Are we on the verge of an eco-world war?

It was as I looked at the SUVs on the the dual carriageway in Tripoli, that I suddenly realised this could be the state of British cities within my lifetime: fairly typical cars seen on any British road, adapted with a bid of welding to carry a machine gun, anti-tank gun or rocket grenade.
I was brought up to visualise war in terms of muddy fields of tanks with planes flying overhead. This was something entirely new: warfare at 50mph with hastily prepared equipment. This wasn’t Mad Max, it wasn’t some nuclear holocaust, it is a new kind of warfare. I couldn’t help wonder what it would be like if all those Africans and Arabs who have had to put up with the hypocrisy of the West, just took it into their mind one day to modify their cars this way, get on the motorway and drive into “Europe”. Continue reading

Posted in Environment | 6 Comments

FM radio and global warming nonsense

There is a commonly heard argument that the truth must lie somewhere between the sceptic and warmist position and on that basis many intelligent people assume that there “must be something in the warmist argument even if it isn’t all correct”.
On this basis many people think the truth must lie between the 1C warming that you get when considering the warming effect of CO2 and the 6C of  warming the zealots of the religion come up with.
So, what’s this got to do with FM radio. Well, … (deep breath) Continue reading

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Extra terrestrial contact paper – those involved should hang their heads in shame!

I’ve just read the so called “paper” on Extra Terrestrials and it is the worst kind of nonsense and may as well be prepared by primary school kids given the lack of any knowledge or ability to draw inferences from human history let alone any concept of what really might happen if alien lifeforms ever contacted us.
Why do civilisations make forays into the wilderness? Continue reading

Posted in Climate | 3 Comments

"Scientists" completely loose it … aliens to destroy earth

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth’s atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.
This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by scientists at Nasa and Pennsylvania State University (Guardian)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!
What a bunch of paranoiac twats. Come on, even if aliens did exist, even if there were actual physics that allows them to make the journey to earth, even if they bothered to make the huge journey to earth … would they seriously be bothered with a civilisation that can hardly send a couple of dozen people to its moon for a vacation let alone populate another planet let alone another star system.
This is star trek meets daffy duck!

Posted in Climate | 7 Comments

I'm away for a while … will the scam fall before I get back?

Last week, I was wondering how long it would be before we saw the fall of global warming. I had decided that after the CERN report and running up to the “there’s no increase in extreme weather but we’ve tried to put the best spin on it IPCC report”, we would see the whole scam crumble.
But now after the recent stream of damning science I’m wondering it if will all go before I get back.
 

Posted in Climate | 4 Comments

Polar bear kills British Arctic tourist

A polar bear has mauled a young British tourist to death and seriously injured four others in Norway, authorities in the country have confirmed.
The governor’s office in Svalbard district confirmed all those involved were male and had been camping near the remote Von Postbreen glacier.
She said one of the group shot the bear, and the rest were in shock.
(Source: BiasedBroadcastingCompany)

Very sad news! Any death is regrettable but the death of the worldwide icon for global warming is particularly sad. But as someone’s family will be suffering a loss I will leave my comment at that.
Addendum
I was intrigued by the way the polar bear researcher changed with scientific misconduct  hit the headlines when it seemed a pretty small issue without much relevance today many years after their “discovery” of dead bears “drowned because of ice loss”.
Obviously a story about single furry animal is far more interesting to a lot of people than real science and real scientific misconduct. On that basis, I wonder whether this one single attack will do more to undermine the image of polar bears and through that discredit the global warming scam than any real science.
The fact is that anyone that knows about polar bears knows they are vicious killers and it should be no surprise given the increasing Arctic tourism that someone would be killed. The death rate from polar bears will never match that of driving children to school, but the ability of the British public to react aversely to minuscule risk has never ceased to amaze me.
Personally, I think it is fantastic that these children were able to go to the Arctic. I wish I could afford it for my own children and I don’t think the sad death of one individual should ever lead to a mass campaign to smother all children in cotton wool (unless the risk is from their own parent’s driving)  … but it always has in the past!

