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Heart

Et Tu, Francois? Skeptical Scientist Who Mocked Gore's Nobel Prize as 'Political Gimmick' May Be Appointed to French Super-Ministry Post

Washington, DC: French President Nicolas Sarkozy's appears ready to appoint renowned geophysicist and former socialist party leader Dr. Claude Allegre - France's most outspoken global warming skeptic -- as the new super-ministry of industry and innovation.

If Allegre, who has mocked former Vice President Al Gore's Nobel Prize as "a political gimmick," is chosen for the appointment, it would send political earthquakes through Europe and the rest of the world. Allegre is a former believer in man-made global warming who reversed his views in recent years to become one of the most vocal dissenters of man-made global warming fears. Climate Depot first reported on Allegre's possible appointment to a government post on April 16, 2009. (See also: Sarkozy in climate row over reshuffle - Financial Times - May 27, 2009)

Allegre, a former French Socialist Party leader and a member of both the French and U.S. Academies of Science, was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, but he now says the cause of climate change is "unknown." Allegre has authored more than 100 scientific articles, written 11 books, and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States.

Allegre's possible appointment has 'drawn strong protests' from environmentalists, the Financial Times reported on May 27, 2009.

"Putting him in charge of scientific research would be tantamount to 'giving the finger to scientists', said Nicolas Hulot, France's best-known environmental activist," told the Financial Times.

But Allegre hit back at his environmental critics and accused them of "lies and distortions" about his record and beliefs. "As a scientist and citizen, I, unlike others, do not want environmentalism to accentuate the crisis or make the least well-off suffer more," Allegre said according to the May 27 Financial Times article.

Phoenix

Global warming advocates shifting goalposts

climate catastrophe
© unknown

For an Italian documentary on climate I was asked, "Why do you think we don't all share the same theory about global warming, particularly so far as concerns its causes?"

The simple answer is because there is no general climate theory.

As usual the proper answer is complicated. It is a very good question because it speaks directly to a major issue in the public and scientific debate about climate. It was the subject of my recent speech for the Friends of Science in Calgary. The topic was "Recent Theoretical and Observational Evidence for a Cooling Atmosphere." This was not my choice because it is too esoteric for a general audience. I spoke to the issue, but in the much broader context of the significance of the new evidence and current cooling. It helps understand how proponents of global warming due to human CO2 hypothesis are able to move the goalposts so easily from global warming to climate change to climate chaos and climate catastrophe.

Better Earth

The Great Global Warming Deception

Sargasso Sea temperatures
© unknown

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine has a video/slideshow presentation which shows once gain that worshippers of the religion of global warming are full of hot air.

Al Gore and fellow socialists at the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a political organization, not a scientific one - and elsewhere desperately want people to believe the earth is going through unprecedented warming...and that it's all the fault of those evil coal-burning, SUV-driving capitalists.

Unfortunately for them, this crazy idea not only doesn't meet the test of science, it doesn't even pass the smell-test. As a commenter at Free Republic said, ordinary folk can recognize bull feces by the smell and don't need the recipe. But thanks to information such as this report from Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson and Willie Soon, those who need the recipe to see the light have it.

Life Preserver

A Closer Look at Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is widely regarded in the media as the ultimate authority on climate change. Created by two divisions of the United Nations, and recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, its pronouncements are received as if they come down from Mount Olympus or Mount Sinai. The common presumption is that the IPCC has assembled the best scientific knowledge. Let's take a closer look at this organization to see whether it merits such uncritical deference.

The IPCC's Feb. 2007 report stated: It is "very likely" that human activity is causing global warming. Why then, just two months later, did the Vice Chair of the IPCC, Yuri Izrael, write, "the panic over global warming is totally unjustified;" "there is no serious threat to the climate;" and humanity is "hypothetically ... more threatened by cold than by global warming?"

IPCC press releases have warned about increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, yet Dr. Vincent Gray, a member of the IPCC's expert reviewers' panel asserts, "There is no relationship between warming and [the] level of gases in the atmosphere."

Question

US: Turtle Death Mystery

Menasha - A wildlife expert in east-central Wisconsin says she's worried about the increasing number of dead turtles in the area.

Tracey Koenig is the executive director of the Heckrodt Wetland Reserve in Menasha. She says an empty turtle shell occasionally washes ashore, but lately there are more deaths involving larger turtles.

She says some turtles just crawl ashore and die.

Her staff reports the recent deaths of six snapping turtles and four or five painted turtles. Another two dozen large turtles were discovered dead at a nearby pond in the past month.

Question

Philippines: Virus kills 200 hogs in San Simon, rapidly spreading in Pampanga

City of San Fernando - More than 200 swine in San Simon town were found dead recently due to Porcine Reproductive Syndrome (PRRS) virus.

