The Catlin Arctic fraud

"Is this not a conflict of interest? Sending environmental activists to gather climatic data for an insurance company trying to asses rates due to impact from climate change? "

FROM-This post was submitted to Skeptic's Corner by a person who wishes to remain anonymous in order to protect his /her position. We thank them for their submission.

In recent years the quest to establish global warming is occurring and happening at a rate much faster than expected has grown into fervor. Scientists have become advocates and teamed up with the media and grabbed the ears of a certain political party to run a constant fear campaign built on western society consumer excess guilt and saving the planet. Endless computer simulations portend larger ocean waves, heatwaves, firestorms, blizzards, mega-droughts, hypercanes, ice caps sliding into the sea, nuclear war, extinction of most forms of life, methane belching seas flooding entire coastal plains then igniting in huge atmospheric explosions from lightning in overshooting tornadic supercell thunderstorms, and the slowing of Earth’s rotation all based on increases in CO2 concentration emitted by humans, specifically, those that are American.

That’s where the parody of global warming - climate change, rather - begins. American emitted CO2 is bad but Chinese emitted CO2 is excusable. Hot weather is climate, cold weather is natural variation. Last week’s heat wave in California, for example, immediately drew global warming into the topic of conversation. But what about the parade of blizzards and killing frosts this April from Texas to North Dakota? Thirty inches of April snow in Kansas seems a bit more extreme than a 95 degree April day in California.

Even public campaigns staged to draw attention to global warming somehow get miffed by unexpectedly cold weather. In March one of global warming’s most vocal advocates, NASA’s Jim Hansen, called for a display of civil disobedience by protesters at a global warming march against a coal-fired power plant in Washington, DC. Instead there was a teeth-chattering trudge through a foot of new snow from a late-season East Coast snowstorm. In July of 2007 the Live Earth concert in South Africa to draw attention to global warming was snowed in, Johannesburg’s first snowfall in 25 years and blamed on climate change. Last April in London a climate conference was snowed in. Just six months later London received its first October snowfall in 70 years during a climate debate! Don’t fret, it was cold in London during October before…back in 1895 as one periodical reminds us.

The global warming fracas has deluded the minds on those that believe in its dogma to the point it’s been hard to decipher their message. A string on conflicting reporting in the media, output from computer models, studies by scientists and adventures by explorers have left anything and everything to be consistent with global warming.

Several years ago shrinking glaciers along the flanks of Mont Blanc were the cause of global warming. After the 2003 heat wave in Europe some climate experts even said the mountain may never recover but just 5 years later ice mass on the mountain had increased by 50% because of, you guess it, global warming.

Mont Blanc isn’t the only place where ice both decreases and increases due to global warming. The king of that title goes to Antarctica. Even around Antarctica, the sea-ice responds to global warming by shrinking and growing. A decline in proxy sea-ice around Antarctica between the 1950’s and 1970’s were due to global warming but since the dawn of the satellite era sea-ice around Antarctica has been expanding, due to increased snow precipitation due to global warming but now its the release of anthropogenic CFC’s. Eventually, global warming will get that sea-ice, reducing it by a third before the end of the 21st century.

In 2007 polar explorers Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen tried to reach the North Pole in a public stunt to call attention to global warming and were caught in temperatures of seventy below zero, came down with frostbite and had to end their mission. In the end Liv Arnesen lost the tip of her big toe in her quest to teach global warming to children. I hope they learn from her example.

This brings us to the latest polar expedition to call attention to global warming, the Catlin Arctic Survey. It has been stated that this is a science endeavor to measure the thickness of sea-ice and calibrate those measurements to satellite data also to examine the human body’s response to extreme cold in the arctic with biotelemetry data. However, judging by the title sponsor and the crew they picked the real purpose of this mission is to spread more global warming propaganda and make money off it.

The following is a letter written by the expedition leader, Pen Hadow.

The inconclusiveness of the Poznan talks last weekend signals once again that our leaders are prepared to drink in the last chance saloon - with last orders being called (Global climate change decisions on hold for Obama, 15 December). There is just a year left for our political leaders to put a post-2012 deal in place at Copenhagen next year, if there is to be any hope of preventing global warming from reaching really dangerous levels. But slow progress seems to signal a deal that will fall short of expectations.

