Climate hysterics v heretics in an age of unreason

[SpidermanTUba]

hur Herman | August 04, 2008
IT has been a tough year for the high priests of global warming in the US. First, NASA had to correct its earlier claim that the hottest year on record in the contiguous US had been 1998, which seemed to prove that global warming was on the march. It was actually 1934. Then it turned out the world's oceans have been growing steadily cooler, not hotter, since 2003. Meanwhile, the winter of 2007 was the coldest in the US in decades, after Al Gore warned us that we were about to see the end of winter as we know it.

1998 is still the warmest year on record globally. Its called GLOBAL warming, not US warming.

2008 is the 141st coldest year out of the last 150. The 91st coolest out of the last 100. 10th warmest on record. Not exactly indicative of a cooling trend.

[red states rule]

Newspaper Seriously Considers Absurd 'Geoengineering' to Cool Down Planet





Climate scientists: it's time for 'Plan B'

Poll of international experts by The Independent reveals consensus that CO2 cuts have failed – and their growing support for technological intervention

By Steve Connor, Science Editor and Chris Green

An emergency "Plan B" using the latest technology is needed to save the world from dangerous climate change, according to a poll of leading scientists carried out by The Independent. The collective international failure to curb the growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has meant that an alternative to merely curbing emissions may become necessary.


The plan would involve highly controversial proposals to lower global temperatures artificially through daringly ambitious schemes that either reduce sunlight levels by man-made means or take CO2 out of the air. This "geoengineering" approach – including schemes such as fertilising the oceans with iron to stimulate algal blooms – would have been dismissed as a distraction a few years ago but is now being seen by the majority of scientists we surveyed as a viable emergency backup plan that could save the planet from the worst effects of climate change, at least until deep cuts are made in CO2 emissions.

What has worried many of the experts, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as a Nobel Laureate, is the failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions through international agreements, namely the Kyoto Treaty, and recent studies indicating that the Earth's natural carbon "sinks" are becoming less efficient at absorbing man-made CO2 from the atmosphere.

Levels of CO2 have continued to increase during the past decade since the treaty was agreed and they are now rising faster than even the worst-case scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body. In the meantime the natural absorption of CO2 by the world's forests and oceans has decreased significantly. Most of the scientists we polled agreed that the failure to curb emissions of CO2, which are increasing at a rate of 1 per cent a year, has created the need for an emergency "plan B" involving research, development and possible implementation of a worldwide geoengineering strategy.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environ...b-1221092.html

[SpidermanTUba]

...and recent studies indicating that the Earth's natural carbon "sinks" are becoming less efficient at absorbing man-made CO2 from the atmosphere.

This is an example of journalistic stupidity. No scientist would ever say "less efficient at absorbing man-made CO2 from the atmosphere" because its an incomplete statement - and its misleading. Might lead one to think man-made CO2 is somehow fundamentally different. Other than isotope abundancy ratios, it isn't. The more correct, more general statement is ""less efficient at absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere""

[red states rule]