AGW Denial, The Greatest Scam in History?

[Avro]

Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?

What would happen if you removed CO2 from the atmoshpere? Consider that in your musings or be unconsiderable.

 

[petros]

Jan 17, 2011 Rainmaker



Arid regions are influencing their weather using electrical technology.
According to a recent press release, the United Arab Emirates successfully caused rain to fall by making use of negative ion generators. Approximately 50 rainstorms fell in the driest months, during which time weather forecasters did not predict any rain at all.
Scientists installed a network of interconnected conductors in the desert that release clouds of negatively charged ions. As the particles rise in the hot air, they attract water vapor in the atmosphere, since water is a dipolar molecule with both positive and negative poles.
It is commonly believed that weather on Earth is driven by the Sun's thermal influence on the atmosphere. As we rotate beneath our primary, gases and dust absorb solar radiation at varying rates and in varying degrees.
When any particular region heats up, the air expands and loses density, creating a relative low pressure area. Cooler air, being denser, will naturally flow into the bottom of the warm, low pressure region, causing an upwardly rotating convection cell to form. Most weather systems on Earth are thought to be based on that simple kinetic explanation: winds blow when the cooler, denser air flows into the warmer, buoyant air.
However, ions attract water in the atmosphere instead of through the commonly described process of neutral dust motes building up raindrops through a process of condensation. The dust hanging in the air becomes charged, making it more attractive to water vapor.
Since Earth is immersed in the stream of ions permeating space, it holds an electric field at its surface of 50 – 200 volts per meter. The electricity from space carried by ionic particles emitted by the Sun, otherwise known as the “solar wind,” speeds along massive Birkeland currents through a circuit connecting the Sun with our planet. Water molecules are electric dipoles and are attracted to an opposite polar charge, such as that on another water molecule, so they clump together, aligned within Earth’s “fair weather field.”
It was in September of 2006 that a major premise of Electric Universe theory was confirmed: Earth weather is electrically connected to the ionosphere. Since electricity always flows in a circuit, if the ionosphere connects to Earth's magnetosphere then it connects to the circuits of the Solar System, as well.
The ionosphere is connected to the Sun by twisting filaments of electric current, so the lower levels of the atmosphere must also experience the Sun's influence because of the additional circuit node that connects them with the ionosphere. Could these electric circuits linking the atmosphere with the Sun have anything to do with Earth's climate in either the short or long term?
This leads to the more general idea that all weather may be influenced by the electrical connection between Earth and solar plasma. The larger view has only recently been considered, so experiments designed to verify the effect that charged particles have on Earth's weather are now being conducted. It appears that they are having some success.
Electric Universe physicist Wal Thornhill wrote:
"If conventional theory fails to explain electrical storms it cannot be used to discount the results of ionization experiments. Instead, conventional theory suffers doubts about its basic plausibility. Weather experts have a limited view of the electrical nature of the Earth and its environment. The 'enormous power input' is freely available from the galaxy. That galactic electrical power drives the weather systems on all of the planets and even the Sun. So the ionization experiment is rather like the control gate in a transistor, where a small current into the control gate influences the entire power output of the transistor. This method of weather control should eventually force the critics to think again."
Stephen Smith

DB So that's how it works. Hot moving air is electrically motivated. If there's no current there's no weather, no climate, nothing. Incorporate the current in your climate considerations or remain unconsiderable. DB

Go figure eh beav? If jackasses in Arabia and EU can make it rain to save their crops what does that do for the folks down wind?

Should California, vineyards, orchards and ski hills pay hefty fees to AZ, NV UT and WY for shorting water for those driest of states?

 

[darkbeaver]

Go figure eh beav? If jackasses in Arabia and EU can make it rain to save their crops what does that do for the folks down wind?

Should California, vineyards, orchards and ski hills pay hefty fees to AZ, NV UT and WY for shorting water for those driest of states?

You now how it works man, if you got the money you get the rain. As for the folks down wind, we got to think of the economy first and the people will trickle down naturally like they always do with sound bussiness management.