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Planetary temperature controls CO2 levels — not humans

Blockbuster: Planetary temperature controls CO2 levels — not humans

Judging by the speech gave at the Sydney Institute, there’s a blockbuster paper coming soon.
Professor Murry Salby is Chair of Climate Science at Macquarie University. He’s been a visiting professorships at Paris, Stockholm, Jerusalem, and Kyoto, and he’s spent time at the Bureau of Meterology in Australia.Over the last two years he has been looking at C12 and C13 ratios and CO2 levels around the world, and has come to the conclusion that man-made emissions have only a small effect on global CO2 levels. It’s not just that man-made emissions don’t control the climate, they don’t even control global CO2 levels. (MORE)

Comment
There has never been a theory that has been so accepted by so many scientists and for which there is so little scientific evidence for and so much scientific evidence against.
It reminds me of a neighbour I had who decided to remove their upstairs fireplace (against my explicit advice). I think they asked to borrow some tools because I popped around and when I saw what they had done, I immediately went outside and the chimney had a visible tilt as they had simply removed all its support on one side, meaning nothing was holding it up except a few flimsy 4 inch ceiling  joists. Putting a ladder up beside the chimney, the whole massive 6foot x 6foot x 2foot block rocked too a fro at the slightest touch.
As far as I could tell, there was nothing keeping that chimney of more than a tonne of bricks from crashing through the roof splintering beams and killing anyone who was stupid enough to still be in the house. But still my neighbour was unconcerned and talked about getting  a friend in to look at it later.
I didn’t wait, I simply called the fire brigade and told them it was an emergency.
The doomsday manmade warming “theory” is like that chimney. Everything tells us that it ought to come crashing down creating havoc as it falls, but there are nut cases who really still believe it is sound.  It may still sit there but surely, by now, it is ready to fall. How long can it last?

Posted in Climate | 5 Comments

At last! A single scientific paper with empirical data that supports doomsday GW (almost)

Having listed all the scientific evidence that now contradicts doomsday global warming, I thought I should list everything that supports the theory.
And I searched and I searched and eventually I’ve found something!!
Here it is from the BiasedBroadcastingCompany  Friday, 16 March, 2001, 14:17 GMT:

A team of UK-based scientists have published evidence which they say proves unequivocally that global warming is real.
Comparing data obtained from two satellites which orbited the Earth 27 years apart, they found that significantly less radiation is now escaping into space than was previously the case.

So comparing a satellite that presumably was in orbit around 1970 they found that it gave different readings from one around 2000. Or as Scientific American put it:

The researchers looked at the infrared spectrum of long-wave radiation from a region over the Pacific Ocean, as well as from the entire globe. The data came from two different spacecraft the NASA’s Nimbus 4 spacecraft, which surveyed the planet with an Infrared Interferometric Spectrometer (IRIS) between April 1970 and January 1971, and the Japanese ADEO satellite, which utilized the Interferometric Monitor of Greenhouse Gases (IMG) instrument, starting in 1996. To ensure that the data were reliable and comparable, the team looked only at readings from the same three-month period of the year (April to June) and adjusted them to eliminate the effects of cloud cover.

So, that’s pretty conclusive: after the data has been manipulated to remove the biggest effect on climate (clouds) which are supposedly the key to their positive feedbacks, after measuring for a massive three months using two entirely different instruments flying different orbits measuring over a tiny bit of the globe …. it’s conclusive proof.
Whereas when Roy Spencer produces a paper using a single set of data from 2000 to 2011 covering the whole globe … what is the response from the alarmists it was “too short” a period.

Posted in Climate | 9 Comments

US: 69% say "it's likely scientists have falsified global warming research".

Re: Opinion poll reported in GWPF
If we take the 19% who believe “the media make global warming appear less serious than it is” as a base line of zealots, that suggests the vast overwhelming majority of people who are not zealots believe the scientists falsified global warming research, that’s an incredibly high percentage.
In a real sense this is the worst of all possible scenarios. The “science” community continues to deny there is any problem even though 7 out of 10 people believe there is. The result is that they will continue to believe their corrupt inquiries have settled the matter and there is no need to take further action – so no action will be taken and so nothing will be done to improve the confidence in climate “science”.
The result will not only be a continued lack of confidence in climate “science” but that lack of confidence will spread to all the other ‘science’ which has steadfastly endorsed the corrupt methods of climate “science”.
Climategate was a totally missed opportunity to restore public trust, indeed the reason confidence in the “science” is so low is precisely because they intentionally missed the opportunity to out the unacceptable behaviour exposed by the climategate emails. And like an infection this perception that science is corrupt will spread and spread until the public believes all science is corrupt because (almost) all of it has steadfastly refused to condemn the patently corrupt methods of climate “science”.

