http://www.torontosun.com/News/Colum...2/3320076.html


Despite opinion polls that show federal Liberals and Conservatives are virtually tied, it could be argued that Stephen Harper is poised to win a majority when he calls an election in the spring.

Why is this, you ask? Because he's stolen a page from the Liberals book of tactics -- borrowing opposition policies and pandering to public perception.

This has been obvious during most of 2006. There's not a minority group he won't cater to, be it supporting Israel more strongly than any predecessor, rescuing Lebanese Canadians who prefer to live in Lebanon, recognizing Quebec as a "nation," killing the costly lunacy of long-gun registration. And so on.

This isn't to say these aren't valid issues, just that Harper exploits them. Accepting that, last week's replacement of Rona Ambrose as minister of the environment by John Baird seems cynicism mixed with opportunism (the essence of politics?)

I don't know much about Ambrose, apart from liking her looks and sympathizing with her earlier contempt for the Kyoto accord and the impossibility of Canada ever living up to its terms -- 6% lower greenhouse gas emissions than in 1990, but now some 35% higher than that. And growing. Harper going "Green" may be good politics (we'll find out next election), but it's nuts for Canada.

Kyoto and greenhouse gases are mainly about carbon dioxide emissions -- CO2.

What Canada and the world should be more concerned about is pollution wherever it occurs -- plastics in the oceans, toxic wastes wrecking the land, polluted groundwater that will kill our lakes just as the Soviets killed Lake Baikal in Russia.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It's essential for life. Anyway, with the U.S. rejecting Kyoto and other countries exempt from its provisions, it's a non-starter.

Although the Global Warming (GW) people blame CO2 emissions from SUVs and the like for the unseasonably warm winter, they're probably wrong. The atmosphere is about 80% nitrogen, and the rest various gases of which greenhouse gases comprise 3% with 0.035% of that carbon dioxide -- which our government falsely lists as toxic and noxious.

The sun (which is getting hotter) and increased cloud cover (from evaporation) tends to insulate the earth's heat. We can all remember a couple of years ago global warming was blamed (by people who should know better) for the rash of hurricanes that plagued the southern states. Last year was even warmer -- and virtually no hurricanes.

Today we read that global warming is melting the polar icecap -- when there is no polar icecap. It's sea ice, or floating ice. Yes, the Western Arctic is getting warmer, but on Greenland ice is even thicker than normal, and the Antarctic ice cap is increasing.

The U.S. wants polar bears on the endangered species list, and GW is blamed for polar bears having a tough year in the Arctic. Yet polar bears are adept at surviving, and are no more endangered today than they were 50 years ago.

In 1988, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed, which issues periodic Summaries for Policy Makers (SPM) -- which tend to be more political than scientific, and advances the myths of Kyoto.

A respected Canadian climatologist, Dr. Tim Bell, says "the Kyoto Protocol is a political solution to a non-existent problem without scientific justification."

Anyone interested in another viewpoint should check friendsofscience.ca which notes that no one has yet come up with a formula for predicting climate change. The best we can do is predict the weather two weeks ahead of time. Even that is hit or miss.

A respected Canadian climatologist, Dr. Tim Bell, says "the Kyoto Protocol is a political solution to a non-existent problem without scientific justification

Global Warming is ASSCLOWN SCIENCE by CUNTSENSLESS:-O

Kyoto was AlGores' Baby and Ennrons' too........If Gore had won....Kyoto would have been signed and Ennron would have gone on to soak Billions more from the entire world before collapsing:-(

YOU MUST STUDY to B approved...............not just be a one dimensional BLAME caster.


Pssssst...... a hint about Global politics......if they want money......or are trying to sell u something......your bullshit meter should be peaking in the red zone;-)

LookNlearn:-)

Supporters of the global warming theory
Organisations that support the global warming theory (or at least that have issued supportive declarations) include the following. These represent the mainstream position, a consensus that is the current scientific opinion on climate change.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The national academies of science of the G8 countries and Brazil, the People's Republic of China and India [40].
The US National Academy of Sciences, both in its 2002 report to President George W. Bush, and in its latest publications, has strongly endorsed evidence of an average global temperature increase in the 20th century and stated that human activity is heavily implicated in causing this increase.
The American Meteorological Society (AMS statement).
The American Geophysical Union (AGU statement). John Christy, who is usually placed in the skeptics camp, has signed the AGU statement on climate change.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). [41]
The Union of Concerned Scientists
[edit]Opponents of the global warming theory
Main article: List of scientists opposing global warming consensus


A small number of climate scientists and scientists in related fields have expressed opposition to the scientific consensus on global warming. Several of the most prominent are Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon ( Center for Astrophysics), Robert Balling (Arizona State University), Robert M. Carter (James Cook University), and Roy Spencer (University of Alabama in Huntsville).



Some prominent opponents from outside the climate science community have been:
David Bellamy, British environmental campaigner who has since decided to draw back from the debate on global warming.
Ann Coulter, American syndicated columnist.
Michael Crichton, science-fiction author, and critic of the politicization of science. Global warming is an issue in his 2004 novel, State of Fear.
Andrey Illarionov, former economic advisor to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Ross McKitrick economics professor.
Steven Milloy, FOX News columnist and Publisher of JunkScience.com.
Kary Mullis, biochemist and inventor of PCR.
Some organizations were formed to promote the opponents' views:
Cooler Heads Coalition.
Information Council on the Environment (defunct): Michaels, Balling and Idso all lent their names in 1991 to the scientific advisory panel of the Information Council on the Environment (ICE), an energy industry public relations group.
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.
Many of these opponents to the anthropogenic, global-warming theory have links to the fossil- fuels industry. [42] For example, Patrick J. Michaels and Frederick Seitz have both been linked to the George C. Marshall Institute--Michaels as a "visiting scientist" and Seitz as "Chairman Emeritus.".[43] The Institute has received numerous large grants from ExxonMobil, and from petroleum-related organizations such as the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Carthage Foundation [44][45][46]Similarly, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has received several large grants from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and from ExxonMobil.

Hi Gix and Look:There is a global warming thread and please jump in(Philip Cooney). Sour Claw and I probably debated the last 20 posts of it but I linked and explained beginning to end the science. If you review that entire thread their are parts of each issue debated by both sides. Jump in wherever you have a good comment or new info.


Oh I listed people or organizations from both sides(above post) who have written on this for people to google and see what they say.Also most points of debate have been presented from both sides. Just jump in and address wherever you see you have something specific to add. I think sour Claw and I debated for a long time and then just moved to other threads if you want to see our debate.

Supporters of the global warming theory
Organisations that support the global warming theory (or at least that have issued supportive declarations) include the following. These represent the mainstream position, a consensus that is the current scientific opinion on climate change.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

U make my point........SINCE WHEN is SCIENCE done by consensus and opinion???


http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q...nets&FORM=MSNH


http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q...nets&FORM=MSNH


Check with the radio guys.....they've been keeping stats on the sun-spot cycle for years;-)

oops....gave you the same one twice.......dam copy paste thing


http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q...go.x=13&go.y=5

Look&Learn
;-)

Global Warming is the philosophical heirs to the Luddites

Thanks Sam. I could of used this link a few weeks ago!

__________________
http://tinyurl.com/25trx9

03/04/07 "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, US essayist & poet (1803 - 1882)

02/25/07 "There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action." ~ Bertrand Russell, British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

Dutch journalism award: Kyoto is junk

Congratulations to Marcel Crok - the author of the Dutch article whose English version is here (12 pages). He was awarded by the prestigious Dutch scientific journalism prize from the Free University of Amsterdam (VU), its Medical Center, and Hogeschool Hindesheim. The prize includes 10,000 euro and a piece of art.

Steve McIntyre proudly announced the news here. An automatic translation of the Dutch news to English is here.

Crok's article - that I remember pretty well - explains that the analysis of the "hockey stick graph" revealed that this main pillar of the "global warming theory" was nothing else than a result of flawed statistics and raised questions about the integrity of the world climate research.

His description is very detailed - he even discusses the the secret "CENSORED" directory that Michael Mann apparently used to "hide" the data that were inconvenient for their pre-determined main conclusion - namely their bold claim that the present era is exceptionally warm compared to the temperatures in the last 1000 years. More concretely, the content of this directory effectively proves that Mann knew that the "hockey stick" and "unprecedented global warming" disappears if the bristlecones are removed from their ensemble.

What about Mann and Bradley? (Let me omit Hughes who is a bit separated.) While everyone else knows that their paper was flawed, they still seem to deny and misunderstand everything.

Martian warming II

What's the newest article on their "RealClimate" blog? It's an article that tries to deny "global" warming on Mars. I find it incredible that so many people are able to buy this stuff. Why? It has been established, beyond any reasonable doubts, that intense warming - and let's admit that most likely a natural one - has been taking place on Mars in the last few years, to say the least; this trend disagreed with the mainstream climate models, at least by May 2005; the dry ice caps are retreating with an enormous speed; these gigatons of sublimating carbon dioxide are slightly more important than SUVs on Earth especially because carbon dioxide represents only 0.038% of our atmosphere but 95% of the Martian atmosphere; don't try to claim that CO2 and its greenhouse effect can be neglected on Mars, especially if you say that even the tiny fraction is important here on Earth.

Nevertheless, Steinn Sigurðsson - who is an astrophysicist who studies binary stars - does not find it painful to argue that the obvious and massive shrinking of the Mars' South Polar Cap is "almost certainly a regional climate change, and is not any indication of global warming trends in the Martian atmosphere". Here on Earth, a piece of ice melts somewhere in the Arctic region and these people, ignoring the opposite trend in Antarctica (which is the place that many of them should actually study), convince hundreds of journalists to publish a pile of naive articles that the melting ice proves "global warming" and a "global catastrophe behind the corner".

