium full of world leaders and prominent scholars on what seems to be the subject of global warming, sources are reporting. The food particle has been dangling from the man's facial hair for more than an hour while he has mentioned such phrases as "sulfides," "ice caps," "immediately, otherwise we all may," "underwater tomb," and "of human life as we know it." It was briefly dislodged during a particularly animated portion of the presentation in which complete global apocalypse was remarked upon, only to fall one inch and reattach to a lower portion of beard. The exact nature of the crumb has yet to be ascertained. Some are speculating that it is aioli. Others, however, believe it to be a bit of chewed-up turkey. (Via Planet Gore)What does Palin believe causes climate change? | csmonitor.com
So what, exactly are the cyclical temperature variations? And could they be enough to account for the warming that we’ve experienced so far?
Palin is light on specifics here. She could be talking about the periodic wobbles in the earth’s orbit that have caused the earth’s 100,000-year ice ages (but that would conflict with her reported belief that the world is only a few thousand years old). Or she could be alluding to changes in the sun and the amount of energy that it emits. Or she could be thinking of El Niño events, or of the temperature oscillations ocurring in our oceans. Or maybe she’s talking about volcanic activity, which isn’t really cyclical but nonetheless changes the composition of the atmosphere and therefore affects the climate.
The problem with each of these explanations is that there is not yet any theory to explain how they account for the rapid warming that we have seen beginning in the second half of the 20th century. Nobody has managed come up with a model that is satisfactory to the scientific community that explains how any of these natural processes account for the roughly one-degree-Fahrenheit rise in global surface temperatures over the past 30 years. In fact, the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that such natural variabilities “would likely have produced cooling” during this time.
But we do have a model that explains how human activity – namely, the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use – accounts for this rise in temperature. This model has been endorsed by the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, and most of the presidential and vice presidential candidates endorse it, too. Except, it seems, Sarah Palin.
Francesca Galeazzi is a self-described “nasty, evil woman” in this short video clip, shot in Greenland several days ago and aimed at pillorying so-called “carbon offsets” as a dubious justification for actions that release a lot of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping emission building in the atmosphere. At the edge of the retreating Jacobshavn Glacier, she opens a valve on a cylinder holding about 13 pounds of CO2 and the greenhouse gas whooshes out with a long hiss.
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P.S. There was an interesting study in Nature Geoscience last Sunday showing pretty clearly that the accelerating flow of the Jacobshavn glacier in recent years was most likely driven by an influx of warm deep seawater, and that shift was likely due to changes in pressure and wind patterns over the North Atlantic Ocean. There are few straight lines in the Arctic climate puzzle, and particularly the Greenland piece of that puzzle, as I’ve been writing for a while now. More evidence that, while the basics remain clear, the details that matter most to people (rate of sea rise) are laden with complexity that must be acknowledged.
They just don’t get itClimate Research News » Winds are Dominant Cause of Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet Losses
During a week where Americans were focused on perhaps the greatest economic challenges this country has faced in over a generation, House Democrats released a set of principles on October 2nd that outline an aggressive plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions. (See: “House Dems claim 152 supporters for aggressive cap-and-trade plan” – October 3, 2008 – LINK - Subscription Required) The plan could be even more economically restrictive than the failed Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would have cost $6.7 trillion dollars, according to the bill’s own sponsors. That $6.7 trillion cost would have been passed on to families and workers across the country in the form of higher gas prices, higher electricity and heating/cooling bills, more expensive consumer goods, and higher workplace costs.
As we learned during this past summer’s debate on the failed Lieberman-Warner global warming cap-and-trade bill and with the recent victory on offshore drilling, the appetite of the American people to unlock America’s affordable energy resources is very strong. When it comes to being in touch with Americans, the House Democrats need a reality check. The current financial crisis only reinforces the public’s wariness about any climate bill that attempts to increase the costs of energy and jeopardizes jobs.
Two new studies summarised in a news article in Science magazine point to wind-induced circulation changes in the ocean as the dominant cause of the recent ice losses through the glaciers draining both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, not ‘global warming.’
Using the following links from the United States EPA and NOAA Satellite and Information Service, answer the following questions:US Wheat Outlook: Slightly Up On Rebound, Short-Covering
1.) What is global warming or climate change?
2.) Has there been a time of climate change before? Describe that period of change if the answer is yes.
3.) What causes climate change?
4.) What is the greenhouse effect?
5.) What is man’s impact on climate change?
6.) How is the water cycle changing?
7.) What natural changes may be occurring from the sun’s release of energy?
Please answer in complete sentences and use both web sites to confirm your best answers.
Frost or freezing conditions are possible in La Pampa, southern and eastern Buenos Aires either during the weekend or early next week, Meteorlogix said. Any flowering wheat would be at risk of damage should temperatures fall to 30 degrees Fahrenheit for one or two hours, according to the private weather firm.
In Australia, New South Wales and Queensland should see beneficial rains during the weekend, Meteorlogix said. Cold weather is expected later this weekend and early next week, with a frost likely and a freeze possible in Victoria, southeastern South Australia and extreme south New South Wales, the firm said.
Doomsayers are claiming that climate can be adjusted in some predictable way, but it can not. It is fraud to claim that it can. As published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Richard Lindzen of M.I.T. has conducted studies that thwart the greenhouse effect. What that means is that "just because the greenhouse effect is real, it does not follow that an increase in intensity will necessarily lead to a significant increase in mean global air temperature, as climate alarmists are wont to claim…Hence it is not inconceivable that an increase in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration may result in no warming at all. Or even a cooling!...Much more research will be required before we can determine that the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content even constitutes a problem, much less specify its magnitude and prescribe ameliorative measures for dealing with it."Passive-Aggressive Update [Chris Horner]
The magnetic attraction of government funding for global-warming research, the political climate of fear-based policies seen in both climate issues and economic issues, and doom-sopping journalism works to push events into a downward spiral of exaggeration and hype. Al Gore rides this emotional wave. He has refused all debate with climate scientists. It is after all, for him, not about truth. For him truth is simply inconvenient.
Mystery solved about that little tweak of the tax code regarding special treatment of CO2, thanks to some insight passed my way via Capitol Hill: this was not a drafting error poorly identifying CO2 credits but indeed, the Senate has just voted to elevate carbon dioxide to a distinct status. Not as a “pollutant,” but as a natural resource worthy of encouragement and preservation. Huzzah!Yes, global warming "is just propaganda" - Nigel Calder
The biggest lie of all, breathtaking in its audacity, is the insistence that mankind's misbehaviour means that global warming is getting worse. The measurements for August 2008 are just in, and they confirm the world is distinctly cooler this year than last. It's fair enough to argue about whether the Earth's temperature has stopped rising, or merely paused, or gone into reverse. But the key fact is that, despite that indisputable increase of CO2 in the air, the Earth is no warmer now than it was 12 years ago.
"Politician’s logic: We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do it." [Sir Humphrey Appleby GCB, KBE, MVO, MA (Oxon)]
So, in today’s reshuffle of the UK Cabinet, Gordon Brown has decided to establish a new ‘Energy and Climate Department’ to be headed by Ed Miliband, brother of our ‘Warmista’ Foreign Secretary, David Miliband [‘Greens welcome new climate dept’, BBC Online Science and Environment News, October 3]. Oh dear! I fear that such a Department is going to need an awful lot of Ministers and Parliamentary Under Secretaries. On this question, I have already consulted Sir Humphrey Appleby GCB, KBE , MVO, MA (Oxon), no less, who is horrified at the large number of politicians who might have to be promoted (although, of course, he welcomes the staffing implications for more civil servants).
Here is Sir Humphrey’s preliminary list of the posts that will be required on the climate side alone (he admits that, at such short notice, it is far from complete):
Minister of State for Cosmic Ray Fluxes, Solar Magnetic Cycles, and Sunspots;
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Meteorites and Cosmic Dust.
