Maine Focus of Climate Change Study
By Mal Leary
Maine is not escaping the impact of climate change, Gov. John Baldacci told reporters after receiving a study he sought from faculty at the University of Maine.
“People worry that some people will lose interest in energy efficiency as oil prices go down,” he said. “But you can’t help but think of the long-range impacts when you look at this report and read this report and realize the impact it will have on all of us.”
Baldacci said the state has a track record of recognizing climate change and has taken several steps to address the pollution that has contributed to climate change in Maine and worldwide. “Maine has already demonstrated leadership in this area, and I intend for us to continue to be a leader,” he said. “Maine state government has taken action to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions, becoming the first state to purchase 100 percent of our electricity from zero-carbon, renewable resources.”
The governor asked the university in 2007 to provide an analysis of the effects of climate change on Maine. Several faculty members responded and formed teams with more than 75 participants to study climate change and presented their findings to the governor on Wednesday characterizing the report as a “middle of the road” analysis of what may happen based on the available data.
“Maine will become warmer by anywhere from five to ten degrees Fahrenheit,” said UM professor George Jacobson, leader of the study group. “In all regions of the state and in all seasons, and probably we will have higher precipitation in all seasons. This is a change. It doesn’t mean necessarily a disaster, and we were saying this morning at this time of year and today it probably wouldn’t bother too many Mainers to hear that we are about to get a little warmer.”
“Maine’s growing tourism economy, which relies heavily on outdoor activities, must prepare for shorter ice fishing, skating, skiing and snowmobiling seasons, while simultaneously anticipating more visitors during longer shoulder seasons in spring and fall,” the study stated.
The study documents an increasing rate of warming in Maine that has occurred over the last century, as well as increased sea surface temperatures, increased precipitation, rising sea levels, and hydrologic changes in snow melt, the timing of ice-outs on lakes and the amount of spring runoff.
Professor Paul Mayewski, director of the university’s Climate Change Institute, cautioned the modeling done for the study predicts trends, not specific impacts. “The trends are right,” he said. “Whether or not it will all occur gradually over a hundred years, whether there will be abrupt changes in climate, in sea level, how health of humans and ecosystems will be impacted, those are all things that we have yet to discover.” Mayewski said the institute plans to continue its work to assess the current and future impact of climate change on Maine. Read full story here.
This is another garbage study and waste of money that could have been put to much better use addressing the many real issues the state, one of the poorest in the nation faces. It is the height of irony that it is released in a year when a new ALL-TIME state and New England region record low of -50F was set and in a winter following what was an all-time record snowfall season that was running in many places ahead of the record pace.
The statements made by the university are clearly false. Take a look at the northeast winter temperature plots for the last century.
See larger graph here.
You will see no net warming for the region in winter. There is warming in some of the cities (called urbanization) but rural areas show little change, mostly the cyclical ups and downs associated with cycles on the sun and in the oceans. See one rural are here.
See larger graph here.
The 5 to 10 degree F warming numbers comes from the climate models the Union of Concerned Scientists who have infiltrated the univerities pick because they are most extreme. These models have failed miserably in the last decade, especially in the years since Gore’s movie was released.
See larger graph here.
The residents of Maine should let their representatives, the governor and the universities know they reject the study and the governor’s task force plans which will prevent a development of a sane energy policy and impose carbon restrictions (leading to higher costs for energy and good and services) at a time the state like the country and world are already facing the worst economic pains in decades. Your reaction is essential because these actions are not necessary since CO2 has nothing whatsoever to do with the cyclical climate changes observed.
Given the change of the PDO to cold last year, and the likelihood the cold mode will persist for a few decades and a sun that refuses to awaken from it ultra-long slumber, colder temperatures and more snow are far more likely in the future than the worthless forecast warming from the well-funded university scientists and agenda driven politicians.
BREAKING: Not again! Big DC March Snowstorm to Greet ‘Largest public protest of global warming ever in U.S.!’ – Unseasonably Cold March Temps!
