Unfortunately, like so many other things where Obama is involved, his words regarding transparency were…just words.

The Chamber Post, an Internet blog site, sent in a FOIA request regarding global warming records.

This is what they received in response:

And the Government wonders why The People don’t trust them.

h/t – Word Around the Net via American Digest

Newsbusters has a partial transcript:

“This is the source code from the Climatic Research Unit,” Susan Watts, science editor at the BBC explained. “John Graham-Cumming is a software engineer. He’s not a skeptic on climate change, but he is shocked by what he’s seen in the programming. He compared it with the code in the same language written by NASA.”

Graham-Cumming criticized the CRU programming for its lack of professionalism and showed faults with it.

“Well, if you look at the NASA stuff, it’s really professional,” Graham-Cumming said. “You can look at it, you can see the history. If you look at — what’s done here by these alleged CRU files – it’s not the thing you’d expect to see in certainly a commercial industry. You would not see this sort of source code because it’s not clearly documented. There’s not audit history of what’s happened to it. So it would be below the standard in any commercial software. ”

According to the author of “The Geek Atlas,” the programmer even included steps to skip over errors, which shows some of the data analyzed by the East Anglia CRU is completely neglected.

“The programming language actually has a problem,” Graham-Cumming said. “And they put in some code to deal with that error. Unfortunately, in doing so they produced another error. And the upshot of this is the error occurs – the underlying error, they will skip over data that they’re trying to plot without any warning to the end user. So in some sense there is data that is being lost.”

Then we have the British MET office. They issued this statement a few weeks back:

A statement from the Met Office, Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society.

The UK is at the forefront of tackling dangerous climate change, underpinned by world-class scientific expertise and advice. Crucial decisions will be taken soon in Copenhagen about limiting and reducing the impacts of climate change, now and in the future. Climate scientists from the UK and across the world are in overwhelming agreement about the evidence of climate change, driven by the human input of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

As three of the UK’s leading scientific organisations, involving most of the UK scientists working on climate change, we cannot emphasise enough the body of scientific evidence that underpins the call for action now, and we reinforce our commitment to ensuring that world leaders continue to have access to the best possible science. We believe this will be essential to inform sound decision-making on policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change up to Copenhagen and beyond.

~~~

These emerging signals are consistent with what we expect from our projections, giving us confidence in the science and models that underpin them. In the absence of action to mitigate climate change, we can expect much larger changes in the coming decades than have been seen so far.

And now? (via QandOBlog)

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

~~~

The Met Office’s published data showing a warming trend draws heavily on CRU analysis. CRU supplied all the land temperature data to the Met Office, which added this to its own analysis of sea temperature data.

~~~

The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.

Sounds great, if the government will let them re-examine the data. But I think they need more then just a re-examination. They need a complete scrub of the scientists responsible for this scandal. They’ve lost all credibility and I doubt anyone will have much confidence in the data they will produce….except of course those who are getting rich and/or gaining power due to AGW. How in the world can they believe that allowing the old crew of scientists who fudged the data, to re-examine that data, will restore confidence?

A “liberal” is someone who is open-minded, understanding, comes with open-arms, and seeks discussion and compromise. Then…there are these people:


Look, I like a green Earth. I worked for years as an environmental technician. I’ve worn the plastic suit and cleaned up the hazardous waste spills. I’ve been in places where even bacteria don’t grow because the toxins are so bad. What separates me from the Ed Bagely’s of the planet is that I want to discuss. This guy’s just an angry freak, and yes, that does make him dangerous.

Anger is not a destination or a simple state. It’s a direction. It’s a direction that is stopped by our morals, our character, our sociological and our psychological limits….in most cases. Sometimes it’s not. When that happens we get violence, and people suffer. Even if anger turns to violence 1 time in a million, we should try to understand why it happened, and to that end, I ask:

“Why are people so angry that global warming is discussed, debated, and not accepted or obeyed without question?”

Put another way, has the propaganda of the left stirred people so effectively, angered them so well that we run the risk of violence rather than discussion? I think it has, and I blame the people that Ed Bagely gets his news from-the people that have him so fired up as to start raving about “death panels” in the middle of a discussion about whether or not the debate is open/closed about Global Warming.

Ed needs help, and those who have misled Ed-and so many others-need a moment of inner reflection. It’s one thing to have freedom of speech, but it’s another to yell, “FIRE!” in a theatre (global warming metaphor intended)

Since the release of the e-mails and documents from the Hadley Center Climate Research Unit (aka CRU) in England, there has been an outpouring of rage, disbelief, and excuse making. They revealed that a small group of scientists, acting as a “clearinghouse”, have been leading many of the world’s researchers, climate-modelers, and data-gatherers toward a result that had been planned since the beginning of the Clinton administration, then feeding their “science-based projections” to the United Nations to make long-term policies that will have an effect on all the world’s population. These scientists have been given a goal, and other than a few setbacks, they have been carrying it out successfully… until now.

While this may sound like a conspiracy that might be found only on obscure websites, and midnight talk-radio, the evidence is clear. The names, e-mail addresses, organizations, and government agencies that have been involved in this are clearly put on display within the leaked documents and e-mails. The data-manipulation is made bare, and the methods of how it has been presented to the public is clear, along with how they have squashed anyone who might question their “science”. The stakes are too high for them to be sidetracked by actual facts, or realistic solutions.

The specific acts of data manipulation, and falsified results are now being disseminated across the Internet by regular citizens, known skeptics, and by intrepid reporters. Over the past week, and in the coming weeks, many people, and even the press, will publish these findings. Climate scientists who have found themselves ostracized will have been vindicated, skeptics will find new and curious supporters, and politicians will find themselves on the street, and possibly in a witness stand.

In this essay, I will not delve into the actual data that was manipulated, except to provide context. These particular disclosures are being done by thousands of people while I compose this, and will be seen by millions more. Those with a higher visibility have already surpassed the small samplings I’ve given here on Flopping Aces, and the most egregious of them made public by those more qualified than I am in analyzing the actual science behind it. More will undoubtedly be released as the thousand some-odd e-mails and documents are gone through by the “Army of Davids”, as Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has termed us (in a book by the same title).

My research has been focused on getting “inside” the process itself, and to make the connections. To do this, I have read over 1000 individual e-mails, and every document released by the still unknown “hacker”. They were first converted from a difficult-to-read Notepad format with associated10-digit identifier date-codes, to a M.S. Word document titled by actual dates that were within each e-mail header. During this time, many were deemed “not useful” to the larger goal or redundant, were put aside. The others were separated by relevance and impact. The e-mails cover a time period from 1996 through 2009. I now know how “sausage” is made.

The “Documents” section of the release consisted of PDF’s, Word-docs, and included files that contain software code in Fortran and C++, and gathered raw data from the field. I did not have the means to re-assemble the codes, but there again, people more knowledgeable than I certainly will in the near future and disclose their findings, as some already have. My hope is that through this data, we can gain from a better understanding of the world’s actual climate history and possible future. Real and harmful pollution should be decreased, and no one on either side of the political spectrum wants to drink bad water or breathe smoggy air.

The seeds to this scandal were planted early in the Clinton administration, when emerging abilities to measure and track temperatures on a global scale, revealing what scientists saw as a rise in temperature, corresponding with a rise in CO2. The long-established proof of the ability of initial amounts of CO2 concentrations to hold heat, and to also let heat pass into space has not been questioned, nor is it questioned now in light of the hacker’s release.

The sole focus should be if human-added CO2 is the main driver for the increase in reported temperatures, and if so, what to do about it.

In all reality, those questions remain, and might have even been resolved by now had the scientists with the most visibility not been given a different mandate in those early days, and other scientists not been crowded out, or their views discounted simply because they were not part of the self-named “Community”. The released e-mails have shown this “us verses them” mentality over and over (1256765544), and the reasons have little to do with large egos or territorial aspirations as can sometimes be seen in every scientific discipline. Science is more competitive than many realize.

The editors of numerous environmental publications (1237496573) worked closely with the scientists of this “Community”. There was a symbiotic relationship between them, the reviewers, and the scientists in-question. They conspired to reject or delay submissions from outside scientists, or accepted them if they were seen as being on the same page. Some were accepted only after jumping over hurdles that members of this Community never had to, and skeptical editors like James Saiers from the University of Virginia fired (1106322460). The level of disparagement and vitriol within the e-mails that the Community scientists espoused toward the “outsiders” is akin to what one might hear on a 2nd grade schoolyard (1255100876). They actually expressed relief, bordering on joy, when a skeptic had died (1075403821), and expressed the same sort of emotion when a high-level scientist had left the Community “hive”( 1256765544). In many instances, un-reviewed data and conclusions were released to their self created public outlet known as realclimate.com without any outside input whatsoever (1102687002).

The high-level software modelers were also part of this scheme. They knew what inputs, curves, smoothings, and adjustments were needed to keep the temperature-level increases where the managers “needed” them to be (1254108338) in order to keep the Project moving forward, and the money flowing in from taxpayers and foundations from all over the world.

Bishop Hill has a collection of the most incriminating evidence, and is where the above links are from.

