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Global Cooling????

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...collapse of thermohaline circulation (the global circulation of deep ocean currents) will take place around the year 2010
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Maybe desalination could help?

If all concentrated salty water was dumped in the area where higher concentration of salt in the ocean is needed could do the trick to keep current alive.

And one argument against desalination would be fixed.
 
Rafa - the TV show on "what car would JC drive" had nothing to do with JC or Moses lol. Just stating the obvious - petrol guzzlers won't be around much longer.

Happy - lol - desalinators to the rescue ;) - now that's optimism - like the pregnant schoolgirl rubbing her belly with vanishing cream. To be honest, it's sounding like it's too late no matter what. :(

Smurf1976 said:
2010, that's just 3 years away!
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Smurf, my thoughts exactly - (I was surprised to see that prediction) - A bit like the Titanic doing 22.5 knots and heading for an iceberg 100 yards ahead - best chance sadly that it will melt in the next 10 seconds :2twocents

Reminds me (off topic) I went to an engineering conference once, speaker was talking about ship impact on bridges, and of course Tasman Bridge came up - he claimed to know exactly what force and crunch distance etcetc - I asked a question challenging his accuracy - no change in his position - the fellow in front of me turned around and whispered that he was involved in the investigation into Tasman collapse - and the committee concluded that the only way to avoid the problem was a cone of bouys leading into a narrow navigation channel under the bridge - but each with a mine attached sufficient to sink the ship before it hit a pier ;)

Once off the track and completely lost, you might as well look around , lol...
TITANIC TRIVIA http://www2.sptimes.com/titanic/Titanic_trivia.html
The giant ship with the enduring story is often just as fascinating in its tiny details. The following is a collection of some well-known, and some lesser-known, Titanic facts.

Cost to build the Titanic: USD $7.5-million (probably would cost USD $400 mill today
Cost to make Titanic, the movie (1997): USD $200-million-plus
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Price of single first-class passage: $4,700
Price of single first-class passage in today's dollars: $50,000
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Passenger Stuart Collet's damage claim for handwritten college-lecture notes: $50
Charlotte Cardeza's damage claim for lost luggage: $177,352
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Headline in New York Times on morning of April 15, 1912: New Liner Hits An Iceberg; Sinking By The Bow At Midnight; Women Put Off In Life Boats; Last Wireless At 12:27 A.M. Blurred
Headline in New York Evening Sun on afternoon of April 15, 1912: All Saved From Titanic After Collision
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last message sent from Titanic: "We are sinking fast. Passengers being put into boats."
First message written by passenger Arthur Peuchen to family after rescue by Carpathia: "Safe."
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Percentage above survivors' estimates of men in lifeboats: 70
Percentage below survivors' estimates of women in lifeboats: 45
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Ice warnings received by Titanic on day of collision: 6
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Speed of Carpathia as it entered ice field to reach survivors: 9 knots
Speed of Titanic through same ice field when it struck iceberg: 22 1/2 knots
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Number of lifeboat seats not used: 472
Number of passengers and crew who died: 1,503
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Number of children from first-class who died: 1
Number of children from steerage who died: 49
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New luxury for passengers of Titanic: Heated swimming pool
Temperature of Atlantic on night Titanic sank: 31 degrees
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Number of dogs that survived: 2
Number of orchestra members who survived: 0
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Number of lifeboat seats required by law: 962
Number of lifeboat seats carried aboard: 1,178
Number of lifeboat seats needed: 2,228
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Only man who disguised himself as woman to get on lifeboat: Daniel Buckley, who reportedly put a shawl on his head
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Only person to survive in frigid Atlantic: chief baker Charles Joughin, who reportedly had been drinking heavily
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Gotta be at least two morals there ;)

http://www.keyflux.com/titanic/facts.htm Note: The Titanic was designed to hold 32 lifeboats, though only 20 were on board; White Star management was concerned that too many boats would sully the aesthetic beauty of the ship
 
2020hindsight said:
Reminds me (off topic) I went to an engineering conference once, speaker was talking about ship impact on bridges, and of course Tasman Bridge came up - he claimed to know exactly what force and crunch distance etcetc - I asked a question challenging his accuracy - no change in his position - the fellow in front of me turned around and whispered that he was involved in the investigation into Tasman collapse - and the committee concluded that the only way to avoid the problem was a cone of bouys leading into a narrow navigation channel under the bridge - but each with a mine attached sufficient to sink the ship before it hit a pier ;)
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Off topic but just for reference, the ship that hit the Tasman Bridge was a very long way from where it should have been. There's a navigation span at the centre of the bridge but it didn't hit a pier either side of that. It hit another pier quite some distance (about 200 metres I think) East of that.

