Global Warming News - July 2009

Real News Stories To Share With Global-Warming Skeptics

Europe
In the UK, the Met Office was forced to revise it's summer forecast downward. In April, the Met Office predicted a "barbecue summer", but by the end of July it was saying that the cool and unsettled weather would continue well into August. The news raised questions about the Met Office's ability to make reliable seasonal forecasts.

However, the organization has defended its record, saying it stressed at the time of the forecast in April, that the odds of a scorching summer were about 65%. But it coined the phrase "barbecue summer" to help journalists' headlines, and this has come back to bite the organization because many people do not feel like they have been enjoying a "good" summer. During the last two years, the jet-stream got stuck above the UK -- and that locked in place a low-pressure system which in turn brought misery and rain. That happened again this July.

The following chart shows how various areas of the UK fared as regards to rain and sunshine in July, where 100% is average. Some areas of the UK received rain at levels 200-250% above normal. And in all but North Scotland sunshine was at below normal levels...


Sunshine & Rainfall in UK - July 2009.
(Click to enlarge).

United States
In late June, the Accuweather blog was suggesting that 2009 might be "a year without summer". They took a lot of grief over that statement, but on July 10th, the blog was reporting some similarities between July 2009 and July 1816 (the "year without summer"). In the AccuWeather Almanac, there are a handful of entries from the Summer of 1816, one of which says: "44 degrees at sunrise in Waltham, Massachusetts (west of Boston) on July 8th." On July 10th, 2009, it was 43 degrees at Taunton, MA, south of Boston.


Temp anomolies (departure from normal) - 1st week of July.
Portland Maine had its coolest July 7th ever. The temperature at the Portland jetport only reached 58 degrees. This set a record for the coldest high temperature ever recorded on July 7th. The old record was 59 degrees set in 1961. To put this in perspective, the normal low temperature for July 7th is 58 degrees. The low temperature was 55 degrees, which produced a range of only 3 degrees between the high and low temps. That was a record for the smallest daily range in temps on July 7th. The 3 degree daily temperature range also tied the record for the smallest daily temperature range for ANY day in July. The average temperature was 57 degrees, which tied 1961 as the coldest average temperature for July 7th. The high of 58 tied July 6th, 1956 as the second coldest high temp ever recorded in July at the Portland jetport.

Chicago had its coolest July 8th in 118 years. For the 12th time this summer (since June 1st), daytime highs failed to reach 70 degrees. Only one other year in the past half century has hosted so many sub-70 degree days up to this point in a summer season -- that was 1969, when 14 such days occurred. The paltry 65-degree high at O'Hare International Airport (18 degrees below normal) was the city's coolest July 8th high since a 61-degree high was set on that date in 1891!

On July 15th, Nick Dreyer who raises 145 acres of wheat on his family farm near Willow City, ND said his father (also a Willow City farmer) was complaining about the cool weather. "I think Al Gore and his group should be out here and tell us about this global warming stuff. I think he might have a change of mind. We've had a cool July," said Orlan Dreyer. July mornings aren't supposed to be 50ºF, but those were the temperatures they were seeing -- temperatures well below normal.

On July 17th, Chicago's temperature only reached 70ºF. It was the first time in 53 years that the temperature had not broken that mark on July 17th. July's average temperature of 68.7ºF for the first 17 days of the month were the coolest in 42 years, and nearly 5 degrees below the 138 year average. Only one July 17th was cooler with a reading of 64ºF 85 years ago.


Low temp records - July 15-22.
(Click to enlarge).
On the same day, with a high of 86ºF, New York City broke its record streak of 46 consecutive days without reaching 85ºF since June 1st. The last time the temperature failed to hit 85ºF in New York during June was in 1916.

On July 18th, the Park Rapids Enterprise in Minnesota was talking about how Hubbard County and the surrounding regions were gripped in an unusually cold pattern, where a strong, persistent low pressure system that parked itself over Ontario had been around since late spring. The result was that people were wearing "sweaters in summer" and "jackets in July".

Nashville Tennessee, home of Al Gore, recorded its coolest July 21st ever with 58ºF, breaking a record set in 1877 when Rutherford B. Hayes was president.

On July 23rd, Rich Apuzzo, Chief Meteorologist for Skyeye Weather said that Cincinnati Ohio would not see 90ºF once this July. Typically Cincinnati sees the temp about 8 times in July. Beyond that, the city hadn’t even reached a "normal" high during the month, and they were not expected to do so before the end of the month. Cincinnati had 5 days with October-type readings (highs in the 60s to low 70s), and there were 3 days with record cold high temps.

