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	<title>Comments on: Obvious Sin</title>
	<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/</link>
	<description>Seeking to understand the Christian right amidst a preponderance of wrong.</description>
	<pubDate>Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:32:47 +0000</pubDate>
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	<item>
		<title>by: usbusi</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3811</link>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:05:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3811</guid>
					<description>I would like to propose the idea that Christians who believe our planet is precious and who realize human caused global warming will wreak major consequences to life on Earth including millions of humans, utilize 12 Step for Recovery to Oil Addiction.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>I would like to propose the idea that Christians who believe our planet is precious and who realize human caused global warming will wreak major consequences to life on Earth including millions of humans, utilize 12 Step for Recovery to Oil Addiction.
</p>
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		<title>by: Caniac</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3871</link>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:43:05 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3871</guid>
					<description>Way to clear the blogs. Were we making too much sense? You just can't let the truth be known.

You liberals are always looking for the knee-jerk response. In the mid 70's, you all thought the
next ice age was coming due to aerosol emissions. Global warming just 30 years later? 19,000
international and relevantly experienced scientists have signed a petition calling the whole
global warming issue &quot;poppycock&quot;.

A couple of degrees up or down over 5,000 years really doesn't concern those of us who can think.
Liberals &quot;feel&quot;, they don't think. You all immediately have to respond to things. You blame humans
for their impending doom. Did the brontosaurs cause their own extinction by driving SUVs? Was it
the Raptors rampant gun use? Triceratops urban sprawl? If only they were all vegans...

Shelly? C'Mon!



</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>Way to clear the blogs. Were we making too much sense? You just can&#8217;t let the truth be known.</p>
	<p>You liberals are always looking for the knee-jerk response. In the mid 70&#8217;s, you all thought the<br />
next ice age was coming due to aerosol emissions. Global warming just 30 years later? 19,000<br />
international and relevantly experienced scientists have signed a petition calling the whole<br />
global warming issue &#8220;poppycock&#8221;.</p>
	<p>A couple of degrees up or down over 5,000 years really doesn&#8217;t concern those of us who can think.<br />
Liberals &#8220;feel&#8221;, they don&#8217;t think. You all immediately have to respond to things. You blame humans<br />
for their impending doom. Did the brontosaurs cause their own extinction by driving SUVs? Was it<br />
the Raptors rampant gun use? Triceratops urban sprawl? If only they were all vegans&#8230;</p>
	<p>Shelly? C&#8217;Mon!
</p>
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	<item>
		<title>by: supak.com</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3875</link>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:38:49 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3875</guid>
					<description>Hey, Caniac, can you back this up:

&quot;19,000 international and relevantly experienced scientists have signed a petition calling the whole global warming issue 'poppycock'.&quot;

Please tell me who that was. Provide a link to the petition. Show me the signatures. Otherwise, get lost. I was a grade schooler in the 70's. And 100% of the non-oil-company-funded scientists (that means peer-reviewed science, not the kind George Bush preaches) agree that we are heating the planet, melting the ice, changing the climate, and raising sea level.

Oh, and remember, a few degrees up or down, a few feet up or down (ocean level) doesn't really matter much to the molton-core ball of rock with a thin shell of delicately balanced air and water that 6 billion of us live on.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>Hey, Caniac, can you back this up:</p>
	<p>&#8220;19,000 international and relevantly experienced scientists have signed a petition calling the whole global warming issue &#8216;poppycock&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
	<p>Please tell me who that was. Provide a link to the petition. Show me the signatures. Otherwise, get lost. I was a grade schooler in the 70&#8217;s. And 100% of the non-oil-company-funded scientists (that means peer-reviewed science, not the kind George Bush preaches) agree that we are heating the planet, melting the ice, changing the climate, and raising sea level.</p>
	<p>Oh, and remember, a few degrees up or down, a few feet up or down (ocean level) doesn&#8217;t really matter much to the molton-core ball of rock with a thin shell of delicately balanced air and water that 6 billion of us live on.
</p>
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	<item>
		<title>by: Caniac</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3890</link>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Jun 2006 05:56:32 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3890</guid>
					<description>I wore blue pants yesterday. Unless you concluded your schooling in the 4th grade, you must know that 100% is an impossible number to prove. Read this and I'll get back to you...


Gorey Truths: 25 Inconvenient Truths for Al Gore
Murray Op-Ed in National Review Online
by Iain Murray
June 22, 2006

With An Inconvenient Truth, the companion book to former Vice President Al Gore’s global-warming movie, currently number nine in Amazon sales rank, this is a good time to point out that the book, which is a largely pictorial representation of the movie’s graphical presentation, exaggerates the evidence surrounding global warming. Ironically, the former Vice President leaves out many truths that are inconvenient for his argument. Here are just 25 of them.
 
1. Carbon Dioxide’s Effect on Temperature. The relationship between global temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2), on which the entire scare is founded, is not linear. Every molecule of CO2 added to the atmosphere contributes less to warming than the previous one. The book’s graph on p. 66-67 is seriously misleading. Moreover, even the historical levels of CO2 shown on the graph are disputed. Evidence from plant fossil-remains suggest that there was as much CO2 in the atmosphere about 11,000 years ago as there is today.

2. Kilimanjaro. The snows of Kilimanjaro are melting not because of global warming but because of a local climate shift that began 100 years ago. The authors of a report in the International Journal of Climatology “develop a new concept for investigating the retreat of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers, based on the physical understanding of glacier–climate interactions.” They note that, “The concept considers the peculiarities of the mountain and implies that climatological processes other than air temperature control the ice recession in a direct manner. A drastic drop in atmospheric moisture at the end of the 19th century and the ensuing drier climatic conditions are likely forcing glacier retreat on Kilimanjaro.”

3. Glaciers. Glaciers around the world have been receding at around the same pace for over 100 years. Research published by the National Academy of Sciences last week indicates that the Peruvian glacier on p. 53-53 probably disappeared a few thousand years ago.

4. The Medieval Warm Period. Al Gore says that the “hockey stick” graph that shows temperatures remarkably steady for the last 1,000 years has been validated, and ridicules the concept of a “medieval warm period.” That’s not the case. Last year, a team of leading paleoclimatologists said, “When matching existing temperature reconstructions…the timeseries display a reasonably coherent picture of major climatic episodes: ‘Medieval Warm Period,’ ‘Little Ice Age’ and ‘Recent Warming.’” They go on to conclude, “So what would it mean, if the reconstructions indicate a larger…or smaller…temperature amplitude? We suggest that the former situation, i.e. enhanced variability during pre-industrial times, would result in a redistribution of weight towards the role of natural factors in forcing temperature changes, thereby relatively devaluing the impact of anthropogenic emissions and affecting future temperature predictions.”

5. The Hottest Year. Satellite temperature measurements say that 2005 wasn't the hottest year on record — 1998 was — and that temperatures have been stable since 2001 (p.73). Here’s the satellite graph: 

6. Heat Waves. The summer heat wave that struck Europe in 2003 was caused by an atmospheric pressure anomaly; it had nothing to do with global warming. As the United Nations Environment Program reported in September 2003, “This extreme wheather [sic] was caused by an anti-cyclone firmly anchored over the western European land mass holding back the rain-bearing depressions that usually enter the continent from the Atlantic ocean. This situation was exceptional in the extended length of time (over 20 days) during which it conveyed very hot dry air up from south of the Mediterranean.”

7. Record Temperatures. Record temperatures — hot and cold — are set every day around the world; that’s the nature of records. Statistically, any given place will see four record high temperatures set every year. There is evidence that daytime high temperatures are staying about the same as for the last few decades, but nighttime lows are gradually rising. Global warming might be more properly called, “Global less cooling.” (On this, see Patrick J. Michaels book, Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media.)

8. Hurricanes. There is no overall global trend of hurricane-force storms getting stronger that has anything to do with temperature. A recent study in Geophysical Research Letters found: “The data indicate a large increasing trend in tropical cyclone intensity and longevity for the North Atlantic basin and a considerable decreasing trend for the Northeast Pacific. All other basins showed small trends, and there has been no significant change in global net tropical cyclone activity. There has been a small increase in global Category 4–5 hurricanes from the period 1986–1995 to the period 1996–2005. Most of this increase is likely due to improved observational technology. These findings indicate that other important factors govern intensity and frequency of tropical cyclones besides SSTs [sea surface temperatures].” 

9. Tornadoes. Records for numbers of tornadoes are set because we can now record more of the smaller tornadoes (see, for instance, the Tornado FAQ at Weather Underground).

10. European Flooding. European flooding is not new (p. 107). Similar flooding happened in 2003. Research from Michael Mudelsee and colleagues from the University of Leipzig published in Nature (Sept. 11, 2003) looked at data reaching as far back as 1021 (for the Elbe) and 1269 (for the Oder). They concluded that there is no upward trend in the incidence of extreme flooding in this region of central Europe.

11. Shrinking Lakes. Scientists investigating the disappearance of Lake Chad (p.116) found that most of it was due to human overuse of water. “The lake’s decline probably has nothing to do with global warming, report the two scientists, who based their findings on computer models and satellite imagery made available by NASA. They attribute the situation instead to human actions related to climate variation, compounded by the ever increasing demands of an expanding population” (“Shrinking African Lake Offers Lesson on Finite Resources,” National Geographic, April 26, 2001). Lake Chad is also a very shallow lake that has shrunk considerably throughout human history.

12. Polar Bears. Polar bears are not becoming endangered. A leading Canadian polar bear biologist wrote recently, “Climate change is having an effect on the west Hudson population of polar bears, but really, there is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear (sic) to be affected at present.” 

13. The Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream, the ocean conveyor belt, is not at risk of shutting off in the North Atlantic (p. 150). Carl Wunsch of MIT wrote to the journal Nature in 2004 to say, “The only way to produce an ocean circulation without a Gulf Stream is either to turn off the wind system, or to stop the Earth’s rotation, or both”

14. Invasive Species. Gore’s worries about the effect of warming on species ignore evolution. With the new earlier caterpillar season in the Netherlands, an evolutionary advantage is given to birds that can hatch their eggs earlier than the rest. That’s how nature works. Also, “invasive species” naturally extend their range when climate changes. As for the pine beetle given as an example of invasive species, Rob Scagel, a forest microclimate specialist in British Columbia, said, “The MPB (mountain pine beetle) is a species native to this part of North America and is always present. The MPB epidemic started as comparatively small outbreaks and through forest management inaction got completely out of hand.” 

15. Species Loss. When it comes to species loss, the figures given on p. 163 are based on extreme guesswork, as the late Julian Simon pointed out. We have documentary evidence of only just over 1,000 extinctions since 1600 (see, for instance, Bjørn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist, p. 250).

16. Coral Reefs. Coral reefs have been around for over 500 million years. This means that they have survived through long periods with much higher temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations than today.

17. Malaria and other Infectious Diseases. Leading disease scientists contend that climate change plays only a minor role in the spread of emerging infectious diseases. In “Global Warming and Malaria: A Call for Accuracy” (The Lancet, June 2004), nine leading malariologists criticized models linking global warming to increased malaria spread as “misleading” and “display[ing] a lack of knowledge” of the subject.

18. Antarctic Ice. There is controversy over whether the Antarctic ice sheet is thinning or thickening. Recent scientific studies have shown a thickening in the interior at the same time as increased melting along the coastlines. Temperatures in the interior are generally decreasing. The Antarctic Peninsula, where the Larsen-B ice shelf broke up (p. 181) is not representative of what is happening in the rest of Antarctica. Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, Professor Emeritus of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, acknowledges, “Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems.” According to a forthcoming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate models based on anthropogenic forcing cannot explain the anomalous warming of the Antarctic Peninsula; thus, something natural is at work.

