In The News
President of Czech Republic Calls Man-Made Global Warming a 'Myth'
Monday February 12, 2007
"Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor."
"Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice."
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...Cosmic rays blamed for global warming
Sunday February 11, 2007
The Sunday Telegraph
Cosmic rays blamed for global warming
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
11/02/2007
Web Link to Article
Man-made climate change may be happening at a far slower rate than has been claimed, according to controversial new research.
Scientists say that cosmic rays from outer space play a far greater role in changing the Earth's climate than global warming experts previously thought.
In a book, to be published this week, they claim that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet.
How cosmic rays could seed clouds diagram
High levels of cloud cover blankets the Earth and reflects radiated heat from the Sun back out into space, causing the planet to cool.
Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.
This, he says, is responsible for much of the global warming we are experiencing.
He claims carbon dioxide emissions due to human activity are having a smaller impact on climate change than scientists think. If he is correct, it could mean that mankind has more time to reduce our effect on the climate.
The controversial theory comes one week after 2,500 scientists who make up the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change published their fourth report stating that human carbon dioxide emissions would cause temperature rises of up to 4.5 C by the end of the century.
Mr Svensmark claims that the calculations used to make this prediction largely overlooked the effect of cosmic rays on cloud cover and the temperature rise due to human activity may be much smaller.
He said: "It was long thought that clouds were caused by climate change, but now we see that climate change is driven by clouds.
"This has not been taken into account in the models used to work out the effect carbon dioxide has had.
"We may see CO2 is responsible for much less warming than we thought and if this is the case the predictions of warming due to human activity will need to be adjusted."
Mr Svensmark last week published the first experimental evidence from five years' research on the influence that cosmic rays have on cloud production in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Journal A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. This week he will also publish a fuller account of his work in a book entitled The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change.
A team of more than 60 scientists from around the world are preparing to conduct a large-scale experiment using a particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, to replicate the effect of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere.
They hope this will prove whether this deep space radiation is responsible for changing cloud cover. If so, it could force climate scientists to re-evaluate their ideas about how global warming occurs.
Mr Svensmark's results show that the rays produce electrically charged particles when they hit the atmosphere. He said: "These particles attract water molecules from the air and cause them to clump together until they condense into clouds."
Mr Svensmark claims that the number of cosmic rays hitting the Earth changes with the magnetic activity around the Sun. During high periods of activity, fewer cosmic rays hit the Earth and so there are less clouds formed, resulting in warming.
Low activity causes more clouds and cools the Earth.
He said: "Evidence from ice cores show this happening long into the past. We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years.
"Humans are having an effect on climate change, but by not including the cosmic ray effect in models it means the results are inaccurate.The size of man's impact may be much smaller and so the man-made change is happening slower than predicted."
Some climate change experts have dismissed the claims as "tenuous".
Giles Harrison, a cloud specialist at Reading University said that he had carried out research on cosmic rays and their effect on clouds, but believed the impact on climate is much smaller than Mr Svensmark claims.
Mr Harrison said: "I have been looking at cloud data going back 50 years over the UK and found there was a small relationship with cosmic rays. It looks like it creates some additional variability in a natural climate system but this is small."
But there is a growing number of scientists who believe that the effect may be genuine.
Among them is Prof Bob Bingham, a clouds expert from the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils in Rutherford.
He said: "It is a relatively new idea, but there is some evidence there for this effect on clouds."
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...U.S. Cuts Emissions Better Than Europe: White House (REUTERS, 2/9/07)
Friday February 9, 2007
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...
REUTERS
U.S. Cuts Emissions Better Than Europe: White House
February 9, 2007
WASHINGTON - The White House said on Wednesday the United States had done better at reducing carbon emissions than Europe, where U.S. President George W. Bush's stance on global warming has been sharply criticized.
The Bush administration has taken steps that "demonstrate real seriousness, not simply giving the speeches, but walking the walk," White House spokesman Tony Snow said, adding that "We are doing a better job of reducing emissions" than Europe.
"So the idea that ... we don't understand the arguments, or we're not contemplating or taking seriously the arguments about carbon caps, of course we are," he said.
While many environmentalists have urged mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions, as imposed in Europe, Bush opposes the idea and advocates the development of new technologies to reduce dependence on oil.
"I would point out that ... there is a carbon cap system in place in Europe, we are doing a better job of reducing emissions here," Snow said.
The White House said Snow was referring to figures from the International Energy Agency that from 2000 to 2004, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion grew by 1.7 percent, while in the European Union such emissions grew by 5 percent.
Snow said Bush had acknowledged a link between climate change and human activity and had pursued the "most aggressive program of research and technology ever" on that issue.
The United States has also been providing technology to the developing world, which is not included in the Kyoto Protocol that binds 35 industrial countries to cutting carbon dioxide emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States is not bound by Kyoto targets.
The U.N. climate panel issued its strongest warning in a report last week that human activities, like burning fossil fuels in vehicles and power plants, were resulting in global warming.
In response, U.S. officials played down the country's contribution to climate change, although the United States is responsible for one-quarter of the world's carbon dioxide emissions and uses one-quarter of the world's crude oil.
Putting the focus on the environment, Bush used a visit to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia on Wednesday to press the U.S. Congress to approve nearly $2.4 billion for the nation's national parks, including what officials said was the largest-ever increase in parks funding, as part of his budget.
###
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...No change in political climate (Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe, 02/09/07)
Friday February 9, 2007
On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb.
No, I do not think that if everyone lit just one little compact fluorescent light bulb, what a bright world this would be. Even the Prius in our driveway doesn't do a whole lot to reduce my carbon footprint, which is roughly the size of the Yeti lurking in the (melting) Himalayas.
But it was either buying a light bulb or pulling the covers over my head. And it was too early in the day to reach for that kind of comforter.
By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.
I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.
But light bulbs aside -- I now have three and counting -- I don't expect that this report will set off some vast political uprising. The sorry fact is that the rising world thermometer hasn't translated into political climate change in America.
The folks at the Pew Research Center clocking public attitudes show that global warming remains 20th on the annual list of 23 policy priorities. Below terrorism, of course, but also below tax cuts, crime, morality, and illegal immigration.
One reason is that while poles are melting and polar bears are swimming between ice floes, American politics has remained polarized. There are astonishing gaps between Republican science and Democratic science. Try these numbers: Only 23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it.
This great divide comes from the science-be-damned-and-debunked attitude of the Bush administration and its favorite media outlets. The day of the report, Big Oil Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma actually described it as "a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain." Speaking of corruption of science, the American Enterprise Institute, which has gotten $1.6 million over the years from Exxon Mobil, offered $10,000 last summer to scientists who would counter the IPCC report.
But there are psychological as well as political reasons why global warming remains in the cool basement of priorities. It may be, paradoxically, that framing this issue in catastrophic terms ends up paralyzing instead of motivating us. Remember the Time magazine cover story: "Be Worried. Be Very Worried." The essential environmental narrative is a hair-raising consciousness-raising: This is your Earth. This is your Earth on carbon emissions.
This works for some. But a lot of social science research tells us something else. As Ross Gelbspan, author of "The Heat is On," says, "when people are confronted with an overwhelming threat and don't see a solution, it makes them feel impotent. So they shrug it off or go into deliberate denial."
Michael Shellenberger, co author of "The Death of Environmentalism," adds, "The dominant narrative of global warming has been that we're responsible and have to make changes or we're all going to die. It's tailor-made to ensure inaction."
So how many scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
American University's Matthew Nisbet is among those who see the importance of expanding the story beyond scientists. He is charting the reframing of climate change into a moral and religious issue -- see the greening of the evangelicals -- and into a corruption-of-science issue -- see big oil -- and an economic issue -- see the newer, greener technologies .
In addition, maybe we can turn denial into planning. "If the weatherman says there's a 75 percent chance of rain, you take your umbrella," Shellenberger tells groups. Even people who clutched denial as their last, best hope can prepare, he says, for the next Katrina. Global warming preparation is both his antidote for helplessness and goad to collective action.
The report is grim stuff. Whatever we do today, we face long-range global problems with a short-term local attention span. We're no happier looking at this global thermostat than we are looking at the nuclear doomsday clock.
Can we change from debating global warming to preparing? Can we define the issue in ways that turn denial into action? In America what matters now isn't environmental science, but political science.
We are still waiting for the time when an election hinges on a candidate's plans for a changing climate. That's when the light bulb goes on.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...Reading, Writing, and Global Warming for British Students (CNS NEWS, 02/09/07)
Friday February 9, 2007
CNS NEWS
Reading, Writing, and Global Warming for British Students
Article Web link: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200702/INT20070209d.html
February 09, 2007London (CNSNews.com) - Students at state-funded schools in Britain will learn about global warming, the government announced this week -- and former Vice President Al Gore's provocative views on the issue will get maximum exposure.
As part of the new school curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds, the government said students will be taught about how the earth's climate is changing and about the importance of "sustainable development."
(Other new subjects being introduced include Arabic and Mandarin, healthy cooking and the history of Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.)
A government spokeswoman said Friday that all state schools and all faith-based school getting state funding -- most of them do -- are required to follow the curriculum. Private schools are "strongly encouraged" to do so.
A spokesman for the UK government's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) told Cybercast News Service that under the new plan, teachers will not be given a set number of hours each week to teach about global warming.
The new curriculum is a guideline, which individual schools and teachers will use in the formation of their lesson plans, he said.
For example, a class might take a field trip to the hills of north Wales and study the evidence of previous ice ages to be found in the rocks there. From this, he said, students will learn firsthand about how the earth's temperature has changed through the ages.
Although many scientists still question the extent of the climate-change threat - and whether human activity plays a role in it -- the spokesman called it an "uncontentious issue" and said the "evidence was already in."
The National Union of Teachers warned this week that students might be overloaded from the new curriculum, but the QCA spokesman said he doubted there would be many complaints over the global warming classes.
"Not from parents," he said. "Not on an issue like this. The controversial issues in the English school system are sex, drugs, alcohol, and religion."
In addition to the new curriculum, the government also announced that it will send a copy of Gore's global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, to every high school in England.
The movie charges that the global environment has been drastically changed by the burning of fossil fuels and suggests in a variety of ways how viewers can change their behavior to save the planet.
Government ministers said the debate on global warming had been settled and that by watching Gore's documentary, young students will be inspired to live less environmentally damaging lives.
"Children are the key to changing society's long-term attitudes to the environment," Education Minister Alan Johnson said. "Not only are they passionate about saving the planet, but children also have a big influence over their own families' lifestyles and behavior."
The Gore documentary will form part of a year-long environmental program in state schools, although the QCA spokesman said it was not part of the new curriculum.
Politics questioned
Greenpeace and the British Green Party applauded the move but the conservative U.K. Independence Party charged that it violated education laws which prohibited the airing of partisan political views in schools.
"This is political propaganda at its worst," said deputy party leader David Campbell Bannerman. "The climate change argument is ongoing and for the government to sponsor one side of the debate is a disgrace."
In recent months, European critics of the film have charged that Gore exaggerates and distorts facts in his films to fit his argument.
For example, Danish writers such as Flemming Rose and Bjorn Lomborg -- the latter, the author of the Skeptical Environmentalist -- have attacked Gore for showing a sea-rise of 20 feet while the U.N.'s climate body has only postulated a rise of one foot over this century.
A spokesman for the government's environmental department brushed these concerns aside Thursday.
"We're not going to get into a discussion on the merits of the film," he said.
##
Animal Rights Extremists Suspected of Second Letter Bomb
Thursday February 8, 2007
Click Here for the story.
MANY AGREE POLAR BEARS SHOULD NOT BE LISTED AS THREATENED UNDER ESA
Wednesday February 7, 2007
During today’s EPW Subcommittee hearing "Global Warming and Wildlife" a Senate Democrat on the Committee made the assertion that one of the witnesses testifying at today’s hearing, Dr. Lee Foote, associate professor at the University of Alberta, Canada, was all alone in his belief that polar bears should not be listed as "Threatened" under the Endangered Species Act in the United States
FACT: Many Canadian indigenous peoples, international governments and conservation groups clearly agree with Dr Foote’s position that the polar bear should not be listed. The following comments below were submitted by groups during the US Fish and Wildlife Service petition process regarding the listing of the polar bear:
Inuvialuit Game Council (Represents the collective Inuvialuit interest in wildlife and wildlife habitat)
"Sound polar bear populations all overlap the ISR ("Inuvialuit Settlement Region"). These populations of polar bears have helped sustain the Inuvialuit for generations to do so. Currently, these populations are healthy and thriving … we can see no justification for up-listing polar bears to ‘threatened status’ under the U.S. Endangered Species Act … "at this point in time, there is not enough information to say that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct due to predicted shift in climate … Due to our close relationship with these populations, we, along with other user groups, would be the first to see signs of trouble and we would make sure, through the co-management system, that appropriate management actions are taken to ensure the sustainability of these populations."
Dr. Mitchell K. Taylor, Manager, Wildlife Research, Department of Environment, Government of Nunavut
"[T]’he Center for Biological Diversity and their partners in this petition (Greenpeace Inc.) are not research institutions. They are special interest groups. Conservation legislation provides them with tools to advance their agenda and values, which includes protection but not hunting. [Their petition] is a legal argument and not an objective summary of the relevant information … Polar bears have become the poster-species for doomsday prophets of global catastrophe from anthropogenic climate change. It makes a great story because it is simple and intuitive. However, the reality is much more complex … It seems clear that things in the Arctic will change, but not all changes will be negative for polar bears.""Identification of an effect on one population of 20 is not sufficient to declare a species headed for extinction; the evidence presented by the proponents does not meet the criteria test for the Endangered Species Act category: ‘Threatened."
Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated
"[W]e believe there is important information that is lacking from the petition…a listing under ESA would seriously undermine the conservation-beneficial polar bear hunting management system in Nunavut. It could potentially damage the goodwill and cooperation that has served polar bear conservation and management so well for so long in the region where the largest number of polar bears exist today, and likely will be located in the future."
"[W]e want to argue that a more broadly-informed decision with respect to the challenges posed by climate change in the Arctic is needed in order to avoid the negative impacts a listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) would cause, for American hunters, Inuit, and polar bears."
Canadian Polar Bear Administrative Committee (PBAC) (Agencies that have legal responsibility for polar bear management in Canada)
"Listing polar bears under the US ESA will not stop the impacts of climate change on loss of sea ice and polar bears … A potential listing seems excessive and unnecessarily punitive on Canadian citizens considering mechanisms are already in place in both within Canada and the US with respect to conservation of Canadian polar bear populations."
IUCN North America Sustainable Use Specialist Group
"The North American – Sustainable Use Specialist Group recommends not listing the polar bear for ES status. ES listing in this context appears to be a disingenuous re-framing of "species conservation" as an obstructionist tool in attempts to indirectly apply pressure to alter energy policy." "We oppose this action because of the real costs to northern peoples and the threats imposed on species conservation programs that are based on effective resource-user confidence and involvement in existing co-management agreements." "Listing the polar bear as endangered is an overly simplistic and possible counter-productive reaction to a questionable chain of assumed cause and effects."
###
Denver Post: Sierra Club still rigidly "no nukes"
Wednesday February 7, 2007
" What the Sierra Club seeks is a commitment by the American people to abandon development of adequate energy sources in the hope that other sources might be developed before the economy collapses. Unless all common sense has been sucked into the ozone layer, saner minds must prevail. The Sierra Club aside, before America finds the kind of energy it wants, it must continue to obtain the energy it needs."
Network TV Airs EPA Myths on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”
Wednesday February 7, 2007
Posted by matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov
Last night, Tuesday, February 6, 2007, NBC aired an episode of the crime drama "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" entitled "Loophole," that asserts that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows women and children to be intentionally dosed in pesticide experiments.
The left-of-center environmental group Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) and Physicians for Social Responsibility consulted with NBC executive producer Neal Baer and writer Jonathan Greene for tonight’s “Law & Order” episode. See: http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order:_Special_Victims_Unit/
From the PANNA website:
“In the episode, several children and their families -- including a Honduran immigrant family—are unwittingly tested with a dangerous organophosphate pesticide (a class of acutely toxic chemicals) by a fictional chemical company. In real life, EPA's recent human testing rule contains loopholes that allow chemical corporations to test pesticides on women and children.”
FACT: Under EPA’s new rules, EPA can not and will not accept any pesticide research involving any pregnant or nursing women and any children. EPA’s rule also categorically prohibits EPA from conducting or sponsoring any intentional dosing studies that involve pregnant or nursing women or children for ALL substances, not just pesticides, regulated by the Agency.
Incorrect Claims About API's Influence With EPA
Tuesday February 6, 2007
During today’s EPW Committee hearing, “Hearing on Oversight of Recent EPA Decisions,” Gina Solomon, of the environmental special interest group Natural Resources Defense Council, charged that that the EPA, in making process changes to the NAQQS process, did so on the recommendations by the American Petroleum Association (API). Solomon claimed that API was “quite involved in recommending this process change.”
FACT: The attached charts show these claims are false. Senator Inhofe pointed out during the hearing that of the seven recommendations made by API, the EPA only followed one recommendation in its entirety and another recommendation only partially. Furthermore, the only API recommendation fully accepted by the EPA was identical to the recommendation by the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). The EPA, in fact, accepted four out of five recommendations made by CASAC in their entirety.
Click on the icon below to view the charts referred to by Senator Inhofe during the EPW hearing.
