Friday, December 19, 2008

Defectors from IPCC Report Speak

Defectors from IPCC Report Speak

A United Nations climate change conference in Poland got a surprise from 650 leading scientists who scoff at doomsday reports of man-made global warming – labeling them variously a lie, a hoax and part of a new religion.

Their voices will also be heard in a U.S. Senate minority report quoting the scientists, many of whom are current and former members of the U.N.'s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

About 250 of the scientists quoted in the report have joined the dissenting scientists in the last year alone.

In fact, the total number of scientists represented in the report is 12 times the number of U.N. scientists who authored the official IPCC 2007 report.

Here are some choice excerpts from the report:

* "I am a skeptic ... . Global warming has become a new religion." -- Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

* "Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly ... . As a scientist I remain skeptical." -- Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years."

* Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history ... . When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." -- U.N. IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning Ph.D. environmental physical chemist.

* "The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn't listen to others. It doesn't have open minds ... . I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists." -- Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the U.N.-supported International Year of the Planet.

* "The models and forecasts of the U.N. IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." -- Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

* "It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." -- U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

* "Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapor and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will." -- Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

* "After reading [U.N. IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." -- Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an associate editor of Monthly Weather Review.

* "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" -- Geologist Dr. David Gee, the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer-reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

* "Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp ... . Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact." -- Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch U.N. IPCC committee.

* "Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." -- Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.

* "Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense ... . The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." -- Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

* "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another ... . Every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so ... . Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver's seat and developing nations walking barefoot." -- Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

* "The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds." -- Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

The report also includes new peer-reviewed scientific studies and analyses refuting man-made warming fears and a climate developments that contradict the theory.

Adapted from an article on WND Scientists abandon global warming 'lie'

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Economic Maelstrom

Economic Maelstrom

The news is all around us - there is no need to reprise it here, other than to say that economic disaster seems to be right around the corner. Today it was leaked that CitiBank is advising their larger clients that massive inflation is the better of two probable scenarios that impend, the other being civil unrest accompanied by worldwide wars. Many financial pundits on the margins are foretelling hyperinflation. American Express reports that the most wealthy of their cardholders are slowing down their spending the most. And the federal government has gone on a spending bender that has never been seen before. What is a person to do to try to sort this all out? What does the future hold?

In times of unrest, first principles are the first to go, when they should be the firmament upon which any logical analysis should be based. So allow me to set a few first principles out. First, we can always assume that people in power, when threatened, have the propensity to do almost anything to keep it. Second, it is always the first reaction of humans to see impending disaster whenever the unusual threatens to occur. And third, even though it may be difficult to see it while events transpire, everything always works out for the best, as all new realities have their winners. Even the Black Death ushered in a period of exceptional wealth and learning, which we now call the Renaissance.

There is no way to know what to do right now. Many are recommending stockpiling gold and ammunition, canned goods and commodities. I say that anyone who is just beginning to do that has not been paying attention for the last decade or more. (Full disclosure - I have been following that advice since 1973.) In our (or any) urbanized and interdependent world, planning for a short period of unrest is prudent, but believing that you can put up enough of anything to provide for security in a prolonged, or even permanent realignment of economic forces is foolish. If things really change, you had better adapt to the new reality fast, since your canned goods will go off on you in a couple of years on the outside, and ammunition runs out pretty fast if baddies want what you've got.

But the first principle that must sustain us in these (apparently) dark times is the fact that crisis begets opportunity. If Paulson and his fat cat friends are about to take a tumble, that makes room for whomever has the brains, luck, and determination to ascend to power positions that succeed theirs.

So, the Zero Base Thinking approach to these troubled times is about the same as the correct approach to most everything else: stay on the balls of your feet, and be able, and willing, to move in whatever direction promises opportunity. Don't get bogged down in any prediction of what the future might hold, but stay aware of what is happening. Be ready to move quickly, but remember that people say and do things to feather their own nests, not yours. Doom and gloom may get pundits an audience, but that does not make them correct, or their predictions true. If America is akin to Weimar Republic then that would have to mean that we are a very minor participant in the world economy. That may sell papers and attract viewers, but the size of the audience is no metric of truth. Like AGW (the global warming fraud) popularity does not make for good prognostication. How many know that global climate has been cooling for years, and no warming has occurred for over a decade? Lies that feed fears move faster than truth, now and forever.