The climate change of our planet, which can be observed more frequently in recent years, has become alarming for the public opinion. Various methods to remedy the situation are elaborated on the international level by decision makers, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (operating since 1988) and different ecologic organisations. 

Having a part in this significant debate, the Geologic Science Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences wishes to turn to 10 fundamental aspects of the problem closely related to the functioning of geosystem - the complex interdependence of processes occurring in the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. The knowledge of these factors should be the foundation for any rational and careful decisions, which could interfere in the geosystem.

1. The climate of the Earth depends on the interaction between the surface and the atmosphere, both of which are heated by solar radiation characterized by a cyclical, variable intensity. The climate is influenced by the Earth’s yearly revolution around the Sun, thermics, changes in ocean waters flow, air mass movement, mountain massif position, their uplift and erosion in time perspective as well as changes in the continents’ position as a result of their permanent wandering.

2. Geologic research proves irrefutably that the permanent change is the fundamental characteristic of the Earth’s climate as throughout its entire history, and the changes occur in cycles of varied length - from several thousand to just a few years. Longer climate cycles are provoked by the extraterrestrial factors of astronomic character as well as by the changes of the Earth’s orbital parameters, in brief - by regional and local factors. Not all reasons for climate change or their phenomena are fully known yet.

3. Although in the history of the Earth, a considerably warmer climate than today had dominated, there had been repeated occurrences when the Earth experienced massive global cooling which always resulted in vast ice sheets that sometimes even reached the subtropics. Therefore, reliable forecasts of changes in the Earth’s climate (not to mentioned efforts to prevent, shape, or act against them) must take into account the results of its research of the Earth’s geological history - a time when humanity (and the industry) were not on our planet. 

4. Since twelve thousand years ago, the Earth is in the another phase of cyclical warming and is near the maximum of its intensively. Just in the last 2.5 million years, periods of warming have on several occasions intertwined with ice ages, which have already been well identified. 

5. The current warming is accompanied by an increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere: water vapour is dominant among them, and in smaller quantities there are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and ozone. This has always happened because it is an occurrence that accompanies cyclical warming and cooling. The periodic increase in the number of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, sometimes a value even several times larger than at present, has accompanied previous warming even before man inhabited the Earth.
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8. A detailed monitoring of climate parameters has been carried out for slightly over 200 years; it only covers parts of the continents, which constitute only 28% of the world. Some of the older measuring stations established - as a result of progressive urbanization, in the peripheries of the cities, are now within them. This factor, among other things, is the reason for the rise of the measured values of temperature. The research of the vast areas of the oceans has only been launched 40 years ago. Measurements taken for this kind of short periods of time can not be considered as a firm basis for creating fully reliable models of thermal changes on the surface of the Earth, and their accuracy is difficult to verify. That is why far-reaching restraint needs to be kept regarding blaming, or even giving the biggest credit to man for the increased level of emissions of greenhouse gases, for such a theory has not been proven.
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10. Experiments in natural science show that one-sided observations, those that take no account of the multiplicity of factors determining certain processes in the geo-system, lead to unwarranted simplifications and wrong conclusions when trying to explain natural phenomena. Thus, politicians who rely on incomplete data may take wrong decisions. It makes room for politically correct lobbying, especially on the side of business marketing of exceptionally expensive, so called eco-friendly, energy technologies or those offering CO2 storage (sequestration) in exploited deposits. It has little to do with what is objective in nature. Taking radical and expensive economic measures aiming at implementing the emission only of few greenhouse gases, with no multi-sided research into climate change, may turn out counterproductive.

The PAN Committee of Geological Sciences believes it necessary to start an interdisciplinary research based on comprehensive monitoring and modelling of the impact of other factors -not just the level of CO2 - on the climate. Only this kind of approach will bring us closer to identifying the causes of climate change.  Read all 10 statements here. H/T Roger Helmer, MEP, and Benny Peiser, CCNet.

Wroclaw-Warsaw, 12 February 2009

The Washington Times’ front-page story “Rising sea levels in Pacific create wave of migrants” (Page 1, Sunday) outrageously peddles a talking point circulated by activists such as former Vice President Al Gore. The article’s claim that human-induced climate change and sea-level rise spawned a migration of refugees from South Pacific island nations was found unsupportable by the only court to examine its merits (Dimmock v. Secretary of State (UK) for Education and Skills, UK High Court, Oct. 10, 2007).

