http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_frank_j__060829_bush_nixes_public_ac.htm Bush Nixes Public Access to EPA Libraries! Tell A Friend by Frank J. Ranelli http://www.opednews.com What has been termed, "positively Orwellian", by PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, is indeed frightening. It seems that the self-appointed "Decider", George W. Bush, has decided to "end public access to research materials" at EPA Regional libraries without Congressional consent. In an all out effort to impede research and public access, Bush has implemented a loosely covert operation to close down 26 technical libraries under the guise of a budgetary constraint move. Scientists are protesting, but at least 15 of the libraries will be closed by Sept. 30, 2006. "Public access to EPA libraries and collections will end as soon as possible", according to a report found online at PEER, an acronym for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. All total, nearly 80,000 documents, not in digital format, are being boxed up and placed in infinite limbo status by the Bush Administration. The scene from the Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Ark of the Covenant was wheeled into a massive sea of identical box crates, inside an enormous warehouse, comes vividly to mind. The suppression of information to the public and efforts to control the flow of information of the sciences has reached critical mass. Shades of the once science fictional book, Fahrenheit 451, are dangerously close to reality and the banning and burning of books looms all to surreal, but are more fact than science fiction now. Who could have ever envisioned that Ray Bradbury's vicious, futuristic, dystopian society would ever come to fruition; but it may indeed have done just that! See, Bush positively does not want the American people to know about the real effects of global warming, mercury levels, air pollution, and any other topic, which if known about by the populous, would undeniably be dire for "Corporate America". Bush is unconcerned with your health, my health, the health of our children and the future of this planet we all call home. What he is concerned about is the gleaming health of the bottom lines of the corporate trough from which his completely corrupt and dangerous enterprise feeds. Bush believes he is at the top of the evolutionary food chain (if he even believes in evolution) and can dictate the very nature of our environment and of the entire planet around us -- for his own immoral needs -- and we are being asked to sit idly by; ignorant, servile and likely very sick and ill! You may turn green from toxic poisoning and the ground may become red from scorching heat, but as long as companies such as Exxon/Mobile remain in the black, all is well in Bush's pernicious plans. Conservation of our ecosystem is out of the question for Bush and his global marauders of all the Earth's resources. The only thing "conservative" about Bush is his own unyielding pursuit to conserve his master's big profit margins and the subsequent suffocation of America's right to know about that which affects our health, our country and our planet. Those big profit margins come at an enormous price tag, one that Bush has heaped most unkindly on the rest of us to pay for, but certainly not on those who put this buffoon in office! At this rate, it may be irrelevant to think ahead to 2008 as a chance for emancipation and liberation from Bush's dream of a Pax Americana; as by 2008 there may not be anything left to govern or save from the Bush regime! Honestly, what's next to be deemed a matter of national security or an unfortunate victim of bogus budget slashes to reward the ultra-rich and privileged few -- the alphabet? For more information about PEER, visit the PEER group at http://www.peer.org and help put and end to Bush's "positively Orwellian" assault on access to public information that just might save your life and the planet!
it is funny. Bush says the world is warming and now zzz cites him as being correct. as if zzz or anyone else believes that Bush is all of sudden smart and well researched. I would say more likely carlyle group must now be the owner of some alternative fuel companies.
Special report on this months issue of The Economist: http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=7884738 "The heat is on: A special report on climate change" Well written, fun read. nitro
http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/sns-ap-warming-sea-ice,1,6821788.story?coll=chi-news-hed nitro
New Scientist issue on Global Warming: http://www.newscientist.com/contents/issue/2569.html Worth the read. It gives a surprising source that may help cool the climate until we can pull the reins back on burning fossil fuels. nitro
as bright as you pretend to be ... let's hear it. explain in no uncertain terms how the short-term trend of higher temperatures is caused not by a natural shift but by us evil human beings.
