Exxon's Solar Theory Obliterated

[KNOWTHIS]

video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=1027879546389218797&q=%22global+dimming%22

We are all seeing rather less of the Sun. Scientists looking at five decades of sunlight measurements have reached the disturbing conclusion that the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface has been gradually falling. Paradoxically, the decline in sunlight may mean that global warming is a far greater threat to society than previously thought.

The effect was first spotted by Gerry Stanhill, an English scientist working in Israel. Comparing Israeli sunlight records from the 1950s with current ones, Stanhill was astonished to find a large fall in solar radiation. "There was a staggering 22% drop in the sunlight, and that really amazed me," he says.

Intrigued, he searched out records from all around the world, and found the same story almost everywhere he looked, with sunlight falling by 10% over the USA, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles. Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to 1-2% globally per decade between the 1950s and the 1990s.

Gerry called the phenomenon global dimming, but his research, published in 2001, met with a skeptical response from other scientists. It was only recently, when his conclusions were confirmed by Australian scientists using a completely different method to estimate solar radiation, that climate scientists at last woke up to the reality of global dimming.

Dimming appears to be caused by air pollution. Burning coal, oil and wood, whether in cars, power stations or cooking fires, produces not only invisible carbon dioxide (the principal greenhouse gas responsible for global warming) but also tiny airborne particles of soot, ash, sulphur compounds and other pollutants.

This visible air pollution reflects sunlight back into space, preventing it reaching the surface. But the pollution also changes the optical properties of clouds. Because the particles seed the formation of water droplets, polluted clouds contain a larger number of droplets than unpolluted clouds. Recent research shows that this makes them more reflective than they would otherwise be, again reflecting the Sun's rays back into space.

Scientists are now worried that dimming, by shielding the oceans from the full power of the Sun, may be disrupting the pattern of the world's rainfall. There are suggestions that dimming was behind the droughts in sub-Saharan Africa which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the 1970s and 1980s. There are disturbing hints the same thing may be happening today in Asia, home to half the world's population. "My main concern is global dimming is also having a detrimental impact on the Asian monsoon," says Prof Veerhabhadran Ramanathan, one of the world's leading climate scientists. "We are talking about billions of people."

But perhaps the most alarming aspect of global dimming is that it may have led scientists to underestimate the true power of the greenhouse effect. They know how much extra energy is being trapped in the Earth's atmosphere by the extra carbon dioxide (CO2) we have placed there. What has been surprising is that this extra energy has so far resulted in a temperature rise of just 0.6°C.

This has led many scientists to conclude that the present-day climate is less sensitive to the effects of carbon dioxide than it was, say, during the ice age, when a similar rise in CO2 led to a temperature rise of 6°C. But it now appears the warming from greenhouse gases has been offset by a strong cooling effect from dimming - in effect two of our pollutants have been cancelling each other out. This means that the climate may in fact be more sensitive to the greenhouse effect than thought.

If so, then this is bad news, according to Dr Peter Cox, one of the world's leading climate modelers. As things stand, CO2 levels are projected to rise strongly over coming decades, whereas there are encouraging signs that particle pollution is at last being brought under control. "We're going to be in a situation, unless we act, where the cooling pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up. That means we'll get reduced cooling and increased heating at the same time and that's a problem for us," says Cox.

Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards. That means a temperature rise of 10°C by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable. That is unless we act urgently to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases.

[Swamp Gas]

Part 1



www.michaelseward.com/skeptics.htm



Global warming "skeptics" are a hanful of industry-sponsored advocates who have loudly proclaimed that global warming is a hoax, and that average global temperatures are not rising.



