Blissful Intentional Science Ignorance - Encouraged and Promoted by Big Media

Over six years ago our local weekly newspaper, The Independent (big laugh) Coast Observer, emailed me that my letters would no longer be published. However, on rare occasions one of mine slips through, and this is the latest.

Editor

Believers in human-caused climate change argue that they follow the science, but then don’t. For example, sea-level increase; many Bay Area scientists predict a six-foot increase by 2100, but these predictions lack mention of San Francisco’s tide gauge, installed in 1854, the oldest in the Western Hemisphere. Its history is easily accessed online, as are those of all the world’s tide gauges, at psmsl.org. Per San Francisco’s 166-year record, sea level has risen six inches, at a steady pace of 3.6 inches per century. At the end of 2021 sea level was at its lowest for the past eight years, and 4.6 inches lower than its peak in 1983.

San Francisco tide gauge record since 1854 showing the 1983 peak 

and lack of significant change since then.

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website shows sea level at Los Angeles increasing at a steady rate of 3.8 inches per century. Neither San Francisco nor Los Angeles show any increase in the rate of sea-level rise for the past century, and if their current rates are sustained the forecasted six-foot increase will be reached after the year 3800.

The Los Angeles rate of increase of 0.96 millimeters per year is less than four inches per century (3.8 inches)

The San Francisco rate of increase of 1.94 millimeters per year is less than eight inches per century (7.6 inches ) and was achieved by a curious adjustment by NASA at ~1896 not found in the tide gauge data. 

 

Many scientists also ignore Greenland ice core studies that indicate that we now live in the coldest 1,000-year period of the past 10,000 years. 

(It's a pity that I wasn't able to put these charts and links in my letter to the editor, because as you can see, a picture is worth a thousand words.)

 

For (human-caused global warming) scientists, ignorance is bliss.

The "Tinkerbell" Effect

By noting that the Arctic ice cap has shrunk 22 percent since 1979, Mr. Jacobs exemplifies the “Tinkerbell” effect and “young earth” philosophy, since regular satellite imaging of the polar cap only began in 1979, and Arctic ice was near a maximum then (remember the “global cooling” hysteria of the 1970’s?). 1960-70’s cooling followed an earlier warming period reported in The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington, March 29, 1958:


“... (everybody knows) existing glaciers — like those in the Swiss passes and Alaska — are melting. How could new ice hulks creep in upon us while weather experts are announcing that even the North Polar ice caps are thinning? And … weather records show the weather has been growing warmer over the years - so warm in fact that certain glaciers are melting fast enough to raise the level of the world’s oceans. Can such signs really foreshadow the coming of a new Ice Age?”

Dr. Maurice Ewing, in 1958 one of America’s leading oceanographers and geophysicists, produced this study. Read the complete, fascinating report on one of my blog posts.

Very recently, scientifically speaking: “Multiple proxy records and climate models indicate that early Holocene temperatures (about 8,000 years ago) were higher than today and that the Arctic contained less ice…”

Even Warmista scientists admit that doubling atmospheric CO2 could only raise global temperature one degree Celsius, but that additional warming will come from “positive” feedbacks (which climate science proves never existed because positive feedbacks would have caused unstoppable run-away warming).

Warmistas, who think Al Gore invented climate science, are in denial about its basics: it’s always changing, change is natural, and all this was happening before 1979. Mankind contributes only 3% of CO2 emissions, and it’s foolishly ignorant and arrogant to think that minuscule changes in a trace gas drive climate change. It never has.

Scientists Predict: Another Ice Age Is On The Way - in 1958!

The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington, March 29, 1958

Scientists Predict: Another Ice Age is on the way (Article by Leslie Lieber)

(Those who were hardest hit by last month’s snowstorms may think the next ice-age is already upon us. Others may think it will never come. Whatever you think, it would be comforting to pay no attention to the weather forecast presented on these pages.


Unfortunately Maurice Ewing and William L. Donn are not men to be taken lightly. Dr. Ewing ranks as one of America’s leading oceanographers and geophysicists, its top authority on the world beneath the sea. President of the American Geophysical Union and director of Columbia University’s Lamont Geological Observatory, he has personally designed much of the equipment now used in underseas exploration.


His colleague, Dr. Donn, is Associate Professor of Geology, Brooklyn College, and Chief Scientist, U.S. Atlantic Island Observatories Program for the Inter- national Geophysical Year.

The two scientists point out that the full scientific presentation of their new theory, with graphs and weather charts, has already been made in scientific journals, but say “we have been pleased to co-operate with Mr. Lieber in presenting to the general public some of the highlights of our ideas.”)



Two leaders in their field say the enormous glacier that buried half the world 11,000 years ago is due back and present a startling theory to prove it.

Eleven thousand years ago — give or take a thousand years — the last of the great ice-age glaciers which blanketed the American continent from Northern Canada to the banks of the Missouri River began its retreat from the face of the earth. Known as the Wisconsin stage, it rang down the curtain on four separate Ice Ages which had come and gone during the preceding million years.

Since that time, mankind has been too busy with the problems of everyday living to worry about the staggering possibility that another continental glacier might be in the making. Undoubtedly our Neanderthal ancestors lived in the same ignorant bliss during the warm interludes between Ice Ages. The last thing they suspected was that their temperate weather would ever end. It did, though — in glacial onslaughts which drove them either into local caves or on long treks southward.

