By Kirk Myers, Examiner
The is the first in a multi-part series of articles exposing the lies and misinformation behind legislation mandating the replacement of incandescent light bulbs with potentially unsafe compact florescent light (CFL) bulbs.
Most consumers by now are aware of a federal law mandating the phased transition from incandescent light bulbs to controversial mercury-activated compact florescent light (CFL) bulbs, starting this year.
According to provisions of legislation passed by congress in 2007, the 100-watt incandescent bulb was to be off the shelves this January, followed by a phase-out of the 75-watt version in January 2013 and the 60- and 40-watt versions in January 2014. But last month congress granted consumers a reprieve by including in its spending bill a measure delaying enforcement of the ban until the end of the 2012.
Mercury - a deadly neurotoxin
From the time it was first proposed, the ban has run into opposition from consumers who are understandably concerned about outfitting their home light fixtures with bulbs containing, on average, 5 milligrams of mercury, enough to contaminate 6,000 gallons of water. Mercury is one of the most deadly neurotoxins on the planet.
According to Wattsworks.com, “Breaking a single CFL bulb in a room can result in mercury vapor levels 300 times in excess of what the EPA has established as safe for prolonged exposure. Serious health effects are associated with mercury exposure. Unborn and young children, elderly and those with weakened health are particularly vulnerable.”
The EPA continues to downplay safety concerns, but urges consumers to follow these safety precautions if a bulb is broken:
•Open a window and ventilate the area for 15 minutes
•Avoid vacuuming the area (to prevent the spread of mercury dust)
•Use cardboard, not a broom, to sweep up the remains of the bulb
•While wearing rubber globes use a wet paper towel to wipe the area
•Seal the contents in a jar with a lid or plastic bag for disposal
“If clothing or bedding materials come into direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powers from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away,” the EPA recommends.
The EPA claims the amount of mercury in a single bulb is not enough to create a health hazard. But according to test data released in December 2010 by Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA), mercury levels from broken CFLs were 20 times higher than regulations allow in the surrounding air for up to five hours after breakage.
The American Thinker reports: “Based on a new method to measure mercury from broken CFLs, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection reports that only one-third of the mercury release occurs during the first 8 hours after breakage. During the following two-week period, 17 percent to 40 percent of the mercury is released into the air.”
In a report last March, Fox News exposed the potentially dangerous health hazards of mercury-laced CFL bulbs:
“Mercury… is a potent, developmental neurotoxin that can damage the brain, liver, kidneys and central nervous system. Infants and young children are particularly vulnerable to mercury’s toxic effects. Even at low levels, mercury is capable of causing a number of health problems including impaired motor functioning, cognitive ability and emotional problems. Higher or prolonged exposure can result in much more serious health problems.”
Mercury Instruments, a Littleton, Colo., firm that specializes in removing mercury contamination, states the following on its Web site:
“If you break a “CFL” Compact Fluorescent light bulb and attempt to clean it up yourself, there is absolutely no way to know that you have removed the mercury unless you screen the area with a mercury vapor monitor . . . Without the proper equipment, equipment you will never be able to locate where the mercury came to rest.”
Concerned about mercury contamination, many environmental agencies have adopted strict regulations for the disposal and recycling of CFLs. In California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, it is illegal to improperly dispose of florescent bulbs in trash or landfills. Consumers face stiff fines if they violate the law.
Investigate Magazine says this about broken CFLs: “The real cost is not one broken light bulb, but how badly affected homes will be after 20 years of amateur attempts to clean up one of the deadliest neurotoxins on the planet.”
Mercury vapors - another health hazard?
Toxic mercury from broken bulbs might not be the only danger posed by CFL lamps. During tests last year at Berlin’s Ala Laboratory, scientists discovered that various carcinogenic chemicals and toxins, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene, are released when CFL are switched on.
Environmental experts in Britain have downplayed the findings, insisting that CFLs are not a danger to the public and that more studies are needed to back up the German research.
But Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the lab, claims that CFL lamps emit poisonous vapors when turned on and “should not be used in unventilated areas and definitely not in the proximity of the head.”
This report comes on the heals of research by Israel’s Haifa University suggesting that the CFL’s bluer light emissions, which closely mimic daylight, might interfere with the production of the hormone melatonin, contributing to higher rates of breast cancer.
