Tuesday September 9, 2008, 3:42 pm

What we can do to stop global warming!

Please join this Care2 group to help:)

The function of this group is discussing peacefully and finding ways for change and to get world leaders to address this problem now. We encourage all members to stay focused on the issue of Global Warming. This is not a global warming debate group.

http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/StoppingGlobalWarming

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 3:45 pm

Bring Humanity Back from the Brink of Extinction!

This petition is directed to be read into the public record of the United Nations General Assembly.

It is clear that the I.P.C.C. report has clearly determined and correctly identified that the Earth is warming due to human activity. This petition is a call to action to any and all human beings capable of effecting a preservation effort in the matter of preventing humanity from self-extinction.

The current policies in place are insufficient to prevent or slow the unfolding global catastrophe that faces humanity as a whole. The current paradigm of thought for possible survival with current industrial practices in the face of drastic climate shifts is irresponsible and borders on species suicide. There has been a prolonged and concerted effort of colossal monetary resources that has been dedicated to the suppression and/or misdirection of alternative energy sources, as to have a sizable effect on research and development for the past 100 years. The petitioners asking for the release of governmentally and privately suppressed research on alternative methods of energy generation and utilization.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/bring-humanity-back-from-the-brink-of-extinction

296 Signatures and in need of more plz!

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 6:43 pm
It is also the LACK of the sun's energy that brings COOLING.

Man-made global warming? Worry about the sun
LAST week Environment Minister Sammy WIlson caused anger among some environmentalists by questioning whether global warming was caused by man. The Green Party has already hit back - now NIGEL CALDER, former editor of the New Scientist defends Mr Wilson's position.
There are warnings of gales in Shannon, Rockall, Malin ... .' When shipping forecasts like that occur repeatedly in summertime, you have to wonder if the global cooling feared by the best-informed climate experts has already begun to bite. The UK's rotten summer weather of 2007 and 2008 is a good reason to reopen the debate about global warming, as Northern Ireland's Environment Minister Sammy Wilson proposes.

Unseasonable storms plagued the Spanish Armada too. After the fights in the English Channel, it escaped homeward around Scotland and Ireland. But high winds, in the late summer of 1588, wrecked two dozen ships on the north and west coasts of Ireland. As Queen Elizabeth's Armada medal put it 'God blew and they were scattered'.

Why is that 420-year-old weather bulletin relevant today? Because a worldwide cooling event, the Little Ice Age, was just then becoming serious. A local symptom was summer storms tracking across the British Isles, rather than passing to the north as in warmer medieval times. The gloomy and wet weather brought misery to farmers, and between 1550 and 1600 the price of wheat in England went up by 200 per cent. With occasional intermissions, and a maximum chill around 1700, the Little Ice Age continued until about 1850.

A lazy sun explains it. The solar magnetic shield was weak, and the Earth suffered a larger influx of swift atomic particles coming from exploded stars.

Those cosmic rays helped to make more low clouds, which cooled the world during the Little Ice Age. But in the 20th century the sun doubled its magnetic strength and cut the influx of cosmic rays. That meant fewer clouds and a warmer world.

This is no crackpot theory. A string of discoveries by the physicist Henrik Svensmark at the Danish National Space Institute backs it up. He and his small team have even traced the chemical action of cosmic rays involved in cloud-making. Evidence for the cosmic-ray theory is now far stronger than for the politically fashionable notion that carbon dioxide drives global warming. Dr Svensmark and I explain it all in plain language in our book The Chilling Stars, published by Icon Books in 2007.

So what's the problem? Precisely the lack of debate that Mr Wilson complains about. A group of scientists who make fanciful computer models of the climate for the United Nations have allied themselves with politicians in many Western countries, with environmental lobbyists, and with journalists who have forgotten to take official pronouncements with plenty of salt. The science of man-made global warming is settled, they chorus, and there's nothing to discuss except how to avoid the climatic apocalypse.

Future historians will laugh about how climate science went crazy, but meanwhile life is not so funny for my friend Henrik. For 12 years, I've watched scientists who take the official line bad-mouthing him, starving him of funds and making it hard for him to publish his reports. Other physicists who think that the Sun rules the climate, or merely criticise the man-made warming theory, report similar experiences. They've certainly not had the open discussion of the evidence that scientists are accustomed to expect.

I'm afraid that the issue will now be resolved, not by rational argument, but by unmistakable global cooling, which will be bad news for farmers and everyone else.

In the 1990s the sun ended its spurt of increasing activity, and as result there has been no rise in temperature since 1997, despite the continuing increase in carbon dioxide in the air. The global warmers explain away the ‘pause’ by changes in the oceans. Isn’t it quaint that any mid-term cooling effect can be just a quirk of nature, while any mid-term warming is obviously our fault?

In an updated edition of The Chilling Stars, published earlier this year, Dr Svensmark and I remarked that we were advising friends to enjoy the global warming while it lasted. Since we wrote that, portents of a solar downturn, and possibly even a new little ice age, have become more sinister. The sun ought to be freckled with sunspots now, as a symptom of magnetic vigour, but instead we’ve had more than a year with very few spots. Global temperatures are down on last year and Australia and South America are just emerging from a bitter winter.

Not convinced? Well back in April the UK Met Office, one of the shrillest of global warming outfits, issued a forecast for summer 2008. It declared, ‘the risk of exceptional rainfall, as seen last summer, is assessed as very low’. These are the folk who claim to tell you what the climate will be like 100 years from now.

As I finish writing, amid torrential rain in Sussex, I notice that my roof is starting to leak.

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 8:24 pm
Judy you and have discussed this many times - the latest can be found here:

http://www.care2.com/news/member/911565885/872958?saved=1

There is no need to repeat your silly cut and paste over again here - if people are interested they can follow the link...there is no other purpuse to be filled by further cut and paste except to harass...

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 8:41 pm
There is no gyarantee that people will follow the link and I want them to know what is really going on. If it has been seen before it is a simple matter to scroll past it.

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 8:45 pm
If they care, the will follow - and there is no garentee they will - because many are on to your scam and could not care less about what you have to say. Cutting and pasting it here would only serve to jam it down peoples throat! But then, that IS your objective is it not???

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 9:21 pm
There has been only 3 days of solar activity in the past 75 days and those three days were low level activity. That means the sun is providing virtually no protection from cosmic radiation which will and is causing much lower temperatures. There is already a world food crisis and an early and cold winter isn’t going to help that situation. The U.S. is the only country left in the world that does not have food export restrictions on any food produced in the U.S. A reduced growing season in the U.S. probably won’t hurt us, but it will have a big impact on the starving people of the world that we help feed.

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 9:41 pm
Yes, Ralph, the sun is at a low point in activity, and we are having a strong La Nina event too - both of which are causeing the cool WEATHER (short-term event)...so what exactly is your point???

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 10:33 pm
That it ain't CO2 doing it...and it wasn't CO2 producing the warming either.

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 10:43 pm
Part one of the sentence correct - but the second does not follow from that...

You can have solar activity causeing warming (or cooling) and La Nina causing cooling/El Nino causing warming AND CO2 causing warmig TOO - they are not mutually exclusive events...Climate is affected by MANY factors CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) is a SIGNIFICANT one in addition to the others...

Tuesday September 9, 2008, 11:28 pm
Yes, Yes, Yes.

And since CO2 is the least effective of the lot there is absolutely no reason to restrict it because it is so weak and can be over=ridden by the forces you enumerate...and more..

There is still the The Milankovitch Theory
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Giants/Milankovitch/milankovitch.html

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 12:38 am
no, no, no ...

CO2 is not the least effective of the lot - you simply are making that statement with no backing...

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 2:33 am

Yes exactly! You can have solar activity but solar activity is not responsible for man made climate change effects. They are two seperate issues and topics.

People getting confused mix the two activities.

As National Geographic and chris O try to explain you can't blame the sun for human activity. They are two seperate issues and activites.

Sun = Effects us on earth

Humans = Effect us on earth

Pollutions humans make that are causing global warming we can control. We can learn about how dangerous these chemicals and pollutions are and live cleaner greener lives.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 4:43 am
Great article, Mari. Thanks.
Louise B.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 5:53 am
Mari: "You cannot currently send a star to Mari because you have done so within the last week."

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 7:41 am
NO matter what you think, if you keep pumping enough ACID C02 into the air, it will POISON everyone and everything.. who cares whether it is cooling or warming or doing anything else? I tend to agree it has huge warming effects along with methane and freon and etc, but in the end it does not matter, as we are heading for TOXIC levels of c02 and very soon.

Stop poisoning, stop the addiction to oil. Start living carbon free. Oh, yea, and it would help if we also got off all of the other 10,000 or so chemicals we are poisoning all life with on the planet.. While we are arguing, the pot is coming up to a boil.. how much longer can we argue (and not take action) before we BOIL to death?

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:06 am

You cannot currently send a star to Elena because you have done so within the last week.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:44 am
What Eric said, Thx Mari!

