PUBLIC VASTLY MISINFORMED ON GLOBAL WARMING

[Dean iWait 0]

Media Shows Irrational Hysteria on Global Warming

"The Public Has Been Vastly Misinformed," NCPA's Deming Tells Senate Committee

12/6/2006 5:57:00 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: National Desk

Contact: Sean Tuffnell of the National Center for Policy Analysis, 972-308-6481 or sean.tuffnell@ncpa.org

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- David Deming, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), testified this morning at a special hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearing examined climate change and the media. Bellow are excerpts from his prepared remarks.

"In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal Science. In that study, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years. The week the article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state that the warming was due to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.

"I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period." "The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm weather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known as the "Little Ice Age" took hold in the 14th century. ... The existence of the MWP had been recognized in the scientific literature for decades. But now it was a major embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th century warming was truly anomalous. It had to be "gotten rid of."

"In 1999, Michael Mann and his colleagues published a reconstruction of past temperature in which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate became known as the "hockey stick," because of the shape of the temperature graph. "Normally in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies. Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period was both warm and global in its extent.

"There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed."

---

The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D. C. that advocates private solutions to public policy problems. NCPA depends on the contributions of individuals, corporations and foundations that share our mission. The NCPA accepts no government grants.

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=77195

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

NCPA, Cooler Heads Coalition. Look them up. Somebody clearly has an agenda...

Edited December 7, 2006 by ET-US2004

[Irisheyes 0]

If you haven't already, read Michael Crichton's book "State of Fear." It certainly got me thinking that there's more to this issue than we are led to believe!

[mrc 0]

I watched some movie with a trailer about some Al Gore movie documenting Global Warming...kind of a shockumentary.

Al Gore, inventor of the internet, hosting a shockumentary on Global Warming.

The "Greens" are our extremists.

Edited December 7, 2006 by mrc

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

People will believe anything now-a-days. Everything is linked to global warming. I thought this years hurricane season was to be the worst ever..... yawn.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

NCPA, Cooler Heads Coalition. Look them up. Somebody clearly has an agenda...

Wha? You mean they're not scientists? Say it ain't so!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Media Shows Irrational Hysteria on Global Warming

"The Public Has Been Vastly Misinformed," NCPA's Deming Tells Senate Committee

12/6/2006 5:57:00 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: National Desk

Contact: Sean Tuffnell of the National Center for Policy Analysis, 972-308-6481 or sean.tuffnell@ncpa.org

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- David Deming, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), testified this morning at a special hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearing examined climate change and the media. Bellow are excerpts from his prepared remarks.

"In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal Science. In that study, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years. The week the article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state that the warming was due to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.

"I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period." "The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm weather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known as the "Little Ice Age" took hold in the 14th century. ... The existence of the MWP had been recognized in the scientific literature for decades. But now it was a major embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th century warming was truly anomalous. It had to be "gotten rid of."

"In 1999, Michael Mann and his colleagues published a reconstruction of past temperature in which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate became known as the "hockey stick," because of the shape of the temperature graph. "Normally in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies. Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period was both warm and global in its extent.

"There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed."

---

The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D. C. that advocates private solutions to public policy problems. NCPA depends on the contributions of individuals, corporations and foundations that share our mission. The NCPA accepts no government grants.

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=77195

Let's assume there is a media bias - that doesn't address the overwhelming consensus by the scientific community on global warming. If they want to argue over that then where's the real challenge? Nothing but a red herring.

[GaryC 7]

Let's assume there is a media bias - that doesn't address the overwhelming consensus by the scientific community on global warming. If they want to argue over that then where's the real challenge? Nothing but a red herring.

There isn't an "overwhelming consensus" by the scientific community. That phrase is bantied about so much it is now acceppted. The truth is there in not a majority only a vocal minority.

Here is the cause of global warming.

Sci/Tech

Scientists blame sun for global warming

The Sun is more active than it has ever been in the last 300 years

Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth.

Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could soon follow.

The sun provides all the energy that drives our climate, but it is not the constant star it might seem.

Careful studies over the last 20 years show that its overall brightness and energy output increases slightly as sunspot activity rises to the peak of its 11-year cycle.

And individual cycles can be more or less active.

The sun is currently at its most active for 300 years.

That, say scientists in Philadelphia, could be a more significant cause of global warming than the emissions of greenhouse gases that are most often blamed.

The researchers point out that much of the half-a-degree rise in global temperature over the last 120 years occurred before 1940 - earlier than the biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

Ancient trees reveal most warm spells are caused by the sun

Using ancient tree rings, they show that 17 out of 19 warm spells in the last 10,000 years coincided with peaks in solar activity.

They have also studied other sun-like stars and found that they spend significant periods without sunspots at all, so perhaps cool spells should be feared more than global warming.

The scientists do not pretend they can explain everything, nor do they say that attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be abandoned. But they do feel that understanding of our nearest star must be increased if the climate is to be understood.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/56456.stm

[Scott & Lai 12]

Let's assume there is a media bias - that doesn't address the overwhelming consensus by the scientific community on global warming. If they want to argue over that then where's the real challenge? Nothing but a red herring.

There isn't an "overwhelming consensus" by the scientific community. That phrase is bantied about so much it is now acceppted. The truth is there in not a majority only a vocal minority.

Here is the cause of global warming.

Sci/Tech

Scientists blame sun for global warming

The Sun is more active than it has ever been in the last 300 years

Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth.

Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could soon follow.

The sun provides all the energy that drives our climate, but it is not the constant star it might seem.

Careful studies over the last 20 years show that its overall brightness and energy output increases slightly as sunspot activity rises to the peak of its 11-year cycle.

And individual cycles can be more or less active.

The sun is currently at its most active for 300 years.

That, say scientists in Philadelphia, could be a more significant cause of global warming than the emissions of greenhouse gases that are most often blamed.

The researchers point out that much of the half-a-degree rise in global temperature over the last 120 years occurred before 1940 - earlier than the biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

Ancient trees reveal most warm spells are caused by the sun

Using ancient tree rings, they show that 17 out of 19 warm spells in the last 10,000 years coincided with peaks in solar activity.

They have also studied other sun-like stars and found that they spend significant periods without sunspots at all, so perhaps cool spells should be feared more than global warming.

The scientists do not pretend they can explain everything, nor do they say that attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be abandoned. But they do feel that understanding of our nearest star must be increased if the climate is to be understood.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/56456.stm

Someone needs to turn down the Sun....maybe we can sue

[GaryC 7]

Headline: Mount St. Helens the State's No. 1 Air Polluter

Dateline: Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Source: Seattle Times

Byline: Sandi Doughton

[T]he biggest single source of air pollution in Washington isn't a power plant, pulp mill or anything else created by man.

It's a volcano.

Since Mount St. Helens started erupting in early October, it has been pumping out between 50 and 250 tons a day of sulfur dioxide, the lung-stinging gas that causes acid rain and contributes to haze.

Those emissions are so high that if the volcano was a new factory, it probably couldn't get a permit to operate, said Clint Bowman, an atmospheric physicist for the Washington Department of Ecology.

All of the state's industries combined produce about 120 tons a day of the noxious gas.

The volcano has even pulled ahead of the coal-fired power plant near Centralia that is normally the state's top air polluter. In the mid-1990s, when the facility's emission rate was about 200 tons a day, regulators pressed for $250 million in pollution controls to bring it down to today's level of 27 tons.

Government doesn't wield much power over a volcano, though.

"You can't put a cork in it," said Greg Nothstein, of the Washington Energy Policy Office.

Because the area around St. Helens is so sparsely populated, officials say they haven't heard complaints about respiratory problems linked to the emissions. But if the volcano were right next to Seattle or Portland, some of the most sensitive residents would probably feel the effects, said Bob Elliott, executive director of the Southwest Clean Air Agency in Vancouver.

"We are very fortunate, in terms of the impact on human health, that Mount St. Helens is pretty remote."

Italy's Mount Etna can produce 100 times more sulfur dioxide than Mount St. Helens — and sits in the middle of a heavily populated area. The volcano spawns acid rain and a type of bluish smog that volcanologists call vog, which can affect large swaths of Europe, said Terry Gerlach, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who studies volcanic gases.

Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii's Big Island churns out 2,000 tons a day of sulfur dioxide when it's erupting, creating an acid fog that damages local crops. The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines blew out so much of the gas that the resulting haze spread around the globe and lowered average surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by nearly one degree.

Some localized impacts are probably occurring on a much smaller scale near St. Helens' crater, Gerlach said.

"If you were to go and collect rainwater just downwind of the volcano, I suspect you would see some acid rain."

Worldwide, sulfur dioxide emissions from volcanoes add up to about 15 million tons a year, compared to the 200 million tons produced by power plants and other human activities.

While the fraction due to volcanoes is small, it can have an impact, Gerlach said.

"You can't call it trivial, compared with human activity."

Volcanic gases bubble out of magma as it rises to the surface, and the amount and type of emissions depend on the chemical makeup of the molten rock. In addition to sulfur dioxide, volcanoes also release smaller amounts of other noxious gases, including hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen chloride.

And they churn out large quantities of carbon dioxide. Though not considered an air pollutant, carbon dioxide is the so-called greenhouse gas that's primarily blamed for global warming.

Compared to man-made sources, though, volcanoes' contribution to climate change is minuscule, Gerlach said.

Mount St. Helens produces between 500 and 1,000 tons a day of carbon dioxide, he estimates.

Nothstein, of the state energy office, says the Centralia coal plant puts out about 28,000 tons a day. Statewide, automobiles, industries, and residential and business heating systems emit nearly 10 times that amount.

On a global scale, the difference is even more dramatic, said Gerlach, who often gets calls from power-plant operators and oil-company executives who believe nature is just as responsible for global warming as man. His answer always disappoints them.

"I tell them the amounts don't even come close and I usually never hear from them again."

Worldwide, people and their activities pump 26 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, he said. The total from volcanoes is about 200 million tons a year — or less than 1 percent of the man-made emissions.

The irony of being surpassed by a volcano on the state's pollution source list hasn't escaped the folks at the Centralia power plant, owned by the Canadian firm TransAlta.

"I hope they're going to call Mother Nature and have her put some scrubbers on there," joked company spokesman Richard DeBolt.

In a way, that will happen, said Bowman, the Ecology Department atmospheric scientist.

As wet winter storms sweep through the area, the rainwater acts as a natural scrubber, washing the sulfur dioxide from the air.

And once the volcano stops erupting, the gas emissions will vaporize — but geologists say the current lava flows could continue for months, or even years.

Headline: New Findings Show Earth is Not Getting Warmer; Studies Also Show Climate Models Break from Reality Says NCPA Scholar

Source: National Center for Policy Analysis

Dateline: August 12, 2004

Byline: Sean Tuffnell

WASHINGTON -- Contrary to popular myth the Earth is not warming significantly, according to new research published last month in Geophysical Research Letters by scientists with the universities of Rochester and Virginia.

The reports note two important findings that run counter to the view that human activity is causing catastrophic global warming.

"It's been known for some time that satellites and surface thermometers give different temperature trends," said one of the reports' co-authors Prof. S. Fred Singer, president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). "We now have independent confirmation that the satellite results are correct and that the climate is not warming." Prof. Singer, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is also a former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service.

Proponents of global warming theory have long pointed to thermometer measurements at the Earth's surface as proof that the Earth is warming. Other scientists have pointed to balloon and satellite readings of temperatures in the Earth's lower atmosphere that show no significant warming. The scientists from the universities of Rochester and Virginia employed a new, independent way of determining the temperature, using historic meteorological climate data to construct temperature values for each grid cell of the Earth at an equivalent height of two meters. This analysis agreed with the satellite and balloon measurements, establishing that the disparity is close to the surface and mainly in the tropics.

In another report, the Rochester/Virginia scientists found that the computer climate models used to assert that the introduction of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO2), into the atmosphere is causing the Earth to warm, and that the effect increases with altitude becoming twice as strong at about three miles up, are in stark contrast to the actual data of the past quarter-century. Comparing the results from the three commonly cited climate models with four independent observational data sets, the scientists found that the models all showed temperatures increasing with altitude, while the actual observations showed the opposite occurred.

"If the global climate is not warming, why all the fuss?" asked Singer. "The whole issue of controlling CO2 emissions is moot."

Edited December 7, 2006 by Iniibig ko si Luz forever

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Let's assume there is a media bias - that doesn't address the overwhelming consensus by the scientific community on global warming. If they want to argue over that then where's the real challenge? Nothing but a red herring.

There isn't an "overwhelming consensus" by the scientific community. That phrase is bantied about so much it is now acceppted. The truth is there in not a majority only a vocal minority.

Can you find any reputable science journal that says to the contrary?

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The key here, Gary, is 'peer review'. You can post any quack scientists opinion that supports your claim but when it comes to accepted scientific theories, they must subjected to peer review.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The key here, Gary, is 'peer review'. You can post any quack scientists opinion that supports your claim but when it comes to accepted scientific theories, they must subjected to peer review.

If something wants to wear the label "scientific", that's the requirement.

[peezey 0]

I watched some movie with a trailer about some Al Gore movie documenting Global Warming...kind of a shockumentary.

Al Gore, inventor of the internet, hosting a shockumentary on Global Warming.

The "Greens" are our extremists.

"some Al Gore movie"?? where have you been?

[Kath 0]

watched that al gore movie a few weekends ago.. very informatative even me a blonde could understand it...

the stats are amazing...its a lot to comprehend but well worth watching...

kath