DC under ‘Winter Storm Watch’...Snow and unseasonably cold temps!
‘Largest public protest of global warming ever in U.S.’ set for Monday March 2, 2009 at U.S. Capitol with NASA’s James Hansen - Fox News - Feb. 27, 2009
Excerpt: NASA’s chief climate scientist is in hot water with colleagues and at least one lawmaker after calling on citizens to engage in civil disobedience at what is being billed as the largest public protest of global warming ever in the United States. In a video on capitolclimateaction.org, Dr. James Hansen is seen urging Americans to “take a stand on global warming” during the March 2 protest at the Capitol Power Plant in Southeast Washington, D.C. “We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet,” says Hansen, who has likened coal-fired power plants to “factories of death” and claims he was muzzled by the Bush administration when he warned of drastic climate changes.
But critics say Hansen’s latest call to action blurs the line between astronomer and activist and may violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan political activity. “Oh my goodness,” one of Hansen’s former supervisors, Dr. John Theon, told FOXNews.com when informed of the video. “I’m not surprised. The fact that Jim Hansen has gone off the deep end here is sad because he’s a good fellow.” “Why he has not been fired I do not understand,” Theon said.
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Note: The “Gore Effect” has a long and storied history. What follows is a sampling of how Mother Nature enjoys mocking global warming fear promoters.
See the long list here. See also Alan Caruba’s post on this here.
“See the site here. The colors look familiar. The only thing missing is the hammer and sickle.
This new carbon cult is in for a surprise. Most will be unprepared for the extreme cold and snow. Many may come with sandals or be barefoot. By the way, this is not unlike the religious cults waiting on the hill for the arrival of the space ship to take them away. Here is hoping the ship arrives and takes these clowns away (to a carbon free planet). The only thing keeping Washington areas residents warm tomorrow is the heat from burning fossil fuels or electricity from the coal power plant they want to shut down.
By Frank J. Tipler, Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University
The trillion-dollar plus porkapalooza Wreak-America Bill just passed by Congress will throw a huge amount of money into scientific research. This will be a good thing for certain scientists, but a very, very bad thing for science. Young scientists do most of the great science. Einstein was 26 when he published his relativity theory. In 1980, when I got my first government research grant at the age of 33, some 22 percent of National Institute of Health (NIH) grants were given to scientists under the age of 35.
In 2005, only three percent of NIH grants went to those under 35, while the percentage given to those over 45 increased from 22 to 77. Increasingly, government grants are used to defend dogma, not discover new truth: 28 percent of the scientists supported by NIH admitted recently to cooking data to support establishment theory, and 66 percent admitted to cutting corners to achieve the same end.
I myself no longer trust the data claims appearing in the leading science journals. The United States and the European nations have spent billions of dollars to build the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) outside Geneva, Switzerland. The new bill will spend more. The Standard Model of particle physics predicts that the central particle of the Standard Model, the Higgs Boson, must have a mass-energy of around 220 GeV, an energy well within the range of the LHC. But the particle physics establishment does not want the Higgs Boson to exist, because if it does, then particle physics would be complete, and the particle physicists would be out of a job.
Gary Taubes, in his book Nobel Dreams, has documented that the same people now in control of the LHC tried years ago to cook the data to refute the Standard Model. Can they be trusted now?
The new Wreak-America Bill will throw billions of dollars more into global warming research, a field in which data cooking has become an open scandal. Once again, the data is being adjusted to confirm the establishment theory: humans are responsible for global warming. In actual fact, satellite observations show that the Earth is now cooling, and has been cooling for about 10 years. This confirms the anti-establishment theory that the Earth warmed prior to the late 1990s due to the then-increasing number of sunspots, and is now cooling due to the now decreasing number of sunspots. The Wreak-America bill contains funds to “adjust” those pesky satellite observations, so that the data will confirm what powerful politicians wish to be true.
Read full story here.