The World Climate Report blog notes a report about the warming temperatures on Neptune, and how closely they correlate with Earth’s changes.

Neptune is the planet farthest from the Sun (Pluto is now considered only a dwarf planet), Neptune is the planet farthest from the Earth, and to our knowledge, there has been absolutely no industrialization out at Neptune in recent centuries. There has been no recent build-up of greenhouse gases there, no deforestation, no rapid urbanization, no increase in contrails from jet airplanes, and no increase in ozone in the low atmosphere; recent changes at Neptune could never be blamed on any human influence. Incredibly, an article has appeared in a recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters showing a stunning relationship between the solar output, Neptune’s brightness, and heaven forbid, the temperature of the Earth.

Click on the link to find graphs of how changes in Neptune’s temperature, Earth’s temperature, and the Sun’s output are strangely similar; about a 90% correlation.

Technorati Tags: global warming, neptune, solar warming, Geophysical Research Letters

While some schools are showing Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” without rebuttal, a university class is demonstrating that perhaps the global warming alarmists can’t handle balance.

Nick Shipley, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University freshman, had just spent a week of classes watching two films with polar-opposite conclusions about global warming.

“After watching ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ I was relatively convinced,” Shipley said one day last month in class. “(Al Gore) did a good job in presenting his points very methodically one after the other. They all build up to essentially prove his point.

“After watching ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle,’ my thinking completely changed,” he said. “I kind of did a complete flip-flop.”

It appears that the reason we have more global warming alarmists, especially on college campuses, is that the liberal activists and media are simply not…well….fair and balanced.

To be fair, both sides do their share of exaggeration, but both sides should still be allowed evaluation.

[James] Wanliss [space physicist who teaches the class] said he doesn’t necessarily subscribe to either film, but believes his students — and the public — should remain skeptical of theories such as Gore’s explanation of global warming.

Other Embry-Riddle scientists are less outspoken than Wanliss, but one — John Olivero, professor and chairman of the department of physical science — allowed that skepticism is an essential tool of the scientific method.

“Science lives with internal conflict all the time,” Olivero said. “Part of what we have to do is continually challenge each other.”

That process, they say, leads scientists closer to truths that may be elusive for lifetimes.

The truths of global warming are, if not inconvenient, incomprehensible, Wanliss argues.

“The atmosphere is incredibly complicated, and we know very little about it,” he said. “We are studying a system which is so big . . . we don’t know what all the variables are.”

Pointing to quotes in magazine articles, Wanliss says Gore and the producers of the “Swindle” film are purposefully overstating their science as a means to a political end.

And yet the Left talks of their foes in Holocaust-denial terms. The stifling of dissent in Al Gore’s America.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change, Al Gore, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, James Wanliss, John Olivero

Found a number of interesting articles regarding some of the radical environmentalist mentality, although the “radical” adjective is becoming less and less applicable, soon to be replaced by “mainstream”, methinks.

Paul Watson, one of the founders of Greenpeace and now founder and president of “Sea Shepherd Conservation Society”, says that humans are a virus (the “AIDS of the Earth”), and that we should reduce the earth’s population by 83%. Watson may have broken away from Greenpeace because they weren’t radical enough, but Wikipedia notes some high-profile supporters, some adored by the Left.

Sea Shepherd has many critics, but also many outspoken supporters including actors Richard Dean Anderson, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Sheen, Sean Penn, and William Shatner, environmental activists Dave Foreman and Farley Mowat, and the late writer Edward Abbey. Corporate sponsors include John Paul Mitchell Systems and Patagonia.

Sean Penn is often held in high regard with respect to his Iraq war sentiments, and he’s in the company of others not typically considered fringe. (I’ll still watch “Stargate SG-1” until the upcoming end of the series, in spite of Anderson’s name being on this list.)

