Don, Well written. Jim --- On Wed, 3/4/09, Don J. Colton <djcolton@piol.com> wrote: From: Don J. Colton <djcolton@piol.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Global Cooling? To: "'Utah Astronomy'" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Wednesday, March 4, 2009, 10:05 AM "Why are these organizations doing this? Because they are financially supported by the fossil fuel corporations." This is typical of attacking the messenger and not the message. There are many responsible scientists who believe that CO2 is not the major factor in global warming or cooling and who do not receive any funding from the fossil fuel industry. Some examples are Roy W. Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama and former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA. I heard Roy speak last year and the first thing he said was he received no funds from the fossil fuel industry. He also said it is essentially impossible to get government funding if your proposal appears to question the current dogma of CO2 being the primary driver of global climate change. So any proposals he makes for government funding are in other more safe areas. Kenneth Schatten, who wrote "The Role of The Sun in Climate Change", was at the time Program Director for Solar Terrestrial Research at the National Science Foundation and a NASA staff scientist. He does believe CO2 is a significant factor but his book makes a good case for the sun as a major driver of climate change. Bjorn Lomberg, Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, believes that the estimated CO2 warming effect needs to be lowered by 33 percent from the IPPC's best estimate. He believes that solar activity is responsible for 57 percent of climate deviations. Except for Exxon Mobil Corp., who seems to be the media whipping boy, most of the major oil companies have bought into the idea of CO2 as the primary driver of climate change. I think some of them have been intimidated into that position such as Shell. Others like BP, which until last year was run by a prominent environmentalist, have gotten heavily into renewable energy. In fact, BP is the world's largest producer of renewable energy. Frederick Seitz, Past President of the National Academy of Sciences, is sponsoring a petition project that has been signed by over 31,000 scientists, many of them climatologists and in related fields. He says " The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds. This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful." See http://www.petitionproject.org/ Last year I met and talked to Willie Soon. He has, I believe, been unfairly attacked because he has received research funds from Exxon Mobil. He stated he first tried to get government funding for his research but found that there was no interest in research that might question the U.N. Studies. He then went to Exxon Mobil. There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm -- about 18 times higher than today. The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of CO2 driven global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming. Current CO2 levels are about 385 ppm an increase of about 100 ppm from 280 ppm around 1900. I believe we need a reasoned debate hearing all of the evidence pro and con. Unfortunately the media for the most part is unwilling to give opponents of CO2 as the primary driver of global warming a fair hearing. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of stormcrow60@xmission.com Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 11:50 AM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Global Cooling? Hi Joe, Although I am not disputing the fact that sunspots and sun activity affects the temperature of our planet... I mean, how could it not? But, for those that say global warming is not man-made are still in denial and try to muck up the water and the truth regarding global warming. For instance, NOAA recently released a global warming report and some right wing newspaper or organization responded (can't remember who it was), while cherry picking data out of the report. They were claiming that NOAA's conclusion was that global warming was natural and not man-made and that Arctic sea ice was growing. However, when the NOAA scientists were informed their study and their data was being taken out of context, they called this organization out and set them straight. These are the deceptive tactics of those who see scientific fact and public opinion turning away from the status quo. These organizations, such as American Heritage Foundation, The Petroleum Institute, CATO and others are "paying" their psuedo-scientists to make these false statements. Why are these organizations doing this? Because they are financially supported by the fossil fuel corporations. They stand to lose billions and billions of dollars in the near future. Whereas NOAA is a government institute. NOAA scientists receive no monetary gain from supporting global warming facts. They will make their 100K/year (or less) no matter what they state. In fact, The Bush admin stifled the real data from global warming reports for years. They even went so far as to edit environmental and global warming reports, so it would reflect the Bush admins viewpoint. I mean, its like denying that evolution is real. These institutes that try to deceive the public are the same ones that lied to us about WMD's in Iraq, allowed the Hurricane Katrina fiasco to occur and got us into the economic fix we are in today with their ponzi schemes. They even denied we were even in a recession during the presidential campaign. Did you notice the "R" word was not uttered during the campaign and only emerged afterward? Then it was told to the public that we had been in a recession since December 2007? Why? Because this would have made it that much more difficult for John McCain to win the election. How can anyone believe what these organizations say? They spout lies in the media on a daily basis. Now I know some of you will retort, or wonder why I am saying this on the Utah Astronomy blog. But this is scientific fact, and it affects our planet, the only one we know of in the cosmos that supports life... intelligent life. Also realize I am only responding to the initial link to Joes article, which in itself had this particular paragraph: "Last year brought a reverse in the trend of rising global temperatures, reports the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a NASA branch in New York City. "Calendar year 2008 was the coolest year since 2000," the institute added. Its report was issued on Dec. 16, 2008, and updated on Jan. 13. It may seem a paradox, but 2008 also was the ninth-warmest year since weather observers began making careful measurements in 1880. That's because, while 2008 was cooler, it was still part of a period of generally high temperature." I believe global warming is the largest threat to humans and our civilization. 98% of U.S. and international scientists and international scientific organizations will agree with me. The only ones that do not are on the fossil fuel industry payroll. Thanks for your time. Jon _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com