GLOBAL WARMING

[enrique flyer]

Global warming and the political economy
of threats

By David Edwards

To a casual observer, the reality, or otherwise, of a threat to
humankind would appear
to be determined by inexact but essentially rational calculations based
on evidence,
hard facts, and best guesses all wrapped up in a framework of concern
for the
general well-being of people and planet. Not so. In fact, the perceived
seriousness of
a threat is largely determined by the extent to which it is a help or a
hindrance to goals
set by centers of political and economic power. This can be demonstrated
by
reference to two modern threats, and to the political and corporate,
including
corporate media, response to them.

In June 1996 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an
official body
of more than 2,000 scientists set up by the world's governments,
reported that "The
balance of evidence suggests a discernible influence on global climate."
Tim Radford
of The London Guardian writes that: "Man-made global warming is now
detectable,
and average temperatures could be 4C higher by 2100--with sea levels
rising half a
metre a century for hundreds of years to come."

The climate is currently heating up faster than at any time in the last
10,000 years. At
time of writing, every climate model in the world predicts rates of
global warming
between 10 and 100 times faster than anything living systems have faced
since
human beings began to walk the earth.

These models are based on indications that human activity has increased
atmospheric greenhouse gasses by 90 parts per million (PPM). Gasses
found
trapped deep in Antarctic ice indicate that increases in greenhouse
gasses of 100
PPM, 15,000 years ago, were sufficient to raise global temperatures by
three
degrees. Given that greenhouse gasses are projected to rise a further
140 PPM by
the year 2050, even in the event of an immediate 50 percent cut in
current emmission
rates, it is easy to see why climatologists are predicting trouble
ahead.

The ten hottest years in human history have all been recorded since the
beginning of
the 1980s. And yet warming currently taking place is the product of a
less
energy-intensive age. Scientists believe that global warming has an
inbuilt time lag.
Today's temperatures are the result of gasses released during the 1960s,
before the
age of the fully globalized economy.

It is impossible to predict the effects of global warming with any
accuracy but they
seem sure to be dramatic and quite possibly catastrophic, including
massive
disruption of agriculture, industry, and the food chains with unknown
consequences;
more storms of increased severity; more droughts and floods, including
the flooding of
low-lying islands and deltas. By way of only one example, it is thought
that 100 million
people now living in Southern Africa may be made environmental refugees
by global
warming as croplands face permanent drought.

Evidence of global warming is coming in thick and fast the world over.
In September
1993, Norwegian scientists reported that data collected since 1983
revealed that the
polar ice cap is melting 10 percent faster than it can be replaced.
Researchers at the
British Antarctic Survey (BAS) reported (September 1994) "the greening
of
Antarctica" as the ice recedes and summers lengthen. The BAS study
reported a
"rapid increase" in the continent's only two flowering plants at sites
600 miles apart,
with one flowering grass 25 times more common than it was 30 years ago.
BAS
scientist Dr. Lewis Smith said "This is part of the global warming
situation...a sign of
regional warming, which is part of what is happening to the climate
globally."
According to BAS, Antarctic summer temperatures now persist 50 percent
longer
than they did during the 1970s.

The European Sub-Polar Ocean Programme has found that the Ogden Feature,
a
tongue of ice which acts as a natural pump driving currents in the North
Atlantic, has
failed for the past three years in succession. This has never happened
before. Dr.
Peter Wadhams of the Scott Polar Research Institute reports that "Global
warming is
the culprit. It has reduced the area of ice in the Greenland Sea and cut
off the
process." (Independent on Sunday) The consequences are uncertain but it
is thought
that the failure of the Ogden Feature may weaken the Gulf Stream which
keeps
northern Europe much warmer than other regions at the same latitude;
violent
switches in the climate may be triggered as a result.

Paul Brown of The Guardian reports (July 6, 1996) that ice which has
held the Swiss
Alps together for 10,000 years is now melting at the rate of 30 meters
per year in
some places: "Scientists who advise politicians believe that countries
like
Switzerland are suffering irreversible damage," Brown writes, with
villages threatened
by the prospect of "tidal waves" of "melt-water descending on their
homes" bearing
"an avalanche of rocks" and "the collapse of cliffs that flank their
valleys."

Alongside what we know, scientists also regularly warn us that there is
plenty that
remains unknown. During the early 1990s, the aim of the Joint Global
Ocean Flux
Study was to evaluate how much atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed
into the
oceans and how much is released from them. Previously, only general
patterns were
known. For example, warm, tropical waters tend to release carbon
dioxide, while cold,
high-latitude waters tend to absorb and store carbon dioxide. For this
reason,
oceanographers fear that in a warming world warmer seas may strongly
amplify
warming by releasing stored carbon dioxide. The problem is that the
Ocean Flux
study found astonishing variations in the carbon dioxide content of the
North Atlantic
over even short distances.

"The variations observed," concluded the authors of a paper in Nature,
"suggests that
estimates of the oceanic storage or release of carbon dioxide calculated
from
existing data will be subject to significant error."

Similarly, summarizing their results in a paper in Science magazine
(August 23,
1991), 17 climate modelling teams from around the world found that,
depending on
the behaviour of clouds above melting snowy areas, the role of snow in
global
warming varied from strongly-positive to weakly-negative.

More recently, Martin Perry of Oxford University has said that
"Unexpected changes
cannot be ruled out. There are potential surprises out there, both in
time and in place.
This ignorance is a risk in itself. We don't know when these unexpected
impacts could
occur, or where." Nobel prize-winner Paul Crutzen suggests, ominously,
that global
climate change will bring "unpleasant surprises."

The threat of global warming, then, is real. The response to it, as yet,
however, is not.
At the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the world's governments signed a treaty
agreeing to
combat global warming. Industrialised nations promised to "aim" (the
crucial word) to
level off their emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.

The United States signed this treaty in the full knowledge that its
carbon dioxide
emissions were projected to rise by 13 percent by the year 2000, with
its
multinationals providing the lion's share of $1,000 billion investment
in the search for
oil over 10 years. George Bush once said he would use the "White House
effect to
counter the greenhouse effect: and then, when elected, adopted the "wait
and see
strategy" favored by big business, despite the fact that, as the Ocean
Flux and other
studies have shown, the environmental systems under investigation are of
such
complexity that certainty is impossible and waiting never ends.

Four years later, we know that almost no Western countries will meet the
modest
targets set at the Earth Summit. The International Energy Agency
estimates that by
the year 2000 global greenhouse gasses will be 17 percent higher than in
1990; by
2010 they will have risen by 49 percent. Similarly, the World Energy
Council reports
that combined emissions of Western countries have actually increased by
4 percent
between 1990 and 1995. Only Britain and Germany are on track: Britain,
because it
happened to change from coal to gas for political reasons (the
destruction of the coal
industry was not motivated by a desire to protect the environment);
Germany,
because it shut down the inefficient industries of the east. Genuine
action to combat
global warming has been minimal. Indicatively, the British Energy
Conservation Trust
set up to take action has received only a tenth of its planned funding.
Energy minister,
Tim Eggar, cites accidental pollution cuts as justification for opposing
other
measures. Eileen Clausen, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for
environmental
issues, admitted the obvious truth that governments were "in disarray"
over climate
change. There was "no clear policy direction," and "little thought" had
been given to
implementing and enforcing any policies adopted.

If the world has done little to date in the face of all this, what are
the prospects for
change? Will the world continue to play Russian Roulette with the
climate? An idea of
the sort of economic and political forces arrayed against change can be
gained by
considering the response of those same forces to an earlier "threat."

@HEAD 1 = In Deepest Peril

@PAR AFTERJ<@191>UB = In April 1950, the U.S. National Security Council
Directive 68 (NSC68) stated that "The Soviet Union, unlike previous
aspirants to
hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own,
and seeks to
impose absolute authority over the rest of the world." The citizens of
the United
States, the report went on, "stand in their deepest peril," being
threatened with the
"destruction not only of this Republic but of civilisation itself."
(Mark Curtis, The
Ambiguities of Power)

U.S. hysteria about Soviet plans for world conquest was matched in
Britain. For David
Watt, former Director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs,
the Anglo-American
special relationship is "conditioned on Britain's remaining the single
most effective
adjutant in the task of containing the Soviet Union and its allies."

It is significant that whereas there is now overwhelming scientific
evidence for the
reality of global warming, there was always plenty of evidence to show
that the Soviet
threat was a fantasy. In reality, few state planners believed that the
Soviets intended to
confront the West militarily. George Kennan, head of U.S. State
Department planning,
could not have been clearer when he argued in 1947 that "it is not
Russian military
power which is threatening us, it is Russian political power."

This is a theme that runs through the state documentary record. Vietnam,
for example,
is considered the defining event of the cold war: a collision between
communist
expansion in Southeast Asia and the U.S. determination to stop it. In
reality, the CIA
found that evidence of "Kremlin-directed conspiracy" could be found "in
virtually all
countries except Vietnam," which appeared to be "an anomaly." (Noam
Chomsky,
Year 501.) According to Major Patti of the U.S. Office of Strategic
Services (OSS, the
forerunner of the CIA), stationed in Hanoi in 1945, the Vietnamese at
that time were
possessed of "an extraordinary pro-American spirit that was everywhere
at the birth
of Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam." (John Pilger, Heroes) The Vietnamese, Patti
reports,
"didn't regard America as an imperial power. They thought we were
different from the
Europeans and they were desperate not to be associated with
international
communism, not with the Chinese or Russians, but with us in America."

Ho Chi Minh's repeated and impassioned appeals (as many as 12) to
President
Roosevelt and other senior U.S. officials for U.S. support for
Vietnamese
independence received no written reply<@151>only the subsequent delivery
of some
3.9 million tons of bombs on the South Vietnamese "ally" alone.