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 11:16 am
Australia is waking up!
Relax, truth has surfaced
"KEVIN Rudd's global warming guru has finally - and reluctantly - exposed the con. Ignore everything the Government has told you.

The truth, conceded Professor Ross Garnaut last week, is that it really is cheaper for Australians to do nothing about global warming.

And, no, it's not immoral to figure there's no point spending big money to "stop" this warming when it won't make a blind bit of difference.

No wonder the Rudd Government refuses to comment on Garnaut's latest report, released on Friday. Much of the argument for its grand plan to make us slash emissions from 2010 has just been destroyed" cont'd
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24321608-5000117,00.html

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 11:24 am
Is sad that he puts it all in "economic trems" - but then ignores the costs in HUMAN LIVES...

Climate Inaction 'Costing Lives'

A report by Oxfam International says emissions, primarily from developed countries, are exacerbating flooding, droughts and extreme weather events.

http://www.care2.com/news/member/537645068/872768

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 11:25 am
Message to those commited to Saving the Planet: If humanity cannot come up with a group of focused individuals to hold the desire and intention for a new experience for the planet in a committed fashion, then the planet itself will begin a cleansing to enable itself to avoid to extinction. This process is already beginning. The degree to which committment is made and held as the subsequent events unfold will determine greatly to what extent the planet will need to cleanse itself. This commitment involves the shedding of the victim stance and the willingness to to reclaim our citizenship, including the responsibilities this will involve. There can be no looking back, no blaming for the past and present situation, and decisions will have to be made with regard to repairing the damage to the planet. Greed and abuse patterns must be transcended with the highest and best good for EACH and ALL always as a controlling factor. Those who cannot accept these guidelines cannot be allowed to influence decision making situations. If the Earth proceeds to cleanse itself, then of what good are these messages and the desire and intention of those who are attracted to this process? Who indeed will survive as a remnant to repopulate the planet? Will it be those who misused the planet or those who want and are helping to heal the inhabitants and the Planet? The people who are in harmonious level with the planet will find themselves in safe places, regardless of what occurs. There are no "safe places" as designated on the planet despite any and all predictions for those who choose to not participate. Those who respond to the call to save the planet and are able to transcend the victim stance and take on the mantle of responsibility to create a new experience will come through the days ahead to guide this planet to a new level experience.- Excerpt from "Becoming"- author unknown I thought i would share that excerpt with all you folks who are working hard for the planet/people and sometimes get discouraged(I know i do). Our road is a hard one but very rewarding in the end. More people are getting it and the green movement grows everyday, hats off to you all- serge

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 11:26 am
You cannot currently send a star to Mari because you have done so within the last week

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 11:37 am
Professor Ross is an idiot, money won't solve global warming/climate change, WE WILL. Too expensive , so give up , what a joke to say the least. Lets see, so whats he s saying is , lets continue on the same path of destruction because they don't want too spend the money? ridiculous and illogical. Not Logical= not believable . Wake up Ross and Judy please or not.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 11:44 am
There is nothing to solve! We can't change climate...that is the scam.

The only thing we can do is adapt to whatever changes happen and that is the message the scamsters do not want out there.

http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Default.aspx?ID=788
For the Copenhagen Consensus, one of the lead economists of the IPCC, Professor Gary Yohe, did a survey of all the problems and all the benefits accruing from a temperature rise over this century of about approximately 4C. And yes, there will, of course, also be benefits: as temperatures rise, more people will die from heat, but fewer from cold; agricultural yields will decline in the tropics, but increase in the temperate zones, etc.

The model evaluates the impacts on agriculture, forestry, energy, water, unmanaged ecosystems, coastal zones, heat and cold deaths and disease. The bottom line is that benefits from global warming right now outweigh the costs (the benefit is about 0.25% of global GDP). Global warming will continue to be a net benefit until about 2070, when the damages will begin to outweigh the benefits, reaching a total damage cost equivalent to about 3.5% of GDP by 2300. This is simply not the end of humanity. If anything, global warming is a net benefit now; and even in three centuries, it will not be a challenge to our civilisation. Further, the IPCC expects the average person on earth to be 1,700% richer by the end of this century.

Tickell's hellfire and damnation sermon also misinforms us of the solutions to global warming: panicking is rarely the right state of mind for finding smart solutions. In essence, Tickell says that because the outlook is so frightening, we need to cut much, much more than the Kyoto protocol called for. Now, all peer-reviewed, published economic models demonstrate that such an effort is a colossal waste of money – one of the leading models shows that, for every pound spent, Tickell's solution would do about 13p-worth of good."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/carbonemissions.climatechange

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 12:08 pm
"The only thing we can do is adapt to whatever changes happen and that is the message the scamsters do not want out there."

Easy to say if you are in a well to do country that afford to "adapt" - what aboout those people, as noted in my last post, that don't have the resources to adapt - should we just let them die??? I am sure that the island nations that will be wipped off the face of the earth can just adapt???

And we are not in this alone - there are many other species involved too. So, it is just fine to let those which can not adapt (to our polluting ways) to die out???

Global Warming Could Wipe Out Most Species - Study

Rising temperatures could wipe out more than half of the earth's species in the next few centuries, according to researchers who published a study on Wednesday linking climate change to past mass extinctions.

http://www.care2.com/news/member/537645068/522127


I for one am NOT going to sit on my hands and watch these people die and these species be wipped off the face of the planet. Adapt or die - what a sweet view point - but then I guess that is a nice selfish one if you think you will be one of the ones that make it through the adaptation process...

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 12:38 pm

Man made climate change is not a scam. The scam is that big oil companies want greed not change. They do not want to lose their buisness. who would? They aren't thinking about the health of people they are thinking buisness. I will also not allow people to die because others wish to fill their bank accounts with the love of money. Very demonic thing to do as I will not join hands with any type of evil doing such as that. I am with chris O on this.

Adapt or die?

We are like roaches going into a Roach Motel there is not adapting there is only death.

Unfortunately, many of the wealthy and influential people involved in politics in our country appear to be more concerned about maintaining the profit margins of their businesses than in doing what needs to be done to avoid a dangerous environmental change on the Earth. Exxon and other businesses appear to have exerted a great deal of influence on the current administration of the US. The Bush administration (Republican Party) has done its utmost to avoid any sort of legislation or rulings that might be unfavorable to the oil and coal industries.

Moreover, the religious right in the US and other countries have done everything within their power to prevent family planning efforts across the globe. Global warming is largely a product of there being too many people on Earth. This is especially true with the massive populations of India and China now becoming more affluent and industrial.

The combination of the widening use of fossil fuels and the burdgeoning population of the planet ensure that a global warming disaster will be inevitable. Unfortunately, the policies of the Bush administration (Republican Party) on both of these issues is exactly the worse possible stance.

Very few people manage to get any sort of news or information that does not come through the media. What the people in control of the media choose to broadcast is generally what people will know.

Of course, there are many different types of broadcasters. For instance, in talk radio, which tends to be dominated by conservatives, you will find very little accurate information on any subject, including global warming. (Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania did a study that showed that Rush Limbaugh listeners believed they were the best informed people, but upon testing it was found they were actually the least informed).


Meanwhile, other sources of information that may contain a great deal of accurate information may have a relatively small audience. This is generally the case with most scientific journals.

Politics often seems to be a factor in which people form an audience for the various media outlets. The media outlets are well aware of this and tend to pander to their listeners. Thus, people who support politicians that do not take global warming seriously tend to hear media reports that reinforce the claims made by the politicians they support. It can be a vicious circle.

The most obvious effects so far of global warming has been the receding and disappearance of various glaciers across the globe. There has been a rather drastic reduction in the ice sheet covering Greenland. Arctic ice has become so thin in areas that polar bears have been having trouble hunting in those areas. These are generally the effects that have been unequivocally linked to global warming.

What will become of humanity if something is not done about global warming? The Earth has been here long before humans evolved and would probably keep going just fine if we all died off. A lot of people talk about "saving the Earth" from global warming, but what they are really talking about is saving humanity from global warming.

In the long term, if humans do nothing about global warming, then the increasing intensity of storms, the increasing incidence of alternating droughts and floods, and other factors will probably kill off most humans. With the drastic reduction in human population will come a drastic reduction in the production of CO2. There will also probably be a drastic reduction in the deforestation of the tropical areas. In the end, the Earth would probably go back to normal, but there would be a lot fewer humans here. From this perspective global warming is something of a self-correcting problem.

Some people have a lot invested in companies that produce or use oil and coal. Those people are too often unwilling to allow themselves to see any problem that would involve a reduction in their profit margins.

Since George W Bush pulled the US out of the agreement, and the US is one of the major producers of greenhouse gases, the Kyoto Protocol was something of a failure. Also, as the Bush administration has said, there was a problem in the Kyoto Protocol in that it did not limit the CO2 emissions of developing countries. Thus, China and India were not limited. Those countries are going to be huge problems as their enormous populations become more industrial. (Of course, simply pulling out of the Kyoto agreement was probably not the best way of responding to the problem).

A new agreement needs to be hammered out that includes the US, China, India, and probably every other country on the planet.

Plants absorb more CO2 than they produce. So the more plants we have on the planet, the better off we'll be. Thus, cutting down rainforests and trees is going to make global warming worse.

Also, the people that are cutting down the rainforest tend to clear the areas by burning them. This massive burning produces quite a lot of CO2. There is an especially bad problem of this sort occuring an the large Indonesian island of Borneo. On Borneo, there are large peat bogs, in which organic materially has been accumulating for millenia. This material is around 60 feet deep in many places. Normally, the bogs would be too wet to burn. Unfortunately, back in the 90s Indonesia began trying to drain these bogs to convert them into agricultural land. When peasants on Borneo began to clear away rainforest in the area around the bogs, they began burning the foliage. These fires eventually spread into the huge, dried out peat bogs. These peat bogs have been continually burning and smoldering ever since. It is estimated that these huge smoldering peat bogs have added an additional 200 million to 1 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere.

Hearing claims that global warming is untrue is scary. The possibility that those false claims may be believed by gullible people is even more scary. They are scary to me because their denial could very well result in death and suffering for myself, my loved ones, nature, wildlife, & humans all around the planet.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 12:47 pm


Eric S. I agree and it's very dangerous.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 2:33 pm
Thank you for the new information, Mari! Thank you everybody for the NEWS! Mrs. Cross, do you realize you've been posting the same messages for the past 3 days?

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 3:33 pm
Thanks & noted!

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 4:33 pm
I have been seeing the same message from the same poster for much longer than 3 days..It is all part of the corporate agenda. Let them pollute and ruin the planet at no charge, and we will all "adapt".

Regarding "adapting" to pollution, chemicals, hormones in food and water, toxic acid buildup in oceans, soil and our bodies, what are you proposing specifically, as species die off, humans get sick and die off, animals sicken and die off, etc?

The proof of just ONE of these things is in acid rain from coal and oil plants.. We partially solved that in the 90s by putting scrubbers on the smokestacks to filter out the WORST acids that caused acid rain, like sulfuric oxide. But C02 is still coming out, in greater and greater amounts. All of it is ACID.

Acid rain was killing fish and trees outright. Whole forests were disappearing and dying. Acid rain destroyed stone statues, homes, cars, etc... this is still happening, just more slowly. Whole forests are getting weaker and weaker, more prone to disease and bugs and storms. Winds now mow down whole sections of forest, where that never used to happen before.

It is like pouring weak acid everywhere on the planet.. Gradually everything just gets more and more acid, weaker and more sickly, more prone to diseases, and death. Ever wonder why each generation since the 60;s seems to get weaker, more sick, more often? As far as adapting and getting stronger with the influence of C02 and other pollutants, the opposite seems to be true. Humans are NOT ADAPTING, but gradually getting sicker, not being able to reproduce, having more problems with birth, and dying off.

As far as adapting to acid; try drinking some pure sulfuric acid and see how far your body can "adapt" to that.. Practice makes perfect according to the poster above.. Why not demonstrate how this is done for all of us who are not so sure we can adapt quite as easily as you?

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 4:37 pm
Thank you, Mari. Good article from National Geographic, no less. I have joined your group.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 5:17 pm
Mari, you are right. Liberals and Rightists ignore the obvious problem facing the planet, growth and development. As long as population continues to explode, than as Al Gore says, we must protect the rain forests.

I am a conservative and I have no children. I plan on one child and adoption.

How many children do you have?

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 5:43 pm
We should!- They should! no We should, DAM!!! just fix the problem we all live on earth and there is no where else to go, and the more we start and never finish blaming one another the more our Children and our Great Grand Children will suffer as well as every other thing on this planet that does not have a choose but to die because of our stupidity.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:26 pm
Nasa claims it is the sunspots.

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast13apr98_1.htm


????

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:30 pm
How do the scientists referenced in the article square their assessment with the ones from NASA?

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:38 pm
"Q. Has the Sun been more active in recent years, and could it be responsible for some global warming?


A. Scientists are still debating whether or not the Sun’s activity increased during the latter half of the 20th century, but even the highest estimates of activity can’t account for the warming observed since about 1950. Studies do show that solar variability has significantly influenced past climate changes. For example, a decrease in solar activity is thought to have triggered the Northern Hemisphere’s Little Ice Age between approximately 1650 and 1850, when temperatures dipped low enough that rivers that don’t freeze in today’s human-warmed climate froze over.

Scientists use substitutes (proxies) like records of sun spots, which have been kept since Galileo’s time, or carbon in tree rings to estimate the amount of energy the Sun has sent to Earth. Though not perfect, these estimates give a rough approximation of how much the Sun’s activity has varied over time. Scientists are still debating over how reliable proxies are in determining the Sun’s past activity, but current estimates indicate that the Sun is probably now as active as or more active than it has ever been during the past 8,000 years.


A shorter, but more detailed record comes from NASA satellites, which have been recording the Sun’s activity from space since 1978. The measurements, however, come from six different satellites, each with its own bias. It is difficult to combine the measurements from these satellites into a single 25-year-plus record to get a trend of solar activity. Different scientific teams have attempted to create a continuous record from the satellite data. Each long-term record shows the rise and fall of two 11-year sunspot cycles, but they differ from one another in the average trend over the full period. When stitched together one way, the satellites seemed to record a slight increase in solar activity, but in other analyses, solar activity remained constant.

Regardless, even when scientists assume that solar activity is increasing based on proxy data and the satellite record, they can’t account for all of the warming observed at the end of the twentieth century. Climate models can only reproduce the warming observed since 1950 when a rise in greenhouse gases is built into the system."

~from NASA's "Earth Observatory"

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:41 pm
Chuck, NASA does not claim "it's sunspots."

1) Your article was dated "1998."

2) My article (from NASA and dated "2007") states that the sun is not responsible for the globe's recent warming.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:45 pm
Well, Chuck, if it doesn't support their alarmist view they ignore the science no matter how creditable the science is.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:51 pm
So, my more updated article (which, like Chuck's, is FROM NASA) is LESS creditable than Chuck's? No offense, but Chuck's source seems a little out-dated. Science progresses, and so must we.

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:52 pm
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/GlobalWarmingQandA/#03

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 10:30 pm
The Increase of Sun spots and solar flares were in 1988 - 1989 during some of Earth's hottest summers, if I could paste on here I would there has been no increase of Sun spots since that time

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 11:10 pm
Just supporting what Eric S.says, the effects of acid rain can be also observed in crops. In Mendoza, an Argentine province, some varieties of peaches are lost because these varieties cannot bear the effects of acid rain.

Thursday September 11, 2008, 2:34 am

NASA does not say anywhere that the sun is causing Global Warming. Yes the sun effects the earth if it didn't nothing would be growing such as crops, trees which need the sun.

NASA says the sun effects the earth which it does. If the sun did not effect the earth there would be no life as we know it today.

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast13apr98_1.htm

Thursday September 11, 2008, 2:35 am

It's Not the Sun

Sun is not causing current global warming, researchers confirm

Attention all ye who think the sun might be a primary cause of climate change, and all ye who know someone who thinks that: No. It's not the sun. Researchers have published a study of the last century of solar activity, finding that the sun's output has actually declined over the last 20 years. (And yes, they did brainy adjustments to account for variations and cycles and such.) "The sun did a U-turn around 1985, but the temperatures kept on rising," says English solar physicist Mike Lockwood. "Everything on the sun that could have affected climate has been going in the wrong direction to cause warming, and we've seen continued warming." Lockwood and Claus Froehlich of the World Radiation Center also studied cosmic rays, which had been thought by some to be a significant contributor to climate change. Cosmic rays "might ... have had a significant effect on pre-industrial climate," Lockwood says, "but you cannot apply it to what we're seeing now, because we're in a completely different ball game."

straight to the source: Reuters, Ben Hirschler, 11 Jul 2007

straight to the source: Bloomberg, Alex Morales, 11 Jul 2007

straight to the source: BBC News, Richard Black, 10 Jul 2007


http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2007/07/11/4/index.html

Thursday September 11, 2008, 2:48 am
May 15th 2008

NASA Team Pinpoints Human Causes of Global Warming

Human-caused climate change has impacted a wide range of Earth's natural systems, from permafrost thawing to plants blooming earlier across Europe to lakes declining in productivity in Africa.

Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York and scientists at 10 other institutions have linked physical and biological impacts since 1970 with rises in temperatures during that period, including changes to physical systems, such as glaciers shrinking, permafrost melting, and lakes and rivers warming. Impacts also included changes to biological systems, such as leaves unfolding and flowers blooming earlier in the spring, birds arriving earlier during migration periods, and ranges of plant and animal species moving toward the poles and higher in elevation. In aquatic environments such as oceans, lakes, and rivers, plankton and fish are shifting from cold-adapted to warm-adapted communities.

"This is the first study to link global temperature data sets, climate model results, and observed changes in a broad range of physical and biological systems to show the link between humans, climate, and impacts," said Rosenzweig, lead author of the study.

Rosenzweig and colleagues also found that the link between human-caused climate change and observed impacts on Earth holds true at the scale of individual continents, particularly in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Photograph of a forest When permafrost melts, the layer of loose soil deepens and trees lose their foundations and tip over. Similar impacts across Earth are likely due to human-caused climate change.

To arrive at the link, the authors built and analyzed a database of more than 29,000 data series pertaining to observed impacts on Earth's natural systems, collected from about 80 studies each with at least 20 years of records between 1970 and 2004.

The team conducted a "joint attribution" study in which they showed, first, that at the global scale, about 90 percent of observed changes in diverse physical and biological systems are consistent with warming. Other driving forces, such as land use change from forest to agriculture, were ruled out as having significant influence on the observed impacts.

Next, the scientists conducted statistical tests and found that the spatial patterns of observed impacts closely match temperature trends across the globe, to a degree beyond what can be attributed to natural variability. So, the team concluded that observed global-scale impacts are very likely due to human-caused warming.

"Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the warming is causing impacts on physical and biological systems that are now attributable at the global scale and in North America, Europe, and Asia," said Rosenzweig.

An unexpected consequence of rising temperatures may be its effect on long-dead prehistoric life.

For thousands of years animal waste, and other organic matter left behind on the Arctic tundra, have been sealed off from the environment by permafrost. Now climate change is melting the permafrost and freeing mass quantities of prehistoric “ooze” from its state of suspended animation.

Russian scientist, Sergei Zimov, has been studying climate change in Russia's Arctic for 30 years now. He is worried that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will drastically accelerate global warming predictions even beyond some of the most pessimistic forecasts.

"This will lead to a type of global warming which will be impossible to stop," he said.

MORE & FULL STORY

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/05/nasa-satellite.html

Thursday September 11, 2008, 2:58 am

May 14, 2008

NASA

Earth Impacts Linked to Human-Caused Climate Change

Impacts from warming are evident in satellite images showing that lakes in Siberia disappearing as the permafrost thaws and lake water drains deeper into the ground. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
> Larger image "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the warming is causing impacts on physical and biological systems that are now attributable at the global scale and in North America, Europe, and Asia," said Rosenzweig.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/human_impact.html

Thursday September 11, 2008, 3:23 am
RE: Chuck

Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:30 pm

How do the scientists referenced in the article square their assessment with the ones from NASA?


NASA Team Pinpoints Human Causes of Global Warming

http://www.care2.com/news/member/577339509/875254

NASA Earth Impacts Linked to Human-Caused Climate Change

http://www.care2.com/news/member/577339509/875278

Thursday September 11, 2008, 6:38 am
Re: Chuck's statement

The article you note says that the sun is affecting climate - that has NEVER been debated. However, it is incorrect to jump from that to - "therefore, humans have no effect on climate." There are MANY factors which affect the climate - some natural, some human caused. However, it is quite clear from the science - despite the yapping of Ralph - that humans are a SIGNIFICANT FACTOR (not exclusive factor) in the current warming trend which started as far back as 1900 (or even a bit further back) when we started adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere (CO2, methane, and others)...

Thursday September 11, 2008, 2:01 pm
The only way the rantings of Judy Cross, Ralph Sutton, and other global warming denialists can even make sense is if they can prove that the Sun is the ONLY driver of all climate change and that greenhouse gases emitted by our civilization cannot possibly have an impact on climate. Look no further than the planet Venus for the refutation of that claim. Venus is covered with a dense layer of clouds that reflects most of the sunlight that hits the planet, only allowing a tiny fraction to trickle down to the surface. So you would expect Venus to be the same temperature as Earth, if not cooler. Instead, we find the temperatures about 450 degrees Celsius, or 900 degrees F, which is hotter than the hottest setting of a household oven. That's not caused by the Sun, but by the CO2 in the atmosphere, which is 90 times thicker than Earth's. That's an extreme example, but it proves my point.

And the same laws of Physics and Chemistry apply to Earth. Which is why increases in greenhouse gases on Earth naturally result in higher temperatures. But because Earth has oceans, higher temperatures result in greater water evaporation, producing more clouds, more precipiatation, more flooding, and more property damage. I suppose you could blame the Sun for all that too, except the records indicate that solar activity has not been going up in step with global temperature increaes. But CO2 levels have!

"The only thing we can do is adapt to whatever changes happen and that is the message the scamsters do not want out there."

Falsehood, Judy. We should indeed adapt to inevitable climate changes, but how can anyone sit there and assert that what's happening is in any way natural and inevitable when we have a civilization of six billions humans, with millions of CO2 emitting vehicles and thousands of CO2 emitting power plants? Or do you want us to think all those things are NOT emitting CO2 at all? If not, then your whole point is baseless. It's only inevitable if you think our civilization cannot exist without burning fossil fuels, which is why it is so important to not only think outside the box, but to discard the box completely.

Finally, that article Judy referred to from Australia is not a science paper, but an op-ed piece from a hack writer who is as prone to cherry picking as Judy is. Pathetic, really!

Thursday September 11, 2008, 3:39 pm
There is no Global Warming and man has not caused it...Its cyclical and has happened in the past over millions of years....But you guys go on and be hysterical about it and run around saying the sky is falling like Chicken LIttle and Al Gore....We , in fact, are entering a global cooling period....

Thursday September 11, 2008, 4:10 pm
I rather be a "chicken little" and DO SOMETHING to help the planet (stop deforestation, plant trees move away from oil - and its pollution, create new green jobs; ya know, those "evil" things "environmentalists" are doing to fight climate change) than be an "ostrich" who is apparently just fine with the status quo of big oil (and other fossil fuel)...

Thursday September 11, 2008, 4:13 pm

RE:Chuck Roomi Wednesday September 10, 2008, 9:26 pm

Nasa claims it is the sunspots.

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast13apr98_1.htm


The link you are posting is from 1998 we are currently in the year 2008. NASA has new evidence as which they have posted to the public to warn you and educate you. What Science believed in 1998 may not be a current fact years later.

The sun has it's own effects on earth just as humans do and if we did not effect the planet we would have never put a hole into the ozone layer. Just as the sun did not put the hole into our ozone layer the sun once again is not responsible for what humans do.

Thursday September 11, 2008, 4:28 pm


There are no health belifts for humans when it comes to Pollution. The only ones who benefit are the oil & coal burning compaines as they fill their bank accounts... Just as the tobacco companies who may tell you it's a health risk they will never say it's addictive or is also contributing to environmental damage such as the real climate crisis we are in.

Any health benefits? None that I see...

1. the act of polluting or the state of being polluted.

2. the introduction of harmful substances or products into the environment: air pollution.

The act or process of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of soil, water, or the atmosphere by the discharge of harmful substances.

Something that pollutes; a pollutant or a group of pollutants: Pollution in the air reduced the visibility near the airport.

1. undesirable state of the natural environment being contaminated with harmful substances as a consequence of human activities

2. the state of being polluted [syn: befoulment]

3. the act of contaminating or polluting; including (either intentionally or accidentally) unwanted substances or factors [syn: contamination] [ant: decontamination]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pollution



Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the physical systems or living organisms they are in.[1] Pollution can take the form of chemical substances, or energy, such as noise, heat, or light energy. Pollutants, the elements of pollution, can be foreign substances or energies, or naturally occurring; when naturally occurring, they are considered contaminants when they exceed natural levels. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution.

Sometimes the term pollution is extended to include any substance when it occurs at such unnaturally high concentration within a system that it endangers the stability of that system. For example, water is innocuous and essential for life, and yet at very high concentration, it could be considered a pollutant: if a person were to drink an excessive quantity of water, the physical system could be so overburdened that breakdown and even death could result. Another example is the potential of excessive noise to induce imbalance in a person's mental state, resulting in malfunction and psychosis; this has been used as a weapon in warfare.

Prehistory

Humankind has some effect upon the environment since the Paleolithic era during which the ability to generate fire was acquired. In the Iron Age, the use of tooling led to the practice of metal grinding on a small scale and resulted in minor accumulations of discarded material probably easily dispersed without too much impact. Human wastes would have polluted rivers or water sources to some degree. However, these effects could be expected predominantly to be dwarfed by the natural world.

Ancient cultures

The first advanced civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Persia, Greece and Rome increased the use of water for their manufacture of goods, increasingly forged metal and created fires of wood and peat for more elaborate purposes (for example, bathing, heating). Still, at this time the scale of higher activity did not disrupt ecosystems or greatly alter air or water quality.

Middle Ages

The European Dark Ages during the early Middle Ages were a great boon for the environment, in that industrial activity fell, and population levels did not grow rapidly. Toward the end of the Middle Ages populations grew and concentrated more within cities, creating pockets of readily evident contamination. In certain places air pollution levels were recognizable as health issues, and water pollution in population centers was a serious medium for disease transmission from untreated human waste.

Since travel and widespread information were less common, there did not exist a more general context than that of local consequences in which to consider pollution. Foul air would have been considered a nuissance and wood, or eventually, coal burning produced smoke, which in sufficient concentrations could be a health hazard in proximity to living quarters. Septic contamination or poisoning of a clean drinking water source was very easily fatal to those who depended on it, especially if such a resource was rare. Superstitions predominated and the extent of such concerns would probably have been little more than a sense of moderation and an avoidance of obvious extremes.