In a similar vein, the “Optimum Population Trust” (Wikipedia entry) says that having more babies is a bad thing, at least with respect to carbon dioxide output. Well, at least here’s one left-wing organization that can say without a hint of irony, “Don’t have children, for the sake of the children.” The article notes that the developed world isn’t really the problem; it’s the developing countries (who probably won’t read the report) that he has issues with.

The population of developed nations is expected to remain unchanged and would have declined but for migration.

The British fertility rate is 1.7. The EU average is 1.5.

(As an asidee, this really proves Mark Stein’s point when he says that the Arab/Muslim world could install a Caliphate without firing a shot, by simply migrating and reproducing, since the Western world isn’t.)

What I find ironic is that the Left, where you often find imagery of back-alley abortions to buttres their points, is likly encouraging another back-alley practice.

China faces a looming baby boom as newly-rich couples find they can afford to pay fines incurred from having more than one child.
…
[G]rowing numbers of pregnant women are risking their own lives and those of their children by seeking back-alley deliveries to avoid fines for having more than one child, Xinhua quoted vice health minister Jiang Zuojun as saying.

Back-alley procedures are bad if more babies are saved overall, but they’re acceptable if they save the atmosphere. I’d rather that people didn’t choose either of these dangers, but look at the priorities on display. Someone’s holding a magnet to these folks’ moral compasses.

And then, appealing to our spirituality, Al Gore holds an evangelistic meeting.

“It’s in part a spiritual crisis,” Gore told the crowd in the Convention Center at the American Institute of Architects national convention. “It’s a crisis of our own self-definition — who we are. Are we creatures destined to destroy our own species? Clearly not.”

I will agree that poor stewardship can be a spiritual issue, but I see some problems with the connection he’s trying to make. First, self-definition is circular, and from my religious point of view Someone Else does the defining. Secondly, in spite of evidence to the contrary, Gore continues to preach about that global warming / hurricane connection that the climatologists say doesn’t exist.

These looming problems involve flooding and severe coastal erosion from rising seas and increasingly severe storms, more common and prolonged drought, and changes in the growing seasons and migration patterns of many wild species.

He’s got his own crisis to deal with. He shouldn’t bring in a generic religious message for pandering purposes.

Technorati Tags: Paul Watson, Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Sean Penn, Optimum Population Trust, Mark Steyn, Al Gore, global warming, population, climate change

It’s been over a year since I hosted the last Homespun Bloggers Radio, a podcast of the late, lamented blogging group Homespun Bloggers. I was also a sometimes-contributor to the show, and I’d been looking for a opportunity to do that. Hosting took some time, but I figure I could handle a weekly short commentary.

Well, turns out I’m getting the chance. One of the podcasts I listen to, Shire Network News, recently advertised for more contributors since some of theirs were having scheduling issues. I gave it a shot and sent in an audition that fit their style; right-of-center politically with humor rather than anger. Turns out they liked it and actually used it in this week’s podcast, and now I’m officially an SNN contributor, joining Meryl Yourish and another new contributor, Tomer Israeli. I’m honored to have been added and I hope to hold up their standards. (Though if they’ll accept me, how high can those standards be, really?)

Click here for the latest show’s notes and links.

Here at Considerettes, I’ll be posting the complete text of my commentary with links. Well, no links this week, since I didn’t keep track of them since it was just an audition. But definitely in the future.

Hello, I’m Doug Payton, and this is “Consider This” for Shire Network News.

Welcome to a global warming update. We start in the Midwest and quote from an AP story titled “Spring Snowstorm Blankets Upper Midwest”.

More snow fell on parts of the Midwest Thursday, a day after a deadly storm grounded hundreds of flights, postponed a baseball game, iced up roadways and disappointed those longing for the warmth of spring.

“I think we are all cranky about the weather,” said Pat Rowe, spokeswoman for Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport, which had delays and cancelations Wednesday.

If this sort of weather makes one cranky, may global warming is just the ticket for a happier world. Forget visualizing world peace, visualize world heat.