Modern man’s hunch that the Ice Age has gone for good is based on what he firmly believes to be common sense. How, we ask, can a new Ice Age possibly be shaping up when everybody knows that existing glaciers — like those in the Swiss passes and Alaska — are melting? How could new ice hulks creep in upon us while weather experts are announcing that even the North Polar ice caps are thinning? And what about the fact that weather records show the weather has been growing warmer over the years - so warm in fact that certain glaciers are melting fast enough to raise the level of the world’s oceans? Can such signs really foreshadow the coming of a new Ice Age?

The answer is very definitely yes — if you listen to two leading oceanographers, Drs. Maurice Ewing and William L. Donn. As a result of extensive research, these eminent scientists believe, in short, that the earth is passing through an interglacial period and that the cyclic phenomena which produced continental glaciers in ages past are at work producing another Ice Age. Its advent may be a matter of thousands of years. It could also conceivably be upon us in a few centuries.

Now how can slightly warmer climate and rising sea levels foster a cataclysm as drastic as another Ice Age? First you must understand just how a glacier is formed.

The glaciers that once blanketed a great part of the earth did not, as is popularly believed, gradually spread out from the poles, nor were they caused by a sudden plunge in the earth’s temperature during the Pleistocene Age.

Continuous Snowfall

Glaciers, Dr. Ewing explains, are created purely and simply when more snow falls than melts. Sub-zero temperatures are only one factor. Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Islands, for instance, share the same frigid latitude. But snow-covered Greenland lies under a perpetual blanket of ice whereas the Arctic Islands, with only light snow precipitation, are not glaciated.

Drs. Ewing and Donn reason that the great Ice Ages were produced by practically continuous snowfall coming from some rich source of moisture which has now been shut off.

It is becoming known that the thickest ice concentration during the glacial periods was in the Hudson Bay region. The Ewing-Donn conclusion is that the snow clouds must have gathered their moisture from the Arctic Ocean.

In other words, the Arctic Ocean in the Ice Age was itself free of ice, and offered thousands and thousands of square miles of water surface to winds blowing towards Northern Canada, Europe and Siberia.

The Ewing-Donn theory holds that the barrier standing between us and another Ice Age is a steadily thinning layer of about six feet of ice covering the Arctic Ocean, Should it melt completely, the birthplace of glaciers would be reopened. The weight of evidence from both American and Russian scientists is that the Arctic is warming appreciably. This could mean that all the conditions which led to the four ice-cycles of the last million years are still in operation.

There is an agent which, during past epochs, has repeatedly been able to melt the ice floes of the Arctic. According to Ewing and Donn, that great defroster is not the sun, but the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Whenever the tepid Atlantic has found a passageway into the Arctic, it has melted ice faster than the frigid air could form it.

As of this moment Ewing and Donn feel that this ‘hot-water faucet” has been turned on.

Why is it that the warm waters of the Atlantic can reach the Arctic Ocean now — for the first time since before the last glacial stage? It is possible because of the considerable rise in sea-level during the past few thousand years. Normally the Atlantic can’t flow freely into the Arctic because it must pass through several narrow bottlenecks between Greenland and Norway. (Denmark Strait and Faeroe Channel) So shallow is the ocean floor between the Arctic and Atlantic — much of it less than 50 fathoms - that little interchange occurs. But with a rise in sea-level the influx of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic increases many fold.

This traffic is not just one-way. There is a mutual interaction between the two bodies of water: the Arctic seas, swollen by their own melting ice, flow southward into the Atlantic, cooling it.

Some years ago Professor Harold Urey of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography discovered a revolutionary method of determining the temperature at which deep-sea shells were formed. Scientists now know, for instance, that a temperature decline in the surface waters of the Atlantic Ocean, due to the influx of cold Arctic water, was a prologue to the last Ice Age. From 90,000 B.C down to 11,000 years ago it plunged eight degrees Centigrade, a very significant decrease.

Dramatic Discovery

The fact that the temperature of the ocean is definitely tied up with ice ages came to light when sediments were cored out during various oceanographic cruises on the Lamont Observatory s research vessel Vema, In ancient ooze Ewing and Donn found marine evidence that an abrupt change in marine life took place in Atlantic and Caribbean waters approximately 11,000 years ago, at the precise time the Wisconsin ice stage was ending. What was this new development? The organisms dramatically changed from cold-water types to warm-water types.

In other words, something had happened (simultaneously with the disappearance of glaciers) to warm up the Atlantic Ocean. The only explanation is that its supply of “icewater” was blocked. What had happened? The Arctic Ocean had once again become covered by ice. The Canada-bound winds no longer found moisture there to stock up on.

And on the American continent, the snow-starved ice sheets gradually wasted away.

Examination of sediment from 11,000 years ago in the Arctic Ocean seems to show the reverse side of the corn. With the Atlantic no longer able to penetrate, the marine fauna switched from warm back to cold-water types. In other words, the pendulum had finally swung the other way, ending an ice cycle.

Just as high sea levels cause glacial periods, so do low sea levels result in a return to the kind of bottleneck that shuts the Arctic off from its warm-water source and ends the glacial period. Lower sea levels are caused when amounts of ocean water become locked in glacial ice.

How The Glaciers Started

Thus sea level has controlled the glacial- interglacial cycles of the past million years, and in turn, the glacial conditions have controlled sea level.

