BS: Where's the Global Warming

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 10:47 PM

?? I'm not SAYING he is a scientist! I was simply saying he is a VERY well-read and knowledgeable individual about environmental issues.

"Gore sat on the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the United States House Committee on Science and Technology, chairing that committee for four years."

"He wrote Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (ISBN 0-452-26935-0, paperback ISBN 1-85383-743-1) is a 1992 book written by Al Gore, published in June 1992, shortly before he was elected Vice President in the 1992 presidential election. Known by the short title Earth in the Balance, the book explains the world's ecological predicament and describes a range of policies to deal with the most pressing problems. It includes a proposed "Global Marshall Plan" to address current ecological issues.

Written while his son was recovering from a serious accident, Earth in the Balance became the first book written by a sitting U.S. Senator to make the New York Times bestseller list since John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I listened to that book on audio tape during a drive to Florida in 1995 and was amazed that ANY senator knew & understood that much about the issues. (The book was loaned to me by a friend who was a high-ranking official at EPA. He was also amazed at Gore's accuracy & clarity.) At the time, I barely knew who Al Gore was.


Now...once again, Al Gore is not a 'scientist' in the sense that he can DO all the physics and meteorology to conduct the necessary studies, but he has the ability to understand what 'scientists' have done....which is WAY more than most politicians who try to bluster and posture and dismiss 'scientific' studies which they have NOT read & understood!

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 09:30 PM

"He (Gore) is about a close to being a 'scientist' as one can be without actually getting degrees in something"

His bio:
Gore began Harvard with English as his major and switched to Government, graduating with a BA in June of 1969. He later took some courses at a Divinity school.

Comment:
That education maybe gives Gore a couple of Arts credits towards a Bachelor of Science. If he took many more courses, and got his BS he then could be called a science technician...but,it would take quite a few years , hard work, courses and papers for him to get a Masters, and a PHD....before he could be called a Scientist.

If writing about, reporting on , being an advocate for any specialized field... lets say medicine, then there are very many such Doctors and Scientists in the media, in politics and in the film industry.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 08:57 PM

"He has read & studied & written on environmental issues for a long time"

Still does not make him a scientist....It takes a lot more than that, years of complex science studies...No doubt he read alot....about politics, entertainment (somewhat connected) and business.

My point is....don't shoot down, or short-change science, or scientists (climate or otherwise) just because you don't like Gore, his politics, business or entertainement messages or interests....because he clearly is not a scientist.

Some folks seem to shoot down climate change science by picking out what they see as Gores weaknesses....that's illogical.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 07:15 PM

"A Noble prize does not make Gore any more of a scientist nor a science spokesperson..."

No...he WAS a "science spokesperson" for 15-20 years before getting an award.
He has read & studied & written on environmental issues for a long time. He is about a close to being a 'scientist' as one can be without actually getting degrees in something. We NEED people in political and advocacy positions who understand most of the science involved, and who can then use their 'bully pulpit' to get across some awkward truths in ways many 'scientists' don't have available. He is, if you will, a 'correlator' and PR guy...which doesn't make what he finds any less important.

Dismissing data that makes you uncomfortable and makes certain economic issues scary is simply 'hiding your head in the sand'. Some want to suggest that because Al Gore is making part of his living doing this work, his message is therfore suspect. *I* suggest that they read a LOT more about the man and his history before they cast aspersions.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 05:41 PM

Kind of reminds me of a Star Trek opening....Maybe Shatner could play Gore?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 05:40 PM

That is truly funny, Gnu:)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: gnu
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 05:39 PM

"and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

Have fun.

gnightgnu

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 05:34 PM

So, Nobel can make a non-scientist a scientist....without even a smidgen of a PHD....amazing powers that the Nobel folks have:)

BTW, I am not a climate change doubter....(even though annual or local weather over a few days or weeks don't prove much). But, I do not put much weight, or Faith in politicians, business folks or entertainers (Gore is all three) to give us much scientific insight...or leadership.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: gnu
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 05:23 PM

Ed... apparently, "Nobel" disagrees.

+5 here... on Dec 28!

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 05:09 PM

Nobelprize.org: "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

Is that a joke:
A Noble prize does not make Gore any more of a scientist nor a science spokesperson....anymore than it makes Obama a peacemaker for his recent Nobleconquest. Again, he is a polititian and a business guy...and few logical thinkers should be surprised by what motivates those folks.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 04:19 PM

"I can readily believe, Bill, that you are more objective than a good many people are. ;-) How's that?"

Damning with faint praise? ;>)) "She ain't TOO ugly, iffn you squint."

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 03:52 PM

I can readily believe, Bill, that you are more objective than a good many people are. ;-) How's that?

I just make my philosophical observations, because it interests me how people think and how their thinking affects their actions and their view of reality. It interests me more than almost anything else, because it is the key to understanding both self and others.

To put it another way, I find human nature ultimately more fascinating than either politics or the Global Warming debate. And of politics, I will always say this: it's the Great Divider.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 03:14 PM

"hardly a scientist nor a science endorsed spokesperson for anything."

Nobelprize.org: "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 03:01 PM

"They find charts that agree with their own chosen opinion, and THOSE are the charts they trust!

That's not the way *I* decide. You can believe it or not.
(Read my dozens of posts about the fallacy of "placing the dart, then drawing the bullseye around it".)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 02:58 PM

And others are to stoned and/or lazy to do any searching at all. Their subjective minds are made up.

The assertion was that in Maryland "The last few years have been quite warm Winters."

The first chart I posted was the first chart I found without bias. It shows the average maryland temps dropping in the "the last few years"

The second chart I posted was the second one I found close to Maryland, from NOAA and close to an airport I might add. It too shows the average temps dropping "the last few years"

Bills charts also show a downward trend in "the last few years"

Bloomberg:

Gore donated his proceeds from the global-warming book and movie to his Alliance for Climate Protection, Kreider added.

John Jonson, chief operating officer at Capricorn, also had no comment.

Gore's investment, disclosed in a private-placement filing at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was made through Carthage LP. The partnership, formed in December, has the same name as the ex-vice president's home town in Tennessee.

Skoll, 43, founded Capricorn after deciding in late 2001 that he wanted to diversify his wealth, at the time comprised primarily of EBay stock. The firm began taking on a few outside clients last year, according to SEC filings.

Father's Estate

In the last personal finance report he filed as vice president, Gore disclosed on May 22, 2000, that the value of his assets totaled between $780,000 and $1.9 million. In addition, Gore listed an interest in his father's estate that included Occidental Petroleum Corp. stock worth as much as $1 million.

He and Tipper Gore released tax returns for 1998 showing they earned $224,376 that year, less than half the income of President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, news reports at the time said.

Now Gore charges a $175,000 speaking fee and has a net worth ``well in excess" of $100 million, including pre-public offering Google stock options, according to an article in Fastcompany.com last year. Kreider said the speaking fees vary and Gore doesn't disclose them.

Gore has served as a senior adviser to Mountain View, California-based Google since February 2001, shortly after leaving public office. Google spokesman Jon Murchinson said in an e-mail: "We have not provided comment on if or how we compensate Mr. Gore in his role as an advisor to Google."

Metropolitan West

The former vice president also served as vice chairman of Metropolitan West Financial Inc., a money manager run in part by former Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. executives, starting in 2001.

He co-founded Current Media Inc., a cable television and Internet company, in 2002 and is listed as its executive chairman in a January SEC filing for the company's initial public offering. It said he earned $1 million in salary and bonus last year, and owned 3.7 million shares of company stock.

Gore joined Apple's board in 2003 and co-founded London- based Generation Investment Management in 2004. Last November, he became a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

Capricorn, in managing Skoll's fortune -- estimated at $4.2 billion by Forbes magazine last March -- primarily allocates money to different private partnerships, including hedge funds and energy and real-estate funds.

Skoll Foundation

One of Capricorn's clients, the Skoll Foundation, had almost $264 million, or 78 percent of its assets, invested in more than 75 partnerships at June 30, 2006, according to its most recently available tax filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

The funds included Eric Mindich's Eton Park Capital Management LP, Ralph Whitworth's Relational Investors LLC, and Arthur Samberg's Pequot Capital Management Inc.

"They don't put all their eggs in one basket," said Homi Vazifdar, a managing director at the Canyon Group, of Larkspur, California, who is familiar with Capricorn's investment style.

Stephen George, Capricorn's chief investment officer, previously worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. specializing in helping technology clients develop expertise in e-commerce. New York-based Goldman underwrote San Jose, California-based EBay's initial public offering.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 02:42 PM

A little bit of reading form scientists around the world, such as Germany, Holland , other European countries and North America (Canada and the USA) will show a slightly different picture of climate changes than some try and paint through internet science....Rather than bore you with endless posts....just brouse around the Science Daily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/earth_climate/

BTW, Al Gore is a USA politician and businessman....and is hardly a scientist nor a science endorsed spokesperson for anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 02:34 PM

By the way, Bill, you said, "Charts? Everybody can find charts. The ones I trust are...etc...etc..."

Yesssss. (smiling) Well, I know exactly how that works, and everyone does it the same way.   They find charts that agree with their own chosen opinion, and THOSE are the charts they trust! ;-) They may indeed come across other charts that don't seem to agree with their opinion....and those they quickly dismiss as valueless or deliberately misleading, hardly worth a moment's glance, and they resume their cheerful search for charts they can TRUST! Yessirree. That's how it's done. ;-)

Note: I don't say the above to single you out, Bill. I say that everyone operates that way, myself included. It is the way people sort through information when they have an argument they are engaged in, and I believe it's a universal weakness of those who have an opinion. Once they have one, it prejudices their viewpoint of the matter from that moment on, with predictable results. They lose objectivity. It's sort of like what happens to inter-country relations during a war. People lose objectivity.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 02:23 PM

Gore the Capitalist:

"Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?" Mr. Gore said. "I am proud of it. I am proud of it."

Other public figures, like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who have vocally supported government financing of energy-saving technologies, have investments in alternative energy ventures…

As a private citizen, Mr. Gore does not have to disclose his income or assets, as he did in his years in Congress and the White House. When he left government in early 2001, he listed assets of less than $2 million, including homes in suburban Washington and in Tennessee.

Since then, his net worth has skyrocketed, helped by timely investments in Apple and Google, profits from books and his movie, and scores of speeches for which he can be paid more than $100,000, although he often speaks at no charge.

He is a founder of Generation Investment Management, based in London and run by David Blood, a former head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (the firm was quickly dubbed Blood and Gore). Mr. Gore earns a partner’s salary at Kleiner Perkins. He has substantial personal finances invested at both firms, officials of the companies said…

Mr. Gore’s spokeswoman would not give a figure for his current net worth, but the scale of his wealth is evident in a single investment of $35 million in Capricorn Investment Group, a private equity fund started by his friend Jeffrey Skoll, the first president of eBay…

He has a stake in the world’s pre-eminent carbon credit trading market and in an array of companies in bio-fuels, sustainable fish farming, electric vehicles and solar power.

Capricorn holds a major stake in Falcon Waterfree Technologies, the world’s leading maker of waterless urinals. Generation has holdings in Ausra, a solar energy company based in California, and Camco, a British firm that develops carbon dioxide emissions reduction projects. Kleiner Perkins has a green ventures fund with nearly $1 billion invested in renewable energy and efficiency concerns.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 01:41 PM

I'll tell you where the Blobal Gwarming is. It's right here under my desk. Mmmm...toasty. ;-) I have a small heater going and it's keeping my feet warm.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: bobad
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 01:18 PM

Some graphs illustrating land and ocean temperatures from 1880 to present: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 01:18 PM

U.S. Percentage Area Very Warm or Very Cold

Jan-Dec 2008 Alaska Temperature Time series

Charts? Everybody can find charts. The ones I trust, from places like NOAA, show a warming trend....with 2008 being a slightly cooler year. You can't set a record every year. We can wait and do nothing and see if cooler continues...or we can err or the side of caution. I get one vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 01:10 PM

NOAA Chantilly VA:

  Year   JAN    FEB    MAR     APR    MAY   JUN    JUL    AUG     SEP    OCT    NOV    DEC    ANN
  1963   28.4   29.3   46.1   53.4   60.1   70.3   76.4   74.3   65.4   59.3   48.6   29.4   53.4
  1964   33.4   30.9   43.1   50.6   64.6   73.3   76.3   72.2   66.7   51.9   47.5   38.9   54.1
  1965   30.7   35.3   39.2   51.3   66.9   70.1   74.9   75.0   70.4   54.0   45.2   39.4   54.4
  1966   28.4   31.7   43.3   48.6   60.8   71.5   76.5   74.0   63.6   51.8   44.9   33.0   52.3
  1967   36.6   29.1   42.8   54.8   55.9   71.4   74.5   72.8   63.6   53.7   40.6   36.5   52.7
  1968   28.2   30.8   46.2   53.1   58.6   70.0   75.6   75.6   66.8   56.4   46.1   31.9   53.3
  1969   29.4   32.2   38.7   55.3   64.3   73.6   77.8   71.9   65.3   52.8   41.9   31.0   52.9
  1970   23.9   32.7   37.8   52.5   63.5   68.9   74.0   72.2   69.1   56.3   45.7   36.3   52.8
  1971   28.5   36.7   39.7   51.4   60.1   72.6   74.9   72.9   69.7   61.4   44.4   42.2   54.5
  1972   35.8   32.6   42.8   51.3   61.8   67.4   75.9   73.3   68.0   51.5   42.0   39.3   53.5
  1973   33.6   33.1   48.6   53.1   59.8   74.2   75.9   76.4   69.6   56.9   46.0   35.2   55.2
  1974   37.8   32.5   44.6   54.3   61.1   67.1   73.5   74.4   66.3   53.3   46.1   36.6   54.0
  1975   34.0   35.0   40.3   49.1   65.2   70.9   74.4   75.5   64.4   57.0   47.2   33.2   53.9
  1976   27.5   41.1   44.6   52.9   58.1   70.5   72.2   71.5   64.8   50.5   38.3   31.2   51.9
  1977   21.0   34.8   48.9   55.4   64.5   68.3   76.4   76.3   69.9   53.9   47.9   33.0   54.2
  1978   27.3   26.7   40.6   54.2   63.4   71.6   74.4   77.2   68.9   53.5   46.8   38.2   53.6
  1979   31.2   23.3   46.4   52.2   63.3   68.2   74.2   74.4   66.9   54.6   49.7   40.1   53.7
  1980   32.7   31.0   41.9   55.6   65.8   69.2   77.3   77.1   70.8   54.1   42.7   34.9   54.4
  1981   27.8   38.5   41.4   57.0   60.9   73.5   75.1   71.9   66.7   52.5   45.9   34.1   53.8
  1982   26.2   36.5   43.7   51.3   66.8   70.8   77.0   72.3   66.9   57.3   48.4   42.6   55.0
  1983   34.7   35.0   46.0   50.2   59.4   70.0   74.6   75.3   66.2   54.7   44.7   30.4   53.4
  1984   25.8   38.9   37.5   50.9   59.8   71.2   72.0   74.2   63.0   61.8   42.6   44.1   54.9
  1985   28.1   35.8   45.0   57.1   63.8   69.7   75.9   73.4   67.7   58.4   52.6   33.2   55.1
  1986   32.5   32.1   44.3   53.6   64.2   73.4   79.0   72.5   68.2   56.8   43.2   36.8   54.7
  1987   31.2   33.1   43.5   51.7   64.3   73.7   79.1   75.4   68.7   49.9   47.8   38.6   54.8
  1988   27.6   34.5   43.9   52.2   63.5   70.9   78.7   78.4   66.4   49.2   46.0   35.8   53.9
  1989   36.3   35.2   43.7   51.7   61.4   73.8   76.0   74.4   68.6   57.3   43.7   23.1   53.8
  1990   40.8   42.2   48.1   54.3   61.6   72.0   76.9   73.8   66.1   58.7   48.6   41.3   57.0
  1991   34.0   39.5   46.1   56.0   69.3   72.3   77.9   77.0   67.6   56.6   45.7   38.5   56.7
  1992   35.0   38.0   41.9   53.1   59.7   68.6   75.9   70.4   66.0   52.2   45.7   36.8   53.6
  1993   36.8   31.7   39.3   52.6   64.5   72.0   79.7   78.0   68.7   54.2   45.3   34.0   54.7
  1994   26.1   33.3   42.7   60.1   59.9   76.1   79.5   73.8   66.7   53.9   49.1   40.3   55.1
  1995   37.2   31.3   46.1   52.6   62.7   71.5   78.2   77.6   67.1   58.3   39.7   33.0   54.6
  1996   30.0   34.7   39.7   54.6   59.7   72.8   72.9   72.7   67.1   55.7   39.3   38.3   53.1
  1997   32.5   40.5   44.6   50.3   58.8   69.1   75.8   73.3   65.1   53.7   43.6   37.2   53.7
  1998   40.1   41.0   45.5   54.9   65.9   70.4   75.3   76.2   72.7   56.2   45.5   40.9   57.1
  1999   35.0   37.5   41.4   53.0   62.8   70.8   78.5   75.4   67.0   53.1   50.1   38.2   55.2
  2000   32.5   39.2   47.9   53.3   64.6   72.2   71.8   72.8   65.0   57.0   42.5   27.8   53.9
  2001   32.1   38.5   40.5   55.5   62.6   72.4   72.2   76.5   65.4   55.8   50.7   41.3   55.3
  2002   39.1   38.9   45.4   56.8   61.9   72.6   77.3   78.1   69.1   55.0   44.1   33.4   56.0
  2003   28.4   30.3   44.1   53.5   59.8   69.3   75.4   76.2   67.1   53.8   50.0   36.0   53.7
  2004   28.0   34.8   46.3   54.8   69.8   70.9   75.9   73.6   68.8   55.6   48.4   37.8   55.4
  2005   34.8   37.4   40.9   55.3   59.7   73.7   77.9   77.7   71.9   58.8   47.8   33.4   55.8
  2006   41.8   36.0   45.9   57.4   62.8   72.6   78.6   78.1   65.6   54.9   48.6   41.9   57.0
  2007   39.1   28.6   46.4   52.2   66.1   74.4   77.3   78.7   71.2   63.6   46.1   38.4   56.8
  2008   35.5   37.3   45.9   56.0   61.1   74.4   76.8   73.8   69.4   55.2   44.3   38.3   55.7
  2009   29.6   38.0   43.7   55.9   65.0   73.1   74.9   78.4   68.4 




	

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 12:32 PM

Hagerstown MD temperatures

          2000   2001   2002   2003   2004   2005  2006    2007   2008   2009
  
  JAN     31.5   30.5   38.3   26.2   24.9   32.3  38.9    35.4   33.7   27.0
  FEB     38.1   37.2   38.7   28.3   31.0   35.2  34.0    25.4   32.7   35.6
  MAR     47.5   39.0   43.7   41.8   44.0   38.9  42.9    41.9   42.5   43.1
  APR     52.5   54.5   55.5   52.0   53.2   53.2  54.9    48.9   54.3   53.9
  MAY     65.4   62.4   60.8   59.3   68.6   57.2  60.7    64.3   59.1   63.9
  JUN     73.1   71.5   72.4   68.1   70.2   73.4  71.3    72.0   73.5   71.5
  JUL     72.1   71.9   77.2   74.3   75.5   77.6  77.3    74.9   75.2   73.8
  AUG     72.4   76.3   76.4   75.4   73.0   76.2  76.3    75.4   71.0   76.5
  SEP     64.6   64.6   68.4   66.3   67.5   70.1  63.9    68.7   67.3   66.3
  OCT     56.3   55.2   53.3   53.0   54.2   56.6  52.8    61.0   53.0
  NOV     41.9   49.3   42.9   48.7   46.8   45.5  46.4    42.6   43.0
  DEC     26.8   39.7   32.2   33.9   34.7   30.0  38.8    35.3   35.5
  ANNUAL  53.5   54.3   55.0   52.3   53.7   53.9  54.8    53.8   53.4 




	

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 11:51 AM

Bloomberg:

    Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore left the White House seven years ago with less than $2 million in assets, including a Virginia home and the family [tobacco] farm in Tennessee. Now he's making enough to put $35 million in hedge funds and other private partnerships.

