Earth is an Anthorpogenic Climate Change Denier

Editor

It’s worth revisiting NASA’s Gavin Schmidt’s claim, as reported in your ICO Editor’s Reply, that now “…could be the warmest period since the dawn of civilization.” In my two previous letters on this subject I referenced studies of trees growing in far northern latitudes 9,000 to 5,000 years ago where they can’t grow now, and of coral mounts from the same period that are several feet above present sea level. Both are obvious signs that we couldn’t be in a warmer period now.

For other examples that totally debunk Schmidt’s statement that now is probably the hottest period in the Holocene – the past 11,500 years - we should add Alpine glaciers and tree lines. Prof. Gernot Patzelt, an internationally renowned glaciologist with numerous publications and lectures, authored (title translated from the German) “Glaciers: Climate Witnesses from the Ice Age to the Present.” Patzelt found that for 70% of the past 10,000 years, glaciers were smaller than now. This finding supports studies of Greenland ice cores (“The Two-Mile Time Machine,” Richard Alley) and a variety of ocean and lake sediment cores that indicate that 90% of the past 10,000 years were warmer than the present.

Concerning tree lines, Patzelt noted: “Around (10500 BP - Before Present) the temperatures were lower, from (10200 BP) they were already above the level of the present temperature conditions… the postglacial warm period reached a first peak shortly after (8000 BP), followed by a second peak around (6200 BP). During this time … the timberline was 100-130 meters (328-426 feet) higher than what is currently possible, which means that a summer temperature of 0.6-0.8 °C (1.0-1.3 °F) higher can be derived…” (Bolding added by me for emphasis; dates changed from BC to BP for clarity)

Trees, corals, glaciers, ice sheets – we can learn from them.

Earth's Experiment Continues

Editor

The Editor’s Reply to my “Earth’s experiment” letter emphasized the lack of precision and uncertainty of scientists’ estimates of ancient global temperatures. While I would strongly differ with you alleging imprecision in the two-mile Greenland ice cores that indicate that we now live in the coldest 1,000-year period of the past 10,000, the purpose of my letter was to show that tree-rings and other proxies of temperature are not relevant to the determination that Earth was much warmer and sea levels significantly higher during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (9,000 to 5,000 years before present). 

However, since you quoted NASA’s Gavin Schmidt speculating that “…the Earth as a whole is probably the hottest it has been during the Holocene – the past 11,500 years or so…”, so I Googled “Holocene Climatic Optimum” and clicked on the Wikipedia link. There I found many references to hotter periods than the present without the use of Schmidt’s “probably” to convey Holocene climate change. 

Getting back to the Earth’s experiment, many signs of earlier hotter periods in the last 10,000 years are scattered all over the Earth’s surface. In Northern Europe, Asia, and Canada scientists found and carbon-dated tree stumps that proved that forests advanced to or near the current arctic coastline between 9000 and 7000 years ago and retreated to their present positions by between 4000 and 3000 years ago as Earth cooled.

Changes in sea level serve as Earth’s thermometer. Studies of fossil corals worldwide show that sea levels were much higher during warmer periods. During the most recent past interglacial period (125,000 years ago), sea level was over 26 feet higher than now, proof that temperature was also much higher. 

The NOAA U.S Climate Reference Network shows no significant warming since NASA created it in 2005. Mr. Schmidt “probably” doesn’t want to know.

The Earth's Natural Climate Change Experiment

Editor

The Earth conducted an experiment over the past three million years that charted climate change against atmospheric CO2. After comparing glacial and interglacial periods to CO2 levels, Earth’s finding was that there was no correlation. Several interglacials were noted that were warmer with much higher sea levels than the Holocene interglacial with atmospheric CO2 levels of 280ppm. Slightly lower CO2 levels were noted during glacial periods which ended before CO2 levels increased moderately. For the past three million years interglacials began when CO2 was low and ended when CO2 was higher. 

