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  1. #211
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    CO2 'highest for 650,000

    years'




    By Richard Black


    Environment Correspondent, BBC News website


    Current

    levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are higher now than at any time in the

    past 650,000 years.

    That is the conclusion of new

    European studies looking at ice taken from 3km below the surface of Antarctica.


    The scientists say their research shows present day warming to be exceptional.


    Other research, also published in the journal Science, suggests that sea levels may be rising

    twice as fast now as in previous centuries.


    Treasure dome



    The evidence on atmospheric concentrations comes from an Antarctic region called Dome Concordia (Dome C).





    Over a five year period commencing in 1999, scientists working with the European Project for Ice Coring in

    Antarctica (Epica) have drilled 3,270m into the Dome C ice, which equates to drilling nearly 900,000 years back in

    time. Gas bubbles trapped as the ice formed yield important evidence of the mixture of gases present in the

    atmosphere at that time, and of temperature.
    "One of the most important things is we can put current levels of

    carbon dioxide and methane into a long-term context," said project leader Thomas Stocker from the University of

    Bern, Switzerland.
    "We find that CO2 is about 30% higher than at any time, and methane 130% higher than at any

    time; and the rates of increase are absolutely exceptional: for CO2, 200 times faster than at any time in the last

    650,000 years."
    Stable relationship


    Last year, the Epica team released its first data. The latest two

    papers analyse gas composition and temperature dating back 650,000 years.
    This

    extends the picture drawn by another Antarctic ice core taken near Lake Vostok which looked 440,000 years into the

    past.
    The extra data is crucial because around 420,000 years there appears to have

    been a significant shift in the Earth's long-term climate patterns.
    Before and after this date, the planet went

    through 100,000 year cycles of alternating cold glacial and warm interglacial periods.



    But around the 420,000 year mark, the precise pattern changed, with the

    contrast between warm and cold conditions becoming much more marked. The Dome C core

    gives data from six cycles of glaciation and warming; two from before this change, four from after.


    "We found a very tight relationship between CO2 and temperature even

    before 420,000 years," said Professor Stocker.
    "The fact that the relationship

    holds across the transition between climatic regimes is a very strong indication of the important role of CO2 in

    climate regulation."
    Epica scientists will now try to extend their analysis further

    back in time.
    Water

    rise

    Another study reported in the same journal

    claims that for the last 150 years, sea levels have been rising twice as fast as in previous centuries.
    Using

    data from tidal gauges and reviewing findings from many previous studies, US researchers have constructed a new sea

    level record covering the last 100 million years.
    They calculate the present rate

    of rise at 2mm per year.
    "The main thing that's changed since the 19th Century and

    the beginning of modern observation has been the widespread increase in fossil fuel use and more greenhouse gases,"

    said Kenneth Miller from Rutgers University.
    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body which

    collates scientific evidence for policymakers, concludes that sea level rose by 1-2mm per year over the last

    century, and will rise by a total of anything up to 88cm during the course of this century.

    Story

    from BBC

    NEWS:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/t

    ech/4467420.stm
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  2. #212
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Pollution soaring to crisis levels in

    Arctic

    Scientists plead for action to save poles

    from 'tipping point' disaster

    Robin McKie, science

    editor

    Sunday March 12,

    2006

    Observer
    Researchers have uncovered compelling evidence that indicates Earth's most vulnerable regions - the

    North and South Poles - are poised on the brink of a climatic

    disaster.
    The scientists, at an atmospheric monitoring station in

    the Norwegian territory of Svalbard, have found that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere near the North Pole

    are now rising at an unprecedented pace.

    In 1990 this key cause

    of global warming was rising at a rate of 1 part per million (ppm). Recently, that rate reached 2 ppm per year. Now,

    scientists at the Mount Zeppelin monitoring station have discovered it is rising at between 2.5 and 3

    ppm.

    'The fact that our data now show acceleration in the rise

    of carbon dioxide level is really a source for concern,' said Professor Johan Strom, of Stockholm University's

    department of applied environmental science, which runs the Mount Zeppelin station. 'The increase is also seen at

    other stations, but our Zeppelin data show the strongest

    increase.'

    The news of the latest carbon dioxide figures comes

    as scientists prepare to announce details of the forthcoming International Polar Year programme, which will involve

    teams of scientists from around the world making a concerted attempt to understand the impact of global warming in

    the world's high latitudes. In particular, they will concentrate on the social impact of climate change there and

    also the threats to the regions' wildlife, such as polar bears and

    walruses.

    In the last two decades, carbon dioxide levels in the

    atmosphere have risen from 350 to 380 ppm and scientists warn that once levels reach 500, there could be

    irreversible consequences that would tip the planet toward disaster: glacier melts triggering devastating sea-level

    rises and spreading deserts across Africa and Asia.

    Scientists

    and campaigners are desperate for politicians to reach agreements that will prevent the 500 ppm 'tipping point'

    being breached in the next half-century. These new data suggest they may have a far shorter period of time in which

    to act.

    'Fortunately, this rate of rise of carbon dioxide is

    not yet seen round the world,' added Strom. 'However, it may be that we have been the first to detect it, and that

    we are seeing some kind of special effect that could have widespread consequences in a few

    years.'

    One theory proposed by Strom is that heating of the

    oceans could be leading to the release of carbon dioxide. Other scientists suggest that as the world warms, the

    Arctic tundra - previously gripped by permafrost - may be giving off carbon dioxide as it melts, releasing gas from

    vegetation trapped within it that has now started to rot. Thus levels of the gas would increase with particular

    rapidity near the North Pole.

    The latest data from Mount

    Zeppelin comes in the wake of a series of other alarming reports about the effects of global warming in the Arctic

    and Antarctic. It was recently discovered that ice sheets are now covering less of the Arctic Ocean than ever

    before; that Greenland is shedding sheets of ice far faster than previously realised; that the West Antarctic ice

    cap is dwindling at an unexpectedly high rate; and that the Gulf Stream is showing worrying signs of being disrupted

    by Arctic meltwaters.

    The last effect is particularly worrying,

    because the waters of the Gulf Stream play a key role in keeping Britain and Europe from freezing in winter. Should

    it disappear, the consequences for the country would be

    profound.

    'The crucial point is that you can't look at the

    Arctic and Antarctic in isolation,' said Professor Chris Rapley, head of the British Antarctic Survey. 'What

    happens there has profound consequences for the rest of the

    planet.'

    It was thought until recently that it would take up

    to 1,000 years for heat to penetrate the Greenland ice shield and melt it. But the latest data show that large parts

    of it are actually sliding in lumps into the sea. 'That means it is likely to take far less time to raise sea

    levels,' added Rapley. 'And if Greenland's ice melts, we will be in trouble. There will be a seven-metre rise in

    the oceans. The Thames Barrier would be swamped.'



    Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  3. #213
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    Winter Warmest

    Ever on Record in Canada


    TORONTO - The winter of 2005-2006 has been Canada's warmest on

    record and the federal agency Environment Canada said Monday it was investigating whether it's a sign of global

    warming.

    [URL="http://s0b.bluestreak.com/ix.e?ir&s=1324828"]http://s0b.bluestreak.com/ix.e?ir&s=1324828[/URL

    ]

    Between December and February, the country was 3.9 degrees above normal — the

    warmest winter season since temperatures were first recorded in 1948. Environment Canada climatologist Bob Whitewood

    said it smashed the previous record set in 1987 by 0.9 degrees.

    "We saw it coming from

    mid-January on that we were seeing something quite remarkable," Whitewood said.

    The experience has

    been similar south of the border where the U.S. National Climatic Data Center said the winter has been the fifth

    warmest on record. December through February are considered meteorological winter.

    It was

    especially balmy in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, where temperatures were 6 to 8 degrees

    above normal.

    Whitewood said the last 10 winters have been warmer than normal and along with this

    winter reflect a trend that could be explained as global warming. He said Environment Canada would spend the next

    year examining the data to see if it's an aberration or evidence of a trend.

    While some

    Canadians have been delighted by the milder winter, many are disappointed about thinner ice for ice skating and

    hockey and less snow in the ski resorts. Several islands off Nova Scota were inundated by thousands of pregnant

    seals forced to give birth on shore by unusually mild weather that has prevented the Gulf of St. Lawrence from

    freezing.
    "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."

  4. #214
    PheroWizard oscar's Avatar
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    There was a piece on "60 Minutes"

    last night (3/19/2006) that went into the issue of U.S. Government censoring of "scientific information", in this

    case global warming specifically.

    I didn't catch the entire piece, but here's the

    text:
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2

    006/03/17/60minutes/main1415985.shtml


    There's also a 3 minute condensed version of the video on that page

    of "Rewriting the Science".

    It's nice to know that we're spending a lot of money for government sponsored

    scientific studies which are subsequently edited prior to their publication by lawyer/politicians who are in the

    pocket of the oil industry .

    Anyone surprised?

    Oscar

  5. #215
    Moderator Mtnjim's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by oscar
    Anyone surprised?



    Oscar
    Nope!

    I saw that also. Just what we need, "political science", and I don't mean the study

    of politics. 1984, Just a little late.
    Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.
    --Lazarus Long

  6. #216
    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    Beyond a doubt there has been a

    number of cases of this. However, it is not only done in this country, its being done all over and by all parties.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

  7. #217
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    I wouldn't call it *global*

    warming. As a popular local songmaker put it in a recent song about this winter, "It's been four months and it's

    still december". Central europe is having one of the toughest and longest winters I can remember.

