An Inconvenient Truth

[kzucker]

Phone rings, it's my neighbor: "Have you seen an inconvenient truth?"
"Yes, every time I look at my big belly."

So we went.

I just want to encourage all my friends to go and see this film if you have half a chance.

[Cundiff]

Is this that Al Gore film?

[kzucker]

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

[Cundiff]

I'm afraid I can't load that site, it's so graphics intensive that my dial up just can't handle it.

So, is this that Al Gore um .... campaign film?


Hmmm, found the info on another site, and it is indeed his .... shall we say 'alarmist' campaign film.

See the following site and article:

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0506/0506fanhergw.htm

The article is titled:

Fanatics, Heretics and the Truth about Global Warming
By Tom DeWeese

[ I had some rather close contact with the Climate and Geology Dept. at ISU over the last 20+ years and they say the same thing, "Global Warming stuff is alot of alarmist politically driven hooey." Cundiff]

[kzucker]

Tom,

Go see the film. Those days are over.

[Cundiff]

There's no way i could watch a film by Al Gore and his supporters and believe it to be the truth. It would be like watching a film made by the Politburo and believing everything they have to say was the truth. Simply put, you know when Gore is lying because his mouth is moving. That's not to say that Bush and the conservatives are any better. But, to believe anything either camp has to say is the truth is ... misguided at best. I have yet to listen to a single responsible climatologist or geography/earth science individual who believes anything that these leftists has to say is the truth. The article I provided a link to almost exactly mirrors what most responsible individuals who have the guts to buck the liberal leftist "intelligentsia" believes to be the real truth. These leftists are pushing an agenda, and the truth has nothing to do with it.

[kzucker]

Tom,

I am not going to debate it with you, until you see the film.

[Cundiff]

It's a sad thing when reason and scientific research take a back seat to a movie produced to support the political agenda of Al Gore (and the Hillary for President campaign) and the ultra liberal leftists. There's simply nothing to be debated. Global Warming is bunk!

I won't be donating my hard earned money to Gore's propaganda campaign.

[kzucker]

Tom,

You can disagree with me as much as you want. However, I will delete any further ad hominem attacks. That is, a personal attack ("liberal", "leftist") upon the character of the man with whom you disagree. Usually, that is an indication of a weak position.

[Cundiff]

I can see that even denials of personal attacks are somehow to be labeled as personal attacks. Well, that is of course par for the course for individuals supporting false positions and junk science. I made NO personal attack upon YOU Kevin, as you well know.

[kzucker]

Tom,

Personal attacks are not permitted on this site, period.

[kzucker]

Sleepwalking to the end of the Earth

The Independent

Future historians, looking back from a much hotter and less hospitable world, are likely to pay special attention to the first few weeks of 2005. As they puzzle over how a whole generation could have sleepwalked into disaster - destroying the climate that has allowed human civilisation to flourish over the past 11,000 years - they may well identify the past weeks as the time when the last alarms sounded.

Last week, 200 of the world's leading climate scientists - meeting at Tony Blair's request at the Met Office's new headquarters at Exeter - issued the most urgent warning to date that dangerous climate change is taking place, and that time is running out.

Next week the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty that tries to control global warming, comes into force after a seven-year delay. But it is clear that the protocol does not go nearly far enough.

The alarms have been going off since the beginning of one of the warmest Januaries on record. First, Dr Rajendra Pachauri - chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - told a UN conference in Mauritius that the pollution which causes global warming has reached "dangerous" levels.

Then the biggest-ever study of climate change, based at Oxford University, reported that it could prove to be twice as catastrophic as the IPCC's worst predictions. And an international task force - also reporting to Tony Blair, and co-chaired by his close ally, Stephen Byers - concluded that we could reach "the point of no return" in a decade.

Finally, the UK head of Shell, Lord Oxburgh, took time out - just before his company reported record profits mainly achieved by selling oil, one of the main causes of the problem - to warn that unless governments take urgent action there "will be a disaster".

But it was last week at the Met Office's futuristic glass headquarters, incongruously set in a dreary industrial estate on the outskirts of Exeter, that it all came together. The conference had been called by the Prime Minister to advise him on how to "avoid dangerous climate change". He needed help in persuading the world to prioritise the issue this year during Britain's presidencies of the EU and the G8 group of economic powers.