This claim is a rehash of assertions made in Mr. Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” In its Dimmock ruling, the High Court stated: “In scene 20, Mr. Gore states ‘that’s why the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand.’ There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened.” Even the defendant UK government admitted, “It is not clear that there is any evidence of evacuations in the Pacific due to human-induced climate change.” Refugees seeking generous New Zealand and Canadian welfare regimes do exist, but they are not driven by sea-level rise.

This ruling came in late 2007. The rate of sea-level rise - which began after a period known as the Little Ice Age - proceeded steadily from about 1850 until then, without accelerating. Since then, satellite data have affirmed that the rate peaked in 2005 and that levels even have dipped slightly. Sea levels around the Maldives have dropped appreciably in recent decades. Nowhere did The Times acknowledge doubt, let alone these facts.

In short, this reportage perpetuated unsupportable claims made, as the UK High Court put it, “in the context of alarmism and exaggeration in support of [Mr. Gore’s] political thesis.” A retraction is warranted.

Chric Horner is Counsel and senior fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute< Washington, D.C.

While debating with a National Party senator the wisdom of imposing reductions of carbon dioxide emissions, the University of Melbourne’s Professor David Karoly declared: “Loss of jobs is important but loss of life is really important”.  True enough, but where is the evidence that climate change has killed a single Australian? More to the point, since Australia accounts for just 1.4 per cent of global emissions, even if we shut down all industry and move into caves, how would any theoretical effect on climate be more than negligible?

There is no doubting the passion and intelligence of these scientists and many of their colleagues in the climate change movement in advocating the cause of eliminating so-called “carbon pollution” to save the planet. But the tactics are not very scientific.

As a University of Adelaide geologist, Dr Ian Plimer, writes in his new book, Heaven And Earth, Global Warming: The Missing Science, scientists are usually “anarchic, bow to no authority and construct conclusions based on evidence … Science is not dogmatic and the science of any phenomenon is never settled.” His dense book, crammed with 2311 footnotes, is a comprehensive scientific refutation of the beliefs underpinning the idea of human-caused climate change. “It is meant to be an overwhelming demolition job.”

the coal industry has warned that at least two NSW coalmines will have to close under climate legislation already planned. Those power outages in Sydney lately will be just a small taste of things to come. The consequences are everywhere, with cost of living surges ultimately borne by individuals. And for what?

Plimer says that if government had read the fine print of “the crucial Chapter 5” of the IPCC’s 2007 report “Humans Responsible for Climate Change” they would have realised that it is “based on the opinions of just five independent scientists”. “Governments are planning to structurally change their nations’ economies where most people will suffer from increased taxes and costs … based on the opinion of the fabulous five whose computer models have not been able to accurately predict the cooling that has occurred since 1998,” Plimer says.

Plimer, 62, has spent much of his life working in Broken Hill, in the real world of rocks and soil, far enough from the social pressure of academia to think for himself. Such independent scientific dissenters have been demonised, their evidence marginalised, as climate change has become a quasi-religious belief. But you cannot stop one side from debating what is the biggest policy decision of our era. Plimer’s book, accessible as it is to the layperson, will help redress the power imbalance between those who claim to own the knowledge and the rest of us. Read more here.

Read a review of Plimer’s book in the Australian here.

Just one-out-of-three voters (34%) now believe global warming is caused by human activity, the lowest finding yet in Rasmussen Reports national surveying. However, a plurality (48%) of the Political Class believes humans are to blame.

Forty-eight percent (48%) of all likely voters attribute climate change to long-term planetary trends, while seven percent (7%) blame some other reason. Eleven percent (11%) aren’t sure. These numbers reflect a reversal from a year ago when 47% blamed human activity while 34% said long-term planetary trends.

Most Democrats (51%) still say humans are to blame for global warming, the position taken by former Vice President Al Gore and other climate change activists. But 66% of Republicans and 47% of adults not affiliated with either party disagree.

Sixty-two percent (62%) of all Americans believe global warming is at least a somewhat serious problem, with 33% who say it’s Very Serious. Thirty-five percent (35%) say it’s a not a serious problem. The overall numbers have remained largely the same for several months, but the number who say Very Serious has gone down.