    2mm per year

    is good. End of last ice age, it is 150 meters within hours

  8. #218
    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    Default Some very important points made here

    IBM think-tank calls on businesses to save the world while making money Thu Mar 23, 2006




    SAN

    FRANCISCO (AFP) - While Hollywood celebrities and Silicon Valley executives have the cash to pay for trendy

    earth-friendly lifestyles, ordinary people don't, a US think-tank warned.
    The onus was on businesses worldwide to

    lead a "green" revolution by sharing technology and costs before authoritarian governments slapped them and citizens

    with life-altering regulations, according to panel members.
    "Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't think the green

    consumer will be the answer," Patrick Atkins, director of energy innovation at Alcoa aluminum company, said during a

    Global Innovation Outlook forum led by IBM Corporation.
    "People need to reach a tipping point at which it clearly

    effects their lives, and then they will address the problem and galvanize the innovation of the world."
    Executives

    from major firms such as Halliburton and Intuit packed an auditorium in the San Francisco Museum of Art, where

    academics and technology veterans brainstormed solutions to pollution and transportation woes.
    "Business has a key

    role to play," said Bjorn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
    "Here we

    are. It is up to us to create a sustainable path in the world. If we don't, I don't like where we are

    going."
    When Stigson asked how many people in the room believed in the "green consumer," a person willing to pay

    more for eco-sensitive products such as electric cars or organic produce, only one hand was raised.
    "You can't

    tell poor, struggling people to just pay more," Hugh Aldridge of the Cambridge-MIT Institute warned. "If you price

    things out of reach for people you don't have stability, you have rebellion."
    If business doesn't step in to fix

    the quality-of-life ills in major urban areas, heavy-handed governments will, predicted Aldridge.
    Technology being

    "seriously discussed" in England would remotely redirect cars and stop them to lessen traffic congestion, Aldridge

    said.
    "Governments are thinking in authoritarian ways to deal with these problems because they don't think market

    forces will do it," Aldridge said. "That, to me, is a huge danger and we need to come up with innovation to stop

    it."
    It would be misguided to expect business alone to solve environmental problems, but shifting costs to the

    wallets of consumers was a doomed strategy and waiting for government regulation foolish, pundits said.
    IBM will

    create a databank of "eco-patents" that will be free to legitimate users of the technology, said Nicholas Donofrio,

    vice president of Innovation and Technology at the company.
    'The oil clock is ticking," panelist Lee Schipper of

    the World Resources Institute said, gesturing as if holding up a watch. "The greenhouse clock is ticking. And, we

    can't even clarify the problems."
    People should not expect technology to be a panacea, Lee said.
    "There is always

    a fool smart enough to violate a foolproof system," he quipped.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

  9. #219
    Phero Enthusiast PHP 87's Avatar
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    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/56456.stm

    Friday, February 13, 1998 Published at 19:25

    GMT

    Scientists blame sun for global warming

    The Sun is more active than it has ever been in the last

    300 years.

    Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release

    of greenhouse gases on Earth.

    Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the

    Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could

    soon follow.

    The sun provides all the energy that drives our climate, but it is not the constant star it

    might seem.

    Careful studies over the last 20 years show that its overall brightness and energy output

    increases slightly as sunspot activity rises to the peak of its 11-year cycle.

    And individual cycles can be

    more or less active.

    The sun is currently at its most active for 300 years.

    That, say scientists in

    Philadelphia, could be a more significant cause of global warming than the emissions of greenhouse gases that are

    most often blamed.

    The researchers point out that much of the half-a-degree rise in global temperature over

    the last 120 years occurred before 1940 - earlier than the biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

    Using

    ancient tree rings, they show that 17 out of 19 warm spells in the last 10,000 years coincided with peaks in solar

    activity.

    They have also studied other sun-like stars and found that they spend significant periods without

    sunspots at all, so perhaps cool spells should be feared more than global warming.

    The scientists do not

    pretend they can explain everything, nor do they say that attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be

    abandoned. But they do feel that understanding of our nearest star must be increased if the climate is to be

    understood.

  10. #220
    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    Thanks for bringing that up

    PHP. It's an important article but has been completely overlooked by the global warming hysterics.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

  11. #221
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    30 years ago, we were being warned

    about the impending Ice Age that was on it's way.

    These guys can't predict the weather a week in advance,

    let alone Global Warming or Cooling.

  12. #222
    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    So I've said myself.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

  13. #223
    Phero Enthusiast Netghost56's Avatar
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    More Frogs Dying as Planet

    Warms
    http://www.livescience.com/animalworld

    /060112_frog_warming.html


    Global Warming Likely Cause of Worst Mass Extinction

    Ever
    http://www.livescience.com/environment/0

    50120_great_dying.html
    "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."

  14. #224
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    Default Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

    http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220


    "To

    understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp

    some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press

    and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature

    has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30%

    over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public

    fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the

    small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually

    demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are

    trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't

    happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.

    If the

    models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you

    have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model

    runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a

    casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer

    world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is

    that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and

    calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity,

    not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming."

  15. #225
    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    Oh, my! Do you mean to tell me

    the IPCC and its adherents aren't the knights in shiny white armor that we've been lead to believe they are? They

    couldn't possibly be lying to us, could they? Nah! And they'd never resort to intimidation and other such

    terrorist tactics to suppress dissent. Couldn't possibly be happening. Nope, their purpose is far to noble for

    that. No, what does professor Landzen know about the environment? He's only a proffessor of atmosheric sciences at

    one of the most respected science colleges in the world. I'm sure he knows little about the science or scientific

    methods.

    Thanks Biohazard

    Oh, mustn't forget that there are others who also see through the pack of lies

    surrounding global warming, as you can see from the respones to this article.



    http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra

    /responses.html?article_id=110008220
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

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    Published on Thursday, April 20,

    2006 by Vanity Fair
    While Washington Slept
    The Queen of England is afraid. International C.E.O.'s are

    nervous. And the scientific establishment is loud and clear. If global warming isn't halted, rising sea levels

    could submerge coastal cities by 2100. So how did this virtual certainty get labeled a "liberal hoax"?
    by Mark

    Hertsgaard


    Ten months before Hurricane Katrina left much of New Orleans underwater, Queen Elizabeth II

    had a private conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair about George W. Bush. The Queen's tradition of meeting

    once a week with Britain's elected head of government to discuss matters of state—usually on Tuesday evenings in

    Buckingham Palace and always alone, to ensure maximum confidentiality—goes back to 1952, the year she ascended the

    throne. In all that time, the contents of those chats rarely if ever leaked.

    So it was extraordinary when

    London's Observer reported, on October 31, 2004, that the Queen had "made a rare intervention in world politics" by

    telling Blair of "her grave concerns over the White House's stance on global warming." The Observer did not name

    its sources, but one of them subsequently spoke to Vanity Fair.

    "The Queen first of all made it clear that

    Buckingham Palace would be happy to help raise awareness about the climate problem," says the source, a high-level

    environmental expert who was briefed about the conversation. "[She was] definitely concerned about the American

    position and hoped the prime minister could help change [it]."

    Press aides for both the Queen and the prime

    minister declined to comment on the meeting, as is their habit. But days after the Observer story appeared, the

    Queen indeed raised awareness by presiding over the opening of a British-German conference on climate change, in

    Berlin. "I might just point out, that's a pretty unusual thing for her to do," says Sir David King, Britain's

    chief scientific adviser. "She doesn't take part in anything that would be overtly political." King, who has

    briefed the Queen on climate change, would not comment on the Observer report except to say, "If it were true, it

    wouldn't surprise me."

    With spring arriving in England three weeks earlier than it did 50 years ago, the

    Queen could now see signs of climate change with her own eyes. Sandringham, her country estate north of London,

    overlooks Britain's premier bird-watching spot: the vast North Sea wetlands known as the Wash. A lifelong

    outdoorswoman, the Queen had doubtless observed the V-shaped flocks of pink-footed geese that descend on the Wash

    every winter. But in recent years, says Mark Avery, conservation director of the Royal Society for the Protection of

    Birds, she also would have seen a species new to the area: little egrets. These shiny white birds are native to

    Southern Europe, Avery says, "but in the last 5 to 10 years they have spread very rapidly to Northern Europe. We

    can't prove this is because of rising temperatures, but it sure looks like it."

    Temperatures are rising, the

    Queen learned from King and other scientists, because greenhouse gases are trapping heat in the atmosphere. Carbon

    dioxide, the most prevalent of such gases, is released whenever fossil fuels are burned or forests catch fire.

    Global warming, the scientists explained, threatens to raise sea levels as much as three feet by the end of the 21st

    century, thanks to melting glaciers and swollen oceans. (Water expands when heated.)

    This would leave much of

    eastern England, including areas near Sandringham, underwater. Global warming would also bring more heat waves like

    the one in the summer of 2003 that killed 31,000 people across Europe. It might even shut down the Gulf Stream, the

    flow of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico that gives Europe its mild climate. If the Gulf Stream were to halt—and

    it has already slowed 30 percent since 1992—Europe's temperatures would plunge, agriculture would collapse, London

    would no longer feel like New York but like Anchorage.