And here’s more on that from the Chicago Sun-Times:

April snow’s the worst.

Forget what the weather forecasters said — you didn’t really expect this: a record 2.9 inches of snow, topping the mark of 2.3 inches for April 11 set in 1957.

Traffic was ridiculous, the Cubs were snowed out and the heavy wet stuff brought down power lines and trees across the city.

No, we probably didn’t expect this. But then, that’s what the global warming folks are predicting these days, the unpredictable! You may remember that a trek to the North Pole by Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen designed to call attention to global warming was instead called off when frostbite and unusually cold temperatures put the kibosh on that effort. Ann Atwood, an organizer of the expedition had this classic line.

“They were experiencing temperatures that weren’t expected with global warming. But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability.”

Yes, if the weather’s warm, it must be global warming. And if the weather’s cold, it must be global warming. And it we can’t predict it with any certainty at all, it must be global warming. Indeed.

Moving right along to Bismark, North Dakota, the Bismark Tribune notes a record snowfall.

A slow-moving, low-pressure system dumped a record amount of snow on Bismarck and even more on Mandan on Tuesday.

Road superintendent Chuck Morman said snowfall amounts were between 4 and 8 inches in Morton County. He sent out 11 motorgraders on Wednesday.

“We’re not in too bad of shape. It’s been spotty, with drifting in some areas and other areas where the roads were clean,” Morman said. “It’s a normal spring snow in North Dakota, kind of what we usually expect, though usually not this late. I’ve seen this many times in my 40 years with the department. Now, we can let her melt and start spring maintenance.”

North Dakotans are no doubt used to April snow, but I will reiterate that the veteran road superintendent noted that this weather is normal, not warmer. And, more notable, something like this doesn’t normally happen this late in the year. Is this a hiccup or a trend? I guess the fact that I’m asking a question about this, that we don’t know for sure, must mean it’s global warming.

And for those who may say that more precipitation doesn’t necessarily mean it’s colder, let’s take a trip through the southeastern US, where the AP is reporting another global warming disaster.

Heavy crop losses have been reported throughout the Southeast after last weekend’s frigid temperatures, and farmers are bracing for another expected cold snap next week.

In South Carolina, at least 90 percent of the peach crop was destroyed and officials said Wednesday they would seek federal aid.

“This is comparable to a hurricane,” Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers said of the damage to the state’s $40 million-a-year industry.

See? Just as Al Gore predicted more hurricanes from global warming! It’s uncanny! Similar reports have come in from Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky and as far north as West Virginia. Pity the poor farmer who has to deal with it.

“There’s not many proactive measures that we have available,” said Larry Yonce, who grows 3,000 acres of peaches in South Carolina each season. “We’re just hoping and praying that temperatures won’t get below freezing.”

Don’t worry, Larry. I hear Al Gore is promising higher temps for the foreseeable future. Except for the part of the future that is not foreseeable. Either way, it’s global warming.

Back to you, Brian.

Technorati Tags: global warming, environmentalism, podcasting, Shire Network News

In my hotel room watching the cable news morning shows (FNC’s “Fox & Friends” and CNN’s “American Morning”), I noticed that both were covering many of the same stories.

• The war in Iraq, specifically the new insurgent tactic of reducing suspicion by having kids in cars intended to be a car bomb.
• The issues surrounding the firing of the 8 US attorneys. Both networks had Democrats featured voicing their objections (Fox showed Chuck Shumer, CNN had Rahm Emmanuel).
• The recovery of the lost Boy Scout.

But as much as I looked for it (and I left CNN on longer to see if they would cover it), “American Morning” wouldn’t touch, as far as I could see, the upcoming testimony of Al Gore in front of Congress on global warming, specifically the unprecedented considerations and concessions being made for him and how he’s abusing them. I kept CNN on long enough to start hearing them repeat the same stories (how to eat healthy at Chinese restaurants), so they had plenty of time to deal with it.