But, how did it all begin? What started these cycles? Much scientific evidence now exists for the startling theory that the crust of the earth can slip, and change its position relative to the interior. Such slipping would cause different places on the surface to be at the poles in different geological periods. There is also evidence to suggest that before the glacial period of the Pleistocene Era the mid-Pacific Ocean was at the North Pole and the South Atlantic was over the South Pole. To have the poles thus situated in open sea would prevent the formation of polar ice caps, since free interchange with warmer equatorial waters would keep them relatively warm.

The North Pole is now situated over the isolated Arctic Ocean, the South Pole over the Antarctic continent. With the poles no longer in freely circulating water and the cooler temperature of the higher latitudes isolated and concentrated, they became sources of cold polar air. Ewing’s and Donn’s startling theory is that this is what started the glacial period, and that as long as the poles remain thus isolated, glacial periods will wax and wane as the sea level rises and falls.

In case of another Ice Age, millions of those living in the most urbanized areas of Europe and the United States would have to flee southward.

But as bad as things would be, another Ice Age would offer tremendous compensations: the major desert areas .of the earth — 12,000,000 square miles —would again become arable, fertile, well-watered lands.

Should another Ice Age strike, the man who controls the Sahara could rule the earth! — The End

Do Angels Dance on Pins? Yes, just like humans cause global warming

An article came to my attention showing that during a recent period (in geologic time), atmospheric CO2 fell over 1,000 ppm (its about 350 ppm now) while temperatures rose 7 degrees Centigrade (12.6 degrees Fahrneheit). Many questions came to mind. One, how much higher was global temperature then than now? Answer: about 12 degrees F. As the chart below shows, the Earth is usually warmer, and as expected, atmospheric CO2 was much higher because of the warmer seas and the higher rate of plant growth and subsequent decay. All natural, of course.



Now we are in a period of relatively low temperatures and atmospheric CO2. Atmospheric CO2 has increased about 80 ppm in the past 200 years, and warming increased a modest 0.6 degrees Centigrade (1 degree F) since the end of the Little Ice Age about 160 years ago.

Only Al Gore and his Acolytes would think that any of this is remarkable, or not natural. What is an icrease of 80 ppm for CO2 when previous fluctuations have been in thousands? What is an increase of 0.6 degrees C when geological records show rapid swings of 7 degrees C?

I have seen hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles that establish such phenomena as a global Medieval Warm Period, a much warmer than present Holocene Optimum, and at least four other periods of equal or greater warming in the past 11,000 years. Arrayed against that is the discredited "hockey stick" of Mann et al, which among many shortcomings attempts to hide the divergence between what the trees are supposedly telling us compared to modern instument records. Can you have it both ways? Tree rings prove there was no Medieval Warm Period, but can't show current warming?

Concerning CO2 levels, 3% is produced by human activity, and 97% by the natural carbon cycle, which includes decaying plant material and the oceans. In terms of the nonexistent "greenhouse effect", water vapor contributes roughly 95% of atmospheric warming as the atmosphere acts as an air conditioner cooling and warming the Earth by a combination of thermodynamics and radiation.

CO2 is an insignificant trace gas, incapable of aborbing heat energy and reradiating it towards an area of greater energy concentration, the Earth. Simply, a cooler body cannot warm a warmer one.

All of the Warmist arguements are like speculating about the number of Angels who can dance on the head of a pin, without first proving the existence of Angels.

To Obscurity, Whoever You Are

I just posted this on Dr. Roy Spencer's blog as a comment to a post by "Obscurity", who accused skeptics of making fun of man-caused global warming by noting the current record lows in Cancun, the UK, and Europe.

Skeptics are not alone in sometimes citing weather (cold snaps, record low temperatures) as climate trend. Al Gore was awarded a Nobel Prize for that very thing. When or where did Al Gore mention that current warming started around 1850, at the end of the Little Ice Age? Or that there have been at least six periods of greater or equal natural warming in the Holocene, including most recently the Medieval Warm Period?

"An Inconvenient Truth" is replete with examples of weather (Katrina, floods, a strong storm drowning three polar bears, etc.) that Al Gore cites as proof of AGW (or climate change). Kilimanjaro is prominently featured, even though its glacier retreat occured predominantly prior to 1900 and had nothing to do with warming (the glacier field never warms above freezing - Al never heard of sublimation?). Then there's the 20 feet of sea rise by 2100 compared to about six inches in the past century (and 420 feet in the past 11,000 years, an average of four feet per century).

What explains that cooling always beginnings when atmospheric CO2 is relatively high? If increasing CO2 causes warming, why can't high levels of CO2 prevent cooling?

I'm glad Al Gore brought the Vostok ice cores to our attention, showing that changes in CO2 follow, not precede, changes in temperature. Thanks, Al.

Temperatures Fall During The Past Five Years

North American temperatures have fallen during the past five years.

So much for global warming.

Can continents opt out of global warming?

That's what this NASA global temperature chart covering the past five years would seem to indicate. (You can click on it to get a much larger image - however, even this small image makes the point.)

Not to be entirely frivolous - continents probably can't vote - but these temperature trends also challenge a primary tenant of man-made global warming (aka climate change): warming is greatest at higher latitudes near the poles.

If cooling, not warming, is now greatest at higher latitudes near the poles, isn't that the opposite of what the alarmists have said?

Doesn't it look like they are totally wrong?

I think so.

Global Warming - Natural or Man Made?

