Most of the last 500,000 years have seen Earth gripped by snow and ice, with short warm periods of about 10,000 years long every 100,000 years. We live in this continuing glacial era but are lucky to exist in one of the regular short warm periods.

There is nothing at all unusual about the current warm period, except maybe that it is the period during which modern human civilisation developed.

Within our warm era, we live in a time that is not unusual either – there have been periods warmer and cooler than today, with no real evidence that mankind has caused global warming (apart from minor urban heat bubbles around mega cities).

There is evidence of a correlation between sunspots and Earth temperature, as well as suggested mechanisms to explain this link. The sun clearly has an effect on Earth temperature, and the evidence tends to suggest we could expect global cooling in the near future.

Even within historical times, the Central England Temperature Record, which goes back to 1659, shows a general rising trend since the depths of the Little Ice age, rising to a peak with the solar cycles, and now signalling a falling trend.

Statistics on human usage of carbon fuels show that it is the undeveloped world not the developed world where usage is rising most sharply. Even in emissions per head of population, it is countries like China where the significant growth is occurring. Carbon taxes and targets are costly and futile.

However when we look at how carbon dioxide affects global temperature, the effect is so small as to be insignificant. It is the behaviour of the sun we should be watching.

Ed Hoskins has looked at all of the above factors in a short but revealing essay.

To read more see:http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/hoskins-global-warming-climate-change.pdf [PDF, 1.8MB]

Alley, R.B 2000 The Younger Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland. Quaternary Science Reviews 19: pp 213-226.

The people who brought us pink bats and cash-for-clunkers have a new scheme – we can earn carbon credits by shooting wild camels, humanely of course.

Surely it would be far easier to shoot tame cattle? There are big mobs near all of our northern ports going nowhere.

And if greens have their way and stop all live exports, we can earn heaps more by shooting millions of sheep and goats, humanely of course.

What about those mobs of kangaroos? They burn carbon fuel and emit dreaded carbon dioxide. Why should they be spared when the future of the planet is at stake?

One small problem – what do we do with all those carcasses? Left alone they will release all the carbon sequestered within their bodies within a couple of weeks, thus incurring massive carbon debits.

And who counts the dead camels? To prevent carbon cull fraud the economy will boom with jobs for regulators, inspectors, auditors and prosecutors.

And of course, we must not burn diesel, av-gas or gun powder to do the slaughter, so the hunting must be done from horses using bows and arrows.

And if killing camels earns carbon credits, why can’t cattle, sheep and goat abattoirs also earn them?

More: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/camel-cull-credits.pdf [PDF: 414 KB]

For lots of comments on this post, and to add your own comments see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/11/craziest-carbon-credit-scheme-yet-shooting-camels-in-australia

Australia’s PM Rudd, Santa Clause of the Global Warming Industry, wants to waste another $100 M per year of other people’s money on his Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.

All life on earth depends on our atmosphere for four essentials – oxygen, water, carbon and nitrogen. This foolish Institute aims to permanently sterilise two of them, carbon and oxygen. It destroys valuable resources and wastes extra energy doing it.

Every tonne of carbon buried in CO2 by CCS takes almost 3 tonnes of oxygen with it. It is more accurately referred to as Oxygen Capture and Burial (OCB).

Planets like earth gradually lose their life-sustaining atmosphere and end up as lifeless planets like Moon and Mars. It just takes time.

The essentials of life are already being continually lost by other processes, largely locked up in rocks as limestone or coal, lost to space, or buried in ocean sediments, land fill or human cemeteries.

These buried treasures are lost for eons, maybe forever, to the cycle of life. The OCB scheme would deliberately accelerate that deathly process.

Burning coal and oil, smelting metals, mining phosphate and calcining cement make small contributions to reverse this long term disappearance of essential elements from our atmosphere and biosphere.

There are no climate benefits of this silly proposal because CO2 in the atmosphere does not control climate – the tiny effect of man’s CO2 emissions is wholly beneficial.

The OCB Scheme will provide cushy jobs and Frequent Flyer Points for the Climate Change Industry, jobs losses in every real industry, and soaring costs in every home.

Green extremists know that OCB is a fantasy but see it as a weapon to cripple carbon industries with taxes, thus making solar and wind power look economic.

Our PM should reduce his carbon footprint and come home.

Australia cannot afford a world statesman.

Viv Forbes
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition

There is now a special magazine called “Carbon Capture Journal” devoted to carbon capture pipe dreams.

But despite all the hype, there still isn’t any commercial scale power plant (1000 MW) operating anywhere in the world that captures and stores CO2.

There are gas and oil rigs that pump it back down into reservoirs, there one small 200 MW pilot/demonstration generator in Germany that captures the CO2 and then trucks the CO2 halfway across Germany to an injection point (but is it a real commercially viable plant anyway – or just a heavily subsidized exercise in PR?).

All a big fronted farce designed to gather lots of Government funding (our tax money!!)

JB, NSW, Australia

Dear Carbon Sense,

I had a spare moment, and for some reason it was spent pondering Climate Change.

Suddenly, like a bolt of lightening… bells and whistles went off… I’m onto something.

I need support, and confidently believe you will jump on board to back me with the following research into Climate Change.

I am preparing my own submission to examine a subject that has not been appraised: “The Damage Climate Change will make to Fashion (including associated industries)”. I will not be investigating the inconsequential slaughter of innocent wildlife within fashion, as this may well prejudice the findings. In fact, the fashion industry is saving these poor creatures from the scientifically proven Climatical catastrophe we mere humans are facing.

There appears to be a vital call for extensive funding before it is too late, as the Paris, Rome, New York and London Fashion industries will disintegrate due to predicted continuing seasonal uncertainties brought about by Climate Change. The complete loss of winter, spring, autumn and summer fashion releases together with the gala events accompanying these seasonal releases will bring about a Global Economic Collapse, causing millions to become unemployed. This widespread calamity will bring to an end the Asian, Mexican and African sweat-shops, forcing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of starving, emaciated, suffering humans to become Global Refugees, as they can not ALL survive by manufacturing only shorts, T-shirts and thongs (flip-flops) as the unprecedented rising temperature continues upwards.

We MUST act immediately to prevent the future misery that will be enforced on our daughters and their daughters… and their daughters… and in some cases our sons; sons who will never experience the understanding and self gratification of this season’s ‘new dress’, or the ‘new shoes, or the new Armani Jeans, watch or cologne.

We can NOT stand by and turn our backs on this forthcoming, predestined, inevitable tragedy. WE MUST ACT NOW!!

I wish to embark on this research with a round-the-globe trip to establish how Climate Change is having an effect on the natural physical and biological form of bikini-clad, young ladies’ nipples, and what affect, if any, the proliferation of Global Warming, due to anthropogenic CO2 escalation, will have on their natural rise and fall.

I am presently working on a couple of models… however due to privacy laws and the small matter of a restraining order, I can not advise you of their names at this time.

Are you interested in assisting in this research and how much funding do you think we will require?

All donations will be accepted and not accounted for.

Your future children saving friend,

Rick Gore-Flannery (changed name by dead pole so people would believe me)

It was the year 1799, during the “Dalton Minimum” when the sun was quiet that George Frederick Bollinger led a group of early pioneers from North Carolina to establish early settlements in Missouri. They hoped to cross their largest obstacle, the Mississippi River, on the ice, frozen solid in mid-winter.

The pioneers and their wagon train moved westward a few miles each day, making and breaking camp each night, fording the small streams and floating across the larger ones on rafts which they made from the nearby trees, following roads that were barely trails through forests and valleys.

They arrived on the east bank of the Mississippi River opposite St. Genevieve in late December, pitched camp and explored potential river crossings. St. Genevieve is located about a 100 miles downstream from St. Louis. Winter had come early and the Mississippi river was already covered with ice. It was bitterly cold. They determined the ice was not yet thick enough to support a crossing of ox-carts and covered wagons. Daily the thickness of the ice was measured and then on Dec. 31, a chopped hole in the ice indicated thickness well over two feet. They tested the ice by making a few trips across on foot and horseback. The believed the ice was thick enough to support a loaded wagon.

As a test, a wagon was selected to be driven across with no one riding and the driver would walk ahead watching the ice and leading his team. The trip across and back to camp was made without the ice cracking and preparations were made for an early crossing New Year’s Day.

The next morning final preparations were made to break camp and all supplies were loaded. The weather remained bitter cold with dark skies overhead and light snow falling, but the decision had been made to cross and there was no turning back. The group was devout German Reformed Protestants and they gathered together in the early cold gray dawn to seek guidance from their God for a safe crossing.

The cracking of whips like pistol shots rang out over the heads of the oxen to coax them out onto the ice; the crossing had began. All that were able, walked to lighten the loaded wagons, keeping a safe distance from the wagons, which were also spaced far apart to lessen the danger of breaking the ice. The crossing was made successfully with no mishaps, except extremely cold hands and feet.

The townsfolk of St. Genevieve had built a large fire to welcome and warm these new settlers. Safely across the Mississippi, they were relieved of their crossing fears and enjoyed the local hospitality. They exchanged news from the East for information of what they might expect ahead. Needed supplies were purchased and even the weather abated a little as the sun broke through the clouds. They settled along the Whitewater River where the soil was rich.

We are transitioning into Solar Cycle (SC) 24 and the sun has become fairly quiet. During most of the last century (SC 16-23) the sun has been in a Grand Maxima. As a result the Earth has experienced warming. But with SC 24 the sun is again changing states. From the peak year 1998, the lower Troposphere temperatures globally have already fallen around 1/2 degree Celsius. This is despite the fact that during that same time period, atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen 5% from 367 ppm to 386 ppm. Several solar scientist are predicting the sun will slide into a “Dalton Minimum” event in SC 25, about a decade from now. If that happens, the Earth will experience some bitterly cold winters for several decades.

The winters may once again resemble the winters 200 years ago during the time of the early pioneers. Imagine for a minute the west fork of the White River near Bloomfield freezing into a block of ice two feet thick.

James A. Marusek
Bloomfield USA

First published Greene County Daily Word, 19 Mar 2009.

http://gcdailyworld.com/story/1510388.html

By Dirck T. Hartmann Thursday, July 3, 2008

(Editor’s Note: To many in the know, Dirck T. Hartmann, who worked on the Apollo Space Program and many other significant NASA projects, was a fighter pilot in WWII, flying P38s. So when this gifted scientist/engineer/physicist and 87-year-old hero felt compelled to answer the questions of Man Made Global Warming, not only his son and grandchildren knew he had something to say with factual substance, truth and knowledge. What he has to say is clear and concise and should be read by everyone.)

What is your carbon footprint? That is the wrong question to ask. A more meaningful question is – How much carbon dioxide does it take to grow the wheat required to produce a loaf of bread? Or – How much carbon dioxide does it take to grow the corn for the chicken feed required to produce a dozen eggs?
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By Rocky Wood

Have you ever wondered if celebrities have a conscience? Whether they consider their impact of their words and deeds in much the way as the common man? Let’s investigate that matter in the context of the raging debate over climate change.

Did you tune into the Live Earth concerts promoted by Al Gore on the catchy date of 7/7/07? No? Well, you certainly heard of them, thanks to the free time given by the media. Concerts on seven continents, headlined by Madonna, Genesis and the Black Eyed Peas. Concerts designed to arouse awareness of the apparent threats of climate change and global warming.
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By Will Happer

Albert Einstein would almost certainly have been a global warming skeptic if he were alive today. Many distinguished, contemporary scientists are skeptics too.

We are lucky that Einstein left a rich legacy of pithy quotes that reveal how he would probably relate to today’s cult of global warming alarmists.

Take the oft repeated propaganda that 97 percent of scientists support global-warming alarmism.

Quite aside from the falseness of the claim, Einstein would have remembered the famous attack on himself, “A Hundred Scientists Against Einstein,” published in Germany in 1931. His response was, “If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”

His view of groupthink was summarized in another comment: “In order to be a member of a flock of sheep, one must, above all, be a sheep oneself!” (more…)

A: No, we are opposed to pollution.

Pollution is the transfer of unusual or harmful matter or energy to another person’s property without their consent. Thus I should not allow smoke, ash particles, industrial effluent, noise, noxious gases, bad smells or light from my property to annoy anyone else unless we have negotiated an agreement.

Burning of carbon fuels has been part of the natural cycle of the earth since the first plant was set on fire by the first lightning strike. All the products of burning natural carbon fuels are easily and beneficially absorbed by the atmosphere, dissolved by rain and go to fertilise the soil.

However there are some emissions that are annoying or dangerous in concentrated amounts, for example nitrous oxide, hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide. And others such as soot and ash that are not so dangerous, but visible and annoying. Bush fires produce all of these, but usually not in troublesome amounts.

Burning coal or oil in power stations can produce continual pollution in a small area, so modern clean plants remove almost everything from the emissions except water vapour and carbon dioxide, which are disseminated into the atmosphere via a tall stack. These two are normal beneficial atmospheric gases not pollutants. Taking them out of the emissions would be a silly and very expensive exercise for no benefit.