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POPSCarbon Dioxide Emissions Outpacing Projections Pair this Washington Post story together with the item, clipped last night by my colleague Rebecca Ruiz, on impact of carbon overload on coral reefs. Further down in the Post story, James L. Connaughton, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, stresses the "need for a broader and more aggressive effort by the major economies to come together."
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POPSOrigins of Global Warming This site contains the true origins of the global phenomenon of the environmental movement. When you read the sources you will understand why it invades every topic of our daily lives.
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POPSUntouched forests are carbon warriors. The trouble with plantation forests is that there is more to a forest than trees. The trouble with the trees in the untouched forests, is that their wood is becoming so expensive. There's so much less of it. One of the biggest 'justifications' for cutting down old growth forests is that it provides jobs a few hundred or illegal logging because cutting down a few trees beats working in the field all year. We don't know how to rebuild an eco-system, and we're throwing away the templates.
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POPSGlobal climate models work Overall, global climate models work but are not necessarily valid on a local level. Can we put this issue to bed? Global warming is here, but don't depend on todays weather to prove it.
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POPSClimate 2008
In the history of science there have been only a few issues which have mobilized the attention of scientists and policy-makers alike as the issue of climate change currently does. The release of the 4th Assessment produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the summer of 2007 has put the reality of human-induced global warming beyond any doubt. In addition, the high-level event on Climate Change held at the UN Headquarters, New York (24 September 2007), the thirteenth United Nations Climate Change Conference held on the island of Bali (Indonesia) on 3-14 December 2007 and the various strategies and actions plans which are being prepared and implemented all over the world, indicate that the emphasis to this topic will continue to dominate the scientific agenda for decades to come. Although the subject matter of climate change is regarded as a critical issue and sound scientific knowledge is needed in order to address the problem in a holistic way, there is a pa
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POPS In India, Growth Trumps Sustainability Where greenhouse gases will be curbed -- for example, by aggressively building hydro dams or modernizing industry -- the curbs will be a by-product of India's national security concerns or economic development plans. The UN's climate change convention is even better than that -- it's a money-maker for India and a lever with which to obtain western technology . As the Action Plan makes clear, there's only one condition under which India need spend a rupee to help curb global warming "-- (if) these incremental costs are borne by developed countries and the needed technologies are transferred."
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POPSSpencer Before The Senate A few days ago, Dr. Roy Spencer gave testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer. To say his testimony wasn't at all what she wanted to hear, would be an understatement. Spencer doesn't descend to the level of many of his opponents and call Forster a 'denier' or a 'heretic'. Unlike them, apparently, he has some confidence in the soundness of the science backing his position. Obviously when that's the case, there's no real reason to resort to that sort of nonsense, is there? Or, shorter version, "you politicians need to sit back and relax until the science is is complete on this, but there are indications enough to doubt the initial take on all of this and policy shouldn't be implemented that may be both costly and unnecessary". Naturally Congress, which is up to its armpits in costly and unnecessary legislation is unlikely heed that warning unless enough of a ruckus is raised to make them.
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POPSDr. David Evans: Australian Greenhouse Office - 1999 to 2005
There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts: 1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever. If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again. When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report),
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POPSNASA: 70% of climate change due to Pacific oscillations, not CO2 What this means is no matter how much you change your CO2 footprint, how much you try to be CO2 green, no matter how much liberal governments tax you - you cannot save the planet from its natural cycles. Say they reduced the CO2 25%. Say the CO2 is the driver for the remaining 30% of Global Warming (which it cannot be, but let’s just be only half as ridiculous as the IPCC), then all that effort would only impact 7.5% of the forces driving the global climate. The other 92.5% would roll on, impervious to the effort. And since CO2 is not 100% of the remaining 30% of the equation (more like 10%), a more realistic expectation is that all the suffering that would go into dropping CO2 levels by 25% would result in a less than 1% change in the forces driving our climate.
