Global Warming, It's a Scary Subject

Editors note:
Regular readers of this blog know that when it comes to the  man made global warming theory, I'm skeptical. But that's just the science issue. They probably also know that I'm totally dismissive of the theory as a political issue. That's because I have never believed that the issue should have entered the political arena at all.

The name calling and rancor that has accompanied the political debate is totally inconsistent with what should occur in the scientific debate. In my opinion it's a question of science, not politics.

Like all scientific theories there is a proper method of discovery.  And it's no accident that it's called "The scientific method."  So in my mind, science is the pursuit of truth and politics is the pursuit of power.

I realize that people of good conscience and intelligence can differ in their opinions on this subject. In fact, I differ with some very close friends on this subject.

Regular readers also know that I'm a history aficionado as well, so the video presentation by John Coleman is right up my alley. The first part covers his take on the science, but whether you agree with his conclusions or not, I'm hopeful you will enjoy the second part where he covers the history of the whole issue and the people involved.

With that in mind, I submit the following article for your consideration. It was written by Jim Lakely of the Heartland Institute. It is republished here with their express permission.

Grant Davies

How the Global Warming Scare Began

  By JIM LAKELY               March 13, 2014                                                                                                                             

Jim Lakely is director of communications at The Heartland Institute

Heartland friend John Coleman is among the few prominent meteorologists who has not joined his colleagues in perpetuating the public panic over man-caused global warming. He’s brave, influential, and has the backing of his TV station in San Diego, KUSI, to produce videos such as the one at left titled “How the Global Warming Scare Began.”

Coleman is the founder of The Weather Channel, was the first weatherman on “Good Morning America,” and was named “Broadcast Meteorologist of the Year” by the American Meteorological Society. (NOTE: Coleman quit the AMS when, he says, it was clear “the politics had gotten in the way of the science.”)

In the video in the player below*, Coleman says something all global warming “skeptics” could agree upon: If the science actually backed up the notion that humans were endangering the earth’s climate, he’d be on the front lines to save the planet. “But it’s just not happening,” he said.

The little warming we have now is well within (and even below) natural variations over the centuries. But the fruitless “fight” against man-caused global warming is wasting enormous sums of money — seen in government outlays, and in the unduly rising energy bills of every American.

In his video, Coleman gives us many “Cold Hard Facts.” Here are some of them:

• Arctic ice levels are well within the average measured by satellites since first recorded about 35 years ago.

• Polar bear populations are up, not down.

• The “global warming” superstorms the alarmists predicted have not materialized. No hurricanes hit the US in 2013. Superstorm Sandy was nothing compared to the Galveston Hurricane in 1900, before man supposedly had influence on the climate. Strong tornadoes have been diminishing, too.

• We haven’t had a “killer heat wave” since the 1950s.

• Al Gore got a “D” in the only science course he took at Harvard, taught by the godfather of climate alarmism, Roger Revelle … and the rest is history (including Revelle apologizing for his previous alarmism and Gore responding by calling him “senile.”)

There is so much more. The video in the player below* is the primer you must show your alarmist friends.

For more information on what’s really happening to the earth’s climate, visit The Heartland Institute’s archive of its eight international conferences on climate change — featuring more than 300 presentations by 187 scientists, economists, and policy experts (including Coleman).

For the very latest observable climate science, as opposed to political climate science, visit the Climate Change Reconsidered site. Stay tuned to that site, and The Heartland Institute, for news about yet another report from the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) that will be released later this month.

* Edited for placement on this site.

The Men Behind the Curtain

By Grant Davies

Matt Drudge must have thought it was important to highlight the "filibuster without a bill" (as the LA Times reporter Lalita Clozel dubbed it) on his mega influential website this morning. Otherwise he wouldn't have made it the main headline. "Dems Declare War on the Weather" was his headline.

It's hard to tell why he thought the dog and pony show was newsworthy but one might speculate that he sought to show how crazy the Dems are on the whole "global warming/man made climate change" charade. Or maybe it was just a slow news day.

But I look at it a tad differently than most. I see it as just another diversionary tactic in the Dems war to keep the Obamacare debacle off the front pages. These senators couldn't possibly care less about the climate. Except the political climate, that is.

