News Flash to the
Guardian.......
It used to known as the "global warming theory." The "theory" somehow was dropped a couple years ago. Wonder how that happened,
since there's
still serious debate amongst scientist whether there's anything going on that hasn't gone on for thousands for years?
Found these while reading your topic and article:
"Global Warming:
A closer look at the numbers"
Link:
www.clearlight.com...
Excerpt:
"Just how much of the "Greenhouse Effect" is caused by human activity?
It is about
0.28%, if water vapor is taken into account-- about
5.53%, if not.
This point is so crucial to the debate over global warming that how water vapor is or isn't factored into an analysis of Earth's greenhouse gases
makes the difference between describing a significant human contribution to the greenhouse effect, or a
negligible one.
Also quoted from that article:
" There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future
temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050."
Found this article/site also:
"The Climate Catastrophe
- A Spectroscopic Artifact?"
Link:
www.john-daly.com...
Excerpt:
"It is hardly to be expected that for CO2 doubling an increment of IR absorption at the 15 �m edges by 0.17% can cause any significant global warming
or even a climate catastrophe.
The
radiative forcing for doubling can be calculated by using this figure. If we allocate an absorption of 32 W/m2 [14] over 180� steradiant to
the total integral (area) of the n3 band as observed from satellite measurements (Hanel et al., 1971) and applied to a standard atmosphere, and take
an increment of 0.17%, the absorption is 0.054 W/m2 - and not 4.3 W/m2.
This is roughly 80 times less than IPCC's radiative forcing.
If we allocate 7.2 degC as greenhouse effect for the present CO2 (as asserted by Kondratjew and Moskalenko in J.T. Houghton's book The Global
Climate), the doubling effect should be 0.17% which is 0.012 degC only. If we take 1/80 of the 1.2 degC that result from Stefan-Boltzmann's law with
a radiative forcing of 4.3 W/m2, we get a similar value of 0.015 degC."
And this one:
"A LUKEWARM GREENHOUSE -
How `Warm' Will Global Warming Get?"
Link:
www.john-daly.com...
Excerpt:
"The average warming predicted by the six methods for a doubling of CO2, is only +0.2 degC."
And this:
"Global Warming Score Card"
Link:
users.erols.com...
Seems as though there is room for substantial doubt as to any negative effect human created CO2, Methane etc. may have on our Climate future.
At least these folks believe so:
Petition Project:
Link:
www.oism.org...
During the past 2 years, more than 17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, have signed the
Global Warming
Petition--- Link:
www.oism.org...
Specifically declaring:
"
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will,
in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
Signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental
scientists (select this link for a listing of these individuals:
www.oism.org...) who are especially well
qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.
Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life
sciences (select this link for a listing of these individuals:
www.oism.org...) make them especially well
qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.
Nearly all of the initial 17,100 scientist signers have technical training suitable for the evaluation of the relevant research data, and many are
trained in related fields.
Found this subject matter also:
"Global Warming Hoax:To find all articles tagged or indexed using Global Warming Hoax, Look below...."
"Observer (UK liberal rag) accuses Bush administration of global warming cover-up"
Link:
observer.guardian.co.uk...
"Is the Global Warming Bubble About to Burst?"
Link:
www.co2science.org...
"The new ice age"
Link:
www.spectator.co.uk...
"Let's take a long, cool look at the dangers of global warming"
Link:
www.portal.telegraph.co.uk.../opinion/2003/08/10/do1002.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/08/10/ixopinion.html
"Global Warming: The Worst of All Environmental Scares - remarks by Senator Inhofe"
Link:
www.humaneventsonline.com...
"GOP Senators Blame Nature for Climate Change"
Link:
ens-news.com...
"Here Comes the Sun"
Link:
www.techcentralstation.com...
"'Bring It on,' Climatologist Says of Global Warming Litigation"
Link:
www.cnsnews.com...\Nation\archive\200307\NAT20030721a.html
"Farmers protest 'flatulence' tax"
Link:
www.twincities.com...
"Climate Change Could Be Next Legal Battlefield"
Excerpt:
"Financial Times ^ | July 14, 2003 | Vanessa Houlder
Posted on 07/14/2003 11:22 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
First it was tobacco and asbestos.Then it was the turn of the food sector. Now litigators have yet another target in their sights: those responsible
for climate change.
Two cases have already been launched in the US courts. More are in the pipeline, according to the newly formed Climate Justice Programme. This is a
collaborative venture involving lawyers, scientists and more than 40 civil groups supporting the use of the law to combat climate change.
It believes that international and domestic laws - covering human rights, product liability, public nuisance, pollution and harm to other states -
will be an effective weapon in forcing emission cuts and make perpetrators liable for the consequences of their actions.