It really is very simple. If the believers in anthropogenic global warming can demonstrate that the two statements below are true, they would shut up their critics fast. Of course, we know both statements are false and that forms the basis for our disbelief in man-caused global warming.

(1.) There is no evidence of historic temperature increases or temperature levels similar to what we have observed in the past 40 years that could arise from natural causes.

(2.) The climate models upon which the IPCC reports rely fully incorporate the influences of water vapor, the El Nino southern, the Pacific decadal oscillation, the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation, the Arctic oscillation, and the causes of long-term (1,500, 5,000 and 20,000 year) climate variation, thus eliminating the potential to mistake a natural cause in climate variation with a man-made cause of variation.

Why are we required to prove that the 150 years of sporadic warming following the end of the Little Ice Age (1850) is not caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide from human activities when the eight periods of similar (often greater) warming during the past 20,000 years obviously were not?

What perverse logic demands that we declare the oscillating warming and cooling of the past 60 years to be proof that mankind is causing warming, and further that this warming is imminently catastrophic? Was the Medieval Warm Period (850 to 1300 AD) catastrophic? Was the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1850 AD) beneficial?

For the historically challenged, the answers to both questions are "No!"

Tiger's Eleven

I had to claim the prize for being the last blogger to post about Tiger Woods.

The latest "news" article says his mistress total is now eleven.

For awhile I thought Tiger was a Democrat plant to take attention away from "Climategate," but now I realize that the main stream media needs no distraction to ignore Climategate. They only cover the news that suits their agenda.

Tiger's next will be number twelve.

I wonder if he will find they are "Cheaper by the Dozen?"

More Global Warming Fear Mongering

Predictably, the global warming fear mongers are trying to regain momentum now that the Obama administration has set up its global warming shop. However, the press release struck me as odd, particularly when I read this:

Carbon dioxide accounts for about half of the global warming caused by greenhouse gases, but the other gases are removed from the atmosphere more quickly. Thus, the long-term influence of carbon dioxide will have the greatest effect on climate change, the report said.

Who writes this stuff? Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas, responsible for about 95% of the greenhouse gas effect. Human activity causes about 0.28% of the total greenhouse effect.

It would be truthful if the writer wrote: "Carbon dioxide accounts for about half of the greenhouse effect if you ignore the 95% due to water vapor."

Perhaps the scientists were only referring to the greenhouse gas effect after ignoring water vapor, the 5%. At that point greenhouse gases caused by human activity are responsible for about 5.53%, since over 94% of greenhouse gases are produced naturally even when water vapor is ignored.

It's easy to understand why water vapor is ignored by global warming alarmists. It's hard to panic rational humans when they are told that the whole problem depends on getting all panicked over the 0.28% of greenhouse gases caused by human activity.

Only a charlatan, or a Democrat politician, would try to get away with such balderdash.

Please excuse the redundancy in the sentence above.

The End of Global Warming

I was impressed by how quickly Congressman Henry Waxman, Dem. – Calif., ended global warming. He promised to move “quickly and decisively,” and apparently just his promise and a preliminary congressional hearing was all that was needed.

However, I would beg Mr. Waxman not to overdue it. I’m afraid that he has already been too successful, and is prematurely plunging us into the next Ice Age, which has been forecasted to be on its way, but not this soon.

Alice and I were hoping to live out our days in sunshine and warmth, and leave the cold, storms, famine, and disease to future generations.

The Silent Windmills of Altamont

We had Christmas with Alice’s daughters’ families in Walnut Creek, about forty miles east of San Francisco, overnighted with a friend in Livermore not far from the five-acre ranch where we lived for nine years, and on the last day of 2008 we set off for Southern California via Highway 580. Soon we were passing through the Altamont Pass, famed as the site of a massive free rock concert in 1969 featuring the Rolling Stones with the Hell’s Angels as security, or maybe not.

Now Altamont Pass is a much quieter place, the site of what was once the largest wind farm in the world. As we drove past it on a winter afternoon, not one of the 4,900 windmills was turning. When we came back through Altamont eight days later, no windmill was turning. On the basis of the consistent, persistent cold weather during our eight-day sojourn, the Altamont wind farm probably didn’t produce much, if any, electrical power during that period.

I wasn’t surprised. During our nine years in Livermore, Alice and I could see many of the windmills from our back yard. As often as not, none would be turning, particularly in the morning, in the evening, in the winter, and from my very limited personal observations, at night (it was too dark to view the still windmills except for the few times I drove through Altamont Pass after dark). The reason for the rampant inactivity is quite simple: windmills are powered by the sun creating temperature differentials, and the resultant movement of air masses.

During the day, the San Joaquin Valley warms rapidly, and the Pacific Ocean doesn’t. Warm air rises from the land, and cooler air rushes inland through the Altamont Pass, powering the windmills as it passes. The land cools faster than the ocean after the sun goes down, and the process is reversed – except the cooling is slower, and the air movement is also slower, providing far less energy to move the windmills.

Wind farms like the Altamont Pass are very inefficient, and wouldn’t exist without heavy subsidies and wishful thinking on the part of politicians and environmentalists. The Altamont wind farm only operates at an average efficiency of 22 percent (producing about 125 megawatts from a 576 megawatts capacity). In fact, because so much power is generated by higher windspeed, much of the energy comes in short bursts; half of the energy available comes from just 15% of the operating time.

