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Hermit
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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #45 on: 2006-08-26 22:28:58 »
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Animals and plants 'prove' that spring arrives earlier every year

[Hermit: A little more detail related to the previous post.]

Source: The Independent
Authors: Jonathan Brown
Dated: 2006-08-26

Scientists claim to have produced the first conclusive proof that spring is arriving earlier as a result of global warming.

In Britain trees are coming into leaf 10 days earlier than they did 30 years ago while in countries with more pronounced warming, such as Spain, they are doing so by a fortnight. On average spring has advanced by between six and eight days across Europe.

According to the study, the biggest of its kind, the extended growing season has resulted in autumn being delayed by three days.


Tim Sparks, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, one of the report's authors, said the findings were based on the most extensive data available.

He said in the past climate change sceptics were able to cast doubt on studies that suggested the timing of the seasons was changing with accusations that scientists were "cherry-picking" data that supported the global warming theory. But after using 125,000 sets of observations of 542 plant and 19 animal species in 21 countries, he said the evidence was now incontrovertible.

"Not only do we clearly demonstrate change in the timing of the seasons, but that change is much stronger in countries that have experienced more warming," he said.

Spain, which is growing hotter more quickly than any other European country, has experienced the most pronounced change, the report found.


Countries to the east and north are warming relatively slowly and had changed the least. In Slovakia, spring was arriving only three days earlier.

Dr Sparks said that the study was particularly effective because it used species that grow across all countries in Europe. Scientists examined the date that beech trees (fagus sylvatica) and wild cherries (prunus avium) came into leaf to measure the changes, giving a consistent picture of the effect of warming, the authors said.

Annette Menzel, of the Technical University Munich, who co-wrote the study, said the findings had profound implications. "Unlike some studies that record individual species, this is the first comprehensive examination of all available data at the continental scale, and the timing of change is clear, very clear," she said.

Temperatures have increased by 0.6C in the past 100 years, with the 1990s the hottest decade on record. Some models predict that by the end of the century, the Earth could be 5C warmer.


As well as changes in the timing of natural events, such as the leafing of trees, the arrival of migrating birds and the spawning of frogs, scientists point to other indicators of warming in Europe.

Spain and other southern European countries have been hit by severe drought and forest fires, while in the centre of the Continent, Alpine glaciers have been retreating. In Britain, the warmest days of the year are getting hotter while there are fewer very cold days in winter.

Dr Sparks said the level of global warming to date was "only modest", and that greater challenges lay on the horizon.

"The rate of change is extraordinary. The real concern is what's going to happen in the coming century, when temperatures are going to continue to rise. We can't stop it but we can slow it down."

Biologists in the UK, with the assistance of a mounting body of data supplied by the public, have been building up evidence over 30 years to suggest that spring is coming earlier.

Spotting the changing seasons has become a ritual for millions of amateur phenologists, not least through mass-participation events such as the BBC's Springwatch series, presented by Bill Oddie.

One of the key developments came in 1998 with the creation of the UK Phenology Network, run by the Woodland Trust and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. It has found that birds are arriving 3.7 days earlier than they did in the benchmark year 2001, while nesting is now taking place on average eight days earlier. There are also growing numbers of reports of over-wintering house martins and swallows, birds that normally migrate south to Africa for the winter.

The insect world has been found to be particularly sensitive to temperature changes, with some species being spotted progressively two weeks earlier.

Frogspawn and toadspawn is one of the most easily identifiable signs of spring. The earliest recorded sighting was in Pembrokeshire in November 2004, while phenologists regularly see it at the Lizard in Cornwall in December.

It is estimated that the breeding cycle of amphibians is now on average eight days earlier than it was five years ago.

Temperatures in March and April remain critical for the timing of spring. In 2004 - the fourth hottest year on record - January and February were warmer than the same months in the previous year. However, because March and April were cooler, the key natural events that indicate the arrival of spring were later. Meanwhile, phenologists are now keen to build up a picture of autumnal changes, for which there is only 10 per cent of the data that exists for spring.

Seasonally adjusted
  • Butterflies: For every 1C temperature rise, the ringlet (aphantopus hyperantus) has been seen a week earlier. The comma (polygonia c-album) and holly blue (celastrina argiolus) have been spotted in March
  • Birds: The chiffchaff (phylloscopus collybita) and blackcap (sylvia atricapilla) are arriving in Britain earlier. Migratory birds now arrive 3.7 days earlier than in 2001.
  • Red-tailed bumblebee: The bombus lapidarius can be found in gardens and grasslands from the first warm days of spring - from March in the South, later in the North.
  • Amphibians: Frog and toadspawn was reported in Pembrokeshire in November 2004 and seen in Cornwall in December.
  • Snowdrops (galanthus) and lesser celandines (ranunculus ficaria): Have been spotted flowering before Christmas in the South-west.
  • Seven-spot ladybird: Coccinella 7-punctata can be found in gardens, woodlands and hedgerows from February.

« Last Edit: 2006-08-26 22:32:44 by Hermit » Report to moderator   Logged

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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #46 on: 2006-08-26 22:50:16 »
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Air conditioning for Eskimos as the Arctic warms up

Climate change melts ice, enables broccoli to be grown in Greenland, and brings wildlife for which the locals have no native names

Source: The Independent
Authors: Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Dated: 2006-08-27

Selling ice-cream to Eskimos used to be the definition of a tough sales pitch - but now it has been put in the shade. For as the world heats up, the Inuit are scrambling to install air conditioning, and electricity prices north of Quebec have been slashed specially to enable them to do so.

The new need to chill out in the Arctic is just one of the bewildering changes being forced on one of the world's last remaining hunting peoples. Their snowmobiles have been falling through the melting ice, and the Inuit are finding themselves lost for words as new species for which they have no names in their language appear. And, in places, they have had to dig wells, as they can no longer rely on snows for water.

Temperatures in the Arctic have been rising twice as quickly as in the world as a whole. Sea ice has shrunk by a quarter in area and a half in thickness since 1978, and its decline is now accelerating. Last May and June a heatwave sent temperatures soaring into the low 30s Celsius in the 2,000-strong village of Kuujjuaq, 2,500km north of Montreal, which has just installed 10 air conditioners to cool 25 office workers. "It is getting pretty hot here, even though we are in the far north," said its mayor, Larry Watts. "When I was growing up, I did not notice these kinds of temperatures."

And this followed a winter in which the Inuit of Pangnirtung, Baffin Island - right on the Arctic Circle - basked in February temperatures of 9C, when they should be -30C. "We were just standing around in our shorts, stunned and amazed, trying to make sense of it," said villager Donald Mearns.


Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, said: "The far north now has to have air conditioners to function." The Inuit's buildings - originally constructed "airtight for the cold" - are now turning into heat traps.

Hydro Quebec, the province's electricity utility, has drastically cut its prices as a result. They used to be set very high at a "dissuasive rate" to stop people from using electricity to heat their homes as it has to be generated from expensive diesel in the far north. But now they have lowered them for air conditioning in schools, hospitals and offices.

Farmers in Greenland are beginning to grow broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage. Salmon are also appearing in Inuit waters but the people have no name for them - or for such other newcomers as the barn owls, hornets and robins - in their language, though they have more than 1,000 words for reindeer.

In Chukotka, northern Russia, Inuit have drilled wells for water because there is too little snow to melt, and everywhere the people are finding it hard to hunt as their traditional prey disappear. Metuq, a hunter and fisherman from Baffin Island, whose fishing shack fell through unexpectedly melting ice last February, said: "The world is slowly disintegrating."


And Simon Kohlmeister, a hunter from Labrador who lost his snowmobile in the same way, added: "Some day we won't have any snow. We will no longer be Eskimos."
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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #47 on: 2006-09-02 03:14:58 »
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Cities in peril as Andean glaciers melt

Ice sheets expected to last centuries could disappear in 25 years, threatening water supplies

Source: The Guardian
Authors: John Vidal
Dated] 2006-08-26

[b]View from the top ...


[ Two images of the Upsala glacier in Argentina show the retreat of the ice (top: 1928; bottom: 2004). Photograph: Greenpeace/Reuters ]

Andean glaciers are melting so fast that some are expected to disappear within 15-25 years, denying major cities water supplies and putting populations and food supplies at risk in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia.

The Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia, the source of fresh water for the cities of La Paz and El Alto, is expected to completely melt within 15 years if present trends continue. Mount Huascarán, Peru's most famous mountain, has lost 1,280 hectares (3,163 acres) of ice, around 40% of the area it covered only 30 years ago. The O'Higgins glacier in Chile has shrunk by nine miles in 100 years and Argentina's Upsala glacier is losing 14 metres (46ft) a year.
Although a few glaciers in southern Patagonia are increasing in size, almost all near the tropics are in rapid retreat. Some glaciers in Colombia are now less than 20% of the mass recorded in 1850 and Ecuador could lose half its most important glaciers within 20 years.