The same proved true for shorter periods since 1900; temperature rose rapidly from 1920 to 1940 with little or no change in CO2 from 280ppm. Then as CO2 rose rapidly after 1940, global temperature fell rapidly until 1980. The rise in both temperature and CO2 from 1980 to 2000 was followed by a pause in temperature increase that persisted almost twenty years while CO2 continued to steadily rise. 

Looking at just the past 10,000 years, Greenland ice core and lake and ocean sediment cores show we now live in the coldest 1,000-year period of the past 10,000 years, and that the greatest warming and corresponding higher sea levels were found 6,000 to 8,000 years ago during the Holocene Climate Optimum. The following three warming periods before the present – Minoan, Roman, and Medieval – were each cooler than its predecessor and current warming is the coolest of all. 

Proof of warmer periods in the past 10,000 years are also evidenced by ancient tree lines further north and at higher altitudes, coral mounts several feet above current sea level, and ancient beaches above present ones. 

Thousands of studies exist that prove earlier warming was significantly higher and globally distributed. The Earth gives evidence that none of the models can refute.

Larry "Fact Checker" Jacobs

Larry “Fact Checker” Jacobs challenged as my opinion studies by the Congressional Research Service (click here to link to article) and The Wall Street Journal (link) reporting that “(At) an annual average rate of 2.1% growth since the end of the recession, (this is) the weakest pace of any expansion since at least 1949.”

Forbes Magazine (link) had noted the same earlier (8/1/12), as had Investor’s Business Daily (link)(12/31/15).

Mr. Jacobs, the Washington Times (link) agrees with you that the stock market has done very well, although: “The stock market closed down for 2015 reversing one of the few positive accomplishments under the Barack Obama presidency. This has been a pretty prosperous time for the top two percent. For most Americans though — not so much.

"A new report from Sentier Research based on Census data finds that median household income of $56,700 at the end of 2015 stood exactly where it was adjusted for inflation at the end of 2007.”

“Our middle class is shrinking. Our poor families are becoming poorer, and 70 percent of us are earning the same or less than we were 12 years ago. We need new leadership.” Former Democrat governor Martin O’Malley (link).

Concerning the administration’s happy talk about unemployment at 5 percent: “What they forgot to tell you is that statistic doesn’t include those people who have given up looking for work, those people who are working part time. Add it all together and real unemployment is over 10 percent.” Senator Bernie Sanders (link).

Based on the Obama administration’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Democrat economic advisor and fund raiser Leo Hindery (link) says the real unemployment rate in America is 12.1 percent.

Mr. Jacobs, your fact checking remains abominable, as bad or worse than your refutation of my letter (ICO 4/25/14) where you claimed marijuana plants used less than a gallon of water a day, when experts agreed they consumed 6 to 15 gallons per day.

You still don't hold water.

Pelosi - Reid Deficit

When Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected a $379 billion surplus over the next decade. Now, after four years under Pelosi and Reid, and two years of Obama, the 2007-2016 projection is a deficit of $7.16 trillion. Obama blamed Bush for the nation's fiscal condition. "When I walked in, wrapped in a nice bow was a $1.3 trillion deficit sitting right there on my doorstep." Earlier this year he asserted that "we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade." However, according to the CBO neither statement is true.


Obama also overlooks the inconvenient truth that Democrats controlled Congress for two years before he began his presidency. While Democrats credit the minority Republicans with blocking Obama’s agenda, vast credit should be given to the majority Democrats for extraordinary spending and dubious achievement. Remember the promise Pelosi made on the day she became speaker? "Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt." After four years of Democrat rule, national unemployment rose to 9.5% from 4.4% (California unemployment went from 4.9% to 12.4%) while the Democrat budget will add twice as much debt as President Bush over the same number of years.

So much for unburdened opportunities. Like a weather report: “According to CBO projections covering the next several years, expect high and rising deficits with persistent unemployment, and no relief in sight.”

As a typical Democrat, Barbara Boxer spent two days talking about jobs and the previous 28 years supporting tax increases and job-killing regulations. Since she, Obama, Pelosi, and Jerry Brown have no experience working in the private-sector, it is no wonder they are clueless about employment and economics. To Democrats, ignorance is bliss.

