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CLIMATE FILE PLEASE NOTE- These items are filed with the latest item at the top. As this file covers several years, some active links will have ceased.
ED. COM. We couldn't say it any better than Giaever-truth or error is never determined by the numbers of believers, or the exalted position they may have in the eyes of the world. If something is true, it doesn't matter how unpopular it is. It won't cease to be true because a lot of scientists, politicians, lawyers, economists or journalists pour scorn on it. If something is false, then whether it is said by many laymen or a few prominents will not make it true.
This principle not only applies to climate change, but also to creation, evolution, the big bang theory, peer review and many other issues. (Ref. climate, weather, philosophy, world view)
FUDGED NEW WORLD ATLAS as Journalists across the UK received glossy press packs last week for the launch of a new Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World . It included a press release declaring: "For the first time, the new edition [...] has had to erase 15 per cent of Greenland's once permanent ice cover-turning an area the size of the UK and Ireland 'green' and ice-free. This is concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of the planet forever."
Today glaciologists have been crying foul, saying that the 15 per cent figure is wildly inaccurate, reports New Scientist who contacted the Times Atlas team last week to find out where they had obtained the number, they cited the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado, but were unable to be more precise.
Ted Scambos the NSIDC's expert on Greenland ice , says neither he nor his colleagues were consulted in person. "Graduate students would not have made a mistake like this," he told New Scientist. "If what The Times has said were true, something like a metre of sea level rise would have occurred in the past decade." That is nowhere near what measurements show. "Currently, Greenland is losing mass at about a rate of 150 billion tonnes per year, or about one-third of a millimetre of sea level rise per year," says Scambos. That means in the 12-year period from 1999 to 2011 that the Times Atlas analysed, meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet has contributed roughly 3 mm to global sea level rise-not 1 metre. In total, the Greenland ice sheet holds enough ice to raise global sea level by about 7 metres so the loss since 1999 has been less than 0.05 per cent. New Scientist
ED.COM. Imagine that-a climate change agenda driven media publication that's provably wrong! And yet the politicians are basing legislation on such erroneous nonsense.
ANTICREATIONIST PLIMER might be right about cosmic rays and climate. In his book Heaven and Earth geologist Ian Plimer claims that climate change is caused by natural processes, such as amount of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere, which in turn is influenced by changes in the sun. In an interview on an ABC programme Counterpoint, 27 April 2009 Plimer stated : "There's a very tight correlation between solar activity and climate. That correlation is in cycles. ... What we need is a causation, and the causation has recently been found, and we've really known about this for a long time because there are cloud chambers where radioactive particles or cosmic rays go through and you create clouds. We've done that experimentally, we've observed it, we've measured it, and when cosmic radiation hits the atmosphere we form clouds. Low level clouds form by many methods but this is one of them and it bounces light and heat back into space. We've only got to change the cloudiness by about one percent and you can account for all of the measured climate change over the last 100 years." Cosmic rays and radioactive particles form clouds by forming aerosols-minute particles that attract water molecules.
Plimer's theory disagrees with current climate models that claim vapours, including man-made emissions, in the atmosphere were the main cause of aerosol formation. However, new research published in Nature vol. 476, p429, 25 August 2011 and ABC News in Science 29 August 2011 shows that cosmic rays have more effect than climate models predict. An international team of scientists has now carried out simulated cosmic ray effects on the atmosphere using the particle accelerator at CERN and found trace vapours in the atmosphere only account for a tiny proportion of atmospheric aerosol production and ionisation from cosmic rays is more important. Jasper Kirkby, who led to research, explained: "We've found that cosmic rays significantly enhance the formation of aerosol particles in the mid troposphere and above. These aerosols can eventually grow into seeds for clouds." Although vapours such as ammonia, sulphuric acid water vapour are part of the process in the lower atmosphere, Kirby commented: "It was a big surprise to find that aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere isn't due to sulphuric acid, water and ammonia alone." The intial CERN results do not explain all aerosol formation and the research team suggest there are other factors involved. They are also planning more research on the extent to which cosmic rays affect cloud cover; and how solar activity may affect climate change. ABC
ED. COM. This research really does provide more evidence that many factors changing earth's climate are beyond human control. We cannot change cosmic rays or the sun. Furthermore, most of the alarming predictions are based on computer models, but as in this case, when put to the test, the man-made global warming models fail. With more real evidence coming in, it is time for climate scientists, politicians and environmentalist to have a little humility and admit there are forces we are never going to be able to change. We should study them, understand them and find ways to live with them, but not pretend we can control them. Then we can get on with the things we can change, such as cleaning up our ammonia and sulphuric acid emissions. This may not change the climate, but it is good for the environment in other ways, and in keeping with the God given task of being wise stewards of the things the Creator gave us control over.
For those think the name Ian Plimer is familiar-yes, he is a Geology Prof in South Australia now and a vigorous opponent of Creation Research, and of all Bible based teaching, but we will give him credit on this issue. (Ref. atmosphere, weather, meteorology)
POLAR BEARS WERE IRISH, according to articles in BBC News 7 July 2011 and ScienceDaily 8 July 2011. Scientists in the UK, Ireland and USA have studied mitochondrial DNA extracted from the teeth and skeletons of 17 brown bears that were found at eight cave sites across Ireland. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is genetic material carried in cellular powerhouses, separate from the main genome, and is passed from one generation to the next by mothers. Researchers correlated their results with the estimated ages of the bones. They found bears in Ireland with older dates, i.e. between 43,000 and 38,000 years ago, had the same genetic signature as brown bears living today in Eastern Europe, but DNA from bears that dated as 38,000 to 10,000 years ago, have sequences that are the closest match found to modern polar bears. The research team concluded the maternal ancestors of modern polar bears were from Ireland. Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) and Brown Bears (Ursus arctos) are considered different species, but the scientists concluded "interspecific hybridization not only may be more common than previously considered but may be a mechanism by which species deal with marginal habitats during periods of environmental deterioration." BBC ScienceDaily
ED. COM. The Irish connection is an interesting new finding, but we are not surprised by the genetic similarities between polar bears and brown bears, or the evidence of hybridisation. Polar/brown bear hybrids have been known in the wild and in captivity for many years and we wrote about them in 2006 when Canadian scientists tested the DNA of an unusual bear and found it to be a hybrid between a polar bear and a grizzly bear. Grizzlies are a type of brown bear. Original report here.
The results described above also confirm what we have said about the origin of polar bears following a question about why polar bears were white. We wrote: "The reason polar bear hair appears white is that it does not have melanin pigment, plus it has cavities filled with air within the hair shafts which scatter light. After Noah's flood, bears and humans spread out through North America and due to degeneration of genes some bears (and humans) lost their ability to make pigment in the hair and became white. But white bears would stand out in green forests and grasslands, and although no other animals would hunt them for food, humans would. Therefore, white bears would be disadvantaged in places where humans live, but could survive in places where humans rarely went as long as they could find food, such as the high arctic. Thus, white polar bears are the result of degeneration, selection, adaptation and survival of fittest, but not evolution." Original report here. This new study of bear genes, along with previous findings, all fit into the Biblical history of the world, i.e. God created bears as a separate kind, and they have reproduced after their kind ever since. As the descendents of the bears that got off Noah's Ark spread out over the earth the Bear kind has divided into subgroups but they remain bears and can interbreed when they have the opportunity. The variations between species are from already existing variation or mutations causing degeneration. (Ref. genetics, hybrids, kinds)
COAL BURNING STOPPED GLOBAL WARMING, according to an article in PNAS 5 July 2011, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1102467108, also reported by Reuters 5 July. Researchers from Boston and Harvard Universities, USA and University of Turku, Finland have sought to explain why the earth did not warm over the decade from 1998 to 2008, in spite of rising carbon dioxide levels. They begin their abstract with this admission: "Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008." The researchers noted during this time there was a decrease in solar radiation and cyclical shift from an El Niña pattern to a La Niña climate pattern, but they concluded that the cooling effect came mainly from an increase in coal burning, mainly in China, which produced more sulphurous emissions. They also suggest "The post 1970 period of warming, which constitutes a significant portion of the increase in global surface temperature since the mid 20th century, is driven by efforts to reduce air pollution in general and acid deposition in particular, which cause sulfur emissions to decline while the concentration of greenhouse gases continues to rise." Reuters
ED. COM. The decade in question was replete with dire warnings of catastrophic global warming due to increasing man-made carbon dioxide, but as these researchers admit in a mainstream, peer reviewed scientific journal, there was no warming between 1998 and 2008. There has been no more warming since then either. If these researchers' conclusions are correct, what a dilemma for the environmentalists! They loudly proclaim we must do whatever it takes to stop global warming, but they can hardly promote increasing chemical pollution. The solution to the problem is stop thinking that human activity warms and cools the earth and therefore we can control the climate. As the researchers admit solar radiation decreased and ocean currents changed during the decade of their study, but we cannot control these. Climate researchers, environmentalists and politicians need to humble themselves and admit the earth's climate is under the control of the Creator God who does control the sun and the oceans. They can then put their efforts into doing the things we can control, such as cleaning up chemical pollution, planting trees, and other things that are good stewardship of the earth. (Ref. climate, politics, weather)
CLIMATE FRAUD as Aussie Govt accused of blatant climate lies in advertising pictures of defunct British power stations belching smoke in their say yes to a carbon tax campaign when no voter is actually being asked. Australia is often the trying ground for quirky new legislation so your country could be next.
CLIMATE TAXES COMING as Aussie Prime Minister and atheist, Julia Gillard, is increasingly confident she can get her 'first in the world' carbon tax passed so man can control climate change. We predict that if she is successful, the sum total effect on the climate will be zero, and the tax will prove to be a total misuse of taxpayers' funds. We also recommend that a push needs to be made to legislate that politicians and political parties must be made personally and corporately financially liable for wrong policies. Read an independent analysis by Physics Prof Heinz Lycklama on www.osta.com/gw.
CO2 BY NASA QUESTION "According to NASA, the CO2 level has never been above 300 parts per million for the last 650,000 years prior to the 1950's, yet it's now 380 ppm, showing the increase is due to man's activity since the Industrial Revolution. Do you have any material to refute this claim?" NASA article: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence. " Read our answer here.
WHAT HAPPENED TO CLIMATE REFUGEES? asks an article in Asian Correspondent, 11 April 2011. The article begins: "In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. These people, it was said, would flee a range of disasters including sea level rise, increases in the numbers and severity of hurricanes, and disruption to food production". At the time UNEP produced a map showing where people would have to leave, including Islands in the Caribbean and Pacific and low lying cities in China. However, recent census data from the island states Bahamas, St Lucia, Seychelles and Solomon Islands indicates these places are actually gaining people, not losing them and the low lying cities of Shenzzen, Dongguan, Foshan, Zhuhai, Puning and Jinjiang are the fastest growing in China. The article concludes: "a very cursory look at the first available evidence seems to show that the places identified by the UNEP as most at risk of having climate refugees are not only not losing people, they are actually among the fastest growing regions in the world".
The article included a link to the map from GRID-Arendal, a collaborating centre of UNEP, but the map has now been removed with this disclaimer: "Environmentally Induced Migration Map- Clarification. GRID-Arendal offered a map for everybody to download and further use on Environmentally Induced Migration ("Fifty million climate refugees by 2010") at this web address. This graphic was originally produced for the Environmental Atlas of the newspaper Le Monde diplomatique. We have decided to withdraw the product and accompanying text. It follows some media reports suggesting the findings presented were those of UNEP and the UN which they are not. We hope this clarifies the situation."(Italics and quote marks in original) However, it is very difficult to completely eradicate anything from the Internet, and the map has been found and reproduced in a further article in the Asian correspondent 16 April 2011. Asian Correspondent 11 April Asian Correspondent16 April GRID-Arendal
ED. COM. The predictions that have driven governments world wide to promote carbon taxes etc., that millions of climate refugees would be fleeing from rising sea levels caused by western CO2 production induced global warming, are again proved false. These and other recent studies of Pacific Islands have shown the islands are remaining stable in size or even growing. See our report "Sea Level Surprise". Those who made these predictions are false prophets at the best, and liars at the worst, and are only impoverishing the west. Furthermore, such so called climate scientists need to humble themselves and admit there are many things we do not know about the interaction between land and seas, and stop making dire predictions about things that only the Creator can control. (Ref. prophecy, politics, geography)
657 NEW ISLANDS FOUND, according to an article in ScienceDaily 20 April 2011. Researchers from Duke University and Meredith College have carried out a global survey of coastline and identified a total of 2,149 barrier islands worldwide using satellite images, topographical maps and navigational charts. A previous survey in 2001 had identified 1,492 such islands. As described in ScienceDaily, "Barrier islands often form as chains of long, low, narrow offshore deposits of sand and sediment, running parallel to a coast but separated from it by bays, estuaries or lagoons. Unlike stationary landforms, barrier islands build up, erode, migrate and rebuild over time in response to waves, tides, currents and other physical processes in the open ocean environment". The researchers do not claim all these extra islands appeared in the last 10 years, but that many may have been overlooked because they are in places where scientists believed they could not exist, such as where seasonal tides are greater than four metres.
The new survey found the world's longest chain of barrier islands on the equatorial coast of Brazil, where spring tides reach seven meters. Orrin Pilkey, Emeritus Professor of Geology at Duke University, explained: "This provides proof that barrier islands exist in every climate and in every tide-wave combination. We found that everywhere there is a flat piece of land next to the coast, a reasonable supply of sand, enough waves to move sand or sediment about, and a recent sea-level rise that caused a crooked shoreline, barrier islands exist". Sciencedaily
ED. COM. Although most of these "new" islands were probably already there when this study began, this study does provide good evidence that islands do move and grow. Aerial and satellite imaging has enabled us to learn more about how coastlines and islands are structured and how they work, and therefore live on them more wisely. This is a proper application of the original mandate to rule over the earth given to man by the Creator in Genesis 1:26-28. To do this we must study the earth to see how it works. However, this dominion mandate does not mean we have power to control the great forces at work on the earth. We do not control the ocean currents, rains, winds and land movements, therefore, we need to put our trust in the Creator who made them and who can and does use them for blessing or judgement. (Ref. geography, oceanography, global warming)
FOSSILS SHOW FLAWED CLIMATE ASSUMPTIONS, according to articles in ScienceDaily 24 April 2011, Science, 2011; vol. 332 p455 DOI: 10.1126/science.1201182 and Science vol. 332 p 430 DOI: 10.1126/science.1205253. Mark Clementz of University of Wyoming, and colleagues have studied oxygen isotopes in the tooth enamel of fossil sea cows to find out more about climate during the Eocene period (usually dated as 56 to 34 million years ago). Isotopes are variations of elements that have different atomic weights. Most oxygen has a weight of 16, but there is an isotope with weight of 18. The proportion of oxygen 18 in water varies with temperature of the water, and the amounts of oxygen 18 in fossils of sea creatures has been used as an indicator of ancient climate. Scientists have assumed that that oxygen isotope composition of seawater in the past was similar to that of today, with high values at low latitudes and low values at high latitudes.
However, the researchers found the oxygen 18 content in the sea cow fossils were lower than they expected for animals that live in low latitudes, indicating the climate was much wetter in these regions in the past. Clementz commented: "This created a very different distribution in the oxygen isotopic composition of seawater for this time interval, which would, in turn, significantly impact estimates of paleoclimate and paleotemperature in the distant past. Scientists have used this assumption of the oxygen isotopic values of seawater to constrain temperature estimates for the past". ScienceDaily says this a bit more clearly: "In their paper, Clementz and Sewall show that the assumption may be flawed, which could mean that previous estimates of water temperature are incorrect".
Science also adds "Although the global physiography of the Eocene was broadly similar to that of the modern Earth, the climate was vastly different. Polar Regions lacked major ice sheets and were home to cold-intolerant plants and animals, and tropical oceans steamed away at temperatures approaching 40°C. These differences were driven at least in part by atmospheric CO2 concentrations about five times the preindustrial value". ScienceDaily
ED. COM. Here is another failure of the thinking which is widely held among researchers, i.e. the assumption that whatever is happening in the present also happened in the past in the same way (uniformitarianism). This assumption is considered to be a scientific approach to looking at the world, but it is not. The scientific method can only directly observe the present. Much of the current climate "science" involves assumptions about the past- a field which is humblingly beyond the limitations of science. What happened in the past may leave evidence that can be examined in the present, but to really know what, how or why it happened in the past requires additional information from observers who were there and here's the humbling crunch for most scientists. There was only one observer who has been there since the beginning-the Creator, God. However, uniformitarian assumptions allow people to ignore the Creator's testimony, as recorded by Moses in Genesis, and substitute their own ideas
Charles Lyell, the man responsible for bringing uniformitarian thinking into mainstream science, made it clear that his purpose was to "free the science (of geology) from Moses", and therefore remove the Creator's authority over scientists. For information about Lyell's influence on science search for "Lyell"in the Evidence Web Fact File. (Ref. climate change, paleontology, sirenians)
OUR EDEN EXPERIMENT (March 2011) continues to test the effects of increased carbon dioxide and plant growth. The experiments involve four separate terrariums, one of which is our standard open terrarium, which simply records plant growth under normal atmospheric conditions at the time, and the other three had controlled amounts of CO2 and were totally enclosed and isolated from the current environment.
To the end of February 2011, our results tell us:
1) You can double and triple the amount of CO2 and the plants thrive.
2) Plants love water vapour in the air, and do much better with just water vapour rather than rain.
3) In our now famous 2010-11 Aussie flooded summer (Dec-Feb), once the external humidity increased to over 90% and the external temperature rose above 30 degrees, the terrariums simply became heat boxes and killed everything.
Our March 2011 experiment (results below) was designed to separate CO2 influence from temp and humidity so the temp was maintained at 20 degrees (5 degrees below normal room temperature) and the humidity at 80%.
2011 results
Plant type: Pumpkins.
13 Mar 2011 seeds planted
Terrarium 1. Open Normal CO2.
Terrarium 2. Double CO2.
Terrarium 3. Triple CO2.
Terrarium 4. Quadruple CO2.
