Scientist Tells Congress: Earth in ‘CO2 Famine’ - Increases 'Will Be Good For Mankind'

February 25, 2009

Posted By Marc Morano – 5:05 PM ET - Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov  

Prominent Scientist Tells Congress: Earth in ‘CO2 Famine’ 

‘The increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind’ 

‘Children should not be force-fed propaganda, masquerading as science’ 

Washington, DC — Award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer declared man-made global warming fears “mistaken” and noted that the Earth was currently in a “CO2 famine now.”  Happer, who has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, made his remarks during today’s Environment and Public Works Full Committee Hearing entitled “Update on the Latest Global Warming Science.”  
 
“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) – 280 (parts per million - ppm) – that’s unheard of. Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite higher than that,” Happer told the Senate Committee. To read Happer’s complete opening statement click here: [Also: See Inhofe Warns of Costs of Massive $6.7 Trillion 'Climate Bailout' & 'Consensus' in Collapse: Japanese scientists make 'dramatic break' with UN hypothesis of man-made warming!  (UK Register) & $ave the Planet? 'Four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress' – Number of Lobbyists Up 300% & The Year of the Man-made Global Warming Skeptic ]  
 
“Earth was just fine in those times,” Happer added. “The oceans were fine, plants grew, animals grew fine. So it’s baffling to me that we’re so frightened of getting nowhere close to where we started,” Happer explained. Happer also noted that “the number of [skeptical scientists] with the courage to speak out is growing” and he warned “children should not be force-fed propaganda, masquerading as science.” [In December, Happer requested to be added to the groundbreaking U.S. Senate Minority Report Update: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims ] 
 
Happer was pressed by the Committee on whether rising CO2 fears are valid. “I don’t think the laws of nature or physics and chemistry has changed in 80 million years. 80 million years ago the Earth was a very prosperous palace and there is no reason to suddenly think it will become bad now,” Happer added. Happer is a professor in the Department of Physics at Princeton University and former Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993, has published over 200 scientific papers, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Sciences.  Happer was reportedly fired by former Vice President Al Gore in 1993 for failing to adhere to Gore’s scientific views.  
 
“I believe that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind,” Happer told the Committee. “What about the frightening consequences of increasing levels of CO2 that we keep hearing about?  In a word, they are wildly exaggerated, just as the purported benefits of prohibition were wildly exaggerated,” he explained. “At least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player,” he added.  “But the climate is warming and CO2 is increasing.  Doesn’t this prove that CO2 is causing global warming through the greenhouse effect? No, the current warming period began about 1800 at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2.  There have been similar and even larger warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels. The current warming also seems to be due mostly to natural causes, not to increasing levels of carbon dioxide.  Over the past ten years there has been no global warming, and in fact a slight cooling. This is not at all what was predicted by the IPCC models,” Happer testified. [Note: See: An abundance of peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk rising CO2 fears ]
 
“The existence of climate variability in the past has long been an embarrassment to those who claim that all climate change is due to man and that man can control it. When I was a schoolboy, my textbooks on earth science showed a prominent ‘medieval warm period’ at the time the Vikings settled Greenland, followed by a vicious ‘little ice age’ that drove them out.  So I was very surprised when I first saw the celebrated ‘hockey stick curve,’ in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. I could hardly believe my eyes. Both the little ice age and the Medieval Warm Period were gone, and the newly revised temperature of the world since the year 1000 had suddenly become absolutely flat until the last hundred years when it shot up like the blade on a hockey stick. This was far from an obscure detail, and the hockey stick was trumpeted around the world as evidence that the end was near. We now know that the hockey stick has nothing to do with reality but was the result of incorrect handling of proxy temperature records and incorrect statistical analysis.  There really was a little ice age and there really was a medieval warm period that was as warm or warmer than today,” Happer continued.  
 
“The whole hockey-stick episode reminds me of the motto of Orwell’s Ministry of Information in the novel 1984: ‘He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.’ The IPCC has made no serious attempt to model the natural variations of the earth’s temperature in the past. Whatever caused these large past variations, it was not due to people burning coal and oil.  If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future?” he stated.  
 
“I keep hearing about the ‘pollutant CO2,’ or about ‘poisoning the atmosphere’ with CO2, or about minimizing our ‘carbon footprint.’  This brings to mind another Orwellian pronouncement that is worth pondering: ‘But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving ‘pollutant’ and ‘poison’ of their original meaning. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% CO2.  That is 40,000 parts per million, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration.  CO2 is absolutely essential for life on earth. Commercial greenhouse operators often use CO2 as a fertilizer to improve the health and growth rate of their plants. Plants, and our own primate ancestors evolved when the levels of atmospheric CO2 were about 1000 ppm, a level that we will probably not reach by burning fossil fuels, and far above our current level of about 380 ppm. We try to keep CO2 levels in our U.S. Navy submarines no higher than 8,000 parts per million, about 20 time current atmospheric levels. Few adverse effects are observed at even higher levels.”   
 
More selected Happer excerpts:  
 
“I do not think there is a consensus about an impending climate crisis. I personally certainly don’t believe we are facing a crisis unless we create one for ourselves, as Benjamin Rush did by bleeding his patients. Many others, wiser than I am, share my view.  The number of those with the courage to speak out is growing.  There may be an illusion of consensus. Like the temperance movement one hundred years ago the climate-catastrophe movement has enlisted the mass media, the leadership of scientific societies, the trustees of charitable foundations, and many other influential people to their cause.  Just as editorials used to fulminate about the slippery path to hell behind the tavern door, hysterical op-ed’s lecture us today about the impending end of the planet and the need to stop climate change with bold political action. Many distinguished scientific journals now have editors who further the agenda of climate-change alarmism. Research papers with scientific findings contrary to the dogma of climate calamity are rejected by reviewers, many of whom fear that their research funding will be cut if any doubt is cast on the coming climate catastrophe. Speaking of the Romans, then invading Scotland in the year 83, the great Scottish chieftain Calgacus is quoted as saying “They make a desert and call it peace.”   If you have the power to stifle dissent, you can indeed create the illusion of peace or consensus. The Romans have made impressive inroads into climate science. Certainly, it is a bit unnerving to read statements of Dr. James Hansen in the Congressional Record that climate skeptics are guilty of “high crimes against humanity and nature.”  
 
Even elementary school teachers and writers of children’s books are enlisted to terrify our children and to promote the idea of impending climate doom.  Having observed the education of many children, including my own, I am not sure how effective the effort will be. Many children seem to do just the opposite of what they are taught. Nevertheless, children should not be force-fed propaganda, masquerading as science. Many of you may know that in 2007 a British Court ruled that if Al Gore’s book, “An Inconvenient Truth,”  was used in public schools, the children had to be told of eleven particularly troubling inaccuracies. You can easily find a list of the inaccuracies on the internet, but I will mention one.  The court ruled that it was not possible to attribute hurricane Katrina to CO2. Indeed, had we taken a few of the many billions of dollars we have been spending on climate change research and propaganda and fixed the dykes and pumps around the New Orleans, most of the damage from Hurricane Katrina could have been avoided.  

Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer refutes claims that global warming is causing record cold: ‘Polar vortices have been around forever. They have almost nothing to do with more CO2 in the atmosphere’

By: Marc Morano - Climate DepotJanuary 7, 2014 11:09 AM

Award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer rejected the media and some scientists claims that the record U.S. cold is due to man-made global warming. Happer, explained the science in an exclusive interview with Climate Depot.

“Polar vortices  have been around forever. They have almost nothing to do with more CO2 in the atmosphere,” Happer said in an exclusive interview with Climate Depot.

Happer continued: “Here is a thumbnail sketch of the physics.  The  poles have little sunshine even in summer,  but especially in winter,  like now in the Arctic.   So the air over the poles rapidly gets bitterly cold because of radiation to dark space, with negligible replenishment of heat from sunlight.  The sinking cold air is replaced by warmer air flowing in from the south at high altitudes.  Since the earth is rotating,  the air flowing in from the south has to start rotating faster to the west, just like a figure skater rotates faster if she pulls in her arms.  This forms the polar vortex. The extremely cold air at the bottom of the vortex can be carried south by meanders of the jet stream at the edge of the vortex.  We will have to live with polar vortices as long as the sun shines and the earth rotates.

Like any fluid system at “high Reynolds number,”  the jet stream is highly unstable, and from time to time it develops meanders to low latitudes, like the one we have had the past few days.  About this time  of year in 1777, just before the Battle of Princeton, there was a similar sequence.  On January 2, Cornwallis’s men marched south from New York City through cold rain and muddy roads to try to trap George Washington and his little Continental Army in Trenton . On the night of January 2-3, a polar vortex swept across New Jersey,  with snow and a very hard freeze. Aided by the extremely cold weather, Washington was able to evacuate his troops and artillery over newly frozen roads  and to avoid Cornwallis’s encirclement.  Reaching Princeton on the viciously cold morning of January 3,  Washington won another battle against the British and escaped to winter quarters in Morristown. Thank you polar vortex!

GOOD THEN WE CAN STOP TALKING ABOUT IT AND WASTING TRILLIONS TRYING TO FIX SOMETHING WE DIDN'T CREATE AND CAN'T FIX ANYWAY.

Climate Change Will Soon Become Impossible To Solve, UN Report Says

Author: Salman Latif [+]  Under: Science  On January 18, 2014  Comment  Add to Bookmark  Add to Readlist

Climate change, a leaked UN report suggests, will become impossible to resolve and undo if we don't make significant progress by 2030.

Climate change is a critically important global issue which is most often played down by industrial lobbies and such for their own gains. A leaked UN report now says that if unresolved within the 15 years, climate change will become impossible to tackle.


The key hurdle in resolving climate change is the vested interests of many stakeholders. These include major companies, manufacturers, even countries whose economies depend on the use of fossil fuels and who don’t want to give that up, regardless of how it affects the planet.

And that’s why there hasn’t been a strong enough global consensus in resolving the issue. The leaked UN report was penned down by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and includes a number of findings. According to these findings, although many countries have tried to implement clean energy reforms, the global use of fossil fuels has increased.

This is not surprising because even the developed countries know that they are not doing enough or even implementing the reforms fairly. In developed countries, companies are simply outsourcing the dirty energy jobs to other countries where cheap fossil fuels are still easily accessible and readily used. A case in point: Apple is outsourcing its manufacturing to Foxconn.

Countries such as China are all too ignorant of the global debate on climate change and in a bid to ramp up productions at all costs, they rely on fossil fuels not caring about the environmental costs. According to the UN report, if we are able to mitigate the climate change within the next 15 years or so, the problem could be resolved. The goal is to bring down global temperature increase to 3.6 degree above preindustrial levels.
However, the report also notes, that if we are unable to bottle this genie by 2030, the only viable solution going forward would be to suck greenhouse gases out of Earth’s environment and store them underground. The task certainly seems impossible and even the currently available technology is insufficient to implement it.
At the end of the day, the ugly truth is that countries are sabotaging the Earth’s environment, in an attempt to reap the economic benefits of using fossil fuels. And there’s absolutely no way to reverse this trend until alternate energy sources become as cheap and viable as fossil fuels, or at least nearly as much.

Originally Posted: http://thetechjournal.com/science/climate-change-will-soon-become-impossible-to-solve.xhtml#ixzz2qlUPYBCT
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Homeless remain America's 'invisible population'

By Jesse Muhammad -Staff writer- | Last updated: Nov 15, 2010 - 3:40:01 PM

Homeless men and women line up on Oct. 3 near downtown Houston during one of many food giveaways hosted by the Nation of Islam’s Muhammad Mosque No. 45. The city is preparing to observe the National Homelessness and Hunger Awareness Week to bring awareness to the continuing issue.

HOUSTON (FinalCall.com) - According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, each year 3.5 million Americans experience homelessness and on any given night, over 700,000 people are homeless. Take a stroll near downtown Houston and you may run into 46-year-old James Francis, an unemployed homeless Black male who has been battling with a drug addiction the last 10 years.

“I usually don't talk to people about what I'm going through because I'm not looking for sympathy. I know I'm out here because of my mistakes, my addiction, and my lack of taking responsibility,” Mr. Francis told The Final Call.

November is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Month and the week before Thanksgiving (November 14-20) has been officially declared National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. During this week, a number of schools, communities and cities take part in a nationwide effort to bring greater awareness to the problems of hunger and homelessness.

Houston is the fourth largest city in the U.S. and possesses the third highest homeless population in the nation. Approximately 15,000 homeless individuals in Houston live in abandoned buildings, on cardboard makeshift beds, under freeways, and in shelters throughout the city.

“It's a serious situation not only here in Houston but all over America. We've become the invisible population. Who really cares about us? It's really small organizations and churches that come out here to help us. I am determined to get back on my feet,” said Mr. Francis, who was once employed as a construction worker.

Sixty-year-old Ernest Gates, who has been on the Houston streets for 15 years with an alcohol addiction, is among the 2,500 veterans of the armed services that make up 23 percent of the city's homeless population. He's unemployed with no family to call upon.

“I fell on hard times after losing my job and I have been living under bridges since. But I always appreciate when people bring something that will help no matter if it's a sandwich or a dollar,” he said.

“President Obama has made homelessness a priority in his administration in several ways. One way is he attached the issue to the stimulus and allocated $1.5 billion for homelessness prevention,” Neil Donovan, National Coalition for the Homeless executive director told The Final Call.

Mr. Donovan also noted President Obama is enforcing “zero tolerance” for the existence of homeless war vets and has held White House officials accountable for developing strategic plans of action.
Over the last year, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, consisting of 19 federal agencies, responded by drafting the nation's first comprehensive plan to prevent and end homelessness. In June, the council unveiled and submitted to the president and Congress its strategic plan titled “Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.”

The long-term goals of the council are to end chronic homelessness in five years; prevent and end homelessness among veterans in five years; and prevent and end homelessness for families, youth, and children within 10 years.

“For a quarter century, we've known that ending homelessness is bigger than any one agency or level of government. During that time, we've failed to tackle homelessness not because we lacked the resources—but the leadership to harness those resources. With President Obama in the White House, we have a president who believes that no one should experience homelessness,” said Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, who chairs the council.

Analysis by the coalition shows some of the top reasons why people are homeless in America include foreclosures, poverty, less secure jobs, declining availability of public assistance, addiction disorders, and mental illnesses.

The sheltered homeless population is estimated to be 42 percent Black, 38 percent White, 20 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Native American and 2 percent Asian.

Studies indicate that children make up 23 percent of those experiencing homelessness while 40 percent of homeless men have served in the armed forces. Every night in America an estimated 100,000 veterans are homeless in the streets or housed in relief centers.

Noah Rattler, who went on an 1800 mile walk in 2007 from Houston to Los Angeles to raise awareness for homelessness, is spearheading the Bayou City's annual Sleep Out on Nov. 13.

“This year we wanted to go beyond just having one location but instead encourage people to host their own sleep out wherever they are. We want to spread the awareness further,” Mr. Rattler told The Final Call.
The objective of the Houston Sleep Out is to allow the general population to financially contribute to the fight against homelessness, while giving participants a small glimpse into a night in the life of the millions of people by spending a night outside on cardboard boxes in various part of the city. The Sleep Out raised over $100,000 between 2008 and 2009 for SEARCH Homeless Services.

Nation of Islam's Muhammad Mosque No. 45, situated in the 3rd Ward, will be one of the participating groups. Their bi-weekly feed the homeless outreach has been spearheaded by Sister Mattie X for the past 10 years and she will deliver the keynote address at the mosque's Sleep Out gathering.

“It's depressing to see so many children in the streets when we're out there. If we don't do something, then nothing will get done. I have been inspired by Allah (God) to stay on this mission to help as many people as we can,” said Sister Mattie.

Other participating groups in Houston will be My Fellow Man Alliance, Noah's Kitchen and the Harris County Coalition for the Homeless. Also student organizations from Texas Southern University and University of Houston.

(For more information about the Houston Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, visit www.hhhaw.us.)

Fiddles As Economy Burns Hoping to Rebuild It in His Image

7 Jan 2014, 12:06 PM PDT  

 

On his Tuesday broadcast, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh explains how President Barack Obama is much like Roman Emperor Nero.

Partial transcript as follows: Folks, you've heard the old saying, "Nero fiddled while Rome burned." That is true. Rome was literally burning, and he could not have cared less. What people have forgotten about it is that Nero, he didn't just fiddle while Rome burned; he started the fire. Nero wanted to burn down Rome in order to rebuild it in his own image. But to cover it up he blamed the Christians, who were then subsequently thrown to the lions.

Now, on my first trip to Rome, the tour guide told me that didn't happen. He was interested in Rome not having a bad impression. He said, "You've heard that the Christians were given to the lions. It really didn't happen," he said. But, for all intents and purposes, it did. Now, if you ask me, the story of Nero fiddled while Rome burned and then adding to it he started the fire sounds familiar to me.

Barack Obama has, for five years, had control over the US economy. His policies, his specific economic policies are the reason this country is in dire economic straits. Obama's policies are the reason why there is no recovery -- and if you want to call it a recovery, go ahead. If you do, it's the worst recovery in the history of this country. So there is an analogy, I think, to Nero here. Obama, by his own admission before he took office, during his campaign and after he was immaculated, bragged about transforming this country.

He was not happy and never has been happy with the way this country was founded. Barack Obama and many in his party believe that the founding of United States of America was unjust and unfair and immoral and exploited minorities -- and, you know, all the usual folderol. His purpose has been to make amends. He's gonna give this country back to the people to whom it really belongs to get the shafted from the days of the Founding Fathers. So in the process, Obama's economic policies are destroying the US economy in order for him to rebuild it in his own socialist image.