 

[petros]

You now how it works man, if you got the money you get the rain. As for the folks down wind, we got to think of the economy first and the people will trickle down naturally like they always do with sound bussiness management.

Pre-Historic Republicans at work?

 

[GreenFish66]

Climate change to spur crop shortages by 2020: study - CTV News

There are solutions ...Green/Clean Tech is now, it is the Future...

 

[Avro]

Is Climate Denial Corporate Driven, or Ideological?

Recently, I’ve been reading some research by Riley Dunlap, a sociologist at Oklahoma State University who collaborates frequently with Aaron McCright, another sociologist at Michigan State. Together, they’ve done penetrating work on the right wing resistance to climate change science in the US, and in particular, on the role of conservative think tanks in driving this resistance.
In a series of 2010 papers, however, I’m detecting a theme that runs contrary to what many often assume about the driving forces of climate denial. It is this: McCright & Dunlap argue that while corporate interests may once have seemed front-and-center in spurring resistance to climate science, at this point it's becoming increasingly apparent that ideological motivations are actually the primary motivator. Or as they put it: “conservative movement opposition to climate science and policy has a firm ideological base that supersedes the obvious desire for corporate funding.”

Time was when defending climate research was all about finding out which conservative think tanks were being funded by Exxon Mobil. Or more recently, by the Koch brothers. And there's certainly a lot of special interest influence out there. But McCright and Dunlap argue that we should focus on the power of conservative, free market and anti-regulatory ideology first and foremost. In other words, the corporate funding, when it occurs, may be more a symptom of what's going on than the root cause.
Why? Well, first, Dunlap and McCright note that “conservative think tanks increased their opposition to climate science and the IPCC, even as major portions of industry were reducing theirs.” And I don’t think there’s any denying it: Corporate views on climate change have grown considerably more diverse, with many leading companies, like General Electric, now calling for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Just look at what happened yesterday: The CEO of Royal Dutch Shell called for climate action because the “clock is ticking.”
Meanwhile, right wing resistance has gotten increasingly shrill, especially after “ClimateGate,” and attacks on climate scientists have only grown more vicious.
A second leg of the argument takes an international focus: Climate denial, say McCright and Dunlap, seems to thrive in nations that “have or have had conservative governments and in which conservative think tanks are firmly planted.” That would include the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and Denmark. And then their third argument is to look at “skeptic” scientists: While this isn't uniformly true, they tend to be political conservatives. Indeed, Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway have written that “market fundamentalism” underlies the ideology of the scientists they discuss in their book Merchants of Doubt, like Frederick Seitz.
If McCright and Dunlap are right, there are some important implications. One would be that the continuing growth in the clean energy industry may drive a wedge between business interests on the one hand, and political conservatives on the other.
And the other is that no matter how pragmatically corporate leaders behave on this issue, free market ideologues may nevertheless continue to block action—whether or not it’s good for the economy, or for business.

 

[petros]

You need to be political labeled to be in awareness of a scam? What about children and the hefty hunk of adults who don't have a clue? 28% of Canadians capable of voting cast votes last election. What label is the other 72%?

 

[Avro]

Is The Energy Industry Writing Policy Again?


Politico is reporting that Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) and other members of his staff recently met in a closed door meeting with lobbyists from the dirty energy industry. As reported earlier, Upton is the new Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and has taken an adversarial stand against the Environmental Protection Agency.

Also attending the meeting was Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and perhaps the most well-known and loudest global warming deniers in Congress.

According to the report from Politico:

“The roster of those attending the invitation-only gathering is being kept under lock and key, though it is believed to include the American Petroleum Institute, National Mining Association, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and others.”

At the start of this year, the EPA began regulating carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, a move that has industry leaders worried that they might have to fork over profits in order to meet new industry standards. The Hill reported yesterday that Upton is looking to introduce a bill within the next week to strip the EPA of their new powers.