Forty-eight percent (48%) of Democrats say global warming is a Very Serious problem, compared to 19% of Republicans and 25% of unaffiliateds. President Obama has made global warming a priority for his administration. Half (49%) of Americans think the president believes climate change is caused primarily by human activity. This is the first time that belief has fallen below 50% since the president took office. Just 19% say Obama attributes global warming to long-term planetary trends.

Forty-eight percent (48%) rate the president good or excellent on energy issues. Thirty-two percent (32%) give him poor grades in this area. Sixty-three percent (63%) of adults now say finding new sources of energy is more important that reducing the amount of energy Americans currently consume. However, 29% say energy conservation is the priority. A growing number of Americans (58%) say the United States needs to build more nuclear plants. This is up five points from last month and the highest finding so far this year. Twenty-five percent (25%) oppose the building of nuclear plants.

While the economy remains the top issue for most Americans, 40% believe there is a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Thirty-one percent 31% see no such conflict, while 29% are not sure. Read more here.

It is the height of vanity to think the Earth will come to an end shortly after one’s mortal life ends. Some people think that, without them, the Earth cannot survive and we call these idiots environmentalists and, sometimes, megalomaniacs.

A perfect example of this is James Lovelock, the man credited with coming up with the Gaia Theory that says the Earth is a living creature and, of course, that humans are some kind of horrid cockroach infestation that is destroying it. Now in his 90s, Lovelock has written “The Vanishing Face if Gaia: A Final Warming.” This book is an extension of all the other astonishingly bad “science” that has brought fame and fortune to Lovelock as he and other alleged scientists began warning that “global heating may all but eliminate people from the Earth.”

Like Al Gore and James Hansen, two other prominent “global warming” charlatans, Lovelock continues to say that the Earth is warming while, for the past ten years, the meteorological satellites and other measurement instruments have reported a distinct cooling trend.

At the heart of all environmentalist propaganda is the view that humans are causing “global warming” and destroying the Earth by doing things like raising crops and animal stocks to eat, using the abundant oil, natural gas, and coal sources as energy for transportation and the maintenance of our lives and industries, and generally fouling everything we touch from our rivers, oceans, land areas, and other species. “Simply cutting back fossil-fuel burning, energy use, and the destruction of natural forests will not be a sufficient answer to global heating,” says Lovelock, oblivious to the reality of a cooling planet; one that is on the cusp of a predictable ice age since we are now about 11,500 years into an interglacial period since the last one.

The essential problem with Lovelock’s theories about carbon dioxide and global warming is that they lack any scientific merit. The other problem is that environmentalists and politicians worldwide have latched onto them as a means to exert total control over the lives of everyone on Earth. If Lovelock were just an obscure scientist raving about the end of the world in some English pub, we could happily ignore him, but he is one of the founders of the movement that has been taken up by the United Nations and implemented in various ways by nations that have wasted billions on so-called “clean energy” such as wind and solar energy, biofuels like ethanol, and the set-aside of vast areas of America to ensure that millions of tons of coal can be mined, nor billions of barrels of oil and cubic feet of natural gas tapped for our use.

Always, at the heart of Lovelock’s and environmentalist programs is the view that humans are to blame for the Earth’s extraordinary, chaotic, and uncontrollable climate systems. Lovelock despairs that “No voluntary human act can reduce our numbers fast enough even to slow climate change. Merely by existing, people and their dependent animals are responsible for more than ten times the greenhouse gas emissions of all the airline travel in the world.”

When it comes to the Earth, Lovelock says that it has “not evolved solely for our benefit, and any changes we make to it are at our own risk. That way of thinking makes clear that we have no special human rights; we are merely one of the partner species in the great enterprise of Gaia. We are creatures of Darwinian evolution, a transient species with a limited lifespan, as were all our numerous distant ancestors.”

Unlike other “transient species”, however, the human one has organized itself into complex societies that permit it to use energy sources to build vast cities, developed transportation that move millions around the globe every day, have communications systems that allow people to address all manner of needs and problems, created agricultural systems that feed six billion people every day, discovered how to eliminate or cure diseases that threaten our lives, and also found time to create music, drama, and literature that enhances our lives. All this has occurred in the very brief period of about ten thousand years from the days the first humans stood upright, banded together in families, tribes, and nations, and about five thousand years ago began to devote most of our time to looting, pillaging and killing one another with greater efficiency.

