Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Heavy snow causes 6,000 traffic accidents, 24 deaths in Moscow

snow in Moscow
© RIA Novosti, Mikhail FomichevHeavy wet snowfalls over the weekend caused traffic congestion and reduced visibility all over Moscow.
Heavy snowfalls in Moscow and the surrounding Moscow Region caused more than 6,000 traffic accidents over the weekend, which resulted in 24 deaths, local traffic police said on Monday.

According to Moscow's traffic police department, a total of 4,200 car accidents were registered on Saturday and Sunday in the capital, in which four people were killed and 78 injured.

In the Moscow Region over the same period, 20 people were killed and 86 injured in about 2,000 traffic accidents.

"All major deadly accidents on Saturday were caused by severe traffic violations," said Svetlana Landa, a spokeswoman for the Moscow Region's traffic police department.

Propaganda

Thermageddon, the BBC and a giant snake

Listeners to BBC World Service's Science in Action program got a nasty surprise last week. In the midst of a discussion about the large snake fossil, a scientist dropped this bombshell:
"The Planet has heated and cooled repeatedly throughout its history. What we're doing is the rate at which we're heating the planet is many orders of magnitude faster than any natural process - and is moving too fast for natural systems to respond."
Listen here

Hearing this, I did what any normal person would do: grab all the bags of frozen peas I could find in the ice compartment of my refridgerator, and hunker down behind the sofa to wait for Thermageddon.

Comment: Well perhaps Dr. Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the UK Met Office can be consulted to handle this one. She just recently chastised big media and scientists for promoting this kind of blathering nonsense.

But don't hold your breath.


Sun

Best of the Web: The Collapse of Climate Policy and the Sustainability of Climate Science

statue Hans Brinker
© unknown

The political consensus surrounding climate policy is collapsing. If you are not aware of this fact you will be very soon. The collapse is not due to the cold winter in places you may live or see on the news. It is not due to years without an increase in global temperature. It is not due to the overturning of the scientific consensus on the role of human activity in the global climate system.

It is due to the fact that policy makers and their political advisors (some trained as scientists) can no longer avoid the reality that targets for stabilization such as 450 ppm (or even less realistic targets) are simply not achievable with the approach to climate change that has been at the focus of policy for over a decade. Policies that are obviously fictional and fantasy are frequently subject to a rapid collapse.

The current shrillness that has been put on display by many politically-active climate scientists and the feeding-frenzy among their skeptical political opposition can be explained as a result of this looming collapse, though many will confuse the shrillness and feeding-frenzy as a cause of the collapse. Let me explain.

Comment: It is true that climate policy is in collapse. But it doesn't all just boil down to political realities as the author seems to want paint it.
Climate politics is collapsing because of political realities, and not real or perceived changes in how people see the science.
Baloney!

This is just the political machine going into action to try and control the damage caused by bad science. The promotion of bad science by those who have the power to direct the minds of the public in concert with global media are directly responsible for the hystericization of society and the collapse of anything that can vaguely be called climate policy.

It is obvious that the author of this article, Roger Pielke, Jr., is in total agreement with the promoted science based on carbon (CO2) emissions being the driver of climate. It is not the science that has a problem. It is not the perception of the science as being based on bad data or bad models or biased assumptions. The state of collapse as Pielke puts it, is because of political realities.

There are two problems with what Pielke says.

The first problem is that the science is bad. The models that global warming are based on do not sufficiently take into account things like El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, solar radiation cycles, volcanism and even cosmic forces as related in other scientific disciplines such as impact science (comets and asteroids). Why are these things continually ignored and hidden in favor of CO2 as the critical tripwire to runaway climate catastrophe? These other forces have much better data correlating them to climatic warming and cooling cycles and even climate catastrophe.

Instead of looking at these other research disciplines and trying to bring them together and increase our knowledge and understanding of nature it was decided that carbon emissions (CO2) was the driver, correlator, cause of the heating and cooling of the earth's biosphere. A trace gas comprising less than .04% (four one-hundredths of one percent) of the atmosphere was decided on as the controller of the balance between heating and cooling of the earth.