Scientists have presented a barrage of evidence for global warming and I have seen with my own eyes the irrevocable changes taking place in the Arctic Ocean. Each year more and more of the fragile multi-year sea ice melts and it could be less than a generation before the ice cap disappears completely. The loss of this astonishingly beautiful place will be a tragedy in itself, but a still greater calamity for us all is its unbalancing of the Earth’s whole eco-system.

Next year, during the critical few months before Copenhagen, I will be leading a scientific expedition to the north pole to assess the status of the ice. Using a specially designed ice-penetrating radar, the Catlin Arctic Survey team will take millions of readings of the thickness of the floating ice over a 1,200-kilometre route. The data will be analysed by the world’s leading scientists from organisations including Nasa.

I believe I owe it to my children and future generations to carry out this important, if hazardous, survey. Putting our abilities as explorers at the disposal of climate scientists is our team’s small contribution to securing a solution. It is to be hoped world leaders recognise early enough they have a still greater role to play in Copenhagen next year.

Pen Hadow Catlin Arctic Survey

Now we can read between the lines and see what this survey is really about - gathering ‘doomsday data’ to feed to the policy makers at Copenhagen; but that’s not all. The title sponsor of this expedition is an insurance company that plans to use the data in the following way:

“as a specialty insurance/reinsurance company, the potential effects of global warming will have a direct impact on our business”

Therefore, Catlin

“manages risk based on hard facts, so we believe that obtaining this information is vital. The Catlin Arctic Survey will help inform all those who must plan for the potential effects of global warming.”

-Stephen Catlin, Catlin’s Chief Executive.

Copenhagen is in reference to an upcoming climate summit in which thousands of scientists, advocacy groups, environmentalists, politicians, media, and policy officials from 192 countries will gather to put together a successor to the Kyoto Treaty. But this time around, there will be a price to pay should a country fail to adhere to protocol – carbon tax. And the insurance companies are scurrying to find ways to raise rates based on computer modeled risks that may occur due to global warming.

For example, this piece was written by Mike Hansen, president of Catlin Canada.

Data obtained by the Catlin Arctic Survey will then be published in a report to be presented by WWF International to the United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties, to be held in Copenhagen in November 2009.

Ah, yes, WWF international, a good independent science organization…

But this goes even further as one peers into the juicy details. Obviously, judging by his comments, Pen Hadow has a vested interest in finding and submitting data suitable for passing the Copenhagen Accord.

As some of you may not know, Catlin is a insurer/reinsurer. I’m sure plans are in the works to use this mission to base insurance rates paid by those in areas that may be vulnerable to climate change. So not only is this propaganda, it’s also a ploy.

Continued from Mike Hansen:


Catlin is sponsoring the expedition because the implications of global warming for the insurance industry and policyholders are stark: the effects of climate change could affect a wide range of insurable events.

“The potential effects of global warming will have a direct impact on Catlin’s business,” said Stephen Catlin, CEO of Catlin Group Limited. “The Catlin Arctic Survey will produce vital information that can be used by all those who must plan for the potential effects of global warming.”

The Catlin Arctic Survey, of course, provides Catlin with numerous marketing opportunities similar to those provided to insurers sponsoring sporting events or artistic exhibitions and performances. Be that as it may, Catlin is most interested in the scientific data provided by the Catlin Arctic Survey, which will serve to increase the insurance industry’s and global understanding of the impact of climate change.

This information will not only be useful to underwriters but also to the risk management and claims community. Catlin Canada’s risk and claims services manager April Savchuk comments: “The increasing probabilities faced of falling victim to the phenomenon of adverse climate change clearly demonstrates our vulnerabilities when ‘negotiating’ with Mother Nature. Exaggerated changes in climate can result in the usual variety of distinct physical events and losses, but the added burden on business — including how to best manage contingencies associated with the events — is unprecedented. The only way to better manage this is to become intimate with its cause and effect.

”Insurers worldwide are taking a greater interest in climate change, studying the causes of changing climatic conditions, as well as conducting research into the potential impact of climate change on the insurance industry and its policyholders.

