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By Elizabeth Bury

The evidence is inexorably mounting that the climate alarmists have been taking us all for a ride. It is only a matter of time before their agenda is exposed as one of the biggest con tricks of all time. Thus they are already scrambling to breathe new life into the CO2 emissions scare. It will become obvious (by the passage of years if nothing else) that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not, after all, cause any significant climate change, thus it will be necessary to blame CO2 (and hence man) for some other catastrophic event. So, prepare yourself for the coming “ocean acidification” scam.

The media have already entered the fray with lying narratives that sound like science fiction scripts, warning about the catastrophe of ‘acid oceans’ and ‘toxic seas’. The BBC have churned out headlines such as ‘Marine life faces ‘acid threat”, ‘Acid oceans ‘need urgent action” and ‘Acidic seas fuel extinction fears’. Newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and the Times have got in on the act with scary headlines such as ‘Mussels face extinction as oceans turn acidic’, ‘Pollution to devastate shellfish by turning seas acidic’ and ‘Acid seas threaten to make British shellfish extinct’. Just recently, it has got all the more strident: the Sunday Times (March 8, 2009) chimes in under the headline The toxic sea:

“Each one of us dumps a tonne of carbon dioxide into the oceans every year, turning them into acidified soups — and threatening to destroy most of what lives in them.”

And from the Guardian (March 10, 2009) under the headline Carbon emissions creating acidic oceans not seen since dinosaurs:

“Human pollution is turning the seas into acid so quickly that the coming decades will recreate conditions not seen on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs…The rapid acidification is caused by the massive amounts of carbon belched out from chimneys and exhausts that dissolve in the ocean…the pH of surface waters, where the CO2 is absorbed from the atmosphere, has fallen about 0.1 units since the industrial revolution, though it will take longer for the acid to reach deeper water.”

Note the continual use of the word acid. Yet there is not the slightest possibility that seawater will turn to acid, or even become mildly acidic, so this is drivel. Note also the claim that pH has changed by 0.1 units over the last 200 years: it was not possible a hundred years ago, never mind 200 years ago, to measure pH to the accuracy necessary to support that assertion, so it’s just posturing. Finally, notice that CO2 is branded ‘human pollution’, though CO2 is an entirely natural and absolutely essential nutrient for plant photosynthesis, without which all life on earth would certainly become extinct very quickly.

As an aside, we should note that if lower alkalinity per se were so unfavourable to shellfish as is claimed then we would have no freshwater shellfish and snails – but we do. The freshwater mussel has lived for thousands of years in waters that are genuinely acidic and with highly variable pH, not only seasonally, but geographically. With spring snowmelt and high rainfall, the pH of rivers and lakes can fall to below pH 5, and experiments have shown that mussels can survive this acidity indefinitely without any deleterious effects to their shells. Note: a pH of 5 has 1,000 times as many ‘acidic’ H+ ions per litre as seawater, and 100 times more than pure water. This is not to say that sea creatures can survive in fresh water – they are adapted to a radically different saline environment – the point at issue is that the idea of a small change in ocean pH due to increased dissolved carbon dioxide having a deleterious effect on marine shells of living organisms is not as obvious as the alarmists make out.

The ‘science’ underlying the anthropogenic global warming and ocean acidification scares relies on positive feedback – that is, that the overall effect of a small change is disproportionate to the effect of the change itself – there is an amplification process. Positive feedbacks cause unstable runaway or oscillating systems. The so-called physics of the global warming hypothesis are a perpetuum mobile of the second kind and should be consigned to the dustbin. Read the rest here.

ILCD editor’s note: It should also be mentioned that coral reefs and much of marine life actually developed during periods when ocean CO2 concentrations were as much as ten times higher than today, although this is not mentioned by IPCC “scientists” producing the scary media reports. More information on the real effects of “ocean acidification” can be found here.

By Watts Up With That?