It's hard to count the number of scandals being ignored by the mainstream media nowadays. The IRS political targeting scandal comes to mind as does the NSA spying scandal and the Detroit bankruptcy. So it's not surprising that Dems want to change the subject to the weather or the minimum wage or anything else they can conjure up.

While Harry Reid and his little band of imbeciles are behind the Wizard of Oz's curtain furiously manipulating the "dimwit knobs", I'll volunteer to play the role of Toto and try to pull back the curtain so we can direct the attention back to the stuff they want us to forget.

The Obamacare health insurance takeover train wreck, the looming debt crisis, the erosion of the currency, and the continued assault on the Constitution are the topics that are most important.

Even Dorothy figured it out eventually. I'm not at all certain that the American people will though, but hope springs eternal.

Real Climate Change Information, Instead of Alarmist Propaganda

This week, 5-21 through 5-23, The Heartland Institute will hold it's 7th annual Conference on Climate Change.

Here is the event description.

The Heartland Institute’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-7) will take place in Chicago, Illinois from Monday, May 21 to Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at the Hilton Chicago Hotel, 720 South Michigan Avenue. The event will follow the NATO Summit taking place in Chicago on May 19–21.  We hope you can attend.


The previous ICCC to take place in Chicago, ICCC-5 in 2010, attracted nearly 800 scientists, policy experts, elected officials, journalists, and other guests. We expect another large turn-out due to recent developments in the international debate over climate change, a line-up of outstanding speakers, and the global focus on Chicago due to the NATO Summit.

Unfortunately, despite being offered press credentials, I am unable to attend. I'm sad to have missed being able to personally report to you on what is being discovered there by people who want to cut through the nonsense and hype and find out the real facts and science behind this "hot" topic.

As a poor substitute I will be running as many of the videos from the Heartland website as I can. The video directly below is an introduction by Joe Bast, President of the Heartland Institute and the one below it features John Coleman. As many Chicago area natives such as myself remember, John was a local weatherman here for many years. He went on to found the Weather Channel.

Those interested in following the presentations can do so via live streaming to your internet device. Simply follow the link.

EPA Delivers Holiday ‘Sucker Punch’ to U.S. Economy

While you were getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday, the Environmental Protection Agency was cooking up a turkey of its own — a new “permitting guidance for greenhouse gases” that is unconstitutional and would extend the reach of Obama’s EPA into how nearly every American business may operate.

 It’s nothing less than a sucker punch to the U.S. economy, and an end-run around failed “cap-and-trade” bills that would deliver cap without the trade.

Read the rest of Jim Lakely's article

at Somewhat Reasonable.com 
 
 
Jim Lakely is the the director of communications at The Heartland Institute.
 
 
Filed By Grant Davies

A Visit to the Climate Change Garbage Dump

It may just be middle age paranoia, but I seem to be getting more forgetful all the time. I can never seem to find my car keys anymore and the location of the TV remote is as baffling as Jimmy Hoffa's current address.

I could blame ole Buddy for wolfing down the Nissan keys if my old friend hadn't already departed for doggie heaven to dig a hole in my future back yard. But unlike my glasses or keys, my important information, like the title to my home and such is secured in the only place still reliable at most banks, the safe deposit box. Some documents and information are clearly too important to leave to the Swiss cheese memory bank of my mind, a place even riskier than a Fannie Mae mortgage closing. And it certainly is too important to be "dumped" purposely.

So I'd be befuddled concerning the missing data upon which Professor Phil Jones (of pilfered global warming e-mail infamy) bases his assertion that alleged temperature rises are “unequivocally linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by humans", if of course he didn't already admit that it doesn't exist. At least not anymore, because it was "dumped" in the 1980s.

It's a curious thing to do with the data upon which, as a scientist, you base your entire ideology of man made catastrophic climate change. One might usually imagine a certain chagrin on the part of a scientist who based his work on data which he later discovered had been discarded by others. A fairly inconvenient  circumstance for fact checkers I'd say, but rather fortunate for fact muddlers.