In addition, the Migraine Action Association is warning that CFLs could trigger migraine headaches, “and skin care specialists have claimed that their intense light could exacerbate a range of existing skin problems,” according to a report in London’s Daily Telegraph.
Consumer anger
Many consumers are fuming over what they see as government meddling and are stocking up on incandescent light bulbs before the ban goes into effect. Judging from the pointed buyer comments on Amazon.com, the legislators who voted for the ban might want to update their resumes.
“You can pry my 100 watt incandescent from my cold dead hand (all apologies to Charlton Heston),” says Dukesuxheelrule. “Only a liberal green weenie would replace a perfectly safe tool of illumination with a much more expensive, lower quality, and highly hazardous product.”
Jeddy3 chimes in: “Every time the do-gooder nanny state shoves something down our throat “for our own good,” you can bet it’ll be found later that it wasn’t safer/better after all. If it were better, safer, or more economical, it wouldn’t be necessary to legislate its competition out of business.’
Another incensed buyer bashes the Green movement and defends freedom of choice:
“They [the incandescent bulbs] work well, shine bright, and - best of all - make me feel constantly proud to be screwing the eco-nazis,” said ahtimsa1970. “Screw you, Al Gore! Keep your hands off my thermostat, light bulbs and recycling bins. I worked hard for my money; I’ll spend it however I choose.”
During a recent appearance on Fox News, Marc Marano, the founder of the Web site Climate Depot, described the ban as an assault on consumer choice carried out by global warming alarmists and their allies on Capitol Hill.
“The only reason we’re talking about incandescent bulbs is because of fears of global warming. They’re trying . . . to control every aspect of our lives.”
As one critic quipped, “We know why GE dropped the ‘We bring good things to life’ slogan.”
Deke Arndt of NCDC
“shifts in seasonality now on display are in line with the warming the United States has xperienced in recent years”
Note to Deke Arndt: 1990s winters were warmer
January 1, 2012 (enlarged)
According to NOAA/NCDC, 1994, 1996, 1991, 1997, 1990, 1995, 1998, 1992, and 1999 all had warmer winter temperatures than the winter of 2010-2011 (years ordered from coolest to warmest).
In fact the average winter temperature for the contiguous United States in 1992 was 36.90 degrees F, as compared to 32.15 degrees F in 2011 and 31.12 degrees in 2010. So we are talking about recent winters being about 5 degrees cooler. It was even warmer in 1999 and 2000: it cooled nearly 6 degrees F from 2000 to 2010. Yet these people want us to believe it is actually getting warmer.
Here is the table NCDC produces (enlarged):
Notice the trendline. This is 20 years of US winters and the trend is DOWN. What drugs are climate scientists taking?
What do you expect from an agency run by an oceanogrpaher from OSU who thought the salmon fisheries decline since 1977 was due to AGW when other scientists at that and nearby universities said it was the PDO. Indeed since the PDO flipped in the late 1990s and 2000s, the salmon fisheries due to cold water have flourished.
By Kirk Myers
With the advent of the new year, perhaps it’s a good time to once again expose the global warming narrative for what it actually is: fact-free alarmist fear-mongering - scientific fraud, to be exact - designed to shut down fossil-fuel industries, enrich carbon traders, soak taxpayers and reduce affluent western societies to a state of pre-industrial poverty - all the while purporting to save the world from what turns out to be an imaginary man-made bogeyman.
The body of evidence discrediting the global warming-turned - “climate change” theory (yes, it’s only a theory) is growing exponentially as it smacks head-on with observational and empirical facts that undermine the entire manufactured edifice of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
Take a look at the views of some of the experts, including a few candid assessments by die-hard True Believers, who reveal just how little evidence exists to keep alive the theoretical Global Warming Godzilla that lumbered onto the scene in the late 1980s.
First, here are a few statements from within the ranks of the global warming camp that expose the fraudulent science they themselves are disseminating:
Dr. Phil Jones - No statistically significant warming for 15 years
From the Daily Mail: “Professor [Phil] Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now - suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon… And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.”
