Saturday, January 10, 2009

Climate Change Debate Has Moved!

Hello all

I have set up a new blog at Read n Say http://readnsay.wordpress.com

Hopefully this new site will be easier to post comments on.

See you there!

Michelle

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Are 10,000 Siberian weather readings missing since 1990?

"Elmer Beauregard" of website M4GW has an interesting twist on the temperature reading reliability debate at - Ooops - We forgot Siberia

He claims that temperature readings since 1990 are skewed because the split up of the Soviet Union reduced the number of reporting stations from 15,000 to 5,000. Now this is a very interesting concept. I wonder if it is true?

Can weather station experts answer this question please?

Stop Global Warming - Tell your kids to SHUT THE FRIDGE!

Sitting at my computer reading about climate change/ global warming myths (what else?) I turned around to see my son with both the fridge and freezer doors open staring inside in a trance.

Why is it that kids do that?

My first thought was of all the extra heat being pumped into the house (and when it is 28oC and 97% humidity, one doesn't need any more) from the fridge motor.

Then it occurred to me....

How many kids around the world do the same thing? Tell your kids to stop staring into open fridges or the world will end.


GRRRRRRRRRR!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Obama told Australia's coal is killing the world

Now this is a story no global warming sceptic could leave alone. Professor James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies has dumped on Australia's coal industry - big time!


Refer Courier Mail's on line news article "Australia destroying life on earth" earlier today.


James Hansen's name pops up quite frequently in relation to global warming alarmist news. Professor Hansen has written an open letter to Michelle and Barack Obama, published on the internet because it wouldn't be able to be hand delivered to him before his inauguration.

Being a sceptic, I looked up the letter myself, and yes, he did say the following .....

Australia exports coal and sets atmospheric carbon dioxide goals so large as to
guarantee destruction of much of the life on the planet

Nobody realistically expects that the large readily available pools of oil and gas will be left in the ground.

What really gets my goat is that he claims that no-one expects oil and gas to stay in the ground, but that coal should.

He includes some other gems which were not reported in the newspaper article .....

Analysis of Earth’s history helps reveal the level of greenhouse gases needed to maintain a climate resembling the Holocene, Creation, the period of reasonably stable climate in which civilization developed. That carbon dioxide level, unsurprisingly in retrospect, is less than the current 385 ppm (parts per million). The safe amount for the long-term is no more than 350 ppm, probably less. Pre-industrial carbon dioxide amount was 280 ppm.

The Holocene Climate Optimum refers to the period of time between about 8,000 to 5,000 years ago. My reading tells me that CO2 levels then were 260 to 270 ppmv and the Earth's temperature was up to 3 degrees C warmer than modern times. During that period, CO2 levels actually dipped a little, while temperatures rose. Since then, temperatures have lowered a little, with increases and decreases, while CO2 levels have gradually increased.

Going back over 5,000 years is well and truly before any man made CO2 influence. Going back further into prehistory, some scientists report the atmospheric CO2 levels were well over 1000 ppmv during some of the periods of greatest biodiversity. Presumably Professor Hansen doesn't look back that far as he referred to the Holocene period as "Creation". I have heard Christian ministers of religion refer to the Earth as 40,000 years old, not 8,000.

Since the Holocene Climate Optimum the Earth has experienced periods of unstable climate with successive moderate changes from warming to cooling and back again. There is some evidence that these climate changes were the undoing of the supremecy of some civilisations within recorded history.

Hmmm - the USA produces a fair bit of oil and gas, but little or no coal. Australia produces a heap of coal and lesser amounts of oil and gas. Why all of a sudden is oil and gas production and consumption OK, but coal is a no-no?


Has Professor Hansen become very patriotic, protective of US oil, gas and automotive industries? Has Professor Hansen discovered that somehow coal originating CO2 is worse for the world than oil and gas CO2? Or is Professor Hansen receiving sponsorship from the rich and powerful US oil and gas lobby?


Regardless of the reason for this twaddle from Professor Hansen, it just adds further "fuel" to the global warming sceptics' concerns that the CO2 caused global warming alarmists stories are not realistic and that global warming alarmism lacks credibility.


