July 31, 2009 by admin.

By Dr. Roy Spencer

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Those who promote the theory that mankind is responsible for global warming have been working for the past 20 years on a revisionist climate history. A history where climate was always in a harmonious state of balance until mankind came along and upset that balance.

The natural climate cycle deniers have tried their best to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age from climate data records by constructing the uncritically acclaimed and infamous “hockey stick” of global temperature variations (or non-variations) over the last one- to two-thousand years.

Before being largely discredited by a National Academies review panel, this ‘poster child’ for global warming was heralded as proof of the static nature of the climate system, and that only humans had the power to alter it….(Full Story)

Posted in Weather, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

July 29, 2009 by admin.

Just a couple of minutes ago, a television reporter, accompanied by a camera man, showed up at our door and wanted to interview me regarding yesterday’s NRCB decision in favour of HAZCO’s application for the construction of a sulphur processing and shipping facility just 3 km east of Bruderheim and 6 km NE from the Town of Lamont.

By the way, the Edmonton Journal article on the NRCB decision (Jul. 29, 2009, bottom of page B3) gave incorrect distances to Bruderheim (2 km) and Lamont (10 km) from the HAZCO sulphur facility, but that reflects no more than the shoddy journalism that we have become accustomed to on this issue over the years.

Shoddy journalism is not necessarily the only reason why I refused to be interviewed on camera, but the CBC reporter was obviously inadequately informed to be able to perform an interview.  I explained that I had been working quite hard over the years on the HAZCO sulphur issue, that it appears that for all intents and purposes the Friends of Lamont County had given a fair and accurate presentation of the evidence at the NRCB hearing in April, and that on the balance of the evidence the decision should have gone against the HAZCO application.  However, now the decision has been made, and the development will most likely go forward.

There is nothing more I wish to do on the issue.   One heart attack is enough for me.

Aside from that, the CBC reporter was ill prepared to conduct an objective and informed interview.  She knew virtually nothing about the issues at stake and had obviously not made much of an effort to educate herself.  I did not ask her whether she had read the NRCB decision, but it appeared that she had not read it nor that she ever heard of or looked for the website in support of the Friends of Lamont County, at http://www.folc.ca. Nor did she even ask who I was or what my involvement in the discussion over the years had been.  Even though I gave her a number of leads that should have been part of an in-depth interview, it seemed that she was looking for nothing more than an opinion survey spiced up with sound bites.

I did tell her that I was not opposed to a sulphur processing and shipping facility, provided that it would be located a minimum of ten to 15 miles away from populated areas or population centres.  She did not ask what I base my preference on.  That illustrated to me that she did not have a clue as to how critical the distance of such a sulphur facility from residential properties is, and how much of a risk the facility poses to Bruderheim and area.

If you are a concerned resident of Lamont County, you may wish to refresh your memory on that.  Check the following links:

• Proposed Waste-Sulphur-Storage and -Handling Facility
• Environmental Impact of SulphurHealth-Impact of Sulphur
• Sulphur Poisoning
• Sulphur Fires

When the NRCB decision on the HAZCO sulphur facility will now be approved by the provincial cabinet, it will be nothing more than one of the first steps that will lead to a general exodus of residents, such as that which has been in progress in Strathcona County and led to the depopulation of the Industrial Heartland there over an interval of about 30 years.

Instead of promoting the thriving of rural life in the County of Lamont, the imposition of the creation of the Lamont-County portion of the Alberta Industrial Heartland and the licensing of oil-industry-waste processing facilities such as the construction and operation of the HAZCO sulphur facility will be the death of rural life and agricultural industry in the vicinity of Bruderheim.

Bruderheim and surroundings will gradually come to be seen no longer as an oasis in the vicinity of the petrochemical industrial area of Alberta (the largest such area in the world) but will come to be seen as being threatened by being at the centre of waste-processing facilities associated with Alberta’s petrochemical industry.

The only thing to do that is left to me and the members of my family is to make sure not ever to cast our votes for any party or political entities who made that happen.

Let’s hope that, when the music stops and the dance is over, there will be enough money to repair the damages.  It appears that the NRCB decision will not make certain of that.

Posted in Community & Industry, Hazco | Print | 2 Comments »

July 27, 2009 by admin.

Does CO2 cause global warming?

Maybe, but most likely not, as there is no evidence at all to show that rising atmospheric CO2 levels cause global warming.

The ice core data established a correlation between CO2 levels and temperatures.  However, the first studies that were done did not provide enough detail to show whether temperature trends followed CO2-level trends or vice-versa.  Subsequent studies examined things in more detail and established beyond any doubt that CO2-level trends followed temperature trends with a time lag of about 600 to 1,200 years.  People like David Suzuki and Al Gore deliberately ignored those later findings, and they still ignore them. (For more information on the CO2 issue, check: CO₂: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time; by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc.)

On July 24, 2009, a new study report was announced in Science, a report on a study that examined the correlation between cloud cover and temperature trends in a portion of the NE Pacific, covering the interval from about 1976 until now.

The conclusion is that warming of the surface causes clouds to dissipate, thereby providing a positive feedback, meaning that a reduction in clouds causes a temperature rise, with increased cloud cover causing surface temperatures to fall.

That conclusion is contrary to my observations and also contrary to established science, but, hey, scientists once believed that the universe revolved around the Earth.  Besides, one of the comments that can be accessed through the link identified above shows,

Claude Harvey (02:44:59) :
I’ve noticed that the wind never blows unless trees are wagging about. Who knew? Trees cause wind! At sea, I’m pretty sure the wind is generated by waves, particularly the white ones.

If Al Gore, David Suzuki and the UN’s IPCC can confuse cause and effect in relation to CO2, why should anyone not also confuse the cause and effect of temperatures and clouds? The issue is very important, as not a single one of the Global Circulation Models adequately addresses the role of clouds.

Dr. Roy Spencer discusses both, the role of clouds and the extent of the impact of doubling the CO2 content of the atmosphere in a presentation that can be accessed on YouTube.  Here are the links:  Part 1, and Part 2.

In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the summer while waiting for the next ice age (its onset is about 500 years overdue) to set in in earnest (b.t.w., the Saskatoon berries are two weeks late this year).

________
See also:

New Study in Science Magazine: Proof of Positive Cloud Feedback?

July 26th, 2009 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.(edited 12:15 p.m. 7/26/09 for clarity)
(3:25 p.m. DOH! Hawaii IS part of the U.S…)

I’m getting a lot of e-mails asking about a new study by Clement et al. published last week in Science, which shows that since the 1950s, periods of warmth over the northeastern Pacific Ocean have coincided with less cloud cover. The authors cautiously speculate that this might be evidence of positive cloud feedback.

This would be bad news for the Earth and its inhabitants since sufficiently strong positive cloud feedbacks would have the potential of amplifying the small amount of direct warming from our carbon dioxide emissions to disastrous proportions.

The authors are appropriately cautious about the interpretation of their results, which are indeed interesting. The very fact that the only 2 IPCC climate models that behaved in a manner similar to the observations were the most sensitive AND the least sensitive models shows that interpretation of the study results as proof of positive cloud feedback would be very premature….(Full Story)

Posted in Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

July 25, 2009 by admin.

Watch New Documentary: ‘Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous Than Global Warming Itself’

The reference to the indicated video was found at http://www.climatedepot.com/.

Posted in Energy Issues, Climate Change, Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

July 23, 2009 by admin.

Although the blog was not out of commission, it was not possible to make updates for the last week or so.

For about a week now, the online access for folc.ca was out of commission.

The modem quit working but is now back in operation.  Shaw Cable, the high-speed service provider saw fit to send a new modem through the mail service.  That took a week, even though it would probably have been faster to give one of their service technician a new modem to drop off at our address — given that a technician is in our town virtually every day.

Anyway, that is now water under the bridge and no more than to be expected from a monopoly.

All that remains to be done now is to catch up on software updates.  After that there will be the regular updates (now a bit less frequently than before my heart attack in February).

Sorry for the delay, but things will be somewhat more normal from now on.

–Walter

Posted in Organizational News | Print | No Comments »

July 8, 2009 by admin.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12705
Al Gore’s net worth, which went from around 2 million to over a 100 million dollars

The Cost of Global Warming Greed

Daniel Greenfield; Bio

By Daniel Greenfield  Wednesday, July 8, 2009

How do you make money? You could build a factory that makes chairs or open a store that sells chairs. But of course if you’re in the government, you make money by finding new sources of tax revenue, which helps justify giving yourself a salary hike. But what if you’re not officially in the government? That’s what pork is for, and while environmentalists don’t seem to like cows very much, they do love their pork.

“Green” is more like pink thanks to the kind of pork embedded in Obama’s stimulus package. The billions ladled out for everything from green jobs to making buildings green to green energy helped shove whopping fistfuls of money into the pockets of environmental consulting groups and companies.

Tesla Motors, a much hyped company which doesn’t so much produce cars as magazine articles about itself, got nearly half a billion in federal funding. This for a company that makes six figure sports cars assembled in the UK and powered by shopping carts full of laptop batteries that virtually no one has actually driven. Not to mention a company with an embattled leadership, embroiled in numerous lawsuits, which prior to the 465 million in Federal funds was firing its employees through text messages, because it was down to 9 million dollars in the bank.

Is there really a good reason why half a billion dollars in Federal funds should be paying for luxury sports cars for the rich and famous to be assembled by British workers, whose key corporate investor is Mercedes Benz? Of course there is, because Tesla is “Green” and “Green” is unquestionable.And the same people who view the Ford Explorer as “immoral” for popularizing suburban family SUV’s, think that a six figure sports car powered by over 6000 laptop batteries is as “moral” as it gets.

“Green” is not about science, it is about the color of money. It is about greed and class. To understand “Green” and the entire absurdity of man-made global warming, you don’t need to look at charts and figures. You just need to look at Al Gore’s net worth, which went from around 2 million to over a 100 million dollars. Gore didn’t make that money building homes for orphans, he made that money by promoting a crisis and investing heavily in the companies that would stand to profit from it….(Full Story)

Posted in Energy Issues, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

July 5, 2009 by admin.

World Climate Forecast

By Piers Corbyns

For the next 100 years

Issued on the 26th of June 2009

Piers Corbyns, of Weather Action, makes long range weather forecasts with exeptional accuracy.  He forecasts that global temperatures will drop untill about 2030 and then stay lower than current values, or recent values, for the next 100 years.

Piers Corbyns makes a presentation of his prediction that is accessible at YouTube.

The presentation concludes with: “General cooling until 2030, and staying generally cool — below current levels — for the following century.”

Posted in Weather, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »