A growing contingent of scientists has been brave enough to stand athwart the politically fashionable global warming steamroller. More than 500 such skeptics convened in New York at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change last month. They argue factually and persuasively that what warming the world has seen in the last hundred years is at best minimal and at worst exaggerated.
Conversely, radical increases in global temperatures or rising sea levels proclaimed by Al Gore and his ilk aren't facts. They're merely guesses, some of them hysterical, about conditions decades or centuries into the future and based on assumptions about innumerable variables, many of which are beyond our scientific comprehension and expertise.
Climate change is a natural and age-old phenomenon on this planet recurring in roughly 1,500-year cycles and predating humanity by millions of years. Ice ages have come and gone. Compared to the overwhelming influence of the sun and the impact of nonhuman influences on this planet - ocean-generated water vapor, animal life, vegetation, etc. - the notion that the puny contribution of mankind is the principal cause of climate change is a grand conceit.
Heat records also are broken in Southern California as offshore winds bring in warm desert air.
A wildfire in the Sierra Madre foothills swelled to 230 to 270 acres early this morning, forcing the evacuation of at least 100 homes and drawing hundreds of firefighters from around the region.
The fire was moving southwest in remote brush at 1 a.m. today, and containment was not expected for two to three days, said Elisa Weaver, spokeswoman for the city of Sierra Madre. Warm, dry weather is predicted for the fire area this morning, with winds gusting to 15 miles to 20 miles an hour before slowing this evening, the National Weather Service reported. Crowds of residents stood on major streets normally deserted in the middle of the night, staring up at hills aglow with flames. Police had blocked off several streets nearby.
A fire burned about 25 acres Saturday in the Nestor neighborhood near Tijuana River Valley Regional Park, authorities said.
The blaze began about 1:45 p.m, on Wardlow Avenue and International Road in an area of mostly grass and brush, said Maurice Luque, spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
Residents in the district of Ubinas, one of three provinces in the southwestern region of Moquegua, are complaining about an active volcano in their district once again.
The district of Ubinas is home to Peru's most active volcano, a stratovolcano also known as Ubinas.
Townspeople in the area are complaining of migraines and respiratory illnesses which are being attributed to the ash, smoke and toxic gases the volcano is emitting.
Maggie Fox
ReutersWed, 23 Apr 2008 20:12 UTC
Mountain pine beetles that are destroying forests along much of the Rocky Mountain range are doing so much damage that they may affect climate change, Canadian researchers reported on Wednesday.
The damage is nearly equivalent to the polluting effects of forest fires, they report in the journal Nature.
"In the worst year, the impacts resulting from the beetle outbreak in British Columbia were equivalent to 75 percent of the average annual direct forest fire emissions from all of Canada during 1959-1999," Werner Kurz of the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria, British Columbia and colleagues wrote.
TORONTO - A study by the global conservation group World Wildlife Fund says that climate change is having a greater impact in the Arctic than was previously thought.
The report is being unveiled at the meeting of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of Arctic nations Thursday in Norway. WWF says the new report represents the most wide-ranging view of the situation since the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment was published in 2005.
So much for that job requirement of balance and objectivity. When it came to global warming the media clearly left out dissent in favor of hype, cute penguins and disastrous predictions.
Comment: While the above recommendations have merit, it is unlikely that they will be implemented because the Climate Change meme appears to be politically driven as part of a "deeper" agenda for control of the planet.
A nursing home at Warwick was directly hit by lightning last night which blew out windows and sent a tree crashing through a wall.
Emergency crews were called to the Blue Care home on Law Road at about 9.20pm after the strike caused significant damage.
Frightened elderly residents were evacuated to a large room at the back of the facility, but fire crews discovered a tree had collapsed through the wall.
Residents were then taken to another safe spot while crews worked to patch up the building.
Comment: While the above recommendations have merit, it is unlikely that they will be implemented because the Climate Change meme appears to be politically driven as part of a "deeper" agenda for control of the planet.