Mars Emerging from Ice Age, Data Suggest By SPACE.com posted: 03:00 pm ET 08 December 2003 Scientists have suspected in recent years that Mars might be undergoing some sort of global warming. New data points to the possibility it is emerging from an ice age. NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has been surveying the planet for nearly a full Martian year now, and it has spotted seasonal changes like the advance and retreat of polar ice. It's also gathering data of a possible longer trend. There appears to be too much frozen water at low-latitude regions -- away from the frigid poles -- given the current climate of Mars. The situation is not in equilibrium, said William Feldman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. "One explanation could be that Mars is just coming out of an ice age," Feldman said. "In some low-latitude areas, the ice has already dissipated. In others, that process is slower and hasn't reached an equilibrium yet. Those areas are like the patches of snow you sometimes see persisting in protected spots long after the last snowfall of the winter." Frozen water makes up as much as 10 percent of the top 3 feet (1 meter) of surface material in some regions close to the equator. Dust deposits may be covering and insulating the lingering ice, Feldman said. Feldman is the lead scientist for an Odyssey instrument that assesses water content indirectly through measurements of neutron emissions. He and other Odyssey scientists described their recent findings today at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. "Odyssey is giving us indications of recent global climate change in Mars," said Jeffrey Plaut, project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. High latitude regions of Mars have layers with differing ice content within the top 20 inches (half-meter) or so of the surface, researchers conclude from mapping of hydrogen abundance based on gamma-ray emissions. "A model that fits the data has three layers near the surface," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, team leader for the gamma-ray spectrometer instrument on Odyssey. "The very top layer would be dry, with no ice. The next layer would contain ice in the pore spaces between grains of soil. Beneath that would be a very ice-rich layer, 60 to nearly 100 percent water ice." Boynton interprets the iciest layer as a deposit of snow or frost, mixed with a little windblown dust, from an era when the climate was colder than nowadays. The middle layer could be the result of changes brought in a warmer era, when ice down to a certain depth dissipated into the atmosphere. The dust left behind collapsed into a soil layer with limited pore space for returning ice. More study is needed to determine for sure what's going on. Other Odyssey instruments are providing other pieces of the puzzle. Images from the orbiter's camera system have been combined into the highest resolution complete map ever made of Mars' south polar region. "We can now accurately count craters in the layered materials of the polar regions to get an idea how old they are," said Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, Tempe, principal investigator for the camera system. Temperature information from the camera system's infrared imaging has produced a surprise about dark patches that dot bright expanses of seasonal carbon-dioxide ice. "Those dark features look like places where the ice has gone away, but thermal infrared maps show that even the dark areas have temperatures so low they must be carbon-dioxide ice." Christensen said. "One possibility is that the ice is clear in these areas and we're seeing down through the ice to features underneath."
Global Warming on Pluto Puzzles Scientists By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 01:25 pm ET 09 October 2002 In what is largely a reversal of an August announcement, astronomers today said Pluto is undergoing global warming in its thin atmosphere even as it moves farther from the Sun on its long, odd-shaped orbit. Pluto's atmospheric pressure has tripled over the past 14 years, indicating a stark temperature rise, the researchers said. The change is likely a seasonal event, much as seasons on Earth change as the hemispheres alter their inclination to the Sun during the planet's annual orbit. They suspect the average surface temperature increased about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit, or slightly less than 2 degrees Celsius. Pluto remains a mysterious world whose secrets are no so easily explained, however. The warming could be fueled by some sort of eruptive activity on the small planet, one astronomer speculated. The increasing temperatures are more likely explained by two simple facts: Pluto's highly elliptical orbit significantly changes the planet's distance from the Sun during its long "year," which lasts 248 Earth years; and unlike most of the planets, Pluto's axis is nearly in line with the orbital plane, tipped 122 degrees. Earth's axis is tilted 23.5 degrees. Though Pluto was closest to the Sun in 1989, a warming trend 13 years later does not surprise David Tholen, a University of Hawaii astronomer involved in the discovery. "It takes time for materials to warm up and cool off, which is why the hottest part of the day on Earth is usually around 2 or 3 p.m. rather than local noon," Tholen said. "This warming trend on Pluto could easily last for another 13 years." Stellar observations The conclusion is based on data gathered during a chance passage of Pluto in front of a distant star as seen from Earth. Such events, called occultations, are rare, but two of them occurred this summer. In the occultations, which are like eclipses, astronomers examined starlight as it passed through Pluto's tenuous atmosphere just before the planet blotted out the light. The first occultation, in July, yielded limited data because of terrestrial cloud cover above key telescopes. Marc Buie, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory, scrambled to observe the event from northern Chile using portable 14-inch (0.35-meter) telescope. Afterward, Buie said he was baffled by what seemed to be global cooling of Pluto's atmosphere punctuated by some surface warming. Then on Aug. 20, Pluto passed in front of a different star. The latter event provided much better data captured by eight large telescopes and seems to clarify and mostly reverse the earlier findings. The results were compared to studies from 1988, the last time Pluto was observed eclipsing a star. James Elliot of MIT led a team of astronomers who coordinated their observations and presented the findings today at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Division for Planetary Sciences in Birmingham, Ala. Elliot said the Aug. 20 occultation was the first that allowed such a deep probing of the composition, pressure and the always-frigid temperature of Pluto's atmosphere, which ranges from -391 to -274 degrees Fahrenheit (-235 to -170 degrees Celsius). Volcanoes on Pluto? Elliot hinted at the possibility of another factor fueling Pluto's warming trend. He compared Pluto to Triton, a moon of Neptune. Both have atmospheres made mostly of nitrogen. In 1997, Triton occulted a star and astronomers found that its atmosphere had warmed since the last observations were made in 1989 during the Voyager mission. Back then, Voyager found dark material rising above Triton, indicating possible eruptive activity. "There could be more massive activity on Pluto, since the changes observed in Pluto's atmosphere are much more severe," Elliot said. "The change observed on Triton was subtle. Pluto's changes are not subtle." There is no firm evidence that Pluto is volcanically active, but neither is there evidence to rule out that possibility. Even the Hubble Space Telescope can barely make out Pluto's surface. Elliot added that the process affecting Pluto's temperature is complex. "We just don't know what is causing these effects," he said. Let's go there Elliot and others believe this poor understanding of our solar system's tiniest planet is grounds for sending a robot to investigate. Pluto is the only planet not visited by a spacecraft. NASA has shelved a mission that would explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt of frozen objects in which it resides. Congress, however, appears to view the mission as worthy of some funds. A House budget panel this week followed the lead of the Senate in approving $105 million for the mission. If final approval comes, NASA would be compelled to undertake the project. Interestingly, while Pluto's atmosphere has been growing warmer in recent years, astronomers have argued that a Pluto mission must launch by 2006, lest it miss the opportunity to study Pluto's atmosphere before it completely freezes out for the winter. Tentative mission plans call for a robotic probe that would not reach Pluto for several years, making a flyby sometime prior to 2020 prior to investigating other objects deeper in the solar system. Meanwhile, astronomers are looking forward to a space telescope called SOFIA, slated to begin operations in 2004. SOFIA will carry an instrument designed specifically to observe occultations and is expected to be employed when Pluto passes in front of other stars in coming years. The Pluto observations this summer were funded by NASA, the Research Corporation and the National Science Foundation. Observations were made using the telescopes at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Haleakala, Lick Observatory, Lowell Observatory and the Palomar Observatory.
