Global Warming ‘Greatest Scam in History’

[Walter]

Hot and bothered over climate

By Peter Worthington


If you are confused about the Kyoto Accord, climate change, greenhouse gases, the deleterious effects of carbon dioxide (CO), and assorted environmental threats as outlined in Al Gore's Academy Award and Nobel Prize winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, I have a solution.
Go on the Internet to www.friendsofscience.org, the University of Calgary-based non-profit volunteer organization of atmospheric and other scientists who challenge politically inspired concepts that the planet is threatened by climate change due to man's irresponsible misuse of the environment.
The website is replete with data that differs considerably from the Chicken Little "Sky is Falling!" convictions of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), comprised of 2,500 scientists (of differing disciplines) whose assessments are sorted and selected by another UN body which blends them into a politically acceptable rant.
From the start of the Kyoto Accord, the Canadian government of the day voiced enthusiastic support, but did zilch to fulfil its pledges. Over the years support has grown among governments and individuals who should know better. Chicken Little thrives.
For the record, Sun Media has been at the vanguard of those questioning not only the wisdom, but the accuracy of dire predictions disaster for the economy and life itself if greenhouse gases and associated emissions that allegedly affect the climate are not curbed.
Calm down, everyone
Sun Media's Lorrie Goldstein has consistently challenged global warming hysteria, and has resolutely resisted being stampeded into political subservience.
Another voice of sanity is Lawrence Solomon, a founder of Energy Probe and various environmental bodies. He's authored several respected environmental books and is a columnist for the National Post.
In a extensive interview with Troy Media, Solomon, demolished many of the environmental myths and climate beliefs that infect society today. A few points:
- The media's belief that science is agreed on climate change and the UN's conclusions, is wrong. The science is not solid, but speculative -- and the 2,500 scientists cited by the UN climate change panel do not all agree. Those who disagree are simply excluded from the UN's findings. Bad journalism and poor science.
- Many climate change advocates see Kyoto as a means of transferring wealth to Third World countries -- especially in the carbon-trading field of developed countries buying credits from less-developed countries' (India and China). Also, climate change means billions available for research. A money bandwagon.
- Many believe CO is a problem. It is not. It may really be a benefit as "nature's fertilizer." Coal burning produces emissions such as nitrogen and sulphur oxides and mercury emission which are dangerous. But CO isn't a pollutant. Carbon is the basis of life on Earth.
- Science is not unanimous on climate change. Earth has been hotter in the past (1934 was the hottest year of the past century), and Earth is greener today than any time in recent years. We know very little about climate -- and not that much about weather patterns. It's folly to implement policy based on admitted ignorance.
- Imposing carbon taxes is premature. Ethanol is an economic and environmental boondoggle that may produce unclean air. It increases greenhouse gases, while contributing to inflation and rising food prices. Mindlessly (albeit it sincerely) hysterical.
- As a fuel, coal has been made super clean, similar to natural gas. Canada has hundreds of years of coal resources, but politicians fear public anger if they advocate coal.
Perhaps we should all return to skepticism and rely more on (un)common sense: Is it not presumptuous to suppose that we humans, with our SUVs, have the power, to influence nature and destroy the world?

 

[Walter]