    Gore invested the money with Capricorn Investment Group LLC, a Palo Alto, California, firm that selects the private funds for clients and invests in makers of environmentally friendly products, according to a Feb. 1 securities filing. Capricorn was founded by billionaire Jeffrey Skoll, former president of EBay Inc. and an executive producer of Gore's Oscar-winning documentary film on global warming.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 11:25 AM

The Telegraph:

Copenhagen accord keeps Big Carbon in business

The Copenhagen summit achieved its main aim, to maintain the carbon-trading system established by the Kyoto Protocol


The only really concrete achievement of Copenhagen was to win agreement to the perpetuating of those Kyoto rules that have created this vast industry, which has two main beneficiaries. On one hand are that small number of people in China and India who have learnt how to work this system to their huge advantage. On the other are all those Western entrepreneurs who have piled into what has become the fastest‑growing commodity market in the world.

Do you think all this green this and green that could all be about money?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 07:45 AM

Sawzaw

Snail: Notice the last three years of that Graph. It shows an increase in arctic ice and it does not include the Antarctic.

The situation in Antrctica is, indeed, complex. See for instance -

Antarctic ice sheet losing mass, says University of Colorado study
All About Sea Ice: Characteristics: Arctic vs. Antarctic
NASA - Sea Ice May Be on Increase in the Antarctic: A Phenomenon Due to a Lot of 'Hot Air'?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Dec 09 - 02:19 PM

Do you draw any particular conclusions from those post about odd weather events in various places? Or are you just grasping at straws?

**We** in Maryland just had a record Dec. snowfall.... now it is well above freezing again, and the snow will soon be gone. The last few years have been quite warm Winters.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 26 Dec 09 - 02:02 PM

European Commission President Barroso today urged the head of the IPCC, Rajenda Pachouri, to sue UKIP MEP Paul Nuttall for raising questions over Pachouri's financial links to Tata Steel of India.

Tata, the owners of Corus, stand to benefit from the Carbon Credits scheme which has been pushed by the IPCC. It is expected that the closure of the Corus plant on Teeside will bring windfall benefits of almost $1bn by selling the defunct plant's carbon credits.

Mr Nuttall had simply asked "qui bono?" when raising wider questions about the use of British taxpayers money to export British jobs in the steel industry.

In his speech, he said, "The real gain to Corus/Tata from stopping production on Teeside is the saving it will make on its carbon allowances, allocated by the EU and worth up to £600m over the next 3 years. Surprise, surprise, the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachouri, is the head of the Tata Foundation, so one must ask 'qui bono', as Tata of India owns Corus."

In response, President Barroso urged Mr Pachouri to take Mr Nuttall to court, before admitting that the closure of the Corus plant was a direct consequence of EU legislation.

Full text of Paul Nuttall's speech:

Mr. Barroso,

Recently we have heard that there is to be a closure of the Corus Steel Works in Teeside, in North East England. This is due to the EU target of a reduction of 20% of Carbon emissions. Thanks to "Carbon Credits", Corus can no longer afford to employ over 5,000 Steel workers including suppliers. We also have the spectacle of the British government admitting that its hands are tied on this issue by punitive EU Competition Law.

The real gain to Corus from stopping production on Teeside is the saving it will make on its carbon allowances, allocated by the EU under its Emissions Trading Scheme which will be worth up to £600 million over the next three years. As the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachouri, is the head of the Tata foundation, one must ask "qui bono?" Needless to say, Tata of India owns Corus.

Is it now official EU policy to offer incentives to companies to close plants, such as Teeside, so that they can out-source their business to countries such as India, or is there a more personal interest at stake here?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 26 Dec 09 - 01:09 PM

An example of rampant misrepresentation of IPCC reports is the frequent assertion that hundreds of IPCC scientists are known to support the following statement, arguably the most important of the WG I report, namely Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years .

In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, Understanding and Attributing Climate Change. Of the comments received from the 62 reviewers of this critical chapter, almost 60 per cent of them were rejected by IPCC editors. And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial.

Two of these seven were contacted by NRSP for the purposes of this article - Dr Vincent Gray of New Zealand and Dr Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Canada. Concerning the Greenhouse gas forcing … statement above, Professor McKitrick explained A categorical summary statement like this is not supported by the evidence in the IPCC WG I report. Evidence shown in the report suggests that other factors play a major role in climate change, and the specific effects expected from greenhouse gases have not been observed."

Dr Gray labeled the WG I statement as Typical IPCC doubletalk asserting "The text of the IPCC report shows that this is decided by a guess from persons with a conflict of interest, not from a tested model".

Determining the level of support expressed by reviewers' comments is subjective but a slightly generous evaluation indicates that just five reviewers endorsed the crucial ninth chapter. Four had vested interests and the other made only a single comment for the entire 11-chapter report. The claim that 2,500 independent scientist reviewers agreed with this, the most important statement of the UN climate reports released this year, or any other statement in the UN climate reports, is nonsense.

"The IPCC owe it to the world to explain who among their expert reviewers actually agree with their conclusions and who don't," says Natural Resources Stewardship Project Chair climatologist Dr Timothy Ball. "Otherwise, their credibility, and the public's trust of science in general, will be even further eroded."
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That the IPCC have let this deception continue for so long is a disgrace. Secretary General Ban Kai-Moon must instruct the UN climate body to either completely revise their operating procedures, welcoming dissenting input from scientist reviewers and indicating if reviewers have vested interests, or close the agency down completely.

Until then, their conclusions, and any reached at the Bali conference based on IPCC conclusions, should be ignored entirely as politically skewed and dishonest.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 26 Dec 09 - 12:42 PM

The Guardian: Severe weather kills dozens in Europe

Fifteen homeless people killed in Warsaw alone as temperatures dip to as low as -33C in Europe and snow leads to travel chaos

Dozens of people are thought to have frozen to death as extreme conditions continued to affect many parts of Europe today.

Polish news channel TVN24 said 47 people, mainly homeless, had been found frozen to death since the start of December as temperatures dropped as low as -18C. Police in Warsaw said 15 people died on Saturday night.

Freezing temperatures and snow were causing travel chaos in many countries, including France, where 40% of flights from Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports in Paris were cancelled. In Spain, runways were closed at Madrid's Barajas airport after temperatures fell to -8C and high-speed AVE trains were suspended between the capital and Barcelona, Malagá and Seville.

Temperatures dropped to as low as -33C in southern parts of Germany where hundreds of road accidents have been blamed on the weather.

Düsseldorf International airport, Germany third busiest, was also forced to close. Airports in the Netherlands and Belgium were also affected.

"There is still heavy snowfall and every time we clear a runway to permit a flight, we have to shut it down again because of the heavy snowfall," said Jan Van der Cruysse, spokesman for Brussels National Airport.

Meanwhile, a clean-up operation was under way along the US eastern seaboard following record snowfalls in some areas at the weekend which combined with high winds to produce blizzard conditions. An entire winter's snowfall fell in Washington DC, making it the snowiest December on record, while more than half a metre of snow fell in parts of Virginia, New York, New Jersey and other eastern states.

The conditions at US airports led to flight delays to the UK with some aircraft arriving at Heathrow three hours late this morning, while at Manchester airport some passengers were still waiting to get on flights scheduled to have taken off yesterday afternoon.

