Commentary

Where's the Wolf?

David K. McCombs

The idea, if not the term Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) has been popular since a heat spell in early Eighties.  I was quite susceptible then.  The idea was mainstreamed by Carl Sagan as a result of his thoughts about Venus.  As a planetary physicist, Sagan pondered the exceptionally hot conditions on Venus.  The exceptional heat is caused by 'greenhouse' gases in the the Venusian atmosphere.  The gases trap infrared radiation, so the atmosphere stays hot.  Sagan inferred that a similar hostile climate on earth would result if the percentage of CO² in the Earth's atmosphere were allowed to increase.   My thinking in the late 80's as a physics student and Christian (faith in Christ leads to good science) led me to the conclusion that Sagan was not accounting for the Earths ability to buffer any CO² increase.  A plants natural reaction to increased levels of CO²  is to flourish (the real greenhouse effect).    Any nursery operator will tell you plants grow rapidly in the presence of CO².  This leads to the absorption of fractionally more CO² in photosynthesis.   It is a (miraculously) buffered system. 

Turning to today:  Michael Mann, James Hanson, Phil Jones, Al Gore et al have pushed AGW to the point of hysteria,  It is the new religion, and I suppose I am a heretic.  The science is solely based on computer models.  Observations are adjusted to agree with the models.

About a year ago I downloaded and examined the NASA model from http://www.earthsystemmodeling.org.  It's FORTRAN. I may have missed it, but I could find no code in the model I downloaded for the buffering effect I mention above. (i.e. the effect of CO² on plants, resulting in more CO² uptake.)  It looks like there is a place-holder for the code, but it hasn't been developed or integrated into the model.  This critical shortcoming precludes any reliance anyone could have on this model.

So where is the warming for the last 10 years?  CRU Jones, in his now infamous emails, suggest he and his collaborators find a way to 'hide the decline.'  This is not so much science now as 'crying wolf' - where there is no observation of a wolf.  I'm sure they're convinced a wolf is out there, somewhere.

 The tragedy in all of this is that there are REAL environmental concerns that we should be concentrating on that are ignored.  It's difficult to even find information on environmental issues other than AGW.  Here are a few pressing issues NOT being looked at.

1. Biodiversity is threatened in the Pacific by fertilizer runoff induced algae blooms. (I see this issue often erroneously attributed to AGW!)
   
2. Over fishing
3. Water Pollution
4. Unregulated industrial production in China causing air quality problems from the far-east all the way to California.

If AGW isn't really a concern;  wouldn't it be ironic if we destroyed the planet in our effort to save the planet?  At least we could feel good while doing it.

Dear Arnold

I'm Sorry! There is no Credit Fairy. The Federal Government is As Busted as California.

Please go back to your legislature and fix your own problems.

More Cabinet Czar's to be Scrutinized...

Everyone is looking at Van Jones.  Van Jones deserves scrutiny.  Obama deserves more than scrutiny for choosing such a radical.  But this administration is rife with radicals.  Let have a look see at another one:

According to Wikipedia:

'John P. Holdren is advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)'

'Holdren was previously the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Director of the Woods Hole Research Center.'

Holdren holds a degree in Plasma Physics from Stanford.  Much of his politics and published work is far afield from his doctorate.

 Again from Wikipedia:

"Overpopulation was an early concern and interest. In a 1969 article, Holdren and co-author Paul R. Ehrlich argued that, "if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come." In 1973 Holdren encouraged a decline in fertility to well below replacement in the United States, because "210 million now is too many and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many."[18] In 1977, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Holdren co-authored the textbook Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment; they discussed the possible role of a wide variety of solutions to overpopulation, from voluntary family planning to enforced population controls,including forced sterilization for women after they gave birth to a designated number of children, and recommended "the use of milder methods of influencing family size preferences" such as access to birth control and abortion."

So We have a science advisor whose views on forced sterilization and abortion may be more radical than those practiced in Communist China.  Are we beginning to see a pattern in President Obama's choice of advisors yet?

More interesting Holdren facts can be found HERE .