The full letter can be found at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081229_DearMichelleAndBarack.pdf

Climate Change Perspective by Viv Forbes

If you haven't made up your mind about the global warming due to CO2 argument, Viv Forbes has written a condensed summary of the arguments as to why climate change is natural, has always been happening, and how Man can do little or nothing about it. It makes extra interesting reading for anyone with an interest in history because he links climate change timing throughout recorded history with the rise and fall of significant civilisations.

You can find his paper at http://carbon-sense.com/2009/01/02/climate-change-in-perspective/

It is only 14 pages and makes good sense.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Lessons From History on Climate Change

Published with the permission of Viv Forbes:


“Lessons from History on Climate Change”.

A statement by Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.
3 January 2009
For Immediate Release.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today congratulated Senator Barnaby Joyce, Senator Ron Boswell, Senator Cory Bernardi and Dr Dennis Jensen MP for their principled stand against the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Releasing a new paper entitled “Climate Change in Perspective” the Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, said that changing climate was a permanent feature of Earth’s history – man did not cause it and cannot change it.

“All over the world, politicians, scientists, taxpayers and shareholders are waking up to the fact that they have been conned by the global warming story. All we need to do is read a bit of climate history to get things into perspective and realize how lucky we are today.”

He commented: “Within just the last 20,000 years, vast ice sheets melted from the earth’s surface, seas rose about 130 m, temperatures rose well above present levels several times, and as the seas warmed, they expelled their dissolved carbon dioxide.”

“Then just 300 years ago, earth suffered from the bitter cold and famines caused by the Little Ice Age. Since about 1700 AD, warmth created by increasing solar activity has been driving back the deadly frosts, snow and ice. Carbon dioxide is naturally expelled from the warming oceans to the atmosphere – humans have very little to do with it all.”

“All of these events were caused by and controlled by natural processes, and all life on earth was forced to adapt or die.”

“Despite continual increases in man’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the earth has not warmed since 1998. With unseasonal snow, bitter frosts, power failures and lost crops being reported every week, to send 10,000 pampered politicians and bureaucrats on a junket to Poland to discuss “Global warming” is surely a sick joke?

“A growing number of politicians are now bravely stating what a large and increasing number of scientists have been saying: “There is no global warming crisis, carbon dioxide is a benefit not a danger in the atmosphere, and the whole Emissions Trading industry is shaping up to be a bigger financial disaster than the sub-prime mess.”

To read the full report from The Carbon Sense Coalition on “Climate Change in Perspective” see:
http://carbon-sense.com/2009/01/02/climate-change-in-perspective/

For a link to the additional 650 scientists who signed their dissent over Man-Made Global Warming claims and continue to debunk the so-called “Consensus” in 2008 see:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9&CFID=53242194&CFTOKEN=70206467

To read comments by Senator Joyce see:
http://www.agmates.com/blog/2008/12/17/barnaby-joyce-the-innate-problems-with-labors-emissions-trading-scheme/

Viv Forbes
Chairman
The Carbon Sense Coalition
MS 23 Rosewood Qld 4340
0754 640 533

info@carbon-sense.com www.carbon-sense.com.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Senator Barnaby Joyce on Climate Change and ETS


The following is an address to the readers of Agmates website from the Leader of the Nationals in the Australian Senate, Barnaby Joyce -