The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower. 2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year’s 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008. Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year’s 90 days (87%). It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: “We’re experiencing a very deep solar minimum,” says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

“This is the quietest sun we’ve seen in almost a century,” agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Read rest…

By George F. Will

Fervent. 1. Hot, burning, glowing, boiling.
— Oxford English Dictionary

“Fervently” is how America will henceforth engage in talks on global warming. So said the president’s climate change negotiator Sunday in Germany, at a U.N. conference on reducing carbon emissions. This vow was fervently applauded by conferees welcoming the end of what the AP news story called the Bush administration’s “eight years of obdurate participation” in climate talks. Reducing carbon emissions supposedly will reverse warming, which is allegedly occurring even though, according to statistics published by the World Meteorological Organization, there has not been a warmer year on record than 1998. Regarding the reversing, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change has many ambitions, as outlined in a working group’s 16-page “information note” to “facilitate discussions.” For example:
“Tariffs can be lowered to grant special preference to climate-friendly goods, or they can be maintained at high levels to discourage trade in GHG- [greenhouse gas-] intensive goods and services.” The working group says protectionism “in the service of climate change objectives” might virtuously “shelter domestic producers of climate-friendly goods.” Furthermore, using “border carbon adjustment,” a nation might virtuously “impose costs on imports equivalent to that [sic] faced by domestic producers” operating under a carbon tax. Or a nation with a cap-and-trade regime regulating carbon emissions by domestic manufacturers might require foreign manufacturers “to buy offsets at the border equal to that [sic] which the producer would have been forced to purchase had the good been produced domestically.” Cynics will see only potential for mischief by governments, including the U.S. government, using such measures to give a green patina to protectionism. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is having its own problems with one “climate-friendly good” that might not be. Last week, the New York Times front page carried this headline: “The Bulb That Saved the Planet May Be a Little Less Than Billed.” The story recounted some Americans’ misadventures with the new light bulbs that almost all Americans — all but those who are filling their closets with supplies of today’s incandescent bulbs — will have to use after the phaseout of today’s bulbs in 2014. (You missed that provision of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007?) A San Francisco — naturally — couple emerged from Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” incandescent with desire to think globally and act locally, in their home. So they replaced their incandescent bulbs with the compact fluorescents that Congress says must soon be ubiquitous. “Instead of having a satisfying green moment, however,” the Times reported, “they wound up coping with a mess.” Although supposed to last 10,000 hours and save, the Times says, “as much as” $5.40 a year in electricity costs, some bulbs died within a few hours. Some experts, reports the Times, “blame the government for the quality problems,” saying its push to cut the bulbs’ prices prompted manufacturers to use inferior components. Furthermore, some experts have written a guide saying the new bulbs require “a little insight and planning.” The Times says that “may be an understatement.” The bulbs, says the Times, “do not do well in hot places with little airflow, like recessed ceiling fixtures,” and some do not work “with dimmers or three-way sockets.” And: “Be aware that compact fluorescents can take one to three minutes to reach full brightness. This is not a defect.” Well, if you say so. Because all fluorescents contain mercury, a toxic metal, they must never be put in the trash, so Home Depot and other chains offer bins for disposing of dangerous bulbs. Driving to one of these disposal points might not entirely nullify the bulbs’ environmental benefits. Besides, the Times summarizes the Environmental Protection Agency’s helpful suggestions for coping with the environmental dangers caused when one of these environment-saving bulbs breaks: “Clear people and pets from the room and open a window for at least 15 minutes if possible. Avoid vacuuming. Scoop up larger pieces with stiff paper or cardboard, pick up smaller residue with sticky tape, and wipe the area with a damp cloth. Put everything into a sealed plastic bag or sealed glass jar. In most cases, this can be put in the trash, but the EPA recommends checking local rules.” Worrywarts wonder what will happen when a lazy or careless, say, 10 percent of 300 million Americans put their worn-out bulbs in the trash. Stop worrying. What do you think? That Congress, architect of the ethanol industry and designer of automobiles, does not think things through? georgewill@washpost.com

By Phyllis Schlafly, Human Events

The coldest winter in a decade in many places, with snow in unlikely cities such as New Orleans, has deflated some of the hot air in global warming. And a heavy snowfall that paralyzed Washington, D.C., upstaged a mass demonstration scheduled to promote global warming.

Nevertheless, according to Al Gore and the mainstream media, “the debate is over” proving that global warming exists, that humans are causing it and that “science is settled.”

But 680 of the world’s leading scientists, economists and policy analysts, who met March 8-10 in New York City for the second Heartland International Conference, beg to differ. The title of the conference expressed their doubts: “Global Warming: Was It Ever Really a Crisis?”

These authorities assert that scientists worldwide do not agree that global warming is human induced (in scientific lingo, anthropogenic). They do not even agree that the Earth is still warming.

Many scientists and other observers have come to realize that global warming is no longer a question of science but is all about politics and money. Their slogan, cap-and-trade, was best explained by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, as “a carbon tax that will increase taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a light switch.”