19. Greenland Climate. Greenland was warmer in the 1920s and 1930s than it is now. A recent study by Dr. Peter Chylek of the University of California, Riverside, addressed the question of whether man is directly responsible for recent warming: “An important question is to what extent can the current (1995-2005) temperature increase in Greenland coastal regions be interpreted as evidence of man-induced global warming? Although there has been a considerable temperature increase during the last decade (1995 to 2005) a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for period of warming to arise. The observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within a natural variability of Greenland climate.” (Petr Chylek et al., Geophysical Research Letters, 13 June 2006.)

20. Sea Level Rise. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not forecast sea-level rises of “18 to 20 feet.” Rather, it says, “We project a sea level rise of 0.09 to 0.88 m for 1990 to 2100, with a central value of 0.48 m. The central value gives an average rate of 2.2 to 4.4 times the rate over the 20th century...It is now widely agreed that major loss of grounded ice and accelerated sea level rise are very unlikely during the 21st century.” Al Gore’s suggestions of much more are therefore extremely alarmist.

21. Population. Al Gore worries about population growth; Gore does not suggest a solution. Fertility in the developed world is stable or decreasing. The plain fact is that we are not going to reduce population back down to 2 billion or fewer in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, the population in the developing world requires a significant increase in its standard of living to reduce the threats of premature and infant mortality, disease, and hunger. In The Undercover Economist, Tim Harford writes, “If we are honest, then, the argument that trade leads to economic growth, which leads to climate change, leads us then to a stark conclusion: we should cut our trade links to make sure that the Chinese, Indians and Africans stay poor. The question is whether any environmental catastrophe, even severe climate change, could possibly inflict the same terrible human cost as keeping three or four billion people in poverty. To ask that question is to answer it.” 

22. Energy Generation. A specific example of this is Gore’s acknowledgement that 30 percent of global CO2 emissions come from wood fires used for cooking (p. 227). If we introduced affordable, coal-fired power generation into South Asia and Africa we could reduce this considerably and save over 1.6 million lives a year. This is the sort of solution that Gore does not even consider.

23. Carbon-Emissions Trading. The European Carbon Exchange Market, touted as “effective” on p. 252, has crashed.

24. The “Scientific Consensus.” On the supposed “scientific consensus”: Dr. Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, San Diego, (p. 262) did not examine a “large random sample” of scientific articles. She got her search terms wrong and thought she was looking at all the articles when in fact she was looking at only 928 out of about 12,000 articles on “climate change.” Dr. Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University in England, was unable to replicate her study. He says, “As I have stressed repeatedly, the whole data set includes only 13 abstracts (~1%) that explicitly endorse what Oreskes has called the ‘consensus view.’ In fact, the vast majority of abstracts does (sic) not mention anthropogenic climate change. Moreover — and despite attempts to deny this fact — a handful of abstracts actually questions the view that human activities are the main driving force of ‘the observed warming over the last 50 years.’” In addition, a recent survey of scientists following the same methodology as one published in 1996 found that about 30 percent of scientists disagreed to some extent or another with the contention that “climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes.” Less than 10 percent “strongly agreed” with the statement. Details of both the survey and the failed attempt to replicate the Oreskes study can be found here.


25. Economic Costs. Even if the study Gore cites is right (p. 280-281), the United States will still emit massive amounts of CO2 after all the measures it outlines have been realized. Getting emissions down to the paltry levels needed to stabilize CO2 in the atmosphere would require, in Gore’s own words, “a wrenching transformation” of our way of life. This cannot be done easily or without significant cost. The Kyoto Protocol, which Gore enthusiastically supports, would avert less than a tenth of a degree of warming in the next fifty years and would cost up to $400 billion a year to the U.S. All of the current proposals in Congress would cost the economy significant amounts, making us all poorer, with all that that entails for human health and welfare, while doing nothing to stop global warming.

Finally, Gore quotes Winston Churchill (p. 100) — but he should read what Churchill said when he was asked what qualities a politician requires: “The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.”
</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>I wore blue pants yesterday. Unless you concluded your schooling in the 4th grade, you must know that 100% is an impossible number to prove. Read this and I&#8217;ll get back to you&#8230;</p>
	<p>Gorey Truths: 25 Inconvenient Truths for Al Gore<br />
Murray Op-Ed in National Review Online<br />
by Iain Murray<br />
June 22, 2006</p>
	<p>With An Inconvenient Truth, the companion book to former Vice President Al Gore’s global-warming movie, currently number nine in Amazon sales rank, this is a good time to point out that the book, which is a largely pictorial representation of the movie’s graphical presentation, exaggerates the evidence surrounding global warming. Ironically, the former Vice President leaves out many truths that are inconvenient for his argument. Here are just 25 of them.</p>
	<p>1. Carbon Dioxide’s Effect on Temperature. The relationship between global temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2), on which the entire scare is founded, is not linear. Every molecule of CO2 added to the atmosphere contributes less to warming than the previous one. The book’s graph on p. 66-67 is seriously misleading. Moreover, even the historical levels of CO2 shown on the graph are disputed. Evidence from plant fossil-remains suggest that there was as much CO2 in the atmosphere about 11,000 years ago as there is today.</p>
	<p>2. Kilimanjaro. The snows of Kilimanjaro are melting not because of global warming but because of a local climate shift that began 100 years ago. The authors of a report in the International Journal of Climatology “develop a new concept for investigating the retreat of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers, based on the physical understanding of glacier–climate interactions.” They note that, “The concept considers the peculiarities of the mountain and implies that climatological processes other than air temperature control the ice recession in a direct manner. A drastic drop in atmospheric moisture at the end of the 19th century and the ensuing drier climatic conditions are likely forcing glacier retreat on Kilimanjaro.”</p>
	<p>3. Glaciers. Glaciers around the world have been receding at around the same pace for over 100 years. Research published by the National Academy of Sciences last week indicates that the Peruvian glacier on p. 53-53 probably disappeared a few thousand years ago.</p>
	<p>4. The Medieval Warm Period. Al Gore says that the “hockey stick” graph that shows temperatures remarkably steady for the last 1,000 years has been validated, and ridicules the concept of a “medieval warm period.” That’s not the case. Last year, a team of leading paleoclimatologists said, “When matching existing temperature reconstructions…the timeseries display a reasonably coherent picture of major climatic episodes: ‘Medieval Warm Period,’ ‘Little Ice Age’ and ‘Recent Warming.’” They go on to conclude, “So what would it mean, if the reconstructions indicate a larger…or smaller…temperature amplitude? We suggest that the former situation, i.e. enhanced variability during pre-industrial times, would result in a redistribution of weight towards the role of natural factors in forcing temperature changes, thereby relatively devaluing the impact of anthropogenic emissions and affecting future temperature predictions.”</p>
	<p>5. The Hottest Year. Satellite temperature measurements say that 2005 wasn&#8217;t the hottest year on record — 1998 was — and that temperatures have been stable since 2001 (p.73). Here’s the satellite graph: </p>
	<p>6. Heat Waves. The summer heat wave that struck Europe in 2003 was caused by an atmospheric pressure anomaly; it had nothing to do with global warming. As the United Nations Environment Program reported in September 2003, “This extreme wheather [sic] was caused by an anti-cyclone firmly anchored over the western European land mass holding back the rain-bearing depressions that usually enter the continent from the Atlantic ocean. This situation was exceptional in the extended length of time (over 20 days) during which it conveyed very hot dry air up from south of the Mediterranean.”</p>
	<p>7. Record Temperatures. Record temperatures — hot and cold — are set every day around the world; that’s the nature of records. Statistically, any given place will see four record high temperatures set every year. There is evidence that daytime high temperatures are staying about the same as for the last few decades, but nighttime lows are gradually rising. Global warming might be more properly called, “Global less cooling.” (On this, see Patrick J. Michaels book, Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media.)</p>
	<p>8. Hurricanes. There is no overall global trend of hurricane-force storms getting stronger that has anything to do with temperature. A recent study in Geophysical Research Letters found: “The data indicate a large increasing trend in tropical cyclone intensity and longevity for the North Atlantic basin and a considerable decreasing trend for the Northeast Pacific. All other basins showed small trends, and there has been no significant change in global net tropical cyclone activity. There has been a small increase in global Category 4–5 hurricanes from the period 1986–1995 to the period 1996–2005. Most of this increase is likely due to improved observational technology. These findings indicate that other important factors govern intensity and frequency of tropical cyclones besides SSTs [sea surface temperatures].” </p>
	<p>9. Tornadoes. Records for numbers of tornadoes are set because we can now record more of the smaller tornadoes (see, for instance, the Tornado FAQ at Weather Underground).</p>
	<p>10. European Flooding. European flooding is not new (p. 107). Similar flooding happened in 2003. Research from Michael Mudelsee and colleagues from the University of Leipzig published in Nature (Sept. 11, 2003) looked at data reaching as far back as 1021 (for the Elbe) and 1269 (for the Oder). They concluded that there is no upward trend in the incidence of extreme flooding in this region of central Europe.</p>
	<p>11. Shrinking Lakes. Scientists investigating the disappearance of Lake Chad (p.116) found that most of it was due to human overuse of water. “The lake’s decline probably has nothing to do with global warming, report the two scientists, who based their findings on computer models and satellite imagery made available by NASA. They attribute the situation instead to human actions related to climate variation, compounded by the ever increasing demands of an expanding population” (“Shrinking African Lake Offers Lesson on Finite Resources,” National Geographic, April 26, 2001). Lake Chad is also a very shallow lake that has shrunk considerably throughout human history.</p>
	<p>12. Polar Bears. Polar bears are not becoming endangered. A leading Canadian polar bear biologist wrote recently, “Climate change is having an effect on the west Hudson population of polar bears, but really, there is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear (sic) to be affected at present.” </p>
	<p>13. The Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream, the ocean conveyor belt, is not at risk of shutting off in the North Atlantic (p. 150). Carl Wunsch of MIT wrote to the journal Nature in 2004 to say, “The only way to produce an ocean circulation without a Gulf Stream is either to turn off the wind system, or to stop the Earth’s rotation, or both”</p>
	<p>14. Invasive Species. Gore’s worries about the effect of warming on species ignore evolution. With the new earlier caterpillar season in the Netherlands, an evolutionary advantage is given to birds that can hatch their eggs earlier than the rest. That’s how nature works. Also, “invasive species” naturally extend their range when climate changes. As for the pine beetle given as an example of invasive species, Rob Scagel, a forest microclimate specialist in British Columbia, said, “The MPB (mountain pine beetle) is a species native to this part of North America and is always present. The MPB epidemic started as comparatively small outbreaks and through forest management inaction got completely out of hand.” </p>
	<p>15. Species Loss. When it comes to species loss, the figures given on p. 163 are based on extreme guesswork, as the late Julian Simon pointed out. We have documentary evidence of only just over 1,000 extinctions since 1600 (see, for instance, Bjørn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist, p. 250).</p>
	<p>16. Coral Reefs. Coral reefs have been around for over 500 million years. This means that they have survived through long periods with much higher temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations than today.</p>
	<p>17. Malaria and other Infectious Diseases. Leading disease scientists contend that climate change plays only a minor role in the spread of emerging infectious diseases. In “Global Warming and Malaria: A Call for Accuracy” (The Lancet, June 2004), nine leading malariologists criticized models linking global warming to increased malaria spread as “misleading” and “display[ing] a lack of knowledge” of the subject.</p>
	<p>18. Antarctic Ice. There is controversy over whether the Antarctic ice sheet is thinning or thickening. Recent scientific studies have shown a thickening in the interior at the same time as increased melting along the coastlines. Temperatures in the interior are generally decreasing. The Antarctic Peninsula, where the Larsen-B ice shelf broke up (p. 181) is not representative of what is happening in the rest of Antarctica. Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, Professor Emeritus of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, acknowledges, “Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems.” According to a forthcoming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate models based on anthropogenic forcing cannot explain the anomalous warming of the Antarctic Peninsula; thus, something natural is at work.</p>
	<p>19. Greenland Climate. Greenland was warmer in the 1920s and 1930s than it is now. A recent study by Dr. Peter Chylek of the University of California, Riverside, addressed the question of whether man is directly responsible for recent warming: “An important question is to what extent can the current (1995-2005) temperature increase in Greenland coastal regions be interpreted as evidence of man-induced global warming? Although there has been a considerable temperature increase during the last decade (1995 to 2005) a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for period of warming to arise. The observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within a natural variability of Greenland climate.” (Petr Chylek et al., Geophysical Research Letters, 13 June 2006.)</p>
	<p>20. Sea Level Rise. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not forecast sea-level rises of “18 to 20 feet.” Rather, it says, “We project a sea level rise of 0.09 to 0.88 m for 1990 to 2100, with a central value of 0.48 m. The central value gives an average rate of 2.2 to 4.4 times the rate over the 20th century&#8230;It is now widely agreed that major loss of grounded ice and accelerated sea level rise are very unlikely during the 21st century.” Al Gore’s suggestions of much more are therefore extremely alarmist.</p>
	<p>21. Population. Al Gore worries about population growth; Gore does not suggest a solution. Fertility in the developed world is stable or decreasing. The plain fact is that we are not going to reduce population back down to 2 billion or fewer in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, the population in the developing world requires a significant increase in its standard of living to reduce the threats of premature and infant mortality, disease, and hunger. In The Undercover Economist, Tim Harford writes, “If we are honest, then, the argument that trade leads to economic growth, which leads to climate change, leads us then to a stark conclusion: we should cut our trade links to make sure that the Chinese, Indians and Africans stay poor. The question is whether any environmental catastrophe, even severe climate change, could possibly inflict the same terrible human cost as keeping three or four billion people in poverty. To ask that question is to answer it.” </p>
	<p>22. Energy Generation. A specific example of this is Gore’s acknowledgement that 30 percent of global CO2 emissions come from wood fires used for cooking (p. 227). If we introduced affordable, coal-fired power generation into South Asia and Africa we could reduce this considerably and save over 1.6 million lives a year. This is the sort of solution that Gore does not even consider.</p>
	<p>23. Carbon-Emissions Trading. The European Carbon Exchange Market, touted as “effective” on p. 252, has crashed.</p>
	<p>24. The “Scientific Consensus.” On the supposed “scientific consensus”: Dr. Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, San Diego, (p. 262) did not examine a “large random sample” of scientific articles. She got her search terms wrong and thought she was looking at all the articles when in fact she was looking at only 928 out of about 12,000 articles on “climate change.” Dr. Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University in England, was unable to replicate her study. He says, “As I have stressed repeatedly, the whole data set includes only 13 abstracts (~1%) that explicitly endorse what Oreskes has called the ‘consensus view.’ In fact, the vast majority of abstracts does (sic) not mention anthropogenic climate change. Moreover — and despite attempts to deny this fact — a handful of abstracts actually questions the view that human activities are the main driving force of ‘the observed warming over the last 50 years.’” In addition, a recent survey of scientists following the same methodology as one published in 1996 found that about 30 percent of scientists disagreed to some extent or another with the contention that “climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes.” Less than 10 percent “strongly agreed” with the statement. Details of both the survey and the failed attempt to replicate the Oreskes study can be found here.</p>
	<p>25. Economic Costs. Even if the study Gore cites is right (p. 280-281), the United States will still emit massive amounts of CO2 after all the measures it outlines have been realized. Getting emissions down to the paltry levels needed to stabilize CO2 in the atmosphere would require, in Gore’s own words, “a wrenching transformation” of our way of life. This cannot be done easily or without significant cost. The Kyoto Protocol, which Gore enthusiastically supports, would avert less than a tenth of a degree of warming in the next fifty years and would cost up to $400 billion a year to the U.S. All of the current proposals in Congress would cost the economy significant amounts, making us all poorer, with all that that entails for human health and welfare, while doing nothing to stop global warming.</p>
	<p>Finally, Gore quotes Winston Churchill (p. 100) — but he should read what Churchill said when he was asked what qualities a politician requires: “The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn&#8217;t happen.”
</p>
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	<item>
		<title>by: Caniac</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3986</link>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jul 2006 10:17:06 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3986</guid>
					<description>Environmentalist Wacko Quotes

Even you, Supac the Magnificent, has to see the humor (and disgust) in some of these statements.

By John Hawkins 

Environmentalist wackos are anti-progress, anti-capitalism, anti-American, anti-poor, make spectacularly incorrect predictions about the climate, and quite frankly some of these people have MORE FRIGHTENING beliefs than al-Queda (I haven't heard any Al-Queda spokesmen talk longingly about a planet without humans on it). You may think I'm exaggerating, but you won't after you read these quotes... 

Attack Of The Socialist-Luddites 

The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state. - Kenneth Boulding, originator of the &quot;Spaceship Earth&quot; concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982) 

We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion -- guilt-free at last! -- Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue 

Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process . . . Capitalism is destroying the earth. -- Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists 

We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects . . . We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land. -- David Foreman, Earth First! 

Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed. -- Pentti Linkola 

If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other. -- Amory Lovins in The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22 

The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world -- John Shuttleworth 

What we've got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. -- Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado) 

Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out 

I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems. -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal 

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs. -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal 

The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing....This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run. -- Economist editorial 

We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight -- David Foreman, Earth First! 

Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental. -- Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First! 

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS -- Earth First! Newsletter 

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets...Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. -- David Graber, biologist, National Park Service 

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. -- Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project 

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. -- Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund 

Cannibalism is a &quot;radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.&quot; -- Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995 

Poverty For 'Those People' 

We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which killing a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels. -- Carl Amery 

Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby -- Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists 

To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem -- Lamont Cole 

If there is going to be electricity, I would like it to be decentralized, small, solar-powered -- Gar Smith -- editor of the Earth Island Institute's online magazine The Edge 

The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don't suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them. -- Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund 

Wrong Again 

The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population. -- Reid Bryson, &quot;Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man&quot;, (1971) 

The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer -- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968) 

I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000 -- Paul Ehrlich in (1969) 

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. -- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970) 

Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion -- Paul Ehrlich in (1976) 

This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century -- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976 

There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it. -- Newsweek, April 28, (1975) 

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte &quot;The Cooling&quot;, 1976 

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>Environmentalist Wacko Quotes</p>
	<p>Even you, Supac the Magnificent, has to see the humor (and disgust) in some of these statements.</p>
	<p>By John Hawkins </p>
	<p>Environmentalist wackos are anti-progress, anti-capitalism, anti-American, anti-poor, make spectacularly incorrect predictions about the climate, and quite frankly some of these people have MORE FRIGHTENING beliefs than al-Queda (I haven&#8217;t heard any Al-Queda spokesmen talk longingly about a planet without humans on it). You may think I&#8217;m exaggerating, but you won&#8217;t after you read these quotes&#8230; </p>
	<p>Attack Of The Socialist-Luddites </p>
	<p>The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state. - Kenneth Boulding, originator of the &#8220;Spaceship Earth&#8221; concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982) </p>
	<p>We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion &#8212; guilt-free at last! &#8212; Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue </p>
	<p>Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process . . . Capitalism is destroying the earth. &#8212; Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists </p>
	<p>We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects . . . We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land. &#8212; David Foreman, Earth First! </p>
	<p>Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed. &#8212; Pentti Linkola </p>
	<p>If you ask me, it&#8217;d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won&#8217;t give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other. &#8212; Amory Lovins in The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22 </p>
	<p>The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world &#8212; John Shuttleworth </p>
	<p>What we&#8217;ve got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. &#8212; Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado) </p>
	<p>Kill &#8216;Em All And Let God Sort &#8216;Em Out </p>
	<p>I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems. &#8212; John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal </p>
	<p>Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs. &#8212; John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal </p>
	<p>The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing&#8230;.This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run. &#8212; Economist editorial </p>
	<p>We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight &#8212; David Foreman, Earth First! </p>
	<p>Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental. &#8212; Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First! </p>
	<p>If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS &#8212; Earth First! Newsletter </p>
	<p>Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets&#8230;Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. &#8212; David Graber, biologist, National Park Service </p>
	<p>The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. &#8212; Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project </p>
	<p>If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. &#8212; Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund </p>
	<p>Cannibalism is a &#8220;radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.&#8221; &#8212; Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995 </p>
	<p>Poverty For &#8216;Those People&#8217; </p>
	<p>We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which killing a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels. &#8212; Carl Amery </p>
	<p>Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby &#8212; Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists </p>
	<p>To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem &#8212; Lamont Cole </p>
	<p>If there is going to be electricity, I would like it to be decentralized, small, solar-powered &#8212; Gar Smith &#8212; editor of the Earth Island Institute&#8217;s online magazine The Edge </p>
	<p>The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can&#8217;t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don&#8217;t suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them. &#8212; Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund </p>
	<p>Wrong Again </p>
	<p>The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population. &#8212; Reid Bryson, &#8220;Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man&#8221;, (1971) </p>
	<p>The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer &#8212; Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968) </p>
	<p>I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000 &#8212; Paul Ehrlich in (1969) </p>
	<p>In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. &#8212; Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970) </p>
	<p>Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion &#8212; Paul Ehrlich in (1976) </p>
	<p>This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century &#8212; Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976 </p>
	<p>There are ominous signs that the earth&#8217;s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon&#8230; The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it. &#8212; Newsweek, April 28, (1975) </p>
	<p>This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. &#8212; Lowell Ponte &#8220;The Cooling&#8221;, 1976 </p>
	<p>If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000&#8230;This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. &#8212; Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)
</p>
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	<item>
		<title>by: Caniac</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3987</link>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jul 2006 10:17:58 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3987</guid>
					<description>REMEMBER GLOBAL COOLING?!?!

The Cooling World (Blast From The Past Archived Newsweek Article Warning About &quot;Global Cooling&quot;
Newsweek 
April 28, 1975

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon. 

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states. 

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.” 

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972. 

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City. 

Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.” 

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies. 

“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines. 

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality. 

Reprinted from Financial Post - Canada, Jun 21, 2000
</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>REMEMBER GLOBAL COOLING?!?!</p>
	<p>The Cooling World (Blast From The Past Archived Newsweek Article Warning About &#8220;Global Cooling&#8221;<br />
Newsweek<br />
April 28, 1975</p>
	<p>There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon. </p>
	<p>The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars&#8217; worth of damage in 13 U.S. states. </p>
	<p>To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world&#8217;s weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.” </p>
	<p>A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972. </p>
	<p>To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City. </p>
	<p>Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.” </p>
	<p>Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies. </p>
	<p>“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines. </p>
	<p>Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality. </p>
	<p>Reprinted from Financial Post - Canada, Jun 21, 2000
</p>
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				</item>
	<item>
		<title>by: Caniac</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3989</link>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jul 2006 10:24:33 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-3989</guid>
					<description>You asked for it!

Per your request, Herr Supak,

The Petition
http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/
Don't know if that'll link, but it is the URL.

The Signers
http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/listbystate.htm

Took me a while. Tough to find info that the media wants to supress.

Talk to you soon.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>You asked for it!</p>
	<p>Per your request, Herr Supak,</p>
	<p>The Petition<br />
<a href='http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/' rel='nofollow'>http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/</a><br />
Don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;ll link, but it is the URL.</p>
	<p>The Signers<br />
<a href='http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/listbystate.htm' rel='nofollow'>http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/listbystate.htm</a></p>
	<p>Took me a while. Tough to find info that the media wants to supress.</p>
	<p>Talk to you soon.
</p>
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	<item>
		<title>by: Caniac</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-4298</link>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Aug 2006 10:24:55 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-4298</guid>
					<description>No feedback Robin?

Or haven't you finished reading all 19,000 signatures?

Can't you admit that it MAY BE possible that the global warming concerns are potentially as erroneous as the ice age that was rattling the left in the 70's?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>No feedback Robin?</p>
	<p>Or haven&#8217;t you finished reading all 19,000 signatures?</p>
	<p>Can&#8217;t you admit that it MAY BE possible that the global warming concerns are potentially as erroneous as the ice age that was rattling the left in the 70&#8217;s?
</p>
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		<title>by: supak.com</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-4307</link>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Aug 2006 10:50:56 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-4307</guid>
					<description>So sure of yourself, aren't you? Well, sir, you should check your facts before you belch them out onto this web site. I hate having to clean up after messy children. Especially those who support a fascist government who are stupid enough to call me &quot;Herr.&quot;

First of all, there's this:

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=6

&quot;A June 2000 Business Week article referred to physicist Frederick Seitz as &quot;the granddaddy of global-warming skeptics&quot;. Seitz was once a director and shareholder of a company that operated coal-fired power plants.

Dr. Seitz is a former President of the National Academy of Sciences, but the Academy disassociated itself from Seitz in 1998 when Seitz headed up a report designed to look like an NAS journal article saying that carbon dioxide poses no threat to climate. The report, which was supposedly signed by 15,000 scientists, advocated the abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol. The NAS went to unusual lengths to publically distance itself from Seitz' article. Seitz signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration.&quot;

The Leipzig Declaration is an interesting bit of crap. Read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig_Declaration

Here's an interesting tidbit from that page:

&quot;According to the SEPP website, there were 79 signatures to the 1995 declaration, including Frederick Seitz: the current SEPP chair. The signature list was last updated on July 16, 1996. Of these 79, 33 failed to respond when the SEPP asked them to sign the 1997 declaration. The SEPP calls the signatories &quot;nearly 100 climate experts&quot;.

The signatures to the 1995 declaration were disputed by David Olinger of the St. Petersburg Times. In an article on July 29, 1996, he revealed that many signers, including Chauncey Starr, Robert Balling, and Patrick Michaels, have received funding from the oil industry, while others had no scientific training or could not be identified.

The 1995 declarations begins: &quot;As scientists, we are intensely interested in the possibility that human activities may affect the global climate&quot;. However, those identified as scientists and climate experts include at least ten weather presenters, including Dick Groeber of Dick's Weather Service in Springfield, Ohio. Groeber, who had not completed a university degree, labelled himself a scientist by virtue of his thirty to forty years of self-study.

In any case, it is difficult to accurately evaluate the list of signatures of the 1995 declaration, as the SEPP website provides no additional details about them except for their university, if they are professors.&quot;

Well, seems there's a bit of lying and fraud going on with your friend Seitz.

But let's go a little further, shall we?

&quot;In 1998, Seitz wrote and circulated a letter, asking scientists to sign a petition asking the Government to reject the Kyoto Protocol. Seitz signed the letter and identifed himself as a former president of the National Academy of Sciences. He also directed attention to a report by Dr. Arthur Robinson, which concluded that carbon dioxide posed no threat to climate. The report was not peer-reviewed, but was formatted to look like an NAS journal article. The NAS later issued a statement disassociating itself from the petition and the article. Source: &quot;Science Academy Disputes Attack on Global Warming,&quot; New York Times 4/22/98

But, you know what, you want to take the oil companies' side on this, go right ahead. Keep driving your Hummer. Keep fighting wars for oil. Keep expiramenting with the only planet we have, and we'll all see who's right. Just keep in mind that the crap you're spewing here will be removed by me, the web master, because it is propoganda from the Bush administration that has absolutely no backing from peer reviewed science. Just check out the Wikipedia page about global warming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

and don't miss this part:

Various alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain the observed increase in global temperatures, including but not limited to:

    * The warming is within the range of natural variation.
    * The warming is a consequence of coming out of a prior cool period — the Little Ice Age.
    * The warming is primarily a result of variances in solar irradiance.

However, the strong scientific support for man-made global warming implies that such alternative opinions are not widely held. In the journal Science, an essay by Naomi Oreskes considered the abstracts of all 928 scientific articles in the ISI citation database identified with the keyword &quot;global climate change&quot;. Dr. Oreskes concluded that none of these abstracts attempt to refute the position that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are a substantial contributor to recent warming.

-------

Finally, there's some really good reading here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

about the variety of Scientific opinion on Climate change. I suggest you check it out. But I doubt if you will, because your mind is already made up. You want to believe the Exxon funded people, you go right ahead. But if you're wrong, heaven forbid, will you have to go to hell for the harm you and your oil company friends have done? 

No, or course, not in your mind. In your mind you can kill, maim, torture, starve, impoverish, pollute, and destroy all you want, as long as it's in the name of your God.

Now crawl back under your rock. Because if you want to keep posting here, you're going to have to do a hell of a lot better than posting long, bullshit diatribes from Oil Company stooges.

Scott Supak




</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>So sure of yourself, aren&#8217;t you? Well, sir, you should check your facts before you belch them out onto this web site. I hate having to clean up after messy children. Especially those who support a fascist government who are stupid enough to call me &#8220;Herr.&#8221;</p>
	<p>First of all, there&#8217;s this:</p>
	<p><a href='http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=6' rel='nofollow'>http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=6</a></p>
	<p>&#8220;A June 2000 Business Week article referred to physicist Frederick Seitz as &#8220;the granddaddy of global-warming skeptics&#8221;. Seitz was once a director and shareholder of a company that operated coal-fired power plants.</p>
	<p>Dr. Seitz is a former President of the National Academy of Sciences, but the Academy disassociated itself from Seitz in 1998 when Seitz headed up a report designed to look like an NAS journal article saying that carbon dioxide poses no threat to climate. The report, which was supposedly signed by 15,000 scientists, advocated the abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol. The NAS went to unusual lengths to publically distance itself from Seitz&#8217; article. Seitz signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration.&#8221;</p>
	<p>The Leipzig Declaration is an interesting bit of crap. Read about it here:</p>
	<p><a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig_Declaration' rel='nofollow'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig_Declaration</a></p>
	<p>Here&#8217;s an interesting tidbit from that page:</p>
	<p>&#8220;According to the SEPP website, there were 79 signatures to the 1995 declaration, including Frederick Seitz: the current SEPP chair. The signature list was last updated on July 16, 1996. Of these 79, 33 failed to respond when the SEPP asked them to sign the 1997 declaration. The SEPP calls the signatories &#8220;nearly 100 climate experts&#8221;.</p>
	<p>The signatures to the 1995 declaration were disputed by David Olinger of the St. Petersburg Times. In an article on July 29, 1996, he revealed that many signers, including Chauncey Starr, Robert Balling, and Patrick Michaels, have received funding from the oil industry, while others had no scientific training or could not be identified.</p>
	<p>The 1995 declarations begins: &#8220;As scientists, we are intensely interested in the possibility that human activities may affect the global climate&#8221;. However, those identified as scientists and climate experts include at least ten weather presenters, including Dick Groeber of Dick&#8217;s Weather Service in Springfield, Ohio. Groeber, who had not completed a university degree, labelled himself a scientist by virtue of his thirty to forty years of self-study.</p>
	<p>In any case, it is difficult to accurately evaluate the list of signatures of the 1995 declaration, as the SEPP website provides no additional details about them except for their university, if they are professors.&#8221;</p>
	<p>Well, seems there&#8217;s a bit of lying and fraud going on with your friend Seitz.</p>
	<p>But let&#8217;s go a little further, shall we?</p>
	<p>&#8220;In 1998, Seitz wrote and circulated a letter, asking scientists to sign a petition asking the Government to reject the Kyoto Protocol. Seitz signed the letter and identifed himself as a former president of the National Academy of Sciences. He also directed attention to a report by Dr. Arthur Robinson, which concluded that carbon dioxide posed no threat to climate. The report was not peer-reviewed, but was formatted to look like an NAS journal article. The NAS later issued a statement disassociating itself from the petition and the article. Source: &#8220;Science Academy Disputes Attack on Global Warming,&#8221; New York Times 4/22/98</p>
	<p>But, you know what, you want to take the oil companies&#8217; side on this, go right ahead. Keep driving your Hummer. Keep fighting wars for oil. Keep expiramenting with the only planet we have, and we&#8217;ll all see who&#8217;s right. Just keep in mind that the crap you&#8217;re spewing here will be removed by me, the web master, because it is propoganda from the Bush administration that has absolutely no backing from peer reviewed science. Just check out the Wikipedia page about global warming:</p>
	<p><a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming' rel='nofollow'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming</a></p>
	<p>and don&#8217;t miss this part:</p>
	<p>Various alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain the observed increase in global temperatures, including but not limited to:</p>
	<p>    * The warming is within the range of natural variation.<br />
    * The warming is a consequence of coming out of a prior cool period — the Little Ice Age.<br />
    * The warming is primarily a result of variances in solar irradiance.</p>
	<p>However, the strong scientific support for man-made global warming implies that such alternative opinions are not widely held. In the journal Science, an essay by Naomi Oreskes considered the abstracts of all 928 scientific articles in the ISI citation database identified with the keyword &#8220;global climate change&#8221;. Dr. Oreskes concluded that none of these abstracts attempt to refute the position that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are a substantial contributor to recent warming.</p>
	<p>&#8212;&#8212;-</p>
	<p>Finally, there&#8217;s some really good reading here:</p>
	<p><a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change' rel='nofollow'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change</a></p>
	<p>about the variety of Scientific opinion on Climate change. I suggest you check it out. But I doubt if you will, because your mind is already made up. You want to believe the Exxon funded people, you go right ahead. But if you&#8217;re wrong, heaven forbid, will you have to go to hell for the harm you and your oil company friends have done? </p>
	<p>No, or course, not in your mind. In your mind you can kill, maim, torture, starve, impoverish, pollute, and destroy all you want, as long as it&#8217;s in the name of your God.</p>
	<p>Now crawl back under your rock. Because if you want to keep posting here, you&#8217;re going to have to do a hell of a lot better than posting long, bullshit diatribes from Oil Company stooges.</p>
	<p>Scott Supak
</p>
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		<title>by: Caniac</title>
		<link>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-4368</link>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:13:14 -0400</pubDate>
		<guid>http://questions-for-christians.com/2006/03/22/obvious-sin/#comment-4368</guid>
					<description>Herr: Used as a courtesy title in a German-speaking area, prefixed to the surname or professional title of a man.

My mistake, is it Frau?

Look, I promise not to quote Dick Cheney sinnce you think he lies (although he does not) if you promise not to quote liberal journalists (who have admitted to fabrication - See: Reuters, NY Times).

Did you consider the global cooling concerns from the seventies?  Or is it of no interest that your &quot;non-oil-company-funded scientists&quot; were calling for an ice age just 30 years ago?  Talk about changing the subject.

It always amazes me that when confronted with our own imperfect selves, when we are forced to look closely at our misgivings, that we either accept those truths or rebel in anger and hostility.

You are an angry man.  Please excuse me for calling you a man again, it just slipped out.

I went the other way.  I suck.  On my own I am nothing, not even remotely worthy of God's glance let alone mercy.  I came to that conclusion without anger but with tears.  Buy I am not an angry man.

Peace with Him and Nothing without Him,
C</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[	<p>Herr: Used as a courtesy title in a German-speaking area, prefixed to the surname or professional title of a man.</p>
	<p>My mistake, is it Frau?</p>
	<p>Look, I promise not to quote Dick Cheney sinnce you think he lies (although he does not) if you promise not to quote liberal journalists (who have admitted to fabrication - See: Reuters, NY Times).</p>
	<p>Did you consider the global cooling concerns from the seventies?  Or is it of no interest that your &#8220;non-oil-company-funded scientists&#8221; were calling for an ice age just 30 years ago?  Talk about changing the subject.</p>
	<p>It always amazes me that when confronted with our own imperfect selves, when we are forced to look closely at our misgivings, that we either accept those truths or rebel in anger and hostility.</p>
	<p>You are an angry man.  Please excuse me for calling you a man again, it just slipped out.</p>
	<p>I went the other way.  I suck.  On my own I am nothing, not even remotely worthy of God&#8217;s glance let alone mercy.  I came to that conclusion without anger but with tears.  Buy I am not an angry man.</p>
	<p>Peace with Him and Nothing without Him,<br />
C
</p>
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