The conference opened with the Secretary of State for the Environment, Margaret Beckett, warning that "a significant impact" from global warming "is already inevitable". It continued with presentations from top scientists and economists from every continent. These showed that some dangerous climate change was already taking place and that catastrophic events once thought highly improbable were now seen as likely (see panel). Avoiding the worst was technically simple and economically cheap, they said, provided that governments could be persuaded to take immediate action.

About halfway through I realised that I had been here before. In the summer of 1986 the world's leading nuclear experts gathered in Vienna for an inquest into the accident at Chernobyl. The head of the Russian delegation showed a film shot from a helicopter, and we suddenly found ourselves gazing down on the red-hot exposed reactor core.

It was all, of course, much less dramatic at Exeter. But as paper followed learned paper, once again a group of world authorities were staring at a crisis they had devoted their lives to trying to avoid.

I am willing to bet there were few in the room who did not sense their children or grandchildren standing invisibly at their shoulders. The conference formally concluded that climate change was "already occurring" and that "in many cases the risks are more serious than previously thought". But the cautious scientific language scarcely does justice to the sense of the meeting.

We learned that glaciers are shrinking around the world. Arctic sea ice has lost almost half its thickness in recent decades. Natural disasters are increasing rapidly around the world. Those caused by the weather - such as droughts, storms, and floods - are rising three times faster than those - such as earthquakes - that are not.

We learned that bird populations in the North Sea collapsed last year, after the sand eels on which they feed left its warmer waters - and how the number of scientific papers recording changes in ecosystems due to global warming has escalated from 14 to more than a thousand in five years.

Worse, leading scientists warned of catastrophic changes that once they had dismissed as "improbable". The meeting was particularly alarmed by powerful evidence, first reported in The Independent on Sunday last July, that the oceans are slowly turning acid, threatening all marine life (see panel).

Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, presented new evidence that the West Antarctic ice sheet is beginning to melt, threatening eventually to raise sea levels by 15ft: 90 per cent of the world's people live near current sea levels. Recalling that the IPCC's last report had called Antarctica "a slumbering giant", he said: "I would say that this is now an awakened giant."

Professor Mike Schlesinger, of the University of Illinois, reported that the shutdown of the Gulf Stream, once seen as a "low probability event", was now 45 per cent likely this century, and 70 per cent probable by 2200. If it comes sooner rather than later it will be catastrophic for Britain and northern Europe, giving us a climate like Labrador (which shares our latitude) even as the rest of the world heats up: if it comes later it could be beneficial, moderating the worst of the warming.

The experts at Exeter were virtually unanimous about the danger, mirroring the attitude of the climate science community as a whole: humanity is to blame. There were a few sceptics at Exeter, including Andrei Illarionov, an adviser to Russia's President Putin, who last year called the Kyoto Protocol "an interstate Auschwitz". But in truth it is much easier to find sceptics among media pundits in London or neo-cons in Washington than among climate scientists. Even the few contrarian climatalogists publish little research to support their views, concentrating on questioning the work of others.

Now a new scientific consensus is emerging - that the warming must be kept below an average increase of two degrees centigrade if catastrophe is to be avoided. This almost certainly involves keeping concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main cause of climate change, below 400 parts per million.

Unfortunately we are almost there, with concentrations exceeding 370ppm and rising, but experts at the conference concluded that we could go briefly above the danger level so long as we brought it down rapidly afterwards. They added that this would involve the world reducing emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 - and rich countries cutting theirs by 30 per cent by 2020.

Economists stressed there is little time for delay. If action is put off for a decade, it will need to be twice as radical; if it has to wait 20 years, it will cost between three and seven times as much.

The good news is that it can be done with existing technology, by cutting energy waste, expanding the use of renewable sources, growing trees and crops (which remove carbon dioxide from the air) to turn into fuel, capturing the gas before it is released from power stations, and - maybe - using more nuclear energy.

The better news is that it would not cost much: one estimate suggested the cost would be about 1 per cent of Europe's GNP spread over 20 years; another suggested it meant postponing an expected fivefold increase in world wealth by just two years. Many experts believe combatting global warming would increase prosperity, by bringing in new technologies.

The big question is whether governments will act. President Bush's opposition to international action remains the greatest obstacle. Tony Blair, by almost universal agreement, remains the leader with the best chance of persuading him to change his mind.

But so far the Prime Minister has been more influenced by the President than the other way round. He appears to be moving away from fighting for the pollution reductions needed in favour of agreeing on a vague pledge to bring in new technologies sometime in the future.