The hundreds of lower-level scientists, programmers, and especially the thousands of folks including college students, who do the hard work of gathering data from all corners of the globe, are as much victims of this charade as any of the rest of us. Most have dedicated their lives to furthering the knowledge of our planetary home, and I feel very badly that they might end up being put into the same corner of shame that the conspirators might find themselves in if justice is ever done. They deserve more than this, and should be commended for their dedication.

We now return to the beginning of the 90’s: the Wall had fallen, Germany was united, and the former Soviet Union countries were in political, economic and environmental shambles. The Middle East was smoldering from the first Iraq war, and looked like it might be ripe for long-term peace. The paradigms of the previous 40 years had been forever turned upside down, and for the first time, those who came of age in the 60’s had attained the power of the Presidency, and Congress. The threats of the previous generations were suddenly gone.

There was much to do, for they had dreams. But they needed a new “cause”.

Corporations that had carried on in a more or less predictable manner suddenly had very different market out-looks all over the world, along with different commodity sources. Russia had oil, diamonds, and an educated population, China and the newly free Soviet states had potential customers, and a cheap labor pool, Military spending was seen as drying up, and the now-recovering economies of America Asia, and Western Europe was seen as stable for as far as forecasts could be made.

There was much to do, for they needed new plans. But they needed a new “stability”.

Both of these entities may seem very different on the surface. At first blush, 60’s dreamers and international corporate leaders look and act diametrically opposed. But they do have one thing in common: They both seek the power, planning and predictability over others.

Enter global warming: the new enemy, the new market, all wrapped up in one.

The first iteration was “Agenda 21”. A program proposed to alleviate all things bad happening to the world’s poor. It never really got off the ground, primarily because we already had lots of programs to help the poor, and it was seen by most as redundant. Meanwhile following the Europeans, some environmentalists had turned up the volume on CO2 concerns, aided by Jim Hansen of NASA, who added credence to this clarion call. At the time this was not seen as pressing, because the science itself seemed sketchy. Sure CO2 can have an effect, but a runaway effect? This needed more research, and the environment-loving Clinton admin was right there to help, with Al Gore as their inside man. Many others now work within the Obama admin.

The first thing the international oil corporations smelled of course was their butts on a spit. They all knew that they would be the logical target of any CO2 reductions. They had to act fast, and along with the corporate-friendly Republicans now controlling the Senate, they also had an inside man within the Clinton admin: The heir to the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Albert Gore Jr.

According to the released e-mails and documents, one large international company brought forth a grand vision in early 90’s. That company was a new division of Royal Dutch Shell International of Holland and England. It took only a few more years to solidify their hold on the agenda, and begin to steer it.

E-mail # 0894639050
(Dozen’s of CC’s and e-mail addresses of large companies, schools, think-tanks, government officials, environ groups, and UN members, all removed by PV)

From: Ged.R.Davis
Subject: RE: IPCC SRES Scenario Guidelines for Authors
Date: 08 May 1998 10:50:50 +0100

Find below guidelines on how to present the IS99 storylines and scenarios. Could you the nominated authors send me your first drafts as soon as possible?
In writing up your contribution could you cover the following areas, ideally structured as follows:

1. Scenario family narrative to discuss main themes, dynamics and a diagram showing ‘grand logic’

2. Key Scenario Family Drivers and their Relationships
Topics you should cover include the following:
* population
* technology developments
* governance and geopolitics
* economic development
* equity
* communication and settlement patterns
* environmental concerns/ecological resilience

3. Scenarios, include reasons for branches: this section should state clearly the reasons behind selection of scenarios and review the key highlights of the scenario quantification
* energy resources/technology, include resource availability
* land use and agriculture
* scenario quantification, include snowflake
* CO2 emissions

There may be other factors you wish to add to the paper.

Regards,
Ged Davis
Shell International Limited, London
Scenario Processes and Applications Div.

So what did Shell and their dozens of “friends” have in mind?

Easy: Long-term stability of markets based on a cause. And not just the oil market.

They even have a nice website that sounds so nice, but reveals little:

Notice the name of the school it’s run through.

This particular e-mail does not look like much, and says even less, but does anyone think, (especially you environmentalist’s) that Shell Oil, or any other multinational cares about CO2 or global warming?

So what might be the long term “plans” and “scenarios” you ask?

E-mail # 0889554019 from Anne Johnson of the IIAS coordinated this “gathering of the minds” for the Shell division, and they came up with 4 scenarios, one of which (A1) is the preferred one. The E-mail is very long, so I will only quote-out the one they most want to see happen by the year 2100:

That section is titled:

Golden Economic Age (A1): a century of expanded economic prosperity with the emergence of global governance.

This is what they envision happening if they can use your CO2 taxes and fees to pay for it:

3.Golden Economic Age (A1)

This scenario family entitled “Golden Economic Age”, describes rapid and
successful economic development. The primary drivers for economic growth and development “catch up” are the strong human desire for prosperity, high human capital (education), innovation, technology diffusion, and free trade.

The logic of successful development assumes smooth growth with no major political discontinuities or catastrophic events. The scenario family’s development model is based on the most successful historical examples of economic growth, i.e., on the development path of the now affluent OECD economies. Historical analogies of successful economic “catching up” can be found in the Scandinavian countries, Austria, Japan, and South Korea.

“Intangible” assets (human capital, stable political climate) take
precedence over “tangible” assets (capital, resource, and technology
availability) in providing the conditions for a take-off into accelerated
rates of development. Once these conditions are met, free trade enables each region to access knowledge, technology, and capital to best deploy its respective comparative economic and human resource advantages. Institutional frameworks are able to successfully sustain economic growth and also to handle the inevitable volatility that rapid economic growth entails.

The “intangible” prerequisites for accelerated rates of economic growth
also offer long-term development perspectives for regions that are poorly endowed with resources or where current economic prospects are not auspicious, such as Sub-Saharan Africa. There, for instance, fostered regional trade and capital availability enhance the pull-effects of a strong South African economy. In other regions, growth may be fuelled by domestic know-how and high human capital valued at the international market. An example of this is the thriving software industry of the Indian subcontinent. In yet other regions, growth could be stimulated by the expansion of regional economic partnerships and free trade arrangements (e.g., extensions of NAFTA and the European Union).

The main difference with the historical OECD experience is a certain
acceleration in time and space, (i.e., “leapfrogging”) made possible by
better access to knowledge and technology, a consequence of the high-tech and free trade characteristics of development. Successful catching up becomes pervasive; all parts of the “developing world” participate, though with differences in timing. The final outcome is that practically all parts of the world achieve high levels of affluence by the end of the 21st century, even if disparities will not have disappeared entirely. The current distinction between “developed” and “developing” countries will in any case no longer be appropriate.

As in the past, high growth (a “growing cake”) eases distributional
conflicts. Everyone reaps the benefits of rapid growth, rising incomes,
improved access to services, and rising standards of living. The economic imperatives of markets, free trade, and technology diffusion (i.e., competition) that underlie the high growth rates provide for efficient allocation of resources. Efficiency and high productivity are the positive by-products of the highly competitive nature of the economy. They also provide the economic resources for distributive and social measures required for a stable social and political climate, vital for sustaining high growth rates in human capital, productivity, innovation, and hence economic growth.