Other researchers are broadening their scope to cover the less obvious. Last autumn, for example, Munich Reinsurance Co. sponsored a seminar in Princeton, New Jersey that focused on which companies could potentially be held liable for causing climate change — and whether liability insurers could be exposed to potential claims.

Is this not a conflict of interest? Sending environmental activists to gather climatic data for an insurance company trying to asses rates due to impact from climate change? Ask anyone living in Florida or along the US Atlantic Coast how their insurance policies have adjusted their rates due to the ‘threat of more hurricanes due to climate change’.

Catlin must have read this article posted back in October of 2006 when deciding to sponsor the Pen Hadow arctic survey.

The report, "Climate Change and Insurance: An Agenda for Action in the United States," was released by insurer Allianz Group and conservation group World Wildlife Fund. While U.S. insurance companies have been good at looking at the historical risk from natural catastrophes, the report says they have been slow to adopt the latest scientific findings in their computer models that project future risk and in turn, set rates.

And just why is a global warming advocacy group such as WWF International teaming up with an insurance company to push through a global warming accord? Here's what WWF International says on their website.

The Catlin Arctic Survey will form an essential part of WWF’s work to protect the Arctic, raising awareness around the world about the plight of the Arctic, the impact of climate change, and the need to secure radical CO2 emission reductions.

What it all comes down to is this: Catlin is financing a WWF International inspired public stunt to prove global warming so they can present the data obtained to pass an internationally binding and monetarily punishable greenhouse gas emissions reduction accord aimed at western nations, particularly the United States, despite China projected to emit three times the amount of CO2 than the US by 2020 based on current trends. More...

By the numbers ye shall know them

FROM-SF Examiner

Divide By Three

To understand what will probably happen to Earth's climate over the next century, you only need to look at the estimates of global warming alarmists and divide by three. Shh. Don't tell them or they will just multiply their current figures to compensate.

There is no doubt that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and pushes up the temperature. Nobody is arguing that. But CO2 pushing up the temperature is a first order effect. It would only contribute about 1 degree of warming over the century if CO2 doubled to 580 parts per million.
The people who want you to stay awake nights worrying about climate change have a theory that CO2 will somehow cause water vapor to retain more heat, and that this will multiply the effects of CO2 by 3 (some of the more absurd alarmists claim even more).

The problem is there is no evidence of this actually happening on this planet. The reason is that the alarmists couldn't correctly model cloud cover, which looks as though it counterbalances the effects of CO2 to a certain extent, preventing much greater warming.

The history of modern climate goes back 11,000 years, to the end of the last Ice Age. Most people know that the climate has warmed since the end of the last Ice Age, and that sea levels have climbed as the Ice melted. But few people realize that most of that warming happened during the first 1,000 years after the Ice Age ended, and that since then global temperatures have fluctuated within a fairly narrow band of between 14 and 16 degrees.

And what the alarmists will never tell you is that we are still within that fairly narrow band of temperatures. We are, many geologists feel (and oh, how alarmists hate geologists--they tend to have a sense of perspective) recovering from the Little Ice Age shown in the chart I linked to.
Temperatures have been warmer than they are today. For half of the past six million years, temperatures have been warmer than they are today. More recently, during the past 11,000 years, temperatures were warmer during the Holocene Optimum, the Roman Optimum and the Medieval Warming Period. Notice the use of the word 'optimum' in describing these epochs. The warmer temperatures were quite beneficial to us, allowing humans to grow wine in England and plant crops in Greenland.

CO2 now exists in our atmosphere in concentrations of 386 parts per million. In the past, concentrations have been as high as 6,000 parts per million. And despite that, there has been no runaway burning up of the planet and the normal climate cycles have continued. Because that's what climate does. It changes.

The Earth will continue to warm and the sea levels will probably continue to rise for the remainder of this inter-glacial interlude. Our contributions of CO2 will have a slight effect, increasing the temperature about one and a half degrees this century.

So if you take the predictions of the panicologists who want you to completely change the nature of your life and our society and divide by three, you get a fair idea of what's actually going to happen.



More...

By the numbers ye shall know them

FROM- Tulane Hullabaloo
Understanding global warming

The fallacies of Gore and the data of NASA prove questionable

Several months ago, syndicated radio host Dennis Prager accurately described the three conditions that must hold for global warming theorists to be correct.