NASA GSS - no sign of global warming in North America
From Strata-sphere.com: “In response to a freedom of information request, NASA’s GISS was required to produce a series of emails, which in turn revealed that (a) NASA admits the current warm period is not historically different from the period around 1921-1950, and (b) that there has been no sign of global warming in North America or the US. How is global warming possible when it is not ‘global’?”
Dr. Phil Jones, Climate Research Unit
From a ClimateGate email: “With their LIA [Little Ice Age] being 1300 -1900 and their MWP [Medieval Warm Period] 800 -1300, there appears (at my quick first reading) no discussion of synchroneity of the cool/warm periods. Even with the instrumental record, the early and late 20th century warming periods are only significant locally at between 10-20% of grid boxes.”
Professor Richard Muller - 70% of measuring stations poorly sited
Reports Ken Haapala (via WattsUpWithThat.com): “Professor Muller presented himself as a former skeptic [to the House National Resources Committee], but he couched his skepticism as questioning the quality of the land-based surface measurements . . . According to him 70% of measuring stations in the US are poorly sited with a possible error of 2 to 5 degrees C. He evaded the real issue: that most skeptics realize that temperatures have risen, but question that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the principal cause of global warming.”
“Muller failed to mention that . . . he questioned the human influence on global warming; that his calculations of temperatures show no warming for the past ten years; that he has suggested that the cause for the pause in warming is a change in ocean oscillations, and that there is a disconnect between land surface data and atmospheric data.”
An admission: Medieval Warm Period at least as warm as today
From Strata-sphere.com: “The real killer is the global temperature itself, which has been cooling since 2000, and not showing any warming since 1995 - according to Dr Phil Jones, previous head of CRU. In addition, Jones admitted there is no data to overturn the long held scientific theory that the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was as warm or warmer than today. Jones admits lack of data in other regions was used by Mann and others to make up the idea the MWP was cooler, but lack of data is not the same thing as proxies showing cooler temps!:
NASA GISS - 10 warmest years spread throughout last century
From Strata-sphere.com: “In fact, NASA GISS is on record noting that the ten warmest years are spread throughout the last century and are all statistically tied for warmest year. Because of the margin of error in global indexes, there is no way to determine which of the following years are warmer than the others.
“For the earlier period these are the warmest years in the top ten: 1921, 1931, 1934, 1938, 1939 - 5 all told. For the latter it is: 1990, 1998, 1999, 2006 - which is 4. And then there is the outlier 1953. These all have a temperature index that is statistically the same - and it proves there is not ‘significant’ warming, which blows the AGW theory right out of the water.”
While consensus scientists are stuck in defense mode, credentialed and respected skeptics around the globe have taken no time out in their efforts to expose the soft underbelly of the alarmist scientific data churned out by manipulated climate models.
Professor Terry Mills - Warming just as likely to be caused by random fluctuations
From the Herald Sun in Australia: “Terry Mills, professor of applied statistics and econometrics at Loughborough University, looked at the same data as the IPCC. He found that the warming trend it reported over the past 30 years or so was just as likely to be due to random fluctuations as to the impacts of greenhouse gases. Mill’s findings are to be published in Climatic Change, an environmental journal.”
John Christy, professor, UAH - Land temperature records unreliable
“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,’ said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.
From the Herald Sun: “The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years. These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site . . . .”
Joe D’Aleo and Dr. Don Easterbrook - No link between CO2 and temperature changes
“During the past century, global climates have consisted of two cool periods (1880-1915 and 1945 to 1977) and two warm periods (1915 to 1945 and 1977 to 1998). In 1977, the PDO [Pacific Decadal Oscillation] switched abruptly from its cool mode, where it had been since about 1945, into its warm mode and global climate shifted from cool to warm.
“This rapid switch from cool to warm has become known as “The Great Pacific Climatic Shift” (Figure 1). Atmospheric CO2 showed no unusual changes across this sudden climate shift and was clearly not responsible for it. Similarly, the global warming from ~1915 to ~1945 could not have been caused by increased atmospheric CO2 because that time preceded the rapid rise of CO2, and when CO2 began to increase rapidly after 1945, 30 years of global cooling occurred (1945-1977).”
Only one global warming period in 500 years matches rising CO2
“Only one out of all of the global warming periods in the past 500 years occurred at the same time as rising CO2 (1977–1998). About 96% of the warm periods in the past 500 years could not possibly have been caused by rise of CO2. The inescapable conclusion of this is that CO2 is not the cause of global warming.
Two ocean oscillations drive climate shifts
:The PDO leads the way [in climate shifts] and its effect is later amplified by the AMO [Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation). Each time this has occurred in the past century, global temperatures have remained cool for about 30 years. Thus, the current sea surface temperatures not only explain why we have had global cooling for the past 10 years, but also assure that cool temperatures will continue for several more decades.
“The cool phase of the PDO is now entrenched and ‘global warming’ (the term used for warming from 1977 to 1998) is over.”
Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, Pulkovo Observatory - Warns of deep temperature drop
From WorldNetDaily: “The earth is no longer threatened by the catastrophic global warming forecast by some scientists; warming passed its peak in 1998 - 2005, while the value of the TSI by July-September of last year had already declined by 0.47 watts per square meter,” Abdussamatov wrote. “Consequently, we should fear a deep temperature drop, but not catastrophic global warming. Humanity must survive the serious economic, social, demographic and political consequences of a global temperature drop, which will directly affect the national interests of almost all countries and more than 80% of the population of the Earth.”
Dr. George Kukla - Changes in orbit responsible for climate change
From Climate Realists.com and Helium.com: “George Kukla, 77, retired professor of paleoclimatology at Columbia University and researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory responds, “The only thing to worry about global warming is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid.”
“I feel we’re on pretty solid ground in interpreting orbit around the sun as the primary driving force behind Ice Age glaciation,” he says. “The relationship is just too clear and consistent to allow reasonable doubt. It’s either that, or climate drives orbit, and that just doesn’t make sense.”
Earth on the brink of an Ice Age?
Pravda Science Report, via IceAgeNow: “The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years.
“While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.”
Michael Crichton - There is no human-caused global warming
In his book, “State of Fear,” Michael Crichton offers his assessment of the scientific evidence for global warming. His conclusion: There is no human-caused global warming.
Crichton is correct, writes Donald Miller: “Most of the rise in temperature in the 20th century occurred before 1940, before CO2 levels started rising. Temperatures fell 0.3F from 1940 to 1970 while CO2 levels rose, from 310 to 325 ppmv . . . .”
“The temperature of the planet’s upper atmosphere (which the theory of global warming predicts should warm first), as measured by satellites, beginning in 1979, and weather balloons, has remained unchanged over the last 25 years despite a rise in atmospheric CO2 levels to 370 ppmv [now near 390 ppm].”
Weather Channel founder says global warming science is rigged
Writes Weather Channel founder John Coleman: “Any person who spends a decade at a university obtaining a PHD in Meteorology and becomes a research scientist, more likely than not, becomes a part of that single minded culture . . . These scientists know that if they do research and results are in no way alarming, their research will gather dust on the shelf and their research careers will languish.
“But if they do research that sounds alarms, they will become well known and respected and receive scholarly awards and, very importantly, more research dollars will come flooding their way. . . It was easy for them to manipulate the data to come up with the results they wanted to make headlines and at the same time drive their environmental agendas.”
“The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. It is all a scam, the result of bad science.”
Temperatures rose four times as fast in 18th century
From David Archibald: “After the invention of thermometers, records started to be kept . . . A number of interesting things can be seen in this record, including the depths of the Little Ice Age in the late 17th century when the Thames regularly froze over, and the Dalton Minimum which was the last time the Thames froze over in the City of London.”
“What is also interesting is the 2.2F temperature rise from 7.8F in 1696 to 10.0F in 1732. This is a 2.2F rise is 36 years. By comparison, the world has seen a 0.6F rise over the 100 years of the 20th century. That temperature rise in the early 18th century was four times as large and three times as fast as the rise in the 20th century.”
* * *
These represent only small fraction of the many facts that rip away at the theological underpinnings of the global warming gospel. Awaiting any inquisitive person is a virtual Mother Lode of informed analysis and scientific data, available at the touch of a keyboard, impeaching the tenets of the AGW doctrine and challenging the certitude of the True Disciples - formerly practicing scientists - who are now engaged in a desperate effort to defend and preserve their revered scripture.
University of Maryland physics professor Robert Parks gets to the heart of the matter:
“In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion it is condemned as heresy.”