Elsewhere, in 1954, referring to the "Communist threat" in Guatemala,
U.S. Secretary
of State, John Foster Dulles, thanked "the loyal citizens of Guatemala
who, in the face
of terrorism and violence and against what seemed insuperable odds, had
the
courage and the will to eliminate the traitorous tools of foreign
despots." (Paul
Farmer, The Uses of Haiti)

In the real world: "No shred of evidence ever turned up after the
[Guatemalan] coup
establishing a secret tie to the Soviets." (Kinzer and Schlesinger,
Bitter Fruit; Edward
S. Herman, The Real Terror Network)

In similar vein, one of the most reputable analysts of British foreign
policy, Ritchie
Ovendale, noted with regards to the British intervention in Malaya, that
Britain was
"fighting the communist terrorists to enable Malaya to become
independent and help
itself...to prevent the spread of communism and resist Russian
expansion."

Malaya, in fact, was deemed the "greatest material prize in South-East
Asia," for
which independence from Western control was not an option. As to the
"communist
terrorists," according to the Colonial Office four years after the
beginning of the
emergency. "No operational links have been established as existing"
between
Malaya and Soviet or Chinese communists, with no material support being
offered.

Wherever we look during the cold war we find that the perception of the
Soviet military
threat expressed in high-level secret documents is very different from
that which was
claimed to be perceived. The Middle East, for example, was, in popular
mythology, at
permanent risk of a Soviet push to the Persian Gulf. In July 1950, the
British Chiefs of
staff noted that "the success of indirect or subversive action by the
Soviet
government...in any of the Arab states or in Israel is improbable in the
immediate
future." The threat of direct Soviet action was not even deemed worth
discussing. The
U.S. State Department noted in 1950 that communist parties were
"non-existent in
Yemen and Saudi Arabia; outlawed in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon and
apparently
unorganised in Jordan." Indeed "throughout the Arab states, at the
present time,
extreme rightist or ultra-nationalist elements may exercise greater
influence and form
a greater threat to the maintenance of a pro-Western orientation than
the
communists."

Astonishing though it may seem for someone exposed to the propaganda
blitz of the
post-war period, the same is true of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile,
Iran, British
Guinea, and any number of other places where attacks were launched
against
"international communism."

The same lack of evidence for a communist threat was reported wherever
intelligence
agencies were operative. So, if there was little or no communist, or
Soviet, threat to
the Middle East, "Black" Africa, North Africa, the Far East, South Asia,
and
South-eastern Asia, historian Mark Curtis writes, "there were not many
areas left
where communism or the Soviet Union could be supposed to be on the
march."

The U.S. government's own Bureau of the Budget refuted the alarmist
thesis put
forward in the NSC68 report cited above, noting in May 1950 that "NSC68
is based
on the assumption that the military power of the USSR and its satellites
is increasing
in relation to that of the U.S. and its allies...it is hard to accept a
conclusion that the
USSR is approaching a straight-out military superiority over us when,
for example, (1)
our Air Force is vastly superior qualitatively, is greatly superior
numerically in
bombers, trained crews and other facilities necessary for offensive
warfare; (2) our
supply of fission bombs is much greater than that of the USSR, as is our

thermonuclear potential; (3) our Navy is so much stronger than that of
the USSR that
they should not be mentioned in the same breath; (4) the economic health
and military
potential of our allies is, with our help, growing daily; and (5) while
we have treaties of
alliance with and are furnishing arms to countries bordering the USSR,
the USSR has
none with countries within thousands of miles from us."

The threat of a Soviet Union bent on military confrontation with the
West was a giant
hoax with several advantages. One benefit was that it enabled
governments to secure
vast public subsidy of high-tech industry through massive defense
spending
programs. Big business had everything to gain from responding to a
terrible threat,
just as big business now stands to lose massively from responding to the
threat of
global warming: "To a remarkable degree, containment has been the
product, not so
much of what the Russians have done, or of what has happened elsewhere
in the
world, but of internal forces operating within the United States....What
is surprising is
the primacy that has been accorded economic considerations in shaping
strategies
of containment, to the exclusion of other considerations."

Mark Curtis concludes that "Crucially, the immediate beneficiaries of
the rearmament
programme were to be the large corporations within the military-defense
sector of the
economy. With guaranteed industrial production and a guaranteed market
(the
Department of Defense) they were able to achieve high levels of output
and reap
large profits."

The apparent contradiction between the public hysteria and the private
admission that
no threat existed can also be explained, Curtis argues, by a further
advantage of a
giant "red scare": its utility for hiding the fact that "Britain's (and
the USA's)
<@145>economic interests' in the Third World in the post-war period have
been
synonymous with the systematic exploitation and impoverishment of local
populations."

Since the end of the cold war, the propaganda system has searched long
and hard for
new threats which, unlike global warming, justify vast public subsidies
to high-tech
industry. Though strenuous attempts have been made, the world appears to
have
developed terror fatigue for international drug dealers, "New Hitlers"
of the Middle
East, single mothers, immigrants, and other demons. Spirits may have
been partially
lifted by a recent report in the London Sunday Times: "The Pentagon,"
Roger Dobson
reports, "is to spend $500m developing a new defence system against
cruise
missiles. The decision, taken in the past fortnight, is to counter
warnings that will be
made this week by leading military experts who claim that high-tech
cruise missiles
costing as little as <@163>500,000 will soon become a threat to western
nations."

Terry Taylor, assistant director of the International Institute for
Strategic Studies based
in London, says "In Iraq they fitted out a pilotless plane and were
planning to put
biological weapons and a spray tank on it. Fortunately they didn't get
it working. That
is the low end of the scale and some people would not call that a cruise
missile, but I
would."

In July 1996, the British Defense Secretary, Michael Portillo, announced
that
<@163>4 billion worth of defense contracts had been placed. Billions are
to be spent
developing Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft, a new cruise missile and an
anti-tank
system. For good reasons, no mention was made of just who these weapons
are
intended to defend Britain from; the preferred justification being that
5,000 jobs will be
created.

The press went along with the farce. "A replacement for the Nimrod
patrol aircraft is
urgently needed because it is simply getting old," David Fairhill of The
Guardian (July
27, 1996) writes. It is irrelevant, then, that Nimrod was originally
developed (or so we
were told) to protect us from a massed nuclear superpower Soviet attack,
and not,
say, Iraqi pilotless planes armed with spray tanks. <N>

@HEAD 1 = When Goblins Walk The Earth

@PAR AFTERJ<@191>UB = In considering the failure of the West to respond
to the
very real threat of global warming, we need to remember that Western
governments,
academics and media joined whole-heartedly in promoting the Soviet
"threat."

By contrast, the media has responded with indifference, scepticism, and
a kind of
wilful amnesia to warnings relating to global warming.

A prime example was the media response to an October 1990 UN conference
at
which an international panel of scientists reached virtual unanimity on
the conclusion
that global warming had occurred over the past century and that the risk
of further
warming is serious, ranging from significant to near-catastrophic. Not a
single
member of the panel agreed with sceptical views expressed in the U.S.
press,
gaining such headlines as "U.S. Data Fail To Show Warming Trend" (New
York
Times) and "The Global Warming Panic: A Classic Case of Over-Reaction"
(cover of
Forbes, Science, March 8, 1990).

In contrast to the "menace of international communism," the facts of
this issue
represent a serious threat to corporate goals. Stephen Schneider, head
of
Interdisciplinary Climate Systems at the U.S. National Centre For
Atmospheric
Research, has estimated that conversion to a post-greenhouse economy
would cost
government and corporations "hundreds of billions of dollars every year
for many
decades, both at home and in financial and technical assistance to
developing
nations." Consequently, like inconvenient human rights atrocities and
costly facts
more generally, the global warming issue, and certainly the idea of a
need for
immediate and drastic action, tends not to be promoted by the corporate
media arm
of the corporate system. Instead, as Sherwood Rowland, whose laboratory
first
discovered the ozone-depleting properties of CFCs, has said: "It is
quite common on
the scientific side of industry to believe that there aren't any real
environmental
problems, that there are just public relations problems." (Tom
Athanasiou, "U.S.
Politics and Global Warming," Open Magazine Pamphlet Series.)

No surprise, then, that sardonic ridicule is the order of the day. At
the British dissident
extreme, Pat Coyne argued in the New Statesman (June 14, 1994) that
revision of the
informed consensus that global warming was a genuine threat was "in the
air" on the
basis that predictive computer models are "necessarily simplifications,"
which may
therefore "be drastically modified"; and on the basis of inconclusive
speculations
about "regular and irregular" fluctuations in the Gulf Stream and
interglacial
temperatures 180,000 years ago which may, or may not, imply impeded or
enhanced
global warming. Coyne's conclusion was that, in chilly Britain, a bit of
global warming
"seems more than enticing<@133>the sooner the better." This, recall,
representing
the dissident extreme of mainstream journalism.

Some ten days after the IPCC's report confirming "a discernible
influence on global
climate," on June 6, Taki of the Sunday Times had this to say: "The
latest apocalypse,
global warming, is just that. Lots of hot air. In the 1960s and 1970s
the doom-sayers
had been warning of an impending ice age. Their anti-capitalist agenda
back then
was that human activity was putting so much dust in the atmosphere that
it was
cooling the planet."

A couple of weeks later an editorial in the Daily Telegraph (August 4,
1996) under the
banner "Hot Air" argued that: "to many scientists the likelihood of
man-made global
warming is about as credible as stories of goblins and fairies."

Note that the Telegraph's views are in flat contradiction to the
scientific consensus.
The Department of the Environment was unlucky, the Telegraph quipped:
"its
predictions of a much warmer Britain appeared on an unseasonably cold
day, after a
bitter spring. It made the prophecy seem doubly improbable." The
it's-chilly-so-global-warming-is-a-joke quip is a wearisome perennial of
media
reporting. The poor British summer of 1993 convinced the Times that
"global warming
was revealed as an empty promise." (Roy Greenslade, The Observer) More
recently,
the Sunday Times derided those warning of the threat of climate change
for "trying to
alarm a sceptical and shivering nation."

The Telegraph reports, accurately, that "The public can all too easily
be misled by
institutions with vested interests."