Number one: The Earth must be warming. Number two: Increasing man-made carbon dioxide emissions are causing the warming trend. And number three: Global warming will be destructive.

There is certainly scientific consensus that man-made carbon dioxide emissions have increased every year during the last decade. But there is no scientific consensus that those emissions have driven temperature upwards.

In one fell swoop, the first two conditions for global warming can be all but thrown out. Since Al Gore released his well-known movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Earth has cooled by approximately one-third of a degree.

In that same time, man-made carbon dioxide emissions have increased. That means that since Gore’s movie, there has actually been a negative correlation between carbon dioxide emissions and temperature, which pokes a hole in his graph that link carbon dioxide emissions and temperature.

Gore also falsely inferred that correlation means causation. He showed that there is a correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide emissions and assumed that the correlation means that one force is causing the other. In the last century, however, along with increasing temperatures, there has also been an increase in the amount of cell phones. Correlation? Yes. Causation? I hope not.

Unfortunately, Gore is not the only person who has published dubious data regarding global warming. Late last year, NASA published a report claiming that November 2008 was the warmest November in recorded history. Skeptical scientists immediately challenged NASA’s data, and NASA came out and apologized, claiming that they accidentally copied the October 2008 temperatures recorded in Russia.

NASA, which is oft-quoted by global warming advocates, has been adding 0.15 degrees Celsius to its U.S. temperature reports since 2000, according to well-known global warming skeptic and statistician Steve McIntyre. According to McIntyre, NASA claimed that the year 2006 was the warmest in recorded history. Well, close, sort of. It was actually the fourth warmest. Number one was 1934, when carbon dioxide emissions were nowhere near today’s levels. In fact, only four of the 11 warmest recorded years have occurred in the last 54 years.

That much of the world and many of our leaders have drunk the global warming Kool-Aid is a testament to the fact that humans generally believe what they want to believe. The left wants to believe that global warming is true because it gives them an excuse to control our lives.

After all, if your “carbon footprint” is destroying Earth, then the government should have the authority to make coal, electricity and gasoline extremely expensive. It’s remarkable that on the one hand, the left wants America to give massive amounts of aid to starving Africans. But on the other hand, the left also wants to subsidize ethanol, which drives up the global prices of corn, milk, meat and eggs. Higher staple food prices are far harder for Africans than for Americans.
I can continue rattling off statistics that cast doubt upon the idea of global warming. I can continue describing unforeseen consequences (higher food prices, rapid deforestation, etc) that have developed as a result of policies that address global warming. But the bottom line is that dogma permeates all levels of this debate, and people currently entrenched in their opinions are likely to remain there.

What those people don’t realize is that every action people take has complex, far-reaching and often unforeseen consequences. Forcibly raising the prices of energy — the lifeblood of every economy — would have many unforeseen and disastrous consequences. But, as usual, the left does not understand the world’s complexity. The left thinks that human actions have predictable, foreseeable consequences.

As author Stephen Covery said, “While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.”



More...

"Amber Waves Of Grain"

from WUWT
A farmer’s view on carbon credits

This short personal essay from “farmer Steve” in North Dakota appeared as a comment on WUWT here. I thought it was a succinct and clear message based on personal experience and values, and thus worth sharing. I’ve made some formatting changes to make it easier to read, otherwise it is exactly as he posted his comment. Anyone who wishes to repost this essay has my permission to do so. - Anthony

Carbon Credits

I have changed my mind about participating in the carbon credit program. And have resolved to give the money I received to St Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

Here is why.

Recently I sat in the fire hall with a few dozen farmers. We had been invited to hear how we can get paid for carbon credits.

The speaker explained how their satellites can measure the carbon in our land individually and how much money we could get. Then asked for questions.

I asked “what is the source of this money”?

The presenter said it comes from big companies that pollute.

I asked “where do they get this money”? He had no answer.

So I answered for him, asking, “won’t it come from everyone who pays their power bill”? He then agreed and said “that could be”.

I then said isn’t this about the theory of man made global warming? he said “we are not going to talk about that”. Here they are on the prairie soliciting land for carbon credits tempting us with free money.

