There is one thing that all of these have in common -- more government control.
Seven Big Failed Environmentalist Predictions
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in the 17th century europe was covered in snow all summer . the world has been getting warmer is a given ...
What's a 'lonk'?
kaynight wrote:
We are doomed!!
It won't be the climate that gets us.
Probably be the Chess.com forums.
lesterbean wrote: 10 hottest years globally
Flawed data set.
kleelof wrote:
What's a 'lonk'?
A typo by a lunk
JamieDelarosa wrote:
kleelof wrote:
What's a 'lonk'?
A typo by a lunk
I was being saterical. 
kaynight wrote:
It was not fanny.
Yeah, that's the thing about satire; it shouldn't be funny. But somehow it is. Very strange.
Maybe looking at it from Homer Simpson's point of view will help.
kleelof wrote:
JamieDelarosa wrote:
kleelof wrote:
What's a 'lonk'?
A typo by a lunk
I was being saterical.
So was I ;^)
Very interesting OP/article
thanks for posting. :)
From The Telegraph
Top scientists start to examine fiddled global warming figures
The Global Warming Policy Foundation has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry
8:14PM BST 25 Apr 2015
Last month, we are told, the world enjoyed “its hottest March since records began in 1880”. This year, according to “US government scientists”, already bids to outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”. The figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were based, like all the other three official surface temperature records on which the world’s scientists and politicians rely, on data compiled from a network of weather stations by NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN).
But here there is a puzzle. These temperature records are not the only ones with official status. The other two, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama (UAH), are based on a quite different method of measuring temperature data, by satellites. And these, as they have increasingly done in recent years, give a strikingly different picture. Neither shows last month as anything like the hottest March on record, any more than they showed 2014 as “the hottest year ever”.
Back in January and February, two items in this column attracted more than 42,000 comments to the Telegraph website from all over the world. The provocative headings given to them were “Climategate the sequel: how we are still being tricked by flawed data on global warming” and “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest scientific scandal”.
My cue for those pieces was the evidence multiplying from across the world that something very odd has been going on with those official surface temperature records, all of which ultimately rely on data compiled by NOAA’s GHCN. Careful analysts have come up with hundreds of examples of how the original data recorded by 3,000-odd weather stations has been “adjusted”, to exaggerate the degree to which the Earth has actually been warming. Figures from earlier decades have repeatedly been adjusted downwards and more recent data adjusted upwards, to show the Earth having warmed much more dramatically than the original data justified.
So strong is the evidence that all this calls for proper investigation that my articles have now brought a heavyweight response. The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry into just how far these manipulations of the data may have distorted our picture of what is really happening to global temperatures.
The panel is chaired by Terence Kealey, until recently vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham. His team, all respected experts in their field with many peer-reviewed papers to their name, includes Dr Peter Chylek, a physicist from the National Los Alamos Laboratory; Richard McNider, an emeritus professor who founded the Atmospheric Sciences Programme at the University of Alabama; Professor Roman Mureika from Canada, an expert in identifying errors in statistical methodology; Professor Roger Pielke Sr, a noted climatologist from the University of Colorado, and Professor William van Wijngaarden, a physicist whose many papers on climatology have included studies in the use of “homogenisation” in data records.
Their inquiry’s central aim will be to establish a comprehensive view of just how far the original data has been “adjusted” by the three main surface records: those published by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss), the US National Climate Data Center and Hadcrut, that compiled by the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (Cru), in conjunction with the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction. All of them are run by committed believers in man-made global warming.
For this the GWPF panel is initially inviting input from all those analysts across the world who have already shown their expertise in comparing the originally recorded data with that finally published. In particular, they will be wanting to establish a full and accurate picture of just how much of the published record has been adjusted in a way which gives the impression that temperatures have been rising faster and further than was indicated by the raw measured data.
Already studies based on the US, Australia, New Zealand, the Arctic and South America have suggested that this is far too often the case.
But only when the full picture is in will it be possible to see just how far the scare over global warming has been driven by manipulation of figures accepted as reliable by the politicians who shape our energy policy, and much else besides. If the panel’s findings eventually confirm what we have seen so far, this really will be the “smoking gun”, in a scandal the scale and significance of which for all of us can scarcely be exaggerated.
April 18, 2015
Preventing a Coming Ice Age
Geo-engineering has become a buzzword again, thanks to a recent two-volume report of the US National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council [NAS-NRC 2015; ]. Driven by exaggerated concerns about greenhouse (GH) warming catastrophes, the reports pursued mainly two project ideas:
- Reducing atmospheric levels of the GH-gas CO2, starting with fairly innocuous schemes like planting tree farms to fertilizing the Southern Oceans by adding missing micro-nutrients (an idea much favored by the late oceanographer Roger Revelle) – all the way to full-scale engineering proposals that involve the direct removal of ambient CO2, with subsequent underground sequestration – a vastly more expensive undertaking of dubious technical feasibility.
- The other favored approach would try to increase Earth’s albedo to reduce the amounts of solar energy reaching the surface. In analogy with volcanic eruptions, reflective aerosols would be injected into the stratosphere – a costly and unproven scheme, likely to constitute an environmental hazard to stratospheric ozone.
It is doubtful that either project will gain approval – beyond further studies and some feasibility tests. Costs and risks are too high, and they may not even be needed. Yet geo-engineering seems to make perfect sense when used to overcome a sure-to-arise ice-age glaciation.
Paleo-Climate
Earth has been cooling for about 65 million years (ma) and has experienced a series of some 20 glaciations (“ice ages”) for the most recent 2-3 ma (“Quaternary”). Ice-core data indicate a typical duration for each glaciation of 41,000 and then 100,000 years – with a gradual onset, but with a sudden termination into a warm Interglacial period of typical duration of 10,000 years. [Imbrie, Science 1976; Ice Ages, 1986]
Our present Interglacial, the Holocene period, has now lasted over 11,000 years and (some think) may soon end, making way for the next ice age. (Some calculations [by A. Berger], however, suggest that the Holocene may last much longer than 10,000 years.) According to the “astronomical theory” of Milankovitch, the timing of these cycles is controlled by changes in the Earth’s orbit eccentricity, inclination of the spin axis, and its precession. Although Milankovitch provides a useful guide on timing, there is still much research required to understand the full physics of the glaciations [Roe, GeophysResLett 2006].
The timing of these cycles
According to theoretical speculation, the onset of glaciation is caused by a positive feedback at a sensitive “tipping point.” Judiciously planned intervention there might destroy this positive feedback and thereby delay or even cancel an ice-age cycle. It is widely believed that a glaciation initiates when a high-latitude (at about 65 degN) snowfield survives during summer and then expands year-by-year as a result. [The initiation may occur stochastically during a (cold) sunspot minimum or after a major volcanic eruption.] Weather satellites provide a ready means for digitally identifying and tracking such critical snowfields. They can then be controlled or removed by the deposition of solar-energy-absorbing soot.
In any case, ice ages impose severe stresses on human populations and on the ecology. During the most recent ice age, some 20,000 years ago, mile-thick ice sheets covered much of North America and all of northern Europe. Global sea levels were 120 meters lower than today. The English Channel was a huge river, draining the Rhine, Maas, Thames, and the melt water from the ice sheets, into the Bay of Biscayne.
In addition to the ice ages, less severe coolings and warmings have occurred on an irregular, 1500-year cycle (the so-called Dansgaard-Oeschger-Bond cycles) [see Singer & Avery, Unstoppable Global Warming, 2007]. Their likely cause is solar variability [according to Bond, Science 2001]. The most recent events include the Medieval Warm Period (around 1000 AD), the Little Ice Age, and the Modern Warming that started around 1850 AD [Loehle & Singer, Can J Earth Sci 2010]. Historic records, gathered mainly from European data, indicate that the cold periods had severe economic impacts, causing failed harvests and widespread starvation and disease [Lamb, Climate, 1972]. In his forthcoming book “Climate & Collapse: The Secret of Human Sustainability,” my colleague Dennis Avery, an agricultural economist and historian, has greatly elaborated on these themes of climatology pioneer Lamb.
There is little that can be done to mitigate the 1500-year cycles, if indeed they are controlled by solar activity. Here, adaptation may provide the only means of dealing with the disastrous effects of the cold periods. Research should be directed to discovering the best methods of countering the damaging impacts of cooling on human populations.
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) occurred about 18,000 years ago, with the Great Lakes a remnant of this recent glaciation. A wide swath of land south of the ice was treeless tundra, unsuitable for agriculture. The human population was small but survived. [See Van Alden and Davis, Neanderthals and Humans in the European Landscape during the Last Glaciation, Cambridge Press, McDonnell Institute monograph. Also: Soares et al, Climate Change and Postglacial Human Dispersal in Southeast Asia, Molecular Biology and Evolution 25, 2008; as well as other references cited by Avery].
The onset of the next glaciation, another ice age, is widely expected. It would spell a severe test for humanity but would probably not terminate human existence on the planet. It would not match the ultimate catastrophe, the impact of a large asteroid, such as occurred 65 million years ago at the beginning of the Tertiary, which wiped out the dinosaurs.
The survival of the human race depends very much on advanced technology. This is especially the case for climate change. Good-quality agricultural land will be limited; but hothouse yields could be high. An efficient distribution system could alleviate the threat of starvation for a reduced population. Nuclear energy, based on uranium/thorium fission and on fusion reactors, may provide the mainstay of civilization. We may well be living underground, but not necessarily in caves.
An international cooperative project to stop ice ages
I can visualize a possible international collaboration that might involve three teams in North America, Europe, and Asia, working independently and using their own satellite systems -- but coordinating their efforts under WMO (World Meteorological Organization) auspices. The satellites, using simple TV cameras, could keep track of any long-term growth in surface albedo from snow and ice; an averaging interval might be 3-10 years.
