The Realists Take on Climate Change

From Yahoo News

by Shafiq Alam
Wed Jul 30, 9:41 AM ET

DHAKA (AFP) - New data shows that Bangladesh's landmass is increasing, contradicting forecasts that the South Asian nation will be under the waves by the end of the century, experts say.

Scientists from the Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) have studied 32 years of satellite images and say Bangladesh's landmass has increased by 20 square kilometres (eight square miles) annually.

Maminul Haque Sarker, head of the department at the government-owned centre that looks at boundary changes, told AFP sediment which travelled down the big Himalayan rivers -- the Ganges and the Brahmaputra -- had caused the landmass to increase.

From the Chattanoogan, two letters, one of them, the response....

First, I do not deny glaciers are receding nor that ice caps are slowly melting. However, the more I've read, the more evident it becomes that the global warming we all hear about that is touted as being what will have us all eating Soylent Green in a few years is hardly a consensus among climatologists.

According to a recent study by the University of Alabama-Huntsville, while we are above historic averages, the global and northern hemisphere temperature averages in June (the month used for the study), the average global temperature in 2007 was 0.21 C above the 20 year average while 1991 was 0.32 C above the 20 year average and 1998 was 0.59 C above the average.

A 'fake' consensus pushes climate change
By Margaret McCarthy
Chicagotribune.com

Tribune reporter James Janega in his news account on July 25, "Study: Warming to cost billions," (Metro) enumerated the costs Illinois would face if climate change is left unchecked. He based his article on a report by the University of Maryland, which outlined specific costs for seven other states.

Janega obviously accepts the premise that global warming is a catastrophic problem and that carbon emissions are causing global warming (climate change).

In 1922 the U.S. Weather Bureau first reported that the "The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer in some places and the seals are finding the water too hot." In the '70s there was hysteria surrounding the theory of a coming ice age. By the late '80s and early '90s, global warming surfaced again with a new enemy taking center stage -- CO2 – which is essential for plant growth. Plants then produce oxygen, the stuff we need to live.

If you have some spare time take a look at this blog by Abdul Basit, it's full of "Man Made" anxiety about the world coming to an end due to "Man Made Climate Change".......let us know what you think

Humanity At crossroads: Attitudes And Climate Change
By Abdul Basit

30 July, 2008
Countercurrents.org

The huge commotion, wide ranging research and intellectual discussions about the collapse of the civilization due to climate change has created apprehension and confusion about the directions humanity should take to overcome the challenges to its existence. The variety of solutions recommended range from technological fantasies to pessimistic resignation about the complete destruction of humanity. The solutions also include invading new planets, as well as constructing polar cities and Noah's model of ark, to sustain life on earth. Most of the solutions are based on the assumption of total collapse, along with the end of civilization and human existence.

Despite these thought-provoking discussions about the influence of climate change on human existence and the solutions to tackle it, we are nearing, as time passes, the verge of a major disaster and the options for solutions are declining. The increasing natural calamities, the concern about the tipping points due to further carbon emissions and its effects on the habitability on earth have created great concerns.

From Spiked.......See if you agree with the stats?

What are the odds that we’re baking the planet?

For some years now, governments, industry, and private citizens have been regularly chastised by environmental activists for not doing more to limit greenhouse gases, the presumed cause of global warming. But lately a far more serious charge has been made. In June, the oft-quoted NASA climate scientist James Hansen appeared before a United States congressional committee. He said that the directors of fossil-fuel companies ‘should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature’ (1).

But these people shouldn’t be prosecuted just for producing fossil fuels. Hansen thinks they should also be prosecuted because, as he wrote in the UK Guardian: ‘Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link.’ (2)

All that's heating up is a political agenda
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 The Oregonian

Honest and reasoned debate is an important part of science. Most scientists engage in this discourse on a daily basis. That's why shrill attacks from uninformed people distorting facts to suit their own political agendas leave most scientists frustrated.

David Reinhard's recent column in The Oregonian ("The climate-change debate heats up," July 24) is a case in point.

Reinhard cites a recent "paper" by Christopher Monckton on the errors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and calls it "important new evidence." A minimal amount of research reveals that Monckton is one of the "court jesters" (Reinhard's words) who refutes the science of global warming. Monckton has been self-publishing his anti-global warming articles for years. His only academic degree is in journalism. He has no formal training in climate research or any other science. None of his papers has been peer-reviewed.

In fact, in the publication that Reinhard claims "exploded" the controversy into view, the American Physical Society, prefaced the article with this disclaimer: "The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions."

How odd that Reinhard left out these critical details.

Heated Climate Debate: Marc Morano vs. Air America's Tom Hartmann on Global Warming Science

(Also of note, following Marc's segment, callers not happy)

Air America Radio host calls Award-winning atmospheric scientist Dr. Roy Spencer a “Bozo”

To Listen Morano vs. Hartmann on July 29, 2008 Click the following link and then to listen to a 10 minute MP3 radio debate. Use the audio bar time starting from 38:30

Audio: Radio Host Calls Skeptical Scientist a 'Bozo' - Heated Climate Debate: Morano vs. Air America's Tom Hartmann on Global Warming Science

[Note: The alarmist host attacked Atmospheric scientist Dr. Spencer, formerly a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center where he received NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, and currently principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.)

The HeraldSun By Andrew Bolt

Our Earth cools slowly while professor babbles

THERE was one bizarre flaw in Professor Barry Brook's column on this page on Monday (Warm to sceptical science).

He sent us his salvo to prove I was wrong last week when I showed you seven graphs and said they proved the world wasn't warming as global warming preachers had promised.

I was wrong, that is, to say that the world hadn't warmed since 1998 and had slowly cooled since 2002, or maybe wrong to say it might matter.

And I was wrong to say the seas had fallen for two years, sea ice had grown, and the weather had not got wilder.

So the flaw in Brook's response?

The Australian

Climate mafia has us fooled
by Dennis Jensen July 30, 2008

VESTED interests have hijacked the climate debate, and taken Australia's future hostage. The ransom they demand? Simple agreement or, at the very least, compliance.

Voices of dissent face derision. Legitimate questions are met with ridicule. But with many of the squabbling forces of power in this country now apparently united in their enthusiasm for an emissions trading scheme, it is more important than ever that we go back and examine the basis of their campaigns.

It has been an article of faith for many years that humans are gradually destroying the environment, and are specifically responsible for global warming via man-made carbon emissions. On Monday, The Australian published results of a poll showing 96 per cent of the population believes climate change is wholly or partly caused by humans.

From the Macon Telegraph
By S. Heather Duncan - hduncan@macon.com

Climate change impact studied
Effect on Georgia has pluses, minuses

George Israel III has voiced concern that irrational fears about global warming will harm Georgia industry. He has been a vocal critic of a recent court decision ordering the state to require a carbon dioxide permit for a new coal-fired power plant. Federal environmental laws do not require limits on carbon dioxide, so this would set a new precedent in Georgia that could affect other proposed plants, such as the Plant Washington facility proposed near Sandersville.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has released a study that examined the economic effect of climate change on Georgia industries, from timber to tourism. Carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" help trap heated air within the earth's atmosphere and are thought to be slowly warming global temperatures, potentially causing more extreme weather and rising sea levels.