23 Mar 2011. Plant height measured
Terrarium 1. 14 cm
Terrarium 2. 14 cm
Terrarium 3. 15.5 cm
Terrarium 4. 17 cm
29 Mar 2011 Experiment Discontinued
Terrarium 1. 28cm
Terrarium 2. 27cm
Terrarium 3. 30cm
Terrarium 4. 32cm
What surprised us most from these results was the very obvious benefit of triple and quadruple amounts of CO2 when the temperature was lower than 25 degrees, whereas the double CO2 terrarium didn't do as well as it did when the temperature was higher (25 degrees). This experiment is being redone to confirm this trend, but the Global Warming lobby aka Climate Change promoters can take no joy in any actual results on the effects of CO2 thus far.
A major problem to date has been preventing mist forming on the glass walls, so our photographic records have been rather poor because we originally constructed the terrariums with all thermometers and humidity measuring equipment built into the inside of sealable containers which remained sealed for the duration of each experiment.
The purpose of these first set of experiments has been to establish conditions and variables in order to help us set up more sophisticated long term experiments using computer monitored and climate controlled terrariums, which will automatically record every variable we have discovered, plus monitor increases in plant volume and area which at present we can't really measure. Read more on our previous experiments here and support this project financially.
WEATHERED PREDICTIONS ON CLIMATE. Back in March 20, 2000, The Independent, a British newspaper, reported Dr. David Viner of the UK's Climate Research Unit warning that within a few years snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event" Indeed, Viner opined, "Children just aren't going to know what snow is." Similarly, David Parker, at the UK's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, said that eventually British children could have only "virtual" experience of snow via movies and the Internet.
The last three winters in the UK were forecast by the UK Met Office to be mild and snowless. Instead, brutal cold and snow in the UK has the UK Met Office on their heels. Indeed the cold and snow was a throwback to the age of Dickens in the early 1800s. UK MPs called for Official Parliamentary Probe into whether the UKMO reliance on their ideology and CO2 models had biased their predictions.
In the United States, NOAA echoing the UN IPCC, claimed snow would retreat north with the storm tracks and major cities would get more rain and mild winters. The Union of Concerned Scientists said in 2004 scientists claim winters were becoming warmer and less snowy. In 2008, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bemoaned that children would be robbed of the childhood joys of sledding and skiing in the DC area due to global warming. A year later, the area set a new seasonal snowfall record with 5 to 6 feet of snow and sleds and skis were the only way to get around. The winter of 2009/10 was the coldest ever in parts of the southeast, and in parts of Siberia and the coldest since 1977/78 or 1962/63 in many parts of the United States, Europe and Asia."
From The Energy Tribune Cited without prejudice, unusually, by the BBC. Check out full article-last para is telling. (Ref. global warming, predictions, weather)
2500 YEARS OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY reported in Science, vol. 331, p278, 4 Feb 2011, DOI: 10.1126/science.1197175 and ScienceNOW 13 Jan 2011 and SciencDaily 14 Jan 2011. An international team of archaeologists, climatologists, geographers and historians have used thousands of tree ring measurements from Germany, France, Italy and Austria to draw up a record temperature and rainfall changes in Europe over the last 2,500 years, and correlate them with human history during that time. They concluded: "Wet and warm summers occurred during periods of Roman and medieval prosperity. Increased climate variability from around AD 250 to 600 coincided with the demise of the Western Roman Empire and the turmoil of the Migration Period." They also found periods of cold winters and wet summers occurred during periods of famine and plague in the 14th Century and in the periods of mass migration from Europe in the 17th to early 19th Centuries. The researchers also wrote: "Recent warming is unprecedented, but modern hydroclimatic variations may have at times been exceeded in magnitude and duration." ScienceDaily claims the study "lends new credence to the idea that climate variability can impact human society". The authors also wrote:"Historical circumstances may challenge recent political and fiscal reluctance to mitigate projected climate change." ScienceDaily
ED. COM. There are some rather confusing'techno-speak' conclusions here. If recent warming is "unprecedented" then how come it has been "exceeded in magnitude and duration" in the past? If warm periods were provable associated with prosperity and stability, then politicians should only encourage opposition to plans to cool the planet down since prosperity and stability should be what every politician wants.
In essence these results only add to the evidence that climate change is is not caused by human industry or motorised transport. After all the warming which lead up to the Roman Empire certainly made for stability and ease of travel in the Roman Empire which in turn enabled the Christian gospel to be rapidly spread to lands around the Mediterranean and beyond to Britain. When people left chilly wet Europe and Britain during the period of exploration and colonisation in the 17th to 19th centuries they took the gospel with them all over the world and many found had little climate incentive to leave warmer climes to return home. There certainly is credence in the idea that climate variability can impact human society.
These 2,500 years of climate variation are also a reminder of God's promise to Noah some 4-5000yrs ago ( Genesis 8:22), that until the end of the world there would be hot as well as cold times, and God can and will use them all for his purposes. (Ref, weather, civilisation, history)
CLIMATE CONFERENCE CALLS ON GODDESS FOR HELP, according to an article in the Washington Post 29 Nov 2010. In her opening speech Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change invoked Ixchel the ancient Mayan jaguar goddess, who is also the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. Figueres said in her speech: "May she inspire you - because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools." She went on to say: "Excellencies, the goddess Ixchel would probably tell you that a tapestry is the result of the skilful interlacing of many threads. I am convinced that 20 years from now, we will admire the policy tapestry that you have woven together and think back fondly to Cancun and the inspiration of Ixchel." The Washington Post article ends with "Two weeks from now, we'll have a sense of whether Ixchel - and the delegates - were listening to Figueres' appeal." Washington Post
ED. COM. Since the only God who matters is the One who has the power to back up His claims because He created the heavens and the earth and is therefore in control of the climate, we recommend, Christiana Figueres and the Washington Post should both take notice of the psalmist who wrote 3000 yrs ago that man-made gods may have carved ears, but they cannot hear our prayers. (Psalm 115:6), therefore, it is pointless to call on them. This report is also a reminder about the fact that climate change agendas have become largely pagan humanist in their orientation- not scientific. (Ref. paganism, politics, climate change)
THIRD HOTTEST YEAR ICES EUROPE, according to articles in the Courier Mail 2, 3, and 5 Dec 2010. A report compiled for the UN climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) claims 2010 is the third hottest year since 1850. Only 1998 and 2005 have been hotter. The report also notes the past year has had many extreme weather events such as floods in Pakistan, drought in the Amazon basin and a heat wave in Russia. Australia has been relatively spared due to a strong La Nina weather pattern, according to David Jones, head of climate analysis for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. He commented: "While Australia has escaped this year ... other parts of the planet are seeing incredibly hot temperatures" Those other parts of the planet do not include Europe, which has been lashed by snow and ice, bringing transport systems to a standstill. Schools have been closed and at least 15 people have died of exposure in eastern European countries. Ski resorts are warning of avalanches and Geneva's University Hospital had to cancel non-urgent surgery for two days while they coped with an unprecedented number of broken bones caused by accidents in the icy conditions. Courier Mail 2 Dec 3 Dec 5 Dec
ED. COM. Climate alarmists are free to believe 1998 was the hottest year, but that makes 2010 only the third hottest year and it means it is time for all to admit there has been no real warming for the past 12 years and more importantly, it's time to accept there is no need to make the lives of those already suffering from cold more miserable by increasing fuel costs in an attempt to stop the global emissions blamed for non-existent warming trends.
Extreme weather events are not new. They have been going on for thousands of years, starting with Noah's flood. Since then there have been droughts, regional floods, storms, hail and snow. These are all reminders that the whole creation has been groaning ever since man rebelled against his Creator and God brought judgement on mankind and the whole creation. (Ref. climate, natural disasters, meteorology)
IPCC OFFICIAL ADMITS CLIMATE POLICY FOR REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH says German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer in an interview reported in Neue Z¼rcher Zeitung (NZZ) 14 Nov 2010 and The Global Warming Policy Foundation 18 Nov 2010. Ottmar Edenhofer is deputy director and chief economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Berlin Institute of Technology. He was joint chair of Working Group 3 at the Twenty-Ninth Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Geneva, Switzerland. He will be co-chairing the Working Group "Mitigation of Climate Change" with Ram³n Pichs Madruga from Cuba and Youba Sokona from Mali. The following is an excerpt from an English translation of the interview with NZZ.
NZZ: The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.
Edenhofer: That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.
NZZ: That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.
Edenhofer: Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11,000 to 400-there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.
NZZ: De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.
Edenhofer: First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole. Global Warming Policy Foundation Neue Zurcher Zeitung (in German)
ED. COM. We were never under the illusion that international climate policy was environmental policy, and it certainly is not a science or fact based policy. That is the real reason that any academics or media personalities who questioned the belief in man-made global warming, such as Ian Plimer, David Bellamy and Bob Carter and ourselves etc, have been ridiculed with names like "climate change deniers" and excluded from mainstream academic and popular media. This kind of scorn-pouring is what happens when power and money are at stake, rather than truth. After a proven decade of no warming, along with revelations such as the "climategate" e-mail and data leak, it seems the facade of scientific consensus is cracking and Edenhofer, an economist rather than an environmental scientist, is honest enough to say what the IPCC agenda really is. It is a good Biblical principle that the rich should help the poor, but extracting funds from the rich by deception is not. (See "Great Carbon Bazaar" Evidence News 11 June 2008) (Ref. politics, globalisation, government)
PYTHONS DIE IN COLD FLORIDA, according to BBC Earth News 5 July 2010. Burmese pythons that had invaded Florida may have been stopped in their tracks because many died during the unusually cold period of January 2010. The snakes can grow up to 3 metres (10ft) long and were becoming a pest as they moved into Florida wilderness areas and were preying on endangered species such as Key Largo wood rats and marsh rabbits. Prior to the cold snap researchers from the University of Florida, US National Parks Service and US Geological Survey had captured some snakes, implanted radio transmitters and temperature loggers into them and released them again. They found the snakes were unable to control their body temperature during the cold weather, and when they went to recapture them they found nine of the ten implanted snakes had died. They also found 99 other pythons, of which 40 were dead, indicating that many snakes had died during the cold snap. The snakes showed no signs of seeking warmer refuges, such as burrows, and the researchers suggested because they normally live in the tropics the snakes were "thermally naive" and unable to cope with changing temperatures, unlike reptiles that normally live in temperate climates. American alligators will retreat to warmer refuges when temperatures fall, but tropical crocodiles tend not to. BBC
ED. COM. "Thermally naive" is perhaps another way of saying the snakes have lost a means of responding to their environment, and can therefore now only survive in places where the temperature always stays warm. Most snakes can respond selectively to cool vs warm situations due to their cold blood system needs, and they would have had to do so even in the original cool/ warm climate of the original creation. Finding a sunny spot to warm themselves even in Eden would be a snake priority. Loss of such sensitivity would be a change, but it is not evolution. It is yet another sign of the degeneration that has affected all living things since mankind rebelled against his Creator and God judged the world with death. As a Climate Change aside: In January 2010 all 50 states in USA, including Florida and Hawaii, had snow. (Ref. climate, reptiles, serpents)
"DID MAMMOTH EXTINCTION WARM EARTH?" asks ScienceNOW 1 July 2010 and American Geophysical Union Press Release, 30 June 2010. Scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science have studied pollen in sediments from the lakes of Alaska, Siberia, and the Yukon Territory, and concluded "that around 15,000 years ago-the same time mammoth populations dropped, and that hunters arrived in the area-the amount of birch pollen started to rise quickly." The researchers looked at the feeding habits of elephants, and suggested mammoths would have been "great tree pruners" keeping the populations of trees down and maintaining the region as grassland. After the mammoths died out the trees would have grown larger and more dense, changing the landscape from a grassland to a forest. The forest would be darker in colour and absorb more heat from the sun. The researchers used a climate simulation to estimate the effect of such a change on climate. The simulation calculated the vegetation change "would have warmed the whole planet more than 0.1 degrees Celsius (0.18 degrees Fahrenheit) over the course of several centuries." Because mammoth extinction is believed to be caused by human hunting, the researchers claim this was the beginning of man-made global warming. The AGU press release goes on to say: "Only some portion-about one-quarter-of the spread of the birch trees would have been due to the mammoth extinctions, the researchers estimate. Natural climate change would have been responsible for the rest of the expansion of birch trees. Nonetheless, this suggests that when hunters helped finish off the mammoth, they could have caused some global warming." AGU
ED. COM. Did you note it was yet another computer simulation, rather than actual measurements that led to this conclusion? There is no doubt humans hunted mammoths and may have contributed to their extinction. However, as the researchers admit, the change in global temperature was far more likely a part of a natural cycle of cooling followed by warming. It seems any excuse will do to promote the message of man-made global warming. (Ref. climate change, mammals, environment)
CO2 COULD GREEN THE PLANET, according to Prof Bob Carter in an interview on the ABC Counterpoint programme, 5 July 2010. Bob Carter, a palaeoclimatologist and Adjunct Professorial Research Fellow, at Australia's James Cook University has recently published a book entitled Climate: the counter consensus in which he warns us we need to be better prepared for real climate risks such as cyclones, bushfires and other natural disasters. He was asked how he saw the future if we continue to put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He replied: "Well one thing that's going to happen, especially if we go into a global cooling, is that the extra carbon dioxide will do what the extra carbon dioxide in the 20th century has done and that is help plants grow and help green the planet. People seem to be very focussed on the dangers of global warming, but the dangers of global cooling for the world's food supply are much greater and very real. If the present solar situation - that's a very quiet sun - continues, as some solar physicists say it will, then we could be looking at a degree or half a degree of cooling in the next 20 to 30 years. That will have dramatic effects on the productivity of the great grain growing belts in the northern hemisphere. A little bit of extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not only causes a little bit, as yet unmeasureable, warming to combat that cooling, but it also provides fertilisation to make plants grow more efficiently, which is a great boost." He was also asked if not going along with the man-made global warming theory "has it been a lonely road." He replied: "No, because the majority of scientists I mix with are independent. They do not work for the IPCC and, contrary to received public wisdom, the great majority of independent scientists think that the global warming thing is overblown. Not to say there isn't a genuine climate risk. There is, and most sensible scientists are worried we should prepare for that risk better, but the risk is dominantly natural climate change. So it is not lonely at all. There's thousands of scientists around the world who understand the situation and are beavering away doing good research, but they're not getting much money from the tree marked 'global warming'". The interviewer then asked: "So for years we've heard there is a scientific consensus that the science is settled. Do you disagree with that?" Carter replied: "It is completely untrue. There is not a shred of evidence for there being consensus. There are just some very loud voices, some very expert marketing and propaganda campaigns, spearheaded basically by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its supporters. They have an extreme view and they have successfully managed to impose that view on most western political sets." Counterpoint
ED. COM. As a palaeoclimatologist Carter knows we have more to fear from a cold, low carbon dioxide world that a warm, high carbon dioxide world. Fossil and sediment records indicate the world has been warmer and had higher carbon dioxide in the past, and this was associated with abundant lush vegetation, and therefore plentiful food. A cool, low carbon dioxide world would be bad for plant growth and therefore, would cause food shortages. Warm periods, such as the Roman Empire and the Medieval Warm Period, have been times of wealth and plenty. Cold periods have been times of famine and hardship. Over the past two centuries the world has been warming up after a period known as the Little Ice Age which started in the 1300s and continued into the 1800s. If we could ask the people who lived through that time, if they would like to go back to that, we suspect the answer would be "no". Carter's comments about consensus remind us that scientific truth is not decided by how many people believe something, or how loud and powerful those believers are. If something is true, it remains true even if no one believes it. We are reminded of the Apostle Paul's comment on the truth of the gospel and man's unbelief, "Let God be true and every man a liar" (Romans 3:4) (Ref. environment, atmosphere, climate)
OBAMA MUST RECRUIT CHURCHES FOR CLIMATE FIGHT, according to the recommendations of the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships. Mara Vanderslice, the Deputy Director of this council describes it as a "White House advisory group made up of diverse religious and community non-profit leaders was appointed by the President last spring to develop recommendations on how the government can better partner with faith and neighbourhood based organizations." One of the recommendations is "Bringing the power of 370,000 houses of worship across the country to the fight of climate change by greening buildings and promoting environmental stewardship in their congregations." White House
ED. COM. It seems the USA ideal of separation of church and state does not apply when Obama's state wants to use the church to promote its agenda. Churches do need to make the best use of the resources they have, including their buildings, but that is so the Christian Churches can get on with the real work of Christianity, proclaiming the good news about the one who is really in control of the climate, and more importantly in charge of Salvation and Judgement - Jesus Christ! (Ref. Religion , politics, global warming)
PAINT ANDES WHITE TO COOL EARTH, claims Eduardo Gold, as reported in an article in the Telegraph, 28 June 2010. Eduardo Gold, assisted by people from the Peruvian village of Licapa have started painting three mountain peaks in the Andes white so they will reflect sunlight back into space to help prevent global warming and slow the melting of glaciers. So far they have completed two hectares (4.9 acres) on Chalon Sombrero peak and plan to cover a total 70 hectares (173 acres). Gold explained his reasons for the project: "A white surface reflects the sun's rays back through the atmosphere and into space, in doing so it cools the area around it too. In effect it creates a micro-climate, so we can say that the cold generates more cold, just as heat generates more heat." The paint is "an environmentallyfriendly mix" of lime, industrial egg white and water. The project is funded by a 135,000 British Pound prize won by Eduardo Gold in a World Bank competition named "100 Ideas to Save the Planet". Gold has convinced local people that painting the mountain peaks white will reverse the effects of loss of glaciers. Pablo Parco Palomino claimed "All the peaks here should be painted in this way. That way there would be as much water as there was before the glacier disappeared, and that would mean more pasture to support more livestock." However, Antonio Brack, Peru's Environment Minister, says "It's nonsense" and told the World Bank that its funding would be better spent on other "projects which would have more impact in mitigating climate change." Telegraph
ED. COM. There is a grain of truth in the idea that white surfaces can reflect sunlight back into space, but it will take more than a few hectares of white paint to make any difference. A better way to achieve this is the method built in by the Creator - changing the amount and type of water cover. (Search for"clouds" in the Evidence News Fact File click here ) Altering this is something we cannot do. Antonio Brack is right - World Bank money would be better spent on things we were given dominion over, such as good farming practices, and better water management. (Ref. climate, South America, environmentalism)
CLIMATE CLAIM CORRECTION as item in last Creation News (our print newsletter) 24 2 which states on p1, that Cowry shells live in tropical and sub tropical areas. This should read around 2/3 of Cowry shells are tropical or sub tropical. Any conclusions in the article re past climate based on Cowry distribution should be held as unsubstantiated till the species of fossil Cowry referred to in the article is fully identified. Our apologies for this error.