I believe that agreeing to take their money means you agree with taxing cattle gas also, because methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon. I believe taking this money without considering its source makes us no better than the bankers who lent money to people, knowing they could not pay it back. Collecting their fees then selling the bad loans in bundles to someone else. They did not care where the money came from either.

Let’s be clear.

Carbon is not a new commodity! No new wealth is being created here! Is this the way we want to make a living? Let me ask you, what if their satellites determine that your land has lost carbon? You will get a bill, not a check, right? If you make a tillage pass you will get a bill for emitting carbon, is this not correct?

It is also a fact that this income will, in short order, get built into your land cost. You will keep very little and be left with the burden of another bureaucratic program.

Let’s be honest, we feel compelled to take this money because of the need to be competitive, however we also need to hold true to our values and lead by example that means placing our principals ahead of money.

No good citizen is opposed to using the earth’s resources wisely, however, wisdom means a person who has both intelligence and humility. In my view many of the proponents of man made global warming have the first and lack the second. We are able to exercise our freedom in this country because we have abundant, reliable and affordable power. It is ironic that we sat in front of the flag in that fire hall and considered trading our liberty for money.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Roy Disney:

“Decision making becomes easier when your values are clear to you

"too reasonable to be true"

from Kitsap Sun
Losing Freedoms for ‘Climate Change'

I should have known it was too reasonable to be true.

Last month I wrote about Senate Bill 5735, sponsored by Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D-Bainbridge Island. The bill reaffirms the state's desire to curb greenhouse gases. In March it carried the following wording, "The legislature finds that the recent downturn in economic activity has reduced the rate of growth in greenhouse gas emissions and that it is unnecessary at this time to adopt new regulatory limits across significant sectors of the economy..." That language has been replaced with "...Despite the recent economic downturn, the output of greenhouse gas emissions continues..." That's not surprising since we still have people engaged in living.

The legislation seeks to implement a "multisector emissions reduction program", phase one of which would begin in 2012 starting with "electricity generated in the state or generated out-of-state..." Phase two starts in 2015 and targets emission reductions in "transportation fuel combustion and residential fuel combustion..." This legislation passed the Senate in March on a vote of 29 to 19. It was opposed by all Republicans. Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Shelton also voted against the bill while both Sen. Rockefeller and Sen. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor voted for passage.

It's since moved to the House where a public hearing was held last week. A companion bill, H.B. 1819 also seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by "implementing a cap on carbon emissions and developing strategies to achieve those reductions, including continuing Washington's participation in the design of a regional cap-and-trade program with the western climate initiative..." The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Sherry Appleton, D-Poulsbo and Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island.


The president of a company specializing in solar panel installation recently testified in Olympia in support of capping carbon emissions. In his recent letter to the-editor he refers to this approach as "Cap and Invest." That's a catchy phrase which really translates into "Cap and Tax." There's nothing wrong with his advocacy and I certainly understand why he would encourage government mandates since his company would benefit.

Like many others caught up in sounding the alarm of an impending catastrophe because of "climate change" he employs numerous exaggerations. He describes our state and nation as "facing an economic crisis unprecedented in my lifetime..." Perhaps in his lifetime, but I'm sure anyone who lived through the Great Depression would find that statement incomprehensible. He writes of a "moral imperative" and describes the legislation as limiting global warming "pollution" while summarily dismissing any debate over "climate change".

Another recent letter, this time from a Bremerton High School student, exhorted us to turn off our lights on March 28 in recognition of Earth Hour. She described this activity as a "massive environmental act" where cities in solidarity across the globe darkened their lights for an hour. Unfortunately the organizers of Earth Hour couldn't measure how much energy the world saved.

Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary, described Earth Hour as, "a way for the citizens of the world to send a clear message: They want action on climate change." The U.N. wants to take the lead on imposing elaborate worldwide "solutions" to climate change through carbon taxes and "energy policy reform." One idea in the preliminary U.N. document discusses a "climate change levy on aviation." It describes a "negative impact on exporters of goods that rely on air transport ... and tourism services." Oddly it's silent on any impact on the aerospace industry. Commercial airline revenues were $530 billion in 2008, $208 billion in the U.S. Imagine the effect of this "solution" on Boeing and Washington's exports.

