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Dash of Pepper

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Global warming - just clap trap?
By SHEILAH PEPPER
The Gazette Staff
As the global warming debate has progressed, I have always felt there was something suspect about it. Many supporters seemed to have an extreme environmentalist agenda. Others seemed to latch on to any issue that allowed them to feel appropriate liberal guilt.
My feelings remained vague until wealthy liberals started purchasing something termed "carbon offsets" that mitigate their "carbon footprint."
A carbon footprint is defined as a "measure of the impact that human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide. These gases are produced by the burning of fossil fuels for our everyday living. For example - heating and electricity' its purpose is for individuals, nations and organizations to conceptualize their personal (or organizational) carbon dioxide contribution."
The carbon offsets are defined this way: "A conceptual tool in response to carbon footprints are carbon offsets - that is, the mitigation of carbon emissions through the development of alternative projects such as solar or wind energy or reforestation. The carbon footprint is a subject of the ecological footprint which includes all human demands on the biosphere including the carbon, food and fibre footprint."
This is just confusing and fuzzy enough to be marketed and, sure enough, you can purchase carbon offsets. On the internet, you can actually calculate your carbon footprint and buy sufficient "offsets" to "mitigate" them, or simply relieve your conscience!
Numerous celebrities and other well-meaning folks with cash to spare have done just that. If you use a private jet frequently, don't worry. Just go buy some carbon offsets and everything will be okay. Driving a big gas-guzzling car? That's fine - just don't forget to purchase your carbon offsets.
The companies that sell these offsets seem to be all dot.coms, not dot.org. So where does the money go?
It's hard to say. Apparently, some went to planting trees. However, that now is seen as ineffectual so the off-setters say they are now focused on the development of alternatives such as wind turbines and cleaner-burning stoves. Do you smell a rat?
For my part, I will never understand how we can hope to run a mammoth industrialized economy using windmills and solar panels.
Now, however, some prominent scientists are finally speaking out with some hard facts.
"Global warming is over and Global Warming Theory has failed. There is no evidence that CO2 drives world temperatures or any consequent climate change." So said astrophysicist and long-range forecaster Piers Corbyn in a letter he wrote to the British Parliament on October 28th. "According to official data in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been colder than that year, yet CO2 has been rising rapidly." That evening,. As the House of Commons debated legislation on global warming, October snow fell on London for the first time since 1922.
Then there's this from German researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences: "Our results suggest that global surface temperatures may not increase over the next decade as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic (man-made) warming."
According to columnist Deroy Murdock of The National Review, Marc Moreno, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's Republican Communication Director, has made a hobby of collecting global-cooling incident. Here are just a few of his more recent examples:
· Just before Halloween, southwestern Florida's temperatures plunged to 47 degrees, October's coldest readings since 1902. October saw 120 new record-cold measurements and 63 new record-snow figures across America.
· The next day brought record cold to Havana, Cuba, where the mercury reached 48 degrees.
· The most snow to ever hit Tibet killed seven people October 30 and took the lives of 144,000 head of livestock.
· Record snowfalls hit Switzerland the same day.
· Many thousands are still without power in parts of the northeast U.S. after a terrible ice storm.
· In Las Vegas, 3.6 inches of snow, the most in 19 years, covered the Strip and shut down McCarren Airport.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service reported that last summer was the third coldest on record in Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska's glaciers are thickening. Arctic Sea ice has expanded by 13.2 percent over the past year. This 270,000 square-mile growth in Arctic Sea ice is just slightly larger than Texas' 268,820 square miles.
Finally, if you think this is just right-wing propaganda, listen what Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a physical chemist and retired Navy meteorologist, has to say:
"As a scientist and a life-long liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear mongering claptrap about human-caused global warming to be a disservice to science." On September 26th, Hertzberg wrote in USA Today, "From the El Nino year of 1998 until Jan. 2007, the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25C (0.45 F). From Jan. 2007 until the spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping 0.75 C (1.37 F)."
Copyright©2009SheilahPepper
Last Updated on Friday, 12 June 2009 14:19  

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