Colorado State professor disputes global warming is human-caused Views âout of stepâ with others are good for science, academic says By Kate Martin The Daily Reporter-Herald Global warming is happening, but humans are not the cause, one of the nationâs top experts on hurricanes said Monday morning. Bill Gray, who has studied tropical meteorology for more than 40 years, spoke at the Larimer County Republican Club Breakfast about global warming and whether humans are to blame. About 50 people were at the talk. Gray, who is a professor at Colorado State University, said human-induced global warming is a fear perpetuated by the media and scientists who are trying to get federal grants. âI think weâre coming out of the little ice age, and warming is due to changes to ocean circulation patterns due to salinity variations,â Gray said. âIâm sure thatâs it.â Grayâs view has been challenged, however. Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said in an interview later Monday that climate scientists involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that most of the warming is due to human activity. âBill Gray is a widely respected senior scientist who has a view that is out of step with a lot of his colleaguesâ,â Pielke said. But challenging widely held views is âgood for science because it forces people to make their case and advances understanding.â âWe should always listen to the minority,â said Pielke, who spoke from his office in Boulder. âBut itâs prudent to take actions that both minimize human effect on the climate and also make ourselves much more resilient.â At the breakfast, Gray said Earth was warmer in some medieval periods than it is today. Current weather models are good at predicting weather as far as 10 days in advance, but predicting up to 100 years into the future is âa great act of faith, and I donât believe any of it,â he said. But even if humans cause global warming, thereâs not much people can do, Gray said. China and India will continue to pump out greenhouse gases, and alternative energy sources are expensive. âWhy do it if itâs not going to make a difference anyway?â he said. âWhether Iâm right or wrong, we canât do anything about it anyway.â But Pielke said it makes sense to reduce humansâ impact on the climate. âThere are uncertainties. Itâs not like you change your light bulbs today, youâre going to have better weather tomorrow,â he said. âItâs even better if those actions youâre taking make sense for other reasons, like getting off Middle Eastern oil or saving money.â
"Study Warns of Rapid Rise In Earth's Temperature By GAUTAM NAIK September 26, 2006 A study warns that the Earth's temperature is approaching a level not seen in a million years, implying that we are getting close to "dangerous" levels of human pollution. The study finds that, while the world warmed slowly during the century to 1975, it has warmed at a more rapid rate of about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade thereafter. The researchers say the global mean temperature is now within one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of the maximum mean temperature of the past million years. Based on a 0.2-degree-Celsius increase per decade, that high point could be reached within 50 years. The authors' conclusion: Further warming of one degree Celsius could suggest a critical level after which potential consequences -- such as higher sea levels and species extinction -- might be especially hard to manage. "If further global warming reaches two or three degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a very different planet from the one we know," said James Hansen, lead author and head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, in a prepared statement. "The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about three million years ago, when sea levels were estimated to have been 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today." The researchers also suggest that an increased temperature difference between the Western and Eastern Pacific could increase the likelihood of strong El Niños, such as occurred in 1983 and 1998. An El Niño is a large climactic disturbance rooted in the tropical Pacific Ocean that recurs every few years and is linked to extreme weather patterns of rainfall and drought. Dr. Hansen has taken an active and high-profile role in debating critics of global warming, including the Bush administration. In 1988, he set off alarms by testifying in Congress that a global-warming trend had likely begun. He became a cause célèbre when the White House Office of Management and Budget tried to censor his testimony. Many of his critics concede the planet has warmed but remain skeptical that it is triggered by human activity. The latest research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was led by Dr. Hansen and colleagues from the Columbia University Earth Institute, New York, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Many scientists believe that the Earth has warmed partly because greenhouse gases released by humans -- mainly carbon dioxide -- trap energy from the sun. The Proceedings paper notes that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has the goal of stabilizing greenhouse-gas emissions at a level preventing "dangerous" interference caused by human activity. Although the treaty doesn't specifically define such interference, the authors propose that it be defined in terms of the potentially harmful and irreversible effects caused by sea-level changes and species extinction." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115919709626273117.html?mod=home_whats_news_us nitro