Lovelock is now closing in on his own mortality and the odds are that he will join the many other prophets of doom who despise their own species while worshipping an Earth that constantly reminds us all with earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods, droughts, ice ages, and other natural calamities that we are not in charge of anything. Read more here.

A bombshell April 1, 2009 report from the German publication “ScienceBlogs” reveals that renowned geophysicist and former socialist party leader Dr. Claude Allegre - France’s most outspoken global warming skeptic—may be considered as the next French Environment Minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration. If Dr. Allegre, who has mocked former Vice President Al Gore’s Nobel Prize as “a political gimmick,” is chosen for the appointment, it would send political earthquakes through Europe and the rest of the world. [Editor’s Note: Though the “ScienceBlogs report is dated April 1, it appears not to be a joke.]

Allegre is a former believer in man-made global warming who reversed his views in recent years to become one of the most vocal dissenters of man-made global warming fears. Germany’s “ScienceBlogs” reported that the consideration of Allegre “is probably linked to a general shift in French climate policy.” “ScienceBlogs” continued, “Some of my colleagues fear this may also have an influence on the part of the budget which deals with the funding of climate research.” Dr. Benny Peiser, the editor of the climate policy network CCNet, stressed that the possibility of Allegre becoming the French environmental minister is “no April’s fool joke.” (referring to date of “ScienceBlog’s report) Peiser noted that an April 16 article in Paris Match noted how Allegre has been making pro-Sarkozy statements.

“In recent days, the French media have been reporting that Claude Allegre may replace environment minister Jean Luis Borloo,” Peiser told Climate Depot. “Allegre is France’s most eminent climate skeptic. He has also been a CCNet subscriber for many years,” Peiser explained. “The very fact that he is a serious contender for the post of environment minister in itself is a clear signal that climate politics in Europe are changing rapidly. It also mirrors similar changes in Poland, Italy and Germany where political opposition to self-destructive climate policies is rising sharply,” Peiser said.

Allegre, a former French Socialist Party leader and a member of both the French and U.S. Academies of Science, was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, but he now says the cause of climate change is “unknown.” Allegre has authored more than 100 scientific articles, written 11 books, and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States.

Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992, letter titled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.” But Allegre now believes the global warming hysteria is motivated by money. “The ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!” he explained. (LINK)

Allegre mocked former Vice President Al Gore’s Nobel Prize in 2007, calling it “a political gimmick.” Allegre said on October 14, 2007, “The amount of nonsense in Al Gore’s film! It’s all politics; it’s designed to intervene in American politics. It’s scandalous.” (LINK)

Allegre ridiculed what he termed the “prophets of doom of global warming” in a September 2006 article. (LINK) Allegre has mocked “the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man’s role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters.”

Capitol Hill’s leading climate skeptic, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has highlighted Allegre’s recent conversion to a dissenter of global warming. “I find it ironic that a free market conservative capitalist in the U.S. Senate and a French Socialist scientist both apparently agree that sound science is not what is driving this debate, but greed by those who would use this issue to line their own pockets,” Inhofe said in an October 26, 2007 speech on the Senate floor.

Allegre was also featured in several U.S. Senate reports on global warming highlighting dissenting scientists. Allegre was featured in a May 15, 2007, report entitled ”Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics.” See Marc’s full story here.

From the “we told you so” department.  Gotta love this quote from Pen Hadow: “It’s never wise to imagine that either man or technology has the upper hand in the natural world.” - Anthony

Arctic team gives up on ice radar
By David Shukman, Science and environment correspondent, BBC News

Use of the yellow Sprite radar has now been abandoned. Half-way through their expedition to survey the Arctic sea-ice, British explorers have been jinxed by yet more technical problems and are resorting to old-fashioned techniques to carry out research. On Day 44 of the trek, both a radar device meant to measure the ice thickness and a satellite communications unit to relay the data are still not working - despite being brought back to the UK for repairs and then delivered to the team last week.

