Just when you thought that you had heard it all there comes something really new, like Electric Ants. Well, the ants are not really electric, but they are claimed to love devices that are, like your computer, smart phone, keep-your veggies-fresh-fridge, modern power grids and other great inventions using electricity. 

Did CFC’s and not CO2 cause Earth to warm in the late 20th Century; and will the wider scientific community be the key to exposing this mistake? Robert Ashworth presents a fascinating analysis revealing how the infant science of climatology overlooked important evidence that points to human emissions of carbon dioxide being innocent and puts ozone depletion in the frame.

Here is an excerpt¹ from a paper written by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) meteorologist; “Climate models used for estimating effects of increases in greenhouse gases show substantial increases in water vapor as the globe warms and this increased moisture would further increase the warming.”  However, this meteorologist along with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) crowd got it completely backwards about water vapor and CO₂ — they cool the earth like all other gases and dust in our atmosphere!

Although moisture in the atmosphere does increase with warming, this is because the higher temperature causes more water to evaporate.  With every pound of water evaporated 1,000 Btu is absorbed and that causes cooling.  Further, increased water in the atmosphere causes further cooling (not warming) by reflecting more of the radiant energy from the Sun that is hitting the water vapor molecules back to outer space, e.g. cooler on a cloudy day than a clear day.

Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” Documentary — Cause and Effect Reversed

Al Gore presented the climate change fraud in his “Inconvenient Truth”, actually a “Convenient Lie” presentation of the Vostok Ice Core data, see below.  In this documentary, Gore fudged the Vostok Ice core temperature and CO₂ line graphs so it would show a CO₂ spike coming first in time, but the real graph showed just the opposite.  See the data in a shorter time frame (250,000 Years rather than 420,000 Years Before Present showed by Gore).  This makes it easier to see which came first, Figure 1. 

It is clearly seen that a global warming spike (blue line) always comes first.  The spike warms the oceans, which slowly reduces the solubility of CO₂ in water that results in the liberation of CO₂ from the oceans around 800 years later (see Figure 2).  Gore gave no explanation what would cause a CO₂ spike to occur in the first place, but then again he is a politician with an agenda to make him wealthy.  See the most recent time of warming between the 500 year long medieval warming period and the start of an increase in CO₂ in the atmosphere.  One can see that CO₂ started increasing during a cooling period showing it was not controlled by recent warming that started some 80 years later and it is about 800 years from the end of the medieval warming period.  This is historically what happens.  Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State, eliminated the Medieval Warming period with his hockey stick graph, – clearly a fabricated one by “cherry picking” the temperature data.

Man-made Emissions of Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

CO₂ emissions created by man, i.e. combustion of fuels, (called anthropogenic emissions) is miniscule compared to the emissions of CO₂ from nature?  Table 1 was developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who promote the global warming lie.  This is their data. It shows annual CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere from both nature and man and how much of the CO₂ emitted is re-absorbed by nature.  You cannot find this table anymore, like Lois Lerner IRS emails it has been deleted.  Using the table in combination with a total concentration of 401 ppmv of CO₂ seen in the atmosphere in May 2014, one sees that the CO₂ caused by man’s activities amounts to only 11.6 ppmv of the CO₂ in the atmosphere.

The amount of CO₂ from man is a mouse-milk quantity compared to nature’s emissions.  If we eliminated worldwide, all man-made CO₂ emissions tomorrow, we would go back to the level we had in 2008.  Since 1998 there has been no warming and yet CO₂ in the atmosphere increased some 31 ppmv, almost triple the global man-made quantity.

Nature absorbs 98.5{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the CO₂ that is emitted by nature and man.  As CO₂ increases in the atmosphere, nature causes plant growth to increase via photosynthesis which is an endothermic (cooling) reaction.  For every pound of biomass formed some 8,000 Btu are removed from the atmosphere.  CO₂ is absorbed, and oxygen is liberated.  Further, a doubling of CO₂ will increase the photosynthesis rate by some 300+ {154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}, depending on temperature and available moisture⁴, see Figure 3. 