On July 24th, the National Weather Service in New York City described it as an "unusually cool July for Central Park". With an average daily temperature of 71.6ºF (4.7 degrees below normal), July was on track to be the second coolest on record. Below average temps occurred on 21 out of 23 days, with the other 2 days being exactly normal. No above average temps had been experienced, and it had not yet reached 90ºF so far this summer.

By July 25th, the Accuweather blog was reporting that already for July, over 3,000 low temp records had been set. There were 1,165 new record low temps, and 600 previous low temp records had been tied. There were also 1,951 new record low high temps, and 634 previous record low high temps had been tied. Thus, there were 3,116 new records, or 4,350 new and tied records.

Aside from the record lows, the average July temperature was well below normal in many parts of the country. Only Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico were reporting above average temps as of July 25th. The following image shows how temps departed from normal for this particular portion of the country. Notice that all of the readings are negative...


Departures from average July temp.
(Click to enlarge).
On July 28th, CBS2 said Chicago was experiencing its coolest July in 67 years. The National Weather Service said 2009 has seen the coldest July since the official recording station was moved away from the lakefront in 1942. Chicago's average temperature in July was a mere 68.9 degrees. Even in the years before 1942, when the National Weather Service recorded temperatures at the cooler lakefront, there were only three years that had colder Julys through the 26th. In 2009, there were 13 days where the temperature did not exceed 80 degrees. Only three Julys in the past 67 years have had more days with highs less than 80. Chicago also failed to reach 90 degrees at any time during the month.

On July 31st, the New York Times reported that this summer has been "conspicuously different" in New York City. There was not one 99-degree day in Central Park. Not one single day that the temperature "even approached 90". For just the second time in 140 years of record keeping, the temperature failed to reach 90 in either June or July. The temperature DID break 80 degrees on 16 days in New York, but that was just one more day than in Fairbanks, Alaska. Depending on July 31st's high temp, this was either the second or third coolest June and July ever recorded in New York. If August follows the same pattern -- and the latest forecast through midmonth predicts that it will -- this could be the coolest New York summer on record.


Lonely July at Orchard Beach, Bronx NY.

Canada
On July 8th, temperatures dropped to a record low in Prince Edward Island, with reports of frost throughout the province. An official record low of 3.8ºC was set early in the morning at Charlottetown airport. The previous record for that date was 5.1ºC, set in 2005. Bob Robichaud, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said that to his knowledge, frost has NEVER been reported before in July in P.E.I. [emphasis added]. "That 3.8º we got last night kind of sticks out as being lower than some of the other records for anytime in early July," Robichaud told CBC News. "So we're looking at a significant event," he said. Environment Canada issued a frost risk warning in low-lying areas of the province for the following night as well. The temperature was expected to dip to 4ºC.

On July 18th, Carol Martin in Johnson Township Ontario, said she spoke with Tammy McKellar, a conservation officer based out of Sault Ste. Marie. McKellar said she didn't believe there were more bears this year, despite an increased number of sightings. Rather, the bears were hungrier than they have been in past years. "Just last week, I had to sedate and move one and he was really skinny," said McKellar, "They're waiting for the berries." Unseasonably cold temperatures were delaying the berries and seeds that the bears would normally be feeding on.

In southwest Ontario, tourism was being affected by the low temps in Lake Huron. "There's hardly anyone here, most days," said Michael Raiger, a lifeguard at Canatara Beach. "People just aren't going in the water; and if they do, they're not in there for long." Environment Canada pegged southern Lake Huron at a cool 64 degrees. Last year, the temperature was nearly 72 degrees at the same time. "We stay out of the water, too, for the most part," said Raiger, noting that veteran lifeguards are saying they've never seen anything like it. "It's just so cold." And there's no doubt that the cold lake temperatures were impacting tourism. "It's certainly slowing things down," said John Dickson, executive director and general manager for Tourism Sarnia-Lambton. "The numbers are down about 10 per cent in most beach areas, mostly because of the climate.”


South America
On July 22nd, a "major and historic winter storm" hit Argentina according to Alexandre Aguiar of the MetSul Weather Center. Snow was falling in many parts of the country and in many areas not used to winter precipitation. Local news reports indicated snow had been observed in the provinces of Mendoza, San Luis, San Juan, Cordoba, La Pampa and Buenos Aires. In Bahia Blanca, a coastal city in the Southern part of the Buenos Aires province, the snow storm was heavy and local authorities described it as the worst snow event in 50 years. Roads were blocked by snow and ice in the region. Forecasts for some areas of the Sierra de La Ventana were for up to 3 feet of snow, unimaginable in that region.