Once such secular growth has been detected, each of the three teams would carry out a plan to stop such growth. Though operating independently, they might consult widely on the best techniques for generating and depositing soot and for keeping track of albedo changes.
The aim, of course, is to break the positive feedback cycle that presumably leads to the growth of an ice-age glaciation. One can think of various practical problems that could arise; yet none of them seem insurmountable or particularly costly. But a test would certainly be worthwhile.
Stopping the next ice age appears to be well within our technical capability and carries a huge benefit-to-cost ratio. An investment of millions would prevent the loss of trillions of dollars.
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. His specialty is atmospheric and space physics. An expert in remote sensing and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the US National Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere. He is a Senior Fellow of the Heartland Institute and the Independent Institute. He co-authored NYTimes best-seller Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 years. In 2007, he founded and has chaired the NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change), which has released several scientific reports [See NIPCCreport.org]. For recent writings see and also Google Scholar.
A lot of reading but very interesting.
Nice articles. Thanks.
Starvation and population have increased. Wars over natural resources, 20 million in the Congo over the last few decades. Crude oil? God bless tar sands,and shale oil,or this would be true. We are in a mass extinction event right now,and we are the culprit.
We are not in a mass extinction event, relative to past mass extinction events.
In 1968, Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich famously declared that "the battle to feed humanity is over." He predicted that during the 1970s, "the world will experience starvation of tragic proportion [and] . . . hundreds of millions of people will starve to death."
It didn't quite turn out that away. In fact, almost none of the dire predictions associated with what Ehrlich called "The Population Bomb" came to pass. That's because the doomsayers didn't understand what it really means to be human.
Ehrlich's was only the most dramatic expression of a worldview that saw reducing birth rates as the key to not only humanity's, but the entire planet's fate. In this view, people were akin to parasites. They consumed resources and gave little, if anything, back. Population had to be contained both for our sakes and for the sake of the earth. As a 1970s Smithsonian exhibit put it, "Population: The Problem Is Us."
Indeed, since 1970, virtually every major famine can be tied to war, genocide, and failed government.
Yes we are. The normal background rate of extinction is 5 to 10 species per year. We are averaging over 200 extinctions per year,and that is the low estimate.Some researchers believe it's as high as 2000 species per year.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/24/seven-big-failed-environmentalist-predictions/
Seven Big Failed Environmental Predictions
To understand why so many of us are so skeptical about global warming, you have to understand the environmentalists’ larger track record: a long series of failed predictions and bogus prognostications of doom.
It has been 45 years now since the first Earth Day. You would think that in this time frame, given the urgency with which we were told we had to confront the supposed threats to the environment—Harvard biologist George Wald told us, “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken”—at least one of the big environmental disasters should have come to fruition. Fifteen years ago, an article in Reason took a look at claims like this from the first Earth Day in 1970. The specific quotations have been helpfully excerpted here and have been bounced around a lot on the Internet and on conservative talk radio for the last few days. It is a comical litany of forecasting gone wrong....
1) Global cooling
Which led to fevered predictions like this one, from UC Davis ecology professor Kenneth Watt: “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
2) Overpopulation
To fully grasp how badly the “population bomb” predictions failed, you have to realize that the biggest demographic challenge today is declining population. Japan faces a demographic death spiral in which declining population and fewer workers leads to economic stagnation, which discourages people from having kids, which makes the problem worse. After decades of a “one child” policy, China’s working age population is also starting to decline, and it is conventional wisdom that the country is going to “grow old before it grows rich.”
3) Mass starvation
"Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine."
4) Resource depletion
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'”
5) Mass extinction
“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
To put that in perspective, a 75% to 80% mass extinction is on the level of the cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago—caused by the “environmental” catastrophe of a six-mile-wide meteor crashing into the Earth and cloaking it in an enormous cloud of ash and dust. Obviously, nothing remotely like that happened between 1970 and 1995.
6) Renewable energy
This isn’t a prediction about a disaster that didn’t happen. It’s a prediction about a solution that never materialized. Don’t worry about the fact that we want to shut down fossil fuels and dirty coal, we were told, because there’s a bright new future from “Renewable Energy.”
But all of the alternatives we were promised fall into two categories. There are those that are still too unreliable and expensive; Germany is about to be crushed by the massive cost of its renewable energy boondoggle. And then there are those which have gone from being the alternative championed by environmentalists to being the targets of the environmentalist anger. This is by far the most common trajectory.
7) Global warming
[A]fter a multi-decade plateau in global temperatures, they are now at or below the low end of the range for all of the computer models that predicted global warming.
If we go full circle, back to the failed prediction of global cooling, we can see the wider trend. After two or three decades of cooling temperatures, from the 1940s to 1970, environmentalists project a cooling trend—only to have the climate change on them. After a few decades of warmer temperatures, from the 1970s to the late 1990s, they all jumped onto the bandwagon of projecting a continued warming trend—and the darned climate changed again, staying roughly flat since about 1998.
The full article can be read at the link, above