If it’s legitimate to cover Democrats questioning why the President will only allow administration officials to testify without being under oath (and it is a legitimate question and a legitimate story), why ignore this other major story about a former Vice President testifying to Congress? Could it be because it doesn’t look good for Democrats or global warming alarmists when Gore ask for more time for his opening remarks than anyone else, and that he requested to submit the written version of those remarks 24 hours ahead of time instead of the customary 48, and that he hadn’t submitted them as of the morning of his appearance? (An update on the website linked notes that Gore finally submitted them just a minute before his testimony in the House and a few hours before his Senate appearance. Not in time to do any research on what he’ll be saying.)

Those, too, are legitimate questions about a legitimate story, but CNN, if they gave it any time, gave it the shortest of shrift at best. And while Fox is covering stories that look bad for both Democrats and Republicans, CNN isn’t. So who’s a shill for whom?

Technorati Tags: Fox News Channel, CNN, Al Gore, media bias

Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina had an article in the Washington Post last week (just pointed out to me) regarding conservative conservationists. No, nowhere near an oxymoron. His point is how the right should deal with the global warming issue, because if we don’t deal with it, the Left will, and you know what sort of big-government, economic takeover solutions they’ll come up with. (Think Kyoto Protocol.) Gov. Sanford make 3 points:

First, conservatives must reframe the environmental discussion by replacing the political left’s scare tactics with conservative principles such as responsibility and stewardship. Stewardship — the idea that we need to take care of what we’ve been given — simply makes sense. It makes dollars as well, for the simple reason that our economy is founded on natural resources, from tourism and manufacturing to real estate and agriculture. Here in South Carolina, conservation easements are springing up across the state as landowners see the dual benefit of preserving the environment and protecting their pocketbooks.

Second, conservatives must reclaim lost ground from far-left interest groups by showing how environmental conservation is as much about expanding economic opportunity as it is about saving whales or replanting rain forests. When corporations such as BP and Shell America pursue alternative energy sources, they not only cut carbon emissions but help cut our petroleum dependency on OPEC nations. When South Carolina restaurants recycle their oyster shells, they not only restore shellfish habitat but take a job off local governments’ plates and ensure continuing revenue streams for local fishermen.

Third, conservatives must respond to climate change with innovation, not regulation. This means encouraging private research and implementation of more eco-friendly construction, more energy-efficient workplaces and more sustainable ways of going about life — all of which cuts costs and protects God’s creation. It means looking past the question of whether your car’s exhaust melts polar ice caps and instead treating our environment as an investment our future depends on.

Read the whole thing. That last point is the key, but is predicated on the first two.

Technorati Tags: Governor Mark Sanford, South Carolina, global warming, conservative, conservation

Steve McIntyre, who’s done his own, unpaid, work discrediting the global warming “hockey stick” graph, notices some funny business when it comes to the reporting of historical temperature data. He’s noting that, in more recent reports, temperatures reported from the 1920s and 30s are lower than they were in earlier reports, while temperatures from the late 90s are being reported as higher now than they were then. The result is a larger reported temperature change during those 70 years. He’s also got a graph showing the changes in reported temperatures for each of the years, and it’s eye-opening.

Are the numbers being fudged by those with an agenda? It certainly looks like it.

Hat tip: Blogger News Network.

Technorati Tags: Steve McIntyre, global warming, climate change, science

Robert VerBruggen at Blogger News Network takes a closer look at the UN climate report.

First of all, the scientists are 90 percent humans cause warming to what degree? I don’t think anyone has said that natural fluctuations don’t affect climate at all. If emissions cause 1 percent of warming, that’s not that helpful for solving the problem. Even if you’re 100 percent certain.

Indeed, that’s a key question. If all our efforts and our billions of dollars won’t make a dent, is it really worth the effort? Robert looks into the report for the answer.

