Blogs

Financial Post, 23 June 2011

Daily Mail     by Richard Littlejohn

16th June 2011

At last, some good news for polar bears. The world is about
to enter a mini Ice Age. Scientists working for the American
Astrological Society are predicting a significant drop in
solar activity over the next decade.
Last time this happened, between 1645 and 1715, global
temperatures plummeted and the River Thames froze over every
winter.

While climate change alarmists insist we are heading for

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/research-center-under-fire-for-adjusted-sea-level-data/

Is climate change raising sea levels, as Al Gore has argued -- or are climate scientists doctoring the data?

The University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group decided in May to add 0.3 millimeters -- or about the thickness of a fingernail -- every year to its actual measurements of sea levels, sparking criticism from experts who called it an attempt to exaggerate the effects of global warming.

"Gatekeepers of our sea level data are manufacturing a fictitious sea level rise that is not occurring," said James M. Taylor, a lawyer who focuses on environmental issues for the Heartland Institute.

Steve Nerem, the director of the widely relied-upon research center, told FoxNews.com that his group added the 0.3 millimeters per year to the actual sea level measurements because land masses, still rebounding from the ice age, are rising and increasing the amount of water that oceans can hold.

By Viv Forbes (www.carbon-sense.com)

23 May 2011

A personal explanation first:

People seldom recognise major turning points when they occur. At the time they are just another routine event in a crowd of trivial news.

But I was shocked recently by what I believe is a major turning point in Australian industrial history.

Xstrata announced that smelting and refining of Mount Isa copper is to be phased out.

As a young graduate, decades ago, I watched in wonder as men in asbestos suits tapped the glowing copper furnace to release a test sample of molten metal for the metallurgist. I gazed at the huge ladles pouring the molten copper into the casting wheel to form the slabs of blister copper. I saw the heaps of the red metal piled up on the rail siding destined for Townsville. And, as I later walked through the refinery at Townsville, I marvelled at the science, engineering and practical skills under that roof. To see the continuous casting wheel turning molten metal into rod and wire was modern magic.

by Barry Brill

May 18, 2011

The New Zealand Government is the first to legislate financial penalties on natural gas (methane or CH4) emanating from ruminant animals.

The claimed justification is that the ETS levy is an “insurance policy” against the possibility that methane might contribute to a future of dangerous global warming, as the IPCC has theorized.

But, as with any insurance, it should not be taken out unless the premium is reasonably commensurate with the risk being hedged. The obvious problem is that nobody can quantify the value at risk, or the cost of the premium, or the the scope of the coverage, or the likelihood of the event. This article deals only with the last of these.

The IPCC believes dangerous global warming might occur if the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, expressed in carbon-dioxide-equivalents (CO2e), were to exceed 450 parts per million. CO2 volumes are currently about 390ppm.

By Donald Offwood

16 June 2011

In terms of the science of climate change, I am a layman, but the questions are simple, so a layman should find easy answers. The IPCC has had many learned scholars gather and present their conclusions as to the involvement of human generated CO2 in the science of climate change and many other learned scholars have held opposing views. Indeed, in August 2009 Dr Vincent Gray of the UN IPCC Expert Reviewers Panel said, ‘There are no plausible arguments currently available which support the view that human greenhouse emissions are having a detectable influence on the climate.’

CO2 is a trace element, about 0.038% of our air, which is essential to the production of all vegetation and food; without it all plants would disappear and we would die very quickly. CO2 is not a problem nor a pollutant; it is an essential gas to our survival. A good argument can be made for increasing CO2 to encourage crop and food production.

14 May 2011

Dear Ms. Stirling