Minister of State for the Earth’s Orbit, Tilt, Wobble, Shape, and Rotational Velocity;
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Earth’s Magnetic Field.
Minister of State for Tectonic Movements, Volcanic Eruptions, and Ocean Circulations;
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Ocean Salinity, Glacier Mass-Balance, and Sea-Ice Thickness...
Today’s news confirms that Wimpy Weatherby has been installed in at least two governments as climate minister, offering to gladly pay us Tuesday — rather, beginning in 2025 — for a hamburger today — which means, that we keep the largesse flowing in a Kyoto II running from 2012-2020.
Specifically, ClimateWire (subscription required) breathlessly touts a story today with the lead, “South Korea is poised to become the second developing country to set greenhouse gas emissions targets.” Ummm . . . no. Look, South Korea, the 13th-largest economy in the world and the ninth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is muttering something about promising to peak their emissions in 2025.
Yes, that’s five years after the successor pact would expire and so far in the future as to be both substantively and politically meaningless. Then, without any more detail or reason to believe this is possible than our own homegrown green sages, they’ll radically slash emissions in half by 2050! Ah, but they mention “renewable energy” a few times for a tinge of green credibility. They ought to read up a little more.
The language in the climate change and fossil fuels debate used by both camps in the race for the White House is a world away from what we are used to in the UK. Whereas here in Britain, concern for the environment is still scoffed at by the sceptics as a lifestyle choice, in America the spike in oil prices and the threat to national security from an over-reliance on oil and gas from dangerous parts of the world has driven the economists, the energy security lobby and the environmental movement onto the same ground.
The big argument in US politics now is not the sterile debate of whether global warming is manmade, but how America can lead the global response.
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Here in the UK, only David Cameron has truly grasped that Climate Change is both an immense challenge and an enormous economic opportunity for UK plc and begun to put in place the ambitious policies to deliver that potential. But in the USA, whoever wins on November 4th, one thing is sure, with new leadership and real change at the top, the green collar jobs revolution will begin in earnest. If we are to remain globally competitive and avert dangerous climate change, Britain cannot afford to be left behind.
As it was reported earlier, thousands of grape plantations were destroyed due to cold weather in February, 2008.U.S. Weather: Cold Front Digs Deeper into Midwest
The NWS has issued frost advisories for Saturday morning across parts of the northern Corn Belt. Some of the coldest weather can be expected in Wisconsin, where as of September 28 corn was 84% dented and 36% mature, and soybeans were 95% turning color and 79% dropping leaves. Crops in Michigan will be somewhat less vulnerable due to slightly greater maturity (corn 59% mature; soybeans 80% dropping leaves). The threat of frost will linger into Sunday morning across the Great Lakes region.
It was the winter of 1954-1955 that we got six feet of snow up on Banner Mountain over three nights. We got 30 inches the first night, and 24 the second night and about 18 the third night. My grandmother's little cottage were we were living only had 2x4 rafters and the roof was groaning with over four feet of snow by the second night. My two brothers and I were dispatched to shovel off the roof. An then the next night we got about 18 more inches of snow. When the sun came out on the forth day, we were without power and no way to get to Banner Lava Cap, except shove the long driveway. And, shovel we did for two days. We had water from the NID ditch and heat from the oil furnace, but no power for ten days. Once the road was shoveled Dad took the meat in our freezer to Grass Valley and rented a storage locker and brought home some more grain and hay pellets the rabbits and chickens. We used the snow banks to keep our milk cool.Rupert Murdoch Doesn't Back Climate Change Fear Mongering, Except When He Does
I asked Daily Telegraph opinionist Piers Akerman why he shreds Labor and professors and Al Gore and the ABC over climate change fear mongering, while continuing to give a free pass to his own boss, Rupert Murdoch, now the most prolific and influential promoter of climate change reality in the world...