Official acknowledgement

But gradually increasing populations and the proliferation of basic industrial processes saw the emergence of a civilization that began to have a much greater collective impact on its surroundings. It was to be expected that the beginnings of environmental awareness would occur in the more developed cultures, particularly in the densest urban centers. The first medium warranting official policy measures in the emerging western world would be the most basic: the air we breathe.

The earliest known writings concerned with pollution were Arabic medical treatises written between the 9th and 13th centuries, by physicians such as al-Kindi (Alkindus), Qusta ibn Luqa (Costa ben Luca), Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes), Ibn Al-Jazzar, al-Tamimi, al-Masihi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ali ibn Ridwan, Ibn Jumay, Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, Abd-el-latif, Ibn al-Quff, and Ibn al-Nafis. Their works covered a number of subjects related to pollution such as air contamination, water contamination, soil contamination, solid waste mishandling, and environmental assessments of certain localities.[2]

King Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal by proclamation in London in 1272, after its smoke had become a problem.[3][4] But the fuel was so common in England that this earliest of names for it was acquired because it could be carted away from some shores by the wheelbarrow. Air pollution would continue to be a problem there, especially later during the industrial revolution, and extending into the recent past with the Great Smog of 1952. This same city also recorded one of the earlier extreme cases of water quality problems with the Great Stink on the Thames of 1858, which led to construction of the London sewerage system soon afterward.

It was the industrial revolution that gave birth to environmental pollution as we know it today. The emergence of great factories and consumption of immense quantities of coal and other fossil fuels gave rise to unprecedented air pollution and the large volume of industrial chemical discharges added to the growing load of untreated human waste. Chicago and Cincinnati were the first two American cities to enact laws ensuring cleaner air in 1881. Other cities followed around the country until early in the 20th century, when the short lived Office of Air Pollution was created under the Department of the Interior. Extreme smog events were experienced by the cities of Los Angeles and Donora, Pennsylvania in the late 1940s, serving as another public reminder.[5]

Modern awareness

Pollution began to draw major public attention in the United States between the mid-1950s and early 1970s, when Congress passed the Noise Control Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Bad bouts of local pollution helped increase consciousness. PCB dumping in the Hudson River resulted in a ban by the EPA on consumption of its fish in 1974. Long-term dioxin contamination at Love Canal starting in 1947 became a national news story in 1978 and led to the Superfund legislation of 1980. Legal proceedings in the 1990s helped bring to light Chromium-6 releases in California--the champions of whose victims became famous. The pollution of industrial land gave rise to the name brownfield, a term now common in city planning. DDT was banned in most of the developed world after the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

The development of nuclear science introduced radioactive contamination, which can remain lethally radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Lake Karachay, named by the Worldwatch Institute as the "most polluted spot" on earth, served as a disposal site for the Soviet Union thoroughout the 1950s and 1960s. Second place may go to the to the area of Chelyabinsk U.S.S.R. (see reference below) as the "Most polluted place on the planet".

Nuclear weapons continued to be tested in the Cold War, sometimes near inhabited areas, especially in the earlier stages of their development. The toll on the worst-affected populations and the growth since then in understanding about the critical threat to human health posed by radioactivity has also been a prohibitive complication associated with nuclear power. Though extreme care is practiced in that industry, the potential for disaster suggested by incidents such as those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl pose a lingering specter of public mistrust. One legacy of nuclear testing before most forms were banned has been significantly raised levels of background radiation.

International catastrophes such as the wreck of the Amoco Cadiz oil tanker off the coast of Brittany in 1978 and the Bhopal disaster in 1984 have demonstrated the universality of such events and the scale on which efforts to address them needed to engage. The borderless nature of the atmosphere and oceans inevitably resulted in the implication of pollution on a planetary level with the issue of global warming. Most recently the term persistent organic pollutant (POP) has come to describe a group of chemicals such as PBDEs and PFCs among others. Though their effects remain somewhat less well understood owing to a lack of experimental data, they have been detected in various ecological habitats far removed from industrial activity such as the Arctic, demonstrating diffusion and bioaccumulation after only a relatively brief period of widespread use.

Growing evidence of local and global pollution and an increasingly informed public over time have given rise to environmentalism and the environmental movement, which generally seek to limit human impact on the environment.

Pollution control

Pollution control is a term used in environmental management. It means the control of emissions and effluents into air, water or soil. Without pollution control, the waste products from consumption, heating, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, transportation and other human activities, whether they accumulate or disperse, will degrade the environment. In the hierarchy of controls, pollution prevention and waste minimization are more desirable than pollution control.

More?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution

Thursday September 11, 2008, 4:31 pm

RE: Daniel Barker

Waves to say hello and respond but does not feel answering personal questions on this board is a good idea.

Thursday September 11, 2008, 4:45 pm


RE: Al Gore

Al Gore did not discover Global Warming/Climate change Al Gore simply exposed it just as he exposed the tobacco companies in his book Inconvenient Truth. I own and have read this book.

This is not about which Party is the hero as for science does not belong to a party. Science belongs to us. Science belongs to human awareness, healing,knowledge, advancement and protection.

The reason the republican party is hiding common knowledge of global warming is because they get HUGE amounts of money and donations from the oil companies. To some people money is more important than life.

It's not about a party or Al Gore it's about saving humans and making them safe.

Thursday September 11, 2008, 4:50 pm
"There is no Global Warming and man has not caused it...Its cyclical and has happened in the past over millions of years....But you guys go on and be hysterical about it and run around saying the sky is falling like Chicken LIttle and Al Gore....We , in fact, are entering a global cooling period...."

Dogmas of the religion of Exxonism. Sorry, the facts say the opposite!

Thursday September 11, 2008, 4:57 pm
Martha,

Perhaps it's impossible for a scientist to change your faith in the sources that have convinced you that anthropogenic global warming is not a major concern, but I don't consider these articles or comments to be hysterical. Rather, this is the result of over 150 years of the growth-for-growth's sake capitalist industries' ignoring the evidence of science that the thermal balance of this little blue marble would be negatively affected by tampering with it's atmosphere on such a grand scale. Neither Hansen or Gore were the first one's to bring up the issue of AGW, rather if the initial warnings were heeded we would no now be attempting to deal with it and we could instead be addressing other issues this vigorously. But, I wonder if there would have been a single crisis of this magnitude that could have brought together so many people of diverse interests and backgrounds.

Thursday September 11, 2008, 5:08 pm
Kevin L, people who don't want to be convinced of something that irritates their egos will always find things, whether in printed sources or on the internet, to support their prejudices, no matter how absurd they turn out to be. That's the nature of bigotry.

Thursday September 11, 2008, 5:18 pm
Kevin...so what.

The question is can CO2 change climate?

That has never been proven.

Many other things like the fluctuations in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation can account for Arctic warming and indeed Arctic warming has been shown to be cyclical.

It happened in 1817 and 1922 and the Russians say the cycle happens every 65-80 years.

Maybe you haven't seen this before:

"It will without doubt have come to your Lordship's knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.

(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations."
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817

Novermber 1922 - Arctic warmth, vanishing seals, melting icebergs
http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/2008/03/novermber-1922-arctic-warmth-vanishing.html

The scam was plotted years ago. It's age does not validate it.

"In a decade, America's mighty rivers will have reached the boiling point."
- Edwin Newman, Earth Day 1970

I like these quotes very much too.

"No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."
- Christine Stewart, Canadian Environment Minister

"A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect."
- Richard Benedict, State Dept. employee working on assignment from the Conservation Foundation

Eric Hoffer once observed that “Mass movements can rise without belief in God, but never without belief in a devil.” In today’s cultural climate of opinion about environmental degradation with its pathology of political correctness, the devil has become technology, together with the industrial infrastructure that has been its companion. However it is much closer to the truth to regard this belief as a tactic for implementing an agenda in search of a scapegoat. H. L. Mencken has made an incisive observation about the consequences of irrational scapegoating:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Thursday September 11, 2008, 6:04 pm

The question is can CO2 change climate?

Actually, we know for a fact that CO2 can change the climate. This certainty is based on two well established facts:

1.) The temperatures on Earth are due to the Greenhouse effect caused by our atmosphere. If this wasn't the case, temperatures on Earth would be the same as temperatures on the Moon, (and they are not).

2.) Carbon-dioxide is a Greenhouse gas. Carbon-dioxide is a gas that traps heat. That is a well proven scientific fact. In fact, carbon-dioxide is so good at absorbing radiation in the infrared, they use it to make lasers that can burn through metal. Carbon-dioxide can trap heat, plain and simple.

So, since we know that the greenhouse effect exists and we know that carbon-dioxide is a greenhouse gas, we know that increasing carbon-dioxide will increase the greenhouse effect. Since the greenhouse effect provides the heat for our climate, increasing levels of carbon-dioxide will effect our climate.

Its amazing what one can prove simply by using common sense.

