U.S. Press AWOL on Climate Skepticism

I’ve noticed something curious, not a new revelation, because I’ve thought about it for a while, but phenomena which I haven’t heard anyone really talking about – and that’s part of the curiosity. 

Recently, various public opinion polls show that climate skepticism is growing among the general public.  By climate skepticism I mean to varying degrees people reject or question the truth of one or more of four different but related ideas that make up climate orthodoxy: that the earth is unequivocally warming, that this warming is due primarily or wholly due to human activities, and that such warming will cause apocalypse type disasters, and that we should take drastic action to prevent warming from continuing (even if it hurts the economy). 

Skepticism has regularly been higher among the U.S. public than in Europe but even in Europe skepticism about one or more of the above tenets or climate change faith has grown in the past two years. 

This is not the curious part.  Indeed, it would be curious if the general public hadn’t grown more jaded with the climate dogma in the aftermath of the various climate imbroglios that have been exposed in the last year.  From “Climategate,” to the IPCC disaster claims that were exposed as lacking any evidence whatsoever for their accuracy, one domino after another has fallen exposing the climate emperors as having no clothes (or at least going around threadbare). 

The curious part is this, in the U.S., while the general public has remained much more skeptical of climate alarmism than their European brethren, the American press has drunk the whole plastic jug of climate kool-aid.  By contrast, while Europeans have by and large bought into the climate disaster hype, the European press has maintained its valued, traditional role of skeptic and public scold, challenging orthodoxy coming from on high. 

This was brought home to me once again last week when noted physicist, Harold Lewis, very publicly resigned from the American Physical Society, a group of which he had been a member of and served in various capacities for 67 years. He resigned over the APS’s official statements concerning climate change and the fact that it refused to take the significant proportion of its members who are climate skeptics concerns more seriously, especially in the light of the numerous problems that have come to light with “mainstream” climate science over the past year.  Lewis’s letter merits quoting at length since I can’t state his concerns better myself:

“. . . For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.<

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal”

Professor Lewis is not the first noted scientist who felt he had to take such dramatic action to make his point concerning the “global warming scam.”  Indeed, in recent years noted scientists including Claude Allegre, Freeman Dyson and Christopher Landsea have all made public their disputes with what is passing as mainstream climate science; with Landsea offering a public letter resigning from the IPCC over its unsubstantiated claims concerning the threat of more and more powerful hurricanes – a field in which he has particular expertise. 

In the U.S. Lewis’s resignation didn’t even merit a mention in most of the mainstream media, rather it was relegated to the blogsphere to highlight and publicize this important schism within the scientific community.  By contrast, Europe’s papers picked up on this story almost immediately, set in the proper context and gave it the importance it deserved. 

When and if a prominent skeptic had switched sides or at least appeared to (see Bjorn Lomborg), the mainstream media is all over it with newspapers across the U.S. trumpeting the decision.  So much for the press’s objectivity.  Whence its commitment to informing and educating the public, to providing fair, balanced, accurate coverage of the important affairs of the day and it role in a free  society is to hold the powers-that-be accountable.

The public’s waning faith in the truthfulness of the media and the trust it places in journalists may be a reflection of the decline in journalists adherence to the ideal espoused by Dragnet’s Joe Friday: “Just the facts, only the facts.”  And one might add, “all the facts no matter how inconvenient they may be.”

Comments (4)

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  1. Steve Baloga says:

    Actually, in my experience the Euros and Aussies are well ahead of the U.S. in the counter consensus movement. (We no longer accept the title of “skeptic” as Dr. Richard Lindzen says. Skeptic indicates one has doubts. As of last year’s ICCC conference there is no longer doubt among the non-catastrophic AGW’ers). When I was touring Lord Monckton around our fair region of East Tennessee this past summer, he explained how the Australians and Britains were well ahead of the U.S. scientists and public. Most AGW counter articles I read and scientists who are speaking out are over the pond in my experience. Fact is, I am ashamed of U.S. scientists for not stepping out on this issue. I have many like minded colleagues who cannot join me publicly because they work for U.S. contractors on the government AGW dole.

  2. sax fifth avenue says:

    Brilliant blog post, lots of helpful knowledge.