To an honest engineer, the math is very simple: moving air has a very low energy density and is unreliable – a huge land area is needed to harvest energy from it. The United States is blessed with stronger winds than Europe, and still wind generates only about one percent of our electricity. According to the Department of Energy, wind farms “could generate 20% of US electricity by 2030.” Apparently no honest engineers were consulted before the Department of Energy made this asinine pronouncement. Wind farms will be lucky to stay at one percent, given our current economic downturn.

An honest assessment of wind power is that it can only be relied on to "supply a low proportion of total demand."
When a wind farm is erected, the fossil fuel generator providing power to the area can't be closed and torn down. Based on my observations, and the observations of others, it still has to run almost eighty percent of the time, and that would be true even if the capacity of the wind farm quadrupled, quintupled, or even exceeded ten times the capacity of the old generator. Why? Simple. No matter how big a wind farm you build, when the wind isn't blowing, it isn't generating.

But the need for electricity doesn't wait for the wind to return.

Where will funding for wind farms arise? From the Federal government, running record deficits while over a trillion dollars is going to bail out banks and automobile manufacturers? From the states? California is in a forty billion dollar hole, with deep cutbacks in education and health services, to name just the neediest state programs. From investors? They’ve been eaten alive by the recession, and wind farm investments make sense only if heavily subsidized by the government – and then they still don’t make sense.

The next time you admire a wind farm, chances are that you will be observing wind mills in inaction. If that is the case, think of all the politicians and engineers that have sold their integrity to create an expensive and wasteful eyesore.

One that you helped build, and must subsidize to operate.

T. Boone Pickens Can't Say the "N" Word

The San Francisco Chronicle devoted their entire August 11, 2008 Op-Ed page to “T. Boone Pickens’ plan to break the stranglehold of foreign oil” (Jay Mandle, economics professor, Colgate Univ.) through replacing natural gas used to generate 22% of our electricity with wind power, and then diverting this natural gas to transportation needs to reduce our need for oil. I wasn’t surprised that Mr. Pickens avoided the “n” word – nuclear energy, which already generates 20% of our electrical requirements, is available 24/365, produces no Greenhouse gases, and has been and continues to be improved in terms of safety, cost, and reliability.

Mr. Pickens noted that Robert Kennedy Jr. is an enthusiastic supporter of wind power, although he didn’t mention that Uncle Ted and the Kennedys virulently opposed placing windmills off Hyannis Port. As Mr. Mandle mentioned, Mr. Pickens also avoided mentioning “the enormously expensive construction of new wind turbines and the vast extension of the national electrical grid that will be required.”

If we doubled the percent of electricity generated by nuclear to 40%, we would still be behind France at 78%, and Japan will be at 40% by 2013. In the European Union, nuclear power generates 30% of electricity.

Apparently Mr. Pickens, recently investing heavily in Texas wind power, sees no need to mention that nuclear can achieve his goal of reduced dependence on foreign oil much more effectively and less expensively.

Chicago Passes on Global Warming

When you are having global warming, isn't it supposed to get warmer? Anomalies abound, such as revisions to NASA's temperature records which now show that six of the warmest years of the past century occurred over fifty years ago, and that 1934 was the warmest of all.

Apparently the United States, land of the most complete and sophisticated weather measurement and recording systems, has decided to pass on global warming, and Chicago is only one of many measurement points that are not cooperating with the United Nations global warming alarmists.

I'm sure that Al Gore and the Alarmists are going to find that Chicago's cooler summers are another sign that man-caused global warming has taken firm hold. True believers interpret everything to support their beliefs.

Decade has had fewest 90-degree days since 1930, By Tom Skilling, Chicago Tribune, August 13, 2008

August is the wettest and often the muggiest month of the year. Yet, summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century's opening decade. There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That's by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.This summer's highest reading to date has been just 91 degrees. That's unusual. Since 1928, only one year—2000—has failed to record a higher warm-season temperature by Aug. 13.

Of course everyone remembers Al Gore and his Acolytes getting all over the Category 3 hurricane that hit New Orleans, citing it as proof positive that the Warming was upon us.

That is why this linked article should be of interest. It shows steadily decreasing hurricane strength since 2004, and that:

During 2007, the Northern Hemisphere as a whole experienced the lowest ACE hurricane energy & number of hurricane days since 1977. 2007 was the 4th slowest year in the past half-century (since 1958)...

Unglued Idiot of the Day - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

This one is too easy. Australian PM Rudd is a raving fool every day, but when he speaks of Australia’s role in fighting “man-caused” global warming, he reaches the epitome of lunacy.

An able Australian columnist, Andrew Bolt, notes that the draconian measures Australia could inflict on its economy to reduce CO2 emissions would be equal to 28 days of world emissions in the next decade. In other words, following Al Gore’s admonishments would destroy Australia’s economy with no measurable effect on world weather.

Bolt also reports that India has been tracking climate changes in India for many decades, and does not detect any of significance.

It is obvious that fighting global warming is a “solution in search of a problem.”

Unglued Idiot of the Day – James Hansen of NASA

Unglued Idiot of the Day – James Hansen: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

According to The Guardian, June 23, 2008:

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Having just awarded Lou Dobbs an Unglued Idiot of the Day award for June 19, I now find James Hansen using similar language calling for placing oil company executives on trial as Mr. Dobbs did in calling for President Bush to be impeached for allowing the tomato salmonella outbreak.

