posted June 24, 2006 11:47 PM              

we could re-verse this. ...

posted July 03, 2006 12:01 PM            

BY RICHARD S. LINDZEN
Sunday, July 2, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

According to Al Gore's new film "An Inconvenient Truth," we're in for "a planetary emergency": melting ice sheets, huge increases in sea levels, more and stronger hurricanes, and invasions of tropical disease, among other cataclysms--unless we change the way we live now.

Bill Clinton has become the latest evangelist for Mr. Gore's gospel, proclaiming that current weather events show that he and Mr. Gore were right about global warming, and we are all suffering the consequences of President Bush's obtuseness on the matter. And why not? Mr. Gore assures us that "the debate in the scientific community is over."

That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this "debate" actually is in the first place.

The media rarely help, of course. When Newsweek featured global warming in a 1988 issue, it was claimed that all scientists agreed. Periodically thereafter it was revealed that although there had been lingering doubts beforehand, now all scientists did indeed agree. Even Mr. Gore qualified his statement on ABC only a few minutes after he made it, clarifying things in an important way. When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists "don't have any models that give them a high level of confidence" one way or the other and went on to claim--in his defense--that scientists "don't know. . . . They just don't know."

So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the "consensus." Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore's preferred global-warming template--namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.

They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why.

The other elements of the global-warming scare scenario are predicated on similar oversights. Malaria, claimed as a byproduct of warming, was once common in Michigan and Siberia and remains common in Siberia--mosquitoes don't require tropical warmth. Hurricanes, too, vary on multidecadal time scales; sea-surface temperature is likely to be an important factor. This temperature, itself, varies on multidecadal time scales. However, questions concerning the origin of the relevant sea-surface temperatures and the nature of trends in hurricane intensity are being hotly argued within the profession.
Even among those arguing, there is general agreement that we can't attribute any particular hurricane to global warming. To be sure, there is one exception, Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who argues that it must be global warming because he can't think of anything else. While arguments like these, based on lassitude, are becoming rather common in climate assessments, such claims, given the primitive state of weather and climate science, are hardly compelling.

A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended--at least not in terms of the actual science.

A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early '70s, increased again until the '90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.

There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million by volume in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system. Although no cause for alarm rests on this issue, there has been an intense effort to claim that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected.

Given that we do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change, this task is currently impossible. Nevertheless there has been a persistent effort to suggest otherwise, and with surprising impact. Thus, although the conflicted state of the affair was accurately presented in the 1996 text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous "summary for policy makers" reported ambiguously that "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." This sufficed as the smoking gun for Kyoto.

The next IPCC report again described the problems surrounding what has become known as the attribution issue: that is, to explain what mechanisms are responsible for observed changes in climate. Some deployed the lassitude argument--e.g., we can't think of an alternative--to support human attribution. But the "summary for policy makers" claimed in a manner largely unrelated to the actual text of the report that "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."

In a similar vein, the National Academy of Sciences issued a brief (15-page) report responding to questions from the White House. It again enumerated the difficulties with attribution, but again the report was preceded by a front end that ambiguously claimed that "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability." This was sufficient for CNN's Michelle Mitchell to presciently declare that the report represented a "unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse and is due to man. There is no wiggle room." Well, no.

More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.

Even more recently, the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration's coordinating agency for global-warming research, declared it had found "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system." This, for Mr. Easterbrook, meant: "Case closed." What exactly was this evidence? The models imply that greenhouse warming should impact atmospheric temperatures more than surface temperatures, and yet satellite data showed no warming in the atmosphere since 1979. The report showed that selective corrections to the atmospheric data could lead to some warming, thus reducing the conflict between observations and models descriptions of what greenhouse warming should look like. That, to me, means the case is still very much open.

So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.

First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics.

Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade.

Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce--if we're lucky.

posted July 03, 2006 12:15 PM              

what do you SEE..when you go within..what truth is shone to you?

