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.

Are you one of the victims of the "greatest scam in history"?  I'm not referring to the scam conducted by Bernie Mad[e]off.  I'm referring to what  veteran meteorologist John Coleman calls the "greatest scam in history".


The victims of Mad[e]off's scam are typical of scam victims.  They allowed their greed to override their common sense.  They failed to consider the advice of the police that if some opportunity sounds too good to be true, it probably is.


Victims of the global warming scam have done nothing to make themselves victims, particularly those who are unemployed through no actions they have taken. 


Those who could have been employed constructing clean coal powered electric plants are unemployed because the  perpetrators of the global warming scam have stopped construction of those plants.     The need to supply equipment for such plants and goods and services to construction workers would have created more jobs. 


According to the perpetrators of the  global warming scam, there is supposed to be a total consensus that what they call "global warming" is a major threat to earth's future.  Coleman is one of many meteorlogists  who disagree with some or all of their claims.  S. Fred Singer is another who questions such claims.  The two of them together have over 100 years of experience studying weather.    Coleman  founded the Weather Channel.  Singer was the first head of the National Weather Satellite Service.


The claim that the minor atmospheric gas carbon dioxide (CO2) can determine atmospheric temperature sounds so absurd that it is hard to understand how anyone with a logical scientific mind could believe it.  Supposedly CO2 which comprises less than 400 parts per million of the atmosphere can cause higher temperatures by absorbing and reemitting low energy infrared radiation (IR) from earth's surface.  They make this claim in spite of the fact that physicist R.W. Wood proved a century ago that trapping IR couldn't even cause heating in an enclosed greenhouse much less the atmosphere.  


The equation they use to predict  catastrophic warming contains a major flaw that NASA covered up until  Ferenc Miskolczi left NASA and blew the whistle on them.  The equation   Arthur Milne developed in 1922 contains a serious flaw.  Milne mistakenly solved the differential equation involved by assuming an infinitely thick atmosphere.  NASA is a major player in the global warming scam . Some of  its employees may have acted illegally.


Those who believe in global warming claim that a 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degree Celsius) increase in what they call a global average temperature during the 20th Century indicates global warming.  The fact is that even if the number they use had any mathematical value it would amount to only a 0.16 % change which would more likely be due to changes or deficiencies in equipment or changes in the area surrounding the equipment.  


Much of that equipment is in areas where maintenance is likely to be unavailable, but even the equipment in developed countries may be unreliable.  There are documented problems with equipment and locations used to measure temperatures in the U.S.


Believers in global warming act more like religious fanatics than scientists.  For them consensus is more important than facts.  They call those who question their beliefs names like "contrarians" or "deniers" much like those who believed the earth was the center of the universe called Galileo and Copernicus "heretics'.  


Those who question global warming have something else in common with Galileo and Copernicus.  Galileo and Copernicus  challenged the belief that the human inhabited earth must be the center of the universe the sun. Their persecutors believed the sun  must revolve around the earth because the consensus view considered humans so important. 


Those who claim humans are causing global warming believe humans are so powerful they can magically control earth's climate by manipulating a very minor atmospheric gas.  They ignore the fact that earth's heat comes from the sun. 


The so-called "deniers" believe that changes in the sun's output determine whether earth warms or cools.    Some astrophysicists, who study the sun, believe that thousands of years of observation of the sun indicate the sun is about to enter a part of its cycle in which it will produce less heat as was the case in the 18th Century when Gen. George Washington's troops spent an extremely cold winter at Valley Forge.


The corrupt United Nations and other political organizations are pushing the scam.  This is  the same  U.N. that was behind the oil for food scandals and scandals in UNESCO and UNICEF.  The same  U.N.  that approved the U.S. invasion of Iraq to look for Weapons of Mass Destruction.  There was more evidence for WMD in Iraq than there is for global warming caused by CO2.


