LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists have found a way of genetically modifying mosquitoes to produce sperm that only creates males, offering a potential fresh approach to fighting and eventually eradicating malaria. 

Researchers from Imperial College London tested a genetic method that distorts the sex ratio of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, the main transmitters of the malaria parasite, so that the female mosquitoes that bite and pass the disease to humans are no longer produced.

In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, the team reported that in the first laboratory tests, the technique created a fully fertile mosquito strain that produced 95 percent male offspring.

“For the very first time, we have been able to inhibit the production of female offspring in the laboratory and this provides a new means to eliminate the disease,” said Andrea Crisanti, who led the research at Imperial’s department of life sciences.

Nikolai Windbichler, who co-led the work, said what was most promising about the results is that they are self-sustaining.

“Once modified mosquitoes are introduced, males will start to produce mainly sons, and their sons will do the same, so essentially the mosquitoes carry out the work for us,” he said.

A brief survey of the literature concerning volcanogenic carbon dioxide emission finds that estimates of subaerial emission totals fail to account for the diversity of volcanic emissions and are unprepared for individual outliers that dominate known volcanic emissions. 

Deepening the apparent mystery of total volcanogenic CO2 emission, there is no magic fingerprint with which to identify industrially produced CO2 as there is insufficient data to distinguish the effects of volcanic CO2 from fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere.

Molar ratios of O₂ consumed to CO2 produced are, moreover, of little use due to the abundance of processes (eg. weathering, corrosion, etc) other than volcanic CO2emission and fossil fuel consumption that are, to date, unquantified. Furthermore, the discovery of a surprising number of submarine volcanoes highlights the underestimation of global volcanism and provides a loose basis for an estimate that may partly explain ocean acidification and rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels observed last century, as well as shedding much needed light on intensified polar spring melts.

Based on this brief literature survey, we may conclude that volcanic CO2 emissions are much higher than previously estimated, and as volcanic CO2 contributions are effectively indistinguishable from industrial CO2 contributions, we cannot glibly assume that the increase of atmospheric CO2 is exclusively anthropogenic.

The shortcomings in much government-funded climate research are too broad to be addressed in one article but herein we highlight three key areas of concern; (1) biased peer review in prominent journals and among national institutions, (2) misidentification of the role of carbon dioxide in climate and (3) a systemic avoidance of increasingly compelling evidence for global cooling. 

The “we” referred to above is Principia Scientific International (PSI), a non-political body of over 350 concerned members, many of whom hold PhD’s from the “hard” sciences. PSI’s unpaid experts reviewed the evidence and determined there exists no measurable man-made climate warming; the widely-reported assertion it exists and may be “dangerous” is a trite, faith-based assertion emanating mostly from a dominant and self-serving clique of government-sponsored climate researchers.

By contrast, the most overlooked evidential certainty of our time is that global cooling is under way and, as such, man-made global warming theory premised on rising “greenhouse gas”  emissions (CO2 levels allegedly up 40 percent in recent decades) is discredited. Despite continued efforts by the scientific establishment to suppress dissent on the issue a growing number of experts are speaking out.

Dissenters argue that obfuscation is rife and cherry-picking of data too often the norm. Such subterfuge persists because earth’s water-dominant climate is complex and barely understood by practitioners in this infant field of science. Indeed, the greenhouse gas theory obsesses about radiative forcing despite the fact that temperatures in both greenhouses and our atmosphere are dominated by convection and conduction. 

The Monarch Butterflies are threatened, no doubt about that. Well-meaning groups, like LMF (http://www.livemonarch.com) are grassroots efforts to encourage gardeners to grow milkweed plants, the monarchs’ predominant food source. 

The crucial question though has not been asked: why is the milkweed plant rapidly disappearing?

Some Ideas

Some people think the use of genetically modified (GM) corn that is the source of the problem. They think that herbicides applied to GM corn prevent the growth of errant milkweed plants in corn fields. I don’t think so. The milkweed rate of growth is much less than that of corn and the monarchs would rarely have found the few errant milkweed plants in a multi-acre corn field prior to the introduction of GM corn.

Another idea is the habitat destruction of the monarchs’ wintering grounds in Mexico through encroaching settlements. Mexico has been taking steps to prevent that but, perhaps, needs to do more in that respect. 

I worked for the U.S. EPA from 1979 to 2004, spending most of my time with the program dealing with pesticides. 

It did not take me long to figure out that the EPA was reeling from the scandal of the Industrial Bio-test Laboratory, IBT. People would whisper in the corridors about fake lab studies. They would wonder aloud about the safety of our food.

IBT was the country’s largest testing lab from the 1950s to 1970s. Taking advantage of the legal requirements for animal studies for the licensing of drugs and chemicals, IBT became a huge national business, testing about 40 percent of America’s drugs, pesticides and other chemicals.

Animal studies, morally repugnant in many cases, when done honestly, reveal the danger or potential for harm of the substances fed the experimental animals — mice, rats, rabbits and dogs. If the animal develops cancer from eating a farm spray in its food, watch out: Humans would probably become cancer victims from eating food treated with that chemical.

Government regulators are crippled and blind without that picture or with a fake picture. Their decisions are then no better than the actions of witch doctors or executioners. The entire society becomes the real guinea pig for the perpetual stream of toxins of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

IBT did that for more than 25 years. Until 1976 when a government pathologist uncovered its gangsterism, IBT was the chemical and pharmaceutical industries’ dirty grocery store, enabling them and agribusiness to sell hazardous drugs and food to the American people.

Professor Ian Plimer has never been renowned for moderation in his opinions about the extremist elements of the green movement and in this book he launches on them in a full-blooded, broken-bottle attack.

In his own words: “What started as a ­laudable movement to prevent the despoilation of certain areas of natural beauty has morphed into an authoritarian, anti-progress, anti-democratic, anti-human monster.” That Plimer should attack the greens is no surprise. More impressive is the book’s foreword, written by Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, who fully ­supports Plimer.

He congratulates Plimer for a book that provides a “different . . . and extremely rational look at the agenda of the green movement today”. “In many respects, they have become a combination of extreme political ideology and religious fundamentalism rolled into one,” Moore says.

“There is no better example of this than the fervent belief in human-caused ­catastrophic climate change.” Moore even rejects the core green belief that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful.

Plimer’s thesis is that the real agenda of green groups (often registered as charities) is nothing less than the destruction of modern civilisation and that a key aim is to kneecap the global energy industry which provides society with electricity. It has always seemed odd that greens are so hostile to a gas which is vital for the life of trees. As a trained geologist, Plimer is well aware that the planet’s climate has been changing since its birth 4½ billion years ago. “If the Earth’s climate did not constantly change, then I would be really worried,” he says.

Denmark: 1,600 animals were born prematurely at a mink farm this month. Many had deformities, and most were dead on arrival. The lack of eyeballs was the most common malformation. Veterinarians ruled out food and viruses as possible causes. The only thing different at the farm since last year has been the installation of four large wind turbines only 328 meters away. 

The wind farm consists of four 3 MW turbines, VESTAS model V112, reaching out to 140 meters in height at the tip of the blades. When they became operative last fall, a first mishap was reported by the mink farmer, who was heard about it at a parliamentary committee on wind farms in January this year (1). The World Council for Nature (WCFN) reported the incident earlier: “In Denmark, which is the EU’s leader in mink farming, millions of Danish kroners were lost in damaged pelts when wind turbines started to operate near a mink farm. The animals became aggressive, attacking one another, and resulting in many deaths” (2).

Both incidents are alarming, as they constitute definite proof that wind turbines are harmful to the health of animals living in their vicinity.

It appears that climate change hysteria has even infiltrated the British Medical Association, the BMA. A recent article in the Student BMJ by Julian Sheather, the BMA’s Deputy Head of Ethics, shows such a stunning lack of knowledge and groupthink, that it is frightening to think these people are supposed to be in charge of our health. 

The article is titled “MEDICINE AND CLIMATE CHANGE – Do doctors have special moral responsibilities?”, but unfortunately it is under copyright. It can though be read here. (The full article can be accessed by free registration).

But when I tell you the opening paragraph mentions “perfect moral storm”, “outright deniers”, “John Kerry” and “catastrophic”, you will probably get the idea!

Use of the phrase, “outright deniers”, clearly shows he has utterly failed to understand what the debate on climate change is all about. He then compounds this by quoting John Kerry, as if any politician is automatically trustworthy!

Society expects doctors, as much as other scientists, to be objective, be concerned only with the facts and continually question. It would appear that Sheather has done none of these things, and instead simply parrots the official line.

Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it’s being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

The findings significantly change the understanding of conditions beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet where accurate information has previously been unobtainable.

The Thwaites Glacier has been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks as other groups of researchers found the glacier is on the way to collapse, but more data and computer modeling are needed to determine when the collapse will begin in earnest and at what rate the sea level will increase as it proceeds. The new observations by UTIG will greatly inform these ice sheet modeling efforts.