"I don't believe there is any conclusive evidence of global warming. And I certainly don't believe that it can be attributed to human activity – and particularly not by activity by the United States. That is the political agenda behind the global warming scare. It is an anti-West, anti-U.S., anti-free enterprise movement." Rush Limbaugh

The oil, coal, gas, and mining industries stand to lose enormous sums if the public understands the truth about global warming. Just as the tobacco industry invested millions in keeping its deadly secret, so also have the oil, coal, gas, and mining industries attempted to hide and discredit the link between CO2 emissions and a warming earth. (In fact, many of today’s global warming skeptics were tobacco-cancer deniers in previous years.) Fossil fuel interests and conservative advocacy groups have funded, promoted, and used as witnesses a handful of greenhouse skeptics, who have widely and loudly proclaimed that global warming is a myth.
“Climate change is 'a myth', sea levels are not rising and Britain's chief scientist is 'an embarrassment' for believing catastrophe is inevitable.” These are the controversial views of a new London-based think-tank that will publish a report on the heels of the Report on Arctic Warming, attacking the view that man-made greenhouse gases will warm the planet. The think tank has received cash donations from the US oil giant ExxonMobil, which has long lobbied against the climate change agenda. Exxon lists the donation as part of its 'climate change outreach' program’ “ The Observer.

"Greenhouse ‘skeptics’ subvert the scientific process, ceasing to act as objective scientists, rather presenting only one side, as if they were lawyers hired to defend a particular viewpoint.” says James Hanson of the Goddard Institute for Spaces Studies. The skeptics avoid the scientific arena of peer-reviewed literature in order to promote unsubstantiated and unsupported guesses about the nature of the global climate.

"The (NAS) report states that the temperature on Earth, again, let me state this, may or may not be, may or may not be, 1 degree warmer than it was 100 years ago. One degree change over 100 years. Think about that. These experts cannot predict the weather one day in advance. How can they predict and calculate and analyze the weather back 100 years ago, when they did not have any of the scientific equipment that was available to them, that is available to them today? Remember, 100 years ago they did not have any satellites; they did not even have telephone communications in most of the world. But across the face of this planet, that it was cooler then by a whole 1 degree? Can anyone listen to that with a straight face? Give me a break." Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-C

Rather than advancing a theory of climate, they simply claim that warming isn’t happening, if it is, it will be minimal, if it isn’t minimal it will be beneficial, and if it isn’t beneficial, it will be entirely natural in origin.

Nearly every mechanism that the skeptics have proposed to explain the global climate has been discredited in scientific review. And nearly every day, new research lends further weight to the gradual accumulation of evidence that suggests that humans are affecting the global climate.



The idea of balancing the climate science with the political opinion of the skeptics is a form of empirical relativism. Science can't be balanced with partisan opinion. The skeptics, knowing that the facts don't support their political agenda, cynically complain about a lack of "sound science." They manipulate the media's desire for "balance" to include their politically motivated opinion in the news, even where there is no reasonable grounds for dispute. They work to grant validity to their fringe interpretations of the science in order to promote their pro-corporate, anti-environmental political agenda.

While they constantly complain that the science is politically motivated, their own political motivation is perfectly clear. If the skeptics have a scientific critique to make, let them engage in the scientific debate. The fact that they are largely lobbying in the public arena betrays their true agenda: to deceive and mislead the public in order to influence the policy debate.
The skeptics have been wrong over and over again. Many of the leading CO2 skeptics got their start as ozone layer skeptics, and a few still maintain this position, even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence linking ozone depletion to man-made chemicals in the atmosphere. Here’s Sallie Baliunas' confident assertion that "the ozone hole cannot occur in the Arctic".

Only a few weeks after Baliunas testified before Congress that the science on ozone depletion was unsettled, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Paul Crutzen, Sherwood Rowland, and Mario Molina for their work on stratospheric ozone. Rowland and Molina were explicitly cited for proposing the CFC-ozone depletion theory. Shortly thereafter, news reports announced that "A large hole has opened up in the ozone layer over the Arctic, which scientists believe will severely damage the natural shield protecting the northern hemisphere from cancer-causing sunlight."

Conservatives constantly criticize environmental advocates for alarmism--by which they mean the exaggeration of various risks and potential outcomes. Let’s say that melting ice caps, mass extinctions, and rising sea levels aren’t alarming enough to justify being alarmed by the possibility of such a future. Misusing and misrepresenting science, I would argue, is far more disturbing than judging such outcomes to be alarming. Artificially manufacturing "skeptical science" to raise doubts about mainstream science, in order to promote political influence and protect industry profits, is even more disgraceful.

Alaska's lone congressman, Republican Rep. Don Young, went so far as dismissing the major new report on Arctic climate change. He called it “ammunition for fear mongers”. "I don't believe it is our fault. That's my opinion," Young said. "It's as sound as any scientist's."