More CO₂ is absorbed by the plants due to the increased concentration of CO₂ for conversion to carbohydrates.  Nature therefore has in place a built-in mechanism to regulate the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere that will always completely dwarf man’s feeble attempts to regulate it.  Further, no regulation is necessary because CO₂ is not a pollutant; it is part of the animal-plant life cycle and without it, life would not exist on earth!

A Common Sense Scientific Truth

Any mass between you and a radiant energy source will provide cooling.  Stand near a fireplace that is burning and feel the warmth of the radiant energy; then have two people drape a blanket between you and the fireplace — you will feel cooler!  Another example, stand outside on a sun shiny day.  When a cloud goes over and shades you from the direct rays of the sun, most people feel cooler, but perhaps not the IPCC pseudo-scientists.  Nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide and any dust that is in the atmosphere all provide cooling.

More radiation hits our atmosphere from the sun (342 Watts/m^2) than is reflected back from the earth (164 Watts/m^2) to the atmosphere see Figure 4.  The overall effect will always be cooling – not warming! 

The IPCC scientists must not realize we get our energy from the sun; they look at only one-half of the mass and energy balance.  It is like saying you don’t need a furnace in your house in the winter, insulation alone will keep you warm.  If common sense isn’t good enough for you there is also scientific proof.

Proofs — Water Vapor Cools the Earth

Water vapor is considered by the IPCC pseudo-scientists to have the greatest greenhouse gas effect.  If this so-called greenhouse gas actually cools the earth, so must all of the other gases cool that are put in that greenhouse gas category (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, etc.).

1^st Proof

Following the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited commercial aviation over the United States for three days following the attacks.  This presented a unique opportunity to study the temperature of earth with and without jet airplane contrails.

1. David Travis, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin, along with two others, looked at temperatures for those three days (2001) and compared them to other days when planes were flying.  They analyzed data from about 4,000 weather stations throughout the lower 48 states (U.S.) for the period 1971-2000, and compared the three-day grounding period with three days before and after the grounding period.  They found that the average daily temperature range between highs and lows was 1.1°C higher during September 11-14 (see Figure 5) compared to September 8-11 and September 11-14 for other years with normal air traffic. 

2^nd Proof

An experiment was performed by Carl Brehmer to study the effect of rising and falling levels of humidity on soil temperature and discovered that the addition of moisture to the atmosphere exerts a significant negative feedback (cooling effect).

The experiment showed the same result as the analysis of the 9-11 data; on an overall basis increased humidity reduces the temperature on earth; it doesn’t warm it.   The data were[RA1]  taken over 38 days so the first thing done was to find the 38 day mean dew point and divide the days up between those that fell above the mean — the “humid” days — and those that fell below the mean — the “arid” days.  Then the data was averaged as shown on the curves on the graph below.  One can readily see the hotter day time temperatures for the arid days (red line), Figure 6.

The Climate Change Agenda is a Complete Fraud

There is a lot of supporting evidence that indicates that the Climate Change agenda is and always has been a fraud.  Why is it called a fraud?  An event now referred to as “Climategate” publicly began on November 19, 2009, when a whistle-blower leaked thousands of emails and documents central to a Freedom of Information request placed with the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.  This institution had played a central role in the “climate change” debate: its scientists, together with their international colleagues, quite literally put the “warming” into Global Warming: they were responsible for analyzing and collating the measurements of temperature from around the globe from the present to the distant past. 

1. John Costella⁷ relays, “Climategate has shattered that myth (the myth of global warming).”  It gives us a peephole into the work of the scientists investigating possibly the most important issue ever to face mankind.  Instead of seeing large collaborations of meticulous, careful, critical scientists, we instead see a small team of incompetent cowboys, abusing almost every aspect of the framework of science to build a fortress around their “old boys club”, to prevent real scientists from seeing the shambles of their research.

Back in time, the IPCC relayed there was a greenhouse signature in the atmosphere and the temperature 8-12 km above the tropics was warmer than the ground temperature⁸.  Actual temperature measurements refuted this.  They also violated the second law of thermodynamics by saying a cooler atmosphere can warm a warmer earth.  They don’t have a clue, or they think people are stupid — two bogus explanations that are easy to show are completely false.

