Scientist: Carbon Dioxide Doesn't Cause Global Warming
October 07, 2009
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers USNews & World Report
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-w...rming.html
A noted geologist who coauthored the New York Times bestseller Sugar Busters has turned his attention to convincing Congress that carbon dioxide emissions are good for the Earth and don't cause global warming. Leighton Steward is on Capitol Hill this week armed with studies and his book Fire, Ice and Paradise in a bid to show senators working on the energy bill that the carbon dioxide cap-and-trade scheme could actually hurt the environment by reducing CO2 levels.
"I'm trying to kill the whole thing," he says. "We are tilting at windmills." He is meeting with several GOP lawmakers and has plans to meet with some Democrats later this week.
Much of the global warming debate has focused on reducing CO2 emissions because it is thought that the greenhouse gas produced mostly from fossil fuels is warming the planet. But Steward, who once believed CO2 caused global warming, is trying to fight that with a mountain of studies and scientific evidence that suggest CO2 is not the cause for warming. What's more, he says CO2 levels are so low that more, not less, is needed to sustain and expand plant growth.
Trying to debunk theories that higher CO2 levels cause warming, he cites studies that show CO2 levels following temperature spikes, prompting him to back other scientists who say that global warming is caused by solar activity.
In taking on lawmakers pushing for a cap-and-trade plan to deal with emissions, Steward tells Whispers that he's worried that the legislation will result in huge and unneeded taxes. Worse, if CO2 levels are cut, he warns, food production will slow because plants grown at higher CO2 levels make larger fruit and vegetables and also use less water. He also said that higher CO2 levels are not harmful to humans. As an example, he said that Earth's atmosphere currently has about 338 parts per million of CO2 and that in Navy subs, the danger level for carbon dioxide isn't reached until the air has 8,000 parts per million of CO2.
Steward is part of a nonprofit group called Plants Need CO2 that is funding pro-CO2 ads in two states represented by two key lawmakers involved in the energy debate: Montana's Sen. Max Baucus and New Mexico's Sen. Jeff Bingaman.
'Astroturf apparently needs CO2, too'
I was just thinking the same, since sourcewatch pretty much resembles a radical left astro-turf organization,
and not the independent, non-partisan group they proclaim to be.
sourcewatch staff bios
Lisa Graves
Lisa Graves became the new Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy in July, 2009. She previously served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal government, as a leading strategist on civil liberties advocacy, and as an adjunct professor (at George Washington University Law School).
Highlights of her 15-year career in public policy in Washington, DC, include:
•Testifying before congressional committees against the Bush Administration's illegal warrantless wiretapping and efforts to entrench these unconstitutional policies, its intrusive collection of personal financial records and other private information about innocent people, and its plan to increase military/intelligence satellite spying on Americans, a plan she helped stop as a coalition leader (while a partner at the Center for National Security Studies).
•Leading a national civil liberties coalition that helped lay the groundwork for the first filibuster of flawed post-9/11 policies; stalling efforts to make the Patriot Act permanent in 2005; and testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the need to reform the Freedom of Information Act to speed disclosures to citizens (as the Senior Counsel for Legislative Strategy for the American Civil Liberties Union).
•Advising Senator Patrick Leahy on judicial nominations; staffing successful filibusters of unfair candidates for lifetime jobs as federal judges; and directing and conducting in-depth research about candidates for these positions of trust as well as into the history of judicial nominations and Senate procedures (as the Chief Nominations Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee).
•Serving as the lead counsel for the DOJ Working Group on Judicial Nominations for Assistant Attorney General Eleanor D. Acheson, in coordination with the White House Counsel's Office; drafting congressional testimony and speeches for Attorney General Janet Reno; and handling other special projects, such as serving as the managing editor and co-author of reports to the President (as Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Senior Counsel, and Counsel in the Office of Policy Development/Office of Legal Policy).
Graves began practicing law by arguing cases before the appellate courts, as a career appointee selected through the Attorney General's Honor Program, after a clerkship with a federal judge.
She earned her J.D., cum laude, from Cornell Law School, where she was Managing Editor of the Cornell Law Review and Co-Leader of the Women's Law Coalition, among other honors. She earned a B.S., with highest honors, from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where she was an award-winning collegiate debater, won the Top Politi
cal Science Graduate Award, and was the Wisconsin Institute for the Study of War, Peace & Global Cooperation's Peace Scholar.
Graves has appeared on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC, C-SPAN, and other news programs and on numerous radio shows, including National Public Radio, Democracy Now!, Air America, and Pacifica Radio. Her analysis has been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Associated Press, Reuters, USA Today, The Nation, Vanity Fair, Congressional Quarterly, Roll Call, National Journal, Legal Times, Newsday, Wired, and Mother Jones, among others, as well as online in The Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, and other blogs.
Patricia Barden
Patricia Barden, IT DirectorThe Center for Media and Democracy's IT Director Patricia Barden received her bachelor's degree in Information Systems from the University of Richmond. Before starting with the Center in June 2005, she worked as the web developer for the State Environmental Resource Center for three years.
Prior to moving to Madison, she lived and worked in Richmond, Virginia, where her son, Jordan, and daughter, Laura, currently reside.
Patricia is both an environmental and gay/lesbian rights activist. Her interests include bicycling, playing guitar, bird watching, and taking walks with her Jack Russell terrier, Dixie Doodle.
Mary Bottari
Mary Bottari is the Director of CMD's soon-to-be launched Real Economy Project. She is an experienced policy wonk, public interest advocate, and communications professional.
For the last ten years she has served as a senior analyst for the Washington, D.C.-based consumer group Public Citizen in its Global Trade Watch division. She has investigated and documented the constraints imposed by global trade agreements on public policy options at the federal, state, and local level, including in the areas of financial services, health care policy, toxics regulation, food safety, and the environment.
She has helped bring trade cases and conflicts in these areas to the attention of federal and state officials, the media and the public. She was a lead author of numerous policy briefs and publications for Public Citizen including: Federalism and Global Governance (2008), States' Rights and International Trade (2007), NAFTA's Threat to Sovereignty and Democracy (2005). For many years, she has represented Public Citizen on the Board of the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), which is made up of the 80 largest consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic and formally advises the U.S. and European Union (EU) governments on trade-related consumer issues.
Prior to her stint at Public Citizen, Mary worked in public policy and communications at the federal and state level. She headed a busy Washington, D.C., press office for U.S. Senator Russ Feingold. She also served as senior staff for Wisconsin State Senate for Senator Lynn Adelman, who is now a federal judge in Milwaukee.
She earned an M.A. degree in social sciences from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in political sociology from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
Mary lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her family. Her favorite Wisconsin cheese is Prairie Ridge Reserve.
Bob Burton
Bob Burton is an author and freelance journalist based in Hobart, Australia. He has been a contributor to PR Watch since 1997 and commenced as part-time editor of SourceWatch in October 2003. His articles on foreign affairs, human rights, health and the environment have appeared in numerous publications in Australia, the Asia-Pacific region, the UK and the US.
With New Zealander Nicky Hager he co-authored Secrets and Lies: the anatomy of an anti-environmental PR campaign (Craig Potton Publishing New Zealand 1999; Common Courage Press USA 2000) unmasking a campaign by Shandwick for the government-owned logging company, Timberlands. In 2007 Allen & Unwin published his book Inside Spin: The Dark Underbelly of the PR Industry, which investigates the PR industry in Australia.
After completing an Arts degree at Sydney University in 1979 he worked until the mid-1990’s as a researcher and campaigner on energy, mining and forestry issues for The Wilderness Society in Australia. He subsequently worked as a consultant on fundraising and training issues for non-profit groups in Australia and New Zealand. In 1992 he was entered on the United Nations Environment Program Global 500 Roll of Honour for an outstanding contribution to the protection of the environment.
Anne Landman
TobaccoWiki editor Anne Landman was a registered respiratory therapist for twelve years prior to obtaining degrees in Environmental Restoration/Waste Management Technology and Communications. After graduation she worked in the industrial health and safety department on a uranium mining Superfund cleanup project in western Colorado, monitoring air quality and site safety. In 1996 Anne accepted a position with the American Lung Association of Colorado (ALAC). While working for ALAC she gathered evidence describing a little-known merchandising arrangement between cigarette companies and retailers. Anne discovered that tobacco companies were paying generous placement fees to retailers in exchange for strategic placement of self-service cigarette displays out of the line of sight of clerks and near the doors of the establishment. The arrangement resulted in tremendous amounts of cigarettes being shoplifted, primarily by youth, all across the country. Her efforts to bring the arrangement to the public's attention culminated in CBS Evening News flying to western Colorado to film an "Eye on America" segment on the issue. The segment, broadcast on April 12, 1999, was taped by advocates across the country and became a highly effective tool used at city council meetings, legislative hearings and press conferences to demonstrate the need to ban self-service tobacco.
As a result of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between 46 state Attorneys General and the American tobacco companies, in November 1998 millions of previously secret tobacco industry documents were posted on the Internet. Anne started examining the documents and has since worked to get them wider media and public exposure. Anne operates the Daily Document List Serve, which sends information on new document discoveries to thousands of tobacco control advocates worldwide. She has published articles about the documents in several medical journals, including Tobacco Control and the American Journal of Public Health. In 2006 Anne completed a research fellowship at the University of California-San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education with Stanton Glantz, Ph.D. She lives in western Colorado with her husband Steve, in an energy-efficient solar home made of over 4,000 used automobile tires and 900 pounds of aluminum cans. Photos of their home, and similar homes, can be seen at Living Earth Construction.
Wendell Potter
Wendell Potter has served since May 2009 as CMD's Senior Fellow on Health Care. After a 20-year career as a corporate public relations executive, last year he left his job as head of communications for one of the nation's largest health insurers to try his hand at helping socially responsible organizations -- including those advocating for meaningful health care reform -- achieve their goals.
Based in Philadelphia, Wendell now provides strategic communications counsel and planning services as an independent consultant. He also speaks out on both the need for a fundamental overhaul of the American health care system and on the dangers to American democracy and society of the decline of the media as watchdog, which has contributed to the growing and increasingly unchecked influence of corporate PR.
Before his big switch, Wendell held a variety of positions at CIGNA Corporation over 15 years, serving most recently as head of corporate communications and as the company's chief corporate spokesman.
Prior to joining CIGNA, Wendell headed communications at Humana Inc., another large for-profit health insurer. Before that he was director of public relations and advertising for The Baptist Health System of East Tennessee. He also has been a partner in an Atlanta public relations firm, a press secretary to a Democratic nominee for governor of Tennessee and as a lobbyist in Washington for the organizers of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tenn. He also served as a member of the public relations and international marketing team for the Fair and traveled to Europe, Africa and South America on country recruitment missions.
Wendell also was a journalist. His first job after college was as a reporter for Scripps-Howard's afternoon paper in Memphis. He wrote about Memphis businesses and local government before being sent to Nashville to cover the governor's office and state legislature. Two years later he was promoted to the Scripps-Howard News Bureau in Washington where he covered Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court and wrote a weekly political column.
Wendell is a native of Tennessee and a graduate of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville where he received a B.A. degree in communications and did postgraduate work in journalism and public relations. He holds an APR, which means he is accredited in public relations by the Public Relations Society of America, and is still a proud dues-paying member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Press Club in Washington.
John Stauber
John Stauber founded the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Media and Democracy and its news magazine PR Watch in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin way back in 1993. He served sixteen years as the Center's executive director until August, 2009 when he stepped down and Lisa Graves assumed the position. He currently serves on CMD's Board of Directors and as an advisor to the organization's executive director.
Stauber co-authored six books for CMD including the 2003 New York Times bestseller Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq. He is an investigative writer, public speaker and democracy advocate whose leadership on controversial public issues began in high school when he organized to end the U.S. war in Vietnam and for the first Earth Day. He has begun or worked with many non-profit public interest groups over the past four decades.
The books he has authored in collaboration with Sheldon Rampton are::
•Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry'' (1995)
•Mad Cow U.S.A. (1997)
•Trust Us, We're Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future (2001)
•Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq (2003)
•Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State (2004)
•The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq (2006)
Stauber's articles, op-eds and interviews have appeared in scores of publications and websites. He has contributed research and writing to books by others including G.I. Guinea Pigs (1980) and Secrets and Lies (1999). As an investigator and author he has been featured, interviewed or quoted by the PBS News Hour, Washington Post, New York Times, Der Spiegel, International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Week, On The Media, CNN, NPR's On Point, CBC, Democracy Now and other news media.
Watch online a 2004 GNN.TV interview with John Stauber or a September 2006 interview during a book speaking tour, or a 2008 appearance on the PBS NewsHour
What happened to global warming?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
By Paul Hudson
Climate correspondent, BBC News
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.
They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?
During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.
Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth's warmth comes from the Sun.
But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.
The scientists' main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.
And the results were clear. "Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees.
He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.
He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.
If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.
Ocean cycles
What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to our oceans. They are the Earth's great heat stores.
According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.
The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).
For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.
But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.
These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.
So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.
Professor Easterbrook says: "The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling."
So what does it all mean? Climate change sceptics argue that this is evidence that they have been right all along.
They say there are so many other natural causes for warming and cooling, that even if man is warming the planet, it is a small part compared with nature.
But those scientists who are equally passionate about man's influence on global warming argue that their science is solid.
The UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, responsible for future climate predictions, says it incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new.
In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures - all of which are accounted for by its models.
In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of slower warming, or even temporary cooling.
What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.
To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.
Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers.
But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.
So what can we expect in the next few years?
Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.
It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).
Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.
One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.
Loveland ski area opens today, A-Basin on Friday
By John Meyer
The Denver Post
And the winner is ... Loveland.
Boasting its earliest opening day in 40 years, Loveland officials opened for skiing today. Arapahoe Basin announced it would open Friday.
Loveland is the first ski area in North America to open its season, with $44 lift tickets. Loveland trail crews were able to begin snowmaking operations on Sept. 21.
"We took advantage of the cold temperatures and got an early start making snow this year," said Eric Johnstone, snowmaking and trail maintenance manager. "Now we can move some equipment to other trails and try to open more terrain as quickly as possible."
As usual on opening day, Loveland opened Chair 1 with 1,000 vertical feet of terrain on Catwalk, Mambo and Homerun.
Friday will mark the earliest opening in Arapahoe Basin's 64-year history. The Exhibition chairlift will open at 9 a.m. Friday with skiing on the intermediate High Noon run and six features in the High Divide Terrain Park. There will be no beginner skiing.
Both areas say they have a manmade base of 18 inches.
Some Idaho schoolkids enjoy an Early Snow Day
by Alyson Outen
http://www.ktvb.com/news/nearyou/woodriv...b181a.html
BELLEVUE -- Just one week ago, we were bracing for a "cool down" from the 80s to the 60s.
Now, it's getting downright wintry. And in some parts of our viewing area, snow is piling up.
This may be one for the record books, not only how early this heavy fall snowstorm is, but the fact that it appears to have created the earliest snow day in the history of the Blaine County School District.
“We got dumped on last night, you can see that by looking around here. We weren't quite ready for it. It did cause us some issues in the school district," Lonnie Barber, Blaine County Superintendent.
Not just the school district, but throughout the county. At least 3,500 Idaho Power customers in the Wood River Valley were without electricty today. Utility officials blame heavy wet snow for knocking out power in Bellevue and Hailey. Outages were also reported in Fairfield and Carey.
Since the trees haven't had time to shed their leaves, the snow accumulated and burdened the branches to their breaking point. Many of which landed on power lines.
After about an hour and a half, the Blaine County superintendent said it was time to call it a day for those at Bellevue Elementary School -- the only school left in the dark.
"At about 9:30 this morning we mobilized and started making calls. We didn't want students in the cold, very quick response. Within minutes parents had picked up all but 18 kids, an hour later, all students were at home. Unfortunately we lost one day of school, but only in one of our schools. This is the only school that had the power outage," said Barber.
And, as luck would have it the power got restored just as the last few students were reunited with their parents.
Early snow records set to be broken
By Lisa Chapman
http://austriantimes.at/news/General_New..._be_broken
Austria’s provincial capitals are expected to see their earliest snowfalls in history today (Mon) as Arctic air sweeps the country.
Josef Haselhofer from Vienna’s Central Agency for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) said today (Mon) Arctic air would probably result in the first snow cover in provincial capitals before 20 October in history and said Innsbruck, Salzburg and St. Pölten were likely to see snow.
He said as much as 30 to 40 centimetres of snow was likely down to 1,200 metres and snow could fall as low as 400 metres later this week, adding it had already begun to fall in Vorarlberg. He also predicted low temperatures would be minus five degrees at higher elevations and zero degrees in the lowlands by Thursday morning.
Haselhofer warned of possible impassable snow drifts in some places and the danger of avalanches in low-lying areas.
Car club ÖAMTC reported today that chains were mandatory for all vehicles on stretches of the Arlbergstraße (L197), Lechtalstraße (L198) and the Silvretta-Hochalpenstraße (L188) in Vorarlberg.
The club said snow was falling down to 1,500 metres and the snow line would drop to as low as 900 metres in the province before it stopped snowing there.
The record for early snow in provincial capitals was set in 2007, when snow remained on the ground in some of them from 20 to 24 October. The average high in October, according to ZAMG, is 15 degrees...