Um...yeah. Which global calamity are we on this year?

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Read the sunspots
The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling

R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that "the science is settled." At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.

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Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

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At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.

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psilocyberin said:

I beg to differ that there is credible scientific data that shows humans have an impact upon the earths climate. I do not currently have the time to go find articles, though I will when I get home, because they are aplenty....

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psilocyberin said:

As far as DDT goes, i witnessed the decline of the brown pelican population firsthand, as well as their comeback over the years since DDT was taken from use. now, Im not saying that lack of brown pelicans = DDT's fault.... directly..... but it is considered a moderately toic chemical which isnt soluble in water, and was so widely used that it had to have some adverse effect upon the ecology, even the slightest disruption in the amount of mosquitos which affects the spiders and frog population, which in turn affects another species and up and up until biological magnification of toxins starts to affect bigger species in greater quantities.
As far as malaria goes... well, I think human evolution, like sickle cell anemia took up a lot of slack. Was our goal to wipe out all mosquitos? if so that is ridiculously short-sighted as a solution to a problem. Killing of a majority of mosquitos in africa isnt going to stop malaria... all it takes is just one mosquito to transmit it.... and it isnt like malaria is some great catasrophic epidemic that has caused the tribal nations of africa to remain an underdeveloped continent.

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psilocyberin said:

Im not up to current medical trends, but since the banning of DDT, hasnt the rate of thalidomide stricken infants decreased to almost nothing? and during that time, the rate of those babies rose so quickly that it could not be contributed to a freak genetic occurence?

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psilocyberin said:

once again, I ask you where is the motive? where is the financial gain? where is this huge campaign of misinformation stemming from? who is to gain from all this conspiracy to go "green"?
because I can easily find the motive of large corporations and chemical manufacturers to disuade the public and make such harsh, unbacked statements such as yours regarding psuedo-science and whatnot.
This is my point: I can see the motives behind the republicans and anti-green people... but I cannot see the motives behind the entire "pro-green" group.

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Astral Piper said:

My statements are not "unbacked" unlike the ad hominem nonsense you are perpetuating.

Political posturing is nothing new, and attempting to swing the discussion by referencing unconnected issues under the broad canopy of questioning whether there is a "conspiracy" tells me that you are intellectually bankrupt

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Although i'm more ataraxic about the whole deal... nice call out

DieCommie said:

Im thinking Godwin's Law at any moment

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Nice reference!!  I'm sure I'll be accused of being a Brownshirt in short order! 

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Political posturing is nothing new, and attempting to swing the discussion by referencing unconnected issues

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xxetniesxx said:

The basic idea of the year is based on who produced the best documentary of our doom that year and running with it. Awhile back it was El Nino and La Nina, Then it was guns and fast food, then it was terrorists, then global warming, then a new ice age, then a meteor... what's next?

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Produce them please. Credible scientific data may mean different things to different people, but if your sources contain references to actual published studies that have been peer-reviewed and critically analyzed, then you definitely do have evidence. I am anxious to see this.

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Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

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The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.

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If you are seriously doubting the effects of the mosquito problem in Africa, then you need to do some research. I have lived in Africa (both northern and sub-Saharan) so rather than belabor the point to you, please learn more about this issue on your own. I know firsthand about the problems this insect has caused, and if you are keen to live by an infested body of standing water, then be my guest.

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