The economic development focus explains its central metric: the degree of economic development as reflected in per capita income levels (GDP at market exchange rates as well as at purchasing power parity rates). The principal driver is the desire for prosperity, all major driving forces are closely linked to prosperity levels, with actual causality links going in both directions. For example, demographic variables co-evolve with prosperity: mortality declines (i.e. life expectancy increases) as a function of higher incomes (better diets and affordable medical treatment).

In turn, changes in the social values underlying the fertility transition
also pave the way for greater access to education, modernisation of
economic structures, and market orientation. These are key for innovating and diffusing the best practice technologies underlying the high productivity, and hence economic growth, of the scenario.

It goes on into more detail, but you get the point… “Nirvana” as only the left could define it, all paid for by benevolent corporations. It shall all come to pass when we give them control, or they take it.

Scenarios B1, A2, and B2 are further down the “nirvana-scale”, but all are “better” than today.

As a side-note, I could not get over this sentence: As in the past, high growth (a “growing cake”) eases distributional conflicts.

-Shades of the man the left still hates, Ronald Reagan, and his “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Do any of you still wonder why the Left went nuts when Gore didn’t get elected?
-It slowed down the “Plan”.

Do any of you still wonder why Obama had to be elected?
-To make up for lost time.

Look back and remember the only Bill that Obama ever submitted while he was a Senator.

“Global Poverty Act” (S.2433) The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends.

For a crime to take place motive, means, and opportunity come into play. But is there more evidence within the hacked release? Glad you asked. A certain PDF document is there.

In June of 2004, a draft of a document titled: Adaptation And Mitigation strategies: Supporting European climate policy. (ADAM 2nd order draft) There is a red-lined entry within it, obviously to be added by the coordinator Mike Hulme of the Tyndall Centre, on line 676 through line 682. It reads, in his words exactly how I present it here:

We believe that one worked example should certainly relate to the design and implementation of a post-2012 global climate regime. Here, we would develop a portfolio of global design principles (e.g. burden-sharing, blah, blah…) and EU policy options (e.g. compensation measures, blah, blah…) which could deliver a 2100 global climate consistent with Article 2 of the UNFCCC and consistent with other international goals, treaties, and conventions (e.g. Millennium Development Goals, WTO Biodiversity and Desertification Conventions). These options would be such to nan options appraisal using the ADAM PAF.

To those who have been paying attention all these years, we see familiar phrases within this open-ended bureau-speak, such as; “Global design principals”, “Compensation measures”, “Burden sharing”, “Millennium Goals”, “WTO”, etc.

All the proposals to supposedly lower the earth’s temperature, inevitably end up being a multi-tentacled redistribution scheme from those who have earned what they have under a sovereign Constitution, and handing it over to those who do not share our values nor our laws, all under the auspices and management of the “benevolent” United Nations, and time is of the essence.

Very little is mentioned within these documents about the use of solar, nuclear, or any other non-CO2-emitting technologies to fix the “problem” of AGW.

Within the PDF, one notes that the very first name listed is the list of participating organizations to implement the ADAM/UN goals, is the University of East Anglia UK and the Tyndall Centre.

The Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia is where these documents and e-mails came from, and who supply the climate numbers to the UN. The Tyndall Centre is a huge advertising and market research company based in England.

The “settled science” is but a tool, and the Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (UN/CISS), the IIAS, the Commission on Global Governance, and anyone else we have no means to elect, should be kept as far away as possible to our great country, no matter the issue.

Being the son of a programmer/astronomer, I have always loved the sciences, and have kept abreast of this AGW topic since the beginning. I have always been eager to continue adding to my own knowledge of how and why “things” work, regardless of the “what”. I’ve worked many years alongside chemists and engineers in the semiconductor industry, and I am very familiar with vacuum, pressure, gas phasing, radio frequency induced plasma, and many other physical sciences. I can appreciate the tasks involved with science, especially because it was I who in many occasions did the hands-on part of experimentation, and data collection, and in other cases wrote up the drafts for submissions to journals, and patents. I have also been a political junky since Watergate, and a nut for history for as long as I can remember. This life-experience is why this revelation has intrigued me the way it has, and is why I think I can shed some light on it, in a way that may not be apparent to the average person trying to follow all of this.

That, and I have 3 children whom I love dearly, who will have to pay for all this.

Only problem was that Phelim McAleer, the maker of Not Evil Just Wrong, showed up and as some liberals are known to do when the questioning gets tough….the organizers cut his mike as he asked some tough questions of Gore:

All Gore could do was hem and haw and then go back to his typical backup. Polar bears…..what about the polar bears!

Retarded.

And his claim that the courts vindicated his movie? Not so true:

One day before Friday’s announcement that he was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, a British High Court judge ruled that Gore’s global warming film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” while “broadly accurate,” contained nine significant errors.

The ruling came on a challenge from a UK school official who did not want to show the film to students. High Court Judge Michael Burton said that the film is “substantially founded upon scientific research and fact” but that the errors were made in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration.”

Burton found that screening the film in British secondary schools violated laws barring the promotion of partisan political views in the classroom. But he allowed the film to be shown on the condition that it is accompanied by guidance notes to balance Gore’s “one-sided” views, saying that the film’s “apocalyptic vision” was not an impartial analysis of climate change.

He hangs his hat on the fact that the movie was allowed to be played as long as notes were presented to the class that balances Gore’s one-sided view and exposed all the errors?

That’s what he’s proud of?

What Phelim says at the end of that video bears repeating:

At the Society for Environmental Journalists, the reaction of the journalists, the reaction of Andrew Revkin of the New York Times, the reaction of the journalists, was to shut down the journalists and protect the politicians.

What I would like of environmental journalists like myself is that you treat Big Environment the same way as you treat Big Politics, and Big Government, and Big Business. Y’know, treat Big Environment the way you treat Big Business. Where does the money come? Who’s channeling it? …. Where is the independent verification of those claims? But they don’t. If an environmentalist organizer says something, it’s accepted as gospel.

Phelim is on a roll….here he is questioning those going to a premier of a global warming alarmist movie and gets thrown out.

The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

Scientists……give me a break.

(h/t Newsbusters)

Having posted this idea four years ago myself, I have to admit it’s a bit wacky. On the other hand, Hurricane Katrina devastated a substantial chunk of my country, so anything that MIGHT be able to slow these monsters down ought to at least be talked about.

The Gates scheme is lumbering and passive. My Hurricane Stopper is agile and active, giving it a better chance of being practical. My idea was to have wind-turbine powered jet-boats suck their propellant water from the cold depths and spread it around in the hurricane’s path. Think of barge-like wind-farms, big enough to ride out hurricane seas.

Downsides: Might not be possible to build a wind-farm barge capable of riding out hurricane winds and seas; would kill a lot of birds and fish; possible ill effects from changing the temperature gradient in the Gulf, if used on massive scale.