The rate of glacier retreat has shocked scientists, says a report on the effects of global warming in Latin America by 20 UK-based environment and development groups who have drawn on national scientific assessments. Their study says climate change is accelerating the deglaciation phenomenon.
"The speeding up of the ... process is a catastrophic danger," says Carmen Felipe, president of Peru's water management institute. In the short term, the president says, it could cause overflows of reservoirs and trigger mudslides, and in the longer term cut water supplies.

According to the Colombian institute of hydrology, back in 1983 the five major glaciers in El Cocuy national park were expected to last at least 300 years, but measurements taken last year suggest that they may all disappear within 25 years. Meanwhile, the ice sheet on the Ecuadorean volcano Cotopaxi and its glacier has shrunk by 30% since 1976.
"The [drastic melt] forces people to farm at higher altitudes to grow their crops, adding to deforestation, which in turn undermines water sources and leads to soil erosion and putting the survival of Andean cultures at risk," says the report by the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, which includes the International Institute for Environment and Development, Christian Aid, Cafod, WWF, Greenpeace and Progressio.

Their report, Up in Smoke, says snow and rainfall patterns in South America and the Caribbean are becoming less predictable and more extreme. "East of the Andes, rainfall has been increasing since about 1970, accompanied by more destructive, sudden deluges. Meanwhile, the last two hurricane seasons in the Caribbean rim have caused $12bn (Ł6.3bn) damage to countries other than the US. Tropical storms are expected to become more destructive as climate change intensifies. Climate change models predict more rainfall in eastern South America and less in central and southern Chile with a likelihood of greater and opposite extremes. The 2005 drought in the Amazon basin was probably the worst since records began."

Rises in sea level are expected to be especially severe in the region over the next 50 years, with 60 of Latin America's 77 largest cities located on the coast. The first hurricanes have recently hit south of the equator line in Brazil. "The net effect ... is to reduce the capacity of natural ecosystems to act as buffers against extreme weather."

"What we are seeing are many more negative and cumulative impacts. The larger the rate of [climate] change, the more the adverse effects predominate. Climate change is set to turn an already rough ride into an impossible one," says the report, which adds that the impact of climate change is "hugely" magnified by existing environmental abuse.

It proposes that Latin American governments do not repeat the mistakes made by past and present North American and European governments. Several countries in the region are proposing a new generation of mega dams which would displace thousands more people and destroy vast areas of the Brazilian Amazon. The new importance of soya, both as a food and biofuel crop, could also devastate the environment, leading to a battle for land between companies.

Large-scale coal, oil, and copper mining not only threaten fragile environments, says the report, but in some cases can physically endanger remaining glaciers and greatly increase climate changing emissions. "The Pascua Lama project on the borders of Chile and Argentina intends to move three glaciers that cover gold, silver and copper deposits. The glaciers sustain the mountain and valley ecosystems and there are fears that toxic wastes used in the mining will contaminate land and water," says the report.
Yesterday, the groups called on rich countries to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions and proposed that Latin America and the Caribbean governments be helped to reduce their vulnerability to extreme weather.

"The only option we have, apart from demanding that developed countries take responsibility for the damages that climate change is causing, is to try to neutralise the adverse impacts that are [already] upon us. It is time to rethink the model of international aid," said Juan Maldonado, former Colombian environment minister and president of the UN convention on biological diversity.

Backstory

"With each new flood, drought or hurricane in Latin America, precious gains in poverty reduction are lost. Extreme weather is set to cause massive loss of life in developing countries throughout the region. The international community must invest more in helping poor communities cope with the effect of climate change," said Paul Cook, head of policy for Tearfund.

The world's many thousands of glaciers have been stable or in slow retreat for more than 100 years but since around 1980 they have mostly been retreating drastically. The fastest decline is in the Himalayas, the Arctic, the Alps, the Rockies and the tropics. Most glaciologists believe this natural phenomenon is being accelerated by global warming. The effects of glacier melt are expected to be severe. Hundreds of millions of people in Asia and Latin America are dependent on glacier water. A reduction in runoff will affect the ability to irrigate crops and will reduce summer stream flows to keep dams and reservoirs replenished. In Norway, the Alps, and the Pacific north-west, glacier runoff is important for hydropower. If all the ice on the polar icecaps were to melt, the oceans would rise an estimated 70 metres (230ft). But even a small melt will affect coastal life.
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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #48 on: 2006-09-02 13:04:46 »
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[Blunderov] leaving aside the hyperbole of the appended piece, it is still a very ominous picture that is painted.

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=13043

August  Monday 14th  2006 (09h54) :


Death of America Looms as Catastrophic Events Plunge Nation Towards Ecocide By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Russian Subscribers

Today, and as it continues the fight for its very survival on the battlefields of the World, the United States is facing one of the greatest ecological catastrophes in recorded human history.

To the greatest paradox about the catastrophic events ravaging America are that though they have been forewarned about, by the United States Military, the American people themselves are not being allowed to know the full extent of the horrific dangers facing them, but from the secret Pentagon report secretly released to British Intelligence sources, and then leaked to the British press, in 2004 and which stated:

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ’Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents. ’Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,’ concludes the Pentagon analysis. ’Once again, warfare would define human life.’

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Climate change ’should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern’, say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is ’plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately’, they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html

The Military Leaders of the United States, and who became enraged when this secret Pentagon report was released, have just this past week secured from their Federal Courts the right to imprison any of their citizens should they gain access to all other reports detailing the grave and imminent dangers their Nation faces, and as we can read as reported by the Los Angeles Times News Service in their article titled "Court backs U.S. on prosecuting 2 who received leak", and which says:

"In a ruling with potentially broad implications, a federal judge said Thursday that the Bush administration could use espionage laws to prosecute private citizens who gain access to national defense information.

The decision appears to be the first in which a court has found that citizens other than government employees can be charged for receiving and disclosing secret government information, experts said.

"It’s a momentous ruling with radical implications," said Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. "A lot of people who are in the business of gathering information, such as reporters and advocates, are now going to have to grapple with the potential threat of prosecution. The dividing line has always been between leakers, who may be prosecuted, and the recipients of the leak, who have never been. Now that dividing line has been erased.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/11/MNGNNKGL951.DTL

But to the catastrophic changes occurring in America even their most dreaded laws are appearing unable to keep the information of the growing disasters currently occurring, and as we can see evidenced by these various reports from just this past week alone:

As reported by the Fox News Service in their August 11th article titled "Pacific ’Dead Zone’ Said to Exceed Fears", and which says, "Scientists say the oxygen-starved "dead zone" along the Pacific Coast that is causing massive crab and fish die-offs is worse than initially thought. Scientists say weather, not pollution, appears to be the culprit, and no relief is in sight.

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Aug11/0,4670,PacificDeadZone,00.html

As reported by the Associated Press News Service in their August 11th, article titled "Scientists: Aspen trees in West dying", and which says, "Something is killing the quaking aspen trees of the Rocky Mountain West. The slender, white-barked trees that paint the hills gold every autumn are dying, some scientists say, leaving bald patches across the Rockies. Experts are scrambling to figure out what’s happening.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/science/4111888.html

As reported by the WCSH Television News Service in their August 12th article titled "Dying Salt Marshes Puzzle New England Scientists", and which says, "Scientists up and down New England’s coastline are trying to figure out why so many salt marshes seem to be dying. They began noticing dead patches, known as sudden wetland dieback, near Lieutenant Island in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod four years ago.

Now ecologists warn that saltwater marshes from Maine to Connecticut are suddenly and inexplicably dying, leaving behind land resembling an eroded desert landscape. Few scientists can explain it or recommend what to do. Even skeptics concede something unusual is happening.

http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=39952

But to the most immediate danger facing the Americans, and as we quote from their Government sources, "60% of the mainland US is now under official drought conditions, with no let up in sight. Especially in the central ’breadbasket" areas, where drought conditions are causing ranchers to sell off herds and crop farmers are watching their fields dry up and burn."

For a Nation that once was considered the ‘Breadbasket to World’, today the United States has issued its first ever warning that its main grain crop, corn, will be in shortage supply in just about a year and half, and as we can read as reported by the Earth Times News Service in their August 12th article titled "Corn shortage predicted by 2008", and which says:

"Analysts in United States have cautioned that unless corn planting is expanded drastically, the country could be facing corn shortage by as early as 2008. Even as the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated the first forecast of the fall harvest of the corn crop to be at 10.98 billion bushels, which is the third biggest harvest ever, the amount of corn consumed by U.S. ethanol manufacturers, food makers and livestock feeders could well lead to the corn stockpiles being depleted within two years.

http://technocrat.net/d/2006/7/31/6239

Not being understood by the American peoples are that as their Nations food supply, and growing capacity, plummets there no longer remains in the World an excess of agricultural production, and which due to this horrific circumstance the beginning, and predicted, mass migrations of starving human beings have begun to flood into both the North American and Northern European Nations in numbers unheard of in all of recorded history.