Around 1990, NOAA began weeding out more than three-quarters of the climate measuring stations around the world.  It can be shown that systematically and purposefully, country by country, they removed higher-latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler.  The thermometers kept were near the tropics, the sea, and airports near bigger cities.  These data were then used to determine the global average temperature and to initialize climate models.  From 1960 through 1980, there were more than 6000 stations providing temperature information.  The NOAA reduced these to fewer than 1500.  Calculating the average temperatures this way ensured that the mean global surface temperature for each month and year would show a false-positive temperature anomaly, a bogus warming trend.  Interestingly (although absent scientific credibility), the very same stations that were deleted from the world climate network were retained for computing the average-temperature base periods, further falsely increasing the bias towards earth warming.

An internal study by the U.S. EPA⁹ completed by Dr. Alan Carlin and John Davidson concluded the IPCC was wrong about global warming.  Dr. Carlin is an Environmental Protection Agency veteran who wrote a damaging report to Lisa Jackson’s EPA agenda, warning that the science behind climate change was questionable at best, and that we shouldn’t pass laws that will hurt American families and hobble the nation’s economy based on incomplete information.

One statement in his executive summary found that the crucial assumption in the Greenhouse Climate Models (GCM) used by the IPCC concerning a strong positive feedback from water vapor is not supported by empirical evidence and that the feedback is actually negative.  This is exactly what is shown here, water vapor in the atmosphere causes a cooling (negative feedback), not a positive warming feedback.

EPA tried to bury Dr. Carlin’s report.  An email from Al McGartland, Office Director of EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), to Dr. Alan Carlin, Senior Operations Research Analyst at NCEE, forbade him from speaking to anyone outside NCEE on endangerment issues.  In a March 17 email from McGartland to Carlin, stated that he will not forward Carlin’s study.  “The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round.  The administrator (Lisa Jackson) and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. 

I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.”  I guess telling the truth would be a negative impact to the EPA.  A second email from McGartland stated “I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change.  “McGartland’s emails demonstrate that he was rejecting Dr. Carlin’s study because his conclusions ran counter to the EPA/IPCC position.  Yet this study had its basis in three prior reports by Carlin (two in 2007 and one in 2008) that were accepted. Another “government cover-up”, just what the United States does not need.

Most of the U.S. House of Representatives agree with the fraud assessment.¹⁰   On February 19, 2011 they voted to eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. With a vote of 244-179, they said that it no longer wishes to have the IPCC prepare its comprehensive international climate science assessments.  

The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri), said; “The IPCC scientists manipulated climate data, suppressed legitimate arguments in peer-reviewed journals, and researchers were asked to destroy emails, so that a small number of climate alarmists could continue to advance their environmental agenda”. 

The organization responsible for managing a global cap-and-trade system worth billions of dollars for carbon emissions projects around the world is trying to get sweeping legal immunities for its actions, even as it planned to expand its activities in the wake of the 2012 United Nations’ Rio + 20 summit on sustainable development.¹¹  Yes, global warming from CO₂ is a complete fraud – that is why they are seeking shelter from prosecution.

Why Was It Done?

It is all about the money.  For example, Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management LLP was started in 2004 and in 2008 this announcement was made, “It will be closed to new investors, having risen close to its $5 billion target!”¹².  It rose to five billion dollars in 4 years!  This shows that a lot of investment firms were in on the scam big time.  They also hooked in nefarious pseudo-scientists who were awarded grants for their work in promoting this fraud.  Sadly, much of the world runs on the tenet, “Show Me the Money!”  They don’t care seem to care one whit about our children or the jobs of the people who work in conventional fuels, such as coal, petroleum and natural gas!

CFC Destruction of Stratospheric Ozone did cause the Earth to Warm?

A greater than normal warming did occur from 1966 until 1998 but no measurements confirm an increase in CO₂ emissions, whether anthropogenic or natural, had any effect on global temperatures.  As a matter of fact, all atmospheric gases and dust in our atmosphere cools our planet, they don’t warm it ¹³ as explained above.   However, there is very strong evidence that anthropogenic emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were the cause of the near recent abnormal warming.  It is not a radiation effect, it is because of the reaction of CFCs with stratospheric ozone.  CFCs were used primarily in air conditioning units.  Acting in accordance with an International Treaty called the Montreal Protocol (1987); the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated the phase-out of CFCs (R-22) through the Clean Air Act.

CFCs and other halides created both unnatural atmospheric cooling and earth warming based on these facts.  CFCs destroyed ozone in the lower stratosphere-upper troposphere causing these zones in the atmosphere to cool 1.37^o C from 1966 to 1998, see Figure 7. 

The ozone loss allowed more UV-B light to pass through the stratosphere at a sufficient rate to warm the lower troposphere plus 2″ of the earth by 0.5^o C (1966 to 1998).  The effect of banning CFC production started having its effect around 1998.  Since 1998 there has been no warming, see Figure 8.

Most of the temperature change from ozone loss is in UV-B light, that is 2{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the 8{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the UV light (based on total light) that hits our atmosphere. UV-B light provides 25{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the energy that hits the earth.  E = hf and high frequency UV-B photons carry much more energy than visible light photons.

Stratospheric ozone was diminished by CFCs and other refrigerants-propellants released into the atmosphere.  These compounds are broken down by the sun’s UV-B rays and release chlorine and bromine molecules that destroy the ozone.  

Scientists estimate that one chlorine atom can destroy 100,000 ozone molecules over its life in the stratosphere.  With less ozone in the stratosphere, more UV-B rays hit earth, warming it up and increasing the risk of skin cancer.

The ozone layer extends from 8 km (upper troposphere) up throughout the stratosphere.  It is well known that the warming of the stratosphere is caused by the reaction of ultraviolet light with ozone. Energy is absorbed and ozone (O₃) converts to diatomic (O₂) and (O) nascent oxygen. Conversely, ozone loss decreases the amount of UV-B light absorbed and thus causes the stratosphere to cool and the earth to warm.  

Figure 9 (see above) shows the lowest value of ozone measured by TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) each year, a satellite instrument used to determine ozone levels.  One can see how CFCs destroyed the ozone in the late 1960’s until the late 1990’s. 

CFCs, chlorinated solvents, halons, methyl bromide, methyl chloride and halogenated chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) in the stratosphere have begun to show a slow decline after reaching a peak in the mid-1990s.

Large solar heating-cooling cycle variations also occur every 80,000 to 110,000 years, but the sun’s thermostat also changes in shorter term cooling-warming cycles of approximately 11 years, see Figure 10. The period chosen for analysis to negate this effect was from 1966 to 1998. At these two points in time, the solar irradiance hitting the earth was approximately the same (1365.8 W/m²). Table 1 and Table 2 show mass and energy balances around the earth and stratosphere from 1966 to 1998.

The start of the reduction of ozone in the stratosphere is the result of the Montreal Protocol of 1987 and later amendments.  CFC production ceased in developed countries in 1998 and was stopped in underdeveloped countries in 2010¹⁶.  The decline is now about 1{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} per year and the ozone is also now increasing slightly in the stratosphere as shown above in Figure 8.

By around 2100 the ozone should be back to the levels seen in 1960.  Ozone in the year 2002 was higher in the ozone hole because of unusually high temperatures in the Antarctic stratosphere (probably due to more interaction with air outside of the Antarctic region).

The global average ozone is about 300 Dobson units. Before 1980 ozone less than 200 Dobson units was rarely seen.  In recent years ozone near 100 Dobson units has become normal in the ozone hole. The Dobson unit is the most common unit for measuring ozone concentration.  One Dobson unit is the number of molecules of ozone that would be required to create a layer of pure ozone 0.01 millimeters thick at the surface of the earth at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius and a pressure of 1 atmosphere.

The legendary hypotheses of Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina, and Sherwood Rowland, and led to CFCs being banned because they were destroying stratospheric ozone.  Total stratospheric organic chlorine is currently over 2.5 ppbv, in 1970 it was just over 1 ppbv, see Figure 11.

One can see how the reduction in stratospheric chlorine has affected global temperature.  As it stopped its rise in 1998 and started decreasing the temperature also started decreasing slightly (refer back to Figure 7).  

 Conclusions

Since 1966 it is apparent that CFC destruction of stratospheric ozone was the only mechanism that caused the earth to warm.  Since 1998 when CFC production was stopped in developed countries and CFC concentration in the stratosphere stopped increasing, the earth temperature has not increased. 

Fairly recently¹⁸, Qing-Bin Lu of the University of Waterloo stated, “a new theoretical calculation on the greenhouse effect of halogenated gases shows that they (mainly CFCs) could alone result in the global surface temperature rise of ~0.6°C from 1970-1998. These results provide solid evidence that recent global warming was indeed caused by the greenhouse effect of anthropogenic halogenated gases”.  

Although there is no such thing as greenhouse gases, the author is pleased that someone else has determined that CFCs not CO₂ and has caused the earth to warm.  The author discovered the CFC effect back in 2009, Dr. Lu has been touting this for years as well but most scientists haven’t accepted it.  

So, based on real data evaluation, CO₂ causing global warming is completely contrived.  The lesson to the world here is, when it comes to science; never blindly accept an explanation from a politician or scientists who have turned political for their own private gain.  Many scientists, including the author, see global warming from CO₂ as a cruel global swindle to eliminate conventional fuels, so that a few, at the expense of the many, can reap huge profits from either carbon taxes and/or alternative “non-green” energy sources such as windmills, solar power, and hydroelectric power.

Science is a search for truth — nothing else; when scientific truth is trashed (the US EPA is complicit in this) for personal gain by a few influential greedy charlatans, the world and the average people in it, are in very deep trouble!

References:

1. Ross, R. J., and Elliott, W.P., “Radiosonde-Based Northern Hemisphere Tropospheric Water Vapor Trends”, Journal of Climate, Vol.  14, 1602-1612, July 7, 2000.
2. Petit, J.R., et. al., “Climate and Atmospheric History of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica”, Nature  399: 429-436, June 3, 1999.
3. Loehle, C. and McCulloch, J.H. 2008. Correction to: A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-tree ring proxies. Energy & Environment 19: 93-100.
4. Pearch, R.W. and Bjorkman, O., “Physiological effects”, in Lemon, E.R. (ed.), CO2 and Plants: The Response of Plants to Rising Levels of Atmospheric CO2, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1983), pp 65-1055.
5. Travis, D., A. Carleton, and R. Lauritsen, 2002: Contrails reduce daily temperature range. Nature, 418, 601.
6. Brehmer, Carl, “The Greenhouse Effect Explored”, February 21, 2012, https://principia-scientific.com/supportnews/latest-news/143-the-greenhouse-effect-explored
7. Costella, J.P., “Climategate Analysis”, http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/
8. David Evans, “Carbon Emissions Don’t Cause Global Warming”, November 28, 2007, http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Evans-CO2DoesNotCauseGW.pdf.
9. Carlin, A. and Davidson, J, “Proposed NCEE Comments on Draft technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act”, March 9, 2009. Deleted can’t find, copy attached from my files.
10. http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2011/02/19/house-votes-244-179-to-kill-u-s-funding-of-ipcc/
11. Washington Times – “Global Climate Change Group Seeks Immunity for Actions, June 12, 2012, http://times247.com/articles/global-climate-group-seeks-legal-immunity-for-actions#ixzz1ySY2gR5D
12. New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/business/worldbusiness/11iht-gore.4.10942634.html?_r=1
13. “CFC Destruction Major Cause of Recent Global Warming!”, Hydrocarbon Processing articles, October and November publications, 2009. http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=2152
14. http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/jds/ozone/index_2012.htmlGlobal Surface Temperatures Anomalies, National Oceanic and        Atmospheric Administration, National Climatic Data Center, Sept. 17, 2012.  http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php
15. Lean, J. 2000, Evolution of the Sun’s Spectral Irradiance Since the Maunder minimum. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 27, No. 16, pp.2425-2428, Aug. 15, 2000
16. Nobel Prize in Chemistry, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, October 11, 1995
17. Australian Government Department of Environment, http://www.environment.gov.au/node/22144
18. Qing.-Bin Lu, International Journal of Modern Physics B, “Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change”, DOI: 10.1142/S0217979213500732, May 30, 2013.

The battle against the bugs has become something of a crusade. A month ago, the public chose the search for an answer to antibiotic resistance as the topic for the 2014 Longitude Prize, a £10m challenge to help solve one of the greatest issues of our time. Recently, David Cameron committed the UK to leading a global campaign to save us from the potentially devastating problems that could result from antibiotics becoming ever less effective. Millions of people are now aware of the issue, and thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, are working to address it.

It was very different 300 years ago, when a committee of a dozen rather grumpy men made the final decision on allocating the original £20,000 Longitude Prize. In the end, and very reluctantly, they had to award it to John Harrison, a humble Yorkshire clockmaker, whose successive inventions had solved the problem of measuring longitude at sea better than any alternative.

This time, vastly larger numbers have taken part in the conversation about what the Longitude Prize 2014 should focus on, arguing about which of the six challenges initially selected was the most important and urgent. These ranged from tackling dementia to carbon free flight, from water desalination to paralysis. But antibiotics was a worthy winner – specifically finding a way to tackle the rise of antibiotic resistance, a problem that could threaten millions of lives. We have relied on antibiotics for over 80 years, and can all see their benefits. But too much use, and too often treating antibiotics as a first response, has fuelled the rise of resistance.

Left-leaning environmentalists, media and academics have long railed against the alleged conservative “war on science.” They augment this vitriol with substantial money, books, documentaries and conference sessions devoted to “protecting” global warming alarmists from supposed “harassment” by climate chaos skeptics, whom they accuse of wanting to conduct “fishing expeditions” of alarmist emails and “rifle” their file cabinets in search of juicy material (which might expose collusion or manipulated science).

A primary target of this “unjustified harassment” has been Penn State University professor Dr. Michael Mann, creator of the infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph that purported to show a sudden spike in average planetary temperatures in recent decades, following centuries of supposedly stable climate. But at a recent AGU meeting a number of other “persecuted” scientists were trotted out to tell their story of how they have been “attacked” or had their research, policy demands or integrity questioned.  

To fight back against this “harassment,” the American Geophysical Union actually created a “Climate Science Legal Defense Fund,” to pay mounting legal bills that these scientists have incurred. The AGU does not want any “prying eyes” to gain access to their emails or other information.  These scientists and the AGU see themselves as “Freedom Fighters” in this “war on science.” It’s a bizarre war.

While proclaiming victimhood, they detest and vilify any experts who express doubts that we face an imminent climate Armageddon. They refuse to debate any such skeptics, or permit “nonbelievers” to participate in conferences where endless panels insist that every imaginable and imagined ecological problem is due to fossil fuels. They use hysteria and hyperbole to advance claims that slashing fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions will enable us to control Earth’s climate – and that references to computer model predictions and “extreme weather events” justify skyrocketing energy costs, millions of lost jobs, and severe damage to people’s livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare.

 Regulatory Convergence in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Abstract:      

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (“TTIP”) has been hailed as an opportunity for the world’s two largest consumer markets to expand inter-regional trade, investment and jobs, and to secure greater regulatory convergence that could considerably reduce costly and market-distorting extra-territorial non-tariff regulatory trade barriers.  This opportunity notwithstanding, Europe’s precautionary principle (“PP”) has been identified as a potential obstacle to a successful TTIP outcome. In our view, the TTIP presents a significant opportunity for creating a process for regulatory cooperation, harmonization, and convergence. In this article, we focus on the PP and related differences in regulatory procedures. Specifically, we discuss the PP’s relation to post-modernism, and its influence on EU regulatory procedure and science, highlighting the paradoxes inherent in the PP. To put these issues into perspective, we also review the ‘reality of precaution.’ In light of this analysis, we assess the effectiveness of the trading partners’ attempts to reduce the regulatory divide, and explore what the EU and US can learn from each other. We then proceed to present some recommendations on how they should proceed in the TTIP negotiations.

Nature has its own ideas about our good intentions.  Bananas appear to be on her current hit list as reported by the South China Morning Post.

Scientists have discovered a previously unknown virus living in the human gut, according to a study in Nature Communications. 

Exploring genetic material found in intestinal samples, the international team uncovered the CrAssphage virus. They say the virus could influence the behaviour of some of the most common bacteria in our gut.

Experts say these types of viruses, called bacteriophages, have been shown to play a role in chronic diseases. Led by a team at San Diego State University in the USA, scientists scoured genetic information stored in three large international databases.

They stumbled upon a piece of DNA, some 100,000 letters long, present in more than half of all samples from the gut.

‘Novel virus’

And while cross-checking its identity in global directories they realised it had never been described before.

Prof Robert Edwards, lead author, said: “It is not unusual to go looking for a novel virus and find one.

“But it’s very unusual to find one that so many people have in common.

“The fact it has flown under the radar for so long is very strange.”

People all around the world, responding to a survey by Ipsos MORI, have generally agreed with the ideas that scientists don’t really know what they’re talking about when it comes to the climate – and that governments are using environmental issues as an excuse to raise taxes. 

These not-so-green views were transmitted as part of Ipsos MORI’s new Global Trends 2014 survey, which can be seen here. Respondents were asked to respond “agree”, “disagree” or “don’t know” to various statements.

The survey respondents also strongly endorsed the idea that “the government is just using environmental issues as an excuse to raise taxes”, with 58 per cent in agreement and just 31 per cent disagreeing worldwide. The only countries in the survey where people actually disagreed were Italy and Sweden. Brits and Americans concurred with the notion of green tax plundering, but not as strongly as most nations: Spain, France and Belgium were the places that really got behind the idea.

Much has been made by some news organisations of the response to the statement “the climate change we are currently seeing is a natural phenomenon that happens from time to time”. Here some 49 per cent of the people of the world disagreed, and 41 per cent agreed: but in the US and Britain (also India and China), more agreed than disagreed.

According to some, the survey shows a connection between “global warming denial” and “speaking English”, much though they don’t speak English in China, India, Poland or Russia – all places where people apparently believe that today’s climate change is natural.

In fact what the survey really shows is the weakness of surveys, because a further statement, “the climate change we are currently seeing is largely the result of human activity”, gained strong agreement everywhere – even in Britain, the USA, Russia, China, India and Poland.

So it would seem that an awful lot of people believe that “the climate change we are currently seeing” is both a natural phenomenon which happens from time to time andlargely caused by humans.

Of course the confusion here may be worsened by the fact that we aren’t “currently seeing” any climate change by the headline measure: there has been no global warming for perhaps 15 years.

The Sun seems to have given itself a few days off. As noted by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, with reference to data from the Royal Observatory of Belgium’s Sunspot Index and Long-term Solar Observations (SILSO) project, last Thursday July 17th saw the Sun produce no sunspots.

That’s the first sunspot-free day since 2011. And as the graph below shows, Sol seems to be having a bit of a rest at present.

Before you rush to any conclusions about what this all might mean for the state of the Sun’s climate, or Earth’s, here’s SILSO’s longer-term look at sunspot activity.

This graph shows a trend towards a dip, but also that low sunspot activity has recently been observed.

One last set of data, in the form of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) and American Meteorological Society’s (AMS) annual State of the Climate report (PDF) for 2013.

The NOAA says the report shows that “In 2013, the vast majority of worldwide climate indicators — greenhouse gases, sea levels, global temperatures, etc.—continued to reflect trends of a warmer planet”.

I have already discussed my disdain for gluten in previous articles, citing numerous research studies reporting its negative effects on the brain and digestive health. Gluten is a very hard protein found in wheat, barley, and rye products, and most individuals today are sensitive — if not downright intolerant — to its structure.

Molten rock travels a long road before it spews from volcanoes during deadly eruptions. Mapping out the journey could help scientists better understand how volcanoes work and improve early warnings of oncoming blasts, but tracking down blobs of magma deep within the Earth’s crust is no easy task. 

Now, at Washington’s Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens, two of the most dangerous volcanoes in the United States, researchers are getting their best look yet at magma’s underground path via a pair of new scientific studies.

The first study, published today (July 16) in the journal Nature, clearly illustrates how magma is produced deep beneath Mount Rainier. With the second study, which is just getting underway, researchers hope to generate similarly revealing results for Mount St. Helens.

Birth of the Cascades

Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens are two of scores of snow-capped volcanoes that march up the West Coast, from Northern California to British Columbia, Canada. If Mount Rainier erupts, its glaciers could melt and trigger lethal mudflows called lahars that would race through the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area.

Take a good look at the volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io.  These images were taken by the New Horizons spacecraft as it swung past the moon back in 2007. 

STICK an electrode in the ground, pump electrons down it, and they will come: living cells that eat electricity. We have known bacteria to survive on a variety of energy sources, but none as weird as this. Think of Frankenstein’s monster, brought to life by galvanic energy, except these “electric bacteria” are very real and are popping up all over the place.

Unlike any other living thing on Earth, electric bacteria use energy in its purest form – naked electricity in the shape of electrons harvested from rocks and metals. We already knew about two types, Shewanella and Geobacter. Now, biologists are showing that they can entice many more out of rocks and marine mud by tempting them with a bit of electrical juice. Experiments growing bacteria on battery electrodes demonstrate that these novel, mind-boggling forms of life are essentially eating and excreting electricity.

That should not come as a complete surprise, says Kenneth Nealson at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. We know that life, when you boil it right down, is a flow of electrons: “You eat sugars that have excess electrons, and you breathe in oxygen that willingly takes them.” Our cells break down the sugars, and the electrons flow through them in a complex set of chemical reactions until they are passed on to electron-hungry oxygen.

In the 19th century, scientists were working under the presumption that the universe was stable and, for practical purposes, infinite in all directions.  They believed matter moved through a field that gave it form.  They called this field an aether. 

Then Einstein came along and discovered a way to calculate relativistic mechanics without the need for an aether.  Einstein’s theory was subsequently backed up by experiments that seemed to show there was no aether of the type scientists had once presumed existed.

At the time Einstein first proposed his theories of bending space and relativity without an aether, he did not believe in a “Big Bang” expanding universe.  The Big Bang was actually the brain child of a Catholic priest.  It wasn’t until Hubble came along and showed that the spectra of distant galaxies seemed to shift toward the red end of the light spectrum in proportion to their brightness that Einstein finally conceded that the universe may actually be the product of a “Big Bang.”  However, in the decades that followed, a mountain of contradictory evidence has been accumulating that undermines these assumptions.

Today, we are at a point where scientists are claiming over 90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the universe is made out of matter and energy that we can’t see and can’t detect.  They are claiming that infinitely dense objects exist (something Einstein also disagreed with.)  They are claiming that stars the size of asteroids can spin around at near light speed and emit a focused beam of energy that is detectable across galactic distances.  They are claiming that stable matter exists in the universe that violates the Island of Stability in nuclear chemistry.  In fact, I could go on listing absolutely bizarre and unproven claims until I had enough theory to fill an entire book.

All of these bizarre theories are the result of a few fundamental unproven assumptions.

Talking about Monsanto’s latest attempt to obstruct justice, halt transparency, and prevent people from stopping their seed and herbicide businesses from spreading is starting to seem redundant, but the company just keeps acting in increasingly objectionable ways.  Now, the company is refusing to release to the public lab tests conducted in St. Louis, Missouri, which gave them authority to use glyphosate in China.

Just months ago, Chinese food safety volunteers tendered a request to China’s Ministry of Agriculture to release the study that justified issuing the safety certificate for the import into China of Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide RoundUp. Glyphosate was given a safety certificate in 1988 after studies submitted by Monsanto were conducted at Younger Laboratories in St. Louis Missouri.

The test was meant to be an acute exposure toxicity test in which rats were given RoundUp by mouth for several days, and rabbits were exposed to RoundUp by skin. The company claims that the herbicide had no effect on the eyes or the skin, and that no allergies ensued. However, they are refusing to release the lab report to China’s food safety volunteers, stating that it is an ‘industry secret.’

The media are abuzz with news about another villain—the element nickel, with the chemical symbol “Ni.” For example, as USA Today reports, the maker of a wristband—made of plastic material—with a small tech device made of surgical steel was forced to institute a recall with full refund to wearers of such items after a few people complained about skin irritations.