By then it will be too late. And our children and grandchildren will wonder - as we do in surveying, for example, the drift into the First World War - "how on earth could they be so blind?"

(continued in next message)

[kzucker]

WATER WARS

What could happen? Wars break out over diminishing water resources as populations grow and rains fail.

How would this come about? Over 25 per cent more people than at present are expected to live in countries where water is scarce in the future, and global warming will make it worse.

How likely is it? Former UN chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali has long said that the next Middle East war will be fought for water, not oil.

DISAPPEARING NATIONS

What could happen? Low-lying island such as the Maldives and Tuvalu - with highest points only a few feet above sea-level - will disappear off the face of the Earth.

How would this come about? As the world heats up, sea levels are rising, partly because glaciers are melting, and partly because the water in the oceans expands as it gets warmer.

How likely is it? Inevitable. Even if global warming stopped today, the seas would continue to rise for centuries. Some small islands have already sunk for ever. A year ago, Tuvalu was briefly submerged.

FLOODING

What could happen? London, New York, Tokyo, Bombay, many other cities and vast areas of countries from Britain to Bangladesh disappear under tens of feet of water, as the seas rise dramatically.

How would this come about? Ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica melt. The Greenland ice sheet would raise sea levels by more than 20ft, the West Antarctic ice sheet by another 15ft.

How likely is it? Scientists used to think it unlikely, but this year reported that the melting of both ice caps had begun. It will take hundreds of years, however, for the seas to rise that much.

UNINHABITABLE EARTH

What could happen? Global warming escalates to the point where the world's whole climate abruptly switches, turning it permanently into a much hotter and less hospitable planet.

How would this come about? A process involving "positive feedback" causes the warming to fuel itself, until it reaches a point that finally tips the climate pattern over.

How likely is it? Abrupt flips have happened in the prehistoric past. Scientists believe this is unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future, but increasingly they are refusing to rule it out.

RAINFOREST FIRES

What could happen? Famously wet tropical forests, such as those in the Amazon, go up in flames, destroying the world's richest wildlife habitats and releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide to speed global warming.

How would this come about? Britain's Met Office predicted in 1999 that much of the Amazon will dry out and die within 50 years, making it ready for sparks - from humans or lightning - to set it ablaze.

How likely is it? Very, if the predictions turn out to be right. Already there have been massive forest fires in Borneo and Amazonia, casting palls of highly polluting smoke over vast areas.

THE BIG FREEZE

What could happen? Britain and northern Europe get much colder because the Gulf Stream, which provides as much heat as the sun in winter, fails.

How would this come about? Melting polar ice sends fresh water into the North Atlantic. The less salty water fails to generate the underwater current which the Gulf Stream needs.

How likely is it? About

evens for a Gulf Steam failure this century, said scientists last week.

STARVATION

What could happen? Food production collapses in Africa, for example, as rainfall dries up and droughts increase. As farmland turns to desert, people flee in their millions in search of food.

How would this come about? Rainfall is expected to decrease by up to 60 per cent in winter and 30 per cent in summer in southern Africa this century. By some estimates, Zambia could lose almost all its farms.

How likely is it? Pretty likely unless the world tackles both global warming and Africa's decline. Scientists agree that droughts will increase in a warmer world.

ACID OCEANS

What could happen? The seas will gradually turn more and more acid. Coral reefs, shellfish and plankton, on which all life depends, will die off. Much of the life of the oceans will become extinct.

How would this come about? The oceans have absorbed half the carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, so far emitted by humanity. This forms dilute carbonic acid, which attacks corals and shells.

How likely is it? It is already starting. Scientists warn that the chemistry of the oceans is changing in ways unprecedented for 20 million years. Some predict that the world's coral reefs will die within 35 years.

DISEASE

What could happen? Malaria - which kills two million people worldwide every year - reaches Britain with foreign travellers, gets picked up by British mosquitos and becomes endemic in the warmer climate.

How would this come about? Four of our 40 mosquito species can carry the disease, and hundreds of travellers return with it annually. The insects breed faster, and feed more, in warmer temperatures.

How likely is it? A Department of Health study has suggested it may happen by 2050: the Environment Agency has mentioned 2020. Some experts say it is miraculous that it has not happened already.