I said it again. Hoax! The more I learn about hockey stick graphs, the worse it is.
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This is not the end. Mann08 feeling pretty cocky after pushing his other magic papers through the IPCC is emboldened in the face of the publicity he actually PASTED FAKE DATA ON THE END OF THE SERIES.
After the economy came the environment. In regards to climate change, he said we’re going to put the climate back how we got it for those who have to inherit it from us. He mentioned wind power, solar power and next generation biofuel as sources of alternative energy for this country. To our delight, he also said that research and development should be done right here in Michigan because we have good universities (he was well-versed in MSU, even saying that he needed to catch up with Tom Izzo, our basketball coach).
Comparing himself to JFK, Obama said he can’t be stopped in green energy and that we’re going to end foreign oil dependence in 10 years. And then he appealed to the young people, as we made up most of the excited crowd, saying something along these lines:
“Young people, I want you to get ready for this green economy. You’re going to be building the wind turbines and growing the switchgrass. We’re going to need your help and vision.”
It was a pretty good speech and got the crowd aroused. But thinking back on it, he didn’t give any real clear-cut policy ideas for reaching all of these goals...
In short, the AGW theory is based on assumptions about a science that is poorly understood and in its relative infancy. It relies upon inappropriate use of parametric simulations based on assumed feedbacks that cannot be scientifically verified or validated. And, to top it all, the theory is rendered invalid by multiple inconsistencies with observed reality! (no greenhouse warming signal, polar cooling, global cooling since 2002, ocean cooling, sea level drop due to ocean cooling, etc.)REGULATING GLOBAL WARMING: EXPANDING THE AUTHORITY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | National Center for Policy Analysis
Yet Biden, for reasons best known to himself, believes this theory wholeheartedly!
If Biden is so committed to such an obviously flawed theory (where has he been since 2002 when temperatures began dropping?), does he have the objective intellectual capacity to deal with less obvious issues?
In a word, no.
Bob Webster
Editor, Publisher, WEBCommentary
Human activities are only responsible for about one-quarter of one percent of the total greenhouse effect, which is the moderation of the Earth's temperature due to the absorption of the sun's radiation by atmospheric gases, says Berg:
* Human activities contribute 0.28 percent to the greenhouse effect.
* Natural greenhouse gas emissions -- including ocean biologic activity and decaying plants -- contribute 4.72 percent.
* Water vapor accounts for 95 percent of the greenhouse effect.
Attempting to reduce such a small fraction of the factors that contribute to the overall greenhouse effect will be extremely costly and ineffective.
Furthermore, the proposed EPA rule would result in an unprecedented expansion of the EPA's power, giving them the authority to regulate nearly every sector of the economy and personal decisions about housing and transportation. These sweeping regulations would cause energy prices to rise, but would be futile because of their negligible impact on the overall concentration of greenhouse gases, concludes Berg.
Source: Amanda Berg, "Regulating Global Warming: Expanding the Authority of the Environmental Protection Agency," National Center for Policy Analysis, Brief Analysis, No. 164, October 2, 2008.
I insist that we continue to debate the issue.Sunspots Are Fewest Since 1954, but Significance Is Unclear - NYTimes.com
I insist that we hear — above the noise of the throng, above the derision of the climate change fanatics — from those scientists and researchers who hold counter views, who provide counter-explanations, and whose research points to other possible causes of warming than carbon release from human activity.
I happen to believe that the social, cultural and intellectual marketplace of ideas and opinion, of discussion and the weighing of facts, of the testing and retesting of argument, are central to our success as a community, as a nation, and as a world. It is important we do all these things with climate change before imposing enormous and, perhaps, unnecessary cost imposts on business.
I can't help but think that, in 10 years' time, we will look back and wonder how so many of us were misled by global warming alarmism.
I think there is a silent majority who, like me, harbour doubts on the cause of climate change. But the trouble with the silent majority is that it has become too silent. We have allowed ourselves to be bullied submissively into a single view and a single course of action.