To Democrats, Ignorance is Bliss

I just returned from attending Alice’s 50th high school reunion in southern California, after having hosted one for Point Arena last week. The national news the past week was exhilarating – Democrats up for reelection are running from Obamacare, and instead of debating issues, have been digging deeply into their Republican opponents’ personal lives and are attempting to win by distortion and character assassination. I had to laugh. I remember Democrats defending Clinton and others – Gavin Newsom comes to mind – by claiming that a politician’s personal life is private.


Then I opened the ICO to the Letters page, and read “Misguided” by Peter Lippman. The first thing notable about Mr. Lippman’s letter was it showed no sign that he had researched anything. At the least Mr. Lippman should find out more about Jim Littlejohn’s accomplishments working in the Office of Civil Rights for Education, rather than recommending we “not inquire just exactly what sorts of civil rights progress ol’ Jim engineered in education. Shudder.” Why not inquire, Mr. Lippman? Is ignorance such bliss? I think a fair inquiry would have disclosed much that even you should admire in Mr. Littlejohn’s accomplishments.

Mr. Lippman, I agree that your opinions are deservedly “humble,” containing nothing of distinction. I am a member, not a co-founder (of which you had no doubt), of Concerned Coastal Voters (CCV). And while Alice and I, and other CCV members, share many of their concerns, we are not Tea Party affiliated. Our primary purpose is to engage in a facts-based debate on issues. Your pledge to be giving us “the scout’s-honor truth” rings as hollow as the stated Democrat leaderships’ desire to debate issues, not smear individuals. When the facts don’t support Democrat positions, Democrats get personal.

Global Warming - Sticks and Stones

I thank Mr. Lippman for his letter (Devious Dunce, ICO, April 9, 2010). It brought back fond memories of bygone days at Point Arena Elementary when we childishly taunted one another on the playground. Although equally tasteless, our taunts were far more clever and creative than Mr. Lippman’s.

Richard Feynman never mentioned global warming in his 1974 Caltech commencement address because then the world was preoccupied with another “Cargo Cult Science” candidate, global cooling. He didn’t mention cooling either, or many other worthy nominees; he left us to apply his concept as circumstances dictate.

Mr. Lippman pictured me reading without comprehension, but I will be kinder. I picture him accepting my offer to debate, and attempting to clothe his arguments in science rather than name calling.

Believers in anthropogenic global warming argue that current warming is unprecedented. The gist of my counter-argument is that numerous studies show warming was greater during the Medieval Warm Period (800 to 1300AD), and that it was even warmer during the Holocene Climate Optimum 9,000 to 5,000 years ago. These studies will show that warming during those periods was global and persistent, was reflected in ice cores, lake and ocean sediments, in the distribution of plants by latitude and elevations, and evidence from human settlements and historical records.

Arrayed against this record of natural climate changes going back over 11,000 years to the end of the Ice Age, the alleged evidence of man-caused global warming spans 60 years when global temperatures both rose and fell while atmospheric carbon dioxide increased. Now the “Climategate” e-mails show that alarmist scientists had to “hide the decline,” admit that the Medieval Warm Period was as warm or warmer, and that it is a “travesty” that their computer models can’t explain recent cooling.

May the best science win!

Earth Day Blows It

Editor

On Earth Day the “Windies” gusted, and John Muir spun. The marriage of convenience between environmentalists – the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, the American Bird Conservancy, Greenpeace, and the Audubon Society – and industrial wind power projects offends the principles of both science and conservation.

Wind power is retrograde, a technological dinosaur. It only generates within a narrow range of wind speeds, is intermittent, produces best when needed least (nighttime), doesn’t play well with others (see “intermittent”), destroys scenic vistas, remorselessly kills birds (endangered or otherwise), and is and will continue to be prohibitively expensive. Although wind power has a very low capacity factor (25%) compared to nuclear (over 90%), coal (around 80%), natural gas (used primarily for load following, 60%), or hydro (50%), it is much better than solar (under 20%).

For example, between Maryland and West Virginia there is potential for around 2000 wind turbines, each nearly 500-feet tall; they would be placed atop 400 miles of the Allegheny Mountain ridges. About 20 acres of forest must be clear cut to support each turbine—4-6 acres to allow free flow of wind per turbine; one or more large staging areas for each wind project; access road construction; and a variety of substations and transmission lines. Cumulatively, about 40,000 acres of CO² sequestering woodlands containing rare habitat and many vulnerable wildlife species would be destroyed.

Local environmentalists used the California Coastal Commission to annihilate Gualala’s modest fireworks display by demonstrating that a few nesting pairs of seabirds were disturbed. I doubt any of these environmentalists have voiced objections to the thousands of eagles and raptors killed, not just disturbed, by the Altamont Pass wind farm, or the thousands of migratory birds and sea birds killed annually worldwide. On the contrary, most “environmentalists” turn a blind eye to such carnage.

CO2 Tail Can't Wag Climate Change Dog

A May 15 letter began: “A previous letter falsely stated that increased CO2 concentrations can’t initiate a warming trend.” This was then followed by an admission that the Vostok ice core samples proved that solar cycles initiated previous temperature increases and subsequent CO2 rise (an inconvenient truth Al Gore got backwards), “but that is not the case in our present warming trend.” That’s false. Our current warming trend began over 400 years ago, long before atmospheric CO2 increased significantly (Moberg et al, published in Nature, Vol. 433, No. 7026, pp. 613 - 617, 10 February 2005). From the end of the Little Ice Ages, approximately 1860, until 1940, the global temperature increased about 0.6º C. From 1940 to present, it’s only increased 0.4º C, and the Globally Averaged Satellite-Based Temperature of the Lower Atmosphere from January 1979 through April 2009 has only increased 0.2º C. (http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/) The past four years show a cooling trend; 2008 was the 14th coldest year of the past 30, and 2009 could be even colder.

Returning to the Vostok ice core samples, they not only proved solar intensity initiated warming and subsequent CO2 increases, but equally as important showed that increased CO2 levels do not prevent cooling. That’s right. In every instance, as CO2 remained high, cooling began, and then CO2 levels decreased as the cooling oceans absorbed it.

These facts make logical sense. CO2 is only four percent of greenhouse gases, compared to water vapor which is over 90%, and it would be foolish to attribute warming to a trace gas instead of to the extensively documented prowess of the sun. Solar fluctuations result in heating and cooling of the oceans, and the warmer or cooler oceans release or absorb CO2. The CO2 tail can’t wag the climate change dog.

A Previous Letter Writer

Obama's 100% Tax Increase

After promising that he will reduce taxes on 95 percent of Americans, the Obama Administration’s budget establishes a $646 billion energy tax hike that will impact anyone who uses electricity, drives a car, or relies on energy in any way.

A little background on taxes. First, a minority of Americans pay significant income taxes. The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay only 2% of income tax revenues, while the top 5% pay 60%. However, the energy tax hike will be paid by almost 100% of Americans, including non-taxpayers. Just one item in Obama's program, a cap-and-trade system to make manufacturers pay for creating CO2, is a vain attempt to solve a non-existent problem, anthropogenic global warming, that will increase everyone's costs for fuel, travel, heating and cooling, and every manufactured good or service they buy. Further, it will reduce American global competitiveness, reducing exports and making imports more attractive, while killing American jobs.

After all is done, natural climate change will do as it has for millions of years, never noticing or caring about the puny efforts mankind takes to forestall the inevitable. During the much warmer Medieval Warm Period of only 1,000 years ago, mankind probably prayed for its return as the climate changed to the Little Ice Ages of 1300-1850 AD. Our ancestors would think us daft to be so upset and concerned by natural warming, when they suffered so grievously during the 550-year calamity of global cooling.

Now Obama's Administration is going to extract money from almost all Americans to squander accomplishing nothing, while returning a pittance.

Obama is betting that you will all notice the extra $300 you save on your yearly taxes, and not the $2,400 you pay for the hidden taxes on energy.

Knowing the economic-knowledge level of Americans, Obama is betting on a sure thing.