Professor Stephen Hawking's support for the global warming myth raises doubts about his knowledge of physics.

Professor Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" is one of the books I would like to reread if I could find the time.   However, after learning that he supports the global warming myth I would read the book a little more critically than I did the first time.

Hawking says he's concerned about earth becoming as hot as Venus, but the alleged "greenhouse effect" cannot explain temperatures on Venus as I noted in my previous post.   Venus Not an Example of Greenhouse Gas Effect

I hope that Hawking is simply repeating something  he's been told, but hasn't taken time to examine.   If  Hawking took the time to examine both sides of the debate over  global warming he would realize that global warming is based on a long discredited 19th Century theory that is inconsistent with the laws of thermodynamics. The so called greenhouse effect represents a form of perpetual motion machine that is inconsistent with accepted thermodynamic theories

Jean Baptist Joseph Fourier claimed in 1827 that greenhouses worked by allowing in sunlight and then trapping the infrared radiation produced inside to heat the greenhouse.  R. W. Wood disproved this theory in a 1909 experiment that indicated no significant difference in temperature between a greenhouse that "trapped" IR and one that was transparent to IR. In fact in the initial run of the experiment the  transparent greenhouse heated faster because the  one that reflected IR reflected incoming solar IR back into space.

The greenhouse in R.W. Wood's experiment trapped a much broader spectrum of IR than CO2 interacts with.  If that greenhouse didn't heat up more than  a greenhouse that didn't "trap" IR, then  how can anyone believe that  CO2  could cause heating by interacting with IR. 

The whole idea that a gas comprising less than 0.04% of the atmosphere can determine its temperature by interacting with a small range of infrared radiation (IR) sounds more like magic than science.  

The data that those who claim global warming  say  supports warming temperatures in the 20th Century is inadequate for that purpose.  They claim only a 0.25% increase which could easily result from changes in equipment or inaccuracies in the thermometers used in 1900 which were not as accurate as those used today.   Changes in the thermal characteristics of the thermometer sites could explain the increase, particularly considering that many of today's sites are at airports with heat producing asphalt that did not exist in 1900.

A change of only 0.25% might be significant in the controlled conditions of a laboratory with precision equipment, but not  in the open air with equipment that may not always be in good operating condition. 
 
Mathematicians  Bjarne Andresen, Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick have pointed out that the idea of a global average temperature is  absurd.  "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate".

Most real scientists, including social scientists, gave up using broad averages decades ago because  such  averages  cover up too much information.   For example, in climate the amount of time the temperature is above or below freezing is more important than the average temperature of the region because long periods of below freezing temperatures favors snow/ice cover and long periods of above freezing temperatures favors melting.   Snow melts depend  upon heat distribution not any global average.  Significant melting could occur even if global temperatures  were cooler because melting snow absorbs heat and cools the air.   In order to melt, a single gram of snow must absorb enough heat to cool 80 grams of water 1 C.

Temperatures went up and down in the 20th Century while the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere gradually increased.  The heat generated by human activity also increased and would be the more likely cause of any human caused heating.    Replacement of  plant covered areas by pavement also directly causes heating of the air.

Hawking has apparently failed to read the essay by Dr. Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner - (Falsification of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effects Within the Framework of Physics?) which  points out the claim of greenhouse gases and a greenhouse effect conflict with established physics  theories. 
  
Hawking may also be unaware that NASA scientist Ferenc Miskolczi  has revealed that the equation used to calculate catastrophic warming contains a major flaw. The  equation  falsely assumed an atmosphere of infinite thickness.   Such a condition might be consistent with a black hole, but not the planet earth. 

The claim that CO2 has some ability to control air temperature is a cancer growing on science.  Many astrophysicists believe that the earth is about to enter a period of colder temperature associated with the sun entering a portion of a centuries long cycle in which it is less active.  If the astrophysicists are correct, all of science may be discredited if the claim that global warming is based on science has not been abandoned.

A major difference between science and religion is that science relies on verification through repeated observation and experimentation while religion relies on acceptance of beliefs.  The  experiment that examined heating in a  greenhouse demonstrated that trapping IR didn't cause higher temperatures.  Unfortunately, those who believe that humans  can control the environment  through  changes in a minor   atmospheric gas  aren't interested in  scientific proof. 

If Professor Hawking wants to protect science he needs to talk to those scientists who question global warming and then change his opinion. 

Global warming groups falsely claim Venus provides an example of what they call the greenhouse gas effect.  According to the greenhouse gas theory, the sun heats the surface of a planet and the atmosphere prevents infrared radiation (IR) from leaving which causes heating.  Even if the theory about "trapping" had not been disproved in 1909 by R. W. Wood , the sun cannot be heating the surface of Venus to a temperature of 460 C.

Mercury's surface temperature only reaches 425 C and it is closer to the sun.    Mercury's surface doesn't have an atmosphere that reflects 75% of the incoming solar radiation like Venus has.   Thus solar radiation cannot be causing  the high temperature of Venus.  The surface of Venus even receives less solar radiation than earth's surface.

If the sun were heating Venus, there should be a temperature gradient with the highest temperature in the daylight area and the lowest temperature on the night area.  Instead the temperature is the same in both areas as well as the same at the poles and the equator.    

The only plausible explanation is that there is no significant heat input from outside.  The atmosphere of Venus is more likely to be hot  because the solid  portion of the planet is hot and distributes that heat uniformly to the surface.

One explanation could be that Venus has  a greater amount of radioactive material somewhere below its surface.  Earth has deposits of uranium, but they are dispersed and produced no real heating of the surrounding material.  Venus could have begun with much larger deposits that heated the subsurface areas for a long period of time.    

Those who believe in greenhouse gases  generally don't understand that earth's surface cools (loses heat) primarily by transferring heat energy to the atmosphere rather than by converting it to radiation.  The surface conducts heat to the atmosphere through direct contact with the air. 

Bodies of water transfer heat to the atmosphere through the evaporation of water. The ground can also transfer heat energy to the air through evaporation of water. Each gram of water that evaporates takes sufficient heat to reduce the temperature of 540 grams of water by 1 C.  This process doesn't necessarily raise the temperature of the atmosphere except that wet air cools slower than dry air.

Greenhouse gas believers tend to ignore the fact that a significant portion of solar energy on earth is stored by plants as the electron bonds holding sugars and other complex carbon molecules together.  Plants are not present on Venus to perform this function.
 
Gravity cools earth's atmosphere.  Heat is the kinetic energy or motion of atoms/molecules.  Any object attempting to move away from earth's surface whether it's a ball or a water molecule has part of  its kinetic energy converted to potential energy.  As air molecules move away from the surface they slow down and thus cool.   When objects fall back to earth the potential energy is reconverted to  kinetic energy, but for air molecules  this energy  is usually the kinetic energy of the air mass rather than the energy of individual molecules.  Only rarely is the potential energy converted to heat energy such as in the Chinook wind along the east slope of the Rockies or the heat bursts associated with the collapse of thunderstorms.

On earth, high air pressure such as a Bermuda High  and clouds can prevent heated air from cooling by rising.    Venus has clouds that block heated air from rising and air pressure much higher than  that of   a Bermuda High.  

Air doesn't  convert heat  to radiation very well so it doesn't cool significantly by producing radiation.   Radiation by solids depends upon physical characteristics of the material. For example, dark material produces more radiation that light material.   Scientists have insufficient data about the surface of Venus to determine how well it converts heat energy to radiation. 

A common misconception about heat is that it can be "trapped".  That would only be possible if heat were a fluid as Ben Franklin believed.  Only heated matter such as gas molecules can be trapped.   Greenhouses don't trap heat itself.  They trap heated air.   

The uniformity of temperature is not the only way Venus differs from other planets.  Its rotation on its axis is clockwise which is  the reverse of earth and other planets.    Other large planets have moons but Venus does not.   Venus  doesn't have as many impact craters as  other bodies including earth's moon.   The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide  instead of an oxygen / nitrogen mix like earth.   Venus lacks atmospheric and surface water and its clouds are comprised of  sulfuric acid. 

All of these conditions could be explained by a single event in the planet's relatively recent  past, possibly within the last few hundred million  years.  

Dr. J Huw Davies of the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Cardiff University in the U.K. believes Venus once suffered a head on collision with another large body in its early history. He believes such a collision could  have caused Venus to reverse its rotation.

What if such a collision occurred relatively recently and involved a body coming from the direction of the sun on a comet like trajectory?   Such a body would have been very hot and moving at high speed to escape the sun's gravitational pull.

To reverse Venus rotation the body would have needed to hit Venus off center and at an angle so that the force would  be applied opposite to the Venus direction of rotation.  

The body could have been soft if not molten from passing close to the sun.  The high speed collision with Venus would have generated heat for the body and Venus.

Instead of a hard impact that  might have dislodged  a piece of Venus to form a moon (the process many believe produced earth's moon), the  body would have spread over  the surface of Venus at a high velocity.  This process would have  filled in low areas while applying a force to the surface  to change its direction of  rotation.  The impact of the  flow on indentations such as craters or oceans would have been similar to the impact of water on a water wheel. The flow would have pushed the opposite side of  one low  area  after  another  in the opposite direction. 

A potential problem with reversing Venus' rotation would be the difficulty of changing the direction of rotation of  a molten core, in case Venus has a molten core like Earth. 

Alternatively, the object might have hit  Venus at one of the poles and caused it to turn upside  down relative to other planets.  The impact wouldn't have changed the direction of rotation of Venus as perceived from the surface of the planet, but the view from other planets would indicate it was rotating clockwise instead of counterclockwise.   If you place a transparent clock on a flat surface and then flip it over its hands will appear to someone looking down on it to be moving counterclockwise, but the hands would still be going from 12 to 3 to 6 to 9.  

In either type impact,  the heat would have incinerated any biosphere Venus might have had as well as igniting methane and similar organic (carbon containing) substances.  The fires would have reduced the  amount of oxygen while greatly increasing the amount of carbon dioxide. 

Underground carbon deposits  might have ignited,  but burned more slowly  because of a shortage of oxygen. The heat could have increased the oxygen supply by breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen.  This process could have continued for a significant period of time helping to keep the subsurface heated.  

Methane, coal and wood all burn at temperatures well above the current temperature of Venus.

Any surface and atmospheric water might have "boiled off" into space or broken down by separating the  hydrogen and oxygen atoms.  The oxygen then would have perpetuated the carbon fires further increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Nils Müller at the Joint Planetary Interior Physics Research Group of the University Münster and DLR Berlin believes infrared radiation from the planet's surface indicates the presence of granite which would imply the planet once had water  which  combines with basalt to form granite

Underground water could have combined with sulfur compounds to form sulfuric acid.   The heat would have allowed the sulfuric acid molecules to rise in the atmosphere to form clouds.  Heat could have broken down subsurface water into oxygen and hydrogen with the oxygen then combining with underground carbon through combustion to form carbon dioxide.

Venus deserves more study.  The high temperature of the surface would make exploration more difficult because of the need to develop equipment that could function in the heat and not be damaged by the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.  The large amount of carbon dioxide and lack of oxygen  could indicate that the planet had large amounts of carbon that could be consistent with some type of biosphere before a major conflagration.

The dumbest criticism the Democrats' media sheep make of Tea Party members is that Tea Partiers don't accept the global warming nonsense that most Democrats and their media sheep have fallen for.     

Most Tea Party members aren't  climate experts, but they are smart enough to recognize a political con when they see one.   In business cons,  police  warn that if something sounds too good to be true it probably is.  In political cons, if something sounds too bad to be true it probably is too bad to be true.

Like most con artists, the people attempting to  continue Enron's global warming scam try to oversell  their claims.  The global warming scammers are essentially saying that if we don't stop producing the "evil"  gas carbon dioxide  God will flood the world like he did in the time of Noah.
 
 Supporters of Enron's  global warming scam falsely claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) possesses some magical power to increase the temperature of the atmosphere by interacting with low energy infrared radiation (IR).
  
In the 90's Enron paid  scientists and so called environmental groups to claim that an increase in atmospheric CO2  would cause significant temperature changes  even though CO2 comprises less than 0.04% of the atmosphere.    Enron even wrote the Kyoto Accords for the  Clinton administration.

Enron wanted the opportunity to make a fortune by trading what the company called "carbon credits".    Enron had previously made a fortune trading sulfur dioxide credits under a program set up to allow northeastern power plants to continue  producing the pollution associated with acid rain. 

People who are unfamiliar with science don't understand that western science has long been infected with con artists. In the Middle Ages "Alchemists" obtained money from wealthy nobles by claiming to be working on a method of turning a base metal like lead into gold.

Some of the more popular science scams today involve miraculous medical treatments and machines that use little or no energy.

Today's scientists don't trust each other to be truthful.  Science journals require "peer review" of articles to discourage writers from publishing phony results that seem to support their theories.   Attorneys in court often question whether  a scientist witness has been paid to testify a certain way.

Scientists who have trouble getting money for legitimate research may feel they have no choice but to adjust their research and statements to conform to the desires of the businesses or political organizations that offer them money.

Many of the global warming "scientists" who call themselves "climatologists"  lack the qualifications for making such claims.  The only qualifications most of them have are for predicting short term weather.

Understanding the way climate changes over time requires a background in astrophysics and the operation of earth's complex energy system as well as an understanding of weather patterns.

The Milankovich cycles are the primary factors causing  climate.   Changes in the earth's tilt on its axis determine how temperatures change from one season to another.   Changes in the sun's output affect short term changes in air temperature   .    

Those familiar with thermodynamics know that physicist R.W. Wood disproved the claim that greenhouses and the atmosphere stayed warm by reflecting IR.

Those who support the claim if global warming don't talk like scientists. 

Real scientists don't use terms like "settled science" or "consensus" when talking about their theories.  "Consensus" is a political term not a scientific term   Scientists don't rely on consensus because the consensus view has been wrong before.  In 1895 the consensus among physicists was that atoms were the smallest particles of matter.  The consensus was proved wrong  when Sir J.J.Thomson reported his discovery of the electron.

Priests  suggest  their statements  represent matters that are "settled".  Real scientists qualify their claims and look for additional tests to make to see if they have missed something.  Scientists who believe they may have an accurate model of the nucleus of atoms are using the Hadron Collider to determine if they might have missed something.   

I learned in high school that when scientists conduct experiments, they should  mention conditions that could reduce the accuracy of results.     Those who claim global warming ignore the likelihood that the  0.25% change in temperature during the 20th Century might indicates nothing more than the use of different equipment.   

Real  scientists use mathematically rigorous methods.  The people who claim global warming rely on the mathematically meaningless term called "average global temperature". 

Priests use terms similar to "denier" and "contrarian" to describe heretics who question their statements.   Scientists provide.the results of experiments and observations to refute critics.
 
Contrary to the statements of President Barack Obama and various energy companies, there is no such thing as clean energy.  Large wind generators kill birds and many believe they  are visual pollution.  The companies that produce solar cells in China are heavy polluters.  Using solar energy to heat water to produce electricity requires large amounts of water.  

Carbon dioxide is the most essential molecule in the atmosphere.  Plants need it to convert  solar energy into the  bonds that hold complex carbon molecules together.  Humans and other animals then use those carbon molecules for food.

Animals than return part of the carbon to the atmosphere as CO2 to be used by plants to complete the carbon cycle.  Unfortunately, humans remove large amounts of plant carbon from the cycle by using plant products for items like clothing and paper   in which the carbon isn't returned to the atmosphere.  Some unused portions of food products are put in landfills instead of the carbon being returned to the atmosphere.   We actually need to use fossil fuels to replace the carbon that we remove from the carbon cycle.      
 
I have various posts on this blog  exposing  flaws in the global warming scam.  I also have a  Global Warming, Not Blog that primarily only has global warming type posts.    

The following is a letter to the American Physical Society released to the public by Professor Emiritus of physics Hal Lewis of the University of California at Santa Barbara. 

Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).

Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

The  following may seem a little technical, but  I'm posting  it  here because  the subject involves  one of  the  themes of this blog.  Science isn't what it should be or what it was a century ago when scientists were radically changing the accepted concepts of physics.   Today's scientists continue to accept theories that should have been abandoned long ago, such as the one about  the CO2 content of the air determining its temperature.  

19th Century beliefs about the nature of light continue to hamper a study of light just like the 19th Century belief about "greenhouse gases" hampers the study of  climate.

Early 19th Century physics was characterized by  support for various theories that were subsequently disproved such as the theory that atoms were the smallest particles of matter and  an atom of  one element could not be converted to  another element.  J.J. Thomson  disproved the first theory with his discovery of the electron  in 1897.   Physicists also  discovered that the processes of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion could change an atom of one element to an atom of another element.

19th Century physicists initially supported the theory of Benjamin Franklin  that heat was some kind of fluid that was passed from atom to atom.  They gradually recognized that heat was the kinetic energy (motion) of atoms/molecules and was not caused by  passing along some fluid from one substance to another.  

Unfortunately the 19th Century debate suggesting that light must BE a particle or BE a wave survives.   The confusion comes in part from the fact that in some situations light acts like a particle  and in other situations acts like a wave.

The standing joke when I studied light in the 60's was about the university that taught  that light was a wave on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; and taught that light was a particle on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  My professor took a different approach.  He taught light as a wave for half a semester and light as a particle the other half.  

This  false  dichotomy continues to hamper an understanding of light (i.e., electromagnetic radiation).     Some physicists have tried to get around the dichotomy  by suggesting that light consists of particles that may actually be little waves.  

Physicists ignore the fact that if light  is a form of energy it cannot be a particle or be a wave although particles or waves might transfer it from one location to another like particles and waves transfer kinetic energy from one location to another.  Particles are ultimately matter, not energy.  Waves involve the movement of matter.  Particles and waves  transfer energy, but they are not energy. 

If I throw a baseball the kinetic energy  produced by the movement of my arm is transferred to the baseball which then transfers that kinetic energy to whatever it hits, such as a bat, a glove or perhaps a window.  An underwater earthquake may transfer its kinetic energy to a tsunami wave which may then transfer that energy to objects on  a shore a thousand miles away.

Waves transfer kinetic energy much more effectively than particles.  The energy used to move a guitar string wouldn't propel a particle very far.  However, that movement produces a wave which can  travel a hundred feet or more and reach anyone in an auditorium.  Such kinetic energy waves are commonly called "sound waves" because they produce a physical sensation in the human ear which the brain interprets as  sound.

Waves can transfer complex sounds from many instruments to the human ear in a manner that allows all the sounds to be heard even though they come from different locations.  Light waves would  be more likely to  transfer  light in a variety of colors and intensities  in a way that allows the eye to recognize different colors than would individual particles emitted from various  locations.