True enough. Speaking at the climate convention in Geneva, Bert Bolin,
chair of the
IPCC, urged journalists not to listen to individual scientists whose
theories had not
been tested, and whose motives appeared dubious. According to Bolin,
ever since
his group of scientists concluded that man [sic] was discernibly
altering the climate a
campaign has been waged against their findings. Paul Brown of The
Guardian
reports that "Dozens of stories lending credibility to dubious science
have been fed to
newspapers in the last few weeks in the lead-up to the Second Conference
of the
Parties." One group in particular, the Global Climate Coalition,
representing Shell,
BP, Exxon, Ford, and other noted "environmentalists," is still spending
millions of
pounds to persuade governments to do nothing on grounds that "It fears
climate
change is bad for business."

The Global Climate Coalition "claims the scientists are going over the
top and says
there is as yet no proven need to do anything." The group, Brown notes,
has the
support of most of the U.S. Congress. A World Health organization panel
denounced
the group for behaving exactly like the tobacco industry 30 years
earlier when the
damaging effects were becoming clear. Elsewhere, Professor Anthony
McMichael,
co-author of the effects of global warming, warns that industrial
lobbyists "are involved
in types of distortion of evidence, delaying tactics and drowning out by
making more
noise." (The Guardian, July 7, 1996)

Among the tireless efforts made by the Global Climate Coalition has been
the
production of a document signed by 100 of the biggest U.S. companies
asking for no
action to be taken on climate change. The Coalition was also involved in
feverishly
handing out cuttings from papers including the New York Times and the
Wall Street
Journal<BI> at the door of the IPCC conference in a desperate bid to
spread their
propaganda.

Of course, there never will be any proven need to respond to global
warming, for
those defending short-term profits at any cost. The bottom line of the
Global Climate
Coalition's efforts is at one with the Telegraph: "it might be an idea
if the weather was
one of the few subjects in which politicians did not interfere."

Writing in The Guardian (July 6, 1996), novelist John Mortimer joined in
the general
media assault on the notion that global warming is to be taken
seriously. Echoing the
New Statesman, the Telegraph, the Times, the Sunday Times, and everyone
else,
Mortimer, it seems, "can't wait for global warming to bring England a
Mediterranean
climate," if only he "had enough faith in weather forecasters to believe
it will happen."
This is the cue for much ribald humour about the British climate,
British work habits,
lazy Mediterranean's and so on.

Unfortunately, it matters little that Mortimer's comments are flatly
false and absurd, the
fact is that articles of this kind however benign and humorous their
intention serve the corporations well by making the threat of global
warming
seem a joke, the preserve of paranoid depressives.

To his credit, Roy Greenslade of The Observer (July 21, 1996) did manage
to
comment on the failure of the press to cover the global warming story.
Referring to
British Environment Secretary John Gummer's declaration at the United
Nations
conference in Geneva that "Global climate change needs global action
now. The
alarm bells ought to be ringing in every capital of the world,"
Greenslade writes "I
thought... this is sure to be big news in the morning. I imagined the
front-page stories,
the feature articles and the leaders." It was not to be; although
Greenslade urges that
we award credit where credit's due: namely, "The Daily Telegraph alone
placed the
story on page one."

Elsewhere, the story was met with indifference and hostility: "Every
right-wing paper
has attempted to debunk global warming," Greenslade reports. As for the
reason for
the media's failure to cover either the IPCC report or Gummer's speech:
"There were
probably two opposing reasons...Those papers which greeted the
conference by
accepting its central thesis assumed they had done enough. Papers which
cannot
stomach the scientific evidence for global warming ignored it. This
latter attitude
leaves readers seriously uninformed about a serious issue."

Why some papers cannot "stomach the scientific evidence for global
warming" is left
to the readers' imagination. Such an analysis at the very extreme of
mainstream media coverage should be sufficient to reduce any sane person

to tears. Before the world drowns in melt water, it seems sure that we
will already
have long since drowned in banality and half-truths.

David Edwards is the author of <W0>Burning All Illusions (South
End Press).

[Wyatt]

enrique flyer <ezef...@mindspring.com> wrote:

>Global warming and the political economy
> of threats

> By David Edwards

I have deleted the previous post to save bandwitdh. If you cannot
find the first post in this thread, go to Deja News and search on the
message header: 35A660BE...@mindspring.com
__________________________________________________

As far as global climate change is concerned, I agree with the IPCC's
peer-reviewed report from 1996 which includes the following
statements:

"None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can
attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of
increases in greenhouse gases."

"No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the
climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic [man-made] causes."

"Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are
likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total
natural variability of the climate system are reduced."

-ooo-0^0-ooo-

Wyatt Wright
----------------------
The heights by great men reached and kept,
were not attained by sudden flight.
No.they, while their companions slept,
were toiling upward through the night.
--------------------------------------------------------

[John Alway]

Wyatt wrote:

Nicely put, Wyatt. I'd also like to refer lurkers to the petition
project which has over 18,000 scientists who dispute claims of global
warming. The fact that there is no list of equivalent size from those
who claim to believe there is a threat of global warming should raise a
few eyebrows. In a rational society this petition project would be
_big_ news. In this factless society the truth is evaded.

Here is the web site for the project:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm

...John

[enrique flyer]

Wyatt wrote:

> enrique flyer <ezef...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> >Global warming and the political economy
> > of threats
>
> > By David Edwards
>

> I have deleted the previous post to save bandwitdh. If you cannot
> find the first post in this thread, go to Deja News and search on the
> message header: 35A660BE...@mindspring.com
> __________________________________________________
>

> As far as global climate change is concerned, I agree with the IPCC's
> peer-reviewed report from 1996 which includes the following
> statements:
>
> "None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can
> attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of
> increases in greenhouse gases."
>
> "No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the
> climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic [man-made] causes."
>
> "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are
> likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total
> natural variability of the climate system are reduced."
>

You must have visited the Inter Personal Christian Council's web site
by mistake. One hundred and seventy one nations ratified the Kyoto
agreement. Here is the latest report of the IPCC as it appears on the
website:

United Nations Climate
Change Bulletin

Issue 15, 4th Quarter 1997

Table of contents

A Call for Leadership
A View from the Host Government
A Kyoto COP Primer
A View from the NGOs
Outlook for the IPCC
Ratification List

We need decisive action in Kyoto
to limit greenhouse emissions

Kofi Annan, Secretrary-General of the United Nations

There are times when only an act of courage and leadership
can spur progress in world affairs. The Kyoto climate
change conference will be such a moment. When speaking
of UN reform, I have often remarked that reform is not an
event, but a process. This is equally true of the international
response to climate change. Like the Rio Earth Summit in
1992, Kyoto will build on what came before and set the
stage for what comes next. But the stage can only be set for
serious global action under the Climate Change Convention
if the developed countries show leadership and start cutting
their greenhouse gas emission now.

A clear message

Industrialized countries must send the message that they are
adopting legally binding targets and timetables for emissions
cuts that are both meaningful and credible. If the Kyoto
agreement also involves emissions trading, joint
implementation, or other arrangements for increasing the
flexibility of how cuts are made, then these mechanisms
must not be perceived as a way for the rich to avoid cutting
their domestic emissions by simply paying for reduction
elsewhere.

The message will have two audiences. The first is the
people, companies, and communities of the developed
countries themselves. Spurring action to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions is mostly about changing people's attitudes and
expectations and only secondly about writing new rules and
regulations. If investors and consumers are convinced by
what they hear from Kyoto, then half the battle will be won.
Markets will start responding to a growing demand for
low-emissions products and services. This will encourage a
gradual but steady shift in long-term emissions trends,
particularly in the energy and transport sectors.
The second audience for the Kyoto message is the
governments and peoples of the developing countries. These
countries are acutely sensitive to the Convention's clear
acknowledgement that developed countries must take the
lead in tackling climate change. Not only are developed
countries responsible for the bulk of past and present
emissions but they will continue for many years to have the
highest per-capita emissions. They also have the greatest
financial and technological capacity for making emission
cuts.
Consequently, developing countries need to receive a
convincing signal that developed countries are indeed leading
the way by limiting their own emissions and providing
financial and technological support to help other do the
same. Only then can developed countries reasonably start
calling for limits on emissions growth in the poorer countries.
It is in the interests of all countries - developed and
developing - that we move step by step towards
comprehensive global action to reduce atmospheric
concentrations of greenhouse gases.

After Kyoto

In the short term, developed country governments will
naturally start cutting emissions by exploiting "no regrets"
options that also lead to economic improvements (for
example the removal of distorting subsidies) or help to solve
other immediate environmental problems (such as air
pollution).

But the problem of climate change is too important to be left
to governments alone. Civil society must play a crucial role.
Local communities and businesses will find the most
innovative, even unexpected solution, and more quickly than
many now imagine possible. Educators, the media, and
non-governmental organizations are already driving the
sea-change in attitudes and in personal actions that will be so
vital to effecting real change.

In the medium term, the response to climate change will
need to become ever more integrated into response to other
problems and opportunities. The community of nations will
face new and complex challenges in the coming decades
that will increasingly intersect with climate change. This
means that success in Kyoto will also help set the stage for
further action on:

*Sustainable development. Sustainable energy systems,
for example, will respect the atmosphere's limited capacity
for absorbing carbon dioxide while minimizing the
exploitation of nonrenewable fossil fuels. If countries
incorporate climate change concerns into their development
priorities, then the new transport and industrial systems of
the 21st century will have a much lighter overall impact on
the planet

*Population growth. The billions of people that will be born
in the next century will place enormous pressure on land and
other resources. Limiting population growth would reduce
this pressure while moderating emissions trends. It would
also ease the crowding along glow-lying coastlines and other
regions that are particularly vulnerable to climate change
impacts.

*Sustainable consumption. The per-capita impact of the
rich countries on our already stressed natural systems is
becoming increasingly hard to justify. A less
material-intensive way of life would minimize the production
of greenhouse gas emissions, solid wastes, and toxic
chemicals as well as the depletion of forest and other natural
resources.