But other Republican members want to go even further than Upton. Rep. John Barrasso (R-WY) plans on introducing a bill that would prohibit any federal agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions unless Congress specifically passes a bill that gives these agencies the authority to do so. Given the assault on the environment that is already taking place among the new Republican majority in the House, passing a bill that allows tougher environmental regulations seems like a long shot.

While the details of the secret industry meeting are being kept secret, there should be little doubt that the energy industry is once again going to be playing a major role in crafting legislation that will affect their industry.

The secrecy surrounding these GOP meetings with dirty energy interests harkens back to the closed door meetings that former vice president Dick Cheney held with energy industry officials in the spring and summer of 2001 before pushing Congress to ease rules and regulations that he believed were strangling the industry.

 

[petros]

Dick Cheney did it? He's evil, has a robot heart and will never die?

 

[darkbeaver]

Climate change study had 'significant error': experts (Update)

January 19, 2011 by Kerry Sheridan

The study was posted Tuesday on EurekAlert, a independent service for reporters set up by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was written about by numerous international news agencies, including AFP.
But AAAS later retracted the study as experts cited numerous errors in its approach.
"A reporter with The Guardian alerted us yesterday to concerns about the news release submitted by Hoffman & Hoffman public relations," said AAAS spokeswoman Ginger Pinholster in an email to AFP.
"We immediately contacted a climate change expert, who confirmed that the information raised many questions in his mind, too. We swiftly removed the news release from our website and contacted the submitting organization."
Scientist Osvaldo Canziani, who was part of the 2007 Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was listed as the scientific advisor to the report.
The IPCC, whose figures were cited as the basis for the study's projections, and Al Gore jointly won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007 "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change," the prize committee said at the time.
Canziani's spokesman said Tuesday he was ill and was unavailable for interviews.
The study cited the UN group's figures for its projections, combined with "the business-as-usual path the world is currently following," said lead author Liliana Hisas of the Universal Ecological Fund (UEF), a non-profit group headquartered in Argentina.
But climate scientist Ray Weymann told AFP that the "study contains a significant error in that it confuses 'equilibrium' temperature rise with 'transient temperature rise.'"
He also noted that study author Hisas was told of the problems in advance of the report's release.
"The author of the study was told by several of us about this error but she said it was too late to change it," said Weymann.
Scientist Scott Mandia forwarded to AFP an email he said he sent to Hisas ahead of publication explaining why her figures did not add up, and noting that it would take "quite a few decades" to reach a warming level of 2.4 degrees Celsius.
"Even if we assume the higher end of the current warming rate, we should only be 0.2C warmer by 2020 than today," Mandia wrote.
"To get to +2.4C the current trend would have to immediately increase almost ten-fold."
Mandia described the mishap as an "honest and common mistake," but said the matter would certainly give fuel to skeptics of humans' role in climate change.
"More alarmism," said Mandia. "Don't get me wrong. We are headed to 2.4, it is just not going to happen in 2020."
Many people do not understand the cumulative effect of carbon emissions and how they impact climate change, Mandia said.
"This is something that people don't appreciate. We tied a record in 2010 (for temperature records) globally. That is primarily from the C02 we put in the atmosphere in the 70s and early 80s, and we have been ramping up since then," he said.
"So it is not good. We are seeing the response from a mistake we were making 20 years ago, and we are making bigger mistakes today."
Marshall Hoffman of the public relations firm that issued the report on the UEF's behalf said the group stands by the study.
"Earlier, NASA and NOAA estimated that the global temperature increased one degree from 2005-2010. If this stays on the same path, that will be two degrees by 2015. We see that path increasing more rapidly," Hoffman said, in part, in his explanation.
Asked for comment on Hoffman's response, Mandia told AFP: "He is still confused."


