I thought this story was interesting. New research from studying Greenland ice cores suggests that we've had much more rapid global warming that we've been experiencing in recent years.

The ice core showed the Northern Hemisphere briefly emerged from the last ice age some 14,700 years ago with a 22-degree-Fahrenheit spike in just 50 years, then plunged back into icy conditions before abruptly warming again about 11,700 years ago.

If man is really the primary reason for global warming, then why did we see this 22 degree change in just 50 years at a time when we didn't have SUVs running around the earth? We're talking about changes of a degree over a hundred year period and yet this newly discovered change is much more dramatic in a shorter period of time.

As I've said before. I don't deny that the climate is changing. I don't deny that man's activities have an impact. My problem is with those who say that the "science is settled" and that anyone who suggests that perhaps man isn't completely responsible are suddenly "global warming deniers" and on par with members of the Nazi party. How can we expect to find out the best approach for dealing with global climate change if we only allow one opinion? It just doesn't make sense.

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this USA Today opinion piece. Minister Buzz Thomas suggests that since our environmental problems are due to overpopulation, the Roman Catholics and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should abandon their policies encouraging large families.

Of course, much of our environmental problem is due to overpopulation. There are simply too many people for the planet to sustain — at least the way we expect to be sustained. Each new person requires more food, water and oxygen. At the same time, each is producing more carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane (the big culprits of global warming). For each additional human, planet Earth (and the rest of us) pays a price. The world knows where this is all headed. In fact, we even devote an entire day — Earth Day, which we'll mark Tuesday — to promote awareness.

Now, consider the Roman Catholic Church's continued opposition to modern birth control or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' (i.e. Mormons) encouragement of large families. This might not alarm you unless you realize that nearly one in every five humans on the planet is Roman Catholic and that the Latter-day Saints belong to one of the fastest-growing religions in the Western Hemisphere. Many Orthodox Jews and some Muslims also eschew birth control.

In the interest of preserving our planet and our species, shouldn't religious organizations be encouraging smaller families? Do our spiritual leaders need additional divine revelation to realize that our current doctrines — which threaten to take the entire world down with us — have become ethically and theologically questionable?

I just couldn't help but laugh that Buzz is suggesting that religion plays a role in global climate change. There are so many other causes mentioned in various articles. Who is Buzz to decide that the Catholics or Mormons are wrong? Maybe Buzz is wrong. Maybe the Catholic or Mormon who won't be born because they start encouraging abortions or birth control would have been the next Al Gore and would have come up with a solution to the global climate change problem.

It just seems to me that we have so many other critical issues that perhaps we could focus some of our evangelical fervor and global consciousness on helping to reduce poverty, famine, finding alternatives to petroleum, exploitation of children or political corruption. This single-minded focus on the global warming crisis to the exclusion of all other issues is a bit like straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic. We have bigger, more immediate issues that could use our attention while we figure out the science.

About a month and a half ago, I wrote about the lack of temperature increases in our oceans and the problems that was causing for the global warming community. Yesterday, I saw this New York Times story about a new climate model which is predicting global cooling for the next decade.

One of the first attempts to look ahead a decade, using computer simulations and measurements of ocean temperatures, predicts a slight cooling of Europe and North America, probably related to shifting currents and patterns in the oceans.

The team that generated the forecast, whose members come from two German ocean and climate research centers, acknowledged that it was a preliminary effort. But in a short paper published in the May 1 issue of the journal Nature, they said their modeling method was able to reasonably replicate climate patterns in those regions in recent decades, providing some confidence in their prediction for the next one.

The authors stressed that the pause in warming represented only a temporary blunting of the centuries of rising temperatures that scientists have projected if carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases continue accumulating in the atmosphere.

I find it somewhat amusing that once again, global warming advocates have to backpedal when the data doesn't match their predictions. For something where the "science is settled", I find it rather amusing that new data keeps coming up which contradicts the settled science. As I've said before, I do believe that in general temperatures have increased, but I don't believe that the global warming advocates really have as clear an understanding of the causes and the effects that they suggest. I don't believe we should be taking radical steps to reduce climate change when the data doesn't match our original hypothesis. How can we know what we're doing is going to have the desired result? It just doesn't make sense to me.

As you may have read before, my primary complaint about the "Global Climate Change" mafia is their attempt to silence any other opinions. I thought this FoxNews story was a great example of an effort to pressure someone to abandon unpopular views about global climate change.

A pioneering expert on hurricane forecasting says he may soon lose funding due to his skepticism about man-made global warming, according to a report in the Houston Chronicle.

Dr. William Gray, who once said that pro-global warming scientists are "brainwashing our children," claims that Colorado State University will no longer promote his yearly North Atlantic hurricane forecasts due to his controversial views.

Gray complained in a memo to the head of Colorado State’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences that "this is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the Department's capitulation to the desires of some (in their own interest) who want to reign [sic] in my global warming and global warming-hurricane criticisms," the Chronicle reports.

School officials denied that Gray’s stand on global warming was an issue, and said that they are cutting back on media support for his forecasts due to the strain it places on the school's lone media staffer.

"It really has nothing to do with his stand on global warming," Sandra Woods, dean of the College of Engineering at CSU, told the Chronicle. "He's a great faculty member. He's an institution at CSU."

In the fall of 2005, Gray passed lead authorship of the yearly hurricane forecasts to his former student Philip Klotzbach, but he continues to head the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU.

CSU will continue to publicize Gray's yearly forecasts as long as they are co-authored by Klotzbach, officials told the Chronicle last week, but will end their support if Klotzbach, who recently earned his doctorate, moves to another institution.

"It seems peculiar that this is happening now," Donald Wright, a professor on public relations at Boston University, told the Chronicle. "Given the national reputation that these reports have, you would think the university would want to continue to promote these forecasts."

I thought this last statement was particularly interesting. Why would CSU want to drop the well-respected reports from a "great faculty member" who is an "institution"? I doubt the Professor would suggest his global climate change views were part of the problem he was having with the university if hadn't been "counseled" to moderate those views.

I find it odd that the usual torch bearers of academic freedom and free speech are strangely silent when it comes to views that they don't share.

I thought the Complete List of of Things Caused by Global Warming was great. The list not only includes the problems themselves, but it contains links to the news story where that problem is attributed to Global Climate Change.

Some of my favorites include:

• Acne
• Bagdad Snow
• Earth Wobbling
• Frostbite
• Loch Ness Monster Dead
• Psychiatric Illness
• Witchcraft Executions

No, I'm not making this up. Be sure to check it out for yourself!

I thought this Wall Street Journal Blog post was very interesting. Apparently, biofuels may not be such a good idea after all as scientists are beginning to believe that they actually increase greenhouse gases.

Some recent academic studies have argued that biofuels actually cause more greenhouse-gas emissions because they lead to destruction of carbon-rich forests. Environmental groups like Greenpeace that campaign against biofuels applauded Dr. Watson’s comments. But the jury is still out: Many leading biofuel scientists question new studies that say biofuels have a much bigger carbon footprint than fossil fuels.

The scientific back-and-forth is starting to shape policy—in Europe at least. European officials have tried to limit the import of biofuels that cause forest destruction. Earlier this month, the European Union said it would stop subsidizing many local biofuel crops, like sugar beets.

It cracks me up that we rushed into public policies to promote biofuels without actually taking the time to determine that they just made the situation worse while at the same time burning up all of our food. It's just crazy!

I thought this NPR Report mentioned on Glenn Beck's radio show was kind of amusing. Apparently, scientists are puzzled at data from a network of about 3,000 robots that measure the ocean's temperature. In looking at data since the network went online in 2003, they've found no evidence of warming and in fact, temperatures have dipped slightly.

In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."

This last statement really cracked me up. Ummmmm.... you can't get "less rapid warming" than when things are cooling. I guess I have a different understanding of the term "warming" than Dr. Willis. I was always taught that "warming" means temperatures are rising.

Their explanation for this cooling of the oceans is either that Global Warming is "taking a breather" or that things are really warming, but "scientists are somehow misinterpreting the data." I might suggest another theory. Perhaps the science of global climate change isn't so settled as Al Gore and others seem to believe.

I was blown away when a friend directed me to this report from the Forest Foundation. They estimated the carbon output of four California forest fires.

Consequently, when the massive amounts of fuel in these forests burned, they released an estimated 9.5 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere just from combustion. That is an average of about 63 tons per acre. However, combustion is only part of the story because dead trees also gradually release CO2 as they decay. CO2 emissions from decay are generally three times greater than emissions from combustion because large quantities of wood and other plant material remain unburned after a forest fire.

Combining combustion and decay emissions, FCEM estimates that these four fires will emit a staggering 38 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The fires released one fourth of the gases during combustion, and post-fire decay will release the remainder during the next 100 years, most of it during the next 50 years.

To put these emissions from combustion and decay into perspective, they are equivalent to adding an estimated 7 million more cars onto California’s highways for one year, each spewing tons of greenhouse gases out the tailpipe. Stated another way, this means 50 percent of all cars in California would have to be locked in a garage for one year to make up for the global warming impact of these four wildfires.

Is it just me, or is it extremely funny that an environmental group is calling for humans to thin forests in order to avoid naturally occurring forest fires because they emit greenhouse gases? Haven't they been telling us to leave the forests alone? Aren't lightning caused forest fires a part of Mother Nature's plan for the forest? So, naturally occurring forest fires have been generating greenhouse gases? So, if just 4 fires generate as much as the greenhouse gas output of half of the cars in California for a year, isn't all the talk of carbon credits, hybrid cars, and getting rid of our SUVs just a waste of time? To me, this just provides more evidence that greenhouse gases are naturally occurring and that perhaps the science of global climate change is less settled that Al Gore would suggest. Perhaps we should look at that idea of the sun causing climate change after all.

With all the fervor over corn ethanol and other biofuels as an alternative to petroleum in order to reduce carbon emissions, I got a big kick out of this Los Angeles Times pictures. Apparently, researchers found that converting land to biodiesel production actually increases the carbon footprint.

The rush to grow biofuel crops -- widely embraced as part of the solution to global warming -- is actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions rather than reducing them, according to two studies published Thursday in the journal Science.

One analysis found that clearing forests and grasslands to grow the crops releases vast amounts of carbon into the air -- far more than the carbon spared from the atmosphere by burning biofuels instead of gasoline.

"We're rushing into biofuels, and we need to be very careful," said Jason Hill, an economist and ecologist at the University of Minnesota who co-authored the study. "It's a little frightening to think that something this well intentioned might be very damaging."

Even converting existing farmland from food to biofuel crops increases greenhouse gas emissions as food production is shifted to other parts of the world, resulting in the destruction of more forests and grasslands to make way for farmland, the second study found.

The analysis calculated that a U.S. cornfield devoted to producing ethanol would have to be farmed for 167 years before it would begin to achieve a net reduction in emissions.

"Any biofuel that uses productive land is going to create more greenhouse gas emissions than it saves," said Timothy Searchinger, a researcher at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the study's lead author.

The studies prompted 10 prominent ecologists and environmental biologists to write to President Bush and congressional leaders Thursday, urging new policy "that ensures biofuels are not produced on productive forests, grassland or cropland."

That doesn't even take into account the rapid increase in corn prices as a result of increased demand. It feels like the whole corn ethanol "solution" is just an opportunity for government to do something, even if it is the wrong thing. Sometimes it is better that government do nothing.

I thought these comments from John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, on Global Warming were pretty interesting.

COMMENTS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
By John Coleman
jcoleman@kusi.com

it is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.