To this day the restored Tasman Bridge is closed to traffic when a ship big enough to cause damage if it hit goes under it. The only reason for the closure is "just in case" since it's not an opening bridge and, in theory at least, there's no "need" for the closure. Better safe than sorry a second time around but it certainly wasn't closed before the disaster, hence the lives lost.

Like a lot of things it was a lesson learned the hard way - looks like we might be about to do that with global warming/cooling too.:2twocents
 
Smurf1976 said:
To this day the restored Tasman Bridge is closed to traffic when a ship big enough to cause damage if it hit goes under it. The only reason for the closure is "just in case" since it's not an opening bridge and, in theory at least, there's no "need" for the closure. Better safe than sorry
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I guess the beaurocrats would be really "in the ship" if anyone else ran off the end should another span come down.
Hence the kneejerk reaction. Typical huh. :rolleyes:
 
as well as the bureaucrats
.. so I failed spelling ok. ;)
especially this word - and gaurantee (guarantee?) ;)
An official of a bureaucracy.
An official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure.
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Bureaucratist = n. An advocate for, or supporter of, bureaucracy.

Bureaucratese = a style of language, used esp. by bureaucrats, that is full of circumlocutions, euphemisms, buzzwords, abstractions, etc.

example: "Soviet bureaucratese, especially the tongue-twisting acronyms and alien-sounding portmanteau words of the state security apparatus" (Strobe Talbott). :)
 
FWIW

from www.washingtontimes.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article published Sep 12, 2007
Global warming insanity


September 12, 2007


Paul Driessen - "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority," Marcus Aurelius opined, "but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." An even worse fate would be to end up in minority status and an asylum. Recent developments suggest this might become the destiny of climate change alarmists.

Now that NASA has corrected its U.S. temperature records, the hottest year on record is no longer 1998, but 1934. Five of the 10 hottest years since 1880 were between 1920 and 1940 ”” and the 15 hottest years since 1880 are spread across seven decades. This suggests natural variation, not a warming trend.

Plant and insect remains found at the base of Greenland's ice sheet indicate just 400,000 years ago the island was blanketed in forests and basking in temperatures perhaps 27 degrees F warmer than today. Land area temperatures in South America, Africa and Australia have declined slightly over the last few years. Since 1998, sea surface temperatures over much of the world have decreased slightly, while globally averaged atmospheric temperatures have shown no change. Many U.S. temperature gauges are near air-conditioning exhausts, hot asphalt and other heat sources. Their readings are thus too high and must be revised downward ”” along with claims about rising temperatures.

Over the last 650,000 years, global temperatures almost always rose or fell first ”” followed centuries later by changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

More scientists are citing solar energy levels, cosmic rays and clouds as determinants of climate ”” and saying CO2 plays only a minor role. Over the last year, dozens have publicly switched from believers to skeptics about climate Armageddon theories.

Eight eastern European countries are threatening legal action against European Union decisions to restrict their emissions, as they work to grow their economies after decades of impoverishment under communism. China and India refuse to sacrifice their economic growth to climate chaos concerns.

China has surpassed the United States as the world's leading CO2 emitter. And EU carbon dioxide emissions have increased faster since 2002 than those in the United States, where both population and economic growth have been substantially higher than in Western Europe.

The response of climate alarmists is fodder for psychological textbooks. Greenpeace says cataclysm skeptics are "climate criminals." Grist magazine wants "Nuremberg-style war crimes trials." Robert Kennedy Jr. says we should be treated like "traitors." And Rep. Jim Costa walked out on a witness who noted that proposed legislation would raise energy and food prices, cost millions of jobs, and severely hurt poor families ”” while doing nothing to stabilize global temperatures.

