ERAU professor seeks balance in global warming debate By MARK HARPER Education Writer
DAYTONA BEACH --
Nick Shipley, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University freshman, had just spent a week of classes watching two films with polar-opposite conclusions about global warming.
"After watching 'An Inconvenient Truth,' I was relatively convinced," Shipley said one day last month in class. "(Al Gore) did a good job in presenting his points very methodically one after the other. They all build up to essentially prove his point.
"After watching 'The Great Global Warming Swindle,' my thinking completely changed," he said. "I kind of did a complete flip-flop."
College students aren't the only ones being confronted with climate change, its causes and what -- if anything -- can be done about it.
A Democratic Congress, an Academy Award for "An Inconvenient Truth" and continuing United Nations' proclamations have all contributed to the drumbeat for reducing carbon dioxide emissions as a strategy for fighting global warming. Some scientists are concerned the forces that are shaping debate and making policy decisions are not based on truths -- convenient or not.
James Wanliss, a space physicist who teaches at Embry-Riddle, showed students the two films in an honors course titled "The Politics and Science of Fear" because he said more and more the public is being sold one side of an issue with many dimensions.
"I fear that attempts are being made to purposefully subvert the public understanding of the nature of science in order to achieve political goals," he wrote in an e-mail. "Science is not about consensus, and to invoke this raises the hackles of scientists such as myself. The lure of politics and publicity is no doubt seductive, but it nevertheless amazes me that so many scientists have jumped on the bandwagon of consensus science, apparently forgetting or ignoring the sad history of consensus science."
"An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary starring Gore and a lot of graphs, makes the case that humans have contributed mightily to a 1-degree rise in the Earth's temperature in the last 50 years. It uses images of melting ice caps and dying polar bears to nudge viewers toward action for reasons of morality.
"The Great Global Warming Swindle," an anti-Gore documentary, doesn't question the Earth's temperature increase but takes to task the questions of why and what's next. For example, it suggests solar activity may have more to do with the planet's warming than carbon dioxideemissions.
Wanliss said he doesn't necessarily subscribe to either film, but believes his students -- and the public -- should remain skeptical of theories such as Gore's explanation of global warming.
Other Embry-Riddle scientists are less outspoken than Wanliss, but one -- John Olivero, professor and chairman of the department of physical science -- allowed that skepticism is an essential tool of the scientific method.
"Science lives with internal conflict all the time," Olivero said. "Part of what we have to do is continually challenge each other."
That process, they say, leads scientists closer to truths that may be elusive for lifetimes.
The truths of global warming are, if not inconvenient, incomprehensible, Wanliss argues.
"The atmosphere is incredibly complicated, and we know very little about it," he said. "We are studying a system which is so big . . . we don't know what all the variables are."
Pointing to quotes in magazine articles, Wanliss says Gore and the producers of the "Swindle" film are purposefully overstating their science as a means to a political end.
His views are certainly controversial.
Penelope Canan, a professor of sociology at the University of Central Florida, leans toward Gore's way of thinking.
"There's really no doubt that human activities have altered the global carbon cycle and the natural balances that have thickened the blanket of greenhouse gases that have kept our planet like Baby Bear's soup for thousands of years," she said in an e-mail. "I am certain that the data presented by Al Gore was digested by hundreds of thousands of research hours and peer-reviewed data by the world's leading scientists."
Sam Rabin, a freshman activist at Stetson University who helped screen "An Inconvenient Truth" on his campus, said many policymakers avoid difficult decisions that may come from carbon dioxide emission limitations, while journalists ramp up the skeptics' arguments in the name of balance.
"This is horribly misguided and counterproductive," Rabin wrote in an e-mail. "There is virtually no scientific debate about global warming or its cause."
But Wanliss' students at Embry-Riddle leaned toward the skeptical. The professor said that is an important lesson about science.
