Saw the show and enjoyed the interview!

Interesting how the media spin around warming is changing. Now someone dares to admit that warming has occured before in history. (and Fagen didn't even try to stick handle around it (pun intended))

Even CNN (Lou Dobbs) last week had a little blurb about "global cooling" in one of his segments. Looks like the media is finally thinking ...........

Allocating resources to productive solutions to prepare for changes always seemed more logical to me than pretending to "control nature" and by extension, CHANGE itself.

CHANGE scares a lot of people even to the point of paranoia and irrational solutions. This then provides an environment where agenda driven issues to flourish .......not all of them nobel!

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth still warming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html

John Stewart is a left wing lunatic who, like most in the main stream media, will show their bias by having guests like this jabroni author to put forth their nonsense. Why doesn't John Stewart have someone like Bjorn Lundburg on his show? As for Brian Fagan, here's the lowdown on him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_M._Fagan

Let's see, did work for NPR, the National Geographic Society, The BBC, The Smithsonian, and Time/Life owned by Ted Turner. Nah, there's no political agenda there! None what-so-ever!....:-DDDDDDDDD.....

31 degrees and snowing it Pittsburgh, and it's SPRING???? Brett!! WHERE IS THE GLO-BULL WARMING???????...AAAAAUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!

That was probably one of Jon Stewarts least funniest remarks! There have been many authors of gw books that were not politicians or former politicians. Al Gore is not amused and neither am I.

the end is near!!!
End of the hysteria I mean.

This is a pivitol interview of Jennifer Marohasy discussing the latest developments in the Mythology of AGW.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html

Excerpt:
Duffy: "The climate is actually, in one way anyway, more robust than was assumed in the climate models?"

Marohasy: "That's right ... These findings actually aren't being disputed by the meteorological community. They're having trouble digesting the findings, they're acknowledging the findings, they're acknowledging that the data from NASA's Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they're about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide."

Where there is Global Warming stories theres political agenda because they are one in the same.
Global Warming words to remember:
Driest,Wettest,Stormiest,Hottest,Warmest,COLDEST,Snowiest,Windiest,Earthquakeiest,Cloudiest, Flooding, devastation, mass destruction, hurricanes, sea level rise, tornadoes, wild fires,drought, BOO...scare ya, These words were intended too! The biggest threat of Global Warning is people behind the plan, they have the potential to be the most destructive force the earth has seen.

'Comedy Central'........left handed Jon and another AGW proponent.....thats an apt channel....very telling

Drudge reported on his site today the article highlighted by PH and Gary....it is neat to know that there will be others eating more crow than I have had to do....:-)

Hey guys, check this out, probably not on faux news: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=541748&in_page_id=1770

Interesting how he talks about the ocean's cooling "So the climbing temperatures will be countered by cooler water."

"The prophet of doom is a distinguished scientist, who was made a Companion of Honour and who has a great invention to his name"

How many inventions have you made P.H?. I forget. LOL. He must another conspiracy "nut".

"He passionately wants "the best of our species" to survive, and is philosophical about the majority who won't." I think I know what category most of us fall into.
The positive: the 4,000 poor kids that have been murdered will soon have some fat cats to hang out with. Let's pretend what he is saying comes true sooner, do you think your local redneck police force is going to be able to protect you from people probably smarter than you? Better start working out. LOL. Good luck with that.

I've read 4 of Fagan's books; he is a professional anthropologist with an intense interest in how climate (or as we say Climate Change affect societies). Whether you are an Alarmist or Sceptic, I suggest everyone read The Great Warming. My biggest complaint with his book is his a)total buy-in to Mann's PC1 (Hockey Stick), and b) general acceptance of the entire AGW narrative. This is a complete 180 from his writings of the late 1990s. He even gives a hat tip to ALGORE. These definciencies aside, what Fagan does find from his anthropoligical findings is that The Medieval Warm Period (MWP circa AD850 to AD 1300) did manifest itself, but not in the way most people think; with the exception of Europe and some other places in the high middle latitudes, almost all of the subtropics and tropics suffered from periods of long, excessive drought. In his own words, the MWP should be re-labled The Medieval Dry Period. Even in Europe, where the anthropoligical record focus's more on temperatures, there is every indication that rainfall even in Europe was well below normal.

Fagan's main thesis is that during the period of AD850 to 1300, the Walker Circulation in general and ENSO in particular created periods of devastating droughts for the Anzais of Arizona, the Mongols of East Asia, the Aztecs, Peruvians, as well as tribes of the Subsahra, and kingdoms of India. Fagan aslo devotes a chapter on the Intuits of Canada and Greenland. Changes in precipitation patterns devastated these societies as famine ensued. He continues this thesis into the 21st century, as the majority of our populations reside in either the tropics or subtropics. Whether warming is induced by nature or humans (or a combination of both) is immaterial. Even a modest increase in global temps could induce enough change in the subtropical wind profile to cause catastrophic famine.

Some meteorologists may have a few problems with Fagan's thesis. My biggest one is that he spent virtually no time discussing the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and its affect on ENSO. Niether does he even mention the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Granted, the study of these 2 teleconnections are in their infancy. However, drought patterns induced by a general cooling are just as important as when there is a general warming. Many drought patterns are caused when the Atlantic and Pacific SSTs are in transition between high and low modes; these transitions themselves can be multidecadal in length. The devastating East Coast drought of 1590 to 1680 occured during the coldest decades of the Little Ice Age, and the famous Dust Bowl drought which extended from Arkansas to the plains of Canada occured when the Pacific slightly cooled during a time when the Atlantic remained fairly warm. The famous British drought of 1666 occured when the NAO was in high mode (North Atlantic was frigid by today's standards).

If anything, Fagan brings the discussion back down to earth. Precipitation patterns are at the mercy of very small, subtle changes to oceanic temperatures sometimes as much as 10,000 miles away. We continue to focus on GHGs while ignoring other meteoroligical parameters at our risk.

Hi Bushhater,

I'm not quite as old as Lovelock, but I can tell you that I don't see much difference between the climate now and forty years ago. No doubt the 1990's were warmer where I live, but we have seemingly sunk back to the same cold, miserable weather which people say typified the 1980s.

Lovelock's extrapolation to London underwater, etc. is absurd. I remember taking a river trip through London in 1969 - the water was essentially the same height it is now.

He is a classic case of a scientist wrapped up in his own BS - like an Oppenheimer or Hansen. I feel sorry for these self-absorbed prophets of doom. They would be happier if they had faith in something other than themselves.

Reading the comments there's another way to think about this. Suppose for a second that we make the investments to deal with global warming but it turns out that it was a scam after all. We've made investments in energy alternatives and efficiency, mass transit, etc. Not really so bad. We begin to cut our oil addiction and instead of putting our $$ in the tank we can take our sweetie out to dinner. What happens if we continue with business as usual but it turns out that GW was real after all? Well, we continue our merry way until the wheels really begin to come off and have to try to play serious catch-up- if we can. We may not have anything to put in the tank and the price of food has made it so we can't afford dinner either. To me it seems very clear that we'd be better off acting like it's going to happen and being wrong than the opposite.

Adamant,

"Well, we continue our merry way until the wheels really begin to come off and have to try to play serious catch-up- if we can."

How do we play catch-up, if we are such an insignificant contributor to CO2, and CO2 is such an insignificant percentage of the atmosphere?

AGW is becoming a passing fad, as cooler heads prevail. You can't stop the Sun from shining.

Adamant: If you are suggesting stopping the dumping into the oceans, stopping the extermination of the rain forests, creating more fuel efficient engines, etc etc etc, than I'm all for it....man Has
created an environmental nightmare, no two ways about it.