Snow in Argentina - July 22
On July 27th, Russia's RIA Novosti was reporting that a 'Polar Frost' had resulted in the deaths of 40 Argentinians. The severe cold weather that gripped central and southern Argentina for two weeks were blamed for the deaths. A wave of cold air that swept in caused "a sensational drop in the temperature to minus 16º Celsius." The average winter temperature in Argentina is about 10º Celsius, ranging from 20ºC in the north to 1ºC in the south. Compounding the cold, several southern regions saw heavy snowfalls, including in the south of Buenos Aires province, where there was 40 centimeters of snow for the first time in 50 years. Most of the deaths were the result of hypothermia or improper use of heating devices, which either caused fires or carbon monoxide poisoning.


The Arctic
On July 2nd, Anthony Watts posted an article at his Watts Up With That? blog, saying that the temperature in the Arctic above the 80º North parallel had yet to go above the freezing mark. Interestingly enough, the temperature approached 0ºC and then flat-lined. In the following chart, you can see the daily mean temperatures for the period 1958-2002 in this region (plotted in green). This year's temps are plotted in red.


Arctic Temps - July 2.
The temperature did in fact rise above the freezing mark shortly after the article was written, but it should be noted that June 25th was the latest date in 50 years of record keeping that the temperature had failed to rise above 0ºC. You can read the whole article HERE.

On July 23rd, Tom Nelson posted an article at his blog about global warming alarmists from the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) who went to the Arctic in midsummer and were apparently surprised to find that: 1) it was "very very cold" there, and 2) the animals hadn't become extinct yet...

It is getting colder, and the long johns are on all the time. A cold northerly [wind] cuts through all our clothing. We are heading south to get away from the bad weather which is forecasted... The wind is now really strong, storm and the water temperature is now the unbelievable minus 1.4 degrees. Not my cup of tea for a swim. It is very very cold and we do not go outside voluntarily... Incredible: in only a few hours – three polar bears, the largest landliving predator, have been in sight... Walrus galore. Today we have been lucky to see some walrus ashore but also on a small ice floe. The Atlantic walrus was heavily hunted for several hundred years before it was protected. Today, they are slowly coming back in numbers, especially in Svalbard... Here on Svalbard the Arctic fox is doing fine, while in Scandinavia the population is very low -- on the brink of becoming extinct.

--Alarmists Visit The Arctic: Why Is It Still So Cold?, 23 July 2009

Scientific Opinion

U.S. Warming = Data Adjustment: In late June, Michael Hammer posted an article at the Jennifer Marohasy blog, in which he suggests that nearly all of the claimed warming in the U.S. over the last century can be attributed to manipulation of the data by NOAA...

A reader of this blog, Michael Hammer, recently studied the official data from the US official weather stations and in particular how it is adjusted after it has been collected. Mr Hammer concludes that the temperature rise profile claimed by the US government is largely if not entirely an artefact of the adjustments applied after the raw data is collected from the weather stations.

--Jennifer Marohasy, How the US Temperature Record is Adjusted, 27 June 2009

Mr. Hammer points out that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) collects, analyzes and publishes temperature data for the United States. As part of the analysis process, NOAA applies several adjustments to the raw data. The following chart from NOAA shows the various adjustments that are made and how they impact the temperature record over time.


NOAA adjustments to US temp record.
(Click to enlarge)
Note that all but one of the adjustments trends upwards from nearly a zero adjustment at the beginning of the century to a rather large upward adjustment at the end of the century. The one adjustment here which reduces temperature is a factor which is supposed to account for the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Interestingly enough, Hammer says that "the latest indications are that even this minimal UHI adjustment has now been removed in the latest round of revisions to the historical record." The net result then, is that all of NOAA's adjustments are upward in nature and have a compounding effect. The following chart shows the total upward bias of their adjustments...


NOAA net temp adjustment.
(Click to enlarge)
These adjustments to the U.S. temperature record, as you might imagine, have an impact on the global temperature record. The following chart shows the global temperature anomaly (departure from normal) which bears a striking resemblance to NOAA's net adjustments to the U.S. temperature record...


Global temperature anomaly.
(Click to enlarge)
All of this begs the question of course: What does the raw data look like? Well, the following chart shows the raw temperature data versus time with 5 point smoothing to reduce "noise". The vertical axis is in degrees Fahrenheit. The red line is a linear trend line. The green line is a 2nd order (parabolic) trend line...