"You want certainty, but it's hard to get that," he said. "Science isn't about certainty."
mark.harper@news-jrnl.com
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims
By LAURA CLARK - 2nd April 2007
Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. (!)
There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques. The findings have prompted claims that some schools are using history 'as a vehicle for promoting political correctness'.
The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into 'emotive and controversial' history teaching in primary and secondary schools. It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class. The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework.
The report said teachers feared confronting 'anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils'. It added: "In another department, the Holocaust was taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among some pupils. "But the same department deliberately avoided teaching the Crusades at Key Stage 3 (11- to 14-year-olds) because their balanced treatment of the topic would have challenged what was taught in some local mosques."
A third school found itself 'strongly challenged by some Christian parents for their treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict-and the history of the state of Israel that did not accord with the teachings of their denomination'. The report concluded: "In particular settings, teachers of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their community or in a place of worship."
But Chris McGovern, history education adviser to the former Tory government, said: "History is not a vehicle for promoting political correctness. Children must have access to knowledge of these controversial subjects, whether palatable or unpalatable."
The researchers also warned that a lack of subject knowledge among teachers - particularly at primary level - was leading to history being taught in a 'shallow way leading to routine and superficial learning'. Lessons in difficult topics were too often 'bland, simplistic and unproblematic' and bored pupils.
By LAURA CLARK - 2nd April 2007
Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. (!)
There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques. The findings have prompted claims that some schools are using history 'as a vehicle for promoting political correctness'.
The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into 'emotive and controversial' history teaching in primary and secondary schools. It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class. The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework.
The report said teachers feared confronting 'anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils'. It added: "In another department, the Holocaust was taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among some pupils. "But the same department deliberately avoided teaching the Crusades at Key Stage 3 (11- to 14-year-olds) because their balanced treatment of the topic would have challenged what was taught in some local mosques."
A third school found itself 'strongly challenged by some Christian parents for their treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict-and the history of the state of Israel that did not accord with the teachings of their denomination'. The report concluded: "In particular settings, teachers of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their community or in a place of worship."
But Chris McGovern, history education adviser to the former Tory government, said: "History is not a vehicle for promoting political correctness. Children must have access to knowledge of these controversial subjects, whether palatable or unpalatable."
The researchers also warned that a lack of subject knowledge among teachers - particularly at primary level - was leading to history being taught in a 'shallow way leading to routine and superficial learning'. Lessons in difficult topics were too often 'bland, simplistic and unproblematic' and bored pupils.
Monday, April 30, 2007
NUCLEAR TERRORISM: HOW REAL IS THE THREAT?
By Joel C. Rosenberg (Washington, D.C., April 30, 2007) --
...What if a terrorist network or terrorist regime were to actually launch a nuclear attack against the United States? How might they do it? What cities might they target? How would we stop them? How would we retaliate? To develop the most realistic scenario possible, I've been meeting with top military and intelligence experts in the U.S. and the Middle East. While these conversations have been off the record, I can tell you that there is a growing (if reluctant) consensus that it's not a matter of "if" but "when" such an attack, or series of attacks, will occur. In February of this year, for example, James E. Goodby of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies wrote: "It's only a matter of time. That's what the experts say when asked whether a terrorist organization might detonate an atom bomb in an American city." Yossef Bodansky, former director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, said in 2004 that the United States is losing the war on terrorism and faces an "inevitable" al-Qaida attack with weapons of mass destruction that will be worse than 9/11 -- "All of the warnings we have today indicate that a major strike - something more horrible than anything we've seen before - is all but inevitable.'" Graham Allison, author of the 2004 book, Nuclear Terrorism, warned: "If policy makers in Washington keep doing what they are currently doing about the threat, a nuclear terrorist attack on America is likely to occur in the next decade. And if one lengthens the time frame, a nuclear strike is inevitable." Former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia), once head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told National Geographic in 2005: "Increasingly, we are being warned that an act of nuclear terrorism is inevitable. I am not willing to concede that point. But I do believe that unless we greatly elevate our effort [to secure nuclear materials] and the speed of our response, we could face disaster." Now ex-CIA chief George Tenet is issuing the same warning, saying al-Qaeda's top priority is obtaining nuclear weapons to attack the U.S. directly. Excerpts from an L.A. Times story: "The main threat posed by Al Qaeda lies in its quest to obtain a nuclear bomb, former CIA Director George J. Tenet writes in his new book. In At the Center of the Storm, Tenet writes at some length about Al Qaeda's attempts to obtain or develop a nuclear weapon. 'I am convinced that this is where [Osama bin Laden] and his operatives desperately want to go,' Tenet writes. 'They understand that bombings by cars, trucks, trains and planes will get them some headlines, to be sure. But if they manage to set off a mushroom cloud, they will make history.' Tenet details several attempts by the CIA to prevent Al Qaeda from acquiring nuclear weapons. Just weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, a Pakistani organization, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, or UTN, had met in Afghanistan with Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, to discuss how Al Qaeda 'should go about building a nuclear device,' the CIA was told. Tenet also sketches out details of an attempt by Al Qaeda leaders in Saudi Arabia to buy what he described as three black-market Russian nuclear devices in 2002 and 2003." EXCERPTS FROM "NUCLEAR TERRORISM," by Graham Allison: --Every day 30,000 trucks, 6,500 rail cars, and 140 ships deliver more than 50,000 cargo containers into the United States, but only 5 percent ever get screened. But even this screening, which rarely involves physical inspection, may not detect nuclear weapons or fissile material. --There are approximately 130 nuclear research reactors in 40 countries. Two dozen of these have enough highly enriched uranium for one or more nuclear bombs. --If terrorists bought or stole a complete weapon, they could set it off immediately. If instead they bought fissile material, they could build a crude but working nuclear bomb within a year. --In Russia, 10,000 nuclear warheads and fissile material for 30,000 additional weapons remain vulnerable to theft. --Pakistan's black marketers, led by the country's leading nuclear scientist, A. Q. Khan, have sold comprehensive "nuclear starter kits" that included advanced centrifuge components, blueprints for nuclear warheads, uranium samples in quantities sufficient to make a small bomb, and even provided personal consulting services to assist nuclear development.
By Joel C. Rosenberg (Washington, D.C., April 30, 2007) --
...What if a terrorist network or terrorist regime were to actually launch a nuclear attack against the United States? How might they do it? What cities might they target? How would we stop them? How would we retaliate? To develop the most realistic scenario possible, I've been meeting with top military and intelligence experts in the U.S. and the Middle East. While these conversations have been off the record, I can tell you that there is a growing (if reluctant) consensus that it's not a matter of "if" but "when" such an attack, or series of attacks, will occur. In February of this year, for example, James E. Goodby of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies wrote: "It's only a matter of time. That's what the experts say when asked whether a terrorist organization might detonate an atom bomb in an American city." Yossef Bodansky, former director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, said in 2004 that the United States is losing the war on terrorism and faces an "inevitable" al-Qaida attack with weapons of mass destruction that will be worse than 9/11 -- "All of the warnings we have today indicate that a major strike - something more horrible than anything we've seen before - is all but inevitable.'" Graham Allison, author of the 2004 book, Nuclear Terrorism, warned: "If policy makers in Washington keep doing what they are currently doing about the threat, a nuclear terrorist attack on America is likely to occur in the next decade. And if one lengthens the time frame, a nuclear strike is inevitable." Former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia), once head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told National Geographic in 2005: "Increasingly, we are being warned that an act of nuclear terrorism is inevitable. I am not willing to concede that point. But I do believe that unless we greatly elevate our effort [to secure nuclear materials] and the speed of our response, we could face disaster." Now ex-CIA chief George Tenet is issuing the same warning, saying al-Qaeda's top priority is obtaining nuclear weapons to attack the U.S. directly. Excerpts from an L.A. Times story: "The main threat posed by Al Qaeda lies in its quest to obtain a nuclear bomb, former CIA Director George J. Tenet writes in his new book. In At the Center of the Storm, Tenet writes at some length about Al Qaeda's attempts to obtain or develop a nuclear weapon. 'I am convinced that this is where [Osama bin Laden] and his operatives desperately want to go,' Tenet writes. 'They understand that bombings by cars, trucks, trains and planes will get them some headlines, to be sure. But if they manage to set off a mushroom cloud, they will make history.' Tenet details several attempts by the CIA to prevent Al Qaeda from acquiring nuclear weapons. Just weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, a Pakistani organization, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, or UTN, had met in Afghanistan with Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, to discuss how Al Qaeda 'should go about building a nuclear device,' the CIA was told. Tenet also sketches out details of an attempt by Al Qaeda leaders in Saudi Arabia to buy what he described as three black-market Russian nuclear devices in 2002 and 2003." EXCERPTS FROM "NUCLEAR TERRORISM," by Graham Allison: --Every day 30,000 trucks, 6,500 rail cars, and 140 ships deliver more than 50,000 cargo containers into the United States, but only 5 percent ever get screened. But even this screening, which rarely involves physical inspection, may not detect nuclear weapons or fissile material. --There are approximately 130 nuclear research reactors in 40 countries. Two dozen of these have enough highly enriched uranium for one or more nuclear bombs. --If terrorists bought or stole a complete weapon, they could set it off immediately. If instead they bought fissile material, they could build a crude but working nuclear bomb within a year. --In Russia, 10,000 nuclear warheads and fissile material for 30,000 additional weapons remain vulnerable to theft. --Pakistan's black marketers, led by the country's leading nuclear scientist, A. Q. Khan, have sold comprehensive "nuclear starter kits" that included advanced centrifuge components, blueprints for nuclear warheads, uranium samples in quantities sufficient to make a small bomb, and even provided personal consulting services to assist nuclear development.
(The quotes above are from the mouths of America's leading intelligence directors...
If this doesn't shake you up, you are made of stone......
or just stoned. ---docgary)
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Learning curve
Spent 3 hours trying to change font colors on old posts....
I give up!
I decided to utilize this blog less for personal stuff, and more for published articles and stories of my interests ie,
I give up!
I decided to utilize this blog less for personal stuff, and more for published articles and stories of my interests ie,
- Politics (Repugs/Dhimmicrats),
- Middle East (/Iran/Israel)
- Palistinian/Israeli
- Global Warning (or lack of thereof)
Frequently scanned web sites include
Global Warming - MYTH?
UK News
'Global Warming Is Lies' Claims Documentary Sunday, 4th March 2007, 11:04
Accepted theories about man causing global warming are "lies" claims a controversial new TV documentary. ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ - backed by eminent scientists - is set to rock the accepted consensus that climate change is being driven by humans. The programme, to be screened on Channel 4 on Thursday March 8, will see a series of respected scientists attack the "propaganda" that they claim is killing the world’s poor. Even the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, is shown, claiming African countries should be encouraged to burn more CO2. Nobody in the documentary defends the greenhouse effect theory, as it claims that climate change is natural, has been occurring for years, and ice falling from glaciers is just the spring break-up and as normal as leaves falling in autumn. A source at Channel 4 said: "It is essentially a polemic and we are expecting it to cause trouble, but this is the controversial programming that Channel 4 is renowned for." Controversial director Martin Durkin said: "You can see the problems with the science of global warming, but people just don’t believe you – it’s taken ten years to get this commissioned. "I think it will go down in history as the first chapter in a new era of the relationship between scientists and society. Legitimate scientists – people with qualifications – are the bad guys. "It is a big story that is going to cause controversy. "It’s very rare that a film changes history, but I think this is a turning point and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bollocks. "Al Gore might have won an Oscar for ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, but the film is very misleading and he has got the relationship between CO2 and climate change the wrong way round."One major piece of evidence of CO2 causing global warming are ice core samples from Antarctica, which show that for hundreds of years, global warming has been accompanied by higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. In ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ Al Gore is shown claiming this proves the theory, but palaeontologist Professor Ian Clark claims in the documentary that it actually shows the opposite. He has evidence showing that warmer spells in the Earth’s history actually came an average of 800 years before the rise in CO2 levels. Prof Clark believes increased levels of CO2 are because the Earth is heating up and not the cause. He says most CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the oceans, which dissolve the gas. When the temperature increases, more gas is released into the atmosphere and when global temperatures cool, more CO2 is taken in. Because of the immense size of the oceans, he said they take time to catch up with climate trends, and this ‘memory effect’ is responsible for the lag. Scientists in the programme also raise another discrepancy with the official line, showing that most of the recent global warming occurred before 1940, when global temperatures then fell for four decades. It was only in the late 1970s that the current trend of rising temperatures began. This, claim the sceptics, is a flaw in the CO2 theory, because the post-war economic boom produced more CO2 and should, according to the consensus, have meant a rise in global temperatures. The programme claims there appears to be a consensus across science that CO2 is responsible for global warming, but Professor Paul Reiter is shown to disagree. He said the influential United Nations report on Climate change, that claimed humans were responsible, was a sham. It claimed to be the opinion of 2,500 leading scientists, but Prof Reiter said it included names of scientists who disagreed with the findings and resigned from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and said the report was finalised by government appointees. The CO2 theory is further undermined by claims that billions of pounds is being provided by governments to fund greenhouse effect research, so thousands of scientists know their job depends on the theory continuing to be seen as fact. The programme claims efforts to reduce CO2 are killing Africans, who have to burn fires inside their home, causing cancer and lung damage, because their governments are being encouraged to use wind and solar panels that are not capable of supplying the continent with electricity, instead of coal and oil-burning power stations that could. Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore is shown saying: "Environmentalists have romanticised peasant life, but this is anti-human. "They are saying the world’s poorest people should have the world’s most expensive form of form of energy – really saying they can’t have electricity."Gary Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, is featured in the programme, and has just released a book claiming that clouds are the real reason behind climate change. ‘The Chilling Stars’ was written with Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark who published a scientific paper, claiming cosmic rays cause clouds to form, reducing the global temperature. The theory is shown in the programme. Mr Calder said: "Henrik Svensmark saw that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars - when there are more cosmic rays, there are more clouds. "However, solar winds bat away many of the cosmic rays and the sun is currently in its most active phase, which would be an explanation for global warming. "I am a science journalist and in my career I have been told by eminent scientists that black holes do not exist and it is impossible that continents move, but in science the experts are usually wrong. "For me this is a cracking science story – I don’t come from any political position and I’m certainly not funded by the multinationals, although my bank manager would like me to be. "I talk to scientists and come up with one story, and Al Gore talks to another set of scientists and comes up with a different story. "So knowing which scientists to talk to is part of the skill. Some, who appear to be disinterested, are themselves getting billions of dollars of research money from the government. "The few millions of dollars of research money from multinationals can’t compare to government funding, so you find the American scientific establishment is all for man-made global warming. "We have the same situation in Britain The government’s chief scientific advisor Sir David King is supposed to be the representative of all that is good in British science, so it is disturbing he and the government are ignoring a raft of evidence against the greenhouse effect being the main driver against climate change." The programme shows how the global warming research drive began when Margaret Thatcher gave money to scientists to ‘prove’ burning coal and oil was harmful, as part of her drive for nuclear power.Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London , who also features in the film warned the issue was too complex to be down to one single factor, whether CO2 or clouds. He said: "The greenhouse effect theory worried me from the start because you can’t say that just one factor can have this effect. "The system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting back on CO2 production would be, or indeed of continuing to produce CO2. "It’s ridiculous to see politicians arguing over whether they will allow the global temperature to rise by 2C or 3C." Mr Stott said the film could mark the point where scientists advocating the greenhouse effect theory, began to lose the argument. He continued: "It is a brave programme at the moment to give excluded voices their say, and maybe it is just the beginning. "At the moment, there is almost a McCarthyism movement in science where the greenhouse effect is like a puritanical religion and this is dangerous." In the programme Nigel Calder says: "The greenhouse effect is seen as a religion and if you don’t agree, you are a heretic. He added: "However, I think this programme will help further debate and scientists not directly involved in global warming studies may begin to study what is being said, become more open-minded and more questioning, but this will happen slowly."
'Global Warming Is Lies' Claims Documentary Sunday, 4th March 2007, 11:04
Accepted theories about man causing global warming are "lies" claims a controversial new TV documentary. ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ - backed by eminent scientists - is set to rock the accepted consensus that climate change is being driven by humans. The programme, to be screened on Channel 4 on Thursday March 8, will see a series of respected scientists attack the "propaganda" that they claim is killing the world’s poor. Even the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, is shown, claiming African countries should be encouraged to burn more CO2. Nobody in the documentary defends the greenhouse effect theory, as it claims that climate change is natural, has been occurring for years, and ice falling from glaciers is just the spring break-up and as normal as leaves falling in autumn. A source at Channel 4 said: "It is essentially a polemic and we are expecting it to cause trouble, but this is the controversial programming that Channel 4 is renowned for." Controversial director Martin Durkin said: "You can see the problems with the science of global warming, but people just don’t believe you – it’s taken ten years to get this commissioned. "I think it will go down in history as the first chapter in a new era of the relationship between scientists and society. Legitimate scientists – people with qualifications – are the bad guys. "It is a big story that is going to cause controversy. "It’s very rare that a film changes history, but I think this is a turning point and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bollocks. "Al Gore might have won an Oscar for ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, but the film is very misleading and he has got the relationship between CO2 and climate change the wrong way round."One major piece of evidence of CO2 causing global warming are ice core samples from Antarctica, which show that for hundreds of years, global warming has been accompanied by higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. In ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ Al Gore is shown claiming this proves the theory, but palaeontologist Professor Ian Clark claims in the documentary that it actually shows the opposite. He has evidence showing that warmer spells in the Earth’s history actually came an average of 800 years before the rise in CO2 levels. Prof Clark believes increased levels of CO2 are because the Earth is heating up and not the cause. He says most CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the oceans, which dissolve the gas. When the temperature increases, more gas is released into the atmosphere and when global temperatures cool, more CO2 is taken in. Because of the immense size of the oceans, he said they take time to catch up with climate trends, and this ‘memory effect’ is responsible for the lag. Scientists in the programme also raise another discrepancy with the official line, showing that most of the recent global warming occurred before 1940, when global temperatures then fell for four decades. It was only in the late 1970s that the current trend of rising temperatures began. This, claim the sceptics, is a flaw in the CO2 theory, because the post-war economic boom produced more CO2 and should, according to the consensus, have meant a rise in global temperatures. The programme claims there appears to be a consensus across science that CO2 is responsible for global warming, but Professor Paul Reiter is shown to disagree. He said the influential United Nations report on Climate change, that claimed humans were responsible, was a sham. It claimed to be the opinion of 2,500 leading scientists, but Prof Reiter said it included names of scientists who disagreed with the findings and resigned from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and said the report was finalised by government appointees. The CO2 theory is further undermined by claims that billions of pounds is being provided by governments to fund greenhouse effect research, so thousands of scientists know their job depends on the theory continuing to be seen as fact. The programme claims efforts to reduce CO2 are killing Africans, who have to burn fires inside their home, causing cancer and lung damage, because their governments are being encouraged to use wind and solar panels that are not capable of supplying the continent with electricity, instead of coal and oil-burning power stations that could. Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore is shown saying: "Environmentalists have romanticised peasant life, but this is anti-human. "They are saying the world’s poorest people should have the world’s most expensive form of form of energy – really saying they can’t have electricity."Gary Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, is featured in the programme, and has just released a book claiming that clouds are the real reason behind climate change. ‘The Chilling Stars’ was written with Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark who published a scientific paper, claiming cosmic rays cause clouds to form, reducing the global temperature. The theory is shown in the programme. Mr Calder said: "Henrik Svensmark saw that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars - when there are more cosmic rays, there are more clouds. "However, solar winds bat away many of the cosmic rays and the sun is currently in its most active phase, which would be an explanation for global warming. "I am a science journalist and in my career I have been told by eminent scientists that black holes do not exist and it is impossible that continents move, but in science the experts are usually wrong. "For me this is a cracking science story – I don’t come from any political position and I’m certainly not funded by the multinationals, although my bank manager would like me to be. "I talk to scientists and come up with one story, and Al Gore talks to another set of scientists and comes up with a different story. "So knowing which scientists to talk to is part of the skill. Some, who appear to be disinterested, are themselves getting billions of dollars of research money from the government. "The few millions of dollars of research money from multinationals can’t compare to government funding, so you find the American scientific establishment is all for man-made global warming. "We have the same situation in Britain The government’s chief scientific advisor Sir David King is supposed to be the representative of all that is good in British science, so it is disturbing he and the government are ignoring a raft of evidence against the greenhouse effect being the main driver against climate change." The programme shows how the global warming research drive began when Margaret Thatcher gave money to scientists to ‘prove’ burning coal and oil was harmful, as part of her drive for nuclear power.Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London , who also features in the film warned the issue was too complex to be down to one single factor, whether CO2 or clouds. He said: "The greenhouse effect theory worried me from the start because you can’t say that just one factor can have this effect. "The system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting back on CO2 production would be, or indeed of continuing to produce CO2. "It’s ridiculous to see politicians arguing over whether they will allow the global temperature to rise by 2C or 3C." Mr Stott said the film could mark the point where scientists advocating the greenhouse effect theory, began to lose the argument. He continued: "It is a brave programme at the moment to give excluded voices their say, and maybe it is just the beginning. "At the moment, there is almost a McCarthyism movement in science where the greenhouse effect is like a puritanical religion and this is dangerous." In the programme Nigel Calder says: "The greenhouse effect is seen as a religion and if you don’t agree, you are a heretic. He added: "However, I think this programme will help further debate and scientists not directly involved in global warming studies may begin to study what is being said, become more open-minded and more questioning, but this will happen slowly."
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Opening Blog
At last, my own blog and I have nothing to say.....
That wont last too long! My plan is to write this as a journal - and not be concerned if it's ever read. Perhaps I wont even give out the address.
That wont last too long! My plan is to write this as a journal - and not be concerned if it's ever read. Perhaps I wont even give out the address.
We'll see......
In the meantime, I need a break from work .
It doesnt have to be a formal vacation -
just a week of sleeping in, surfin' the web,
just a week of sleeping in, surfin' the web,
and maybe getting in some shooting time!!
How I miss shooting!!!
I love the privacy....my own private challenges and competitions against myself.... I picked up a 5.5 - 20 Nikon scope for pennies on the dollar from Natchezz. Nikon has dropped the Monarch series and offered 60% off! I havent had the opportunity to zero in the scope!
Now with my left hand fucking NUMB, I dont know when I'll get to the range - or even if I will shoot again
This sucks!
How I miss shooting!!!
I love the privacy....my own private challenges and competitions against myself.... I picked up a 5.5 - 20 Nikon scope for pennies on the dollar from Natchezz. Nikon has dropped the Monarch series and offered 60% off! I havent had the opportunity to zero in the scope!
Now with my left hand fucking NUMB, I dont know when I'll get to the range - or even if I will shoot again
This sucks!
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