The American Denial Of Global Warming, and other environmental issues. Options

[Omega892R09]

The hills were covered with a little snow this morning.
I suppose that's climate change.

Weather.

The lake was considerably colder than last year.
A better average indicator, of local cooling, maybe.

Tends to happen with an increase in glacier melt.

Global warming, climate change, global cooling.
None of these terms have anything to do, with the relative amount,
of scarce, carbon dioxide in the air, less than argon!

Of course they do, and CO2 is more abundant in the atmosphere now than at any time in recorded history.

You may pause to consider that humans have evolved to breath air at a lower CO2 concentration and what that could mean WRT anoxia for those with lungs damaged by the particulates still being vent by coal fired power stations.

You seem cavalierly unconcerned by the fate of those affected by mountain coal minning slurry that contaminates land and pollutes water courses, if it has not blocked the latter completely.

Maybe you would take notice of pollution closer to home. Wait a moment, there is some:

Report: Alberta Oil Sands Most Destructive Project on Earth

Environmental Defence has released a report calling the Alberta Oil Sands the most destructive project on Earth.

Few Canadians know that Canada is home to one of the world's largest dams and it is built to hold toxic waste from just one Tar Sands operation," Rick Smith, the executive director of Environmental Defence.

And according to the report this is just the beginning. Approvals have already been given that will double the size of existing operations and Canada's leaders have been talking with the US government to grow oil sands operations in a "short time span."

Even a former Premier of Alberta is concerned. Peter Lougheed who served as Premier from 1971 to 1985 was recently quoted on the oil sands as saying:

... it is just a moonscape. It is wrong in my judgment, a major wrong... So it is a major, major federal and provincial issue."

However, there is a silver lining in all this. A recent Canadian parliamentary committee recently stated that:

A business as usual approach to the development of the oil sands is not sustainable. The time has come to begin the transition to a clean energy future."

Here's a few facts about the Alberta Oil Sands:

- Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.

- At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing in them.

- Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes in Canada.

- The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.

- Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.

- The oil sands operations are the fastest growing source of heat-trapping greenhouse gas in Canada. By 2020 the oil sands will release twice the amount produced currently by all the cars and trucks in Canada.

A full copy of the Environmental Defence report is attached to the end of this post.

But I doubt you realise that because your political and media processes are so corrupt that few dare report it accurately.

It's a coin toss, with the rule,
heads, i win, tails you lose.

Fine.

You toss coins whilst others worry about the war and anarchy that will result as climate change forces millions to become migrants. Nobody will be spared the effects of rising sea levels, they are, spreading of insect pests and the diseases they carry, and increased numbers of extreme weather events which could also trigger unwelcome tectonic events. Tides and storm surges can do just that.

The object of the exercise is to implement
a world tax on the production of carbon dioxide,
upon everybody.

The object of the exercise is to limit and mitigate after 10 or more years of unnecessary delay caused by the reprehensible actions of those who you chose to champion. Your champions have feet of clay either through not having the credentials to opine as they do or by being tainted by association with those who benefit, and have benefited, from this delay.

A little honest researching on this by you is long overdue. Spend your time thus rather than composing more trite nonsense. That would help.

Do you believe the basis for what you post?

You have failed to answer that simple question, again and again and again.

[Omega892R09]

Global Warming has been exposed to infinity and beyond
for the NWO vehicle that it is.

With respect, please study at some of the sites to which I have linked and read the book cited on this thread.

Global warming induced climate changes are real and threatening.

And by being a global problem require a global solution else your American sovereignty (is that not an oxymoron) will not be worth a fig - although such an item may become hideously rare and expensive unless action is taken and sooner rather than later.

Figs are interesting, and varied, fruit with a fascinating natural history. Read the chapter 'A Garden Inclosed' in Richard Dawkins', 'Climbing Mount Improbable' for a flavour. A flavour in more ways than one.

[Sanders]

Figs are interesting, and varied, fruit with a fascinating natural history. Read the chapter 'A Garden Inclosed' in Richard Dawkins', 'Climbing Mount Improbable' for a flavour. A flavour in more ways than one.

I have read that, - that is probably the best chapter written in any book by Dawkins. (Mind-blowing!)

[lunk]

CO2 is more abundant in the atmosphere now than at any time in recorded history

Omega,
am i taking this statement way out of context,
or are you being sarcastic?

[Omega892R09]

Omega,
am i taking this statement way out of context,
or are you being sarcastic?

Recorded history is taken as meaning over the period where measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere have been taken and not those, previous, periods reliant on proxy data.

[Omega892R09]

I have read that, - that is probably the best chapter written in any book by Dawkins. (Mind-blowing!)

At the risk of causing a thread 'train wreck' (IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/whistle.gif) I would add that Dawkins in his new book 'The Greatest Show on Earth' has some additional interesting and involved scenarios to describe. The chapter on embryology, 'You did it yourself in nine months' requires careful consideration whilst reading but is rewarding once grasped. It helps to have books on organic chemistry and molecular biology at hand, I am in the process of reading one such on the latter consecutively and have some of the former. I am also reading Frank Ryan's, 'Virolution: The most important evolutionary book since Dawkins' Selfish Gene'.

Virolution has thumping great ramifications on the role of viruses in the evolution of cells and the role of the various parts of a eukaryotic cell including mitochondrial DNA. The role of 'junk' DNA is still being unraveled and it may turn out not to be junk after all.

[lunk]

Recorded history is taken as meaning over the period where measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere have been taken and not those, previous, periods reliant on proxy data.

What's this supposed to mean?

Are you saying that there is more carbon dioxide in the air today,
than any time throughout history?

(edit) added, 1 minute video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olmag5Cu9TI

This post has been edited by lunk: Oct 31 2009, 09:45 AM

[Omega892R09]

What's this supposed to mean?

Are you saying that there is more carbon dioxide in the air today,
than any time throughout history?

No. Emphatically not. Note my grounding in evolution and earth sciences.

I am pointing to the increase in CO2 levels that have been recorded over the course of the period since the start of the Industrial Revolution, during which science had developed means of identification and measurement, too today with the highest levels in this recorded history.

Sure there were higher levels in some periods of the geological past, and I have a graph here which details the history of both CO2 and O2 in the atmosphere and an interesting graph it is too. It can be found in Burroughs, W.J., 'Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach', Second Edition 2007, page 187 (Fig 6.9) and which there is attributed in turn to van Andel, Fig 14.6. Van Andel, T.H. (1994) 'New Views on an Old Planet: A History of Global Change'. CUP, Cambridge. UK.

Although the rise in CO2 became ever quicker as the 20th Century progressed it has been shown to have started to rise from a time back when humans first became agrarians or pastoralists and also metal smiths.

[Omega892R09]

(edit) added, 1 minute video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olmag5Cu9TI

Strewth!

I have answered this crap before.

The earth is not currently in a cooling trend and temperatures have not been broadly flat since 1998. If that were the case then please explain how 2005 was the warmest year globally on record.

Another vampire has be resurrected to yet again be knocked down.

Here it is again:

A warming pause?

The blogosphere (and not only that) has been full of the “global warming is taking a break” meme lately. Although we have discussed this topic repeatedly, it is perhaps worthwhile reiterating two key points about the alleged pause here.

(1) This discussion focuses on just a short time period – starting 1998 or later – covering at most 11 years. Even under conditions of anthropogenic global warming (which would contribute a temperature rise of about 0.2 ºC over this period) a flat period or even cooling trend over such a short time span is nothing special and has happened repeatedly before (see 1987-1996). That simply is due to the fact that short-term natural variability has a similar magnitude (i.e. ~0.2 ºC) and can thus compensate for the anthropogenic effects. Of course, the warming trend keeps going up whilst natural variability just oscillates irregularly up and down, so over longer periods the warming trend wins and natural variability cancels out.