And now that the BiasedBroadcastingCompany has decided it is unable to criticise the “science” and broadcast contrary views, where will the pressure come that is need to make climate “science” (indeed all science) clean up its act? Not from the BBC that’s for sure! Which means that public distrust in climate science and science in general must grow until it reaches a point where even the likes of the BiasedBroadcastingCompany realise that impartiality and trustworthiness is determined by what the public see as impartial and trustworthy rather than what the BiasedBroadcastingCompany and Royal Society tell us is impartial and trustworthy.

Posted in Climate | 4 Comments

Is our climate becoming more extreme? (Guest post)

[The following was moved from comments on I’ve got a little list because it was too long to include in the comments but merited being displayed]
Is our climate becoming more extreme? (by Paul Homewood)
There has been much discussion recently about “Climate Disruption” or “Global Weirding”. John Holdren has talked about “increases in floods, wildfires, droughts, heat waves and hurricanes” while Rajendra Pachauri says “Based on observation, we know that there will be more floods, more drought, more heat waves and more extreme precipitation events. These things are happening”.
Al Gore of course is quick to blame any extreme weather event on climate change. Even reputable climate scientists such as Katharine Hayhoe talk about Global Weirding:-
“Heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and killing droughts are signs of a new normal of extreme U.S. weather events fueled by climate change” scientists and government planners said on Wednesday.
“It’s a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we’re seeing,” climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University told reporters.”
But are we really seeing more extreme weather nowadays?
Our memory of events from years ago tends to blur into the mists of time. Furthermore the global nature of today’s news media often brings to our attention stories which we would not have even known about if they had happened decades ago. I have therefore put together the following record of extreme weather events from 1971, which I hope will provide a certain amount of perspective when looking at what is happening today. Why 1971? Quite simply it is 40 years ago, a nice round number, and of course, before the gradual rise in global temperatures began a few years later.
DROUGHTS
In the US there were several notable droughts in 1971:-
* Florida – The worst drought on record resulted in 400,000 acres of the Everglades burned by fires. (1)
* Texas – Worst drought since the 1950’s. (2)
* Maryland – The 1958-71 drought produced the largest recorded annual departures from average stream discharge. (3)
* California – The summer of 1971 was “extra hot and long. Rainfall did not completely wet the (tree) root zones the winter of 1971-72 (sic)”. The same report in 1978 stated “the rate of development (of dieback of tree limbs) has been accentuated in recent years”. (4)
* Hawaii – The drought on Maui was described as the worst in 22 years. (5)
* North Carolina – The Air Force Bombing Range Fire destroyed 29300 acres of forest. (6)
* Minnesota – The Little Sioux Fire destroyed 14000 acres following “a period of abnormally dry weather”. (7)
* In total there were 108398 wildfires in the US in 1971 affecting 4.2 million acres. ( Figures for 2010 were 71971 fires and 3.4 million acres). (7a)
In the rest of the world there many more:-
* Australia – In Victoria what was described as a severe drought began that would last to 1973. (8)
* Ethiopia – 1971 saw the start of a 2 year drought that would claim 300,000 lives. (9)
* Kenya – 150,000 people were affected in what was described in 2006 as even worse than the 2005 drought, itself one of the worst on record. (10)
* Sahel – Mali, Chad, Nigeria and Burkina were in the middle of a drought that lasted from 1967-88 and which was described in Nigeria as the worst since 1913. (11)
* Okinawa – Experienced the worst drought in history. (12)
* China – Much of Northern China was in the grip of what in Beijing was on record as the worst drought ever (before or since). (13)
* Afghanistan – This was the worst in the country’s history. (14)
* Iraq – This severe drought led to the mercury poisoning tragedy. Iran was also affected. No drought there has been as bad since. (15)
* India – The 1971-72 drought affected many states and ranked as the 5th worst since records began in 1876. (16)
* Argentina – The 1971 drought was worse than anything since. (17)
FLOODS
* North Vietnam – The Red River flood was an absolutely terrible disaster leaving 100,000 dead. It was listed by NOAA as one of the century’s top weather events and described as a 250 year event. (18)
