Guess what? Sun warms Earth

[there buster]

From The National Post:

Four years ago, when I first started profiling scientists who were global warming skeptics, I soon learned two things: Solar scientists were overwhelmingly skeptical that humans caused climate change and, overwhelmingly, they were reluctant to go public with their views. Often, they refused to be quoted at all, saying they feared for their funding, or they feared other recriminations from climate scientists in the doomsayer camp. When the skeptics agreed to be quoted at all, they often hedged their statements, to give themselves wiggle room if accused of being a global warming denier. Scant few were outspoken about their skepticism.

No longer.

Scientists, and especially solar scientists, are becoming assertive. Maybe their newfound confidence stems from the Climategate emails, which cast doomsayer-scientists as frauds and diminished their standing within academia. Maybe their confidence stems from the avalanche of errors recently found in the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, destroying its reputation as a gold standard in climate science. Maybe the solar scientists are becoming assertive because the public no longer buys the doomsayer thesis, as seen in public opinion polls throughout the developed world. Whatever it was, solar scientists are increasingly conveying a clear message on the chief cause of climate change: It’s the Sun, Stupid.

Jeff Kuhn, a rising star at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, is one of the most recent scientists to go public, revealing in press releases this month that solar scientists worldwide are on a mission to show that the Sun drives Earth’s climate. “As a scientist who knows the data, I simply can’t accept [the claim that man plays a dominant role in Earth’s climate],” he states.

Kuhn’s team, which includes solar scientists from Stanford University and Brazil as well as from his own institute, last week announced a startling breakthrough — evidence that the Sun does not change much in size, as had previously been believed. This week, in announcing the award of a ¤60,000 Humboldt Prize for Kuhn’s solar excellence, his institute issued a release stating that its research into sunspots “may ultimately help us predict how and when a changing sun affects Earth’s climate.”

Earlier this month, the link between solar activity and climate made headlines throughout Europe after space scientists from the U.K., Germany and South Korea linked the recent paucity of sunspots to the cold weather that Europe has been experiencing. This period of spotlessness, the scientists predicted in a study published in Environmental Research Letters, could augur a repeat of winters comparable to those of the Little Ice Age in the 1600s, during which the Sun was often free of sunspots. By comparing temperatures in Europe since 1659 to highs and lows in solar activity in the same years, the scientists discovered that low solar activity generally corresponded to cold winters. Could this centuries-long link between the Sun and Earth’s climate have been a matter of chance? “There is less than a 1% probability that the result was obtained by chance,” asserts Mike Lockwood of the University of Reading in the U.K., the study’s lead author.

Solar scientists widely consider the link between the Sun and Earth’s climate incontrovertible. When bodies such the IPCC dismiss solar science’s contribution to understanding Earth’s climate out of hand, solar scientists no longer sit on their hands. Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Institute stated that the IPCC was “probably totally wrong” to dismiss the significance of the sun, which in 2009 would likely have the most spotless days in a century. As for claims from the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers who argue that periods of extreme heat or cold were regional in scope, not global, Svensmark cites the Medieval Warm Period, a prosperous period of very high solar activity around the year 1000: “It was a time when frosts in May were almost unknown — a matter of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North America. On the whole it was a good time. For example, China’s population doubled in this period.”

The Medieval Warm Period, many solar scientists believe, was warmer than today, and the Roman Warm Period, around the time of Christ, was warmer still. Compelling new evidence to support his view came just in March from the Saskatchewan Isotope Laboratory at the University of Saskatchewan and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the authors for the first time document seasonal temperature variations in the North Atlantic over a 2,000-year period, from 360 BC to about 1660 AD. Their technique — involving measurements of oxygen and carbon isotopes captured in mollusk shells — confirmed that the Roman Period was the warmest in the past two millennia.

Among solar scientists, there are a great many theories about how the Sun influences climate. Some will especially point to sunspots, others to the Sun’s magnetic field, others still to the Sun’s influence on cosmic rays which, in turn, affect cloud cover. There is as yet no answer to how the Sun affects Earth’s climate. All that now seems sure is that the Sun does play an outsized role and that the Big Chill on freedom of expression that scientists once faced when discussing global warming is becoming a Big Thaw.

[doug yowell]

Maybe our carbon emissions cause the sun to shine hotter! Unless we do something, we could destroy the whole solar system.

[karl]

I fear that the truth about cyclic sun-induced global cooling and warming may confuse those who have bought into the Al Gore Rhythm n' Blues Band liberal mantra of man-made global warming.

It may be that a confused liberal is more dangerous than a deceived one.

[Bravus]

There's this concept in science called 'multiple causes'. No thoughtful scientist is saying 'the sun has nothing to do with heating the earth', or denying that it tends to wax and wane in its heat output. NOAA has even calculated the effects of those processes. And it turns out they contribute around 40% of the observed warming. It would be stupid to claim that wasn't so. It also would not be too smart not to wonder what accounts for the other 60%...

[karl]

There's this concept in science called 'multiple causes'. No thoughtful scientist is saying 'the sun has nothing to do with heating the earth', or denying that it tends to wax and wane in its heat output. NOAA has even calculated the effects of those processes. And it turns out they contribute around 40% of the observed warming. It would be stupid to claim that wasn't so. It also would not be too smart not to wonder what accounts for the other 60%...

Actually, the whole greenhouse gas thing is claiming that the sun causes nearly 100% of earth's warming and that man-made carbon emissions increase the effectiveness of this warming.

In order to come to this conclusion Al Gore and his acolytes must conveniently ignore the truth that man-made contributions to atmospheric greenhouse gases are miniscule.

In order to further come to the conclusion that global warming is bad and that the whole world's economy must be body-slammed in order to "save us," Al and company must ignore the historical evidence of the BENEFITS of global warming.

[Bravus]

Manmade contributions to atmospheric greenhouse gases are something like a 30% increase in CO2 over the past 50 years, and an almost tripling (300%) of methane concentration over the past century. 'miniscule'

[karl]

Manmade contributions to atmospheric greenhouse gases are something like a 30% increase in CO2 over the past 50 years, and an almost tripling (300%) of methane concentration over the past century. 'miniscule'

It doesn't matter that you triple miniscule, Bravus.

Man-made contribution to greenhouse gas is about 0.28%.

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect. Interestingly, many "facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impact as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activites contribute only slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. These emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources which we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have an extremely small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

Shall we wreck our economy for this? We'd be better off trying to stop volcanoes from erupting.

[bonnie]

Manmade contributions to atmospheric greenhouse gases are something like a 30% increase in CO2 over the past 50 years, and an almost tripling (300%) of methane concentration over the past century. 'miniscule'

Just wait.Cap and Trade will take care of much of the methene gas. When they tax farmers and ranchers 129.00 per head per year they will release much less

[doug yowell]

.

It may be that a confused liberal is more dangerous than a deceived one.

A redundancy,I'm afraid.

[BobRyan]

Maybe our carbon emissions cause the sun to shine hotter! Unless we do something, we could destroy the whole solar system.

How true. After all there are 6.8Billion of us and only ONE sun. And if you add in all of our cows!! Well the sun aint got no chance 'tall!!

But - let is get down to the fine tuning mechanism here - everyone knows that if you increase gravitational force - you increase the rate of 'burn' in the sun. Now with 6.8 billion humans AND all of our cows not only heating up our own planet - but also weighing down the solar system!! Well as you know - the "Center of gravity" principle allows us to treat all the gravitational effect of a complex structure or system as if it were centered at a single point. Guess where that point is in our solar system?

Yep! you got it - it is the sun! --- We are all increasing the suns gravitational field and thus increasing the fission/fusion burn rate - making the sun hotter and blowing up our entire solar system "that much faster"!!.

It is "science" my friends - and "science" says "we got big troubles - right here in river city"!!

[BobRyan]

Manmade contributions to atmospheric greenhouse gases are something like a 30% increase in CO2 over the past 50 years, and an almost tripling (300%) of methane concentration over the past century. 'miniscule'

[BobRyan]

Originally Posted By: Bravus

Manmade contributions to atmospheric greenhouse gases are something like a 30% increase in CO2 over the past 50 years, and an almost tripling (300%) of methane concentration over the past century. 'miniscule'

It doesn't matter that you triple miniscule, Bravus.

Man-made contribution to greenhouse gas is about 0.28%.

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect. Interestingly, many "facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impact as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activites contribute only slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. These emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources which we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have an extremely small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

Shall we wreck our economy for this? We'd be better off trying to stop volcanoes from erupting.

All good numbers of course - but haven't you heard? We also cause volcanoes to erupt in Iceland!! Yes! it is that bad!

As the warm humans, human machines and their warm C02 and methane prolific livestock heat up the earth - they directly cause the ice sheets in Iceland to melt. As that ice pack on top of those volcanoes melts - the cap-pressure on the volcano is lessened by virtue of the runnoff water - which allows the volcano to erupt - which then reverses our weather to a colder temp - which throws us back into a mini-ice age eventually - (if the volcanos erupting do not first blow up our planet (of course).

So to get to your ending point - "yes" we should be trying to stop those volcanoes!

[karl]

All good numbers of course - but haven't you heard? We also cause volcanoes to erupt in Iceland!! Yes! it is that bad!....

So to get to your ending point - "yes" we should be trying to stop those volcanoes!

At what point do we as Christians believe that the God who created this earth ex nihilo also sustains and protects it, and us?

What will it take for liberal environmentalists (some within our own church) to get off the misinterpretation of Revelation 11:18 and realize that this is talking about God (Who does the destroying) destroying the earth to cleanse it of sinners.

[doug yowell]

Originally Posted By: Bravus

Manmade contributions to atmospheric greenhouse gases are something like a 30% increase in CO2 over the past 50 years, and an almost tripling (300%) of methane concentration over the past century. 'miniscule'

Just wait.Cap and Trade will take care of much of the methene gas. When they tax farmers and ranchers 129.00 per head per year they will release much less

Bonnie, I think you've found the real problem."The cattle on a thousand hills"!!

[abelisle]

I'm curious.

Do the "liberals" haters believe that the Earth is getting more polluted or is this just another political conspiracy of sorts?

If it is more polluted, and if the cause is primarily man-made, shouldn't this be a cause everyone can get behind?

I keep getting this bad feeling that we have failed to be good stewards when it comes to caring for the "Garden".

Alex (a self-admitted polluter)

[bonnie]

Quote:

Bonnie, I think you've found the real problem."The cattle on a thousand hills"!!

[doug yowell]

[]

129.00 per head will convince the cows not to release so much methene.That or the ranchers will put a bullet between the eyes and take care of it

Since those cattle on a thousand hills belong to God, and they're emmitting too much methane( I'm trying not to visualize this), He must be the one responsible, not humans!Save your bullets, pray harder, save the world!

[doug yowell]

I'm curious.

Do the "liberals" haters believe that the Earth is getting more polluted or is this just another political conspiracy of sorts?

If it is more polluted, and if the cause is primarily man-made, shouldn't this be a cause everyone can get behind?

I keep getting this bad feeling that we have failed to be good stewards when it comes to caring for the "Garden".

Alex (a self-admitted polluter)

Most liberal haters don't actually hate liberals, they just hate their ideas and the fact that liberals are always condemning those who disagree with them as being mean, evil people who hate other people. This is the main difference between the two groups. Conservatives think liberals are misguided. Liberals think conservatives are evil. It's a lot harder to hate someone who doesn't know what their doing than it is to hate someone who is intentionally doing something evil.Know what I mean,Alex? Pollution is a problem that doesn't threaten the world's existence. It can be addressed by some simple common sense solutions, in most cases, rather than yelling "the sky is falling".

[karl]

I'm curious.

Do the "liberals" haters believe that the Earth is getting more polluted or is this just another political conspiracy of sorts?

Alex(a self-admitted polluter)

A lot depends on how you define pollution. The fact that the anti-pollution crowd have seized upon CO2, which is not a pollutant, as their major thrust, means that their pollution bag-o-tricks is not really bulging.

Truth is that infectious diseases are far more of a problem than pollution, and these will be made worse by the diminishment of standard of living which will happen in the scaling back of industrialization desired by environmentalists. But, diseases rid the world of humans and this is actually appealing to many environmentalists. Anti-pollution efforts have handcufffed the effort to eliminate one horrible infectious disease (malaria - responsible for a million deaths per year.)

[Bravus]

Problem here is that many different considerations are all being mixed up together, in a way that is unhelpful. Based on the original post, I see the purpose of this thread as being discussion of the science of human-caused climate change.

Mixing in the politics and economics is unhelpful. Regardless of what we decide to do about it, there is a true answer to whether humans are causing climate change or not.

I believe cap-and-trade is a terrible approach to dealing with this problem. There are far better approaches. At the same time, I recognise rhetoric about liberals whose goal is the destruction of economies as the arrant nonsense it is. But all that political stuff is irrelevant to the science of what is actually happening.

karl, you have mixed up 'greenhouse effect' and 'enhanced greenhouse effect'. It's absolutely true that, without the greenhouse effect, there would likely not be life on Earth. It would be a bit warmer than the -60 C (-76 F) surface temperature of Mars, because we're bigger and closer to the sun, but not much. The greenhouse effect enables earth to retain enough heat to keep water liquid and life livable. That greenhouse effect is a Good Thing.

The 'enhanced greenhouse effect' is any unbalancing of the energy balance of the earth such that instead of maintaining a constant range of temperatures, it begins to increase average temperatures (while still experiencing a wide range). The evidence is pretty strong that that is occurring, and that that is caused by human actions. If you're looking to debate that evidence, you need to understand it clearly, and make the case clearly - and mixing it up with either the 'normal' greenhouse effect or politics is unhelpful.

[phkrause]

Problem here is that many different considerations are all being mixed up together, in a way that is unhelpful. Based on the original post, I see the purpose of this thread as being discussion of the science of human-caused climate change.

Mixing in the politics and economics is unhelpful. Regardless of what we decide to do about it, there is a true answer to whether humans are causing climate change or not.

I believe cap-and-trade is a terrible approach to dealing with this problem. There are far better approaches. At the same time, I recognise rhetoric about liberals whose goal is the destruction of economies as the arrant nonsense it is. But all that political stuff is irrelevant to the science of what is actually happening.

karl, you have mixed up 'greenhouse effect' and 'enhanced greenhouse effect'. It's absolutely true that, without the greenhouse effect, there would likely not be life on Earth. It would be a bit warmer than the -60 C (-76 F) surface temperature of Mars, because we're bigger and closer to the sun, but not much. The greenhouse effect enables earth to retain enough heat to keep water liquid and life livable. That greenhouse effect is a Good Thing.

The 'enhanced greenhouse effect' is any unbalancing of the energy balance of the earth such that instead of maintaining a constant range of temperatures, it begins to increase average temperatures (while still experiencing a wide range). The evidence is pretty strong that that is occurring, and that that is caused by human actions. If you're looking to debate that evidence, you need to understand it clearly, and make the case clearly - and mixing it up with either the 'normal' greenhouse effect or politics is unhelpful.

Excellent post Bravus. I think people give Al Gore to much credit and power, the guy is a nothing in my book, and what ever he says should go in one ear and out the other.

pk

[karl]

karl, you have mixed up 'greenhouse effect' and 'enhanced greenhouse effect'. It's absolutely true that, without the greenhouse effect, there would likely not be life on Earth. It would be a bit warmer than the -60 C (-76 F) surface temperature of Mars, because we're bigger and closer to the sun, but not much. The greenhouse effect enables earth to retain enough heat to keep water liquid and life livable. That greenhouse effect is a Good Thing.

The 'enhanced greenhouse effect' is any unbalancing of the energy balance of the earth such that instead of maintaining a constant range of temperatures, it begins to increase average temperatures (while still experiencing a wide range). The evidence is pretty strong that that is occurring, and that that is caused by human actions. If you're looking to debate that evidence, you need to understand it clearly, and make the case clearly - and mixing it up with either the 'normal' greenhouse effect or politics is unhelpful.

Oh thank you so much for the lecture on the proper way to discuss this.

The OP points out something you are conveniently ignoring, Bravus. There are MANY top-drawer scientists who are quite certain that your conclusion and Al Gore's conclusion about man's contribution to global warming are either dead wrong or GROSSLY overblown.

Below is a small list of some of these scientists. These are men who were former believers but who switched on the basis of the evidence PRIOR to 2007. This was a difficult move for them due to funding and calumny from scientists still on the bandwagon (and on the payroll.) Many more scientists have switched now that the "climate" has changed.

Once Believers, Now Skeptics

Global warming author and economist Hans H.J. Labohm started out as a man-made global warming believer but he later switched his view after conducting climate research. Labohm wrote on August 19, 2006, “I started as a anthropogenic global warming believer, then I read the [uN’s IPCC] Summary for Policymakers and the research of prominent skeptics.” “After that, I changed my mind,” Labohn explained. Labohn co-authored the 2004 book “Man-Made Global Warming: Unraveling a Dogma,” with chemical engineer Dick Thoenes who was the former chairman of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society. Labohm was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “’Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise.’”

Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States, converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006. Allegre, who was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, now says the cause of climate change is "unknown" and accused the “prophets of doom of global warming” of being motivated by money, noting that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!" “Glaciers’ chronicles or historical archives point to the fact that climate is a capricious phenomena. This fact is confirmed by mathematical meteorological theories. So, let us be cautious,” Allegre explained in a September 21, 2006 article in the French newspaper L'EXPRESS. The National Post in Canada also profiled Allegre on March 2, 2007, noting “Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution.” Allegre now calls fears of a climate disaster "simplistic and obscuring the true dangers” mocks "the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man's role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters." Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.”

Geologist Bruno Wiskel of the University of Alberta recently reversed his view of man-made climate change and instead became a global warming skeptic. Wiskel was once such a big believer in man-made global warming that he set out to build a “Kyoto house” in honor of the UN sanctioned Kyoto Protocol which was signed in 1997. Wiskel wanted to prove that the Kyoto Protocol’s goals were achievable by people making small changes in their lives. But after further examining the science behind Kyoto, Wiskel reversed his scientific views completely and became such a strong skeptic, that he recently wrote a book titled “The Emperor's New Climate: Debunking the Myth of Global Warming.” A November 15, 2006 Edmonton Sun article explains Wiskel’s conversion while building his “Kyoto house”: “Instead, he said he realized global warming theory was full of holes and ‘red flags,’ and became convinced that humans are not responsible for rising temperatures.” Wiskel now says “the truth has to start somewhere.” Noting that the Earth has been warming for 18,000 years, Wiskel told the Canadian newspaper, “If this happened once and we were the cause of it, that would be cause for concern. But glaciers have been coming and going for billions of years." Wiskel also said that global warming has gone "from a science to a religion” and noted that research money is being funneled into promoting climate alarmism instead of funding areas he considers more worthy. "If you funnel money into things that can't be changed, the money is not going into the places that it is needed,” he said.

Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv, one of Israel's top young award winning scientists, recanted his belief that manmade emissions were driving climate change. ""Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. In fact, there is much more than meets the eye,” Shaviv said in February 2, 2007 Canadian National Post article. According to Shaviv, the C02 temperature link is only “incriminating circumstantial evidence.” "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming" and "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist,” Shaviv noted pointing to the impact cosmic- rays have on the atmosphere. According to the National Post, Shaviv believes that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100 "will not dramatically increase the global temperature." “Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant,” Shaviv explained. Shaviv also wrote on August 18, 2006 that a colleague of his believed that “CO2 should have a large effect on climate” so “he set out to reconstruct the phanerozoic temperature. He wanted to find the CO2 signature in the data, but since there was none, he slowly had to change his views.” Shaviv believes there will be more scientists converting to man-made global warming skepticism as they discover the dearth of evidence. “I think this is common to many of the scientists who think like us (that is, that CO2 is a secondary climate driver). Each one of us was working in his or her own niche. While working there, each one of us realized that things just don't add up to support the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) picture. So many had to change their views,” he wrote.

Mathematician & engineer Dr. David Evans, who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government, recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. “I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical,” Evans wrote in an April 30, 2007 blog. “But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker -- better temperature data for the last century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds,” Evans wrote. “As Lord Keynes famously said, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’” he added. Evans noted how he benefited from climate fears as a scientist. “And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990's, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed,” Evans wrote. “The pre-2000 ice core data was the central evidence for believing that atmospheric carbon caused temperature increases. The new ice core data shows that past warmings were *not* initially caused by rises in atmospheric carbon, and says nothing about the strength of any amplification. This piece of evidence casts reasonable doubt that atmospheric carbon had any role in past warmings, while still allowing the possibility that it had a supporting role,” he added. “Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. The science of global warming has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly supports carbon emissions as the cause of global warming, to the point of sometimes rubbishing or silencing critics,” he concluded. (Evans bio link )

Climate researcher Dr. Tad Murty, former Senior Research Scientist for Fisheries and Oceans in Canada, also reversed himself from believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. “I stated with a firm belief about global warming, until I started working on it myself,” Murty explained on August 17, 2006. “I switched to the other side in the early 1990's when Fisheries and Oceans Canada asked me to prepare a position paper and I started to look into the problem seriously,” Murty explained. Murty was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.”

Botanist Dr. David Bellamy, a famed UK environmental campaigner, former lecturer at Durham University and host of a popular UK TV series on wildlife, recently converted into a skeptic after reviewing the science and now calls global warming fears "poppycock." According to a May 15, 2005 article in the UK Sunday Times, Bellamy said “global warming is largely a natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.” “The climate-change people have no proof for their claims. They have computer models which do not prove anything,” Bellamy added. Bellamy’s conversion on global warming did not come without a sacrifice as several environmental groups have ended their association with him because of his views on climate change. The severing of relations came despite Bellamy’s long activism for green campaigns. The UK Times reported Bellamy “won respect from hardline environmentalists with his campaigns to save Britain’s peat bogs and other endangered habitats. In Tasmania he was arrested when he tried to prevent loggers cutting down a rainforest.”

Climate scientist Dr. Chris de Freitas of The University of Auckland, N.Z., also converted from a believer in man-made global warming to a skeptic. “At first I accepted that increases in human caused additions of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere would trigger changes in water vapor etc. and lead to dangerous ‘global warming,’ But with time and with the results of research, I formed the view that, although it makes for a good story, it is unlikely that the man-made changes are drivers of significant climate variation.” de Freitas wrote on August 17, 2006. “I accept there may be small changes. But I see the risk of anything serious to be minute,” he added. “One could reasonably argue that lack of evidence is not a good reason for complacency. But I believe the billions of dollars committed to GW research and lobbying for GW and for Kyoto treaties etc could be better spent on uncontroversial and very real environmental problems (such as air pollution, poor sanitation, provision of clean water and improved health services) that we know affect tens of millions of people,” de Freitas concluded. de Freitas was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases.”

Meteorologist Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970’s ( See Time Magazine’s 1974 article “Another Ice Age” citing Bryson: & see Newsweek’s 1975 article “The Cooling World” citing Bryson) has now converted into a leading global warming skeptic. In February 8, 2007 Bryson dismissed what he terms "sky is falling" man-made global warming fears. Bryson, was on the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?” Bryson told the May 2007 issue of Energy Cooperative News. “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson said. “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” he added. “We cannot say what part of that warming was due to mankind's addition of ‘greenhouse gases’ until we consider the other possible factors, such as aerosols. The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past century, but to my knowledge this data was never used. We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question -- too important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a scientific problem,” Bryson explained in 2005.

Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, of Carlton University in Ottawa converted from believer in C02 driving the climate change to a skeptic. “I taught my students that CO2 was the prime driver of climate change,” Patterson wrote on April 30, 2007. Patterson said his “conversion” happened following his research on “the nature of paleo-commercial fish populations in the NE Pacific.” “[My conversion from believer to climate skeptic] came about approximately 5-6 years ago when results began to come in from a major NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Strategic Project Grant where I was PI (principle investigator),” Patterson explained. “Over the course of about a year, I switched allegiances,” he wrote. “As the proxy results began to come in, we were astounded to find that paleoclimatic and paleoproductivity records were full of cycles that corresponded to various sun-spot cycles. About that time, [geochemist] Jan Veizer and others began to publish reasonable hypotheses as to how solar signals could be amplified and control climate,” Patterson noted. Patterson says his conversion “probably cost me a lot of grant money. However, as a scientist I go where the science takes me and not were activists want me to go.” Patterson now asserts that more and more scientists are converting to climate skeptics. "When I go to a scientific meeting, there's lots of opinion out there, there's lots of discussion (about climate change). I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority,” Patterson told the Winnipeg Sun on February 13, 2007. Patterson, who believes the sun is responsible for the recent warm up of the Earth, ridiculed the environmentalists and the media for not reporting the truth. "But if you listen to [Canadian environmental activist David] Suzuki and the media, it's like a tiger chasing its tail. They try to outdo each other and all the while proclaiming that the debate is over but it isn't -- come out to a scientific meeting sometime,” Patterson said. In a separate interview on April 26, 2007 with a Canadian newspaper, Patterson explained that the scientific proof favors skeptics. “I think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is) we're about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere," he said. “The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it's not. The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles."

Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw, took a scientific journey from a believer of man-made climate change in the form of global cooling in the 1970’s all the way to converting to a skeptic of current predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming. “At the beginning of the 1970s I believed in man-made climate cooling, and therefore I started a study on the effects of industrial pollution on the global atmosphere, using glaciers as a history book on this pollution,” Dr. Jaworowski, wrote on August 17, 2006. “With the advent of man-made warming political correctness in the beginning of 1980s, I already had a lot of experience with polar and high altitude ice, and I have serious problems in accepting the reliability of ice core CO2 studies,” Jaworowski added. Jaworowski, who has published many papers on climate with a focus on CO2 measurements in ice cores, also dismissed the UN IPCC summary and questioned what the actual level of C02 was in the atmosphere in a March 16, 2007 report in EIR science entitled “CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time.” “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels,” Jaworowski wrote. “For the past three decades, these well-known direct CO2 measurements, recently compiled and analyzed by Ernst-Georg Beck (Beck 2006a, Beck 2006b, Beck 2007), were completely ignored by climatologists—and not because they were wrong. Indeed, these measurements were made by several Nobel Prize winners, using the techniques that are standard textbook procedures in chemistry, biochemistry, botany, hygiene, medicine, nutrition, and ecology. The only reason for rejection was that these measurements did not fit the hypothesis of anthropogenic climatic warming. I regard this as perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time,” Jaworowski wrote. “The hypothesis, in vogue in the 1970s, stating that emissions of industrial dust will soon induce the new Ice Age, seem now to be a conceited anthropocentric exaggeration, bringing into discredit the science of that time. The same fate awaits the present,” he added. Jaworowski believes that cosmic rays and solar activity are major drivers of the Earth’s climate. Jaworowski was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part: "It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases."

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor of the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Ottawa, reversed his views on man-made climate change after further examining the evidence. “I used to agree with these dramatic warnings of climate disaster. I taught my students that most of the increase in temperature of the past century was due to human contribution of C02. The association seemed so clear and simple. Increases of greenhouse gases were driving us towards a climate catastrophe,” Clark said in a 2005 documentary "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change.” “However, a few years ago, I decided to look more closely at the science and it astonished me. In fact there is no evidence of humans being the cause. There is, however, overwhelming evidence of natural causes such as changes in the output of the sun. This has completely reversed my views on the Kyoto protocol,” Clark explained. “Actually, many other leading climate researchers also have serious concerns about the science underlying the [Kyoto] Protocol,” he added.

Environmental geochemist Dr. Jan Veizer, professor emeritus of University of Ottawa, converted from believer to skeptic after conducting scientific studies of climate history. “I simply accepted the (global warming) theory as given,” Veizer wrote on April 30, 2007 about predictions that increasing C02 in the atmosphere was leading to a climate catastrophe. “The final conversion came when I realized that the solar/cosmic ray connection gave far more consistent picture with climate, over many time scales, than did the CO2 scenario,” Veizer wrote. “It was the results of my work on past records, on geological time scales, that led me to realize the discrepancies with empirical observations. Trying to understand the background issues of modeling led to realization of the assumptions and uncertainties involved,” Veizer explained. “The past record strongly favors the solar/cosmic alternative as the principal climate driver,” he added. Veizer acknowledgez the Earth has been warming and he believes in the scientific value of climate modeling. “The major point where I diverge from the IPCC scenario is my belief that it underestimates the role of natural variability by proclaiming CO2 to be the only reasonable source of additional energy in the planetary balance. Such additional energy is needed to drive the climate. The point is that most of the temperature, in both nature and models, arises from the greenhouse of water vapor (model language ‘positive water vapor feedback’,) Veizer wrote. “Thus to get more temperature, more water vapor is needed. This is achieved by speeding up the water cycle by inputting more energy into the system,” he continued. “Note that it is not CO2 that is in the models but its presumed energy equivalent (model language ‘prescribed CO2’). Yet, the models (and climate) would generate a more or less similar outcome regardless where this additional energy is coming from. This is why the solar/cosmic connection is so strongly opposed, because it can influence the global energy budget which, in turn, diminishes the need for an energy input from the CO2 greenhouse,” he wrote.

[Bravus]

(wasn't trying to lecture anyone about how to conduct the discussion, was trying to get my own thoughts in order and focus on one point at a time for clarity)

[Dr. Shane]

President George W. Bush was convinced of man-made climate change by the time he left office. I think only the most radicals are still resisting the concept.

I do have a question for Bravus. Esteemed scientist, guru and fountain of great wisdom, Rush Limbaugh, stated that the Iceland volcano added more CO2 to the atmosphere than all the automobiles ever driven. Any truth to that?

[karl]

President George W. Bush was convinced of man-made climate change by the time he left office. I think only the most radicals are still resisting the concept.

Actually, resistance to the concept is becoming more and more mainstream as the evidence against it mounts. That is the point of the OP of this thread.

It should be astounding to you that scientists who originally were mouthpieces for the Gorebal Warming Hysteria have come out against it. You need to realize the huge significance of this. In the last decade the funding for global warming research has mushroomed from 200 million to 2 billion or more. Even the most specious "research" in favor of global warming is funded. For the major scientists I have listed above to have come out against global warming "science" PRIOR to climategate is extremely telling.

31,000 scientists have signed a petition stating there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide is causing catastrophic warming. The debate is still raging within the scientific community. It is by no means settled.

There is MAJOR money and enormous clout behind the push for global governance under the excuse that it is to control global warming. Meanwhile, you and your fellow believers appear to be willing accomplices in this push.