When the very same thing happens on Mars, with the speed that is far more obvious than the speed here on Earth, they tell you that "it is almost certainly just a regional climate change".

Incidentally, it is not just Mars and Earth that have been warming in the last 20 years or so. Triton, Neptune's largest moon, as well as Pluto are warming. Jupiter is undergoing a major climate change and the equator temperatures will probably increase by 10 Celsius degrees in a decade. From an astrophysical viewpoint, it is really hard to argue that climate change is usually anthropogenic.

Do they have some scientific explanation why they treat the very same observed phenomena - including the same sign - on two planets so differently? I don't think so; unless they will join their creationist friends in arguing that the Earth is special as described in the Holy Scripture. You can always create two different climate models that will be used for two different planets, to better fit your religious agenda - but it's not yet science. The best thing we have are the observations and they show the same general kind of natural climate dynamics on both planets. Also, the models that are incompatible with the observed fact that dynamics on Earth and on Mars are qualitatively similar are simply experimentally disfavored.

Let me ask the same question once again. Does Sigurðsson offer some evidence for his statement that the warming on Mars is "less global" than the warming on Earth? Unfortunately, the answer is disturbing. What Sigurðsson offers are demonstrably untrue statements. He cites Colaprete at al. in Nature, May 2005 who are supposed to show that the warming trend on Mars is local and very different from Earth. He mentions that "subscription is required" and apparently relies on the fact that most of his readers won't be able to verify his claims. If you check them, you will see that these guys, on the contrary, argue that the climates on Mars and Earth are similar - and Barnes, one of the authors, explains that their work not only tries to explain why the dry icecaps are absent near the Southern pole, for the first time (in contradiction with another claim by Sigurðsson), but also "raises the possibility of global climate change on Mars". These comments about their viewpoint on the trends is only mentioned in various interviews and press releases; there is no direct research of the multi-year trends in the actual article that focuses on the geographic features of the icecaps only (including the apparently different climates on the Western and Eastern hemispheres). Nevertheless, Sigurðsson uses this particular paper as the (only) argument for his (currently unjustifiable) claim that the warming on Mars is not "global", unlike the warming on Earth. Don't you find it worrisome? I do. And I've erased a moral appraisal that was a part of this sentence because too many readers wanted me to erase it. ;-) Incidentally, I appreciate that S.S. did not try to hide the criticism from the readers of "RealClimate" and that he came to this blog to try to reply, too.

What's equally striking is that the team of ten "RealClimate" scientists who claim that they understand the climate is not able to write anything about the issue of the Martian global warming. Instead, they invite a "guest blogger" who is himself a binary star specialist i.e. who has professionally nothing to do with the climate models whatsoever. The very same people whose only argument against the scientific articles that they find inconvenient is their statement that the author is not their colleague (and moreover, may be paid by ExxonMobil, right?) suddenly have to rely on the opinion of an astrophysicist who studies binary stars.

Well, when he writes things that they find useful for their ideology, suddenly it does not matter that he is a climate layman. Of course that at the end, I can't blame S.S. for his particular opinion. It is the RC team who should be blamed for their selective process of choosing the "convenient opinions".

It's completely obvious that if they had some terrestrial climate models whose conclusions could be trusted, they could just change a couple of parameters, make a few improvements, and they could also predict the Martian climate, at least approximately. (NASA probably has the best Martian climate models in the world but they are not giving quite the right results yet.) The fact that they can't tell you anything about it and that they must rely on the opinion on a guest non-specialist is telling your something, isn't it?

If someone claims that he understands the terrestrial climate perfectly enough so that he can predict the future in 2050 including the variations, but simultaneously has no idea at all what may be happening on Mars, then it's analogous to a "nuclear physicist" who tells you that she understands everything about the Lithium nucleus - and she can predict the new excited levels - but has no idea about the Helium nucleus. In both cases, the relevant physics is based on universal effects.

The reason behind this apparent "contradiction" is not hard to see. There are no climate models that can make useful long-term predictions. What they have are models that have enough parameters that by adjusting them, you may obtain a rough agreement with the past data and nearly arbitrary "predictions" for the future. (It's slightly easier for them to predict warming right now, so they decided that warming is the type of "catastrophe" that will arrive soon.)

They can't verify any predictions, the predictions differ from reality, and the "modellers" always say that the disagreement is caused by noise. Nevertheless, the noise is supposed to evaporate when they make even more speculative predictions for the far future - which is the regime in which people should suddenly trust them. And they're simply satisfied with this kind of "understanding".

What these people write on "RealClimate" is not science. It is a consensus of several average people with strong political commitments. It's a whole church of Mother Earthism or a political party and "RealClimate" is its ministry of propaganda.