RISING SEA LEVEL SURPRISE, according to a report in ABC (Australia) News in Science 3 June 2010 and Global and Planetary Change online 21 May 2010. Arthur P. Webb of Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission, Fiji and Paul Kench of School of Environment, The University of Auckland, New Zealand have studied aerial photos of 27 islands taken between 20 and 60 years ago and found 80 percent of the island had remained stable or increased in size. The results surprised those who believe Pacific Islands were doomed to disappear below global warming induced sea level rise. The researchers still believe sea levels are rising but the islands can keep up with it or even outgrow it. Kench commented: "Some of those islands have gotten dramatically larger, by 20 or 30 percent. We've now got evidence the physical foundations of these islands will still be there in 100 years."
Island growth is due to a number of processes. In their article the researchers wrote: "Results contradict existing paradigms ofisland response and have significant implications for the consideration of island stability under ongoing sea-level rise in the central Pacific. First, islands are geomorphologicalLy persistent features on atoll reef platforms and can increase in island area despite sea-level change. Second, islands are dynamic landforms that undergo a range of physical adjustments in responses to changing boundary conditions, of which sea level is just one factor. Third, erosion of island shorelines must be reconsidered in the context of physical adjustments of the entire island shoreline as erosion may be balanced by progradation on other sectors of shorelines." ABC
ED. COM. Who would have believed it? Al Gore certainly never suggested it and Prince Charles and the Archbishop of Canterbury still haven't spotted it. There remains no excuse for the sea level rise scare tactics being used by politicians to introduce new save the earth taxes to increase their powerbase. Instead, we should be studying the earth, learning to live with the changes that are occurring, use the resources wisely and reminding ourselves that the earth will be sustained by its Creator until it pleases Him to bring it to an end. (Ref. climate change, geomorphology, Oceania)
RISING SEA LEVEL CLAIM RETRACTED reported an article in The Guardian, 21 Feb 2010 and Nature Geoscience, Published online: 21 February 2010 | doi:10.1038/ngeo780. In July 2009 a group of scientists led by Mark Siddall, of Earth Sciences Department, University of Bristol, UK published a report that predicted global warming could cause to rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century. Although the report admitted: "It is difficult to project sea-level rise in response to warming climates by the end of the century, especially because the response of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to warming is not well understood," the study was considered further confirmation of the IPCC's warnings about sea level rises due to man-made global warming. Following critiques by other climate scientists Siddall's team have now formally retracted their report, saying: "Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work. One mistake was a miscalculation; the other was not to allow fully for temperature change over the past 2,000 years. Because of these issues we have retracted the paper and will now invest in the further work needed to correct these mistakes." Other scientists have estimated sea level rises may be even higher that Sidall's team's calculations, but Sidall says he does not know whether his estimate was an overestimate or underestimate. Guardian
ED. COM. Did you notice how many unknowns are involved in these estimates. The number of things scientists admit they don't know refutes the claims by global warming alarmists that "the science is settled." Most of the warnings in the IPCC reports are based on computer models like the one used to estimate sea level rises. The more unknown factors in a model, the less reliable it is. If we don't understand something, we certainly can't control it, and it is about time the climate science community showed a little humility and admitted there are some forces in nature we are never going to be able to control, such as the sun or earthquakes. The sun is the source of most of the heat on the earth, and earthquakes affect sea-levels from the bottom up. This does not mean we should not study them. We should, in order that we might seek to understand the patterns and cycles that the Creator put into nature in the beginning, and then live as best we can within them. But most of all we should put our trust in the Creator God who spoke the earth and the universe into existence, and can call for the water to be poured out on the land, as He did in the time of Noah, or for the storm to stop as Jesus who is this same creator God, did in a boat on Galilee. (Ref. climate change, floods, oceanography)
CLIMATEGATE'S TOP SCIENTIST ADMITS NO GLOBAL WARMING SINCE 1995, according to BBC News 13 Feb 2010 and Daily Mail 14 Feb 2010. Professor Phil Jones (now ex-head of East Anglia Climate unit), is the leading scientist under investigation following the "Climategate" email and data leak, admitted on a BBC News interview, there has been no significant global warming since 1995. When asked: "Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming? Jones answered: "Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level." When asked if the trend from 2002 to the present was one of cooling Jones said: "No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (- 0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant."...
When asked whether the rate the most recent period of warming from 1975 to 1998 was no different from previous periods of increasing temperature, i.e. 1860-1880 and 1910-1940, Jones admitted the warming rates were "similar and not statistically significantly different from each other." This is an important admission because the earlier warming periods are considered to be from natural processes, not man-made....
Jones and an American colleague Michael Mann, had a large part in producing the now discredited"hockey stick graph" which showed no signs of the well documented Medieval Warm Period and indicated the recent warming was unprecedented over the last thousand years. This was used by the IPCC to convince politicians that current warming was a dangerous man-made phenomenon. Jones admitted the MWP occurred in the Northern Hemisphere and was as warm as the current period but said there was not enough data from the tropics and southern hemisphere to say it was a global. He admitted: "Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late - 20th century warmth would not be unprecedented." Jones still believes the current warming is unprecedented and is caused by man-made factors...
Jones and some of his colleagues at the University of East Anglia climate centre have been found guilty of ignoring legal Freedom of Information requests for data from the centre, and Jones has confessed to not keeping records in any usable form and that the data used to promote man-made global warming may have been lost. BBC Daily Mail
ED. COM. A trend of minus 0.12 degrees C per decade equals 0.096 degrees cooling over the last eight years. That may not seem significant, but it is the opposite of the politicians' and popular media's dire warnings of unrelenting heating. No wonder Jones and colleagues didn't want the data to be released into the public domain, even if they haven't lost any of it. Jones is partly right about the Medieval Warm Period lack of data from the tropics and southern hemisphere for that period, as groups such as the aboriginals in Australia and most natives throughout the Pacific region have no written accounts of any time period. However a recent article in Science, vol. 324, p78, 3 April 2009 presented "globally distributed proxy dat" for the past 947 years indicating the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age that followed were associated with changes in massive ocean currents involving both hemispheres....
In the meantime masses of money, media hype and politicians' promises are being wasted propping up a theory founded on data that has been manipulated into discredited graphs and may no longer exist. With recent revelations of mistakes by the IPCC, and regional raw data being reanalysed, the global warming facade is cracking, but don't start cheering yet. Politicians, media managers and carbon traders will not easily give up the power and money that comes with global warming alarmism. Instead, we should be humbling ourselves before our Creator, who is in charge of the climate, and getting on with the things we can do to be good stewards of the earth. (Ref. weather, politics, climate change)...
WARM BLAST FROM THE PAST. A supporter recently sent us an ageing and brief newspaper clipping from the Courier Mail claiming evidence of a warm period around 2,000 years ago that showed earth's climate "can warm up suddenly without any connection to human activity." The report was dated 14 August1998. We tracked down the source of the article in Science vol. 281, p280, 14 Aug 1998 which described a study of oxygen isotopes in biogenic silica in a high altitude lake in Kenya. The amount and type of Oxygen isotopes are a useful indicator of water temperature. The study indicated there was a warm period some 2,300 to 1,500 years before the present, i.e 300BC to 500 AD. The authors also noted there is evidence for a warm period at this time from other places in Africa and locations as far apart of Yukon Alaska and Swedish Lapland.
ED. COM. It is interesting that the mainstream media at 1998, before global warming alarmists took over the media, reported a study that says global warming is not man made. Human activity may not have warmed up the world, but it is interesting to consider what humans were doing at this time. The Roman Empire rose and fell during this time, and so we know from other historical records that this was a warm period. Warm periods in Europe and Britain are times of wealth and plenty, and the warm conditions undoubtedly made it easier for the Romans to expand through Europe and Britain and establish their road system and other infrastructure....
But there is one surprising consequence of this Roman Warming Era. At the height of this warm period the Lord Jesus Christ lived, died, rose from the dead and commissioned his disciples to take the gospel to all nations. There is no doubt the warm climate and Roman infrastructure made the movement of early Christians relatively easy throughout the Roman Empire, and as a result the gospel reached as far as Britain during Roman times. Just an interesting reminder that the earth's climate is under the control of the Creator who uses it to fulfil his purposes. To claim that man can defy God's climate control is as futile as the efforts of the Roman Empire to stop the spread of the Gospel. (Ref. weather, evangelism, history)...
COOLING RESPONSE TO GLOBAL WARMING, according an article in BBC News 7 Feb 2010. On 3rd and 4th February a British survey organisation named Populus carried out a survey of opinions on global warming. This was compared with a similar survey from November 2009. They found there has been a rapid DECREASE in the number of people who believe in man-made global warming - from 41 percent to 26 percent. The number of climate sceptics is on the rise. Those who believed that climate change was happening, but has not been proven to be caused by man, increased from 32 percent to 38 percent; and those who believed "climate change is happening, but it is environmentalist propaganda that it is man-made" increased from 8 to 10 percent. There was even an increase in people who believe that climate change is not happening: from 15 to 25 percent...
The survey also showed that one third of the people who agreed that climate change was happening believed "the potential consequences of living in a warming world had been exaggerated". This was an increase from one in five in Nov 2009.
Michael Simmonds, managing director of Populus, commented to BBC News:"It is very unusual indeed to see such a dramatic shift in opinion in such a short period". He went on to say: "The British public are sceptical about man's contribution to climate change - and becoming more so. More people are now doubters than firm believers". Professor Bob Watson, chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the results were "very disappointing". He told BBC news: 'The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth's climate is serious. Action is urgently needed.' He went on to warn: "We need the public to understand that climate change is serious so they will change their habits and help us move towards a low carbon economy".In between the two surveys there have been numerous stories of flawed climate science, but these did not appear to be the main reason for the change. Only 57 percent of people were aware of the bad science stories and 73% of these said the bad science stories had not changed their views about the risks of climate change. Michael Simmonds said that it was very unusual for single events to have a dramatic impact on public opinion. He commented:"People tend to make judgements over time based on a whole range of different sources." BBC
ED. COM. Although only 57 percent of people said they knew of the flawed science stories full survey results show 83 percent said they heard stories about the record cold UK winter but the survey did not ask if these stories made people change their minds. People may not know what makes for good science, but they do know if they are cold, and it is unlikely they will want politicians to pass laws that increase the cost of keeping warm. Whatever has made people change their opinion, it seems the more strident the govt climate warnings, the more people think science and Govt claims are exaggerated. The climategate e-mails and the false claims made by the IPCC indicate there are more stories of flawed science to come. The really worrying thing is that people may lose their respect for real science and lose interest in doing the things that can be done about environment. (Ref. weather, politics, public opinion)
OCEANS ARE RISING? See Al Gore's new $4million seaside home at fisherman's wharf in San Francisco not far from Chinatown. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOXmJ4jd-8&NR=1 time index - 27m:07s "
"RELIGION MUST EVOLVE TO LEAD US TO ECOLOGICAL SALVATION" states Irish Times writer John Gibbons in response to the pro global warming declaration from the Catholic Bishops of Ireland in their publication "The Cry of the Earth" (Irish Times Nov 11p. 3 and Nov 12p. 13). Man must be dethroned from his dominion and his perceived license to exploit the planet as traditionally taught by the Catholic church and ensconced in Genesis 1 and 2 and repeated after the flood account to Noah ( Genesis 9 :1-6)who according to Gibbons was authorized to - plunder the natural world".
ED.COM. It is evident that neither the Irish Bishops nor the Irish Times writer believe Genesis to be the real history of the Planet. Gibbons definitely accepts a totally naturalistic view of man and it is also evident that the Bishops are seeking a way to fit their theology to what they perceive the world regards as popular. (Ref. Climate, Christianity, religion)
AT THE SAME TIME AUSSIE Climate Skeptic Geology Prof Ian Plimer is touring the UK (November 09) and getting minor airtime on the BBC as he exposes the fallacies in just about everything the British Govt. environmental lobby and UN climate alarmists are saying. His chief weapon is both the geological evidence of past dramatic climate changes which had nothing to do with man, and the fact that over the past 150 yrs there have been 3 cooling periods and the same people who predicted the world would enter a new Ice age during the 1970s, are today's barrow pushers of heating alarm and making considerable money out of it. British Geologist David Bellamy who has disappeared from the BBC since he took a stance against Global Warming is getting limited space in the Irish press (Irish Times Nov 11p. 3) as he continues to warn that climate has changed over and over through history and the present situation has nothing to do with CO2 production which has continued to increase as the temperature has started to go down over the past 10 years.
AUSSIE PM'S CLIMATE WAR, as reported on ABC (Australia) News and The Age 6 Nov 2009. In an address to Lowy Institute Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, has delivered a "fierce attack" on those who question man-made global warming, calling them "reckless gamblers who are betting all our futures on their arrogant assumption that their intuitions should triumph over the evidence." He went on to say: You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition, on a gut feeling, on a political prejudice you have about science." According to Rudd their real agenda is 'to destroy the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme at home and it is to destroy agreed global action on climate change abroad. ' ABC The Age
ED. COM. The "Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme" is a carbon tax scheme that Rudd has been trying to establish in Australia, but has been frustrated because his political party does not control both houses of Parliament and cannot get the legislation passed. As the UN climate conference approaches, Climate Agenda politicians are getting more strident in the scorn they hurl at those who question man-made global warming. Perhaps they realise they may be losing the battle and won't be able to gain the extra power and money they crave. Observations of the real world rather than man-made computer modelling, shows that the global warming has ceased for the past decade even though CO2 has increased and this information is slowly seeping out to the general public, especially to those who have endured two recent very cold winters. If the truth does manage to reach the majority of people, politicians like Rudd will lose the trust of the electorate and people will become harder to govern. Who knows what tactics they may resort to stay in power? (Ref. politics, controversy, environmentalism)
WEATHER CHANNEL FOUNDER WANTS TO SUE GORE, according to a FOX News video on Resist Net. Alan Coleman, who founded the Weather Channel and is now weatherman on KUSI TV in San Diego, wants to take Al Gore to court over Gore's claims that man-made global warming is destroying the world. Coleman claims to have 30,000 scientists with him in his belief that Gore is guilty of fraud. Coleman also claims he has tried to engage Gore and his supporters in a debate over climate change but has been repeatedly told by Gore that the debate is over, and therefore there is nothing to discuss. Coleman is also frustrated by the mainstream media who refuse to let him air his views. Therefore, he believes he has to resort to a court of law to force Gore to answer his criticisms. Video interview with Coleman: http://video.foxnews.com/v/3907118/climate-change-controversy
ED. COM. If Coleman goes ahead with this plan there is a legal precedent for it in Britain when a school governor challenged the compulsory showing of Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth in British schools. British High Court Judge Sir Michael Burton identified nine incorrect claims in Gore's film, and ruled that the film could be shown in schools but should be accompanied by notes that balance Gore's view. For more details of this ruling search for "Gore" in the Fact File.
We don't recommend that people try to resolve scientific issues in law courts, although we do understand Coleman's frustration. For this reason Creation Research has produced DVDs on climate change: Climate Change and Creation and Climate Change: the God Factor. These can be ordered from the webshop (click on image at top of this page) or you nearest Creation Research office. Why not show these and discuss them with your few friends so the issue could be debated properly in spite of the media suppression. (Ref. controversy, litigation, politics)
CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA AND ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT is Lord Monkton's warning in a 4 minute interview regarding the December Global Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen where nations will cede away sovereignty to a global government body. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMe5dOgbu40 Then click the following link to listen to Lord Monckton's 15 minute radio interview with Allan Jones in Sydney, Australia regarding the ETS, Copenhagen Treaty, and a One World Government. http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=4998
AUSSIE CLIMATE CLUES FROM DINO BURROWS, according to articles in fossilscience.com and BBC News 10 July 2009. Two years ago Anthony Martin, a palaeontologist at Emory University and colleagues found bones of a small adult dinosaur and two juveniles in a fossilised burrow in south western Montana. The dinosaur was named Oryctodromeus cubicularis, meaning "digging runner of the lair" and was dated as 95 million years old. Martin is a specialist in trace fossil (tracks, burrows, etc.) and has now found three more burrows in Victoria, Australia that are very similar to the O. cubicularis burrows. The burrows are twisted, and the largest and best preserved turns twice before ending in a larger chamber. It is more than 2.1m (6ft 4in) long and Martin suggested an animal around 10kg in size would have made each burrow. Twisted burrows help keep predators out and maintain more even temperature and humidity. Martin and colleagues suggest that dinosaurs dug burrows to care for their young and to escape extremes of climate. Martin explained: "This research helps us to better understand long-term geologic change, and how organisms may have adapted as the Earth has undergone periods of global cooling and warming." The Australian burrows are dated at 106 million years, during "the one of the last times the Earth experienced global warming, with an average temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit - about 10 degrees higher than today," but even then the southern edge of Australia would have experienced cold winters and these new finds indicate dinosaurs burrowed into river banks to shelter from harsh weather. BBC Fossil Science
ED. COM. Send Al Gore a copy - dinos suffered from Global warming - cause please Al? All jesting aside - proving that these burrows were dug by dinosaurs will not prove to be possible without evidence of dinosaurs actually using them. (Ref. reptiles, trace fossils, Cretaceous)
PINE TREES WIN FROM HIGHER CO2 as ScienceDaily reports 'Higher Carbon Dioxide May Give Pine Trees A Competitive Edge' with promo blurb: "Pine trees grown for 12 years in air one-and-a-half times richer in carbon dioxide than today's levels, produced twice as many seeds of at least as good a quality as those growing under normal conditions." ScienceDaily
ED.COM. WE PREDICT that such experiments using all plants should show such an increase in benefit to most plants.
UNFORESEEN ADVANTAGES OF CO2 FOUND, according to a report in Science Daily, 1 June 2009. Scott Denning, a physicist from Colorado State University, and his colleagues in the North American Carbon Program (NACP) are devising methods of tracking carbon dioxide levels all over the North America using monitors on cell phone and air traffic control towers. As the results are collected they have "discerned and confirmed the unforeseen advantages of rising carbon dioxide levels." Denning commented: "Stuff is growing faster than it's dying, which is weird." Science Daily
ED. COM. These findings may seem weird to a physicist, but they should be no surprise to biologists and geologists. Carbon dioxide is one of the essential raw materials plants use to make food for themselves and in turn feed, clothe and shelter all other living things on the planet. The fossil, rock and sediment records indicate there have been periods when carbon dioxide has been higher in the past, and those periods are associated with abundant lush vegetation. The recent climate change publicity has painted carbon dioxide as a poison, e.g. Richard Branson said "We want to encourage scientists and individuals from around the world to come up with a new way of removing lethal carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They will not only make history, but preserve history." (Voyeur, Virgin Blue in flight magazine, July 2007, p33) Carbon dioxide causes some discomfort at concentrations higher than one percent in the air, and is toxic at around five percent, but at the current concentration of between 0.03 to 0.04 percent it is essential to all life an earth. If it doubled, as the climate alarmists claim it will, WE PREDICT it will be a boost to life on earth, not a death sentence. (Ref. atmosphere, gas, carbon cycle)
UK CREATIONIST MICHAEL GARLAND recommends the book 'Climate Change Reconsidered', a comprehensive refutation of the UN/IPCC argument for CO2 driven global warming, available as a free download from here. Chapter 3 is a lucid expose of the famous 'hockey stick' graph supposedly demonstrating accelerating 20th / 21st century temperatures as a lesson in how not to do science. I mention the book here because so many 'highly reputable' scientists are, surely, going to have egg on their faces. The take home message that I am going to try to exploit is that science excludes alternative and minority voices to its peril. Indeed we need to make that point because the alternative, post-modernism take on this is that we can't know anything. Science now concerns itself with advocacy when it should be about critical thinking. From what I've seen this book seems to get so much right. Even the web pages are done superbly, simple navigation with summaries at every heading, the language is simple yet the literature review and citations are awesome - talk about taking the IPCC reports to the cleaners! A reviewer stated: "None of the UN document's principal claims is left standing. No objective reader can walk away from the NIPCC report without realizing how weak the case is for alarm over global warming. Global warming simply is not the crisis so many politicians and activists claim it is. It never was." The book is from the 'Nongovernmental Internal Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)'.
AUSSIE SENATOR'S QUESTION TO GORE during his recent visit to Australia, was a simple question involving the observation that if CO2 is increasing and world temperature is now decreasing - what's your problem?
ED.COM. Senator Fielding is not the first to ask the question - but he seems to be the first to be so publicly ignored by Gore whose refusal to meet the senator or answer him, gave the media a FIELDing day, if you can forgive the pun. Gore also refused to publicly answer any question by anyone who was critical of Gore's position - seems the truth was just too inconvenient.
MALDIVE DATA CAUTION as Kiwi expert, Alan Radcliffe, a Licensed Cadastral Surveyor asks: "Your article on the Maldives Not Drowning", in Evidence News 04/09 6th May 2009 is the first I have seen from you on sea level, and it has set me thinking. The article says the IPCC claim of 2.3mm/yr sea level rise, presumably for the whole world, or at least the stretch from Hong Kong to the Maldives, was based on a single tide gauge at Hong Kong. I haven't read the IPCC paper that claims this, but I would be amazed if they only used the readings from one gauge. There are hundreds of accurate tide gauges, and many have been operating for up to 100 years. I have looked at Professor Axel-Nils website, and although he is listed as a sea level expert, I cannot see any paper he has written about sea level. Has he personally done any sea level research? I would be wary of his bona fides without knowing of the depth of his sea level research. I have done some research on sea level here where I live in Gisborne, New Zealand. I obtained the paper charts from the automatic recording tide gauge operated by the Harbour Board for the years 1983 to 1991, extracted annual means, and plotted these on a graph with three other MSL determinations in 1926, 1951 and 1953. A straight line linear regression "fit" was calculated, which produced an annual mean sea level rise here of 2.3mm/year over 65 years. I know Professor John Hannah of the Otago University School of Surveying, and one of his areas of research is sea level rise. He has written two (or more) papers on this, analysing data from four tide gauges in NZ. All of these gauges show long term (80+ yrs) rise rates, being Auckland (0.8mm/yr), Wellington (1.6mm/yr), Christchurch (1.8mm/yr) and Dunedin (1.0mm/yr). My result from Gisborne is not greatly different. Papers I have read on sea level research in other countries indicates long term rise in some places. It could be that these apparent rises in sea level are caused by sinking of the land rather than rising of sea level. There are now sufficient continuous recording GPS stations here to track changes in land height, and after say 20 years readings have been analysed, it may be possible to determine if the land is sinking over a large area. Do you have any other info on sea level change that might back up the claim by Professor Axel-Nils?"
ED. COM. We have tried to find alternate authoritative sources for the data and claims by Professor Axel-Nils and Morner on the Maldives sea level not rising and at present we have not succeeded so we therefore recommend caution on the original article. Anybody with further independent data please get in touch.
COOL CLIMATE CHANGE reports Deroy Murdock of Scripps Howard News Service and media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University, 7 July 2009. In spite of continued dire warnings about global warming, June was an unusually cold month on both sides of the globe. Summer temperatures in Manhattan, Boston, Phoenix, the Yucca Valley (California) and Los Angeles have been the mildest for over a century. In the southern hemisphere unusually cold winters have been reported in Brazil, South Africa and New Zealand. New Zealand's National Climate Centre issued a press release on 2 June headlined: "Temperature: lowest ever for May for many areas, colder than normal for all." Murdock then quotes former U.S. Senate Environment Committee spokesman Marc Morano: "There has been no significant global warming since 1995, no warming since 1998, and global cooling for the past few years," and "The latest global averaged satellite temperature data for June 2009 reveal yet another drop in Earth's temperature . . . Despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled 0.74 degrees F since former Vice President Al Gore released 'An Inconvenient Truth' in 2006."
Furthermore fifty years of carbon dioxide research by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, show that changes in carbon dioxide levels do not fit with global temperature changes. CO2 increased from 314.67 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to 366.87 ppm by 1998. Since then global temperatures stabilised and started to cool, but CO2 continued to rise to 385.54 in December 2008. This article was followed by a number of reader comments. Among them reports of rising heating costs, observations on increasing Antarctic ice and not wanting to go back to the Little Ice Age. One insightful comment from a reader identifying himself as "Dr Jay" was: "But who says we know what temperature is best for the world and mankind anyway? Only man and his incredible ability to boast of his self-importance would deign to think he possesses that knowledge."
ED. COM. The disconnect between global temperature and carbon dioxide noted by Murdock is an important one. Previous periods of warming have been associated with rises in CO2 but it is now known to be equally likely that the warming caused the CO2 increase. When things are warmer there is more plant and bacterial growth and more CO2 producing activity in the living world in general.
"Dr Jay" is right in asking the question about what is the right temperature for the world. The best judge of the right temperature for the world and mankind is not man, but the Creator of the world and the human race. Sadly we forfeited the best climate when we began to reject God as Lord over us. God the Creator also said to Noah after the flood (Genesis 8:22), that hot and cold times would be the norm from them until the world ends, so it is not only arrogant to claim that mankind can change what God has decreed will happen, but it means it is totally predictable that the G8 attempts to control world temperature will certainly prove they are not in charge of the climate. (Ref. atmosphere, weather, politics)
LITTLE ROOM FOR CO2 IN CLIMATE CHANGE, according to CNSNews.com 24 July and Baylor University news 27 July 2009. Chris de Freitas of Auckland University, NZ, along with Australians John McLean and Bob Carter, have studied records of lower atmospheric temperatures from 1958 to 2008 and found a strong correlation with natural phenomena including "internal climate-system factors including the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Pacific warming phenomenon and its cooling twin, La Nina" and "intermittent volcanic activity". In particular they found temperature variations followed ENSO with a lag of about seven months. The researchers concluded: "The sequence of the lagged relationship indicates that ENSO is driving temperature rather than the reverse." According to De Freitas the ocean oscillations account for about 80% of the temperature variation, leaving "little room for CO2" as the cause of recent climate changes. El Nino and La Nina are also believed to have started in the late Tertiary period according to a report in Baylor University news, which says: "The Late Tertiary period is a crucial period in earth history because it represented warm weather conditions immediately prior to the development of extensive northern hemisphere glaciers. It is widely believed this period provides the best available analog for predicting climate changes associated with global warming that the world is presently experiencing." Researchers at Baylor University have studied a recently discovered "sinkhole lake filled with well-preserved sedimentation and fossils that act as a good record of the Late Tertiary period from four million to seven million years ago" and found "patterns of recurring thicknesses, with repetitions that were four and 24 years apart." Steven Driese, professor of geology at Baylor University explained: "The 24-year repetition corresponded to Hale sunspot cycles, which can influence weather conditions. The only known mechanism for the three-to-four year cycles is El Ni±o and La Ni±a variations in climate." CNSNews Baylor University
ED. COM. It is no surprise these two studies show changes in the oceans having a major effect on climate. Water absorbs and holds most of the heat on earth. Therefore changes in the ocean and ocean currents will have much greater effects on the climate than gases in the air. Furthermore, in the air it is water vapour that holds most of the heat, rather than carbon dioxide. The most profound changes in climate described in the Bible are associated with changes in the distribution of water. In the beginning the earth was surrounded by "waters above" placed there by God on the second creation day, and in the first world, the ground (and all things growing on it) were watered by a daily mist. This produced a lush, fruitful, pleasantly mild environment. At Noah's Flood there was a catastrophic change in the distribution of water, with masses of water falling from the sky and bursting forth from underground reservoirs. After 40 days and nights of atmospheric filtering by water, huge amounts of CO2 would also have been removed, all of which made for a massive permanent change in the water cycle and the arrival of extremes of seasons after the flood. Volcanic activity with huge amounts of gas activity that began with the breaking of the fountains of the deep to start Noah's flood has also continued. After the flood God promised that regular seasons (summer and winter) and times of heat and cold will continue until the world's end. The world is still here and we will experience times of heat and cold brought about by large forces such as the sun, volcanoes and ocean current that mankind has no control over, but are tools in God's hands. (Ref. oceanography, meteorology, atmosphere)
CENTURY OF RECORDS LINKS SUN AND CLIMATE, according to a report in National Science Foundation (NSF) 16 July and Science Daily, 17 July 2009. Gerald Meehl, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, and colleagues have analysed sea surface temperature records from 1890 to 2006 and used two computer models to simulate the response of the oceans as the sun's radiation changes. Solar output varies by about 0.1 percent over an eleven year cycle. Their results indicated that as the sun reaches solar maximum it heats cloud free regions of the Pacific Ocean, which increases evaporation, which affects tropical rainfall, and via trade winds and ocean currents, affects weather patterns all over the world. In particular it affects the formation of El Nino and La Nina events which are associated with changes in rainfall on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Jay Fein, of NSF's Division of Atmospheric Sciences commented: "These results are striking in that they point to a scientifically feasible series of events that link the 11-year solar cycle with ENSO, the tropical Pacific phenomenon that so strongly influences climate variability around the world. The next step is to confirm or dispute these intriguing model results with observational data analyses and targeted new observations." NSF Science Daily
ED. COM. A variation of 0.1 percent over a period of eleven years may not seem much, but when you consider the relative sizes of the sun and the earth .1% is real huge. Therefore the sun will have far greater affect on climate variability than anything human beings can do. The G8 has not yet recommended controlling the sun or even taxing it, as there is nothing human activity can do about the sun. However, the sun is a mere tool in God's hands and He has promised that there will be regular periods of heat and cold until the end of the world. (Ref. solar, sunspots, oceanography)
AUSSIE SENATOR CHALLENGES CO2 THEORY in an article in The Australian, 8th June 2009. Senator Steven Fielding recently attended (at his own expense) a conference conducted by the Heartlands Institute where he saw for the first time evidence that recent changes in climate were not caused by carbon dioxide emissions, but by natural phenomena, in particular variation in solar activity. He wrote: "As an engineer, I have been trained to listen to both sides of the debate in order to make an informed decision about any issue. Any scientist worth their salt will tell you that in order to form a conclusive view about any topic you need to properly explore all available possibilities." He says that he had accepted the idea of man-made global warming without question, but "At the conference I attended on Tuesday hosted by the Heartland Institute, I heard views that challenged the Rudd government's set of 'facts'. Views that could not be dismissed as mere conspiracy theories, but that were derived using proper scientific analysis. The idea that climate change is a result of the variation in solar activity and not related to the increase of CO2 into the atmosphere is not something I can remember ever being discussed in the media. The question of whether global warming is a new phenomenon or something that is just part of the naturally occurring 1500-year climate cycle was never raised in any of the discussions I have had with the Rudd government." Fielding then notes that a recent Parliamentary library report completely ignored any evidence against man-made global warming and asks: "Why are these opposing arguments treated with such disdain and, in fact, largely ignored?" He then states: "I raise these questions not because I am wholly convinced of the merits of these arguments. Rather, because I believe that only by having a healthy debate on the issues and not shirking from these confronting facts can we expect to arrive at the proper conclusion, whatever that may be. I have been criticised by some for raising these questions. However, I firmly believe that a fear of doing something unpopular should never get in the way of the responsibility to do what is right."
ED. COM. For those not familiar with Australian politics Senator Fielding is a member of a small conservative political party named "Family First". The "Rudd government" refers to Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, who wants to introduce a carbon emissions trading scheme, but because his political party does not have a majority in the Senate, Rudd needs Senator Fielding's support for it to be voted into law. So far, neither politicians nor scientists seem to be taking Fielding's questions seriously, which brings us to the important principles raised by Fielding, even for those not involved in Australian politics: ignoring or pouring scorn on an opposing opinion is not the way to find the truth, and sometimes it is necessary to take an unpopular stand to maintain the truth. (Ref. politics, weather, philosophy)
MALDIVES NOT DROWNING and sea level rise is greatest lie ever told says Swedish geophysicist, according an article in Telegraph.co.uk, 28 Mar 2009. Dr Nils-Axel Morner, Emeritus professor of paleogeophysics & geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden, who is an expert on sea levels, states the alarming warnings of catastrophic sea level rises from Al Gore and the IPCC are "the greatest lie ever told". According to Morner, "the sea is not rising. It hasn't risen in 50 years." Morner claims the IPCC is wrong and he is right because the IPCC is relying on computer models and he (Morner) is "going into the field to observe what is actually happening in the real world". Morner was in charge of the International Commission on Sea Level Change and investigated the claims that the Maldives (a group of islands in the Indian Ocean) were about to be swept off the map by rising sea levels. He found there was no rise and offered to show the inhabitants a film explaining why they needn't worry, but was prevented from showing it by the government. Other places that seem to be drowning in sea water, such as Venice and Tuvalu are actually sinking - a completely different process to rising sea levels. Morner has also studied IPCC reports and found their claim of a 2.3mm rise was based on "on the finding of a single tide-gauge in Hong Kong harbour showing a 2.3mm rise". He was asked to be an expert reviewer of the last two IPCC reports and was "astonished to find that not one of their 22 contributing authors on sea levels was a sea level specialist: not one". Telegraph
A pdf copy of an interview with Morner is available from here
ED. COM. So Prince Charles and the Archbishop of Canterbury's March 09 plea that the industrial west MUST SEND FUNDS the poor drowning people of the Maldives was totally unnecessary. Actually, Morner should perhaps have called his book the "second greatest lie ever told". The greatest lie is the one Satan sold to Eve in the Garden of Eden, that if you disobey God you will become like gods. Nevertheless, Morner does remind us of a real problem - the climate change debate has been hijacked by politicians and journalists, and those who go out into the field are ignored if their results don't fit the agenda of those with power. Melting sea ice does not cause sea level rises. It is only when ice and water is added to the sea from the land that sea levels rise. Sea ice is already in the water and therefore does not add any more water to the ocean when it melts. (Ref. global warming, climate, oceans)
ANTARCTIC ICE GROWING as a recent study of satellite imaging data by the British Antarctic Survey has shown the Antarctic Sea Ice has actually been growing by approximately 100,000 sq km (39,000 sq miles) per decade for the last 30 years. Also reported in The Australian, 18 & 29 April 2009 and FOXNews 18 April 2009. Melting and cracking sea ice has been used as evidence the world is about to experience catastrophic sea level rises. The increase is not even, with ice breaking up on the Western side, but expanding on the Eastern side. The growth on the eastern side far exceeds the loss caused by icebergs calving off from the west, and according to Ian Allison, head of the Australian Antarctic Division's glaciology program, the icebergs are just part of part of a natural cycle. Allison commented: "Ice shelves in general have episodic carvings and there can be large icebergs breaking off - I'm talking 100km or 200km long - every 10 or 20 or 50 years." Allison also said there was no indication the Antarctic ice cap was melting. Furthermore, studies of ice cores from near Davis Station in East Antarctica taken by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre reveal the ice is also thicker. Last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the 1950s is 1.67m. These changes show there is an overall increase in the amount of ice around Antarctica - the opposite of the popular belief that Antarctica is shedding its ice at a rapid rate. FOXNews
AUSSIE CABINET SOLIDARITY CRACKS OVER ANTARCTIC ICE, according to reports in The Australian, 29 & 30 April 2009. Photos of breaking up polar ice have been given widespread publicity as evidence of global warming, often accompanied with dire predictions about sea level rises. Australian cabinet Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, who also has responsibility for Antarctica, claimed the break-up of the Wilkins ice shelf on the western sided of Antarctica indicated sea-level rises of 6m (20ft) were possible by the end of the century, and that ice was melting across the continent. However, the photo used in support of this view was taken 13 months ago (March 2008) and recent studies of Antarctic ice have revealed the ice is increasing. Some of his colleagues were annoyed at Garrett for "weighing into the climate change debate with exaggerated claims", and Craig Emerson, Minister for Small Business has "cast doubt on the assertion that scientific evidence was conclusive for a catastrophic meltdown of the polar icecaps if global warming was not curtailed".
ED. COM. Hopefully this crack in political solidarity may let in some more truth that may hopefully restrain politicians from taxing people to solve a problem that doesn't exist. (Ref. propaganda, climate, oceans
HIGH CO2 MADE FOR GIANT SNAKE based on new fossil find according to reports in EurekAlert and BBC News 4 Feb 2009, and Nature, vol. 457, p715, 5 Feb 2009. A team of scientists led by Jason Head (University of Toronto at Mississauga, Canada), have found fossilised bones of a giant snake in the Cerrejon Formation of northeastern Columbia, dated at 58-60 million years old. Labelled "Titanoboa cerrejonensis", the fossil has "a body length of 13m (42.7ft) and a mass of 1,135kg (2,500lb), making it the largest known snake." Researchers estimated the size and weight of the snake by comparing its vertebral bones with bones from present day snakes of known size and weight. The longest living snakes are reticulated pythons, known to grow to 10m (32ft), and the heaviest known snakes are Green Anacondas, which can weigh up to 250kg (550lbs).
There is much speculation about how a snake could grow this large. Head's team suggest it was because the snake lived in the "hot Paleocene neotropics with high concentrations of atmospheric CO2". David Polly, one the researchers, told the BBC "A snake living in the tropics would have been operating at a much higher metabolic rate. So snakes had the opportunity to evolve and grow as big as this one did in a way that they probably wouldn't today." He also suggested that as the earth gets warmer cold blood animals could be expected to evolve larger bodies. Other scientists are not so quick to make the link with global warming. Matthew Huber, a climatologist from Purdue University, Indiana, questioned whether the link between size and temperature was "generalisable and accurate". He went on to say: "Head and colleagues' findings are the result of probably the first study in 'snake palaeothermometry', and as such must be viewed with caution." The EurekAlert article ends with this summary of giant animals: "Evolution has produced a wide variety of gigantic animals over the last several hundred million years - dinosaurs, ancient dragonflies, and today's blue whale, to name a few; but why some species lineages produce monsters remains a matter of debate among evolutionary biologists and ecologists." BBC EurekAlert
ED. COM. Like most reptiles, snakes are capable of growing throughout their lives, provided they are free of disease and stress, have sufficient nutritious food, and live in a warm environment without extremes of temperature. Where would you get such a perfect environment? In the original "very good" world created by God, where even after Adam's rebellion, yet prior to Noah's flood, human beings lived for very long times (see Genesis 5), so it is reasonable to suppose that animals could also have had long life spans. This meant any animals capable of growing throughout their lives had plenty of time to grow very large. Instead of being the hottest snake, this fossil may have been the longest lived snake ever found. The fact that extra CO2 has been suggested is just a plus and a reminder that CO2 is not the hazard politician's claim. (Ref. herpetology, serpents, giants)
"ALTERNATE WARMING AND COOLING has occurred about every 27 yrs since 1470AD, well before atmospheric CO2 began to increase," wrote Geology Prof Don Easterbrook (2 Nov 2008), for Gobal Research. Easterbrook is Professor Emeritus of Geology at Western Washington University, Bellingham (USA) and has correlated historical records of climate cycles with data from the Greenland Ice Core, the Pacific and North Atlantic Oscillations and sunspots, and predicatively concludes the earth is entering a period of cooling that could last almost 30 years. Easterbrook's work was published by Global Research Jan 17 2009 just as winter took a turn for the worse in the Northern Hemisphere.
Easterbrook concludes: "Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic (man made) CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming-it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years. The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling, perhaps much deeper than the global cooling from about 1945 to 1977. Just how much cooler the global climate will be during this cool cycle is uncertain. Recent solar changes suggest that it could be fairly severe, perhaps more like the 1880 to 1915 cool cycle than the more moderate 1945-1977 cool cycle. A more drastic cooling, similar to that during the Dalton and Maunder minimums, could plunge the Earth into another Little Ice Age, but only time will tell if that is likely." Easterbrook
ED.COM. When this editor arrived at Heathrow airport UK early February 09, in the middle of the worst snow falls in 27 yrs according to the UK media, we found Easterbrook's work very relevant. We then asked older folks in England and Wales when the last big snow and cold occurred in their area and their answers also agreed with Easterbrook. For a tragic comparison the last big batch of killer bush fires to spread across 3 states of Australia were in 1983 - 26 years ago. Easterbrook has been brave enough to put his head on the block when he makes the testable prediction that we will have cooling for the next 30 years or so. Now we can sit back and watch if the politicians let us.
Those who have endured the two recent freezing cold winters will have no problem believing global cooling is here, but Easterbrook's work reminds us of the importance of looking at the big picture and learning from history. By doing this Easterbrook puts the recent warm period in its proper place, and shows there are bigger forces at work than human activity. However, we suspect politicians will continue to believe the man made climate change activists, as they need an excuse to impose a global tax system and carbon tax is their best opportunity in ages. It will be an invidious irony if they have to spend them on coping with disasters, food shortages and increased energy needs caused by cold weather - but will they then refund the Tax? (Ref. weather, temperature, environment)
MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD WAS NATURAL, according to an article in New Scientist, 2 Apr 2009 and Science, vol. 24, p78, 3 Apr 2009. The "Medieval Warm Period" extended from the ninth to the fourteenth century AD. Following that the climate rapidly cooled to the "Little Ice Age" that lasted to the nineteenth century. A group of climate scientists have studied tree rings Morocco and stalactites in Scotland to reconstruct the climate over the last thousand years in Britain, Europe and North Africa. They concluded that during the warm period there was an intensification of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) associated with increased circulation of warm ocean currents in the North Atlantic resulting in more warm westerly winds blowing over these regions. The researchers collated climate data from other parts of the world and used computer models to come up with a hypothesis of why the ocean currents and winds changed. They suggest there was a La Nina, or cool region, in the tropical western pacific at the same time, and this combined with the increased NAO set up a positive feedback loop that kept the warm period going for five centuries.
The New Scientist article claims the study "scuppers one of the favourite arguments of climate-change deniers" because it "means the medieval warm period was mainly a regional phenomenon caused by altered heat distribution rather than a global phenomenon." The original report in SCIENCE makes no such claim, but concludes "The persistent positive phase reconstructed for the MCA (Medieval Climate Anomaly) appears to be associated with prevailing La Nina-like conditions possibly initiated by enhanced solar irradiance and/or reduced volcanic activity and amplified and prolonged by enhanced AMOC (Atlantic meridional overturning circulation). The relaxation from this particular ocean atmosphere state into the LIA (Little Ice Age) appears to be globally contemporaneous and suggests a notable and persistent reorganization of large-scale oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns." New Scientist
ED. COM. The twist given by the New Scientist arti a classic example of the fallacy of peer review publishing. The changes in climate at the beginning and end of the> Medieval Warm Period was as great as recent changes in climate, but the original authors in SCIENCE admit they were caused by changes in solar irradiance, volcanic activity, ocean currents and winds. These are all natural phenomena and they are all still happening, so it is inconsistent to blame the recent climate changes on human activity. We tend to agree with one New Scientist letter to the editor which suggested "readers will start to think of the magazine as Green Scientist" because it pushes the green political agenda. (New Scientist Letters, 1 Nov 2008, p20) (Ref. history, weather, politics)
HILARY ON THE GLOBAL CRISES, reported in the UK Guardian, 21 Feb 2009. During her visit to China Hilary stated that the United States and China should cooperate with one another to lead the world out of the global economic crisis. She was criticised by Amnesty International for not pressing the Chinese government over human rights, Taiwan and Tibet. In response she said: "We have to continue to press them... But our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises. We have to have a dialogue that leads to an understanding and cooperation on each of those." Guardian
ED. COM. Global cooperation to save the world from global crises with the proviso that human rights will not be allowed to interfere with inter government cooperation sounds rather like one world government. Particularly when you add the realisation that the ICC has for the first time in March 2009, issued an indictment of a ruling head of state, and proudly proclaimed that this is the first step towards a single world court. Of course that was the day before the Dafurian African dictator threw out all western aid agencies and so the people in Darfur are now suffering even more. Add to that the USA Govt's March declaration they are now willing to accept a global currency and the scene is set. See Telegraph 25 March 2009. (Ref. politics, economics, globalism)
COLDEST WINTER IN 500 YEARS was described in New Scientist, 7 Feb 2009, p46 which reported that on January 6, 1709 the temperature plummeted from Scandinavia to Italy - from Czechoslovakia to the west coast of France, and everything turned to ice. The sea froze. Lakes and rivers froze, and the soil froze to a depth of a metre or more. Livestock died in their barns, chicken's combs froze and fell off, trees exploded and travellers froze to death on the roads.
Off Italy's west coast, sailors aboard English men-of-war died from the cold. One of England's most meticulous meteorological observers William Derham wrote, "I believe the Frost was greater (if not more universal also) than any other within the Memory of Man". 1709 holds the record as the coldest European winter of the past half-millennium. It was the climax of a period known as the "Little Ice Age" which began in the 14th Century AD and extended to the 19th Century AD.
No-one really knows what caused the extreme cold but it seems the sun's output was low, and there were some large volcanic eruptions 1707 and 1708, including Mt Vesuvius, Mt Santorini and Mt Fuji that would have sent large amounts of dust into the atmosphere. Dennis Wheeler, a climatologist at the University of Sunderland, UK, is working with the E.U.'s Millennium Project, which aims to reconstruct the past 1000 years of Europe's climate. Wheeler is using records of wind and weather from the Royal Navy. So far he has found some unexpected results. Cold weather in Europe usually results from freezing winds blowing in from Siberia in the east, but Wheeler found a predominance of southerly and westerly winds and many storms - conditions that normally bring milder weather. Wheeler commented: "This combination of cold, storms and westerlies suggests some other mechanism was responsible for that winter." He went on to say: "We need to explain the natural variation in climate over past centuries so that we can tease apart all those factors that contribute to climate change. But before we can do that we need to nail down those changes in detail. Climate doesn't behave consistently and warmer and colder, drier and wetter periods can't always be explained by the same mechanisms." New Scientist
ED. COM. The Little Ice Age was preceded by a period known as the "Medieval Warm Period", which was warmer than the current warm period, but no-one was driving cars or generating electricity then. We do need to understand the natural variations in climate, but we also need to have the humility to admit that there are many forces at work that we cannot control (or tax), such as volcanoes, wind, sunspots, and God. We should then get on with being good stewards of the things God gave us dominion over, and put our trust in the Creator who can control these greater forces. (Ref. weather, environment, history)
ALASKA SEA ICE INCREASED in March to greater than 1979 levels or didn't you read that in the secular media. Our correspondent in Alaska sent us the Satellite Pics from the Snow and Ice Data Center Boulder Colorado with the same query and the comment "Polar bears should have no problem at all".
LOST: ENOUGH ICE TO COVER CALIFORNIA, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) 18 Feb 2009 and Bloomberg.com 20 Feb 2009. The extent of ice covering the Arctic Ocean in January and February 2009 was underestimated by about 500,000 square kilometres (193,000 square miles), an area about the size of California, due to a problem with one of the satellite sensors used to monitor the ice. The problem was 'sensor drift' and NSIDC scientists were alerted to it when "puzzled readers" asked NSIDC about reports that showed ice covered areas as open ocean. NSIDC has since recalculated the sea ice extent using data from another satellite and is conducting a quality control check. The centre also said "There is a balance between being as accurate as possible at any given moment and being as consistent as possible through long time-periods. Our main scientific focus is on the long-term changes in Arctic sea ice." Bloomberg
ED. COM. The experience of NSIDC's "puzzled readers" shows there is nothing like the direct observations of people who are there to get an accurate record of what is really happening. Nevertheless, NSIDC are right about the importance of keeping the big picture in mind, and their records are a good illustration of the big picture of sea ice. As more and more catastrophic predictions about the world drowning from melting sea ice, NSIDC's records show that sea ice undergoes regular cycles of melting and freezing and after thirty years of records the sea ice is back to being the same as it was in 1979, when the records begin. For more information on this see "Back to 1979 Levels for Sea Ice". (Ref. polar, climate, mapping)
MANMADE CLIMATE MESSAGE "LOSING GROUND" according to a recent survey of American attitudes to global warming reported by Gallup Poll, 11 Mar 2009 and OneNewsNow, 16 Mar 2009. The Gallup Poll survey found a "record-high 41%" of those surveyed believed the seriousness of global warming was exaggerated. The survey also found "fewer Americans believe the effects of global warming have begun to occur. The figure is now 53%, down from 61% in March 2008. At the same time, a record-high 16% say the effects will never occur." The survey also asked about concern about other environmental issues, such as pollution of water, air and soil and availability of fresh water, loss of forests and endangered species and found: "Not only does global warming rank last on the basis of the total percentage concerned, but it is the only issue for which public concern dropped significantly in the past year."
Gallup Poll summed up the survey results as follows: "Americans generally believe global warming is real. That sets the U.S. public apart from the global-warming sceptics who assembled early March in New York City to try to debunk the science behind climate change. At the same time, with only 34% of Americans saying they worry "a great deal" about the problem, most Americans do not view the issue in the same dire terms as the many prominent leaders advancing global warming as an issue." However, OneNewsNow comments that the survey results really indicate that more people are aligned with the New York conference that the Gallup Poll scoffed at. This conference, run by Heartlands Institute, attracted over 750 people - more than twice as many who attended last year, in spite of being totally ignored by the media. Mark Morano, one of the 70 speakers at the conference commented: "The only place where this alleged climate catastrophe is happening is the virtual world of computer models." (Quoted in New Scientist Soundbites, 14 Mar 2009, p10.) Gallup Poll
ED. COM. The old saying about not fooling all of the people all of the time seems to be coming true about climate change. It seems many members of the general public are smart enough to discern the difference between observed changes in climate and the unproven claim that human activity caused them. It is about time the politicians started taking notice or they may find themselves and their carbon taxes voted out. Gallup Poll was wrong about the purpose of the Heartlands Institute New York conference - it was not to "debunk the science behind climate change" - it was to critically analyse claims made by politicians and journalists who pick and choose which scientific results suit their agenda and ignore those that don't suit them. (Ref. opinions, politics, anthropogenic)
SHIFTING WINDS RELEASE OCEAN CARBON DIOXIDE, according to a report in ScienceDaily, 13 Mar 2009. Many scientists believe the dramatic climate shift involved in ending the last ice age, usually dated as being around 17,000 years ago, occurred due a change in the earth's orbit. Ice core records show an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide occurred at the end of the ice age. Scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University suggest the orbital change caused westerly winds in the Southern Ocean to be displaced southwards where they caused heavy mixing in the ocean around Antarctica, which released dissolved carbon dioxide from the water into the air.
Geochemist Robert Anderson explained: "The faster the ocean turns over, the more deep water rises to the surface to release CO2. It's this rate of overturning that regulates CO2 in the atmosphere." This theory was put forward two years ago by J. R. Toggweiler, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Columbia University scientists tested the theory by studying sediments from the bottom of the Southern Ocean to measure the rate of overturning. Upwelling of deep water also brings nutrients to the surface, which causes an increase in phytoplankton. The Columbia University scientists compared phytoplankton spikes in sediment cores with ice core records and "realized the added upwelling coincided with hotter temperatures in Antarctica as well as rising CO2 levels." It seems that in the last 40 years the winds have shifted south much as they did at the end of ice age 17,000 years ago. J. R. Toggweiler commented "Now I think this really starts to lock up how the CO2 changed globally. Here's a mechanism that can explain the warming of Antarctica and the rise in CO2. It's being forced by the north, via this change in the winds." However, the Columbia researchers still believe that man-made carbon dioxide is the cause of recent global warming. Robert Anderson claims the effects of the current ocean upwelling "will be dwarfed by the accelerating rate at which humans are burning fossil fuels" and said "It could well be large enough to offset some of the mitigation strategies that are being proposed to counteract rising CO2, so it should not be neglected." ScienceDaily
ED. COM. Here is another example of a natural phenomenon not caused by human activity which is causing a change in the climate, yet people want to cling onto the idea that climate change is all our fault. If natural phenomena in the past have caused changes in climate that are more drastic than recent changes, it is foolish to write them off as being dwarfed by modern human activity. Anderson's comment about southern ocean CO2 offsetting human strategies for counteracting rising CO2 looks like an excuse to explain the fact that anything we try to reduce the amount of CO2 is not going to work in the face of natural events that are clearly beyond our control. (Ref. climate, atmosphere, gases)
IPCC REPORT SUBSTITUTES UNPROVABLE HYPOTHESIS FOR TRUTH claim Japanese scientists, according to article in The Register, 25 Feb 2009. In a report by the Japan Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) three leading Japanese scientists commissioned to report on climate disagreed sharply with the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th Evaluation Report, which claims that atmospheric temperatures will continue to rise as a result of man-made emissions. Instead, the Japanese researchers claim recent changes in the earth's climate are driven by natural cycles. Kanya Kusano is Program Director and Group Leader for the Earth Simulator at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology criticised the use of computer models as proof of man-made warming, comparing them to ancient astrology before accurate data was available of movements of sun, moon and planets.
According to Kusano there are too many natural phenomena contributing to the climate that we have not be able measure accurately for long enough to be included in the model, e.g. effects of cosmic rays, changes in sun spots and solar irradiance, formation of aerosols and clouds. Kusano concludes: "[The IPCC's] conclusion that from now on atmospheric temperatures are likely to show a continuous, monotonic increase, should be perceived as an unprovable hypothesis." Shunichi Akasofu, head of the International Arctic Research Center in Alaska, commented, "We should be cautious. IPCC's theory that atmospheric temperature has risen since 2000 in correspondence with CO2 is nothing but a hypothesis. Before anyone noticed, this hypothesis has been substituted for truth... The opinion that great disaster will really happen must be broken." The Register
ED. COM. The popular media and politicians who use the IPCC reports in their warning of impending catastrophes fail to remind the general public that the IPCC predictions are only computer models, and that average world temperature since 1998 has dropped and since 2000 has levelled off. The Japanese scientists remind us that computer models are only as good as the data fed into them, and we don't have enough precise data about many natural phenomena. The solution to this problem is to carry out more research, not promote the computer models which have been proven wrong by a lack of global warming for most of the present decade. (Ref. predictions, weather, meteorology)
ARTH UNDERGOING NATURAL CLIMATE SHIFT according to a report in WISN.com, 16 Mar 2009. Scientists at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UMW) have analysed the last century of climate data using a mathematical method named synchronised chaos, that looks at what happens when two or more complex systems move in and out of synchrony. Anastasios Tsonis, one of the researchers, explained: "Imagine that you have four synchronized swimmers and they are not holding hands and they do their program and everything is fine; now, if they begin to hold hands and hold hands tightly, most likely a slight error will destroy the synchronization. Well, we applied the same analogy to climate." He went on to say: "In climate, when this happens, the climate state changes. You go from a cooling regime to a warming regime or a warming regime to a cooling regime. This way we were able to explain all the fluctuations in the global temperature trend in the past century.
The UWM researchers found "the warming trend of the past 30 years has stopped and in fact global temperatures have levelled off since 2001." These results were also reported in an article in Discovery News, 2 Mar 2009, which says: "according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades. Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat."
This led Ken Blanchard to place this article in the South Dakota Politics blog and make the following comments: "Let's review, shall we?
1. There has been no global warming for at least eight years, according to these climate scientists. I gather that this is the consensus.
2. During that time, man-made greenhouse gases have been increasing.
3. The climate models on which global warming predict an increase in temperature, contrary to what actually happened. After some other comments, he concluded: "I predict that this study will be completely uninteresting to the mainstream press."
ED. COM. Ken Blanchard's prediction seems to be true. The mainstream media continues to publish frightening scenarios of man-made global warming destroying the earth, and politicians plan various ways to make people pay for producing carbon dioxide. The most serious issue is that eight years of non-warming have proven the climate models used to justify the fearfulness and taxes to be wrong. The media and politicians need to humble themselves and admit that climate change is part of the present natural order of things in this world because the Creator and Judge of the world said it would be after He judged the world with Noah's flood (Genesis 8:22). Since then there have been times of cold and heat, but the world will continue until the Lord Jesus Christ comes to judge all mankind and make a new earth (Revelation 22 ) where there will be no natural disasters and no fear for those who put their trust in Him. (Ref. weather, atmosphere, meteorology)
GLORY BE, IT'S A LONG SOLAR MINIMUM reports ScienceDaily 29 Mar 2009, and NASA 20 and 23 March 2009, and 1 April 2009. NASA is planning to launch a satellite named Glory, which will carry a Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) - an instrument that measures how much heat is being produced by the sun's rays as they reach the top of the atmosphere. This will add to a number of instruments, including a prototype TIM, that monitors different aspects of solar activity including sunspots, the solar wind and radio emissions. The Glory TIM is much more sensitive than previous instruments that measured solar irradiance. This is important because it only takes a tiny change in solar output to have a profound effect on how much radiation hits the earth. It is estimated that at the depth of a period of very low sunspot activity known as the Maunder minimum in the late seventeenth century, the total solar irradiance only varied by about 0.08 percent over a century. The new instrument will be accurate enough to detect such a change.
Some scientists claim variations in the sun's activity are the main contributor to cycles of global warming and cooling and Glory TIM is coming on board at an interesting time for solar activity. The sunspot cycle is going through an unusually long "solar minimum" with 266 spotless days in 2008 and 78 spotless days for the first three months of 2009. The unusually long runs of spotless days have led the editors of the Space Weather website to add a regular report of the number of spot free days to their daily updates on sunspot number. The last time there was such a low sunspot count was in 1913. 2008 also saw the lowest solar wind measurement since monitoring began in the 1960's and lowest radio emissions since measurements began in the 1950's. However, NASA scientists estimate since the 1970's the amount of solar radiation the sun emitted during times of quiet sunspot activity has increased by nearly 0.05 percent per decade. According to Richard Willson, a researcher affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Earth Institute, "This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change." He went on to say: "Historical records of solar activity indicate that solar radiation has been increasing since the late 19th century. If a trend, comparable to the one found in this study, persisted throughout the 20th century, it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years." ScienceDaily
ED. COM. We do live in an interesting time for solar activity, and it is good to see someone finally admit the sun has a bigger effect on climate than human beings. It will be interesting to see what the combination of low sunspots, solar wind and radio emissions brings about, especially as the warming trend stopped at the start of the 2000's and some scientists are predicting several decades of global cooling. Whatever change occurs, it will be foolish to blame people for it, and arrogant to try to think politicians can change climate by more regulations and taxes. Instead, we should be trusting in the Creator God, for whom the sun is a mere tool in His hands, and who can use climate to bless or judge. (Ref. sunlight, weather, heliosphere)
GLOBAL WARMING GOVT ADVISOR CONFESSES science is leaving climate policies behind, as David Evans reveals in articles in the Australian, 18 Jan 2008 and ABC "Unleashed" 1 Aug 2008. David Evans was consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005 and introduces himself as "the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector." He now claims: "On global warming, public policy is where the science was in 1998. Due to new evidence, science has since moved off in a different direction." When he began his work with the Greenhouse Office he says "the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good" but new scientific studies have "seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming." Evans gives four reasons for changing his mind about man-made global warming. They are: the failure to find the "signature of an increased greenhouse effect", i.e. a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics; plenty of evidence that warming has occurred, but "no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming"; satellite temperature measurements indicate the warming ended in 2001; and ice core data that show six previous global warmings where the temperature rose before an increase in carbon dioxide. Evans comments that this last point "says something important about which was cause and which was effect." Evans challenges the politicians who are introducing carbon taxes and trading schemes in response to the proponents of man-made global warming with these words: "The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise." ABC
ED. COM. For our non-Australian readers, the ALP is the Australian Labor Party, a left-leaning party who are currently in power in Australia. The Liberals are a conservative political party, currently in opposition. Evans' warning is more serious than just the electoral prospects of a few politicians. Because global warming alarmists such as Al Gore have driven the agenda for the past decade, people have been led to believe that man-made global warming is undisputed scientific fact, and therefore governments have a right to force people to pay for fixing it up. If people get to know that governments are taking their money for something they didn't do, and couldn't change anyway, they will feel cheated by both scientists and politicians, and become distrustful of experts and authority figures in general. This makes people harder to govern, especially in democratic societies. Democracy only works with the cooperation of the people. Without cooperation governments have to resort to coercion. (Ref. climate, politics, society)
BIOFUELS DRIVE MILLIONS TO HUNGER, according to articles in the Guardian 3 July 2008 and Washington Times 14 Feb 2008. The charity ActionAid has published a report named "Cereal Offenders" which claims "the 82% rise in food commodity prices since 2006 has directly pushed 260 million people into risk of hunger as a result of the rich world's drive for biofuels." At the same time Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president warned the world is entering a "danger zone" caused by rising food and energy prices. He commented: "What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster ... it is a man-made catastrophe. I urge the G8 countries, in concert with major oil producers, to act now to address this crisis. This is a test of the global system to help the most vulnerable and it cannot afford to fail." According to Benjamin Senauer, a professor of applied economics at the University of Minnesota, "The evidence linking biofuel production to rising food prices can't be ignored. Between the start of 2002 and early 2008, basic global food commodity prices rose by 220%. The global production of biofuels - ethanol and biodiesel - rose from less than 8m gallons in 2004 to an estimated 18m gallons in 2008." He went on to write: "Current research, that I and colleagues are working on, suggests that 390,000 additional children under the age of five will die because of this increase in malnutrition due to biofuels. If current biofuel development trends continue, child deaths will rise to 475,000, almost one-half million by 2010." Bob Geldof, who represents a campaign group named ONE, said: "It is tragic and absurd that people are still going hungry in the 21st century. I cannot stand the idea that a food crisis born out of high energy prices and increasing global prosperity is starving the super-poor in Africa." Guardian Biofuels Food, Guardian Biofuels USA Washington Times
ED. COM. Bob Geldof (and the Guardian) needs to be reminded that the main driving force for using cereal crops to make fuel for machinery, rather than food for people, is that he and his environmentalist colleagues have convinced governments and companies that using biofuels will help stop global warming. He obviously hasn't noticed that the globe has stopped warming, and rising food and fuel prices, made worse by carbon taxes and trading, will not make any difference to carbon emissions, even if they were the cause of global warming. (Ref. Climate change, politics)
GLOBAL WARMING THEORY CRACKS UP, according to ScienceShots 9 July 2008. (whole item quoted) "Crash! In one doomsday scenario, global warming triggers titanic chunks of ice to break and slide off the Antarctic landmass, causing sea levels to rise by meters. The surrounding Antarctic ice shelf has been splitting over the past 2 decades--but is this a harbinger of doom or just part of some natural cycle? Researchers using underwater acoustic sensors originally designed to detect nuclear explosions have listened to the grinding and cracking of the ice, and they have now determined that--at least over the past 7 years--there has been no increase in Antarctic ice shelf break-up. The results, reported this week at the Acoustics 2008 meeting in Paris, France, provide a baseline for the rate of Antarctic splitting. The question now is whether it will increase as the temperature rises."
ED..COM. Is it "just part of some natural cycle?" is a good question. As there has been no increase in ice breaking during a time when the earth seems to have reached the peak of a warm cycle, has stabilised and may be cooling, it is reasonable to answer that ice cracking is a normal, regular occurrence in Antarctica, and should not be used to scare people into believing that human industry and farming is going to let loose an avalanche of killer icebergs and sea level rises unless they pay carbon taxes. (Ref. climate, ice-cap, sea-ice)
WHAT ISN'T EVIDENCE FOR GLOBAL WARMING? asks Brett Stephens in the Wall Street Journal, 1 July 2008. He writes: "The Arctic ice cap may be thinning, but the extent of Antarctic sea ice has been expanding for years. At least as of February, last winter was the Northern Hemisphere's coldest in decades. In May, German climate modellers reported in the journal Nature that global warming is due for a decade-long vacation. But be not afraid, added the modellers: The inexorable march to apocalypse resumes in 2020. This last item is, of course, a forecast, not an empirical observation. But it raises a useful question: If even slight global cooling remains evidence of global warming, what isn't evidence of global warming? What we have here is a non falsifiable hypothesis, logically indistinguishable from claims for the existence of God. This doesn't mean God doesn't exist, or that global warming isn't happening. It does mean it isn't science."
ED. COM. Stephen's comment reminds us that it is not just enough to discuss evidence in controversial issues, it is also essential to understand the world view, or pre-suppositions, of people you are trying to communicate with. The same applies to the creation/evolution issue. We have asked many of our critics what would be evidence for creation and they usually insist that there isn't any, so they refuse to accept any evidence that is offered. As such they are arguing from faith, not science. (Ref. philosophy, climate, theology)
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK uncooks the weather books (From Australian Courier Mail August 4, 2008 ) More than 6,000 Royal Navy logs dating from the 1600's have been surveyed by the UK Meteorological Office and other experts The Sun newspaper reports The ships' logs, of Captain James Cook, Lord Nelson and thousands more like them who sailed the globe and recorded weather observations, have revealed that recent global warming is not so unusual after all..
Maritime historian Dr Sam Willis said: "From these records, scientists can build a detailed picture of past weather and climate". These on the spot records show the world went through a similar period of global warming in the 1730's that could not have been man-made. And freak storms like the ones experienced recently also occurred in the 1680's and 1690's which were the coldest decades in what is known as the Little Ice Age - so could not have been caused by global warming.
Cook sailed from Alaska to the Antarctic, and Nelson, who maintained his ships' logs himself, covered the Arctic, West Indies, south east Asia and Mediterranean. Geographer Dr Dennis Wheeler, of Sunderland University, said: "British archives contain more than 100,000 Royal Navy logbooks from around 1670 to 1850 alone. They are a stunning resource. Global warming is a reality, but our data shows climate science is complex. It is wrong to take particular events and link them to carbon dioxide emissions." Evidence from the many logs, which are still being studied, will be published in respected science journal Climatic Change.
ED.COM. Let's just say the old lesson to be learnt again here is that it is wiser to rely on the records of those who were there than the opinions of Politicians and Greens who were not, who proudly and ignorantly believe they live at the most important time in history and the observations they make are the only ones that count. As the writer in the book of Proverbs recorded "there is nothing new under the sun!" (ref climate, history, Gore)
"IS CO2 WARMING THE EARTH?" asks Dr. Jennifer Marohasy, a PhD Botanist and senior fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs stated; "there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued." "This is not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years." (Ref. Climate facts to warm to; March 22, 2008 The Australian)
ED.COM. Where is this Debate Heading? Our predictions: the evidence may show that CO2 is increasing, but it will also show that CO2 does not determine either temperature or climate on earth.
CARBON TRADING ACCORDING TO LONG TERM AUSSIE GEOLOGIST: "Carbon trading does not reduce carbon emissions - it simply allows emitters a financial penalty to continue operations unchanged. This penalty will be passed on to consumers." From website of geologist Chris Towsey, MSc(Syd) BSc (Hons) Dip Ed FAusIMM.
AUSSIE PROFESSOR ON COST OF CLIMATE POLICIES. Prof. Bob Carter, Environmental Scientist, James Cook University stated: In one of the more expensive ironies of history, the expenditure of more than $US 50 billion on research into global warming since 1990 has failed to demonstrate any human caused climate trend, let alone a dangerous one. Yet the expenditure will pale into insignificance compared with the squandering of money that is going to accompany the introduction of carbon trading or taxation system. The cost of thus expiating comfortable middle class angst are, of course, going to be imposed upon the poor and underprivileged. (Ref. Australian Courier Mail June 18 2007 p16)
ED.COM. If we consumers have caused the problem it is only fair to tax us to fix it, but if we ordinary voters have not, then any climate change tax is theft that will only enrich Government coffers, pay for and enable the bringing of a one world Govt system a little closer, and impoverish most of us to the point where our vote and our voice are financially irrelevant, as well as achieving nothing in regards to the climate.
FOSSILS INDICATE WARM ANTARCTICA PAST, reported EurkAlert, 22 July, 2008 and BBC News Online, 23 July, 2008. A team of researchers from British and American universities have found "exceptionally well preserved fossils" of ostracods in Dry Valleys of Antarctica. Mark Williams of the University of Leicester commented: "We've got the legs and the mouth parts, and the reproductive organs; and we can even see micron-scale hairs on the legs." Ostraocods are tiny shrimp-like creatures that live throughout the world in marine and freshwater environments, and occasionally in wet moss. The Dry Valleys are desolate regions in Artarctica where is it is too dry and cold for any life. The researchers found the fossil ostracods, along with fossils of mosses, diatoms and beetles on the slopes of Mt Boreas, on the edge of the McKelvey Valley, at latitude 77 degrees south The farthest south living ostrocods have been found is about 60 degrees. Mark William also said: "Notwithstanding the significance of the fossil preservation, the presence of lake ostracods at this latitude, 77 degrees south, is also of great note. Present conditions in this Antarctic region show mean annual temperatures of minus 25 degrees C. These are impossible conditions to sustain a lake fauna with ostracods. The fossils therefore show that there has been a substantial and very intense cooling of the Antarctic climate after this time interval that is important for tracking the development of the Antarctic icesheet - a key factor in understanding the effects of global warming. The fossil ostracods of the Dry Valleys signal a high latitude lake viable for animal colonisation that indicates a dramatic change in the climate of this region, from tundra conditions 14 million years ago, to the intensely cold continental interior climate experienced today." BBC, EurekAlert
ED. COM. These fossils are not the first indications that Antarctica was once warmer and full of life. Dinosaurs and coal have been found around Antarctica. The good preservation of the ostracod fossils, and the climate change that they indicate, fits well into Biblical history. As the researchers note, ostracods (and beetles and mosses) do not live in dry frozen wildernesses, so Antarctica must have been warmer and wetter in the past. That fits with the original "very good" world God made, as described in Genesis. For soft tissue to be preserved with the fine detail described above, organisms need to be buried rapidly and deeply so that decay processes do not destroy the tissue structure. This is exactly what would happen in a world-wide continent covering flood, also described in Genesis. Following the flood the climate changed rapidly for the worse, and the polar regions became frozen. (Ref. Invertebrates, crustaceans, climate)
COOLING BY PHYSICISTS ON WARMING as top physics group shows crack in warming 'consensus'. Physics & Society Editor Jeffrey Marque says there's a "considerable presence within the scientific community" of experts who don't agree with the IPCC's contention human-produced CO2 emissions likely are the primary cause of global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. The editor of Physics & Society, a newsletter of the American Physical Society, says that with his July issue he wants to kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year along with former Vice President Al Gore for sounding the alarm about alleged man-made global warming. Yesterday, in a speech at Constitution Hall in Washington, Gore challenged the U.S. to make a "man on the moon" effort to produce all of the country's electricity from renewable resources within 10 years. The American Physical Society represents more than 50,000 physicists. (WorldNetDaily July 18, 2008 "Heat of the Moment")
ED.COM. As we travel the world - our observation is there are few scientists who actually do believe in Global warming Climate Change as it is preached by Governments, Greens and Gore-ites, but there are many scientists who are too scared for their careers to say so.
Climate Change and Creation. Notes and comments by Ian Taylor. From the DVD of this title by John Mackay July 2008 ©Copyright Creation Research
Part 1:
Fishy story: Why are fish harder to catch today? Because natural selection has produced smarter fish thus proving evolution is still at work. Of course, it could also be that fishermen are becoming less smart so it doesn't prove anything! Paul wrote that as Christians we should "prove all things" (1 Thessalonians 5:2). Here is an example of a media report by Liam Houlihan that appeared in the Australian Sydney Herald Sun newspaper, for March 11, 2007:"A leading Muslim cleric has blamed the [Australian] drought, climate change and pollution on Australian's lack of faith in Allah. Radical sheik Mohammed Omran told followers at his Brunswick mosque that out-of-control secular scientific values had caused environmental disaster." How could we prove this? Using NASA satellite images superimposed upon geopolitical maps it becomes obvious that the arid areas of the world exactly coincide with the Muslim countries, even to the fine division between Israel and Jordan/Syria.
Anyone having read or listened to news reports for the past 20 or 30 years may recall how the media message has changed. For example, the lead article in Newsweek for April 25, 1975 was concerned with "The Cooling World!- while the lead article in National Geographic for November 1976 (p.576) was titled:" What's happening to our Climate? "The article claimed there are ominous signs that the world's temperature has fallen. The US National Science Board are quoted:" During the last 20-30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. "We might be reminded that three decades later the world's media and every political party are pre-occupied with "Global Warming". Facts that do not support this latter-day belief are rarely reported. For example, if Chicago received a foot of snow in August would the rest of the world hear about it? Possibly not because the Melbourne area of Australia received a foot of snow in the middle of their Summer in December 2006 and North America heard virtually nothing about it!
A small circulation newspaper issued in Melbourne, Australia, titled The Age ran a headline that read "Research Casts Doubt on Global Warming Theory" in its April 7, 2003 edition. The article began by pointing out that claims that man-made pollution has caused unprecedented global warming have been undermined by historical research that shows the Earth was actually warmer in the Middle Ages (AD 800-1300) than it is today. Then, from 1300 to 1900, there followed a "little Ice Age". Acknowledgement for the source of this information was attributed to The Review, the publication of a research team at Harvard University. Their research shows: "that the world had a medieval warm period between the 9th and 14th centuries with world temperatures significantly higher than today's". Some examples from this report:
Iceland: First settled by Christians from Ireland in the 9th century then joined in the following century by settlers from Norway. At that time, hay was the usual crop and used for flocks and herds for subsistence while rye and other grains were grown in favoured locations. By the 13th century ice was beginning to remain year-round as the world entered the "Little Ice Age". Between 1695 and 1709 the Icelandic glaciers were advancing dramatically, destroying farms.
England: When the Romans invaded England in the 4th century AD, grapes grew as far north as York; taxes were often paid with grapes. By the 13th century grapes no longer grew anywhere in England and the Romans returned to warmer Italy.
London, UK: The River Thames froze over completely every winter for over 300 years, beginning about 1600 until 1900; it has never been frozen since. An oil painting done in 1677 shows the annual Frost Fair held on the frozen River while there is another done in 1814 by Luke Clenell titled The Frost Fair - this was one of the last Fairs, nevertheless, the ice was thick enough to support hundreds of people.
Norway: From 1710 to 1735 some glaciers were reported to be advancing at 100 metres per year and had been doing so throughout the 25 years.
Switzerland: In 1595 it was reported that the Gietroz glacier had advanced and dammed the Dranse River and flooded Bagne; there were 70 deaths.
Eastern Alps: Between 1670 and 1680 there was a maximum advance by the glaciers accompanied by a decline in the associated human population and a corresponding increase in population in nearby unaffected areas.
rance: From 1600 to 1610 there were significant advances of the Chamonix glacier causing massive floods; three villages were destroyed and a fourth severely damaged.
This article in The Age concluded by pointing out: "the records used by modern climate scientists date from when the Earth was relatively cold, (i.e. the "Little Ice Age" from 1300 - 1900) thereby exaggerating the significance of today's temperature rise". The fact is there have been warm periods and cool periods in Earth's history and these are evident from the fossil record.
The Fossil Record
Evidences that Earth's climate has been significantly warmer in the past include the following: Red soil in the Antarctic indication that there was once a hot, wet climate in this area; fossil palm trees in Washington State; giant fossil reeds in the UK; the fossil forests of meta sequoia trees on Axel Heiberg Island - the nearest land to the North Pole - indicating a climate here comparable to that of Florida today. In the past, trees and plants were much larger than those of today indicating hot, moist climates and a higher carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere. In Australia fossil kangaroos five metres tall have been discovered! The first conclusion we may draw from this data is that the Earth's climate changes. Both colder and hotter, wetter and drier periods have been recorded in reliable secular human records over the past 2,500 years. But in 2007 it is evident that it is only politically acceptable to speak of "global warming". Nevertheless, the data shows that Earth's climate cycles from cool and dry to warm and wet and, after several centuries of a "Little Ice Age", it is currently entering a warm phase once more.
Organized Reaction to Global Warming Fears
In the November 3, 2007 issue of The Sunday Telegraph (UK), an article by Tom Harper claimed: "Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claimed to have been shunned by the scientific community. They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians (Al Gore), scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon-dioxide emissions".Harper took this quote from Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, Canada, who has received 5 death threats by email. Professor Ball appeared in "The Great Global Warming Swindle" a Channel 4 (UK) documentary in which several scientists claimed the theory of man-made global warming had become, "a religion, forcing alternative explanations to be ignored".
Prediction by John Mackay: Governments will not solve global warming but will find ways to tax it, and by the politics of fear, increase their power. For example, Billions are being spent on Bikeways in cities and what of deflatulent pills for cows? (Source Note: Professor Arthur Robinson, the president of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, announced a petition before the National Press Club on May 19, 2008. It had the signatures of over 31,000 scientists, including over 9,000 PhDs, who stand against the idea that global warming is man-made.)
Part 2:
What does God's Word say about global warming? The Bible is not a book of science, nevertheless, it is the words of our Creator who was there in the beginning, is in charge of history and knows the destiny of this world. In fact, God seems to live outside of time because when Moses asked Him His name He replied it was "I AM", that is, eternally existing in the present (Exodus 3:3-14). The first three chapters of Genesis tell us a number of things about the world's climate prior to the Fall of Man. In the first place, God declared that everything He had made was very good (Gen 1:31) so when we read that Adam and Eve were both naked (Gen 2:25) we can reasonably assume the climate was very good - warm with no harsh ultra-violet radiation. Moreover, there was no rain but rather a mist went up from the earth to water it (Gen 2:5-6). The first mention of rain is over sixteen centuries later during God's promise to Noah regarding the Flood (Gen 7:4); following this id did rain for 40 days and 40 nights. The first recorded global wind occurs to dry the Earth just after the Flood in Genesis 8:1. This is followed by the first mention of seasons given in God's post-Flood promise to man: "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease" (Gen 8:22). In contrast to the empty promises made by political man, this is surely a comforting promise from our Creator who does not lie. The Bible is not a thesis but is rather a record from which we can draw inferences. In the absence of rain and winds prior to the Flood we may infer that at that time there were no hurricanes, floods or tsunamis. The first mention of ice, snow and hail is in Job 6:16 and 38:22-30 while Job also speaks of "drought and heat" (Job 24:19). Job lived about approximately 2000BC, long after the time of Noah.
Throughout Scripture we see that God is sovereignly in charge so that our perception of history is really the outworking of His plan while the Earth is the stage upon which the preconceived action takes place. God gave Man a set of rules by which to live and these rules were for our own good. However, we are also tested by these rules or laws and there are a number of passages that warn of the land being "defiled" as a consequence of disobedience. For example, Leviticus chapter 18 lists a number of sexual sins and in verse 25 God warns the Israelites that by these things, "the land is defiled, therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants".There are nine other references to Man's sin causing the land to be "defiled". The consequence of defiling the land is famine and Scripture has over ninety referenc3es to famine including the famine that sent the Israelites into Egypt for 400 years. Famine with sufficient severity, always leads to communicable diseases. This causes even the good people to leave or be "vomited out" of the land. The story of Naomi and Ruth, both virtuous women, will be recalled. The consequences of disobedience to God's instructions were, and still are, climate changes that produce drought, famine, pestilence and finally eviction.
Part 3:
Any issue that appeals to the emotions rather than the hard facts of science should be immediately suspect. The pending extinction of the polar bears recently claimed by David Attenborough on British TV is a recent example. The publicity picture of a polar bear standing on a very small piece of floating ice - as though it was the lone survivor - has since been well etched into the public mind. In his message Attenborough emphasised that it had taken millions of years for the polar bear to adapt to the harsh environment of the Arctic. He warned that the polar bear's survival depended directly upon responsible action taken now by humanity while should the inevitable extinction happen, the bear could never be recovered. Attenborough repeated the text-book explanation for the polar bear's white hair claiming that this is a camouflage that has evolved to protect the bear against predators. The truth is the polar bear has no predators except rifle-toting man, while the bear's white hair is not the result of evolution but rather the loss of genetic information i.e. the black or brown pigment is no longer produced and the hairs are now hollow and scatter light. For similar reasons human hair goes white with age. David Attenborough is a biologist and should also know that polar bears, brown bears and even grizzly bears are all part of the bear family and simply have different species names. Work at zoos show that all these bears can interbreed and do have fertile offspring thus by definition are the same species, however, they have been given different species names for convenience of classification. By Biblical classification they would be called the same "kind". In exactly the same way the Caucasian, Negro and Asiatic peoples are demonstrably of the same kind. This means that as long as there are brown bears and grizzly bears the polar bear population could easily be retrieved should there be the need to do so. As Charles Darwin showed with his pigeon breeding experiments it only takes a few generations, not millions of years, to produce these changes.
(Background material added by Ian Taylor. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity. The panel was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), two organisations of the United Nations. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President of the United States Al Gore. The IPCC does not carry out research nor does it monitor climate related phenomena. The IPCC bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific literature. In June of 2008 the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the polar bear as a threatened species but voices from the anti global warming forum together with actual counts of polar bears delayed this decision. The published figures show that Canada has an estimated 15,000 polar bears, two-thirds of the global population. Disappearing summer ice is causing a decline in numbers in some areas but other regions are stable and in some the population is rising.)
Creation Moments, Inc. 1-800-422-4253 June 200
he DVDs Climate change and Creation and Climate Change: The God Factor available from your nearest Creation Research office or from the Creation Research webshop.
POLAR BEAR SUIT as Alaska plans to sue the USA government over the Interior Secretary's decision to list the Polar Bear as endangered, based on "uncertain climate models." National Post May 29 08 p AL 12
ED.COM. Many Canadians laughed a little when this was announced (as the ever increasing Polar Bear lives in their country) and the USA greens rejoiced as their victory in politics was splayed across the world's press, and Alaskans (where the only USA Polar bears actually live and have increased more than 5 fold since the 1950's) groaned a little. Now they are fighting back, so we repeat below the important info re Polar Bears we first printed in 2006. (Ref. law, environmentalists)
BARE FACTS ON BEAR HAIR (from 21st September 2006) follow questions about a recent report of a hybrid between a grizzly bear and a polar bear (see "Wild Grolar Bear Found", Evidence News, 31st May 2006). A number of our readers have asked us how can we explain the fact that polar bears seem so well designed to live and hunt in a harsh environment filled with ice and snow, if the world was created good and ice and snow were not on earth till after Noah's Flood. The standard evolutionary explanation is polar bears evolved white hair as an adaptation to camouflage them so their prey doesn't see them until it is too late. It has also been widely stated that the white hairs act like fibre-optic filaments and convey sunlight to their skin, which is black, to help keep the bear warm. This last suggestion was tested by Daniel Koon, physicist at St. Lawrence University in New York, who obtained some polar bear hair from a New York zoo and measured how much light of different wavelengths could travel through the length of an individual hair. He found that less than 0.001% of light was conveyed through the hairs. Koon's experiment is reported in Applied Optics, 37, 3198-3200 (1998).
D. COM. The main prey of polar bears is seals, which they catch when the seals come up for air in gaps in the sea ice. Seals would only see a shadow through the ice if they see anything. Being white would not disguise this, so the evolving camouflage story doesn't really make sense. Polar bears are also scavengers and will eat any dead animals and birds they come across, and in the summer they will eat kelp and berries. They don't need to be camouflaged to catch dead things or ambush berries. Polar bears are better explained by the Biblical history of the world, which tells us the world started out good, but has gone bad. Air cavities and lack of melanin are what causes "grey" hairs in aging people and animals. These hairs are actually white. Thus, white hair is produced by loss of function, and is no help to the theory of evolution, but fits with Genesis. The fibre-optic story was a nice idea, but it must be consigned to an "urban myth" list. It is infra-red light that gives heat from the sun, not visible light, and there isn't enough light of any wavelength in the arctic to keep a polar bear warm. The reason polar bear hair appears white is that it does not have melanin pigment, plus it has cavities filled with air within the hair shafts which scatter light. After Noah's flood, bears and humans spread out through North America, and due to degeneration of genes, some bears (and humans) lost their ability to make pigment in the hair and became white. But white bears would stand out in green forests and grasslands, and although no other animals would hunt them for food, humans would. Therefore, white bears would be disadvantaged in places where humans live, but could survive in places where humans rarely went as long as they could find food, such as the high arctic. Thus, white polar bears are the result of degeneration, selection, adaptation and survival of fittest, but not evolution. (Ref. Ursus, ecology, fur)
CLIMATE CHANGE SPREADS TO JUPITER as scientists reported May 23, 2008, there is noticeable climate change taking place on Jupiter, too. "The news follows reports as far back as three years ago that ice caps on Mars are also retreating much as some of the ice in the Earth's Arctic circle. There's one striking difference between Earth and the other two planets, however. Neither Jupiter or Mars has any people - and no artificial activity creating so-called "greenhouse gases" like carbon dioxide. Increased turbulence and storms first observed on Jupiter more than two years ago are still raging, according to astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, who snapped high-resolution pictures of the planet earlier this month. Captured with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the 10-meter Keck II telescope, this so-called "major upheaval" on Jupiter involves stunning changes in the planet's atmosphere, said lead astronomer Imke de Pater, professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley."
ED .COM. We couldn't beat World Net's comment so we repeat it; "Does Al Gore know about this?"
GLOBAL COOLING FOR A DECADE, predict climate researchers according to an article in BBC News Online 1 May 2008. German researchers have developed a new computer model that predicts a decade of global cooling before warming up again. Their model includes data from a natural cycle of ocean temperatures called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which seems to occur every 60 to seventy years. Patterns and cycles of ocean temperatures and ocean currents are poorly understood due to a lack of data and it is only in recent years that researchers have been able to make enough direct measurement from floats and buoys in the oceans. Noel Keenlyside of Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel University commented: "One message from our study is that in the short term, you can see changes in the global mean temperature that you might not expect given the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)." The BBC article goes on to say, "The projection does not come as a surprise to climate scientists, though it may to a public that has perhaps become used to the idea that the rapid temperature rises seen through the 1990s are a permanent phenomenon. 'We've always known that the climate varies naturally from year to year and decade to decade,' said Richard Wood from the UK's Hadley Centre, who reviewed the new research for Nature."
ED. COM. We are pleased to see that the BBC is finally catching up with us. If the public has become used to the idea that global warming is permanent, it is because the popular media reported it that way, and have poured scorn on anyone who differed. Richard Wood's comment reminds us that most climate changes are the result of natural phenomena. This is no surprise to us because Genesis tells us that until the end of the world there will be hot times and cold times. (Genesis 8:22) The German research reminds us that there are many aspects of the natural environment that we still do not understand. This should be an impetus to do more research into the environment so that we can live with it as best we can, not an excuse for governments to hastily impose taxation schemes that are not going to change the climate in the long run. (See item on carbon trading below) (Ref. meteorology, oceanography, modelling)
"GREAT CARBON BAZAAR" reported by BBC News, 4 June 2008, and BBC World Service, "One Planet", 5 June 2008. The BBC World Service has investigated three projects that are funded by carbon credit system, which takes money paid by companies in developed countries and funds projects in developing countries that are claimed to cut greenhouse emissions. According to the report, "The credits are generated by a United Nations-run scheme called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The mechanism gives firms in developing countries financial incentives to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But in some cases, carbon credits are paid to projects that would have been realised without external funding." The BBC looked at three projects in India, a biomass generator that runs on rice husks, an incinerator for burning off HFC23 and a hydroelectric scheme, all of which would have happened anyway. They go on to comment: "Trade in CDM carbon credits is running at some $10bn a year. That is a welcome flow of resources from the developed to the developing world. But it is far from clear that the trade in credits is contributing much to tackling global warming." BBC News
ED. COM. It is a good Biblical principle that the rich help the poor, but extracting funds from the rich by deception is not. Projects like the ones described above may be good for the environment, and an efficient use of resources, but that is no excuse for them to take money because the UN thinks it can prevent global warming. The idea that man-made emissions are changing the climate is not proven, and is therefore no basis for imposing taxes, charges and regulations. Creation Research is not alone is saying this. A recent meeting of scientists, economists and policy makers has put out the "Manhattan Declaration" which begins with the following statements: "We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method; Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life; Recognising that the causes and extent of recently-observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed 'consensus' among climate experts are false; Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing human suffering; Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder: Hereby declare: That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity's real and serious problems. That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change. That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate. That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation, and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples. That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis."
WORLD NEEDS MORE CO2 as 'There will be significant cooling very soon,' asserted solar scientist David Archibald at the "Greener Skies 2008" conference designed to persuade the airline industry to cut back on production of greenhouse gases to fight global warming. Archibald asserted climate change is mostly dictated by solar cycles, not CO2 levels, and he warned they should figure ways of increasing CO2 output. "In a few short years, we will have a reversal of the warming of the 20th century. There will be significant cooling very soon. Our generation has known a warm, giving sun, but the new generation will suffer a sun that is less giving, and the earth will be less fruitful..."CO2 is not even a little bit bad - it's wholly beneficial." World Net Daily April 03, 2008
BBC REPORTS THE OPPOSITE as it comments on " The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its vast assessment of climate science last year, concluded that since temperatures began rising rapidly in the 1970s, the contribution of humankind's greenhouse gas emissions has outweighed that of solar variability by a factor of about 13 to one. According to Terry Sloan, the message coming from his research is simple. "We tried to corroborate Svensmark's hypothesis, but we could not; as far as we can see, he has no reason to challenge the IPCC - the IPCC has got it right. "So we had better carry on trying to cut carbon emissions." The cosmic ray theory, developed by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark at the Danish National Space Center (DNSC), attributes climate change to solar change in cosmic rays output. firstname.lastname@example.com\
A MILLION SQ KM MORE ICE IN ANTARCTIC ICE COMEBACK (January 2008) compared to 1979, reported in the Daily Express 18 Feb 2008, and newsmax.com 19 Feb 2008. One of the most enduring icons of the global warming bandwagon is a polar bear clinging to a fragment of sea ice, due to arctic ice decreasing. However, at the other end of the globe, the sea around Antarctica is freezing over with greater than average areas of sea ice revealed by satellite images from U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In spite of what is claimed to be happening to Arctic sea ice, the northern hemisphere is emerging from its coldest winter in decades. China and Central Asia have experienced devastating falls of snow and in some places rivers are so frozen there is not enough water flow for hydro-electricity generators. Even the Middle East has experienced snowfalls and below zero temperatures and villages in the island of Crete have been snowed in. Phil Brennan of Newsmax concluded his article "If global warming gets any worse we'll all freeze to death. Daily Express Newsmax
ED. COM. The editors of this newsletter followed up the reference to satellite data on polar ice caps and found some interesting graphs and images on the website of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, (an organisation associated with NOAA) which can be viewed at http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/ .
The graphs show Antarctic Ice increasing which can be confirmed by looking at a collection of images of the extent and concentration of sea ice around Antarctica since 1979. (view images by clicking links on the same page.) Over the past three decades the ice has waxed and waned, and the most recent image (March 2008) image show more ice than average. There is certainly no consistent upward trend of melting, as you would expect if global warming was truly global. The cold Northern Hemisphere winter and the increase in Antarctic sea are one reason why some researchers are claiming recent global warming has peaked and is now on a downturn. As the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases released by human activity have not suddenly decreased the change in climate cannot be explained in terms of human industry, which means that the recent warming cycle wasn't due to human activity either. Instead warming and cooling are part of the cycles of climate change given as a warning to Noah in Genesis 8:22 that there would be periods of cold and heat as well as regular patterns of day and night, and summer and winter. (Ref. trends, environment, politics)
RUSSIAN SCIENTIST CLAIMS Temperatures on Earth have stabilized in the past decade, and the planet should brace itself for a new Ice Age rather than global warming, says Dr. Khabibullo Abdussamatov, Head of space research lab, Pulkovo Observatory, St. Petersburg. "Russian and foreign research data confirm that global temperatures in 2007 were practically similar to those in 2006, and, in general, identical to 1998 - 2006 temperatures, which, basically, means that the Earth passed the peak of global warming in 1998-2005." said Abdussamatov. RIA Novosti, Russian News & Information Service, Jan 22 2008
CLIMATE CONTROL CHINESE STYLE described in an article in Daily Tech, 27 Mar 2008. The 2008 Olympic Games will be held during the rainy season in Northeast Asia so the Chinese are planning to recruit the army into a "war with mother nature" to try to stop the rain before it deluges any Olympic events. They plan to barrage any approaching rain clouds with silver iodide and dry ice fired from anti-aircraft guns and sprayed from planes, in order to make the clouds drop their rain before they get into Beijing. If this does not work, they will drop liquid nitrogen from planes into the clouds an attempt to reduce the size of water droplets in the clouds so they are less likely to fall as rain while the clouds are over the Olympic venues. Zhang Qian, head of Beijing's Weather Modification Office, claims "the results with light rain have been satisfactory," but not so good with heavy rain. Daily Tech
ED. COM. Perhaps it would have been smarter use of climate control (as well as cheaper) to hold the Olympics in the Dry Season ? What the Chinese are doing is a good example of a misguided attempt at dominion over nature by an atheistic society. The Creator God never did give Human beings total control over the weather. They were given minds to observe and understand the regular patterns and cycles God is in charge of, and live according to them. Instead of mobilising an army to battle a mythical "mother nature" of atheism, the Chinese and Olympic authorities should submit themselves to the real God who is in control of the climate and ask Him to provide suitable weather. (Ref. meteorology, stewardship, precipitation)
FOSSIL GLOBAL WARMING EVIDENCE shows in preserved leaf damage, says PhD student Ellen Currano, (Pennsylvania State University, Smithsonian Institution 7/March 2008) who is studying leaf fossils in the Bighorn Basin Wyoming, which she dates at 60 to 52 million years old. During this time, she says, several significant temperature fluctuations occurred. One event particularly relevant to modern global warming is the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a rapid warming of 5-10o C caused by the release of at least 4,000 gigatons of carbon into the earth's atmosphere over less than 10,000 years. SOURCE Preliminary report published Feb. 11, 2008 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Livescience.com
ED.COM. If we take this report seriously - how many cars cows and human industries are evolutionists prepared to say were responsible for this 4000 gigatons of CO2 around 50 million years ago? Since the answer is none then vast amounts of CO2 can arise naturally both then and now? So why blame cars and cows and people when even secular Geology Prof Ian Plimer argues that "less than 0.1 per cent of the atmospheric carbon dioxide is due to human activity and much of the rest due to little-understood geological phenomena." (Plimers address to Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Sydney 11 April 2007 ) The only reason for blaming human is tax and global control.(ref. geology, palaeontology, Climate Change)
PRINCE CHARLES has described the fight against global climate change as a war, with the Doomsday Clock "ticking ever closer to midnight". "Surely, this is just the moment in history for which the European Union was created?" BBC
ED. COM. With Charles and Al working hand in glove things cannot but fail to get sorted out, provided they survive the following court case. (Royal, One World Government, Global Warming)
SUE GORE says USA Weather Channel Founder. On March 3 08 John Coleman told the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York, he is highly critical of global warming alarmism, and that his recommended strategy for exposing "the fraud of global warming," was to sue those who sell carbon credits, to force alarmists to give a more honest account of policies they propose.
Coleman said. "If the lawyers will take the case - sue the people who sell carbon credits, that includes Al Gore. The lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the witness stand and testified, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming."
ED.COM. When Companies buy Carbon credits, but don't reduce their Carbon emissions because they now own some trees in Africa that were growing there anyway, and then turn around and charge their customers for the privilege of buying Green (so the company does not end up out of pocket) then the only thing thats changing is the consumer has less to spend and western society is being impoverished. Do your own asking if you want to check this out. (Ref Politics, Corruption, Environmentalism)
GLOBAL WARMING NOT A GLOBAL CRISIS, declares scientists and researchers in climate and elated fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City March 08, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change.
Their Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change reads "Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;
Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;
Recognising that the causes and extent of recently-observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed 'consensus' among climate experts are false;
Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing human suffering;
Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder: (Ref. Politics, Green, weather)
FOSSIL GLOBAL WARMING EVIDENCE shows in preserved leaf damage, says PhD student Ellen Currano, (Pennsylvania State University, Smithsonian Institution 7/March 2008) who is studying leaf fossils in the Bighorn Basin Wyoming, which she dates at 60 to 52 million years old. During this time, she says, several significant temperature fluctuations occurred. One event particularly relevant to modern global warming is the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a rapid warming of 5-10o C caused by the release of at least 4,000 gigatons of carbon into the earth's atmosphere over less than 10,000 years. SOURCE Preliminary report published Feb. 11, 2008 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Livescience.com
ED.COM. If we take this report seriously - how many cars cows and human industries are evolutionists prepared to say were responsible for this 4000 gigatons of CO2 around 50 million years ago? Since the answer is none then vast amounts of CO2 can arise naturally both then and now? So why blame cars and cows and people when even secular Geology Prof Ian Plimer argues that "less than 0.1 per cent of the atmospheric carbon dioxide is due to human activity and much of the rest due to little-understood geological phenomena." (Plimers address to Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Sydney 11 April 2007 ) The only reason for blaming human is tax and global control.(ref. geology, palaeontology, Climate Change)
OLDEST CRAYFISH LIVED IN WARM WORLD according a press release from Emory University, 5 Feb 2008. A group of American and Australian researchers have found fossil crayfish and fossils burrows in Mesozoic rocks dated 115 million years old. The fossil burrows are "nearly identical to those made by modern crayfish in southeastern Australia." Anthony Martin of Emory University commented: "Comparing these fossil burrows to those made by modern crayfish in Australia shows us that their behaviour hasn't changed that much." Crayfish are found worldwide and scientists from Thomas Huxley (an early promoter of Darwin's theories) onwards have wondered how they could be so widespread when they cannot survive in saltwater. Some scientists have tried to explain it with the theory that all the continents were once joined together. Recently molecular biologists have suggested that all southern hemisphere crayfish originated in southeast Australia. Anthony Martin who led the study commented: "The evolution of Southern Hemisphere crayfish has challenged researchers since the 1870s. Only now, 140 years later, are we starting to put together the physical evidence for this evolution through the discovery of fossils." The press release also comments that the Mesozoic era, when the crayfish lived "is of particular interest to scientists since it is believed to be the last time the Earth experienced pronounced global warming, with an average temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit - just 10 degrees warmer than today."
ED. COM. We wonder what those on the global warning bandwagon think caused 10 degrees of global warming, ( which is far in excess of the current warming ), having occurred at a time when the evolutionists among them would not be able to blame man's cars or factories? Scientists would be less challenged if they left aside the evolutionary assumptions and noted that the facts about fossil and living crayfish fit better into Biblical history where God made one ocean and one continent and made living creatures to multiply after their kinds (Genesis 1-2). During Noah's flood many creatures would have been would have been wiped out, but some would have survived in pockets of freshwater scattered all over the world. During the Post Flood ice ages, when seas levels were low and many of the landmasses and rivers were joined, crayfish could have spread further afield without having to survive in saltwater. The fossil findings described above simply provide more evidence that Genesis is true and it is no surprise to find crayfish all over the world, whose fossils appear to be the same as living crayfish (Ref. crustaceans, climate change, arthropods)
CHURCH CLIMATE CHANGED SAYS ANGLICAN VICAR who wrote: "I am trying to be a priest, but I haven't time. When I was appointed vicar of my first parish in 1977, the mornings were clear for study, the afternoons for visiting and the evenings for socialising, family and leisure. There were occasional parish meetings, but these were regarded as a necessary evil and we soon got them over and done with, then off to the village pub. The diocesan annual returns were on one side of A4: all I had to do was list how many I'd christened, married and buried, how many people were on the electoral roll and how many came to church at Christmas and Easter. The job of filling in this return could easily be managed over morning coffee. Nowadays, the annual returns are a foot thick and a bundle of perfidious obscurity, hedged about with health and safety and absurd questions about light bulbs, and serious inquiries as to what the PCC is doing to reduce our carbon footprint all because the Church has taken up the pagan fantasy of global warming. I think the returns are devised in some Kafkaesque archidiaconal madhouse and calculated to be impossible to complete even over the whole year. They are just the latest example of the Church following secular fashion, in particular, to pate the most jargon-ridden claptrap of management speak." Rev Dr Peter Mullen in The Daily Telegraph, UK (from The Courier-Mail, February 2-3, 08) (Ref. Religion, Anglican, Syncretism)
GIANT BUG CLUE ON CLIMATE CHANGE as scientists stumble across a 'fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever' at 2.5m or 8 feet long. The discovery in Carboniferous rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors.
"We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies. But we never realized until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were," he said. The research found that the sea scorpion was almost .5 m or half a yard longer than the previous estimates of the largest one. Braddy's partner, paleontologist Markus Poschmann, found the claw fossil several years ago in a quarry near Prum, Germany, reported CNN.
The BBC report included the comment that the species existed during a period in Earth history when oxygen levels in the atmosphere were much higher than today. And it was those elevated levels, some palaeo-scientists believe, that may have helped drive the super-sized bodies of many of the invertebrates that existed at that time - monster millipedes, huge cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies.
ED.COM. Not surprising really is it? We are sure such a better atmosphere was one reason for the lengthy lifespans recorded in Genesis. This new find only adds to the increasingly abundant evidence we have been sharing in our Giants program for years, that this world has done the opposite of evolve from a cosmic blob of hydrogen gas. Even the CO2 was higher and the plants loved it. Ask Creation Research to a venue near you and see the rest of the story. (Ref. Size, life span, devolution.)
POLAR BEARS ENDANGERED? Official numbers 1950: 5,000. 2007: 25,000. Source: Times UK 12 Nov 2007 p.17. Reach your own conclusions (Ref. Climate Change, Global Warming, Environment).
CAMBRIDGE UNI STUDY SHOWS Primary-aged children worry daily about global warming, as well as other stress factors such as school tests, according to an intimate portrait of primary school life, 'Community Soundings', published today by Cambridge University. Royal Society Science in the News, 12 October 2007
ED.COM Did you worry about the future of the planet when you were this age? Our observation is that this is one more stress factor that will divide the Family as the next generation blame the last generation. Our recommended solution - Parents teach your children Gods real history of the world particularly emphasising Genesis 8 : 22 where God tells Noah what the weather will be like to the end of the world.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON Researcher Anson Mackay, of the Environmental Change Research Centre, has constructed the most accurate high-resolution temperature record of Siberia (Lake Baikal ) over the past 800,000 years. It clearly demonstrates the region has often been considerably warmer than at present. The most recent data shows Siberia first began warming around 250 years ago - well before the industrial revolution, and its resulting greenhouse gas emissions could have been a factor. Mackay concludes, "[Changes] started as early as c. 1750 AD, with a shift from taxa that bloom during autumn overturn to assemblages that exhibit net growth in spring (after ice break-up) ...Warming in the Lake Baikal region commenced before rapid increases in greenhouse gases, and at least initially, is therefore a response to other forcing factors such as insolation changes." Daily Tech October 8, 2007 10:52 AM
ED.COM. This is yet another in a now long line of historical studies which do not support the contentions that modern man's industrial emissions are the key cause of global warming. Given that the scientific historian is merely a prophet in reverse - then time should prove him right in retrospect also! Sadly it will probably be long after he is bankrupt from GW taxation.
GREEENLAND ICE CAP MELT IS A PLUS as "the vast lakes and melting ice cap provide enormous potential for electricity free from fossil fuel and the Greenland government is negotiating with Alcoa, an aluminium company, to build the world's second largest smelter, reported Paul Brown in Greenland via The Guardian Thursday October 4 2007.
ED.COM. There is profit in even the worst opportunities to the man who can see beyond the gloom. So the Eskimo will not have ice to hunt on to find seal to use their fat for his oil lamps and for food - farming is much healthier - and electric light much better for you and more environmentally friendly - you don't have to kill seals to have it. God gave man dominion over the His created earth (Genesis 1 :26 ) and we must use it - not to preserve our favoured lifestyles that become irrelevant due to changing circumstances, but to benefit all man and this free green electricity is a good way to go.
NINE INCONVENIENT UNTRUTHS, rules High Court judge about Al Gore's film, according to reports in BBC News and Times Online 11 Oct 2007. and British High Court judge Sir Michael Burton identified nine incorrect claims in Al Gore's film on global warming; "An inconvenient truth" in his judgement on a challenge brought by a school governor over whether the film should be shown in British schools. The School governor described Gore's film as "a political shock-you-mentary".
The Judge said that the film should be allowed to be shown, but it should be accompanied by guidance notes that balance Gore's "one sided" views. The false claims listed in the judgement are: Sea levels could rise by 20ft (6m) in the near future; Pacific atolls have been evacuated; the drying out of Lake Chad, the decrease in snow on Mt Kilimanjaro and Hurricane Katrina and coral bleaching are the result of man-made global warming; the Gulf Stream would stop flowing; changes in carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures were an exact fit for the past 65,000 years; and polar bears are drowning due to lack of ice in the Arctic. BBC
ED. COM. It is interesting that most of the media reports centred on the fact that the High Court allowed the film to be shown in schools, not on the scientific errors or on the new guideline recommended by the judge. If creationists made a film with that many false claims, there would (quite rightly) be howls of outrage, but Al Gore gets an Oscar and a Nobel Prize. There is no doubt that climate change is real, but it has been real for thousands of years, and will continue until the end of the world, just a God told Noah: "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.". Political scare tactics are not going to change this. (Ref. politics, education, law)
UMMARY OF GORES ERRORS adapted from The Guardian 11 October 2007
1· Gore: a study showed polar bears were being found that had drowned "swimming long distances to find the ice". Judge: "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm"
2· Gore : two graphs, one plotting a rise in C02 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed "an exact fit". Judge: although scientists agreed there was a connection, "the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts"
3· Gore: the drying up of Lake Chad was used as an example of global warming. Judge: "It is apparently considered to be more likely to result from ... population increase, over-grazing and regional climate variability"
4· Gore: the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to human-induced climate change. Judge: the consensus was that that could not be established
5. Gore: a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of ice in either West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future". Judge: this was "distinctly alarmist" and it was common ground that if Greenland's ice melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia".
6.Gore: Low lying inhabited Pacific atolls "are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming" Judge: there is no evidence of any evacuation occurring
7 Gore: global warming is "shutting down the ocean conveyor" - the process by which the gulf stream is carried over the north Atlantic to western Europe. Judge: according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it was "very unlikely" that the onveyor would shut down in the future, though it might slow down
8. Gore: ascribed Hurricane Katrina to global warming, Judge: there was "insufficient evidence to show that"
9· Gore: coral reefs all over the world were bleaching because of global warming and other factors. Judge: separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as over-fishing, and pollution, was difficult
SCHOOLS NEAR YOU need you to sponsor A DVD of "CLIMATE CHANGE AND CREATION" Contact email@example.com why not one to all the schools in the UK? After the UK Judges ruling that Al Gore's global warming movie had 9 major errors - interest in our Climate Change program has only increased. As one Uni student who is training to be a teacher said he heard us speak at his University on the Biblical history of climate and predict this several years ago. As a result his confidence in the Bible as the real history of God's created earth has really increased. The biggest heresy in the global warming hard sell, is that the Creator God is left totally out of the picture which is why it is promoted mostly by evolutionists. Make sure your friends get to see this great DVD on Climate Change and Creation. It is now available from all offices and from the Creation Research webshop.
REMATORIUMS should be forced to close in an effort to reduce global warming - it is being moured in the UK.
D.COM. We doubt if this will catch on as cremation is usually touted by the same people who promote both evolution and global warming as it is in essence a pagan rite, and we are sure such a link of an enormous source of heat and CO2 will be ignored for convenience.
TAIN SCOTLAND records one of the coldest summers just gone past - as one green house tomato grower lamented to John Mackay in October, over his flavourless crop. With temperature rarely up to 20 Celsius and so much rain, crops were low yield and tasteless. The cause - well we did hear the BBC commentator warn last year(with some scepticism in his voice)that the UK would get colder due to global warming resulting in shifting ocean currents - but I am sure even he didn't expect it this fast. But since it was also snowing in the Australia Summer last Christmas and frost killed the potatoes in far north tropical Queensland in July, perhaps it has nothing to do with any global warming scenarios at all?
GORE SCORES NOBEL as press reports "The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to environmental campaigner Al Gore and the UN panel on climate change, the IPCC."
ED.COM. The question that should be asked is "what does a movie on the weather have to do with peace? Forgive our untrusting suggestion - that a global problem need a global solution which needs a global government", but poluticians have tried for years to pull this off and we suspect they see this as their next best opportunity. Sort of detracts from wanting to win a Nobel prize too - doesn't it? When you can get one for making so many mistakes.