Blatant Reality

Is it just me, or is it weird that Wisconsin’s Governor Jim Doyle signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the UK back in May and now he is forming alliances with Germany in order to fight climate change?

The statement says that both Doyle and German officials agree that climate change and fossil fuel dependence require immediate action. They say low-carbon technology and the reduction of greenhouse gasses must be pursued.

 

Doyle says he looks forward to strengthening Wisconsin and Germany’s combined efforts to confront climate change and energy policies.

 

In May, Doyle signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Kingdom on how to better address climate change issues.

Weird.

Well, these numbers sum it up pretty well:

Lawrence Solomon, the author of The Deniers, points to the decrease in solar activity as yet another sign that we are heading towards a period of global cooling.

In yet another sign that the Earth could be heading in to a period of global cooling, NASA reports that the solar wind is now at a 50-year low, the lowest that NASA has seen. This change in solar activity, which began to occur about a decade ago,  coincides with the end of the climb in global temperatures that had been underway for decades.

 

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As a result of the diminished solar wind, cosmic rays are entering the Earth’s atmosphere in greater number. Research at the Danish National Space Institute shows that cosmic rays increase cloud cover on Earth, and that this cloud cover can have a cooling effect. Does this help explain why global temperatures plateaued a decade ago, and why they are now decreasing? Stay tuned!

Yes, I for one will definitely stay tuned and you should as well.

Today Philip Stott, who I just discovered the other day, wrote about the fracturing that can be seen in the Green Church and compares it to the current state of the Protestant “church”. As I am sure anyone who has taken European history is aware, the Protestant church has broken off into many and multiple sects.

For the Protestants, this really isn’t a problem since there isn’t a need to have strength in numbers in order to change some political agenda. For the Green Church however, every fracture causes more and more dillution to their overall ‘green’ message.

According to Stott, there are currently eight different sects. Take a look:

1. The General, or Pragmatic, Greens [believe that there may be many different pathways to heaven, to that Green Utopia. Often shares buildings with the Church of England];
2. The Particular Greens [reject nuclear power as a path option - often converts from The Old Church of CND, which was strong in the 1960s and 1970s];
3. The Particular and Strict Greens [reject nuclear power absolutely, and hold to a closed communion table of locally-produced ‘organic’ produce];
4. The Peculiar and Pure Greens [reject nuclear power absolutely, and hold to a closed communion table of vegan, or even fruitarian, food];
5. The Primitive Greens [reject all economic growth, and hold to a strict communion table of living in, and with, Nature. Use earth closets and grey water];
6. The Trustafarian Greens [wealthy churches which view being Green as a Sunday life-style choice. Key Biblical text: “It is easier for a Prius to go through the streets of Kensington, than for a poor man to enter into the Green Utopia.” (The Gospel According To Charles: 19:24)];
7. The Church of Malthus, sometimes called the ‘Creationologists’: [commune with animals and trees, and wish to reduce sinful humans to small relict, subsistence populations living with Nature. Key Biblical text: “The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation.” (The Other Gospel According To Thomas: 19:14)]; and finally,
8. The Greens of The Latterday World [It is too late! We are all doomed, and we will burn with the Earth at Armageddon].

So my computer decided to randomly uninstall my built in wireless adapter hardware so I don’t have internet capabilities at the moment. All I can say is thank goodness for cellphones with internet browsers.

A little while ago, I wished that all the Environmentalists would emigrate from the US to the UK. Looking back on that statement, I feel I may have been a little too harsh; that is a fate that you shouldn’t wish on any country. Plus it seems that there are some reasonable people left in the UK. Take a look at this opinion piece in The Economist from a University of London Professor:

Your assertion that “global warming is happening faster than expected” exhibits a disturbing degree of cognitive dissonance (“Adapt or die”, September 13th). Since 1998 the world’s average surface temperature has exhibited no warming, according to all the main temperature records. The trend has been a combination of flatlining and cooling, with a marked plunge over the past year; many countries, including Australia, Canada, China and the United States, experienced severe winters.

 

Moreover, recent work demonstrates that the Earth’s temperature may stay roughly the same for at least a further decade through the impact of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. In addition, the next 11-year cycle of solar storms—Solar Cycle 24—is late by more than two years. The sun is currently spotless, conditions that obtained during the “Dalton Minimum”, an especially cold period that lasted several decades starting from 1790 and which was implicated in the rout of Napoleon’s Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812.

 

Finally, one expert, Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, has gone so far as to give warning that the Earth may enter a new “Little Ice Age” for up to 80 years because of decreases in solar activity. The immediate portents thus point in the direction of a cooling period.

Wow, Professor Philip Stott is my hero and you know what the best part of this is? Dr. Stott has a blog dealing with the fallacies of Global Warming! What a great guy.

Virginia just opened its first experimental algae farm yesterday with the hopes of discovering how to create a commercially viable algae-to-fuel process. Like I keep saying folks, be sure to pay attention to this because things are advancing rapidly.
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Honestly, he may actually be appreciated there. Plus, in the UK he wouldn’t be advocating anything illegal like using “civil obedience” to stop coal plant construction because we all know how some environmentalists over here interpret “civil disobedience.” Honestly, these guys don’t need any more encouragement.

As you may have well heard, sunspot activity is almost nonexistent at the moment. These spots, along with the sun’s overall activity, have been attributed to having one of the strongest affects on earth’s climate. A lack of sunspots is often associated with colder periods and oftentimes, Ice Ages.

What this all means for our current Global Warming debate is this period of solar inactivity will allow us to observe the temperature changes while closely observing the sun’s involvment.

The Ulysses solar probe reports a 13% drop in temperature, a 20% drop in density, and a 30% drop-off in the sun`s magnetic field, marking this as the weakest period of solar wind on record (records go back to the 1960`s).

 

What does this mean? The Heliosphere is thinning, and thus will block fewer cosmic rays.  Heinrick Svensmark theorizes that an increase in cosmic rays reaching the Earth will drive cloud formation, increase the planet`s albedo, thus cooling it.

 

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This will allow us to see if we are really in the throes of Anthropogenic Global Warming; if temperatures rise (and they haven`t since 1998) then factors other than solar activity are driving climate trends, if not then the greenhouse gas theory is falsified.

If it gets colder during this period of low sunspot doesn’t necessarily mean that the debate will be over. It will just lend more credence to those of us who believe Global Warming is more of a natural occurrence. The anthropological global warming people will just say that it would have gotten a lot colder if our greenhouse gases weren’t there. I can’t wait to see that day because, depending on how cold it gets, environmentalists will basically have to admit that our CO2 saved us from colder conditions in order to keep up their CO2 climate change ruse.

The Wisconsin Energy Independence Fund gave out roughly half a million dollars to two companies researching the potential of algae biofuel and other sources.

The state government unveiled close to half a million dollars in grants to two Wausau-based companies looking into developing biofuel from various feedstocks, including wood wastes and algae.

 

American Science and Technology Corp. will receive $150,000 for research on turning woodchips, wood waste and switchgrass into fuel and industrial chemicals. The process is expected to improve processes at paper pulp manufacturing plants. Grand Meadow Energies, the recipient of another $265,000 grant, is aiming to create biodiesel from algae, whey wastes and other ingredients.