Global warming is it really happening

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The tiger comes out of the forest with his teeth bared and claws unsheathed!

I've been waiting for someone to do that. Edufer's messages, although full of good technical references and such, have sounded skewed by an underlying political agenda (at least to me). Except on minor points, though, I don't have the technical depth to really dispute his claims.

Out of curiousity, I wanted to get your opinion on the Marshall Institute. Two people that Edufer seems to rely upon with respect to Global Warming issues are Dr. Willie Soon and Dr. Sallie Baliunas who are both integral members of the Marshall Institute (which Edufer has failed to mention). The Marshall Institute has a reputation (although it tries to live it down) of being pro-business and, thus, more likely to develop reports that discredit global warming.

Hmmm. Some things I've just found from a Yahoo search:

http://www.marshall.org/funding.htm
http://www.ucsusa.org/environment/gw.skeptorgs.html
http://www.globalchange.org/gcc-digest/1990/d90jan19.htm

What do you think?

 

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Overdoze...

Wow! You have been doing your homework, overdoze, but have not made the grade. Your answers are too extense to answer in one session (it would be too boring for other members of the board). So I’ll try to shed some light on the subject.

No, Mr. Teacher didn’t flunk biology. But it seems <b>you ignore</b> the fundamentals of the physics that govern the subject, so I don’t know if you’ll fully understand the following explanation:
1) Warmer temperatures increase CO2 production as your beloved “biomass” (all green stuff on Earth) have a <b>negative</b> oxygen balance, that is, the green cover produces more CO2 than it absorbs. Don’t you believe it? Ask Bert Bolin, head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the people pushing for the Kyoto Treaty). He made the discovery back in the 80s, when trying to figure out where all the CO2 in the air was going, as calculations could not explain an excess in CO2 that should have been sequestered by forests, jungles and all plants. Forest <b>do contribute to global warming</b>, like it or not.

2) Warmer oceans <b>DO NOT</b> absorb more CO2. On the contrary, cold oceans absorbs more CO2 than warmer ones. Firstly, the infrared (I.R.) absorption band of CO2 lie in the 12-16 micron wavelength band. The wavelength of strongest I.R. emission from polar ice lies in or near this band. This means that <b>CO2 has its greatest absorption of I.R. radiation at near sub-zero temperatures</b>. At warmer temperatures, the typical wavelength of strongest I.R. transmission is less than 12 microns, and therefore much less affected by CO2. At temperatures around 15°C (the average surface temperature of the Earth), the strongest emission wavelength is around 10 microns, a wavelength which is largely unaffected by greenhouse gases, the so-called “radiation window” of the atmosphere where I.R. radiation from the surface can escape freely to space.

3) The most powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is <b>water vapor</b> representing over 90% of the natural greenhouse effect. Water vapor shares many overlapping absorption bands with CO2 and therefore an increase or decrease in CO2 has little effect on the overall rate of IR absorption in those overlapping regions. However, in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, the air is very dry due to the extreme cold, allowing CO2 to exert a much greater leverage in the dry atmosphere than would possible in warmer moister climates at lower latitudes.

Come on, overdoze, if you know about science you know <b>correlation</b> does not equals <b>causality</B>. All people that <b>eat</b< tomatoes <b>will die</b>, so there is a <b>strong correlation</b> between eating tomatoes and dying –but there is <b>no causality</b> there: eating tomatoes will not kill you (even if they are GM tomatoes). Please try to stay at a scientific level in a scientific discussion.

The answer was given above, in point (3)

Sciforums is not a science database or a source of scientific data (as for your posts, at least).

The mentioned “Cornell University” website is not <b>officially supported</b> by Cornell University, but by a program by some students and professor there –a personal website. It is in the same spirit of the page by a Stanford University professor, .John McCarthy</A>, that supports a totally opposed view from their fellow buddies at Cornell.

Read the news? What about Enron?. It supported the Kyoto Treaty. What about Atlantic Richfield Corp? What about DuPont? What about Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI)? I can mention a long list of industries and oil companies that finance the greens. And many (hundreds) Foundations too. Just ask me.

Global means “everywhere”, as a result of the sum of temperatures all over the world. Looking at temperatures taken by satellites and radio sondes all over the world you’ll see that the <b>present trend</b> seems to be <b>towards cooling</b>, not warming. Take a look for yourself: http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm

They were rich, and they are getting richer every day. Platinum mining was not faring too well before they launched the Clean Air Act scare, forcing all cars in the world to use platinum mesh for the catalytic converters. Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) Corp. belongs to the British Crown, and is run by Prince Charles and his brother Prince Andrew.

It goes backwards: the green movement have its roots in the philosophy that made possible the Zyklon-B gas madness. Lockheed Corp. just bribed Prince Bernhard –a Great Green- for selling F-104 jet fighters to the Dutch Air Force. That shoes you the moral integrity of a Great Green, an integrity shared by most Green Leaders.

