“Otherwise, the grant money might dry up.”
“… polar bears—whose numbers have tripled in recent years.”
“… the East Antarctic ice cap is currently gaining about 45 billion tons of ice per year.”
Arctic Warming, Antarctic Cooling?
by Dennis Avery
Issue 97 – December 12, 2007
The global warming alarmists are at it again, shrieking about “ice melt at the Poles.”
“The relentless grip of the Arctic Ocean that defied man for centuries is melting away,” warned Doug Struck in the Washington Post. “The sea ice reaches only half as far as it did 50 years ago. In the summer of 2006, it shrank to a record low. This summer, the ice pulled back even more, by an area nearly the size of Alaska.”
NASA’s James Hansen keeps claiming that CO2 is “pushing the climate past its tipping point.”
British banks are sending “volunteers” to the Arctic to see for themselves the loss of sea ice, and to view the “endangered” polar bears—whose numbers have tripled in recent years.
Ho hum. Just another day at the scare factory.
Point one: We’ve known for 20 years about the earth’s moderate, natural 1,500-year climate cycle, which we discovered in the Greenland and Antarctic ice cores. The ice shows seven previous global warmings in the past 12,000 years. Two of these—8,000 years ago and 5,000 years ago—were, for many centuries, substantially warmer than today. The Greenland and Antarctic ice caps didn’t melt.
Point two: This can’t be global warming. 1) The Arctic was also warm in the 1920s; the Russians say it happens every 70 years or so. 2) The Antarctic Ice is now at a modern high. The Antarctic has been cooling since the 1960s, according to Peter Doran’s 2002 paper in Nature. Thanks to warming’s additional snowfall, the East Antarctic ice cap is currently gaining about 45 billion tons of ice per year.
Neels Reeh of the University of Denmark says that another 1 degree C of warming would melt enough Greenland ice to raise sea levels perhaps half an inch per year—but added ice in the Antarctic would lower sea level almost that much. The net increase has been six inches per century, and it isn’t expected to change.
Why not? Cliff Ollier, well-known geoscientist from the University of Western Australia, writes to say that Hansen is just a climate modeler who doesn’t understand either ice caps or their melting. He thinks the whole ice cap melting thing is a figment of the climate modelers’ computerized imaginations, conjured up to ensure that we’re properly frightened of global warming. Otherwise, the grant money might dry up.
If the media only reported facts, who would be frightened about sea levels rising at the current rate of six inches per century? Who’d be frightened by the earth warming just two-tenths of a degree C over the past 70- years?
Ice caps don’t melt from the surface down, they melt only at the edges. Once the edges are melted, further ice loss depends on the uphill weight of the ice built up over previous centuries. The ice flows—reluctantly because it’s so cold—on the warmer ice at its base, with the upper, brittle ice carried downhill by its own weight. When a chunk of ice reaches the edge of the cap it falls off—and the AP writes a news story. That’s neither melting nor collapse.
The Greenland ice cap is 2–3 kilometers deep and much of its ice lies inside a basin that won’t slide off. Its undisturbed ice dates back at least 105,000 years. The temperatures over the ice are well below freezing, at about -30 degrees C in the north, and -20 degrees C in the south.
The Antarctic ice cores date back more than 760,000 years, in the coldest place on earth. The lowest recorded temperature was -89 C at Vostok in 1983. The highest Vostok temperature taken was -19 C in 1992—still far below freezing.
By the way, even the southernmost polar bear population is doing fine in the Davis Strait, with higher numbers and some of the largest bears yet seen.
Dennis Avery was a senior policy analyst for the U.S. State Department, where he won the national intelligence medal of achievement. He is the co-author, with atmosphericphysicist FredSinger, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming—Every 1500 Years, available from Rowman & Littlefield. Readers may write him at the Center for Global Food Issues ( www.cgfi.org) post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421.
“On Oct. 17, Locke released what it called a “peer review assessment” by the Boston-based Beacon Hill Institute — who had a representative on the September call — claiming the Center used “seriously flawed” methods in crafting climate proposals…… Beacon Hill’s assessment, however, didn’t……disclose that among Beacon Hill’s clients are the CSE Foundation, DCI Group, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, Pacific Research Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation — which together have received at least $1,780,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.”
Source:http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2007/11/hostile-climate-whos-behind-attack-on_13.asp
And a short public list of the organizations on the Exxon payroll:
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php
Seems Avery is a Scientific genius whose grants wont be drying up anytime soon.
Cheers.
Comment by Rainlander — December 29, 2007 @ 12:53 am
Grim, can I ask you a question? How much evidence of climate change (if you don’t like the term warming) would be enough to convince you?
About Antarctic ice:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050630064726.htm
About polar bears:
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/
I quote from the above link:
Some Native communities in Canada have been reporting increasing numbers of polar bears on land. Traditional hunters believe this indicates an increased population, although the increased presence on land may, in fact, be related to shrinking sea ice and changes in the bears’ distribution patterns. Data is needed to understand the change. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service states, “In the declining polar bear population of Canada’s Western Hudson Bay, extensive scientific studies have indicated that the increased observation of bears on land is a result of changing distribution patterns and a result of changes in the accessibility of sea ice habitat.”
Also, check out the documentation reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Greenland:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v346/n6279/abs/346045a0.html
The impact of permafrost releasing greenhouse gases:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1109/p01s03-sten.html
Let me ask you this: if people like you are wrong, then the consequences will ultimately be horrific. If people like me are wrong, the consequences will be less pollution, less dependence on oil from nutjobs like Chavez and
Ahmadinejad, and a more rational, efficient economy. And no, we won’t have to live less well–we’ll live just as well, only smarter.
This anti-climate change stuff coming from the right is being funded overwhelmingly by oil companies and other corporate entities who have a vested interest in keeping consumption of their products high. Just follow the money and you’ll see why ExxonMobil is so determined to confuse the public debate on this issue.
Again, how much evidence would be enough?
Joe
Comment by Joseph52 — December 29, 2007 @ 1:14 am
Well, I commented on 28 Dec but apparently it’s lost.
Comment by Joseph52 — December 30, 2007 @ 12:31 am
Me too,Joseph.
Mine is awaiting moderation despite no curse words or images of a pornographic nature,
merely links to pages with charts and disclosures of donations to individuals, political thinktanks and certain newscorps.
Comment by Rainlander — December 30, 2007 @ 8:52 am
I have a better Greenland link now:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/adventure-travel/greenland/global-warming.html
Comment by Joseph52 — December 30, 2007 @ 6:31 pm
What in the world are you two talking about?
Comment by grimgold — December 30, 2007 @ 9:43 pm
Grim, are you seeing the long response I left? The comments function seems a little out of whack. Joe
Comment by Joseph52 — December 31, 2007 @ 2:54 pm
I’d have to jump in the boat with Joe and Rainlander. Regardless of WHO or WHAT is making the climate change, why would we want to continue upon our path of wasteful pollution of the ONLY place we have to live?. I’m sick of the “but…boohooo it will cost soooooooo much money to stop being wasteful polluters, we just couldn’t possibly afford to not be wasteful polluters, so can’t we please just be wasteful polluters just a little longer please huh please please…”. Let’s see the benefits are – cleaner water to drink (I like clean water, don’t you?), cleaner air (I breathe air, would like it if it wouldn’t kill me, wouldn’t you?), less dependence on foreign oil / gas / other pollutants (unless you like sending your sons and daughters to secure resources we could otherwise be doing without), more innovation, advances in technology, etc etc etc. Go green, get clean, stop corporate environmental raiding! Or, for those less of grey matter – stop pissing in the pot we drink out of and telling me a little won’t hurt. Stop pumping shit into the air telling me a little won’t hurt. Stop dumping radioactive sludge into the ground telling me it won’t bother anybody here for 1/2 a million years, and wake up! This is the only place we have…let’s clean it up and keep it that way. And why shouldn’t America lead the world on this and be the innovator of the world, a light to lead the way instead of another smoking stack clouding up reason?
Comment by oaktree777 — December 31, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
Thanks, Rainlander and Joe52 for your posts with links. Grim, please take a look at the links — Dennis Avery is a corporate shill who thinks plastic and DDT is going to save the planet and, according to SourceWatch, “He is the originator of a misleading claim that organic foods are more dangerous than foods sprayed with chemical pesticides.”[1]
He has been guilty of twisting or quoting scientists out of context to make a point entirely different than the point the scientist was making. He invented this quote by Dr. Robert Tauxe, chief of the CDC’s Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch: “Organic food means a food was grown in animal manure.”[2]
Tauxe called Avery and told to stop claiming that the CDC was the source of this allegation. Avery responded by telling Tauxe, “That’s your interpretation, and I have mine.”
Avery also said his information came from Dr. Paul Mead, an epidemiologist who works for the CDC. Mead also told Avery to knock it off: “What happened is that he called me up and announced that eight percent of the outbreaks of foodborne illness were from organic food. I took some exception to that and said I didn’t know him and what his purpose was, but our data don’t support that.”
Avery is nothing more than a bought-and-paid-for fraud with no credibility nor scientific training.
[1] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Trashing_organic_foods
Comment by RS Janes — December 31, 2007 @ 9:04 pm
People, thank you for your usual intelligent responses. The left doesn’t deserve you guys.
I have been saying for years that global warming is a fact – the scientific evidence is overwhelming.
However, carbon dioxide is definately not a pollutant, as some have declared nor is it necessarily responsible for global warming.
Even though Al is wrong in his belief that the evil United States is causing global warming and should stop it immediately, it is a good thing to do what he wants to a large extent – continue to clean up our act.
Amazingly enough I’m a conservative republican and yet like the idea of clean air and water.
However, it isn’t a good idea to panic and hysterically yowl that the end is near.
It’s very likely that humans didn’t cause global warming nor can they stop it.
I’m surprised that Avery comes with such poor credentials, I didn’t know. Once in awhile Oddcat slaps me around for innocently quoting a blue meany like Avery apparently is. Thanks for the info.
Happy New Year to you all!
Grimmy
Comment by grimgold — December 31, 2007 @ 9:59 pm
I won’t get into the carbon dioxide debate and our contribution to global warming, since I don’t have much time to make this post, but I’m glad you’re on the side of clean air and clean water, Grim; I actually don’t know anybody who isn’t — at least for themselves, at any rate.
I live near a major highway; the global warming debate aside, just getting rid of auto emissions like carbon monoxide would make my life better, and the technology is either in use or just around the corner to have nearly pollution-free vehicles that get 50 MPH but with the same performance as an internal combustion engine — who can argue with that?
Unfortunately, we’re going to have to elect people to enact mandates for the auto industry, since most of them — Toyota and Honda being two exceptions — aren’t going to do this on their own.
You have a happy new year, too, Grim, and everyone else here.
Comment by RS Janes — January 1, 2008 @ 4:34 pm