David Keith: Terrible Surprising Ideas To Solve Climate Change

Tired of the debate? Environmental scientist David Keith discusses a cheap, effective, shocking solution to climate change: What if we injected a huge cloud of ash into the atmosphere, to deflect sunlight and heat? As an emergency measure to slow a melting ice cap, it could work. Keith discusses why it’s a good idea, why it’s a terrible one — and who, despite the cost, might be tempted to use it.

He calls this and similar strategies: geoengineering, and why these kinds of strategies also pose a moral hazard for the environmental lobby. However, he insists that this line of thinking is not only necessary but inevitable against the near-zero progress we have had in the last 50-year-long debate on climate change.

Read Full Post »

Climate Change Felt On Other Planets

Scientists are grappling with a warming phenomena observed on other planets in our Solar System and are at a rush to explain it (since there aren’t any gas-guzzling SUVs on those planets last they checked).

National Geographic reported about the findings of Habibullo Abdussamatov on Mars:

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

“The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars,” he said.

Although some scientists are quick to point to other reasons for martian weather changes:

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.

But Mars isn’t the only planet warming up, as Live Science reports:

Read Full Post »

Schwarzenegger Vetoes Global Warming Education, Alaska and the World are Getting Colder?

Something odd on Glenn Beck a couple of months ago, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoes a bill to teach global warming in California schools just as Alaska records its coldest(??) summer on record.

Meanwhile more odd things on Fox News earlier this year, temperature stations around the world are registering temperature drops:

What the hell is going on?

Read Full Post »

Ted Turner: Overpopulation Causes Global Warming

Founder of CNN talks on Charlie Rose:

Notable comments:

• It will be catastrophic.
• We’ll be eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years
• None of the crops will grow.
• Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.
• Civilization will have broken down.
• The few people left will be living in a failed state.
• Living conditions will be intolerable.
• The droughts will be so bad there’ll be no more corn grown.
• We’ve got to stabilize the population.

Talk about reductio ad absurdum anyone?

Read Full Post »

Glenn Beck On Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth

First, a retaste of the popular documentary:

Now, more of Glenn Beck on his analysis of the fear mongering done by climate change lobbyists:

And a great treat, sentiments from the global warming messenger himself: Al Gore:

Read Full Post »

Michael Crichton On The Parallels Between Environmentalism and Organized Religion

In a leadership conference broadcast over C-Span, a student freshman asks a poignant question of popular author, Michael Crichton: “why do you say environmentalism is a religion?”

Crichton explains his view on the many parallels between the climate change movement as it stands today and the functions and characteristics of what is considered organized religion.

Read Full Post »

Glenn Beck: Climate Change = Climate of Fear

In this video CNN’s Glenn Beck takes on the fear mongering of the global warming movement in his special “Exposed: The Climate of Fear”. Glenn Beck is very popular on CNN and this video is very easy to watch and entertaining. But it is informative as well. It does a good job of refuting Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” and has several PhD scientists speaking on the subject to prove that there is no “consensus”. If you can only show one short video to a friend or relative to try to convince them that warming is not man’s fault this would probably be it.

Read Full Post »

The Miraculous Ethanol Cure: Not Quite What You Think

Along with the climate change movement comes the movement for renewable energies, one of which is Ethanol–produced from corn and sugar plantations. It’s a natural alternative to petroleum and is a cleaner and cheaper fuel. The push for ethanol and similar alternative fuels is one of the fiercest lobbies especially in US politics.

Should it be? Here’s John Stossel on an ABC News Video that lays down the facts on ethanol against the near-religious clamor:

From Charles Choi’s article in Live Science:

Critical points of contention over ethanol regard whether or not creating it requires more energy than consuming it gives off. Although a great deal of energy that goes into ethanol comes from the sun, much human effort is also required when it comes to processing raw plant material to make ethanol. And there are the efforts that go along with farming and pesticide and fertilizer use.

Read the rest of his thoughts here.

Consider also the net benefits of ethanol, as against the need to allocate farmland to produce it–thus competing with food production resource. Before one cries panacea, take a second look.

Read Full Post »

Sustainable Development = Food Scarcity?

This alert comes from CO2Science.Org

In a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, four British scientists report that “agriculture accounts for 80-90% of all freshwater used by humans,” that “most of that is in crop production,” and that “in many areas, this water use is unsustainable.” As a result, they say that “farmers in many countries are now faced with legislative restrictions on use of water,” noting that the Chinese government “has set a target of a reduction of 20% in water use in agriculture by the year 2020,” such that “if food security for the region is not to be threatened, this must be achieved without a loss in production.” So how is this global food and water crisis to be met and overcome?

Read Full Post »

The Weird Mathematics Behind The Kyoto Treaty

Some interesting info I encountered, which I bet 95% of people are ignorant about regarding the climate change facts. This is regarding the famous Kyoto Protocol or Kyoto Treaty.

In case you aren’t up to speed about the Kyoto Protocol, from wikipedia:

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 3–14 June 1992. The treaty is intended to achieve “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

The treaty was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, opened for signature on 16 March 1998, and closed on 15 March 1999. The agreement came into force on 16 February 2005 following ratification by Russia on 18 November 2004. As of May 2008, a total of 181 countries and 1 regional economic integration organization (the EEC) have ratified the agreement (representing over 61.6% of emissions from Annex I countries).

The rather trivial bit I researched is that the Kyoto Treaty, negotiated in 1997, used 1990 as its base year for measuring increases or decreases in CO2 emissions amongst countries. This doesn’t strike a raw nerve? Well, not until you delve deeper into the facts and see why 1990 is significant.

Read Full Post »