Newsweek said climate holocaust "deniers" had received $19 million from industry, to subvert the "consensus" it claims exists about global warming. It made no mention of the $50 billion that alarmists and other beneficiaries have received since 1990 from governments, foundations and corporations. Newsweek contributing editor Robert Samuelson called the article "highly contrived" and based on "discredited" accusations about industry funding.

Alarmists have blamed global warming for hurricanes, tornadoes, malaria and even the Minneapolis bridge collapse, teenage drinking, terrorism, suicides and "irritability" in mice. By combining far-fetched speculation with various computer-generated temperature projections and worst-case scenarios, they concoct even more ominous auguries, like this amazing tale from London's Benfield UCL Hazard Research Center:

If CO2 levels keep rising, global temperatures could soar, ice caps melt, oceans could rise dozens of feet ”” and all that extra water pressure could destabilize Earth's crust, squeeze out magma and cause volcanoes to erupt. The volcanic gases and dust could then cool the Earth, and cause a new ice age.

A 1993 blockbuster movie used a similar what-if pyramid scheme to generate terrifying encounters with raptors and tyrannosaurs. But when the lights came up, people knew it was just a movie.

When it comes to climate change, however, many seem unable to separate science from science fiction ”” or even distinguish between headline-grabbing pronouncements, preposterous disaster flicks like "The Day After Tomorrow," and pseudo-documentaries like "An Inconvenient Truth" and "The 11th Hour." Instead of fostering rational discourse and responsible action, alarmists insist we "do something" immediately to prevent climate cataclysm.

Al Gore is buying carbon offset indulgences. Leonardo DiCaprio is replacing his incandescent light bulbs. Cheryl Crow promotes one square per trip to the ladies' room. Cate Blanchett will wash her hair less often in her new $10-million Australian mansion. Cameron Diaz promotes "indigenous" lifestyles in Third World countries. But they all support laws mandating greatly reduced energy use and economic growth ”” outside of Hollywood and Nashville's Belle Meade area.

In response, Congress has introduced a half-dozen "climate stabilization" bills ”” and state legislatures are reviewing 375 more. These bills would cost American consumers many billions of dollars a year. But they would reduce average global temperatures by a tiny fraction of the 0.2 degrees F that scientists say the Kyoto Protocol would accomplish by 2050 (assuming CO2 is a primary cause of climate change).

It's time to ask: At what point do symbolic gestures and political grandstanding become actually "doing something" about climate change? At what point do they amount to insanity?

Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Congress of Racial Equality and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and author of "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death" (www.Eco-Imperialism.com).
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China has surpassed the United States as the world's leading CO2 emitter.
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And all this pressure to sign Kyoto.:rolleyes:

FWIW


Quote:
from www.washingtontimes.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article published Sep 12, 2007
Global warming insanity


September 12, 2007


Paul Driessen - "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority," Marcus Aurelius opined, "but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." An even worse fate would be to end up in minority status and an asylum. Recent developments suggest this might become the destiny of climate change alarmists.

Now that NASA has corrected its U.S. temperature records, the hottest year on record is no longer 1998, but 1934. Five of the 10 hottest years since 1880 were between 1920 and 1940 — and the 15 hottest years since 1880 are spread across seven decades. This suggests natural variation, not a warming trend.

Plant and insect remains found at the base of Greenland's ice sheet indicate just 400,000 years ago the island was blanketed in forests and basking in temperatures perhaps 27 degrees F warmer than today. Land area temperatures in South America, Africa and Australia have declined slightly over the last few years. Since 1998, sea surface temperatures over much of the world have decreased slightly, while globally averaged atmospheric temperatures have shown no change. Many U.S. temperature gauges are near air-conditioning exhausts, hot asphalt and other heat sources. Their readings are thus too high and must be revised downward — along with claims about rising temperatures.

Over the last 650,000 years, global temperatures almost always rose or fell first — followed centuries later by changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

More scientists are citing solar energy levels, cosmic rays and clouds as determinants of climate — and saying CO2 plays only a minor role. Over the last year, dozens have publicly switched from believers to skeptics about climate Armageddon theories.

Eight eastern European countries are threatening legal action against European Union decisions to restrict their emissions, as they work to grow their economies after decades of impoverishment under communism. China and India refuse to sacrifice their economic growth to climate chaos concerns.

China has surpassed the United States as the world's leading CO2 emitter. And EU carbon dioxide emissions have increased faster since 2002 than those in the United States, where both population and economic growth have been substantially higher than in Western Europe.

The response of climate alarmists is fodder for psychological textbooks. Greenpeace says cataclysm skeptics are "climate criminals." Grist magazine wants "Nuremberg-style war crimes trials." Robert Kennedy Jr. says we should be treated like "traitors." And Rep. Jim Costa walked out on a witness who noted that proposed legislation would raise energy and food prices, cost millions of jobs, and severely hurt poor families — while doing nothing to stabilize global temperatures.

Newsweek said climate holocaust "deniers" had received $19 million from industry, to subvert the "consensus" it claims exists about global warming. It made no mention of the $50 billion that alarmists and other beneficiaries have received since 1990 from governments, foundations and corporations. Newsweek contributing editor Robert Samuelson called the article "highly contrived" and based on "discredited" accusations about industry funding.

Alarmists have blamed global warming for hurricanes, tornadoes, malaria and even the Minneapolis bridge collapse, teenage drinking, terrorism, suicides and "irritability" in mice. By combining far-fetched speculation with various computer-generated temperature projections and worst-case scenarios, they concoct even more ominous auguries, like this amazing tale from London's Benfield UCL Hazard Research Center:

If CO2 levels keep rising, global temperatures could soar, ice caps melt, oceans could rise dozens of feet — and all that extra water pressure could destabilize Earth's crust, squeeze out magma and cause volcanoes to erupt. The volcanic gases and dust could then cool the Earth, and cause a new ice age.

A 1993 blockbuster movie used a similar what-if pyramid scheme to generate terrifying encounters with raptors and tyrannosaurs. But when the lights came up, people knew it was just a movie.

When it comes to climate change, however, many seem unable to separate science from science fiction — or even distinguish between headline-grabbing pronouncements, preposterous disaster flicks like "The Day After Tomorrow," and pseudo-documentaries like "An Inconvenient Truth" and "The 11th Hour." Instead of fostering rational discourse and responsible action, alarmists insist we "do something" immediately to prevent climate cataclysm.

Al Gore is buying carbon offset indulgences. Leonardo DiCaprio is replacing his incandescent light bulbs. Cheryl Crow promotes one square per trip to the ladies' room. Cate Blanchett will wash her hair less often in her new $10-million Australian mansion. Cameron Diaz promotes "indigenous" lifestyles in Third World countries. But they all support laws mandating greatly reduced energy use and economic growth — outside of Hollywood and Nashville's Belle Meade area.

In response, Congress has introduced a half-dozen "climate stabilization" bills — and state legislatures are reviewing 375 more. These bills would cost American consumers many billions of dollars a year. But they would reduce average global temperatures by a tiny fraction of the 0.2 degrees F that scientists say the Kyoto Protocol would accomplish by 2050 (assuming CO2 is a primary cause of climate change).

It's time to ask: At what point do symbolic gestures and political grandstanding become actually "doing something" about climate change? At what point do they amount to insanity?

Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Congress of Racial Equality and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and author of "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death" (www.Eco-Imperialism.com).
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wayneL said:
FWIW
Now that NASA has corrected its U.S. temperature records, the hottest year on record is no longer 1998, but 1934. Five of the 10 hottest years since 1880 were between 1920 and 1940 ”” and the 15 hottest years since 1880 are spread across seven decades. This suggests natural variation, not a warming trend.
Click to expand...

Now that NASA has corrected its U.S. temperature records
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When? Why? :confused:
 
heard this fellow on PM Wednesday - bludy brilliant
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s2050327.htm
(also available there as podcast if you hunt around)

British scientific expert urges carbon-free economy
PM - Wednesday, 3 October , 2007 18:22:00
Reporter: Mark Colvin
MARK COLVIN: Britain's Chief Scientific advisor, Sir David King, is back in Australia. He was last on this program two years ago.

He's more convinced than ever that the world has to work together against global warming, but he's also got an optimistic view that it will be possible over the next four or five decades to switch to a completely carbon-free economy.

New technology will see to that if we set the carbon price at the right level, he thinks, but in the meantime, we have to act urgently.

Sir David King told me that the extraordinarily rapid growth in energy use, of China in the last few years had come as no great shock to him

SIR DAVID KING: It has been a little faster than was originally forecast, but nevertheless, the development of China, the development of India, has been a critical issue that we understood some time ago.

That's exactly why in 2005, during the British presidency of the G8, when we put climate change at the top of the agenda, we decided to invite the heads of state of the plus five countries: China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, because any agreement that is going to work for the world as a whole has got to include those countries.

MARK COLVIN: But when people see that, doesn't it increase an already increased public mood of defeatism? Whatever we do, it's going to get worse because the Chinese and the Indians are expanding so fast?

SIR DAVID KING: There is no question, first of all, that China and India would certainly not take action if we don't take action, but secondly, I believe if we, the western world, agree to take action, at this point, China and India will be backing it.

In other words, this will require a collective action on the part of all nations. We are worried, for example, that if we all in the northern countries, Australia, New Zealand, all introduce a cap on trade and leave China and India out of it, all of our smoke stack industries will simply move to those countries and we'll reimport the goods back, and the carbon dioxide emissions are just as bad.

So we understand the need for it to be a global agreement, the Chinese understand this as well. The Chinese Government position has now moved to the situation where they're saying, 'If the developed countries announce a limit on carbon dioxide emissions, then we will join that, but they have to take the first step.'

MARK COLVIN: So where does that put a country like Australia, which is with the United States in holding out against Kyoto, and to a degree, holding out overall?

SIR DAVID KING: What I would like to see is that other countries do what Britain did. So what we did was step way beyond Kyoto, when in 2003, we announced that we were going to set ourselves on a path to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, and we would like to see Australia, we would like to see South Africa, we would like to see China also announcing unilaterally what their trajectory forward would be on carbon dioxide emissions.

Holding back, until every other country agrees, is a sort of process that may well take another decade or more. We don't have that time any longer, this is an issue that is now critical if we are going to move on emissions in such a way as to produce a future climate for the world that is manageable to us.

MARK COLVIN: But the problem for Australia is that if you're right, we need to do this, but on the other hand, our present prosperity is based so strongly on the expansion of China and Chinese coal fired power stations.

SIR DAVID KING: The expansion of China is going to proceed, and as a matter of fact, in many ways, we welcome that. The poverty that Chinese people have experienced is something we would like to see put in the past.

At the same time, we would like to see wealth creation in Africa, so we would like to assist the development of that country, that continent. But development doesn't have to go hand in hand with carbon dioxide emissions, so one of the questions here that is absolutely critical, is can we take a coal-fired power station, capture the carbon dioxide emitted from it, and bury it underground?

MARK COLVIN: This is what is euphemistically called 'clean coal'?

SIR DAVID KING: Right, and I would call it 'carbon capture and storage'.

MARK COLVIN: But can it be done? The technology hasn't been proved.

SIR DAVID KING: One element of the technology has been proved; the capture is easily done, the second element, the storage, has been done in depleted oil wells, and that's been very successful.

However, there's not enough area or volume in the depleted oil wells. We certainly need to move to a state of demonstrating that we can use saline aquifers.

So the British Government is now selecting a coal-fired power station as a demonstration project of capture and storage into a saline aquifer. We're also going to do this in China; selected a power station in China and demonstrate whether or not capture can occur into saline aquifers.

If we can manage that, then we have a manageable solution.

MARK COLVIN: Do you think that in four or five decades, we can achieve a situation where we're really not a carbon economy? Do you think that there will be, in four or five decades, a world which is powered by something other than carbon?

SIR DAVID KING: I have no doubt of it. I think it is such an imperative that we will do it.

Can we do it, technologically? Again, I have no doubt, we just haven't been thinking out of the box, we've just taken fossil fuels for granted as our energy source, but as soon as you look at alternatives, they are there.

Look at solar photovoltaics. At the moment, far too expensive, the problem is the scientific community have focused on silicon chip technology, they haven't really focused on using plastic or ceramics. Now why not make photovoltaics out of plastic and ceramics, so that architects, in the finish of their buildings, I mean wouldn't it be nice if Sydney Opera House was covered in photovoltaic so that all of its energy requirements were simply absorbed from the sun? That's doable, in 50 years time, all of the new built environment will be virtually wireless, just like our telephones are now.

MARK COLVIN: Britain's Chief Scientific advisor, Sir David King.
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wayneL said:
More skeptics.

Doomsday Called Off Part 1

Doomsday Called Off Part 2

Doomsday Called Off Part 3

Doomsday Called Off Part 4

Doomsday Called Off Part 5
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This seems to be more logical. Just a big coincidence that modern temperature records started at the bottom of the coldest cycle for a long time. :cool:

If you factor in the NASA temperature corrections, then the Al Gore version has lost it's 'degree of urgency' factor to do something, and we are left with probably a largely natural warming phase from a long term cold base.

Having said that, it seems the issue of environmental polution should be of less concern about CO2 and global warming and more for other toxic materials that contribute to the illhealth of humans as well as all species on earth. The two are obviously not necessairly related and particularly not proportional.

It does seem however that global temperature is more likely to warm and sea levels rise possibly over the next few hundred or thousand years as a natural phenomenem.

So, from the global warming issue we now have this carbon trading scheme! Who are the main benifericies of this? :rolleyes:
 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/12/2058573.htm

Gore and IPCC share Nobel Peace Prize (from field of 181 candidates).

PS Does anyone remember a few months back, when Johnny Howard :eek: accused Gore of acting for the cameras in some selfinterested pursuit of an Oscar etc (paraphrasing) :eek:

Gore 'deeply honoured' by Nobel prize
Posted 2 hours 7 minutes ago
Updated 2 hours 1 minute ago

Since leaving office, Al Gore has lectured extensively on the threat of global warming and starred in his own Oscar-winning documentary film.

Former United States vice president Al Gore labelled global warming a "planetary emergency" after he was named joint recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness of climate change.

Mr Gore also said he would turn over his half of the $US1.5 million award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, the group he leads which promotes concrete action to fight global warming.

"I am deeply honoured," Mr Gore said in a statement after the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced he had shared the prize with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

"This award is even more meaningful because I have the honour of sharing it with the IPCC - the world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis, a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years.

"We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.

"It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."

The Norwegian Nobel Committee chose Mr Gore and the IPCC to share the 2007 prize from a field of 181 candidates.

"He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted," the committee said in its award citation.

"The IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming."

The IPCC groups 2,500 researchers from more than 130 nations and issued reports this year blaming human activities for climate changes ranging from more heat waves to floods. It was set up in 1988 by the United Nations to help guide governments.

Since leaving office in 2001 Mr Gore has lectured extensively on the threat of global warming and last year starred in his own Oscar-winning documentary film An Inconvenient Truth to warn of the dangers of climate change and urge action against it.

The Nobel prize will be handed out in Oslo on December 10.
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High farce IMO. Lost all respect for it now.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/10/12/do1202.xml

What has Al Gore done for world peace?

Damian Thompson
Last Updated: 1:01pm BST 12/10/2007

Have your say Read comments

So Al Gore is the joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Admittedly, he has to share it with the United Nations’ climate change panel - but, even so, I think we need to declare an international smugness alert.

The former US Vice-President has already taken over from Michael Moore as the most sanctimonious lardbutt Yank on the planet. Can you imagine what he'll be like now that the Norwegian Nobel committee has given him the prize?
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More to the point, can you imagine how enormous his already massive carbon footprint will become once he starts jetting around the world bragging about his new title?

Just after Gore won an Oscar for his global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth - in which he asked American households to cut their use of electricity - the Tennessee Centre for Policy Research took a look at Al's energy bills.

It reckoned that his 20-room, eight-bathroom mansion in Nashville sometimes uses twice the energy in one month that the average American household gets through in a year. The combined energy and gas bills for his estate came to nearly $30,000 in 2006. Ah, say his defenders, but he uses rainwater to flush his lavatories. Is there enough rainwater in the world, I wonder?

There are so many reasons why Gore shouldn't have won the peace prize for his preachiness. Alas, it is too late to influence their decision, but I'd have liked to refer the judges to a ruling by Mr Justice Burton, a High Court judge who has criticised the Government for sending out An Inconvenient Truth to schools without a health warning. The reason? It's full of errors and unsubstantiated claims.

The judge is not saying that Gore's basic thesis is wrong (and nor am I). In a way, his findings are more damning than that.

Gore claims that the rises in carbon dioxide and temperature over 650,000 years show an "exact fit". That's wrong, says Mr Justice Burton: there is a connection, but not a precise correlation.

Gore predicts sea levels rising by up to 20ft in the near future. Not so, according to the judge: that will happen only after millions of years.

Those low-lying Pacific atolls that Gore claims have been evacuated? No evidence. Polar bears who drowned swimming to look for ice? Again, no evidence: four bears have drowned - but because of a storm.

None of which will surprise seasoned Gore-watchers. The man is not, as his enemies maintained when he ran against George W. Bush in 2000, a pants-on-fire liar. He's an exaggerator and a braggart.

He never claimed to have invented the internet; he said he "took the initiative in creating the internet", which is about a quarter true - he was among the first congressmen to support the invention.

In 1999, he boasted about having uncovered the most famous toxic waste site in America ("I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal"). Yes, but Love Canal was already notorious by the time Gore "found" it.

That's typical of his arrogance, says the non-partisan US politics website Skeleton Closet: "When he says the words 'little place', you can feel him struggling to contain his pleasure with his good deeds."

Gore struggles with his memory, too. "I certainly learnt a lot from 3,000 town hall meetings across …Tennessee over a 16-year period," he told National Public Radio. And so he would have, had he actually attended 187 town hall meetings a year, which is what it works out as: he might even have managed to hold his home state in 2000.

But my favourite Gore memory lapse is his account of being sung to sleep with the lullaby Look for the Union Label, written in 1975. How sweet: being sung to sleep by your parents at the age of 27.

Then there's his evasiveness on the subject of alleged ethical violations. He resorts to "legalisms", says Skeleton Closet: although he might technically be in the right, "he has such a tin ear for the way normal people talk that he sounds like a mafia don".

But there is a more fundamental objection to awarding Gore the peace prize that goes beyond issues of character. Climate change is a threat to the environment, not to "peace" and international order. The prize has gone to some sleazy recipients in the past, but at least you can make a case that their actions staved off bloodshed.

Lumping together global warming and terrorism, as David Cameron did in his conference speech, is a rhetorical sleight of hand typical of opportunistic politicians who are trying to hoover up liberal and conservative votes at the same time. I don't think that description applies to the Tory leader, but it sure as hell fits Albert Gore, Jr.
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2020hindsight said:
Wayne
I have a lot more respect for

a) Al Gore's opinion of global warming , and
b) the Nobel judges' opinion of his opinion in that direction also

than I do for
c) Mr Damian Thompson's opinion of Al Gore. ;)
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That's your right.

But Damian unquestionably has highlighted a few "Inconvenient Truths" of his own. Even the US court has canned "An Inconvenient Truth".

I'm exercising my right to censure Gore for sensationalism and dishonesty... and absolute GROSS hypocrisy.

This particular Nobel peace prize is a fraud.
 
Anyone doing the research on global temerature changes, not just US temperature changes, will quickly discover why Gore got excited.
Wayne can can Gore as much as he likes, and cite NASA's revised data 'til the cows come home.
The recorded facts show that global temperatures have increased markedly in the past 100plus years, with the greatest rate of increase occuring in the most recent decades.
The thread title suggests we look at the notion of global cooling?
There's no evidence that global cooling has been occurring since standard recordings of temperature have been available: Save that over short periods of years there may be decreases.
Has man caused global warming?
Don't know.
Can man prevent global warming?
Don't know.
Is man contributing to global warming?
The weight of evidence suggests so.
 
There's another matter.
They've been savvy enough to give this equally to two independent teams...

Someone is gonna have to find fault with team #2 as well , i.e. with the IPCC.

http://www.ipcc.ch/briefcv_Pachauri_IPCC.pdf

No doubt they'll find the Gore and RK Pachauri had a cup of coffee together once - hence proving collusion. - and furthermore that coffee contributed to global warming.

Here's are some jpeg extracts from a paper by a Martin Manning on IPCC's website - a Director of a working group - as presented to WMO congress 2007.
http://www.ipcc.ch/15_wmo_congress_pdf/manning_cg15.pdf
 

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