Gate’s scheme is similar to mine in that it also uses the hurricane’s own energy, but it does so passively. He would dot the Gulf with giant tubs, ballast-regulated to ride so that hurricane seas would lap over the edges of the tubs, raising the water level in the tub above the surrounding sea level. Gravity would then drive the water in the tub down through a drain in the bottom that extends down to the cold depths:

At whatever rate the waves lap over the top, the same amount of water should flow out the bottom. But is it really possible to in this way get the warm top-water off of the cold water below?

The patent claim is that when the top-water gets pushed down to the cold depths, it pushes the cold water up, but will it? How can cold rise through warm? It seems more likely that the warm water exiting the drain will float back up, but not all the way because it has been cooled by its exposure to deep water, with the warm top-water continuing to sit as a lid on the cold water below.

The only way any cold water would make it to the surface is by roiling of the waters from below, but this roiling would be originating 155 feet down, and only by passive means. If it brings any cold water to the surface, it won’t be much.

Neither will these giant tubs be very mobile, meaning the Gulf would have to be pre-saturated with these lap-tubs. FAIL.

In sum, Gates claim to the general idea of stopping hurricanes by bringing cold water to the surface is pre-empted by my four year old scheme, and his “best embodiment” of this general idea is far inferior to my embodiment, leaving him with nothing. Sorry Bill. You should have been reading my blog. I’d have been glad to work with you on a patent claim before the one year post-publication deadline for filing.

Let that be a lesson to everyone. Read my blog!

Another freebie: mitigate global cooling with sooty coal

With the earth cooling rapidly (by historical standards) for 10 years now, and with our quiescent sun guaranteeing a significantly extended cooling phase going forward, we need to start figuring out how to mitigate the growing cold, because unlike global warming, global cooling is actually dangerous. Cold really does feed on itself in a way that can get away from us, and it directly constricts the space available for living things, both seasonally and absolutely. Nothing gobbles up the biosphere like glaciation.

It is the feedback mechanism that creates the danger. Spreading snow and ice increase the earth’s “albedo,” or reflectivity, bouncing sunlight away and cooling the earth, creating yet more snow and ice. Of course this feedback cycle also works in the warming direction, but with a big difference. In the warming direction, the albedo feedback effect gets smaller and smaller as warming progresses. Once snow and ice have shrunk back to arctic regions, they are that point only reflecting away a small amount of sunlight, so further melting cannot shrink the albedo much further.

In the cooling direction, the albedo feedback effect gets larger and larger as cooling progresses. When snow and ice come down to lower latitudes, they cover progressively larger swaths of land and they reflect away sunlight that is progressively more direct. This is why the earth regularly experiences runaway cooling, and spends most of its time in 100,000 year long glacial periods, but has never experienced run-away warming. Warming feedbacks diminish as they progress. Cooling feedbacks build.

The last two years are illustrative, as near record snow- cover in Asia and North America have spawned our present cool summer. We are seeing right now just how fast cooling feedbacks can ramp up, but there may be something we can do about it.

We just need to darken the snow. Where oh where can we get our hands on a massive steady supply of black sooty stuff that we can pump out onto the snow all winter long across the great white north?

Just build, build, build coal burning electric plants across North America, Scandinavia and Asia, and leave the scrubbers off the smokestacks. As a handy by-product, the resulting cheap energy will bring our “green”-around-the-gills economy rocketing back from its current death spiral.

If we would de-regulate energy development (real energy development, not the phony “green” garbage), our economy would start booming tomorrow, and there is absolutely no reason to regulate CO2.

The facts are in: the CO2 theory of late 20th century warming has been debunked

There are two competing theories of 20th century warming. One, backed by the known history of correlation between solar activity and global temperature, says it was caused by the extraordinarily high levels of solar activity between 1930 to 2000. The other, formulated by anti-capitalist ideologues who claimed in the 1970’s that fossil fuels were causing global cooling, says that fossil fuels caused the warming from 1980-1998.

With both candidate causes galloping along at high levels until 2003, both theories claimed validation. Then the sun went quiet, as atmospheric CO2 continued to grow apace–the perfect experiment for finding which theory is correct–and the results are in. The planet is cooling, supporting the solar warming theory and debunking the CO2 warming theory.

The alarmist theory is not just wrong, but is actually an obvious case of omitted variable fraud. The only way the CO2 alarmists could pretend that the tiny CO2 greenhouse effect could cause runaway global warming was by completely omitting the known solar-magnetic warming influence from their models and misattributing this warming effect to CO2. As NASA climate-modeler Gavin Schmidt puts it:

[T]here is no obvious need for ‘new’ or unknown physics to explain what [is] going on.

Schmidt feels no “need” to account a known warming effect when he can make his model work just as well (even better, for his purposes) by misattributing this warming effect to CO2. Dirtbag.

Solar warmists never behave in this anti-scientific way. They never omit CO2 greenhouse effects from their calculations, but only do what scientists are supposed to do: use reason and evidence to gauge the magnitude of the different warming effects as best as they can. Their calculation that the dominant climate driver is solar activity has now been confirmed. That means CO2 cannot cause run-away warming, which means that whatever warming effect it has is all to the good. In general, warming is good for people and other living things, while cooling is bad. Mankind and the biosphere both thrived when Greenland was green.

Now that we are entering a cooling phase, people may start wishing that CO2 had a significant warming effect, but it doesn’t. The one place where CO2 can be of significant help is as a fertilizer for plant growth. With the shorter growing seasons that go with global cooling, we need as much of that effect as we can get. Thus there is a non-negligible grounds for subsidizing CO2, and no reason to suppress it, as our demented Democrats are doing.

Dirty coal might actually require subsidization

When the eco-religionists talk about “clean coal,” they are not talking about soot at all, but are talking about sequestering the colorless, odorless, harmless plant-food called CO2. What we need is not just “dirty coal” in the CO2 emitting sense, but real dirty coal, chock full of good old fashioned snow-darkening soot.

Getting genuinely dirty coal power probably will require subsidization, because old-time soot is the byproduct of an inefficient burning process. It will take some R & D to develop plants that can be switched back and forth between fully efficient summer-mode burning, sans soot and sulpher, and “inefficient” winter burning, with black soot intact (efficient once the external value of soot is counted as an output).

Massive expansion of dirty northern coal-fired electrical generation will kill several birds with one stone: it will rejuvenate the world economy; it will decrease wintertime albedo cooling feedbacks, significantly mitigating global cooling; the release of CO2 from coal-burning will give some relief from cold-driven crop shrinkage; and it will contribute very slightly to the earth’s blanket of greenhouse gases, mitigating global cooling itself by a very slight amount.

So that’s my freebie. Dig here. Back to the future. Return to dirty coal. Hard to patent the past, but I predict that at least a few hefty diamonds will be pulled from this ash heap.

An international group of academics is urging world leaders to abandon their current policies on climate change.

The authors of How to Get Climate Policy Back on Course say the strategy based on overall emissions cuts has failed and will continue to fail.

They want G8 nations and emerging economies to focus on an approach based on improving energy efficiency and decarbonising energy supply.

Critics of the report’s recommendations say they are a dangerous diversion.

The report is published by the London School of Economics’ (LSE) Mackinder Programme and the University of Oxford’s Institute for Science, Innovation & Society.