US temperature anomaly - raw data.
(Click to enlarge)

Clearly the shape of this graph bears no similarity at all to the [previous] graph... The graph does not even remotely correlate to the shape of the CO2 versus time graph. The warming was greatest in the 1930’s before CO2 started to rise rapidly. The rate of rise in 1920, the early 1930’s and the early 1950’s is significantly greater than anything in the last 30 years. Despite the rapid rise in CO2 since 1960, the 1970’s to early 1980’s was the time of the global cooling scare and looking at [this] graph... one can see why [there was a cooling scare] (almost 2F cooling over 50 years).

--Michael Hammer, How the US Temperature Record is Adjusted, 27 June 2009

You can read the whole article HERE.


Sea Level Rise - A Non-Existent Threat: Dr. Timothy F. Ball, a renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, wrote an article for the Canada Free Press, in which he ridicules the threat of disastrous sea level rise predicted by alarmists...

Threat of rising sea level is a major weapon used to force unnecessary action for yet another non-existent problem. For years I’ve asked, "What's wrong with having global warming?" It's a question that flummoxes people swamped by nothing but disaster predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mainstream media television... After some thought most people say their concern is sea level rise. What they don't know is that, like CO2 induced warming, it is another falsely presented threat.

--Dr. Timothy Ball, Sea Level Rise; A Major Non-existent Threat Exploited by Alarmists, 6 July 2009

Dr. Ball first points to a UK court that ruled (a week before Al Gore received the Nobel Prize) that there were nine scientific errors in Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", and that some of these were done to enhance "the context of alarmism and exaggeration". First was Al Gore's wild claim of sea level rises up to 20 feet "in the near future". A second claim was that low-lying inhabited Pacific islands were "being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming" and evacuations were occurring. The UK Court said there was no evidence of any such evacuations.

Gore exaggerates future levels well beyond his fellow Nobel Prize winners at the IPCC. And that is surprising considering few of them know what they are doing. As world sea level expert and twice an IPCC member Nils-Axel Morner noted of the 2001 report, "First of all, it had 22 authors, but none of them -- none -- were sea-level specialists"...

--Dr. Timothy Ball, Sea Level Rise; A Major Non-existent Threat Exploited by Alarmists, 6 July 2009

Actually, the IPCC is predicting sea level rises of only 2 feet, "far from Gore’s ridiculous 20 feet... also far from what other experts are saying." The article goes on to talk about how sea levels have been rising since the last Ice Age; how sea levels rose relatively quickly beginning about 15,000 years ago; and how sea level rises have actually flattened out since about 8,000 years ago...


Sea Level Rise (Click to enlarge).

Nils-Axel Morner is better qualified to speak about sea level than most, and certainly Al Gore. In an interview Morner said, "If you go around the globe, you find no rise anywhere. But they need the rise, because if there is no rise, there is no death threat..."

--Dr. Timothy Ball, Sea Level Rise; A Major Non-existent Threat Exploited by Alarmists, 6 July 2009

You can read the whole article HERE.


Sea Level Rise Slowdown: As if to underscore Dr. Ball's article, the World Climate Report blog posted an article on July 21st saying that the evidence suggests the rate of sea level rise around the world is slowing down, and "will not come anywhere close to the extreme projections (10-20 feet) hawked by [NASA's James] Hansen."

In 2007, Simon Holgate of the UK's Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory produced a history of global sea levels rise from 1904 to 2003 based upon a set of reliable, long-term observations from 9 tide gauge stations scattered around the world. The overall average rate of sea level rise in Holgate’s study period was found to be 1.74 ± 0.16 mm/yr (about 0.07 in/yr, or 7 inches per century). In addition, he made two other notable findings, 1) the rate of sea level rise was, on average, greater in the first half of his record than the second, and 2) that there is a large degree of decadal variability in the rate of sea level rise. [The following chart] illustrates the latter of these findings... Notice that the decadal rate of sea level rise fluctuates semi-regularly from rates exceeding 4 mm/yr to rates that are sometimes even less than zero (i.e. falling sea levels).

Oscillation of sea level rises.
(Click to enlarge)
You can read the whole article HERE.


Globe Cooling at 1.45ºC Per Century: Physicist and Mathematician Luboš Motl of the Czech Republic, points out at his Reference Frame blog, that for the first 8.5 years (or 102 months) of this century, linear regression shows a global temperature trend of -1.45ºC per century (i.e., global cooling).


Cooling temps: Jan 2001-June 2009.
You can read the whole article HERE.


New Study Critical of Climate Models: A new study which appeared in the journal Nature Geoscience found that current climate models cannot explain a period of rapid global warming in Earth's ancient past. The study analyzed previously published records of a climate period about 55 million years ago called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).

"In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models."

--Jade Boyd, Global warming: Our Best Guess Is Likely Wrong, 14 July 2009

You can read the whole article HERE.