It is time we returned open, reasoned debate, genuine inquiry and a genuine sharing of ideas to this discussion.
Scientists expect that sunspot activity will pick up in the coming months, but exactly what will happen next is open to debate. Dr. Hathaway had predicted two years ago, based on the Sun’s behavior near the end of the last cycle, that the maximum this time would be ferocious.
“I’m getting worried about that prediction now,” he said. “Normally, big cycles start early, and by doing that, they cut short the previous cycle. This one hasn’t done that.”
All the rickshaw-puller has to do is charge the solar battery for five hours at a charging point made at the metro station. Once the solar energy powers the battery, the rickshaw can easily go at about 15 kms per hour leaving no carbon footprint behind. But the current prototype of rickshaw is 120 kgs heavy and many can feel its weight already.
Another rickshaw-puller says, "Vartman rickshaw ka wazan hai 70 kilo. Agar yeh sau kilo tak me bhi ho jaye, tab chadhaai wali jagah per kamyab ho sakenge." (The present rickshaws that we pull are about 70 kgs. If the soleckshaw can be brought down to about 100 kgs, then we will be able to manage them easily.")
LONDON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - A growing carbon offset market is trying to woo the public and companies with new ways and standards to cut their contribution to climate change, while dispelling continued doubts that such schemes do any real good.
The offset market is dominated by companies that fund emissions cuts, often in a developing country, thereby generating emission reduction credits that they sell on to customers in the West.
That voluntary carbon market sold about 65 million tonnes of avoided carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2007, worth some $330 million, but is still dogged by criticisms that it lacks transparency.
"We started off as an offset charity but soon realised all the complications that came with it. The whole market is shrouded in controversy," said the chief executive of C-Change Trust, Jonathan Ekin.
"We go to companies and tell them to forget about offsetting. It's a dying breed, like the dotcom boom."
Instead, the trust asks businesses to acknowledge their emissions of the greenhouse gas through a charitable donation of 10 pounds a tonne.
The group then invests the profits into the UK education system, investing in renewables to reduce the overall carbon footprint of schools, Ekin said.
"People are looking for alternatives. Offsetting was something that worked a while back but now it has a negative undertone. If you want to buy credits, you don't know where they have come from. That is why it is so controversial," Ekin said.
They forgot global warming being caused by humans.
Yeah, I categorize that as a “lie” because he was so damn certain:Well, I think it is manmade. I think it’s clearly manmade…We know what the cause is. The cause is manmade. That’s the cause.You can be that sure about something after evaluating the evidence and coming to the conclusion that it all points that way — in which case, you’re saying anyone who’s still entertaining some uncertainty, simply isn’t in command of all the relevant facts.
Or, you can be that sure about something because you want to build an identity for yourself. To approach those whose minds are similarly made up, and say to them “I am one of you.”
Biden was trying to make it look like he was doing the first of those; he was really engaged in the second. This is exactly why politicians have a reputation for lying constantly. And that’s why I call this a lie. But…it’s the McCain campaign putting this together. They’re engaged in the same lie. Very sad.
As former U.S. president Bill Clinton's campaign famously declared in the run-up to his inaugural 1992 election victory, "It's the economy, stupid."How much change is realistic? Not as much as you might think | coshoctontribune.com | Coshocton Tribune
With less than two weeks left to go in the federal election, the Liberals' hopes of focusing the campaign on their Green Shift -- or shaft, as the Tories characterize it -- seem dim.
Local candidates from all parties say the economy is the hot topic at the door, fueled by the financial meltdown south of the border, with healthcare often a strong second.
Even Liberal hopefuls acknowledge voters aren't asking about the Green Shift and its mix of carbon taxes and income tax cuts.
"I kid you not. Everybody, it's the economy," said Mountain Liberal candidate Tyler Banham, who is "surprised" by the Green Shift's low profile.
Even in areas where both McCain and Obama disagree with Bush, change could be difficult.