* India – Orissa was hit by a cyclone which left 10,800 dead. (19). Also, in Central India the Bundelkhand district was hit by floods (which were followed in 1972 by droughts). (20)
* Malaysia – 32 people were killed and 180,000 affected in the Kuala Lumpur floods in the worst floods since 1926. (21)
* Australia – In January the Canberra flood claimed 7 lives followed a month later by floods in Victoria which were called a 100 year event. In Queensland every month from January to May saw major floods and significant flooding returned in December. (22) (23) (24)
* New Zealand – The New Plymouth area was hit by their worst ever flood after 11.4 inches of rain fell in 24 hours.(25)
* Brazil – 130 dead in Rio de Janeiro floods. (26)
* Quebec – Heavy rainfall caused a massive landslide at the village of Saint-Jean-Vianney, leaving 31 dead. (27)
* Spain – 19 died in floods in Barcelona after 308mm of rain in 24 hours. (28)
* USA – Alaska suffered a major flood, only exceeded by the 1986 flood in the last 50 years. (29)
* USA – In February significant flooding occurred in Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.(30)
* USA – In March Southeastern States were affected with Georgia recording record levels in some areas. (30)
* USA – May and June brought significant flooding to Utah, Idaho, Nebraska and Wyoming. The discharge from the Bear River in Utah was considered a 75 year event. (30)
* USA – Significant flooding hit Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia in June and July. (30)
* USA – In August Baltimore was struck by one of the most damaging thunderstorms in 50 years and 14 died from the resulting floods. (30)
* USA – Widespread flooding followed Tropical Storm Doria up the coast from North Carolina to Maine in August. Some streams in New Jersey and Pennsylvania registered record floods. (30)
* USA – Extended flooding occurred in September and October affecting Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. (30)
* USA – More significant flooding hits Oklahoma and Arkansas in December. (30)
HURRICANES, TORNADOES ETC.
* The Atlantic hurricane season was a “fairly active” one with several notable storms.(31)
* The strongest was Edith, a Category 5, which killed dozens in Nicaragua before turning north and hitting Louisiana. (31)
* Ginger is on record as the longest lasting Atlantic hurricane ever, or at least until the 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane was retroactively discovered to be longer. (31)
* An unnamed storm in August attained hurricane status further north than any other North Atlantic tropical cyclone. (31)
* Canada was unusually on the receiving end of the tail ends of 2 hurricanes, Beth and Doria which both caused huge amounts of damage from flooding. Both were listed by Natural Resources Canada among the 18 major hurricanes of the 20thC. (32)
* In the Pacific the hurricane season was above average with 18 named storms, 6 of which made landfall. This latter number is still the record for a season. (33)
* The typhoon season was also a busy one with 24 typhoons of which 6 were super typhoons. This compares to 7 typhoons including 2 super typhoons in 2010. The season had an extremely active start with a record number of storms before August. (34)
* Typhoon Rose left 130 dead in Hong Kong plus many more at sea. It was described by the Hong Kong Observatory as “one of the most intense and violent” to have affected Hong Kong. (34)
* Cyclone Althea hit Queensland as a Category 4 cyclone in December. Damage was extensive but would have been worse if it had not arrived at low tide. (35)
* The tornado season in the USA was also above average with 58 F3+ tornadoes ( compared to 39 in 2010). (36)
* The worst tornado outbreak occurred in the Mississippi Valley during 2 days in February. 19 tornadoes were spawned claiming 123 lives across 3 states. (37)
OTHER EVENTS
* The highest ever UK January temperature was recorded in Gwynedd at 65F. (38)
* In Canada the snowfall record for one season was set on Mount Copeland in British Columbia in the winter of 1971/72. (39)
* In the same winter Mount Baker in Washington broke the US record when 1122 inches fell. (40)
* Montreal’s “snowstorm of the century” left 17 dead with 70mph winds producing second storey drifts. (41)
* Texas and Oklahoma were hit by a giant blizzard which set the state record snow depth in Oklahoma of 36 inches. The National Weather Service in Amarillo lists this blizzard as one of the top 20 weather events in the Panhandle. (42) (43)
* Columbia suffered its worst winter in years resulting in economic losses of $150 million. To make matters worse heavy rains caused the two biggest rivers, the Magdalena and Cuca, to flood vast regions in the Central and Western parts of the country. (44)
* Most of the USA was colder than normal. 1971 nationally was the 36th coldest in the 20thC. (45)
Which year saw the more extreme weather, 1971 or 2010? Who can say. How can anyone compare the severity of, say, a hurricane with that of a drought? Or a flood with blizzard? Katharine Hayhoe complains that our weather is becoming unpredictable but surely it has ever been so. Perhaps we should really start worrying when we stop getting extreme weather events.
Paul Homewood
References
(1) http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=458001
(2) http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=457569
(3) http://md.water.usgs.gov/publications/wsp-2375/md-dc/md-dc-html.html
(4) http://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=1504&Type=2
(5) http://www.maui-lahaina-sun.com/strange-maui-drought.html
(6) http://fire.forestencyclopedia.net/p/p450/
(7) http://nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/597
(7a) http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html
(8) http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2766420
(8a) http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/068f13bccd03f27bca2569de001f1072?OpenDocument
(9) http://www.photius.com/countries/ethiopia/society/ethiopia_society_refugees_drought_a~170.html
(10) http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88067
(10a) http://www.alnap.org/pool/files/erd-3452-summary.pdf
(11) http://www.adf.gov/NDpart1-thedrought.pdf
(12) http://www.ideaconnection.com/solutions/611-Drought.html
(13) http://www.china-daily.org/Scientific-News/Beijing-case-of-the-worst-drought-in-40-years-more-than-a-thousand-people-drinking-water-2/
(13a) http://www.china.org.cn/environment/2011-01/24/content_21807550.htm
(14) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_in_Afghanistan
(15) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/864801.stm
(15a) http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Mercury+Poisoning+in+Iraq+-+1971
(16) http://dspace.vidyanidhi.org.in:8080/dspace/bitstream/2009/951/3/UOH-1995-133-2.pdf
(17) http://www.marketwatch.com/story/argentina-declares-drought-emergency-bbc
(17a) http://www.usatoday.com/weather/drought/2009-01-23-argentina-drought_N.htm
(18) http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mysterious-flood-strikes-north-vietnam
(19) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_North_Indian_Ocean_cyclone_season#1971_Orissa_Cyclone
(20) http://bundelkhandinfo.org/general/climate/drought_flood.html
(21) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Kuala_Lumpur_floods
(22) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Canberra_flood
(23) http://www.egcma.com.au/file/Floods%20Week%203_EG%20News%2025%20July%202007.pdf
(24) http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/floodsum_1970.shtml
(25) http://www.newplymouthnz.com/AtoZOfCouncilServices/StormwaterandFloodProtection/FloodProtection/
(26) http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/Tech/Nature/Disasters/
(27) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Jean-Vianney,_Quebec
(28) http://geographyfieldwork.com/ExtremeWeather.htm
(29) http://ak.water.usgs.gov/flood/2006August/index.php
(30) http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/Tech/Nature/Disasters/Floods/1971.asp
(31) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Atlantic_hurricane_season
(32) http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/environment/naturalhazards/naturalhazards1999/majorhurricanes/hurricanes_stats_new.html
(33) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Pacific_hurricane_season
(34) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Pacific_typhoon_season
(34a) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Pacific_typhoon_season
(35) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970%E2%80%9371_Southern_Hemisphere_tropical_cyclone_season#1970.E2.80.9371_Southern_Hemisphere_tropical_cyclone_season
(36) http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/tornado/tornadotrend.jpg
(37) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_1971_Mississippi_Valley_tornado_outbreak
(38) http://www.torro.org.uk/site/maxtemps.php
(39) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Weather_Extremes
(40) http://classic.mountainzone.com/news/99/bakerrecord.html
(41) http://www.ec.gc.ca/meteo-weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=6A4A3AC5-1
(42) http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ama/?n=top10_events
(43) http://newsok.com/journal-entries-remembering-the-blizzard-of-1971/article/3346008
(44) http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gzNmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8IoNAAAAIBAJ&pg=3825,2341650&dq=flood+colombia&hl=en
(45) http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
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