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Is C02 really the problem
Professor David Bellamy :
Professor David Bellamy has added his voice to the many scientists condeming the myth of 'Global Warming'. In an article in the Daily Mail of 9th June 2004, Bellamy accuses politicians and policy makers of ignorance and having an unshakeable faith in the 'poppycock' of global warming. He goes on to cite scientific evidence which is ignored by the scaremongers who want to waste £76 trillion on the Kyoto Protocol.
"My argument in the Daily Mail was based on the past record of natural climatic change and questioned how a rise in the tiny amount of carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere could have such a drastic effect when water vapour makes up some 96% of all the greenhouse gases." - monbiot.com
Did you get that: WATER VAPOUR makes up 96% of all greenhouse gasses -
these are popularly known as Clouds -
More:
'Nuclear Power & the Global Warming Scam - Professor David Bellamy exposes shoddy science, but whom does the hype truly benefit? --by
Fintan Dunne [mp3 file]
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Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.
RICHARD LINDZEN / Wall St Journal | April 13 2006
There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?
The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.
But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.
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.
So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.
All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.
Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.
And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.
Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.
- Wall St Journal.com
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State of Fear
Dr John Kenner, the main character in Michael Crichton's latest thriller State of Fear, accuses the US of creating artificial hurricanes, explosions and earthquakes in some isolated islands to substantiate the claims of climate scientists that global warming is a real phenomenon. He has also blamed climate scientists for predicting temperature data in 1988 that are 300 per cent exagerrated. The book has been heavily criticised by many, including the environmentalists who have accused him for distorting and ignoring the findings. - telegraph india
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"We have a responsibility to help clean up this mess," "It's as if the entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by the worst kind of weapon you can imagine."
- Bush after meeting with the leaders of some Gulf Coast states in Mobile, Alabama
more
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Earth changes: Earth brightening?
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Sunshine study finds world's darkened since '50s
In the second half of the 20th century, the world became a darker place.
Defying expectation and explanation, hundreds of instruments around the world recorded a drop in sunshine reaching the surface of Earth, as much as 10 percent from the late 1950s to the early '90s, or 2 to 3 percent per decade.
In some areas like Asia, the United States and Europe, the drop was even steeper. Hong Kong saw a 37 percent decrease in its sunlight.
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Earth Brightens After Years of Dimming
Scientists studying earthshine the amount of light reflected by the Earth say the planet appeared to dim from 1984 to 2001 and then reversed its trend and brightened from 2001 to 2003.
The shift appears to have resulted from changes in the amount of clouds covering the planet. More clouds reflect more light back into space, potentially cooling the planet, while a dimmer planet with fewer clouds would be warmed by the arriving sunlight.That means the changes in brightness could signal climate change, though it's too early to tell.
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Global Dimming ?
From the people who brought us 'super-volcanoes'
We are all seeing rather less of the Sun. Scientists looking at five decades of sunlight measurements have reached the disturbing conclusion that the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface has been gradually falling. Paradoxically, the decline in sunlight may mean that global warming is a far greater threat to society than previously thought.
The effect was first spotted by Gerry Stanhill, an English scientist working in Israel. Comparing Israeli sunlight records from the 1950s with current ones, Stanhill was astonished to find a large fall in solar radiation. "There was a staggering 22% drop in the sunlight, and that really amazed me," he says.
Intrigued, he searched out records from all around the world, and found the same story almost everywhere he looked, with sunlight falling by 10% over the USA, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles. Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to 1-2% globally per decade between the 1950s and the 1990s.
Gerry called the phenomenon global dimming, but his research, published in 2001, met with a sceptical response from other scientists. It was only recently, when his conclusions were confirmed by Australian scientists using a completely different method to estimate solar radiation, that climate scientists at last woke up to the reality of global dimming.
Dimming appears to be caused by air pollution. Burning coal, oil and wood, whether in cars, power stations or cooking fires, produces not only invisible carbon dioxide (the principal greenhouse gas responsible for global warming) but also tiny airborne particles of soot, ash, sulphur compounds and other pollutants.
This visible air pollution reflects sunlight back into space, preventing it reaching the surface. But the pollution also changes the optical properties of clouds. Because the particles seed the formation of water droplets, polluted clouds contain a larger number of droplets than unpolluted clouds. Recent research shows that this makes them more reflective than they would otherwise be, again reflecting the Sun's rays back into space.
Scientists are now worried that dimming, by shielding the oceans from the full power of the Sun, may be disrupting the pattern of the world's rainfall. There are suggestions that dimming was behind the droughts in sub-Saharan Africa which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the 1970s and 1980s. There are disturbing hints the same thing may be happening today in Asia, home to half the world's population. "My main concern is global dimming is also having a detrimental impact on the Asian monsoon," says Prof Veerhabhadran Ramanathan, one of the world's leading climate scientists. "We are talking about billions of people."
