Any measure that we look at shows Al Gore's losing at the moment. The public is just not that concerned.
So said Gallup Poll editor Frank Newport about the Nobel Laureate's campaign to convince Americans that man's carbon dioxide emissions are destroying the planet. As reported by U.S. News & World Report's Paul Bedard at his Washington Whispers blog Tuesday:
He admits that it's counterintuitive, but Gallup Poll Editor Frank Newport says he sees no evidence that Al Gore's campaign against global warming is winning. "It's just not caught on," says Newport. "They have failed." Or, more bluntly: "Any measure that we look at shows Al Gore's losing at the moment. The public is just not that concerned." What the public is worried about: the economy. Newport says the economy trumps the environment right now, a strong indicator that President Obama's bid to put a cap-and-trade pollution regime into operation isn't likely to be politically popular.
Let's hope he's right:
"It's Al Gore's greatest frustration," says Newport. "We seem less concerned than more about global warming over the years. . . . Despite the movies and publicity and all that, we're just not seeing it take off with the American public. And that was occurring even before the latest economic recession."
He adds: "As Al Gore I think would say, the greatest challenge facing humanity . . . has failed to show up in our data."
Of course, this isn't really surprising, for if you look at the data, carbon dioxide doesn't show up as a cause of global warming -- but don't tell the Nobel Laureate who got a D in his natural sciences course at Harvard. that.
May 05, 2009
Sun Oddly Quiet””Hints at Next “Little Ice Age”?
By Anne Minard, National Geographic News
A prolonged lull in solar activity has astrophysicists glued to their telescopes waiting to see what the sun will do next - and how Earth’s climate might respond.
See larger here.
The sun is the least active it’s been in decades and the dimmest in a hundred years. The lull is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age, an unusual cold spell in Europe and North America, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850.
The coldest period of the Little Ice Age, between 1645 and 1715, has been linked to a deep dip in solar storms known as the Maunder Minimum.
During that time, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice, and canals in Holland routinely froze solid. Glaciers in the Alps engulfed whole villages, and sea ice increased so much that no open water flowed around Iceland in the year 1695.
There's still plenty of water in Australia. It's just that we've tried to take virtually all our water from a minority of the available sources whilst failing to accept this was never going to work. It's like employing 100 people then having 5 doing virtually all the work - it'll lead to trouble that's for sure.the biggest problem I have....is the lack of water...if we do not get rain or means to increase our water supply....it will not matter how much climate change or ETS or carbon taxes they charge.....water is our current biggest problem.....will we buy water from overseas....where ? Africa....
something has to be done to stop all the pollution...but if China and the other big polluters do not change ???
As for the overall issue, in a world of constant growth we're destined to burn everything we can get our hands on. That's just what happens when you keep using more and more each year - eventually you end up using all you can get your hands on. All we're really debating is where it gets burnt - that it will be burnt is a given without truly radical change that not even the Greens are seriously proposing.
Well, Calliope, how could you possibly contemplate a world without polar bears? Whatever would we do?The arrogance of people like Rudd, Gore and prince Charles flitting around the world in private jets with entourages, doesn't inspire much faith in their naive desires to save polar bears.
The New York Times recently reported that the term ‘global warming’ “turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes.” To that end, ecoAmerica, an environmental non-profit marketing firm has proposed a complete change in the vernacular used to sway public opinion. Rather than ‘global warming’, they advocate the use of “our deteriorating atmosphere.”
ecoAmerica was not happy to have their recommendations leaked. In fact, they pulled the information from their website. However, a copy of some of it is available via Google’s cache here. Among the changes they recommend are:
• Don’t use the word’s “global warming” to describe our “climate crisis.” These words are politicized and polarizing. Their associations are inaccurate, confusing and abstract for most Americans.
• Coal and oil companies are branding themselves as “energy companies,” (all of the above) co-opting the word “alternative” and confusing the public. Advocates need to point out that the coal and oil companies’ words are inconsistent with their expenditures/deeds.
• Themes and messages that work:
o Always link climate and energy to other (non-environmental) concerns and values.
o Always establish credibility and relate to people first. Get to climate in your 3rd sentence vs. the first.
o Engage their hearts vs. heads. Be visual, emotional and realistic. Turbines!
o Say “pollution” vs. carbon. Use impacts, “we can all see with our won eyes.”
o Say “Safe, clean, energy that never runs out” vs. “alternative energy. “
o New energy solutions are a path to prosperity: “the fuel is free.”
o Patriotism works: American ingenuity; power of America.
o Say “new energy jobs” vs. green jobs.
o Emphasize health concerns: “the air we breathe; the water we drink.”
o Make generational legacy real: parents and kids, what we are leaving them.
o Use stewardship in protecting “majesty of their land/nature’s majesty.”
• Themes and messages that don’t work with most Americans:
o Framing solutions as losses (giving up, sacrifice).
o Trying to convert the public to become environmentalists.
o “Imagine” or a “Jetsons” future.
o Alarmism - gets people defensive right away.
The truth is environmentalists are just not attractive. They're not winning, engaging, amusing or empathetic. They are ranty, repetitive, patronising, demanding, deaf, weirdly bonkers and smelly. Environmentalists are the nutters with degrees in composting who sit next to you on the bus. But that's not their real impediment. The real killer thing is the schadenfreude: the naked, transparent, hand-rubbing glee with which they pass on every shame, sadness and terror. No disaster is too appalling that the green movement can't caper and keen with a messianic glee.
What about-Well, Calliope, how could you possibly contemplate a world without polar bears? Whatever would we do?
And you have failed to mention the one legged twin headed praying mantis, the double shelled micro snail, or any other obscure insect whose welfare requires to be placed ahead of that of human beings.
Bleakney eventually moved on to other studies””sea slugs were a special passion of his””but he never stopped marveling at the great beasts he had encountered on the fishing piers of Nova Scotia. "It was mind-boggling," he recalled in a recent interview with Canadian conservationists. "A reptile of that size, that lives in ice water, that can thrive on jellyfish." Almost 50 years later, scientists are still astonished at the leatherback's physical prowess, though today wonder is alloyed with a more modern sentiment: fear that even before we fully understand the leatherback and its epic life story, our own activities may be driving it to extinction.
The arrogance of people like Rudd, Gore and prince Charles flitting around the world in private jets with entourages, doesn't inspire much faith in their naive desires to save polar bears.
CASE CLOSED! Unless anyone can find impartial scientific evidence to refute Professor Plimers 2111 scientific references supporting his claims
Professor Ian Plimer spoke to 4BC's Greg Cary (Qld audience) and answered questions from listeners on Tuesday this week. Here is a link to the podcast-
http://www.4bc.com.au/displayPopUpP...edia.mytalk.com.au/4bc/podcasts/ianplimer.mp3
I have purchased a copy of his book "Heaven + Earth Global Warming: The Missing Science". While I have only read the 1st chapter, it does make interesting reading.
One paragraph from this chapter- "The hypothesis that human emissions of CO2 can create global warming can be tested by measurement. This is how
science works. Temperature measurements using groung-based thermometers, balloon-mounted radiosondes and satellite-mounted
microwave sensing units all show that no warming has occured since 1998. Once the urban heat island effect with ground
thermometers and the 1998 El Niño are considered, there has been little warming since 1979. During that time atmospheric CO2 has
increased. Climate models using increasing CO2 predict simultaneous and intense warming in both polar areas, yet this has not
happened in modern or ancient times. The test of the hypothesis above shows that there is no relationship between measured
temperature and CO2 emissions. The hypothesis fails."
In the interview he states that he is doing a promotional tour of USA next week and they are doing an initial print run of 100,000 copies of the book there. I think we will hear a lot more about Ian Plimer and his book. He also mentions in the interview that he is privately talking to politicians from Labor and Liberal parties since publication of the book last month.
If he and his book can change the attitude of the public and politicians it will greatly assist mining companies and in particular UCG companies who have less pollutants in their gases and diesel in the case of Linc Energy IMHO.
I post this link without further comment.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
The skeptic argument...
For the years 1998-2005, temperature did not increase. And yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more CO2 into the atmosphere. (Source: There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998 by Bob Carter)
What the science says...
While 1998 was an unusually hot year due to El Niño, the long term trend since 1998 is still that of warming.
The chart since 1898 is resoundingly positive for the warming cause.Analysis could show that since 98 that trend could be embedded into a longer term warming trend, but, since 98 the trend is absolutely negative.
How ironic it is that in the very era of impatience and shrunken attention spans, the world has been confronted with a dilemma like climate change.
It is like a test God has sent us to remind us we're idiots, because it is a problem modern society is uniquely unsuited to fixing: the worst consequences are a long way off, and we don't care about a long way off, and the solutions are dull, and we don't care about dull.
If climate change could be solved with a sell out-charity concert and natty fund-raising ribbons, we'd be sorted. But it doesn't. It requires immediate action of a complex and boring nature. Negotiations over trading and credits and prices per tonne and projections. Just yesterday I fell asleep reading that the State Government has stalled on the issue of bonuses for rooftop solar panels, unsure of whether to grant home owners a gross tariff or a net tariff.
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