Some financial interests, including the bankrupt Lehman Brothers, have been pushing the scam  as  means of increasing the value of a financial instrument  they call "carbon credits".  These carbon credits potentially allow financial parasites to cut themselves in for a portion of the revenue of various companies.  Carbon credits inflate the cost of goods and services and may force companies to lay off people who would otherwise not lose their jobs.


Supporters of the global warming scam claim they want to protect the environment, but they call CO2 a polutant even though it is essential to biological life.  Plants need CO2 to produce the food we eat. 


The scammers by emphasizing a non-threat to the environment divert attention from ways humans  actually affect the environment such as the production of black soot in China's dirty coal electrical plants.     Black soot mixing with snow in the Arctic converts sunlight into heat that melts the snow.  Without the soot the snow would reflect the sunlight back into space.


I plan to elaborate on some of these points in future posts. 

The claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) can increase air temperatures by "trapping" infrared radiation (IR) ignores the fact that in 1909 physicist R.W. Wood disproved the popular 19th Century thesis that greenhouses stayed warm by trapping IR. Unfortunately, many people who claim to be scientists are unaware of Wood's experiment which was originally published in the Philosophical magazine , 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Wood was an expert on IR. His accomplishments included inventing both IR and UV (ultraviolet) photography. Wood constructed two identical small greenhouses. The description implies the type of structure a gardener would refer to as a "coldframe" rather than a building a person could walk into. He lined the interior with black cardboard which would absorb radiation and convert it to heat which would heat the air through conduction. The cardboard would also produce radiation. He covered one greenhouse with a sheet of transparent rock salt and the other with a sheet of glass. The glass would block IR and the rock salt would allow it to pass. During the first run of the experiment the rock salt greenhouse heated faster due to IR from the sun entering it but not the glass greenhouse. He then set up another pane of glass to filter the IR from the sun before the light reached the greenhouses. The result from this run was that the greenhouses both heated to about 50 C with less than a degree difference between the two. Wood didn't indicate which was warmer or whether there was any difference in the thermal conductivity between the glass sheet and the rock salt. A slight difference in the amount of heat transfered through the sheets by conduction could explain such a minor difference in temperature. The two sheets probably didn't conduct heat at the same rate. The experiment conclusively demonstrates that greenhouses heat up and stay warm by confining heated air rather than by trapping IR. If trapping IR in an enclosed space doesn't cause higher air temperature than CO2 in the atmosphere cannot cause higher air temperatures. The heated air in the greenhouses couldn't rise higher than the sheets that covered the tops of the greenhouses. Heated air outside is free to rise allowing colder air to fall to the ground. Atmospheric CO2 is even less likely to function as a barrier to IR or reflect it back to reheat the ground or water than the sheet of glass in Wood's greenhouse. The blackened cardboard in Wood's greenhouses was a very good radiator of IR as is typical of black substances. The water that covers 70% of earth's surface is a very poor radiator and produces only limited amounts of IR as is typical of transparent substances. Water releases heat through evaporation rather than radiation. The glass sheet provided a solid barrier to IR. Atmospheric CO2 is widely dispersed comprising less than 400 parts per million in the atmosphere. Trapping IR with CO2 would be like trying to confine mice with a chain link fence. Glass reflects a wider spectrum of IR than interacts with CO2. The glass sheets reflected IR back toward the floor of the greenhouse. CO2 doesn't reflect IR. At the time of Wood's experiment, it was believed that CO2 and other gas molecules became hotter after absorbing IR. Four years later Niels Bohr reported his discovery that the absorption of specific wavelengths of light didn't cause gas atoms/molecules to become hotter. Instead, the absorption of specific wavelengths of light caused the electrons in an atom/molecule to move to a higher energy state. After absorption of light of a specific wavelength an atom couldn't absorb additional radiation of that wavelength without first emitting light of that wavelength. (Philosophical Magazine Series 6, Volume 26 July 1913, p. 1-25) Unlike the glass which reflects IR back where it comes from, CO2 molecules emit IR up and sideways as well as down. In the time interval between absorbing and reemitting radiation, CO2 molecules allow IR to pass them by. Glass continuously reflects IR. Those who claim that CO2 molecules in the atmosphere can cause heating by trapping IR have yet to provide any empirical scientific evidence to prove such a physical process exists. The experiment by R.W. Wood demonstrates that even a highly reflective covering cannot cause heating by trapping IR in a confined space. There is no way CO2, which at best only affects a small portion of the IR produced by earth's surface, can heat the atmosphere by trapping IR. Contrary to the lie repeated in news stories about climate, science doesn't say that CO2 is causing higher temperatures by trapping IR. Empirical science indicates that no such process exists in this physical universe.

We need to tell our Representatives and our Senators who are running for reelection this year we won't vote for them unless they vote to authorize drilling for oil in Alaska, off shore, in national parks and in my back yard.  I doubt that anyone would want to drill for oil in my backyard, but  Congress shouldn't prevent oil companies from drilling for oil  where ever it may be.

Drilling for new oil is part of the solution for the emerging fuel shortage.    Another part is development of alternative biofuels.

Backward  Democrats  oppose drilling for new oil because it might take 10 years for new wells to produce oil.  The amount of time required to produce oil is the reason Congress must authorize drilling now.  If Democrats had authorized drilling the last time they controlled the White House and Congress in the early 90's,   oil prices wouldn't have gone up so fast this year. 

Drilling new wells might take 10 years, but replacing technology that relies on oil would take 20 to 30 years.  Wealthy members of Congress who can buy any new technology that comes out don't understand that most of us cannot do so.    

Americans own  197  million motor vehicles (including motorcycles).   New vehicle  sales are only  projected to be grow to about 18 million per year in 2017.    Many of those sales are to  first time owners (especially  youth) or to buyers who are purchasing an extra vehicle for specialized use such as an RV for weekends.

Motor vehicles aren't the only users of  petroleum products.  Residents of  northeastern states use fuel oil to heat their homes.  Petroleum is used for plastics,  asphalt pavement and other purposes including lubricants.

Increased production of biofuels will eventually reduce the need for petroleum, but not eliminate it within the next few decades.   Congress should encourage production of biofuels by funding research or encouraging use of developed technology.

For example, Congress can prohibit states from blocking construction of new clean coal electric generating plants that include algae reactors.   Congress should consider requiring new coal plants to have algae reactors. 

Algae can provide a much more productive source of biofuels than food crops. Glen Kertz president and CEO of Valcent Products says that algae can produce 100,000 gallons of oil per acre compared to 30 gallons of oil from corn and 50 gallons per acre from soybeans.
  
Processes such as thermal depolymerization can convert biowastes (including paper)  and plastics  to a synthetic oil.   Companies  such as Changing World Technologies are already converting biowastes to oil.  Congress should consider eventually requiring companies that produce biowastes to have those wastes converted to oil or other purposes.  Once the technology is sufficiently developed, Congress could prohibit cities, especially larger cities,  from disposing of material in landfills that can be converted to usable oil.

Has  James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies,  been taking bribes from George Soros and others?   I'm not an attorney so I don't know if Hansen has actually done anything illegal.  However,  as a political scientist  the situation definitely has an odor to it.  

There is no legitimate reason for any private body to spend $750,000 to "package" a government official the way  George Soros     allegedly did for James Hansen.    There is no legitimate reason for a government official to receive a grant from a private research organization  for supporting one of its causes as James Hansen allegedly received from the foundation directed by Sen. John Kerry's wife.    Hansen subsequently endorsed Kerry for President, possibly in  violation of federal law.

Bribery  primarily involves someone providing something of value  to a government  official  to  take an action  favored by the person providing the inducement.  The  term can also apply to an attempt to get someone to act  contrary to the desires  of  an employer.   Hansen's recent claim that energy company payments to non-government scientists to support some theory is a bribe is nonsense.  Payments to private individuals, including university professors, represents an employer employee relationship.
 
Hansen may be committed to the global warming nonsense, but if he is receiving anything of value from the private sector his continued commitment could be for personal financial gain.  I'm particularly  concerned about Hansen misusing his position to  present false data and  suppress  information  that challenges his theories.   These actions could  be  a response to a bribe. Those offering him inducements may want more than just his verbal support.

Hansen  suppressed  a discovery by NASA scientist Ferenc Miskolczi  that the equations used to calculate catastrophic warming contained a major flaw. The  equation  falsely assumed an atmosphere of infinite thickness. 

Steve McEntire discovered in  that  NASA's portrayal  of 1998 as being the warmest year in the U.S. was wrong and that 1934 was actually warmer.  The official explanation is that the original claim was a "mistake", but the federal government has a history of producing false data to support federal policies.  For that matter scientists have a long history of altering data to validate their theories.  Is NASA playing Enron type accounting games with data?
 
If someone at NASA was accepting a bribe, he might alter data with a plan to claim an honest mistake if someone discovered the error.  The official NASA response to discovery of the error is that the error is small, but  the change in temperature during the 20th Century was only 0.17% which is of questionable significance.  Lying about 1998 being warmer than 1934 made the claim of global warming seem more valid.  1934 being warmer than years late in the century provides a strong argument against the whole claim of global warming.     
  
NASA's claim of 2007 being the second warmest  is highly questionable and  inconsistent with the data.   NASA claims continued warming while other organizations disagree. 

NASA has been circumventing  federal regulations requiring review of federally funded research before it is distributed by having employee  Gavin Schmidt operate a privately funded website RealClimate to publish information.  Websites that question NASA's beliefs request visitors to donate money to fund the site.  RealClimate doesn't have to because it is subsidized by the same George Soros who has been aiding James Hansen.  What would be the response if the Department of Defense  used this approach to influence public opinion?

Recently NASA has been shifting research funds to scientifically worthless projects, such as computer studies about how global warming might affect tornadoes.  The studies ignore the fact that the only difference in temperatures comparing the future and now would come on the hottest days of summer when tornadoes are less frequent.  Temperatures would still pass through the normal  seasonal changes from winter to summer.

I don't know if James Hansen is guilty if is guilt of taking bribes  under the legal definition of the term.  However, he and his supporters routinely accuse those who disagree with them of doing  so because they are being "bribed".  Thus, Hansen by supporting the claims of those who pay him from the private sector is guilty of taking bribes under his definition of the term.

At 8 P.M a series of severe thunderstorms extended from northeast of Big Springs, Texas, to  west of Brookings, South Dakota, with a break in the line of severe storms in Nebraska.  There have been several reports of tornados but the wind damage thus far in Kansas appears to be front straight winds of 80 mph in some areas, including here in Hutchinson.

 The weather service has reported golf ball sized hail here, but the hail near my house on the west side of town was only pea to marble sized.    The severe storm moved through here at about 4 P.M. with heavy rain  that for a short time reached monsoon levels.  A series of smaller storms followed.   I took a walking tour of the immediate vicinity after the rain stopped and noticed significant tree damage.  The tree damage probably would have been worse had it not been for the ice storm last winter and previous severe thunderstorms that reduced the number of limbs available to be damaged.

On a light note 2 elephants escaped from a circus in Wakeeny, Ks. during the storm, possibly because they were spooked by the tornado sirens.

The storms continue to move east and the system continues to have the potential to produce severe storms and possibly major tornadoes.  The fact that the storms are part of a line rather than separate storms is reducing the potential for tornadoes.  Single super cell storms are more likely to produce strong tornadoes because the air moving upward is concentrated in a  major updraft.   With a line of storms multiple updrafts spread out the air so it doesn't have to move as fast to move up.  The situation is similar to what happens  with a river.   The water moving through a narrow channel moves much faster than water moving over a wide area.

The center of the low pressure system  is currently in Nebraska and the pressure has risen to 991.1 mb.
 
Hopefully the storm will continue to weaken before it reaches the higher humidity air to the east.  

There is a major difference between conditions now and those in 1974.  The 1974  Outbreak occurred  in  April  when there was a supply of much cooler air available  to provide a greater  temperature  differential.   Colder air causes the warm moist air to condense faster and produces stronger downdrafts as that cold air falls.  As the cold rain and hail filled air falls it creates a  suction that pulls up warm moist air as  well as  pushing that air up  from the bottom.

Meteorlogists are concerned that the Central U.S. may face an attack by our "terrorist" in residence  Mother Nature.  Weather conditions are substantially similar to those that existed at the beginning of the  super tornado outbreak of April, 1974.    Over a 16 hour period 148 tornadoes killed 330 people and injured 5,484 along a 2,500 mile path in 13 states.
This included the tornado that devastated Xenia, Ohio. 

The Super Outbreak produced 6 F5 and 23 F4 tornadoes.   

Today as in 1974  the weather is being influenced by a  La Nina  condition in the Pacific.  Mark C. Bove of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) in a paper published in 1999 noted a connection between ENSO and tornadic activity in the U.S. La Ninas were associated with tornado outbreaks and strong tornadoes.  The tornado that wiped out Greensburg, Kansas,in May, 2007,   occurred while the current la Nina was developing.

The area along the Mississippi may be at particularly strong risk due to a plume of 70 F dew point air extending along the Mississippi that covers most of Illinois as well as southeastern Iowa and northeastern Missouri.    A tropical storm strength  low pressure system (989.2 mb) is currently moving through western Kansas

According to Bove,  "The results indicate that El Nio [El Nino] events reduce tornadic activity in the southern plain states, while El Viejo [la Nina] events increase tornadic activity in the Ohio River Valley and Deep South. Results further show that El Nino inhibits the chances of multiple tornado outbreaks, while La Nina facilitates large tornadic outbreaks and produces more devastating tornadoes."

Ignorant individuals like Al Gore blame bad weather on "global warming" but cool La Ninas cause  more damage than warm el Nino events. 

Currently  a line of thunderstorms has recently developed in central Kansas stretching northeast from Greensburg.  As of 2:30 P.M.  tornado warming has been issued for the area near Hudson based on radar data.  Spotters in Ellsworth County along I-70 have reported a rotating wall cloud.  the line of storms is moving east about 10- 15 mph with individual storms moving at 40 - 60 mph.    Tornado warnings have also been issued for western Kansas  and for the areas around Wakeeney.   Tornado warmings have also been issued in Nebraska. 
Wichita State University has announced that evening classes after 5:00 PM. have been cancelled as a precaution.


National weather service radars can be found at http://radar.weather.gov/ 
To save complete radar images if you have Seamonkey as your browser.  right click and choose save page.  Make sure the box shows web page complete.  The save page function will save an html file as well as a folder of the same file name.

To follow the passage of the storms go to     http://www.wunderground.com/US/Region/US/2xFronts.html

Unless some other candidate enters the race  I will be voting for you  in November.  However, that is only because neither of the likely Democratic candidates has the experience to be the  nation's Chief Executive Officer.   Your acceptance of  the nonsense about purported "global warming", which Meteorologist John Coleman calls "the greatest scam in history", indicates a level of gullibility that is undesirable in presidents. 

I can understand how American leaders would believe that Saddam Hussein still had significant amounts of  Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Hussein had used such weapons in the past and there was no evidence he had destroyed them.  U.N. inspectors discovered unloaded nerve gas shells shortly before the U.S. invaded Iraq.   

However, there is no evidence for "global warming".   There is no evidence of any significant  temperature change other than the normal rise and fall of temperatures over time.  The earth has warm years and cool years, warm decades and cool decades.   The process that is supposed to produce global warming is physically  impossible. 

Those who claim the existence of global warming admit that temperatures only changed by 1 F  or 0.17% during the entire 20th Century.    A one degreee variation is insignificant   considering that daily temperatures fluctuate by 20 - 30 F    and by  over 100 F from winter to summer in  temperate areas during the year.  The passage of a strong cold front can drop temperatures by 30 F  in a matter of hours.

A one degree change over a century could easily be explained by differences in equipment or changes in the locations where the equipment is located.   Today's  equipment  is of questionable reliability.    Many sites have characteristics that artificially produce higher temperatures.

 Temperature varies by more than one degree in different parts of my yard.  Temperatures went up and down during the 20th Century and have declined since 1998.  The concept of a global average temperature itself is of questionable value.

Jean Baptiste Fourier first suggested that  infrared radiation  (IR) from the surface heated the atmosphere, but Fourier also believed that star light could heat the earth.  He believed that gas molecules converted the radiation into heat.   Niels Bohr  demonstrated in  his Nobel Prize winning research that  absorption of  specific wavelengths of light by gas molecules changed the energy state of their electrons rather than causing them to become hotter.

Land and water heat the air by conduction rather than radiation.  70% of the earth's surface is water which is a very poor radiator anyway.   Supporters of global warming have failed to provide any evidence that the low energy radiation produced by earth's surface can heat anything.

Those who believe in global warming claim that it is caused by carbon dioxide (CO2) trapping a small range of IR.  However,  physicist R.W. Wood, who invented IR photography, demonstrated in 1909 that the process of trapping IR didn't cause greenhouses to stay warm.  Instead they stayed warm because they trapped heated air which doesn't readily lose heat energy by converting it into radiation.  His experiment used solid barriers to trap IR.  CO2 is less than 400 parts per million in the atmosphere and is hardly capable of trapping IR the way the solid barriers Wood used could.

Ferenc Miskolczi resigned in protest from NASA after it suppressed a study indicating that the equations used to show CO2 would cause substantial  global warming contained a serious flaw that rendered the equations invalid.  His corrected equations show no warming.

Dr. Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner in their essay  "Falsification of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effects Within the Framework of Physics" argue that the process global warming believers talk about would be a perpetual motion machine that physicists claim would violate the laws of physics.

Did NASA's James E. Hansen commit perjury when he testified before House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on March 19, 2007?

Ferenc Miskolczi had previously informed NASA that the equations being used to predict catastrophic global warming were invalid. Yet Hansen told Congress that "greenhouse gases" posed a serious threat.

"The predominance of positive feedbacks, along with the inertia of the oceans and ice sheets, has profound practical implications. It means that if we push the climate system hard enough it can obtain a momentum, it can pass tipping points, such that climate changes continue, out of our control. Unless we begin to slow down the human-made climate forcings, there is the danger that we will create a different planet, one far outside the range that has existed in the course of human history (References 7, 8, 9)."

"It is because of these climate feedbacks and the inertia of the ocean and ice sheets that the global warming problem differs fundamentally from the problem of conventional air pollution (Reference 12). By the time that the public can clearly see the existence of climate change, there is momentum in the system for a great deal of additional change. As a result we are probably already very near, if not beyond, the dangerous level of interference with atmospheric composition. I have discussed the possibility of drawing down atmospheric CO2 by burning biofuels in power plants and capturing and sequestering the CO2 (Reference 13). However, by far the most effective actions at this time would be to slow current emissions to the atmosphere, while better understanding and improved technologies are developed."

My inclination is that he didn't commit perjury even though his statements were inconsistent with Miskolczi's study. The transcript of the testimony doesn't indicate he was testifying under oath. Also other portions of his testimony indicate that agency representatives were expected to provide official explanations even though there might be a question about the accuracy of those statements.

However, I'm not an attorney so I'm not sufficiently familiar with the concept of perjury as it actually applies in a U.S. court of law. I didn't think I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby should have been prosecuted for perjury.

Someone who is familiar with the law regarding perjury needs to investigate the situation to determine if Hansen violated the law.