Now, do you seriously believe that these AGW absurdities, carbon credits, cap trade, etc are good things because we Might still see global warming? Well, put your head to rest, we Are going to see it, but we will see it in the context of the natural warming/cooling cycles of the earth. There is nothing to suggest otherwise other than 'forced' interpretation of climate data and faulty climate models. Its all a scam.

Bushlover,

I agree with Lovelock only as far as we should do nothing, as any actions will be futile - but for different reasons. All the rest of his diatribe is rubbish - the Earth will continue along as it has for millennia and I don't foresee all his doom and gloom. Mind you, I don't foresee any of the AGW doom and gloom, as it strikes me as self-flagellation, just as practiced in some of the weirder cults. I came into the debate a neutral observer and have been convinced by the 'skeptical' science and totally turned off by the AGW propaganda.

Adamant, have you not been listening. You will have no money leftover to take your sweetie to dinner. There is no alternative fuel that is ready for mass distribution. And to curb your driving habits they are going to place a carbon tax on anything that produces a greenhouse gas. This will not only increase your home heating and electric bill or how much you pay for gas at the pump but will increase the price of every product that you buy from the shoes on your kids feet to the food you put on your table. Everything that is delivered to your home town grocery store or any other store will increase in price. This tax will make it more expensive for malls to light and cool or heat shopping areas and that cost will be passed on to the consumer. Refineries will be paying more for electricity and natural gas that they need to convert crude oil into products like gas, diesel, lubricants, jet fuel, plastics and more and that cost will be passed on to the consumer. This tax will touch everything in modern life, and rack in billions upon billions of dollars. And if you think that when this junk science has been disproved that the government will say ?sorry here is your cash back? your crazy. Want to talk about a system where the Government gets richer and everybody else get poorer, here it is. Now look at just who is pushing this junk.

Adamant, this attitude is exactly what is scaring so many people when talking about AGW. Doing something "in case" it might help rarely resolves anything and usually destroys more that it "saves".

Have you looked at the carnaval surrounding carbon emissions ?

Have you looked at results of ethanol production ?

Kyoto solutions to cap and/or offset only provide a loop hole for polluting more by the rich corporations ......and yes, especially big oil !

Corn prices is causing forced inflation on ALL foodstuffs ! No wonder the government EXcludes food prices from its base inflation rate.

Big money is trying to put us to sleep by making a link between carbon solutions and pollution and resource management. The link, in exceptional cases, is only coincidental.

Carbon caps, offsets, credits and taxes rely on carbon emissions. This whole process permits "money" to continue polluting while hypocritically producing wealth re-distribution. etc. etc.

Would you really cut off your hand in case a wound on your finger got infected ?

But hey, if your wrong, you'll never get an infection on that hand ever again .....LOL

I am fascinated with the rain and snow that swept into Southern California this winter, during a significant La Nina event...This to me suggests that the weather cannot be qualified or quantified according to strictly mechanical principals. I continue to suggest , even implore that we regular folk and scientists alike consider the living earth or Gia Hypothesis. Weather is an expression of a living atmosphere, a living thing with behaviors. As such it stands to reason Human Collective Behavior will certainly impact the behavior of the atmosphere, perhaps more respect for life and less hubris for our planet will make the difference between success or failure of our current world civilization. I continue to object to chem trailing the cirrus clouds, I continue to look at unpopular subjects like weather weapons and electromagnetic and microwave weapons and pollution as very real components impacting the behavior of the living atmosphere. Anyone going out and looking at and studying cirrus clouds yet?