LSE Mackinder programme director Gwyn Prins said the current system of attempting to cap carbon emissions then allow trading in emissions permits had led to emissions continuing to rise.

He said world proposals to expand carbon trading schemes and channel billions of dollars into clean energy technologies would not work.

“The world has been recarbonising, not decarbonising,” Professor Prins said.

“The evidence is that the Kyoto Protocol and its underlying approach have had and are having no meaningful effect whatsoever.

“Worthwhile policy builds upon what we know works and upon what is feasible rather than trying to deploy never-before implemented policies through complex institutions requiring a hitherto unprecedented and never achieved degree of global political alignment.”

Meanwhile Senator James Inhofe plans on shining a spotlight on another of Obama’s “new transparency” examples. That of Alan Carlin, a senior analyst at the EPA, and a 35 year veteran of the agency, who tried to show that the science behind global warming needed another look.

…Mr. Carlin and a colleague presented a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. “We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA,” the report read.

The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from “any direct communication” with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: “The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.” …

Mr. McGartland blasted yet another email: “With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate.” Ideology? Nope, not here. Just us science folk. Honest.

Senator Inhofe plans to grill the head of the EPA soon on the reasons why this analysis was swept under the carpet:

An example of the kind of chart the EPA is suppressing:

QandO Blog describes the chart:

What it shows is we’ve undergone another drop in temperature this past month (coolest June since 1958). In fact:

This latest drop in global temperatures means despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled .74°F since former Vice President Al Gore released “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006.

It is also the information that the EPA tried to suppress recently despite the Obama administration’s pledge that science would now take precedence over ideology.

The new information adds to an 8 year trend of dropping global temperatures. Here’s another view of the same chart with a few important annotations:

Truth be damned when the whole of the Obama party…er, Democrat party, is desperate to get Cap & Trade passed before the truth can no longer be fended off.

Shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Telescope cross in front of the sun in this image captured by Thierry Legault

Enlarged section added to show greater detail. The shuttle was traveling at 15,534 mph. The trip across the sun takes 0.8 seconds.

Last week Atlantis was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a mission to repair the aging and ailing Hubble Telescope.

These images captured by Thierry Legault help to put the enormity and awesome nature of our universe in perspective.

There are those who believe that mankind can influence the earth in a negative way. These photographs should help us to remember that we are miniscule in the grand scheme of things.

Shuttle Atlantis crosses in front of the sun prior to its’ rendezvous with Hubble. The narrow profile indicates that the payload bay doors are open.

And so, while the petty politicians bleat, and the small and not so small wars rage on in fits and starts, almost everyone on the Earth will sleep tonight with someone they don’t really mind all that much. And tomorrow the kids in the playground across the street will run and skip and jump at recess. And tomorrow our planet, one of many like it or perhaps alone in the universe, will turn full of much more goodness and grace than hate and suffering.

And tomorrow, somewhere in mid-heaven, floating weightless between the Earth and the Sun, men and women will carefully repair and refurbish a telescope so that we might see ever deeper into the whole of creation, and perhaps even, just a bit, into the mind and purposes of God.

Hubble’s Astounding Photographs:

In April, Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (full disclosure: I worked for EPA in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s) signed a finding which declares that “greenhouse gases pose a threat to the health and welfare of current and future generations of Americans.”

It’s one of many steps to advance the political agenda of the global warming movement by giving the federal government more power to regulate and tax CO2 emissions in the lives of every day Americans by calling the gas a dangerous “pollutant.” Since each of us exhales CO2, that makes each of us polluters.

As support for the global warming agenda continues to melt faster than an iceberg in July, Democrats appear hell bent on ramming through the most massive and expensive restructuring of our way of life ever contemplated.

Yet, an internal Obama Administration memo from the Office of Management and Budget highlights the concerns from various federal agencies asked to respond to the proposed finding. It’s a bombshell document (PDF here) just waiting for someone to light the fuse.

Wyoming Senator John Barrasso(R) Rides to the Rescue

On Tuesday, Senator Barrasso lite that fuse. In another fine example of an elected GOP leader fighting back effectively against the leftwing moonbattery that is so in vogue in Washington these days, Senator John Brasso had this exchange with EPA Administrator Jackson:

“This is a smoking gun, saying that your findings were political, not scientific” - Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)

BARRASSO: “I received a memo this morning, that’s marked ‘Deliberative: Attorney-Client Privilege’. In this memo Counsel for the White House repeatedly, repeatedly suggests a lack of scientific support for this proposed finding. This is a smoking gun, saying that your findings were political and not scientific.
…
This smoking gun memo is in stark contrast to the official position presented by the Administration and the EPA Administrator.”

The memo takes direct aim at EPA’s conclusion that “compelling evidence of human-induced climate change, and that serious risks and potential impacts to public health and welfare have been clearly identified.”

MEMO(page2):In the absence of a strong statement of the standards being applied in this decision, there is a concern that EPA is making a finding based on (1) “harm” from substances that have no demonstrated direct health effects, such as respiratory or toxic effects, (2) available scientific data that purports to conclusively establish the nature and extent of the adverse public health and welfare impacts are almost exclusively from non-EPA sources, and (3)applying a dramatically expanded precautionary principle. If EPA goes forward with a finding of endangerment for all GHGs, it could be establishing a relaxed and expansive new standard for endangerment. Subsequently, EPA would be petitioned to find endangerment and regulate many other “pollutants” for the sake of the precautionary principle (e.g., electromagnetic fields, perchlorates, endocrine disruptors, and noise).

The memo also notes, there are several areas where essential behaviors of greenhouse gases are “not well determined” and “not well understood.” That’s not news to most of us.

What is at stake here is Obama’s plan for “cap and trade” the goal of which is not to limit or reduce CO2 emissions but to enable a new set of taxes on the energy used by every American. It’s nothing but a funding mechanism for Obama’s ongoing socialist makeover masquerading as protection for the environment and public health.

Well, Dr. Oz may have actually said it, but as Wesley J Smith points out, try finding THAT in the transcript. I doubt the video will be on line much longer (both video and transcripts are linked in the W J Smith article).

One should be dishearten, to say the least, to hear these words from Michael J. Fox.

Michael says America has a lot of ground to make up when it comes to stem cell research. “We had eight years where there was no forward progress and some things people don’t even understand,” he says.

After all, if Michael J. Fox, both a patient and a man of means, can be this duped, doesn’t it prove the point of how deceitful the whole stem cell debate has been?

A few weeks ago, in the Sacramento Bee Wesley J Smith confirmed my similar thoughts regarding Obama’s lifting of the ban on federal funding of ESC’s; it had NOTHING to do with cures, and everything to do with politics!

In 2007, President Bush issued an executive order requiring the government to fund research into alternatives. Inexplicably – and without discussing it in his speech – Obama revoked this Bush order, too. He claimed he wants to fund such research, but what he did was take away the existing legal requirement that it be done. We have seen this same undermining of alternatives here in California.

~~~

If pursuing the best and most ethical science were truly the goals, why deflect increased support for this promising research to which no one objects? Perhaps it is because this debate involves more than stem cells taken from embryos “left over” from in-vitro fertilization – as the argument is usually couched – which brings us back to ethics. In the wake of the Obama changes in federal policy, the New York Times editorially threw down a gauntlet, calling for both the rescission of the Dickey Amendment and federal funding of human therapeutic cloning research. Now that the Bush restrictions are history, look for these battles – which again are not science debates – to flare in the years to come. In this sense, embryonic stem cell research threatens to become a launching pad to an ever-deepening erosion of the unique moral status of human life.

Don’t we deserve better?

Can you not see how this is indeed the “launching pad” for ALL of us when it comes to human life? I again remind you of the point I endlessly make: Legal and cultural acceptance of abortion and ESC research are NECESSARY for “what will follow” when it comes to ALL OF OUR LIVES. Between the unregulated potential MISUSE of Biotechnology which is unregulated and riding high in the Wild Wild West (deserves its own piece; more on that later), to assisted suicide, radical animal rights, and radical environmentialism to the medical elite against the hippocatic oath we better wake up fast before it’s too late.

I can’t possibly do justice to what awaits once we “lose faith and conscience” rights. One need long no further than the Obama appointments. Does anyone really believe it’s a coincidence that the deck is stacked with the likes of this, this, this, this, or this in addition to Kathleen Sibelius (heading up the HHS as “gatekeeper”?

We our are only and last hope. I urge all to make your voices heard. For any not up to speed on the Conscience Clause, here are two well written recent articles that may help; here, and here.

I also suggest a regular check into Wesley J Smith’s Second Hand Smoke Blog. I personally don’t know of anyone in the country more on top of these issues.

And last but not least, especially those who are pro choice, perhaps its time to at least, “rethink” the consequences of a “pro choice culture.” Eventually, Pro choice for some is going to become “NO CHOICE for all of us, guaranteed!

America, we’ve been duped; from our president, our fourth estate, and sadly even some of our scientists. President Obama’s lifting of the ban on federal funding for ESC research this week, albeit heart wrenching, was expected. What wasn’t expected, or reported in the MSM , was the “under the radar” revocation of funding for alternative stem cell research, Executive Order 13435 (June 20, 2007), by President George W. Bush.

I don’t know about you, but my head is spinning! I keep asking myself what I might be missing, but so far everything I read or research turns up the same. Are we really going to stop funding the ethical, ground breaking progress in ethical alternatives, and instead, fund the “unethical obsolete” embryonic research that involves the destruction of human embryos?

You will want to read what Attorney Sam Casey has to say. Prepare to be shocked and if you are a scientist or physician, I hope you will consider signing the Amnesty For Babies petition. Here’s an excerpt

Sam Casey, Advocates International’s General Counsel and one of the attorneys involved in the federal court litigation in 2001 that resulted in the lawful and ethical stem cell research policy revoked by President Obama, labeled the President’s actions today “legally limited, unnecessary, unethical and fiscally irresponsible.”

~~~

It was scientifically unnecessary and even counter-productive because ethically sound ways and means for advancing stem cell science and medical treatments were already authorized and moving forward under Executive Order 13435 that President Obama revoked today.”

~~~

Casey also points out that while opposition to human ES cell research is often cast by news reports as primarily a religious objection, there are many scientists, physicians, and reproductive health professionals who object based on their knowledge of the humanity of human embryos and their knowledge of stem cell therapeutics. A growing worldwide list of them is publicly expressing their objection by endorsing an online scientists’ and physicians’ declaration against human ES cell research and abortion.

Casey also noted that “President Obama’s actions today are obviously ethically offensive to everyone who understands the undisputed scientific biological fact, as recently affirmed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeal, that ‘during its embryonic age,’ a human embryo is ‘a whole, separate, unique, living human being, an individual living member of the species of Homo sapiens.’” See Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, 530 F.3rd 724, 735-736 (8th Cir 2008). “For all who understand this biological fact and also believe that every human being has intrinsic moral value — President Obama’s decision is clearly unethical,” Casey said. “Destroying one human life through human experimentation, even in order to possibly help other human beings, is always morally wrong and should not be countenanced by any government, particularly in this case where it is not even necessary and the subject of the experimentation cannot possibility give his or her consent. It is also ethically wrong to force taxpayers who do honor the dignity of every human being to help pay for research that they believe is an immoral taking of innocent human life.”

~~~

“we think it is fiscally irresponsible to channel limited federal funds away from research that has a proven track record of treating human disease into research that shows no hope for doing so.”

In all of American History, federal funds have never before been allowed for research on human subjects. Earlier this week I posted in some detail , why this funding was not only immoral and unnecessary, but scientifically, a giant step backwards. Despite all the hype and misleading rhetoric, embryonic stem cell technology will be, as one leading scientist said, at best a mere footnote. If anyone cares to talk a look at the original rhetoric, take a look at this 2004 Democratic convention speech.

As in all situations, a silver cloud always surfaces. This news appears to have at least brought journalist Kathleen Parker back to earth. Thank God. I was convinced after that last fluff piece on the Obamas’ svelte bodies aboard Air Force One, we might have lost her for good. Welcome back Kathleen, and thanks for being one of the lone rangers out there with the guts to call it what it may well be; the ethical dilemma of the century!

Time magazine named iPS innovation No. 1 on its “Top 10 Scientific Discoveries” of 2007, and the journal Science rated it the No. 1 breakthrough of 2008.

~~~

The iPS discovery even prompted Ian Wilmut, who led the team that cloned Dolly the sheep, to abandon his license to attempt human cloning, saying that the researchers “may have achieved what no politician could: an end to the embryonic stem cell debate.” And, just several days ago, Dr. Bernadine Healy, director of the National Institutes of Health under the first President Bush, wrote in U.S. News & World Report that these recent developments “reinforced the notion that embryonic stem cells . . . are obsolete.”

~~~

Good people can disagree on these things, but those who insist that this is “only about abortion” miss the point. The objectification of human life is never a trivial matter. And determining what role government plays in that objectification may be the ethical dilemma of the century.

In this case, science handed Obama a gift — and he sent it back

There’s still at least two more, very important shoes that can drop. One is the Dicky-Wicker Amendment (1950), the other the Weldon Amendment (2004); both which will involve congress. The Dickey Amendment currently protects human embryos (federally funded), to be either created or destroyed. Obama tells us he is against cloning, but it sounded to me like his typical “double-speak.” Considering he also told us he’s for unity and factual science, I’ll take a wait and see on that one, thank you. Do know, that if approved, cloning or heaven help us fetal farming, could open the door to places no man should dare go.

The Weldon Amendment relates to patent rights.

The Weldon Amendment would prohibit the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from issuing any patent “on claims directed to or encompassing a human organism.” The USPTO understands the Weldon Amendment to provide unequivocal congressional backing for the long-standing USPTO policy of refusing to grant any patent containing a claim that encompasses any member of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development. It has long been USPTO practice to reject any claim in a patent application that encompasses a human life-form at any stage of development, including a human embryo or human fetus; hence claims directed to living “organisms” are to be rejected unless they include the adjective “nonhuman.”

As one might expect, it was forcefully opposed by the Biotech Industry. If revoked in the near future, it could mean cash cows for many, while taking America down to an almost unimaginable new low. No question about it, embryos have no voice regarding how they are used or how they may be patented.

I would be remiss in not mentioning, in addition to his unwavering respect for the dignity of every human life, the hundreds of thousands of dollars President GW Bush put into alternative ethical stem cell research. ESC research was NEVER banned, only the use of federal funds. No one will convince me otherwise that in generously funding ethical alternatives, it didn’t add to the stunning iPSC success (Wisconsin, a key player, was partly funded by NIH monies). I grant you the iPS technology out of Japan wasn’t US funded, but I absolutely believe it was “US influenced.” Remember, people who are opposed to immoral technology are also going to be opposed to immoral therapies. I don’t waste too much time worrying about how we will sort them out based on the fact I’m pretty convinced there isn’t likely to be any therapeutic therapies from human embryos. It’s more likely that future therapies will be done by in vivo stem cell repair.

Not only did GW Bush get NO credit, he was constantly labeled a Luddite, when in fact, we have all just witnessed who the real Luddites in America are.

So how is all of the “new funded money” going to be spent? If this wasn’t so egregious it would be fascinating, after all, who could make this stuff up? America do you realize what has transpired? It’s no longer only the helpless embryos who are being exploited, WE too (albeit in a much lesser way), are also being exploited. I predict if we took a poll right now, the majority of Americans would honestly think (also owing to the fact that the average American doesn’t grasp the life science involved) that Bush stymied science and FINALLY, Obama will be bringing home the cures! Common sense only should tell us that expensive stem cell therapies aren’t compatible with a Nationalized Healthcare Plan

So what’s really behind it? Sure, we can follow the money, the Bush derangement Syndrome mentality, or even the vaunted egos of a select group of scientists. IMO, it’s far bigger than all of that. As I mentioned in my first post, it’s much about abortion and dare I say, conscience. Don’t you see, if we acknowledge that it’s immoral to kill a one day old embryo, than how could we possibly justify abortion or even in vitro fertilization (which by the way is also immoral, but another topic, another time)? After all, aren’t we “entitled” to both?

We also now have two states with legal euthanasia, (and fortunately, one glimmer of hope in ND that recently gave embryos the protection of personhood). Once national healthcare kicks in, “population/cost control”, i.e., euthanasia and abortion, will most likely be just part of the program, so we best start getting used to the culture of death.

All said, allow me to simply sum it up. For an obvious hidden agenda, despite what he says, the actions of Barack Obama clearly are not conducive to any breakthroughs and cures in stem cell research. Most certainly private companies will carry on just fine with private funding in the iPS work (and in that there is indeed real hope). Let’s hope and pray they don’t misuse the science, but I suspect it will too powerful of a force (evil), at least for some; simply too powerful to resist.

I guess now it makes sense why, Ron McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, when asked by a Washington Post reporter Rick Weiss about 5 years ago, why scientists have allowed society to believe wrongly that stem cells are likely to effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease. McKay’s response, “PEOPLE NEED A FAIRYTALE. Maybe that’s unfair, but they need a story line that’s relatively simple to understand.”

The only problem with that answer is, unlike Fairytales, this one isn’t going to end “happily after after.”Stay tuned America, and keep your eyes on congress and those upcoming amendments.