HURRICANES

What could happen? Hurricanes, typhoons and violent storms proliferate, grow even fiercer, and hit new areas. Last September's repeated battering of Florida and the Caribbean may be just a foretaste of what is to come, say scientists.

How would this come about? The storms gather their energy from warm seas, and so, as oceans heat up, fiercer ones occur and threaten areas where at present the seas are too cool for such weather.

How likely is it? Scientists are divided over whether storms will get more frequent and whether the process has already begun.

[Cundiff]

Here’s some real information about Global Warming. Check out http://www.junkscience.com/

This site provides much information debunking the myths of Global Warming and a host of other bad science that abounds these days in Democrat circles.

Here’s a report that specifically debunks the “Greatest Temperature Rise in 2000 Years” theory.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=062806F

The host of evidence that is “cooked” regarding Global Warming has a purpose and that’s to mobilize frightened masses of people to elect a certain segment of the Democrat party to power. That these individuals resort to such lies greatly describes their sense of morals. Instead of voting for them, you should avoid them like the plague (which no doubt in their eyes was caused by conservatives).

[Cundiff]

And, Kevin, there's NOT a personal attack anywhere in that post!

Further, the terms "liberal" and "leftist" are words describing a section of the political spectrum. They are not NAMES used to insult anyone. In fact to hear Howard Dean, these are terms that Democrats are supposed to embrace. According to him this section of the Democrat party is the one that has brought them so much success that they should be hailed as the heart of the party and for that alone, the terms liberal and leftist should be celebrated! He says that Democrats that take offense at these terms are really turning against their own. And THAT he denounces. So, for future reference the terms Democrat, Liberal, and Leftist are NOT name calling or insults, they are terms describing the "heart of the democrat party", according to the Democrats and Liberals. There is NOTHING in the use of these terms that you or anyone else should take offense to or accept as being insulting. They are no more insulting than the word "truck" is in describing ... well, a truck!

[Jason Roach]

I am actually on the conservative bent, but Global Warming is now fact.

Debating it, is sort of like trying to still debate that smoking does not contribute to lung cancer.

Anyway, this is not the place for that type of thing. That can be saved for Consim's folder.

Hope Nappy at the Crossroads is going well.


-Jason

[Cundiff]

Jason,

Nothing could be further from the truth. Global Warming is a MYTH, created by the liberal left to further their own goals. The data is cooked and is based upon information that is less than 150 years old, a mere instant in the life of this planet. When I was in grade school back in the 60's it was a popular "certainty" that we were going to experience a "New Global Ice Age" and that "Oil Would Run Out in 20 Years" and the legion of other foolish ideas espoused by liberals would number more than the sands of time. Yet, NONE of them have come true so far. Their purpose is to instill mass hysteria and thereby mobilize voters for their own nefarious and cynical reasons.

Did you bother to visit and read any of the information provided by the links I listed? The truth that Global Warming is a false concept is everywhere to be found if one only looks for it instead of uncritically believing the words of Dean/Kerry supporters.

[Jason Roach]

Tom,

Yes, and that National Academy of Sciences report that the author notes does concluded that Global warming is occurring. That report was initiated by our Republican controlled Congress, late last year. I think Joe Barton (R-Texas), was one of the main men behind the report request.

I think the facts seem rather clear and it would take a lot more than one article from some guy at the University of Alabama Huntsville for me to think otherwise.


-Jason

[Cundiff]

Read the story at this url

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0506/0506fanhergw.htm

and you will see that the REAL Inconvenient facts are more than clear. You've been snowed. There's no truth to Global Warming at all, except that behind the political reasons for creating a hysteria behind which political support can be built to oust the conservatives.

But, in case others haven't bothered to read the article I'll try to post it here:

Fanatics, heretics and the truth about global warming
By Tom DeWeese
web posted May 22, 2006

"Oceans lash our coasts. Deserts Burn. The sky provides no shelter. Turmoil of Biblical proportions threatens not just our weather but life itself. global warming is upon us."

Those words aren't from the preview trailer of the silly, overblown, over dramatic film, "Day After Tomorrow" that invaded movie theaters a few years ago. And they aren't just carefully selected "scare" words developed from a sweep through a thesaurus. These are the opening words to yet another hysterical diatribe passing as news these days on the subject of global warming. This particularly silly one greeted readers of a recent issue of Playboy. The article was, of course, accompanied by the obligatory pictures of smokes stacks belching over a city and the melting of ice burgs.

You hear it everywhere. global warming is a fact. It is here. It is now unstoppable. The Polar Ice Cap is melting. Polar Bears are endangered. Greenland is actually turning green! Hurricanes are blowing with more force. Tornadoes are growing in numbers. Water levels are increasing, threatening to flood New York City. Human existence is threatened. And, of course, the deserts are starting to burn. We are assured that scientists are in near total agreement with the assessment.

The media is in a frenzy, rushing to report the latest news release from special interest groups with the latest report or prediction. Al Gore is rushing his hi tech docudrama to the theaters to whip up more frenzy. Corporations are being forced to turn "green" to show their "corporate social responsibility" in the wake of the coming disaster.

Global warming has become a euphemism for a political agenda. There is Socialism, Capitalism and global warmingism. It has become a religion run by fanatics reminiscent of the leaders of the darkest days of the Inquisition that nearly destroyed civil society only a few hundred years ago. We are not to question the great god of global warming. Those who do are separated from civil society and labeled as heretics.

So how can anyone question the decrees handed down from the Ivory Towers to the unwashed masses? Answer: every religion has its heretics.

The simple truth is there is no scientific consensus on global warming. In fact, as the media frenzy screams global warming, there are a growing number of scientists who are expressing their doubts.

In 1992, just prior to the UN's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 425 scientists and other intellectual leaders signed The Heidelberg Appeal, a quiet call for reason in dealing with the climate change issue. Neither a statement or corporate interests, nor a denial of environmental problems, the Heidelberg Appeal expresses a conviction that modern society is the best equipped in human history to solve the world's ills, provided that they do not sacrifice science, intellectual honesty and common sense to political opportunism and irrational fears. Today, the Heidelberg Appeal has been signed by more than 4,000 scientists and leaders from 100 countries, including more than 70 Nobel Prize winners.

Also in 1992, another statement from some 47 atmospheric scientists was issued saying "such policies (greenhouse global warming theories) derive from highly uncertain scientific theories. The statement cited a survey of atmospheric scientists, conducted in the summer of 1991, "confirms that there is no consensus about the cause of the slight warming observed during the past century." The statement went on to say, "We are disturbed that activists, anxious to stop energy and economic growth, are pushing ahead with drastic policies without taking notice of recent changes in the underlying science."

In 1995, over 85 scientists and climate experts from research labs and universities worldwide, signed the Leipzig Declaration in answer to the International Symposium on the Greenhouse Controversy, held in Leipzig, Germany that year. In part, the Declaration says; "In a world in which poverty is the greatest social pollutant, any restriction on energy use that inhibits economic growth should be viewed with caution. For these reasons, we consider ‘carbon taxes' and other drastic control policies – lacking credible support from the underlying science – to be ill-advised, premature, wrought with economic danger, and likely to be counterproductive."

[Cundiff]

The article continues:

In 1997, a Gallop Poll of eminent North American climatologists shows that 83% did not support the claims of the green house theory of global warming.

In 1998, The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) issued a petition for signature by atmospheric scientists saying there is no scientific evidence indicating that greenhouse gases cause global warming. That petition was signed by more than 17,000 scientists and leaders involved in the issue.

Global warming scaremongers have tried to discredit these statements from the opposition, saying either they are too old to be counted in today's debate or that they weren't signed by real scientists. Neither is true. One only has to look at the signers on the documents and statements to know who and what they are. The relevance of the documents can be answered in two ways. First, most of the signers of these documents from the 1990's hold the same positions today. Second, as is the fallacy in the global warming debate, such drastic climate changes, as described in the scaremongers diatribes, would not come about overnight. Though the proponents would have you believe otherwise, 15 years is but a microsecond in the study of the earth's activities.

However, there is great question about the validity of the documents promoted by the global warming crowd. There is strong, documented evidence to show they care little about sound science and facts and much more about their political agenda.

For example, in May of 1996, unannounced and possibly unauthorized changes to the United Nation's report on climate change touched off a firestorm of controversy within the scientific community. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the science group that advises the United Nations on the global warming issue, presented a draft of its report in December 1995, and it was approved by the delegations. However, when the printed report appeared in May 1996, it was discovered that substantial changes and deletions had been made to the body of the report to make it conform to the Policymakers Summery. Specifically, two key paragraphs written by the scientists were deleted. They said:

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 had positively attributed all or part of the climate change to …man-made causes."