* Biological diversity. Species and ecosystems are being
destroyed at a rapid pace, and future climate change will
accelerate these losses. Fortunately, reforestation and other
strategies to protect biodiversity can also help to reduce net
greenhouse gas emissions (by absorbing carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere).

* Dryland degradation. Climate change is expected to
cause greater dryness in some regions, while the process of
desertification contributes to net greenhouse gas emissions.
Improved land management can contribute to the solutions
of both problems.

First steps

Much, then, is at stake in Kyoto. If we are to succeed, we
must take immediate action on climate change despite the
lack of full scientific understanding. This "precautionary
approach" has served us well in our narrow escape from
destroying the earth's stratospheric ozone layer. Today, once
again, scientists have confirmed that we face a major risk;
our best insurance policy against this risk will be an early
start on emissions reductions.

We all know that in our personal lives no less than in affairs
of state it can be difficult to heed long-term and unclear
risks, no matter how potentially serious. This is what makes
leadership so essential today. We will not solve the climate
change problem in Kyoto but, by moving from general
pledges to legally binding national targets for reducing
emissions, we will have made a solution possible.

Action in Kyoto: we owe it to our children

Hiroshi Ohki, Minister of State and
Director General of the Environmental Agency, Japan

Global warming poses one of the most serious threats to
humankind. Nearly all of the world's most respected
scientists have called on governments around the world to
take serious preventative actions. Though we do not
know exactly how climate change will manifest itself, we
know that climate change is occurring and that it is
likely to bring catastrophic results. Our civilization must learn
to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases or a
climate crisis will force radical and perhaps impossible
choices upon us within 50 or 100 years - or, rather, upon
our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This is a legacy
we should avoid.

Now our governments are preparing to meet and negotiate
an agreement in Kyoto. According to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the
final objective of the treaty is the "stabilization of
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level
that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
interference with the climate system". Very few countries
actually disagree with these goals.

It does not mean, however, that making an agreement in
Kyoto and implementing consequent actions will be an
easy task. Quite the contrary. Developed countries are not
expressing enthusiasm for an agreement that could impede
their economic growth. Finding common ground is extremely
difficult under these circumstances.

Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto of Japan spoke at the
United Nations General Assembly Special Session
(UNGASS) last June, saying that "at a minimum,
atmospheric concentrations of CO2 must be lowered by
the year 2100 to levels roughly double those prior to the
industrial revolution." To do this, per capita CO2 emissions
must be kept to less than one ton. Current statistics show
that per capita emissions are at the level of approximately
tons in developed countries. Economic growth with reduction
of emissions is a difficult task requiring concrete
actions by nations.

We will require a series of new social and technological
breakthroughs. Japan has been implementing programmes
that raise citizen awareness of global warming and help
families find ways to save energy in daily life. At the
corporate level, I have confidence that safer and more
efficient ways of producing and using energy will be
developed. To encourage changes at the individual and
corporate levels, governments will have to consider a whole
array of policies and new financial incentives.
Environmentally friendly energy options have to be
available for developing countries, otherwise the CO2
savings of developed countries will be exhausted by the
expanding energy consumption of developing economics. It
is for this reason that Japan advocated a new Green
Initiative at the June Special Session of the United Nations.
Under this programme, Green Technology and
Green Aid will be extended to the countries that need them
most.

Before we can go further, we must reach a meaningful,
realistic and equitable agreement at the Kyoto Conference.
The agenda is clear. We must agree on quantified reduction
targets. In addition we must consider policy measures that
can be employed to achieve these reduction targets. We
must address the future participation of developing
countries in our common effort to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.

I welcome participants from around the world to Kyoto, the
center of Japanese history and culture. Moved by the
seriousness of the problem before us, we can make the
Kyoto Conference the site of our first historic step in
reducing greenhouse gases and stopping global warming.

On behalf of my country I pledge to give all my energy to
this effort so that we may reach our goals. Let us shape an
agreement that bequeaths a beautiful and bountiful planet to
our children and all generations to follow. Kyoto 1997:

A brief guide
to COP-3

The Kyoto climate change conference has already become
the focus of a great deal of public attention and debate.
Thousands of government delegates, observers, and
journalists are expected to attend. Here is a quick rundown
on what is expected.

When is the meeting being held? The conference, known
officially as the Third Session of the Conference of the
Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, will open on Monday, 1 December, and
close on Wednesday, 10 December. During the final three
days (8 - 10 December) the meeting will turn into the
High-Level Segment of Ministers and Other Heads of
Delegations.

Where will it take place? The meeting is being hosted by the
Government of Japan at the Kyoto International Conference
Center (KICH). Information on Kyoto can be found via the
web site of the Convention secretariat
(http;//www.unfcccc.de).

Who will be there? The Convention specifies that a country
becomes a

Party to the Convention three months after ratifying it. This
means that the 168 Parties (167 national governments plus
the European Union) that ratified by 2 September 1997 are
eligible to participate fully from the opening day. Since
another government that ratified on 3 September will be a
full participant from the second day, there will be up to 169
Parties when decisions are formally adopted at the end of
the meeting (see list on page x).

Other governments can attend the meeting as observers.
Many hundreds of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs),
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and media
organizations will also attend, adding up to at least several
thousand participants. Some of these organizations will
sponsor special events during the meeting.

What is on the agenda? When the Ad hoc Group on the
Berlin Mandate concludes its eighth and final session in
Bonn on 31 October, it will forward a draft text containing
new developed country commitments to the COP. The other
subsidiary bodies will also forward to the COP a number of
draft decisions agreed in August and October. (None of the
subsidiary bodies will meet in Kyoto; there will only be
meetings of the COP and any working committees or groups
that it may create.)

The main decisions and activities will include:

· A "protocol or another legal instrument" containing legally
binding targets and timetables for emissions reductions by
the developed (Annex I) countries. For example, as of
mid-October the European Union has proposed making a
15% cut in the main greenhouse gases by the year 2010,
Japan has suggested cuts of 5% (or less) by 2008-2112, and
the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) has proposed
20% reductions by 2005. (The base year for these proposals
is 1990). The agreement could be based on either a single
target for all developed countries or on "differentiated"
targets whereby countries have individual goals reflecting
their economic profile. It might include arrangements for
emissions trading or joint implementation to increase the
flexibility and lower the costs of cutting emissions. Other
possible elements could be the use of common policies and
measures; "budget" periods of several years rather than
specific dates; "banking" of over-achievement in a given
period for future use; and "borrowing" (with a penalty
charge) from the next budget period to cover
underachievement during the current one.

· The Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological
Advice (SBSTA) has been seeking ways to promote the
diffusion of climate-friendly technologies, in particular from
industrialized countries to developing countries and to states
with economies in transition. In addition to the formal
decisions to be considered by the COP in support of this aim,
there may also be an informal roundtable on technology
cooperation.

· The matter of whether to designate the Global Environment
Facility (GEF) as the permanent "operator" of the financial
"mechanism" may or may not be on the Kyoto agenda. As
of mid-October, many developing countries were arguing
that this decision should be postponed to COP-4 to permit
more monitoring and evaluation of the GEF’s performance
as the interim operator. The Subsidiary Body on
Implementation (SBI) will determine how to handle this issue
when it meets in Bonn in late October.

· Another issue that may be dealt with by the COP is the
review of national communications by developing countries.
While some developed countries believe that the type of
in-depth country reviews that they themselves submitted to
should be repeated for developing countries, many of the
latter are opposed, preferring to rely only on an aggregated
review and synthesis. Again, the October SBI meeting will
determine whether or not this issue will be on the COP-3
agenda.

· The budgets and work plans for the secretariat and the
various subsidiary bodies will be discussed and proposed for
adoption by the COP.

· The COP has not yet adopted its Rules of Procedure.
Currently, all the rules but one (on the voting majority
required for adopting a protocol) are being "applied". Seeking
agreement on the rules will be an important item on the
agenda, but note that COP decisions are in any case
generally made by consensus (as are decisions by other
treaty bodies dealing with environment and sustainable
development).

What is the Kyoto meeting expected to achieve? While all
the decisions listed above are important, the Kyoto
agreement on new emissions-reduction commitments for
developed countries will clearly dominate the conference.
The agreed package must be strong enough to convince
enough people that meaningful emissions reductions will now
start. To go into legal effect this agreement will have to be
ratified by a specified number (perhaps 50) of parliaments
and other designated national authorities.

The IPCC is preparing
for Third
Assessment Report

-- Robert T. Watson, Chairman, and N. Sundararaman,
Secretary, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC)

Whatever the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change agree to in Kyoto, the need for continuing
assessments of climate change science, impacts,
socio-economics and available response options will not go
away. The process that has been put into place by the
Convention's entry into force will take several decades to
complete. It is in this context that the planned Third
Assessment Report (TAR) of the IPCC should be viewed.

At its Thirteenth Session in the Maldives in September, the
IPCC set in motion the work programme that will culminate
in the completion of the Third Assessment in 2000-2001.
The Report will be comprehensive while emphasizing new
findings since the completion of the Second Assessment in
1995. It will also expand its scope to cover not just the global
scale but the regional scale as well.

The IPCC will continue its efforts to enhance the
participation of experts from developing countries and
countries with economies in transition, as well as experts
from industry, business, financial, environmental and other
organizations. It will also make a special effort to cover
expert literature that appears in other languages besides
English.

The Third Assessment Report will consist of:

the reports of the three Working Groups along with
their respective Summaries for Policymakers and
Technical Summaries; and
a Synthesis Report containing a Summary for
Policymakers and some underlying technical analysis.

The Synthesis Report will be based on the three Working
Groups' assessments and will attempt to bring together the
scientific, technical, and socio-economic information relevant
to the policy needs of governments and the Convention,
including Article 2 on the Convention's ultimate objective.