Sahara Desert Shrinking: According to a BBC article, "recent satellite pictures of North Africa seem to show areas of the Sahara in retreat." In addition, "satellite images from the last 15 years do seem to show a recovery of vegetation in the Southern Sahara, although the Sahel Belt, the semi-arid tropical savannah to the south of the desert, remains fragile." So then, the Sahara desert is retreating in the north and in the south.

It has been assumed that global warming would cause an expansion of the world's deserts, but now some scientists are predicting a contrary scenario in which water and life slowly reclaim these arid places... It could be that an increase in rainfall has caused this effect. Farouk el-Baz, director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, believes the Sahara is experiencing a shift from dryer to wetter conditions... The heating of the Earth would result in more evaporation of the oceans, in turn resulting in more rainfall.

--Ayisha Yahya, Are The Deserts Getting Greener?, 16 July 2009

You can read the whole article HERE.


Ocean Temps Not Rising: On July 21st, Dr. David Evans published a paper for the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) in which he debunks the claims of alarmists that ocean temperatures are rising. Evans is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. He worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, building FullCAM, a leading carbon accounting model that estimates carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. Dr. Evans gradually changed from alarmist to skeptic as the evidence for CO2-driven global warming diminished.

Short-term trends contradict the alarmist claims. Our best data, from satellites and Argo, shows that the air and oceans have not warmed for at least five years. The world is now cooling slightly, so there is no heat accumulating... Long-term trends contradict the alarmist claims. The world has been recovering from the Little Ice Age, warming at a steady trend rate since 1750 with alternate warming and cooling oscillations of about 30 years. The pattern suggests we have just finished the last warming, and have entered a cooling period until about 2030... The latest alarmist claims are a bluff. The alarmist claims only appear credible if trends shorter than 10 years or longer than 50 years are ignored.

--Dr. David Evans, Ocean Temperatures: The New Bluff In Climate Alarmism, 21 July 2009

You can read the whole report (PDF) HERE.


Another New Study: Another new study has just come out which challenges man-made global warming. The peer-reviewed study, prepared by climate scientist Chris de Freitas of New Zealand’s Auckland University and Australian scientists John McLean and Bob Carter. The paper was published on July 23rd, following a six-month peer review process, in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research. According to the study, virtually all of the changes in global temperatures in the late 20th century can be attributed to nature rather than human activity. At least 80 percent of climate variability tracked over the past half a century can be attributed to internal climate-system factors including the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Pacific warming phenomenon and its cooling twin, La Nina.

You can read the whole article HERE.


Astronauts Defy Gore: NASA astronaut Dr. Buzz Aldrin, who was the second person to walk on the moon, rejects global warming fears and says "climate has been changing for billions of years", according to Marc Morano at Climate Depot. Dr. Aldrin -- who earned a Doctorate of Science in Astronautics at MIT -- declared he was skeptical of man-made climate fears in a July 3rd, 2009 UK Telegraph interview.

"If it's warming now, it may cool off later. I'm not in favor of just taking short-term isolated situations and depleting our resources to keep our climate just the way it is today," Aldrin explained. Aldrin has received three U.S. patents for his schematics of a modular space station, Starbooster reusable rockets, and multi-crew modules for space flight." Aldrin was also decorated with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest American peacetime award and he has received numerous distinguished awards and medals from 23 other countries.

Aldrin joins astronaut Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, the 12th person to walk on the moon during the Apollo 17 mission, in declaring skepticism of man-made global warming. "The 'global warming scare' is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making. It has no place in the Society's activities," Schmitt said in 2008. The Society to which Schmitt refers is the Planetary Society, an international non-profit organization devoted to inspiring "the people of Earth to explore other worlds, understand our own, and seek life elsewhere." Schmitt, who earned a PhD from Harvard in geology, resigned in November 2008 from the Planetary Society.

You can read the whole article HERE.


Climate Revolt At ACS: Skeptical scientists who are members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) are revolting against the editor-in-chief of the group's magazine -- with some demanding he be removed -- after an editorial appeared claiming "the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established." The June 22nd, 2009 editorial in Chemical and Engineering News by editor-in-chief Rudy Baum, is facing widespread blowback and condemnation from American Chemical Society members. Baum concluded his editorial by stating that "deniers" are attempting to "derail meaningful efforts to respond to global climate change."

Dozens of letters from ACS members were published on July 27th, 2009 castigating Baum, with some scientists calling for his replacement as editor-in-chief. Virtually all of the letters published on July 27th derided Baum's climate science views. Scientists rebuked Baum's use of the word "deniers" because of the term's "association with Holocaust deniers." In addition, the scientists called Baum's editorial: "disgusting"; "a disgrace"; "filled with misinformation"; "unworthy of a scientific periodical" and "pap."