Fillin' up my green footprint with a new truck

By Connie Woodcock


We've had reason to ponder our carbon footprint lately chez Woodcock.
Partly it's because we're beginning to feel the heat from city dwellers who've bought into the global warming issue full strength and think of us as eco-criminals for living in the country, driving everywhere we go, mowing our acre of grass and just generally occupying way more than our share of the planet.
But mostly, it's about that big old silver Ford pickup we bought from a neighbour last week which is now sitting in our driveway.
What can I say? It was cheap, in good shape, and provides a spare vehicle that can hold a lot of stuff without being too fancy to go to the dump or let our beagle ride in the passenger seat.
On the up side, the truck passed its emissions test with flying colours -- 0.00 units of carbon dioxide both idling and accelerating and minimal hydrocarbons. On the downside, we filled its gas tank for the first time and it cost $127.
It is a truck and it's going to use lots of gas -- although not nearly as much as if we'd purchased one of the SUVs that are beginning to clutter up used car lots in big numbers. Still, for the money we saved, we can buy a whole lot of gas. So sue me.
But then it occurred to us that our six acres are working hard to limit our carbon footprint. We have hundreds of trees all soaking up CO2. The average rural Canadian tree sequesters 225 kg of carbon over 80 years or 2.8 kg per year. The average urban tree sequesters about 200 kg or 2.5 kg per year.
We also have an acre of meadow, where milkweed grows that nourishes the world's dwindling number of monarch butterflies. In fact, our land provides habitat for a wide variety of wildlife big and small. Our grass acts as a carbon sink and conserves moisture. We live on a gravel hilltop which is a natural aquifer and where there is almost always a breeze so we don't need air conditioning. In winter, we use our wood stove as much as possible.
As for driving, I'm making fewer trips and I'm driving a lot slower -- a $265 speeding ticket having convinced me to change my ways fast.
All in all, I'd say we're doing what we can, considering there are many things we can't do -- install a wind turbine (unaffordable), get rid of our oil furnace (no alternative other than propane) or take transit (no such thing available). And our property is helping us give back.
But then along came British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell whose highly unpopular carbon tax recently went into effect and who last week made one of those bizarre statements that remind us why B.C. is called la-la-land. It's time, he said, for the north to get rid of its dependence on diesel fuel.
First, I laughed. What does he think they're going to use? Whale oil?
But then I got worried. Such remarks illustrate how unrealistic the mobilization against global warming really is. Northerners don't have any options and, frankly, neither do most of the rest of us, even those holed up in their concrete condo-bunkers on King St. W.
Do you really think riding the TTC isn't putting shocking amounts of carbon into the atmosphere? That your electricity arrives by magic? That your garbage is hauled to landfill by the trash fairy? Please.
This is Canada -- a large, cold country with big empty spaces. We must have heat and light and we must go places. There are only so many ways of cutting back and many Canadians have already reached the limits of possibility.
Once you've insulated your house, installed new windows, changed your light bulbs, purchased the most energy-efficient heating system you can afford, bought a small car, turned your lawn into rough pasture and put up a clothesline, you're done.
So the B.C. premier's carbon tax is just a foretaste of what will come if Stephane Dion has his way -- punishment for existing.
I think both the B.C. tax and Dion's "Green Shift" have just made it a whole lot easier for the Conservatives to elect their candidates in rural ridings from coast to coast. And they should give urban voters reason to wonder what exactly the limits to going green really are.

 

[Walter]

Challenging the basis of Kyoto Protocol

Vladimir Radyuhin
Russian scientists deny that the Kyoto Protocol reflects a consensus view of the world scientific community.