Consultations are currently underway to identify
policy-relevant issues of interest to the Parties to the
Convention, particularly to their Subsidiary Body for
Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). This
consultative process is flexible enough to incorporate
feedback even at a late stage.

Between now and mid-1998, a "scoping" meeting will be
convened to draft the detailed table of contents of the
chapters in the Third Assessment. This draft will be
circulated to governments and organizations for review, and
a revised draft will be submitted to the Working Groups and
to IPCC plenary sessions for agreement. The President, the
Executive Secretary, and the other Officers of the Climate
Change Convention will be consulted during this period.
There may be further opportunities for obtaining inputs from
policymakers and other users of IPCC reports when the
time comes to write the Synthesis Report.

Technical Papers, Special Reports

Meanwhile, in preparation for Kyoto itself, over the past
year the IPCC has produced four Technical Papers (one at
the request of the Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate and
three at the request of the SBSTA). It has also published a
Special Report on the Regional Impacts of Climate Change
(at the request of the SBSTA).

The four Papers are: (1) Technologies, Policies and
Measures to Mitigate Climate Change; (2) An Introduction
to Simple Climate Models used in the IPCC Second
Assessment Report; (3) Stabilization of Atmospheric
Greenhouse Gases: Physical, Biological and Socio-Economic
Implications; and (4) Implications of Proposed CO2
Emissions Limitations.

These papers are available in English, French and Spanish
from the IPCC Secretariat. The Summary for Policymakers
of the Special Report will be available in the six official UN
languages at Kyoto and the Special Report itself will be
published in English commercially by then. These products
are also available on the IPCC's new web site at
http://www.ipcc.ch (for the moment only English language
versions are available electronically).

The IPCC will continue its work programme by completing
three more Special Reports. Aviation and the Global
Atmosphere, and The Methodological and Technological
Aspects of Technology Transfer were requested by the
SBSTA and will be available in early 1999. Emissions
Scenarios will be published in mid- or late-1999.

At its Maldives meeting the IPCC also agreed to a new
Bureau to guide the process of producing the Third
Assessment and other papers and reports. The membership
of the Bureau is given below.

With its new Bureau and work programme in place, the
IPCC is now well-prepared to support the Parties to the
Convention through the turn of the century. The Third
Assessment Report in particular promises to be a unique
document that will draw on all stakeholders in order to
provide decisionmakers with a comprehensive assessment of
the expert literature that is relevant for policymaking.

The IPCC Secretariat can be contacted at IPCC, WMO
Bldg, CP 2300, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland, fax
(+41-22) 733-1270, ipcc_sec...@wmo.ch,
www.ipcc.ch.

Chairman: Robert T. Watson

IPCC Vice-Chairs: Katsuo Seiki (Japan), Richard Odingo
(Kenya), Rajendra Pachauri (India), Gylvan Meira Filho
(Brazil), and Yuri Izrael (Russian Fed)

Working Group I: Co-Chairs Ding Yihui (China) and Sir
John Houghton (UK)
Vice-Chairs Buruhani Nyenzi (Tanzania), Hassan
Nasrallah (Kuwait), Armando Ramirez (Venezuela), John
Stone (Canada), John Zillman (Australia), Fortunat Joos
(Switzerland).

Working Group II: Co-chairs Osvaldo Canziani
(Argentina) and James McCarthy (USA)
Vice-Chairs Alioune Ndiaye (Senegal), Abdullahi Majeed
(Maldives), Skander Ben Abdallah (Tunisia), Jan Pretel
(Czech Republic), Martin Manning (New Zealand), Michel
Petit (France).

Working Group III: Co-Chairs Bert Metz
(Netherlands) and Oguntade Davidson (Sierra-Leone)
Vice-Chairs Eberhard Jochem (Germany), Mohan
Munasinghe (Sri-Lanka), Eduardo Calvo (Peru), Ramón P.
Madruga (Cuba), R.T.M. Sutamihardja (Indonesia), Lorents
Lorentsen (Norway).

Toward COP-3:
The view of an
environmental NGO

-- Mie Asaoka, Executive Director,
Kiko Forum (Kyoto, Japan)

We must make the Kyoto conference an historical turning
point that moves us in the direction of a CO2-free economy.
To achieve this aim, an effective protocol with short-term,
legally-binding obligations by industrialized countries is
absolutely essential. Reductions of at least 20% from 1990
emissions levels by the year 2005 would be a modest first
step, although we would actually need far more ambitious
targets if we fully heeded the scientific findings and the
precautionary principle.

Proposals that oblige the Parties to the Climate Change
Convention to make only small reductions, thereby letting
them virtually postpone by a decade their earlier promise to
seek emissions stabilization at 1990 levels by the year 2000,
are not acceptable. Instead, COP-3 should be seen as a
great opportunity, especially for those living in the North, to
start re-evaluating our conventional, over-consuming
economies and moving to an environmentally sustainable and
socially equitable way of life. This will prove a highly
challenging, but truly rewarding and long-waited, endeavor.

If Kyoto fails, we will have drastically reduced our future
options for arresting climate change. Indeed, we have
already lost precious time since the Toronto target of 20%
reductions from 1988 levels by 2005 was first proposed in
1988. We have no more time to lose.

The political will to cut

Despite their commitments under the Convention, many of
the industrialized (Annex I) Parties have failed to implement
effective policies and measures to mitigate climate change.
They have not taken advantage of carbon taxes and other
economic instruments, nor have they introduced enough
subsidies favoring renewables rather than fossil fuels.
(Nuclear power should not be considered an alternative
because of its unacceptable risks.) Even many no-regrets
measures remain unexploited. As a result, most developed
countries are unlikely to return their national emissions to

1990 levels by the year 2000.

As the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change states: "Using technologies that
presently yield the highest output of energy services for a
given input of energy, efficiency gains of 50-60% would be
technically feasible in many countries" over the next two to
three decades. There is clearly much room left for
technological innovation, as revealed for example by the
recent development of highly efficient vehicle engines and
power generation systems.

Recognizing this, some industries have already adopted
voluntary plans and objectives for the battle against climate
change, achieving remarkable energy efficiencies and
introducing new climate-friendly products and services. But
much more needs to be done, in industry as well as in the
transport and residential sectors, where many reduction
opportunities are just waiting to be explored.

Effective government policies and measures to help these
changes start to happen quickly are essential - but these will
only appear if there is greater political will for moving
towards a low-emissions, and eventually a zero-emissions,
economy. A strong Kyoto protocol will give the Northern
countries the push they need to launch new economic
incentives, regulatory measures, and other effective
domestic policies.

Citizens support cuts!

Public support for confronting global warming is strong. In
Japan, for example, a public opinion poll conducted by a
national newspaper in June 1997 showed that 86% of those
surveyed were concerned about global warming and 84%
thought that reducing carbon dioxide emissions was
necessary, even if it would result in some negative impact on
the economy.

Another survey taken in August 1997 showed that 84% of
the respondents thought it possible for them to reduce CO2
emissions from their homes by 10 - 30%. A government
survey in June 1997 further showed that more than 70% of
the respondents accepted the idea of going back to the living
standards that existed before 1985 in order to prevent the
further advance of climate change. An opinion poll taken by
the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in the US showed
72% of those surveyed thought a protocol for substantial
greenhouse gas reductions should be agreed in Kyoto.

The support of the general public is also evident in efforts by
citizens to organize workshops and other educational
opportunities, to explore various measures for reducing
emissions at home, and to re-evaluate their conventional
lifestyles. What people must insist on now is a transparent
governmental decision-making process that offers easy
access to information that supports emissions reductions.
Toward COP-3 and beyond, citizens must become an
integral part of the national process - from policy formation
to implementation and review. Only by institutionalizing the
process of public participation can we ensure that the Kyoto
agreement really will lead to lower greenhouse gas
emissions.

As the conference host, Japan must respond to these
positive public attitudes by actively promoting a consensus
on a strong protocol with specific reduction obligations. In
this way, Japan can meet its responsibilities on this historic
occasion and enjoy an "honorable status in the international
community" (to quote from the Preamble to our
Constitution).

Kiko Forum is a network of some 200 Japanese
non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Ratification Update (171 countries on 15/10/97)