The Provincial Veterinary Office (PVO) said the rapid spread of PRRS among hogs and piglets in Apalit, Mexico, San Luis, Bacolor and in the City of San Fernando has reached an alarming proportion.

Mayor Rodrigo "Digos" Canlas said he accompanied the PVO officers in giving vaccines to afflicted pigs in some of the big and backyard piggeries in San Simon to avoid the mortality increase.

Augusto Baluyut, provincial veterinarian, said the PRRS first erupted in San Simon and it is continuously spreading in more towns in the province.

Baluyut recalled that two years ago, over 40 percent of the piggeries in the towns of Porac, Lubao, Santa Rita, Guagua were severely affected by PRRS, which caused financial setbacks to the owners of backyard farming.

Evil Rays

Will Anyone Notice Global Cooling

CO2 vs global temperature
© unknownThe graph above shows the temperature changes of the lower troposphere from the surface up to about 8 km as determined from the average of two analyses of satellite data. The best fit line from January 2002 to April 2009 indicates a decline of 0.25 Celsius/decade. The Sun's activity, which was increasing through most of the 20th century, has recently become quiet, causing a change of trend. The green line shows the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, as measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

It is inconceivable that even after a decade since global warming ended and seven years into a cooling trend with no end of cooling in sight, that world leaders are unaware of these facts and are still pursuing initiatives to stop global warming. Something is terribly wrong with the official international science bodies such as the IPCC who have not come forward and properly informed the world leaders of current global temperatures.

Something is terribly wrong with the individual government science bodies who did not come forward and inform their own leaders when it was certain that global warming had ended, or when there was sufficient data to claim that we are now in a cooling trend. It is not as though this is highly guarded secret data that can only be accessed by a limited group of people. The global temperature data is in fact readily available from several public sites and can be downloaded at no cost.

For the past year Friends of Science has been maintaining a graph of satellite temperature data and atmospheric CO2 concentration data on their website. This graph is updated every month as the new data becomes available. The cooling trend that started in 2002 is highlighted by a straight line best fit posted on this graph. The numerical value for this trend is 0.25C/decade of cooling!

Bizarro Earth

7.1 earthquake topples homes, kills 2 in Honduras

Image
© USGS; ESRI
Tegucigalpa - A powerful earthquake toppled more than two dozen homes in Honduras and Belize early Thursday, killing two children and injuring 40 people as terrified residents spilled from their homes across much of Central America.

The magnitude-7.1 quake struck at 2:24 a.m. (4:24 a.m. EDT; 0824 GMT) off the Caribbean coast of Honduras, 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of the beach town of La Ceiba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado.

"People were running for the door," Alfredo Cedeno said from the reception desk at the Gran Hotel Paris in La Ceiba. "You could really feel it and you could see it - the water came out of the pool."

Reynaldo Funez, 15, was buried in his house in Pineda de la Lima, 120 miles (200 kilometers) north of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and 6-year-old Deily Yazmin Santos was killed when her house collapsed in the beach town of Morazan, national fire commander Col. Carlos Cordero said.

He said there were unconfirmed reports of two more deaths. In all, he said, at least 40 people were injured, most along the Caribbean coast.

Binoculars

US: Colorado dust storms speed snowmelt in the West

Colorado Peaks
© McKenzie Skiles / For the Los Angeles TimesSpring dust storms have left the snowcapped mountains of western Colorado tinged pink
Denver - A series of unusual spring dust storms has left the snowcapped mountains of western Colorado stained brown and red, even a bit pink. The dust is speeding up the runoff to rivers that supply millions of people with water and raising fears of an increasingly arid West.

Twelve dust storms barreled into the southern Rockies from the deserts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico so far this year. In contrast, four storms hit the mountains all year long in 2003. Eight occurred in each of the last three years.

"This year's been really, really strong," said Jason Neff, a hydrologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder. "Something's been going on, and I don't think we're exactly sure what."

The storms leave a dark film on snow that melts it faster by hastening its absorption of the sun's energy. That, coupled with unseasonably warm temperatures, has sped up the runoff here, swelling rivers to near flood stage, threatening to make reservoirs overflow and fueling fears that there will not be enough water left for late-summer crops.

Attention

Greenpeace study compares U.S. pollution to other nations

Maryland emits more greenhouse gases than 150 countries

Maryland emitted more cumulative global warming pollution between 1960-2005 than more than 150 other nations surveyed, according to a report released today from Greenpeace. And that makes the state one of the least polluting on a per person basis.

The United States has long been considered the chief emitter, but months ahead of a global forum on the subject, the environmental organization was seeking to underscore the level by compiling Department of Energy statistics for individual states and comparing them to World Resource Institute data from 184 other countries.