President Obama is being pressured by James McCarthy, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to rush his carbon tax through Congress before the American people discover the lie in Obama’s promise that “95 percent of working families” will not see their taxes rise by “a single dime.” In fact, his own budget shows that taxes will rise for 100 percent of Americans for the sake of global warming.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change plans to use a treaty to reduce America’s use of energy and therefore our standard of living, while forcing us to subsidize energy production in other countries and close our eyes to the omission of China and India from any obligation.

There has been virtually no overall global warming since 2001. Christopher Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, reminded the conference that temperatures “have been plummeting at a rate equivalent to 11 Fahrenheit degrees per century throughout the four years since Gore launched his mawkish, sci-fi comedy horror B-movie.”

Eagle Forum’s observer at the Heartland Conference, Pat Carlson of Dallas, reported that its most interesting speaker was Czech Republic President and rotating President of the European Union Vaclav Klaus, who has taken a bold position against the prevailing propaganda about global warming. He described talking to global warming advocates as similar to trying to make “well prepared arguments” using “relevant data” to former East European Communist bureaucrats: “It all fell into emptiness … they did not listen … they did not argue back … they considered you uninformed … a complainer.”

Klaus has written a book called “Blue Planet in Green Shackles — What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?” He had previously carried his politically incorrect views to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he reminded the countries promoting the global warming agenda that they “had not fulfilled even the relatively modest Kyoto Protocol obligations.”

As a resident of St. Louis, which boasts a world-class zoo noted especially for its bears housed in their natural habitats, I’ve been concerned because of the many television spots warning that global warming may make polar bears extinct. I can now stop worrying; the Senate’s expert on global warming, James Inhofe, R-Okla., has discovered that polar bears are actually more plentiful than they were 40 years ago.

This was confirmed at the Heartland Conference by Ph.D. polar bear biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor. He said polar bears are definitely not disappearing; their numbers are holding steady at about 24,000.

At the Heartland Conference, the science of global warming was actually discussed and debated. That was very different from the United Nations conferences Carlson previously attended, where global warming caused by humans was accepted as fact without debate.

The advocates of a U.N. treaty to force the United States to reduce our use of energy are extraordinarily shy about debating the science of the issue. We’ve yet to hear any of them explain or apologize for their hysterical support of the false assumption of the 1960s that millions of people would starve to death in the 1980s because of overpopulation, or of the 1970s theory that global cooling would kill our agriculture.

Christopher Horner’s new book, called “Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed,” gives many, many examples of how they not only refuse to debate, but are malicious against anyone who dares to contradict their view.

By Kevin Lollar

Way down at the bottom of the alphabetically ordered list is the name of Edward T. Wimberley, Ph.D., Florida Gulf Coast University.

Wimberley, a professor of ecological studies, is one of more than 100 scientists from across the country and Canada whose names are on a newspaper advertisement proclaiming President Obama’s recent statements about climate change are bunk.

“I’m on a list of scientists and environmentalists who don’t believe that carbon dioxide is a major cause of global warming,” Wimberley said. “I’m one of the dissenters. You know: Those people who don’t exist. Al Gore says there’s no dissent about global warming, but there’s huge dissent among people who say, ‘Wait, the carbon dioxide theory doesn’t work.'”

Paid for by the Cato Institute, the ad ran Monday in the New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

At the top of the ad is a Nov. 18, 2008, statement by Obama:

“Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.”

That’s followed by a paragraph stating “the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated” and computer models “abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.”

Then comes a list of 115 scientists.

“The reason I signed is simple: I’m just not convinced by the research that carbon dioxide is a major problem,” Wimberley said. “If I thought it was, I wouldn’t have signed it.”

Wimberley, who has degrees in psychology, theology, health and mental health, and public administration, keeps an online Global Warming Resource Archive that contains hundreds of scientific articles on climate change.

“These are articles by climatologists, biologists, astrophysicists from around the world who are saying, ‘Wait a minute. This is poppycock,'” Wimberley said. “I think a lot of folks who do environmental science are swayed by political agendas. A lot of good folks I know have good sense about science until it comes to this issue.”

Rather than warming, the world is in a cooling trend, Wimberley said.

Admitting he’s not an expert on global warming, Andrew McElwaine, president of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, said, “In terms of living in Southwest Florida, I hope he’s right. I’m afraid he’s wrong, but the alternative is not good.”

Ai Ning Loh, FGCU associate professor of marine science, said the world is definitely not cooling.

“That’s his personal view, and I don’t agree with that view,” she said. “I can speak to carbon models in the ocean, and there is warming. It is man-made.”