Sure. On the other hand, Dr. Joseph Scotto, from the American Cancer Society got his grants revoked because he dared to publish a study in Science (1985) showing that UV radiation in the US had decreased by 7% between 1975-1984 –contrary to all prophecies that UV radiation would increase due to the Ozone layer destruction.(J. Scotto et al., <I>“Biologically Effective Ultraviolet Radiation: Surface Measurements in the United States, 1974-1985”</I>, <b>Science</b>, Feb. 12, 1988). Read and weep…

Scotto proved UV radiation was decreasing. Measurements of ozone all over the world have failed to show a decrease in global ozone. Again, learn and weep…

Where are the proofs? If you keep reading the misinformation provided by the Green Network you will never have the chance to learn the scientific facts. You must separate politics from science. They can never walk the same path.

What would happen if the air was filled with 2,600 to 6,000 parts per million of CO2? How much would the temperature rise? Can you give an estimate? Scientists have the answer: they determined that during the Creataceus period (about 60-90 million years ago) COO2 concentrations went down from 6,000 ppm to 2,600 ppm. During that period temperatures <b>were just 1,5°C higher than today</b>. Draw your own conclusions.

As 6.000 ppm of CO2 did not unbalance the climate in the Cretaceus, there is <b>no compelling reason</b> to believe that an increase from 370 ppm to 700 ppm will unbalance the climate at all. So caution has no reasonable place here.

For your information, I am not libertarian at all, and I am quite anti-freemarket, as free-market has shown to play havoc on the economies of all developing (or underdeveloping?) countries. Do you remember that the Club of Rome’s president, Dr. Alexander King wrote a book called <b>“Limits to Growth”</b>? From there was born the theory of the “controlled destruction of the economies of the developing countries” being carried since 1974 by the heads of the US Federal Reserve Bank.

Catalytic converters have nothing to do with leaded fuels, as they do nothing to eliminate lead. If you want to know the truth about leaded gasoline and catalytic converters (and why they do not convert anything into nothing) read: http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/INGLES/Chap4-LEAD.html<b>Leaded Gasoline</B></A>, where you will find down the page a short essay by me called <b>“Catalytic Converters”</b>.

Sure its all on the free market philosophy, something I am strongly against. But, what has this do do with global warming and other scientific frauds?

Here are some interesting reading, regarding the warming issue, retreating(?) glaciers, and lots more:

<A HREF=”http://msnbc.com/local/pencilnews/393218.asp”><b>Alaska’s Hubbard Glacier advances rapidly, turning Russell Fiord into Russell Lake</B></A> - By Jon E. Miller, special to PencilNews - <b>YAKUTAT</B>, Alaska, July 15- “The advancing Hubbard Glacier in Alaska has nearly cut off Russell Fiord from salt water, endangering the small fishing village of Yakutat as well as local wildlife.”
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<A HREF="http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm"><B>The Top of the World: Is the North Pole Turning to Water?</B></A> - (2 Feb 2001) Water at the North Pole was big news in August 2000. Was it just another media scare story, or is the Arctic sea ice really disappearing? This report details the whole issue of Arctic sea ice. –

Also: See this BBC report on Arctic Sea Ice - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1311007.stm

<A HREF="http://www.john-daly/hockey/hockey.htm"><B>“The `Hockey Stick”</b></A>:- A New Low in Climate Science (12 Nov 2000) The new dogma by both the IPCC and US National Assessment is that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age during the last millennium never happened. Their claim is politically inspired.

Enough for tonight.

 

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Agreed. It is very hard to dig into these issues to a depth that would satisfy everyone. Global warming is still a hotly contested issue amongst scientists who have many years in the field, but average people like me have to rely on our own feelings about what we hear (I won't presume to suggest that you are merely average

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). I came to this forum hoping that there were a lot of very knowledgeable (and well connected) people discussing the big issues in science (like Global Warming) so that I might get a sense of how the wind was blowing and might find more information on interesting subjects.

The first few messages I read from Edufer seemed (to me) to be balanced and had some interesting, if not totally believable, conclusions. He actually shook my belief in Global Warming to a large degree. However, as I read more of his messages, I got the feeling that there was a political agenda there. He was beginning to sound more and more like the stereotypical "big business, anti-green" lobbyist. His mistake was in attacking the "greens" rather than merely sticking to scientific debate. I'm now beginning to realize the dividing lines in the scientific community on Global Warming and I'm also beginning to realize what side of the line most of Edufer's information comes from. I'm not yet suggesting that he's wrong, just that I'm now more leary of what he's saying (I hope he'll understand that).

 

Undeniable evidences.

Nobody has. However, CO2 is a poor greenhouse gas. As you must surely know, <b>water vapor</b> is the main greenhouse gas. Without it, Earth temperature would be about –172°C during the night and +98°C during the day. The average global temperature would be –34°C. As mean temperature is +15°C, the “greenhouse effect” is about +34°C. Which gas is the most important? Water vapor accounts for more than 90% - 93% of the “heat retention” capability of the atmosphere. CO2 accounts for about 3,5% – 5.0% of the “greenhouse effect”. Water vapor is present in the air in concentrations varying between 5% to 99%, while CO2 concentrations are 0,003%.

An easy way to visualize the effects of both gases is this: Take a world map and go the Sahara desert. Temperatures at the weather station in Hoggar (right in the Tropic of Cancer) show an amplitude between –5°C at sunrise, and +50°C after noon. The amplitude is 55°C. This means that the heat escaped to outer space during the night.

Then go to the same latitude to the Caribbean, where temperatures range between 32°C at 2:00 PM and 24°C at 7:00 AM (during rainy season). The amplitude is 8°C. This means that the heat has been retained during the night. Why this difference with Hoggar in the Sahara? “Relative humidity” is the answer. In Hoggar the humidity is barely 5% – 10%, while in the Caribbean is about 80 – 99%. The CO2 concentrations are the same at both places: 370 ppm. So who is responsible for keeping the air warm? Water vapor.

Perhaps. Accurate measurement of temperature only began in the 19th century, patchily at first, becoming more global in the 20th century. These temperature measurements were intended for immediate meteorological purposes, such as forecasting tomorrow's weather, providing storm warnings etc., and were usually taken by non-scientists using instruments which were unsuitable for later climatological analysis. (<A HREF="http://www.john-daly.com/surftemp.htm"><b>Click here</b></A> for a full account of how unreliable these records are) Once finished reading, go to my next post for the second chapter of this discussion.

 

Second Post on Evidences

<font size=5><b>Second Post of a Long Series:</b></font>

Let us talk about the way scientists know about temperatures in ancient times. Prior to actual temperature measurements, we have no direct means of determining temperature prior to the 19th century, so some researchers have resorted to <b>`proxy'</b> means. This means that indirect indicators such as tree rings, oxygen isotopes in trapped ice, pollens, plant species have all been used at various times to give an indication of past temperatures and climates.

Proxy studies by their very nature can only give a very rough indication of past climates, but the greenhouse industry has found them an inexhaustible source of data with which to stir up public alarm. Researchers in this field do not merely publish their results discreetly in scientific journals, but promptly rush to the public media to make a public circus of their `findings'. Invariably such studies employ esoteric statistical techniques to confuse and confound any potential critics on the "blind them with numbers" principle. Several shoddy studies of recent years <A HREF="http://www.john-daly.com/shame.htm"><b>have been exposed</b></A>, but the greenhouse industry continues to peddle them regardless, each one keeping to the familiar theme of Armageddon tomorrow.

The primary purpose of such studies is to demonstrate that the Earth is now warmer than at any time in the recent or distant past, caused of course by man's emissions of CO2. In some cases, this aim even leads to the re-writing of climate history, such as the latest claims that the Medieval Warm Epoch never really happened.

So let’s see how critical thinkers can detect shoddy science: One does not need to be a scientist to detect bad science, any more than one needs to be a qualified pilot to know that a plane is being flown badly. It is not even necessary to know anything about the esoteric statistics with which the researchers torture their data. It is a well-known feature of modern statistics that the result of any analysis can be pre-determined by the particular statistical technique chosen. Since there are hundreds of different techniques to choose from, each one processing the same data in a different way, it is now possible to `prove' anything you want to.

For example, selective use of `record-breaking' data, such as the warmest temperature here, the coldest there, the wettest somewhere else etc., it is possible to claim that either the world is heating up, or that an ice age is on the way, simply by being selective in how one chooses and processes the data. Virtually all the proxy studies currently being produced exhibit selectivity about which data set is used, and in what manner it is used. Any scientific paper (or one which purports to be scientific), can be divided into essentially three parts.

<B>1. The Inputs</B> - These comprise the raw data which the study uses, the criteria for selecting that data, and the underlying assumptions upon which the study is based.
<B> 2. The Processing</B> - This stage involves the processing of the data into some kind of ordered pattern, possibly highly statistical or mathematical, a stage which many non-specialists may have difficulty in following.
<B>3. The Outputs</B> - These are the results of the processing, and the conclusions which are drawn.

For a non-specialist, the processing stage provides the greatest deterrent to critical thinking about the paper, since if the processing is not understood, how can any rational critique be made? In this situation, most will simply defer to the authority of the authors and accept the findings of the study. But such resigned acceptance is not necessary. Many studies are clearly flawed <b>at the inputs stage</b>. Perhaps the criteria used in selecting the data is open to question. Perhaps the data itself is flawed. Perhaps the underlying assumptions are weak, invalid, or questionable. If the inputs are in any way flawed, no amount of mathematics or statistical processing can turn bad data into good, or make sound conclusions from bad input data. <B>"Garbage in, garbage out",</B> (or <B>GIGO)</B>, is not just an over-used cliche, but is a very sound principle upon which all good science is based. Unfortunately, neglect of this principle has become a common practice in greenhouse science. Then, it is time to see some recent examples (sorry if I have to get somewhat technical). Because the explanation is somewhat long, keep reading in my next post:

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<b>Third of series of Posts on Evidences.</b>

<font size=4 color=red><b>Some Recent Examples of Faulty Atmospheric Science:</b></font>

<b>Example 1:</b> A paper by Tom Wigley and Benjamin Santer <FONT SIZE=2 COLOR="#800000"><I>("Anthropogenic Influence on the Autocorrelation Structure of Hemispheric-Mean Temperatures", <b>Science</b>, 282, 27-Nov-98,pp.1676-1679)</I></font> made a statistical analysis of the surface temperatures of the northern (NH) and southern (SH) hemispheres, concluding that CO2 really was warming the atmosphere. Their paper implicitly assumed that the 115-year hemispheric temperature series they used in the study is actually suitable for this kind of statistical processing.
The US National Research Council (the research arm of the US National Academy of Sciences), recently said in respect of surface temperature records (from which the hemispheric series are derived), quote -
<DIR>
<b>"Deficiencies in the accuracy, quality and continuity of the records ... place serious limitations on the confidence that can be placed in the research results." </b></DIR>

What often may seem like `climate change' at weather stations may only be the result of instrument errors, instrument changes, and procedural changes. The NRC found the basic problem was that the major systems used to collect climate data were never really designed for that purpose. While disputes do exist about the presence of heat island distortions in the hemispheric data (only the USA and western Europe part of the series can be considered reliable at present), it is nonetheless possible, in theory, to develop a generally acceptable temperature series for the NH, even back to the mid-19th century.

<B>But not for the Southern Hemisphere!</B> Comprehensive station data from the SH only really dates from the 1950s, particularly beginning with the 1957 International Geophysical Year. Prior to that, data collection was fragmentary, with vast ocean areas not covered at all. Oceans cover some 83% of the SH, and ice a further 5%. The only reasonable source of pre-1950s data for the SH comes from Australasia and South Africa, but even in these cases, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been quite emphatic that anything prior to 1910 is useless for historical comparison purposes. Indeed, many Australian stations do show quite inconsistent and erratic records pre-1910, and virtually impossible to correct accurately.

The oceans have been poorly covered throughout the 1865-1994 period, especially the southeast Pacific, while many records from South America and Africa are erratic even up to the present day. In other words, SH surface data is essentially worthless from 1865 to 1910, highly suspect from 1910 to 1957, and probably flawed even since 1957. Wigley and Santer even conceded this very point in an earlier paper <B><FONT SIZE=2 COLOR="#800000"><I>(Journal of Geophysical Research</I>, Dec 27, 1997)</B></FONT>, in which they acknowledged that their global surface temperature estimates (also used by the IPCC) were affected by a lack of surface coverage in some regions of the world, particularly in the middle to high latitude areas of the Southern Oceans. That admission throws further doubt upon the reliability of the surface record which they used in the later study.

Applying the GIGO principle again, the flawed inputs used by Wigley and Santer render their subsequent statistical analysis quite meaningless and hardly deserving of the <A HREF="http://www.john-daly.com/press-99.htm#Sycophancy">"excellent and exciting" assessment </A>by the paper's referees. In other words, even if a non-specialist has only limited understanding of how their statistical processing worked, it is a straightforward matter to see the flaws in the inputs and thus discard the conclusions of the paper as being equally flawed.

<b>Example 2:</b>This example is a media report by William Cook of US News, featuring a proxy study by Annette Menzel and Peter Fabian of the University of Munich. <DIR>
"Evidence of global warming may be as close as the back yard. In the United States, robins are appearing in the North earlier than usual this year. And in Europe, flowers are blooming earlier and leaves are falling later, making the growing season just a little bit longer each year. Compared with four decades ago, spring in Europe is now arriving six days earlier, and fall is coming nearly five days later." </DIR>

Can you see the inherent input flaw? = <b>"Compared with four decades ago ..."</b> That's it right there in that key assumption hidden discreetly away in an otherwise alarmist text. "Four decades ago" takes us back to the late 1950s, right in the middle of the post-war cooling. It is self-evident that any study, whether using proxy indicators or simple temperature measurements, would find that a warming had occurred between a known cool period and a known warm period. But why "four decades"? Surely the researchers could have gone back further? A longer time frame for comparison would surely make the conclusions more compelling.

If the study was taken back <B>six</B> decades, we would be comparing today with the pre-war warm period of the 1930s, giving a fairly <b>uninteresting and neutral result</b>. All the critical thinker has to do is to find those assumptions and check them out. In this instance, the choice of four decades for comparison instead of using a longer period profoundly affected the outcome of the study.

In my next post I will show the third, fourth and fifth examples. Stay tuned!

 

Last Post

<font size=4 color=red><b>More examples of Faulty Science:</b></font>

<b>Example 3: </b>A common feature of some greenhouse papers, is that of comparing selected points in a climate cycle. Since arbitrary dates in a climate cycle can occur at atypical points in the cycle (such as during minima or maxima in the series), it can lead to conclusions which are unsupportable when a longer period of analysis is chosen. An example of this was another paper by Benjamin Santer and Tom Wigley <B><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#800000">("A Search For Human Influences On The Thermal Structure Of The Atmosphere", Nature 382, 4 July 1996, p.39-46)</B></FONT> which inspired the notorious <b>"discernible human influence ..."</b> phrase in the last IPCC report. In it, they presented upper atmosphere temperatures as measured by balloons, but instead of using the full range of dates available (1958-1995), they instead used 1963-1987 as the basis for their comparison. As can been seen below, the effect was quite dramatic.
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<IMG SRC="http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/images/stats2.gif" WIDTH=537 HEIGHT=222>

<B>Example 4:</B> Another variation on this idea is to compare temperatures today with those of 600 years ago, the obvious conclusion being that today is much warmer. Here is the abstract of one such example <B><I><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#800000"> (Pollack, H.N., Huang, S. and Shen, P. "Climate change record in subsurface temperatures: a global perspective", Science 282, p. 279-281, 1998)</I></b><DIR>

</FONT><I>"Analyses of underground temperature measurements from 358 boreholes in eastern North America, central Europe, southern Africa, and Australia indicate that, in the 20th century, the average surface temperature of the Earth has increased by about 0.5 C and that the 20th century has been the warmest of the past five centuries. The subsurface temperatures also indicate that Earth's mean temperature has increased by about 1.0 C over the past five centuries. The geothermal data offer an independent confirmation of the unusual character of 20th century climate that has emerged from recent multiproxy studies."</I></DIR>

<b>Can you see the flaw?</b> = "... over the past five centuries ..." That takes us back to the <B>Little Ice Age!</B>Of <B>course</B> things are warmer today! The Little Ice Age was caused by a <b>low point in solar activity</b>. Since the proxies used were boreholes, it would have been a straightforward matter to extend the comparison <b>to a full millennium</b>. But this would have taken us back to the <b>Medieval Warm Epoch,</b> giving an <b>overall cooling</b> instead of warming.

The conclusions of any proxy study provide a revealing insight into the real motives of the researchers. It is here that they press home whatever point they wished to demonstrate in the rest of the paper, just in case you did not get it first time. Watch for words like <b>`might', `could', `may', `possibly',</b> a sure sign the researchers <b>have not proved anything, but want to get you worried anyway</b>. In other words, <font color=red><b>they are guessing</b></font>.

Another favourite theme in the conclusions is that of <b>correlations</b>. It not difficult to establish a pattern, or correlation, between two variables, especially when complex statistical programs are employed. However, when any two variables correlate, this does not automatically establish <b>which variable causes which</b>, or even if there is a third unknown causal variable. For example, airborne CO2 and global temperature is well correlated over the last 160,000 years, based on ice core analysis. <b>But which causes which?</b> It's a crucial question for the greenhouse warming theory. Not surprisingly, papers produced by the greenhouse industry convey the misleading impression to the public that changes in CO2 <b>`cause'</b> the associated changes in temperature, thus enhancing the idea that <b>CO2 is a potent driver of climate</b>. But any objective analysis of the relationship indicates that the changes in CO2 <b>lag the changes in temperature by several centuries!</b> This makes it impossible for CO2 to be the cause. Rather, it is <b>temperature which has been changing the CO2 level</b>, a point confirmed in a recent paper in <b>`Science'</b> (12 March 1999). Another favourite conclusion is the concept of <b>`consistency'</b>.

Conclusions often end with words like these - <I>"Our proxy results are not inconsistent with the growth of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, particularly CO2."</I> Apart from the misleading use of the double negative (`not inconsistent with..'), the fact that the claimed results may `not be inconsistent with' a dozen other variables as well, <b>is deliberately left unsaid</b>. To select out greenhouse gases as the only `consistency' variable, to the exclusion of all others, <b>is not only unscientific, but also tells us a lot about the agenda of the author(s) and possibly their funding source.</b>

1998 was a very warm year globally, as confirmed by the satellites, being about +0.46°C warmer than the 1979-1998 average. The anomalous character of 1998 clearly stands out on the chart.

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The reason for this warmth is clearly linked to the major 1997-98 El Nino, itself an oceanic phenomenon unrelated to global warming. Just why 1998 should be so much warmer than 1983 when a similar severe El Nino occurred becomes clear when it is realized that the 1982-83 event coincided with the El Chichon volcano (Mexico) which prevented global temperature from soaring in the same way.

So, we know 1998 was warm. We also know why it was warm, and the factors which allowed global temperature to rise, unfettered by volcanic dampening. But this creates both an opportunity and a problem for the greenhouse industry. The opportunity is that 1998 can be used in a host of proxy studies as a basis for comparison with some previous period, and even to highlight events in 1998 associated with the anomalous warmth of that year, such as increased glacier ice melt, sea ice shrinkage, early spring, and any other proxy which would be affected by such a warm year. Such studies are already being promoted widely in the media.

But 1998 also presents a serious problem for the future. Since it was such an extraordinarily warm year, unique among all the previous years, it is clearly a one-off event, induced by El Nino, but unlikely to be equalled in a very long time. The industry certainly revelled in the glory of announcing one broken warm record after another. Clearly, 1998 has seen a wild feeding frenzy for the industry. But as the years go by, as the sun becomes less active <A HREF="http://www.john-daly.com/cycle-23.gif"> <b>(as shown by the latest solar cycle being the weakest in many decades)</b></A>, the record-breaking euphoria of 1998 is unlikely to be repeated, and once the millenium turns, will become an increasingly remote memory. Record-breaking temperatures will become increasingly hard to come by and instead we may see an increasing number of cold records being broken (as indeed has already happened all across the northern and southern hemisphere this winter). The warmth of 1998 has already ended as the satellites now show global temperature has returned to the long-term average.

<b>Sorry for this lengthy post, but you asked for some proofs. </b>

<b>Easily deniable</b>. If you know the basic facts about astronomy and planet formation, you surely know that the “runaway greenhouse effect” in Venus is not due to CO2, but to the extreme atmospheric pressure in Venus (about 90 times higher than Earth’s), an atmosphere full of sulfuric acid clouds. On the same grounds that an “excess” of CO2 would trigger a “runaway greenhouse”, then Mars <b>should be much warmer than Earth</b>. Why Mars is much cooler than Earth, and Venus much warmer? Their respective distance from the sun is the answer, you toddler! Venus is at 108 million km from the sun, Earth is at 150 million km, and Mars at 228 million km. We are just lucky that Earth formed at the present distance from the sun: a mere 5% variation would have meant a quite different climate: either too hot or too cold for our present life forms.

If you knew that, then you were being dishonest. If you didn’t know it, you were trying to make a point based on a misconception (or ignorance?). Now you have learnt something new. A step forward to knowledge.

 

Of course, there is a political agenda behind my messages: self preservation. I got interested in environmental issues back in 1983, while I was the head of the Technical Translations Dept. at Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. (AECL), during the erection of our nuclear station in Embalse, Córdoba. I read a section in our newspaper “La Voz del Interior”, section sponsored by FUNAM, an “Environmental Protection Foundation” run by a biologist I knew. Mr. Montenegro (he graduated in biology at the same time my sister did –they had conducted studies on the “golden dove” in Córdoba, a well known crop pest). The article was titled: <b>“Embalse nuclear station: Questions without answers”</b>, where he launched an irrational attack on the reactor being built. I didn’t know then this man was vice-president of Greenpeace Argentina. At that time, I saw Greenpeace as a bunch of idealistic lunatics fighting bravely against pollution and trying to save the whales. I thought they were harming nobody and thought they were doing a fine job. Most people believed the same thing.

But the reasons given by Mr. Montenegro were flawed, at least seen from the technical and scientific viewpoint. He didn’t get his doctorate degree because his thesis was rejected by the examining board on the grounds: “Lack of scientific methodology”. The president of the board in our University (Dr. Ricardo Talesnik) was also the director of the <I>“Mercedes and Martín Ferreyra Medical Research Institue”</I>, an institution built and donated by my family in 1948. (BTW, in those laboratories was conducted the research that led to the discovery of the world famous <b>Papanicolao Test</b>, the test for determining the “uterus collar cancer” in its early stage). The research was made by Dra. Inés de Allende (a woman) and his aide Dr. Papanicolao. The credit went to the male, as women were then not allowed in science. Discrimination?

My elder brother, a neurosurgeon, professor in Applied Psychology in the university, was also doing research in Neurophysiology, with grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. He was also an invited researcher at Columbia University, New York, for more than 20 years. I helped him in his work with my knowledge of electronics, photography, and computing. I converted his numerous papers into the final version for sending to scientific magazines in the USA, Argentina and Europe. Whether I liked it or not, I had to learn many things about physiology, chemistry, physics, electronics, medicine, etc. It has served me well because that gave me a wide knowledge –although not too deep-- on scientific matters. So it is difficult that somebody can give me “cat for rabbit”, as we say here, at least on science.

So when Mr. Montenegro overwhelmed me with his “information” of the horrible health effects that the nuclear station was going to impose to the population, I could easily see that what he was saying was pure garbage, either on the technical side of the nuclear station, or the biological aspect of the probable consequences. Of course, I wrote him a letter (with a copy to our newspaper in Córdoba) dissecting every one of his claims, that put him in shame –and enraged him. At that time, I didn’t know that the environment movement was being used as a geopolitical tool for quite obscure reasons, what we know today as “an agenda”. He was also in a campaign to ban in Argentina the herbicide 2,4,5-T, an herbicide that was used in the US for spraying the illegal marihuana crops in Humboldt County, California. (The crops were run by the Maffia)

Through my cousin living in Washington (the head of the Latin American Section of the Library of Congress –she is still working there) managed to get all the scientific evidence (from the EPA and other sources) that proved that the danger of dioxin <b>was a minor one</b>. And from dioxin I jumped onto the task of researching the DDT issue, and soon after, came the ozone hole issue, the leaded gasoline, deforestation of the rain forests (I knew something about this as I had been doing trips and expeditions to several areas of the Amazon since 1970). Of course, Mr. Montenegro was pushing all these scares as vice president of Greenpeace, (with lots of funding) and I was discovering that these scares were based on quite flimsy evidence (when not totally faked), so I did what I believed to be a public service: <b<debunk all the garbage</b> he was printing in his newspaper section.

We were invited to debate publicly on a TV program about “nuclear waste”, and “radioactivity from Nuclear stations”. In that show, he did mount a real “show”: he took along a Geiger counter and some samples of natural uranium (from the mines in our hills in Córdoba), and fuel pellets from the nuclear station. The Geiger counter probe made horrible sounds when placed near the samples, of course, but remained silent when it was placed near a glass of water. He ended saying: <b>“This is the radiation that will give you leukemia and cancers.”</b> The audience cheered. When my turn came, I asked him how long had he been wearing his Rolex Seamaster watch. He said about 20 years. Then I asked him if had ever developed leukemia or cancer. He said no. I took the Geiger probe and placed on top of his Rolex, and the meter went wild with that “chirp-chirp”. The luminous paint of the needles and dial did the trick. I told him: <b>“Those uranium samples are as dangerous as your wrist watch. Everybody in the audience, please take your watches off, or you’ll die tomorrow”</B>. Phone calls to the TV station clogged the lines. After that TV session, Montenegro refused to be in the same TV show with me.

So, little by little, I started to discover that the environmental field was full of misinformation, scientific frauds, (killing all the romantic view I had about “saving the Planet”) and that was being used for stopping the development of Third World countries, in a clear neo-colonialistic fashion. When internet came to Argentina, things became easier. The rest is history.

Sure I have a political agenda: the agenda of helping my country to develop, to help bring back DDT and other chemicals irrationally banned, to show the fraud and criminal actions the green paranoids were using for their economic interests. So I became an expert in Myths, Frauds, and Hoaxes in Ecology. Nobody has paid me a cent in my 20 years of activism. On the contrary, has cost me a lot of money. That’s why I am dangerous: I am an idealistic nut trying to pass scientific information to people.

My mistake was <b>not trying to cheat you and the rest</b>. As experience showed me, when talking to laymen or people without a solid scientific base, there is no use in trying to counteract political misinformation with scientific facts. Environmentalism is a religion, and science and religion do not fare well. Emotions are stronger than reasoning.

I feel sorry if you dismiss information or data just because its source are “suspicious”. I take all information coming from the “greens”, dissect and analyze it, until I find the “hidden cat”. In the meantime I get informed. When I finally say “Look, here is the cat”, people like you seem to be prone to dismiss the message because it looks “suspicious of being funded by the industry or the lobbies”.

But you don’t seem to act in the same way when the green lobby send its message. You take their words at face value. Take a closer look at the main institutions in the Green Field: <b>they are all politically motivated</B>. But you take their word as the Holy Gospel. Where is your capacity of putting the information you receive in a “provisory drawer” until you can “find the cat in the trunk”?. I fully understand your position, and don’t feel sore or offended in the least. I just feel disappointed. Perhaps cheating and hiding my “political agenda” would make me a more “neutral” messenger.

But my main concern with the green movement is that the “owners” of the movement are using sincere and honest people for their purposes. These people have committed too many crimes in the Third World, and are imposing higher and higher costs to the economies of the industrialized countries, taxpayers money that could easily go to better and more humane purposes. Overdoze has accused me of being Libertarian and pro-free market. A neo-liberal. For your information, I read and admire the thinking of Noam Chomsky, and still enjoy reading Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., although I don’t share his environmental views. I am a human being, love my neighbor and mankind, and feel that people embarked in the reduction of world population are inhuman and genocidal. What’s worse, using the most tender feelings of people towards animals and trees for killing poor people in the Third World countries is the most hideous thing to do. And I will never go along with their intentions.

This is a subject too long to discuss in a short post. Perhaps in the future we could keep talking about it. If you get to know all the facts, you will be shattered.

 

You'll note that I didn't say that you were wrong. You've councilled (indirectly) in your messages to beware of the political agendas behind what is actually being said. I'm merely applying that (more and more) to your messages.

There is no way I can possibly keep up with your 20+ years of looking into this. Therefore, I have to go on my basic knowledge of the subject(s) and my feelings about "right" and "wrong". From your own statement, it does appear that your definition of "self preservation" is something with a business bent to it (namely the economic future of Argentina). I am not yet ready to believe that all "green" work is bad while all "business" work is good, but I'm more than willing to believe that individuals (and the groups they lead) on both sides have made mistakes. Determining where those mistakes are and how best to fix them is the challenge of the next century.

Do you personally continue to debate these issues anywhere else other than SciForums?

 

BatM, it seems you keep thinking I am in this subject because of "business" - well, it is a selfish business: the well being of my children and grandsons, in the first place. And as we are in a country full of Argentinians --with whom I have been disagreeing for most part of my life-- I would like to help my country, not so much for my countrymen, but for my family. If I had the chance to leave the country I would do it immediately. I am sick of demagogy, sick of cheap politics, sick of the sheer stupidity of our politicians. I am sick of the cowardice of my own people that fear to stand up against the IMF impositions that will eventually disintegrate my country. I am ashamed of what we have converted our country into. I have decided to throw the towel in.

Of course, not all the green work has been bad, but most of it is. In future posts I will introduce you to some unknown facts about the WWF and Greenpeace. You won't believe it, of course, but it is the ugly truth.

I was posting about the environmental issue in John Stossel's board (at ABC webpage) during the last year (2001), but it was full of Libertarians that got me sick. Although they have some good points, they seem to be too fixed and rigid. Their "initiation of force" thing bored me to death.

And, of course, you are right: never believe in somebody just because his credentials or authority in some field. Always ask him for proofs, evidences that support his views. Analize them and then you can apply your common sense and reach to your own conclusions: that's the basic principle of science.

 

The environment is one of those fields where politics has gotten too involved to talk objectively. It is the nature of the topic. If scientists find a problem, they need to fix it. The politicains get involved(you need them for some problems) and then they get cheers for being concerned. Then everything goes downhill. I doubt that there are many fields where politics is not involved.

 

That is often true even when politicians are not involved. For instance, in this case, many scientists see a problem and have a need to fix it, while other scientists do not see a problem and council against doing anything precipitous. It's hard for the little guy (including the politicians) to know what's the right thing to do.

 

Hmmm. A very "green" way of looking at things...

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(For example, some don't want to wait for "total proof" of global warming for fear it might be too late by then and "civilization will be undone".)

 

That’s true, although my bias is towards “survival”, not “getting filthy rich”. If fighting back for basic survival, for preserving our traditional cultural values and moral standards is a sin, then I declare myself guilty. Believe it or not, I go along with most of the practices recommended by environmentalists (I had acquired such practices long before they came into de main media –my father taught us to be sensible but reasonable at the same time. He used to tell us <I>“Before putting you tongue in motion, set your brain in action”</I>. He was a “free-thinker”, something that was Anatema in the old days). I was amazed by how he used to fight stupid city regulations by suing them constantly –and getting away with it. He had a two-year suit because he refused to cut a tree in the sidewalk, on the ground that the shadow gave shelter to people waiting for the bus, something unbearable during summers. He won.

So we learned that fighting back is useful. That the worse action against the imposition of injustice is resignation. And my small contribution to public service is showing people how they are being cheated and used for ignoble purposes- not only in the environmental field, but in general politics. If there could be something called a “Constitutional Anarchist”, that would be me.

Agreed. Dams are most useful when used for irrigation purposes. The power generation could be (and should be) replaced by nuclear energy. You all know that big dams cause shifts in the ecosystems (as happened in Assuan, Egypt, where the Nile river floods were the basis of their agriculture along the lower part of the river), but in other regions they have shown to be of great value. We’ll have to see how comes out the Three Gorge Dams presently under construction in China. At least they will serve to control the catastrophic floods so common in the Yangtse basin.

If you had worked for 30 years in the Montrose factory in California (making DDT) you’d be among the <b>1300 man/year</b> statistic that showed not a single case of cancer. Did you know that that is the largest epidemiological study ever conducted? I wonder why the studies conducted by Dr. Charles Silinskas (from the USDA) were stopped and never resumed.

By the way, kmguru, were you serious about your idea mentioned weeks ago for using in my website some material that had to be translated into Spanish? I waited for more news, but perhaps you forgot about it.

 

meanwhile it is growing warmer.

 

What's going warmer? Perhaps your imagination? If you really want to know about temperature trends during the last 30 years or more, see the temperature records from more than 100 weather stations all over the world that show a slight trend towards <B>cooling</B>:

http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm