Clipmarks | Rustee's 'climate change' clips

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

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

The Hopeless Press

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 02:02:31 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Network news shows have been delivering overly negative reports since 2003. This was standard operating procedure, just more horrific than usual. In 2006, 17 network stories drew comparisons with the Great Depression, from U.S. savings rates to climate change.

Clip Source: www.ibdeditorials.com

The major media give us only two degrees of economic news — close to "apocalyptic" and worse. They are so outlandishly negative that coverage of the Bear Stearns buyout was vastly worse than reporting of the 1929 stock market crash.

ABC, CBS and NBC made comparisons to America's worst economic turmoil — the Great Depression — more than 40 times in the first four months of 2008.

Compare that with how the New York Times summed up its own market outlook in an Oct. 30, 1929, story after billions of dollars were lost in record trading.

Words like "optimism" and "hope" shouted off the pages of major newspapers.

It was easy to find good news amid the market chaos in 1929. Even in the Times, the most downbeat outlet studied from that era, positive stories still outnumbered negative ones by nearly a 3-to-1 ratio.

The modern news media had no such "confidence" in the markets.

Tags: media, economy

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.

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

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

Carbon Copies - Emissions Taxes

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:11:12 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Based upon a widely accepted formula originated at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, if the entire United States adopted the original Kansas legislation, it would prevent a total of 0.11 degrees F of global warming per century. Read that again, because it's not a typo: Eleven one-hundredths of a degree in 100 years.

Instead, let's apply the original Kansas legislation to every nation on the planet that agreed to limit its emissions under the infamous 1997 Kyoto Protocol...The new law would prevent 0.27 degrees F of warming per century. That's an amount too small to measure, because global temperatures vary by more than that from year-to-year -- global warming or not.

Clip Source: www.spectator.org

The Kansas Legislature has wisely written a proposed tax on carbon dioxide emissions out of this year's energy legislation.

As originally written by the Committee on Utilities, the Sunflower Energy bill's CO2 tax would have been a first, and a very bad precedent. The bad news is that the original bill will be copied and wind up before other legislatures that are more likely to pass it, like those of California and Oregon.

A CO2 tax will largely be levied on utilities that exceed modest limits on their carbon dioxide effluent, so consumers won't "see" it -- except in their electric bills.

But we hear over and over that if we don't "do" something serious about carbon dioxide emissions in the next eight years (a conveniently presidential number), we are condemning ourselves to an unmitigated climate disaster

That's about as likely as a bill limiting CO2 emissions in Kansas putting a detectable dent in global warming.

Tags: energy, climate change, global warming, government, taxes

S.F. Mayor's Climate Aide - $160,000 a Year

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:35:54 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: At least 25 city employees work directly on initiatives related to climate-control efforts in San Francisco. Here is a sample of those jobs and what they are paid:

$160,720 - Mayor's Office: Director of climate protection initiatives

$800,000 - Department of the Environment: Eight-person Energy and Climate Program team led by a climate action coordinator - at a total cost of more than $800,000

$146,218 - San Francisco Public Utilities Commission: Projects manager for the climate action plan

$156,655 - San Francisco Public Utilities Commission: Assistant to the general manager for water enterprise (works on how climate change is going to impact the region's water supply)

$190,091 - San Francisco International Airport: Manager of environmental services

$116,584 - Municipal Transportation Agency: Manager of emissions reductions and sustainability programs

Clip Source: www.sfgate.com

In his quest to make San Francisco the greenest city in the nation, Mayor Gavin Newsom recently created a $160,000-a-year job for a senior aide and gave him the ambitious-sounding title of director of climate protection initiatives.

But the new climate protection initiatives director is just the latest person to join the city payroll in the name of tackling global climate woes, raising questions about whether environmentalism is becoming the latest excuse for a bloating government payroll.

San Francisco has at least two dozen other city employees already working directly on climate issues at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But officials in the Newsom administration say that even 25 people working on climate issues is not enough and that having a director in the mayor's inner circle is necessary to coordinate all the city's climate initiatives.

Tags: san francisco, government, climate change, global warming

Risks of Energy Saving Bulbs

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:35:41 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: There are serious environmental concerns with these bulbs, which in turn affect our health.
God forbid you accidentally break one! The UK Environment Agency recommends you vacate the room for 15 minutes, don't use a vacuum to clean debris (toxic dust), and must always be disposed of at proper recycling facilities to prevent landfill contamination.

Clip Source: conservativethoughts.us

Telegraph.co.uk

The new energy-saving bulbs produce a more intense light and can exacerbate a range of existing skin problems. The warning has been issued by Spectrum, an alliance of charities working with people with light sensitive conditions, and the British Association of Dermatologists.

BBC - Energy-saving light bulbs could trigger migraines, say campaigners. The Migraine Action Association says members have told them how fluorescent bulbs have led to attacks. Concerns have already been raised by epilepsy charities about an increased risk of seizures from energy-saving bulbs.

BBC - The Environment Agency has called for more information to be made available on the health and environmental risks posed by low-energy light bulbs. It says because the bulbs contain small amounts of mercury, more information about safe recycling is needed. It also wants health warnings printed on packaging and information on how to clear up smashed bulbs in the home.

Tags: energy, global warming, climate change

Dr. Neil Frank Disputes Hurricane Counts

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 08:42:14 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: "Though it might seem he is trying to upstage the hurricane center, his real intent, Frank said, is to dispute that global warming has led to more active Atlantic tropical storm seasons, as several meteorological studies have asserted."

Clip Source: www.sun-sentinel.com

A well-known name in hurricane-forecasting circles — Neil Frank — is challenging how the National Hurricane Center classifies storms. Last year, he contends, six of the 15 named systems may have been too weak to really deserve tropical storm status.

Until the mid 1990s, the hurricane center relied on central barometric pressure as the primary yardstick of a storm's strength. The lower the pressure, the stronger a system. Storms with readings of 1005 millibars or higher were deemed too weak to be named, Frank said.

If that standard were in place now, four of 2007's storms, including Erin, Gabrielle, Ingrid and Melissa, would be disputable, he said. Two, Chantal and Jerry, would not have been named at all because both formed in the Atlantic well to the north of the tropical region, even though their central pressures were relatively low, he added.

Further, Hurricane Felix, designated a ferocious Category 5, would have been deemed "a strong Category 4,"

Questionable storms

Tags: hurricanes, global warming, climate change