Albania*(3/10/94)
Algeria (9/6/93)
Antigua and Barbuda (2/2/93)
Argentina (11/3/94)
Armenia (14/5/93)
Australia (30/12/92)
Austria (28/2/94)
Azerbaijan (16/5/95)
Bahamas (29/3/94)
Bahrain (28/12/94)
Bangladesh (15/4/94)
Barbados (23/3/94)
Belgium (16/1/96)
Belize (31/10/94)
Benin (30/6/94)
Bhutan (25/8/95)
Bolivia (3/10/94)
Botswana (27/1/94)
Brazil (28/2/94)
Bulgaria (12/5/95)
Burkina Faso (2/9/93)
Burundi (6/1/97)
Cambodia* (18/12/95)
Cameroon (19/10/94)
Canada (4/12/92)
Cape Verde (29/3/95)
Central African Republic (10/3/95)
Chad (7/6/94)
Chile (22/12/94)
China (5/1/93)
Colombia (22/3/95)
Comoros (31/10/94)
Congo (14/10/96)
Cook Islands (20/4/93)
Costa Rica (26/8/94)
Côte d'Ivoire (29/11/94)
Croatia 8/3/96)
Cuba (5/1/94)
Cyprus (15/10/97)
Czech Republic (7/10/93)
D.P.R. of Korea (5/12/94)
Denmark (21/12/93)
Djibouti (27/8/95)
Dominica* (21/6/93)
Ecuador (23/2/93)
Egypt (5/12/94)
El Salvador (4/12/95)
Eritrea* (24/4/95)
Estonia (27/7/94)
Ethiopia (5/4/94)
E.U. (formerly E.E.C) (21/12/93)
Fiji (25/2/93)
Finland (3/5/94)
France (25/3/94)
Gambia (10/6/94)
Georgia* (29/7/94)
Germany (9/12/93)
Ghana (6/9/95)
Greece (4/8/94)
Grenada (11/8/94)
Guatemala (15/12/95)
Guinea (7/5/93)
Guinea-Bissau (27/10/95)
Guyana (29/8/94)
Haiti (25/9/96)
Honduras (19/10/95)
Hungary (24/2/94)
Iceland (16/6/93)
India (1/11/93)
Indonesia (23/8/94)
Iran (18/7/96)
Ireland (20/4/94)
Israel (4/6/96)
Italy (15/4/94)
Jamaica (6/1/95)
Japan (28/5/93)
Jordan (12/11/93)
Kazakstan (17/5/95
Kenya (30/8/94)
Kiribati (7/2/95)
Kuwait* (28/12/94)
Lao People's D.R.* (4/1/95)
Latvia (23/3/95)
Lebanon (15/12/94)
Lesotho (7/2/95)
Liechtenstein (22/6/94)
Lithuania (24/3/95)
Luxembourg (9/5/94)
Malawi (21/4/94)
Malaysia (13/7/94)
Maldives (9/11/92)
Mali (28/12/94)
Malta (17/3/94)
Marshall Islands (8/10/92)
Mauritania (20/1/94)
Mauritius (4/9/92)
Mexico (11/3/93)
Micronesia (18/11/93)
Monaco (24/11/92)
Mongolia (30/9/93)
Morocco (28/12/95)
Mozambique (25/8/95)
Myanmar (25/11/94)
Nauru (11/11/93)
Namibia (16/5/95)
Nepal (2/5/94)
Netherlands (20/12/93)
New Zealand (16/9/93)
Nicaragua (31/10/95)
Niger (25/7/95)
Nigeria (29/8/94)
Niue* 28/2/96)
Norway (9/7/93)
Oman (8/2/95)
Pakistan (1/6/94)
Panama (23/5/95)
Papua New Guinea (16/3/93)
Paraguay (24/2/94)
Peru (7/6/93)
Philippines (2/8/94)
Poland (28/7/94)
Portugal (21/12/93)
Qatar (18/4/96)*
Republic of Korea (14/12/93)
Republic of Moldova (9/6/95)
Romania (8/6/94)
Russian Federation (28/12/94)
Saint Kitts and Nevis (7/1/93)
Saint Lucia (14/6/93)
St.Vincents & the Grenadines (2/12/96)
Samoa (29/11/94)
San Marino (28/10/94)
Saudi Arabia* (28/12/94)
Senegal (17/10/94)
Seychelles (22/9/92)
Sierra Leone (22/6/95)
Singapore (29/5/97)
Slovakia (25/8/94)
Slovenia (1/12/95)
Solomon Islands (28/12/94)
South Africa (29/8/97)
Spain (21/12/93)
Sri Lanka (23/11/93)
Sudan (19/11/93)
Suriname (14/10/97)
Swaziland (7/10/96)
Sweden (23/6/93)
Switzerland (10/12/93)
Syrian Arab Republic* (4/1/96)
Tanzania (17/4/96)
Thailand (28/12/94)
Togo (8/3/95)
Trinidad and Tobago (24/6/94)
Tunisia (15/7/93)
Turkmenistan (5/6/95)
Tuvalu (26/10/93)
Uganda (8/9/93)
Ukraine (13/5/97)
United Arab Emirates* (29/12/95)
United Kingdom (8/12/93)
United States (15/10/92)
Uruguay (18/8/94)
Uzbekistan* (20/6/93)
Vanuatu (25/3/93)
Venezuela (28/12/94)
Viet Nam (16/11/94)
Yemen (21/2/96)
Yugoslavia (3/9/97)
Zambia (28/5/93)
Zaire (9/1/95)
Zimbabwe (3/11/92)

* Accession

>
>

[enrique flyer]

msi...@tefbbs.com wrote:

> We are men. We will innovate, adapt, and overcome.
>
> Simon

But you never answered the question: If you're wrong about global warming, who'll end up paying for the mess the
polluters leave us in? Would you accede to a requirement that they be insured against the harm global warming would
cause? Can you give us a straight answer to this simple question?

[msi...@tefbbs.com]

We are men. We will innovate, adapt, and overcome.

Simon

Opinions expressed herein are solely my own and may or may not reflect my opinion at this particular time or any other.

[msi...@tefbbs.com]

Ricky,

This is just another excuse for government theft. And
coercion. If the threat is real you ought to convince enough peolple
so that individual action will solve the problem.

Lets assume it is a natural phenomena. Shouldn't we get
prepared? Suppose its a manmade phenomena and we can't stop it in
time. Shouldn't we get prepared?

Suppose the warming triggers an ice age as some theorize?
Shouldn't we prepare for that too?

[msi...@tefbbs.com]

I think we make the third world countries pay. Polution is increasing
faster there than any where else.

As long as this is about stealing we should steal from the poor. They
are unable to fight back. Besides they are used to living in poor
circumstances it would be less of a burden on them.

Simon
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
enrique flyer <ezef...@mindspring.com> wrote:

>
>
>msi...@tefbbs.com wrote:
>
>> We are men. We will innovate, adapt, and overcome.
>>
>> Simon
>

> But you never answered the question: If you're wrong about global warming, who'll end up paying for the mess the
>polluters leave us in? Would you accede to a requirement that they be insured against the harm global warming would
>cause? Can you give us a straight answer to this simple question?
>

Opinions expressed herein are solely my own and may or may not reflect my opinion at this particular time or any other.

[Jim Glass]

In article <tjtp1.219$d2.1...@client.news.psi.net>, wyatt...@hotmail.com says...

>
>enrique flyer <ezef...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>Global warming and the political economy
>> of threats
>
>> By David Edwards
>
>

>I have deleted the previous post to save bandwitdh. If you cannot
>find the first post in this thread, go to Deja News and search on the
>message header: 35A660BE...@mindspring.com
>__________________________________________________
>
>As far as global climate change is concerned, I agree with the IPCC's
>peer-reviewed report from 1996 which includes the following
>statements:
>
>"None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can
>attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of
>increases in greenhouse gases."
>
>"No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the
>climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic [man-made] causes."
>
>"Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are
>likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total
>natural variability of the climate system are reduced."
>

Yeah. I got enrique in my kill file. I figure that if after all this time
he has not figured out how to post without having the format
screwed up, he is not the most, um, reliable source on any
subject whatever. Especially technology and its impact.

It takes a Luddite to spend months mis-posting text.

Jim Glass

[Gary Long]

Nope. That's an outright lie.

The Intergovernmental panel you referred to said, in essence, that a) We
don't know if the world's climate is changing, and b) We don't know if
man is having any effect on it. This was contained in a huge document
which few reporters took the time to read.

Instead, they read the short summary, in which the substance of the
study was misrepresented by global warming advocates at the U.N. But it
was short, so reporters read it and based their stories on the
falsehood.

You want the lowdown on the global warming scam? It's here:

http://members.xoom.com/proffate/essay.htm

[Surfin' Al]

Gary Long <glo...@flash.net> writes: > Nope. That's an outright lie.

What about the ozone hole over Antarctica? Is that a "scam" too? You're
showing the intelligence that no doubt led you to vote for Clinton not
once but twice. Wake up.

[Gene Callahan]

Elliott Finesse wrote:

> x-no-archive: yes
>
> John Alway wrote in message <35A672F8...@icsi.net>...

> >Wyatt wrote:
> >
> > Nicely put, Wyatt. I'd also like to refer lurkers to the petition
> >project which has over 18,000 scientists who dispute claims of global
> >warming. The fact that there is no list of equivalent size from those
> >who claim to believe there is a threat of global warming should raise a
> >few eyebrows. In a rational society this petition project would be
> >_big_ news. In this factless society the truth is evaded.
>

> As a molecular biologist, I perused the site with interest. As a cynic I of
> course also would like to know for sure what the warming is.
>
> So you know who is funding the petition?

This is surely an irrelevant question when it comes to scientific truth. Hmmm,
perhaps Einstein's Theory of Relativity somehow favored the Swiss patent office?
Have you investigated this? Heisenberg stayed in Germany working for the Nazis.
So his uncertainty principle is probably a facist front.

>
>
> >
> >
> > Here is the web site for the project:
> >http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm
> >
> > ...John
> >
> >

> >> As far as global climate change is concerned, I agree with the IPCC's
> >> peer-reviewed report from 1996 which includes the following
> >> statements:
> >>
> >> "None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can
> >> attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of
> >> increases in greenhouse gases."
> >>
> >> "No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the
> >> climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic [man-made] causes."
> >>
> >> "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are
> >> likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total
> >> natural variability of the climate system are reduced."
> >>
> >>

> >> -ooo-0^0-ooo-
> >>
> >> Wyatt Wright
> >> ----------------------
> >> The heights by great men reached and kept,
> >> were not attained by sudden flight.
> >> No.they, while their companions slept,
> >> were toiling upward through the night.
> >> --------------------------------------------------------

--
Gene Callahan
Senior Technologist
Barefoot Software
5 River Rd., Suite 338
Wilton, CT 06897
(203) 544-6011
http://www.stgtech.com/

[Lady Cathryn Ceramics]

enrique flyer wrote in message <35A660BE...@mindspring.com>...

>Global warming and the political economy
> of threats
>
> By David Edwards

Would the author or any of their supporters like to explain two (2) small
points.

1. The average worldwide temperature has actually LOWERED in the last 50
years

2. The "science" of recording temperature variance is a little over 300
years old and the accurate measurement of temperatures world wide is barely
50 years old. How do you predict from such limited data, divergence from
natural weather cycles which the same scientists predict may be thousands to
tens of thousands of years in length?

[Jim Glass]

In article <6o7nhg$149$1...@news.monad.net>, ha...@yahoo.com says...
>

>What about the ozone hole over Antarctica? Is that a "scam" too? You're
>showing the intelligence that no doubt led you to vote for Clinton not
>once but twice. Wake up.