As a result, the explorers are now drilling more sampling holes than planned, which means they are progressing more slowly than hoped. It now looks much less likely that the team will reach its destination of the North Pole. The radar system, known as Sprite and meant to be dragged over the ice making millions measurements, is now being carried on a sledge instead.

Pen Hadow, leading the Catlin Arctic Survey, describes losing the use of the equipment as frustrating but concedes that the hostile conditions have overwhelmed the technology. “It’s never wise to imagine that either man or technology has the upper hand in the natural world,” he said. “It’s truly brutal at times out here on the Arctic Ocean and a constant reminder that Mother Nature always has the final say.”

The expedition was blighted in the first few weeks by temperatures well below minus 40 Celsius, the equivalent of minus 70 allowing for the wind chill. The failures are blamed on problems with power supplies, either with batteries not working or with cables snapping in the cold. The loss of the hi-tech equipment has focused attention on the data gathered by the tried-and-tested method of drilling through the ice by hand.

One-hundred-and-two holes have been dug so far and 1,100 measurements have been made of ice thickness, snow density and other features - data deemed vital by scientists evaluating the future of the Arctic sea-ice. The latest findings show that virtually all the ice surveyed is what is called first-year ice, ice that only grew this past winter, as opposed to tougher multi-year ice which survives the warmth of summer.

Figures indicate an average ice thickness of 1.15-3.75m, much of which might be expected to melt between June and September. Organisers in London insist the expedition’s data-gathering is still important for research - despite the setbacks - and describe reaching the Pole as “largely irrelevant”.  According to Simon Harris-Ward, operations director, “what matters most is gathering the maximum amount of data possible over a scientifically interesting route.” Read more and comments here.

EVERY totalitarian regime needs its defining myth. With the Nazis, it was the “Aryan” fantasy of racial purity. With the USSR, it was the dictatorship of the proletariat. With secularised, semi-pagan Western societies in historic decline, it is global warming.

Sometimes comparisons among these are alarming. For example, Ed Miliband, the climate change minister, has said that opposing wind farms is “socially unacceptable”. How long before global warming denial becomes an offence, like holocaust denial?

The Government seizes approvingly on outrageous remarks by such as Dr James Hansen, who wrote in a national newspaper: “The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.”

What I find bewildering is that the Greens, who claim to care for the environment, are so strongly in favour of wind farms, which are a kind of pollution of the countryside. What’s more, they don’t work very efficiently. So why ruin the countryside for the sake of ‘obsessed environmentalists’ gesture politics?

Millions of British people enjoy our glorious countryside as a natural environment which provides an antidote to the stress of urban life. It is nothing short of wickedness to foul this delight with useless wind farms. To their credit, some governments are coming to see the uselessness of the wind turbines. Germany and Spain are losing their enthusiasm for wind power because, as reported by The Scientific Alliance, “...of the need to run back-up conventional power stations”. It is meteorologists and other scientists who point out that settled spells of either very hot or very cold weather - the weather that creates the greatest demand for electrical power - occur when there is no wind. So, when electricity demand is at its peak, wind turbines are static and produce nothing.

Global warming is not indisputable. Thousands of highly qualified and experienced scientists question it. But the problem is that global warming is not being treated as a theory, a possibility, but as a truth of nature on a par with the law of gravity. It is the unassailable myth of the new totalitarians.

I wouldn’t want you to think this is just Mullen shooting from the hip. I have been avidly reading scientific papers and reports and, while there are those who believe global warming is taking place, there are thousands of reputable scientists who deny it. This is entirely as it should be. Rigorous examination of hypotheses is the very basis of science. And this is what is being asked for by, among other intelligent sources, The Scientific Alliance. I quote: “The whole
juggernaut of global warming is based on a framework which accepts the International Panel on Climate Change’s view of the enhanced greenhouse effect as indisputable truth. Hence the refusal to concede that any degree of scepticism or a different interpretation of evidence is legitimate.

So it is even more important for critical points to be raised and debate encouraged. Scientific understanding will benefit from this: and the better the understanding, the better any necessary response can be formulated.” This is the reasonable approach and a long way from Ed Miliband’s dark
words about what is “socially acceptable” and the disgraceful invocation of “death trains”. See his story here. H/T Dr. Benny Peiser CCNet.