(c) 2011 AFP

 

[Avro]

CanadaFreePress Apologizes to Dr. Andrew Weaver

Website retracts Tim Ball's BS


The website Canada Free Press has issued a retraction and apology to University of Victoria climate modeller Dr. Andrew Weaver for the content of an article written by Dr. Tim Ball.
Ball, whose own unspectacular academic tenure ended with a fizzle in 1996, has found a second career pretending to be a world-renowned climatologist (he once wrote to then-Prime Minister Paul Martin that he was "one of the first climatology PhDs in the world" - a statement that is purest fiction). In addition to signing on as a "science advisor" to energy industry front groups such as the Friends of Science or the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, Ball has written and spoken extensively, seldom passing up the opportunity to libel real scientists. (Though, when the going gets tough, the dishonest get going.)
One of Ball's favourite targets has been Weaver, the Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria in Ball's B.C. hometown. On occasion, Ball has even had the nerve to show his face at UVic, only to run into an audience who was capable of fact-checking his claptrap on their laptops. Most recently, he gave a lecture in which he made the outrageous claim that climate models don't include water vapour or Milankovic cycles, only to have a student in the audience politely tell him he was wrong.
Now, clearly, Ball has staggered beyond the pale, saying a bunch of things that are so obviously, demonstrably and categorically false that Canada Free Press has done the right thing. As the CFP correction says:
"Contrary to what was stated in Dr. Ball’s article, Dr. Weaver: (1) never announced he will not participate in the next IPCC; (2) never said that the IPCC chairman should resign; (3) never called for the IPCC’s approach to science to be overhauled; and (4) did not begin withdrawing from the IPCC in January 2010.
"As a result of a nomination process that began in January, 2010, Dr. Weaver became a Lead Author for Chapter 12: “Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility” of the Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC.” That work began in May, 2010. Dr. Ball’s article failed to mention these facts although they are publicly-available."
The line that may be most important for Weaver, however, is this:
"CFP also wishes to dissociate itself from any suggestion that Dr. Weaver 'knows very little about climate science.' We entirely accept that he has a well-deserved international reputation as a climate scientist and that Dr. Ball’s attack on his credentials is unjustified."
In fact, Weaver has a Nobel Peace Prize plaque hanging on his wall, in honour of his previous work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But Ball is still on the lecture circuit, still saying that climate science is a fiction. You have to hope, though, that before paying $50 a plate, his audience has an opportunity to ponder who, in this discussion, has a record of accuracy and integrity, and who has been caught out, time and again, lying about everything from the extent of his own credentials to the elements of other people's Nobel quality work.

 

[Tonington]

About time someone started cleaning up the mess of professional deniers.

 

[Avro]

About time someone started cleaning up the mess of professional deniers.

Been going on for years, the mainstream media seems to avoid the constant retractions made by the liars who get money from dirty energy.

I had a list somewhere of retractions made by Walt's favorite source...tabliods...I'll try to find it.

 

[Tonington]

James Dekingpole, a horrid rubbish journalist, complains to the BBC that he was intellectually raped by President of the UK Royal Society, Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse. Here's the video in which he is tongue tied by a common analogy employed against a very dumb denier talking point:

YouTube - Climate change denier James Delingpole doesn't do science

 

[Avro]

Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Wife: Not Even Canadians are Safe from the Kochs Anymore

From Koch Industries' roots as "the biggest company you've never heard of", David and Charles Koch have become household names for funding climate change denial and efforts to steer the United States away from a clean energy future. They suffered a little hiccup when California voters failed to buy the arguments of the dirty oil interests bankrolling Prop 23. Then, when David Koch was booed at the Nutcracker ballet just before Christmas, it started to look like the tides were shifting on public opinion around the billionaire brothers.