Baum wrote on July 27th, that he was "startled" and "surprised" by the "contempt" and "vehemence" of the ACS scientists to his view of the global warming "consensus". "Some of the letters I received are not fit to print. Many of the letters we have printed are, I think it is fair to say, outraged by my position on global warming," Baum wrote.

The American Chemical Society's scientific revolt is the latest in a series of recent eruptions against the so-called “consensus" on man-made global warming. On May 1st 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of 54 prominent physicists petitioned the APS to revise its global warming position. The 54 physicists wrote to APS governing board: "Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th - 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today."

You can read the whole article HERE.


ACS Member Accuses Editor Of Censorship: On July 31st, in a follow-up article to the one referred to above, Marc Morano at Climate Depot published an e-mail from longtime American Chemical Society (ACS) member and Environmental Chemist, Steven J. Welcenbach, who accused Rudy Baum -- editor-in-chief of the of the group's magazine Chemical and Engineering News (C&E News) -- of censoring articles and letters that are skeptical of man-made global warming...

Hello Marc [Morano],

Thank you for getting the word out with what is going on in [the] American Chemical Society (ACS). A vast number of members are very upset with the lack of complete and balanced coverage of the AGW issue and the continued censoring of articles and letters by Rudy Baum that do not support the theory of catastrophic global warming caused by CO2 emissions from man's use of petroleum and coal. Many of the members I have spoken with have not only expressed their disgust but either have left ACS or are contemplating leaving the group. Lots of us, however, have decided that we should take action to return the group back to the scientific method and the initial purpose for which this group was formed and why we joined.

--Steven J. Welcenbach, Scientist Accuses American Chemical Society Editor of 'Censoring', 31 July 2009

You can read the whole article HERE.


Global Warming Helped Incas: At least that's what British archaeologists reported on July 27th. In their opinion, a 400-year warm spell in South America fueled the Incas' rise, helping them build the largest empire that ever ruled the continent. A several-degree increase in temperature allowed the Incas to move higher into the Andes mountains, opening up new farmland and providing a water source through the gradual melting of glaciers at the top of those mountains, paleoecologist Alex Chepstow-Lusty of the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima reported.

You can read the whole article HERE. Or, you can read scientific paper (PDF) HERE.


Political Opinion

Changing Lingo: First it was "Global Warming", then it was "Climate Change", then it was "Climate Crisis", and now someone is suggesting to call it "the deteriorating atmosphere". Jonathan Hiskes at the 'Grist' says that a non-profit PR firm called "ecoAmerica" finally released the findings of its public opinion research about climate change and energy in June.

The firm conducted research in February through March -- focus groups, a phone survey, an online survey -- all focused on finding better talking points for wooing folks who are undecided about the whole global warming/clean energy/green jobs issue. A summary of the report was accidentally sent to a number of media outlets after a White House briefing from ecoAmerica in April, which led to a not-very-flattering story in the New York Times. It's true that the report wholeheartedly embraces a public-relations way of looking at things...

Remember to speak in aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology.

In other words, obfuscate. If you want to sell global warming, or Cap-and-Tax, or energy efficiency, then you can't talk about those things. You have to pretend they are something else: something that sounds warm and fuzzy. The following are some of the recommendations in the report...

• Ditch "global warming." It makes people think of Al Gore more than anything else, too polarizing. "Climate change" is almost as bad. "Our deteriorating atmosphere” is the term soccer moms and other "environmental agnostics" respond to best.
• Likewise, people don't want to hear about "cap-and-trade." Too wonky. When you're talking about cap-and-trade, call it "Clean Energy Dividend" or "Clean Energy Cash Back."
• Even "renewable" and "alternative" energy are too vague. Instead, talk about energy sources that run out and ones that don't run out. Or energy sources you have to burn and ones you don't have to burn.
• Talk about values, not facts. [Yeah, those facts can be pesky things.]
• Multiple values tend to be stronger than just invoking a single value. Bring prosperity, national security, and personal health into your argument.
• Finally, it would be a travesty to let the Right own "comprehensive energy solutions". Show why your side, not theirs, is the true “all-of-the-above” option. [Yeah, steal the opposition's ideas and call them your own.]

But as the author's article says, "the report doesn't seem to acknowledge that most people have bull**** detectors that kick in at some point."

You can read the whole article HERE.


UK Sets Up "Green" Police: According to the Times Online (UK), the UK's Environment Agency is setting up a squad of about (50) auditors and inspectors to police companies generating excessive CO2 emissions. The "Green Police" will have warrants to search company premises and will enforce the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which comes into effect next year.

Decked out in green jackets, the enforcers will be able to demand access to company property, view power meters, call up electricity and gas bills and examine carbon-trading records for an estimated 6,000 British businesses. Ed Mitchell, head of business performance and regulation at the Environment Agency, said the squad would help to bring emissions under control. "Climate change and CO2 are the world's biggest issues right now. The Carbon Reduction Commitment is one of the ways in which Britain is responding."

--Jonathan Leake, Environment Agency Sets Up Green Police, 4 July 2009

The "Green Police" will also be able to obtain energy bills from utilities without the companies under investigation knowing about it. And they will publish an annual table ranking companies by their performance in cutting CO2 emissions. Aside from the privacy issues, the potential for corruption here is overwhelming. Consider for a moment what might happen if an inspector has an "axe to grind" against a particular company that he or she is auditing. What about the greedy inspector that looks to take a bribe, threatening to lower a company's annual ranking unless they pay up? This is a frightening example of George Orwell's 'Big Brother' come to fruition.

But Jonathan Leake, the article's author and Environment Editor for the Times, apparently seems to have no problem with this scenario. For Leake, this is a great step forward "in the battle against climate change", and supports "the need to have new categories of taxes and criminal offences for CO2 emissions"...

The formation of the green police overcomes a psychological hurdle in the battle against climate change. Ministers have long recognised the need to have new categories of taxes and criminal offences for CO2 emissions, but fear a repetition of the fuel tax protests in 2000 when lorry drivers blockaded refineries.

--Jonathan Leake, Environment Agency Sets Up Green Police, 4 July 2009

They should fear protests indeed. If this scenario plays out in Britain without any protests, I would be surprised. Brace yourselves, for this is a scenario which will likely make its way to America. This is the direction the "Green Socialists" want to take the United States. Perhaps the WWII German Schutzpolizei can provide the insignias.

You can read the whole article HERE.


G8 Pledges to Cut Global Warming: The United States and seven other of the world's top economic powers met in L'Aquila, Italy on Wednesday July 8th. The Group of Eight industrial democracies (G8) agreed to a statement setting the goal of holding global warming to an increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2020, as measured since the dawn of the industrial age in 1900. Unfortunately, the G8 hedged on details of a timetable and expected to fail to get developing nations such as China and India to go along.

They also reaffirmed a pledge to cut emissions of greenhouse gases -- by 50% worldwide and by 80% among industrialized nations -- by 2050. However, they didn't adopt any specific emission cuts by 2020, a top goal of environmentalists. Environmentalists called the meeting and the resulting statement a disappointment that fell short of what's needed.

Speaking frankly, it seems rather arrogant to me that (8) world leaders can meet and decide: 1) that they can control climate, 2) that they can decide what global temperatures ought to be, 3) that they can do this by cutting CO2 emissions, 4) that they can do this without China and India participating in CO2 emission cuts, 5) that they can do this without a plan, 6) that they can do this without an intermediate timetable, and 7) that doing it will not have unintended consequences. Perhaps that is why they were seen laughing at the meeting -- because it's all a big joke...


G8 leaders joke about... global warming targets?

Byrd Blasts ‘Cap and Trade’: On the same day, according to a story in the Wheeling News-Register (West Virginia), senior W.Va. Senator Robert Byrd stands firmly behind coal, and is opposing "cap and trade" legislation pushed by the Obama administration.

The 91-year-old Byrd, (D-WV), was released from an unidentified Washington, D.C. hospital in early July after a month-long stay for a staph infection. He expects to return to the chamber before the Senate begins debate on "cap and trade" - which is tentatively set for this fall, according to Byrd's office.

"I cannot support the House bill in its present form," Byrd said in a statement. "I continue to believe that clean coal can be a 'green' energy. Those of us who understand coal's great potential in our quest for energy independence must continue to work diligently in shaping a climate bill that will ensure access to affordable energy for West Virginians. I remain bullish about the future of coal, and am so very proud of the miners who labor and toil in the coalfields of West Virginia."


West Virginia protest against Cap-and-Trade.
You can read the whole article HERE.


Senators Attack Carbon Tax On Imports: Also on July 8th, the Financial Times (UK) was reporting that senior Democratic senators were vowing to change a provision in the House Cap-and-Trade bill that could "spark a global trade war". The provision in question would impose carbon taxes on imports into the US, and was "aimed at protecting American companies' competitiveness against imports from countries without equivalent carbon emission controls".

But Senator John Kerry, who is helping to write the senate's version of the bill, said in a hearing on the issue: "We have already come to the conclusion in working on the Senate bill that we're going to try and change that provision... we haven't landed yet completely on where we come out". Max Baucus, the Democrat senator who chairs the Senate finance committee, said any provisions that "provoke retaliation from our trading partners will only hurt the same industries we're trying to help", adding that he was "confident we can craft legislation that strikes the right balance".

You can read the whole article HERE.


Germany Blasts Carbon Tariffs: Apparently Germany had the same idea when it called a French idea to slap "carbon tariffs" on products from countries that are not trying to cut greenhouse gases a form of "eco-imperialism" and a direct violation of WTO rules. Matthias Machnig, Germany's State Secretary for the Environment, told a news briefing on Friday that a French push for Europe to impose carbon tariffs on imports from countries that flout rules on carbon emissions would send the wrong signal to the international community. "There are two problems -- the WTO (World Trade Organization), and the signal would be that this is a new form of eco-imperialism," Machnig said. "We are closing our markets for their products, and I don't think this is a very helpful signal for the international negotiations."

You can read the whole article HERE.


Climate Bill Will Bring Global Governance: Marc Morano at Climate Depot reported that on July 7th, former Vice President Al Gore said that the Waxman-Markey climate bill will help bring about "global governance".

"I bring you good news from the U.S.", Gore said in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by the Times (UK). "Just two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey climate bill," Gore said, noting it was "very much a step in the right direction." Gore said the climate bill "will dramatically increase the prospects for success" in combating the "crisis" of man-made global warming.

"But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change, and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements" [emphasis added]. You can watch a video of Gore's speech at the Times Online HERE. Gore makes the "global governance" comment at approximately 1min.-10sec. into the video.

For those of us who have been saying all along that global warming is merely a political scam by socialists to introduce global governance and redistribute wealth, none other than Al Gore himself has validated our claims. With indisputable language, Gore has betrayed the agenda of the "Green Left". It's not about saving the environment... it's about political control. That's why Al Gore is such a hypocrite when it comes to his own "carbon footprint". He knows that it makes little difference how much electricity or jet fuel he uses, because there is no real "crisis". It is all a scam, and he's looking to make a profit on it to boot.


Boxer Faces Challenge On Climate Bill: According to Rob Hotakainen at McClatchy Newspapers, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) says that if the Senate doesn't pass a bill to cut global warming, there will be dire results: droughts, floods, fires, loss of species, damage to agriculture, worsening air pollution and more. She says there is a huge upside however, if the Senate does act: millions of clean-energy jobs, reduced reliance on foreign oil and less pollution for the nation's children.

Who do these people think they're kidding? "Just do what we say and all will be right with the world". Yeah, sure.

You can read the whole article HERE.


Enviros, Progressives Worried: On July 16th, the left-wing Climate Progress web site issued a "memo" to envrionmentalists and progressives saying opponents of the climate bill "are 'full of passionate intensity' — and eating our lunch." According to the article, "many U.S. Senators are now getting 100 to 200 calls a day opposing a climate and clean energy bill — and bupkes in favor."

You can read the whole article HERE.


Global Warming Is A Superstition: On July 28th, Don Blankenship wrote an excellent article at American Thinker. He says that while some claim that global warming is a reality and others claim it is a religion, really it is neither...

But say what they will, "global warming" is neither a reality nor a religion. It is instead a "superstition." A reality is something that actually exists. Global warming has not existed for at least 7 years. Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's internal memos say it does not exist, and so do increasing numbers of noted scientists. A religion is a belief in a supernatural being, a system of faith or worship. Obviously, global warming does not fit this definition.

A "superstition" is a fear founded on irrational feelings and marked by credulity -- i.e. a willingness to believe in the improbable or the marvelous. It should be easy for even members of our Congress to understand that no projection of future world temperatures is a scientific reality. Even they can't be that credulous... or can they?

What (other than extremely credulous) could you call a member of Congress who believes that by lowering the standard of living of 5% of the world's population (that includes you, me, and everyone else living in America) that the Congress -- by passing a law -- can reduce the temperature of the earth or lower sea levels? Simple common sense, not conflicted science is required to know better.

Only superstitious, credulous, and pompous politicians would even consider voting for such a bill... sight unseen! You would have to first be irrational and have unfounded fears of something that doesn't exist; you would then have to be prone to believe in the highly improbable -- and then vain enough to believe you can change the climate system of the earth, even while most of the rest of the world is fully enjoying the benefits of carbon use.

--Don Blankenship, In the Name of Global Warming, 28 July 2009

You can read the whole article HERE.