No-one, least of all "Surfin Al", has shown:

(a) That the Antarctic ozone hole isn't a natural phenomenon;
(b) That it isn't 50,000 (or 50,000,000) years old;
(c) That it constitutes ANY sort of threat to ANYone;
or even
(d) That it is "caused" by chlorofluorcarbons.

Natural sources (e.g. volcanoes) inject 5,000 times more
chlorine into the atmosphere than all human activities;
ozone doomsayers claim that this chlorine is "washed out"
by rain before it reaches the stratosphere, which is demonstrably
false.

CFCs are among the most benign, useful, and harmless
chemicals ever invented by mankind. On the basis of the
FLIMSIEST of "evidence", the world has embarked on
a stupid and costly (at least $5 trillion) ban of these
remarkable substances.

Luddites at work.

Jim Glass

[Stan Rothwell]

enrique flyer wrote:

> The climate is currently heating up faster than at any time in the last
> 10,000 years.

And you have solid proof? Don't forget, measurements in the previous 9900
years are estimates... perhaps within the right order of magnitude, but
certainly not exact...

> At
> time of writing, every climate model in the world predicts rates of
> global warming
> between 10 and 100 times faster than anything living systems have faced
> since
> human beings began to walk the earth.
>
> These models are based on indications that human activity has increased
> atmospheric greenhouse gasses by 90 parts per million (PPM). Gasses
> found
> trapped deep in Antarctic ice indicate that increases in greenhouse
> gasses of 100
> PPM, 15,000 years ago, were sufficient to raise global temperatures by
> three
> degrees. Given that greenhouse gasses are projected to rise a further
> 140 PPM by
> the year 2050, even in the event of an immediate 50 percent cut in
> current emmission
> rates, it is easy to see why climatologists are predicting trouble
> ahead.

Increased CO2 emissions will result in increased plant growth, supplying
oxygen gas and absorbing heat...

> By way of only one example, it is thought
> that 100 million
> people now living in Southern Africa may be made environmental refugees
> by global
> warming as croplands face permanent drought.

And what happens when the temperature goes UP? The vapor pressure of water
goes up, creating more cloud cover and cutting sunlight... BTW, the heat
required for converting all this liquid water to vapor is not
insubstantial... do the energy balance model for yourself...

>
>
> Evidence of global warming is coming in thick and fast the world over.

All VERY dependent on energy and mass xfer models that are quite
debatable... sorry.

Think this stuff out for yourself some time...

Stan Rothwell

[enrique flyer]

Many defenders of corporate polluters have replied to this post. Some are
paid directly by conservative organizations to post disinformation. Some
are employed by corporate polluters, and others have bought into the
conservative corporate media blitz.

They can't tell us why corporations are not held liable for their pollution
and resulting catastrophes such as global warming, or why in most cases
polluters end up profiting and the public ends up paying for the disasters
polluters cause.

Conservatives will tell us that without pollution we could not have goods
and services and that major corporate monopolies are the free market working
for the public, even as they demean alternative non-polluting means of
energy production they can't centralize, control and profit from.

Money is the root of all evil. Conservatives worship money. Every former
liberal with too much money, is now a conservative. They sometimes realize
this and try to buy back their virtue by contributing to a (usually tax
exempt) cause.

Conservatives will lie, cheat, steal, kill, imprison, pollute, defame,
impersonate, deny, accuse, rationalize, spread hate and do anything to
satisfy their god of greed. The more money they make, the more evil they
become. Some know it, but they uniformly deny it and typically wrap
themselves in the flag, thump their bible, become drug warriors (while they
sip their bourbon and smoke their Cohibas), all to regain their lost virtue
(if they ever had any), or to project that semblance of virtue they lost
along the way.

Conservatives victimize each other, as well as they victimize the rest of
the world. The richer conservatives will always steal from the poorer
conservatives. The superich conservatives steal from plainly rich
conservatives (and everybody else) through government and their bought
politicians in the form of taxes, tax breaks and corporate welfare for their
military industrial/intelligence establishment.

This conservative culture of stealing from one another propagates itself.
Plainly rich conservatives want to get richer in order to have more power to
pay politicians to lower the taxes richer conservatives impose on them, to
pay the media to print favorable articles about their companies and (to not
print unfavorable ones), to keep their black, brown, red and redneck slave
labor under control, etc. The more wealth, the more power.

We might think conservatives are fearful, weak and stupid for worshipping
their money-god, but even "good" conservatives are held prisoners by a
system that forever concentrates wealth and power. People generally, have
not come to the realization that money can concentrate power without limit.
"That power corrupts. And that absolute power corrupts absolutely" (from
Citizen Kane).

The media of the few makes sure the debates center around important things
like Monica Lewinski. Nothing is said about the giveaway of the public
airwaves to giant media monopolies. This was "business news".

Many still do not realize that extreme concentration of wealth and power is
anti-democratic. That there are ways to control the concentrating nature of
money, whose invention got us into this mess in the first place, such as the
global Wealth/Power Cap. (see posted article)

Concentrated wealth and power rule. Democracy seems dead everywhere, except
here on the internet, but for how long?

[msi...@tefbbs.com]

enrique flyer <ezef...@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Many defenders of corporate polluters have replied to this post. Some are
>paid directly by conservative organizations to post disinformation. Some
>are employed by corporate polluters, and others have bought into the
>conservative corporate media blitz.

How did you meet all the people replying to you so quickly?

BTW you never met me and I'm chagrined at being overlooked.

When can I expect a visit?

>
>They can't tell us why corporations are not held liable for their pollution
>and resulting catastrophes such as global warming, or why in most cases
>polluters end up profiting and the public ends up paying for the disasters
>polluters cause.

Global warming as far as we can tell has yet to happen. You want them
to pay for something that hasn't happened? Another theft scheme of
yours Ricky?

You can always sue for damages. At least in these US.

>Conservatives will tell us that without pollution we could not have goods
>and services and that major corporate monopolies are the free market working
>for the public, even as they demean alternative non-polluting means of
>energy production they can't centralize, control and profit from.

Engineers will tell you that pollution is just a resource that is
underutilized. Make use of the resource profitable and you eliminate
'pollution'.

But Ricky here would like to whip up a government theft scheme instead
of doing something har like learn physics, math, and/or an engineering
discipline.

>Money is the root of all evil. Conservatives worship money. Every former
>liberal with too much money, is now a conservative. They sometimes realize
>this and try to buy back their virtue by contributing to a (usually tax
>exempt) cause.

So what you want to do is steal for religious reasons. How noble.

>Conservatives will lie, cheat, steal, kill, imprison, pollute, defame,
>impersonate, deny, accuse, rationalize, spread hate and do anything to
>satisfy their god of greed. The more money they make, the more evil they
>become. Some know it, but they uniformly deny it and typically wrap
>themselves in the flag, thump their bible, become drug warriors (while they
>sip their bourbon and smoke their Cohibas), all to regain their lost virtue
>(if they ever had any), or to project that semblance of virtue they lost
>along the way.

So what you want is a religious war. What a great idea!

>Conservatives victimize each other, as well as they victimize the rest of
>the world. The richer conservatives will always steal from the poorer
>conservatives. The superich conservatives steal from plainly rich
>conservatives (and everybody else) through government and their bought
>politicians in the form of taxes, tax breaks and corporate welfare for their
>military industrial/intelligence establishment.

The rich always use government to steal from the poor. Its what
governments are for.

>This conservative culture of stealing from one another propagates itself.
>Plainly rich conservatives want to get richer in order to have more power to
>pay politicians to lower the taxes richer conservatives impose on them, to
>pay the media to print favorable articles about their companies and (to not
>print unfavorable ones), to keep their black, brown, red and redneck slave
>labor under control, etc. The more wealth, the more power.

You are right about this one. I see even you have caught the habit.

>We might think conservatives are fearful, weak and stupid for worshipping
>their money-god, but even "good" conservatives are held prisoners by a
>system that forever concentrates wealth and power. People generally, have
>not come to the realization that money can concentrate power without limit.
>"That power corrupts. And that absolute power corrupts absolutely" (from
>Citizen Kane).

Even Hitler had to listen to public opinion.

>The media of the few makes sure the debates center around important things
>like Monica Lewinski. Nothing is said about the giveaway of the public
>airwaves to giant media monopolies. This was "business news".

I read the Business pages don't you? They do have them in your paper
don't they?

>Many still do not realize that extreme concentration of wealth and power is
>anti-democratic. That there are ways to control the concentrating nature of
>money, whose invention got us into this mess in the first place, such as the
>global Wealth/Power Cap. (see posted article)

If governments didn't prop up these concentrations they would be much
harder to maintain.

>Concentrated wealth and power rule. Democracy seems dead everywhere, except
>here on the internet, but for how long?

About a week and a half. Any way you don't want democracy which is mob
rule. What you want is individual liberty. At least that is what I
want.

Simon

[Bill Mechlenburg]

Recent boring in the polar ice cap reveal that the climate was so warm
about 600,000 years ago the polar ice cap had melted. This occurred
600,000 years before industrialized mankind.

All the historical data prove only one thing. The earth's climate has been
extremely variable before and during occupation by Homo sapiens.

We may be entering a normal warming cycle or it might be a human created
warming cycle. We may also be entering a new ice age and wish we had more
green house gases. If we are entering a warming cycle it may be beneficial
by lengthening the growing season and extending the growth area farther
north and south.

The only thing we know, is that we don't know, and should continue to study
climatological data and trends so we can some day make intelligent
decisions. The day for making intelligent and well informed decisions is
still at some point in the future.

--
Bill Mechlenburg
wm...@worldnet.att.net
For discussion of Political & Tax Reform
http://home.att.net/~wmech
Elliott Finesse wrote in message
<7q4q1.247$HG4.7...@news.rdc1.wa.home.com>...
>x-no-archive: yes
>Gene Callahan wrote in message <35A7B194...@erols.com>...