Using radar techniques to map how water flows under ice sheets, UTIG researchers were able to estimate ice melting rates and thus identify significant sources of geothermal heat under Thwaites Glacier. They found these sources are distributed over a wider area and are much hotter than previously assumed.

Professor’s fellowship ‘terminated’ after WSJ OpEd declaring “the left wants to stop industrialization—even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false.”

Prof. Caleb Rossiter: “If people ever say that fears of censorship for ‘climate change’ views are overblown, have them take a look at this. Just two days after I published a piece in the Wall Street Journal calling for Africa to be allowed the ‘all of the above’ energy strategy we have in the U.S., the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) terminated my 23-year relationship with them…because my analysis and theirs ‘diverge.’”

IPS email of ‘termination’ to Rossiter: “We would like to inform you that we are terminating your position as an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies…Unfortunately, we now feel that your views on key issues, including climate science, climate justice, and many aspects of U.S. policy to Africa, diverge so significantly from ours.”

Climate Depot Exclusive

Dr. Caleb Rossiter was “terminated” via email as an “Associate Fellow” from the progressive group Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), following his May 4th, 2014 Wall Street Journal OpEd titled “Sacrificing Africa for Climate Change,” in which he called man-made global warming an “unproved science.” Rossiter also championed the expansion of carbon based energy in Africa.  Dr.  Rossiter is an adjunct professor at American University. Rossiter holds a PhD in policy analysis and a masters degree in mathematics.

In an exclusive interview with Climate Depot, Dr. Rossiter tells how he was stripped of his position for writing his  May 4, 2014 Wall Street Journal OpEd which pulled no punches. Rossiter, who holds a masters in mathematics, wrote: “I started to suspect that the climate-change data were dubious a decade ago while teaching statistics. Computer models used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to determine the cause of the six-tenths of one degree Fahrenheit rise in global temperature from 1980 to 2000 could not statistically separate fossil-fueled and natural trends.”

His Wall Street Journal OpEd continued: “The left wants to stop industrialization—even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false.” He added: “Western policies seem more interested in carbon-dioxide levels than in life expectancy.”

Man-made global warming promoters claim the high correlation between carbon dioxide (CO₂₎ and atmospheric temperature (T) in the 420,000 year ice core record proves CO₂ causes T to change. Herein is demonstrated how the evidence conflicts with that belief.

Basics. First, correlation alone only proves correlation, not cause and effect. Physics is required to describe and prove cause and effect. Second if increasing CO₂ did cause T to increase, there must be some physical lag or delay in the response of T to CO₂; average T of whole atmosphere, oceans and land masses cannot respond instantaneously to CO₂, no matter how strong the cause.

In fact many researchers claim CO₂ actually lags T, proving CO₂ cannot cause T changes at all. Rather T causes CO₂.

What could cause CO₂ to lag warming? Its solubility in water? Yes, that explains the data well. Simply put, when oceans warm due to greater solar energy absorption, they outgas dissolved CO₂ just like soda water does because CO₂ is less soluble in warm water than cold. When oceans are chilled, they absorb CO₂ gas and hold it because CO₂ is more soluble. Tropical seas hold less CO₂/m³ than polar seas do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean#Mixing_Time

The lag is measured to be about 800 years and confirmed by theory.

Data analysis. After studying that mechanism in 2009 and Al Gore’s 420,000 years of T and CO₂ data in his “Inconvenient Truth” movie and National Geographic June 2007 Big Thaw article and insert, their data confirm it was a lag, not a lead.

Sensational discovery of 4000-year old chunks of wood at the edge of glaciers in Switzerland proves climate was warmer in the past than previously thought. Distinguished geologist, Professor Christian Schlüchter, condemns politically corrupt ‘man-made global warming’ scientists for covering up the game-changing find. 

P. Gosselin (notrickszone.com) reports (June 09, 2014):

This post is about an interview by the online Swiss Der Bund here with Swiss geology giant Christian Schlüchter titled: “Our society is fundamentally dishonest“. In it he criticizes climate science for its extreme tunnel vision and political contamination.

Geologist Sebastain Lüning sent me an e-mail where he writes: “This is probably the best interview from a geologist on climate change that I have read for a long while. My highest respect for Prof. Schlüchter.” Fritz Vahrenholt calls it “impressive”.

Hat-tip: Bernd Felsche and Wolfgang Neumann at Facebook.
Photo credit (Christian Schlüchter): University of Bern

His discovery of 4000-year old chunks of wood at the edge of glaciers in Switzerland in the 1990s unintentionally thrust the distinguished geologist into the lion’s den of climate science. Today the retired professor and author of more than 250 papers speaks up in an interview.

AUSTRALIA’S peak body of earth scientists has declared itself unable to publish a position statement on climate change due to the deep divisions within its membership on the issue. After more than five years of debate and two false starts, Geological Society of Australia president Laurie Hutton said a statement on climate change was too difficult to achieve. 

Mr Hutton said the issue “had the potential to be too divisive and would not serve the best interests of the society as a whole.”

The backdown, published in the GSA quarterly newsletter, is the culmination of two rejected position statements and years of furious correspondence among members. Some members believe the failure to make a strong statement on climate change is an embarrassment that puts Australian earth scientists at odds with their international peers.

It undermines the often cited stance that there is near unanimity among climate scientists on the issue.

GSA represents more than 2000 Australian earth scientists from academe, industry, government and research organisations.

A position statement published in 2009 said the society was concerned about the potentially harmful effects of carbon dioxide emissions and favoured “strong action to substantially reduce current levels’’.

“Of particular concern are the well-documented loading of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which has been linked unequivocally to burning of fossil fuels, and the corresponding increase in average global temperature,’’ it said.

“Risks associated with these large-scale perturbations of the Earth’s fundamental life-support systems include rising sea level, harmful shifts in the acid balance of the oceans and long-term changes in local and regional climate and extreme weather events.”

Publication of the position statement caused an uproar among members and led to a revised statement, after wide consultation. The revised statement said: “Geological evidence clearly demonstrates that Earth’s climate system is inherently and naturally variable over timescales from decades to millions of years.

Come to fabulous Las Vegas to meet leading scientists from around the world who question whether “man-made global warming” will be harmful to plants, animals, or human welfare. Learn from top economists and policy experts about the real costs and futility of trying to stop global warming.

Meet the leaders of think tanks and grassroots organizations who are speaking out against global warming alarmism.

Don’t just wonder about global warming … understand it!

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Advocates for a return to a no nonsense empirical approach to the Big Questions in our Universe are making headway. Such critics of Big Bang, Black Hole, String Theory, etc say it is time to put away all the unproven and unprovable post normal pencil and paper theorisations. Instead, a rising tide of skeptics are demanding a wholesale re-think. Among their gripes is that for too long modern cosmology has done little more than the construct of an iffy Universe populated by equations and not provable science.

Dr Pierre R Latour (pictured), PhD Chemical Process Control Systems Engineer and registered Professional Engineer in Texas and California, shares that sentiment. His main focus is the similarly shaky post normal interpretation of how earth’s atmosphere works.

Dr Latour has been studying the cornerstone of climate science rationale – the so-called greenhouse gas theory, since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Among skeptics the ‘theory’ is regarded as wishywashy at best and as replete with conjecture and contradiction as is much of modern cosmology. Latour, on behalf of Principia Scientific International (PSI), was invited to give a talk on “Engineering Earth’s Thermostat with CO2?” at the Electric Universe 2014 Conference – All About Evidence, on March 24, 2014 and eloquently put the PSI case across. The impact of this conference and the compelling arguments presented, is currently reverberating throughout the independent global scientific community.

Dr Latour explains, using essential engineering requirements,  that any supposed earth thermostat is technically impossible – it cannot work and proved it never will.

Latour adds, “The Thunderbolts Project EU2014 Conference was interesting, informative and good fun. Most attendees were physicists from diverse backgrounds, skeptical of some mainstream consensus theoretical physics/astronomy.”

Fascinating to Latour and PSI was the overall theme of the project –  how electric field currents throughout the universe better match poorly explained observations like dark matter, black holes and Big Bang infinity points.

PSI’s Vice Chair is in solid agreement with others at the EU conference in arguing that the preponderance of matter in our Universe is disassociated ions and electrons, like stars, nebula and solar wind plasma – unlike zero charge atoms and molecules on Earth.

NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) has filmed some impressive footage of a coronal mass ejection (CME) – the first such footage to come from the “Small Explorer Mission” to examine the Sun’s lower atmosphere.

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Captured on 9 May, the video shows a “giant sheet of solar material” about “five Earths wide and about seven-and-a-half Earths tall” in the field of view. The agency elaborates: “The IRIS imagery focuses in on material of 30,000 kelvins at the base, or foot points, of the CME.

“The line moving across the middle of the movie is the entrance slit for IRIS’s spectrograph, an instrument that can split light into its many wavelengths – a technique that ultimately allows scientists to measure temperature, velocity and density of the solar material behind the slit.”

Since IRIS has to “commit to pointing at certain areas of the Sun at least a day in advance”, there was a certain amount of luck involved in getting the money shot.