Behind global warming theories, Wimberley said, is the United Nations.

“The folks involved with the United Nations and many that support this are looking to a future world less governed by nations and more governed by international bodies,” he said. “They’re interested in strengthening the power of the United Nations. Nothing legitimizes that more than a global crisis.

“The whole world is going to hell. We’ll be flooded out of here in Southwest Florida. That kind of threat justifies extraordinary power and authority.”

Anne Hartley, FGCU an associate professor of environmental studies who teaches a class in global warming, did not buy the United Nations argument.

The science of climate change involves many disciplines, Hartley said, including climate science, paleo-climatology, atmospheric science, marine science and terrestrial ecology.

“You have to listen to a range of scientists,” Hartley said. “It’s important to look at the best available science and draw conclusions from that. The best available science is published by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Those who believe the United Nations is involved in a conspiracy are frankly politically motivated.”

Despite the number of scientists whose names are on the newspaper ad, Wimberley said it will be ignored.

“We’re not the first rodeo of scientists coming together and saying, ‘C’mon,'” he said. “I know my colleagues think I’m sipping the Kool-Aid, if not gulping it.”

By Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

In an unprecedented about-face, Al Gore last night recanted his claim that mankind is causing global warming. The announcement was made late Tuesday night from his Nashville home through his press secretary. Mr. Gore has remained unavailable for comment. In part, the announcement reads:

“While I will continue to support the development and rapid deployment of alternative energy technologies, I believe that the science can no longer support the view that catastrophic global warming is probable. This decision has required considerable soul searching on my part. But this is the nature of science, and scientific progress. I have no regrets over the path I have chosen.”

The announcement says that Mr. Gore will be publicly renouncing his portion of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him in 2007 for his tireless efforts to raise global awareness of the climate crisis. In fact, he will no longer be referring to the fight against a ‘climate crisis’, but instead the fight will continue against a “global energy crisis”.

“The need for inexpensive and readily available energy is the most important issue facing the world’s poor”, the statement reads, “and I will be advocating free market approaches to the leaders of Third World countries in order to allow their citizens to enter and contribute to the 21st Century global economy.”

There is also the hint that he is considering returning his Academy Award for best documentary, although he hopes that a new movie category (best movie, science fiction) will be created to accommodate his highly acclaimed motion picture on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.

By Philip V. Brennan

The con game is about over. The attempt to portray a life-giving natural gas as a dire threat to this planet is failing rapidly, as well it should.

It is becoming more and more obvious to the American people that carbon dioxide, the very substance that gives life to the world’s plant life, is not a pollutant, as the global-warming hoaxers would have us believe, but a vital element that keeps the earth green and healthy.

This is bad news for the would-be masters of the universe at the United Nations who have been using the supposed threat of global warming to advance their desire to turn the United States of America into a vassal state and its citizenry into its subdued subjects.

If increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are not causing the global climate to undergo a dangerous rise in temperatures, the United Nations has lost its strongest weapon in its attempt to assume world hegemony.

Those of us who have been warning about the U.N.’s covert ambition have found an ally in Mother Nature, who has managed to cool things down despite the rapidly increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the past decade. The climate stopped warming around 1998. During the past 10 years, she’s lowered the thermostat to the extent this year is moving rapidly toward the distinction as one of the coldest on record.

In my 1997 series, Behold, The Iceman Cometh, I warned about the U.N.’S attempt to use global warming to achieve its dream of putting the United States in its hip pocket, writing that the U.N.’S Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was setting the stage for the international body’s attempt at world domination.

I wrote that the document, allegedly the result of many years of careful study by some of the world’s top experts on global climate, was a corruption of the original that distorted its meaning and that key parts were omitted deliberately.

I quoted Frederick Seitz, chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute, as saying that the report was “not the version that was approved by the contributing scientists listed on the title page.”

“In my more than 60 years as a member of the American scientific community, including service as president of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society, I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process,” he said.

The pet theory of the global warming adherents — that evil mankind is guilty of overheating the climate — was anything but universal among scientists, a fact that was edited out of the report as it was issued, Seitz said.

“No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of climate change] to anthropogenic [human] causes,” he said, adding that this vitally important clarification was removed from the report.

“Nearly all of [the changes] worked to remove hints of the skepticism with which many scientists regard claims that human activities are having a major impact on climate . . . Nothing in the IPCC Rules permits anyone to change a scientific report after it has been accepted by the panel of scientific contributors and the full IPCC….”