As western nations step up pressure on India and China to curb the emission of greenhouse gases, Russian scientists reject the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming.
Russian critics of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for cuts in CO2 emissions, say that the theory underlying the pact lacks scientific basis. Under the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is human-generated greenhouse gases, and mainly CO2, that cause climate change. “The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse,” says renowned Russian geographer Andrei Kapitsa. “It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round.”
Russian researchers made this discovery while studying ice cores recovered from the depth of 3.5 kilometres in Antarctica. Analysis of ancient ice and air bubbles trapped inside revealed the composition of the atmosphere and air temperature going back as far as 400,000 years.
“We found that the level of CO2 had fluctuated greatly over the period but at any given time increases in air temperature preceded higher concentrations of CO2,” says academician Kapitsa, who worked in Antarctica for many years. Russian studies showed that throughout history, CO2 levels in the air rose 500 to 600 years after the climate warmed up. Therefore, higher concentrations of greenhouse gases registered today are the result, not the cause, of global warming.
Critics of the CO2 role in climate change point out that water vapours are a far more potent factor in creating the greenhouse effect as their concentration in the atmosphere is five to 10 times higher than that of CO2. “Even if all CO2 were removed from the earth atmosphere, global climate would not become any cooler,” says solar physicist Vladimir Bashkirtsev.
The hypothesis of anthropogenic greenhouse gases was born out of computer modelling of climate changes. Russian scientists say climate models are inaccurate since scientific understanding of many natural climate factors is still poor and cannot be properly modelled. Oleg Sorokhtin of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Ocean Studies, and many other Russian scientists maintain that global climate depends predominantly on natural factors, such as solar activity, precession (wobbling) of the Earth’s axis, changes in ocean currents, fluctuations in saltiness of ocean surface water, and some other factors, whereas industrial emissions do not play any significant role. Moreover, greater concentrations of CO2 are good for life on Earth, Dr. Sorokhtin argues, as they make for higher crop yields and faster regeneration of forests.
“There were periods in the history of the Earth when CO2 levels were a million times higher than today, and life continued to evolve quite successfully,” agrees Vladimir Arutyunov of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Chemical Physics.
When four years ago, then President Vladimir Putin was weighing his options on the Kyoto Protocol the Russian Academy of Sciences strongly advised him to reject it as having “no scientific foundation.” He ignored the advice and sent the Kyoto pact to Parliament for purely political reasons: Moscow traded its approval of the Kyoto Protocol for the European Union’s support for Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation. Russian endorsement was critical, as without it the Kyoto Protocol would have fallen through due to a shortage of signatories. It did not cost much for Russia to join the Kyoto Protocol since its emission target was set at the level of 1990, that is, before the Russian economy crashed following the break-up of the Soviet Union. According to some projections, Russia will not exceed its target before 2017. Notwithstanding this, the Russian scientific community is vocal in its opposition to the Kyoto process.
“The Kyoto Protocol is a huge waste of money,” says Dr. Sorokhtin. “The Earth’s atmosphere has built-in regulatory mechanisms that moderate climate changes. When temperatures rise, ocean water evaporation increases, denser clouds stop solar rays and surface temperatures decline.”
Academician Kapitsa denounced the Kyoto Protocol as “the biggest ever scientific fraud.” The pact was lobbied by European politicians and industrialists, critics say, in order to improve the competitiveness of European products and slow down economic growth in emerging economies. “The European Union pushed through the Kyoto Protocol in order to reduce the competitive edge of the U.S. and other countries where ecological standards are less stringent than in Europe,” says ecologist Sergei Golubchikov.
Russian scientists deny that the Kyoto Protocol reflects a consensus view of the world scientific community. Academician Kapitsa complains that opponents of the man-caused global warming are routinely denied the floor at international climate forums.
“A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace,” the scientist says. “As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact.”
Critics concede that the thrust of the Kyoto Protocol is towards promoting energy-saving technologies, but then, they argue, it should have been just that — a protocol on energy efficiency and energy conservation. The problem with the Kyoto process, critics say, is that it shifts the emphasis away from genuine ecological problems, such as industrial, air and water pollution, to the wasteful fight against harmless gases.
“Ecological treaties should seek to curb emissions of sulpher dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals and other highly-toxic pollutants instead of targeting carbon dioxide, which is a non-toxic gas whose impact on global warming has not been proved,” says Dr. Golubchikov.
Russian researchers compare the Kyoto Protocol to the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which called for phasing out Freon-12 as a preferred refrigerant. It has since been proved, says Dr. Golubchikov, that chlorine-containing Freon-12 destroys ozone only in laboratory conditions whereas in the atmosphere, it interacts with hydrogen and falls back to Earth as acid rain before it can harm ozone.
The Montreal Protocol brought billions of dollars in profits for U.S. DePont, which held global patent rights for Freon-134, an alternative refrigerant that does not interact with ozone. “Within 10 years of the Montreal Protocol the output of refrigeration compressors in the U.S. increased by 60 per cent, whereas in Europe it declined by a similar proportion. In Russia, which accounted for a quarter of the global market of refrigerants, the industry ground to a complete stop,” says Yevgeny Utkin, Secretary of Russia’s Inter-Agency Commission for Climate Change.
The ultimate irony of the Montreal Protocol is that the new refrigerant is the most potent among greenhouse gases blacklisted under the Kyoto Protocol, and moreover is explosion-prone. The Freon bubble burst when, in 1989, the ozone layer suddenly jumped to the pre-Montreal Protocol level and has since continued to rise. Russian critics of the Kyoto Protocol are convinced that the greenhouse gases bubble will likewise prove short-lived.
© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

 

[Walter]

Gloomy summer headed toward infamy

CHILLY: Anchorage could hit 65 degrees for fewest days on record.
By GEORGE BRYSON
gbryson@adn.com
Published: July 24th, 2008 12:10 AM
Last Modified: July 24th, 2008 04:56 PM
The coldest summer ever? You might be looking at it, weather folks say.