"Either a McCain or an Obama presidency would facilitate some sort of climate-change legislation, a departure from Bush's position," Nivola and Jones wrote. But the changes will be modest, they predicted, because "a Draconian, hence punishing, assault on greenhouse gases lacks popular consent, in this country and every other."
The biggest problem in energy supplies today is that politicians think it is a problem with a solution. And by that I mean they seem to think it has exactly one solution.
We can’t drill in the Arctic because the solution is conservation. We can’t build nuclear because the solution is solar. Offshore is not needed because the solution is biofuel. Natural gas, clean coal, coastal wind, oil shales, tar sands, tidal turbines, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric – all in turn are argued against, because something better, or bigger, or cleaner, or cheaper, or more philosophically correct can be supported instead.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of our current energy “shortage” is the sheer number of options we have available to us – none of which is apparently the one perfect solution, and so all of which are delayed and obstructed.
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The most frustrating thing about a democracy in which government plays a huge role in energy policy is that no portion of the solution can proceed until a majority in Congress says it’s OK. So little is done.
If market forces were given more weight, we could drill for oil wherever it’s found. We could build a wind farm wherever it’s windy. We could ship natural gas wherever it’s needed. We could install solar panels wherever they are profitable, guaranteeing them a deserved place on calculators and satellites.
Instead, we sit famished at a feast in which some group has a grievance against every possible dish. And since we can’t just eat individually, we starve as a group. Imagine Thanksgiving being run the same way: We can only eat cranberry sauce! No, the solution is stuffing! But turkey has always been the mainstay. Are you mad? Turkey causes global napping we’ll all die if we don’t transition to tofurkey. And we certainly can’t baste our way out of this! Meanwhile, the food gets colder and colder and the guests get hungrier and hungrier. Eventually some will tire of the whole thing and just outsource the meal to the Chinese restaurant down the road.
Ed Miliband steps down as Cabinet Office Minister to become Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change following the structural change at the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, which is now split into two with a spin off department for Energy and Climate Change.July 2008 - Ed Miliband's speech to the Compass conference
Take the issue of climate change, the biggest threat to humankind that we face. How can progressive politics address the issue? Fundamentally, it is about government shaping markets. It is about government's role in ensuring that we control the big forces that exist in our society, like climate change, and the protection of the next generation.Ed Miliband: Information from Answers.com
And the new carbon budgets that we are planning will have profound effects on government. That's why we need to have a manifesto that thinks radically about our energy policy, our transport policy, our urban policy - and also about our economic policy. Because we see in economics today, with the oil price as it is, economics and environmentalism coming together. That means thinking very hard and very seriously about the alternatives to oil, but it also means thinking very seriously about how we can be ahead with the green economy of the future.
JUST 18 months ago the European Union promised to save the world from climate change. A final plan to deliver on those promises must be finished soon. But it is in deep trouble.(Via Benny Peiser)
The conclusions of the March 2007 summit proclaiming the EU’s “leading role” on climate change make for wistful reading today. They begin “Europe is currently enjoying an economic upswing,” and add that growth forecasts are “positive”. Back in that long-lost golden age, the EU’s leaders were in heroic mood. They offered binding promises known as the 20/20/20 pledges. By the year 2020, they would cut Europe’s carbon emissions by at least a fifth over 1990 levels; derive 20% of all energy from renewable sources; and make energy-efficiency savings of 20%.
The heroic mood is gone now. In March 2007 Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and chairman of the summit, was a green champion. Today she sounds like a lobbyist for German business, listing the industries that must be shielded from the full costs of her package. In truth, almost every country has found reasons why the climate-change promises may be impossible to meet in their current form. Britain is gloomy about its renewable-energy targets. Ireland says its farmers must be protected (grass-fed Irish cows emit a lot of methane).
Summer was a wash out and autumn seemed to have not even come at all, so it came as no surprise that winter decided to put in an early appearance.EUX.TV - EU Set for 'Super Tuesday' With Controversial Vote on Climate
Any hope of an Indian summer disappeared this morning as snow fell north of the border while the south of England was hit by cold northerly winds and heavy showers.