As was the case with Mr. Dobbs, Mr. Hansen has not identified a law that was violated by the executives, since in fact none exist, but simply declares that they have committed “high crimes against humanity and nature.”

Mr. Dobbs alleged that President Bush had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the only grounds available to support impeachment (unless a salmonella outbreak falls under treason or bribery).

Once again, liberals show either monumental ignorance or disdain for the rule of law. Mr. Hansen, you cannot make up laws to punish legal acts after the fact.

In fact, Article One, Section 9, of our Constitution specifically prohibits our government to establish ex post facto laws.

An ex post facto law (from the Latin for "After The Fact") or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. In reference to criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; or it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in at the time it was committed; or it may change or increase the punishment prescribed for a crime, such as by adding new penalties or extending terms; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime more likely than it would have been at the time of the action for which a defendant is prosecuted.

Mr. Hansen, not only are there no laws on the books that would provide for prosecution of oil company executives, there are no injuries to serve as a basis for prosecutions. Of course, the only way such laws could exist is if the First Amendment were suspended enabling laws to be passed making disagreement about man-caused global warming a punishable crime.

Mr. Hansen, why single out oil company executives for punishment when there are over 31,000 scientists who also are skeptical about anthropogenic global warming? Isn’t that selective prosecution?

Of course, if it’s being influential that counts, why not prosecute longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Ok.? He stated, "Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it." Then Senator Inhofe cited a recent poll proving his point. (The British don't believe it either.)
Or how about Michael Crichton, whose novel “State of Fear” exposed the fallacies of blaming climate change on mankind’s activities?

Or the Weather Channel founder, John Coleman? He's "highly critical of global warming alarmism."

Or how about prosecuting me? Unlike many of the other skeptics, I and my blog would welcome the publicity.

Quick, before someone shows you a copy of the Constitution, swear out charges against me!

Pretty please.

Al Gore's Useful Idiot - Ted Turner

Al Gore has a new idiot on his side, Ted Turner. Actually, Ted Turner is an old idiot, and he’s been on Al Gore’s side a long time. Two birds of a feather flocking together.

Ted’s latest brain storm is about the not-yet (and probably never) demonstrated horrors of "man caused" global warming. “We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.”

I wondered why Ted has been cozying up to Teddy Kennedy. He's planning future dinners.

Ted, I hate to tell you this, but Teddy Kennedy is old crackled fat, with a pickled liver. He won’t provide much nutritional value, and you'll have to keep him in the freezer for decades because he's living on borrowed time right now. You would be better off buddying up to Michael Moore. He’s younger and fatter, and you won’t have as much worry about where his parts have been. Moore would be best with an apple stuffed in his mouth.

Always a good choice for having Michael Moore, whether for a discussion or for dinner.

Ted Turner is to Al Gore as Rev. Jeremiah Wright is to Obama. He’s someone you agree with – right Al and Barack? – but you wish he would keep his mouth shut. As Obama said, his pastor, Rev. Wright is like his uncle, and he has to be nice to him even when he’s being nutty. Al feels the same about Ted Turner, because he gets large contributions from the world’s wealthiest nuts.

Well, Al and Barack, as another writer recently pointed out, you can’t pick your uncles, but you can your pastors or supporters. And when they say really dumb and outrageous things, you should publicly declare how dumb and outrageous you think they are. If you don’t, everyone will naturally think you agree with them, because of past and present association.

When you choose to associate with nuts like Ted Turner and Rev. Wright, guilt by association is still guilt.

A Quiz to Destroy Global Warming Conventional Wisdom

Every weekly meeting of the Gualala Rotary features a quiz to raise $2 per person attending. If the person misses their question, they pay $2, and if they get it right the persons on their left and right pay $1 each.

Our Gualala Rotarians are, for the most part, retired business people and professionals. In other words, a bit older, and often struggling with declining hearing ability.

I decided I wanted to give everyone a chance to participate fully in the quiz, so I gave everyone a printed copy of it.

As far as selecting the questions for the quiz, that was easy. I just looked for subjects where “news” selectively reported by the main stream media had created false perceptions or, put another way, erroneous conventional wisdom.

Two subject areas leaped out: the conventional wisdom that the United States economy was a basket-case, and that global warming was caused by the activities of mankind.

Rather than attempt argument, I chose to just present facts – facts that would fly in the face of wide-spread perceptions.

Al Gore and I don’t have many things in common, but neither of us is a scientist, and both of us think a picture is worth a thousand words – or in Al Gore’s case, a thousand converts.

I wanted desperately to include at least one picture in the quiz, but it would have been too cumbersome, so I left it out.

But I can add it to your quiz.



This photo was used by Al Gore in "An Inconvenient Truth" to illustrate his claim that global warming was causing unprecedented melting of Arctic ice, and imperiling polar bears by taking them into danger of starving and drowning. Which of the following answers is an inconvenient truth about this photo?



a. It was taken in August, at the end of Summer when such melting of ice is normal.

b. These polar bears were close to land and in no danger of drowning.

c. Both of these statements are inconvenient truths if your name is Al Gore.

d. None is an inconvenient truth, since none of the above statements is true.