But to the greater, and World-Wide, catastrophic effects of our Earth heating up the World’s Scientists are shouting today new warnings, and as we can see evidenced by these reports:

As reported by Australia’s ABC News Service in their August 12th article titled "Antarctic snow shock ’just around corner’", and which says, "An Australian scientist says his findings that Antarctic snowfalls have changed little in 50 years, despite global warming, could be evidence the worst is yet to come. A study published yesterday in the Science journal reports snowfall in Antarctica has not increased over the past 50 years.

This contradicts the predictions of most climate models that are based on the assumption that warming air can carry more moisture and produce greater snowfalls at the poles. University of Newcastle palaeoclimatologist Dr Ian Goodwin says the recent evidence supports the idea that there is a lag between global warming and Antarctica’s response to it, which is not recognised in climate models.

He says Antarctica and the southern hemisphere are surrounded by large oceans that take a long time to heat and therefore act as a buffer to climate change. "We can be relatively complacent about the effects of climate change in the Southern Hemisphere because we haven’t seen dramatic changes," he says.

"But the frightening thing I think is that we are not yet seeing the full impact of global warming in the southern hemisphere, but it’s just around the corner.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1713551.htm

As reported by the Associated Press News Service in their August 11th article titled "Scientists Warn Greenland Ice Cap Melting At Faster Rate", and which says, "Scientists studying monthly changes in the Earth’s gravity between April 2002 and November 2005 have warned that the ice cap covering entire Greenland is melting at a faster pace. Scientists say that the ice cap has been melting at a faster rate and the pace of melting will even accelerate in the future.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004510869

As reported by the MSNBC News Service in their August 7th article titled "Swiss mountain crumbles under hot climate", and which says, "Every few minutes or so, there is a surprisingly loud sound as a boulder comes thundering down, sending a cloud of dust into the air. The sharp crackle of smaller stones rolling down the cliff face is almost continuous.

The spectacle is a dramatic reminder that the Alps have been hit hard by warming temperatures, and underscore warnings from scientists that thawing permafrost -- the frozen soil that can glue mountains together -- will cause more havoc in the future.Glaciers in the Alps may have lost up to a tenth of their volume in the hot 2003 summer alone, researchers at Zurich university have said, and the ice now only occupies between half and a third of its volume in 1850.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14227248/

It must be noted that the above quoted American MSNBC news source provides to us yet another tragic example of how the Military Propagandists in the United States educate their citizens about these catastrophic events, in that this article, describing the horrific destruction of the Swiss Alps, begins with these words, “Sometimes, global warming can help put money in your pocket."

Failing to be told to these American peoples is that the loss of the World’s glaciers, including in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia, also means the loss of water to over half of the World’s population, and which at this past years UN Sponsored World Forum on Water, held in Mexico City and hosted by the former Mexican Director of the Coca Cola Company and present President of Mexico, and backed by the United States, declared that, "Water is not a fundamental human right for the world’s people.

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross03292006.html

One can only wonder how a people once as heroic and generous as these Americans have lowered themselves to the depth of depravity that even the life substance of all human life is to them no longer a Right, but has instead become just another resource to be used to both kill and control both their enemies and friends.

© August 13, 2006 EU and US all rights reserved.

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index941.htm 

By : Sorcha Faal,(repost)
August Monday 14th 2006


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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #49 on: 2006-09-05 00:28:01 »
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Thank-you for this last post Blunderov. It forms a useful summary of a great number of things, all of which point to the strong likelihood that new and disconcerting things are piling up on one another right now. Concern is certainly not out of order. For some of the items, panic might even be appropriate. Going on our track-record, I don't think it will make any difference.

On that note, here is another ongoing pile-up from a highly respected academic commenting on a topic in his speciality - and confirming what I had previously understood was the case about the ice-core CO2 issue.


Ice core evidence of human impact on CO2 in air

Source: Reuters
Authors: Not Credited
Dated: 2006-09-04

Air from the oldest ice core confirms human activity has increased the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to levels not seen for hundreds of thousands of years, scientists said on Monday.

Bubbles of air in the 800,000-year-old ice, drilled in the Antarctic, show levels of CO2 changing with the climate. But the present levels are out of the previous range.

"It is from air bubbles that we know for sure that carbon dioxide has increased by about 35 percent in the last 200 years," said Dr Eric Wolff of the British Antarctic Survey and the leader of the science team for the 10-nation European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica.

"Before the last 200 years, which man has been influencing, it was pretty steady," he added.

The natural level of CO2 over most of the past 800,000 years has been 180-300 parts per million by volume (ppmv) of air. But today it is at 380 ppmv.

"The most scary thing is that carbon dioxide today is not just out of the range of what happened in the last 650,000 years but already up 100 percent out of the range
," Wolff said at the British Association Festival of Science in Norwich, eastern England.

CO2 was close to 280 ppmv from 1000 AD until 1800 and then it accelerated toward its present concentration. Wolff added that measurements of carbon isotopes showed the extra CO2 coming from a fossil source, due to increased human activity.

The ice core record showed it used to take about 1,000 years for a CO2 increase of 30 ppmv. It has risen by that much in the last 17 years alone.

"We really are in a situation where something is happening that we don't have any analog for in our records. It is an experiment that we don't know the result of," he added.

Professor Peter Smith, of the University of Nottingham in England, said the study showed more needed to be done.

"There is an urgent need to find innovative technologies to reduce the impact we are having on our climate," he told the science conference.
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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #50 on: 2006-09-05 07:00:22 »
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-09-02 03:14:58   

Cities in peril as Andean glaciers melt

Refer:
Surface Properties, Topography and Motions of Patagonian Glaciers (http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/SIRC_Pat/term.html)





From this we can see that Upsala has been retreating since 1900, but the Perito Moreno, 50 km away to the SE, is advancing steadily and calving every four years (it is such a spectacle that it is a tourist attraction). On the other side of the Andes, at the same latitude, on the Chilean side, there is the glacier Pio XI, which grows so fast it is setting records.

So … some advance while others retreat.

- iolo
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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #51 on: 2006-09-05 12:22:10 »
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Dear Iolo,

According to at least one group who are studying the Moreno (infra), the word for what is happening at the moment is not "advancing" but "equilibrium". Their explanation seems centered around the glaciers themselves, which is fair enough, but possibly doesn't tell the whole story, that all glacial boundaries are marked by melt/replenish cycles (ablation/flow). Then again, neither does the outdated, non-peer reviewed proto study you cited, which I think misses the point that when temperatures fall, conditions can still result in glacial retreats (as I think we can see here) and equally that glacial advances are possible in periods of rising temperatures.

From my memory of reading about this after you first brought it to my attention, the oceans of the south act as "buffers" which delay - but ultimately do not prevent ,warming. Indeed, in acting as a buffer, the Pacific has accepted energy and warmed, resulting in increased evaporation (as well as reduced oxygen levels and a drastic drop in carrying capability, but that is another subject entirely). The prevailing winds carry the increased humidity up into the mountains of Patagonia where it condenses, and "a record" 5.5m of precipitation dumps on their parades, upon the just, and upon the unjust (but more upon the just*), every year. By no coincidence, this just happens to be constrained to those valleys where wet air is delivered by the winds - and this results in the glaciers in that valley maintaining equilibrium (or advancing), even as their neighbors evaporate; at least for so long as the mountains remain cool enough to result in Winter precipitation freezing onto the glaciers upon which it falls.

Regards
Hermit

*The Rain

The rain it raineth on the just
But also on the unjust fella.
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steal the just's umbrella.

Baron Charles Bowen


Patagonian Ice Dam Studied From Space Cracks Open

[Hermit: Caveat, this is an old article. However, it is not nearly as old as the data referenced by Iolo. As usual the emphasis below is mine.]

Source: European Space Agency
Authors: Not Credited
[d]Dated: [/b]2004-03-22

A spectacle unseen for 16 years occurred in Patagonia this week: a natural dam of blue ice gave way to crushing lake waters trapped behind it, finally breaking apart.

Watching tourists applauded as a section of the 60-metre high Perito Moreno glacier collapsed and the waters of the dammed southern arm of Lago Argentino surged through it.

Since last October this section known as Brazo Sur - had been blocked off from the rest of the lake by the glacier's flowing ice tongue, which extended a solid wall of ice across the narrow water channel.

The 30-km-long Perito Moreno glacier is the most famous part of the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares in Argentina, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It is the subject of a long-term study by the University of Innsbruck's Institute for Meteorology and Geophysics, with in-situ observations supplemented by ESA satellite data.

"We have carried out numerous field studies of Perito Moreno, as well as neighbouring glaciers in the Southern Patagonian icefield," explains project leader Professor Helmut Rott. "We have an automatic climate station installed near the glacier terminus, and stakes placed within the glacier to measure its movement and melting.

"We also make use of radar imagery from ERS-2 and Envisat to monitor areas of accumulation and ablation and keep track of its position.