Can you imagine a doctor telling you he could absolutely cure you of a malady he was "unequivocally" certain you had, based on the test results, but that he had pitched those results after gleaning the relevant information from them? I'm guessing you might be somewhat hesitant to go for the unbelievably expensive treatment after discovering that little tidbit. Particularly if he only admitted it after a lawsuit and a thousand or so hacked e-mails surfaced which showed him conferring with other doctors about the best way to fudge the results and keep people from discovering it.
Try another analogy substituting a car repair shop for the doctor or the climatologist and see if a different reaction occurs to you. I'm guessing it won't.

Given the absolute disregard the current Cap'n Control crowd has for how they are perceived after uttering other preposterous claims, I'm actually kind of surprised that they didn't opt for a "dog ate my homework" explanation for the missing data. With so many people dining on the garbage they have been shoveling out for decades, they could reasonably expect most "non-deniers" to swallow that story along with the rest.

"Hmmm, now where on earth did I leave that warming research? I don't see that darn dog around here either. Ya think maybe? ......Nah."

Political Indigestion

You can always tell in advance which side thinks they will lose a nearby election by the way they distance themselves from the results before the votes are even cast. The political doctors must have thought the dosage on our gullibility pills was increased recently if they thought we would swallow the reports from the White House that the President wasn't going to watch for the results of the elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York last night.

The idea that he had only a passing interest in the political climate is as preposterous as Al Madoff Gore's passing interest in the value of his "green" investments in the global climate scam. He (Obama) had no time in the last week or so to decide what he is going to do in Afghanistan because he was in New Jersey campaigning for one of the Goldman Sachs "combine" - not to be confused with the "Illinois combine" of John Kass fame- Jon Corzine. Jon will soon be moving out of Dumbthwacket, where a long list of big government/small achievement politicians have rested their empty heads in the past.

But the point isn't about Corzine or any of the rest of the people who got elected or unelected yesterday, but whether or not we can draw any conclusions about where the country is headed on government run health insurance or trillion dollar deficits or "scrap and trade" buddy list enrichment schemes.

An Op/Ed I perused in my morning paper, penned by a columnist named Ruth Marcus, was titled "Take Election Analyses With A Grain of Salt". I read her stuff from time to time in the "on The Left" section of the Investors Business Daily to make sure I'm not crazy to oppose leftist dogma but I use a slightly higher dosage of sodium when I do, usually a shaker-full. I have concluded that I'm not crazy, at least about that. In her column she cautions not to "over interpret" the results during the "orgy of analysis" that is sure to follow the losses on the left. I am not inclined to participate in orgies, but I guess I'm guilty now that I felt this topic worthy of comment. She goes on to make her case that all might still be well with the leftward lurch, but I'll leave it to you to decide if your salt intake needs adjustment.

In any case, it's my opinion that the Tea Partiers, those rational citizens of both parties and no parties, have decided to visit the polls for their own reasons, and marked an X in the "I have electoral indigestion" box.

It all leads me to conclude that the coming elections in this country will be different than the past now that both parties have shown that they cannot be trusted to run things while we root for political personalities or stay fixated on sports results and the like. The way we select candidates to stand for election and the way we decide who serves will change in the same way that we receive our news did. That is to say, radically. It's an age of instant communications with e-mail, facebook, twitter, web pages and self published columnists like myself. That is, not one columnist with many readers, but many columnists with a few readers, which we share with one another, if and when they make sense.

It is now apparent that the consequences of the status quo in that process have become such a danger to our liberty that they threaten to become a disaster instead of merely a distraction. I have several ideas concerning what that process might look like and I plan on sharing them soon. I bet you can hardly wait.

The Magic Citizen

Usually an improbable rumor about a national leader, unless it's substantiated quickly,  makes the rounds and then fades away as it becomes apparent that it has no legs. Some are like bad pennies though, and they just keep popping up over and over. Too bad we can’t just do a “Snopes” check and be done with them. But when some "web news" sites claim a Federal Judge has set a trial date for a law suit concerning such a story, it starts to grow toes, if not legs.

The question about President Barak Obama’s citizenship is just such a story. Even though it never occurred to me that it might be true, and it still doesn’t, I find the evolving interest in it to be more intriguing all the time. It’s not the question of whether or not Obama was born in the USA, and is therefore qualified to be its President under the ever more ignored and increasingly irrelevant U S Constitution, but instead, the question of why the one person who can make it disappear forever into the diaper pail of crazy conspiracy theories will not do so, that facinates me. That one person is of course, the Magician in Chief himself, whose power to make things disappear is becoming legendary.

President Mandrake’s opening act was turning two U S car companies, a bevy of the countries largest banks, and a gigantic insurance company into federal subsidiaries. Changing rabbits into birds ain’t got nothin’ on that one.

He then waved his magic wand and created several trillion dollars of “Monopoly” money out of thin air. From a distance it even looked like the real thing. All this while the audience gave standing ovations. Even Penn and Teller haven’t been able to top that.

And now, just a few weeks ago, when confronted with the inconvenient realization that the suddenly observant populace discovered that illegal aliens would be allowed to belly up to the government buffet table of universal health insurance coverage, he made Houdini proud by making sixteen million people disappear in just a few quick speeches.

Right before our eyes, he turned the somewhat dubious 46 million uninsured victims of the greedy, capitalistic health insurance companies into only 30 million by pretending that the previously included sneak-ins and legal aliens never existed by dropping the number without explanation.
Viola!    Simply by changing the number he cites of the already magical, roundly accepted tally of the unfortunate in his speeches, he removed 16 million from the rolls of the wretched.  If he can remove another 35% after each such performance, he should have the “crisis” completely evaporated in no time and can get on to his next trick.

It’s listed on your program as “making any chance of future prosperity or job growth vanish into the smoke and mirrors of the Cap and Tax legislation.” In the same moment the first part is completed, hundreds of millions of dollars will materialize in the accounts of Goldman Sachs and other slick dealers who are already prepared to implement the scheme in the grand tradition of the "Chicago Way".  Mayor Daley’s pet Chicago Climate Exchange is conveniently ready for the transition from “voluntary” to mandatory trading.

But back to the citizenship fiasco. The question remains, why wouldn’t the President just show his birth certificate to the people who elected him and be forever done with it? All the rest of us have to do so when enrolling in school or getting a passport or any of a plethora of other official government functions. Surely it’s just as important to prove you meet the requirements to be President as it is prove you can travel legally in other countries.

It was only after conferring with my good friend Homer in an e-mail exchange on the subject, that I decided to write about his curious refusal to co-operate on such a mundane matter.

In my electronic correspondence with my fellow wonderer, I speculated on some scenarios which could explain it. I thought perhaps there was some other information on the certificate which could be embarrassing, like perhaps a different fathers name? Or no fathers name at all? But I’m guessing that’s not it. Most politicians today get forgiven for almost anything they do, much less what their parents did, and the today’s most adored man knows he would get a pass.

Following that, I opined that maybe he was being advised by his campaign team, (which is now governing in permanent campaign mode) to drag this out as long as possible while trying (with the help of their media toadies) to link the whole episode to middle of the road conservatives and Republicans instead of the fringe groups where it has found it’s only traction. In this way, when they deem the time to be right, they can show the proof and portray all his opponents as conspiracy kooks. After all, if you are that close to the edge, how can any credence be lent to your opposition to our “progressive” solutions?

But I have finally settled on a combination of the last one and one other. That being the illusionists’ tactic of never stopping a distraction while it can be of any use at diverting attention away from the sleeve which has the card inside it. So for now, I’m sticking with that conclusion because it’s the best one I could make up on short notice.

Seemingly, only a blind showman would ever select Nancy Pelosi as “the pretty assistant from the audience“, nevertheless, she is busy readying his biggest trick thus far, and that ace up his sleeve is the ever morphing health-care nationalization legislation which will set them up for the grand finale.

The President’s citizenship diversion is only one small part of the show, and we get distracted at our own peril. I don't believe the President is ineligible to hold our highest executive office, but if we get sideways on our attention, the final act in this magic show may make our rights disappear in a puff of socialist smoke.

The Story of Chicken Little and the Misbehaving Teenagers

We all remember the story of Chicken Little and her hysterical reports of a falling sky, but it will be fascinating to look back in a decade or so and see if the current incarnation of that bugaboo story is quickly forsaken by the political versions of the panicked poultry, or if it becomes the classic children's tale the earlier version became. The story may have been classic, but the lesson seems to have been forgotten by our contemporary Henny Pennys and Goosey Looseys.

The current version has a few changes as you might image. In this telling, the Chicken Little and Foxy Loxy characters are melded together. If it was a movie that role would be played by that famous actor, none other than the inventor of the Internet, Al Gore. This time the character not only invents the problem, but offers the solution. One which benefits him of course, just like in the original story. And one which utilizes the historically popular "create a crisis out of thin air and then be the one who is conveniently nearby to save everyone" tactic.

The fictional global warming crisis (now being called global climate change to reflect current cooling reality) is just such a rerun of that semi-successful past tactic. If it results in a "Cap-and-Trash the Economy" law as some statist dreamers hope, it will have been proved once again that you can scare people silly, if you have enough help. In this story, the mainstream press and TV "reporters" play Turkey Lurkeys, and so far, they have been sufficient help.
Lots of people without the time or inclination to do their own research, have chosen to believe the helpful "Turkey Lurkey" press reports of  the universal agreement of grave faced scientists that man made C02 emissions will soon cause irreversible damage to the world. As an aside, many of the true believers of this "conjecture as science" are primarily interested in saving the world itself, not the people who live upon it.

So let's take a look at some actual science, instead of politics. Those who advance the theory that warming is caused by C02 levels, based on ice core samples, (the entire lever with which Al Gore lifts his case) have been oddly silent about that study ever since more recent (2003), more detailed data have shown that temperatures over the last half-a-million years have risen before carbon dioxide levels rose. On average, 800 years before.
So perhaps the temperatures drove the C02 levels up (or not), but surely the reverse cause-and-effect Al was selling went up in smoke as fast as his college days doobies did.

Above I have paraphrased the words of Joanne Nova from her website, where you can read more for yourself and decide if she is a serious student and commentator on the science of this issue. Below, her graph of the data is posted with her permission along with a quoted paragraph concerning it. You may download the entire Skeptics Handbook here.

Carbon follows temperature in the Vostok Ice Cores

"In the 1990’s the classic Vostok ice core graph showed temperature and carbon in lock step moving at the same time. It made sense to worry that carbon dioxide did influence temperature. But by 2003 new data came in and it was clear that carbon lagged behind temperature. The link was back to front. Temperatures appear to control carbon, and while it’s possible that carbon also influences temperature these ice cores don’t show much evidence of that. After temperatures rise, on average it takes 800 years before carbon starts to move. The extraordinary thing is that the lag is well accepted by climatologists, yet virtually unknown outside these circles. The fact that temperature leads is not controversial. It’s relevance is debated."

There are certainly other points to be made in the debate that hasn't really been held, but from my perspective, they are moot unless the above observations can be somehow be explained away. No C02 villain, no Captain-and-Trade hero.

Last week, the new Energy Secretary, Henry Chu, described American citizens who refuse to play Henny Penny, as "teenage kids, who aren't acting the way we want them to act". He, like so many other government officials, think government is the family, they are the parents and we are the children. He may have forgotten the children's stories, but us rebellious kids haven't. In one version of the story, the wise King gives the previously terrified poult an umbrella in case any more acorns fall on her. It would be nice if the government in our version of the tale offered the same kind of protection her government gave her against fearing nonsense, but sadly, they propagate it.

I don't write this piece merely as sport, but because the stakes are now so high in the poker game over American competitiveness in the global economy, an economy that is cooling instead of warming.
And there are actual consequences for those of us who do not live with Chicken Little and friends in a children's fable.

 So my take is, let's use the debate as the umbrella solution the king offered. The sky isn't falling, but your standard of living will be if these inane ideas become insane laws.

Global Warming

"Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than fighting climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."
PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 19, 2008

The Cato Institute says "In fact, many scientists disagree with the "facts," their certainty, and their interpretation. Over 100 of them have signed the statement that appears in the Cato Institute's newspaper ad."

Whatever you may think about the issue, one thing is certainly beyond dispute, it's "disputable".

Again, With all due respect , Mr President