Thursday September 11, 2008, 8:14 pm
Reducing our Carbon Footprint

Concrete

Concrete is very widely used in construction.

Its manufacture results in 7-10% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

This is more than emissions from aircraft around the world.

Is there an alternative?

Concrete is a mixture of sand (and other aggregates), water and cement.
An alternative can be made using quicklime and ‘limecrete’.

Visit the websites below and prepare an information sheet about environmentally friendly alternatives to concrete.

Websites

http://www.cat.org.uk/news/news_notes.tmpl?command=search&db=news.db&eqSKUdatarq=10370&home=0

http://www.lime.org.uk/lime_products/

http://www.limecrete.org.uk

http://www.aircrete.co.uk/


Italy's Italcemente is the world's fifth-largest cement producer. It is looking beyond reducing CO2 emissions by creating a cement that actually breaks down airborne pollutants.

While Italcemente's smog-eating cement has been used in Europe for several years, it was released in the United States only in 2007 under the name TX Active. It contains titanium dioxide, which, in the presence of sunlight, acts as a photocatalyer, hastening the decomposition of such pollutants as nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and ozone. TX Active also keeps a building shiny white – a quality admired by architects – by preventing the buildup of pollutants on the surface.

Research suggests that if 15 percent of the surface area of Milan, Italy, were covered in TX Active, air pollutants there could be reduced by 50 percent.

When weighing the environmental effects of concrete, some other benefits need to be included, says Rick Bohan of the Portland Cement Association (PCA), a nonprofit trade group based in Skokie, Ill. For example, the insulation provided by concrete walls combats greenhouse-gas emissions by reducing the energy needed for heating and cooling a building by up to 40 percent compared with wood- and steel-frame structures, according to PCA research.

"As people begin to recognize just how much more sustainable concrete is in terms of saving energy, we're going to see cement demand and production go up," Mr. Bohan says.
No easy replacement for cement is on the horizon. No other known material is as abundant, accessible, and effective as limestone, the key ingredient in cement.
The vast majority of CO2 created during cement production is from the energy needed to incinerate limestone in order to change its chemical structure, a procedure called calcination. Scientists now are studying the structure of concrete molecules to try to find ways to create the same strong concrete, but at a much lower temperature.
Ulm points out that the structure of human bones, at the molecular level, is similar to that of concrete. While cement must be heated to 1,200 degrees C (2,200 degrees F.) before it achieves strength and structure, bone is formed at 37 degrees C (98.6 degrees F.).

"That makes one think that nature can create at 37 Celsius a material that has similar properties as cement," Ulm says. "Can we mimic that?


Every University, Podium, or Platform Gore speaks from pays him $50,000 to 65,000 per talk. His book and movie are not free either. He has made himself CEO/President in charge of Global Carbon Trading Exchange Program a Corporate entity for profit. Plus when he travels to speak he will only go FIRST CLASS BUSINESS, demands $500 daily food account, Limo Services, and google for more of who pays.

Gore is a CFR member as well as a Bilderberg member. Working for the common cause of One World Govt. , One World Order. He is for Nuclear Energy vs the Fossil Fuel Bilderberg members. Gore has great stakes in Nuclear Investments.

In the extraordinary book "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" written 150 years ago by Charles Mackay, is written, "Men … think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."

Thursday September 11, 2008, 8:25 pm
Gore Smore...that says nothing about weather or not human caused cliame change is real or not...

"He is for Nuclear Energy vs the Fossil Fuel Bilderberg members. Gore has great stakes in Nuclear Investments." - Please provide some proof for that statement, all I have seen is him promoting is wind, soalr, and other renewables...His "10 Year Plan" does not mention nuclear AT ALL...

Thursday September 11, 2008, 8:51 pm
China has surpassed the US as the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas.

Surging demand for energy in the world’s most populous nation has lead to a surge in construction of coal-fired power stations, pushing China’s production of CO2 to 6,200m tons of CO2 last year, compared with 5,800m tons from the US

While we are measuring our carbon footprints who is measuring the neg. footprints of stripping forest & rain forest, wild grasses buried under concrete & development?

More Concrete Science: (no pun intended)
Today there are more then 400 dead zones in the world's oceans and lakes. In these aquatic zones thousands of fish, whales, crabs and other sea life are dying daily. This phenomenon happens quickly and sporadically destroying most sea life with out a chance. Experts say that the development of these zones are influenced by humans, and that they can be reversed. The number of these zones are rising more rapidly, and should be thought of as a major problem on a global scale.
The cause of these dead zones are believed to start with the agricultural industry. Farmers use potent nutrient supplement for their crops.

For Your Information;

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) today launched a website to allow individuals to tally up their carbon emissions, according to factors such as their use of personal transport, home appliances and central heating. The Act on CO2 calculator can be found at www.directgov.co.uk.

There are other similar tools on the internet already - such as carboncalculator.com, carbonneutral.com and carbonfootprint.co.uk - although Defra strategists believe that people will be more inclined to believe the figures calculated by an official Government device.

Thursday September 11, 2008, 9:41 pm
"The question is can CO2 change climate? That has never been proven."

Yes, it has! So the known laws of chemistry have no meaning to you? Don't talk about science if you don't understand it, Judy!

Quote mining is a favorite tactic of the pseudoscientists known as Creationists, so it's not surprizing that global warming denialists resort to the same tactics. Note that most of the quoted examples are without references, so they could have been made up.

Were scientists being "alarmist" when they warned us about the threat of nuclear war in the 1970s and 80s? That was a real problem and speaking out about it publicly helped end the Cold War.

We were transitioning from the Little Ice Age, a natural phenomenon, in 1817. The described events of 1922 involved an early period of man-made global warming, because our civilization was already emitting greenhouse gases back then. Judy is attempting to prey on people's ignorance of history while claiming to teach it. Nice try!

The cycle of Artic melting and cooling is being affected by human activity to a degree that's even worse than what was before in previous cycles. If something today is worse than centuries ago, how dare anyone dismiss it!

Friday September 12, 2008, 12:07 am
Get off it. You make it all up as you go along.

Where's the proof for anything above. This is the first warming cycle we have satellites watching, so there is no proof that former clearings were any smaller or larger.

WE DON'T KNOW...BUT WE DO KNOW THAT WARMING HAPPENED IN 1817 AND 1922.
YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THEM AWAY AND SAY THIS LAST TIME WAS DIFFERENT WITH ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE and then have the nerve to feign anger at my refusal to go along with the scam.

YOUR SPIN FALLS FLAT and your analogy to creationists works better for the Warming Cult than skeptics.

Friday September 12, 2008, 10:09 am
Man is not causing global warming...one volcanoe will emit more pollution than man will create in 15 thousand years and by the way, greenland was tropical 400,000 years ago... MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.

FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8Cover the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.



MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.



MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.



MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.

FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect".
Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.


MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.

FACT: Computer models can be made to "verify" anything by changing some of the 5 million input parameters or any of a multitude of negative and positive feedbacks in the program used.. They do not "prove" anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover.


MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.



MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.

FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.


MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.

FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.



MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.


MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.

Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.

More FACTS and MYTHS? See what Professor deFreitas has to say. Click here.

Friday September 12, 2008, 11:57 am
Here are a few "Myth Buster" sites you may want to check out:

TEN POPULAR MYTHS
About Global Climate Change
http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/programs/atmosphere-energy/climate-change/ten-myths.html#cc10t

Climate change myths
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/index.html

Global Warming Myths and Facts
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/page.cfm?tagID=1011

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

Here is our round-up of the 26 most common climate
denialist myths and misconceptions.
http://www.care2.com/news/member/537645068/411848


Anti-denaliest Resources

If you're looking for a chance to educate yourself on climate change, get started on greening your own life (with all the normal caveats that lifestyle changes are nowhere near enough) or have facts and figures at hand to win your next argument with a denialist, you've got some tricky choices ahead of you. After all, the web has never been more overrun with climate "resources" and "guides," and most of them are lame -- some are downright inaccurate or misleading. (quote from the author, not me )

Here is a quick survey of some interesting and useful links:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007016.html



Here are som Myths and their rebuttals. Detailed explainations can be found on the site:

http://green.yahoo.com/global-warming/ed-14/global-warming-myths-and-facts.html

Myth: The science of global warming is too uncertain to act on.

Fact: There is no debate among scientists about the basic facts of global warming.


Myth: Even if global warming is a problem, addressing it will hurt American industry and workers.

Fact: A well designed trading program will harness American ingenuity to decrease heat-trapping pollution cost-effectively, jumpstarting a new carbon economy.


Myth: Water vapor is the most important, abundant greenhouse gas. So if we’re going to control a greenhouse gas, why don’t we control it instead of carbon dioxide (CO2)?

Fact: Although water vapor traps more heat than CO2, because of the relationships among CO2, water vapor and climate, to fight global warming nations must focus on controlling CO2.


Myth: Global warming and extra CO2 will actually be beneficial — they reduce cold-related deaths and stimulate crop growth.

Fact: Any beneficial effects will be far outweighed by damage and disruption.