Hi Adamant,

Interesting quotes from the professor who started Al Gore down this path.

in 1991, Dr. Revelle wrote an article for Cosmos, a scientific journal, with two illustrious colleagues, Chauncey Starr, founding director of the Electric Power Research Institute and Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite. Entitled "What to do about greenhouse warming: Look before you leap," the article argued that decades of research could be required for the consequences of increased carbon dioxide to be understood, and laid out the harm that could come of acting recklessly: "Drastic, precipitous and, especially, unilateral steps to delay the putative greenhouse impacts can cost jobs and prosperity and increase the human costs of global poverty, without being effective. Stringent controls enacted now would be economically devastating, particularly for developing countries for whom reduced energy consumption would mean slower rates of economic growth without being able to delay greatly the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Yale economist William Nordhaus, one of the few who have been trying to deal quantitatively with the economics of the greenhouse effect, has pointed out that '... those who argue for strong measures to slow greenhouse warming have reached their conclusion without any discernible analysis of the costs and benefits ... . ' It would be prudent to complete the ongoing and recently expanded research so that we will know what we are doing before we act. 'Look before you leap' may still be good advice."

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=58e0c50c-1631-46ca-8719-778c0973526e&p=2

I like that, "earthquakiest" good one Josh!

Adamant inadvertently admits the whole point of the AGW issue as presented by the followers of the Goreacle, societal modification through environmental concerns.

I freely admit, the reforms pushed for and won through the 60's, 70's, and 80's were necessary. On the whole, we as a society were negligent of the environment then. Kinda like China and developing countries are probably like right now. The changes and upgrades of these reforms lobbied for, and mostly received in the 90's and 00's are of more dubious stature as who knows the actual benefit of them.

The AGWers have run out of issues with real provable cause and effect, so they have had to up the ante to push through whatever they can. Hence the farce that is AGW.

I wonder, just how many seatbelts do AGWers wear when they drive around town in their electric cars? I mean if one is safe, two is safer right? What is the benefit of the second one if the first works as intended? But, since it is safer, I presume that the AGWers have installed the extra one right? How much benefit do they get for the cost?

And if two are better than one, isn't three better than two?

And so on......

Do you see this line of thinking in governmental policy and regulation...

Radiohead weighs in with their all-important opinion about global warming.

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving/story/0,,2266519,00.html

One big problem is that the UK's share of international aviation emissions isn't covered at the moment. The government is also hiding behind old science figures that a 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 will be enough, even though the science community is saying at least 80 per cent cuts will be needed.

Jack M....If Jennfer Marohasy is correct in her assessment that future models will need to de-link carbon dioxide from global warming based on what she and others have learned from NASA`s Aqua satellite this is bad news for meateaters. Methane will be the next target for the global warming folks and since the world cattle population produces 25 to 30% of all the atmospheric methane farmers better start building pipelines to sequester this potent greenhouse gas.

Adamant,

How about we stop charging windmills and instead spend the money on having clean water, disease prevention, and weaning us off foreign oil? I am just skeptical about AGW and the Great Satan CO2 as its cause, not the other issues.
Spending more than twenty cents on CO2 reduction is just plain wasteful when the basic data (temperature) gathered to support the theory keeps showing the opposite! Just how many temperature readings from 3000 buoys or the NASA Aqua satellite showing neutral to declining temperatures do you need to see before you realize there are serious unaddressed flaws in the AGW climate theory and their computer modeling?
Read, learn, think, and ask questions before you give them the keys to your pocketbook. First do no harm.

Brett, Sorry I posted this in the worng thread.

To me it seems very clear that we'd be better off acting like it's going to happen and being wrong than the opposite.

Adamant,

:) Is this like you're almost positive? Seems, Clear, Better off, Acting? Doesn't sound like you put much thought into this.

How much is this going to cost you? What school, vacation, wedding, will your children go without because it is better to be wrong than actually know?

How about I act like an AGW advocate, but still live like there is NOT ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE THAT CO2 CAUSES WARMING?

If you have no knowledge of or little respect for the Scientific Method, then you will be easily duped into thinking there is because most AGW Advocates have been conned into seeing a CAUSE when in fact it is an EFFECT. Since AGW hypotheses cannot live up to scientific standards they are not held to them.

My colleague Brookline Tom seems to be one of these Advocates. Here is