Perhaps the U.N. should follow the lead of California's Air Resources Board which, in attempting to implement the state's "Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006", is considering banning black cars. Maybe they'll adopt an EPA idea of taxing live-stock under the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gases. Even inexpensive incandescent light bulbs are disappearing. They're being replaced with more expensive fluorescent ones in the name of energy efficiency.

All these "solutions" are being crafted against a background of increasing questions about the basic premise. In January, Pravda headlined an approaching "ice age." A recent Danish study finds climate may be more affected by the planet's magnetic field than carbon dioxide levels.

A study at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found that "...changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural."

Loss of freedom and independence occurs gradually, like the death of the proverbial frog in the slowly warming pot of water. He's eventually boiled alive while never recognizing the danger. Imposing draconian requirements on individuals and businesses because of questionable "climate change" will severely damage our economy. Designing a global "carbon-tax" scheme with good intentions and disastrous results will not save the planet. But it will endanger our sovereignty and injure the earth's human inhabitants.

TOGA PARTY!

from Pajama Media

No SUVs Around During the Roman Global Warming ‘Crisis’

Self-hating humans need to relax and enjoy the warm weather while it lasts.

Ah, spring, when the earth slowly wakes from its winter slumber, a warming welcomed by nearly every living thing.

Hard to believe some silly people are deathly afraid of warming weather — worried sick because the earth has warmed a degree or two over the last 150 years.

Make no mistake — the earth has warmed. Unfortunately for the climate-change catastrophists, warming periods have occurred throughout recorded history, long before the Industrial Revolution and SUVs began spitting man-made carbon into the atmosphere. And as might be expected, these warm periods have invariably proven a blessing for humanity. Consider:

Around the 3rd century B.C., the planet emerged from a long cold spell. The warm period which followed lasted about 700 years, and since it coincided with the rise of Pax Romana, it is known as the Roman Warming.

In the 5th century A.D., the earth’s climate became cooler. Cold and drought pushed the tribes of northern Europe south against the Roman frontier. Rome was sacked, and the Dark Ages commenced. And it was a dark age, both metaphorically and literally — the sun’s light dimmed and gave little warmth; harvest seasons grew shorter and yielded less. Life expectancy and literacy plummeted. The plague appeared and decimated whole populations.

Then, inexplicably, about 900 A.D. things began to warm. This warming trend would last almost 400 years, a well documented era known as the Medieval Warm Period. Once again, as temperatures rose harvests and populations grew. Vineyards made their way into Northern Europe, including Britain. Art and science flourished in what we now know as the Renaissance.

Then around 1300 A.D. things cooled drastically. This cold spell would last almost 500 years, a severe climate event known as the Little Ice Age. Millions died in famine as glaciers advanced all over the world. The plague returned. In Greenland, the Norse colony that had been established during the Medieval Warming froze and starved. Arctic pack ice descended south, pushing Inuit peoples to the shores of Scotland. People ice skated on the Thames; they walked from Staten Island to Manhattan over a frozen New York Harbor. The year 1816 was remembered as the year without a summer, with some portions of the Northern Hemisphere seeing snowfall in June.

But around 1850 the planet began to warm up yet again. Glaciers retreated. Temperatures rose. This is the warming period which we are still enjoying today. And once again, the warmth brought bounty: The last 150 years have seen an explosion in life expectancy, population, and scientific progress like never before.

Of course, even before the appearance of humans, the earth alternated throughout its history between extremes of heat and cold: 700 million years ago the planet was covered entirely in ice; 55 million years ago, a swampy greenhouse.

Why? What drives these ancient cycles? There are a lot of theories. The waxing and waning of solar output; cosmic rays and their role in cloud formation; the earth moving through plumes of galactic dust as it travels up and down through the arm of the Milky Way; plate tectonics redirecting the ocean currents; vulcanism. Perhaps it is a combination of all of these things. Perhaps it is something as yet undiscovered. One thing for sure that it’s not: SUVs.

Why, then, do otherwise sensible people believe that we are both causing the current warming and that the warmth is a bad thing? To me it seems some grotesque combination of narcissism and self-loathing, a mentality that says at once “I am so important that my behavior is causing this” and “I am so inherently tainted that it must be bad.”