1. What percentage of the world’s gross domestic product was produced by the United States in 2006?

a. 12% b. 17% c. 22% d. 27%

2. The United States GDP for 2006 was roughly as large as the total of the next highest ___ countries?

a. 2 b. 3 c. 4 d. 5

3. The 2006 GDP of the European Union was $14.6 trillion, approximately equal to the total of three nations, the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
How many countries are in the European Union?

a. 17 b. 22 c. 27 d. 32

4. Which is the biggest exporting country in the world?

a. United States b. Germany c. China d. Japan

5. Which of these countries has the highest unemployment rate?

a. United States b. Germany c. China d. France

6. Which has the lowest?

a. United States b. Germany c. United Kingdom d. France

7. Measured by purchasing power per person, which nation is ranked above the United States?

a. Luxembourg b. Ireland c. Norway d. Only these three e. None of these three

8. According to an article in the journal Science, how many years does it take before savings from using biofuels instead of conventional fuels equals the amount of greenhouse gases created during the first year of their production?

a. 0 years b. 13 years c. 23 years d. 93 years

9. The production of biofuels and ethanol causes:

a. Food costs to rise b. Increased water shortages c. Increased use of natural gas d. All the above e. None of the above.


10. During the first thirty years of greatly increased atmospheric CO2 (1945-1975), the Earth experienced:

a. Global warming b. No change in climate c. Global cooling d. Hot flashes and erratic mood swings

11. Evidence that the Medieval Warm Period (about 800 to 1300 AD) was warmer than the present includes:

a. Thriving vineyards in the south of England that can’t survive today.
b. Tree remains hundreds of feet above the current tree line.
c. Remains of Greenland farms now being uncovered as ice retreats.
d. All the above.
e. None of the above.

12. Proof that the Medieval Warm Period was a world-wide phenomenon was derived from a study of over 240 climate studies conducted by:

a. The Institute of Vast Right-Wing Conspiracies
b. Al Gore and his Acolytes of Apocalypse
c. A team of Harvard and Smithsonian researchers
d. All of the above

e. None of the above

13. What factor does not correspond directly with the following dramatic periods of climate change of the past 5,000 years known as the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Holocene Optimum, Roman Warm Period, and Dark Ages Cool Period?

a. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide preceding warming
b. Variation in solar activity
c. Orbital variances
d. All the above
e. None of the above

14. The warmest year on record during the past 100 years was

a. 1934 b. 1998 c. 2005 d. 2007

15. United States temperature records for the past 100 years, which are the most complete and measured with the most sophisticated weather technology of any in the world, indicate how many of the ten warmest years in the past one hundred years occurred over fifty years ago?

a. 1 b. 3 c. 6 d. 9


16. During the past century global sea level rose about seven inches. What has been the average rise in sea level per century during the past 18,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age?

a. About zero b. About 6 inches c. One foot d. Two feet

17. Glacier retreat is thought to be a sign of man-caused global warming. Since significant increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide began about 1945, when did the current glacier retreat start?

a. 1945 b. 1975 c. 1995 d. 1850

18. The Little Ice Age began approximately AD 1300. When did it end?

a. AD 1350 b. AD 1450 c. AD 1650 d. AD 1850

19. Frequently we hear that the present period is the warmest on record. When did the record begin?

a. Just before Noah built the Ark in 2304 BC.
b. About 1450 when Gutenberg invented the printing press.
c. About 1850 when graduated thermometers came into use.
d. 1978 with the first weather satellites.

20. Which of the following statements is true?

a. The highest rate of warming came in the first half of the twentieth century (+0.6º C from 1910 to 1945)
b. Global warming has only increased 0.6º C in over sixty years since 1945
c. For a thirty-year period (1945-1975), as atmospheric CO2 went up, global temperature went down
d. All the statements (a, b and c) are false
e. All the statements (a, b and c) are true

21. In “An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore showed a chart of carbon dioxide and temperature fluctuations over hundreds of thousands of years. Which of the following statements is true?

a. Carbon dioxide increases are followed by temperature increases.
b. Temperature increases are followed by carbon dioxide increases
c. Carbon dioxide increases are followed by temperature decreases.
d. "b" and "c" are correct

22. Which of the following statements is true?

a. Global warming is unequivocal.
b. Global warming is natural
c. Both statements are true
d. Only a. is true

23. Which of the following statements is true?

a. Some of the years since 1998 have been warmer than 1998.
b. Arctic sea ice is much smaller (Feb. 2, 2008) compared to February 2, 1980.
c. Both statements are true
d. Both statements are false

24. Global warming scientists at the UN say there could be many signs of global warming, among which are the weather being:

a. Cooler b. Wetter c. Calmer d. All the above e. None of the above

25. Scientists say there could be many signs of global cooling, among which are the weather being:

a. Cooler b. Wetter c. Calmer d. All the above e. None of the above


26. Which of the following statements in false?

a. Al Gore and I are not scientists
b. Al Gore and I both believe global warming is unequivocal
c. Al Gore has proof that global warming is caused by increased levels of atmospheric CO2.
d. I have proof that global warming has occurred naturally many times

27. Which of the following occurred because of the colder weather of the Little Ice Age (AD 1350 to 1850)?

a. Crop failures and famine
b. Pandemics of influenza, cholera, and plague
c. More frequent and violent storms
d. All the above
e. None of the above



The answers can be found by clicking "ANSWER SHEET"

Abundantly Happy - Greens Mess Up Environment with Biofuels

Typical of the Green movement, biofuels are the latest disaster created by their ignorant but spirited crusade to save the world one misguided step at a time.

Previously their attempts resulted in the abominations of ethanol, wind farms, biofuels, and increased dependency on foreign oil.

These efforts to find “Green” energy replacements all require huge taxpayer subsidies and increased environmental damage when compared to the continued use of conventional fuels.

How have the Greens damaged the environment?

Let me count the ways.

Biofuels and ethanol – recently I blogged that producing fuel from plants has driven up prices, for example, corn tortillas in Mexico. Further, demand for agriculture has increased dramatically at a time when water supplies world wide are already stressed out. It goes without saying, but I will have to say it anyway because of the abundant environmental ignorance of the Green intelligentsia, that abundant crop production requires abundant fertilizer use, which necessitates abundant fertilizer production.

Fertilizer production requires abundant natural gas consumption, and abundant water use to apply it. Then after a rain, the abundant fertilizer creates abundant run-off which then causes abundant algae growth, quickly removing the abundance of oxygen in the water, followed by abundant dead fish.

Is all this abundantly clear?

Happily, there’s more. Long-overdue life cycle studies just published in the journal Science indicated that substantially more greenhouse gases result from biofuels production than from conventional fuels. In fact, one study indicated it takes 93 years before savings from biofuels equal the greenhouse gases created at the beginning of their production.

Doubly happy, as wasteful and damaging to the environment as biofuels are, recent studies show climate change corresponds directly to solar variation, and not at all to carbon dioxide changes. Today’s low solar activity indicates global cooling will start soon.

Oh happy day!

Quiz Answer Sheet

Polar bear question:
c. Both a. and b. are inconvenient trues if you are Al Gore

The rest of the quiz
1. d. The United States produces approximately 27% of world GDP

2. d. The total GDP of the next 5 largest - Japan, China, Germany, UK, and France – roughly equals the GDP of the United States.

3 c. The European Union has 27 member states.

4. a. United States

5. c. Unemployment in China is about 23%, or roughly the 300 million population of the United States, according to The Rand Corporation

6. a. United States (2007)
US 4.9% Germany 8.4% UK 5.4% France 8%

7. d. Only these three – 1. Luxembourg, $87,400 2. Ireland, $47,169 3. Norway, $47,098 4. United States, $44,765 (International Monetary Fund rankings)

8. d. 93 years: “The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land…”

9. d. All the above

10. c. Global cooling

11. d. All the above.

12. c. A team of Harvard and Smithsonian researchers

13. a. Changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide: In all preceding periods of climate change, such as the Medieval Warm Period researched by Harvard-Smithsonian scientists, increases in atmospheric CO2, whether natural or man-made, did not precede warming.

14. a. 1934

15. c. 6

16. d. Two feet: Average sea level rise per century of about two feet. It’s just simple math. Since the end of the last Ice Age about 18,000 years ago, sea levels have risen approximately 410 feet. Dividing 410 feet by 180 centuries equals about 2’ 3” rise per century.

17. d. 1850

18. d. AD 1850

19. c. About 1850 when graduated thermometers came into use

20. e. All the statements are true

21. d. b and c are correct

22. c. Both statements are true

23. d. Both statements are false

24. d. All the above

25. d. All the above

26. c. Al Gore has proof that global warming is caused by increased levels of atmospheric CO2.

27. d. All the above

Global Warming is Unequivocal

The U.N. Climate Panel said last year that global warming was "unequivocal." It said temperatures rose by 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.3 Fahrenheit) in the 20th century and could rise by a "best guess" of another 1.8 to 4.0C (3.2 to 7.2F) by 2100. (Reuters, World warming despite cool Pacific and Baghdad snow, Fri Jan 11, 2008)

And they are at it again.

Even though global warming has stalled out for almost ten years, and 2008 began with cooling in many areas.

I agree with the U. N. Climate Panel's first sentence: global warming is unequivocal. And it is entirely natural.

Unlike Al Gore and the U. N. Climate Panel, who have to deny the undeniably warmer Medieval Warm Period, and totally ignore the even warmer Holocene Optimum in order to further their messianic belief that global warming is man made, we skeptics of man-caused global warming trumpet the fact that there is global warming, that it is expected, and that it is natural.

In support of our position we have hundreds of thousands of years of records of prior dramatic climate changes. We can point to voluminous records that show warming periods are soon followed by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, again what would be expected since oceans are the primary depository for carbon dioxide, and lose carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as they warm.

However, at the moment the religion of man-caused global warming has hit a dog leg in their dogma. Since 1998 global temperatures have not been rising. In fact, in may locales there has been some cooling.

Computer models don’t show this scenario, where atmospheric CO2 is increasing steadily, and temperature is not.

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.

While Mr. Pachauri is doing that, he should also look at the climate record since 1900. By doing that he would notice that most of the increase in global temperatures since 1900 occurred in the first half of the century, and that six of the ten warmest years in the United States occurred over fifty years ago.

Over fifty years ago was before atmospheric CO2 caused by mankind’s industrial activities increased significantly.

Mr. Pachauri would also notice that, during the first thirty years of greatly increased atmospheric CO2 (1945-1975), the Earth experienced global cooling.

Although the twin anomalies of a greater increase in global warming in the first half of the 20th Century and global cooling for most of the second half don’t fit the man-caused global warming constructs, these anomalies do fit very well with fluctuations in solar activity.

Not surprisingly, the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Holocene Optimum, Roman Warm Period, and Dark Ages Cool Period all track precisely with solar variation.

For Al Gore and the U. N. Climate Panel, inconvenient truths indeed.