I have already stated what I see..a wobble..a big shift..I see the shift being a .25 going down, round and a the biggest waves ever. .

I am not worried..with God..you will be where you need to be..to be safe..that's why it's important..for each to go within..and find their guidance through GOD. ...you will be guided to safety..

posted July 13, 2006 02:22 PM            

The slanted coverage of the debate over global warming is on display almost every day. But a good recent example was the June 23 USA Today story headlined, “Global warming stoked ’05 hurricanes, study says.” That headline ran across the entire top of page 4 of USA Today. A picture with the story showed emergency workers battling Hurricane Katrina. You have to read to the 7th paragraph to find out that an expert named William Gray of Colorado State University believes “more intense hurricanes” are due entirely to natural changes. It turns out that Gray has been described as “the world’s most famous hurricane expert” and that he has been studying hurricanes for 50 years.

The story, however, highlighted a new report finding that “Global warming helped fuel 2005’s destructive hurricane season…” Gray, in the 7th paragraph of the story, called that “ridiculous.” Gray, former director of the National Hurricane Center, has told the Washington Post that global warming is “one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people.” That is also the claim made by Senator James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment Committee. Gray placed that quote on the cover of one of his scientific papers analyzing global warming and hurricanes.

In testimony before the Inhofe committee, he said that he has been dismayed over “the bogus science and media-hype” associated with the man-made global warming theory. “As a boy, growing up here in Washington, D.C.,” he said, “I remember the many articles on the large global warming that had occurred between 1900 and 1940. No one understood or knew if this warming would continue. Then the warming abated, and a weak global cooling trend set in from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s. The global warming talk ceased and speculation about a coming ice age came into vogue. I anticipate that the trend of the last few decades of global warming will come to an end, and in a few years we will start to see a weak cooling trend similar to that which occurred from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s.”

In a sense, getting Gray’s views on page-seven of a story is a step forward. Like gay rights, the idea of questioning a human role in global warming is being thrown aside by many in the media as not even worthy of attention.

What we are seeing is opinion journalism, in which journalists sharing Al Gore’s opinion about global warming are manipulating the coverage. In a famous Los Angeles Times op-ed, Victor Navasky of The Nation magazine said that the problem with modern journalism was not that there was too much opinion, but too little. He means liberal opinion.

posted July 13, 2006 02:29 PM              

but it's simply a cycle..of the all and the LAws... .

posted July 13, 2006 09:15 PM            

BENTONVILLE, Ark., July 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- As part of its ongoing commitment to sustainability, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. CEO Lee Scott today welcomes Lorraine Bolsinger of GE, Stewart Muller of Philips Consumer Electronics, Christina Norman of MTV, and hundreds of suppliers and company associates to Bentonville to discuss the issue of climate change. During the company's Sustainable Value Network meeting, Scott will lead a discussion about how Wal-Mart, working closely with suppliers, academics, NGOs, politicians and other business leaders, can affect change at all levels of the supply chain.

"We are all passionate about making real progress regarding the environment," said Scott. "By working together, we can help each other save money, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pass the savings on to our customers. Sustainability is good for the environment, and it's also good for business."

The meeting will include presentations from representatives of the Rocky Mountain Institute and other leaders in the environmental field, as well as discussions with Wal-Mart suppliers on how sustainability can impact the supply chain and benefit the customer.

Steve Varon, President of Dana Undies, will discuss how his company is working with Wal-Mart on energy efficiency initiatives, and as a result, has been able to significantly reduce their energy costs. And GE and Wal-Mart are exploring ways to promote efficient lighting, especially LEDs and compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).

Each of Wal-Mart's 14 Sustainable Value Networks -- the teams responsible for managing the sustainability of the various aspects of the business, such as packaging, global logistics, apparel, and seafood -- will provide updates and share lessons learned regarding their efforts to improve the company's carbon footprint.

Others who participated in this meeting include former Vice President Al Gore; Jim Ball, Executive Director of the Evangelical Environmental Network; Edward Shirley, President of Procter & Gamble North America; Paul Rice, CEO of TransFair USA; Rich Noll, CEO of Sara Lee Apparel; and John Lesher, President of Paramount Classics.

About Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates Wal-Mart discount stores, supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and SAM'S CLUB locations in the United States. The company has operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom. The company's securities are listed on the New York Stock Exchange and NYSE Arca, formerly the Pacific Stock Exchange, under the symbol WMT. More information about Wal-Mart can be found by visiting http://www.walmartfacts.com/ . Online merchandise sales are available at http://www.walmart.com/ .

posted July 13, 2006 09:19 PM            

Scientists Fear Global Warming Is Irreversible and Its Effects Possibly Disastrous

July 12, 2006 -- - Scientists waited a long time to declare that global warming was real. And they waited even longer to declare that it resulted from human activities.

And they are still waiting to announce what is becoming increasingly obvious: It isn't going to take nearly as long as had been expected for profound changes to take place.

Good scientists are always cautious scientists, and that chiefly explains their reticence. But now, nearly every research institution involved in the study of global climate change -- from the American Academy of Sciences to the atmospheric department at your local university -- has issued reports citing overwhelming evidence that the planet is changing.

But how much will it change? How will that affect us? And how soon?

Those are the tough questions, and some of the answers will remain elusive for years to come. After all, predicting climate, even day to day, is foggy at best. Given the variables, it may be the most difficult science of all.

But many experts confide privately what they aren't yet ready to announce publicly: Change is accelerating at a dramatic rate.

A cascading effect is now in place. Rising temperatures cause greater releases of greenhouse gases, which in turn cause temperatures to rise, resulting in even more gases being released, and so on.

The most disturbing report on that phenomenon was published recently in Science. But like so many reports, it seems to deal with events so far away and so arcane that it's easy to look the other way. Yet the consequences will land on everybody's doorstep.

Here's the bottom line of that report: The permafrost that blankets northern Siberia is thawing.

Wow, you say, Siberia. So far away.

But here's the statement that needs to be printed on every politician's forehead.

That permafrost contains 75 times more carbon than is released by burning fossil fuel around the entire planet for an entire year. That number is worth repeating. More carbon than all our cars and factories will release in 75 years.

The scientists who wrote the report, all of whom are at the University of Florida, called that a "potent, likely unstoppable contributor to global climate change if it continues to thaw." And, by the way, that's not much of an if. It will take decades, and probably centuries, for that process to be reversed.

Siberia's permafrost, which is supposed to remain frozen for most of the year, covers nearly 400,000 square miles and contains about 500 billion metric tons of carbon.

"You start thawing the permafrost, microbes release carbon dioxide, that makes things warmer. More permafrost thaws and the process continues," says Ted Schuur, an assistant professor of ecology at the university and one of three authors of the report.

A report issued by the university noted that "If all the Siberian permafrost thawed, decomposed and released its carbon in the form of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it could nearly double the 730 billion metric tons of carbon in the atmosphere presently, an outcome that would have huge warming impact."

Permafrost is not limited to Siberia. Any thawing, whether it be in Alaska or northern Europe, will result in the release of some greenhouse gases, but Siberia is more extreme. The layers of permafrost there are very deep, so the carbon that is trapped has been in place for a very long time.

Samples that Schuur brought back from Siberia to his laboratory in Gainesville contained carbon that dated back tens of thousands of years as organic material became trapped in the soil.

Further examination revealed that the carbon from the Siberia samples was released very rapidly as the soil thawed.

"If these rates are sustained in the long term, as field observations suggest, then most carbon in recently thawed (permafrost) will be released within a century -- a striking contrast to the preservation of carbon for tens of thousands of years when frozen in permafrost," the scientists conclude in their Science paper.

It's easy to find examples of changes that are already taking place.

The Mendenhall Glacier, just a short drive from my home in Juneau, Alaska, is one of the premier tourist attractions in the state. It is a spectacular river of ice that extends up a vast valley carved by the glacier as it gorged its way down through the rocky cliffs that tower above.

When I first saw it as a young Coast Guard officer on duty in Alaska, I was awed. I'm still awed today. But the Mendenhall is rapidly becoming a shadow of its former self. It is melting and receding at a rate of several hundred feet a year.

Just a few years ago, scientists thought the 500-square-mile ice field that feeds the glacier would soon start to get colder, part of an anticipated natural cycle.

But the Mendenhall, like nearly every other glacier in Alaska, is disappearing. Just 200 years ago, the toe of the glacier was where the Juneau airport is today. Now it's several miles -- that's miles -- back into the spruce-covered hills.

Living in Alaska, I find it's sometimes kind of nice to think that the planet is growing warmer. But there's a price to be paid. And the loss of the Mendenhall Glacier pales in the face of horrendous storms, starvation and inundation of coastlines that are sure to come.

Don't think of it in terms of centuries, or even decades. It's happening now.

posted July 16, 2006 03:24 AM              

quote:

---

Temperatures in the US...as I showed you are not responding as global warming nuts say they should--jwhop

---

First Half of 2006 Is Warmest on Record
Jul 14 1:06 PM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON

The first half of the year was the warmest on record for the United States.

The government reported Friday that the average temperature for the 48 contiguous United States from January through June was 51.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 3.4 degrees above average for the 20th century.

That made it the warmest such period since recordkeeping began in the National Climatic Data Center reported.

No state was cooler than average and five states _ Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri _ experienced record warmth for the period.

While much of the Northeast experienced extreme rainfall and flooding at the end of June many other areas continued below normal rain and snowfall.

As of June, 45 percent of the contiguous U.S. was in moderate-to- extreme drought, an increase of 6 percent from May.

Dry conditions spawned more than 50,000 wildfires, burning more than 3 million acres in the continental U.S., according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Worldwide, it was the sixth warmest year-to-date since record keeping began in 1880.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/14/D8IRSULOB.html

posted July 16, 2006 02:08 PM              

Global Highlights
It was the second warmest June on record for global land and ocean surfaces temperatures since records began in 1880 (1.08°F/0.60°C above the 20th century mean) and the sixth warmest year-to-date (January-June) (0.90°F/0.50°C).

posted July 18, 2006 08:25 PM              

LONDON (Reuters) - Temperatures could reach an all-time high in Britain on Wednesday as the heatwave tightens its grip, forecasters said.

"It is possible that the all-time record could be broken," the Met Office said.

It ascribed the current heatwave to warm air flowing across from Continental Europe but added in a statement that its research showed "significant human contribution" in the hot spells of recent years because of carbon dioxide emissions.

"This is a sign of things to come, with the current temperatures becoming a normal event by the middle of this century," it added.

'Hot Enough To Melt The Roads'...

in the u.s.

Broiling Temps Continue; at Least 6 Die

u.s. heat map

HEATWAVE DEEPENS; POWER GRIDS HOLD..

posted July 18, 2006 08:26 PM              

for lotusheartone

********

Jump to Prevent Global Warming

By ALEXANDRA LEO

July 17, 2006 -- Hans Peter Niesward, from the Department of Gravitationsphysik at the ISA in Munich, says we can stop global warming in one fell swoop — or, more accurately, in one big jump.

The slightly disheveled professor states his case on http://worldjumpday.org/ , an Internet site created to recruit 600,000,000 people to jump simultaneously on July 20 at 11:39:13 GMT in an effort to shift Earth's position.

Niesward claims that on this day "Earth occupies one of the most fragile positions in its orbits for the last 100 years." According to the site, the shift in orbit will "stop global warming, extend daytime hours and create a more homogeneous climate."

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2202916&page=1

posted July 18, 2006 08:42 PM              

I will have to read that..my mom is here visiting..

I do not think that would be a good idea!
Tidal waves would be caused..could all of us jumping at the same time actually make the Earth Move???

I'm shaking my head..I am dumbfounded. ...

posted July 18, 2006 09:27 PM              

and every action..has a an equal or greater re-Action..
not that this would work anyway..

you know what..instead..everyOne should undertake to do everything with Love..for the whole day..and everyday for that Matter..
I guess people do not Mind..that state
we are In. ...

posted July 18, 2006 11:26 PM              

Picked up some number facts. Here's one:

0% of Peer Reviewed Scientific Articles (I think it was out of 900 of them) denied that global warming is happening.

53% of News Articles from the Media (I think it was out of 600 media articles) had doubt in global warming and discredited the scientific research on global warming as merely theories and hypotheses.

Liked this quote used in the film:

quote:

---

It is DIFFICULT to get a man to understand something when his SALARY depends upon his NOT understanding it.

---

posted July 24, 2006 12:38 PM            

Posted: Monday, 24 July 2006 7:20AM

Power Regulators Worry About Supply as Heat Wave Continues

Sunnyvale, Calif. (KCBS) -- California power regulators are predicting record energy use today as the heat wave continues in the Bay Area and elsewhere in the state.

KCBS reporter Holly Quan is in the East Bay and said temperatures there are expected to hit triple-digits again today.

Power regulators admit that in places like Oakley and Livermore people are not expected to turn off air conditioners but they are being asked to increase conservation everywhere else. If that does not happened there are worries about being able to meet the energy demands today.

A record 52,000 megawatts of use are expected to strain the power system today.

Independent System Operator spokesman Greg Fishman says typically people are asked to set the thermostat at 78-degrees. "Today, because the situation is as critical as we think it's going to be, we need people to set those thermostats a little bit higher today if possible, up to 82-degrees. And what that means is yeah, you're going to be a little bit warmer in your home and business. Your air conditioner is not going to cycle on as much as that's where you get the savings in energy," Fishman said.

That edge of conservation could help prevent rolling power outages later in the afternoon.

Thousands of customers in the South Bay remain without electricity because of outages blamed on the high heat.

KCBS reporter Matt Bigler in Sunnyvale said there are more than 50,000 people without power to their homes this morning.

One of the hardest hit areas was an entire mobile home park where residents learned to make do.

"Some of my neighbors camped out on their patios for the night to get the fresh air, which was still really hot but better than inside of our homes, which definitely retain the heat," said one mobile home park resident.

Community centers with air conditioning have been set up again to house residents wishing and needing to escape the heat.

The power outages are blamed on power equipment that overheats.

Stagnant, gray air throughout the Bay Area has prompted air regulators to declare another Spare the Air alert for the fifth consecutive day.

The financial incentive to take mass transit evaporated days ago, and transportation officials expected compliance to be low for the ninth Spare the Air day of the season.

“We don't live in a fantasy land here,” Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesman Randy Rentschler told KCBS reporter Tim Ryan. “We've blown through our budget twice over what we ever expected.”

Initial funding supported only three free ride days on mass transit, all of them used in June. The MTC and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District scraped together funds for a few more days, used up earlier this week.

Even little choices can make a big difference, said Mark Ross, a spokesman for the air district. He intended to ride his bike to work on Monday.

posted July 31, 2006 01:55 PM            

Monday , July 31, 2006

WASHINGTON — Britain and California are preparing to sidestep the Bush administration and fight global warming together by creating a joint market for greenhouse gases.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plan to lay the groundwork for a new trans-Atlantic market in carbon dioxide emissions, The Associated Press has learned. Such a move could help California cut carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases scientists blame for warming the planet. President Bush has rejected the idea of ordering such cuts.

Blair and Schwarzenegger were expected to announce their collaboration Monday afternoon in Los Angeles, according to documents provided by British government officials on condition of anonymity because the announcement was forthcoming.

The aim is to fix a price on carbon pollution, an unwanted byproduct of burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gasoline. The idea is to set overall caps for carbon and reward businesses that find a profitable way to minimize their carbon emissions, thereby encouraging new, greener technologies.

Monday's meeting was being hosted by Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group, and Lord John Browne, chairman of British Petroleum. British and American business leaders planned to use it to also discuss other ways of accelerating use of low-carbon technologies.

The world's only mandatory carbon trading program is in Europe. Created in conjunction with the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty that took effect last year, it caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from power plants and factories in more than two dozen countries.

Companies can trade rights to pollute directly with each other or through exchanges located around Europe as long as the cap is met. Canada, one of more than 160 nations that signed Kyoto, plans a similar program.

Although the United States is one of the few industrialized nations that haven't signed the treaty, some Eastern states are developing a regional cap-and-trade program. And some U.S. companies have voluntarily agreed to cap their carbon pollution as part of a new Chicago-based market.

A main target of the agreement between Britain and California is the carbon from cars, trucks and other modes of transportation. Transportation accounts for an estimated 41 percent of California's greenhouse gas emissions and 28 percent of Britain's.

Schwarzenegger has called on California to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010. California was the 12th largest source of greenhouse gases in the world last year, bigger than most nations.

Blair has called on Britain to reduce carbon emissions to 60 percent of its 1990 levels by 2050. Britain also has been looking at imposing individual limits on carbon pollution. People who accumulate unused carbon allowances — for example, by driving less, or switching to less polluting vehicles — could sell them to people who exceed their allowances — for example by driving more.

Bush has resisted Blair's efforts to make carbon reduction a top international priority. After taking office, Bush reversed a 2000 campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, then withdrew U.S. support from the Kyoto treaty requiring industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse gases to below 1990 levels.

posted July 31, 2006 02:12 PM            

July 30, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(CBS) This story originally aired on March 19, 2006.

As a government scientist, James Hansen is taking a risk. He says there are things the White House doesn't want you to hear but he's going to say them anyway.

Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He's the head of NASA's top institute studying the climate. But as correspondent Scott Pelley first reported last spring, this imminent scientist says that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science.

But he didn't hold back speaking to Pelley, telling 60 Minutes what he knows.

Asked if he believes the administration is censoring what he can say to the public, Hansen says: "Or they're censoring whether or not I can say it. I mean, I say what I believe if I'm allowed to say it."

What James Hansen believes is that global warming is accelerating. He points to the melting arctic and to Antarctica, where new data show massive losses of ice to the sea.

Is it fair to say at this point that humans control the climate? Is that possible?

"There's no doubt about that, says Hansen. "The natural changes, the speed of the natural changes is now dwarfed by the changes that humans are making to the atmosphere and to the surface."

Those human changes, he says, are driven by burning fossil fuels that pump out greenhouse gases like CO2, carbon dioxide. Hansen has a theory that man has just 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases before global warming reaches what he calls a tipping point and becomes unstoppable. He says the White House is blocking that message.

"In my more than three decades in the government I've never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public," says Hansen.

Restrictions like an e-mail Hansen's institute received from NASA in 2004. "… there is a new review process … ," the e-mail read. "The White House (is) now reviewing all climate related press releases," it continued.

Why the scrutiny of Hansen's work? Well, his Goddard Institute for Space Studies is the source of respected but sobering research on warming. It recently announced 2005 was the warmest year on record. Hansen started at NASA more than 30 years ago, spending nearly all that time studying the earth. How important is his work? 60 Minutes asked someone at the top, Ralph Cicerone, president of the nation’s leading institute of science, the National Academy of Sciences.

"I can't think of anybody who I would say is better than Hansen. You might argue that there's two or three others as good, but nobody better," says Cicerone.

And Cicerone, who’s an atmospheric chemist, said the same thing every leading scientist told 60 Minutes.

"Climate change is really happening," says Cicerone.

Asked what is causing the changes, Cicernone says it's greenhouse gases: "Carbon dioxide and methane, and chlorofluorocarbons and a couple of others, which are all — the increases in their concentrations in the air are due to human activities. It's that simple."

But if it is that simple, why do some climate science reports look like they have been heavily edited at the White House? With science labeled "not sufficiently reliable." It’s a tone of scientific uncertainty the president set in his first months in office after he pulled out of a global treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"We do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future," President Bush said in 2001, speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House. "We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it."

Annoyed by the ambiguity, Hansen went public a year and a half ago, saying this about the Bush administration in a talk at the University of Iowa: "I find a willingness to listen only to those portions of scientific results that fit predetermined inflexible positions. This, I believe, is a recipe for environmental disaster."

Since then, NASA has been keeping an eye on Hansen. NASA let Pelley sit down with him but only with a NASA representative taping the interview. Other interviews have been denied.

"I object to the fact that I’m not able to freely communicate via the media," says Hansen. "National Public Radio wanted to interview me and they were told they would need to interview someone at NASA headquarters and the comment was made that they didn’t want Jim Hansen going on the most liberal media in America. So I don’t think that kind of decision should be made on that kind of basis. I think we should be able to communicate the science."

Politically, Hansen calls himself an independent and he’s had trouble with both parties. He says, from time to time, the Clinton administration wanted to hear warming was worse that it was. But Hansen refused to spin the science that way.

"Should we be simply doing our science and reporting it rigorously, or to what degree the administration in power has the right to assume that you should be a spokesman for the administration?" asks Hansen. "I've tried to be a straight scientist doing the science and reporting it as best I can."

Dozens of federal agencies report science but much of it is edited at the White House before it is sent to Congress and the public. It appears climate science is edited with a heavy hand. Drafts of climate reports were co-written by Rick Piltz for the federal Climate Change Science Program. But Piltz says his work was edited by the White House to make global warming seem less threatening.

"The strategy of people with a political agenda to avoid this issue is to say there is so much to study way upstream here that we can’t even being to discuss impacts and response strategies," says Piltz. "There’s too much uncertainty. It's not the climate scientists that are saying that, its lawyers and politicians."

Piltz worked under the Clinton and Bush administrations. Each year, he helped write a report to Congress called "Our Changing Planet."

Piltz says he is responsible for editing the report and sending a review draft to the White House.

Asked what happens, Piltz says: "It comes back with a large number of edits, handwritten on the hard copy by the chief-of-staff of the Council on Environmental Quality."

Asked who the chief of staff is, Piltz says, "Phil Cooney."

Piltz says Cooney is not a scientist. "He's a lawyer. He was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, before going into the White House," he says.

Cooney, the former oil industry lobbyist, became chief-of-staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Piltz says Cooney edited climate reports in his own hand. In one report, a line that said earth is undergoing rapid change becomes “may be undergoing change.” “Uncertainty” becomes “significant remaining uncertainty.” One line that says energy production contributes to warming was just crossed out.

"He was obviously passing it through a political screen," says Piltz. "He would put in the word potential or may or weaken or delete text that had to do with the likely consequence of climate change, pump up uncertainty language throughout."

In a report, Piltz says Cooney added this line “… the uncertainties remain so great as to preclude meaningfully informed decision making. …” References to human health are marked out. 60 Minutes obtained the drafts from the Government Accountability Project. This edit made it into the final report: the phrase “earth may be” undergoing change made it into the report to Congress. Piltz says there wasn’t room at the White House for those who disagreed, so he resigned.

"Even to raise issues internally is immediately career limiting," says Piltz. "That’s why you will find not too many people in the federal agencies who will speak freely about all the things they know, unless they’re retired or unless they’re ready to resign."

Jim Hansen isn't retiring or resigning because he believes earth is nearing a point of no return. He urged 60 Minutes to look north to the arctic, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the world. When 60 Minutes visited Greenland this past August, we saw for ourselves the accelerating melt of the largest ice sheet in the north.

"Here in Greenland about 15 years ago the ice sheet extended to right about where I'm standing now, but today, its back there, between those two hills in the shaded area. Glaciologists call this a melt stream but, these days, its a more like a melt river," Pelley said, standing at the edge of Greenland's ice sheet.

The Bush administration doesn’t deny global warming or that man plays a role. The administration is spending billions of dollars on climate research. Hansen gives the White House credit for research but says what’s urgent now is action.

"We have to, in the next 10 years, get off this exponential curve and begin to decrease the rate of growth of CO2 emissions," Hansen explains. "And then flatten it out. And before we get to the middle of the century, we’ve got to be on a declining curve.

"If that doesn't happen in 10 years, then I don’t think we can keep global warming under one degree Celsius and that means we’re going to, that there’s a great danger of passing some of these tipping points. If the ice sheets begin to disintegrate, what can you do about it? You can’t tie a rope around the ice sheet. You can’t build a wall around the ice sheets. It will be a situation that is out of our control."

But that's not a situation you'll find in one federal report submitted for review. Government scientists wanted to tell you about the ice sheets, but before a draft of the report left the White House, the paragraph on glacial melt and flooding was crossed out and this was added: "straying from research strategy into speculative findings and musings here."

Hansen says his words were edited once during a presentation when a top official scolded him for using the word danger.

"I think we know a lot more about the tipping points," says Hansen. "I think we know about the dangers of even a moderate degree of additional global warming about the potential effects in the arctic about the potential effects on the ice sheets."

"You just used that word again that you’re not supposed to use — danger," Pelley remarks.

"Yeah. It’s a danger," Hansen says.

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60 Minutes wanted to speak with the president's science advisor, John Marberger, but after making requests to his office over several months, his director of communications Don Tighe told 60 Minutes Marberger would never be available.

posted August 02, 2006 11:21 AM            

Rare, mother-of-pearl colored clouds caused by extreme weather conditions above Antarctica are a possible indication of global warming, Australian scientists said on Tuesday.

Known as nacreous clouds, the spectacular formations showing delicate wisps of colors were photographed in the sky over an Australian meteorological base at Mawson Station on July 25.

Australian Antarctic Division scientist Andrew Klekociuk said such clouds are occasionally produced by air rising over Arctic and Antarctic mountains in high polar latitudes during winter.

"You have to be in the right part of the world in winter, and have the sun just below your horizon to see them," he said.

Nacreous clouds can only form in temperatures lower than minus 80 degrees Celsius (minus 112 Fahrenheit).

Meteorologist Renae Baker said a weather balloon in the vicinity of the clouds in the stratosphere about 20 km (12 miles) above the Earth's surface measured temperatures as low as minus 87 Centigrade (minus 124.6 F).

"That's about as cold as the lowest temperatures ever recorded on the surface of the Earth," Baker, who photographed the clouds, said in a statement.

Klekociuk said the rarely seen clouds, also known as polar stratospheric clouds, were more than just a curiosity.

"They reveal extreme conditions in the atmosphere, and promote chemical changes that lead to destruction of vital stratospheric ozone," he said.

Klekociuk said temperatures in the stratosphere, between 8 and 50 km (5-31 miles) above Earth, would be expected to drop as global warming increases. Data collected over the past 25 years had reflected this, he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"Over that time there has been a small decrease in temperature and that change is actually occurring faster than the warming at the surface of the Earth," he said.

The delicate cloud colors are created at sunset when fading light passes through tiny water-ice crystals blown along on strong jets of stratospheric air.

She said winds at the same height were measured blowing at almost 230 km/h (143 mph).