To answer the question I read the report itself (OK, the policymaker summary, sue me). Soon after claiming a 90 percent chance that humans have caused more warming than cooling (page 3), the report claims that “most” of the warming is “very likely” (90-95 percent) to have been human-caused.

So of the warming that is happening, the UN panel says that >50% is caused by humans. Except that they’re less sure when they’re dealing with actual data than when they’re doing their predictions of the future.

Finally, take a look at the chart on page 7 of the report, where the researchers look at various trends — whether they occurred, whether human activity caused them and whether they’ll continue in the future. Somehow, the first two columns have “likely” and “very likely” popping up a lot, but the future predictions have two “virtually certains.” In every single category, the scientists are equally or more certain about the future than the past.

Tell me how is it, exactly, that the panel is better at predicting the future than at analyzing established data? For example, it’s “very likely” that there were fewer and warmer cold days in the late 20th century, and “likely” human activity contributed to it, but “virtually certain” this will continue in the future.

Good question. In the coming days, I expect more folks will be taking a closer look at this. If we really are causing most of the global warming–if we broke it–we should fix it. And in the meantime, there are so many simple things we can do to reduce our energy requirements (florescent bulbs, telecommuting, etc.) that there’s no real reason to ignore this.

At the same time, in the current not-so-scientific climate where people are being cowed into silence by man-made-global-warming proponents, you’ll have to forgive me for being a bit wary of any report from scientists who are in lockstep agreement on the issue.

Technorati Tags: global warming, Robert VerBruggen, United Nations, climate change, science, weather

Kim Rowe consolidated a number of news articles in her comment here on the scientific “consensus” on global warming. If it’s largely man’s fault on earth, why then is it also happening on:

Mars:

According to a September 20 NASA news release, “for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars’ south pole have shrunk from the previous year’s size, suggesting a climate change in progress.” Because a Martian year is approximately twice as long as an Earth year, the shrinking of the Martian polar ice cap has been ongoing for at least six Earth years.

The shrinking is substantial. According to Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera, the polar ice cap is shrinking at “a prodigious rate.”

“The images, documenting changes from 1999 to 2005, suggest the climate on Mars is presently warmer, and perhaps getting warmer still, than it was several decades or centuries ago,” reported Yahoo News on September 20.

Pluto (same link):

Sallie Baliunas, chair of the Science Advisory Board at the George C. Marshall Institute, said, “Pluto, like Mars, is also undergoing warming.” However, Baliunas speculated it is “likely not the sun but long-term processes on Mars and Pluto” causing the warming. However, until more information is gathered, Baliunas said, it is difficult to know for sure.

Triton:

Observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based instruments reveal that Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, has warmed significantly since the Voyager spacecraft visited it in 1989. Our science editor Dr David Whitehouse reports.

“Since 1989, at least, Triton has been undergoing a period of global warming – percentage-wise, it’s a very large increase,” said Dr James Elliot of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jupiter:

The latest images could provide evidence that Jupiter is in the midst of a global change that can modify temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit on different parts of the globe.

Not all of these instances are necessarily directly tied to the heat of the Sun, though that is one explanation since the Sun has been getting hotter, and its changes mirror Earth’s temperature changes going back 3 centuries. The point is, though, that these things are happening throughout the solar system, and warming is happening all over. And even without Martian SUVs destroying the ozone. There are many natural processes–Solar Warming being just one of them–that are occurring. The fact that the Earth is getting warmer doesn’t mean there’s anything we can do to significantly change that.

UPDATE: But never mind all those natural causes. The UN has determined that it’s 90% sure that global warming is caused just by us.

PARIS (AP) — The most authoritative report on climate change is using the strongest wording ever on the source of global warming, saying it is “very likely” caused by humans and already is leading to killer heat waves and stronger hurricanes, delegates who have seen the report said Thursday.