That was not the last time data has been manipulated by the IPCC to fit its political agenda. In 2005, a federal hurricane research scientist named Chris Landsea resigned from the UN-sponsored IPCC climate assessment team because his group's leader had politicized the process. Landsea said in his resignation letter, "It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity had been due to global warming." He went onto say, "I personally cannot in good faith contribute to a process that I view as being both motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound."

In 2006, the voices of reason are speaking out louder than ever. Professor Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, says the global warming theory is neither environmental or scientific, but rather, "a self-created political fiasco." Carter explains that "Climate changes occur naturally all the time, partly in predicable cycles and partly in unpredictable cycles."

Meanwhile, more than 60 leading international climate change experts have gone on record to urge Canada's new Prime Minster to carefully review global warming policies, warning that ‘"Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause."

In April, 2006, using temperature readings from the past 100 years, 1,000 computer simulations and the evidence left in ancient tree rings, Duke University scientists announced that "the magnitude of future global warming will likely fall well short of current highest predictions." The study was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. Gabriele Hegerl of Duke's Nicholas Schools of the Environment and Earth Sciences said her study discounts dire predictions of skyrocketing temperatures.

In 2004 the Heartland Institute published a report by Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Lindzen reported that global warming is unlikely to be a dangerous future problem, with or without the implementation of such programs as the Kyoto Protocol. Lindzen, a member of the IPCC and one of the world's leading climatologists, said that alarmist media claims to the contrary are fueled more by politics than by science.

Said Dr. Lindzen, "With respect to science, consensus is often simply a sop to scientific illiteracy. After all, if what you are told is alleged to be supported by all scientists, then why do you have to bother to understand it? You can simply go back to treating it as a matter of religious belief, and you never have to defend this belief except to claim that you are supported by all scientists except for a handful of corrupted heretics."

So why, if scientists are researching the issue and if there is no consensus that global warming is a reality, is this voice not being heard? Why is a near panic building in the news media, on Capitol Hill and in research labs across the nation and in the international community?

[Cundiff]

Answer: fear and money.

Simply put, scientists know where the grants will come from to pay their salaries. Dr. Patrick Michaels, a leading opponent to the global warming scaremongers, calls it the federal/science paradigm. He describes it this way: Tax $ = Grants = Positive Feedback Loop to Get more Grants.

Says Dr. Michaels, "What worker bee scientist is going to write a proposal saying that global warming is exaggerated and he doesn't need the money? Certainly no one wanting advancement in the agency! There is no alternative to this process when paradigms compete with each other for finite funding." The only ones who can openly oppose the party line of the day are those who don't need the grants or who have some other source of funding. There aren't many.

The money is in global warming because it's being pushed by a political agenda that wants power. Power in Washington. Power on the international stage. Power over economic development. Power over international monetary decisions. Power over energy. In short, power over the motor of the world. It's driven by literally thousands of large and small non-governmental organizations (NGOs) sanctioned by the United Nations, and implemented by a horde of bureaucrats, university academics and an ignorant but pliable news media.

Case in point. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) used to publish the journal Science. Since 2000, it has published roughly 75 commentaries which have supported the idea that global warming is a serious problem requiring massive solutions. Now, the AAAS acts as a massive lobbying operation pushing this agenda. Taxpayers have now provided $20 billion into the scientific community for global warming work.

Moreover, Science and its British counterpart Nature won't publish articles to the contrary of the agenda. If a scientist wants the prestige of being published, then he must carry the global warming banner.

According to Dr. Michaels, this is how it works: "They take a little truth and distort it or study it into a lot of revenue for them. Them = Academia + Environmental non governmental organizations + private scientific fields + Government + all the associated public and private organizations supporting this shell."

Concludes Dr. Michaels in his landmark book, Meltdown, "This junk science works for the fish movement, smart growth, sustaining development, rapid transit, wet lands, critical areas, water rights, property rights, fossil fuels, logging, justifying huge government and environmental land wildlife corridor buy ups with public money, changing regulatory laws, changing high court opinions, escalating enforcement codes, on and on." It's all thrown into the offering plate as the taxpayer sits in the pew of the Church of global warming.

Federal spending on climate research has ballooned since the early 1990's from a few hundred million dollars to $1.7 billion today. As Dr. Michaels points out, scientists who don't toe the party line don't share in that bounty.

Blasphemy or not, here's the truth about global warming.

As reported by Dr. Lindzen, "The global mean temperature is never constant, and it has no choice but to increase or decrease – both of which it does on all known time scales. That this quantity has increased about 0.6 degrees C (or about 1 degree F) over the past century is likely. A relevant question is whether this is anything to worry about."

Professor Bob Carter says the pubic has been brainwashed by politicians and bureaucrats into believing world industrialization has created "climate change" that will lead to widespread disaster. However, he shows that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940 before industrialization really began, followed by a cooling between 1940 and 1965, a period during which human-caused emissions were accelerating.

In fact, looking deeper into history reveals that global warming and cooling are simply a regular occurrence. According to Robert Essenhigh, Professor of energy conservation at Ohio State University, the ice sheets at the poles have been melting since the early 1900's and the Earth's warming had begun about the middle 1600s.

That warming trend followed a 300 – 400 year cooling period, commonly known as the Little Ice Age, which came after the much hotter Medieval Warm Period, running roughly A.D.900 to 1300. During that period, the Vikings had two settlements on the west coast of Greenland. The settlements vanished with the onset of the Little Ice Age. This is the same area global warming scare mongers are panicked over because some grass is now growing there. In fact, history shows such growth is nothing new.

We are told, however that man-made carbon dioxide is the source of the global warming problem. As Professor Essenhigh asks, "what has carbon dioxide to do with this"?

He explains, "the two principled thermal-absorbing and thermal-emitting compounds in the atmosphere are water and carbon dioxide. However – and this point is continually missed – the ratio of water to carbon dioxide is something like 30-to-1 as an average value. At the top it is something like 100-to-1. This means that the carbon dioxide is simply ‘noise' in the water concentration, and anything carbon dioxide could do, water has already done." "So," he asks, "if the carbon dioxide is increasing, is it the carbon dioxide driving the temperature or is the rising temperature driving up the carbon dioxide"? In other words, the carbon dioxide issue is irrelevant to the debate over global warming.

[Cundiff]

To conclude:

But what about all of those storms? We can see the weather changing before our eyes, we're told. We are experiencing death, destruction, plagues, extinction, biblical catastrophes at alarming rates. Any fool can see… Those reports simply show how effective the propaganda machine has been.

The truth about the hurricanes is that during the past 35 years, the average number of "significant" tropical cyclones in the southern regions, including the Pacific Ocean and the Southern Indian Ocean, is about 28.5 storms per year. The breakdown by decade is: 1970s – 32.9; 1980s- 27.8; 1990s – 29.1; and the 2000s, so far – 25.0 It is interesting to note that so far in the 2000s the numbers are actually below average. Even if one calculates just the last ten years it only amounts to 28.5 – well within the average.

The fact is, researchers are now looking into Hurricane Katrina to determine its true strength. It is currently listed as a category 4 storm. But will probably be downgraded to a category 3. It is important to remember that the disaster of New Orleans was a result of bad government not taking care of the levies. There was relatively little actual hurricane damage.

Ice is melting on the edge of the caps because it always melts in the summer. But research shows that the core of the ice is actually thicker than ever. And the burning deserts? Well, that's what deserts do, isn't it?

It's easy to distort the facts when you start from the premise that global warming is a fact and then one must only gather details to support the premise. It's easy to find film footage of natural occurrences like melting ice and beached whales and then put your own caption on it -- especially when you are armed with millions of dollars in grant money and an impressive title to go with it. A published report in a prestigious magazine accompanied by a news story in a major news paper will lead to speeches in front of a gathering of ones peers and on to a book deal. It's good to go along to get along.

So look out this summer. The global warming machine will be in full charge mode as Al Gore invades theaters with his new documentary entitled "An Inconvenient Truth." The primal panic will reach a deafening scream, sure to drown out the voice of reason and truth. The one that says there is no global warming!

Tom DeWeese is president of the American Policy Center and editor of the DeWeese Report. He can be reached at apcmail@americanpolicy.org.

[Cundiff]

So, as you should be able to clearly see, there is a very real purpose behind all the doom and gloom misinformaton and outright lies about this Global Warming stuff. It doesn't exist, but they sure WANT YOU TO BELIEVE it is true.

[kzucker]

Tom,

When you call someone a liar, that is a personal attack. You have been warned about that, so now you are permanently banned from this discussion board.

I am leaving your last posts unedited for all to read.

[kzucker]

The "American Policy Center" cited in above posts, is funded by Exxon/Mobil.

see http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php

[Jason Roach]

Tom,

You need better materail.

The Liepzig Declreation has been de-bunked as garbage for a long time. Some of the "signers" have never heard of it, others had fales backgrounds, and a couple others had been paid by interest groups; it was a mess and caused a lot of embaresment to those public officials who cited it. Gosh, the statement itself was written by Singer who is a known corporate convorter himself.

The Heidelberg Appeal makes no mention whatsoever of global warming. In fact, the majority of the 70+ Nobel laureates who signed it would go on to sign (along with some 1,700 other leading scientists) the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity which specificlally address global climate change, air pollution, deforestation etc…

Look, I would be the first to stand up and say that the news media has a liberal bias and that the "Far Left" leads the Democrats by the nose far too often, but Global Warming is fact.

-Jason

[Jim Anderson]

My only concern reference the Global Warming theory is that every time I see someone try to "prove" it, they use computer models. Computers can be programed to give you any answer you like (ie. 2 + 2 = 3). The syndrom is known as Garbage In - Garbage Out.

I am not convinced we have enough observable data to populate our computer model yet. 120 years of scientific weather data is simply not sufficient to determine climatic changes that are centuries in cycles.

Until we can really observe more of this stuff, I think we have way too much alarmist propaganda, FROM BOTH SIDES. Reason debate is impossible under these circumstances.

Jim

[sbconstant]

I'd like to think that we will do something about this issue (it already is affecting the poles and many non-human species) and err on the side of caution and probability. As is readily observed from history though, and as pointed out in the movie, people tend not to do much of anything until an absolutely confirming disaster strikes.

Steve

[kzucker]

Jim,

You write

"way too much alarmist propaganda"

The word "alarmist" suggests the sense of false and misleading.

If you have some specifics in mind that are deliberately misleading and known to be false, then cite them here. Reasoned debate is possible with facts. Such as: 10 of the last 15 years have been the hottest on record.

You cite "120 years of data" but lots more is known by studying ice which provides information such as CO2 concentrations in its strata.

I encourage you to go see the movie, and take notes.

[kzucker]

In addition to recommending the movie, I'd also like to recommend the following website as a very good starting place for more information about Global Warming.

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/home.cfm

[kzucker]

I just read in "The New Yorker" that the Wikipedia entry is considered to be the best single source on the subject of Global Warming.

Also recommended on the issue of CO2 http://www.manicore.com/

[gusi]

We had Dr David Suzuki travel through Perth a few months ago. He recommended:

http://desmogblog.com/

[kzucker]

http://www.northsoutheastwest.org/contributors/dr-david-suzuki/

[kzucker]

News reports stated that the summer melt-off of arctic ice was the greatest in recorded history, greater than the 2002 melt-off by an area of Texas and California. The remaining ice measured 1.59 million square miles. This may be irreversible given current trends. It was suggested that by 2030 there might be no icepack in summer.

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hyaML7kegwyNy22rcigOlkhHP6_w

Re-freeze begins in Arctic seas
1 day ago

Arctic sea ice may have started rebuilding after reaching a record low, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre.

Arctic ice now covers 1.61 million square miles, the agency said, up from 1.59 million on September 16, which appears to have been the minimum.

Some variability could still occur, however, the agency cautioned.

The previous record low for Arctic sea ice was 2.1 million square miles set on September 20-21, 2005, and the average low at the end of a summer melt is 2.6 million square miles.

The Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans along the coasts of Canada and Alaska remains open but is starting to re-freeze, the centre said.

The Northeast Passage along the coast of Siberia is closed by ice, according to the research cooperative.

[Robert Hinson]

Kevin,

This is an issue I can tell you feel very strong about, and you may be correct. In my mind the important point is "in recorded history". What does that mean? The last 2.5k years? The last 150 years that we have records in North America? What is our frame of referance?

Bob Hinson

[kzucker]

Hi Bob,

Call me crazy, but I have a strong attachment to the continuation of human life on earth. I would like to leave this earth knowing that the place will be inhabitable for future generations.

The term "recorded" refers to data on the size of the Arctic ice mass. You know that we now have satellite photos updated regularly. Before that we had aircraft overflights, and before that shipborne observations. Losses began to be noted in the 1970s.

I am no scientist, but I have read there is a way of estimating the age of the ice by analysing the Co2 trapped within.

[kzucker]

The Nobel committee has spoken out forcefully on Global Warming.