OK, I'll post some more news too:
Computer Modeling/ Skewed Programming=GLOBAL FRAUD
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Date: 2007-01-19, 3:44PM PST
Your Friend Global Warming
by Ryan McMaken
I suppose I shouldnât be surprised anymore when bad ideas persist despite a complete lack of evidence, but then, environmentalism, that great past-time of over-educated white people with too much free time was never terribly fact driven anyway. The recent studies exposing the fraud of computer modeling and global warming theory in general should lift the spirits of anyone who thinks that just maybe, ruining the international economy isnât preferable to a one degree increase in average global temperatures.
For twenty years, global warming has been a useful justification for the global rule of control freaks and managerial elites whose great dream is to manage everything down to your carburetor through a giant world-wide enviro-bureaucracy. The high point of the crusade was the Kyoto treaty which, if left un-ratified, we were told that we were going to have to all grow gills or snorkel to work since the ice caps were going to melt and turn Rocky Mountain National Park into a seaside resort.
The problem with the whole thing has become more and more obvious in recent months as studies have come out showing that not only have the ice caps been getting colder, but that even if there are going to be major global changes, there is no way of predicting them, and really quite little we can do about them.
The studies illustrate cooling trends that may be reversing the warming trend begun in the 19th century which leveled off in the 1940âs. Yet, the warming of the past century or so has failed to equal the warming that everyone enjoyed from the 8th century to the 15th century. In those halcyon days of high global temperatures, vineyards could flourish in England, cattle could graze in areas that are now icebound, and Greenland was actually green. Unfortunately, the warming period was followed by a severe global cooling that lasted until the 19th century and caused numerous farms to be abandoned as they were covered with ice. All over the world, civilization retreated from the colder regions. Going back further to the ancient world, one would find a time when the Sahara desert contained great lakes, and the entire region was wetter and warmer. Trade routes were cut across the desert that have since been abandoned due to the disappearance of the precious water.
According to a paper recently distributed at the American Geophysical Union by the US National Academy of Sciences, such sudden changes in climate as occurred between 1400 and 1800 are not unusual. Among other things, those who conducted the study had to conclude that the computer simulations on climate are essentially useless since the relatively rapid climate changes so abundant in human history are not, and cannot, be accounted for in computer models. Not surprisingly, the Academy concluded that more (presumably government) funding is necessary to really understand climate change, and even though they have more questions than answers on the subject of climate change, they recommend that the coercive efforts of governments to vainly attempt to curb global warming continue.
None of this evidence seems to impress the global warming crowd which continues to repeat to itself that global warming is an unprecedented phenomenon sure to destroy all life as we know it. What is most vexing is how the threat of global cooling is simply shrugged off by environmentalists. For some reason, the idea of living under a sheet of ice disturbs environmentalists less than the idea of an increase in arable land and a decline in deadly cold temperatures.
The fact that many modern global warmists were the same people sounding the alarm about global cooling in the seventies notwithstanding, the prospect of a global ice age should be far more alarming than any problems that might arise from global warming. The most important fact to remember is that non-ice age periods in the earthâs history are far less common than are ice bound periods. Ice ages commonly last from 70,000 to 100,000 years while interglacial periods last 30,000 years at most. The interglacial period we now enjoy has never reached some of the high temperatures reached in previous warming periods, and yet the environmentalists have managed to convince millions that somehow this warming is special and believe, contrary to intuition, that this one is somehow destructive.
Where is the climate headed now? The fact is that we have no idea, and as the NAS study shows, an ice age or increased warming could kick in at any time completely independent of what a few SUV drivers might have to say about it. It shouldnât take a PhD in geology to wager a guess as to whether global warming or an ice age would be best for mankind. If the residents were alive, it would probably prove fruitful to ask medieval Iceland, which lost half its population to global cooling, if glaciers are a good or a bad thing for business. With the help of commerce and free economies, crops can be grown in hot and dry areas. Crops cannot be grown on a glacier. Arable land is good for mankind. A North American continent covered by a sheet of ice is not.
We cannot predict what way the earthâs climate will go, and in such a situation of uncertainty, it is always best to do what is a good idea anyway. Allowing economic growth that enables people to prosper and escape grinding poverty in the third-world is a good idea. Crippling the economies of the world with knee-jerk bureaucratic schemes like the Kyoto treaty is a bad idea. If climate change is something we should be worried about, economic growth and technological advancement will be necessary to deal with it.
While the global warming crowd continues to whoop it up for utopian enterprises like the Kyoto treaty despite rapidly disappearing supporting evidence, the rest of us would be wise to look to history and appreciate the fragility of markets and civilization, and even the fragility of the warm climate we now enjoy.
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Remember, folks -- you've been told that EVERYONE is on board with Global Warming Theory, right?
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Eco-Misanthropes Want Better Living Through Mass Death
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Date: 2007-01-19, 3:54PM PST
by Sen. James Inhofe
Posted Aug 06, 2003
Environmentalism's Death Toll for 'Nature'
As chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, I have a profound responsibility, because the decisions of the committee have wide-reaching impacts, influencing the health and security of every American.
Thatâs why I established three guiding principles for all committee work: it should rely on the most objective science; it should consider costs on businesses and consumers; and the bureaucracy should serve, not rule, the people.
Without these principles, we cannot make effective public policy decisions. They are necessary to both improve the environment and encourage economic growth and prosperity.
One very critical element to our success as policymakers is how we use science. That is especially true for environmental policy, which relies very heavily on science. I have insisted that federal agencies use the best, non-political science to drive decision-making. Strangely, I have been harshly criticized for taking this stance. To the environmental extremists, my insistence on sound science is outrageous.
For them, a "pro-environment" philosophy can only mean top-down, command-and-control rules dictated by bureaucrats. Science is irrelevantâinstead, for extremists, politics and power are the motivating forces for making public policy.
But if the relationship between public policy and science is distorted for political ends, the result is flawed policy that hurts the environment, the economy, and the people we serve.
Sadly thatâs true of the current debate over many environmental issues. Too often, emotion stoked by irresponsible rhetoric rather than facts based on objective science shapes the contours of environmental policy.
Arsenic Hysteria
A rather telling example of this arose during President Bushâs first days in office, when emotionalism overwhelmed science in the debate over arsenic standards in drinking water. Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, vilified President Bush for "poisoning" children because he questioned the scientific basis of a regulation implemented in the final days of the Clinton Administration.
The debate featured television ads, financed by environmental groups, of children asking for another glass of arsenic-laden water. The science underlying the standard, which was flimsy at best, was hardly mentioned or held up to any scrutiny.
The Senate went through a similar scare back in 1992. That year some members seized on data from NASA suggesting that an ozone hole was developing in the Northern Hemisphere. The Senate then rushed into panic, ramming through, by a 96-to-0 vote, an accelerated ban on certain chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants. Only two weeks later NASA produced new data showing that their initial finding was a gross exaggeration, and the ozone hole never appeared.
The issue of catastrophic global warming, which I would like to speak about today, fits perfectly into this mold. Much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science. Global warming alarmists see a future plagued by catastrophic flooding, war, terrorism, economic dislocations, droughts, crop failures, mosquito-borne diseases, and harsh weatherâall caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
Hans Blix, chief UN weapons inspector, sounded both ridiculous and alarmist when he said in March, "Iâm more worried about global warming than I am of any major military conflict."
Science writer David Appell, who has written for such publications as the New Scientist and Scientific American, parroted Blix when he said global warming would "threaten fundamental food and water sources. It would lead to displacement of billions of people and huge waves of refugees, spawn terrorism and topple governments, spread disease across the globe."
Appellâs next point deserves special emphasis, because it demonstrates the sheer lunacy of environmental extremists: "[Global warming] would be chaos by any measure, far greater even than the sum total of chaos of the global wars of the 20th century, and so in this sense Blix is right to be concerned. Sounds like a weapon of mass destruction to me."
No wonder the late political scientist Aaron Wildavsky called global warming alarmism the "mother of all environmental scares."
Appell and Blix sound very much like those who warned us in the 1970s that the planet was headed for a catastrophic global cooling. On April 28, 1975, Newsweek printed an article titled, "The Cooling World," in which the magazine warned: "There are ominous signs that the earthâs weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food productionâwith serious political implications for just about every nation on earth."
In a similar refrain, Time magazine for June 24, 1974 declared: "However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades."
In 1974 the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, stated: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade." Two years earlier, the board had observed: "Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end. . . leading into the next glacial age."
How quickly things change. Fear of the coming ice age is old hat, but fear that man-made greenhouse gases are causing temperatures to rise to harmful levels is in vogue. Alarmists brazenly assert that this phenomenon is fact, and that the science of climate change is "settled."
Sound Empirical Science Challenges Alarmists
Today, even saying there is scientific disagreement over global warming is itself controversial. But anyone who pays even cursory attention to the issue understands that scientists vigorously disagree over whether human activities are responsible for global warming, or whether those activities will precipitate natural disasters.
I would submit, furthermore, that not only is there a debate, but the debate is shifting away from those who subscribe to global warming alarmism. After studying the issue over the last several years, I believe that the balance of the evidence offers strong proof that natural variability is the overwhelming factor influencing climate.
Itâs also important to question whether global warming is even a problem for human existence. Thus far no one has seriously demonstrated any scientific proof that increased global temperatures would lead to the catastrophes predicted by alarmists. In fact, it appears that just the opposite is true: that increases in global temperatures may have a beneficial effect on how we live our lives.
For these reasons I would like to discuss an important body of scientific research that refutes the anthropogenic theory of catastrophic global warming. I believe this research offers compelling proof that human activities have little impact on climate.
This research, well documented in the scientific literature, directly challenges the environmental worldview of the media, so they typically donât receive proper attention and discussion. Certain members of the media would rather level personal attacks on scientists who question "accepted" global warming theories than engage on the science.
I believe it is extremely important for the future of this country that the facts and the science get a fair hearing. Without proper knowledge and understanding, alarmists will scare the country into enacting its ultimate goal: making energy suppression, in the form of harmful mandatory restrictions on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions, the official policy of the United States.
Such a policy would induce serious economic harm, especially for low-income and minority populations. Energy suppression, as official government and non-partisan private analyses have amply confirmed, means higher prices for food, medical care, and electricity, as well as massive job losses and drastic reductions in gross domestic product, all the while providing virtually no environmental benefit. In other words: a raw deal for the American people and a crisis for the poor.
Kyoto Treaty Would Wreck Economy
The issue of global warming has garnered significant international attention through the Kyoto Treaty, which requires signatories to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by considerable amounts below 1990 levels.
The Clinton Administration, led by former Vice President Al Gore, signed Kyoto on November 12, 1998, but never submitted it to the Senate for ratification.
The treaty explicitly acknowledges as true that man-made emissions, principally from the use of fossil fuels, are causing global temperatures to rise, eventually to catastrophic levels. Kyoto enthusiasts believe that if we dramatically cut back, or even eliminate, fossil fuels, the climate system will respond by sending global temperatures back to "normal" levels.
In 1997, the Senate sent a powerful signal that Kyoto was unacceptable. By a vote of 95 to 0, the Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution, which stated that the Senate would not ratify Kyoto if it caused substantial economic harm and if developing countries were not required to participate on the same timetable.
The treaty would have required the U.S. to reduce its emissions 31% below the level otherwise predicted for 2010. Put another way, the U.S. would have had to cut 552 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2008 to 2012. As the Business Roundtable pointed out, that target is "the equivalent of having to eliminate all current emissions from either the U.S. transportation sector, or the utilities sector (residential and commercial sources), or industry."
The most widely cited and most definitive economic analysis of Kyoto came from Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates (WEFA). According to WEFA economists, Kyoto would cost 2.4 million U.S. jobs and reduce GDP by 3.2%, or about $300 billion annually, an amount greater than the total expenditure on primary and secondary education.
Because of Kyoto, American consumers would face higher food, medical, and housing costsâfor food, an increase of 11%; medicine, an increase of 14%; and housing, an increase of 7%. At the same time an average household of four would see its real income drop by $2,700 in 2010, and each year thereafter.
Under Kyoto, energy and electricity prices would nearly double, and gasoline prices would go up an additional 65 cents per gallon.
Some in the environmental community have dismissed the WEFA report as a tainted product of "industry." I would point them to the 1998 analysis by the Clinton Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Department of Energy, which largely confirmed WEFAâs analysis.
Keep in mind, all of these disastrous results of Kyoto are predicted by Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates, a private consulting company founded by professors from the University of Pennsylvaniaâs Wharton Business School.
In July, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided further proof that Kyoto-like carbon regulatory schemes are regressive and harmful to economic growth and prosperity.
