Global Warming:A Chilling Perspective

Notes:

• Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective Global warming started long before the "Industrial Revolution" and the invention of the internal combustion engine. Global warming began 18,000 years ago as the earth started warming its way out of the Pleistocene Ice Age-- a time when much of North America, Europe, and Asia lay buried beneath great sheets of glacial ice. Earth's climate and the biosphere have been in constant flux, dominated by ice ages and glaciers for the past several million years. We are currently enjoying a temporary reprieve from the deep freeze. Approximately every 100,000 years Earth's climate warms up temporarily. These warm periods, called interglacial periods, appear to last approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years before regressing back to a cold ice age climate. At year 18,000 and counting our current interglacial vacation from the Ice Age is much nearer its end than its beginning. During ice ages our planet is cold, dry, and inhospitable-- supporting few forests but plenty of glaciers and deserts. The idea that man-made pollution is responsible for global warming is not supported by historical fact. The period known as the Holocene Maximum is a good example-- so-named because it was the hottest period in human history If we are in a global warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate! "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." Stephen Schneider (leading advocate of the global warming theory) (in interview for Discover magazine, Oct 1989) Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are... former Vice President Al Gore (now, chairman and co-founder of Generation Investment Management-- a London-based business that sells carbon credits)

Attachments

• Global Warming:A Chilling Perspective

Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth

Notes:

• Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth The Wall Street Journal (December 4, 1997) Political leaders are gathered in Kyoto, Japan, working away on an international treaty to stop "global warming" by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The debate over how much to cut emissions has at times been heated--but the entire enterprise is futile or worse. For there is not a shred of persuasive evidence that humans have been responsible for increasing global temperatures. What's more, carbon dioxide emissions have actually been a boon for the environment. The myth of "global warming" starts with an accurate observation: The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising. It is now about 360 parts per million, vs. 290 at the beginning of the 20th century, Reasonable estimates indicate that it may eventually rise as high as 600 parts per million. Careful Tests The global-warming hypothesis, however, is no longer tenable. Scientists have been able to test it carefully, and it does not hold up. During the past 50 years, as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen, scientists have made precise measurements of atmospheric temperature. These measurements have definitively shown that major atmospheric greenhouse warming of the atmosphere is not occurring and is unlikely ever to occur. Lush Environment What mankind is doing is moving hydrocarbons from below ground and turning them into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the carbon dioxide increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with twice as much plant and animal life as that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the industrial revolution. Global warming is a myth. The reality is that global poverty and death would be the result of Kyoto's rationing of hydrocarbons. Arthur Robinson and Zachary Robinson are chemists at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Attachments

• Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth

The Climate Catastrophe - A Spectroscopic Artifact

Notes:

• The Climate Catastrophe Summary Laboratory measurements of the infrared absorption of carbon dioxide using an FT-IR spectrometre suggest that the radiative forcing for CO2 doubling must be much less than assumed by climate scientists until now. A reduction factor of 80 is likely. Conclusions It is hardly to be expected that for CO2 doubling an increment of IR absorption at the 15 µm edges by 0.17% can cause any significant global warming or even a climate catastrophe.

Attachments

• The Climate Catastrophe - A Spectroscopic Artifact

When Will the Next Ice Age Occur? | Popular Science

Notes:

• When Will the Next Ice Age Occur? If historical patterns repeat themselves, within about 2,000 years. But that's an extremely big "if." Over the past several million years, Earth has spent most of its time sheathed in ice. But about every 100,000 years, the planet thaws. These warm spells, called interglacial periods, usually last between 15,000 and 20,000 years. We've been enjoying our current interglacial period for about 18,000 years-giving us roughly 2,000 to go before the next deep freeze. we're still learning about all the natural cycles that affect Earth's climate. These include astronomical forces such as variations in sunspots, the planet's tilt, and tectonic pressures such as shifting landmasses and volcanic activi

Attachments

• When Will the Next Ice Age Occur? | Popular Science

Russia abandons Ice Station Vostok

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• Russia abandons Ice Station Vostok BBC News Online science editor For the first time, Russia will abandon its base at Vostok in Antarctica because of a lack of fuel and supplies for the coming winter. Due to heavier than usual pack ice, a fuel tanker was unable to reach its usual docking berth and a 3.2-km (2 miles) pipeline had to be run across the ice to offload the fuel.

Attachments

• BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Russia abandons Ice Station Vostok

TCS Daily - The Geologic Record and Climate Change

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• The Geologic Record and Climate Change Dr. Tim Patterson, Professor of Geology at Carleton University. The conference was co-hosted by Tech Central Station and was held on October 7, 2004 in Toronto, ON. I am a Quaternary geologist by profession. That is to say that my research interests are focused primarily on about the last 2 million years of Earth's history. An important aspect of my research is assessing past climate conditions. Thus I am also a paleoclimatologist. Some questions immediately come to mind: 1. If CO2 is of such critical importance to climate change why was there a large temperature rise prior to the early 1940s when 80 percent of the human produced carbon dioxide was produced after World War II? 2. When CO2 levels finally began to increase dramatically in the postwar years why was there a concomitant interval of about 30 years of cooling? One would think that if CO2 had such critical control over climate that the relative abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere would be in lock step with global temperature. Many researchers realize the difficulties that are presented by trying to make CO2 the key factor in climate change. As a result there has been renewed research, much of it in the past year or so, into the idea that there really is a connection between variability in solar output and global temperature. The media, special interest groups, and even some government produced literature all report that CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas. I was at the Canadian Museum of Nature a few months ago where a traveling display was set up that clearly, and erroneously I might add, indicated that CO2 was the most important greenhouse gas. The number one greenhouse gas is actually water vapor. It's something like 98 percent, by volume, of all greenhouse gases. But what about CO2 and climate change? Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased to 376 ppm in 2003, about a 30 percent increase from pre-industrial times. Most of that increase has been due to fossil fuel burning and land use changes. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. CO2 can and does have an impact upon global temperatures. But what impact will it have? The idea put forward by the IPCC is that CO2 the major greenhouse gas and any increases in the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause a major warming in earth's climate. This scenario is at odds with the empirical evidence recorded in the geological record. n conclusion, the geologic record clearly shows us that there really is little correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. Although CO2 can have a minor influence on global temperature the effect is minimal and short lived as this cycle sits on top of the much larger water cycle, which is what truly controls global temperatures. The water cycle is in turn primarily influenced by natural celestial cycles and trends.

