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Archive for the ‘environment’ Category

Climategate is Still the Issue

Friday, November 19th, 2010

James Corbett, CorbettReport.com
November 19, 2010

TRANSCRIPT: This week marks the one year anniversary of the release of emails and documents from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that we now know as Climategate.

Sitting here now, one year later, it’s becoming difficult to remember the importance of that release of information, or even what information was actually released. Many were only introduced to the scandal through commentary in the blogosphere and many more came to know about it only weeks later, after the establishment media had a chance to assess the damage and fine tune the spin that would help allay their audience’s concern that something important had just happened. Very few have actually bothered to read the emails and documents for themselves.

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BP: Gulf Resident Gives Behind the Scenes Account, Slams Cleanup and Safety

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

BP and the Obama administration are both allowing this spill to grow progressively worse. We may want to ask ourselves why that is. Because whether it be for manipulation of energy prices, blackmail to pass carbon tax legislation, or for some other purpose, BP has passed up multiple offers of help from foreign states and other interested parties, and now we are given to understand they’re sitting on their hands besides. Washington’s Blog provides some further details of what you’ll hear from the witness in the attached video: 1. BP is given advanced warning when an official is going to show up to any place where there is oil. All assets are deployed. As soon as the official leaves, 75-80% of the assets are removed. BP calls it a “pony and balloons” show. 2. “We are expendable to these people. We do not matter.” 3. They’re not cleaning it up, they’re covering it up. 4. BP is making it impossible for clean-up workers to wear respirators. 5. She saw hundreds of thousands of fish dying, so disoriented by the oil that they crashed into her boat. 5. There is a media blackout. 6. If the country does not stand up and say “no more”, this will go global. All of the world’s oceans are connected. If not stopped, it will destroy one-third of the world’s water.

Related: Peak oil postponed again? | Deepwater Horizon worker claims oil rig leaking weeks before explosion | States Need To Launch Criminal Investigation Into BP, Federal Government’s Role In Oil Spill | The White House’s Climate Strategy: Pass Bill Now, Slip Carbon Taxes in Later | BP Aware Of Cracks In Oil Well Two Months Before Explosion | Obama Using Oil Spill To Push Green Economy Agenda | Confidential document reveals Obama’s hardline US climate talk strategy | Obama sets sights on Arctic oil and gas exploration | Obama Likely to Rebrand Climate Bill as Jobs Bill | Oil Companies Support Global Warming Alarmists, Not Skeptics | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill | Oil, oil everywhere? Well, just maybe | World has enough oil reserves, says BP boss

Naked Capitalism
June 26, 2010

Gulf resident and fisherman’s wife Kindra Arnesen took advantage of the offer extended to her to visit cleanup sites and staff meetings:

At any rate, I was invited the following week to go behind “enemy lines.” They gave me, of all people, security clearance to go into the base of operations meetings in Venice, Louisiana eight days in. Open door invitation to sit like a fly on the wall. Can you believe it? It’s really going on. They also gave me security clearance to go up to the Homer Incident Command Post which is over the entire region of Louisiana. I’ve been in Coast Guard planes all the way out to the site itself. Helicopters. Boat rides. I have been everywhere that anybody could ever want to go to get an inside look at what’s really going on.

Arensen appears to have been invited in because she got media coverage earlier in June when CNN covered her efforts to organize wives of Gulf fisherman over concerns about the safety of working on oil cleanup:

Arnesen believes it was vapors from the oil and the dispersants from the BP Gulf oil disaster that made her husband and the other shrimpers sick. She says they were downwind of it, and the smell was “so strong they could almost taste it.”

For several weeks, she hesitated to talk publicly about it. Like many fishermen who can no longer fish in the Gulf, her husband has signed a contract to work with BP to clean up the oil, and she doesn’t want to bite the hand that puts food on her family’s table.

But now Arnesen, a 32-year-old “uneducated housewife” – her words – is breaking her silence and is encouraging others in her community do the same. After attending a lecture by Rikki Ott, a toxicologist who’s worked with families affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, Arnesen decided to organize other wives to ask questions about the safety of working near the oil.

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Maurice Strong: I don’t want to rule the world but global cooperation needed on climate, population, and consumption

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Okay, fair enough Mr. Strong. Let’s have a look at that fine, nuanced, sophicticated distinction between government and governance that we plebes can’t possibly grasp. Just for you. From the Merriam-Webster online:

gov·er·nance (n.) \ˈgÉ™-vÉ™r-nÉ™n(t)s\
See government

Perhaps, next, we should look up doublespeak. Or doublethink, for those who buy his line. Who’s he kidding? The EU was sold as being merely a system of economic cooperation as well. While the UN and international relations wonks use the term ‘governance’ in a wider context to apply to “corporate governance, international governance, national governance and local governance”, there is no real daylight between the two, unless the intention is to imply states are to be run as corporations. Which, on further reflection, is probably not too far from the truth. Nice try smearing everyone who disagrees with you as ‘right wing’, though. Tell us another story, Mr. Strong.

Related: Canada commits $400M to climate change fund | Britain pushes for new climate talks; IMF and global taxes to figure into wealth redistribution scheme | IMF chief calls for quota-based global warming slush fund | EU considers general carbon tax | Leaked UN Documents Reveal Plan For “Green World Order” By 2012 | Davos: Global climate fund threatens aid to developing world, campaigner warns | Davos 2010: George Soros warns gold is now the ‘ultimate bubble’, calls for IMF to handle climate fund | Copenhagen Accord Establishes Global Government Framework | Canada part of Copenhagen climate deal | Final Copenhagen Text Includes Global Transaction Tax | World leaders push for climate deal | UN Chief: We Will Impose Global Governance | Copenhagen climate summit releases draft final text | IMF could fund climate adaptation: Soros | Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Canada agrees to contribute to $10-billion climate change fund | UK: Brown proposes global fund to kick-start Copenhagen climate change process | Leaked G20 Documents Shed Light on Global Carbon Tax | Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance’ | Czech President: Copenhagen to be ‘Largest tax increase in world history’ | Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading as banker scam | Oil Companies Support Global Warming Alarmists, Not Skeptics | Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth sequel stresses spiritual argument on climate, downgrades CO2 threat | EU agrees to pay developing countries ‘climate aid’ to pass Copenhagen | Copenhagen’s Plans for a New ‘Government’ are Scary | Copenhagen, carbon, and the global corporate agenda | Lord Nicholas Stern: The world’s future is being decided this weekend | Thatcher science adviser: Copenhagen goal is world government | German Scientists Call for ‘World Climate Bank’ | G8 Summit: Rich nations to pay green tab | US Congress Passes the 1,200-page Climate Bill that it was not allowed to read | Climate Cops To Fine “Wasteful” Homeowners & Businesses | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill | The great carbon credit con: Why are we paying the Third World to poison its environment? | Ontario unveils cap-and-trade legislation | Economic stabilization may rely on carbon economy, economist says | Climate panel presses for federal cap-and-trade system | NRTEE Carbon Market Panel is ‘Round Table on Socialist Planning’ | Obama, Gore, tied to Chicago carbon exchange | U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy | U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax | Time to emulate Roosevelt’s New Deal and create green jobs | EU calls for global carbon trading system to fight climate change

Leo Hickman, The Guardian
June 23, 2010

What I do want, says the man self-labelled ‘the planet’s leading environmentalist’, is for nations to co-operate fully on issues they cannot deal with alone

Maurice Strong, the founding executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme and self-proclaimed “world’s leading environmentalist”, has hit back at his critics in a rare interview with the Guardian.

Responding to internet speculation and repeated attacks by prominent rightwing climate sceptics that he is using the climate change issue to establish a global government, the 81-year-old Canadian, who organised both the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 and the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, said his only motivation was to alert the world that mankind’s current actions are environmentally unsustainable.

“I’ve always made it clear that I do not believe that global government is either necessary or feasible,” said Strong, who was a key official at the UN for decades until his retirement in 2005.

“What I do believe is that we need a system of global governance through which nations can co-operate and deal with issues they cannot deal with alone. Maybe that statement is too sophisticated for some, but it shouldn’t be.”

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Canada commits $400M to climate change fund

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

This is the Copenhagen ‘launch fund’ pushed by Gordon Brown, whereby poor countries will be paid to shut down their developing industries. It will be interesting to see if this is rolled into the IMF climate slush fund that is being pushed in parallel with the global bank tax as these new taxation systems integrate to form the expected ‘green’ new world order, exposed in leaked UN documents in February of this year. Really, it’s just part of the agenda to swell international banking institutions, but believe what you want.

Related: Britain pushes for new climate talks; IMF and global taxes to figure into wealth redistribution scheme | IMF chief calls for quota-based global warming slush fund | EU considers general carbon tax | Leaked UN Documents Reveal Plan For “Green World Order” By 2012 | Davos: Global climate fund threatens aid to developing world, campaigner warns | Davos 2010: George Soros warns gold is now the ‘ultimate bubble’, calls for IMF to handle climate fund | Copenhagen Accord Establishes Global Government Framework | Canada part of Copenhagen climate deal | Final Copenhagen Text Includes Global Transaction Tax | World leaders push for climate deal | UN Chief: We Will Impose Global Governance | Copenhagen climate summit releases draft final text | IMF could fund climate adaptation: Soros | Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Canada agrees to contribute to $10-billion climate change fund | UK: Brown proposes global fund to kick-start Copenhagen climate change process | Leaked G20 Documents Shed Light on Global Carbon Tax | Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance’ | Czech President: Copenhagen to be ‘Largest tax increase in world history’ | Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading as banker scam | Oil Companies Support Global Warming Alarmists, Not Skeptics | Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth sequel stresses spiritual argument on climate, downgrades CO2 threat | EU agrees to pay developing countries ‘climate aid’ to pass Copenhagen | Copenhagen’s Plans for a New ‘Government’ are Scary | Copenhagen, carbon, and the global corporate agenda | Lord Nicholas Stern: The world’s future is being decided this weekend | Thatcher science adviser: Copenhagen goal is world government | German Scientists Call for ‘World Climate Bank’ | G8 Summit: Rich nations to pay green tab | US Congress Passes the 1,200-page Climate Bill that it was not allowed to read | Climate Cops To Fine “Wasteful” Homeowners & Businesses | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill | The great carbon credit con: Why are we paying the Third World to poison its environment? | Ontario unveils cap-and-trade legislation | Economic stabilization may rely on carbon economy, economist says | Climate panel presses for federal cap-and-trade system | NRTEE Carbon Market Panel is ‘Round Table on Socialist Planning’ | Obama, Gore, tied to Chicago carbon exchange | U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy | U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax | Time to emulate Roosevelt’s New Deal and create green jobs | EU calls for global carbon trading system to fight climate change

Allan Woods, Toronto Star
June 23, 2010

OTTAWA–Canada has set up a $400 million fund to help developing countries cope with climate change, a move that has earned the country a rare cheer from environmentalists.

The fund is Canada’s contribution to an annual $30 billion global pot that rich countries agreed to establish through at a climate gathering last December in Copenhagen. The financial commitment, good through 2012, was one of the few concrete outcomes of the meeting, which had planned to broker a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions between 2012 and 2020.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Canada is responsible for 2 per cent of the world’s emissions but is contributing 4 per cent of the fund.

This contribution is consistent with our traditional share of developed country donor pledges in the context of multilateral international assistance efforts,” Prentice said Wednesday. “It will help developing countries reduce emissions and support adaptation and capacity building.

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Peak oil postponed again?

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Related: Obama sets sights on Arctic oil and gas exploration | Oil Companies Support Global Warming Alarmists, Not Skeptics | Oil, oil everywhere? Well, just maybe | World has enough oil reserves, says BP boss

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph
June 23, 2010

So there is plenty of oil and gas after all. Prices will bumble along gently until well into the next decade. We are becoming more efficient in our use of energy, with 3pc extra savings annually. That is a faster pace than the rising real cost of fuel. Mankind will not run out of fuel for a very long time.

That at least is the story today from the International Energy Agency. Their medium-term outlook for fossil fuel markets is a dazzling contrast with last year’s warnings that a combination of break-neck industrialisation in China and lack of investment in new oil fields (thanks to the credit freeze) would exhaust global spare capacity by 2013.

The IEA said then that we would need “four new Saudi Arabias” within a generation to cope with the rise of China, and there were no such Saudi Arabias in sight. Such are the perils of forecasting the volatile variables of supply and demand for oil.

What has changed — apart from human emotions? For starters, the global gas market has been undergoing a revolution as a result of a) liquefied natural gas, a technology that is only just coming into its own and allows countries such as Qatar to ship their once useless reserves of gas on frozen hulls across the world; LNG output will increase by 50pc from 2008 to 2013. Actually, this is not that new, but never mind.
b) advances in US gas extraction from rock, which have turned the US into the world’s biggest producer of gas. Europe is jumping on the bandwagon. “The development of unconventional gas in North America is of global significance,” said the agency. Indeed it is. The knock-on effects run right through the energy complex.

The IEA now expects spare capacity of oil to remain at a comfortable 3.5m barrels a day (bpd) in 2015, with consumption edging up by an extra 1m bpd each year to around 90m bpd (or 92m if global growth is stronger). All this is quite manageable. It talked of a “gentle nominal price escalation through mid-decade, with prices rising from $77 to $86″.

The alarmist stories we heard last year from certain City banks about collapsing supply (I will spare the names) were wildly wrong. The IEA’s upward revisions from 2009 come from the US, Russia, Colombia, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Egypt, and even the UK (+80,000).

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Bee decline could be down to chemical cocktail interfering with brains

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Related: Indian Scientists: Mobile phones responsible for disappearance of honey bee | Bee population feels sting of cold, parasites as N.B. population drops | Bee expert takes issue with dated UN data minimizing honeybee deaths | Bayer on defensive in bee deaths

Alok Jha, The Guardian
June 22, 2010

£10m Insect Pollinators Initiative will look at the multiple reasons thought to be behind devastation of bees, moths and hoverflies

A cocktail of chemicals from pesticides could be damaging the brains of British bees, according to scientists about to embark on a study into why the populations of the insects have dropped so rapidly in recent decades. By affecting the way bees’ brains work, the pesticides might be affecting the ability of bees to find food or communicate with others in their colonies.

Neuroscientists at Dundee University, Royal Holloway and University College London will investigate the hypothesis as part of a £10m research programme launched today aimed at finding ways to stop the decline in the numbers of bees and other insect pollinators in the UK.

Insects such as bees, moths and hoverflies pollinate around a third of the agricultural crops grown around the world. If all of the UK’s insect pollinators were wiped out, the drop in crop production would cost the UK economy up to £440m a year, equivalent to around 13% of the UK’s income from farming.

Pollinators are also crucial for the quality of fruits and vegetables. Perfectly shaped strawberries, for example, are created only if every single ovary has been pollinated by an insect. And the number of seeds in a pumpkin depends on the number of species of insects that have pollinated the plants. “If you’ve got 10 pollinators, you’ll get more seeds in the pumpkin than you would have got if you’ve just got one pollinator,” said Giles Budge of the Food and Environment Research Agency. “It is important to have that diversity in a pollinating population.”

According to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, three of the 25 British species of bumblebees are already extinct and half of the remainder have shown serious declines, often up to 70%, since around the 1970s. In addition, around 75% of all butterfly species in the UK have been shown to be in decline. The new £10m Insect Pollinators Initiative (IPI), the largest programme to date of its kind, will look at the multiple reasons thought to be behind this devastation in insect population.

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Deepwater Horizon worker claims oil rig leaking weeks before explosion

Monday, June 21st, 2010

What with the mountain of evidence of criminal neglect accumulating around this disaster, the ties to Goldman Sachs and Halliburton, and he blatant obstruction of third party cleanup expertise and the media, we’re definitely filing this in the ‘Let it happen on purpose’ file.

Related: States Need To Launch Criminal Investigation Into BP, Federal Government’s Role In Oil Spill | The White House’s Climate Strategy: Pass Bill Now, Slip Carbon Taxes in Later | BP Aware Of Cracks In Oil Well Two Months Before Explosion | Obama Using Oil Spill To Push Green Economy Agenda | Confidential document reveals Obama’s hardline US climate talk strategy | Obama sets sights on Arctic oil and gas exploration | Obama Likely to Rebrand Climate Bill as Jobs Bill | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill

Graeme Wearden, The Guardian
June 21, 2010

Oil worker told the BBC’s Panorama programme that both BP and Transocean, who owned the rig, were informed of the leak

An oil worker who survived the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion has claimed that the oil rig’s safety equipment was leaking several weeks before it exploded, triggering the huge spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tyrone Benton says that he spotted a leak on the rig’s Blowout Preventer (BOP), the device that is meant to shut the well down if there is an accident. He told the BBC’s Panorama programme that both BP and Transocean, who owned the rig, were informed of the leak, and the faulty part — a control pod — was switched off rather than being repaired.

“We saw a leak on the pod [and] we informed the company,” Benton told the programme, which will be broadcast at 8.30pm tonight. “They have a control room where they could turn off that pod and turn on the other one, so that they don’t have to stop production.”

Benton added that he was unsure whether the leaking control pod had been turned back on again before a huge gas explosion ripped through the rig on 20 April, killing 11 workers.

The failure of the BOP was one key factor that led to the ongoing environmental disaster. The BOP is designed to clamp the well tightly shut, using cutting equipment to slice through the casing, but on 20 April it did not engage.

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States Need To Launch Criminal Investigation Into BP, Federal Government’s Role In Oil Spill

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Related: The White House’s Climate Strategy: Pass Bill Now, Slip Carbon Taxes in Later | BP Aware Of Cracks In Oil Well Two Months Before Explosion | Obama Using Oil Spill To Push Green Economy Agenda | Confidential document reveals Obama’s hardline US climate talk strategy | Obama sets sights on Arctic oil and gas exploration | Obama Likely to Rebrand Climate Bill as Jobs Bill | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill

Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones, PrisonPlanet.com
June 20, 2010

Mounting evidence shows disaster was deliberately contrived either through conscious negligence or outright sabotage and is being allowed to worsen

There can now be no doubt whatsoever that the BP oil spill was purposefully contrived, either through deliberate negligence or outright sabotage, and is now being used to further the Obama administration’s political agenda. Criminal investigations into the government and BP’s role in the disaster need to be launched by state authorities in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi immediately, while local authorities also need to call emergency legislative sessions in order to take over emergency response efforts from the feds before the crisis gets much worse.

While BP CEO Tony Hayward is busy watching yacht races, Barack Obama, who took two vacations immediately after the oil spill, spends his time playing golf. If this disaster is on a par 9/11 as Obama claims then why is he fiddling while Rome burns? Every effort to find a solution to this crisis while cleaning up the mess has been lackluster and half-hearted. The federal government’s hyped rhetoric about how bad the consequences of this spill will be has not been matched with the appropriate action to combat the problem.

In hindsight, it’s becoming clear that the government has deliberately botched the response and prevented local authorities from doing their jobs, just as FEMA deliberately sabotaged the state response to Hurricane Katrina in order to make the crisis worse and create the pretext for a police state response, gun confiscation and ultimately more federal power.

Numerous reports have surfaced of locals and state authorities being prevented by BP contractors and the U.S. Coast Guard from helping to address the devastation the spill has created in the region.

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The White House’s Climate Strategy: Pass Bill Now, Slip Carbon Taxes in Later

Friday, June 18th, 2010

You have to read between the lines on this one: “several sources familiar with the administration’s thinking confirmed it has started pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring up a slimmed-down energy and climate bill next month. Such a measure would pass more easily than a comprehensive climate bill, and could still be negotiated with the broader bill the House passed a year ago.”

Related: BP Aware Of Cracks In Oil Well Two Months Before Explosion | Obama Using Oil Spill To Push Green Economy Agenda | Confidential document reveals Obama’s hardline US climate talk strategy | Obama sets sights on Arctic oil and gas exploration | Obama Likely to Rebrand Climate Bill as Jobs Bill | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill

Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post
June 18, 2010

While President Obama made the pitch for climate and energy legislation yet again Tuesday in his Oval Office address, he did not disclose the White House’s new strategy: push for a scaled-back bill in the Senate, and drag out the conference long enough to ensure a floor vote after the negotiations.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said the administration continues to press for a broad Senate bill: “Last night President Obama reiterated his call for comprehensive energy and climate legislation to break our dependence on oil and fossil fuels. Next week he will be reaching out to senators on both sides of the aisle to chart a path forward.”

“A number of proposals have been put forward from members on both sides of the aisle. We’re open to good ideas from all sources, and will be working with senators on a comprehensive proposal,” LaBolt added. “The tragedy in the gulf underscores the need to move quickly, and the president is committed to finding the votes for comprehensive energy legislation this year.”

But several sources familiar with the administration’s thinking confirmed it has started pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring up a slimmed-down energy and climate bill next month. Such a measure would pass more easily than a comprehensive climate bill, and could still be negotiated with the broader bill the House passed a year ago.

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Climate and CO2 levels linked: study

Friday, June 18th, 2010

This study is worth some discussion here for a few different reasons. First, it’s really quite interesting and though it’s impossible to cover everything coming out of the highly exposed pro-anthropogenic global warming camp, this journal’s primary interest is the truth wherever it may be found and it’s good to include a few major representations of the science and pro-AGW media pronouncements for balance. Second, to point out that the link between climate and CO2 in this particular study is just that, a link, and it is the interpretation of the the study’s authors that the causality originates with CO2 which then forces climate change. There is a well known body of evidence out there indicating that the causality for the trigger mechanism of epochal change is in fact the opposite, that changes in atmospheric CO2 initially lag changes in climate, which are alternatively caused by natural forces such as the fluctuations in solar luminosity highlighted by NASA climatologist James B Pollack and/or variations in the Earth’s orbital cycle. Finally, this study refers of course to natural changes in climate on historical scales, which are a fact of life on this planet and which may have very little to do with human activity. Even Al Gore has recently climbed down from his black and white view that CO2 is the end all and be all of climate change, acknowledging that other atmospheric gases, water vapour and aerosols play an important role in a vastly complicated system. So complicated, in fact, that the UN’s climate change panel has been caught repeatedly lying and falsifying data (see links) in order to convince those of us who no longer buy manmade climate change on faith alone or because the IPCC tells us so. But it’s still being sold in black and white terms, sadly because there’s this deceitful political agenda to introduce massive carbon taxes and control systems worldwide. Carbon taxes will not save the earth – but they will line the pockets of the globalists and their central banks.

Related: Scan of Arctic ice dispels melting gloom, scientist says | The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider | Scientist says Arctic getting colder | Climate sceptic wins landmark data victory ‘for price of a stamp’ | Climategate whitewash: Climate-change partisans find mere sins of omission | Climategate Investigation A Monumental Whitewash | New chief Climategate investigator failed to declare eco directorship | A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC | UK: University at center of Climategate accused of misleading MPs, deleting information | Global warming panel to get independent review | Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels | Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995 | Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws | Canadian scientist says UN’s global warming panel ‘crossing the line’ | Manufactured ‘Science’: Another IPCC Scientist Reveals How UN Scientists talked about ‘trying to make IPCC report so dramatic that US would just have to sign Kyoto Protocol’ | Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn’t been verified | UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters | The IPCC glacier meltdown: More global warming fraud exposed | Taxpayers’ millions paid to Indian institute run by UN IPCC climate chief | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism – Part 2 | Climategate: Al Gore lies | Climategate: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism – Part 1 | If Climategate Is No Big Deal, Why Are Questions About It Met With An Armed Response? | Climategate: Investigations into climate fraud fixed | ‘Independent’ United Nations panel to examine Climategate evidence | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming | Polar bear expert barred from conference by global warming advocates | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

CBC News
June 18, 2010

Scientists believe that carbon dioxide has played an instrumental role in determining global weather patterns by tying together the ice age of the Northern Hemisphere and the evolving climate in the tropics 2.7 million years ago.

Researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island examined sedimentary cores taken from the ocean floor at four locations: the Arabian Sea, The South China Sea, the eastern pacific and the equatorial Atlantic Ocean.

What they found was that climate patterns in the tropics have evolved in tandem with the Ice Age cycles for the past 2.7 million years. The scientists focused on tropical ocean surface temperatures during this period because they dictate the amount of rainfall worldwide as well as the concentration of water vapour in the atmosphere.

They found that 2.7 million years ago, tropical ocean temperatures fell by one to three degrees during each Ice Age, while ice sheets increased in size in the Northern Hemisphere.

“The tropics are reproducing this pattern both in the cooling that accompanies the glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere and the timing of those changes,” said Timothy Herbert of Brown University and the lead author. “The biggest surprise to us was how similar the patterns looked all across the tropics since about 2.7 million years ago. We didn’t expect such similarity.”

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