    The Queen, says King, "got it" on climate change, and

    she wasn't alone. "Everyone in this country, from the political parties to the scientific establishment, to the

    Archbishop of Canterbury, to our oil companies and the larger business community, has come to a popular consensus

    about climate change—a sense of alarm and a conviction that action is needed now, not in the future," says Tony

    Juniper, executive director of the British arm of the environmental group Friends of the Earth.

    At the time

    of his meeting with the Queen, Blair was being attacked on climate change from all ideological sides, with even the

    Conservatives charging that he was not doing enough. Yet Blair's statements on the issue went far beyond those of

    most world leaders. He had called the Kyoto Protocol, which has been ratified by 162 countries and requires

    industrial nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels, "not radical enough." The

    world's climate scientists, Blair pointed out, had estimated that 60 percent cuts in emissions were needed, and he

    committed Britain to reaching that goal by 2050.

    But it wouldn't matter how much Britain cut its

    greenhouse-gas emissions if other nations didn't do the same. The U.S. was key, not only because it was the

    world's largest emitter but because its refusal to reduce emissions led China, India, Brazil, and other large

    developing countries to ask why they should do so. All this Blair had also said publicly. In 2001 he criticized the

    Bush administration for withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol. In 2004 he said it was essential to bring the U.S. into

    the global effort against climate change, despite its opposition to Kyoto.

    It was no secret that Bush opposed

    mandatory emissions limits, but Blair, who had risked his political future to back the deeply unpopular war in Iraq,

    was uniquely positioned to lobby the president. Bush owed him one. At the same time, Blair needed to show his

    domestic audience that he could stand up to Bush, that he wasn't the presidential "poodle" his critics

    claimed.

    To compel Bush to engage the issue, Blair made climate change a lead agenda item at the July 2005

    meeting of the Group of 8, the alliance of the world's eight richest nations. A month before the meeting, which was

    held at Gleneagles, in Scotland, Blair flew to Washington to see Bush face-to-face. That same day, the national

    academies of science of all the G-8 nations, as well as those of China, India, and Brazil, released a joint

    statement declaring that climate change was a grave problem that required immediate action.

    On the morning of

    July 7, the summit was interrupted by the shocking news that four suicide bombers had set off explosions in London,

    killing 56 people. Blair rushed to the scene, but he returned that night, still determined to secure an

    agreement.

    In the end, however, Bush held firm. Washington vetoed all references to mandatory emissions cuts

    or timelines, and the climate-change issue was overshadowed by African debt relief, which had been publicized by Bob

    Geldof's Live 8 concerts.

    "There were no tough targets at Gleneagles because we would not have got all

    signatures on the document," says King, who adds, "We might well have" gotten seven—that is, every nation but the

    U.S. The farthest the G-8 leaders went—and even this required a battle, says King—was to include a sentence that

    read, in part, "While uncertainties remain in our understanding of climate science, we know enough to act

    now."

    But seven weeks later, nature acted first, and it was the United States she hit.

    No one can say

    for sure whether global warming caused Hurricane Katrina, which slammed into the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. But

    it certainly fit the pattern. The scientific rule of thumb is that one can never blame any one weather event on any

    single cause. The earth's weather system is too complex for that. Most scientists agree, however, that global

    warming makes extra-strong hurricanes such as Katrina more likely because it encourages hot oceans, a precondition

    of hurricane formation.

    "It's a bit like saying, 'My grandmother died of lung cancer, and she smoked for

    the last 20 years of her life—smoking killed her,'" explains Kerry Emanuel, a professor at the Massachusetts

    Institute of Technology who has studied hurricanes for 20 years. "Well, the problem is, there are an awful lot of

    people who die of lung cancer who never smoked. There are a lot of people who smoked all their lives and die of

    something else. So all you can say, even [though] the evidence statistically is clear connecting lung cancer to

    smoking, is that [the grandmother] upped her probability."

    Just weeks before Katrina struck, Emanuel

    published a paper in the scientific journal Nature demonstrating that hurricanes had grown more powerful as global

    temperatures rose in the 20th century. Now, he says, by adding more greenhouse gases to the earth's atmosphere,

    humans are "loading the climatic dice in favor of more powerful hurricanes in the future."

    But most Americans

    heard nothing about Hurricane Katrina's association with global warming. Media coverage instead reflected the views

    of the Bush administration—specifically, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which declared that

    the hurricane was the result of natural factors. An outcry from N.O.A.A.'s scientists led the agency to backtrack

    from that statement in February 2006, but by then conventional wisdom was set in place. Post-Katrina New Orleans may

    eventually be remembered as the first major U.S. casualty of global warming, yet most Americans still don't know

    what hit us.

    Sad to say, Katrina was the perfect preview of what global warming might look like in the 21st

    century. First, Katrina struck a city that was already below sea level—which is where rising waters could put many

    coastal dwellers in the years ahead. In 2001, the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

    (I.P.C.C.), a peer-reviewed, international collaboration among thousands of scientists that is the world's leading

    authority on climate change, predicted that sea levels could rise as much as three feet by 2100. By coincidence,

    three feet is about how much New Orleans sank during the 20th century. That was because levees built to keep the

    Mississippi River from flooding also kept the river from depositing silt that would have replenished the underlying

    land mass, explains Mike Tidwell, the author of Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun

    Coast. "You could say that in New Orleans we brought the ocean to the people," Tidwell adds, "which is pretty much

    what global warming will do to other cities in the future."

    What's more, Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane,

    the strongest there is. Such extreme weather events will likely become more frequent as global warming intensifies,

    says the I.P.C.C. Yes, Katrina's winds had slowed to high–Category 3 levels by the time it made landfall, but it

    was the hurricane's storm surge that killed people—a surge that formed in the Gulf of Mexico when the storm was

    still Category 5. Thus, Katrina unleashed 10 to 15 feet of water on a city that was already significantly below sea

    level.

    To envision global warming's future impacts, the illustrations accompanying this article reflect this

    and other scenarios. [For illustrations, see the May 2006 issue of Vanity Fair. The three large-scale illustrations

    are an artist's interpretations of projections generated for Vanity Fair by Applied Science Associates Inc.

    (appsci.com), a marine-science consulting firm based in Rhode Island. The projections do not account for small-scale

    features such as coastal-protection structures.

    The effects of a three-foot sea-level rise compounded by a

    storm surge from a Category 3 hurricane are shown in the image of the Hamptons, which would suffer severe flooding.

    The image of Washington, D.C., shows the effects of a 20-foot sea-level rise, which is what scientists expect if the

    entire Greenland ice sheet melts. The ice sheet has shrunk 50 cubic miles in the past year alone, and is now melting

    twice as fast as previously believed.

    Finally, the image of New York City shows the effects of an 80-foot

    rise in sea levels. That's what would happen if not only the Greenland ice sheet but its counterpart in the

    Antarctic were to melt, says James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Hansen, who

    put climate change on the media map in 1988 by saying that man-made global warming had already begun, made headlines

    again earlier this year when he complained that White House political appointees were trying to block him from

    speaking freely about the need for rapid reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. Hansen warns that, if global

    emissions continue on their current trajectory, the ice sheets will not survive, because global temperatures will

    increase by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. "The last time the earth was that warm, sea levels

    were 80 feet higher than today," he says. It will likely take hundreds of years for sea levels to rise the full 80

    feet, but the process would be irreversible, and the rises would not be gradual. "You're going to be continually

    faced with a changing coastline, which will force coastal dwellers to constantly relocate," he says.

    This

    article's smaller, aerial-view illustrations are based on simulations by the National Environmental Trust, a

    nonprofit group in Washington, D.C. N.E.T. relied on data from the I.P.C.C., the U.S. Geological Survey, and the

    N.O.A.A. Additional N.E.T. simulations are available at net.org. Philip Clapp, N.E.T.'s president, says, "The U.S.

    government has never released its own simulations. The Bush administration doesn't want these pictures in front of

    the American people because they show that a three-foot sea-level rise plus storm flooding would have catastrophic

    consequences."

    In New York, it would leave much of Lower Manhattan, including the Ground Zero memorial and

    the entire financial district, underwater. La Guardia and John F. Kennedy airports would meet the same fate. In

    Washington, D.C., the Potomac River would swell dramatically, stretching all the way to the Capitol lawn and to

    within two blocks of the White House.

    Since roughly half the world's 6.5 billion people live near

    coastlines, a three-foot sea-level rise would be even more punishing overseas. Amsterdam, Venice, Cairo, Shanghai,

    Manila, and Calcutta are some of the cities most threatened. In many places the people and governments are too poor

    to erect adequate barriers—think of low-lying Bangladesh, where an estimated 18 million people are at risk—so

    experts fear that they will migrate to neighboring lands, raising the prospect of armed conflict. A

    Pentagon-commissioned study warned in 2003 that climate change could bring mega-droughts, mass starvation, and even

    nuclear war as countries such as China, India, and Pakistan battle over scarce food and water.

    These are just

    some of the reasons why David King wrote in Science in 2004, "Climate change is the most severe problem that we are

    facing today—more serious even than the threat of terrorism." King's comment raised hackles in Washington and led a

    top press aide to Tony Blair to try to muzzle him. But the science adviser tells me he "absolutely" stands by his

    statement. By no means does King underestimate terrorism; advising the British government on that threat, he says,

    "is a very important part of my job." But the hazards presented by climate change are so severe and far-reaching

    that, in his view, they overshadow not only every other environmental threat but every other threat,

    period.

    "Take India," King says. "Their monsoon is a fact of life that they have developed their agricultural

    economy around. If the monsoon is down by 10 percent one year, they have massive losses of crops. If it's 10

    percent over, they have massive flood problems. [If climate change ends up] switching off the monsoon in India, or

    even changing it outside those limits, it would lead to massive global economic de-stabilization. The kind of

    situation we need to avoid creating is one where populations are so de-stabilized—Bangladesh being flooded, India no

    food—that they're all seeking alternative habitats. These, in our globalized economy, would be very difficult for

    all of us to manage."

    The worst scenarios of global warming might still be avoided, scientists say, if

    humanity reduces its greenhouse-gas emissions dramatically, and very soon. The I.P.C.C. has estimated that emissions

    must fall to 60 percent below 1990 levels before 2050, over a period when global population is expected to increase

    by 37 percent and per-capita energy consumption will surely rise as billions of people in Asia, Africa, and South

    America strive to ascend from poverty.

    Yet even if such a reduction were achieved, a significant rise in sea

    levels may be unavoidable. "It's getting harder and harder to say we'll avoid a three-foot sea-level rise, though

    it won't necessarily happen in this century," says Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and

    international affairs at Princeton. Oppenheimer's pessimism is rooted in the lag effects of the climate system:

    oceans store heat for a century or longer before releasing it; carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for decades

    or longer before dissipating.

    According to King, even if humanity were to stop emitting carbon dioxide today,

    "temperatures will keep rising and all the impacts will keep changing for about 25 years."

    The upshot is that

    it has become too late to prevent climate change; we can only adapt to it. This unhappy fact is not well understood

    by the general public; advocates downplay it, perhaps for fear of fostering a paralyzing despair. But there is no

    getting around it: because humanity waited so long to take decisive action, we are now stuck with a certain amount

    of global warming and the climate changes it will bring—rising seas, fiercer heat, deeper droughts, stronger storms.

    The World Health Organization estimates that climate change is already helping to kill 150,000 people a year, mainly

    in Africa and Asia. That number is bound to rise as global warming intensifies in the years ahead.

    The

    inevitability of global warming does not mean we should not act, King emphasizes: "The first message to our

    political leaders is, action is required. Whether or not we get global agreement to reduce emissions, we all need to

    adapt to the impacts that are in the pipeline." That means doing all the things that were not done in New Orleans:

    building sound levees and seawalls, restoring coastal wetlands (which act like speed bumps to weaken hurricanes'

    storm surges), strengthening emergency-preparedness networks and health-care systems, and much more.

    Beyond

    this crucial first step—which most governments worldwide have yet to consider—humanity can cushion the severity of

    future global warming by limiting greenhouse-gas emissions. Hansen says we must stabilize emissions—which currently

    are rising 2 percent a year—by 2015, and then reduce them. Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, a book based on a

    scientific conference convened by Tony Blair before the G-8 summit, estimates that we may have until 2025 to peak

    and reduce.

    The goal is to stop global warming before it crosses tipping points and attains unstoppable

    momentum from "positive feedbacks." For example, should the Greenland ice sheet melt, white ice—which reflects

    sunlight back into space—would be replaced by dark water, which absorbs sunlight and drives further

    warming.

    Positive feedbacks can trigger the kind of abrupt, irreversible climate changes that scientists call

    "nonlinear." Once again, Hurricane Katrina provides a sobering preview of what that means. "Hurricanes are the

    mother of all nonlinear events, because small changes in initial conditions can lead to enormous changes in

    outcomes," says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the

    former chief environmental adviser to the German government. "A few percent increase in a hurricane's wind speed

    can double its destructiveness under certain circumstances."

    Although scientists apply the neutral term

    "climate change" to all of these phenomena, "climate chaos" better conveys the abrupt, interconnected, wide-ranging

    consequences that lie in store. "It's a very appropriate term for the layperson," says Schellnhuber, a physicist

    who specializes in chaos theory. "I keep telling politicians that I'm not so concerned about a gradual climate

    change that may force farmers in Great Britain to plant different crops. I'm worried about triggering positive

    feedbacks that, in the worst case, could kick off some type of runaway greenhouse dynamics."

    Among the

    reasons climate change is a bigger problem than terrorism, David King tells me, is that the problem is rooted in

    humanity's burning of oil, coal, and natural gas, "and people don't want to let that go." Which is understandable.

    These carbon-based fuels have powered civilization since the dawn of the industrial era, delivering enormous wealth,

    convenience, and well-being even as they overheated the atmosphere. Luckily, the idea that reducing greenhouse-gas

    emissions will wreck our economy, as President Bush said in 2005 when defending his opposition to the Kyoto

    Protocol, is disproved by experience. "In Britain," King told the environmental Web site Grist, "our economy since

    1990 has grown by about 40 percent, and our emissions have decreased by 14 percent."

    Ultimately, society must

    shift onto a new energy foundation based on alternative fuels, not only because of global warming but also because

    oil "will get harder and costlier to find" in the years ahead, says Ronald Oxburgh, the former chairman of the

    British arm of Royal Dutch Shell oil. "The group around President Bush have been saying that, even if climate change

    is real, it would be terribly costly to shift away from carbon-based fuels," Oxburgh continues. "Of course it would,

    if you try to make the change overnight. But that's not how you do it. If governments make the decision to shift

    our society to a new energy foundation, and they make it clear to everyone this is what we're doing by laying out

    clear requirements and incentives, corporations will respond and get the job done."

    The opening move in this

    transition is to invest massively in energy efficiency. Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a

    think tank that consults for corporations and governments around the world, has demonstrated that measures such as

    insulating buildings and driving more fuel-efficient vehicles could reduce humanity's consumption of energy and

    natural resources by a factor of four. And efficiency investments have a demonstrated record of creating jobs and

    boosting profits, suggesting that emissions can be reduced without crippling economies.

    One of the first

    moves Angela Merkel announced as the new chancellor of Germany last fall was the extension of a Green Party

    initiative to upgrade energy efficiency in the nation's pre-1978 housing stock. Most of that housing is in the

    former East Germany, where unemployment approaches 20 percent. Replacing old furnaces and installing efficient

    windows and lights will produce thousands of well-paying laborers' jobs that by their nature cannot be

    outsourced.

    Corporations, too, have discovered that energy efficiency can be profitable. Over a three-year

    period beginning in 1999, BP invested $20 million to reduce the emissions from its internal operations and saved

    $650 million—32 times the original investment.

    Individuals can cash in as well. Although buying a

    super-efficient car or refrigerator may cost more up front, over time it saves the consumer money through lower

    energy bills.

    Efficiency is no silver bullet, nor can it forever neutralize the effects of billions of people

    consuming more and more all the time. It can, however, buy humanity time to further develop and deploy

    alternative-energy technologies. Solar and wind power have made enormous strides in recent years, but the technology

    to watch is carbon sequestration, a method of capturing and then safely storing the carbon dioxide produced by the

    combustion of fossil fuels. In theory, sequestration would allow nations to continue burning coal—the most abundant

    fuel in the world, and the foundation of the Chinese and Indian economies—without worsening the climate problem. "If

    carbon capture is not feasible, our choices are much less good, and the cost of climate change is going to be much

    higher," says Jeffrey D. Sachs, the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and a special adviser to

    the United Nations.

    No one pretends that phasing out carbon-based fuels will be easy. The momentum of the

    climate system means that "a certain amount of pain is inevitable," says Michael Oppenheimer. "But we still have a

    choice between pain and disaster."

    Unfortunately, we are getting a late start, which is something of a

    puzzle. The threat of global warming has been recognized at the highest levels of government for more than 25 years.

    Former president Jimmy Carter highlighted it in 1980, and Al Gore championed it in Congress throughout the 1980s.

    Margaret Thatcher, the arch-conservative prime minister of Britain from 1979 to 1990, delivered some of the

    hardest-hitting speeches ever given on climate change. But progress stalled in the 1990s, even as Gore was elected

    vice president and the scientific case grew definitive. It turned out there were powerful pockets of resistance to

    tackling this problem, and they put up a hell of a fight.

    Call him the $45 million man. That's how much

    money Dr. Frederick Seitz, a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, helped R. J. Reynolds Industries,

    Inc., give away to fund medical research in the 1970s and 1980s. The research avoided the central health issue

    facing Reynolds—"They didn't want us looking at the health effects of cigarette smoking," says Seitz, who is now

    94—but it nevertheless served the tobacco industry's purposes. Throughout those years, the industry frequently ran

    ads in newspapers and magazines citing its multi-million-dollar research program as proof of its commitment to

    science—and arguing that the evidence on the health effects of smoking was mixed.

    In the 1990s, Seitz began

    arguing that the science behind global warming was likewise inconclusive and certainly didn't warrant imposing

    mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. He made his case vocally, trashing the integrity of a 1995 I.P.C.C.

    report on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal, signing a letter to the Clinton administration accusing it of

    misrepresenting the science, and authoring a paper which said that global warming and ozone depletion were

    exaggerated threats devised by environmentalists and unscrupulous scientists pushing a political agenda. In that

    same paper, Seitz asserted that secondhand smoke posed no real health risks, an opinion he repeats in our interview.

    "I just can't believe it's that bad," he says.

    Al Gore and others have said, but generally without offering

    evidence, that the people who deny the dangers of climate change are like the tobacco executives who denied the

    dangers of smoking. The example of Frederick Seitz, described here in full for the first time, shows that the two

    camps overlap in ways that are quite literal—and lucrative. Seitz earned approximately $585,000 for his consulting

    work for R. J. Reynolds, according to company documents unearthed by researchers for the Greenpeace Web site

    ExxonSecrets.org and confirmed by Seitz. Meanwhile, during the years he consulted for Reynolds, Seitz continued to

    draw a salary as president emeritus at Rockefeller University, an institution founded in 1901 and subsidized with

    profits from Standard Oil, the predecessor corporation of ExxonMobil.

    Seitz was the highest-ranking scientist

    among a band of doubters who, beginning in the early 1990s, resolutely disputed suggestions that climate change was

    a real and present danger. As a former president of the National Academy of Sciences (from 1962 to 1969) and a

    winner of the National Medal of Science, Seitz gave such objections instant credibility. Richard Lindzen, a

    professor of meteorology at M.I.T., was another high-profile scientist who consistently denigrated the case for

    global warming. But most of the public argument was carried by lesser scientists and, above all, by lobbyists and

    paid spokesmen for the Global Climate Coalition. Created and funded by the energy and auto industries, the Coalition

    spent millions of dollars spreading the message that global warming was an uncertain threat. Journalist Ross

    Gelbspan exposed the corporate campaign in his 1997 book, The Heat Is On, which quoted a 1991 strategy memo: the

    goal was to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact."

    "Not trivial" is how Seitz reckons the

    influence he and fellow skeptics have had, and their critics agree. The effect on media coverage was striking,

    according to Bill McKibben, who in 1989 published the first major popular book on global warming, The End of Nature.

    Introducing the 10th-anniversary edition, in 1999, McKibben noted that virtually every week over the past decade

    studies had appeared in scientific publications painting an ever more alarming picture of the global-warming threat.

    Most news reports, on the other hand, "seem to be coming from some other planet."

    The deniers' arguments

    were frequently cited in Washington policy debates. Their most important legislative victory was the Senate's

    95-to-0 vote in 1997 to oppose U.S. participation in any international agreement—i.e., the Kyoto Protocol—that

    imposed mandatory greenhouse-gas reductions on the U.S.

    The ferocity of this resistance helps explain why the

    Clinton administration achieved so little on climate change, says Tim Wirth, the first under-secretary of state for

    global affairs, who served as President Clinton's chief climate negotiator. "The opponents were so strongly

    organized that the administration got spooked and backed off of things it should have done," says Wirth. "The Kyoto

    negotiations got watered down and watered down, and after we signed it the administration didn't try to get it

    ratified. They didn't even send people up to the Hill to talk to senators about ratifying it."

    "I wanted to

    push for ratification," responds Gore. "A decision was made not to. If our congressional people had said there was

    even a remote chance of ratifying, I could have convinced Clinton to do it—his heart was in the right place.… But I

    remember a meeting in the White House with some environmental groups where I asked them for the names of 10 senators

    who would vote to ratify. They came up with one, Paul Wellstone. If your most optimistic supporters can't identify

    10 likely gettables, then people in the administration start to ask, 'Are you a fanatic, Al? Is this a suicide

    mission?'" (Clinton did not respond to e-mailed questions.)

    James Hansen, without singling out any

    individual, accuses global-warming deniers of "acting like lawyers, not scientists, because no matter what new

    evidence comes in, their conclusion is already decided." Richard Lindzen responds that Hansen has been wrong time

    and time again and operates "one of the worst climate models around." Lindzen agrees that both global temperature

    and atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide have increased over the last century. But temperatures won't rise

    much further, he says, because humans aren't the main driving force in the climate system. The reason most

    scientists disagree with him, Lindzen explains, is simple careerism. "Once President Bush the elder began spending

    $2 billion a year on climate science, scientists developed a self-interest in maintaining this is an urgent

    problem," he says, adding that the scientific community's fixation on climate change will be remembered as an

    episode of "mass insanity."

    Among many rebuttals to the deniers' arguments, perhaps the most authoritative

    collection is found on the Web site of Britain's national academy of science, the Royal Society. But such rebuttals

    have little impact on true believers, says Robert May, the Society's former president. "[Nobel Prize–winning

    physicist] Max Planck used to say that people don't change their minds [because of evidence]," he adds. "The

    science simply moves on and those people eventually die off."

    But if the deniers appear to have lost the

    scientific argument, they prolonged the policy battle, delaying actions to reduce emissions when such cuts mattered

    most. "For 25 years, people have been warning that we had a window of opportunity to take action, and if we waited

    until the effects were obvious it would be too late to avoid major consequences," says Oppenheimer. "Had some

    individual countries, especially the United States, begun to act in the early to mid-1990s, we might have made it.

    But we didn't, and now the impacts are here."

    "The goal of the disinformation campaign wasn't to win the

    debate," says Gelbspan. "The goal was simply to keep the debate going. When the public hears the media report that

    some scientists believe warming is real but others don't, its reaction is 'Come back and tell us when you're

    really sure.' So no political action is taken."

    Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who

    chaired the 1994 hearings where tobacco executives unanimously declared under oath that cigarettes were not

    addictive, watches today's global-warming deniers with a sense of déjà vu. It all reminds him of the confidential

    slogan a top tobacco flack coined when arguing that the science on smoking remained unsettled: "Doubt is our

    product." Now, Waxman says, "not only are we seeing the same tactics the tobacco industry used, we're seeing some

    of the same groups. For example, the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was created [in 1993] to debunk the

    dangers of secondhand smoking before it moved on to global warming."

    The scientific work Frederick Seitz

    oversaw for R. J. Reynolds from 1978 to 1987 was "perfectly fine research, but off the point," says Stanton A.

    Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a lead author of The Cigarette

    Papers (1996), which exposed the inner workings of the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation. "Looking at stress,

    at genetics, at lifestyle issues let Reynolds claim it was funding real research. But then it could cloud the issue

    by saying, 'Well, what about this other possible causal factor?' It's like coming up with 57 other reasons for

    Hurricane Katrina rather than global warming."

    For his part, Seitz says he was comfortable taking tobacco

    money, "as long as it was green. I'm not quite clear about this moralistic issue. We had absolutely free rein to

    decide how the money was spent." Did the research give the tobacco industry political cover? "I'll leave that to

    the philosophers and priests," he replies.

    Seitz is equally nonplussed by the extraordinary disavowal the

    National Academy of Sciences issued following his most visible intervention in the global-warming debate. In 1998 he

    urged fellow scientists to sign an Oregon group's petition saying that global warming was much ado about little.

    The petition attracted more than 17,000 signatories and received widespread media attention. But posted along with

    the petition was a paper by four global-warming deniers that was presented in virtually the same layout and typeface

    used by the National Academy of Sciences in its scholarly journal. The formatting, combined with Seitz's signature,

    gave the clear impression that the academy endorsed the petition. The academy quickly released a statement

    disclaiming any connection with the petition or its suggestion that global warming was not real. Scientific American

    later determined that only 1,400 of the petition's signatories claimed to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related

    science, and of these, some either were not even aware of the petition or later changed their minds.

    Today,

    Seitz admits that "it was stupid" for the Oregon activists to copy the academy's format. Still, he doesn't

    understand why the academy felt compelled to disavow the petition, which he continues to cite as proof that it is

    "not true" there is a scientific consensus on global warming.

    The accumulation of scientific evidence

    eventually led British Petroleum to resign from the Global Climate Coalition in 1996. Shell, Ford, and other

    corporations soon left as well, and in 2002 the coalition closed down. But Gelbspan, whose Web site tracks the

    deniers' activities, notes that key coalition personnel have since taken up positions in the Bush administration,

    including Harlan Watson, the State Department's chief climate negotiator. (Watson declined to be

    interviewed.)

    ExxonMobil—long the most recalcitrant corporation on global warming—is still spending millions

    of dollars a year funding an array of organizations that downplay the problem, including the George C. Marshall

    Institute, where Seitz is chairman emeritus. John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA, calls the

    denial campaign "one of the great crimes of our era." Passacantando is "quite confident" that class-action lawsuits

    will eventually be filed against corporations who denied global warming's dangers. Five years ago, he told

    executives from one company, "You're going to wish you were the tobacco companies once this stuff hits and people

    realize you were the ones who blocked [action]."

    The public discussion about climate change in the U.S. is

    years behind that in Britain and the rest of Europe, and the deniers are a big reason why. "In the United States,

    the Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers are deeply skeptical of climate-change science and

    the need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions," says Fiona Harvey, the environment correspondent for the Financial

    Times. "In Britain, the equivalent body, the Confederation of British Industry, is absolutely behind the science and

    agrees on the need to cut emissions. The only differences are over how to do that."

    America's media coverage

    is also well behind the curve, says Harvey. "In the United States you have lots of news stories that, in the name of

    balance, give equal credence to the skeptics. We don't do that here—not because we're not balanced but because we

    think it's unbalanced to give equal validity to a fringe few with no science behind them."

    Prominent

    right-wing media outlets in the U.S., especially the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, continue to parrot

    the claims of climate-change deniers. (Paul A. Gigot, the page's editor, declined to be interviewed.) Few beat

    reporters are still taken in, but their bosses—the editors and producers who decide which stories run, and how

    prominently—are another matter. Charles Alexander, the former environmental editor at Time, complains that, while

    coverage has improved recently, media executives continue to regard climate change as just another environmental

    issue, rather than as the overriding challenge of the 21st century.

    "Americans are hearing more about

    reducing greenhouse emissions from BP ads than from news stories in Time, The New York Times, or any other U.S.

    media outlet," Alexander says. "This will go down as the greatest act of mass denial in history."

    In 2002,

    Alexander went to see Andrew Heyward, then the president of CBS News, after running into him at a Harvard reunion.

    "I talked to him about climate change and other global environmental threats, and made the case that they were more

    dangerous than terrorism and CBS should be doing much more coverage of them," Alexander recalls. "He didn't dispute

    any of my factual points, but he did say the reason CBS didn't do more of that coverage was that 'people don't

    want to hear all that gloom and doom'—in other words, the environment wasn't a ratings winner. He seemed to think

    CBS News's job was to tell people what they wanted to hear, not what they need to know, and I think that attitude

    is increasingly true for the news business in general."

    "That's bullshit," responds Heyward, who left CBS in

    2005. "I've never been one of those guys who thinks news has to be light and bright. And in talking to Charles, I

    wasn't stating the policy of CBS News. I was just trying to explain to an old college classmate why there isn't

    more coverage of the environment on TV. Charles is an advocate, and advocates are never happy with the amount of

    coverage their cause gets."

    American television did, however, give prime-time coverage to the latest, and

    most famous, global-warming denier: novelist Michael Crichton. ABC's 20/20 broadcast a very friendly interview with

    Crichton when he published State of Fear, a novel arguing that anyone who bought into the phony scientific consensus

    on global warming was a modern equivalent of the early-20th-century eugenicists who cited scientific "proof" for the

    superiority of the white race.

    When Crichton was invited to testify before the Environment and Public Works

    Committee, observers in Britain were floored. "This is fairyland," exclaims Michael Meacher, the member of

    Parliament who served as Tony Blair's environment minister from 1997 to 2003. "You have a science-fiction writer

    testifying before the United States Senate on global-warming policy? I mean, you can almost see the little boy off

    to the side, like in the story of the emperor's clothes, saying, 'But he's a science-fiction writer, isn't he?'

    It's just ludicrous."

    The man who invited Crichton, committee chairman James M. Inhofe, a Republican from

    oil-rich Oklahoma, had already said on the floor of the Senate that global warming was "the greatest hoax ever

    perpetrated on the American people." In an e-mail interview, Inhofe defended Crichton's appearance, noting that the

    writer holds a medical degree from Harvard. (Crichton is also a post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for

    Biological Studies.) The senator added that he stood by his hoax statement as well.

    David King responded that

    Britain's climate-science research is headquartered within the Ministry of Defense, "and you wouldn't find a group

    of people less likely to perpetrate a hoax than the people in the Ministry of Defense."

    King has "extremist

    views," Inhofe replied. If the I.P.C.C. and the world's leading academies of science echo King's views, he argued,

    it is because they actively silence dissidents: "Scientists who believe warming trends are naturally occurring, or

    benign, are almost always excluded from climate-change conferences and meetings because their conclusions do not

    support the political agendas of the others who host the conferences." (The I.P.C.C. denies this accusation.) The

    truth, Inhofe continued, is that "there is no consensus on the science of global warming." As proof, he cited—what

    else?—Frederick Seitz's Oregon petition.

    Paul H. O'Neill, who served nearly two years as George W. Bush's

    secretary of the Treasury, does not buy the common notion that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney resist taking

    action on global warming because they are oilmen. "I don't think either one of them is an oilman," insists

    O'Neill. "You have to have success to be an oilman. It's like saying you're a ballplayer, but you never got on

    the field."

    In 1998, while running the aluminum giant Alcoa, O'Neill was among the first U.S. business

    leaders to recognize the enormity of climate change. He says Bush asked him, early in the first term, to put

    together a plan of action, but it was ignored. Like Bush, O'Neill opposed Kyoto, so he proposed other ways to move

    forward. But instead, he says, the administration "cherry-picked" the science on climate change to justify taking no

    action, "just like it cherry-picked the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction" to justify the invasion of

    Iraq.

    "The United States is the only entity on this planet turning its back on this problem," says

    Massachusetts senator John Kerry. "Even as he talks about protecting the security of the nation, the president is

    willfully choosing not to tackle this problem. History will record it as one of the greatest derelictions of duty

    ever."

    Bush-administration officials counter that they are doing more to fight global warming than anyone

    else—just with different tools than those favored by supporters of the Kyoto Protocol. James L. Connaughton, the

    head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, starts by pointing out that Bush has raised federal

    mileage standards for S.U.V.'s and light trucks. When I point out that the increase is tiny (a mere 0.3 miles per

    gallon, says Dan Becker of the Sierra Club), Connaughton maintains that over time further increases will result in

    substantial energy savings, especially when paired with the administration's new tax credits for efficient

    vehicles. It's also important, he says, to "keep personal income taxes in check" to encourage people to buy these

    new cars. What's more, the administration recently provided $10 billion in incentives for alternative-energy

    development and $40 billion over 10 years to encourage farmers to plant trees and preserve grassland that can soak

    up carbon dioxide.

    The administration opposes the Kyoto Protocol, Connaughton claims, because its mandatory

    emissions cuts would punish the American economy, costing as many as five million jobs. It would also dry up the

    capital needed to fund the technological research that will ultimately solve global warming.

    "It's important

    not to get distracted by chasing short-term reductions in greenhouse emissions. The real payoff is in long-term

    technological breakthroughs," says John H. Marburger III, the president's science adviser. Besides, "there is no

    question that mitigating the impact of climate change as it takes place will be much less [expensive] than the costs

    of reducing oil and coal use in the short term."

    "The world is now on a trajectory to slow the growth in

    greenhouse-gas emissions," concludes Connaughton, who as a lawyer represented mining and chemical interests before

    joining the administration. "I'm highly confident we will stabilize [those emissions]." He says that's exactly

    what happened over the last 80 years with air pollution. He seems to take pleasure in observing that, under Bush,

    the U.S. has actually reduced its annual emissions, which, he says, is more than some of its harshest critics

    overseas have done.

    It's a cheerful story, but virtually no one else believes it. Waiting 80 years to

    eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions would guarantee runaway global warming, says James Hansen. In January, six former

    chiefs of the Environmental Protection Agency, including five who served Republican presidents, said Bush needed to

    do much more to fight climate change. In Britain, Peter Ainsworth, the Conservative Party's shadow secretary of

    state for the environment, says his party is "saddened" by the Bush administration's approach. "We would have

    preferred the Bush administration to take a leadership position on this problem … instead of allowing itself to be

    seen as foot-dragging."

    Outsiders doubt President Bush's desire to confront the issue, pointing out that his

    right-wing political base agrees with Inhofe that global warming is a liberal hoax. Critics also question the

    administration's faith in volunteerism. They argue that imposing mandatory timelines and emissions limits would put

    a price tag on carbon and push corporations and individuals to use less of it. "Long-term research is fine, but to

    offer that as a substitute for the stark necessity of near-term cuts in emissions is a kind of magical

    thinking—trusting that something will happen to make everything all right," says Donald Kennedy, the editor in chief

    of Science. In fact, despite Bush's call to end our "addiction" to oil, his 2007 budget actually reduced funding

    for alternative energy and efficiency.

    Nor has the Bush administration cut short-term emissions, says a

    European diplomat who requested anonymity because he has to work with Bush officials. Citing data from the Energy

    Information Administration, the diplomat says Connaughton is correct to say that U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions

    declined, but only in the single year following the 2001 terrorist attacks, owing to the ensuing economic recession.

    U.S. emissions increased in every other year of Bush's presidency, making it "complete hokum" to claim that Bush's

    policies are cutting emissions, the diplomat says, adding of Connaughton, "I'm afraid Jim has drunk the

    Kool-Aid."

    As for John Marburger's assertion that it will be cheaper to adapt to climate change than to try

    to head it off, Michael Oppenheimer says, "It's a sad day when the president is being told by his science adviser

    that climate change isn't worth avoiding. It may be possible for rich nations and people to adapt, but 90 percent

    of humanity doesn't have the resources to deal with climate change. It's unethical to condemn them just because

    the people in power don't want to act."

    "I think it is a slam dunk that we are on a path of dangerous

    anthropogenic interference with the climate, and it is also absolutely clear that what this administration has

    proposed so far will not get us off that path," says Jeffrey Sachs. "The administration says several things I agree

    with: technology is extremely important, global warming is a long-term issue, and we can't do it without China and

    India [because their greenhouse-gas emissions will soon outstrip our own]. But none of this adds up to taking no

    action. The fact that China and other developing economies have to be involved doesn't mean the United States

    refuses to commit to specific actions; it means the U.S. should commit itself, in part to help bring the others

    in.

    "I've had discussions with leaders in China and India," adds Sachs. '‘They are very concerned about

    climate change because they see the effects it could have on them. We should help to set up prototype

    carbon-capture-and-sequestration power plants in China and India, and the rich countries should help to finance

    them. It's hard to ask poor countries to bear the full financial burden of these technologies, especially when it

    is the rich countries' past burning of carbon fuels that has created most of the problem. But the U.S. takes every

    opportunity to do virtually nothing to engage in practical steps with the developing countries."

    Ask Al Gore

    how to avoid dangerous climate change and, despite his wonkish reputation, he doesn't begin by talking about hybrid

    cars or carbon sequestration. No, says Gore, the first imperative is to "punch through the massive denial and

    resistance" that still exist in the United States.

    But the rest of the world is no longer waiting for the

    Bush administration. At the international climate conference held in Montreal last year, European nations called the

    administration's bluff when it refused to commit even to the breathtakingly modest step of someday discussing what

    framework might follow the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. At past summits, the administration's

    stubbornness led other nations to back down in hopes of keeping America involved in the process. At Montreal, the

    world quit waiting for Godot and recognized, as Elliot Morley, Tony Blair's minister of the environment, says,

    "there are a lot of voices in the United States in addition to the Bush administration, and we will work with all of

    them to address this problem."

    The same thing is happening inside the U.S. "It is very clear that Congress

    will put mandatory greenhouse-gas-emission reductions in place, immediately after George W. Bush leaves office,"

    says Philip Clapp of N.E.T. "Even the Fortune 500 is positioning itself for the inevitable. There isn't one

    credible 2008 Republican presidential candidate who hasn't abandoned the president's do-nothing approach. They

    have all adopted the approach the rest of the world took at the Montreal talks—we're moving forward, you're a lame

    duck, and we have to deal with it."

    Regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C., state and local

    governments across America are aggressively confronting the problem. Two hundred and eight mayors have committed

    their cities to meet or exceed the emissions reductions mandated by the Kyoto Protocol, and some have gone further.

    Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has committed California to 30 percent cuts by 2020.

    California officials have

    also held talks with their counterparts in Oregon and Washington about launching a so-called carbon-trading system

    like the one currently in force in Europe. Such a system allows efficient users to profit while wasteful users must

    pay for burning more fuel. A similar mechanism worked in the 1990s to dramatically reduce emissions of sulfur

    dioxide—the cause of acid rain—at far less cost than industrialists or environmentalists anticipated.

    New

    York and seven other northeastern states, which together with California amount to the third-biggest economy in the

    world, are also considering a carbon-trading system. Their collective actions—investing in energy efficiency,

    installing wind turbines, sequestering carbon—could boost production runs and lower costs to the point where the

    green technologies needed to fight global warming become affordable for everyone.

    At the same time, investors

    and others worried about global warming are pressuring corporations and Wall Street to take the problem seriously.

    The Investor Network on Climate Risk, a coalition of pension-fund managers and institutional investors representing

    $3 trillion in assets, has put corporations on notice that its members will reconsider investing in companies that

    don't pay enough attention to climate change. In 2005, investment-banking giant Goldman Sachs pledged to embrace

    carbon trading and invest $1 billion in renewable energy.

    "To use a term coined by George W. Bush in the

    context of the Iraq war, I think this coalition of the willing might be much more successful than the Kyoto

    process," says Hans Schellnhuber. "I've been to a lot of these international conferences, and it's a pretty

    frustrating experience that usually produces little more than cheap talk. Whereas a true coalition of the willing

    can bring together regional governments, enterprises, and individuals and show that it is technologically and

    economically possible to take meaningful action."

    No matter what happens, the global warming that past human

    activity has already unleashed will make this a different planet in the years ahead. But it could still be a

    livable, even hospitable, planet, if enough of us get smart in time. If we don't, three feet of water could be just

    the beginning.

    Mark Hertsgaard is the environmental correspondent for The Nation. His article on American

    nuclear-weapons sites, "Nuclear Insecurity," appeared in V.F.'s November 2003 issue.

    © Condenet

    2006

    PS Ooops. Didn't mean to post this four times.
    Last edited by a.k.a.; 04-22-2006 at 12:54 PM.
    Give truth a chance.

  17. #227
    Phero Enthusiast Netghost56's Avatar
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    Global Warming

    Differences Resolved


    WASHINGTON - A nagging difference in temperature readings that had raised

    questions about global warming has been resolved, a panel of scientists reported Tuesday.

    "This significant

    discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and

    corrected," researchers said in the first of 21 assessment reports planned by the U.S. Climate Change Science

    Program.
    The findings show clear evidence of human influences on climate due to changes in greenhouse gases,

    aerosols and stratospheric ozone.

    There has been increasing concern about global climate change being caused by

    human activity, in particular the release of gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by automobiles and

    industrial activity.
    But while temperature readings at the surface showed this increase, readings in the atmosphere

    taken by satellites and radiosondes — instruments carried by weather balloons — had shown little or no warming.



    There are still some questions about the rate of atmospheric warming in the tropics, but overall the issue has been

    settled, said Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center.

    The White House Council on

    Environmental Quality issued a statement saying that the climate change program was established to reduce scientific

    uncertainties and "we welcome today's report because it represents success in doing so with respect to temperature

    trends."
    Findings of the report include:

    • Since the 1950s all data show the Earth's surface and the low and

    middle atmosphere have warmed, while the upper stratosphere has cooled. Those changes were expected from computer

    models of the effects of greenhouse warming.

    • Radiosonde readings for the midtroposphere — the nearest portion

    of the atmosphere — show it warming slightly faster than the surface, also an expected finding.

    • The most

    recent satellite data also show tropospheric warming, though there is some disagreement among data sets. This may be

    caused by uncertainties in the observations, flaws in climate models or a combination. The researchers think it is a

    problem with the data collection.

    • The observed patterns of change over the past 50 years cannot be explained

    by natural processes alone.
    The report came a day after the government reported that the greenhouse gases widely

    blamed for raising the planet's temperature are still building up in the atmosphere.

    The National Oceanic and

    Atmospheric Administration said Monday there was a continuing increase in carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide in the

    air last year, though methane leveled off. Overall, NOAA said, its annual greenhouse gas index "shows a continuing,

    steady rise in the amount of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere."




    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060502/ap_

    on_sc/warming_temperatures_3
    "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."

  18. #228
    Phero Enthusiast Netghost56's Avatar
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    Global Warming

    Weakens Trade Winds


    The trade winds in the Pacific Ocean are

    weakening as a result of global warming, according to a new study that indicates changes to the region's biology

    are possible.

    Using a combination of real-world observations and computer modeling, researchers conclude that a

    vast loop of circulating wind over the Pacific Ocean, known as theWalker circulation , has weakened by about 3.5

    percent since the mid-1800s. The trade winds are the portion of the Walker circulation that blow across the ocean

    surface.

    The researchers predict another 10 percent decrease by the end of

    the 21st century.

    The effect, attributed at least in part to human-induced

    climate change, could disrupt food chains and reduce the biological productivity of the Pacific Ocean, scientists

    said.

    The study was led by Gabriel Vecchi of the University Corporation for

    Atmospheric Research and is detailed in the May 4 issue of the journal Nature.




    Humans to blame

    The researchers used records of

    sea-level atmospheric pressure readings from as far back as the mid-1800s to reconstruct the wind intensity of the

    Walker circulation over the past 150 years. A computer climate model replicated the effect seen in the historical

    record.

    Some of the computer simulations included the effects of human

    greenhouse gas emissions; others included only natural factors known to affect climate such as volcanic eruptions

    and solar variations.

    "We were able to ask 'What if humans hadn't done

    anything? Or what if volcanoes erupted? Or if the sun hadn't varied?'" Vecchi said. "Our only way to account for

    the observed changes is through the impact of human activity, and principally from greenhouse gases from fossil fuel

    burning."

    Earth's average temperature has risen by about 1 degree

    Fahrenheit over the past century and many scientists believe greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide emissions from

    human activities are to blame.

    "This is evidence supporting global warming

    and also evidence of our ability to make reasonable predictions of at least the large scale changes that we should

    expect from global warming," Vecchi told LiveScience.

    By extrapolating

    their data and combining it with results from other models, the researchers predict the Walker circulation could

    slow by an additional 10 percent by 2100.


    Driving

    force

    The trade winds blow from the east at an angle towards the equator

    and have been used by sailors for centuries seeking to sail west. Christopher Columbus relied on the Atlantic's

    trade winds to carry him to North America. The winds get their name from their reliability: To say that a "wind

    blows trade" is to say that it blows on track.

    The overall Walker circulation

    is powered by warm, rising air in the west Pacific Ocean and sinking cool air in the eastern Pacific.



    This looping conveyer belt of winds has far-reaching effects on climate

    around the globe. It steers ocean currents and nourishes marine life across the equatorial Pacific and off the coast

    of South America by driving the upwelling of nutrient-rich cold water from ocean depths to the surface.



    The Walker circulation is also primarily responsible for transporting

    water vapor that evaporates from the ocean surface west, towards Indonesia; there, the moisture rises up into the

    atmosphere, condenses, and falls back to Earth as rain.

    The effects of

    global warming

    Several theories on the effects of global warming predict

    a weakening of the Walker circulation. Scientists think it works like this:



    To remain energetically balanced, the rate at which the atmosphere absorbs water vapor must be balanced by the rate

    of rainfall. But as temperatures rise and more water evaporates from the ocean, water vapor in the lower atmosphere

    increases rapidly. Because of various physical processes, however, the rate of rainfall does not increase as

    fast.

    Since the atmosphere is absorbing moisture faster than it can dump

    it, and because wind is the major transporter of moisture into the atmosphere, air circulation must slow down if the

    energy balance is to be maintained.

    A drop in winds could reduce the

    strength of both surface and subsurface ocean currents and dampen cold water upwelling at the

    equator.

    "This could have important effects on ocean ecosystems," Vecchi

    said. "The ocean currents driven by the trade winds supply vital nutrients to near-surface ocean ecosystems across

    the equatorial Pacific, which is a major fishing

    region."

    Image:
    http://news.yahoo.com/photo/060503/ids_photos_ts/r1372794304.jpg;_yl

    t=Agkc4JiHQACpB8UbVXVF2vFrAlMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW 9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

    Link:
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060503/sc_space/globalwarmingweakenstradewinds;_ylt=ArWr9.07GnmK6. 8RK824mXd

    rAlMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

    "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."

  19. #229
    Journeyman
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    About Al Gore's

    movie:

    http://www.nypost.com/movies/66485.htm

    ...
    He and his friends were in

    charge for eight years. His charts say global warming got worse in that time. The environment doesn't seem to care

    whether the president is a Texas oilman or the Man from Hope.
    ...
    Global warming hasn't noticed that we got

    the lead out of our gasoline or that Stage One smog days in Los Angeles fell from 121 in 1977 to zero in 2004. All

    regulations and taxes to date have done nothing. Does this hint that pollution isn't the cause?
    ...
    Gore

    says that America, alone, is the problem. Taking us to China, he ignores the filth spewed into the air by its

    coal-fired cities. He does not meet with bronchitic citizens who wear surgical masks outdoors and pause to hawk up

    brown gunk every few minutes. Instead, he tells us America is lagging behind. "China," he says, "is on the cutting

    edge" of environmentalism. Nonsense.
    ...

  20. #230
    Phero Enthusiast Netghost56's Avatar
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    I'd like to see it but I'd

    have to go to Little Rock or Dallas. That's 3 hours and 4 hours respectively.
    "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."

  21. #231
    Phero Dude slickracer's Avatar
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    i don't know if anyone has

    brough this up but, there is also a factor that is masking the actual true power of global warming and its call,

    global diming. and its caused by the gases that are in the air and blocking the sun at the same time. while we are

    warming the earth by traping heat in, we are also cooling the earth by dimming it. but yes the temps are still going

    up, if we were to take the effect of global dimming out of the picture we would be burning up alot more right now.

  22. #232
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    Quote Originally Posted by slickracer
    i don't know

    if anyone has brough this up but, there is also a factor that is masking the actual true power of global warming and

    its call, global diming. and its caused by the gases that are in the air and blocking the sun at the same time.

    while we are warming the earth by traping heat in, we are also cooling the earth by dimming it. but yes the temps

    are still going up, if we were to take the effect of global dimming out of the picture we would be burning up alot

    more right now.
    As may be. The argument for man caused global warming hasn't convinced a lot of

    respectable scientists yet as demonstrated by the fact that more than 17,000 american environmental scientists

    signed a petition asking Bush to not sign Kyoto. Repeating the claims and dire warnings doesn't make it any more

    convincing either. Nor does claiming phenomena that other experts clearly have already refuted. The more you learn

    the less believable the whole thing is.

    I'm not going to convince anybody but I do strongly urge every person

    to study as much nuetral material as possible. Make your own dcisions but make it based on facts not claims and

    panic mongering.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

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    Default Global Warming Science?

    With

    recent acceptance of global warming as fact by most media and politicians, I thought I would revive this thread just

    to show that there is quite a bit of science that shows that this theory is still very controversial.

    All I

    ask is that all of you keep an open mind and view this documentary produced in the UK. I will let the science

    discussed in the program speak for itself. If it doesn't change your mind regarding the "fact" that global warming

    is man-made, it will at least challenge you. At a minimum, seeing the science on the opposite side will help you

    shore up your argument in supporting the recent media view of global warming.

    Please keep in mind that I have

    nothing against Al Gore, but his "Inconvenient Truth" is not necessarily the last word on this. As I said, please

    view with an open mind....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttV2C6B8pU

  24. #234
    Administrator Bruce's Avatar
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    I'm doing my part. I bought an

    all-electric car.
    http://perupuppets.com/images/zap.jpg
    To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

    - Buddha


    Yoga in Eugene
    Fair Trade crafts from Peru

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    Quote Originally Posted by austin77 View Post
    With

    recent acceptance of global warming as fact by most media and politicians, I thought I would revive this thread just

    to show that there is quite a bit of science that shows that this theory is still very controversial.

    All I ask

    is that all of you keep an open mind and view this documentary produced in the UK. I will let the science discussed

    in the program speak for itself. If it doesn't change your mind regarding the "fact" that global warming is

    man-made, it will at least challenge you. At a minimum, seeing the science on the opposite side will help you shore

    up your argument in supporting the recent media view of global warming.

    Please keep in mind that I have nothing

    against Al Gore, but his "Inconvenient Truth" is not necessarily the last word on this. As I said, please view with

    an open mind....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttV2C6B8pU
    As you may have figured out,

    I've been very sceptical about it and as I learn more I become more sceptical that man is the cause. As I've said

    before, there is no excuse for polluting our planet but investing billions of dollars into a boondogle like the

    current global warming fad is a bad decision, in my opinion.

    Thanks for posting this link.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

  26. #236
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce View Post
    I'm doing

    my part. I bought an all-electric car.
    http://perupuppets.com/images/zap.jpg
    Cool! How do you

    like it?
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

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    Default Global Warming


  28. #238
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    [b]Alarmist global warming

    claims melt under scientific

    scrutiny[b]

    http://www.suntimes.com/news/othervi...REF30b.article

    Ju

    ne 30, 2007

    BY JAMES M. TAYLOR

    In his new book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore pleads, "We must stop

    tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies

    known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth." Gore

    repeatedly asks that science and reason displace cynical political posturing as the central focus of public

    discourse.
    If Gore really means what he writes, he has an opportunity to make a difference by leading by example

    on the issue of global warming.

    A cooperative and productive discussion of global warming must be open and

    honest regarding the science. Global warming threats ought to be studied and mitigated, and they should not be

    deliberately exaggerated as a means of building support for a desired political position.

    Many of the

    assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' have been refuted by science, both before and

    after he made them. Gore can show sincerity in his plea for scientific honesty by publicly acknowledging where

    science has rebutted his claims.

    For example, Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global

    warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate

    reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently

    claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame."

    Gore claims the snowcap atop

    Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame. Yet according to the November 23, 2003,

    issue of Nature magazine, "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that

    deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit. Without the forests' humidity, previously

    moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial

    sunshine."

    Gore claims global warming is causing more tornadoes. Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental

    Panel on Climate Change stated in February that there has been no scientific link established between global warming

    and tornadoes.

    Gore claims global warming is causing more frequent and severe hurricanes. However, hurricane

    expert Chris Landsea published a study on May 1 documenting that hurricane activity is no higher now than in decades

    past. Hurricane expert William Gray reported just a few days earlier, on April 27, that the number of major

    hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic coast has declined in the past 40 years. Hurricane scientists

    reported in the April 18 Geophysical Research Letters that global warming enhances wind shear, which will prevent a

    significant increase in future hurricane activity.

    Gore claims global warming is causing an expansion of

    African deserts. However, the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New Scientist reports, "Africa's deserts are in

    'spectacular' retreat . . . making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of

    Africa."

    Gore argues Greenland is in rapid meltdown, and that this threatens to raise sea levels by 20 feet.

    But according to a 2005 study in the Journal of Glaciology, "the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins and

    growing inland, with a small overall mass gain." In late 2006, researchers at the Danish Meteorological Institute

    reported that the past two decades were the coldest for Greenland since the 1910s.

    Gore claims the Antarctic

    ice sheet is melting because of global warming. Yet the Jan. 14, 2002, issue of Nature magazine reported Antarctica

    as a whole has been dramatically cooling for decades. More recently, scientists reported in the September 2006 issue

    of the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A: Mathematical, Physical, and

    Engineering Sciences, that satellite measurements of the Antarctic ice sheet showed significant growth between 1992

    and 2003. And the U.N. Climate Change panel reported in February 2007 that Antarctica is unlikely to lose any ice

    mass during the remainder of the century.

    Each of these cases provides an opportunity for Gore to lead by

    example in his call for an end to the distortion of science. Will he rise to the occasion? Only time will

    tell.


    James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute.

  29. #239
    Moderator idesign's Avatar
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    Default Global Warming

    Quote Originally Posted by austin77 View Post

    Please keep in mind that I have nothing against Al Gore, but his "Inconvenient

    Truth" is not necessarily the last word on this. As I said, please view with an open

    mind....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttV2C6B8pU
    youtube states that this video

    is no longer available due to a copyright claim by "Wag TV". A search yielded no hits for Wag TV, anyone know where

    to find this video? I'd really like to see it.

    BTW, did anyone catch the brilliant statement by NASA's

    chief? I think it poetic justice that he said it in an NPR interview.

    I have no doubt that …

    a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To

    assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best

    climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.

    First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as

    millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when

    — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now

    is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to

    take.
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=10571499

  30. #240
    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    Default

    The people who own

    the video are in GB, here is their web site:

    www.wagtv.com. If

    you want to know more or get on the list to recieve a copy of the video when they begin selling it contact them at

    gw@wagtv.com


    [SIZE=2]WagTV[/SI

    ZE]

    2d Leroy

    House

    436 Essex

    Road

    [SIZE=2]London[

    /SIZE]

    N1

    3QP

    tel: 0207 688

    1711

    fax: 0207 688

    1702


    It is a great video! Instead of sensationalism and wild

    claims there are a lot of facts and explanations. you'll enjoy it.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

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