Attachments

• TCS Daily - The Geologic Record and Climate Change

The Coming and Going of Glaciers: A New Alpine Melt Theory - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

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• A New Alpine Melt Theory By Hilmar Schmundt Spiegel Online The Alpine glaciers are shrinking, that much we know. But new research suggests that in the time of the Roman Empire, they were smaller than today. And 7,000 years ago they probably weren't around at all. A group of climatologists have come up with a controversial new theory on how the Alps must have looked over the ages. Ulrich Joerin, a wiry Swiss scientist in his late twenties, is part of a small group of climatologists who are in the process of radically changing the image of the Swiss mountain world. He and a colleague are standing in front of the Tschierva Glacier in Engadin, Switzerland at 2,200 meters (7,217 feet). "A few thousand years ago, there were no glaciers here at all," he says. "Back then we would have been standing in the middle of a forest." He digs into the ground with his mountain boot until something dark appears: an old tree trunk, covered in ice, polished by water and almost black with humidity. "And here is the proof," says Joerin.

Attachments

• The Coming and Going of Glaciers: A New Alpine Melt Theory - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

All about the world's ice

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• All about the world's ice By Jack Williams, USATODAY.com You often hear the question: Is polar ice melting? The answer that that is, "Yes, it is melting." But, you could have said the same thing during the height of any of Earth's ice ages. Polar ice is always melting, and also always growing as more snow falls that doesn't melt during the summer. The real question: "Is polar ice melting faster than new ice is being added?" If all of these two ice sheets melted sea levels would rise by about 215 feet all over the world. Fortunately, even the most extreme global warming scenarios don't see this happening for centuries. Greenland's ice is probably in the most danger of melting, and this would raise global sea levels by about 21 feet. Scientists who study the ice don't think this is likely during the life of anyone alive now. Not all ice is near the poles While most of the world's ice is in the Arctic and Antarctic, quite a bit is scattered around the Earth in the form of glaciers. Not all of these are in cold places, such as Alaska. In its Summary for Policy Makers, the working group says on that during the 21st century: * Northern Hemisphere snow cover and sea-ice extent are projected to decrease further. * Glaciers and ice caps are projected to continue their widespread retreat during the 21st century. * The Antarctic ice sheet is likely to grain mass because of greater precipitation, while the Greenland ice sheet is likely to lose mass because the increase in runoff will exceed the precipitation increase. * Concerns have been expressed about the stability of the West Antarctic ice sheet because it is grounded below sea level. However, loss of grounded ice leading to substantial sea level rise from this source is now widely agreed to be very unlikely during the 21st century. * Global mean sea level is projected to rise by 0.09 to 0.88 meters (0.29 to 2.88 feet) between 1990 and 2100.

Attachments

• USATODAY.com

An interview with accidental movie star Al Gore | By David Roberts | Grist | Main Dish | 09 May 2006

Notes:

• An interview with accidental movie star Al Gore By David Roberts 09 May 2006 I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

Attachments

• An interview with accidental movie star Al Gore | By David Roberts | Grist | Main Dish | 09 May 2006

Climate chaos? Don't believe it - Telegraph

Notes:

• Climate chaos? Don't believe it By Christopher Monckton, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:07AM GMT 05/11/2006

Attachments

• Climate chaos? Don't believe it - Telegraph

Errors in IPCC climate science » Blog Archive » Antarctic Peninsula warmer in mid-Holocene

Notes:

• Antarctic Peninsula warmer in mid-Holocene May 26th, 2006 by Warwick Hughes Some interesting papers from an AGU conference. http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm05-sessions/fm05_PP41A.html “Mid Holocene Warmth in the Antarctic Peninsula: evidence from the Vega Drift”. So, 4000 to 7000 years ago this area was warmer than now. So much for all the years of the British Antarctic Survey beating up warming trends from station data there. Another interesting paper mentions an active undersea volcano in the area. “A Benthic Invertebrate Survey of Jun Jaegyu Volcano: An active undersea volcano in Antarctic Sound, Antarctica”. Indications of fairly recent lava flows are given by the absence of marine life on regions of the volcano. .

Attachments

• Errors in IPCC climate science » Blog Archive » Antarctic Peninsula warmer in mid-Holocene

Look to Mars for the truth on global warming

Notes:

• "Mars has global warming, but without a greenhouse and without the participation of Martians," he told me. "These parallel global warmings -- observed simultaneously on Mars and on Earth -- can only be a straightline consequence of the effect of the one same factor: a long-time change in solar irradiance." . .

Attachments

• Look to Mars for the truth on global warming

Powerful Documentary Trounces Man-Made Warming Hoax

Notes:

• An astounding documentary that was broadcast in the UK last night completely trounced the man-made explanation for global warming, not with emotionally-laden propaganda or by attacking the messenger as its adherants resort to, but by presenting carefully considered and rational science. Earth's 4.5 billion year history is one long story of climate change. There were several periods in history, notably the Medieval Warm Period and the Holocene Maximum, which were much warmer than today. In the 17th century, Europe experienced the Little Ice Age, where temperatures were so consistently chilly that ice skaters revelled on the completely frozen London Thames. - From the 1940's until the 1980's, the Earth experienced a significant cooling period, despite the fact that industrial production and release of CO2 vastly accelerated during this time. This led to political and media scaremongering about global cooling, the threat that the earth was in the midst of a new ice age. The human contribution to carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is minimal in comparison to other natural means Sun spot and solar radiation activity almost exactly parralel temperature change on the Earth. "Solar activity very precisely matches the plot of temperature change over the last 100 years

Attachments

• Powerful Documentary Trounces Man-Made Warming Hoax

Polar bear gets new protection

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• Polar bear gets new protection Put at risk by global warming, the polar bear is getting a life line: The government has declared it a threatened species in need of increased protection. Scientists predict sea ice melting will continue and even accelerate because of global warming

Attachments

• Auburn Journal : AP Stories

The Reference Frame: Florida, Yukon: record cold temperatures

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• November 28, 2007 Florida, Yukon: record cold temperatures Four days ago, the daily cold records were set in most of the South Florida. Update (January 3rd 2008): another record or near-record cold temperature, freezing citrus crops etc. Temporarily relevant link to Google News: Florida record cold Yesterday, i.e. on Monday, the Yukon territory in Canada has seen its coldest November day on record: in -41 Celsius degrees which also happens to be around -41 Fahrenheit degrees, they could test some kinds of superconductors. Congratulations! ;-)

Attachments

• The Reference Frame: Florida, Yukon: record cold temperatures

US sets terms for climate talks

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• US sets terms for climate talks Agreement was reached after a U-turn from the US, which had wanted firmer commitments from developing countries. The final text does not mention specific emissions targets, but does acknowledge that "deep cuts in global emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective" of avoiding dangerous climate change. It also says that a delay in reducing emissions will make severe climate impacts more likely UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said "But as this global warming is an issue which affects the whole humanity, whole planet earth, we must have co-ordinated and concerted efforts to address this issue," UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared: "This agreement is a vital step forward for the whole world. Environmental groups and some delegates have criticised the draft as being weak and a missed opportunity. "This deal is very disappointing," said Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth. The roadmap sets the parameters and aims for a further set of negotiations to be finalised by the 2009 UN climate conference, to be held in Denmark.

Attachments

• BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Climate deal sealed by US U-turn

Global Warming: A closer look at the numbers

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• Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Attachments

• Global Warming: A closer look at the numbers

Climate Issues and Questions - Marshann Inst.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Notes:

• The chief mechanism for establishing consensus on climate change is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was established by the U.N. General Assembly in 1988 and given eighteen months to produce an assessment of the then state of knowledge on causes, impacts and control of climate change. The IPCC produced that assessment in 1990, but did not go out of business. Since 1990 it has produced a series of assessments, special reports and technical papers detailing the emerging state of knowledge about climate change. Its latest report, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), was released in four parts over the course of 2007. AR4 consists of three underlying reports covering the science, impacts and mitigation of climate change, and a Synthesis Report covering the most politically sensitive results from the underlying reports. Each underlying report is made up of 10-20 chapters. Each chapter is written by a team of 10-12 Lead Authors chosen for their knowledge of the chapter’s topic and to try to achieve geographic and gender balance. The team’s size, and the desire for geographic and gender balance, limit the expertise on chapter teams. Additional input is obtained from Contributing Authors who are chosen by the Lead Authors to provide input on specific topics, and through the review procedure, which is open to all experts. However, all decisions on the content of the chapter are made by the author team, and especially by the two Convening Lead Authors who are team leaders for the chapter writing team. Two other factors affect the quality of author teams. First, being an IPCC author is time- consuming. Many experts are not willing to devote the necessary time and will not volunteer to be IPCC authors, or in some cases, even reviewers. Second, each of the AR4 underlying reports contains a Summary for Policymakers (SPM), which is approved after a word-by-word review by more than 100 governments at an IPCC Plenary. Knowing that the summary of their work will be subject to government review affects the way IPCC authors present their work. Many of the statements that the IPCC makes based on expert judgment are forecasts of future events, but the techniques that the IPCC uses violate the generally accepted principles of scientific forecasting. Green and Armstrong list five generalizations about forecasting that are particularly relevant to IPCC expert judgment: 1. Unaided (by the knowledge of well-established forecasting principles) judgmental forecasts by experts have no value. 2. Agreement among experts is weakly related to accuracy. 3. Complex models (those involving nonlinearities and interactions) harm accuracy because their errors multiply. 4. Given even modest uncertainty, predictions intervals are enormous. 5. When there is uncertainty in forecasting, forecasts should be conservative.1 The IPCC’s approach violates each of these generalizations. . .

Attachments

• Climate Issues and Questions - Marshann Inst.pdf

Global_Warming_Myth

Notes:

• See what's happening in other parts of the world More than 900 dead in Afghan winter - 130,000 cattle perish -16 Feb 08 http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/16022008news.shtml Blizzard Racks Northern Sakhalin - 14 Feb 08 http://premiuma.accuweather.com/adcbin/premium/news-regional.asp?region=worldnews Shattering Toronto’s Snowfall Record - 13 Feb 08 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080213.wsnow13/BNStory/ National/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080213.wsnow13 Cold Wave Grips West Greenland - 12 Feb 08 http://premiuma.accuweather.com/adcbin/premium/news-regional.asp?region=worldnews Kashmir avalanches kill 22 - 9 Feb 08 http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080209/wl_sthasia_afp/indiakashmirweather_080209181557 Beijing says snow storms destroy one tenth of China's forests - 10 Feb 08 - http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080210/sc_afp/chinaweatherforests Winter may end up one of Toronto’s snowiest - 10 Feb 08 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/10022008news.shtml A month’s worth of rain in 6 hours - 9 Feb 08 http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/09022008news.shtml Record snowfall in Kashmir - Lowest temps in Mumbai, India in more than 50 years 7 Feb 08 http://www.newkerala.com/one.php?action=fullnews&id=20039 China's biggest desert Taklamakan experiences record snow 44,600 livestock die - 2,100 greenhouses collapse 1 Feb 08 - http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/01/content_7544946.htm Tajikistan 'facing catastrophe' - Coldest winter in five decades - 6 Feb 08 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7231528.stm Dozens killed in Iran blizzards - 9 Jan 08 http://www.iceagenow.com/Dozens_killed_in_Iran_blizzards.htm Delhi reels under cold spell - 1 Feb 08 - India is reeling under a cold spell which has seen temperatures plummet to near freezing over the past few days. More than 150 people have died as a result of the cold weather http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/01022008news.shtml Food warnings amid China freeze - winter crops wrecked - 31 Jan 08 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7219092.stm Rare snowstorm hits Middle East - 29 Jan 08 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080130/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_snowstorm_1 (Link has expired as of Feb 08) Jerusalem blanketed with heavy snow - 29 Jan 08 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201523782656&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7217429.stm More than 100,000 homes collapse in China - 29 Jan 08 http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/29012008news.shtml Now it’s half million stranded at train station - 28 Jan 08 - http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/01/28/china.weather/index.html Chinese snow storms strand tens of millions of people 200,000 stranded at one train station - expected to rise to 600,000 28 Jan 08 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3264827.ece China winter snowiest in decades –– people running out of food - 28 Jan 08 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080128/wl_nm/china_weather_dc;_ylt=AtUdgzlRoSEIGVPq5tmUPW2s0NUE Heavy Snow Strands 150,000 Travelers in China - 27 Jan 08 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325878,00.html North American Icebox - 24 Jan 08 - One of the coldest spots in North America - Eureka - lies amidst the great Arctic Archipelago along the 80th Parallel on Ellesmere Island, west of northern Greenland. In January, the average daily high temperature is near 26 degrees below zero, while the normal low is about 40 degrees below. Thus far, January 2008 has been harsh, even by local standards. The average temperature through the 23rd was 40.8 degrees below zero - 8.0 degrees below normal. If you take away the `spike` to 1 degree below zero on January 12th and 13th, average temperature would have been more than 10 degrees below normal. As of the 24th, there were six-straight days having lows in the 50s below zero. And January is not the coldest month--February is. Even the first half of March is normally a bit colder than January as a whole. http://premiuma.accuweather.com/adcbin/premium/news-regional.asp?region=worldnews&month=01&year=2008&date=2008-01-24_2020 (Link requires a premium [paid] account. 3,635 houses collapse in China - Heaviest snowfall since 1957 - 22 Jan 08 Bitter Cold Clutches Central Asia from northern Arabia, Iran and eastern Turkey northeast to Kazakhstan 22 Jan 08 - http://premiuma.accuweather.com/adcbin/premium/news-regional.asp?region=worldnews &month=01&year=2008&date=2008-01-22_1919 (Link requires a premium [paid] account. More snow in Near East - 23 Jan 08 - Cold spell kills hundreds in Afghanistan - 21 Jan 08 Record cold in subtropical Georgia - 18 Jan 08 Here’s a Russian site with Siberian temperatures - down to minus 60EC - brrrrrr http://wmc.meteoinfo.ru/forecasts5000/russia/republic-saha-yakutia/ojmjakon Heavy snow blankets much of China - 18 Jan 08 Two inches of rain in 40 minutes in Eastern Australia - 17 Jan 08 - A year’s rainfall in the desert in one day - 15 Jan 08 - A series of big winter storms along with far-reaching cold has spread from Arabia to Pakistan in the south, and from Turkey to Kazakhstan in the north, dumping soaking desert rain near the Mideast Gulf and the head of the Arabia. In southeastern Iran, rainfall on Monday and Tuesday was 4.4 inches at Iranshahr, with the rain still falling ... nearly the normal rainfall for a whole year. Freezing weather kills over 100 in Afghanistan - 14 Jan 08 - Over 100 people have died due to freezing weather in various provinces of Afghanistan in the past few days, the country's Ariana TV channel reported on Monday. Severe cold kills 15,000 animals - 13 Jan 08 - Afghanistan, Iran and a number of other central Asian countries hit by severe cold. Snow in the Middle of the South America Summer - 10 Jan 08 - "The weather went crazy. This is the most read sentence in the press of Buenos Aires at this moment. Saudi Arabia covered with snow - coldest winter in 20 years - 11 Jan 0 Heavy Snow in Kashmir - 12 Jan 08 - Snow in Baghdad for first time in memory - 11 Jan 08 - Snow fell on Baghdad for the first time in memory, and delighted residents declared it an omen of peace. Snow Paralyzes Teheran - 9 Jan 08 Iranian desert hit by snow - 7 Jan 08 - A big winter storm made its way eastward from Turkey and the Black Sea. Tehran, the Iranian capital, received 6 to as much as 20 inches of snow. Heavy snowfall wreaks havoc across Northern Ireland - 7 Jan 08 - Chaos and treacherous road conditions hit travelers Worst snow storm in Iran in more than a decade - 8 Jan 08 - Deaths Reported in Mexico Cold Snap - 4 Jan 08 - A cold snap has brought freezing temperatures, unusual snows and heavy rains to Mexico and Central America, including Honduras and El Salvador. Amazing Bulgarian Snowfall - 3 Jan 08 Heavy snow blankets Romania and Bulgaria - 3 Jan 08 - Cold snap continues across Northern India - Death toll almost 50 3 Jan 07 Heavy snow paralyzes parts of eastern Europe - Dozens of Bulgarian villages cut off 3 Jan 08 Cold Weather Kills 38 in Northern India - 2 Jan 08 - Heavy snow blankets Bulgaria - Hundreds of trucks stranded - 2 Jan 08- Heavy snowfall swept most of Bulgaria More heavy snow for USA and Canada - 1 Jan 08 Record December snowfall in Ottawa, Canada - 30 Dec 07 - Massive snow dumps on Ottawa Britain faces one of its bitterest winters for 100 years - 31 Dec 07 Severe Storm Lashes Mongolia - 27 Dec 07 - A winter storm with gales, blowing dust and blinding snow ripped through Mongolia and nearby northwest China. The storm erupted in full strength Thursday afternoon over the heart of the Gobi Desert Avalanche buries dozens of cars on Tajik road - 22 Dec 07 - A snow-triggered avalanche on a road linking the Tajik capital Dushanbe with the country's second city Khudzhand has killed at least 15 people, police say. Takik is a mountainous republic in Central Asia. Dozens of cars are still buried under snow as another avalanche crashed on to lorries on the road, rescuers said. Half of Spain blanketed with snow - 19 Dec 07 Big snow storms hit US and Canada - 17 Dec 07 Flooding across southern Thailand spills into Malaysia - 18 Dec 07 - Snow avalanche kills 16 in Tajikistan, more trapped - 22 Dec 07 Snowfall sets new record - 15 Dec 07 - Old record, set in 1970, crushed by nearly 12 cm - The City of Windsor, Ontario declared a snow emergency Sunday as the first major storm of the season dumped record snowfall for the date -- about 25 cm. Bitterly Cold in Canada - 15 Dec 07 - The Canadian Prairies have had a very cold start to first half of December. Winnipeg's temperatures have averaged 12.5 degrees below normal. In Regina, around 400 miles to the west, temperatures have averaged 10 degrees below normal for the month. Hail the Size of Tennis Balls in New South Wales - 9 Dec 07 Flash floods on Australia’s east coast - 4 Dec 07 Blast from the past? Coldest winter in 15 years, Environment Canada says 30 Nov 07 Coast to coast snow in Canada - 3 Dec 07 Snow in Spain - 25 Nov 07 - The image most people conjure up when you mention the south of Spain or the Costa del Sol is one of lying by the pool with the warm summer sun beating down. Heaviest snowfall in Zurich since 1955 - Record snow across Europe 27 Nov 07 Wintry weather in time for Thanksgiving - 23 Nov 07 - In Texas, the Big Spring area saw up to 20cm (8inches) of snow, while Dallas enjoyed(?) the first white Thanksgiving in more than a decade Earliest Snow in Wales in 17 years - 20 Nov 07 Unexpected Snow in the U.K. 19 Nov 07 More than 1700 killed in Bangladesh storm Tens of thousands of homes destroyed Storm brings snow to parts of Canada and New York - 17 Nov 07 - A storm slammed into New England and parts of Canada Lowest November temps in Buenos Aires in 90 years 16 Nov 07 Record early onset of winter in Austria – Five feet of snow in two days 12 Nov 07 Historic floods in southern Mexico - 100 percent of crops lost 2 Nov 07 - The worst floods ever recorded in Mexico's state of Tabasco Bogotá hailstorm buries dozens of cars - 4 Nov 07 Severe flooding in southern Mexico leaves half a million homeless Vast areas of banana plantations now under water 1 Nov 07 A few links are broken and some require premium acct to ten referenced page. Please refer to the link at iceage now page at head of this section There is more - LOTS MORE - on the web page!!

Attachments

• Global_Warming_Myth

Active volcano under ice | The Australian

Notes:

• Active volcano under ice Leigh Dayton, Science writer | January 22, 2008 Although it has not erupted for more than 2000 years, heat from the geologically active Hudson Mountains Subglacial Volcano helps explain why nearby Pine Island Glacier shrinks by more than a kilometre every year Writing in Nature Geoscience, Dr Corr and Dr Vaughan suggested the increased heat from the eruption, which they dated to 325BC, led to melting of the surrounding and overlying ice which, in turn, increased the flow rate of nearby glaciers.

Attachments

• Active volcano under ice | The Australian

Record_Lows_2001

Notes:

• Folks in Detroit say they are used to the snow, but this is bordering on ridiculous. It has been snowing constantly for six weeks and 13 feet (157 inches) of snow has fallen.♦♦

Attachments

• Record_Lows_2001

China battles coldest winter in 100 years | Reuters

Notes:

• Millions remained stranded in China on Monday ahead of the biggest holiday of the year as parts of the country suffered their coldest winter in a century. Freezing weather has killed scores of people and left travelers stranded before the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival

Attachments

• China battles coldest winter in 100 years | Reuters

Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news

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• The Sun Also Sets By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, February 07 Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical "consensus." Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun. Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles. To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined. And they're worried about global cooling, not warming. Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity. Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century. Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle. This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe. Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere. Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a "stethoscope for the sun." But he and his colleagues need better equipment. In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun's emissions more rapidly and accurately. As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth's climate over time has been the sun. For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years. R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales." Rather, he says, "I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet." Patterson, sharing Tapping's concern, says: "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth." "Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again," Patterson says. "If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than 'global warming' would have had." In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov made some waves — and not a few enemies in the global warming "community" — by predicting that the sun would reach a peak of activity about three years from now, to be accompanied by "dramatic changes" in temperatures. A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion. "The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100," according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz. The study says that "try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures." The study concludes that if you shut down all the world's power plants and factories, "there would not be much effect on temperatures." But if the sun shuts down, we've got a problem. It is the sun, not the Earth, that's hanging in the balance.

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• Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news

Correlation of Global Warming, Ice Ages, and Sea Level

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• Correlation of Global Warming, Ice Ages, and Sea Level Conclusion The ice caps have been melted in the past. Although the melting should cause a rise of 80 meters, the sea level went up at most 30 meters. Since the last ice age 20,000 years ago, the sea level has been increasing an average of 6mm/yr, and is currently rising 1-3mm/yr. We do not know that warming will raise the sea level. It may lower it. All recently measured rise in sea levels are less than or equal 3mm/yr, which is one-half the rate of the last 20,000 years. We came out of a mini-ice age over the last 400 years, and that has contaminated recent estimates. We can not separate the mini-ice age effect and the human-made global warming effect. In fact they was also another mini-ice age around 300-500 AD that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. The Rhine River froze over, and that allowed the barbarians to invade the empire. The beat goes one. The conclusion: There is global warming. In fact there are several types of global warming, i.e. the ice-age one (20,000 years), the mini-ice age (500 years), and the alleged human made one. The only certain thing is that, to date, current measurements verify that the latter is the least significant.

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• Correlation of Global Warming, Ice Ages, and Sea Level

NCPA | Brief Analysis #610, Polar Bears on Thin Ice, Not Really! Redux

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• Polar Bears on Thin Ice, Not Really! Redux Brief Analysis No. 610 February 21, 2008 Alaska’s polar bear population is stable, and research by Mitchell Taylor, a biologist with the Nunavut Territory government in Canada, shows that the Canadian polar bear population has increased 25 percent during the past decade, from 12,000 to 15,000. Where polar bear weight and numbers are declining, Taylor thinks that it is due to too many bears competing for food rather than Arctic warming. A team led by J. Scott Armstrong, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in the field of scientific forecasting, audited the methods used in the two reports from the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center, that focused on predicting future polar bear populations. S.C. Amstrup was the lead author of one report and S.C. Hunter was the lead on the other. At a recent hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Armstrong testified that the methods used in both reports to arrive at predictions of future polar bear populations violated a majority of the forecasting principles that applied to their research. Amstrong found: * The Amstrup report clearly violated 41 principles and the Hunter study violated 61. * Amstrup appeared to violate an additional 32 principles and Hunter, 19. * Amstrup properly applied 17 principles and Hunter, only 10. On average, the reports properly applied only 12 percent of relevant principles.

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• NCPA | Brief Analysis #610, Polar Bears on Thin Ice, Not Really! Redux

Heavy Snow Hits New England, Ohio Valley

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• Heavy Snow Hits New England, Ohio Valley By DAVID TIRRELL-WYSOCKI Associated Press Writer CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- Another snowstorm swept across New England on Wednesday, toppling seasonal snowfall records and dumping so much heavy snow on buildings that some collapsed under the weight. Concord already had set a record for the snowiest December, January and February, and the storm pushed the total for the three months to 97.5 inches. For the entire snow season, Concord has seen 99.6 inches, off the record of 122 inches, set in the winter of 1873-74, but still enough to make it the 10th snowiest winter on record. he weather service said some areas in the mountains of western North Carolina could see up to 10 inches of snow.

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• News from The Associated Press

2008 International Conference on Climate Change * New York City * March 2-4, 2008

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• The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change Sponsored by The Heartland Institute March 2 - March 4, 2008 Marriott New York Marquis Times Square Hotel Al Gore, the United Nations, environmental groups, and too often the reporters who cover the climate change debate are the ones who are out of step with the real “consensus.” They claim to be certain that global warming is occurring, convinced it is due to human causes, and 100 percent confident we can predict future climates. We have with us, tonight and tomorrow, more than 200 scientists and other experts on climate change, from Australia, Canada, England, France, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and of course the United States. They come from the University of Alabama, Arizona State, Carleton, Central Queensland, Delaware, Durham, and Florida State University. From George Mason, Harvard, The Institute Pasteur in Paris, James Cook, John Moores, Johns Hopkins, and the London School of Economics. From The University of Mississippi, Monash, Nottingham, Ohio State, Oregon State, Oslo, Ottawa, Rochester, Rockefeller, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. And from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Suffolk University, the University of Virginia, Westminster School of Business (in London), and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.♦

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• 2008 International Conference on Climate Change * New York City * March 2-4, 2008

Icy start, but 2008 may be in top 10 warmest years | U.S. | Reuters

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• Icy start, but 2008 may be in top 10 warmest years Bucking the trend of global warming, the start of 2008 saw icy weather around the world from China to Greece. But despite its chilly start, 2008 is expected to end up among the top 10 warmest years since records began in the 1860s. scientists say a spinoff of climate change may be more precipitation. Senior officials from about 190 nations will meet in Bankok from March 31-April 4 to start work on a new long-term treaty to combat climate change to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.

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• Icy start, but 2008 may be in top 10 warmest years | U.S. | Reuters

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Global warming 'dips this year'

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• Global warming 'dips this year' Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said. The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer. This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory. HA ha HA ha HA ha HA ha HA ha HA ha HA ha HA ha HA ha HA ha HA ha HA ha

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• BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Global warming 'dips this year'

White House hopefuls woo Gore, focus on climate | Reuters

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• White House hopefuls woo Gore, focus on climate Wed Apr 9, 2008 "I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem," Obama said. "I am very dependent upon the work that Al Gore has done for so many years on behalf of climate change," she (Clinton) said. That shouldn't be too hard. All three candidates have made climate proposals that go far beyond Bush's policies, including a cap on industrial carbon dioxide pollution and an emissions trading system similar to the European Union's. But for any new U.S. policies to succeed, American citizens will have to be engaged, a problem Gore aimed to address w ith a newly launched $300 million climate campaign. Obama talks about the need for an attitude adjustment among Americans and boasts of a trip he made to Detroit, where he admonished car makers to make more fuel efficient vehicles. Clinton says she would promote "green-collar" employment to replace lost manufacturing jobs around the country. McCain says even if global warming is not real, working to stop it will have beneficial effects. Gore's spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider, declined to comment on the Obama offer and was complimentary about the presidential candidates, including Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. "Former Vice President Gore thinks that both candidates are very strong. Both of them have offered plans to address the climate crisis ... as has Senator McCain," she said. "It's a real turnaround to have candidates on both sides of the aisle offering, you know, solutions and plans to the climate crisis."

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• White House hopefuls woo Gore, focus on climate | Reuters

BBC NEWS | Europe | Swedes find 'world's oldest tree'

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• Swedes find 'world's oldest tree' The discovery also shows that it was much warmer in the region at the time than had been thought previously, perhaps even warmer than today, he added. - - - - -- (oops!) - - - - -

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• BBC NEWS | Europe | Swedes find 'world's oldest tree'

The Risks of Geoengineering | Popular Science

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• From a comment on a article in PopSci.com http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-04/risks-geoengineering According to highly respected physicist (Prof. Emeritus, U. of CT, PhD) Howard C. Hayden (and many other scientists), the ability of atmospheric CO2 to act as a greenhouse gas is severely curtailed at today's levels of atmospheric CO2. There are three key pieces of scientific fact that lead to this inescapable conclusion: (1) the primary greenhouse agent (water vapor, clouds) is responsible for the vast majority of "greenhouse" heat retention by absorbing & reflecting heat radiation in a large portion (but not all) of the IR, (2) CO2 has heat retention capability that overlaps the portion of the IR that water vapor already traps (no additional heat can be trapped by adding more water vapor or CO2 to that portion of the IR), so very little of the IR is available for CO2 to retain more heat; (3) a property of CO2's heat retention capacity is that it diminishes logarithmically as quantity of atmospheric CO2 increases (i.e., it becomes less capable of affecting temperature). CO2's heat retention capacity with the first 20 ppm added to the atmosphere cannot be matched until another 400 ppm are added! In other words, adding more CO2 has severely diminishing returns. Coupled with the small portion of the IR over which CO2 is meaningful (given water vapor has already saturated the heat retention ability of the atmosphere over the remainder of CO2's IR potential), the belief that atmospheric CO2 is a significant climate change force is simply unfounded in scientific fact ... indeed, it is refuted by the facts. What prevents the Earth from overheating? Weather, principally precipitation. And guess what? The greatest flaw of the climate models is their inability to model water vapor, clouds, and precipitation properly. Yet these are the greatest factors (forces) that act to prevent both overheating and overcooling of the Earth's atmosphere! When climate science is as poorly understood as it is today, developing and using computer simulations is a worthless venture. Read the IPCC summary report and you're inundated with "likely" "very likely" "not likely" etc. These are all statisticians' terms for "we haven't a clue, but based on what we think we know, this is our best guess". Read Dr. Hayden's latest book, "A Primer on CO2 and Climate" if you want to learn more. Also, the best description for the uninformed about weather and how it acts to moderate climate is contained in Dr. Roy Spencer's new book, "Climate Confusion" ... Both books are readily available online. So let's not waste vast sums of money on schemes to reduce CO2 emissions when there is absolutely no evidence that doing so will have any detectible influence on global average temperature (despite the theories of Gore and the IPCC whose only evidence is the projections of seriously flawed climate models that omit tow significant sources of CO2 generation(!), volcanos and carbonate rock erosion! We are being led down a path that will be more costly than any venture undertaken in this nation's history ... on the basis of shoddy "science" (IPCC) and a false prophet (Gore) who stands to make millions (possibly billions) from a carbon trading scheme. Let's spend our money where it matters if we want to conserve our resources and improve our quality of life while protecting our enviornment. An educated public is needed to know the truth. Too much disinformation is being peddled about the theory of anthropogenic global warming. It is a false theory that any one contradiction is sufficient to render it "bunk" ... yet despite a host of contradictions, the media and politicians (and die-hard government funded scientists) along with false prophet Gore, continue to mislead the public. Let's hope real "environmentalists" step forward to lead the way in exposing this scam. BobWebster

• The Risks of Geoengineering

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• The Risks of Geoengineering | Popular Science

Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler? | The Register

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• Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler? By Steven Goddard Published Friday 2nd May 2008 10:02 GMT Analysis A paper published in scientific journal Nature this week has reignited the debate about Global Warming, by predicting that the earth won't be getting any warmer until 2015. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences have factored in cyclical oceanic into their climate model, and produced a different forecast to the "consensus" models which don't. Two authorities provide us with analysis of long-term surface temperature trends. Both agree on the global temperature trend until 1998, at which time a sharp divergence occurred. The UK Meteorological Office's Hadley Center for Climate Studies Had-Crut data shows worldwide temperatures declining since 1998. According to Hadley's data, the earth is not much warmer now than it was than it was in 1878 or 1941. By contrast, NASA data shows worldwide temperatures increasing at a record pace - and nearly a full degree warmer than 1880. The other two widely used global temperature data sources are from earth-orbiting satellites UAH (University of Alabama at Huntsville) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems.) Both show decreasing temperatures over the last decade, with present temperatures barely above the 30 year average. Confusing? How can scientists who report measurements of the earth's temperature within one one-hundredth of a degree be unable to concur if the temperature is going up or down over a ten year period? Something appears to be inconsistent with the NASA data - but what is it? One clue we can see is that NASA has been reworking recent temperatures upwards and older temperatures downwards - Bottom Line Both of the satellite data sources, as well as Had-Crut, show worldwide temperatures falling below the IPCC estimates. Satellite data shows temperatures near or below the 30 year average - but NASA data has somehow managed to stay on track towards climate Armageddon. You can draw your own conclusions, but I see a pattern that is troublesome. In science, as with any other endeavour, it is always a good idea to have some separation between the people generating the data and the people interpreting it. Bear in mind that warming and cooling concerns are nothing new, as this alarming bulletin reminds us - The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. A RealClimate blogger? No, that was the US Weather Bureau in 1922. We saw a global cooling scare in 1924, a global warming scare in 1933, another global cooling in the early 1970s, and another warming scare today. The changes the USHCN promised Watts won't help resolve anything for another decade or so, but perhaps future generations will be able to reduce the alarming increase in the number of climate alarms.®

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• Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler? | The Register
• Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler? | The Register

The Grand Exaggerator

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• The Grand Exaggerator by Patrick J. Michaels Patrick J. Michaels is a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and an active member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Added to cato.org on July 24, 2008 This article appeared on National Review (Online) on July 24, 2008. What is it with Al Gore? Why is he compelled to exaggerate climate change (excuse me, "the climate crisis"), and then to propose impossible policy responses? It's like he's inventing the Internet all over again! Here's how Gore works. He'll cite one scientific finding that shows what he wants, and then ignore other work that provides important context. Here's a list of his climate exaggerations from his well-publicized July 17 rant, along with a few sobering facts.

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• The Grand Exaggerator

JPMorgan jumps into carbon trading - Aug. 12, 2008

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• Cooking up carbon credits JPMorgan (JPM, Fortune 500) is quietly pushing the boundaries of the carbon market - a sprawling international experiment to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming - by subsidizing the distribution of efficient cooking stoves in poor countries. "If you can distribute 10 million stoves, you are talking about a substantial tonnage of carbon," says Odin Knudsen, who oversees JPMorgan's carbon finance business The value of the efficient stoves is that they require less wood, emit fewer greenhouse gases and reduce pollutants that damage people's lungs, especially when they cook indoors In Uganda, JPMorgan invested in a company that makes the stoves. The bank also supports the project with computer services and small loans to businesses that want to buy or distribute the stoves, thus reducing their costs. In exchange, the bank gets carbon credits that it sells to such buyers as Land Rover UK, which promises to offset the carbon emissions of its new vehicles, and Aviva, a big British insurance company. Climate Care also sells offsets to consumers who want to mitigate their personal emissi Credits on the European Union's regulated market are currently trading for more than $32 a ton

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• JPMorgan jumps into carbon trading - Aug. 12, 2008

Climate Change Bill makes chilling reading - Telegraph

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• Climate Change Bill makes chilling reading Who says the Almighty has not got a sense of humour? Last Tuesday MPs spent yet another six hours discussing what is potentially the most expensive single piece of legislation ever put through Parliament. The Climate Change Bill, which had its third reading, commits Britain (uniquely in the world) to an 80 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. As MPs droned on about the need to fight global warming, Peter Lilley drew the Speaker's attention to the fact that, outside on the streets of Westminster, snow was falling. It was London's first October snowfall for 70 years, and similarly unseasonal snow was carpeting a wide swathe of Britain. In all that six hours of debate, only two MPs questioned the need for such a Bill, which had swept through its second reading with only five opposed. The sole MP who tried to raise the matter of the cost of the Bill - which could run to trillions of pounds if all its measures were implemented - was Mr Lilley. He was ruled out of order by the Speaker. If the Bill's intent is taken seriously, the cost of cutting our CO2 emissions by 80 per cent would cripple our economy, closing down much of what remains of our industry and rendering most motorised transport impossible. But the cloud cuckoo land that our politicians have floated off into no longer touches scientific or practical reality at any point. What they should have been discussing was the near-certainty that, within a few years, thanks to the imminent shutdown of 40 per cent of our electricity generating capacity, Britain's lights will be going out. The state of many of our power stations is already so parlous that, if this winter continues as cold as it has begun, we can expect major power cuts within months. Yet as we enter the worst recession for decades, our MPs while away their time prattling in sanctimonious unanimity about the need to fight global warming. It is small consolation that Britain is not alone in its plight. One of the few specific policy commitments made by would-be president Obama is that he will support last year's ruling by the Supreme Court that the US Environmental Protection Agency should treat CO2 as a "pollutant" under the Clean Air Act. The gas that no plant can survive without, and hence all higher forms of life depend on, would be regulated as if it were as dangerous as arsenic or sulphuric acid. Senator Obama also supports a US version of the EU's "carbon trading" scheme, costed at hundreds of biliions of dollars. It seems the global warming scare may soon become as crippling to the world's richest economy as anything our own politicians are hell-bent on imposing here. Yet last week, as reported on the admirable Watts Up With That website, nearly 180 places in the US, from Alaska to Alabama, have just recorded their coldest October temperatures or heaviest October snowfalls on record, based on figures from the National Climate Data Center. Declining global temperatures continue to make a mockery of those computer model projections on which the whole global warming scare is based. As I have asked before, has there ever in history been such a collective flight from reality?

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• Climate Change Bill makes chilling reading - Telegraph

The world has never seen such freezing heat - Telegraph

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• The world has never seen such freezing heat A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record. This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years. The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year. A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others. If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s. Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped. Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.

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• The world has never seen such freezing heat - Telegraph

BBC NEWS | Europe | Faiths in climate change summit

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• Faiths in climate change summit Hundreds of representatives of the world's leading religions are in Sweden for a summit on climate change - said to be the first of its kind. The two-day conference involves Christians, Muslims, Jews, Chinese Daoists and a native American representative, among others. They aim to set a manifesto to encourage far-reaching policy goals from the United Nations. They also want to encourage personal commitments from people of faith.

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• BBC NEWS | Europe | Faiths in climate change summit

President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US - Telegraph

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• President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US

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• President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US - Telegraph

Related

• AFP: Climate change juggernaut on the horizon, UN talks told

AFP: Climate change juggernaut on the horizon, UN talks told

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• Climate change juggernaut on the horizon, UN talks told War, hunger, poverty and sickness will stalk humanity if the world fails to tackle climate change, a 12-day UN conference on global warming heard on Monday. "Further expansion in the same style will generate global threats of really great intensity -- huge droughts and floods, cyclones with increasingly more destructive power, pandemics of tropical disease, dramatic decline of biodiversity, increasing ocean levels," "Roughly 20 to 30 percent species assessed will be at increasingly high risk of extinction as global temperatures exceed two to three degrees Centigrade (3.6-5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. "Abrupt and irreversible changes are possible, such as the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic icesheets," leading to a rise in sea levels measurable in metres, or many feet, he said. Last week, the UNFCCC published estimates suggesting that, a couple of decades from now, hundreds of billions of dollars would have to be mustered each year, just to reduce emissions to a stable level. Barack Obama has vowed to sweep away George W. Bush's climate policies, which have caused the United States to be isolated in the world environmental arena since 2001. Obama has set a goal of reducing US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system and a 10-year programme worth 150 billion dollars in renewable energy.

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• AFP: Climate change juggernaut on the horizon, UN talks told

Related

• President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US - Telegraph