Temperatures struggled to hit 10C in some parts of the country and the bad news is it expected to stay that way tomorrow and Sunday.
Central heaters are sure to get a workout as temperatures are predicted to drop to 5C over night with weekend temperatures struggling to reach a high of 16C in the south and a low of 9C.
BRUSSELS (EUX.TV) -- The European Parliament is bracing itself for a major controversial vote on Tuesday when its environment committee will vote on a plan that would force national EU governments to stop building coal-fired power plants and to subsidize underground carbon storage.
The vote on Tuesday the 7th of October will be on the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), on carbon capture and storage (CCS) and on burden sharing between member states. Especially the ETS and CCS packages are considered controversial - they've been heavily influenced by lobbyists from both the corporate and environment sectors.
Facing federal and provincial elections as confused as our own — one candidate is calling for a global warming carbon tax, the other for a cap-and-trade rationing scheme — some Canadians have started a NoCarbonTaxes petition, laying out how both proposals are taxes, are damaging, and that they want none of it.
The best thing I can say about the Canadian pols is that, having at least a difference of opinion as to the approach, they’ve started a debate on the impact of the various policies. Here, McCain and Obama differ only on whether to give the ration coupons away (McCain) or sell them (Obama). Select industries really clean up under the former, and only the nukes and a few others under the latter.
But either way it’s an energy tax passed on to you, a sufficient commonality such that the U.S. candidates have decided the voters don't deserve to form an informed choice about the sort of change they want (or don’t want) through vigorous public debate.
Right now we have a real opportunity to transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy. Technologies and know-how to accomplish this are either available today or are under development. We can build whole new industries and create millions of new jobs. We can cut energy costs, both at the gas pump and at home. We can improve our national security. And we can put a big dent in climate change. With strong leadership we could be moving forward on an aggressive but realistic time-line and an approach that offsets costs with real economic gains.This lack of emphasis on climate change seems especially odd, since the "lead" author of the proposal, Jeffery Greenblatt, seems to be a serious AGW believer.
Dr. Jeffery Greenblatt, Ph.D. joined Google.org in March 2008 as Climate and Energy Technology Manager. He reviews renewable energy proposals for grants and/or investment for the RE-C (Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal) initiative. He also advises the team on climate change science, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions forecasts, and a broad range of climate mitigation strategies. He is currently focused on the Clean Energy 2030 proposal and ways for Google to help create a 21st century electricity grid.
Before coming to Google, Dr. Greenblatt was High Meadows scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, where he evaluated the technical, economic and environmental aspects of a wide range of energy technologies. He developed "wedge" climate stabilization scenarios for California, the Midwest, and the US, and he was also the technical lead editor on "Earth: The Sequel," a book about the emerging clean energy field, by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn.
He received his training in climate and energy at Princeton University, where he was on the research staff for four years, working on many projects including ocean carbon cycle modeling, the economics of wind energy and energy storage, and the development of the "wedge" climate stabilization concept with professors Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala.
He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999.
CALGARY - The Alberta government's $4.7 billion strategy for reducing greenhouse gases lacks concrete planning and could cost taxpayers billions of dollars without any guarantee of substantial reduction in greenhouse gases, says the province's auditor general.Some Climate change job vacancies #51
"Alberta could spend a lot of money but not achieve emission targets," wrote Auditor General Fred Dunn in a report released Thursday.
"Or it could achieve targets, but not cost-effectively."
South Pole Carbon Asset Management LtdIn memory of Petar Perisic « Last Blog On Earth
www.southpolecarbon.com
Business Development Manager, North America
Perisic says PERI_scope is like global-warming films The 11th Hour and An Inconvenient Truth, but it has a third dimension, a permanent space, which he hopes will make the facts hit a bit harder. Movies, he complains, are temporary and never seem to offer solutions to the problems they present.
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