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POPSFuture Climate Change The average surface temperature of the Earth is likely to increase by 2 to 11.5°F (1.1-6.4°C) by the end of the 21st century, relative to 1980-1990, with a best estimate of 3.2 to 7.2°F (1.8-4.0°C) (see Figure 1). The average rate of warming over each inhabited continent is very likely to be at least twice as large as that experienced during the 20th century. Warming will not be evenly distributed around the globe (see Figure 2): Land areas will warm more than oceans in part due to water's ability to store heat. High latitudes will warm more than low latitudes in part due to positive feedback effects from melting ice (as discussed above). Most of North America; all of Africa, Europe, northern and central Asia; and most of Central and South America are likely to warm more than the global average. Projections suggest that the warming will be close to the global average in south Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and southern South America. The warming will differ by season, with
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POPSMyth Of Consensus Explodes: American Physical Society Opens Debate The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible." http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=12403
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POPSThere is no climate crisis: Hoax revealed
The IPCC’s 2007 climate summary overstated CO2’s impact on temperature by 500-2000%; CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100; Not one of the three key variables whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured directly; The IPCC’s values for these key variables are taken from only four published papers, not 2,500; The IPCC’s values for each of the three variables, and hence for climate sensitivity, are overstated; “Global warming” halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years; Not one of the computer models relied upon by the IPCC predicted so long and rapid a cooling; The IPCC inserted a table into the scientists’ draft, overstating the effect of ice-melt by 1000%; Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed; In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.
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POPSDon't Panic This is an excellent short video on the biases built in to some of the IPCC predictions with an over-assumed and rather arbitrary climate sensitivity. The projections have proven false. Now, as the point is made in the video, scientists are considering other anthropogenic influences that dampen the predicted warming, because we know it couldn't be that they were just flat wrong.
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POPSPoll: Most Britons Doubt Cause Of Climate Change However Professor Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, said politicians and campaigners were to blame for over-simplifying the problem by only publicising evidence to support the case. 'Things that we do know - like humans do cause climate change - are being put in doubt,' said Lomborg. 'If you're saying, "We're not going to tell you the whole truth, but we're going to ask you to pay up a lot of money," people are going to be unsure.' More than half of those polled did not have confidence in international or British political leaders to tackle climate change, but only just over a quarter think it's too late to stop it. Two thirds want the government to do more but nearly as many said they were cynical about government policies such as green taxes, which they see as 'stealth' taxes.
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POPSOcean review finds warming on the rise.
It isn't just that ice is melting that is making the sea level rise, it is also the fact that water expands as it heats. With the volume of water in the ocean - 2/3 of the Earth's surface is covered with water, even a small temperature increase can have a dramatic effect. The way the expansion, and melting are factored into the research reports can make them a lot clearer, and more accurate. While there are the best of intentions, regarding some kind of remedy, I don't remember anyone being able to literally turn back the tide, which seems like the bottom line. King Canute had a go, but he was trying to prove that point to some knucklehead courtiers, who'd flattered him. He knew they were full of hot air, but figured it was worth getting wet to see the look on their faces. Don't you hate it when a King calls your bluff. Still you can look at the bright side. The world is getting more like Venice every day. All you have to do is buy shares in a Gondola Company.
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POPSMcCain's Hot Air: Chris Horner situation — and that his EPA will implement something faster than anything the EPA has ever done before. Which is another way of describing his vow today to give the economy up to two years to bring emissions back down to 2005 levels. He says that the free-ride granted to most of the world proved the undoing of these “Protocols”. The fact that none of the parties which promised emission reductions have any clue how to actually reduce emissions, and therefore are not doing so, would seem to me to be a more central feature in Kyoto’s failure. First, McCain’s conceit in this speech and in his global-warming views generally are impervious to changing evidence: the problem of man-made climate change is real, bad, and here now. Second, McCain’s ultimate goal for “doing something” is, at best, unclear. He says “The goal in all of this is to assure an energy supply that is safe, secure, diverse, and domestic.” It has failed in Europe. He tries to elide this fact, but fails.
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POPSMcCain’s Assault On Reason: Dr. Roy W. Spencer So, here we are with bad science ready to support bad policy decisions that will lead to bad economic times ahead, and no presidential candidate who is willing to ask the hard questions. While we hate to be pandered to by politicians, in this case I can only hope that they really are pandering — that this is hot air and not prospective policy.
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POPSAssumptions in Polar Bear Populations 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.
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POPSThey have made fools of themselves The federal government has been doling out more than $5 billion annually for research into climate change and alternative energy. A generation ago, there were only a handful of climatologists around the world. Now there are legions of taxpayer-funded climatologists, and scientists and public health professionals from many disciplines also hooked up to the climate gravy train. How many outspoken politicians and celebrities will be willing to acknowledge that they have made fools of themselves? I suppose that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Madonna and others could at least jet on back to their hypocritical Green lifestyles with a clear conscience of sorts.
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POPSRecent Data: Tropical Troposphere Not Warming "The three complicated colorful lines are the temperature data for the tropical troposphere - where the warming should be most rapid - according to RSS MSU, UAH MSU, and CRU: they seem to almost fully agree with each other. In terms of words, there has been no warming over there since 1980."
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