Myth: Global warming is just part of a natural cycle. The Arctic has warmed up in the past.

Fact: The global warming we are experiencing is not natural. People are causing it.

Friday September 12, 2008, 1:31 pm
Im not saying there is no global warming, but it is natural and has happened over thousands of years and is cyclical....Sure we can clean up the environment but it will have a negligible effect but suppose it will look better...However, the United States is one of the lowest producing co2 emissions in the world and China is doing nothing. We have more or less, cleaned up most of our co2 emissions although sometimes there are accidents..And I refuse to pay a carbon tax, when we arent responsible for producing the global warming...It is a scare tatic by the governmment to explain away the changes in the environement. Im sure the government really knows the cause of global warming and have taken steps to protect themselves of any negative effects...And as long as they think we believe we are doing it they will let us contintue doing so, while they may burden us with a carbon tax ...But no matter what they do, I doubt they will be protected in the long run.

Friday September 12, 2008, 1:33 pm
Also , other sources I have read, say we are entering a global trend so even if we did play some part in global warming, its moot now.. However I still dont believe we did...

Friday September 12, 2008, 1:35 pm
Cooling Trend, I mean...This chat program wont let you edit anything...bahhh

Friday September 12, 2008, 8:11 pm
"However, the United States is one of the lowest producing co2 emissions in the world"

WHAT???? Do get a reality check - this statement alone showes you have not a clue what you are talking about!!!


The data simply do not support a cooling trend - we have had ONE cold year - that does not make a trend!!!

Here are five of the most reliable temprature records - ALL five of these independently derived data sets show WARMING (look at the legend for the trends):

http://www.climate4you.com/images/AllCompared%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979.gif

Friday September 12, 2008, 10:16 pm
I think the old trend is passe' and soon the cooling will be obvious even to Warmists.

Friday September 12, 2008, 10:26 pm
"YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THEM AWAY AND SAY THIS LAST TIME WAS DIFFERENT WITH ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE and then have the nerve to feign anger at my refusal to go along with the scam."

I was describing historical facts that are common knowledge. Must I repeat them? OK:

"We were transitioning from the Little Ice Age, a natural phenomenon, in 1817. The described events of 1922 involved an early period of man-made global warming, because our civilization was already emitting greenhouse gases back then."

Now, what was I making up here, Judy? Are you saying there was no shifting from the Little Ice Age in 1817? Or are you saying there was no pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions, in 1922? Of course there was, in both cases.

Friday September 12, 2008, 10:29 pm
"I think the old trend is passe' and soon the cooling will be obvious even to Warmists."

That's funny! So even if we succeed in stopping global warming, you can say that our efforts were unnecessary just because we were approaching a natural cooling trend anyway! Clever.....and dishonest in the extreme!

Saturday September 13, 2008, 2:13 am

RE: The United States is one of the lowest producing co2 emissions in the world" Niue would be the lowest not The United States.


This is a list of sovereign states by carbon dioxide emissions due to human activity. Data were collected in 2004 by the CDIAC for United Nations. The data considers only carbon dioxide emissions via the burning of fossil fuels, not by deforestation or other sources.

These data have rapidly dated due to huge growth of emissions in Asia. Until recently the United States was the largest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions.[1] According to preliminary estimates China has been the top emitter since 2006.[2][3][4][5][6].

Some dependencies and territories whose independence has not been generally recognized are also included, as they are in source data.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions


This is a scary chart!

Saturday September 13, 2008, 2:22 am

My state is not cooling and won't be here in the United States. In fact this winter we are supose to get even more snow than last winter and it's supose to be warmer not cooler.

We normaly go into a deep freeze and we have not. We are just getting more rain and snow. That change alone is scary not to mention we had over 200 inches of snow last year and this year maybe even more! This also effected the farmers here as their crops failed due to the rain storms. They lost a lot of money.

If it keeps going into this direction and we are not going to be able to grow food due to storms cause by climate change how are humans goin to eat?

We are in no way cooling as we are supose to be. I speak from personal experience because climate change is effecting us already.

Sunday September 14, 2008, 1:19 pm

If Judy lived here in the USA she would see the real CONSPIRACY theory (Scam) thrown out by Bush & Co the Oil loving Republican party. However, since she lives in Canada, where the government openly admits there is human caused climate change, Judy is convinced that the Canadian government is part of a CONSPIRACY theory (Scam) when it isn't.

Please Judy, wake up. Instead of reposting what you have already posted 1000 times on Care2 you really need new evidence on your side, (and honest, accurate evidence from you would be nice for a change).

NASA clearly has real evidence of human caused climate change. Which has nothing to do with solar or earth activites.

Judy is somewhat correct in believing that there is a conspiracy involving global warming. However, its not the Canadian government that is perpetrating the conspiracy. It is the current administration of the United States. The Bush administration has clearly been conspiring to cover up any and all evidence of human caused global warming. There is a conspiracy, but instead of uncovering it, Judy is being duped by it because she lives in canada.


I'm 20 min away from the canadian border and I get canadian radio here where I live in the USA:) I also travel into canada and work with canadians as well.

ALL BLESS CANADA FOR TELLING THIER PEOPLE THE TRUTH!

Censoring science needs to be a felony crime. George Bush & Co are not scientists. They should be fined and put on trial for endangering humanity.


The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

http://www.care2.com/news/member/294559822/38165

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html

Tuesday September 16, 2008, 10:34 am

Sun Activity Does Correlate with Temperature

Numerous papers published in major peer-reviewed scientific journals shows the Sun is the primary driver of climate change. There is a very strong correlation between the Sun activity and temperature.

Early in the nineteenth century, William Herschel (1738-1822), discoverer of Uranus, found that five periods of low number of sunspots corresponded to high wheat prices when the temperatures were cold. (Cold climate reduces the supply of wheat causing its price to rise.) See here.

E. Friis-Christensen and K.Lassen have shown that the length of the mean 11 year Sunspot cycle correlates to the northern hemisphere temperature during the past 130 years. The length of the Sunspot cycle is known to vary with solar activity, whereas high solar activity implies short sunspot cycle length. See here for further information.

See here for an updated plot based on Friis-Christensen and Lassen's methodology.

Here is a correlation of the sunspot cycle length, global temperature and CO2 concentrations.
Sunspot Cycle Length Temperature and CO2
Sunspot cycle length with temperature and CO2









The red squares on the graph represent the sunspot cycle lengths. One point is the cycle length from the time of the maximum number of sunspots to the time of the maximum number of sunspots of the next cycle, and the following point is the cycle length from the time of the minimum number of sunspots to the time of the minimum number of sunspots of the next cycle. The sunspot cycles are back filtered using weighting 1,2,3,4 applied to each cycle point, both min to min and max to max. This assumes that the current cycle has the most effect on temperature (weight 4), and previous half cycles affect current temperatures in declining amounts, but future cycles have no effect on the current temperature. The temperature curve in blue used the HadCRUT3 land and sea data to 1978, the MSU satellite data from 1984 to 2006, and the average of the datasets for 1979 to 1983. This eliminates much of the urban heat island effects. The temperatures are unfiltered annual. The CO2 concentrations (ppmv) from 1958 to 2007 are derived from air samples collected at the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. CO2 concentrations prior to 1958 are uncertain.

Note that there is a correspondence between sunspot cycle length and temperature. Both the temperature and the cycle length curves begin to rise at 1910, and temperatures fall after 1945 to 1975 when the cycle length curve falls, and both curves rise again after 1975. Temperatures have been increasing since 1980 faster than can be explained by the sunspot cycle length, indicating a possible human CO2 contribution. The recent increase of the cycle lengths explains why there has been no warming since 2002. Temperature changes are expected to follow Sun activity changes due to a time lag resulting from the large heat capacity of the oceans.

N. Scafetta of Duke University, Durham, NC and B.J. West of the US Army Research Office, NC studied the solar impact on 400 years of the Northern Hemisphere temperatures since 1600. They find good correspondence between temperature and solar irradiance proxy reconstructions up until 1920 as shown on the graph below.

Northern Hemisphere Temperature vs Solar Irradiance 400 years

Scafett & West Sun vs Temp with MSU









The temperature curve is derived from proxy records to 1850 by Moberg et al. [2005], and from instrumental surface temperature data from 1850 to about 1980. The surface temperature record includes the urban heat island (UHI) and land use changes effects. The Northern Hemisphere MSU lower troposphere record is shown from 1979 in blue, which eliminates most of the UHI effects. Two different solar irradiance proxy reconstructions are shown: Lean, 2000; Wang et al., 2005. Both curves merge the ACRIM satellite data since 1980 with the proxy data. By assuming ACRIM, the solar activity has an increasing trend during the second half of the 20th century. This graph is modified from the version created by Scafetta and West, which uses the contaminated instrument record after 1979 instead of the satellite data. See the original version here.

Note the low solar activity periods occurring during the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715, the Little Ice Age) and during the Dalton Minimum (1795–1825).