In a classic experiment in quantum physics an individual photon carrying light energy approaching two different gates will go through one gate on some occasions and the second gate on other occasions.  If light from Mars were leave the surface as individual photons they would quickly become jumbled together so no details could be seen from Earth.    .

Although there are situations in which the transfer of light can be explained as involving particles (photons),  many situations such as mirror reflections can only be explained as involving waves.

One of the problems about light as a wave is the need for something to be "waving" as   Professor Michael Fowler  points out in some of his lectures.  

Some type of aether has long been suggested as what might be waving.   However, an aether would only be necessary to transfer light waves through space.  Physicists have long ignored the possibility  that electrons in atoms could transfer light waves just as easily as  they transfer electricity.  

The transfer of light waves by electrons would explain why the passage of light through some substances causes heating but not other substances.     The process would be similar to the process by which the passage of electricity causes heating. 

Resistance to the passage of electricity causes heating.  Resistance to the passage of electromagnetic radiation could function in the same way.

A possible explanation for the fact that radiation passes through the atmosphere with minimal heating would be that electrons in gas molecules could pass along a wave without resistance because the molecules move independently.   Electrons in solids might have less ability to pass along radiation without resistance because the atoms they are part of are held in place in a matrix.   

Water waves may cause small boats to begin moving back and forth because all of the boat must move at the same time rather than having adjacent molecules  move independently as water molecules do.     Moving electromagnetic  waves through a solid  might require  entire groups of atoms to move in order for the electrons  to transfer  the energy as a wave just like an entire boat must move for the kinetic energy in water waves to be transfered to the other side of the boat.   The motion of atoms is what physicists define as heat. 

The issue of how a light  wave  could move through space remains.  Some type of "aether" would be  the most likely explanation.

Physicists claim there must be some type of matter they cannot detect because the matter they can detect seems insufficient to be all the matter of the universe.  They usually describe this matter as being "dark", but transparent matter would be even harder to detect than matter that was dark.    

Dark objects don't  emit or reflect light, but they  can block light if they pass between the source of the light and the observer.  Light can pass through  transparent matter without  being easily detected.

Transparent matter can be very difficult to detect.  In some cases it may be detectable because some frequencies of light don't pass through, or because the light that passes through isn't as bright.

Astronomers have noticed that light coming from distant galaxies seems to have been shifted toward the red end of the light spectrum.  The greater the distance from earth the greater the red shift.  Some have suggested that this red shift indicates the relative velocities of earth and the distant galaxies.  However, the shift could also be due to passage through transparent matter such as what has traditionally been called an aether.

A problem with the theory that the shift indicates movement away from earth is that everything seems to be moving away from earth, but the Hubble telescope images indicate that some distant galaxies are moving toward each other, including the movement of our galaxy toward the Andromeda galaxy.  Thus it would be more likely that some distant galaxies would show movement toward earth with a shift toward the blue end of the spectrum instead of a uniform red shift.  Also the relative motion would vary among galaxies rather than being uniform based on the distance from earth.

The false dichotomy that light must BE a wave or BE a particle continues to hamper  an understanding of light in the 21st Century.  If light is a form of energy it cannot be a particle or a wave because both involve matter.  However, both particles and waves could transfer light energy from location to another just like particles and waves transfer kinetic energy from one location to another.   

 
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration claims this July was the 5th warmest on record in spite of the fact that Argentina had its coldest winter in 40 years and it  snowed  in southern Brazil.    Tropical parts of landlocked Bolivia,  where rivers normally flow in a 20 C (68 F) environment,  experienced 0 C (32 F) air temperatures that killed  6 million  fish.  Water temperatures dropped from 15 C (59 F)  to 4 C (39.2 F).

A water temperature of 4 C or 39.2 F is significant because it is the approximate temperature at which water is  most dense.  Normally such water would be expected to be at the bottom with warmer or colder water on top.  The temperature of moving water can fall below freezing without freezing.   

According to researcher Michel Jégu,  "In the rivers near Santa Cruz there's about 1,000 dead fish for every 100 metres of river."

"The last time something of this magnitude happened was 47 years ago," said Santa Cruz (Bolivia) governor Ruben Costas because his province was suffering a "major environmental catastrophe".  He warned that river water was unsafe to use because of the dead plants and fish in it.  He promised to truck in drinking water.

On July 15 it was actually colder in parts of  Argentina than some portions of Antarctica held by Argentina.   The cold wave has stressed Argentina's energy system.  The resulting energy shortage has forced the temporary shutdown of some manufacturing plants.      
 
Colder than normal water temperatures have been suggested as the cause of the many dead penguins found on Brazil's beaches.   

South America's cold air, like the cold air in the northern hemisphere, comes from the polar region, but cold air in the southern hemisphere passes over water that is above freezing before reaching South America.  Cold air in the northern hemisphere passes over ground  that is usually already frozen, or freezes as the cold air passes.  Cold air passing over open water could warm slightly before affecting land.

The United States has also recently experienced colder than usual winter  weather.  Last December  Houston  received its earliest snow on record.    Maine set an all time  record cold temperature record in February, 2009.   We need to insure that we have sufficient energy resources to avoid the situation that recently happened in Argentina when businesses had to close because they couldn't get the necessary energy.    Incidentally wind power can fail in cold weather as happened in Texas in February, 2008.

I have previously questioned the claim of global warming in part because  I doubt that the 0.25% change in temperature claimed by global warming believers is meaningful.  The  potential margin  of error in temperature data collection is  likely much greater than  0.25%. 

Changes in equipment between 1900 and 2000 could explain such a small change.  Even American weather stations have at times used unreliable equipment such as the HO-83 Hygro-Thermometers.  Anthony Watts has previously reported that  sites used for temperature measurement in the U.S. locate equipment next to heat sources such as pavement and air conditioner heat exhausts.

Today's sites are often located in areas with different thermal characteristics than would have been found  at sites used in 1900.  Many sites are at airports which of course did not exist in 1900.  Today's cities generate much more heat than cities did in 1900 including the heated gases coming out of motor vehicle exhausts. 

Anthony  Watts has discovered  a new source of errors in reported temperatures in areas where temperatures fall below 0 C.    In locations at airports temperatures are often manually transferred for reporting purposes.  Watts has found that at times the person transferring the temperature has left off the minus sign resulting in negative temperatures being reported as positive temperatures, a mistake that would obviously produce a higher average temperature.

Transferring data manually also creates the potential for other clerical errors.  Numbers could be transposed with 21 becoming 12 and vice versa.  A "1" might be read as a "7" or a "3" as an "8".     The potential errors that could result from clerical errors could easily exceed the 0.25% change in temperature between 1900 and 2000.    

 Watts indicates that some of the temperatures are reported as whole numbers with no fractional component.  If  that is the case than any calculations can only be accurate as whole numbers.  Mathematical calculations can only be as accurate as the least accurate data.   I doubt that calculations using whole numbers can be more accurate than 0.25%. 

A common theme in science fiction involves a highly advanced society in which people no longer understand the basis of science and technology.   In such societies science is often just a series of beliefs that are to be accepted without question like in a religion.

The Startrek  episode "Spock's Brain" dealt with a society in which the people had little understanding of anything, even though the women lived in a climate controlled environment underground with sophisticated technology that required Mr. Spock's brain to operate.  Installing Spock's brain had required one of the women to put on a machine that temporarily provided her with the knowledge to accomplish the task.  After completing the task she forgot everything. 

"For the World Is Hollow..." was another such episode with a priestess in charge of the knowledge taking orders from a machine viewed as a god.

Is our society moving in that direction?  Is  science on our planet becoming just another religion possibly a primitive religion based on a wizard's  magic?     

Some people who call themselves scientists claim that slight changes in the minor atmospheric gas carbon dioxide (CO2) can affect the temperature of the entire atmosphere.even though CO2  comprises less than 400 parts per million (0.04%) of the atmosphere.   That sounds more like magic rather science.   That's not  the tail wagging the dog. That's a few hairs  on the tail wagging the dog.  The earth's land and water is the dog and the atmosphere is it's tail.

If the claim by the priests of global warming that what they are doing is accepted practice by modern science, then science has become nothing more than a form of religion.   It is based on acceptance of beliefs by faith  rather than rigorous examination of physical reality through experimentation and observation.
 
Real science used to be based on verification through experimentation and observation.  Global Warming  "science"  is based on acceptance of long  disproved 19th Century beliefs.

French polymath Jean Baptiste Fourier first suggested that  greenhouses were heated by trapping infrared radiation (IR) in the early 19th Century.  He then suggested that the  atmosphere was heated by gas molecules such as carbon dioxide and water vapor absorbing IR.

Physicist R.W. Wood tested this hypothesis in 1909 with an experiment involving identical greenhouses and demonstrated that the greenhouse that trapped IR was the same temperature as one that didn't trap IR.  The experiment  disproved Fourier's theory.  

Global warming believers rely on consensus which is a political concept not a scientific one.  Real scientists rely on facts and will abandon a theory when evidence contradicts the theory. During the 19th Century the consensus among physicists was that atoms were the smallest particles of matter and could not be further divided.  They abandoned that consensus when  Sir J.J. Thomson demonstrated the existence of the electron and suggested the existence of two other charged particles he called "protons" and "neutrons".  

A more recent consensus involved a belief that the human brain stopped developing new cells. Research over the last few decades has demonstrated that the human brain continues to produce new brain cells through it's life. 

Real science is mathematically rigorous.  Global Warming "science" is mathematically ridiculous.  The only evidence for what they call global warming is something called an average global temperature.

“It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth,” according to thermodynamics expert Professor Bjarne Andresen, of the Niels Bohr Institute, University of  Copenhagen. “A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, etc. which make up the climate.”

In real science, including the social sciences, averages went out with slide rules.  Averages cover up too much information.  For example,  the  numbers "0" and "100" have the same average as the numbers "20" and "80" but if those temperatures represent temperature ranges for different areas, those areas would have different climates.     

Real scientists qualify their claims, particularly predictions, because they realize there is still much they don't know.  The soothsayers of Global Warming claim there can be no doubts about their explanation and  imply they have the gift of prophecy.  They claim they can predict what climate will be decades in the future even though they cannot always get tomorrow's weather forecast correct.  

 Real scientists look for better evidence when people question their theories.  The priests of Global Warming  treat those who disagree as heretics and call them names like "contrarian" and "denier".

Real scientists are concerned about potential data errors and examine alternate explanations for results.  The priests of Global Warming ignore the issue entirely. 

They claim global warming has occurred even though they only claim a change in temperature during the 20th Century of about 0.7 C which is a only a 0.25% change.   Such a change could easily result from data errors.  Accuracy within 0.25% may be possible under controlled laboratory conditions, but is impossible in the diverse locations chosen for temperature measurement.

Investigative weather journalist Anthony Watts has studied the sites used for temperature measurement in the U.S. and discovered equipment next to heat sources such as pavement and air conditioner heat exhausts.    Steve McIntyre has reported on the tendency of the HO-83 Hygro-Thermometers used during the 90's at some U.S. stations to produce artificially high readings under some circumstances. 

The claim that the priests of global warming are scientists raises doubts about the credibility of science because it implies that all  physical sciences  are based on beliefs rather than thorough study of  physical phenomena.  If the recent  harsh winters  in various parts of the world continue all science  will be discredited  not just  the pseudo science associated with global warming.

Real scientists need to borrow a phrase from Mr. Spock and tell the wizards of global warming to go play with their beads and rattles. 

It is becoming increasingly clear that in western society the inmates are running the asylum.  The idiot elite that holds power in most western nations  have demonstrated their insanity by accepting the outright lie that the essential atmospheric gas  carbon dioxide is a undesirable pollutant that needs to be regulated. 

The scam begun by the crooked Enron corporation in the 1990's falsely claims that very slight increases in CO2 would substantially raise air temperatures.   Enron, and its successors, hoped to profit from trading  carbon  credits like it had profited from trading credits in  sulfur dioxide, a byproduct of coal combustion.

The scientific fact is air temperatures would rise substantially if atmospheric  CO2  were to decline to a point  insufficient to  support plant life.    Areas of bare ground are significantly hotter than comparably located plant  covered ground because bare ground converts the solar radiation to heat.   

CO2 is essential to funcitoning of the biosphere.  Plants store  solar radiation  by converting atmospheric CO2 to complex carbon molecules instead of converting it to heat.  The energy is stored in the form of the electron bonds that hold the molecules together.  Plants also reflect solar radiation back into space, further reducing solar heating.

Those who talk about global warming have failed to provide any evidence of significant temperature change.  They claim (depending on the source) only about a 0.5 - 0.7 C increase in temperature which is only a 0.23% change [Note: per cent changes are calculated using the Kelvin scale because of the arbitrary zero point of the Celsius scale - the only thing you can have less than nothing of is money.]

Such a small change could easily be the result of changes in equipment or the characteristics of measuring sites.

The claim about CO2 causing warming by trapping IR ignores the fact that physicist  R. W. Wood demonstrated in a 1909 experiment that trapping IR did not heat greenhouses as many in the 19th Century had believed and thus the process could not heat the atmosphere either.

Those who talk of magical greenhouse gases have no understanding of the complexity of earth's energy system.

Earth gets virtually all of its heat from the sun and changes in heating are most likely caused by variations in solar output than human activity.  If human activity is affecting temperature the most likely mechanism would be the heat generated by human activity or changes in the thermal characteristics of the landscape.               

Except in tropical areas the human body is hotter than the air most of the time.   Human activities such as cooking and operation of mechanical devices generates additional heat.   Pavement produces more heat than plant covered areas.

Any Western leaders who think they can benefit from the adverse economic consequences  of  restrictions on CO2 emissions should be taken to the Happy Home by those nice young men in their clean white coats.

Western leaders who think an economic calamity can benefit them are living in the wrong century.  Any economic collapse in the West   would speed up the process of shifting the economic center of gravity from the West to Asia.  China is already benefitting from the West's economic mistakes and is moving toward controlling the American economy by buying American assets and becoming the creditor for its government. 

The blogosphere is abuzz with news of the latest global warming scandal.  A latter day "Daniel Ellsberg" has released the climate equivalent of the Pentagon Papers onto the web.

In 1971 former Defense Department employee Daniel Ellsberg  turned over  a large collection of Pentagon  Vietnam War related documents   to the New York Times.  Recently an unknown whistler blower released 61 megabytes of  documents along with       emails involving communications between Professor Phil Jones, Director of the Climate Research Unit  at the University of East Anglia, and various other scientists who support the claim that humans can raise  air temperatures by  increasing the amount of the magical  atmospheric gas  carbon dioxide (CO2). 

Some of the old media are reporting this scandal, but most seem to be ignoring it. 

 John Delingpole on the London Telegraph site suggests:  "The Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabytes of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)"

Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun suggests "the 1079 emails and 72 documents seem indeed evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory - a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science. I’ve been adding some of the most astonishing in updates below - emails suggesting conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organized resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more. If it is as it now seems, never again will “peer review” be used to shout down skeptics."

Marc Sheppard points out the hypocrisy of Jones, et.al. criticizing the funding of their opponents.    Of the two documents that  mention funding for global warming claims it's "the second document (potential-funding.doc) that tells the more compelling tale.  In addition to four government sources of potential CRU funding, it lists an equal number of “energy agencies” they might put the bite on.  Three -- the Carbon Trust, the Northern Energy Initiative  and the Energy Saving Trust -- are UK-based consultancy and funding specialists promoting “new energy” technologies with the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The fourth -- Renewables North West -- is an American company promoting the expansion of solar, wind and geothermal energy in the Pacific Northwest."  

Bishop Hill has an index of many of the emails for those interested in further reading.   There is also a searchable database.

These revelations aren't the first that question  claims about global warming.  Lawrence Solomon reported that the Enron Corporation  pushed global warming claims  in the 1990's because of a desire to profit from trading  carbon credits.   Enron also felt it would benefit from encouraging use of  its natural gas holdings  over coal and petroleum.  Former Enron official Jeff Shields  has been associated with Renewables North West.

Will the old media continue to  ignore  evidence  that global warming is a fraud, or will they decide to expose it like they did Watergate and other past scandals?    Have old media reporters been ignoring the scandal because they are being paid to, or are they just too lazy to investigate claims of fraud?

Former NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw has been reduced to doing infomercials.   I don't know if it's because he has some psychological need to be on tv or he lost his money to Bernie Madoff.  Perhaps he expects to profit from trading carbon credits. 

Most of us have watched at least portions of infomercials.  They often use a similar format.  A shill  pretending to be a real interviewer asks the questions  the seller wants to answer.

Usually the seller has a manufactured product, some medical treatment, a book or perhaps some get rich quick scheme.  The format can also be used for political candidates or ideas.

Infomercials differ from  presentations by journalists because journalists feel a duty to talk to those with  alternate views and  consider  arguments against whatever ideas the interviewee is attempting to "sell".   Real journalists are willing to ask interviewees potentially embarrassing questions.

Brokaw's program "Global Warming: The New Challenge With Tom Brokaw"  attempts to sell the carbon credit program begun by the Enron corporation in the 90's.  The program repeats  the line that Enron's Ken Lay pushed:  Minor increases in carbon dioxide supposedly will produce catastrophic global warming.

Enron had done very well selling sulfur dioxide credits and Lay realized a bigger profit could be made if the company could get a program for carbon credits.  First the company had to get government to enact a program.  Lay discovered that he could easily get the support of the Clinton administration.  Clinton even allowed Lay to suggest a framework for the Kyoto Treaty that would financially benefit the company.  Enron provided financial support for various purported environmental groups for its carbon trading program.  These facts have been known  since the Washington Post reported it in  2002 so Brokaw should have been aware of them before he did the program. 

Brokaw neglects to mention that Dr. Michael Oppenheimer whom he "interviews" got his Ph. D in chemical physics rather than climatology.  The fact that Oppenheimer had an association with a political body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,  doesn't necessarily mean he has any expertise on climate.

Oppenheimer was the manager [rather than a researcher] of the Climate and Air Program for the Environmental Defense Fund which has been openly supportive of Enron's carbon trading proposal.    The EDF failed to criticize an Enron pipeline in Brazil   that was environmentally damaging and supported an Enron wind power proposal in California.  

Brokaw should have asked if it was only a coincidence that Oppenheimer left EDF for Princeton in the year after Enron imploded or if he had been paid by Enron while at EDF.    Did the fall of Enron mean the EDF could no longer afford Oppenheimer's salary at  EDF  of $197,022?  Did Oppenheimer receive more or less from Princeton when he started there?  

In 2003 the Washington Post reported that money had compromised the Nature Conservancy which was an early recipient of Enron money.     Had something similar happened at EDF?

Brokaw began by repeating the standard lie that there is a "consensus" about human caused global warming.  Actually, no consensus exists.  Those on both sides can present lists of scientists taking one side or another, however, there is no real consensus about specifics.  There is no agreement about whether any warming has occurred or on whether carbon dioxide can affect temperatures.  Some scientists say CO2 can have no impact on temperature. Others argue that any impact would be extremely small.

Many astrophysicists argue that fluctuations in the sun's output causes fluctuations in earth's temperature.  Some believe that the sun goes through centuries long cycles and the sun may be about to enter a period when its output will decline as occurred a few centuries ago.

Supporters of warming  provide no evidence of significant global temperature change.  Their figures indicate only a 0.7 C or 1.25 F temperature (about 0.24%) change during the century.  Such a change could easily be the result of changes in equipment or its placement.  Equipment a century ago might not have been that accurate.

If Brokaw had checked he would have discovered that mathematicians have argued that the whole idea of an average global temperature is an impossibility.   

Investigative weather journalist Anthony Watts has operated a blog for some time that exposes problems with the sites for temperature measurement that could lead to inflated temperatures.

In his opening Brokaw talked about global warming "hurting our wallets" and neglected to mention the high cost to consumers of carbon trading.  The money that would be made by carbon traders would come from consumers.

Brokaw repeats many of the lies made by global warming scammers.  For example, he talks about "tropical diseases" becoming a problem in temperate regions.  The fact is that malaria was a major problem in North America, including Canada, during the Revolutionary War period even though that period was much cooler than today.  Malaria was part of the cost of slavery.  African slaves brought the parasite with them from Africa and passed it along to their owners.

Brokaw like  many global warming alarmists uses "global warming" to cover up ways humans actually may harm the environment.  For example, he blames the declining amount of snow on Mt. Kilamanjaro on global warming instead of the gradual elimination of the rain forest that  provides moisture that falls as snow on the mountain.

Salt water encroachment on the Everglades in Florida is more due to human diversion of water that had flowed through the Everglades.   Salt water is moving in because too little water is flowing out rather than because of any change in sea levels.

Brokaw neglects to mentions human actions in Florida that have led to more instances of freezing weather.  The draining of wetlands in northern Florida have allowed freezing weather to move farther south into Florida's citrus regions.

  Brokaw blames global warming for increased damage from hurricanes when the real cause is excessive development in areas with a virtually 100% chance of being hit by a hurricane over the long run.  

Brokaw demonstrates the real reason for the program with a segment that suggests that even if increasing the amount of CO2 doesn't raise temperatures it might increase the growth rate of ragweed.  He neglects to mention that increasing atmospheric CO2 might allow greater growth by plants that can be used for fuel and that food crops need large amounts of carbon that they get from CO2.  For example, each molecule of sugar, sucrose, contains twelve carbon atoms.

Tom Brokaw was once one of the leading television  journalists.   His decision to  serve as a shill on this infomercial destroyed whatever credibility he once had as a journalist.    
 

Critics of the tea parties held in April noted that participants lacked a common theme. They carried signs  dealing with a variety of issues making it difficult for simple minded critics to understand what was going on.

Critics don't understand that protesters felt that government wasn't interested in them except as a source of funds for government programs that sometimes have little or no apparent value.

The original Boston  Tea Party had a specific theme - a symbol of what colonists felt was wrong.  Colonists were tired of people an ocean away making decisions without considering their input. The new Tea Tax was just the latest evidence that government didn't consider them important.

The carbon dioxide tax Congress is considering provides a good symbol of how politicians in Washington ignore the common people in their desire to benefit the rich and crooked. As I noted in the previous post, the whole idea of carbon taxes and carbon trading are part of a scam developed at the corrupt Enron corporation.   Lawrence Solomon reports that Enron for all practical purposes wrote the Kyoto Treaty. 

Enron may be gone, but other companies are waiting to take advantage of the scam  Enron's Ken Lay set up. 

The proposed CO2 tax provides a strong symbol of an unjustified tax to protest against.  Future Tea Party participants should carry signs saying something like "Say No to Enron's Breath Tax."  A few participants might bring CO2 fire extinguishers or some dry ice and buckets of water so they could release CO2 into the air.

Remember Enron, the corrupt firm whose failure should have disproved the myth "too big to fail", but didn't?  At the time it was the seventh largest corporation.  It's bankruptcy was the largest in history  until Lehman Brothers failed.  Incidentally, Lehman Brothers was also involved  in carbon trading.

Enron owed part of its early success to emissions trading.       Basically emissions trading was established as a way for some companies to profit from pollution while allowing some companies to continue to produce the chemicals that can cause acid rain.

Lawrence Solomon, executive director of  Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute, is reporting that Enron played a major role in pushing  the global warming scam, including establishing the Kyoto Protocals.

Enron had already profited from trading sulfur dioxide credits and saw the  potential for even greater profits from trading what would become known as "carbon credits".

The article is the first in a series of articles about those who seek to profit from what Weather  Channel founder John Coleman calls "the greatest scam in history." 

Solomon states,  " The climate-change industry — the scientists, lawyers, consultants, lobbyists and, most importantly, the multinationals that work behind the scenes to cash in on the riches at stake — has emerged as the world’s largest industry. Virtually every resident in the developed world feels the bite of this industry..."  which increases the costs of various goods and services.

Enron was an early player  beginning early in the  administration of Bill Clinton to push for a carbon dioxide trading system.   Enron also sought support from environmental groups.
"Between 1994 and 1996, the Enron Foundation donated $1-million to the Nature Conservancy and its Climate Change Project, a leading force for global warming reform, while [Chairman Kenneth] Lay and other individuals associated with Enron donated $1.5-million to environmental groups seeking international controls on carbon dioxide."

According to Solomon, "Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed. An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried."

 Enron advised  the Clinton administration what to do at the Kyoto Japan Conference in 1997. 
 
To improve its chances for success Enron hired former Environmental Protection Agency regulator John Palmisano to become the company's lead lobbyist as senior director for Environmental Policy and Compliance.  Palismano wrote a memo describing the historic corporate achievement that was Kyoto.

“If implemented this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural-gas industries in Europe and the United States,” Polisano began. “The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous.”

The memo, entitled “Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired,” summarized the achievements that Enron had accomplished. “I do not think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this year in shaping every aspect of this agreement,” he wrote.  He cited  three issues of specific importance to Enron in the climate-change debate:  the rules governing emissions trading, the rules governing transfers of emission reduction rights between countries, and the rules governing a gargantuan clean energy fund.

Polisano’s memo expressed satisfaction bordering on amazement at Enron’s successes. The rules governing transfers of emission rights “is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won. The clean development fund will be a mechanism for funding renewable projects. Again we won .... The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us.”

“Enron now has excellent credentials with many ‘green’ interests including Greenpeace, WWF [World Wildlife Fund], NRDC [Natural Resources Defense Council], German Watch, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI [World Resources Institute] and Worldwatch. This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized),” Polisano explained.

Those who believe in Global Warming like to claim that they are opposed by corporate interests in the form of the energy companies.  They neglect to mention that the battle isn't against corporations, it is between different groups of corporations.  The energy companies are attempting to continue providing energy to consumers.  Companies on the other side are merely attempting to create a financial opportunity for themselves as financial parasites who provide nothing to anyone and get rich in return.

Democrats often criticize Republicans for being too close to business.  Democrats are just as close to business. They simply favor different businesses. 

As  William O'Keefe, chief executive officer of the Marshall Institute, puts it:  "The American people have had enough of convoluted, indecipherable financial schemes and the opportunists who exploit them. The public is understandably angry about Wall Street's exploitation of Main Street, and yet our political leaders are setting the stage for another complex trading market, ripe for corruption. The future Enrons and Bernie Madoffs of the world would like nothing better than to see the U.S. impose a new market for carbon emission trading."

In the U.S. nearly "9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited" according to a recently published study by KPAY-AM  investigative weather journalist Anthony Watts.
 
Watts and  over 650 volunteers have  been conducting an  extensive examination of U.S.. weather stations to determine if they produce reliable temperatures and posting the results of the examinations on his blog  Watts Up With That.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  requires that  temperature measuring equipment be at least 30 meters (100 feet) from any artificial source of artificial heating source such as the heat exhaust of an air conditioner  or reflecting / radiating sources such as pavement.  According to Watts, 89% of the sites failed to meet that standard. 

They "found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat."   68 stations were "located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas."

They also noticed that changes in the technology of temperature stations could have  caused them to report a false warming trend. 

Watts says,   "we found major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors. We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher."

 Supporters of the claim about global warming indicate that temperatures rose on  about 0.7 C or  1.2 F which is only about a 0.24% increase.   

Watts concludes,   "The U.S. temperature record is unreliable. The errors in the record exceed by a wide margin the purported rise in temperature of 0.7º C (about 1.2º F) during the twentieth century. Consequently, this record should not be cited as evidence of any trend in temperature that may have occurred across the U.S. during the past century. Since the U.S. record is thought to be 'the best in the world,' it follows that the global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable."

 The United States isn't the only nation with questionable sites.  Italy also has problems.  

During the 90's the U.S. was using thermometers that  tended to produce artifically high temperatures.

Dr. Benjamin Herman, Director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona asks on Climate Science  if anyone has corrected the inaccurate temperature readings produced by the  HO-83 Hygro-Thermometers that were used at some stations in the U.S. and may still in use in other parts of the world.  The problem with the thermometers has been known for years according to an post  by Steve McIntyre that lists numerous studies mentioning the tendency of the thermometers to record  higher than actual temperatures under some circumstances.  Temperatures could by as much as 2 or3 F above the actual temperature.

As I have mentioned in previous posts there are various problems with the accuracy of  the temperature data that supposedly indicates global warming.  If  thermometers used in the 1990's in the United States can produce inaccurate data how can anyone rely on equipment in less technologically advanced areas of the world.  If modern equipment is inaccurate, the same is likely to be the case for equipment used 50-100 years ago.  The old temperatures a century ago might have really been warmer and colder than the record indicates. 

Contrary to a popular myth Al Gore and his followers are among the biggest enemies of the environment. Contrary to their lies carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant. CO2 is essential  to biological life. 

The CO2 cycle is the basis of carbon based biological life. Plants are carbon structures and CO2 provides the carbon they need.   Carbon is the second most common element in the human body.  Humans and other animals get their energy from the complex carbon compounds plants produce.  For example, each molecule of table sugar contains  12 carbon atoms. 

Plants are the original  solar energy collectors.  Plants  store solar energy as  the chemical bonds of carbon molecules. The ability of plants to grow depends upon the available sunlight and the amount of CO2 in the air.  

The global warming crowd claims that the atmosphere has too much CO2, but fast growing young plants benefit from higher concentrations .  Some greenhouses  use twice the concentration of CO2 to encourage faster, sturdier growth, in young plants.  

Plants use CO2 to produce food for animals which return part of the CO2 to the atmosphere for plants to reuse.  Unfortunately, humans don't return all plant carbon to the environment.  Humans use  plant carbon for building materials, clothing and long lasting paper products such as books.  Humans also put carbon containing food materials along with other carbon materials into landfills where it is unavailable for plants.

If it weren't for the combustion of carbon containing fossil fuels we might already be facing a shortage of atmospheric CO2 that could significantly reduce food production.

Production of biofuels depends upon ample supplies of CO2.  The most productive biofuel plants would  benefit from  higher concentrations of CO2 because more carbon would be available for conversion to fuel.

CO2 provides the best way to return carbon to the environment for plants to reuse. Animals exhale CO2 as their bodies use carbon molecules  for energy.   The wind moves it from where it is produced to where plants are growing.

The CO2 molecule is one of the simplest carbon molecules and is easy for plants to take apart for construction of complex molecules.  The cell is a microscopic factory.  Its genes are programmed to process CO2 into other molecules.   Taking carbon from the air is more efficient for plants because the carbon is available where it is needed.

Contrary to the lies of Gore and others,  increasing  the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will not increase temperatures.  Niels Bohr disproved the claim that the atmosphere was heated by absorbing infrared radiation (IR) with research that indicated the process of absorbing specific wavelengths of light changed the energy state of the electrons in gas molecules instead of increasing their temperature.  Physicist R. W. Wood demonstrated in a 1909 experiment that trapping IR did not heat greenhouses as many in the 19th Century had believed and thus the process could not heat the atmosphere either.            

It would be easier to make a case that increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would reduce temperatures.  Plants use CO2 to store solar energy in the form of chemical fonds of carbon molecules rather than converting it into heat.   Plant covered areas do not become as hot as nearby  areas that lack plant cover.  Bare ground converts solar radiation to heat.

Increasing the availability of CO2 means that plants can store more solar energy than is possible with current levels of  CO2.  Storing  more solar energy would reduce the amount of solar energy converted to heat.