Clipmarks | Rustee's Environmental Issues collection

Climate of the Carboniferous Period

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:11:52 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Earth's atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished!

Understanding Earth's geologic and climate past is important for understanding why our present Earth is the way it is, and what Earth may look like in the future.

Clip Source: www.geocraft.com

Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 20° C (68° F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12° C (54° F). As shown on the chart below, this is comparable to the average global temperature on Earth today!

Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm -- comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!

In the last 600 million years of Earth's history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.

To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm.

Tags: global warming, climate change

Believing Global Warming

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:43:16 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it's time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.

The real place where discussions of global warming belong is in the realm of belief, and particularly the motives for belief.

The first is as a vehicle of ideological convenience.

Take just about any other discredited leftist nostrum of yore – population control, higher taxes, a vast new regulatory regime, global economic redistribution, an enhanced role for the United Nations – and global warming provides a justification.

A second explanation is theological.

A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence.

Finally, there is a psychological explanation.

What's remarkable is the extent to which penance sells among a mostly secular audience. What is there to be penitent about?

Perspective on Temperature

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:02:04 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Many questions remain to be answered regarding the real significance of anthropogenic carbon dioxide as a climate forcing factor and related rising sea level consequences projected by the I.P.C.C. First, there is no incontrovertible evidence to support contentions that pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels were consistently lower than the 380 ppm recorded now. More than 90,000 published measurements carried out between 1812 and 1961 indicate that atmospheric levels were actually rising before the Industrial Revolution. They reached about 440 ppm in 1820, dropped to about 390 ppm by 1855, and rose back to about 440 ppm by 1940.

Clip Source: www.energytribune.com

Cyclical, abrupt, and dramatic global and regional temperature fluctuations have occurred in observable patterns over millions of years, long before humans invented agriculture, capitalism, smokestacks, and carbon trading schemes. To appreciate just how lucky we are to live in the present, consider climate cycles from a historical perspective. Over the past 400,000 years, much of the Northern Hemisphere has been covered by ice up to three miles thick, at regular intervals lasting about 100,000 years each. Very brief interglacial cycles lasting about 12,000 to 18,000 years, like our current one, have offered reprieves from the bitter cold. From this perspective, there can be no doubt that current temperatures are abnormally warm.

The average temperature of our planet has been gradually increasing on a fairly constant basis over the past 18,000 years or so since it began thawing out of the last ice age.

Tags: global warming, climate change

Looking Back to Wild Environmentalist Predictions

Sat, 10 May 2008 18:39:10 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: www.gmu.edu

At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind." C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, "The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed." In 1968, Professor Paul Ehrlich, Vice President Gore's hero and mentor, predicted there would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and "in the 1970s ... hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million.

In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, "The World as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000."

Assumptions in Polar Bear Populations

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:05:45 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

What we do know about polar bears is that, contrary to media portrayals, they are not fragile "canary in the coal mine" animals, but are robust creatures that have survived past periods of extensive deglaciation. Polar bear fossils have been dated to over one hundred thousand years, which means that polar bears have already survived an interglacial period when temperatures were considerably warmer than they are at present and when, quite probably, levels of summertime Arctic sea ice were correspondingly low.

Clip Source: www.aei.org

The first assumption is that global warming has caused, and will cause, a predictable reduction in sea ice. The second assumption holds that polar bear populations will dwindle because they are dependent on sea ice to hunt for prey. But each of these assumptions is fraught with problems.

But the IPCC projections are based on the assumption that Arctic ice melting is the result of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions--an assumption that was recently shown to be of dubious merit by NASA, which is hardly a hotbed of climate skepticism.

Son Nghiem explained that the warming of recent years was, in fact, caused by a change in wind patterns.

Thus, to determine whether polar bears will be endangered by the disappearance of sea ice, trends in population are predicted using something called population viability analysis (PVA)

PVA can be a useful tool in policy cost-benefit analysis, but its results are only as accurate as the data and the model assumptions that go into it.

Polar Bear Populations

Thu, 08 May 2008 05:47:22 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Given these uncertainties, the best estimate--guesstimate might be a better term--published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission's (SSC) Polar Bear Specialist Group, is that there are about twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand polar bears worldwide.

Clip Source: www.aei.org

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

First, what do we know about the health of polar bear populations?

Note that it encompasses virtually the entire Arctic region.

the Arctic is such a hostile environment that one can conduct polar bear surveys only at certain times of year and in areas close to land masses. Survey results, therefore, may or may not be representative of the population as a whole. This makes establishing the health of existing polar bear populations--the very beginning of our inquiry--difficult.

Polar bears are counted by periodic flyovers of suspected polar bear habitat or by capturing and marking a subpopulation of bears, then using the frequency of recapture as a means to estimate the size of a population. Few subpopulations have been surveyed repeatedly, and the surveys that exist were taken over different years, some dating back to the 1980s. Where even these limited data are unavailable, population estimates are created basically from hearsay

Backdoor Kyoto

Thu, 08 May 2008 05:28:30 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Center for Biological Diversity said:

Protection under the Endangered Species Act will provide concrete help to polar bears and could revolutionize American climate policy. Since U.S. resistance to curbing greenhouse gases has allowed other countries to shirk their responsibilities as well, major changes in American policy are likely to have a powerful domino effect, catalyzing change in climate policy worldwide.
From polluting power plants in the Midwest to auto manufacturers, a vast array of industries may have to clean up their acts to give the polar bear a chance to survive.

Clip Source: www.aei.org

Listing the polar bear as a threatened species would have significant public policy consequences. It would set a new precedent, representing the first linkage of species endangerment with global warming. Such a listing would basically wall off the entire Arctic region to exploration, resource extraction, and development--at least by U.S. companies--and a threatened species listing would give environmental groups the ability to sue future U.S. governments to force them to reverse climate change by whatever means necessary.

There is little doubt that such lawsuits would be filed quickly. According to the NRDC:

Listing the polar bear guarantees federal agencies will be obligated to ensure that any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not jeopardize the polar bears' continued existence or adversely modify their critical habitat, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be required to prepare a recovery plan for the polar bear, specifying measures necessary for its protection.

Global Warming Nonsense

Sat, 03 May 2008 07:12:06 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

The concept of malaria as a "tropical" infection is nonsense. It is a disease of the poor. Alarmists in the richest countries peddle the notion that the increase in malaria in poor countries is due to global warming and that this will eventually cause malaria to spread to areas that were "previously malaria free." That's a misrepresentation of the facts and disingenuous when packaged with opposition to the cheapest and best insecticide to combat malaria – DDT.

It is true that malaria has been increasing at an alarming rate in parts of Africa and elsewhere in the world.

But throughout history the most critical factors in the spread or eradication of disease has been human behavior (shifting population centers, changing farming methods and the like) and living standards. Poverty has been and remains the world's greatest killer.

But anyone truly worried about malaria in impoverished countries would do well to focus on improving human living conditions, not the weather.

Tags: disease, climate change

Storm Subsides Between William Gray, CSU

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:43:10 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

The dean of CSU's College of Engineering, which oversees atmospheric sciences, said she spoke with Gray about terminating media support for his forecasts solely because of the strain it placed on the college's lone media staffer.

"It really has nothing to do with his stand on global warming," said the dean, Sandra Woods. "He's a great faculty member."

Clip Source: www.chron.com

By pioneering the science of seasonal hurricane forecasting, William Gray turned a university far from the stormy seas into a hurricane research mecca.

But last year, the long-term relationship between Gray and Colorado State University, where he has worked for nearly half a century, nearly unraveled in an episode that highlights the politically charged atmosphere that surrounds the global warming debate.

University officials told Gray that handling media inquiries related to his forecasting required too much time and detracted from efforts to promote other professors' work.

"This is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the Department's capitulation to the desires of some (in their own interest) who want to reign (sic) in my global warming and global warming-hurricane criticisms," Gray wrote in the memo, obtained by the Chronicle.

Gray initially declined to speak about the issue, but on Tuesday Gray acknowledged the dispute.

Tags: meteorology, climate change

Activists Halt New Coal Power Plants

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:29:33 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Every time a new coal-fired power plant is proposed anywhere in the United States, a lawyer from the Sierra Club or an allied environmental group is assigned to stop it, by any bureaucratic or legal means necessary.

The plant-by-plant strategy is part of a campaign by environmentalists to force the federal government to deal with climate change.

The Sierra Club is coordinating opposition to about 50 additional power plant proposals.

The goal: "We hope to clog up the system," said David Bookbinder, the Sierra Club's chief climate counsel.

Members of the environmental law brigade concede that stopping new plants may not be as effective in reducing emissions as getting the oldest, dirtiest, least efficient coal plants offline. Coal supplies half of America's electricity.

"We'll need to find a way to go after them, too,"

Tags: environment, climate change, energy

Arctic Ocean Getting Warm, Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt!

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:45:20 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: This is just a few lines of the generic AP story, but it was relying on source information first printed here. You absolutely have to see that source article to understand the situation we're in!

Clip Source: wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com

Here is the text of the Washington Post (Associated Press) article:

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

Tags: history, climate change, journalism

NOAA 2007/2008 Winter Prediction

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:33:34 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: A look back at their prediction versus the actuality.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Warm Winter Predicted For United States

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2007) — NOAA forecasters are calling for above-average temperatures over most of the country and a continuation of drier-than-average conditions across already drought-stricken parts of the Southwest and Southeast in its winter outlook for the United States, announced at the 2007-2008 Winter Fuels Outlook Conference in Washington, D.C October 9, 2007.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Coolest Winter Since 2001 For U.S., Globe, According To NOAA Data

ScienceDaily (Mar. 15, 2008) — The average temperature across both the contiguous U.S. and the globe during climatological winter (December 2007-February 2008) was the coolest since 2001, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. In terms of winter precipitation, Pacific storms, bringing heavy precipitation to large parts of the West, produced high snowpack that will provide welcome runoff this spring.

Tags: meteorology, science, climate change

Photos of Wild Coyotes and Wolves

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:35:03 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: Coyotes are one of my favorite animals...beautiful, cunning, and can adapt to almost ANY environment (unlike wolves). But hey, wolves are cool too.

Clip Source: www.wildnatureimages.com

Stock Photos of coyote are of animals photographed in the wild. These photographs were not shot under controlled conditions nor have the photos been computer manipulated.

Clip Source: www.wildnatureimages.com

All our photos are of wolves photographed in the wild. None of these wolf photos were shot under controlled conditions; nor was any baiting or artificial calls used.

These wolf photos were all captured in Denali National Park, Alaska.

Wolf

Wolf Feeding on Caribou Kill

Running Wolves

Wolf, Denali National Park

Wolves, Denali National Park

Wolf yawns

Denali Wolf

Wolf Carries Caribou Head

Wolf feeding on Caribou

Wild Wolf

Landscape with wolves

Wolf near Teklanika

Taking a Caribou leg to the den

Gray Wolf Howling

Black Phase Gray Wolf

Wild Gray Wolf

Wild Gray Wolf Pups

Tags: coyotes, wolves, nature, pictures, wildlife

From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:23:18 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: As written by the President of the Czech Republic:

What I see in Europe (and in the U.S. and other countries as well) is a powerful combination of irresponsibility, of wishful thinking, of implicit believing in some form of Malthusianism, of cynical approach of those who themselves are sufficiently well-off, together with the strong belief in the possibility of changing the economic nature of things through a radical political project.

Clip Source: heartland.org

As a politician who personally experienced communist central planning of all kinds of human activities, I feel obliged to bring back the already almost forgotten arguments used in the famous plan-versus-market debate in the 1930s in economic theory (between Mises and Hayek on the one side and Lange and Lerner on the other), the arguments we had been using for decades -- till the moment of the fall of communism. Then they were quickly forgotten.

We have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society. Now it concerns the whole mankind, not just the citizens of one particular country. To discuss this means to look at the canonically structured theoretical discussion about socialism (or communism) and to learn the uncompromising lesson from the inevitable collapse of communism 18 years ago. It is not about climatology. It is about freedom.

Tags: climate change, socialism, government, communism

1900 Storm - America's Deadliest Natural Disaster

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:42:41 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: How many perished can only be estimated at around 10,000, or 1 out of every 6 residents.
This was Galveston, Texas btw.

Clip Source: archives.cnn.com

The Category 4 hurricane struck September 8, 1900.

Before dawn September 8, the water crept ashore and kept rising, despite strengthening north winds that should have repelled the storm.

As people fled to higher ground, waves raged inward from both the gulf and the bay. Homes disintegrated and rushing waters swept people away.

St. Mary's Orphanage, home to 93 children and 10 Catholic nuns, stood near the beach and was one of the first buildings to succumb to the storm. The only survivors were three boys who managed to cling to an uprooted tree as it was tossed around by the rising waters.

Water continued to rise until the whole island was submerged by 3 p.m.

There were too many dead to bury, so the remains were initially weighted down and dropped into the Gulf of Mexico. But the bodies floated back to shore and were eventually burned in funeral pyres.

Human remains were found as late as February of 1901.

Clip Source: www.1900storm.com

Tags: history, hurricanes, disaster, texas