Motorists were urged to stay off treacherous roads and several main arteries were closed. In Washington, drivers who ventured out often had to abandon their cars due to deep snow on the streets.

In eastern Europe, more than 220 villages and towns in Bulgaria were left without electricity, and toppled trees cut power in several mountainous suburbs in the capital Sofia.

An overflowing dam in the town of Zlatograd, south-east of the capital, Sofia, flooded the basements of several apartment buildings, the town's mayor told news agency Focus.

Some 50 passengers were injured early today when a train failed to stop and hit a buffer at the main Zagreb station, in the Croatian capital, police said. The accident involved a train travelling from the central town of Sisak to Zagreb. One person suffered a life-threatening injury, while some 40 people required medical assistance, hospital sources said.

Police said it was still unclear what caused the accident. Train travel in Croatia has been disrupted in recent days due to heavy snow and very low temperatures.

Four Serie-A soccer matches were postponed in Italy over the weekend due to the weather.

In France, the heavy snowfall was not expected to end until tonight at the earliest, according to weather bureau Meteo France. Minimum temperatures hovered close to record lows in some areas overnight, with the minimum reading in the Jura department of eastern France reaching -23C.

In Moscow, where temperatures fell to -26C last week, relatively warmer temperatures of -13C brought heavy snow falls in the Russian capital, blanketing Red Square and the Kremlin. Up to 9,000 snow ploughs were said to have been sent out to clear the capital city's streets.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 26 Dec 09 - 12:36 PM

AP:

MILWAUKEE – Residents in the nation's heartland were digging out after a blustery storm as meteorologists warned that blizzard conditions could continue across the northern Plains on Saturday.

The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin through Saturday. The storm had already dumped significant snow across the region, including a record 14 inches in Oklahoma City and 11 inches in Duluth, Minn., on Thursday.

Slippery roads have been blamed for at least 21 deaths this week as the storm lumbered across the country from the Southwest.

Paul Mews, who drove from Faribault, Minn., to a relative's home in Plum City, Wis., on Friday morning, said the first 15 minutes of the 80-mile trip were clear, but a surge of heavy snowfall produced a stretch of near-whiteout conditions.

"It was snow-pocalypse. It was wicked," said Mews, 25. "We thought about turning around and going back."

Army Sgt. Mark Matthey was spending Friday night at the Flying J Travel Plaza in Sioux Falls, S.D., after Interstate 90 closed. Matthey, 26, left Fort Bragg, N.C., on Wednesday for his hometown of Spokane, Wash., in hopes of making it by late Friday or early Saturday.

Instead, he spent Friday afternoon drinking coffee, watching TV and making friends at the truck stop. Matthey said he and the other travelers were in decent spirits.

"Everybody has the attitude that you have to play the cards you were dealt," he said. "No use in getting upset about something you can't control."

Interstates also were closed in North Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming. Meteorologists warned that massive snow drifts and blustery winds could cause whiteouts across the northern Plains. Officials urged travelers to stay home and pack emergency kits if they had to set out.

In Texas, volunteer firefighters and sheriff's deputies rescued hundreds of people stranded along Interstate 44 and Texas State Highway 287 near Wichita Falls. The area recorded up to 13 inches of snow, said Doug Speheger, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

"It's really been horrible," Wichita County Sheriff David Duke said. "Although we live in north Texas and get a lot of cold weather, we weren't prepared for the significant amount of snow that we've received."

Only two of the sheriff department's vehicles have four-wheel drive, so rescuers used their own pickups and the heavy 5-ton brush trucks normally used to fight fires to get to motorists, many of whom ran out of gas while they were stuck in traffic stalled by the storm.

"It was exciting at first to wake up and go, 'Oh, this will be great. We'll have a white Christmas,'" Wichita Falls Mayor Lanham Lyne said. "Then it kept snowing. As the roads became impassable, then we started to worry."

The storm grounded flights at South Dakota's biggest airports. Sioux Falls Regional Airport was closed until Saturday morning at the earliest, manager Dan Letellier told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Flights also were canceled at Rapid City Regional Airport and Pierre Regional Airport.

Mark Kranenburg, director of the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City predicted it would be two or three days before all three runways were open and flights resumed as scheduled at Oklahoma's largest airport.

The 14 inches of snow in Oklahoma City broke a record of 2.5 inches set back in 1914.

The previous record for Christmas Eve in Duluth, which has gotten more than 22 inches in two days, was 3 inches in 1893, said Kevin Kraujalis, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

With heavy winds producing snow drifts as deep as 5 feet, "it's awful, it's just awful," Kraujalis said. "It's a big workout just walking outside to check my weather equipment."

Since Tuesday, icy roads have been blamed for accidents that killed at least seven people in Nebraska, five people in Oklahoma, four in Kansas, two in Minnesota and one each in North Dakota, Missouri and New Mexico.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 04:05 PM

Snail: Notice the last three years of that Graph. It shows an increase in arctic ice and it does not include the Antarctic.

Dr. Leonard Weinstein worked 45 years at the NASA Langley Research Center, finishing his career there as a Senior Research Scientist. Dr. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace. He is now a critic of the anthropogenic theory of global warming. His analysis shows that man has contributed less than 0.30C of warming and by the year 2100 may contribute less than 0.40C additional warming. This is much less than what the United Nations IPCC has predicted and of course a small fraction of what alarmists such as Al Gore and James Hansen have predicted.

Below is a summary of Dr. Weinstein's work, we highly recommend you follow the links to read the complete papers. His work is compelling and is yet one more example of a prominent scientist that disagrees with the anthropogenic theory of global warming.

    "Preparing for the possibility of an impending ice age along with the possible consequences of a reduction in Earth's magnetic field are real concerns. Concern with relatively small effects of possible anthropogenic caused global warming is a misplaced distraction, and will probably lead to the public losing confidence in scientists, and could weaken the support needed when real problems occur."

    "Decreasing availability of oil and anthropogenic pollution (not greenhouse gases) are real issues. Acid rain, smog, and dirty water sources do need to be fixed. The problems associated with high fuel prices, and dependence on sources of energy from possibly less than friendly foreign countries are critical. While we can't solve the problems with a single magic bullet, more nuclear power plants, along with wind and Solar power, could fill much of the gap. There are solutions, but first we have to identify the correct problems."

Leonard Weinstein received a B.Sc. in Physics in 1962 from Florida State University. He started work at NASA Langley Research Center in June 1962. While at Langley, Leonard obtained his Master and Doctor of Science degrees in Engineering from the George Washington University. He continued to work at NASA Langley until June 2007, ending as a Senior Research Scientist. Dr. Weinstein has had a career that is recognized for innovation. He has over 90 publications, including 11 patents. He has received numerous awards, commendations, and recognition's for innovative experimental research, including an Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal, an IR-100 award, the 1999 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Engineer of the year, the James Crowder Award, and over 40 other awards and recognitions for innovative experimental research. Dr. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 12:46 PM

"Western lifestyle unsustainable, says climate expert Rajendra Pachauri"

Many people will remember the strident headline at the end of November blaring: "Western lifestyle unsustainable, says climate expert Rajendra Pachauri". That was the version in The Guardian, but other papers carried something very similar.

How so very different might have been the reception had the newspapers carried a photograph of the house occupied by multi-millionaire businessman Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, currently 160 Central Golf Links Road, New Delhi. This is situated in a delightful residential area (pictured above and below) very close to Khan Market, the most expensive market in India.

It is described as one of the most expensive places to live in India. The cheapest houses sell for millions of US dollars. It is considered one of the richest neighborhoods in India and the name is inspired by the Delhi Golf Course nearby.

Prominent individuals like Neville Tuli, Dushyant Dave (Supreme Court Senior Advocate), R. K. Pachauri, Naresh Trehan, Palaniappan Chidambaram, R.K. Dhawan , film producer Bobby Bedi and the Guptas (owners of real-estate development firm MGF, and constructors of several malls in Gurgaon) and other foreign dignitaries call Golf Links home. Vikram Bakshi, the boss of McDonald's India also has property in the locality. Peaceful with its leafy environs, it is one of the best places to live in New Delhi, and is a major status symbol.

Thanks to the then Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral's personal intervention, the Delhi Police enhanced the security to a very high level, and it currently enjoys round the clock patrolling.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: TheSnail
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 11:43 AM

Sawzaw

This table shows the actual sea ice surrounding Antarctica is well above average.

From the same source - http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 11:32 AM

"Does the fact that they publish article after article hyping supposed 'evidence' of shady dealings by anyone opposed to their basic opinions?.... and MORE articles belittling Obama and his presidency negate any basic truths about the reality of what is happening to global climate?"

Why, no indeed...(once I made it thru the diagramming of that sentence)...but I think you just agreed with me.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 11:16 AM

Dr Pachauri's TERI – of which he is Director General - admits to receiving over $300,000 for "services rendered by Pachauri."

This, however, only covers "some of the payments made to TERI". It includes €100,000 from the Deutsche Bank, $25,000 from Credit Suisse and $80,000 from Toyota Motors. The institute also received $48,750 from Yale University, $4,425 from the Asian Development Bank - which has given loans to Tata - and €1,200 from the French electricity giant EDF. At current conversion rates, that totals $302,746.

The periods for which the payments were made are not specified and neither are the precise "services rendered" identified. For some organisations, such as Yale University, Pachauri performs more than one service – and his current post as head of the Climate and Energy Institute has only just started.

Pachauri's institute denies that it has received any payment from the Risk Governance Council in Geneva, the Chicago Climate Exchange, or the New York Investment Fund Pegasus for which he is "strategic advisor". This is difficult to believe in respect of the latter two, but the phrasing of the "rebuttal" does not rule out the possibility of benefits in kind being offered by these companies.

No mention is made of Pachauri's other current posts. Thus, we know nothing of payments (if any) from GloriOil, Siderian ventures, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Nordic Glitnir Bank, the Indochina Sustainable Infrastructure Fund, SNCF, his work as a Hindustan Times columnist, the Asian Energy Institute, FEOP (Far East Oil Price) Advisory Board, the International Solar Energy Society, the World Resources Institute or the World Energy Council.

Nor do we learn whether payments were made for Dr Pachauri's work for the Indian government, in particular the National Environmental Council, the Economic Advisory Council and the Oil Industry Restructuring Group. Nor is it specified whether he is paid for his role on the Governing Council of the India Habitat Centre. Other notable omissions are, as admitted by Pachauri, the "sometimes pretty generous honoraria, for giving talks in various places" - which themselves could amount to millions of dollars.

As to why TERI's (Indian) accounts are not published, the reason given is that TERI has tax-exempt status in every country in which it operates. "Such status is granted on the basis of proper auditing of accounts and proper scrutiny of documents." Nonetheless, accounts are published in the UK and the US relating to local operations, but not in India.

The US IRS return for the TERI-NA operation in Washington identified a total revenue of $66,701 against expenses of $121,810, leaving a loss on the trading year ending in 2009 of $55,109. The expenses included two remittances totalling $54,000 to TERI India. Also identified is a payment made to Dr Pachauri from a "related organization" – which is not identified – of $45,791.

This is the only public record of which we are aware which identifies a direct payment to Dr Pachauri. Neither Pachauri nor TERI have chosen to reveal payments made to him by TERI or his salary and other emoluments from the IPCC.

Despite that, TERI is claiming as "unfounded and false" our charge that Pachauri holds posts in a number of organisations, including Credit Suisse Bank, and is silent about the money he earns, "which must run into millions of dollars". Yet nothing so far offered by way of evidence would even begin to rebut that charge.

And neither has there been any attempt so far to explain how a UN official can work on a fee-paying basis for organisations such as the Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, without there being a potential conflict of interest.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 10:48 AM

"railroad engineer" The perfect person to railroad the world into a global warming scam for personal gain.

Amos: Do you understand that it is summer there and there is a seasonal loss of ice?

This table shows the actual sea ice surrounding Antarctica is well above average. As of May 2009, Antarctic sea ice is about 1.0 million square kilometers above normal.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 05:43 PM

"Unlike the Arctic, Antarctica is a continent, and while chunks of ice are cracking off in Western Antarctica, in Eastern Antarctica, four times larger, the ice sheet is thickening and expanding."
-- Right-wing columnist Pat Buchanan, 12/18/09

VERSUS

"[A] team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin has found that the East Antarctic ice sheet -- home to about 90 percent of Earth's solid fresh water and previously considered stable -- may have begun to lose ice."
-- NASA, 11/24/09

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ringer
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 12:30 PM

The Telegraph may be a conservative newspaper, Bill D, (I know it's conservative, I buy it each Saturday as it has a crossword I like - sorry, Guardian readers, I can't handle Araucaria - and also because its conservatism appeals to me), but it almost always, like most UK media, follows a warmista line.

The Telegraph's Pachauri story was written by Booker & North; the latter runs a blog called EuReferendum (a cause dear to my heart) with much more info on the busy railroad engineer.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 12:26 PM

Bill:

Does the fact that they publish article after article hyping supposed 'evidence' of shady dealings by anyone opposed to their basic opinions?.... and MORE articles belittling Obama and his presidency negate any basic truths about the reality of what is happening to global climate?

The fact that Bush was into oil and that Dick Cheney ran Halliburton   was the hue and cry of the anti war crowd.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 12:20 PM

Michael Mann first of climate change scientists to be investigated

The fallout from the Climategate event continues as one of its primary participants, Dr. Michael Mann, is to be investigated by his employer, Penn State University. Among the more than one thousand emails released on the Internet, Mann featured prominently in many of them oftentimes making rather controversial comments.

Mann serves as the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State and has long been one of the more controversial figures in the debate about manmade climate change. He is the author of the infamous 'hockey stick' graph which was used by Al Gore in "An Inconvenient Truth" but later was proven to be inaccurate....

...a report from Dr. Edward Wegman that provided a different opinion. Wegman's report said, "Mann et al., misused certain statistical methods in their studies, which inappropriately produce hockey stick shapes in the temperature history. Wegman's analysis concludes that Mann's work cannot support claim that the1990s were the warmest decade of the millennium. "...

Phil Jones:
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.


NASA to Mann:
In my (perhaps too harsh)
view, there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model
results by individual authors and by IPCC. This is why I still use
results from MAGICC to compare with observed temperatures. At least
here I can assess how sensitive matches are to sensitivity and
forcing assumptions/uncertainties.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 11:26 AM

Just on a hunch, I looked at other examples of stories from that link....wow, says I.

Then, still working on a hunch, I searched Google using the term "Most conservative newspapers". What did I get? Link after link describing "The Telegraph" as one of the most conservative.

Why am I not surprised that they publish article after article hyping supposed 'evidence' of shady dealings by anyone opposed to their basic opinions?.... and MORE articles belittling Obama and his presidency.

So...DID DR Pachauri make some money in his enterprises? Might he be willing to push certain policies to make his enterprises more profitable? Maybe so.... does that negate any basic truths about the reality of what is happening to global climate? Read a few NON-conservative newspapers and see what you think.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 10:22 AM

One subject the talkative Dr Pachauri remains silent on, however, is how much money he is paid for all these important posts, which must run into millions of dollars. Not one of the bodies for which he works publishes his salary or fees, and this notably includes the UN, which refuses to reveal how much we all pay him as one of its most senior officials.

As for TERI itself, Dr Pachauri's main job for nearly 30 years, it is so coy about money that it does not even publish its accounts – the financial statement amounts to two income and expenditure pie charts which contain no detailed figures.

Dr Pachauri is equally coy about TERI's links with Tata, the company which set it up in the 1970s and whose name it continued to bear until 2002, when it was changed to just The Energy Research Institute. A spokesman at the time said "we have not severed our past relationship with the Tatas, the change is only for convenience".

But the real question mark over TERI's director-general remains over the relationship between his highly lucrative commercial jobs and his role as chairman of the IPCC.

TERI have, for example, become a preferred bidder for Kuwaiti contracts to clean up the mess left by Saddam Hussein in their oilfields in 1991. The $3 billion (£1.9 billion) cost of the contracts has been provided by the UN. If successful, this would be tenth time TERI have benefited from a contract financed by the UN.

Certainly no one values the services of TERI more than the EU, which has included Dr Pachauri's institute as a partner in no fewer than 12 projects designed to assist in devising the EU's policies on mitigating the effects of the global warming predicted by the IPCC.

But whether those 1,700 Corus workers on Teesside will next month be so happy to lose their jobs to India, thanks to the workings of that international 'carbon market' about which Dr Pachauri is so enthusiastic, is quite another matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 10:20 AM

world's leading 'climate official' can also be personally involved in so many organisations which stand to benefit from the IPCC's recommendations.

Dr Pachauri's TERI empire has also extended worldwide, with branches in the US, the EU and several countries in Asia. TERI Europe, based in London, of which he is a trustee (along with Sir John Houghton, one of the key players in the early days of the IPCC and formerly head of the UK Met Office) is currently running a project on bio-energy, financed by the EU.

Another project, co-financed by our own Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the German insurance firm Munich Re, is studying how India's insurance industry, including Tata, can benefit from exploiting the supposed risks of exposure to climate change. Quite why Defra and UK taxpayers should fund a project to increase the profits of Indian insurance firms is not explained.

Even odder is the role of TERI's Washington-based North American offshoot, a non-profit organisation, of which Dr Pachauri is president. Conveniently sited on Pennsylvania Avenue, midway between the White House and the Capitol, this body unashamedly sets out its stall as a lobbying organisation, to "sensitise decision-makers in North America to developing countries' concerns about energy and the environment".

TERI-NA is funded by a galaxy of official and corporate sponsors, including four branches of the UN bureaucracy; four US government agencies; oil giants such as Amoco; two of the leading US defence contractors; Monsanto, the world's largest GM producer; the WWF (the environmentalist campaigning group which derives much of its own funding from the EU) and two world leaders in the international 'carbon market', between them managing more than $1 trillion (£620 billion) worth of assets.

All of this is doubtless useful to the interests of Tata back in India, which is heavily involved not just in bio-energy, renewables and insurance but also in 'carbon trading', the worldwide market in buying and selling the right to emit CO2. Much of this is administered at a profit by the UN under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) set up under the Kyoto Protocol, which the Copenhagen treaty was designed to replace with an even more lucrative successor.

Under the CDM, firms and consumers in the developed world pay for the right to exceed their 'carbon limits' by buying certificates from those firms in countries such as India and China which rack up 'carbon credits' for every renewable energy source they develop – or by showing that they have in some way reduced their own 'carbon emissions'.

It is one of these deals, reported in last week's Sunday Telegraph, which is enabling Tata to transfer three million tonnes of steel production from its Corus plant in Redcar to a new plant in Orissa, thus gaining a potential £1.2 billion in 'carbon credits' (and putting 1,700 people on Teesside out of work).

More than three-quarters of the world 'carbon' market benefits India and China in this way. India alone has 1,455 CDM projects in operation, worth $33 billion (£20 billion), many of them facilitated by Tata – and it is perhaps unsurprising that Dr Pachauri also serves on the advisory board of the Chicago Climate Exchange, the largest and most lucrative carbon-trading exchange in the world, which was also assisted by TERI in setting up India's own carbon exchange.

But this is peanuts compared to the numerous other posts to which Dr Pachauri has been appointed in the years since the UN chose him to become the world's top 'climate-change official'.

In 2007, for instance, he was appointed to the advisory board of Siderian, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm specialising in 'sustainable technologies', where he was expected to provide the Fund with 'access, standing and industrial exposure at the highest level',

In 2008 he was made an adviser on renewable and sustainable energy to the Credit Suisse bank and the Rockefeller Foundation. He joined the board of the Nordic Glitnir Bank, as it launched its Sustainable Future Fund, looking to raise funding of £4 billion. He became chairman of the Indochina Sustainable Infrastructure Fund, whose CEO was confident it could soon raise £100 billion.

In the same year he became a director of the International Risk Governance Council in Geneva, set up by EDF and E.On, two of Europe's largest electricity firms, to promote 'bio-energy'. This year Dr Pachauri joined the New York investment fund Pegasus as a 'strategic adviser', and was made chairman of the advisory board to the Asian Development Bank, strongly supportive of CDM trading, whose CEO warned that failure to agree a treaty at Copenhagen would lead to a collapse of the carbon market.