  3. Terry M. Campbell PE, EE, CS says:

    GLOBAL WARMING HOAX and CAP & TRADE SCAM

    “Global Warming” is a real misnomer. Plus, the earth has been cooling for the past twelve years, not warming. It should not even be referred to as climate change, but as weather cycles. The temperature of the earth’s atmosphere is gradually and continuously changing all the time, it is never stagnate and is a natural occurring weather phenomenon. That is why most of the intelligent people referred to the ever changing climate as weather cycles. Simple thermodynamics of the suns energy output, the earths distance from the sun and the earth’s direct or indirect exposure to the sun’s energy easily explains the temperature variances on the surface of our planet. There are cycles within cycles within cycles. Each longer cycle includes all the shorter cycles within it. All major temperature variances are caused by the following physical cycles, each cycle containing all of the previous cycles:

    1st cycle (24 hour or one day cycle – rotating): This first weather cycle is determined by the earth rotating on its’ axis, hence we have the temperature variance between cooler nights and warmer days (indirect verses direct exposure to the sun’s energy).

    2nd cycle (365 ¼ day or one year cycle – orbital): This second cycle is determined by the earth’s rotation around the sun, which is manifested by the weather changes we refer to as the four seasons (summer, fall, winter and spring). This weather change occurs because of the earths tilt on its axis in reference to its position in its orbit around the sun. It is warmer in the northern hemisphere while it is cooler in the southern hemisphere and visa versa (axis tilt)

    3rd cycle (an 11 year with a sliding variable beginning cycle – sun spots): This cycle is another natural factor that has a large short term effect on our weather. It is the variance in the energy released by the sun. This variance in the energy from the sun, some people refer to this as sun spots or no sun spots, causes the temperature to rise or fall. The more sun spots the warmer the temperature and the fewer the sun spots the cooler the weather. Most of the sun spots are around the equator of our spinning sun that we are orbiting in the same direction. The current surface of the sun facing the earth has very few sun spots, therefore this is one of the reasons the temperature is cooling and has been for the past twelve years. Heavy sun spot activity is credited for slight global warming in the 1980’s, what there was of it. In the highly publicized global warming swindle, they never mention sun spots. Records of sun activity have been kept quite accurately for hundreds of years. It’s also amazing that the sun spot activity mirrors the short term (years to tens of years) temperature as it rises and falls. Could it be that that big fire ball in the sky actually has something to do with the temperature here on the earth?

    4th cycle (26,000 year cycle – axis wobble): The next predictable cycle is determined by the variance in the earth’s rotation on its axis (earth’s wobble on its axis). The current tilt on earth’s axis is causing the summers to be warmer and cooler in the winter in the northern hemisphere. This tilt is the reason for thirteen thousand (13,000) successive years of over all gradually warmer weather followed by thirteen thousand (13,000) successive years of gradually cooler weather in the northern hemisphere. This also causes north to get warmer as the south to get colder and visa versa depending on the tilt of the earth on its axis. The ice in Antarctica, a continent larger than North America, is getting thicker in many places. The summer ice in artic is decreasing. This is due to the current tilt in the earth’s axis, nothing to do with so called man made global warming. The North is currently getting warmer, because it is closer to the sun. The South is getting colder, sense it is pointing away from the sun.

    5th cycle (hundred thousand year cycle – expanding/contracting orbit): This cycle is the variation in earth’s orbit around the sun. This expansion/contraction is caused by the variances in the gravitational forces from the planets and other gravitational forces as we move through space. Currently the earths orbit around the sun is slowly lengthening. Therefore, the entire earth is gradually cooling, because it is moving farther from the sun. This is the longest period weather cycle. This variance has caused the many ice ages and the long time periods of extreme heat that formed most of our deserts over the last few hundreds of thousands of years. The longest time period, that we have data on, goes back a little less than six hundred thousand (>600,000) years. During this period of time there has been five (5) major ice ages, spaced a hundred thousand (100,000) years apart. Each ice age lasted only a few hundred years, almost eliminating all life on this planet. But, there were thousands of years of major warming periods between each, with no fossil fuels being used, when life flourished. The last major ice age ended ten thousand (10,000) years ago and there has been gradual warming ever sense, with minor fluctuations up and down.

    These are the physical things that cause the temperature on earth to constantly change. The climate (temperature) is never stagnate it is continually changing, because the earth is never standing still in reference to our spinning sun, our heat source. Bottom line: “Most major climate changes are the direct result of the earths’ axis wobble, orbital eccentricities of Earth and variations in the sun’s energy output.” Basically, climate change is a natural phenomenon, not something that can be altered by us mere mortals. There is one more physical entity that affects the weather of the various hemispheres, but not globally. This is the ocean currents. Their temperature, volume, direction and speed have large effect on local weather but are globally neutral.

    It takes a very inflated ego to assume that we humans can have a major effect on the entire planets weather. If we could control the weather, we would be able to prevent hurricanes or blizzards. Only GOD can control the weather! (Genesis 8: 21-22). Right now the earth is coming out of a warming cycle and is headed toward a cooling cycle, regardless of what we humans do! Therefore, trying to stop the Artic from warming, the Antarctic from cooling and the entire planet from slightly cooling (the current situation) is a waste of time, effort and resources.

    Here is another minor slightly off the subject thing to consider. All life on this planet will be extinguished by gamma radiation long before the weather be comes unbearable or the sun turns into a red giant engulfing the inner solar system before shrinking into a white dwarf. The earth is protected from gamma radiation by the magnetic field surrounding it. This magnetic field is generated by the spinning magma (made up of mainly 1,849 degree F. molten iron) just below the earth’s surface. As the magma cools and solidifies over time, the magma will move slower weakening the magnetic field. When the magnetic field finally collapses the gamma radiation will kill all living things on the planet. Not to worry though, the good thing is, this will not happen for many hundreds of millions of years from now.

    Let’s get back to the subject of ever changing weather. Now that we have established what actually causes the major weather changes, let’s have a look at what the leftist non-scientific environmentalists, liberal socialists progressive politicians, Hollywood liberal dunces and the liberal sheep media are all spouting. They all think an increase in CO2 is bad for the planet and is causing global warming. They are all dead WRONG!!! Levels of CO2 have absolutely nothing to do with the weather!! The above and the following together explain why.

    Now let’s look at some facts, analyze them and try to draw some reasonable conclusions. To fine these facts we must do a little looking around and ignore the liberal press while you do it. Most of the liberal non-scientific environmentalists who are talking global warming are also the ones who use to spout an ice age is coming theory and the non-existent ozone layer problem, in the not to distant past. I think we can discount all of them right off the bat. A person can only cry wolf so many times before he is ignored.

    Here are a few facts more about the earth’s atmosphere:
    Our atmosphere (air) is made up of five major gases (nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide and water vapor) plus 12 measurable trace gases. Not all of these gases are greenhouse gases. There are four major greenhouse gases (water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide). The fact that the greenhouse gases exists is a good thing. Without green house gasses to lock in the energy from the sun the global temperature would be -459% F, we would all freeze and die.

    The following is the make up of the natural occurring greenhouse gases:
    95% of it is water vapor and 4.964% is methane, nitrous oxide and trace gases .036% is the natural occurring trace gas carbon dioxide (97% produced by nature, 3% attributed to man, <.001% of the carbon dioxide in the total atmosphere is attributed to man). All Trace gasses are measured by parts per million (ppm). Currently the average global carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is about 380 ppm with a miniscule amount attributed to man (<.004 ppm). The figures of the UN’s political non-scientific IPPC are different and very wrong. In Europe they have been using heavy sulfur coal for heat and to cook for thousands of years and to produce electricity for the past hundred years. This has contaminated the entire continent with high carbon and sulfur ash. Any readings taken in Europe are not representative of the rest of the globe. I tend believe NOAA and NASA, they are not political organizations, have far more accurate equipment and much better trained engineers and technicians.

    It is easy to conclude from the above that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a rare or trace gas. There is not enough of it to have a measurable effect on the planets weather. A rise in temperature is the main cause of a rise in CO2 levels and lags a temperature rise by months sometimes years. There are true scientific atmospheric papers and charts about temperature and carbon dioxide in the air measured over a period of thousands of years. These charts were from an in depth analysis of ice cores and tree growth rings. What was interesting is that the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere lagged the temperature rise by at least several months some times years. Therefore, elevated levels of carbon dioxide did NOT cause the temperature to rise but the reverse is true.

    Here are some other things about carbon dioxide (CO2): it is NOT an air pollutant; and it is required for plants to live, plus the heaver the concentration of CO2 the less water plants require to flourish. Plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) and give off oxygen (O2) through photosynthesis. We humans breathe oxygen (O2). Without CO2 all of the plants die, stop producing oxygen, then we would all die. We need more CO2 not less. Plus, without CO2 all plant life would die and all of us would starve to death, if we had not already died of suffocation from the lack of oxygen.

    What the non-scientific environmentalists consider pollution is not all greenhouse gases, but all carbon based gases. What the eco-idiots are spouting about is between what CO2 occurs naturally and what is produced by the human population (.036% verses <.001% of the total air in the atmosphere).

    Why is the wacko non-scientific environmentalist only picking on carbon emissions (carbon dioxide)? There are other green house gases. The second most prevalent greenhouse gas is methane next to water vapor. Here in Texas we call methane “natural gas”, because it is. Natural gas seeps out of the ground, we drill wells for it, and we use it as fuel. Besides what seeps out naturally on a global bases mammal, live stock (cows, sheep, goats, deer, etc.) flatulence is one of the larger contributors to greenhouse emissions (methane, not carbon dioxide). Plus, they breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. This I do not see changing in the near future for various reasons. On the other hand natures plant life on the planet (trees, grass, plankton in the ocean, etc.) absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen through photosynthesis which partially counters the mammals thereby balancing things out. Therefore, the balance of nature is maintained as designed by God.

    Climate change and air pollution are two totally different subjects with very little relation to each other and should be treated separately. Air pollution is from emissions of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitric Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide (CO), Ozone (O3), Methane, etc. in vary localized/industrialized areas, not globally. We can and should work on air pollution. I repeat CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2) IS NOT A POLLUTANT. All of the dooms day weather predictions are from faulty computer simulations with faulty input data, real facts were ignored. Professor Phil Jones generated his famous “hockey stick graph” back in the mid-eighties when he was the director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. The raw data he used to produce this fraudulent graph has never been produced for peer review (now has been deemed lost or nonexistent). After the East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit released the results of their multimillion dollar research grant in 1984, I requested a copy of the raw data through the United Nation’s (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) they used to generate their “Relative Forcing Formula” (delta F = 5.35 x In C/Co Wm to the -2). They informed me that the data was not available to do a peer review and that East Anglia had moved their archive storage to a new facility and the data could not be located. Now we find out that it may never have existed (current e-mail releases). Their “Relative Forcing Formula” with the infamous ‘hockey stick’ graph it generated is what all the environmentalists have used to forward their cause is not supported by current temperature readings. As a mater of fact the formula has be proven to be bogus. The UN’s political non-scientific IPPC has based their global warming dooms day predictions on this graph and his faulty non-science. They cannot predict accurately the weather next week much less hundreds of years in the future. All of these simulation programs use statistical analysis as their basic or root algorithm. These fake-scientists chose a predetermined result then adjust the parameters of the simulation and/or raw data until the desire, predetermined result is derived. Using this method I can prove either side of any subject using the same data.

    Good science is the process of thought, observation and/or experimentation to formulate a theory looking for an answer to a particular situation. Once the theory is established then it is subjected to factual analysis. This is to determine if the theory is correct or not.
    Bad science (which is to say non-science) is the process of thought, observation and/or experimentation to formulate a theory to support a preconceived conclusion already derived. They modify the theory as needed to explain their conclusion and then focusing only on what they perceive as facts which support their theory while ignoring those that do not. This is a common statistical analysis practices taught in all liberal colleges and universities. Bad science is even worse when it is motivated by and conducted to promote a political agenda as in this case.
    If climate change sounds similar, it is. Right now, like in the not to distant past, the earth is cooling from a lack of solar activity and an elongated orbit which indicates an upcoming mini ice age and the sea recedes. It happens every several hundred years or so – go look to history. Europe had severe cold seasons within written memory that caused significant crop failures. This is a natural occurrence nothing to do with the CO2 emissions by man.

    The bottom line is not natural science, it is the world is engaged in a war of information, much of which is false or exaggerated and aimed for political ends and has no origin in any kind of physical science. The real information we are looking for is found only through Natural Science. But when we start talking about global warming we are talking about Political Science. The successful Political Scientists are the one's who get elected and re-elected year after year. Natural scientists may know a lot about nature, but it is the political scientists who know the most about how to gain and maintain political power. Thereby they control the flow of information.

    That is why we have a professional politician like Al Gore is capable of promoting this scam. The two sciences have their place, but intelligent people do not mix the two. That is how we have got into this current mess in the first place

    The largest producers of carbon emissions and air pollution we can do something about are coal fired and oil burning generator plants, with Eastern Europe, China and India being the largest problems. In the United States most of our coal furnaces and oil burning generators have scrubbers on the exhaust, which greatly reduces the hydrocarbon emissions but does not fully eliminate sulfur emissions. Pressure should be put on Eastern Europe, China and India to install scrubbers on the exhaust of the coal fired generator plants or change to nuclear power. The past acid rain in Eastern Europe and the coming acid rain in China and India are caused by sulfur dioxide emissions from these power plants. The SO2 converts to sulfuric acid in the atmosphere. carbon dioxide is not the problem. The United States should convert to nuclear power as soon as possible to promote energy independents. There are a lot of technologies emerging that can help with this problem by generating electricity, such as wind power, solar cells, more hydroelectric, geothermal, etc., all of these will help but these can not meet the growing need for electricity. All of the coal furnaces and oil burning generators together only produce a fraction of a percent of the hydrocarbons in the atmosphere.

    Another contested producer of hydrocarbons and non-polluting carbon dioxide is the internal combustion engine. This is a situation that is going to be with us for a long time. But, it is not a global problem. It is isolated to only heavily populated areas. The clean air act of 1962 greatly reduced the smog in heavily populated areas in the United States by eliminating lead and reducing sulfur in gasoline and diesel fuels. Some of the promising alternatives are electric (battery powered) cars, electric (fuel cell powered) cars, hydrogen powered cars, kinetic energy, compressed air, etc. The basic fact is that the U.S. is an oil driven nation and has an oil driven economy at the present time and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Therefore, we need to uncap our oil reserves (in Texas, Oklahoma, California, etc.) and start drilling for domestic oil NOW for several reasons. The number one reason is to lower the price of gasoline and diesel. The increased cost of transportation is increasing the price to the consumer of just about every thing (food mainly). Every household is being affected. Another major reason, if not the most important one, is to stop importing oil from our enemies, there by financing global terrorism. The affects of the internal combustion engines are localized around large population area and has very little effect globally and only produce a fraction of a percent of the hydrocarbons in the atmosphere.

    In the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s the ocean levels dropped and from the early 80’s to the present the ocean levels have risen. The total deviation in level is about 100 mm (about a quarter of an inch (1/4 “)). Question? How can the global ocean level be measured that accurate when we have normal wave action of 40 to 50 feet high in the north Atlantic and south Pacific? Plus the every six and a half (6 ½) hour cycle tidal effects caused by the moon is constantly changing the water levels around the planet. Currently the North Pole ice is melting and the South Pole ice thickness is increasing. God created nature to always maintain a balance, therefore a constant sea level. The catastrophic “Dooms Day” rising sea level forecast was generated from another faulty computer simulation using modified parameters, imaginary data and not based on any of the obvious facts.

    The Eco-idiots claming the polar bears are dying because of global warming is completely false. Polar Bear population has increased five (5) fold in the last 20 years. It is slightly warmer in the north, therefore more food, therefore more bears. The Polar Bear should be and is being removed from the endangered species list. Alaska and Canada are even considering having a hunting season for polar bear, because of their abundance.

    Without these greenhouse gases locking in the heat of the sun, we would freeze and die. Without this greenhouse effect, the earth's temperature would be hundreds of degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-459 degrees F.). Therefore, I think the greenhouse effect is a good thing. What the eco-idiots and progressive politicians are spouting about is not CO2 occurring naturally (97% of the .036% of the atmosphere) but, the miniscule amount (almost un-measurable, .001% of the atmosphere) produced by the presents of the entire human population.

    Global Warming is only a hypothesis, dreamed up by a Swedish scientist over 100 years ago. It's not even a theory. Contrary to his hypothesis, CO2 levels always follows a temperature rise by many years, it does not cause a temperature rise.

    Why is all of the above important? The CAP and TRADE SCAM! This is a TAX on all energy production based on political science not physical science. Physical science is exact; it is not a consensus of opinions. A fact is either right or wrong. In this case man made global warming is a hoax and Cap and Trade, energy tax, should be completely deleted from any consideration by all governments, including the United States of America. This is only a way for a few dishonest people (Al Gore for one) to get rich by trading carbon credits at the cost of all us, the average citizen.

    H.R. 2454 and S. 1733 (the Cape and Trade SCAM Legislation) are blatant attempts of the progressive liberal – no socialistic, bordering on fascism crowd – in Washington D.C. not only to take over the energy industry, but to consciously continue their effort to bankrupt this country and resurrect it as an oppressive socialistic nanny state. This is an excessive tax on all forms of energy production based on political science, social engineering and misguided non-scientific environmentalist false conclusions, not from actual physical science, to limit the production of carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting, naturally accruing rare gas. We need more CO2 not less. Leftist environmentalists and liberal socialists are attempting to destroy the economy and life as we know it in this country, because they believe that just the presents of humans on the planet are an affront to nature. This collection of non-scientific politicians are using faulty information to make decisions that they are NOT qualified to make based on faulty assumptions that they do not even understand. If either these bills pass it will cause the cost of every thing to take a giant leap, this includes all forms of transportation, electricity, food, clothing, etc. Plus, it will set up an extremely large government bureaucracy that will take years if not forever to get rid of. This Cap and Trade scam is based on what a few eco-idiots have proclaimed that man generated carbon dioxide is causing global warming and destroying the planet. Man made global warming is a complete and total HOAX. The planet has been cooling for the past 12 years. +59 degrees F. is current average annual global ambient air temperature on the surface of our planet.

    Many of us Patriotic Christian Senior Citizens want to skip voting the current progressive socialist politicians out of office or impeaching them and go straight to TREASON followed by life in prison for all of the misguided politicians who keep voting to destroy our hard fought American way of life. We have access to all of their voting records. We have been observing and will continue to observe all of their actions. We will be watching and analyzing all of the votes in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, all the speeches they make and which bills they support and oppose. We are especially concerned with the congressional bribes being used by the leadership of both houses (Reid and Pelosi) to influence the votes for their socialistic agenda. Termination Day is coming for all Progressive, Socialistic, Liberal Agenda supporting politicians. On November 2, 2010, we made start to restoring Sanity, Honesty, Faith and Leadership in both houses of Congress. Plus, the Executive branch of government, the President and all of his Radical Progressive, Socialist Department Secretaries and Illegal Czars need to be controlled and replaced or positions eliminated as soon as possible, in 2012 at the latest.

    Please stop this insanity before it is too late or we will.

    Terry M. Campbell, EE, PE, CS
    Retired Senior Scientist
    Long Time Voting Conservative
    3016 Clearview Drive
    San Angelo, Texas 76904

    Note 1: I have multiple engineering and scientific University degrees. I have spent 40 years studying weather in South Florida. I have had over two dozen near misses and 5 direct hits from Hurricanes. One of my responsibilities when I held a position with the J.I.A.T.F.–South (counter-drug intelligence agency) in Key West was being the Hurricane Officer for the command. Therefore, I spent a lot of time studying ocean currents, pressure gradients and the cause of weather patterns. I had daily access to Navy Ship Ocean Temperature and Current Raw data; and Air Force Pilot Atmospheric Raw data that effected weather patterns for over 12 years. Therefore, I am qualified to explain what causes and what does not cause weather changes. Plus, I have spent 30 years designing computers for International Business Machines (IBM), therefore I know a lot about computer simulation, having designed the hardware that these simulations run on. I have designed, programmed, implemented and ran thousands of simulations of many kinds.

    Note 2: I wrote this paper partly to vent and let off steam from the UN IPCC claiming to be scientists and giving all real scientists a bad name by association.

    Note 3: I wrote this paper in October of 2009, before the Iceland volcano and the gulf oil rig explosion. These two incidents have wiped out six to eight years of environmentalist efforts to limit carbon in the atmosphere. These have increased the amount of CO2 in the air from what is stated in this paper.