"What makes Perito Moreno so interesting to us is that it is one of the few Patagonian glaciers that has advanced during recent days. It dams the Brazo Sur on a periodic basis, the previous time being 1988, then some 20 times before that. It first occurred in 1917, and we know it was the first time because a several-hundred-year old forest was submerged as a result." Once the glacier blocks the channel between the Brazo Sur, water and the main section of Lago Argentino, water and ice commence a kind of duel. Water from melting glaciers and running down from mountain drains into the trapped section of lake: its height rose by eight metres in the last five months; at the time of the fracture the rate of increase was ten centimetres a day.

Inevitably the total force the rising waters exert upon the glacier becomes too much. On 12 March 2004 water began to drain through subsurface fissures, which enlarged into a tunnel. Two days later the ice fractured above the waterline. Sightseers flocked to watch the ice dam give way, a sight which some had feared might never be seen this century due to global warming.

"However our research shows the mass of the Perito Moreno glacier is actually in equilibrium," Rott says. "The snow accumulated up at the top of the glacier in the Andes balances out ice that calves or melts lower down.

"Field studies of mass fluxes, complemented by satellite radar, record 5.5 metres of precipitation falling on the accumulation zone a year, equivalent to about 15 metres of consolidated snow. "It is also a very deep glacier. Eight kilometres up from the glacier front we measured the ice thickness at 750 metres, whereas at the calving front it is only 160 metres thick.

"This feature of subglacial topography, as well as the comparatively high elevation of the accumulation area, means that is it less vulnerable to changing conditions, such as warmer climate that has led most glaciers in the region to recede significantly during the last 30 years.

"Conversely, the initial damming event in 1917 appears to have been the Perito Moreno glacier's time-lagged reaction to a pronounced period of cooling in the 19th century, sometimes termed a 'mini Ice Age'."


Following the fracture, the Innsbruck University team will continue to monitor glacial motion and flux across Southern Patagonia - a region containing the largest glaciers in the southern hemisphere outside of Antarctica.
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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #52 on: 2006-09-14 02:18:05 »
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El Nino weather pattern forms in Pacific

Source: Reuters
Authors: Rene Pastor, Jim Loney
Dated: 2006-09-13
Links: NOAA's climate prediction Web site

El Nino, an extreme warming of equatorial waters in the Pacific Ocean that wreaks havoc with world weather conditions, has formed and will last into 2007, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Wednesday.

The El Nino has already helped make the Atlantic hurricane season milder than expected, said a forecaster for the NOAA.

"The weak El Nino is helping to explain why the hurricane season is less than we expected. El Ninos tend to suppress hurricane activity in the Atlantic," said Gerry Bell, a hurricane forecaster for NOAA.

The NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said the El Nino probably will spur warmer-than-average temperatures this winter over western and central Canada and the western and northern United States.

It said El Nino also will cause wetter-than-average conditions in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Florida, and spark dry conditions in the Ohio valley, the Pacific Northwest and most U.S. islands in the tropical Pacific.

In Asia and South America, the last severe El Nino killed hundreds of people and caused billions of dollars in damage as crops shriveled across the Asia-Pacific basin. This El Nino has caused drier-than-average conditions across Indonesia, Malaysia and most of the Philippines.

Indonesia is the most populous Moslem country with over 200 million people, while the Philippines have nearly 90 million. Both are major importers of U.S. grains.

The CPC Web site said surface temperatures were substantially warmer than normal by early September in the Pacific. Scientists detect formation of El Ninos by monitoring sea surface temperatures with a system of buoys.

"Currently, weak El Nino conditions exist, but there is a potential for this event to strengthen into a moderate event by winter," Vernon Kousky, the chief El Nino expert at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said in a statement.

"The latest...predictions indicate El Nino conditions for the remainder of 2006 and into the northern hemisphere spring (of) 2007," the CPC Web site explained.

El Nino, which means 'little boy' in Spanish, hits once every three years or so. Anchovy fishermen in South America noticed the phenomenon in the 19th century and named it for the Christ child since it appeared around Christmas, and it normally peaks late in the year.

EL NINO HINDERS HURRICANES

One immediate impact of the El Nino is during the current Atlantic hurricane season, which follows on the heels of the record 28 storms and 15 hurricanes which struck in 2005.

Last year's howlers included monsters like Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. But this El Nino apparently has helped hinder storm formation in 2006. So far, there has only been seven tropical storms and two hurricanes halfway through the hurricane season, which begins June 1 and ends November 30.

Scientists said El Ninos disrupt storm formation because it allows wind shear to rip apart thunderstorms in the center of the hurricanes, reducing power and intensity as a result.

U.S. NORTHEAST IN FOR MILDER WINTER

An El Nino also usually leads to milder winter weather in the U.S. northeast, the top heating oil market in the world.

Bell said scientists will have a better idea in the fall how long this El Nino will last. "There's no way to say at this time how strong it is going to be. It's too early," he said.

The last severe El Nino struck in 1997/98. The weather phenomenon caused searing drought in Indonesia, Australia and the Philippines while causing rampant flooding in Ecuador and Chile, the world's top producer of copper.
« Last Edit: 2006-09-14 03:55:30 by Hermit » Report to moderator   Logged

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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #53 on: 2006-09-14 14:14:43 »
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[Blunderov] The rift in the lute? Perhaps the Canadian reluctance to part with its water is symptomatic of a more general antipathy to the USA?

September  Thursday 14th  2006 (10h32) :
Canada fights to keep its water

Canada fights to keep its water By Linda Duffin Business Reporter, BBC World Service, Calgary, Canada

One country has abundant fresh water, far more than it needs. Across the border there is simply not enough and it has yet to find a solution to the problem.

This is the situation Canada and the US find themselves in.

Canada has, by some estimates, up to 20% of the world’s fresh water supplies and only 0.5% of the world’s population.

You would think there would be enough to go around, perhaps even a little left over to share. But this is not the case.

Up North

In the south-western corner of the United States, drought has meant that Lake Mead, which supplies the Las Vegas valley, is shrinking fast.

The Colorado River, a critical source of drinking water for southern California and Arizona, and the feeder of the Hoover Dam, has seen its flow cut by half in the past few years.

Now the US has turned its attention to its northerly neighbour Canada in hoping to find a solution to its water shortage, but it is not looking easy.

Lake Mead in the USA is running dry The former US ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, says it makes no sense for Canada to refuse to exploit one more of its natural resources.

"The Canadians sell us an awful lot of oil, more oil than Saudi Arabia," he says.

"Eighty-six per cent of our natural gas imports come from Canada. We get uranium, we get all sorts of resources. Interestingly all these resources are finite."

"Water, on the other hand, as long as it keeps raining, is renewable, it is replenishable," he says.

"I always found it odd that the Canadians will sell us oil and gas, but would not even talk about the possibility of selling fresh water."

No deal

But rain or no rain, much of Canada’s water is a finite resource.

In the snow capped Canadian Rockies giant glaciers inch down the mountainsides, feeding icy turquoise lakes that lay at its feet and down into the rivers that irrigate Canada’s vast prairies.

However, climate change means the glaciers are fast melting and once they are gone, they are gone.

The former premier of the province of Alberta, Peter Lougheed, predicts that the US will be aggressively coming after Canada’s water in the next three to five years.

And he wants Canadians to say no.

It would be foolish for us to sell it

Peter Lougheed, former premier of Alberta "It would be foolish for us to sell it simply because we have a surplus of it now," he says.

"It’s a very, very hot issue. There is not any issue I’ve come across in public life that people get more emotional about than fresh water.

"At some stage, a US senator is going to say ’we have a free trade agreement with Canada so why don’t we exercise that right?’

"The reason I speak is to forewarn Canadians about it, prepare for it and reject it."

Canadians admit they need to clean up their act.

They are some of the world’s most profligate users of waters, consuming twice as much as people in France and four times as much as the Swedes.

Canadians are likely to come under increasing pressure to share their water wealth.

But a thirsty US could have an uphill struggle.

One poll suggests 70% of Canadians agree with Peter Lougheed and are vehemently opposed to bulk water exports.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5322980.stm

By : Linda Duffin
September Thursday 14th 2006
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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #54 on: 2006-09-20 03:20:02 »
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[Blunderov] "It strongly criticises the company's "corporate citizenship reports", which claim that "gaps in the scientific basis" make it very difficult to blame climate change on human activity."

Strikingly reminiscent of the infamous creationist "god of the gaps" ploy ISTM.
We have seen, for instance, how it is always possible to back an ethic into a contradiction. It seems, similarly, that it is always possible to demand a higher standard of proof.

The bitch of it is that a higher standard of proof is always better than a lower. At what point is a standard of proof sufficient?

Must we in the end, resort to game theory and hope that these mathematical justications are probably sufficient reason to act/not act in a certain way?

Then again, perhaps we could resort to common sense like "Fuck it people, we are clogging the air with shit. This can't be good."

Cue the Royal Society...

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1876538,00.html

Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial

Read the letter in full here (pdf)

David Adam, environment correspondent
Wednesday September 20, 2006
The Guardian

The Royal Society is worried about climate change lobby groups, including those funded by Exxon. Photograph: Matt Slocum/AP

Britain's leading scientists have challenged the US oil company ExxonMobil to stop funding groups that attempt to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change.
In an unprecedented step, the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific academy, has written to the oil giant to demand that the company withdraws support for dozens of groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

The scientists also strongly criticise the company's public statements on global warming, which they describe as "inaccurate and misleading".

In a letter earlier this month to Esso, the UK arm of ExxonMobil, the Royal Society cites its own survey which found that ExxonMobil last year distributed $2.9m to 39 groups that the society says misrepresent the science of climate change.
These include the International Policy Network, a thinktank with its HQ in London, and the George C Marshall Institute, which is based in Washington DC. In 2004, the institute jointly published a report with the UK group the Scientific Alliance which claimed that global temperature rises were not related to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

"There is not a robust scientific basis for drawing definitive and objective conclusions about the effect of human influence on future climate," it said.

In the letter, Bob Ward of the Royal Society writes: "At our meeting in July ... you indicated that ExxonMobil would not be providing any further funding to these organisations. I would be grateful if you could let me know when ExxonMobil plans to carry out this pledge."

The letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, adds: "I would be grateful if you could let me know which organisations in the UK and other European countries have been receiving funding so that I can work out which of these have been similarly providing inaccurate and misleading information to the public."

This is the first time the society has written to a company to challenge its activities. The move reflects mounting concern about the activities of lobby groups that try to undermine the overwhelming scientific evidence that emissions are linked to climate change.

The groups, such as the US Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), whose senior figures have described global warming as a myth, are expected to launch a renewed campaign ahead of a major new climate change report. The CEI responded to the recent release of Al Gore's climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, with adverts that welcomed increased carbon dioxide pollution.

The latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due to be published in February, is expected to say that climate change could drive the Earth's temperatures higher than previously predicted.

Mr Ward said: "It is now more crucial than ever that we have a debate which is properly informed by the science. For people to be still producing information that misleads people about climate change is unhelpful. The next IPCC report should give people the final push that they need to take action and we can't have people trying to undermine it."

The Royal Society letter also takes issue with ExxonMobil's own presentation of climate science. It strongly criticises the company's "corporate citizenship reports", which claim that "gaps in the scientific basis" make it very difficult to blame climate change on human activity. The letter says: "These statements are not consistent with the scientific literature. It is very difficult to reconcile the misrepresentations of climate change science in these documents with ExxonMobil's claim to be an industry leader."

Environmentalists regard ExxonMobil as one of the least progressive oil companies because, unlike competitors such as BP and Shell, it has not invested heavily in alternative energy sources.

ExxonMobil said: "We can confirm that recently we received a letter from the Royal Society on the topic of climate change. Amongst other topics our Tomorrow's Energy and Corporate Citizenship reports explain our views openly and honestly on climate change. We would refute any suggestion that our reports are inaccurate or misleading." A spokesman added that ExxonMobil stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute this year.

Recent research has made scientists more confident that recent warming is man-made, a finding endorsed by scientific academies across the world, including in the US, China and Brazil.

The Royal Society's move emerged as Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, warned that the polar ice caps were breaking up at a faster rate than glaciologists thought possible, with profound consequences for global sea levels. Professor Rapley said the change was almost certainly down to global warming. "It's like opening a window and seeing what's going on and the message is that it's worse than we thought," he said.

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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #55 on: 2006-09-21 06:27:16 »
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So the Royal Society is attempting censorship now?  What happened to freedom of speech? The frustrating part is that most sceptics do not deny global warming, but maintain that CO2 plays a minor part at the most – why is this simple fact so difficult to understand (my guess: convenience)?

$2.9 million to misrepresent the science!! IS THAT ALL?!?!?!  LOL!! And yet it is all bird feed compared to the funds provided by government institutions to the doomsters.

-begin sarcasm-
Billions upon billions of dollars will be spent on global warming. Global warming will turn to global cooling, and victory will be proclaimed. Then, global cooling (the impending ice age) will be blamed on human activities, and billions upon billions of dollars will be spent on global cooling. That will continue until warming returns, 35 years later.
-end sarcasm-

I estimate that for every $ Exxon or others from the fossil fuel industry provide to the "sceptics" government institutions and others from the business community provide $1000 to the run of the mill climate/environmental/global change science that never tires in providing a torrent of publications claiming imminent disaster from global warming (this logical error is repeatedly made by AGW proponents who misuse attribution studies to present what they call "evidence" for AGW).

Who has a bigger interest keeping the gravy train rolling? And which side do you want to be on as a scientist? Where the big money flows or where the bird feed trickles?

James Hansen is in the payroll of the political branch of NASA! As Stephen Schneider and many other "scientists" promoting anthropogenic global warming. So what? If one accuses the “sceptics” of being paid liars for big oil, then all AGW scientists can be accused of being paid liars for the AGW industry. So what?

What counts are the scientific basis of their respective arguments, and there are two full libraries on the theme. One says black and the other white. So the strawman attacks are out when it comes to scientific data. Either it is sound data or flawed (1). But warmers are politicising the field accusing sceptics of being in payrolls. Oil companies are making more money now than ever thanks to the AGW theory and all the scares about imminent depletion of reserves and so on.

They don't need scientists on their payroll. The greens are doing their job quite well, and for free. On the other hand, I see the AGW lobby handing out handsome prizes and grants for pushing their fraud. Who's the liar?

-----

1

Getting back to the basics …

Quote from: Blunderov on 2006-09-20 03:20:02   
[Blunderov] "It strongly criticises the company's "corporate citizenship reports", which claim that "gaps in the scientific basis" make it very difficult to blame climate change on human activity."

Strikingly reminiscent of the infamous creationist "god of the gaps" ploy ISTM.
We have seen, for instance, how it is always possible to back an ethic into a contradiction. It seems, similarly, that it is always possible to demand a higher standard of proof.

The bitch of it is that a higher standard of proof is always better than a lower. At what point is a standard of proof sufficient?


I do not think that asking for some evidence of AGW is unreasonable.  I want physical evidence before believing any assertion. Indeed, it is the minimal level of proof.

Here is the response of a prominent independent science journalist (specialising in climate science) and policy analyst to the question, “what is the top argument FOR AGW?":

Quote:
On reflection, I think the top argument for AGW goes like this:

1. Rising GHG/CO2 levels can explain the rising temperatures.

2. No other mechanism that can explain the rising temperatures has been observed. (Note: mechanism is the operative word here. Correlation with solar activity is not a mechanism. Neither is the LIA.)

3. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that the rising temperatures are due to the rising GHG/CO2 levels.

It is a nice, compact little argument. What is wrong with it?


So I ask, what is wrong with it, if anything? Do you agree or disagree, and why. Please discuss and hopefully we can arrive at some physical evidence, or lack thereof.

I will make my own thoughts known shortly.

-- iolo

In other news:

According to data from the DIW, (German Institute of Economic Research, Wochenbericht 35/2006) in Berlin, China's emissions went from 2973 Mio t of CO2 to 4770 Mio t in 2005, roughly 2 billion t of CO2, amounting to .546 billion t of carbon.

Between 2000 and 2005, US emissions went up by 123 Mio t, EU15 emissions went up by 141 Mio t. Percentage wise the increase in the US is 2.1, in the EU15, it is 4.2.

Meaning: Despite Bush's refusal to ratify Kyoto and the EU's clamouring and rhetoric about climate change, since Bush's takeover US emissions went up much slower than the EU's emissions.
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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #56 on: 2006-09-21 15:24:31 »
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Dear Iolo

I note that like the tobacco companies who first pumped millions of dollars into "proving" that their products were good for people; that having failed, into the idea that their products were not bad for people and not addictive; and that too having failed, into the idea that they are not as bad for people as the anti-tobacco campaigners insisted, so too, the oil companies have pumped millions of dollars into marketing the fact that their products are good for the environment, etc. Like the tobacco companies, unaffiliated science has gone from a range of opinions to a consensus which is strongly biased against the position held by the fossil fuel industry and those dependent upon it.

I have already provided a multiplicity of references to academic and publicly supported scientific organizations which have accepted anthropogenic global warming. You might find it instructive to look at the dismal reports coming out of the NSF International Conference on Ecological Change and Climate Variation. Why should the consensus, which in the USA at least has had to speak against their paymasters, stay silent in the face of what is, if desperation can be measured in dollars, an increasingly desperate lobby attempting to argue that smoking is good for us?