The list of posts now held by Dr Pachauri as a result of his new-found world status goes on and on. He has become head of Yale University's Climate and Energy Institute, which enjoys millions of dollars of US state and corporate funding. He is on the climate change advisory board of Deutsche Bank. He is Director of the Japanese Institute for Global Environmental Strategies and was until recently an adviser to Toyota Motors. Recalling his origins as a railway engineer, he is even a policy adviser to SNCF, France's state-owned railway company.

Meanwhile, back home in India, he serves on an array of influential government bodies, including the Economic Advisory Committee to the prime minister, holds various academic posts and has somehow found time in his busy life to publish 22 books.

Dr Pachauri never shrinks from giving the world frank advice on all matters relating to the menace of global warming. The latest edition of TERI News quotes him as telling the US Environmental Protection Agency that it must go ahead with regulating US carbon emissions without waiting for Congress to pass its cap and trade bill.

It reports how, in the days before Copenhagen, he called on the developing nations which had been historically responsible for the global warming crisis to make 'concrete commitments' to aiding developing countries such as India with funding and technology – while insisting that India could not agree to binding emissions targets. India, he said, must bargain for large-scale subsidies from the West for developing solar power, and Western funds must be made available for geo-engineering projects to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.

As a vegetarian Hindu, Dr Pachauri repeated his call for the world to eat less meat to cut down on methane emissions (as usual he made no mention of what was to be done about India's 400 million sacred cows). He further called for a ban on serving ice in restaurants and for meters to be fitted to all hotel rooms, so that guests could be charged a carbon tax on their use of heating and air-conditioning.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 10:02 AM

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri (born August 20, 1940) has served as the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2002. He has also been director general TERI, a research and policy organization in India, and chancellor of TERI University. He has become an icon for the LGBT community in India as a result of offering internships to younger members of the LGBT community in order to promote acceptance within the country.

Telegraph UK

Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC's policy recommendations

No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007.

Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as "the world's top climate scientist"), as a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics he has no qualifications in climate science at all.

What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC's policy recommendations.

These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in 'carbon trading' and 'sustainable technologies', which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year.

Today, in addition to his role as chairman of the IPCC, Dr Pachauri occupies more than a score of such posts, acting as director or adviser to many of the bodies which play a leading role in what has become known as the international 'climate industry'.

It is remarkable how only very recently has the staggering scale of Dr Pachauri's links to so many of these concerns come to light, inevitably raising questions as to how the world's leading 'climate official' can also be personally involved in so many organisations which stand to benefit from the IPCC's recommendations.

The issue of Dr Pachauri's potential conflict of interest was first publicly raised last Tuesday when, after giving a lecture at Copenhagen University, he was handed a letter by two eminent 'climate sceptics'. One was the Stephen Fielding, the Australian Senator who sparked the revolt which recently led to the defeat of his government's 'cap and trade scheme'. The other, from Britain, was Lord Monckton, a longtime critic of the IPCC's science, who has recently played a key part in stiffening opposition to a cap and trade bill in the US Senate.

Their open letter first challenged the scientific honesty of a graph prominently used in the IPCC's 2007 report, and shown again by Pachauri in his lecture, demanding that he should withdraw it. But they went on to question why the report had not declared Pachauri's personal interest in so many organisations which seemingly stood to profit from its findings.

The letter, which included information first disclosed in last week's Sunday Telegraph, was circulated to all the 192 national conference delegations, calling on them to dismiss Dr Pachauri as IPCC chairman because of recent revelations of his conflicting interests.

The original power base from which Dr Pachauri has built up his worldwide network of influence over the past decade is the Delhi-based Tata Energy Research Institute, of which he became director in 1981 and director-general in 2001. Now renamed The Energy Research Institute, TERI was set up in 1974 by India's largest privately-owned business empire, the Tata Group, with interests ranging from steel, cars and energy to chemicals, telecommunications and insurance (and now best-known in the UK as the owner of Jaguar, Land Rover, Tetley Tea and Corus, Britain's largest steel company).

Although TERI has extended its sponsorship since the name change, the two concerns are still closely linked.

In India, Tata exercises enormous political power, shown not least in the way it has managed to displace hundreds of thousands of poor tribal villagers in the eastern states of Orissa and Jarkhand to make way for large-scale iron mining and steelmaking projects.

Initially, when Dr Pachauri took over the running of TERI in the 1980s, his interests centred on the oil and coal industries, which may now seem odd for a man who has since become best known for his opposition to fossil fuels. He was, for instance, a director until 2003 of India Oil, the country's largest commercial enterprise, and until this year remained as a director of the National Thermal Power Generating Corporation, its largest electricity producer.

In 2005, he set up GloriOil, a Texas firm specialising in technology which allows the last remaining reserves to be extracted from oilfields otherwise at the end of their useful life.

However, since Pachauri became a vice-chairman of the IPCC in 1997, TERI has vastly expanded its interest in every kind of renewable or sustainable technology, in many of which the various divisions of the Tata Group have also become heavily involved, such as its project to invest $1.5 billion (£930 million) in vast wind farms.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 09:43 AM

"Your position is clearly ideological and fixed"
You must be joking. I am looking for proof and finding none, just Ideological bullshit and logical fallacies.
There is no possibility that you could be wrong is there?

If CO2 causes global warming, I can understand how temperature could overshoot CO2. But That means rising CO2 could not overshoot the temperature.


"without twisting things"
Amos claims that looking at things from different points of view is twisting things. How inflexible, how fixed can a persons mind be?

When one lacks the ability to determine the truth by themselves they must accept the conclusion of someone else and criticize all who disagree. They must jump on the bandwagon for fear of looking stupid.

The bandwagon fallacy is committed by arguments that appeal to the growing popularity of an idea as a reason for accepting it as true. They take the mere fact that an idea suddenly attracting adherents as a reason for us to join in with the trend and become adherents of the idea ourselves.

This is a fallacy because there are many other features of ideas than truth that can lead to a rapid increase in popularity. Peer pressure, tangible benefits, or even mass stupidity could lead to a false idea being adopted by lots of people. A rise in the popularity of an idea, then, is no guarantee of its truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 05:47 PM

We certainly know about one major source, as we have all been sinks for it at one time or another, not to mention the image of Jimmy Swaggert on the garage wall...



A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: pdq
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 05:21 PM

The link from TIA is about 127 KB and is...

                         right here

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,KP
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 05:15 PM

Actually, I find the methane situation rather more scary than the CO2 one. We know that:

Methane is at least 20 times worse as a GHG than CO2;

There are vast quantities of it locked up in clathrates and in frozen soil, so there is potential for a nasty positive feedback effect if this gets released by warming/deforestation;

Other pollution (Carbon monoxide, sulphur oxides) causes methane to persist longer in the atmosphere;

There has been at least one methane induced major climate change and mass extinction
'PETM'

Also we probably don't know enough about the sources and sinks of methane.

KP

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: TIA
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 04:24 PM

Yes. Methane. Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. But its concentration is smaller. It probably contributes only 28% of the warming that CO2 does (Dlugokencky et al., 2003).

http://www.phys.uu.nl/~houwelng/PUBLICATIONS/2003GL018126.pdf