The skeptics are yet another group of paranoid pseudoscientific cranks inventing a conspiracy to suppress science that contradicts their political agenda. It's the same technique used by the creationists, who dress up their arrogant superstitions in scientific lingo and call it Intelligent Design.

The “skeptics” are advocates for a political ideology, lobbying for a policy agenda that promotes the interests of fossil fuel industries.

Skepticism is a good thing. Science is a process of challenge and questioning. However, the “skeptics” are engaging in a misuse and politicization of science by refusing to acknowledge inconvenient data, and a narrow-minded self-serving interpretation of the research. This is not skepticism. This is an irresponsible, politically motivated hoax masquerading as science.



Skeptic’s Theories
As evidence has mounted against them, the skeptics have tried to offer some explanation for global warming other than human causes.

Solar variation, volcano’s, increasing plant growth, cosmic rays, the “urban-heat island” effect, satellite discrepancies, among other discredited assumptions, are offered to explain the observed climate changes. These explanations are still clung to by many of the skeptics, long after they have been put into the trash heap of crackpot theories by the progress of scientific inquiry.



SATELLITE DISCREPANCIES EXPLAINED

Until recently, conflicting studies suggested that temperatures measured by satellites revealed a slight cooling trend, whereas the surface temperature record showed a warming trend. This confounded the global warming issue, giving ammunition to the skeptic's global warming denial.

Satellites began measurements in 1979 and the surface temperature record, which reveals global warming of about 1.1°F, dates back to about 1860. Satellites take temperatures through vertical slices of the atmosphere, not at the surface. Satellite measurements are also known to be influenced by ozone layer depletion, which has caused cooling of the upper atmosphere. For these and other reasons, satellite and surface data are not expected to be a perfect match. Nevertheless, the discrepancy between the two data sets was too large to be ignored.

Then scientists discovered they neglected some measurement and calibration problems with the satellites, including the fact that satellites were falling from their orbits, which produced an artificial cooling trend. Correcting the satellite data for these problems reveals a small warming trend. These corrections bring the satellite record into better agreement with surface measurements. Any remaining discrepancies do not invalidate the fact that surface temperatures are rising.




Solar variations alone cannot explain the current warming.

"The likeliest cause of current climate trends seems to be solar activity, perhaps in combination with galactic cosmic rays caused by supernovas...Dr. Thomas Sieger Derr "A Biblical Perspective on Environmental Stewardship"

There is no doubt that solar variability plays an important role in global climate change. However, it has also been found that the amount of solar radiation that hits the earth is closely related to parameters that can be recorded from ground level. Since some of these provide records stretching back several hundred years, it is possible to reconstruct solar activity with quite high resolution over these time spans.

These reconstructions of solar activity have allowed scientists to investigate the relative impact of solar activity and greenhouse gases on current climate change. Several studies have investigated the relationship between changes in solar activity, volcanoes and temperatures over the past 1000 years and have concluded that, although changes in solar activity can explain much of the temperature changes, there is a 'residual' unexplained temperature increase in the 20th century. For example, Mann et al concludes that "While the natural (solar and volcanic) forcings appear to be important factors governing the natural variations of temperatures in past centuries, only human greenhouse gas forcing alone ... can statistically explain the unusual warmth of the past few decades". A similar analysis by Crowley et al concludes that there is "a very large late 20th century warming that closely agrees with the response predicted from greenhouse gas forcing.”

The temperature changes in this century have been studied using sophisticated statistical methods. Such an analysis is presented by Thomas et al (1997), who show that changes in CO2 over the last century have had around three times the

impact on temperature as have changes in solar irradiance, and that there is no evidence in the statistics of any major unidentified source of natural variation.

Another, more recent, analysis (Kaufmann & Stern, 2002) found that temperature changes could only be explained by taking into account changes in solar activity, sulphate aerosols and greenhouse gases.

The detailed causes of the recent warming trend have been investigated by the UK Meteorological Office, and are presented here (see also Stott et al, 2000). They found that about half of the warming is caused by solar variability but that, in the second half of the century, these effects have been countered by sulphate emissions from dirty fuel and from volcanoes (which contributed to a global cooling observed in the 1960s and 1970s). The overall effect of all the natural causes (sun and volcanoes combined) has been quite small. They conclude that there is "very large late 20th century warming that closely agrees with the response predicted from greenhouse gas forcing.”