Right now the so-called summer of '08 is on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature in Anchorage managed to reach 65 degrees.
That unhappy record was set in 1970, when we only made it to the 65-degree mark, which many Alaskans consider a nice temperature, 16 days out of 365.
This year, however -- with the summer more than half over -- there have been only seven 65-degree days so far. And that's with just a month of potential "balmy" days remaining and the forecast looking gloomy.
National Weather Service meteorologist Sam Albanese, a storm warning coordinator for Alaska, says the outlook is for Anchorage to remain cool and cloudy through the rest of July.
"There's no real warm feature moving in," Albanese said. "And that's just been the pattern we've been stuck in for a couple weeks now."
In the Matanuska Valley on Wednesday snow dusted the Chugach. On the Kenai Peninsula, rain was raising Six-Mile River to flood levels and rafting trips had to be canceled.
So if the cold and drizzle are going to continue anyway, why not shoot for a record? The mark is well within reach, Albanese said:
"It's probably going to go down as the summer with the least number of 65-degree days."
MEASURING THE MISERY
In terms of "coldest summer ever," however, a better measure might be the number of days Anchorage fails to even reach 60.
There too, 2008 is a contender, having so far notched only 35 such days -- far below the summer-long average of 88.
Unless we get 10 more days of 60-degree or warmer temperatures, we're going to break the dismal 1971 record of only 46 such days, a possibility too awful to contemplate.
Still, according to a series of charts cobbled together Tuesday evening by a night-shift meteorologist in the weather service's Anchorage office, the current summer clearly has broken company with the record-setting warmth of recent years. Consider:
• 70-degree days. So far this summer there have been two. Usually there are 15. Last year there were 21. In 2004 there were 49.
• 75-degree days. So far this summer there've been zero. Usually there are four. It may be hard to remember, but last year there were 21. In 2004 there were 23.
So are all bets off on global warming? Hardly, scientists say. Climate change is a function of long-term trends, not single summers or individual hurricanes.
Last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that it's "unequivocal" the world is warming, considering how 11 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past 13 years.
So what's going on in Alaska, which also posted a fairly frigid winter?
LA NINA
Federal meteorologists trace a lot of the cool weather to ocean temperatures in the South Pacific.
When the seas off the coast of Peru are 2 to 4 degrees cooler than normal, a La Nina weather pattern develops, which brings cooler-than- normal weather to Alaska.
For most of the past year, La Nina (the opposite of El Nino, in which warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures occur off Peru) has prevailed. But that's now beginning to change.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Web site, water temperatures in the eastern South Pacific began to warm this summer -- and the weather should eventually follow.
The current three-month outlook posted by the national Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md., calls for below-normal temperatures for the south coast of Alaska from August through October -- turning to above-normal temperatures from October through December.

 

[Tonington]

Alaska =/= Global...:roll:

 

[dancing-loon]

What melts the ice up North, if not a warming trend?
The biggest ice shelf has just dropped a 4-square-kilometer chunk of ice. That is a huge piece.

In the past 100 years some 9000-square-kilometers have been whittled away. Doesn't that coincide with man's gradual pollution evolution?

"The take-home message for me is that these ice shelves are not regenerating," he said. "If we're looking at an indicator of whether climate is to blame, it's really the lack of regeneration that convinces me. They're breaking away so rapidly that there's no hope of regeneration," he said, adding that is "pretty strong evidence that suggests this is related to global warming."

Read this... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../National/home

 

[Avro]

Alaska =/= Global...:roll:

Forgive Walt, he dosen't understand the concept of climate change.

 

[Walter]

Almost a million more square kliks than last year. Brr.

 

[gopher]

Forgive Walt, he dosen't understand the concept of climate change.

Even his heroes Bush and McCain believe in climate change!

 

[Tonington]

Almost a million more square kliks than last year. Brr.

Welcome to reality Walt. Nothing in the world--except chronology and perhaps your cut and paste artistry-- continues monotonically.

 

[Scott Free]

So what exactly is it you think your undying belief (faith) in Global Warming is going to get you Tonkahead?

I mean nothing you can do is going to save the world. Your dead and you know it. GW is out of control!?!?!?! Scream, run, panic and piss yourself but what exactly does that do for you?

There must be some reason you cling to this stupidity?

And what about you Avro? What's your illness?

Maybe you guys are dumb enough to believe our carbon is causing what is obviously a natural cycle but somehow I doubt it. I think you guys really get your rocks off on this $h!t somehow.

 

[Walter]

Bangladesh gaining land, not losing: scientists

DHAKA, July 30 (AFP) Jul 30, 2008
New data shows that Bangladesh's landmass is increasing, contradicting forecasts that the South Asian nation will be under the waves by the end of the century, experts say.