Leader of the Nationals in the Senate Barnaby Joyce writes to the Agmates community -
*****
I’m going to be serious and quite frank with you here as the issues I am about to raise will be contentious not only amongst coalition MP’s but also my own party.
Every age comes up with a witch to burn, a sect that apparently if it is not succumbed will bring about the destruction of an empire, an issue that occupies the rigours of the day.
It is almost as if those in the position of power and their surrounding Illuminati with time to spare are terrified of the banality of daily existence and so search for an issue that demands blind obedience to conquer it.
The most dangerous place to be in these times of immense fervour is in the counter position that calls in to question the logic of the euphoria. Those who dare to question are held as heretics. There is a communal life fest in being part of the pack or staying silent.
It is hard for them to separate from the reality that the world is fairly constant and predictable and that things of the greater nature of the universe have remained beyond our control in the past and generally shall remain so into the future.
It was interesting to hear the recent discussion between Freeman Dyson, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, with Robyn Williams, on The Science Show on ABC Radio National, when he rightly stated that the world has many problems but global warming is not one of the biggest ones. As Dyson said:
“Sea level rise has been going on much longer, long before global warming, and it probably has very little to do with human activities. All we know for sure is that sea level has been rising steadily for about 10,000 years and we’ll have to do something about that.”
I don’t pretend for one moment to be a scientist but in my role in the Senate it is implicit in my job to be a sceptic , to question and to consider all sides and be open to the views of many rather than one view.
My current concern with the emissions trading scheme is that a religious fervour has built up around the altar of global warming. Those who serve at the altar have become ruthless in their denigration of alternate views. This fervour has now received its imprimatur by reason of a new tax, or should it be tithe to be paid to the Rudd Labor Government.
The similarity in this newest forte of socialism can be defined by the ultimate purpose of divesting the individual of their asset or income stream on the premise of an apparent greater moral good.
But who becomes the benefactors of this divestment? The administrators and the traders. Their pockets are lined with the property and income of others.
I don’t remember anybody paying rural Australia for the vegetation that was divested from their asset, rural land, during the tree-clearing legislation so we could meet our Kyoto target and unfortunately I don’t hear any chorus of questioning as to why in the future rural producers, after trying to feed the nation and others, will have to be dragged into an emissions trading scheme that could make many of them unviable.
Where is all this heading?
The National Party has been at the forefront of saying this is all getting beyond ridiculous and becoming dangerous. They are also being supported by unlikely allies such as the Australian Workers Union who see their own members, who have been part of the process of delivering wealth to our nation from their labours have had their industries now termed ‘dirty’ by the new environmental high priests. In this new Orwellian frenzy everyone is looking over their shoulder.
Australia is going down a path of an ETS without the co-operation of the major emitting countries. It says that it is morally right to do so. The Rudd Labor Government and others say that unilateral action is a moral imperative. I look forward to that same fervour of moralistic rectitude as they approach the Mugabe issue in Zimbabwe. He is certainly in the wrong and it is on this new platform of morals that we await our dear leader to launch an attack in a very worthwhile and immediate practice of ridding our planet of this tyrant, Mugabe. That is something that would be of an exceptional benefit.
The government is currently honey-coating the fact that it will be collecting a vast amount of money from the Australian people. The ETS will collect $11.5 billion in its first year, $12 billion in its second, it will force up the price of goods and services, it will encourage industries to move to where an ETS is not present.
Australia generates 1.5 per cent of global greenhouse emissions and this ETS will reduce world levels by the smallest sliver, which self-evidently will have nil effect on global climate whether you believe in climate warming or not.
People will lose their job or their business because of the ETS. They will be the modern-day witches burning on the environmentalist fanatical pyre because their role in this new dynamic was unacceptable.
For regional Australia we look forward to the ridiculous prospect of 34 million possible hectares of forest to take the place of farming land, formerly the backbone of so many regional towns and generations of good, honest working Australians’ lives.
The history of human civilisations has the disturbing trait of devising ways to put themselves out of business, sometimes through no more than their own excesses and belief structures of their governing bureaucracies. The only protection against these excesses is the capacity of the general population to question, to doubt and to disagree.
I have no doubt that as a world we must become efficient with the utilisation of our resources. We must give the greatest number of people the greatest access to the highest standard of living, it is only fair.
Efficiency, more than emissions, must become the trading scheme that brings a cleaner, fairer future. Encourage efficiency and keep the government’s hands out of people’s pockets and off their assets and that will bring a greater propensity to a long-term broad-based better world for all of us.
END

Well said Senator.

Please pass on this news, and your support of the Senator's comments, particularly to your Member of Parliament.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

A good read - Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years

A friend lent me a book over the Christmas/ New Year break which I found to be fascinating reading."Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years" was written by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery in 2007 with an updated edition published in 2008.

Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years


There is so much material in this book. If you have doubts about whether global warming or climate change are man-made, you will find this book a real eye opener. Although this book is written by scientists, it is written with a minimum of jargon so that any reasonably educated adult can understand. The authors are undoubtedly deniers of the man made climate change argument. The theme of this book is that there is a solar/ celestial cycle which recurs roughly every 1,500 years and that these influences are much stronger than anything man has done to this planet.


Friday, January 2, 2009

Dr Tim Flannery, Australian of the Year, Quoted ......

I was told about an Australian news item that I just couldn't believe was real. I looked it up, and sure enough, it was real all right!

Dr Tim Flannery is a scientist - and 2007 Australian of the Year!

He is quoted by AAP, and therefore news all around the world, as having stated in a public address at Australia's Parliament House that drastic measures are needed to curb global warming, including adding sulphur to plane fuel so that sulphur could be dispersed into the atmosphere and create cloud cover, and setting up an eBay style carbon trading scheme.

I know, I didn't believe it either. Check out the 19 May 2008 story "Tim Flannery's Radical Climate Change "Solution"" at news.com.au.

And he admits to having no idea what adding sulphur to the atmosphere would do to the planet!

Is this scientific statement as responsible as others that have been published?

Slowing of Coral Growth in Great Barrier Reef

Today's newspaper articles on a paper published in Science state that the scientists attribute the declining rate of growth of a particular type of coral to climate change and increasing acidity in the ocean due to greater absorption of CO2.

The abstract of the article Declining Coral Calcification on the Great Barrier Reef states:


The causes of the decline remain unknown; however, this study suggests that increasing temperature stress and a declining saturation state of seawater aragonite may be diminishing the ability of GBR corals to deposit calcium carbonate.


The scientists Glenn De'ath, Janice M. Lough, Katharina E. Fabricius of the Australian Institute of Marine Science report that their data suggests that the decrease in calcification of 14.2% since 1990 is unprecedented in the past 400 years.

Aragonite is CaCO3 - a form of calcium carbonate. It makes sense that this is important to coral growth. But what might be reducing the saturation of aragonite in seawater around the Great Barrier Reef? On further research I found that CO2 reacts with H2O and CaCO3 to make Ca and H2CO3 - carbonic acid! Aha - so that is why the oceans are becoming more acidic.



So what happened to corals much more than 400 years ago? The Earth was at least as warm, some say warmer, in the Medieval times. Coral was around then, so how did it cope? Maybe the answer is in slower growth, not killing. The coral is growing more slowly, but will recover again when the temperatures reduce with the next Little Ice Age. What is happening with coral in other locations around the world?

What will happen/ has happened to coral when the planet cools?

Coral seems to be pretty resilient. It has survived Crown of Thorns plagues, bleaching episodes and massive quantities of superphosphate washing out of Queensland rivers. I would like to see more studies of what has happened to corals over time with other unfavourable events.

As for the scientists claim that this is due to global warming from man-made CO2 (as at least one stated on camera), I didn't see any reference to their proof that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere due to man made causes, nor that this is causing global warming.

All that can be concluded is (possibly) that the rate of growth of one type of coral in the Great Barrier Reef has been slower recently than it has in the past.

Am I correct in understanding that the coral is STILL GROWING, just 14.2% more slowly?

Global Warming Not Measured Since 1995

The Facts and Arts website has posted No significant Global Warming since 1995 by Jahl R. Ahlbeck, an academic in Finland.

This article includes graphs of two different methods for measuring the Earth's temperature - one in the lower atmosphere and the other at ground level. Although these show different absolute temperatures and different trends over time, since 1995 they both show a similar trend - little or no temperature increase. The author states he selected 1995 as there have been no major volcanic eruptions since then which would skew the temperature with a cooling effect.

So why, if CO2 increases cause temperature increases, and atmospheric CO2 has continued to increase over this time, haven't temperatures continued to noticeably increase?

The answer - man made CO2 is NOT influencing the Earth's temperature!