As Roger Pielke, Jr. says, the problem is not the science or how it is perceived. Everyone knows the CO2 foundation for the theory of global warming is sound. Once again - Baloney! Literally thousands of scientists and tenured climate researchers say differently and it is because of the horrible way that the science is selectively ignored and selectively promoted. There is no consensus. There never has been a consensus.

The second problem with Pielke's statement that it is only political realities that are the problem with climate policy is Pielke's overlooking of the role of ponerization in the area of climate science. The hystericization of the public by the global warming promoters in concert with global media has become so incestuous and so overt that it has reached into the depths of science where researchers that never endorsed the political policy yet were not affected by it can no longer stay on the sidelines and maintain their own sanity when their own knowledge is in direct conflict with the reality that is being imposed on the mindset of the world.

From Andrew M. Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology 'A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes'
The psychological features of each such crisis are unique to the culture and the time, but one common denominator that exists at the beginning of all such "bad times" is an exacerbation of society's hysterical condition. The emotionalism dominating in individual, collective, and political life, combined with the subconscious selection and substitution of data in reasoning, lead to individual and national egotism. The mania for taking offense at the drop of a hat provokes constant retaliation, taking advantage of hyperirritability and hypocriticality on the part of others. It is this feature, this hystericization of society, that enables pathological plotters, snake charmers, and other primitive deviants to act as essential factors in the processes of the origination of evil on a macro-social scale.
The mind signal continuously sent out by the global enforcement machine kept pounding away until it created its own personal little army of fascists, comparing skeptics to holocaust deniers if they did not believe in and worship the signal of the global influencers. Fascists calling for career climate researchers and career meteorologists to lose their jobs and certification because they are not in confluence with the global signal that is being broadcast. Fascists calling for scientists not towing the line to be brought up on charges of crimes against humanity.

Enforcing the Global Warming Signal

Weather Channel Climate Expert Calls for Nazi Style Silencing of Global Warming Skeptics - Strip Them of Their Credentials
Life Is Convenient When You Define 'Truth'
As Predicted: Global Warming Skeptics Linked With Holocaust Denial
CBS 'Global Warming Special' Host Likened Warming Skeptics to Holocaust Deniers
Witch Hunt: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist
Search "global warming" "holocaust deniers" 43,800 hits
Search "global warming" "crimes against humanity" 118,000 hits

Is this purely just political realities that is creating this so called collapse of climate policy?

The relationship between some of the so called prestigious scientific institutions and global media is outright deviant. A case in point is the Hadley Center and Vicki Pope in her recent psychologically manipulative attempt to retune the global mind signal and incite even more hysteria in the public over the 'man-made global warming catastrophe.' It is a total disgrace and reveals the depth of the pathology that is endemic at all upper levels of society that are in positions to influence the public mind.

So why is this going on? Is it on purpose that CO2 and carbon emissions were chosen by the global influence machine? Is it all just another distraction to keep us from asking what is going on and to keep us from looking for the answers?

When the answers are already canned and ready to be spoon fed to the masses, no one will look anywhere else.

See related story and commentary on the latest manipulation by Dr. Vicky Pope and the UK Met office:

"Apocalyptic Climate Predictions" Mislead the Public, Say Experts


Bug

Indian scientists find bacteria that kills global warming hysteria

In a major breakthrough that could help in the fight against global warming, a team of five Indian scientists from four institutes of the country have discovered a naturally occurring bacteria which converts carbon dioxide (CO2) into a compound found in limestone and chalk.

Evil Rays

Former astronaut speaks out on global warming

Santa Fe, New Mexico - Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate, doesn't believe that humans are causing global warming.

"I don't think the human effect is significant compared to the natural effect," said Schmitt, who is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York.

Schmitt contends that scientists "are being intimidated" if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels.

Magnify

Ocean Survey Reveals Hundreds of 'Bipolar' Species

Poles apart, but intimately linked. Of the thousands of species that populate Antarctica and the Arctic, it seems hundreds are "bipolar": found at both ends of the 11,000 kilometre span between the poles.

The surveys, part of the international Census of Marine Life, also suggest the Antarctic acts as a cold incubator for species that populate the deep sea around the planet. As ice ages come and go, and the ice shelf advances and retreats, species are isolated, evolve, then released to the global sea floor.

The 235 species that we believe are found at both poles include a great variety of animals, says Julian Gutt of the Alfred Wegner Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany. The easiest ones to explain are the large migrating organisms, such as whales and birds. But the list also includes a large number of animals that are thought to live relatively sedentary lives.

Sherlock

Ancient Geologic Escape Hatches Mistaken for Tube Worms

Krause
© Ken BendiktsenFederico Krause points to one of the tubeworms that he believes is actually an escape hatch for methane.
Tubeworms have been around for millions of years and the fossil record is rich with their distinctive imprints. But a discovery made by U of C scientists found that what previous researchers had labeled as tubeworms in a formation near Denver, Colorado, are actually 70 million-year-old escape hatches for methane.

Tubeworms, or siboglinids, look like long lipstick tubes and have been observed in warm and cold environments on the ocean floor, as well as in whale carcasses and decomposing organic-rich cargoes in sunken ships. Ecosystems teeming with tubeworm colonies were discovered at hydrothermal vents in the Galapagos Ridge in 1977 and at cold seeps at the base of the Florida Escarpment in 1984. As a result of these modern sightings, a number of fossil examples of tubeworms were subsequently identified in the rock record. One of these localities, found south of Denver, Colorado, was recently re-examined by U of C scientists.

Sherlock

Scientists Dig for the Guts of Earthquakes

Scientists are pursuing earthquakes deep into their subterranean lairs, studying them on land and below the sea. Yet, confronted with the question of when and where the "next big one" will occur, an uncomfortable silence sets in.

Based on history there will be quakes in Japan, also in Tibet, said Leigh Royden of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Will we ever be able to predict them? I don't know," she said Sunday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"There have been a few signals associated with quakes, but only in hindsight," she said. "And those quakes are rare."

Target

Propaganda: Scientists must rein in misleading climate change claims

Ice Storm
© unknown

News headlines vie for attention and it is easy for scientists to grab this attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change. This message is more difficult to get heard. Scientists and journalists need to find ways to help to make this clear without the wider audience switching off.

Recent headlines have proclaimed that Arctic summer sea ice has decreased so much in the past few years that it has reached a tipping point and will disappear very quickly. The truth is that there is little evidence to support this. Indeed, the record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer sea ice increasing again over the next few years. This diverts attention from the real, longer-term issues. For example, recent results from the Met Office do show that there is a detectable human impact in the long-term decline in sea ice over the past 30 years, and all the evidence points to a complete loss of summer sea ice much later this century.


Comment: See an examination of this story's propaganda here.


Comment: See an examination of this story's propaganda here.


Binoculars

UK Met Office Issues 'Blistering Attack on Scientific Colleagues' For 'Apocalyptic Climate Predictions'

Scientists at the UK Met office "launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming." The Met office, "one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world" according to the February 11, 2009, article in the UK Guardian, is no hotbed of climate skeptics, as the organization accepts the UN IPCC view of man-made global warming. A U.S. climate expert has also declared that "the political consensus surrounding climate policy is collapsing," and a U.S. Naval Academy chemist has accused the media of "journalistic malpractice" for hyping warming fears. Furthermore, NASA's James Hansen and RealClimate.org have also come under renewed criticism.
The scientists at the UK Met Office lamented the "recent 'apocalyptic predictions' about Arctic ice melt," according to the UK Guardian newspaper.

Dr. Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, warned that "there is little evidence to support claims that Arctic ice has reached a tipping point and could disappear within a decade or so," according to the UK Guardian.

"The record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer ice increasing again over the next few years," Pope explained.