Scientists from the Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) have studied 32 years of satellite images and say Bangladesh's landmass has increased by 20 square kilometres (eight square miles) annually.
Maminul Haque Sarker, head of the department at the government-owned centre that looks at boundary changes, told AFP sediment which travelled down the big Himalayan rivers -- the Ganges and the Brahmaputra -- had caused the landmass to increase.
The rivers, which meet in the centre of Bangladesh, carry more than a billion tonnes of sediment every year and most of it comes to rest on the southern coastline of the country in the Bay of Bengal where new territory is forming, he said in an interview on Tuesday.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted that impoverished Bangladesh, criss-crossed by a network of more than 200 rivers, will lose 17 percent of its land by 2050 because of rising sea levels due to global warming.
The Nobel Peace Prize-winning panel says 20 million Bangladeshis will become environmental refugees by 2050 and the country will lose some 30 percent of its food production.
Director of the US-based NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, professor James Hansen, paints an even grimmer picture, predicting the entire country could be under water by the end of the century.
But Sarker said that while rising sea levels and river erosion were both claiming land in Bangladesh, many climate experts had failed to take into account new land being formed from the river sediment.
"Satellite images dating back to 1973 and old maps earlier than that show some 1,000 square kilometres of land have risen from the sea," Sarker said.
"A rise in sea level will offset this and slow the gains made by new territories, but there will still be an increase in land. We think that in the next 50 years we may get another 1,000 square kilometres of land."
Mahfuzur Rahman, head of Bangladesh Water Development Board's Coastal Study and Survey Department, has also been analysing the buildup of land on the coast.
He told AFP findings by the IPCC and other climate change scientists were too general and did not explore the benefits of land accretion.
"For almost a decade we have heard experts saying Bangladesh will be under water, but so far our data has shown nothing like this," he said.
"Natural accretion has been going on here for hundreds of years along the estuaries and all our models show it will go on for decades or centuries into the future."
Dams built along the country's southern coast in the 1950s and 1960s had helped reclaim a lot of land and he believed with the use of new technology, Bangladesh could speed up the accretion process, he said.
"The land Bangladesh has lost so far has been caused by river erosion, which has always happened in this country. Natural accretion due to sedimentation and dams have more than compensated this loss," Rahman said.
Bangladesh, a country of 140 million people, has built a series of dykes to prevent flooding. "If we build more dams using superior technology, we may be able to reclaim 4,000 to 5,000 square kilometres in the near future," Rahman said.

 

[Avro]

TheStar.com - Canada - Ice break ominous, Arctic scientist says

BOB WEBER/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO
Canadian Ranger Samson Ejanqiaq looks along one of the gaping new cracks in the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, the largest left in the Arctic, in April 2008.

North's ancient shelves `are retreating and they are not coming back,' researcher warns

July 30, 2008
Moira Welsh
Environment Reporter
A scientist on board the Amundsen research icebreaker near the Beaufort Sea says the ice shelf that broke apart last week is another sign that the Arctic has reached a tipping point in climate change.
Two blocks that broke away from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf near the northern coast of Ellesmere Island are simply the latest loss in the Arctic's rapidly disappearing mass of thick, ancient ice, said Gary Stern, chief scientist on board the Amundsen Coast Guard vessel.
"When I hear what happened, I am not surprised," Stern said by satellite telephone.
"The rate we are losing ice is phenomenal. This (climate change) is real," he said. "I think a lot of people don't understand how fast things are changing up here."
Stern, a University of Manitoba professor, is leading a major research project – part of the International Polar Year – examining climate change and the loss of sea ice in the Arctic.
After spending winter months navigating freely through Arctic waters that were once impassable, he pointed to the lack of new ice freezing as another indication that warming is well underway.
"In November, the Amundsen actually went up to the northwestern side of Banks Island and into McClure Strait. That is the real Northwest Passage. It is almost never open – even in the summer.
``The fact that it is open in November is phenomenal. I don't care what anybody says, (the problem) is man-made and we have to deal with it now."
In April, Trent University researcher Derek Mueller and his colleagues discovered deep cracks in the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, foretelling last week's break in the Arctic's largest remaining ice shelf.
The most recent changes of significance in the ice shelf, which dates back 3,000 years, occurred between the early 1900s and the 1950s. Mueller said. (Historically, Mueller said that during the Cold War, some of the ice islands were occupied by Russians, who used them for scientific studies.)
There were few breaks until 2002, when the Ward ice shelf cracked into two pieces. In 2005, the nearby 66-square-kilometre Ayles ice shelf broke into two and floated away.
Ice shelves can break up for various reasons, not always climate change, Mueller said. It is the lack of new ice forming that shows that global warming is afoot.
"There are only five of these ice shelves left," Mueller said. "They are retreating and they are not coming back."
Last week, Mueller said that sometime between July 22 and 24, two pieces broke away from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. One measured about 14 square kilometres, the other four square kilometres.
Over the past few years, Arctic researchers say that thousands of square kilometres of old ice across the Arctic have broken away, changing shorelines, forcing native communities to relocate and change their hunting grounds.
The loss of the ice could have dire consequences for climate change. The white surface of ice deflects the sun's rays. Without the ice, the dark water absorbs the heat, causing more ice to melt, potentially leading to higher water levels around the world.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/469571