Global warming having apparently been accepted (I hope I'm not putting words into your mouth?), we turn now to atmospheric CO2 as a primary causative factor. Atmospheric CO2 is of course one factor in a complex of factors affecting climate, but as has been shown in the articles posted on this thread, is taken to be the most significant because it was predicted that a rise in CO2 levels would cause a rise in global temperatures due to the so called "greenhouse effect." Subsequent to these predictions having been made, CO2 levels have risen and temperatures have risen.
So we have a predictive explanatory theory, followed by a change in the controlled variable. Observations and analysis shows that the prediction was matched by the predicted change in the dependent variable and sensitivity analysis has showed that other postulated causes are apparently insufficient to explain the scope of the change. Scientists, even the majority of those who previously regarded Global Warming as merely one of a number of tentative theories, have taken note of these results and formed a consensus.

Was it wrong of science to object to tobacco sponsored research showing that smoking is a healthy and non-addictive pastime? Or would it have been wrong of scientists convinced of the harm caused by tobacco smoking to stay silent in the face of support - including politically inspired support - for those few scientists prepared to argue on behalf of the tobacco industry? If we can agree that the anti-smoking scientific consensus was right to argue against the tobacco industry - which only affected the health of the suckers that got behind their products, then what should we say about the anti-fossil fuel consensus which is convinced that the entire planet is imperilled by our addiction, were it not to attempt to address the fossil fuel industry based marketing campaigns intended to keep us puffing away on their products?

As the "skeptics" have lost the battle of reason and the ability to promote skepticism through the peer review process, they have, like the proponents of "intelligent design" grown ever more strident, increasingly prone to claim victimization by "climate-Nazis", increasingly prone to bypass scientific discourse by addressing appeals directly to the public, and most of all, increasingly dependent on the handouts of those who desperately want them to be correct - or at least, perceived as keeping up the argument against the consensus.
Like the tobacco industry, the oil companies have resorted to investing - in ever increasing amounts - into those few places where they have received support and into politicians who have, like the Bush unregime, unarguably attempted to suppress "anti-fossil fuel" reports. Far from helping their case, this approach has harmed it, as legitimate scientists are perfectly capable of observing this activity and drawing meta conclusions about activities where this approach seems to be required.

As a post script, we know that CO2 production is directly related to economic, agricultural and industrial growth. We also know that the US has transitioned from being the world's greatest producer to the world's largest consumer economy. All claims to the contrary notwithstanding, the US economy has shrunk in every sense other than that measured by the plummeting dollar in the past 8 years, and even those last bits of agriculture and smokestack-economy left in North America have tended to migrate South and Eastwards. Just because the plumes are now happening in China and Mexico does not mean that they are not happening. It is disingenious to argue that the effect has been removed merely because the source has been moved. So long as people are prepared to lend the US consumer money with no credible explanation as to how it will be repaid, the US will continue to increase its proportion of responsibility for greenhouse gas production. The really bad news for the planet is that if the US ever gets around to repaying some of what has been borrowed (I don't think that there is sufficient cheap fuel remaining to pay back all of it no matter what happens), it will only be at a cost of a further increase in CO2 production.

The increase in Europe is explained by the same phenomena, and is also likely to increase. The EU 15 comprises:

   Austria
   Belgium
   Denmark
   Finland
   France
   Germany
   Greece
   Ireland
   Italy
   Luxembourg
   Netherlands
   Portugal
   Spain
   Sweden
   United Kingdom

While some of these are "developed" nations, I would take bets that most of the growth in CO2 production has been from Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, which are developing countries, rather than in the more stable economies. The recent ascension of ten more rapidly developing nations to the EU (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania,    Slovak Republic and Slovenia), omitted for whatever reason from the numbers cited, will likely see this trend increase.

Regards

Hermit
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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #57 on: 2006-09-22 19:40:29 »
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[Blunderov] This looks like a fairly serious developement.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/climatewarmingarctic

Scientists shocked as Arctic polar route emerges Wed Sep 20, 7:18 AM ET

PARIS (AFP) - European scientists voiced shock as they showed pictures which showed Arctic ice cover had disappeared so much last month that a ship could sail unhindered from Europe's most northerly outpost to the North Pole itself.

The satellite images were acquired from August 23 to 25 by instruments aboard Envisat and EOS Aqua, two satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Perennial sea ice -- thick ice that is normally present year-round and is not affected by the Arctic summer -- had disappeared over an area bigger than the British Isles, ESA said.

Vast patches of ice-free sea stretched north of Svalbard, an archipelago lying midway between Norway and the North Ple, and extended deep into the Russian Arctic, all the way to the North Pole, the agency said in a press release.

"This situation is unlike anything observed in previous record low-ice seasons," said Mark Drinkwater of ESA's Oceans/Ice Unit.

"It is highly imaginable that a ship could have passed from Spitzbergen or Northern Siberia through what is normally pack ice to reach the North Pole without difficulty."

Spitzbergen is one of the Svalbard islands, which are Norwegian.

Drinkwater added: "If this anomaly continues, the Northeast Passage, or 'Northern Sea Route' between Europe and Asia will be open over longer intervals of time, and it is conceivable we might see attempts at sailing around the world directly across the summer Arctic Ocean within the next 10 to 20 years."

The images are for late summer. In the last weeks, what was open water has begun to freeze, as the autumn air temperatures over the Arctic begin to fall, ESA said.

Regular satellite monitoring over the last 25 years shows that the northern polar ice cover has shrunk and thinned as global temperatures have risen.

But this year's images are unprecedented, and fierce storms that fragmented and scattered already thin pack ice may be to blame, the scientists believe.

The images were released less than a week after a paper, published in the US journal Science, found that year-round sea ice in the Arctic shrank by one seventh between 2004 and 2005.

Loss of sea ice does not affect global sea levels. Ice that floats in the water displaces its own volume.

However ice that is on land, as an icesheet, glacier or permanent snowcap, adds to sea level when it melts and runs off.

Retreating ice cover also creates a vicious circle, adding to the warming caused by greenhouse gases -- carbon emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, that trap the Sun's heat.

Ice, being white, reflects the Sun's rays. Less ice therefore means the sea warms, which in turn accelerates the shrinkage.

The shrinkage of the Arctic icecap is viewed with alarm by scientists, as it appears to perturb important ocean currents elsewhere, notably the Gulf Stream, which gives western Europe its balmy climate.

It also threaten animals such as polar bears and seals that depend on ice.

There are geopolitical implications, too, as Canada, Russia and the United States jockey to claim rights over transpolar passages that open up within their newly ice-free waters.



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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #58 on: 2006-09-27 13:03:33 »
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Before getting to the Marshal Institute’s response to the RS letter to ExxonMobil, here is a letter from Dr. Jack Barrett (Scientific Alliance) sent to The Guardian:

-begin copy-

In response to Professor David Read's invitation (letter, 23rd September) I have read the scientific literature concerning climate change. There is little doubt that the rise in carbon dioxide concentration since 1900 AD has been caused by human activities. Physics indicates that rising CO2 levels should cause the global temperature to rise. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports the results of nineteen sophisticated computer models that use the same physics, but give nineteen different results for the effect of doubling the CO2 concentration; from 1-3° C. A great deal of uncertainty attached to the calculations arises from the ease with which the instant effects of an injection of CO2 may be calculated and the enormous difficulty of predicting the subsequent effects; the effects on photosynthesis and absorption by the oceans. There is evidence that the lower value is more credible than the higher ones. If this is the case, bearing in mind that there has been 0.6° C increase already, we have very little to fear from a subsequent rise of 0.4° C.

    Some papers on climate change are rejected by the editorial staff of journals; they are not sent for peer review. The reason why other papers are rejected is that the peer-reviewers are IPCC supporters. The Royal Society pour scorn on organizations which derive funding from oil companies, but the scientists of the IPCC enjoy funding from the greatest gravy train ever invented! Put the frighteners on funding bodies and they cough up gladly.

-end copy-

-----------

Marshal Institute reply to the RS:

September 22, 2006
Bob Ward
Senior Manager, Policy Communication
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AG

Dear Mr. Ward,

We are writing to comment on your letter of September 4 that was the subject of a Guardian article on September 20 concerning support for groups that do not share your view of climate science.

It is, indeed, unfortunate that the Royal Society is advocating censorship on a subject that calls for debate. The censorship of voices that challenge and provoke is antithetical to liberty and contrary to the traditions and values of free societies. That such a call comes from such a venerable scientific society is disturbing and should raise concerns worldwide about the intentions of those seeking to silence honest debate and discussion of our most challenging environmental issue– climate change.

The foundation of science, as well as its contributions to the betterment of mankind, is based on skepticism and debate. Schools teach that science is the clash of ideas, sharpened by data and observation, and subject to revision and reversal. Political discourse, at least in the United States, rests on the principle that all voices have the right to be heard and that any person is free to associate with whomever they so choose. Science demands those freedoms and scientists ought to embrace them.

The effort to promote and assert a ‘consensus’ on climate change science subverts the basic principles of science and is reaching the point where the very freedoms on which science depends are now in jeopardy – not through action of government but by scientists themselves.

Why, we ask, is the pursuit of a consensus and a letter such as this required? The letter contends its purpose is to check the spread of misinformation and inaccurate or misleading impression. Yet the proof offered reveals plainly that the debate is really about how different interpretations can arise from the same set of data and studies when different assumptions and models are used. The interpretation of data is not itself a fact. It is simply an opinion and, in a free society, policy makers and the public are free to judge opinions and the weight of evidence that supports them.

The drive for consensus is distorting what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) actually said in its Third Assessment Report. The difference in interpretation reflected in the present debate is more The Royal Society and others not recognizing the uncertainty that was inherent in the IPCC statement. These expert judgments are by their very nature subjective.

Science and the marketplace of ideas for policy are more than capable of separating information and fact from propaganda and pseudo facts. You claim that organizations supported by ExxonMobil are misinforming the public and contributing to “an inaccurate and misleading impression of the evidence on the causes of climate change”. Unfortunately, the Royal Society by its letter is guilty of what it is criticizing others of doing. We document the reason for this conclusion in the attachment which contains specific comments.

You are attempting to stifle that debate and that is dangerous. History contains many examples of the unfortunate consequences of Group Think and censoring dissent. If your call for censorship had been accepted as recently as a few years ago, the serious flaws in the now infamous, peer-reviewed proxy data study by Professor Michael Mann, et al. would not have come to light. That study, as you must be aware, is the main support for the IPCC conclusion you cite about recent temperatures. The shortcomings in the Mann study took at least five years of debate to uncover, yet the study was central to the Third IPCC Assessment. Those shortcomings are now in the peer reviewed literature and just recently an independent methodological review led by Professor Edward Wegman of George Mason University concluded that the “assessment that the decade of the 1990s was likely the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was likely the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by their analysis.” In view of the Wegman report, we are puzzled that you chose to cite the 2005 statement by science academies based on that statement since it now has been shown to be invalid.

Clearly, questions about the human impact on the climate are not settled and debate about them and other significant issues about the climate system should be encouraged, not stifled. Our report, Climate Issues and Questions, which you must have read in your review of skeptic organizations, documents many of the most important, and, incidentally contains 100 references from the best of the literature, including the IPCC.

The IPCC, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the US Climate Science Strategic Plan, which has been endorsed by the NAS, clearly demonstrate that there are many critical uncertainties in our understanding of the climate system. It is puzzling, therefore, that the Royal Society would endorse shutting off debate. It should logically follow that there are policy alternatives for addressing the climate risk that are consistent with our understanding of the causes of climate change.

Your letter suggests otherwise and implies support for the Kyoto approach and EU policy to reduce emissions 60% by 2050. We believe that approach is most likely to fail and cause unnecessary economic damage in the process. We believe that wise public policy should be flexible, responsive to new knowledge and strike a balance between actions to reduce emissions and the imperatives of promoting economic well-being.

We are also troubled by the fact that your focus on ExxonMobil funding ignores significantly larger funding of environmental advocacy groups that promote the Kyoto mindset and issue inaccurate and misleading statements in pursuit of their policy preferences and agendas.

We would never call for organizations to stop funding them because in free and open societies, free speech and the right of dissent are virtues, not vices. We will not speculate further as to the motives and intent behind this and similar demands for adherence to a rigid dogma. We can say without hesitation that our organization takes its work very seriously and works diligently toward the realization of a set of actions consistent with our principles and our assessment of the science. We are willing to let the scientific community do its work, generate data, test hypotheses, and educate. We fear others are not.
Sincerely,

William O’Keefe
CEO

Jeff Kueter
President


Comments on Specific Points Raised in the Royal Society Letter

The Royal Society (RS) letter states: “The expert judgment of the IPCC was actually based on objective and quantitative analyses and methods, including advanced statistical appraisals, …”

•• The IPCC primarily compiles and draws conclusions from that which is in the scientific literature or under the purview of the participants. The IPCC chapter cited in the RS letter speaks about qualitative comparisons, rather than quantative analyses. As the recent debate over the paleoclimate temperature history has revealed plainly, these studies are subject to numerous and sometimes substantial questions that alter their conclusions significantly. Furthermore, this statement makes clear the point that the debate at hand is one of interpretation of limited available information and data. Expert judgment is not science and neither is the output of models that have not been validated, as opposed to calibrated. The range of possible climate futures produced by running a single scenario through the models relied on by the IPCC make it clear that there is room for differences of opinion and debate.

•• We have no doubt that the authors of Chapter 12 of the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (TAR) were as objective as they could be, but the RS letter’s claim that the conclusion that Chapter 12 reached “was actually based on objective and quantitative analysis and methods” is not supported by the Chapter. Quite to the contrary, the Chapter’s Executive Summary repeated speaks of qualitative consistency between models and observations, but does not give quantitative measures of that consistency. The fact that Chapter 12 of the IPCC cited 167 references, and that its conclusion has been endorsed by a variety of scientific and political bodies does not change the fact that it was based on expert judgment or the degree of uncertainty that it contains.


The RS letter states: “… these statements … are not consistent with the scientific literature that has been published on this issue” and quotes a conclusion from the TAR.

•• The IPCC reports are solely the product of the scientists who participated in the process and those representatives of government assigned to produce the summary reports. Scientists have declined to participate in the process, citing its overt biases or unwillingness to commit the time and effort demanded. Nevertheless, the chapters themselves detail numerous significant uncertainties. That the participants in the IPCC reached one conclusion does not make that a fact. Fair minded people can reach other conclusions, as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences did when it review this very question and stated: “Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).” That would hardly be a statement about a field of science that is settled.


The RS letter quotes the IPCC as saying that “most of the observed warming over the past 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.”

•• The RS fails to explain the important caveats the IPCC uses in assigning meaning to the word likely. Footnote 7 in Working Group I’s Summary for Policymakers (SPM) from the TAR reads: “In this Summary for Policymakers and in the Technical Summary, the following words have been used where appropriate to indicate judgmental estimates of confidence: virtually certain (greater than 99% chance of being true) ; very likely (90-99% chance); likely (66-90% chance); medium likelihood (33-66% chance); unlikely (10-33% chance); very unlikely (1-10% chance); exceptionally unlikely (less than 1% chance). The reader is referred to individual chapter for more detail.”

•• This footnote is appended to every likelihood statement in the SPM. Whenever Working Group I had a basis for providing a statistical measure of uncertainty, they did so and did not use likelihood statements. It is clear from reading the report that anytime a likelihood statement is used, it is the result of expert judgment. And, by choosing likely as the term to characterize the evidence supporting attributing climate change to human activities, the Working Group I authors allowed for considerable uncertainty, up to a 33% chance that the statement was not true.

•• These probability estimates to make it clear that these are subjective judgments; not probabilities that have been calculated with actual data. Instead, they no more than the subjective assessments of the people involved in the IPCC process.


The RS letter quotes the IPCC for proof of the claim that temperature effects from anthropogenic activities “can be identified despite uncertainties …”

•• There is little question that human activities, that raise people from poverty, allow rising living standards, and improve human society, have had an influence on the climate. The question is to what extent and how strongly. As the quote above from the National Academy of Science shows, this is not a settled matter.

•• Further, the Executive Summary of Working Group I Chapter 12 of the TAR contains the following lengthy statement about uncertainties: “A number of important uncertainties remain. These include:

• Discrepancies between the vertical profile of temperature change in the troposphere seen in observations and models. These have been reduced as more realistic forcing histories have been used in models, although not fully resolved. Also, differences between observed surface and lower-tropospheric trends over the last two decades cannot be fully reproduced by model simulations.
• Large uncertainties in estimates of internal climate variability from models and observations, though as noted above, these are unlikely (bordering on very unlikely) to be large enough to nullify the claim that a detectible climate change has taken place.
• Considerable uncertainty in the reconstruction of solar and volcanic forcing which are based on proxy or limited observational data for all but the last two decades. Detection of the influence of greenhouse gases on climate appears to be robust to possible amplification of the solar forcing by ozone/solar or solar/cloud interactions, provided these do not alter the pattern or time dependence of the response to solar forcing. Amplification of the solar signal by these processes, which are not yet included in models, remains speculative.
• Large uncertainties in anthropogenic forcing are associated with the effects of aerosols. The effects of some anthropogenic factors, including organic carbon, black carbon, biomass aerosols, and changes in land use, have not been included in detection and attribution studies. Estimates of the size and geographic pattern of the effects of these forcing vary considerably, although individually their global effects are estimated to be relatively small.
• Large differences in the response of different models to the same forcing. These differences, which are often greater that the difference in response in the same model with and without aerosol effects, highlight the large uncertainties in climate change prediction and the need to quantify uncertainty and reduce it through better observational data sets and model improvement.”

•• The uncertainties listed above are important in considering both the detection and attribution of climate change. Detection of climate change is the ability to say, with some degree of confidence, that the climate has changed. Attribution of climate change is the ability to say, with some degree of confidence, why the climate has changed. There is little question that in many parts of the world there has been a detectible change in climate in the last century. The IPCC authors are correct in saying that this change can be identified despite the large uncertainties in estimates of internal variability. However, attribution is a more difficult problem, and the high level of uncertainty identified by IPCC gives us reason to question the certainty of their conclusion.


The RS letter contends that “many other papers have been published” in support of the IPCC’s claims.

•• Most of the root causes of uncertainty cited in the quote from the TAR still remain leading one to ask why the Royal Society is having such difficulty accepting that this IPCC conclusion contains a considerable degree of uncertainty, as do many scientific statements.

•• There are many instances where the IPCC reports have been proven wrong, misleading, or overstated as well. The recent book, Shattered Consensus, details some of the most significant. The important point is that as our knowledge expands, more data is gathered, and additional creative energy is applied to the questions, what we believe to be true changes. Given such a fluid state of affairs, that reasonable minds might disagree is not only likely, but ought to be encouraged lest we become blind to evidence that challenges the prevailing orthodoxy.


The RS letter claims that the IPCC’s conclusions were endorsed by leading scientific organizations.

•• And, what exactly did this joint statement call for? It demands recognition that climate change is an issue deserving global attention and reaction, which the U.S. has done. In fact, the U.S. is leading real international efforts to curtail emissions growth through development and deployment of new technologies. They also ask for “cost-effective steps” to reduce emissions. The joint statement does not define what those actions are, but the debate over the spectrum of options available is underway.


The RS letter expresses dismay about the spread of “such inaccurate and misleading impressions …” and urges the condemnation of organizations that, in your view, “have been misleading the public …

•• Providing a different interpretation is not misleading the public nor is it providing inaccurate or misleading impressions. To charge otherwise is tantamount to saying that the prevailing belief should never and can never be challenged. We once believed that Pluto was a planet and generations learned of it in that context. Yet, with the expansion of knowledge and sophistication of techniques, we learned that we wrong and now Pluto is no longer a planet. Is the Royal Society foreclosing the possibility that we will learn more about how the climate functions? Have we reached a point where there is nothing left to learn? The very premises on which science rests reject such views completely and without question.

The RS letter summarizes an ‘ad hoc’ survey of organizations alleged to be providing misrepresentations.

•• Billions of dollars are spent each years by governments, private foundations, and non-profit institutions worldwide each years in support of the views espoused by the Royal Society on climate change. Perhaps the Society and its allies should look to themselves rather than seek to deny those who question their interpretations the right to speech and the freedom to associate – rights that Americans hold dear.

--------------------

Marshal Institute comments on the UK Guardian article that broke the story of the letter after it was leaked by the RS.

For Immediate Release: September 20, 2006

Guardian’s Accusations False:
Corporate Interests Do Not Influence Institute Positions


This statement was issued by Jeff Kueter, President of the Marshall Institute

The Guardian’s article, “The Denial Industry” (September 19, 2006), accepts as fact George Mombiot’s rhetoric in his book Heat. This is unfortunate because the book, at least as evidenced by this excerpt, is little more than a compilation of his opinions. Passing those off as facts is pseudo journalism.

The foundation for Mr. Mombiot’s argument is that the science of global warming is conclusive. A careful reading of the International Panel on Climate Change’s work group report on science, reports issued by the U.S.’s National Academy of Science and the U.S.’s Climate Science Strategic Plan would demonstrate to any objective reader that the state of climate science is anything but conclusive. This is not an opinion it is a demonstrable fact.

No one denies that global warming is real, that CO2 emissions have risen, or that human activities — like living and pursuing a rising standard of living — have an impact on climate. Beyond those facts almost everything else of significance in the field of climate science is subject to large uncertainties. As the U.S.’s National Academy of Science clearly stated, “Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).” That would hardly be a statement about a field of science that is settled.

Mr. Mombiot can’t make his case with facts, so he attacks the integrity of anyone who does not subscribe to his environmental philosophy and agenda. There is little doubt that he has an agenda and in pursuit of that is willing to attack and attempt to discredit the reputations of any person or organization that gets in his way. The “end justifies the means” philosophy can have a chilling effect on both discourse and knowledge creation.

His attacks on the Marshall Institute and one of its founders reflect this strategy and his lack of regard for intellectual honesty. He does not attack the substance of what the Institute has published because he cannot. So, he uses one source of funding to imply and assert something that he cannot prove — that our reports are not scientifically robust.
(http://www.marshall.com)


-----

Letters

Heed this global warning

Friday April 30, 2004
The Guardian

I was wryly amused by George Monbiot's ad personam attack on those of us who have the audacity to think that climate change might be a tad complex (Beware the fossil fools, April 27). As a biogeographer, the subject quintessentially involved with climate change through geological time, I should like to remind George that, even if we crushed every car and plane, shut down every power station, closed every factory, and put 4 billion people out of work, climate would still change and often dramatically. Moreover, far from excoriating the BBC over its climate-change coverage, the corporation should be congratulated for understanding that these issues are more nuanced than George might wish.
Philip Stott
University of London

George Monbiot states that in my Daily Mail article on global warming, I referred by name only to one scientist who was sceptical of the theory. He does not name him, but claims he is funded by the fossil fuel industry. The scien tist to whom I referred was Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the world's foremost experts on atmospheric science. I have no idea who funds him. But this is part of MIT's description of him: "Prof Lindzen's research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity. He pioneered the study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with each other.

"Prof Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS's Meisinger and Charney awards, and AGU's Macelwane medal. He is a consultant to the global modelling and simulation group at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre, and a distinguished visiting scientist at California Institute of Technology."

What's George Monbiot ever done, apart from write daft articles for the Guardian?
Melanie Phillips
London

We all know that the views of columnists like [Peter] Hitchens and Phillips count for nothing, but many of us treat the pronouncements of government scientific advisers with a degree of cynicism.

However, there is a body of scientific opinion which doubts the basis underpinning the Kyoto thesis. Moreover, it is not without evidence to back it up: an instance is the research summarised on the New Scientist website (Sun more active than for a millennium - November 2 2003) giving further support to a credible alternative cause for the undoubted fact of global warming.

Is Monbiot really suggesting that the views of Jack Barrett and others of the Scientific Alliance are motivated by a desire to further the interests of the fossil fuel industry? If so, he ought to say just that and be prepared to defend his assertion in court.
GG Dron
London Bolton

George Monbiot is right in his summation of the media and climate sceptics. George Bush's anti-Kyoto policy has been dictated by Washington-based rightwing organisations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which actively promotes a tiny group of climate-sceptic scientists. The US scientific community has strongly protested this influence. But the majority of these groups receive large amounts of funding from Esso (ExxonMobil in the US).

Climate scientists say that climate change is happening and that we're causing it by the burning of oil, coal and gas. The media needs to realise that by buying into the climate-sceptic arguments, they're buying into the Esso-funded Republican agenda.
Cindy Baxter
StopEsso coalition

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Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #59 on: 2006-09-27 14:36:31 »
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Dear Iolo

Please reread your last post to this thread carefully. In particular these tidbits from Dr. Jack Barrett of Scientific Alliance's response to The Guardian
Quote:
There is little doubt that the rise in carbon dioxide concentration since 1900 AD has been caused by human activities. Physics indicates that rising CO2 levels should cause the global temperature to rise.


Please note that I understand this as an acknowledgment of two of the points I understand have been the subject of a strong attempted rearguard action by the "denialist" school, and about which I understood you to have been skeptical to the point of argument, i.e. that CO2 levels have been significantly raised by human activity and that this has resulted in "global warming." While the cited letter continues in an attempt to assert that the consequences are not particularly serious, I wonder if the acknowledgements contained in the letter in fact represent your current position? If this is the case, perhaps we can take these facts as read, and continue to address what I think is the last area of contention, that which I previously predicted as the last phase of this regression in, "I note that like the tobacco companies who first pumped millions of dollars into "proving" that their products were good for people; that having failed, into the idea that their products were not bad for people and not addictive; and that too having failed, into the idea that they are not as bad for people as the anti-tobacco campaigners insisted, so too, the oil companies have pumped millions of dollars into marketing the fact that their products are good for the environment, etc." [Hermit, "Church of Virus BBS/General/Science & Technology/The Flipping Point",  Reply #56, 2006-09-21 07:24:31]

The balance of the discussion would naturally, to my mind, focus on the apparent difference of opinion as to whether or not the assumptions behind, and the conclusion of, "bearing in mind that there has been 0.6° C increase already, we have very little to fear from a subsequent rise of 0.4° C." [Barrett, ibid.] are supportable and accurate. If this quote does not contain a complete articulation of your current position on what I understand to be the last potential areas of disagreement, then I would greatly appreciate it if you could write a sentence which better conveys your thinking.

Thanks and regards

Hermit
« Last Edit: 2006-09-27 14:49:56 by Hermit » Report to moderator   Logged

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