>>
>>
>>Elliott Finesse wrote:
>>
>>> x-no-archive: yes
>>>
>>> John Alway wrote in message <35A672F8...@icsi.net>...
>>> >Wyatt wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Nicely put, Wyatt. I'd also like to refer lurkers to the petition
>>> >project which has over 18,000 scientists who dispute claims of global
>>> >warming. The fact that there is no list of equivalent size from those
>>> >who claim to believe there is a threat of global warming should raise a
>>> >few eyebrows. In a rational society this petition project would be
>>> >_big_ news. In this factless society the truth is evaded.
>>>
>>> As a molecular biologist, I perused the site with interest. As a cynic
I
>of
>>> course also would like to know for sure what the warming is.
>>>
>>> So you know who is funding the petition?
>>
>>This is surely an irrelevant question when it comes to scientific truth.
>Hmmm,
>>perhaps Einstein's Theory of Relativity somehow favored the Swiss patent
>office?
>>Have you investigated this? Heisenberg stayed in Germany working for the
>Nazis.
>>So his uncertainty principle is probably a facist front.
>
>

>You are certainly correct that the funding for scientific research should
be
>irrelevent. But this petition is NOT scientific research.
>
>--
>"The objection to Puritans is not that they try to
>make us think as they do, but that they try to
>make us do as they think."
>
>H. L. Mencken
>>
>
>

[John Alway]

This is true, what it is is a rational evalution of the _facts_ by
scientists.

As anyone with a modicum of understanding of science knows, this whole
global warming issue is phoney from top to bottom.

...John

[John Alway]

Elliott Finesse wrote:
>
> x-no-archive: yes

> John Alway wrote in message <35A9475F...@icsi.net>...

> Since I am a molecular biologist I do know a little about science. Your
> statement above is clearly one that illustrates no knowledge of the
> scientific method.

I have a great deal of understanding of the scientific method, thank
you.

> When researchers perform the projects, they reveal the source of funding.

> If the petitioners want to claim their petitions is scientific, then they
> will reveal the source of their funding.

This has nothing to do with the scientific method.

> If it isn't scientific research, but merely politicizing, then their
> opinions will carry as little or as much weight as any other single person's
> opinion.

It's research to the extent that they are taking the available data and
showing what it means.

> As far as global warming...the theory is being tested. There are certain
> aspects of it that are certain. The chemistry of the greenhouse effect is
> certainly not up to debate.

This is not true. The process is so little understood, in fact, that
the computer models have been wrong in both magnitude and direction.
There is a great web site on this which is maintained by a seasoned
atmospheric science I can find it if you want to see it. These people
who have been claiming there is warming and will be warming are being
contradicted by reality. In _real_ science reality is king.

> ...Rates and other items are certain going to
> change....That is how the scientific method works. Newton wasn't 100%
> correct, it took Einstein to bring in corrections for the speed of light.
> And perhaps later someone else will add more to mechanics.

To compare the work of Newton or Einstein to these hacks who claim
there is a global warming threat is sickening. It should be noted that
neither Newton nor Einstein were fear mongers.

> But to say the global warming issue is phony is just hyperbole with
> absolutely no understanding of chemistry, biology, climatic and the
> scientific method.

It's a phoney issue. To work on the basis of skepticism (i.e. the
idea we can never be certain) isn't science, it's mysticism. It could
be used to justify any stupid action.

> Now if you want to be against the Global Warming accords because it hurts
> business, just say that.

It hurts _life_. It hurts human beings to use the force of government
against them. Businesses are man's means of _survival_, not some
detached unimportant appendage.

> But don't call the greenhouse effect and global
> warming..."phony."

Global warming is at issue here, not the greenhouse effect. The
greenhouse effect is real, even if there is much still to be
understood. Global warming is phoney, specifically the idea we are
faced with catastrophic warming, which is the entire fuel behind the
damned movement. Or, I should say, the alleged fuel. The actual fuel
is hatred of man.

>It hurts your cause.

I do what I believe.

> You lost with CFCs already with
> the same tactic.

You're mistaken, I don't see short range political actions as that
important. I see a wider, longer philosophical battle, which will
implode the whole environmental philosophy, or any other anti-freedom,
anti-reason philosophy (read post modernism in general)...

...John

[John Alway]

A follow up:

The site I referenced in my previous post is at the following URL:
http://www.erols.com/dhoyt1/

One of the things of interest is his analysis of global warming
_models_
here http://www.erols.com/dhoyt1/annex2.htm

...John

[John Alway]

Mike Conway <am...@email.ais.unc.edu> wrote:

>I wonder if that is the same petition that was discussed on
>sci.environment...

I remember it being discussed and besmirched by people there in the
past. So, likely that's the case. However, there wasn't a shred of
rationality to the attacks on it.

>If this is the same petition, then some of the folks on that group were
>having a good time researching the signers, which consisted of
>television weather-persons, the cast of various sitcoms, other
>non-scientists, etc.

Great example of an irrational attack. Notice how unscientific the
minds of these people are. They simply presume the names are false
because they happen to have famous names, or, more likely, they are
trying to put a fast one over on their simple minded readership. Some
of the people have names which are famous, but they, themselves, are
real people. The petitions have gone through a very long verification
process and have only found one phoney name, which they say came from an
environmental prankster. One of the names was Perry Mason, for
instance, who happens to be a real chemist.

This is discussed on the site
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm

[...]

>Also, if we're so great on the conclusions of the IPCC report, maybe we
>should talk about the main conclusions of that same report?

The main conclusions do not logically follow from the science. This
has been pointed out time and time again. Indeed, the clear fraud
perpetrated by the IPCC officials has been pointed out by such noted
scientists as Dr. Lindzen.

Notice, there are several cream of the crop atmospheric scientists who
don't agree with the catastrophic warming scenario (Dr. Robert Balling,
Dr. Lindzen, Dr. Singer, Dr. Michaels, etc.). People who have
rationally argued the point based on the evidence and logic in the face
of the religious zealotry. It was always stated that these are only a
handful and that the majority of the scientists believe there is a
problem. So then polls of meteorologists in the U.S. showed that, in
fact, a majority didn't believe any of this stuff. But that wasn't
enough. The environmentalists made excuses about why this wasn't
important. They still maintained there was a consensus. They cited
this list of some two thousand plus scientists who agree with the IPCC,
but upon close examination it turned out that the great majority of
those people were not at all qualified to make an authoritative
judgement on the facts, and only a smattering (something like 15) were
atmospheric scientists, some of who actually didn't agree with the
report. This is because it then turned out that the people on that list
weren't told that they were agreeing to the IPCC report. Finally, this
year we find a list of 18,000 plus names of scientists, most of them
qualified to make an educated judgement, who disagree with the global
warming claims. This shattered the claim of consensus utterly. So what
do the environmentalists do? They attempt to besmirch the list. They
refuse to believe reality. They evade reality at every turn. Ask
yourself why.

...John

[Al_...@my-dejanews.com]

In article <35a6ac78...@news.megsinet.net>,

msi...@tefbbs.com wrote:
> We are men. We will innovate, adapt, and overcome.

Of course to closing words for the above statement is:

"or die."

Al

>
> Simon
>
> Opinions expressed herein are solely my own and may or may not reflect my opinion at this particular time or any other.
>

-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum

[Al_...@my-dejanews.com]

In article <6o8h8q$oi8$1...@camel0.mindspring.com>,

jfglass^^@mindspring.com (Jim Glass) wrote:
> In article <6o7nhg$149$1...@news.monad.net>, ha...@yahoo.com says...
> >
>
> >What about the ozone hole over Antarctica? Is that a "scam" too? You're
> >showing the intelligence that no doubt led you to vote for Clinton not
> >once but twice. Wake up.

For anyone interested in what _scientists_ have to say, go to:
http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/archive/ozone-depletion.intro.html

Now for the politically motivated, the below represents one point of view.

Al

>
> No-one, least of all "Surfin Al", has shown:
>
> (a) That the Antarctic ozone hole isn't a natural phenomenon;
> (b) That it isn't 50,000 (or 50,000,000) years old;
> (c) That it constitutes ANY sort of threat to ANYone;
> or even
> (d) That it is "caused" by chlorofluorcarbons.
>
> Natural sources (e.g. volcanoes) inject 5,000 times more
> chlorine into the atmosphere than all human activities;
> ozone doomsayers claim that this chlorine is "washed out"
> by rain before it reaches the stratosphere, which is demonstrably
> false.
>
> CFCs are among the most benign, useful, and harmless
> chemicals ever invented by mankind. On the basis of the
> FLIMSIEST of "evidence", the world has embarked on
> a stupid and costly (at least $5 trillion) ban of these
> remarkable substances.
>
> Luddites at work.
>
> Jim Glass
>
>

-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----

[Jim Glass]

In article <6ol6ia$oqh$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Al_...@my-dejanews.com says...

>
>In article <35a6ac78...@news.megsinet.net>,
> msi...@tefbbs.com wrote:
>> We are men. We will innovate, adapt, and overcome.
>
>Of course to closing words for the above statement is:
>
>"or die."
>
>Al
>
>

This is patently absurd. The "experts" are now talking about
fractional degree "warming", and no such signal is in evidence.
The WORST-case warming has NO probability of causing mass
deaths--you are far more likely to die tripping on the stairs or
because an asteroid lands in your neighborhood.

As their flawed models are refined to reflect more of "reality",
the predicted "warming" grows smaller and smaller and might
soon cross zero. Then they'll yell about a new Ice age, as they
were in the 1970s.

The database is laughably tiny--less than a century of good
data--in a field that would need at least 10,000 years of data
to make any sort of educated guess about climate.

This year is CLAIMED to be the hottest on record--as was
last year, and the one before that, and the one... Even if it
IS, that datum is virtually meaningless.

Except how it is being used by the Luddites and Socialists...

Jim Glass

[lo...@earthling.net]

Sorry, I arrived late to this thread and don't have the web URL to the
below-mentioned petition project. Could someone repost it or send it
to my eddress directly?

Steve L.

On Sun, 12 Jul 1998 15:15:15 GMT, "Elliott Finesse" <e...@usnb.net>
wrote: