Media Commentators. Responsible Citizens, or Junk Scientists?

Dear Editor,

Are our "opinion-leaders" doing their jobs? Or, are they letting us down?
I will defend to the death the right of media commentators to speak their minds on any issue.
But what if those opinions are based on fairy tales rather than facts?
When addressing global warming, for example, are they seeking out the best evidence on which to craft their editorials?
Or are they simply being contrary, making their pronouncements based on nothing more than junk science or personal bias?
One doesn't have to look very far for media diatribes that label environmentalists as troublemakers or even "wackos."
According to these "opinion-leaders," those who drive hybrid cars or buy carbon offsets when they travel are wasting their time.
And lawmakers who clamp down on idling vehicles, are Communists!
They would have us believe that either global warming isn't happening at all, or is being caused by just about anything other than human activity.
So what is responsible then? Well, according to them, it's solar flares, or the tilt of the earth, or natural trends similar to what's happened throughout history! (All of which flies in the face of mounds of scientific evidence.)
Even my last barber absolutely knew that global warming is just a natural phenomenon and that Al Gore is a fraud!
He didn't point out any specific, factual errors Mr. Gore had made in his movie, or whether, in fact, he had even seen it!
Perhaps he's been listening to too many "opinion-leaders?"
Yet the degree of consensus that global warming is real, serious and "man-made" is remarkable.
Scientists who don't agree are rare, indeed: Like the one who speaks to farm groups, telling them what they want to hear;
that agriculture is not a major contributor to global warming when, in fact, it is.
I just can't bring myself to agree with this point of view. Because, to do so, I would also have to label as "wackos," the following;
• The world-renowned meteorologists and Nobel prize winners of the United Nations' International Panel on Climate Change,
• The scores of highly-qualified researchers and scientists of the World Watch Institute,
• The Earth Policy Institute (These last two being internationally-renowned, science-based "think-tanks." (Both were founded by Lester R. Brown, who has been described as one of the world's most influential thinkers),
• The thousands of respected universities around the world which employ academics with impressive credentials who publish countless science-based, peer-reviewed studies on a regular basis,
• "NASA," the North American Space Administration. (Dr. James Hanson of NASA pointed out the reality of global warming 20 years ago. He is now recognized as a virtual prophet in the field.)
• Institute of Science in Society (ISIS). Its director, *Mae-Won Ho is a widely-known science adviser, a much sought-after speaker and author of best-selling books.
I could list many more. But, you get the idea.
I would ask these "opinion-leaders," do you even read the studies these groups publish? Well I do.
After spending years studying to gain their degrees and their jobs, these experts spend much of their waking lives examining the world's climate.
They measure, observe, chart, document, photograph and prepare sophisticated computerized climate models (after weeks, months, or even years, often "on the ground" in remote, hostile conditions).
Do you?
My point is this. I am decidedly not one of the experts I list above. I don't have a masters degree is science, or meteorology. I have high school! Period!
That is precisely why I defer to them. After all, who the Hell am I not to? To do otherwise is to display arrogance of the highest order.

(Photo courtesy of the CBC)

Explain away, if you will, the unprecedented ice storm that hit Manitoba just last week, causing traffic chaos, highway and school closures and power outages. (Have you ever seen people "skating" down a major highway? I haven't.)
How about the huge snowfalls that have disrupted Victoria, Vancouver and London, England (which rarely if ever seen such freakish conditions).
Or the incinerator that was southeastern Australia.

I would suggest that none of these "severe weather events" were the work of solar flares, or natural trends.
Climate scientists have been predicting for years that such events would increase in both intensity and numbers. And they have.
The Worldwatch Institute reports that recorded floods, hurricanes and other "natural" disasters, nearly doubled between 1987 and 2006.
So, are these "climate change deniers" really being responsible?
Or are they short-changing present and future generations by giving them faulty information on which to base the ways they respond to the climate crisis already upon us?
"Climate change scepticism is politically motivated, the evidence is all around us. Good science is about dispelling common prejudice, not taking leave of common sense." *Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

Larry Powell
Roblin MB

Biofuels Crops May Yield Less Than Expected

ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2009) — Global yields of most biofuels crops, including corn, rapeseed and wheat, have been overestimated by 100 to 150 percent or more, suggesting many countries need to reset their expectations of agricultural biofuels to a more realistic level.
Read more here>>(Photos by l.p.)

This Is Bad: We're Heading for 'Water Bankruptcy'

Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet at 4:42 PM on February 2, 2009.
From California to the Himalayas, things are looking bad.
In case you haven't been following recent headlines around water, they go something like this:
Read more here>>

Blueberries Prevent Alzheimer's Disease

NaturalNews Insider Alert newsletter

Dear NaturalNews readers,

New research on blueberries is showing they contain remarkable medicine for activating the brain and preventing Alzheimer's disease. Check out the brief on this breaking news:

STUDY: GLOBAL WARMING EFFECTS TO LAST 1,000 YEARS

(AFP photos)
Published on Monday, January 26, 2009 by Agence France Presse

PARIS - Global warming may create "dead zones" in the ocean that would be devoid of fish and seafood and endure for up to two millennia, according to a study published on Sunday.

TIBETANS IN THE PATH OF CLIMATE CHAOS

It is vanishing glaciers like the ones below that are already inflicting tragedy on Tibetans and others around the world. Please read story, below.

1875 photo courtesy H. Slupetzky/University of Salzburg

The Pasterze, Austria's longest glacier (both photos, above), was about 2 kilometers longer in the 19th C. but is now completely out of sight from this overlook on the Grossglockner High Road.

By Christina Larson, Christian Science Monitor

Less snow in the mountains means less water and less food. It also means more of the same for other Asian nations downstream.
Read more here>>

"HEAT AND HOPE: TIME RUNNING OUT FOR STEEP EMISSION CUTS"

Jan. 13-'08
by Larry Powell

http://www.worldwatch.org/

A large, well-respected research organization believes the world will actually have to end carbon dioxide emissions altogether by 2050 if we want to avoid "catastrophic" climate change and a planet which is "hostile to human development and well-being."
*The Worldwatch Institute makes the sombre predictions in its 2009 "State-of-the-World" report entitled, "Into a Warming World."
Despite all of this, the 47 scientists who wrote the report believe there is still plenty of opportunity for "efficiency improvements" in such fields as renewable energy, farming and forestry; improvements that will "slow and manage" climate change.
While disaster can still be averted, "There's not much time left."
Only with massive public support, political will to shift toward renewable energy, new ways of living and "a human scale that matches the atmosphere's limits," they go on, can such an outcome be avoided.
The Institute fears that past emissions which have not yet affected the earth's average temperature, may raise it an alarming one degree celsius in future, no matter what we do!
It is estimated that nations of the world will need to spend up to $2.5 trillion a year to make the sharp reductions needed and adapt to changes in food production, population and the global economy.

Go Organic!

The Institute strongly recommends the use of organic farming methods on a large scale as a way to reduce emissions. It points out that soil stores massive amounts of carbon, preventing it from escaping into the air as greenhouse gas. Yet the millions of tons of synthetic fertilizers used, worldwide, in intensive, conventional farming, is releasing billions of tons of air emissions yearly. The report suggests a sharp increase in the use of composting, livestock manure and cover crops which "fix" nitrogen, to allow the soil to absorb or "sequester" much more carbon than it now does.
It refers to a 23-year experiment conducted by the Rodale Institute in the 'States. It found organic cropping systems increased soil carbon by up to 28 percent and nitrogen by up to 15 percent over conventional methods.
If the 65 million acres of soybean and corn now grown in the US were switched to organic farms, Rodale claims, 1/4 billion tons of carbon dioxide could be sequestered.
The report cites examples of positive changes taking place. For example, 95 million hectares of cropland are under "no-till" management worldwide. The practice, which is growing rapidly, reduces the release of carbon dioxide from the soil by greatly reducing surface disturbance of the soil.
In Parana Brazil, for example, farmers have combined no-till with organic methods. This has increased yields of wheat and soybean by one third and reduced soil erosion by 90 percent!
In the Philippines, poor farmers working with "landcare groups," have managed to reduce soil erosion, increase fertility and protect watersheds while at the same time, boosting food production and income. They've done this by leaving strips of natural vegetation on their terraced, sloped fields.
On the policy front, the Worldwatch President, Christopher Flavin, sounds another note of optimism.
Flavin says, with a new U.S. administration, perhaps the current world gridlock in climate policy can finally be broken at another key meeting on global warming coming up in Copenhagen in December.
"We can't afford to let the Copenhagen conference fail," he concluded.
All of this optimism aside, this report paints one of the gloomiest global warming scenarios yet.
Most countries which have embraced the Kyoto Accord have set more modest greenhouse gas reduction targets. Few, if any have called for reductions down to zero for the long term.
L.P.
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*The Worldwatch Institute is an independent research organization recognized by opinion leaders around the world for its accessible, fact-based analysis of critical global issues. Its mission is to generate and promote insights and ideas that empower decision makers to build an ecologically sustainable society that meets human needs.
Worldwatch has catalyzed effective environmental decision making since 1974. The Institute's interdisciplinary research is based on the best available science and focuses on the challenges that climate change, resource degradation, and population growth pose for meeting human needs in the 21st century.

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Please also read.........."Too late? Why scientists say we should expect the worst."

At a high-level academic conference on global warming at Exeter University this summer, climate scientist Kevin Anderson stood before his expert audience and contemplated a strange feeling. He wanted to be wrong. Many of those in the room who knew what he was about to say felt the same. His conclusions had already caused a stir in scientific and political circles. Even committed green campaigners said the implications left them terrified.