Despite the headway made in holding the Koch Brothers to account, they've creeped their way into Canada.
Well, let me be clear. Its not as though Koch Industries is a totally foreign force in Canada. Koch and its subsidiaries currently operate in seven Canadian provinces, and according to a Greenpeace report, Koch has held multiple leases in Alberta's tar sands, and since the 1990s the Koch Pipeline Company has operated the pipelines that carry tar sands crude from Canada into Minnesota and Wisconsin where Koch’s Flint Hill Resources owns oil refineries.
On the policy development front, they've busily bankrolled Canada's Fraser Institute to the tune of $175,000 between 2005 and 2008 to ensure Canada remains in the Stone Ages when it comes to environmental policy.
This time though, it's gotten political. According to Chris Genovali's piece in the Huffington Post, renewable energy in Ontario is under attack by the Kochtopus.
The Ontario Green Energy Act has been heralded by Al Gore himself as the "single best green energy program on the North American continent." Environmental Defence touts it as a monumental success, demonstrating that one year in, the law is steering the province into a prominent position as a global leader of economic and environmental renewal, on par with European standards.
After all the jobs the Green Energy Act has created and accolades it has received, it is curious that Tim Hudak, leader of Ontario's Conservative party, would try to scuttle it.
To make matters even worse, Hudak is confusing the public by using phoney astroturf research. His fake green turf of choice is the now well-debunked "Spanish study on renewable energy jobs". The 2009 study, the "Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources," by Gabriel Calzada Alvarez, an economics professor at King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, was funded by the American Energy Alliance, a "free-market think tank" funded by the Kochtopus and ExxonMobil.
According to Dr. Alvarez’s ginned-up study, Spain's policy on renewable energy caused the country to lose jobs. It erroneously implies that the cost of creating a renewable energy job is higher than the average cost of creating a job in Spain, and outrageously claims that Spain’s policy commitments to renewable energy development actually cost Spain 2.2 jobs lost for each clean energy job created. The study has made its rounds through the echo chamber, and was used to fight the Obama Administration's 2010 budget proposal to create tax incentives for clean energy programs, and to oppose efforts to promote growth in the renewable energy industry.
Though a favourite of renewable energy detractors, the study has been thoroughly debunked by the Spanish government, U.S. Department of Energy,and numerous others (though apparentlythe Toronto Sun didn't get the memo). And the American Wind Energy Association notes that "The Spanish Ministry of Labor has found that... renewable energy industries have created 175,000 jobs and the European Commission found that aggressive renewable policy would create a net increase of over 400,000 in the European Union by 2020, giving a 'significant boost to the economy and the number of jobs in the EU.'"
While many Americans have by now heard of the misleading study, many Canadians probably have not, and Hudak has taken full advantage of that.
Knowing Hudak's stance on other clean energy issues, his stance on renewable energy is perhaps not a stretch. He is already an outspoken opponent to a plan to create 17,000 renewable energy jobs in the province, and remains a vocal proponent of nuclear energy, despite the Liberals' commitments to eliminate coal as a fuel by 2014.

Now Hudak is promoting energy policies that are moving Ontario backwards instead of forwards on energy, using a dirty industry-funded study to scare voters into believing that proven green job creation efforts are somehow killing jobs. That has no basis in fact, and is totally inexcusable.
Hide your kids, hide your wife, the Kochtopus and Tim Hudak are working in concert to kill Canada and Ontario's clean energy future.

 

[Tonington]

I wonder how the beaver feels about being bed fellows with companies like Exxon and Koch Industries.

 

[darkbeaver]

I wonder how the beaver feels about being bed fellows with companies like Exxon and Koch Industries.

That,s an odd question from a big pharma's toy boy.

 

[Tonington]

That,s an odd question from a big pharma's toy boy.

Not really. I have no problem working for a large business. You routinely vilify large business.

 

[darkbeaver]

Not really. I have no problem working for a large business. You routinely vilify large business.

Well then you admit your ahem association with a transnational corporation and you do party with them and you have no moral problem with that. Why should me working for them elicit the scorn then, Mr Kettle? Next time you want to make a smear joke, resist the urge, you're not good at it either.

 

[Tonington]

Well then you admit your ahem association with a transnational corporation and you do party with them and you have no moral problem with that.

Why would I have a moral problem with producing research that reduces animal deaths from disease? Again, I have no problem working for or with large businesses. It's you that does.