Similarly, two recent studies of ocean temperatures have found that the observed increase is best explained by the effect of greenhouse gases.

Dr. Judith Lean, of the Naval Research Laboratory's Space Science Division, and Dr. Jerry Mahlman, Director of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory presented evidence that changes in solar radiation output alone cannot explain the global warming that has taken place in the last century. They also said that the recent warming trend could be explained by a combination of greenhouse gases increase, natural variability, and increased solar irradiance.



Volcanoes do not explain the recent warming.
In the short term, volcanoes exert a net cooling effect at the surface due to their emissions of sulphur dioxide, because particles in the stratosphere absorb the sun's energy before it can reach the surface. Volcanoes do also emit CO2, and massive eruptions in the past may have emitted enough CO2 to cause long-term climate change. However, in the recent climatic record, volcanic emissions have been much lower. Gerlach (1991) estimated a total global release of 3-4 x 1012 mol/yr from volcanoes. Man-made (anthropogenic) CO2 emissions overwhelm this estimate by at least 150 times.



The Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period were local, not global climate phenomenon.

The skeptics frequently point to historical periods of temperature extremes as evidence that the current warming of the climate is nothing unusual. In the northern hemisphere, there seems to have been a more pronounced warm period early in the millennium (the 'Medieval Warm Period'), and cool period in the latter part of the millennium ('Little Ice Age').

These do not appear to have been global events (see this review), and instead are likely to reflect periodic changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation, and changes in solar activity.

Recent research points to a possible human influence on these climate periods as well. Human influence of the Earth's climate did not begin just a few decades or centuries ago, but 8000 years ago, with the birth of agriculture. William Ruddiman, a climate scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, started to suspect that ancient human activities have affected the climate when he noticed a telltale discrepancy in levels of greenhouse gases revealed by ice cores. After ruling out possible natural causes for the greenhouse gas increases, Ruddiman now thinks that early farmers clearing forests in Europe, India and China account for the surge of carbon dioxide, while rice paddies and burgeoning herds of livestock produced the extra methane.

Intriguingly, Ruddiman thinks the anomalous cooling of the "little ice age" that gripped the world for several centuries from around 1300 was caused by a specific setback to agriculture: plague. He notes that pandemics of bubonic plague depopulated Eurasia during those same centuries. Fields and villages were abandoned and reclaimed by fast-growing forests that sucked carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, resulting in the cooler temperatures felt worldwide. This completely reverses the widely held idea that it was the little ice age that caused the famine, depopulation and disease.

For more information on the Medieval Warm Period, see this article from the NOAA Paleoclimatology Program.

[Swamp Gas]

Part 2


CO2 will not be taken up by increased plant growth
The skeptics are fond of asserting that increasing levels of CO2 will be absorbed by increasing plant growth brought on by warmer weather.

Satellite observations suggest that plant growth has been increasing, although it is thought that this is mainly due to rising temperatures and increased rainfall, rather than a direct effect of increased CO2 (see this article from the Earth Observatory). Whatever the cause, the resultant increases in plant mass captures some CO2 from the atmosphere. The effect of this can be seen in assessments in carbon balance – the natural world is already absorbing more than it emits, and predictions of climate change are based on the assumption that this effect will continue.

Unfortunately, there are several problems with the idea that increased plant growth will absorb the excess CO2:

Firstly, there is simply too much CO2. Data from Mauna Loa show that carbon dioxide levels have steadily increased throughout the century. Studies have shown that the ability of trees to soak up excess carbon is limited by the availability of other nutrients, as discussed in this article from National Geographic.
Secondly, there's more to greenhouse gas than CO2, as this link shows. Methane, a very important greenhouse gas, has doubled in concentration since the start of the industrial age.
Thirdly, we are actively reducing biomass by cutting down forests and draining marshland – deforestation in the 1980s was responsible for around 1.6 to 1.8 GtC emissions, according a report from the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management. In the 1990s, changing land use meant that deforestation has been balanced by reforestation of disused farmland, and there has been a net absorption of 1.4 billion tons. However, as these new forests mature, it is predicted that the balance will shift once again to a net loss of CO2 to the atmosphere. Fourthly, although forests contain more CO2 than grassland, they are darker. This means that they absorb more heat. Scientists from the USA's Lawrence Livermore Laboratories report that deforestation likely played an important part in the global cooling that took part over the last millennium.
Finally, and most importantly, climate change is likely to have important effects on the carbon cycle. For example, as the oceans warm they will release CO2, and as the permafrost thaws it will start to decay, releasing large amounts of CO2. Peat marshes, too, are likely to release increasing amounts of CO2 as they warm (see this news report). Although the exact effects of these changes are hard to calculate, the current estimate is CO2 that the net effect will be to increase global warming by a further 3ºC over the next 100 years – making the total increase up to 8ºC.


Temperatures have not risen due to the "Urban heat-island effect"
Long a staple of the skeptics unending denial of global warming, the “urban-heat island effect” claims that urban development has skewed thermometer readings of global temperature.

The effects of these 'urban heat islands' are calculated by comparing changes in urban stations with nearby rural stations, and the records from the urban stations are then reduced accordingly. A description of this adjustment is provided in this article from NASA's Earth Observatory. The overall effect is that the rate at which the temperature of heat islands has increased is not much greater than the background rate.

A recent study suggests that even this small effect is an overestimate. A recent paper (Peterson; 2003) reporting that "Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures."



Global warming is not an artifact of incomplete coverage

At the beginning of the 20th century, thermometer measurements covered only 20 percent of the Earth's surface, compared to more than 87 percent in 1987. The skeptics have argued that the gradual increase in coverage during the 20th century introduced an artificial warming trend into the temperature record, which accounts for most or all of the 20th century's measured warming. A study from Lawrence Livermore found no evidence to support the hypothesis that incomplete observational data has caused us to overestimate the true warming trend.



Satellite temperature data confirm other evidence of global warming

Until recently, conflicting studies suggested that temperatures measured by satellites revealed a slight cooling trend, whereas the surface temperature record showed a warming trend. This was loudly promoted by the skeptics as evidence that global warming was not happening.

Satellites began measurements in 1979 and the surface temperature record, which reveals global warming of about 1.1°F, dates back to about 1860. Satellites take temperatures through vertical slices of the atmosphere, not at the surface. Satellite measurements are also known to be influenced by ozone layer depletion, which has caused cooling of the upper atmosphere. For these and other reasons, satellite and surface data are not expected to be a perfect match. Any remaining discrepancies do not invalidate the fact that surface temperatures are rising.

There are currently two reconstructions that are generally considered to be potentially accurate. The most well known is that of Christy and Spencer, first published in 1996. This caused a great deal of controversy, since it contradicted the predictions from climate models. Recently, Christy has revised his data, showing not a cooling, but a warming trend in the data. More recently, in 2003, Mears and Wentz have reanalysized the data using a different technique. Their results suggest that the atmosphere has warmed in line with model predictions.

Scientists discovered they neglected some measurement and calibration problems with the satellites, including the fact that satellites were falling from their orbits, which produced an artificial cooling trend. Correcting the satellite data for these problems reveals a warming trend. These bring the satellite record into better agreement with surface measurements.

In a new study published Dec. 15, 2004 in the Journal of Climate, Fu and Johanson used direct stratosphere temperature measurements to examine the contamination from the stratosphere in the satellite channel that measures troposphere temperatures, indicating the troposphere has been warming at about two-tenths of a degree Celsius per decade. That closely resembles measurements of warming at the surface; something climate models have suggested would result if the warmer surface temperatures were the result of greenhouse gases.

The findings are important because, for years, satellite data inconsistent with warming at the surface have fueled the debate about whether climate change is actually occurring.



Oh, what's a few degrees?
The skeptics have long argued that a few degrees temperature increase won't matter much, and besides, warmer is better: longer growing seasons, lower heating bills. How many people actually notice the difference between 86 and 88.5°F? Considering that in some regions people experience large daily temperature ranges (20-30°F), climate skeptics try to convince the public that global warming by a few degrees is nothing to worry about.

This is a case of deliberately confusing weather and climate. The daily and seasonal temperature changes are highly variable, but the average global temperatures have been remarkably stable. The difference in global average temperature between the last ice age and the present is only 9°F. This puts the projected range of climate change-related global average temperature increases of 2.5-10.4°F in an entirely different light.



Humans generate an insignificant 4.5% of the world's greenhouse gases is when compared to the 95.5% generated by nature. False

It is indeed true that human emissions of CO2 are a small percentage of the total carbon cycled through the different components of the Earth system: plants, soils, the oceans, and the air. But these human emissions are by no means insignificant. For the last 420,000 years, until the beginning of the industrial revolution, this cycle of carbon exchange was in a stable equilibrium. The continual release and uptake of carbon kept CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere relatively stable. Since 1750, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 31%, to a present level of 367 ppm. This increase in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere is mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels and large-scale deforestation and land-use change. These human activities have forced the carbon cycle out of the state of equilibrium and out of the historic range of variation.



WHAT THE SKEPTICS HAVE IN COMMON

The skeptics are devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics, and the work of thousands of climate scientists from around the globe, cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the fossil fuel industry.

Their arguments are all over the place. Some of the skeptics deny that the earth is getting warmer. Others agree that warming is happening but claim that it is a natural phenomenon. Still others agree that emissions of carbon dioxide are changing the climate, but say the change is for the better. Apart from inconsistency with the available evidence, the only things the skeptics have in common is the implication that nothing should be done about climate change.

The skeptics point to a handful of petitions which pretend to show that large numbers of atmospheric scientists question the IPCC consensus. On closer examination, it turns out that most signatories of these petitions, leaving aside obviously bogus entries such as one from Ginger Spice, have such advanced scientific qualifications as 'civil engineer' and 'TV weatherman'.
Among the handful of skeptics with relevant qualifications, most turn out to have links to the fossil fuel industry or to right-wing think-tanks. There is nothing necessarily wrong in this. It is natural that those opposed to any action to mitigate climate change will seek out and promote scientists who dissent from the mainstream view.
Unfortunately, it is also true that, where large amounts of money and rigidly-held ideological positions are at stake, 'experts' can always be found to put forward views convenient to those who finance and reward them. As a result, even skeptics with genuinely independent views are compromised by association with bodies like Western Fuels Association, the Petroleum Institute, and Exxon-Mobil.

There are always participants in the public debate who will happily put forward any proposition that supports their position, whether or not it has any basis in fact and logic. The skeptics are prepared to rely on wishful thinking whenever it suits their purposes. The arguments of such skeptics should be should be accorded the credibility they deserve.

Very few skeptics have scientific credibility. Those with scientific credentials, such as Richard Lindzen of MIT, have in the last few years moved slowly towards the consensus position. He recently joined scientists associated with the mainstream view in writing a report which gave qualified support to the IPCC position. John Christy, a known skeptic, has endorsed the AGU Declaration, endorsing the scientific consensus that human activities are having an effect on the global climate.

The skeptics are mostly retired engineers and scientists from the mining, manufacturing and construction industries,working to influence the attitudes and actions of policy makers and politicians,using the same tools of hired guns and questionable scientific evidence as the tobacco industry wielded to deny cancer links in the 1970s and 1980s. Many involved in that abuse of science are climate skeptics today. No skeptic argument has invalidated the mainstream science, though many have tried. The skeptics have failed to prove that the greenhouse effect will fail to influence the global climate, though they continue to make that claim.
Meanwhile, the evidence of climate change keeps mounting. Last century's global warming of 0.6 degrees may sound small, but an extra 1.5 to 2 degrees will mean massive alterations to the natural environment, including extinctions, inundations, and extremes of weather events. It is the most rapid warming the planet has seen in 10,000 years. In that time, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere remained constant at around 280 parts per million. It is now nearly 380ppm, a level the earth has not experienced for at least 400,000 years.

In November 2004, an eight-nation report found global warming was causing the polar ice-caps to melt at such an unprecedented rate significant portions could be gone by century's end. Land temperatures made October 2004 the hottest October on record.

The only problem for the skeptics is that the vast majority of scientists know they are the ones who are deluded. "There's a better scientific consensus on this than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of thermodynamics", Dr James Baker, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US, has said. The 2504 scientists and reviewers who work under the banner of the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) look set to make even stronger pronouncements about the role of humans on climate in their next assessment, due in 2007. The scientific mainstream has become more confident about how global warming is affecting the world, particularly in the past 10 years. The panel's chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, has said: "One can say scientifically it is human action that is driving the bulk of changes that are taking place today." James Hansen, a director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, accused the Bush Administration of trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming. "I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now," he said.

[Swamp Gas]

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/04/DDGEBOSC301.DTL


One of the stranger things to happen in recent political discourse -- and this is a crowded field -- is the morphing of global warming into a left-wing plot, a conspiracy by godless scientists to ... well, it's not clear what benefit the scientists get from spreading lies about global warming. Maybe they just want research money to study this nonexistent warming thing.

I have a pretty good idea where that meme started. If you believe that global warming is man-made, then you believe that greenhouse gases are a bad thing. If you believe they're a bad thing, you believe they should be reduced. And reducing greenhouse gases would mean using less petroleum, in all its myriad forms. And since the current administration is dedicated to the protection of petroleum companies, it is only natural that it would try to convince its base that somehow global warming is being promoted by the same people who approve of gay marriage, abortion and secular schools.

The idea that global warming is a liberal plot is a lunatic notion, but it's surprising how closely it maps with public opinion. It's an extremely successful con job, and it's bought the oil companies at least a decade of profits and indolence. It's not clear why evangelical Christians -- or that portion of them that are die-hard supporters of George Bush -- should be so interested in the financial well-being of oil companies. It's not as if they're getting anything out of it.

So the president, who is nothing if not consistent, is trying to stick it to environmentalists again. Last year, he nominated three people for top-level jobs at posts that affect the environment. All three nominations were blocked, and thank you, Barbara Boxer. But now the president is thinking of making recess appointments of the same three people. He thinks it's a game of chicken. He thinks he has to win.

Is politics the art of compromise? Not anymore. Politics is the art of slandering your enemies and rewarding your campaign contributors.

Who are these winners? Fortunately, Judy Pasternak of the Los Angeles Times has done the research so you don't have to. First there's William Wehrum, nominated as head of the air quality division of the EPA -- which is the post he currently holds, thanks to a temporary promotion. Wehrum is a lawyer who formerly represented the chemical, utility and auto industries.

His specialty is mercury and lead emissions. He thinks the EPA standards are far too strict. He has taken steps to loosen the rules because, really, how much harm can microscopic amounts of natural substances do? (Scientists say: plenty, but you know scientists. They're the ones behind the global warming hoax.) So Bush wants a guy in charge of clean air who is in fact in favor of dirty air.

Next we have Alex Beehler, a former Pentagon official and a former executive with Koch Industries, a private oil and chemical company in Kansas. Beehler is slated to be the new head of the EPA inspector general's office, which monitors how well the EPA is enforcing its own regulations. Sounds like a match made in heaven. Inspector: "How's the river quality around here? And do you like your current job?" Employee: "I love my job and I love this river." Inspector: "Carry on."

When Beehler worked for the Pentagon, he was involved in an effort to influence to EPA standard on perchlorate, a substance that interferes with iodide uptake by the thyroid gland. (Not enough iodine leads to goiter.) It's also been shown to impair fetal brain function. It exists in rivers in at least 25 states. Since most of the perchlorate in the water comes from rocket and missile fuel, the Air Force might have had to undertake expensive cleanup activities if the EPA's rules were enforced.

So Beehler: clean water, unless it costs money.

Finally there's Susan Dudley, who would head a section of the White House Office of Management and Budget that reviews all proposed government rules. She used to work for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a think tank partially supported by (wait for it) Koch Industries. She is already on record as believing that the EPA rules are too strict.
In her writings while at the center, she argued that the government should keep its big nose out of areas like smog, air bags and energy regulation. (Yes, the return of the free market to the energy sector certainly benefited the people of California.) She's also big on arsenic in drinking water -- she doesn't mind it so much. She wrote that the EPA should not value the lives of older people as highly as the lives of younger people when making arsenic calculations.

Oh: She's now a special adviser to the White House on regulations, meaning that all Americans already have the benefit of her wisdom, even older, disease-ridden citizens. Such a comfort. I have to go lie down now.