 

[Walter]

 

[Avro]

 

[gopher]

GREAT cartoon!

 

[scratch]

GREAT cartoon!

IMO: it is sick.

 

[Walter]

The Green Inquisition

by Bjørn Lomborg


When it comes to global warming, extreme scare stories abound. Al Gore, for example, famously claimed that a whopping six meters (20 feet) of sea-level rise would flood major cities around the world.

Gore’s scientific advisor, Jim Hansen from NASA, has even topped his protégé. Hansen suggests that there will eventually be sea-level rises of 24 meters (80 feet), with a six-meter rise happening just this century. Little wonder that fellow environmentalist Bill McKibben states that “we are engaging in a reckless drive-by drowning of much of the rest of the planet and much of the rest of creation.”
Given all the warnings, here is a slightly inconvenient truth: over the past two years, the global sea level hasn’t increased. It has slightly decreased . Since 1992, satellites orbiting the planet have measured the global sea level every 10 days with an amazing degree of accuracy – 3-4 millimeters (0.2 inches). For two years, sea levels have declined. (All of the data are available at sealevel.colorado.edu.)

 

[coldstream]

But it is perhaps also a symptom of a broader problem. It is hard to keep up the climate panic as reality diverges from the alarmist predictions more than ever before: the global temperature has not risen over the past ten years, it has declined precipitously in the last year and a half, and studies show that it might not rise again before the middle of the next decade. With a global recession looming and high oil and food prices undermining the living standards of the Western middle class, it is becoming ever harder to sell the high-cost, inefficient Kyoto-style solution of drastic carbon cuts.

This is from the article by Bjorn. I'd be willing to go farther than he does in another part of the article and assert the man made carbon emissions have had NO effect on the planetary climate at ANY measurable levels.. PERIOD. In fact based on less intense solar radiation, the prime engine in the global climate, in a normal solar cycle, the planet could cool for the next several decades.

So what happens when NONE of the alarmists theories of inundated cities, global crop failures, vast droughts, disappearance of the polar ice cap.. comes true. Do you think they'll demand Gore give back his Nobel Peace Prize. No way, there is an industry now fully invested in Global Warming. Billions to be made by trading carbon credits... and who cares if the solution to this non-existent problem will cause far more pain than any periodic waxing and waning of temperature.. they'll find some other 'proof' that carbon does something bad.

Carbon, the most essential large scale energy producing element on the planet, was purposely chosen because it CANNOT be replaced, at least in the next couple of centuries, by any of the highly inefficient and expensive 'environmental friendly' alternatives. But we don't have to worry about supply, there is ample, affordable large scale carbon resources on the planet. Enough to last several hundred years. And we don't have to worry about serious long term environmental damage by carbon emissions.. none have been proven.. and in fact with sensible application.. none exist.

Borrowing from Roosevelt.. all we have to FEAR is fear itself. And the poverty, starvation and global financial chaos that stands to be wrought by the SOLUTIONS to 'Global Warming'.

 

[Scott Free]

Carbon is good for plant life. So in reality all we're really hurting is ourselves by removing the carbon in the atmosphere.

"[SIZE=-0]Thousands of scientific experiments have been conducted to measure the effects of carbon dioxide enrichment on specific plants. In most green plants, productivity continues to rise up to CO2 concentrations of 1,000 ppm and above. For rice, the optimal CO2 level is between 1,500 and 2,000 ppm. For unicellular algae, the optimal level is 10,000 to 50,000 ppm."

So who is this bad for again? Oh right, people with sea side property - to hell with the starving people and the increased food production carbon represents.
[/SIZE]