Dozens of scientists and bureaucrats from 113 countries are editing the new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in closed-door meetings in Paris. Their report, which must be unanimously approved, is to be released Friday and is considered an authoritative document that could influence government and industrial policy worldwide.

Three participants said the group approved the term “very likely” in Thursday’s sessions. That means they agree that there is a 90 percent chance that global warming is caused by humans.

So a UN report trumps the warming happening throughout the Solar System, and even trumps the Sun. Brilliant.

The report will also say that global warming has made stronger hurricanes, including those on the Atlantic Ocean such as 2005’s Katrina, according to Fields and other delegates.

They said the panel approved language saying an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 “more likely than not” can be attributed to man-made global warming.

The panel did note that the increase in stronger storms differs in various parts of the globe, but that the storms that strike the Americas are global warming-influenced. In 2001, the same panel had said there was not enough evidence to make such a conclusion.

And, as noted earlier, over 70% of environmental professionals don’t think they’re global-warming induced. Oh, and the Earth has it in for America, since it’s the ones that hit us that are due to global warming.

In the rather lengthy category of “Liberal Good Intentions Gone Bad”…

As the delegates hold their evening session, the Eiffel Tower, other Paris monuments and concerned citizens in several European countries were expected to switch off their lights for five minutes to call attention to energy conservation, heeding a call by French environmental campaigners.

Some experts said that while well-intentioned, turning the lights out could actually consume more energy than it would conserve by requiring a power spike when the lights turn back on _ possibly causing brownouts or even blackouts.

Too funny.

Technorati Tags: global warming, Mars, Pluto, Triton, Jupiter, solar warming, weather, climate, United Nations, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Back in November, the National Registry of Environmental Professionals asked 793 of their members from 47 states some questions about global warming; its existence and causes, public policy response, and how it affects their jobs. Here’s the existence and causes section.

The existence of global warming today

• 82 percent of professionals report they think global warming is a real, measurable, climatic trend currently in effect.
• 66 percent respond that the rate at which global warming may be occurring is a serious problem facing the planet.
• 64 percent attribute certain phenomenon such as rising ocean levels, increased storm activity, severe drought, massive habitat loss, depletion of the Earth’s oxygen sinks, i.e. rain forests and ocean plankton, to the effects of global warming.
• 68 percent agree that global warming is a trend that must be addressed as soon as possible.

The causes of global warming

• 59 percent respond that current climactic activity exceeding norms calibrated by over 100 years of weather data collection can be, in large part, attributed to human activity.
• 71 percent of environmental professionals, however, do consider the recent increase in hurricane activity in the Atlantic through 2005 and the Pacific through 2006, to be part of a larger natural cycle and not, for the most part, attributable to human activity.

82% is a pretty good number for considering the idea that global warming is happening. But beyond that, you can only get about two-thirds to agree on its affects and its urgency.

But it’s the causes that really show how little consensus there is. Only 59% believe that the warming that exceeds 100-year norms is caused largely by humans. Put another way, 41% of environmental professionals either disagree or are not sure that humans are a significant contributor to warming. Thus, skepticism of it is hardly in the same league as Holocaust deniers.

The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to “Holocaust Deniers” and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists.

The Weather Channel’s (TWC) Heidi Cullen, who hosts the weekly global warming program “The Climate Code,” is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their “Seal of Approval” for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.

Further, 71% think that the heavy 2005/2006 hurricane season was generally just part of the normal, natural cycle of weather. The NOAA said that and they got targeted by environmentalists. Now, all this does not mean that a former Vice President, in the movie poster for his Oscar-nominated film, can’t try to draw a direct line between factories and hurricanes. It just means he’s bucking the consensus. [Irony alert!]

So when somebody says to you that the debate about human-induced global warming is over, just have them ask the professionals, not the politicians.

Technorati Tags: global warming, environment, National Registry of Environmental Professionals, Heidi Cullen, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, hurricanes, NOAA