Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

Science a slave to expediency

John McLean
The Australian
Wed, 06 May 2009 18:41 UTC
The notion that human activity has an alarming influence on climate is based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and spurious claims about a scientific consensus.

Independent scientists who question these claims are accused of being in the pay of the energy industry and of believing that the notion of man-made climate change is a conspiracy.

To the best of my knowledge, no climate conspiracy has ever existed. But another force has driven science into its present parlous state where the output of computer software is held in higher regard than observational data, where marketing spin is more important than fact and evidence, and where a trenchant defence of the notion of man-made global warming is seen as paramount.
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Sun

Spotless Sun, new 'Baby Grand' milestone has arrived

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That
Wed, 27 May 2009 22:50 UTC
current solar minimum
© unknownPlot of Cycle 23 to 24 sunspot numbers in an 11 year window.

No we aren't talking pianos, but Grand Solar Minimums. Today a new milestone was reached. As you can see below, we've been leading up to it for a few years.

A typical solar minimum lasts 485 days, based on an average of the last 10 solar minima. As of today we are at 638 spotless days in the current minimum. Also as of today, May 27th, 2009, there were no sunspots on 120 of this year's (2009) 147 days to date (82%).

Paul Stanko writes:
Our spotless day count just reached 638.

What is so special about 638? We just overtook the original solar cycle, #1, so now the only cycles above this are: cycles of the Maunder minimum, cycles 5 to 7 (Dalton minimum), and cycles 10 + 12 to 15 (unnamed minimum).

Since the last one is unnamed, I've nicknamed it the "Baby Grand Minimum", in much the same way that you can have a baby grand piano. We would now seem to have reached the same stature for this minimum. It will be interesting to see just how much longer deep minimum goes on.
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Sun

Scientists proclaim climate change is natural


Scoop Politics
Thu, 28 May 2009 18:32 UTC
Scientists proclaim climate change is natural

As the Rudd government geared up its push for a CO2 cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme (ETS), which would annihilate what's left of Australia's collapsing physical economy, a public symposium last Sunday heard evidence from several leading Australian scientists that climate change is a natural phenomenon.

The symposium, ignored by the lying mainstream media, was held at Monash University and convened by Emeritus Professor Lance Endersbee. Several scientists identified hard evidence that severe cooling is the biggest climate challenge that we face - and its cause is entirely natural.
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Magnitude 4.9 - Off Coast of Jalisco, Mexico


US Geological Survey
Thu, 28 May 2009 22:35 UTC
Image
© US Geological Survey
Date-Time Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 21:32:25 UTC

Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 02:32:25 PM at epicenter

Location 18.335°N, 106.437°W

Depth 10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program

Region OFF THE COAST OF JALISCO, MEXICO

Distances 235 km (145 miles) WSW of Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico

270 km (165 miles) SW of Autlan, Jalisco, Mexico

280 km (175 miles) SSW of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico

775 km (480 miles) W of MEXICO CITY, D.F., Mexico
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Key

Skeptical French Scientist Rebukes Climate Critics: 'We are not in the Soviet Union, we can contest a scientific thesis'

Marc Morano
Climate Depot
Thu, 28 May 2009 21:40 UTC
hammer siclke
© unknown

Washington, DC: Controversy continues to swirl around French President Nicolas Sarkozy's possible appointment of 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.

Just one day after news reports revealed Sarkozy is close to appointing Allegre to a high government post, Allegre has fired back at critics upset that he has embraced a skeptical view of man-made global warming fears.

"We are not in the Soviet Union, we can contest a scientific thesis," Allegre retorted, according to a May 28, 2009 article in Nature's blog. (See: Claude Allegre back in French government? - May 28, 2009)

Nature's Blog Excerpt: Allegre has responded to such criticisms by saying that he recognizes the reality of climate change but had doubts as to its causes "given that the climate is a complex phenomenon," and was worried that the challenges facing the planet might lead to decreases in economic growth and threaten the free market. Questioned by the newspaper Le Monde, Allegre said: "I've nothing to say. I'm in my lab writing a scientific article," describing the current controversy as nothing more than "agitation." "We are not in the Soviet Union," he added with respect to his opinions on climate change, "we can contest a scientific thesis." [End Nature Blog excerpt]
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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

Marc Morano
Climate Depot
Wed, 27 May 2009 21:04 UTC
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.
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Phoenix

Global warming advocates shifting goalposts

Dr. Tim Ball
Canada Free Press
Tue, 26 May 2009 20:49 UTC
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.
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Better Earth

The Great Global Warming Deception

Bob Ellis
Dakota Voice
Thu, 28 May 2009 20:33 UTC
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.
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Life Preserver

A Closer Look at Climate Change

Mark W. Hendrickson
Townhall
Mon, 25 May 2009 20:18 UTC
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."
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Question

US: Turtle Death Mystery


WBAY/ ABC
Thu, 28 May 2009 20:09 UTC
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.
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