(2) It is highly questionable whether this “pause” is even real. It does show up to some extent (no cooling, but reduced 10-year warming trend) in the Hadley Center data, but it does not show in the GISS data, see Figure 1. There, the past ten 10-year trends (i.e. 1990-1999, 1991-2000 and so on) have all been between 0.17 and 0.34 ºC per decade, close to or above the expected anthropogenic trend, with the most recent one (1999-2008) equal to 0.19 ºC per decade – just as predicted by IPCC as response to anthropogenic forcing.

(IMG:http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/GISStrends.jpg)

etc. Please study the remainder by following the link that preceeds the above quote.

I guess you missed it because it was in response to another's post (Groundpounder).

That is no excuse and so we go on playing whack-a-mole 24/groundhog-days.
Any point you wish to raise first check that it has not already been explained and by people

qualified

and

not beholden to propaganda begetting puppet-masters.

[lunk]

One world government, has no enemies,
So there is no reason for a world army,
unless they could make one up,
out of thin air.

"The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself."
- Club of Rome,
premier environmental think-tank,
consultants to the United Nations

http://www.green-agenda.com/

What happens to a snake that eats its' tail?

[Sanders]

At the risk of causing a thread 'train wreck' (IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/whistle.gif) I would add that Dawkins in his new book 'The Greatest Show on Earth' has some additional interesting and involved scenarios to describe...

At the risk of pushing that same train, I've been waiting for a Dawkins' book on evolution/biology (as opposed to religion) to come out for some time. Very excited that there is one, thanks for the tip. (What a great writer he is!)

[Omega892R09]

What happens to a snake that eats its' tail?

If you persist in denying AGW then you may live long enough to find out as all the skeptic pundits laugh at you for being so guilible.

Lunk dips his sample bucket in the pond again and comes up with more shit.

If their page on 'What about Greenland' is anything to go by then one should read any factoid there with extreme caution for you will end up re-enforcing your delusion.

Why do I write this?

Here is why.

The Medieval Warm Period was a local feature and does not indicate a global increase in temperature, the evidence for warming at that period is geographically limited. Thus not all of the Greenland, and elsewhere, ice sheets melt.

This Green Agenda site seems very good at mixing in a few facts in such a way as to provide a venier of credibility but when examined further the whole thing fall apart as with the mis-quote from Real Climate.

Green Agenda write this:

Even the mega-alarmists at the RealClimate site admit this:

“At least three careful ice core studies have shown that CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations... The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data. The 4200 years of warming make up about 5/6 of the total warming. So CO2 could have caused the last 5/6 of the warming, but could not have caused the first 1/6 of the warming.“ - link

link =

What does the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming?

This is an issue that is often misunderstood in the public sphere and media, so it is worth spending some time to explain it and clarify it. At least three careful ice core studies have shown that CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations. These terminations are pronounced warming periods that mark the ends of the ice ages that happen every 100,000 years or so.

Does this prove that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming? The answer is no.


The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data.

The 4200 years of warming make up about 5/6 of the total warming. So CO2 could have caused the last 5/6 of the warming, but could not have caused the first 1/6 of the warming.

It comes as no surprise that other factors besides CO2 affect climate. Changes in the amount of summer sunshine, due to changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun that happen every 21,000 years, have long been known to affect the comings and goings of ice ages. Atlantic ocean circulation slowdowns are thought to warm Antarctica, also.

From studying all the available data (not just ice cores), the probable sequence of events at a termination goes something like this. Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties. This leads to even further CO2 release. So CO2 during ice ages should be thought of as a “feedback”, much like the feedback that results from putting a microphone too near to a loudspeaker.

In other words, CO2 does not initiate the warmings, but acts as an amplifier once they are underway. From model estimates, CO2 (along with other greenhouse gases CH4 and N2O) causes about half of the full glacial-to-interglacial warming.

So, in summary, the lag of CO2 behind temperature doesn’t tell us much about global warming. [But it may give us a very interesting clue about why CO2 rises at the ends of ice ages. The 800-year lag is about the amount of time required to flush out the deep ocean through natural ocean currents. So CO2 might be stored in the deep ocean during ice ages, and then get released when the climate warms.]

To read more about CO2 and ice cores, see Caillon et al., 2003, Science magazine

Guest Contributor: Jeff Severinghaus
Professor of Geosciences
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego.

Now where in that Real Climate article can you find that statement supposedly quoted by Green Agenda?

That is without considering that from the latter part of the 20th Century CO2 rise is ahead of temperature rise, and some, this during a period when the solar energy input has dropped.

Explain that?

Now here is another authoritative article from Real Climate:

Historical climatology in Greenland

The paper discussed can be found here (PDF):

Extending Greenland temperature records into the

BTW lunk you still have not answered my question.

[lunk]

Do i believe this all this stuff about global warming?

No.

Could it mean ruin for mankind?

No, global cooling, would be a much more serious problem.

If there was a choice,
i would take global warming over global cooling.

The result of the actions being taken, because of this alleged, global warming, the entire economy will cease to function.
If there is really, an imminent chance of global cooling, we have time to do something about it, on a global scale, now.

So i see a grave danger in perusing the notion of global warming if it is not true.

On the other hand, there are benefits in preparing for colder days ahead, even if they don't happen.

I wonder how many people didn't invest in a warm winter jacket this year, because of all the IPPC hype...

[Sanders]

CO2 is not a pollutant, it's the stuff plants breath. Plants thrive in urban areas, more so than they do in outlying areas, due to a slight increase in CO2 levels.

By far the most prevalent of greenhouse "gases" is water vapor. CO2 as a greenhouse gas plays only a tiny part in the greenhouse effect by comparison, and human intervention is the cause of only a tiny fraction of that fraction - yet human industry is blamed for the global warming which occurred in the later half of the 20th century, and which has turned the other direction it seems in concert with a very troubling lack of solar activity.

It can be easily argued, that humans, if they want to eat, should be pumping as much CO2 into the atmosphere as they can to help plants and try and compensate for the short growing seasons that are ahead in a cooler world.

Not that we should, but all this global warming (or "climate change" if you prefer) business is all a convenient theory adopted by the global elite in order to set up a new, international-tax-funded, world body. Cap n Trade.

... but you all know how I feel.

Carry on ...

[lunk]

We live in an air tight green house.

If it wasn't for the plant life,
the atmosphere would consist of,
by my own calculations, about
90% nitrogen and 10% carbon dioxide.
There would be NO FREE OXYGEN.
All oxygen, according to the present theory,
came from plant-life, photosynthesizing,
carbon-dioxide, into all the oxygen,
that we have today.

[Omega892R09]

Do i believe this all this stuff about global warming?

No.

Could it mean ruin for mankind?

No, global cooling, would be a much more serious problem.

If there was a choice,
i would take global warming over global cooling.

The result of the actions being taken, because of this alleged, global warming, the entire economy will cease to function.
If there is really, an imminent chance of global cooling, we have time to do something about it, on a global scale, now.

So i see a grave danger in perusing the notion of global warming if it is not true.

On the other hand, there are benefits in preparing for colder days ahead, even if they don't happen.

I wonder how many people didn't invest in a warm winter jacket this year, because of all the IPPC hype...

There is no current global cooling and I have cited sources which demonstrate that, over and over again.

What do you not understand about my post #29.

Or is it the case that you have adopted the, don't confuse me with facts, I have made up my mind stance?

Considering the weight of evidence I have provided for being concerned about AGW your sips at the font of contaminated ideology look what they are, absurd.

This runs through all the recent threads, and many others of an earlier vintage:

30 000 Scientists Believe Global Warming Is A Fraud

where the 30000 scientists idea itself is a crock

Lord Christopher Monckton, Global changes?

WRT CWM (Christopher Walter Monckton) links to video of him performing in Minnesota aptly, considering one of his patrons the Heartland Institute, including an image of Milton Friedman in the masthead on their web site, at the Free Market Institute were posted.

I'll post a link to a fuller version:

Lord Christopher Monckton Speaking in St. Paul

During the course of this diatribe about the only thing I agree with him on is the disaster that is corn based biofuel.

As for the rest, well I should think his pay masters are well satisfied for he seems to have whipped most of you here into a frenzy about loss of American sovereignty.

But of course what he says is total bullshit for it is clear he had seen no valid draft agreement and once again made stuff up.

Warming treaty to usher in one-world government?

A prominent global warming skeptic comes up with a conspiracy theory, and some on the right follow
By Alex Koppelman
Some people see the New World Order lurking behind every corner, a cabal of people just waiting to impose a one-world government the moment opportunity knocks. Those people recently got a boost from Christopher Monckton, a one-time advisor to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who's turned himself into one of the most prominent of global warming skeptics.

"At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed. Your president will sign it ... I read that treaty. And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created," Monckton said at a recent event sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute.

"The word 'government' actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity .... How many of you think that the word 'election' or 'democracy' or 'vote' or 'ballot' occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right, it doesn’t appear once. So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, who took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it -- now the apotheosis is at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He’s going to sign it. He’ll sign anything."

Monckton's words have rocketed around the fringe: WorldNetDaily reported on them, as did conspiracist radio talker Alex Jones' Prison Planet Web site. At a similarly extreme site, Canada Free Press, one writer used Monckton's warning as evidence for an article titled "Without a shot being fired, a dictator has taken over the United States." And, of course, Birther lawyer Orly Taitz heard about it and put up a post on her blog asking for help getting in touch with Monckton.

Continue Reading
If that were the full list of people who'd fallen for Monckton's line, it might not be worth much mention. But it's not. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, who's also a Fox News contributor, had a post on Monckton's remarks. On Twitter, Saul Anuzis, who chaired the Michigan Republican Party until just recently and was an unsuccessful candidate to head the Republican National Committee, linked to a report on what Monckton said. The report to which Anuzis linked was published by a Web site advertising one video about FEMA internment camps and another about how one of the Rothschilds picked President Obama as part of a plot "to murder America."

Problem is, Monckton's reading of the proposed framework for negotiation -- hardly a completed treaty -- was woefully inaccurate. And that's a nice way of putting it. The document clearly does nothing whatsoever to promote any sort of world government, and indeed, it refers to the efforts of national governments repeatedly.

Here's the sole evidence in the framework for Monckton's claim:


The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three basic pillars: government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism, and the basic organization of which will include the following:

(a) The government will be ruled by the COP with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies. The current Convention secretariat will operate as such, as appropriate.


(The COP to which that language refers is the Conference of the Parties, which the official U.N. Web site explains as, "the 'supreme body' of the Convention, that is, its highest decision-making authority. It is an association of all the countries that are Parties to the Convention ... [and] is responsible for keeping international efforts to address climate change on track.")

Unfortunately for Monckton and those who've fallen for what he said without doing some rudimentary checking of the document's language, there's more than one meaning of the word "government." There's the conventional definition, the one he used, and then there's this one, which is very clearly the one intended in this case: "direction; control; management; rule: the government of one's conduct."

Update: As if on cue, Glenn Beck picked up on Monckton's comments, and interviewed him for his radio show Monday. Beck also told Monckton, "what I'd like to do is I'd like to, I'd like to spend an hour with you, quite honestly, Lord Monckton, and have you on the TV show and maybe bring in ambassador John Bolton about this as well."

And that is not the only place that reports Monckton as making stuff up again. It may be better to read from source page so that links can be seen and folowed:

Friends of Science behind Monckton’s Magical Mystery Tour

Lord Christopher Monckton’s tour of the colonies (a.k.a. Canada), first reported here two months ago, is finally at hand. The details of Monckton’s Apocalypse Cancelled luncheon lecture series were released late last week by tour organizer Friends of Science, the Calgary-based “astroturf” group devoted to opposing the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. Fittingly, the centrepiece of the tour is a cluster of events in Calgary, the province of Alberta’s economic capital, and centre of the Canadian oil and gas industry.

Although event details have now finally been revealed, funding details for this latest Friends project remain mysterious. However, emerging evidence points to the possible role of the Calgary Foundation and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (the Winnipeg-based think tank that is also hosting two of the tour events). [Update, Sept. 24: Be sure to read Monckton's comments and my reply below.]

Here are all the planned event dates, from the Friends of Science press release, with event sponsors in parentheses. All are luncheon speeches, except where noted:

Toronto, Ontario: September 29 at the Intercontinental Hotel (Economic Club of Toronto)
Ottawa, Ontario: September 30 at the Westin Hotel (Economic Club of Canada, a.k.a. Economic Club of Toronto)
Calgary, Alberta: October 1, Westin Hotel (Calgary Chamber of Commerce)
Calgary, Alberta: October 1, Speaker’s evening at the Ranchmen’s Club (members only).
Calgary, Alberta: October 2, private meetings (as noted at this Friends of Science tour Summary)
Vancouver, British Columbia: October 6 at the Fraser Institute Main Boardroom (Fraser Institute)
Regina, Saskatchewan: October 7 at the Delta Regina (Frontier Centre for Public Policy)
Winnipeg, Manitoba: October 8 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre (Frontier Centre for Public Policy)
The Monckton tour thus represents an unprecedented collaboration between Friends of Science, and two other notorious Canadian skeptic groups, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Fraser Institute.

The loquacious “Lord of the Lies” has a shaky grasp on climate science, as has been well documented in a thorough debunking by RealClimate.org of Monckton’s fanciful and deceptive interpretations of IPCC global temperature projections. Nevertheless, the Frontier Centre, for one, still offers up the canard that Monckton was “science advisor” to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, even though that falsehood was dropped from Monckton’s official biography long ago.

As noted in my previous post, Friends of Science have been attempting to “raise monies” for a Canadian lecture tour as far back as March 2008. And the latest Friends of Science newsletter states that the Monckton project was “initiated” by the group, and that Friends of Science are “collaborating” with the host organizations. Even so, mention of Friends of Science involvement is curiously absent from the publicity blurbs for all the events. (The one exception is the Ranchmen’s Club in Calgary, who in a touching moment of honesty, or perhaps naivete, state that Monckton is being presented in “conjunction with the Friends of Science”). [Update, Sept. 30: The Calgary Chamber of Commerce Facebook blurb does state that Monckton's lecture is "sponsored by Friends of Science". But there is no reference to Friends of Science on the Chamber's website. It is not known if advertising for the event in the Calgary Herald mentioned Friends of Science sponsorship.]

However, Craig Watt of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce graciously answered my questions about Friends of Science involvement. He corroborated the impression that the group is the prime mover behind the tour. Watt carefully explained that his “understanding” is that Friends of Science “arranged” for payment of Monckton’s travel expenses. He also noted that no revenues from the Chamber’s event would be shared with Friends of Science, Monckton or anyone else.

Watt also pointed out that the Chamber also presented Al Gore in 2008, an initiative apparently roundly criticized by the several Chamber members. But never let it be said that the Chamber has failed to present both sides in the ongoing debate between scientific fact and denialist fantasy.

Anyway, all this raises, of course, yet another “magical mystery”: where is Friends of Science getting the money to pay Monckton’s speaking fees and travel expenses?

The full answer is not known yet, but an indication may lie in the shadowy Science Education Fund, a “donor advised” flow through fund at the Calgary Foundation. As I wrote previously, the ongoing collaboration between Friends of Science and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, especially their shared history with the Calgary Foundation, is certainly noteworthy:

Indications of a cosy relationship between the two organizations came soon after began after the cutoff of University of Calgary project funding and the return of remaining funds to the Science Education Fund at the Calgary Foundation. Astonishingly, after the university returned the third grant and stated that previous grants had been used to “promote a partisan viewpoint on climate change”, the Calgary Foundation did not shut down the fund, but permitted new grants to the Frontier Centre, as seen in the rest of the grant history.

Since then, the Calgary Foundation has released its 2008-2009 annual report (PDF), which covers activities up to the end of March. In that year, the Science Education Fund gave out a total $142,685 to the Frontier Centre, in addition to the $50,000 given in 2007-2008 (PDF). That total, at almost $193,000, is close to the $200,000 the Science Education Fund gave to the University of Calgary’s bogus “climate research” fund, back in the heyday of Friends of Science.

Last week, I wrote the Calgary Foundation requesting an update on Science Education Fund grant activity, since no information after March 2009 is available. I also asked for details on the purpose and details of grant-funded projects, which are utterly non-existent at present. No answer has been forthcoming, but perhaps others will have better luck.

So many mysteries remain. And not just about funding – one would certainly like to be a fly on the wall for some of those Calgary “private meetings” scheduled for Monckton.

Perhaps some of those mysteries could be cleared up by one Eva Friesen. The redoutable Ms. Friesen is, of course, CEO of the Calgary Foundation. But she is also happens to be a director of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, so she would appear to be well-placed to shed light on the matter.

One enduring mystery, of course, is the ultimate source of funds for the Monckton tour. It would be bad enough if, as seems likely, those funds come from fossil fuel industry backers. But it would be doubly outrageous if the anonymous contributors are receiving tax deductible receipts for their “charitable” donations, as would be the case for any donation to the Calgary Foundation’s Science Education Fund. This de facto taxpayer subsidy of politically motivated activity should be stopped once and for all.

After all, the political objective of the Monckton tour has been made crystal clear by the Friends of Science from the beginning:

We won’t change the way politicians act until we change what the majority of Canadians believe. The Friends feel that steps should be taken to make the Canadian public better aware of actual climatic events which render IPCC predictions unacceptable as a basis for government policy.

One way or another, let us hope that some day transparency and accountability will rule, and that what goes down in Calgary doesn’t stay in Calgary. Enough is enough.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

Lord Monckton’s Dangerous Denial

Oh! And BTW check out who those supposed Friends of science are, I have already indicated some in earlier posts and they are no friends of yours, or mine, or science.

[Omega892R09]

CO2 is not a pollutant, it's the stuff plants breath.

Hah!

Fallen for the CEI (You do realise who runs the show over there don't you?) add'

'CO2: they call it pollution, we call it Life!’

have you?

The Intersection

"We Call it Life"
Category: Global Warming
Posted on: May 20, 2006 12:05 PM, by Chris C. Mooney

By now, everyone is having fun with the amusing Competitive Enterprise Institute ads with the following slogan : "Carbon Dioxide: They Call it Pollution. We Call It Life." I have little to add, except a few parodies:

1. Earth: They call it being buried alive. We call it life.
2. Air: They call it tornadoes. We call it life.
3. Fire: They call it arson. We call it life.
4. Water: They call it drowning. We call it life.

"CO2: We call it life"

Category: Global Warming
Posted on: May 18, 2006 11:43 AM, by Tim Lambert

RealClimate informs us of two ads being put out by the Onion Competitive Enterprise Institute. Punchline: "CO2: they call it pollution, we call it Life!". If the CEI staff was locked in an airtight room, would they still call CO2 Life?

If you are unfamiliar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, let me introduce some of their people. Steve Milloy, who Cato recently let go after the various pundit payola scandals, has found a new home at CEI. When you are both working for Philip Morris, I guess it's not a conflict of interest. Paul Georgia, who told the world that average temperature had no physical meaning. Iain Murray, who tried to rewrite basic epidemiological principles and insisted that the evidence for global warming was cooked up. Roger Bate, who helped perpetrate the DDT hoax.

The CEI warns people that using Linux is legally risky, attacked the FDA when it proposed regulating tobacco, and relentlessly attacks Kyoto. It is no doubt just a coincidence that the CEI receives extensive funding from Microsoft, Philip Morris and Exxon.

Plants thrive in urban areas, more so than they do in outlying areas, due to a slight increase in CO2 levels.

We have been through all this before Sanders but you still would rather believe the fairey tales from Cata, CEI, AEI, Heartland and a host of others with suspect ideology. Hint, it does not match up with yours but you aint realised that yet.

By far the most prevalent of greenhouse "gases" is water vapor.

Been here before too. But as you insist this is a simple start before exploring deeper into the truth:

[u]Anti-global heating claims – a reasonably thorough debunking[/u
At which DENIER MYTH#18 is the one:

DENIER MYTH#18 The influence of CO2 cannot match the influence of water vapor, and since the impacts of water vapor are largely unknown and outside direct human control, human beings cannot be the source of global heating (Source: Comments on Digg.com’s post about this blog originally, but scattered around the net as well).
Debunking: First off, there is no doubt that water vapor is directly responsible for the bulk of the greenhouse effect (~60% according to Table 3 of “Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget”). As such, water vapor could far outweigh the direct effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, because of the complexity of the Earth’s water cycle, figuring out what the effects of water will be isn’t simple.

Continue reading at the site.

CO2 as a greenhouse gas plays only a tiny part in the greenhouse effect by comparison, and human intervention is the cause of only a tiny fraction of that fraction - yet human industry is blamed for the global warming which occurred in the later half of the 20th century, and which has turned the other direction it seems in concert with a very troubling lack of solar activity.

It can be easily argued, that humans, if they want to eat, should be pumping as much CO2 into the atmosphere as they can to help plants and try and compensate for the short growing seasons that are ahead in a cooler world.

We have been through all this before so I will not wast my time countering these erroneous moles that I have already whacked.

Not that we should, but all this global warming (or "climate change" if you prefer) business is all a convenient theory adopted by the global elite in order to set up a new, international-tax-funded, world body. Cap n Trade.

I agree that the trade part of the cap and trade is a problematic area.

... but you all know how I feel.

It should not be down to 'feeling' but to knowing and understanding and you clearly have a way to go with that latter.

[Omega892R09]

We live in an air tight green house.

Do you?

I don't.

If it wasn't for the plant life,
the atmosphere would consist of,
by my own calculations, about
90% nitrogen and 10% carbon dioxide.

How do you arrive at that conclusion.

Whatever the relevance of that statement to the debate is...?
You persist in posting similar but have yet to explain anything by any such.

There would be NO FREE OXYGEN.
All oxygen, according to the present theory,
came from plant-life, photosynthesizing,

No.

The following from 'Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science', Tom Garrison. 2007:

The composition of the early atmosphere, the one that became established after previous were stripped away by energetic early solar processes, was much different to today's. Geochemists believe it may have been rich in carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapour, with traces of ammonia and methane. Beginning about 3.5 billion years ago, this mixture began a gradual alteration to its present composition, mostly nitrogen and oxygen. At first the change was brought about by carbon dioxide dissolving in seawater to form carbonic acid, then combining with crustal rocks. The chemical break up of water vapor by sunlight high in the atmosphere also played a role.

It may surprise you to learn that oxygen makes up
carbon-dioxide, into all the oxygen,
that we have today.

No surprise to me that carbon dioxide contains oxygen. Other than that I am having trouble extracting a meaning from that tortured statement.

It may surprise you to learn that oxygen makes up about 46% of the Earth's crust. The atomic proportion is even more marked. For every 100 atoms of matter in the Earth's crust 62 are oxygen.In the planet as a whole the most abundant element is iron at 35% with oxygen making up 30%.

[lunk]

I have yet to find free iron in nature, it is all oxidized.
Oxygen reacts with almost every other element.
It takes energy to release it.
If any significant quantity of oxygen is released from sunlight acting on the gasses in the early Earths' atmosphere, that oxygen would have quickly reacted with other elements.
What other planet bathed by our sun has 20% free oxygen in its' atmosphere?

Plants did it, they converted most of the CO2 into free Oxygen,
with a little help from sun and rain.

As for the Earth being a green house, it is,
just the same as any other planet contained in an atmosphere,
though most don't have plants.

[aerohead]

(edit) added, 1 minute video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olmag5Cu9TI

(IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/laughing1.gif)

Truth and common sense is still alive ladies and gentlemen !

Thank you for that video Lunk.