Note the excellent correlation from 1600 to 1900 when humans were unlikely to effect climate. During the 20th century one continues to observe a significant correlation between the solar and temperature patterns: both records show an increase from 1900 to 1950, a decrease from 1950 to 1970, and again an increase from 1970 to 2000.

A divergence of the curves from the Scafetta and West original graph indicates that the Sun is responsible for 56% using Lean 2000, and 69% using Wang 2005, of the northern hemisphere warming from 1900 to 2005. The authors estimate the error at 20%.

There are two solar composites available from satellite data. The ACRIM is obtained directly from the satellite data, while the PMOD assumes that Nimbus7/ERB satellite data covering the ACRIM gap (1989–1992) are still significantly corrupted and require additional severe adjustments. The ACRIM data shows higher solar irradiance during solar cycle 22 - 23 than the PMOD data. Using the PMOD data and the original graph, the Sun likely has contributed 50% of the surface warming from 1900 to 2005.

The authors did a similar analysis using the Mann and Jones 2003 temperature reconstruction. This temperature history shows little variation before 1900 and shows a hockey stick shape. This reconstruction has been severely criticized for several reasons. See The IPCC Hockey Stick section of this essay. The authors found that the Mann and Jones 2003 reconstruction (when compared to the Lean 2000 data) results in an unphysical zero response time to solar forcing. The ocean's large heat capacity should result in a time lag of surface temperatures with respect to long time solar changes of several years, so this reconstruction cannot be correct.

The authors' analysis shows the Sun has contributed 50 to 69% of the surface warming depending on the reconstructions utilized. The remainder may be due to CO2, UHI and land use changes. The authors compare the Sun's irradiance to the Northern Hemisphere land surface temperatures, which are contaminated with the urban heat island effect. The global MSU satellite temperatures, which are not contaminated by the UHI effect, have increased by half as much as the North Hemisphere temperatures since 1980. If the Scafetta and West analysis used the uncontaminated satellite data since 1980, the results would show that the Sun has contributed at least 75% of the global warming of the last century. See more about the UHI effect later in this essay here. See here for the November 2007 article.

A group of NASA and university scientists have found convincing evidence of a link between the Sun activity and climate by comparing the records of the historical water level of the Nile River to the number of auroras observed in northern Europe and the Far East between 622 and 1470 AD. Auroras are bright glows in the night sky following solar flares, and are an excellent means of tracking solar activity. See this link for further information.

A study by WJR Alexander et al, published June 2007 compared hydrometeorological data to solar variability. The study looked at rainfall, river flow and flood data. The authors conclude that there is "an unequivocal synchronous linkage between these processes in South Africa and elsewhere, and solar activity." The study included an analysis of the level of Lake Victoria, which has been carefully monitored since 1896. In the early 1960s a dramatic rainfall increase significantly raised the lake level, and the level since then has been falling at about 29 mm per year. The decline has been removed from the data plotted below. The plot shows two periods of strong correlation between lake level and sunspot number, corresponding to periods of high levels of volcanic dust.

Lake Victoria Water Level and Sunspot Number
http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/Climate_Change_Science.html#Sun_Activity

Tuesday September 16, 2008, 4:30 pm
For a detailed discussion on the subject, see this resource...the sun/temprature correlation was very good up until the recent HUMAN CAUSED (to a significant degree) warming trend:

Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

Tuesday September 16, 2008, 6:12 pm
As usual, it is worthwhile to investigate where Judy is copying and pasting her info from. Surprisingly enough, its not from a "conspiracy theorist" website this time - its from a place even more unsavory.

Judy's post was a cut and paste from a webpage displaying information created by a group that calls itself "The Friends of Science".

Just do a google search on the first sentence:
"Numerous papers published in major peer-reviewed scientific journals shows the Sun is the primary driver of climate change"

It will bring you right to the page she got it from.

If you don't feel like doing the search yourself, here is the link:
http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/Climate_Change_Science.html/

The "Friends of Science" is a small group of mostly retired businessmen and academics in Canada that are dedicated to promoting doubt about climate change. They are funded, in a rather shady, round-about way, by the oil and gas companies. The oil companies that are extracting oil from the "tar sands" in Alberta seem to be their primary backers.

Here's a description of tortuous route the oil companies use to launder the funding they send to the "Friends of Science":
------
Funds do not come directly from industry donors but are instead solicited for the Calgary Foundation, a charitable funds administrator which maintains a policy of not disclosing the identity of donors. The donations are then passed on to the Science Education Fund, an account at the University of Calgary set up by Prof. Barry Cooper. In the final step, the Science Education Fund uses those funds to support the activities of the Friends of Science. Friends of Science does not publicly disclose details of their funding sources.
-----

A journalist did an investigative report on the group that produced a number of interesting facts. That report can be seen at this url:
http://www.charlesmontgomery.ca/mrcool.html

The article talks a lot about Prof Tim Ball, the head and chief spokesman of the group. Prof Ball is a 67-year-old former University of Winnipeg professor. Prof. Ball hasn't published on climate science in any peer-reviewed scientific journal in more than 14 years.


Here are a number of exerpts from the article:

------------------------------
Andrew Weaver is the Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, and a lead author of a chapter in the upcoming IPCC report. He gives a frustrated sigh at the mention of Tim Ball's cross-country tour.

"He says stuff that is just plain wrong. But when you are talking to crowds, when you are talking on TV, there is no challenge, there is no peer review," Prof. Weaver says.

Like other senior scientists, he charges that Prof. Ball's arguments are a grab bag of irrelevancies and falsehoods: "Ball says that our climate models do not [account for the warming effects of] water vapour. That's absurd. They all do."

Likewise, he says, Prof. Ball's claims that climate change could be explained by variations in the earth's orbit or by sunspots are discounted by widely available data.

Many of Prof. Ball's other arguments don't stand up to scrutiny. Consider the hockey-stick graph: He was right that the U.S. Academies of Science had delivered a review of climate science to Congress. But their report concluded that temperatures in the last 25 years really have been the highest in 400 years. Moreover, the panelists assured reporters that there was no evidence at all that the Mann team cherry-picked its data - completely contradicting what Prof. Ball told his audience in Comox.

"What Ball is doing is not about science," says Prof. Weaver. "It is about politics."
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Over the past four years, a coalition of oil-patch geologists, Tory insiders, anonymous donors and oil-industry PR professionals has come together to manufacture public consent for Canada's withdrawal from Kyoto. Through a Calgary-based society ironically dubbed the Friends of Science, they have leveraged Tim Ball and a handful of other "climate skeptics" onto podiums and editorial pages across the country.

While the federal government stalls, the skeptics preach doubt, softening the public for a diluted "Made-in-Canada" climate policy. Prof. Ball admits that when he meets with business leaders and politicians,he advises them to weigh the high price of action against more cost-effective "lip service."

These efforts may help delay emissions caps for years. Not bad for a campaign that began with a bitch session among a clutch of oil-patch retirees.
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Mr. Hoggan, [the head of a public-relations firm that is examining the connections between fossil-fuel companies, the climate skeptics, and the PR industry itself ], says he got involved simply because he was angry that his peers in PR were muddying public understanding of climate science. "For years there have been these kind of campaigns that are aimed at manipulating public opinion, and not necessarily manipulating it in the direction of good public policy, but trying to fight government regulations that will cost industry money.

"It happened with the tobacco industry. It happened with the chemical industry. It happened with the asbestos industry. And now it's happening with climate change," he says.

"It makes me extremely angry. I don't think that the people who are involved in this should be able to get away with it. My goal is to find out as much as we can about these people and make it public. Who are they? Who is paying them? What motivates them? How is it they can sleep at night?"
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The climax of the spring campaign, [of the Friends of Science], was an open letter to Mr. Harper, printed in the Financial Post and other CanWest chain newspapers on April 6. The letter, signed by "60 experts in climate and related scientific disciplines," exhorted the Prime Minister to hold public consultations on the government's climate-change plan.

Members of the climate and meteorological science establishment quickly noted that only a third of the names on the petition were Canadian. Many of them were economists and geologists, not climate experts. One of them, Gordon Swaters, a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Alberta, later said that he disagreed with the letter completely.

Several of the other signatories had received money from the oil, gas and coal industries in the U.S. - Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia, for example, was handed more than $100,000 for climate skeptic work by the coal-based Intermountain Rural Electric Association this July, according to the Associated Press.
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"These people are ignorant. Well-meaning, but just plain ignorant," fumed Ian Rutherford, executive director of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, which represents 800 Canadian atmospheric and oceanic scientists and professionals.

"The Friends of Science are driven by ideology and some kind of a misplaced understanding of how the world works. Many are what you would call paleogeologists. Looking at the geological record, they see evidence of wild swings in climate. Of course these swings are there: If you go back hundreds of millions of years, 40-million years, even 400,000 years, you will find wild swings in temperature over long periods of time. But that's irrelevant. There was hardly any life on earth, let alone human life, at that time. So their time scale is all out of whack.

"None of them ever come to our scientific conferences. They know they would be laughed out of the building. The stuff they say, some of it is so nonsensical it's hardly worth discussing."
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