Almost exactly 25 years ago Al Gore, a Democrat Senator at the time, warned us of an ecological Kristallnacht in the New York Times. He didn’t use the term “denier” but he was talking up an unmistakable environmental holocaust. Since then CO2 levels have risen 50ppm, and the global population increased by two billion. Yet much of the article could be rerun today and who would know? He could just change the dates.
The 1990’s are the decade of decision. Profound changes are required.
In 1987, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere began to surge with record annual increases. Global temperatures are also climbing: 1987 was the second hottest year on record; 1988 was the hottest. Scientists now predict our current course will raise world temperatures five degrees Celsius in our lifetimes.
The holocaust was coming
Here’s the headline and opening paragraphs: March 19 1989
An Ecological Kristallnacht. Listen.
“Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand new relationship with our planet. Unless we quickly and profoundly change the course of our civilization, we face an immediate and grave danger of destroying the worldwide ecological system that sustains life as we know it.”
It is time to confront this danger.
In 1939, as clouds of war gathered over Europe, many refused to recognize what was about to happen. No one could imagine a Holocaust, even after shattered glass had filled the streets on Kristallnacht. World leaders waffled and waited, hoping that Hitler was not what he seemed, that world war could be avoided. Later, when aerial photographs revealed death camps, many pretended not to see. Even now, many fail to acknowledge that our victory was not only over Nazism but also over dark forces deep within us.
In 1989, clouds of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. Once again, world leaders waffle, hoping the danger will dissipate. Yet today the evidence is as clear as the sounds of glass shattering in Berlin.
The science was settled 25 years ago
This was “the evidence” according to Al Gore back then in six points. Carbon dioxide was important, but just one of the pack of troubles. (Possibly the potential “value” of carbon trading was unseen):
- The earth’s forests are being destroyed at the rate of one football field’s worth every second, one Tennessee’s worth every year. [We now know global plant life increased since then.- Jo]
- An enormous hole is opening in the ozone layer, reducing the earth’s ability to protect life from deadly ultraviolet radiation.
- Living species die at such an unprecedented rate that more than half may disappear within our lifetimes.
- Chemical wastes, in growing volumes, seep downward to poison ground water and upward to destroy the atmosphere’s delicate balance.
- Huge quantities of carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons dumped in the atmosphere have trapped heat and raised global temperatures.
- Every day, 37,000 children under the age of 5 die of starvation or preventable diseases made worse by failures of crops and politics.
Back then “the cause” was population growth, first and carbon dioxide, second. World population was 5.2 billion. Two more billion have been added since the Kristallnacht was predicted.
Al Gore published a wish list then that wanted “rapid reductions” in CO2 emissions. CO2 was 350ppm and it has increased to 400ppm. Despite that, in the years since, we’ve spent more years without significant warming than we spent with it.
The guys a profit.
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Profit being the operative term for the CAGW prophet…
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I would invite Gore or any of his weeie supporters (including Suzuki-another profiteer) to survive a real Canadian winter (not in coastal BC- aka the banana belt) and then tell us all about the evils of the mythical global warming.
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Al Gore is mental gnome. The former Democrat vice president’s modus of operandi is obscene – he has accumulated great wealth promoting a religion which deep down I suspect he knows full well is fictitious. His deck of “Warmist Cards” will collapse later this decade as inevitable “Global Cooling” kicks in, and as we speak we citizens of Perth in WA want an explanation from BOM why 3 of the last 5 months here have been cooler than the LTA, and why today we had a maximum of just 20.7 degrees (5 degrees below average and ~ 8 weeks before Winter) and the forecast maximum for the next week is predicted to also be well below average (~ 2-3 degrees below average), which is puzzling given that this is the warmest part the month. And yes I have done my maths and there is no doubt that 4 of the last 6 months here in Perth will without doubt be cooler than the LTA – BOM please explain? You see BOM always release “alarmist media reports” via the MSM when there are “Heat Waves” and “Drought” but when there is pronounced “Cooling Events” and “High Rainfall Events” their silence is always so predictable. BOM is “warmist to the core” from its blatant reduction of vintage temperature data and also its endless promotion of the “Theory of AGW” – if any Aussie Govt instrumentality needs to be subjected to “due diligence”, it is BOM.
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Our summer in Victoria has been pretty cool.
We noticed that on the weather forecast on the ABC News at 7pm the last three days the forecast temp for MEL for next Sunday has changed from 23 to 22 to 19. It is cold today and wet. There was a suggestion of snow above 1800m…in early April. We used the AC far less this summer just gone and need heating. What’s the betting it will still be the warmest summer Evah?
As you say…BOM…”Please explain”.
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Is summer finished?
Seriously – I haven’t even been to the beach this “summer”!
Hottest year ever – seriously? – pull the other one.
Cheers,
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And here in Central Queensland we’ve had a very long summer, ended just yesterday, with March ALMOST the hottest on short records, and with high humidity. Autumn has arrived this morning, much cooler.
BUT IT’S ALL WEATHER.
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Exactly. Yours is the summer that will be “climate” while ours will just be “weather”.
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Indeed Ken, we’re only a little way south of you and this summer has certainly been a stinker – warm and humid to the last possible moment before the trough passed through last night amid a doozey of a storm that grew and lasted well into the evening.
As you and I know it’s just another variation on our weather, which all goes to make up our climate. Some summers/winters/years are hotter/colder/longer/shorter/worse/nicer than others. As early as last October-November the long-term locals who’ve seen many decades of weather here were warning me that it was going to be just like it was, because they’ve seen it all before because they’ve been around long enough to see it all before, and they’ve taken note of the weather and all its variations because as farmers their livelihoods have depended on them taking notice.
Funny how those with practical experience and the need to notice things tend to do so…….. while those whose livelihoods depend on making “pronouncements” and “predictions” and creating “climate models” and telling the rest of us what to do and how to live and think have no experience of the real world or its variations. It amazes me that supposedly intelligent people just don’t understand that the planet and all its systems have been changing since its very formation, and that it is still changing and will continue to do so. I often wonder if they even recognise that eventually the Sun, as just another star in our galaxy, will “die”, and in the process will actually engulf the Earth and all on it – albeit not in our lifetimes. If they can’t recognise that eventuality, then what hope is there that they can or will ever recognise that “climate” is not static and cannot or should not ever change at all.
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Indeed. Those who worship the godess Gaia ought to realize she is mortal. Thus she deserves no reverence.
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And all this against the backdrop of dire warnings last Oct., Nov., that Victoria was in for a LONG HOT summer. BoM certainly needs to explain this. And the CFA predicting a catastrophic fire season. Do I hear someone crying “wolf”!
R-COO- K+
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‘Do I hear someone crying “wolf”!’
Not likely, seasonal forecasting is an inexact science.
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Forecasting is an inexact science.
Tis a pitty they don’t openly admit this, reading the news articles and predictions, you’d never guess that it was “inexact”.
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Yeah, the UK Met finds itself in a similar predicament.
The seasonal forecasting game is wide open (apparently its chaos out there) but I’m reasonably confident this southern hemisphere winter is going to be wicked.
In regards to the AGW alarmist, the wolf yarn is very apt and leaves us with a predicament … how do we explain what’s coming without being a little alarmed.
Thinking aloud, aunty and the beeb need to air the coolist point of view and let the people decide.
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No reason to panic over weather.
Here in Japan we’ve had a rather mild and short winter followed by a rather warm and wet start to spring.
It means nothing.
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And yet the NH and SH temps follow each other closely.
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Even if Gore did believe it in the beginning, he’s had more than enough time to realize it hasn’t unfolded the way he was predicting it. But he can’t. From what I know of the man he has the intellect to do better but he’s unable to get out from under whatever is driving him onward in spite of total failure of his cause. The money he’s accumulated — assessed at more than $100,000 — is certainly one incentive to keep going. But I suspect another motive, unwillingness to admit being wrong.
He now lives alone in his Nashville mansion. It doesn’t sound like a good life to me, not even with all his money. I don’t envy him.
31
You’re missing a few zeroes from Gore’s fortune and, unfortunately, they are missing at the righthand side.
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Owen,
The $100,000 figure is probably old but it’s the only one I could find with a reasonable amount of search time. I found it in an undated article on the Internet about Gore’s life. I chose one that wasn’t a puff piece that simply pushed Gore. I have no idea what his real net worth is but I’m doubtful that it’s measured in 10s of billions or greater. I would believe a billion or even two with some supporting documentation but not more than that. And dear old Al isn’t going to publish the numbers anytime soon.
No offense intended but even for Al Gore it’s not easy to amass a fortune in the 10s, much less 100s of billions. 🙂
11
It is a religion and it seems to have some parallels with Scientology. I wonder when they will merge.
21
Interesting to note the number of references common to Nazi Germany and Cimate Science: Goebbells, deniers and now even Kristallnacht, perhaps it’s an omen of its eventual demise.
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In Kristallnacht the Nazis attacked shops and properties owned by Jews.
Now the extremists peck away at sceptics’ twitter accounts.
Sic transit gloria mundi calefacientem.
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It’s still demonization of your enemy.
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I recall the Ozone Hole scare. It turned out to be a big over reaction, but in the US at least, the EPA still enforces the anti-CFC policies that were enacted. It seems that, legislation, administrative laws, and treaties, enacted based upon faulty and/or incomplete science are always drafted in indelible ink.
In Nazi Germany many of the Jewish persecutions became the law of the land. They were rammed through the Riechstag, around the Riechstag, or became administrative law and policies through executive fiat. Let us be careful about climate laws and policies and the mob rule of a poorly or mis- informed collective.
A couple of notes on Gore’s points. Who would have known that co2 fertilization would go some ways toward off setting deforestation, and would improve crop yields. He seems to be concerned about starving children. Increasing the costs of energy world wide and making more advanced standards of living more scarce will not help.
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Dave, people keep talking about CO2 fertilization. Rather Photosynthesis is a photochemical reaction which occurs in the chloroplasts of all green plants and is the basis of life as we know it since it produces carbohydrate for all life forms. It’s pretty complex biochemistry, but essentially carbohydrate and oxygen are produced from carbon dioxide, water and light, and like all chemical reactions more substrate and temperature means more carbohydrate. Forests are important part of this process and the CO2 is literally stored in the wood: with plantations (good ones) it’s about 5 tonnes of carbon per annum per hectare. But a lot of photosynthesis also occurs in the seas with the marine phyto-plankton.
Greenhouse growers have known this for years and increase crop yields with CO2 enrichment, heating and supplementary lighting, and in biology classes at school you can count the oxygen bubbles emanating from aquatic plants in a fish tank.
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Earth is greener than 10 years ago: Total amount of vegetation found to have increased significantly over past decade
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But it’s the wrong sort of green! Buwhahahahaha!
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Al Gore and his ozone depletion layer friends met hard resistance back in the late ’80s & early ’90s, in the form of Fred Singer. Then they met the same resistance from the same man about global warming. Did they refute Dr Singer’s science assessments? No, they trashed his character: “Worried about Global Warming or Ozone Depletion? Then Destroy Critics Who Say Those aren’t Problems.”
What’s the connection between the US Congressional witch hunt of skeptic climate scientists a month ago and the initial smear of skeptic climate scientists? A small clique of enviro-activists I term “Greenpeace USA née Ozone Action”: “Greenpeace: The roots of Climate Smear”
And part of the roots of that smear are seen in Al Gore’s Senate office circa 1991-’92: “Smearing Skeptic Scientists: What did Gore know and when did he know it?”
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Kristallnacht was a propaganda staged event, a Nazi pogrom against the Jews. Synagogues were burned down that night and people literally beaten to death in public, and nobody ever got punished because it was all state approved. Given the warmist’s progressively more extreme treatment of skeptics, I find it ironic that Al Gore used such a rhetorical reference.
At best, it’s a tasteless usage of a human tragedy, just to advance a “B” lister’s political career.
Pointman
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You’re absolutely right and let’s not forget that Jews were further penalised by being charged for the expense of cleaning up the mess of the pogrom.
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The entire history of the treatment of those who didn’t jump right into lockstep with global warming was rather tasteless. And the name calling and character assassination are still the modus operandi to this day.
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Lomborg said it best recently in his WSJ article. Here he is describing the amazing reduction in deaths rates from natural disasters. By 97% over the last century. Here’s his quote———
“At the U.N. climate conference in Lima, Peru, in December, attendees were told that their countries should cut carbon emissions to avoid future damage from storms like typhoon Hagupit, which hit the Philippines during the conference, killing at least 21 people and forcing more than a million into shelters. Yet the trend for landfalling typhoons around the Philippines has actually declined since 1950, according to a study published in 2012 by the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate. Again, we’re told that things are worse than ever, but the facts don’t support this.
This is important because if we want to help the poor people who are most threatened by natural disasters, we have to recognize that it is less about cutting carbon emissions than it is about pulling them out of poverty.
The best way to see this is to look at the world’s deaths from natural disasters over time. In the Oxford University database for death rates from floods, extreme temperatures, droughts and storms, the average in the first part of last century was more than 13 dead every year per 100,000 people. Since then the death rates have dropped 97% to a new low in the 2010s of 0.38 per 100,000 people.
The dramatic decline is mostly due to economic development that helps nations withstand catastrophes. If you’re rich like Florida, a major hurricane might cause plenty of damage to expensive buildings, but it kills few people and causes a temporary dent in economic output. If a similar hurricane hits a poorer country like the Philippines or Guatemala, it kills many more and can devastate the economy.”
Here is the WSJ article. http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/the-alarming-thing-about-climate.html
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Dr Lomborg is headed for a stint at UWA, heads may explode in their Psychology Department.
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What a callous way to denigrate a human tragedy.
He talks of action? Did he mentioned anything about the enslavemnt of 1/2 Europe under communism and that the 2nd WW did not finish until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Where was his courage and drums before then? Great Britain just survived and just preserved its democracy and in a process sacrificed >500 mln people to a continued red slavery. There was no VE Day, it was a dream for the Brits and some Western Europeans including Australians to feel good about themselves. Where is he now trying to fight genocides in the Middle East or the Ukraine? Where is his uproar and moral indignation? Ah yes I forgot instead of helping people that are dying now he prefers to spent billions on trace gas.
He really is a man bear pig.
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Unfortunately the climate juggernaut is now too big to fail and will continue to blood suck the West and Oz until evolution (more realistic BRICS) sweep away our moribund society. We have a Minister who hears on reason, sees no reason and says “I hear what you say, but I have come to different (Orwellian) conclusion” – that it is warming while cooling, stormy when calm and in drought when it is flooding.
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The Al Goreical speaks, and no-one listens to the evil, carbon-trading barsteward.
Perhaps he should be put on an Al Goreill until well done, meaning still glowing in the middle….:o)
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Al Gore says,
He’s right. So let’s confront him and all his followers head on and say no to this climate change madness. They haven’t a single prediction come true that they can point to. Now is the time to write your representatives and say no more of this. Not a single minute more of this will we tolerate.
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They warned like the gods from on high,
That through warming our planet would fry,
But the warming has ceased,
As the cooling increased,
Which means that the end is not nigh.
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Keep on at this rate, Ruairi, and you are likely to corner the market in green thumbs.
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Ruairi’s poetry is now legend.
Like the man I must now mention.
The name comes from Rory,
O’Conner’s a very old story.
The king of Ireland is now in heaven.
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Well, don’t we all know that Nobel prize winner Gore is a really, really smart guy?
(/sarc)
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Now if he was even a little wise to go along with that smart…
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They also gave one to Obama for the achievement of being born partly black.
21
Notice from the start of CAGW propaganda the use of emotive prompts of history, 1989 could be remembered as the year of shattered reason but I wouldn’t give credit to an intellectual hack like Gore or insult the victims of a genuine crime against humanity.
All these Nazi references from the CAGW side is simply breathtaking projection of their own objectives, history will repeat but not in an exact manner as 75 years on we are headed for a “PC Holocaust”, the end result stays the same though.
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The doomsters have been around for a long time. They have three things in common. The believe that they are original; are usually found to be wrong in their lifetimes, and go to their graves still believing they are right.
For example, the Revd Thomas Malthus forecast in 1798 that there would be mass starvation as population increased exponentially while food production grows arithmetically.The World population has since grown 10 fold and food production by an even greater amount.
In the 1840s Karl Marx said that Capitalism would collapse under its very contradictions, giving way to pure communism where the government would cease to exist. It was a historical law. The rich would become richer and the poor would become poorer. Two decades before his death in 1883, it was already clear that the British economy was expanding, and the lot of the poorest was slowly improving. Marxists just changed tack, such as from absolute to relative poverty & from material poverty to increasing immiserisation.
A more recent example. We need to change to renewables as the cost of fossil fuels will inevitably rise. It was still being peddled here in the UK twelve months ago. Since then the cost of oil has halved.
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Even back then we had more than enough real problems to solve. And yet we let international attention be captured by Hansen, Gore and the UN to fight a problem we couldn’t even debate — or so they said. And now that all those predictions have failed for 25 plus years, still they persist and they get listened to.
The evidence isn’t on their side.
It’s time for them to fold up their tent and sneak away in the dark of night in disgrace. But of course it never was about global warming, was it?
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This is why history is not taught in schools. Nor any mention of failed predictions of the past (they look just like the predictions on the news today).
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My wife regularly prompts me to watch the evening news and I just as regularly remind her that today’s news looks just like yesterday’s which looks just like last week’s which looks just like last month’s which looks just like…
It’s not a return to teaching past history we need so much as a return to reporting today’s history in a different light. Well, actually we do need need both.
However, I think seeing today’s events with an emphasis on what’s really important instead of what’s sensational would help a lot. But then the audience goes elsewhere for “entertainment”. And that’s what news broadcasting has become — entertainment. If there’s a murder anywhere that’s the top story, followed by any other police action they can find. But what your government did today is never mentioned. The news is a reality show.
There’s another problem too. In an hour of news I get maybe 10 minutes worth of useful information if I’m lucky, 20 minutes of advertizing and the rest is smalltalk and drivel. How do you spell bored? We once got it the right way or a lot closer to it than now. And we all watched or listened to it. What happened between then and now?
I won’t go on. I just hope everyone sees the picture I’m painting.
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I agree with you even less than that.
I’ve watched the news maybe 5 times in the last 5 years. I yell at the television, abuse whoever is reporting and switch it off. Such unabashed drivil I can not stand.
If I want to konw what’s happening I’d much rather read about it than have it reported in “news bites” within a 30 second time frame. The method of news reporting on TV is just hyped junk with no information value.
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I can only say, amen!
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… (The New York Times July 23, 1992).
… Bloomberg Business May 6, 2013.
A plot of Gore’s lifetime wealth accumulation would look like this.
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Now we know where the idea for Mann’s Hockey stick originated.
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The science is always settled, now please send money.
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Cook is defending his research in The Australian today.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/the-unscientific-way-of-climate-denial/story-e6frg6zo-1227294787531
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Sorry I was off topic here, but comments are still open to reply to John Cook as he tries to defend his research with the usual name-calling. The usual alarmists are out in force, especially Patricia, who reminds me awfully of SF…
I’ve noticed that skeptical comments who receive a high number of likes, all of a sudden lose those likes… I made a reference to the disappearance of likes and the comment was moderated out. Jo, how do we find out why this is happening?
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Just a follow up about ‘likes’ disappearing. After several pointed posts that were moderated out all the likes suddenly reappeared…
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It has long been apparent that the alarmist movement has at least one foot in the eugenicist camp. Alarmists may ostentatiously condemn the deaths of 37000 children per day, but they also welcome those same deaths, since these very alarmists blame over-population for environmental problems in the first place.
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Al Gore proves he’s an imbecile and a liar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14kNtnJgXXM
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a point of order
maybe but the forests have not.
Just another comment re this article.
You’ve presented no actual analysis. Gore said we need to act. Whether we did what he said to do or not, the world did not stand and watch while population increased and quality of human habitat came under threat. We did act in many ways. The analysis that is missing is what impact this had in avoiding the things Gore warned against. The fact that this could be written again now is hardly a failing of the original piece as if we just stand around and watch, bad things will happen.
Gore’s rhetoric is pretty pathetic.
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Regarding your point of order …
You will need to define how you interpret “forest”. I am part owner of several “forests” and we regularly cut them down, and replant juvenile trees. The frequency depends on the type of trees. Those forests are sustainable, but still appear in the “destroyed” category in the statistics, for that particular year.
Over and above that, the extra CO2 in the atmosphere is making the trees grow faster and also increases the plant life that is not in managed forests. The quality of the accelerated growth may be an issue. We wait and see.
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No… it is total forested land including your cut and regrowth if the data collection is done right. In truth the difference between now and 1989 is so stark that errors in collection such as what you are concerned about are not a consideration for the simple question of more or less. Please use google to confirm.
02
classic!
Mac the Knife posted this on WUWT Tips & Notes:
6 April: NYT: Coral Davenport: Laurence Tribe Fights Climate Case Against Star Pupil From Harvard, President Obama
WASHINGTON — Laurence H. Tribe, the highly regarded liberal scholar of constitutional law, still speaks of President Obama as a proud teacher would of a star student. “He was one of the most amazing research assistants I’ve ever had,” Mr. Tribe said in a recent interview. Mr. Obama worked for him at Harvard Law School, where Mr. Tribe has taught for four decades…
Which is why so many in the Obama administration and at Harvard are bewildered and angry that Mr. Tribe, who argued on behalf of Al Gore in the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case, has emerged as the leading legal opponent of Mr. Obama’s ambitious efforts to fight global warming.
Mr. Tribe, 73, has been retained to represent Peabody Energy, the nation’s largest coal company, in its legal quest to block an Environmental Protection Agency regulation that would cut carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s coal-fired power plants — the heart of Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda.
Next week Mr. Tribe is to deliver oral arguments for Peabody in the first federal court case about Mr. Obama’s climate change rules. Mr. Tribe argues in a brief for the case that in requiring states to cut carbon emissions, thus to change their energy supply from fossil fuels to renewable sources, the E.P.A. is asserting executive power far beyond its lawful authority under the Clean Air Act. At a House hearing last month, Mr. Tribe likened the climate change policies of Mr. Obama to “burning the Constitution.”
To Republicans who oppose Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda, Mr. Tribe is a celebrated convert. “When I saw the brief, I thought, this is dazzling,” said Michael McKenna, a Washington energy lobbyist. “And the fact that it was written by a guy on the other side made it even better.”
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, has frequently cited Mr. Tribe’s brief in speeches and letters as part of a campaign urging governors not to comply with the climate change rules. “As iconic left-leaning law professor Laurence Tribe put it, the administration’s effort goes ‘far beyond its lawful authority,’ ” Mr. McConnell wrote in an op-ed article in The Lexington Herald-Leader last month.
To many Democrats and professors at Harvard, Mr. Tribe is a traitor…
Mr. Tribe dismissed the criticism and said that his brief and comments reflect his views as a constitutional scholar, not as a paid advocate for the coal company. “I’m not for sale,” he said. “I’ll say what I believe.”
“I feel very comfortable with my relationship with Peabody,” he added. “Somebody wanted my help and it happened to coincide with what I believe.”…
SMEAR, SMEAR…READ ALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/us/laurence-tribe-fights-climate-case-against-star-pupil-from-harvard-president-obama.html?_r=2
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This is a question for informed comments from US readers, please:
IF Peabody’s case does eventually reach the US Supreme Court, would it be heard by the Full Bench or, perhaps, a single judge ?
I am mindful here that the original successful EPA Supreme Court application for the regulatory power to do what it is currently doing was heard by a single judge
21
good billionaire will again take on bad billionaire:
6 April: Reuters: Valerie Volcovici: ‘Green’ political donor vows climate agenda push in 2016 U.S. race
Environmental activist and billionaire Tom Steyer served notice on Monday that he will use his wealth to try to bring climate change into the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, vowing to target Republican hopefuls who deny the connection between burning fossil fuels and rising global temperatures.
Steyer’s NextGen Climate political action committee launched what it calls the Hot Seat campaign aimed at calling out Republican candidates for taking money from the billionaire Koch brothers. The group will target Senator Rand Paul, who is expected to launch his presidential campaign on Tuesday.
Steyer’s PAC found limited success turning climate change into a wedge issue in the 2014 midterm elections, despite spending over $70 million on candidates backing strong climate change policies. Only three of seven candidates backed by NextGen won their races.
This time, it hopes to use the conservative Koch brothers as foils, highlighting the connection between their campaign spending and politicians who deny the science underpinning the rise in global temperatures.
“The Koch brothers have emerged as a serious liability for politicians … making their political influence a critical wedge issue that moves the dial with swing voters and enrages the young voters needed by the GOP to take back the White House,” according to NextGen’s strategy memo…
Outright denial of climate science is becoming an increasingly difficult political position. On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – a conservative state policy group funded by the Koch brothers – threatened to sue liberal activist groups that accused it of denying ***climate change…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/06/us-climatechange-election-donor-idUSKBN0MX1J120150406
***who on earth denies “climate change”?
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Al did eventually turn against ethanol. He got one right. Corn squeezings are better used after 7 years of aging.
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The science may be settled but unfortunately the temperature record isn’t.
Oops and double oops, as Adelaide’s BOM inhabitants finally recognize that 40 odd years ago they trashed one of the world’s longest Stevenson Screen records and now they want to get it back sans trees, presumably to fudge the figures again. Whassamatter guys? Nearby trees can affect the temp record and no-one wants to believe your incantations over the subsequent tar and cement record at Kent Town? Take a bow Anthony Watts.
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Incase anyone missed it …
VANCOUVER SUN APRIL 7, 2015:
“This week’s Conversation that Matters features Freeman Dyson a professor emeritus of the Institute for Advanced Study who says models do a good job of helping us understand climate but they do a very poor job of predicting it.
Dyson says, “as measured from space, the whole earth is growing greener as a result of carbon dioxide, so it’s increasing agricultural yields, it’s increasing the forests and it’s increasing growth in the biological world and that’s more important and more certain than the effects on climate.”
He acknowledges that human activity has an effect on climate but claims it is much less than is claimed.
He stresses the non-climate benefits of carbon are overwhelmingly favourable.”
. . .
20 minutes. Share it long & wide.
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Damn, I missed Prof Dyson’s talk! Thanks for drawing our attention to it!
11
worth noting:
7 April: Reuters: Geert De Clercq: UPDATE 2-Weak spots found in steel of Areva’s French EPR reactor
Weak spots found in steel of nuclear reactor vessel
No comment about possible new delays to Flamanville
Regulator has warned other countries where EPRs are built (Adds EDF, Areva comment, background)
Areva has found weak spots in the steel of the EPR nuclear reactor it is building for utility EDF in Flamanville, France, French nuclear regulator ASN said on Tuesday.
Areva and EDF said in a joint statement that while they start a series of new tests on the EPR, construction work would continue on the reactor, which is already years behind schedule and billions of euros over budget.
ASN said Areva had informed it that tests at end-2014 had shown that in certain zones of the reactor vessel and cover of the EPR there was a significant concentration of carbon, which weakens the mechanical resilience of the steel and its ability to resist the spreading of cracks…
Areva declined to comment on whether the tests would lead to new delays for Flamanville and impact three other EPRs under construction, one in Olkiluoto, Finland, two in Taishan, China.
“The ASN has informed nuclear regulators in other countries where EPRs are being built,” the regulator said.
EDF also plans to build two EPR reactors in Hinkley Point, Britain.
The EPR, or European Pressurised Reactor, is a new-generation pressurised water reactor, built to resist the impact of a commercial airline crash. It has been widely criticised as too big and too expensive and Areva has been forced to book billions of euros in provisions due to cost overruns…
First estimated to cost 3 billion euros, the EPR projects in France and Finland have been plagued by problems and delays, and costs have ballooned to nearly 9 billion euros ($9.8 billion).
In November, EDF announced a new one-year delay for the Flamanville reactor which it now expects to be connected to the grid in 2017, a decade after construction started. It had initially been scheduled to start in 2012…
Areva and Finnish consortium Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) have started legal proceedings against one another, with Areva and its partner Siemens claiming 3.5 billion euros in damages from TVO and TVO 2.3 billion from Areva-Siemens…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/07/areva-nuclear-anomalies-idUSL6N0X41S920150407
Plan B???
7 April: Financial Times: Home-grown small reactors on agenda to revive nuclear programme
Andrew Bounds and Chris Tighe
Leading British businesses and universities are pinning their hopes on home-grown small reactors to help revive the country’s stalled nuclear power station programme.
Delays continue to plague efforts by foreign companies to build the country’s first plants in a generation. Some 400 construction workers have been laid off by EDF, which is building one at Hinkley Point, as the French company and its Chinese partners haggle over electricity prices with the government…
Rolls-Royce, the engineering business, and industry experts are pressing the government to fund research into small modular reactors that could be built in the UK and taken from factory to site on the back of a lorry…
In contrast to the £24.5bn required for Hinkley Point, earmarked to open in 2023, an SMR could cost less than £1bn. Each unit would have up to 300MW power and several could be deployed together to create mini-power stations. The two Areva reactors being installed at Hinkley have capacity of 1650MW.
Sheffield University has already begun work with Nuscale, a US company, on a design…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d0743a86-d9fd-11e4-ab32-00144feab7de.html
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I remember the 1980s. I remember being a fan of the punk rock group The Dead Kennedys. I remember Al and Tipper Gore raising money from concerned citizens and leading legal action to try and have music, art and literature that they didn’t like banned.
I didn’t realise however that so soon after failing to have free speech in the USA stopped that Al had moved on to his next profitable venture. I wonder how much of the funds raised to fight free speech ended up funding Al’s political career?
After all this time people still seem to be willing to give this fascist money to tell us what to do, what to think and how to live an Al Gore approved, but not personally done, lifestyle.
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Unfortunately, it appears that the global statists and their propaganda apparatus, have no intention of relinquishing their attack on objective reality. They deny the scientific evidence of real world observations that shows the hypothesis of dangerous man made global warming is no longer tenable. The missing heat hiding in the deep ocean appears not to exist, the latest evidence indicates. Yet the shrill voice of propaganda grows louder almost by the day. What to make of it Jo? Other (non-climate related) items of news like Obama’s refusal insist Iran recognise another nations’ right to exist. Paris 2015. ISIS, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. The list goes on. What to make of it…?
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[…] Nova has unearthed an opinion piece written by Al Gore that appeared in the New York Times back in 1989. That was the […]
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I had stumbled across this particularly distasteful exercise of what I chose to call “climatic licence” on Gore’s part, three years ago. At that time, I had written:
And (following a citation of Wikipedia’s definition of “artistic licence”) I had concluded by noting:
Nothing that I’ve seen in the intervening years has given me any reason to doubt the validity of my “assessment”. If anything, at this point – particularly considering the propaganda that continues to be churned out (and dutifully “reported” in the MSM) – I’m rather inclined to conclude that it may well be … well … worse than I thought!
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Nicely worded Hilary and just had a look at your blog which looks very interesting, keep up the good work. 🙂
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Many thanks, Yonniestone … and I’ll do my best to give my best 😉
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Al Gore still wrong after all these years . Good theatre though and it proves you don’t
need to know what you are talking about to make a lot of money .
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