Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 02/09/2008 9:21:05 AM PST by yoe
When Scott and I wrote "The Global Warming Hoax" in 1992, a group of Danish scientists had just published a paper that compared solar energy output (as measured by sunspot activity) to global temperatures, and found a striking correlation. No surprise there: just about all energy on earth comes from the Sun. (Investors' Business Daily) recalls that research and notes that the Sun has been quiet lately:
Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.
Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.
This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.
[Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council] reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere. ***
R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales."
Patterson, sharing Tapping's concern, says: "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth."
I suspect that many global warming alarmists are well aware that time is running out for them. If nothing is done and global temperatures decline in coming years--as they inevitably will, the only question is when--the alarmists will have been refuted. On the other hand, if they succeed in pushing through industry-destroying caps on carbon emissions around the world, and especially here in the U.S., they will take credit for the cooling when it comes, claiming it as vindication of their theories.
In that context, the 2008 election shapes up as very important. I don't worry too much about John McCain's acknowledged lack of economic expertise, as his instincts on the economy are generally conservative. But McCain badly needs to educate himself on the debate currently raging over the climate. "Global warming" represents the Left's most ambitious power grab since the fall of Communism, and if a Republican President doesn't stand it its way, who will?
If McCain is looking for a sensible energy policy, he might start with these recommendations from the (Science and Environmental Policy Project):
"Our policy recommendation is to phase out natural gas (methane) for electric power generation (now about 20% in US and 40% in UK), replace it with coal/nuclear, and use gas as a clean transportation fuel (in the form of Compressed Natural Gas -- CNG) for buses, trucks, and all fleet vehicles. In the US case it would cut oil imports by 30%. Further cuts would come from the use of plug-in and hybrid-electric cars."
There is lots of good work being done in climate science, a discipline that is still in its infancy. There are also plenty of creative proposals for how to address our energy needs. But if the Republican Party mindlessly signs on to the fake-science of anthropogenic global warming, those ideas will never see the light of day. Someone please get the word to John McCain.
I’d like to see McCain reject the idea of cap and trade.
It’s my opinion that McCain (if he were president) would pull a Bill Clinton with respect to global warming.... which is to say that he’d talk a good game about it, but not do anything about it. Which is probably the best thing.
It’s now about “Global weather change” so keep worrying.
Regards
I hoping that McCain’s stance on the issue of global warming is only McCain political lying at his best. He’s saying what he thinks people want to hear to win votes but won’t go through with it.
I hope he listens to some serious scientists and economists before he does anything stupid and Gore-like.
ping
bookmark for later.
Anecdotally here in Colorado our past 2 winters have been very cold - below average temperatures. So far this winter our snowfall has been 140% of normal. I don’t know if this is a sign of anything.
Exactly.
Shazaam! Who would have thought?
When I send this stuff to my GW lib acquaintances I get one of two responses. Either they ignore it or they send back blistering semi hysterical rants. Never any informed debate.
[Since 2000, according to published reports, the former veep has transformed himself from a public servant with around $1 million in the bank to a sparkling private consultant with a net worth estimated to be north of $100 million. He’s a senior adviser to Google, a board member at Apple and now a newly minted general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm that made billions investing early in Netscape, Amazon and Google. . .If Gore’s profit-sharing deal is anything like the firm’s other 23 partners, he’s also in line to collect tens of millions of dollars a year. That’s because partners carve up 30 percent of the profits if and when the alternative-energy start-ups that KP supports go public or are sold. . .]
“This whole thing has never been about science but about implementing a political agenda.”
And lining their pockets.
My first bike was a Schwabe.
These are solid facts, not fuzzy computer models.
For goodness sake, if you care about the environment... buy and SUV!! D’ya want us to freeze?
More people need to get this.
IMO, the global warming cultists, (led by Al Gore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain, George Soros, and many, many others) will do more damage to the United States as we know it than terrorism could ever hope to do.
The guy is married to cap-and-trade! He authored legislation for that monstrosity with McCain-Lieberman. He's carrying the water for the leftists and is leading the charge, publicly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.