"The potential compensation for climate change impacts would make the tobacco pay-outs look like peanuts," says Peter Roderick, a lawyer working for
the Climate Justice Programme.
There is no shortage of potential plaintiffs. If predictions of rising temperatures, floods, droughts, forest fires, rising sea levels, disease
epidemics, thawing permafrost and damage to crops and water supplies prove correct, global warming is likely to be the most damaging environmental
problem in history.
Their case may have been strengthened by the 2001 scientific report from the intergovernmental panel on climate change, appointed by the United
Nations. It concluded that: "Most of the observed warming over the past 50 years is likely [defined as a better than two-in-three chance] to have
been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."
But litigators will need to overcome serious obstacles if climate change-related damage is to become the subject of billion-dollar lawsuits.
First, who is responsible?
The companies that sell fuel or those of us who burn it in our cars, homes and factories? How can any particular emitter be held legally responsible
for a problem caused by so many people?
Second, who should be compensated? The billions of people who will be affected? Or just those who face the severest losses?
Third, how can any particular disaster, such as a flood or crop failure, be blamed on man-made climate change? At present, scientists insist that it
is impossible to attribute any particular weather- related event to climate change - in spite of their confidence that climate change is making
extreme weather events more likely.
These issues present formidable, but not insuperable, barriers to successful legal action. Writing in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law
recently, David Grossman, a Yale graduate, concluded that: "Some tort-based climate change suits have strong legal merits and may be capable of
succeeding."
He thinks that coastal states, island states and nations, the State of Alaska and Alaskan villages could all be promising plaintiffs. Potential
defendants could be fossil fuel companies, electric utilities and car manufacturers, whose liability could be apportioned according to their
product's carbon content or market share.
The difficulties of making a connection between global warming and specific environmental effects could be resolved using a statistical approach,
according to Myles Allen, an Oxford physicist, writing in Nature earlier this year. With advances in the understanding of climate change, scientists
might be able to determine that, say, the flood risk in a certain area had increased by a factor of 10. It might then be reasonable to attribute 90
per cent of the damage of a particular flood to past emissions.
For the moment, a company is unlikely to be successfully sued merely because of its greenhouse gas emissions, in the view of James Cameron of Baker &
McKenzie, the international law firm.
He warns, however, that its risk could be greatly increased if it were deemed to have acted culpably by, say, lobbying against greenhouse gas
regulations.
Companies that delay taking action on climate change are also at risk of being sued by their investors. They could be accused of incurring higher
costs as a result of unduly delaying emission reductions, damaging a company's reputation and failing to disclose investment-relevant information.
"Shareholder actions might follow, claiming that directors and officers of such companies should be liable for not adequately addressing the
potential threats brought by climate-change related regulation," according to Swiss Re, the reinsurer that is concerned about the implications for
directors and officers' liability insurance.
As well as pursuing direct legal action against companies, litigators are focusing on regulators and agencies. In February, the states of Connecticut,
Maine and Massachusetts filed a suit against the US Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act for failure to regulate carbon dioxide,
the main greenhouse gas.
Last August, a lawsuit was launched against the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank of the United States by Friends of
the Earth, Greenpeace, some affected individuals and the cities of Boulder, Oakland and Arcata, which are worried about water supplies, floods and
wildfires.
They accuse the agencies of failing to conduct environmental reviews before financing projects that contribute to global warming. OPIC will not
comment on the litigation but it says that its power projects are predominantly natural gas, hydro-electric and geothermal, which are not a main
contributor to climate change. Friends of the Earth's response is that this ignores the long-term cumulative impact of their operations.
Could the US itself join these agencies in the dock? Last September, the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu, which fears it will drown under rising sea
levels within 50 years, threatened to bring a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague against the US and Australia.
This approach would be complicated because the US is not subject to compulsory jurisdiction by the court. But there are several feasible options for
bringing a case against the US in the International Court or other international forums, according to a recent paper by Andrew Strauss of Widener
University Law School.
He concludes that the US rejection of the Kyoto protocol and its status as the world's single largest emitter of greenhouse gases make it "the most
logical first country target of a global warming lawsuit in an international forum".
Some of the bolder lawsuits being considered may seem too radical to succeed in the courtroom. But there is a sense of urgency on the part of would-be
litigators trying to bring the force of law to bear on greenhouse gas emissions. They are anxious that the long gap between the first tobacco
litigation and the first verdict sustained on appeal should not be repeated."
"Galactic dust cooling Earth?"
Link:
www.nature.com...
This list could go on and on.....
Global warming huh?
Political agenda belongs to who?
So who is
really benefiting?
regards
seekerof
[Edited on 23-9-2003 by Seekerof]