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UNITED NATIONS May. 10 (UPI) -- A former chief of the U.N. World Health Organization who also is a former prime minister of Norway and a medical doctor has declared an end to the climate-change debate. Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, one of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's three new special envoys on climate change, also headed up the 1987 U.N. World Commission on Environment and Development where the concept of sustainable development was first floated. "This discussion is behind us. It's over," she told reporters. "The diagnosis is clear, the science is unequivocal -- it's completely immoral, even, to question now,...

Democrats said Wednesday an Interior Department official who pressured government scientists to alter their research was just one example of a larger problem. Julie MacDonald resigned last week as deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks after the department's inspector general said she bullied federal scientists and improperly leaked information about endangered species to private groups. Democrats welcomed MacDonald's departure, but accused the administration of abdicating its responsibility to protect endangered species. "This is an agency that seems focused on one goal: weakening the law by administrative fiat, and it is doing much of the work shrouded from public...

The Faithful Heretic A Wisconsin Icon Pursues Tough Questions Some people are lucky enough to enjoy their work, some are lucky enough to love it, and then there’s Reid Bryson. At age 86, he’s still hard at it every day, delving into the science some say he invented. Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of...

Cataclysmic volcanic eruptions in Greenland and the British Isles brought on a destructive bout of global warming 55 million years ago, an international study revealed Thursday. The eruptions also separated Greenland from Europe by giving birth to the North Atlantic Ocean, said the study in the April 26 issue of Science. The findings are important 55 million years after the fact, because the volcanic activity released large amounts of methane and carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures followed -- just as scientists warn is happening today. And the release of these so-called greenhouse gases had the effect scientists today fear, of...

H aven't we heard enough from Al Gore, the U.S. windbag turned Hollywood celebrity who presumes to lecture Canadians on their environmental responsibilities? The failed U.S. presidential candidate spends a lot of time in Canada, perhaps because he finds it fertile ground for self-enrichment. The multi-millionaire with a carbon footprint the size of a Sasquatch was in Toronto at the weekend, preening himself among adoring fans. He was introducing a showing of his Oscar-winning movie An Inconvenient Truth, that apocalyptic vision of a world in meltdown that has earned him the soubriquet of "the world's most famous environmentalist." Gore, whose...

In a couple of hundred years historians will be comparing the frenzies over our supposed human contribution to global warming to the tumults at the latter end of the tenth century as the Christian millennium approached. Then as now, the doomsters identified human sinfulness as the propulsive factor in the planet's rapid downward slide. Then as now, a buoyant market throve on fear. The Roman Catholic Church sold indulgences like checks. The sinners established a line of credit against bad behavior and could go on sinning. Today a world market in "carbon credits" is in formation. Those whose "carbon footprint"...

This week at the University of Massachusetts, students and faculty are invited to attend a lecture with esteemed clinician, researcher and author Colin A. Ross about the psychological effects of mind control experiments. Ross will give a talk on Wednesday, May 2, called "CIA Mind Control Experiments by American Psychiatrists: Creation of Multiple Personality Disorder in the Manchurian Candidate Programs." The founder and president of the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma, Ross is well-known for treating patients for multiple personality disorder and associated trauma disorders, including depression, self-mutilation and suicide at Timberlawn Mental Health System of Dallas, Texas....

Prison to Limit Inmates Toilet Paper HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) _ The state prison at Hutchinson is trying to trim its budget by limiting inmates to four rolls of toilet paper each month. Officials say the prison has long had a limit but it hadn't been enforced. This week the warden set a monthly limit of four rolls, a number set by the Kansas Department of Corrections. Inmates also get three bars of hand soap, one tube of toothpaste and one comb each month. An inmate said in a letter to the Hutchinson News that toilet paper has many uses in...

BARMY Euro MPs are demanding new laws to stop cows and sheep PARPING. Their call came after the UN said livestock emissions were a bigger threat to the planet than transport.

As the saga continues, we've got yet another flip-flopped story rolling through in regard to the toxicity (or not) of cellphones to our environment. Just under a fortnight ago, a report based on an (admittedly lacking) research study claimed that Colony Collapse Disorder within bees was being encouraged by cellphone radiation. As expected, the researchers began living a life filled with Q&A sessions about the data, and now the "truth" is coming out. Essentially, the scientists are claiming that their data was "misinterpreted," and that the study actually looked at DECT phones and base stations, which transmit a "different frequency...

Junk Science: Light Bulb Lunacy Thursday , April 26, 2007 By Steven Milloy How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb? About $4.28 for the bulb and labor — unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about $2,004.28, which doesn’t include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health. Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favor of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) — a move already either adopted or being considered in California,...

Save Our Climate Act would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Representative Pete Stark (D-CA), a senior member of the Committee on Ways and Means with jurisdiction over U.S. tax policy, today introduced the Save Our Climate Act. This legislation would impose a tax on carbon-based fossil fuels to slow climate change.“The question is not if human activity is responsible for global climate change, but how the United States will respond,” said Stark. “Predictable, transparent and universal, a carbon tax is a simple solution to a difficult problem. It would drastically reduce our carbon dioxide...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The peak of the next sunspot cycle is expected in late 2011 or mid-2012 -- potentially affecting airline flights, communications satellites and electrical transmissions. But forecasters can't agree on how intense it will be. A 12-member panel charged with forecasting the solar cycle said Wednesday it is evenly split over whether the peak will be 90 sunspots or 140 sunspots. The government's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado, tracks space weather and forecasts its changes, which can affect millions of dollars worth of activities such as oil drilling, car navigation systems and astronauts. Half of the specialists...

Without exactly being like Mike, Sen. John McCain yesterday join-ed Mayor Bloomberg in calling global warming a reality to be dealt with by weaning the U.S. off Mideast oil. "The world is already feeling the powerful effects of global warming," McCain said in calling for caps on carbon emissions, and "the problem isn't some Hollywood invention." The Arizona Republican did not directly address Bloomberg's environmental plan, which includes $8 tolls on cars south of 86th St. But a McCain spokesman said the mayor and the senator were in sync on facing up to a greenhouse gas effect that many in...

I can’t help passing along this passage from Wednesday’s Variety: Cathy Schulman has made her first hires and promotions as president of Mandalay Pictures and Mandalay Independent Pictures. A highlight of the Mandalay Pictures’ slate at Universal is the remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” scheduled to be in production by early fall. “We think we have a very contemporary take,” Schulman said. “In the original, the birds just showed up, and it was kind of like, why are the birds here? This time, there’s a reason why they’re here and (people) have had something to do with it. There’s...

The Global Warming Myth? The End Is Not Near -- Instead of Panicking Over Climate Change, Learn to Adjust to It By JOHN STOSSEL April 20, 2007 — - The heavy breathing over global warming is enough to terrify anyone. Last week the Washington Post interviewed a 9-year-old who said the Earth is "just starting to fade away." In 20 years there will be "no oxygen" he said, and he'll be dead. The Post went on to say that "for many children and young adults, global warming is…defining their generation." How sad. Thirty-six years of consumer reporting have taught...

April 18, 2007 — The debate over whether global warming affects hurricanes may be running into some unexpected turbulence. Many researchers believe warming is causing the storms to get stronger, while others aren't so sure. Now, a new study raises the possibility that global warming might even make it harder for hurricanes to form. The findings, by Gabriel A. Vecchi of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Brian J. Soden of the University of Miami, are reported in Wednesday's issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Vecchi and Soden used 18 complex computer climate models to anticipate the effects of warming...

A new tree line Apr 12th 2007 A climate model suggests that chopping down the Earth's trees would help fight global warming TREES are good. Good enough to hug. Trees have a nifty biochemical strategy called photosynthesis that enables them to take carbon dioxide in through their leaves, and swap that nasty gas for oxygen, a nice one. They use the carbon thus sequestered to make molecules like cellulose, and thus more tree. That is why some rich people who love to burn things containing carbon, such as petrol and aircraft fuel, have recently started paying others to plant trees...

IT MAY SEEM to be the Robin Hood of bills -- rob the rich bad SUV owners to give to the poor virtuous hybrid owners -- but AB493, the brainchild of Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, is far more than that. In fact, it's one of the first bills to show how market-based mechanisms might be successfully employed in the fight on global warming. The bill's long list of co-sponsors -- which includes the pro-business Silicon Valley Leadership Group as well as the usual environmental suspects -- should include the governor. One of the...

April 10, 2007 — Planting new trees in snow-covered northern regions may actually contribute to global warming as they have the counter-effect of tropical forests, according to a study out Monday. While rainforests help cool the planet by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing clouds that reflect sunlight, the dark canopy of Canadian, Scandinavian and Siberian forests catches sunrays that would be reflected back to space by the snow, the study said. The study, published Monday in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that reforestation projects in the tropics would help mitigate global warming,...