For these self-hating humans who want us to cut our carbs (carbons, not carbohydrates), I say relax and enjoy the warmth while it lasts.

Because it won’t. No matter what we do, the ice and the cold and the dark will come again. That should be our worry.

Let science — not hysteria — guide us on climate change

via-Asheville Citizen-Times



Will our stressed economy survive global warming/climate change hysteria?

I find it hard to swallow the spoon-fed global warming/climate change rhetoric frequently found on these pages. While I claim no expertise in such matters, I do have a scientific background and apply critical thinking to what I read, especially as to perceived environmental issues.

Why have the purveyors of gloom and doom suddenly dropped “global warming” in favor of “climate change?” Could it be that we are currently experiencing a cooling trend?

If so, that wouldn’t fit the “global warming” scenario but would fit into “climate change.” Good move — cover your behind.

What data shows

Are we experiencing climate change for the first time in geological history, or even the last century? Both the scientific and journalistic records indicate that there have been several climate change trends in the past century alone. The journalistic record reveals that in the early 1900s it was global cooling, then global warming beginning in the late 1920s; global cooling again in the 1950s through 1970s (first Earth Day in 1970 was all about the dangers of global cooling); and from the early 1980s to now, we’re back to global warming. Will the hysteria change to global cooling soon?

Is the scientific community really settled on computer-modeled global warming/climate change? Given the incredible number of variables and the demonstrated errors of computer modeling, it would be unbelievable to have consensus on future climate. It is easy to find credible climate scientists challenging virtually all the dire predictions we’re steadily fed by environmental zealots like Al Gore.

An excellent example of this division played out recently in Hickory, where a debate, co-sponsored by the John Locke Foundation and Reese Institute for the Conservation of Resources at Lenoir-Rhyne University, brought together two scientists before an audience of more than 250 people. The following summary is posted on the Foundation’s Web site: “William Schlesinger of the Cary Institute, a former dean of Duke’s environment school, argues that we ignore the changing climate at our peril. John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Alabama’s state climatologist, counters that cold, hard facts contradict the most outrageous claims about impending doom.” Doesn’t sound like agreement within the scientific community to me. You can view the entire debate on the John Locke Foundation Web site (http://www.johnlocke.org/).

Divergent views

We are constantly being told that human activities are the major contributors to global warming/climate change. Here again, there is no agreement. Some scientists argue that increased carbon dioxide (CO2), the alleged warming culprit, is a result of the recent warming trend and not the cause. Others argue that our current CO2 contributions are so minute in the entire spectrum of atmospheric gases influencing our climate that it couldn’t have any appreciable impact on climate change. These documented scientific arguments are easily available if you want to research them on the Internet.

I have no doubt that the climate is changing. It constantly changes, just like forests and everything else in nature in response to complex variables. I don’t believe we are capable of controlling the planet’s climate and, if we could have some impact, it would eventually be trumped by natural events much more influential on climate than human activities (think sun spots and volcanic activity). Most of all, I don’t think we should base important decisions on unproven hypothetical climate change modeling.

Energy strategy

Over the next few months we will be debating a long-term energy strategy for this country. President Obama has clearly stated that a new strategy is desperately needed to reverse global warming/climate change. Obviously this means that policies will be advanced to accelerate our move away from plentiful CO2-producing fossil fuels toward unproven renewable energy sources. These new policies will attempt to totally revamp our current energy infrastructure.

Hopefully, this debate will reveal the uncertainty of global warming/climate change science as well as the increased cost for such a radical energy transition. At a time when our country faces intense economic pressures, consumers and taxpayers will no doubt be asked to bear the financial burden. It should also be pointed out that dramatic energy cost increases will further deplete our country’s ability to compete in a global economy while other nations reap the benefits of lower energy costs. That’s not going to help our economy.

While I’m all for moving toward renewable energy sources and energy independence for our country, it ought to be based on reasonable assessments and free-market motives, not government mandates and subsidies based on conjecture.


Steve Henson, N.C. Registered Forester #496, is the executive director of the Southern Appalachian Multiple-Use Council. He lives in Clyde.