But perhaps the most alarming aspect of global dimming is that it may have led scientists to underestimate the true power of the greenhouse effect. They know how much extra energy is being trapped in the Earth's atmosphere by the extra carbon dioxide (CO2) we have placed there. What has been surprising is that this extra energy has so far resulted in a temperature rise of just 0.6°C.
This has led many scientists to conclude that the present-day climate is less sensitive to the effects of carbon dioxide than it was, say, during the ice age, when a similar rise in CO2 led to a temperature rise of 6°C. But it now appears the warming from greenhouse gases has been offset by a strong cooling effect from dimming - in effect two of our pollutants have been cancelling each other out. This means that the climate may in fact be more sensitive to the greenhouse effect than thought.
If so, then this is bad news, according to Dr Peter Cox, one of the world's leading climate modellers. As things stand, CO2 levels are projected to rise strongly over coming decades, whereas there are encouraging signs that particle pollution is at last being brought under control. "We're going to be in a situation, unless we act, where the cooling pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up. That means we'll get reduced cooling and increased heating at the same time and that's a problem for us," says Cox.
Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards. That means a temperature rise of 10°C by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable. That is unless we act urgently to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases.
BBC - Horizon producer David Sington
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cloud cover/air particles affect the ecosystems behavior,
thus causing the symptoms of 'global warming'
or more accuratly causing amplified 'climate change
WHY ARE THERE INCREASING FUNDS AND INVESTMENT IN THE AVIATION INDUSTRY?
AND WHY ARE THESE PLANES ARCANE ENGINES BEING ENCOURAGED TO SPRAY SHIT ACROSS THE ATMOSPHERE...???
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Why are they spraying us?
  
" the army began a program in 1949 to assess the nation's
vulnerability to attack with biological weapons. During the next 20 years,
the army released simulant agents over hundreds of populated areas around
the country. Targets included portions of Hawaii and Alaska, San
Francisco, St. Louis, Minneapolis, New York City, Washington, D.C., Key
West, and many other cities. The purpose was to see how the bacteria
spread and survived as people went about their normal activities.
"Evidence suggested that the tests may have been causing illness to
exposed citizens. Nevertheless, as army spokesmen subsequently testified,
the health of the millions of people exposed was never monitored because
the army assumed that the bacteria and chemicals were harmless. "
source- Leonard A. Cole
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what is going on?
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The party line from chemtrail debunkers has changed over the past 3 years. Early on, debunkers wanted the public to think that chemtrails were really just ordinary contrails that were persisting longer than usual due to changing atmospheric conditions and similar tripe. Later, debukers needed to create some sort of logical excuse for chemtrails and were peddling the aerial immunization against 'terrorists' biologicals or solar wind protection gambit.
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Lately, the current unofficial party line seems to be
1. protection of the ozone layer,
2. secret military radar blanketing technology,
3. aerosol 'vaccinations' of some sort and
4. some vague reference to 'protection from aliens'
source
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Geo-engineering - remodelling the world?
"The sunscreen project is not the only reason for which aerosol spraying is taking place in the atmosphere. Spraying is also being carried out to increase electrical conductivity in the atmosphere, facilitating the operations of HAARP, the High Frequency Active Aural Research Program, in Alaska.
Also, some reports of the presence of disease bacteria in aerosol spaying do not fit in with Deep Shield's explanation of biological materials being spayed to combat the growth of mould. This suggests that black operations are also in progress, parasitic on the pseudo-public-interest applications of geoengineering technology and on personnel who believe that the purpose of their work is the mitigation of climate change. If the sunscreen project is being used as a cover for other even more illegal and apparently criminal purposes, this is another argument for opposing its secrecy."
Chemtrail Secrets: Strategies
Against Climate Change? By Wayne Hall
GEOENGINEERING: A CLIMATE CHANGE MANHATTAN PROJECT by Jay Michaelson [FNa1]
Geo-enginnering [Stanford University]
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Can you spot the tiny flaw...?!!!
So these geo-engineering people are saying that we need to
spray a sunscreen to protect the planet?
They need to fill the sky full of planes that pump more crap into
the eco-system than cars ...er...in order to 'save the planet...???
what are they really up to...?
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Could the massive global increase in the amount of Aircraft in the Skies
& their Chemtrails, help provide a false cloudcover
which further amplify 'climate change' - ?
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Contrail Clutter over Georgia - NASA Explanation:
Artificial clouds made by humans may become so common they change the Earth's climate.
The long thin cloud streaks that dominate the above satellite photograph of Georgia are contrails, cirrus clouds created by airplanes. The exhaust of an airplane engine can create a contrail by saturating the surrounding air with extra moisture. The wings of a plane can similarly create contrails by dropping the temperature and causing small ice-crystals to form. Contrails have become more than an oddity - they may be significantly increasing the cloudiness of Earth, reflecting sunlight back into space by day, and heat radiation back to Earth even at night. The effect on climate is a topic of much research. - NASA
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Aviation industry expansion as a politically useful tool?
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The UK Government forecasts that passenger numbers could double by 2020 and treble by 2030
Aviation is the fastest growing contributor to climate change - accounting for about 3% of all man-made emissions at present; this could rise to about 15% by 2050 6. This growth will nullify any cut in emissions from cleaner and fuller planes.
- Airport Expansion Briefing Sept 2002Green concerns over aviation plan
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Contradictions? Hypocricy?
Come on! Which is it? environmental protection? or Global WAR?
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'Nice Guy' Blair Hot To Fight Global Warming
Prime Minister Tony Blair announced ambitious plans Monday to combat global warming, saying the Kyoto treaty to reduce greenhouse gases did not go far enough and criticizing the United States for failing to back it.
Blair, vowing Britain would seek to reduce its emissions of harmful carbon dioxide by 60 percent by 2050, said President Bush was wrong to claim fighting warming will slow economic growth.
The prime minister, Bush's closest overseas ally since the Sept. 11 attacks on America, said world leaders must not let the crisis in Iraq and the fight against terrorism distract them from long-term but equally important environmental problems like global warming.
"The only answer is to construct a common agenda that recognizes both sets of issues have to be confronted for the world's security and prosperity to be guaranteed," Blair said. "There will be no genuine security if the planet is ravaged by climate change."
"We will continue to make the case to the U.S. and to others that climate change is a serious threat that we must address together as an international community," he said. "We in Britain have shown that it is possible to break the relationship between economic growth and ever-rising pollution."
CBS
UK's Blair demands new push on climate change
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The first meeting was over lunch.
The President said to Blair: "Welcome Tony. Can I call you Tony?"
And of course Blair said: "Yes".
And Blair said: "Well it's great to be here George. Can I call you
George?"
And the President said: "Yes, of course you can."
And then "Well what shall we talk about?"
"Middle East."
"Middle East."
And off they went. - Sir CHRISTOPHER MEYER
British Ambassador to US
1997-2003
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"I know this course of action has produced deep divisions of opinion in our country. But I
know also the British people will now be united in sending our armed forces, our thoughts and prayers."
"The moral case against war has a moral answer. It is the moral case for removing Saddam."
"...sometimes it is the price of leadership and it is the cost of conviction."
I dont ignore the voices of people who are opposed to the course that we are taking. I understand
why they take that view and I respect that view. But in the end, I have got to say as Prime Minister to the
country on an issue such as this, what I believe and why I believe it. And I believe genuinely, passionately,
that international terrorism and unstable repressive states developing chemical, biological, nuclear weapons
are real threats to our security. -
TONY BLAIR
more deeply disturbing quotes from BLAIR
Blair's war: The Lies!!
WANTED! For war crimes!
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The Environmental Impacts of War
For centuries, war has involved not only human conflict but also environmental destruction in the forms of both 'collateral damage' and deliberate destruction of environments. Environmental destruction has been used as a war-winning strategy and as a punishment for defeated opponents. The Romans routinely destroyed the crops of their enemies to ensure their future dependence on Rome and the Russians have twice destroyed their own crops and homes in a "scorched earth" policy to prevent those resources from being useful to either Napoleon or Hitler. The near extinction of America's once vast herds of buffalo was, in part, linked to an assault against Indian tribes through their resource base.
As war has become increasingly technologically advanced so its impacts on the environment have become more severe and longer-lasting. In the case of the American war in Vietnam, the destruction of forest ecosystems with broad-leaf herbicides has directly impacted not only the ecosystems in which they were used, but also has had long-term effects on human health.
The environmental impacts of modern war can be grouped into three areas:
1) The consequences of preparing for war.
2) The immediate effects of war.
3) The aftermath of war.
Eco Press
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"thanks to Tony Blair ..." [???]
The year 2005, which ends with the major conference of parties to the Kyoto protocol in Montreal, has been a rollercoaster for climate-change debate. Britain's prime minister Tony Blair has played a key role: forewarning his G8 partners in late 2004 that it would be a key element of the summit agenda he was due to host in July 2005, and convening the Exeter meeting of scientists in February 2005. These scientists' deliberations provided conclusive evidence for significant man-made warming of the Earth's atmosphere and increased disruption of weather systems across the planet.
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Blair promoted the twin issues of Africa and climate change to the head of the Gleneagles summit of the G8, ensuring a level of attention which many rightly lauded. Some of us might have wished for a greater connection between the two agendas - might Africa's development possibly be adversely influenced by climate change - but hey, some attention is better than none. Thanks, Tony!
Anglo-American confusions
But climate change was always the junior sibling at the Gleneagles meeting, and in any case the family union was sadly further diminished by the bombings of 7 July which brought summit discussions to a temporary halt and broke whatever tenuous thread might have been spun from the different positions.
Three weeks later, on 28 July, the United States announced the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, aimed at bringing China, Australia, India and others on board a technology-led programme over the next few years. With no mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, the pact allows the supporting countries to set individual goals for reducing emissions.
The initiative may not be in itself a bad thing if it is allied to a strong, serious commitment to cutting greenhouse gases; but it was curious nonetheless for the US to launch this so soon after Gleneagles, with no previous mention - taking even its British ally by surprise.
At the end of August, in the heart of the hurricane season, the winds gathered and the sea rose around New Orleans. Weakened by years of under-investment in sea dykes, and blanket development of the shoreline, the devastation wreaked by a force-five hurricane was terrible. Hurricane Katrina is likely to cost the US the equivalent of 1.7% of its GDP (and this may be a conservative estimate). Commentators are still tussling over whether the frequency or intensity of the hurricane season has been intensified by global warming. - opendemocracy.net
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Blair Deserts Kyoto
After years as an environmentalist champion, the British PM has admitted no one will negotiate 'another major treaty like Kyoto'
By Benny Peiser , 12/8/2005 11:59:09 AM
As the United Nation's climate convention in Montreal draws to a close, it is becoming apparent that, despite the usual rhetoric, all attempts will fail to extend the Kyoto Treaty beyond its expiration in 2012. No one will be surprised about this outcome. After all, the U.S. administration has insisted time and again that it would not budge.
What is largely overlooked, however, is that - for the first time ever - hardly any pressure was put on the U.S. to yield. It seems that quite the opposite of capitulation looks likely to ensue. In front of our noses, America's long-standing position that economic considerations should take priority over environmental concerns is being converted into a new international consensus on tackling climate change. In place of the customary press-ganging of the U.S., Montreal is witnessing a momentous turnaround. The driving-force behind this seismic shift of the political landscape is one man and one man only: Tony Blair.
No other world leader has raised the issue of climate change as high on the international agenda as the British Prime Minister. No other person has tried harder, longer and more doggedly to sway the Bush administration. For years, he was the acclaimed champion of environmental activists throughout the world. No wonder then that Blair stunned incredulous observers and green campaigners by his conversion from advocate of command and control ecology to crusader of a more sensible environmentalism.
Alert political observers had spotted the first signs of a conspicuous change of tone earlier this year. Already in January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and then even more so at the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Blair highlighted the key issue of his new line of reasoning: "No-one is going to damage their economy in trying to tackle this problem of the environment. There are ways that we can tackle climate change fully consistent with growing our economies." He dropped the real bombshell a couple of months ago at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York when the fall-out of Blair's new thinking blew apart the green consensus: "I don't think people are going to start negotiating another major treaty like Kyoto."
Yesterday, when Britain's green, new Tory Leader confronted Blair on his apparent Kyoto U-turn in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister revealed his true colours: Of course, he was still in favour of a post-Kyoto treaty, the PM retorted. But only if the US, China and India were to agree to binding targets - which is as likely as Christmas and Easter falling on the same day.
Many analysts have commented on Blair's change of heart. But few have fully grasped the historical implications of his about face. The significance of his new stance cannot be underestimated: Instead of basing future climate policies on state-imposed emission targets, Blair has embraced free market solutions to the issue of climate change, forcefully advocating the employment of market forces and the development of new technologies.
The reasons for Blair's radical transformation are not difficult to discern. Europe is in turmoil as an enlarged EU is struggling both politically and economically. Worryingly, there is a growing realization that the Kyoto Protocol, contrary to the assurances of its advocates, is having a deleterious effect on Europe's already sluggish economy. While the implementation of Kyoto and the myriad of other environmental regulations are strangling Europe's lethargic economies, the economies of its international competitors (that is the U.S., India and China) are enjoying boom times unrestricted by self-imposed limits of growth. Besides, most European countries have been unable to achieve their Kyoto targets and will be forced to pay huge amounts of corrective payments that are mandated under the Kyoto treaty.
Even a small country like Ireland is currently facing a bill of £300-million to £400-million for failing to meet its Kyoto targets. The cost that Britain will incur by 2050 as a result of its current emission targets are estimated to range from £60-billion to £400-billion. Obviously, such economic costs are simply untenable. It is the realization that Europe is facing a potential nightmare that has driven Blair to state the obvious: "The truth is, no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially in the light of a long-term environmental problem."
To be sure, Blair's new policy is no longer limited to empty rhetoric. Under his leadership, the EU has finally downgraded the environment as a priority - behind economic growth and job creation. The prioritization of the economics pillar over and above the environment is a real turning point. For almost a generation, EU decision-making was subjugated by the precautionary limit-to-growth doctrine. Techno-phobic and risk adverse, Europe's key set of guidelines was the precautionary principle that has often been applied regardless of its devastating consequence on economic growth or technological advancement.
In Britain too, Blair has begun to drive back the obstructive influence of green power. In face of growing economic concerns, Tony Blair and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, have recently set up a government committee that will look into the actual costs and benefits of Britain's climate change policies and the Kyoto process. Instead of relying on the habitually alarmist predictions by climate scientists and environmental agencies, Blair's astute move will help to restore economics to their proper role as the principal driver of political decision-making. Most likely, other governments will follow. The basic question is simple: Which course of action will prove more cost-effective: forgoing cheap energy as result of mandatory emission cuts (a la Kyoto) or adapting to whatever moderate climate change may throw at us in the next 50 years?
That Blair is daring to confront the green movement head-on has another reason: its fall from power and declining influence. The seismic shift that is reshaping the European landscape can be best gauged by the fading of green parties from political power. During much of the last quarter of a century, European parliaments saw the steady rise of green political influence and techno-phobic regulations. Green parties were part of coalition governments in five European countries, turning command and control ecology and the precautionary principle into the strategic framework of European policy-making.
At the same time, the apocalyptic radicalization of environmental campaign groups is throwing them back to the early beginnings of the Green movement that was dominated by extremists at the fringes of the political process. As Europe's green era is fizzling out, a shrewd British Prime Minister is exploiting this opening by coupling free market and environmentalism on the international scene.
Tony Blair's political career as Labour leader began with his famous victory over his party's defenders of a state-controlled command economy. Whether his period in office will be long enough - and whether he will be strong enough - to move Britain and the international community away from the obstructive tenets of a command ecology remains to be seen. At the end of the day, however, Europe and the rest of the world have no alternative but to overcome the old credo of risk-adverse eco-pessimism that is placing perilous limits on economic growth and prosperity, elements that are imperative for any society to adapt to the environmental challenges of the future.
Benny Peiser, a researcher at Liverpool John Moores University, is the editor of CCNet.
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Warning to Blair on climate change
Tony Blair has been warned not to allow the US to dictate the future of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change by refusing to participate in discussions. The Prime Minister was accused by aid and environment groups of sending out confusing and ambiguous messages on the subject.
The UK coalition - the first of its kind - aims to highlight the problems human development and ecosystems are facing as ministers discuss the issue in Montreal. It is calling for official recognition that the threat from climate change is so large that it threatens all the internationally-agreed targets for poverty reduction - the Millennium Development Goals. It is also lobbying that any deal to develop the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 should force countries to adopt greenhouse gas reduction targets which are adequate to stop dangerous climate change.
Sufficient resources must be provided to enable developing countries to adapt to the degree warming already built into the earth's climate system, it urges. The groups are calling on Tony Blair to resist pressure to block progress in order to appease the current US administration. The coalition's report "Africa: Up in Smoke?" makes it clear that Mr Blair's efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa will ultimately fail unless urgent action is taken to halt dangerous climate change.
Rich countries have failed to join the dots between climate change and development, particularly in Africa, it said. And unless addressed, this could condemn generations in the world's poorest nations. Africa is on the front line of global warming, with 70 per cent of the workforce relying on mostly rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods. Climate change is already disrupting these vital rains, bringing more droughts and floods.
The report, with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, details the impact that climate change is already having on Africa and the threat it poses to human development.
John Magrath of Oxfam said: "The Kyoto Protocol must and will go forward. It is the only game in town." Similarly, Catherine Pearce, of Friends of the Earth, said: "Politicians gathered here in Montreal need to take on board that the public want action. Coalitions like ours are now emerging in other countries.
Andrew Simms, of the New Economics Foundation, said: "The Government's chief scientific adviser Sir David King, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, and Sir John Houghton have all said that global warming is a bigger threat to society than terrorism. That means it needs a stronger international response."
- .scotsman
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Climate change puts cultures under siege
Dec. 10, 2005. CLEO PASKAL
Montreal-Let me introduce you to Winnie Powell and Louie Nigiyok.
Powell is a medicine woman who lives on the atoll of Butaritari in the South Pacific country of Kiribati. Her island is so slender that from her open-sided home, she can see the Pacific on one side and the lagoon on the other.
Nigiyok is an artist and tour guide who lives in Holman, a town of 450 on Victoria Island in the Canadian Arctic. The view from the living room window of his modern home is the undulating tundra and the steel-grey Arctic Ocean.
Powell and Nigiyok are on opposite sides of the planet, but they have two things in common. First, they both live in - and their lives are intricately linked to - stunningly beautiful locations. The delicate islands of the Pacific and the Arctic are natural wonders of the world, supporting fragile and complex ecosystems.
Powell uses her ancestral knowledge of local plants to cure her neighbours. Nigiyok feeds his family and draws artistic inspiration from the muskox, arctic char and seals. They are both part of their land.
The other thing they have in common is that they are living in the two environments at most immediate risk from climate change. At the U.N. climate change conference that just wrapped up Montreal, a raft of new studies were made public. There is now no question that the world's climate is changing, and fast. The most dramatic effects are being seen in the Arctic, where the glaciers are melting, and on small low-lying islands, where flooding can mean annihilation.
An entire day at the U.N. conference was devoted to Arctic issues, with elders being flown south to talk about the melting ice, the shifting animal populations, and the disappearance of their ice-related culture. The Canadian government is very concerned and is doing what it can to raise awareness across the country.
Other events featured Pacific Islanders and people from the Caribbean, talking about rising seas and storm surges that are floating bodies out of cemeteries, sinking entire islands and drowning harbours and airports.
Other areas are also starting to feel the effects. Joshua Wairoto, chairman of the National Climate Change Activities Co-ordination Committee of Kenya, told me how, in some parts of his country, wild animals and humans have started to fight over water, with monkeys "capturing" some wells in dry regions and battling locals for control.
A delegate from India explained how they are trying to introduce micro-insurance schemes to keep farmers on their land and out of city slums when crops fail.
And a scientist from China said they are predicting dramatically lower crop yields due to drought, at a time when the population is still increasing.
But while most major countries have a bit of time to adapt, the Arctic and many small islands are so vulnerable that a collapse might come at any time. A few weeks ago, about a thousand people from an atoll in Papua New Guinea became the first group of people in the modern era to have to abandon their homes due to climate change.
I say modern era because climate change is a natural phenomenon. The "Little Ice Age" that lasted in Europe and North America from about the early 13th to the early 19th centuries created huge population shifts. But those cycles are very closely tied to the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
We happen to be going through a natural warming stage, but increased human-related emissions are compounding it. No credible scientist is now disputing the link between emissions and climate change. In fact, neither is George Bush. The U.S. administration has acknowledged the need to cut emissions - they just don't want to be forced into quotas under the Kyoto Protocol.
And so, while the leaders dither about responsibility, Powell and Nigiyok and millions of others watch their worlds melt away. It's heartbreaking. To understand the true impact of climate change, you have to first understand what is being lost. And while a pure environmentalist would say you shouldn't burn the jet fuel that speeds up their demise, I think it's critical that more people see for themselves what is going on. Next vacation, instead of going to some place you've been before, think about visiting an atoll or the Arctic. They are remarkable places, filled with remarkable people. But maybe not for long. - thestar.com
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Two-track approach adopted on global warming
10/12/2005 - More than 150 nations agreed today to launch formal talks on mandatory post-2012 reductions in greenhouse gases - talks that will exclude an unwilling US.
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For its part, the administration of US President George W. Bush, which rejects the emissions cutbacks of the current Kyoto Protocol, accepted only a watered-down proposal at talks in Montreal to enter an exploratory global "dialogue" on future steps to combat climate change.
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That proposal specifically rules out "negotiations leading to new commitments".
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The parallel tracks represented a mixed result for the pivotal two-week conference, doing little to close the climate gap between Washington on one side, and Europe, Japan and other supporters of the Kyoto Protocol on the other.
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"These countries are willing to take the leadership," Swiss delegate Bruno Oberle said of the Kyoto nations. "But they are not able to solve the problem. We need the support of the US - but also of the big emerging countries," a reference to China and other poorer industrialising nations not obligated under Kyoto.
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But the Canadian conference president, Environment Minister Stephane Dion, said the decisions taken here amounted to "a map for the future, the Montreal Action Plan, the MAP" - IOL
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Bush 'flat wrong' on global warming, says Clinton
10/12/2005 - Delegates from around the world worked into the final hours of a UN climate conference to produce a plan for deeper cuts after 2012 in greenhouse-gas emissions, buoyed by a last-minute message of support from former US President Bill Clinton. Clinton, in an applause-filled appearance at the Montreal meeting yesterday, said US President George W. Bush was "flat wrong" to claim that reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to fight global warming would damage the US economy. But the ex-president urged the negotiators from more than 180 nations to find a way to "work with" the current US administration.
Throughout the two-week conference, the Bush administration repeatedly rejected Canadian and other efforts to draw it into future global talks on emission controls, just as in 2001 it renounced the existing Kyoto Protocol and its mandatory cuts. Canadian officials said the US delegation was displeased with the last-minute scheduling of the Clinton speech. But US delegation chief Paula Dobriansky issued a statement saying events like Clinton's appearance "are useful opportunities to hear a wide range of views on global climate change".
Despite Clinton's message, many here seemed resigned to waiting for a political change in Washington. "It's such a pity the US is still very much unwilling to join the international community, to have a multilateral effort to deal with climate change," said the leader of the African group of nations here, Kenya's Emily Ojoo Massawa. "The administration just doesn't seem to get it. They don't understand the world is suffering from climate change," said Jennifer Morgan of the environmentalist group Climate Action Network.
The US delegation had little public comment, maintaining the low profile it has generally kept at recent annual climate conferences. This was the first such meeting since the Kyoto Protocol took effect last February, mandating cutbacks in 35 industrialised nations of emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases by 2012.
A broad scientific consensus agrees that these gases accumulating in the atmosphere, by-products of automobile engines, power plants and other fossil fuel-burning industries, contributed significantly to the past century's global temperature rise - of 0.7 degrees Celsius, or 1 degree Fahrenheit. Continued warming is melting glaciers worldwide, shrinking the Arctic ice cap and heating up the oceans, raising sea levels, scientists say. They predict major climate disruptions in coming decades.
Clinton's former vice president, Al Gore, was instrumental in negotiating the treaty protocol initialled in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan - a pact that the Senate subsequently refused to ratify. When Bush, taking office, rejected Kyoto outright, he complained that China, India and other major industrialising countries were not bound by its emission controls. The protocol's language required its member nations at this point to begin talks on presumably deeper emissions cuts for the next phase, after 2012.
Negotiations among the more than 150 nations that ratified Kyoto went on until dawn Friday and then resumed later in the day, as they hammered out final details of a plan whereby a working group would begin developing post-2012 proposals. The tentative document included no deadline for that work, but said it should be completed early enough to ensure that no gap develops after 2012.
That would guarantee an uninterrupted future for the burgeoning international "carbon market," in which carbon reductions achieved by one company can be sold to another to help it meet its target. At the same time, the host Canadians tried to draw in the Americans, Kyoto outsiders, on a parallel track, under the non-bonding 1992 UN climate treaty. Canada's proposals offered vague, noncommittal language by which Washington would join only in a "dialogue" to "explore" co-operative action. The US negotiators repeatedly rejected these efforts, however, and instead pointed to three-billion-dollar-a-year US government spending on research and development of energy-saving technologies as a demonstration of US efforts to combat climate change.
In a news conference after his speech, Clinton suggested that Europeans and others not force "targets" on Washington, but look for agreement on specific energy-saving projects.
"If we just keep working with the administration, we'll find some specific things we can do that are consistent with the targets," he said, but "without embracing the targets".
Most of the conference was devoted to the nuts-and-bolts work of the climate pacts. Environmentalists were pleased at agreements in such areas as how to quantify gas emissions and how to penalise nations that do not meet Kyoto targets.
"They've released the brakes on the Kyoto process," said Greenpeace International's Bill Hare.
Others expressed disappointment, meanwhile, there was not more progress here in such areas as helping finance developing countries' adaptation to damaging climate change. - IOL
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This is a psychological operation designed to instill fear into the population, and guilt over its 'excessive' lifestyle.
These effects are then promoted as the 'end of the world' doom scenario:
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weather management?
Dyn-O-Drought? Dyn-O-Storm?
"The U.S. Air Force admitted to CNN in July that it had broken up a storm over the Atlantic using products made by a company called Dyn-O-Mat. The company's website, dynomat.com, lists "environmental absorbent products" such as Dyn-O-Drought and Dyn-O-Storm. "
Stormy Weather-
The government's top-secret efforts to control Mother Nature
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The satellite grids secret purpose...?
In a recent correspondence with Dr. Bernard Eastlund, it appears that ground based weather control via electromagnetic means have been surpassed by the newer technology of Solar Power Satellite based systems which have been designed for a power output of 1000 Megawatts. Even though this Solar Power Satellite based system is speculative at best, I think we can all see where this is going.
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HAARP, as we have stated, does not appear to possess the ability to alter the weather over disparate geographic locations, and has only a minute ability to do anything locally - remember, radiation from the Sun strikes the atmosphere with a power density of 1370 Watts per meter2 or 0.137 Watts per cm2, a value known as the "solar constant."
The intensity of HAARP's HF signal in the ionosphere will be less than 3 microwatts per cm2 at its full power potential of 3.6 Megawatts - tens of thousands of times less than the Sun's natural electromagnetic radiation reaching the earth. But, these new satellite systems, if indeed they can generate the power proposed, certainly would solve that problem. With a fleet of these satellites, it could be conceivable that the weather over any geographic location could be modified at will - provided the system actually works. - source
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How global warming?
Using advanced satellite technology - the earths eco-system is now a fully managed situation...
our current 'modern' lifestyle is in essence an enforced choice, promulgated by an elite cartel, which has had control over our choice for use of all resources for centuries. Currently the base of this energy magnate is Carbon fuel.
Why 'Global warming'?
The Elite need global warming as a useful tool to stop the real development of other , perhaps less 'economically managable' energy technologies. There is an active suppression and hiding of clean, safe, cheap energy sources...which could be developed at home...by inquisitive types...
Have you ever heard the expression 'living like there is no tomorrow'?
it is a designed fear based propaganda exercise....in an uber corporatist world, which, is now economically dependent upon spending patterns...as drivers for expanding the globalisation agenda....
what better way to ensure that the popualtion, live...spending as if it is their last days...
And then there is yet another Psychological operation known as the 'Peak oil theory'
which ensures that further; the global population is seen to make another 'enforced choice:
Accept the global energy cartels proposals: Or the Earth is 'doomed'
see more on the satellite system - it's not just 'weather control'
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Scientists say Arctic once was tropical
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Wed May - yahoo.com
WASHINGTON - Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees. It's smack in the middle of the Arctic.
First-of-its-kind core samples dug up from deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor show that 55 million years ago an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise, three new studies show.
The scientists say their findings are a glimpse backward into a much warmer-than-thought polar region heated by run-amok greenhouse gases that came about naturally.
Skeptics of man-made causes of global warming have nothing to rejoice over, however. The researchers say their studies appearing in Thursday's issue of Nature also offer a peek at just how bad conditions can get.
"It probably was (a tropical paradise) but the mosquitoes were probably the size of your head," said Yale geology professor Mark Pagani, a study co-author.
And what a watery, swampy world it must have been.
"Imagine a world where there are dense sequoia trees and cypress trees like in Florida that ring the Arctic Ocean," said Pagani, a member of the multinational Arctic Coring Expedition that conducted the research.
Millions of years ago the Earth experienced an extended period of natural global warming. But around 55 million years ago there was a sudden supercharged spike of carbon dioxide that accelerated the greenhouse effect.
Scientists already knew this "thermal event" happened but are not sure what caused it. Perhaps massive releases of methane from the ocean, the continent-sized burning of trees, lots of volcanic eruptions.
Many experts figured that while the rest of the world got really hot, the polar regions were still comfortably cooler, maybe about 52 degrees Fahrenheit.
But the new research found the polar average was closer to 74 degrees. So instead of Boston-like weather year-round, the Arctic was more like Miami North. Way north.
"It's the first time we've looked at the Arctic, and man, it was a big surprise to us," said study co-author Kathryn Moran, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island. "It's a new look to how the Earth can respond to these peaks in carbon dioxide."
It's enough to make Santa Claus break into a sweat.
The 74-degree temperature, based on core samples which act as a climatic time capsule, was probably the year-round average, but because data is so limited it might also be just the summertime average, researchers said.
What's troubling is that this hints that future projections for warming, several degrees over the next century, may be on the low end, said study lead author Appy Sluijs of the Institute of Environmental Biology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Also it shows that what happened 55 million years ago was proof that too much carbon dioxide - more than four times current levels - can cause global warming, said another co-author Henk Brinkhuis at Utrecht University.
Purdue University atmospheric sciences professor Gabriel Bowen, who was not part of the team, praised the work and said it showed that "there are tipping points in our (climate) system that can throw us to these conditions."
And the new research also gave scientists the idea that a simple fern may have helped pull Earth from a hothouse to an icehouse by sucking up massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, this natural solution to global warming was not exactly quick: It took about a million years.
With all that heat and massive freshwater lakes forming in the Arctic, a fern called Azolla started growing and growing. Azolla, still found in warm regions today, grew so deep, so wide that eventually it started sucking up carbon dioxide, Brinkhuis theorized. And that helped put the cool back in the Arctic.
Bowen said he has a hard time accepting that part of the research, but Brinkhuis said the studies show tons upon tons of thick mats of Azolla covered the Arctic and moved south.
"This could actually contribute to push the world to a cooling mode," Brinkhuis said, but only after it got hotter first and then it would take at least 800,000 years to cool back down. It's not something to look forward to, he said.
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