Global Warming: "The Greatest Scam in History"

OK, if you think that a mere electrical engineer such as myself can’t know anything about Global Warming, in spite of all the books, reports, and research that I’ve studied (you can find my reading lists below), how do you feel about the founder of the Weather Channel, a meteorologist with 55 years of experience in the field? Below is what he’s recently written on the subject, reprinted with his permission. You can also find his comments, along with links to his research (copied below for your convenience), posted on his blog at: http://www.kusi.com/home/11131801.html. Enjoy:

COMMENTS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

By John Coleman

jcoleman@kusi.com

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.

Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data back in the late 1990's to create an illusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental wacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda.

Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.

I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party.

However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you "believe in." It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won't believe me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.

I suspect you might like to say to me, "John, look the research that supports the case for global warming was done by research scientists; people with PH D's in Meteorology. They are employed by major universities and important research institutions. Their work has been reviewed by other scientists with PH D's. They have to know a lot more about it than you do. Come on, John, get with it. The experts say our pollution has created an strong and increasing greenhouse effect and a rapid, out of control global warming is underway that will sky rocket temperatures, destroy agriculture, melt the ice caps, flood the coastlines and end life as we know it. How can you dissent from this crisis? You must be a bit nutty.

Allow me, please, to explain how I think this all came about. Our universities have become somewhat isolated from the rest of us. There is a culture and attitudes and values and pressures on campus that are very different. I know this group well. My father and my older brother were both PHD-University types. I was raised in the university culture. Any person who spends a decade at a university obtaining a PHD in Meteorology and become a research scientist, more likely than not, becomes a part of that single minded culture. They all look askance at the rest of us, certain of their superiority. They respect government and disrespect business, particularly big business. They are environmentalists above all else.

And, there is something else. These scientists know that if they do research and results are in no way alarming, their research will gather dust on the shelf and their research careers will languish. But if they do research that sounds alarms, they will become well known and respected and receive scholarly awards and, very importantly, more research dollars will come flooding their way.

So when these researchers did climate change studies in the late 90's they were eager to produce findings that would be important and be widely noticed and trigger more research funding. It was easy for them to manipulate the data to come up with the results they wanted to make headlines and at the same time drive their environmental agendas. Then their like minded PHD colleagues reviewed their work and hastened to endorse it without question.

There were a few who didn't fit the mold. They did ask questions and raised objections. They did research with contradictory results. The environmental elitists berated them brushed their studies aside.

I have learned since the Ice Age is coming scare in the 1970's to always be a skeptic about research. In the case of global warming, I didn't accept media accounts. Instead I read dozens of the scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct when I assure you there is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. It is all a scam, the result of bad science.

I am not alone in this assessment. There are hundreds of other meteorologists, many of them PH D's, who are as certain as I am that this global warming frenzy is based on bad science and is not valid.

I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped.

The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway.

I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.

Some people may want to see the research behind my dismissive attitude about Global Warming. If you want to wade through scientific jargon, here are some relevant websites:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanReport.pdf

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/NRCreport.pdf

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/NAS.M&M.pdf

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/MM03.pdf

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/Climate_L.pdf

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/MM-W05-background.pdf

http://www.icecap.us/

The Canadian Broadcasting Company's Cable News Network produced an excellent documentary on Global Warming. It is titled "Doomsday Called Off ". Here are the YouTube URLs to watch it in five parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Professor Bob Carter delivered a 35 minute lecture on global warming. If you are in an academic mood, it is excellent. It was recorded and posted in four parts on Youtube. Here are the links:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Al “Milli Vanilli” Gore

When Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 12, 2007 for his promotion of his new religion of man-made Global Warming, I was reminded of the time when Milli Vanilli was awarded the Grammy for Best New Artist back in 1990. For those of you who don’t remember Milli Vanilli, they were a group who had five insipid songs that were popular back in 1989-1990, and, as it was later revealed, were fronted by two male models from Germany who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket and so had to lip synch to the songs actually being performed in the background by others. Of course, we didn’t know that they were frauds back in 1990, we just knew that the music was terrible. My disappointment when they won the Grammy award was only offset later when it was revealed that they were just pretty faces and that the bad music was someone else’s fault and that they had to return the award. Well! There appeared to be some justice in the universe after all.

But now Al Gore is the pretty face that has hijacked the work of a bunch of homely scientists who worked behind the scenes on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.) Worse, he’s not only stolen the credit for their work, he’s also distorted the results of their studies to the point of being unrecognizable, causing many of those same scientists to request that their names be removed from the report.

Nearly every single point that Al “Milli Vanilli” Gore makes in his book and movie is contradicted by the science in the report made by the IPCC (NOT in the Summary for Policy Makers, which was written by politicians and NOT the scientists):

1. CO2 is that dirty smoke pouring out of chimneys? Nope – CO2 is an invisible gas that is at worst plant food.
2. Global warming is causing the glaciers to recede? Nope – a drop in ambient moisture is causing some glaciers to recede in the Northern Hemisphere.
3. Global warming will cause drinking water to be in short supply for 40% of the world? Nope – in most of the world, drinking water comes from melting snow and the annual average snowfall has been increasing.
4. Our summer temperatures are higher now than ever before in the history of the world? Nope – our summers are not as warm as they were during the medieval times.
5. An increase of CO2 in our atmosphere is causing the atmosphere to trap more heat? Nope – the relation is the opposite – the increase in global temperatures is causing the oceans to release more CO2 into the atmosphere.
6. Global warming is causing more frequent and more violent hurricanes? Nope – as the average global temperature increases, decreasing the temperature differential between the arctic and the tropic, hurricanes will decrease in frequency and ferocity.
7. Global warming causes more frequent and more violent tornados? Nope – the same goes for tornados as goes for hurricanes. Besides which, the frequency of strong tornados has decreased since 1940.
8. Global warming has caused droughts in Africa and North America? Nope – local consumption of water from local lakes and over pumping of aquifers has, on a localized basis, caused some droughts.
9. Man-made Global Warming has caused the polar ice caps to melt? Nope – natural variations in the earth’s temperature cycle are variously causing the Artic to warm and then cool. Greenland, for example, is cooler today than during the Viking times when they settled there, grew crops, and named it “Greenland.”
10. Polar bears are drowning in significant numbers due to Global Warming? Nope – populations of polar bears are presently increasing, and they didn’t go extinct during the medieval warming period between the Ice Age and the Little Ice Age in the 1800’s.
11. Global warming is harming populations of birds and bugs? Nope – all populations of birds and bugs and crops and people are thriving in a slightly warmer environment.
12. Malaria is migrating north and increasing due to Global Warming? Nope – mosquitoes that carry malaria have no problem in the cold north, as evidenced by the malaria epidemics in Russia and Alaska during the 1800’s; malaria is presently increasing around the world due to the decrease in the application of effective pesticides like DDT.
13. The Antarctic ice shelf is melting? Nope – when studied as a whole, the ice shelf in Antarctica is increasing.
14. Global warming will cause the sea levels to rise 20 feet, wiping out all coastal areas? Nope – the IPCC predicts that the sea could rise a maximum of 4 inches, but probably something less, and that is due to shifting tectonic plates.
15. If the US would adopt the Kyoto Protocol, Global Warming could be averted? Nope – if the US Congress ratified the Kyoto treaty, signed by President Clinton in the late 90’s, world-wide emissions would only increase as the US shut down our power plants and factories and they moved to China, India, and Brazil, which are exempted from the Kyoto treaty, and which emit far worse gases than CO2 (NOx and Sox – the cause of acid rain.)
16. If the European Union can adopt the Kyoto Protocol, why can’t the US? Actually, since ratifying the Kyoto Treaty, the European Union’s emissions have only increased, and more dramatically than those in the US. They have only been able to “meet” their emissions targets by taking retroactive credit for Great Britain’s switch from old coal fired power plants BEFORE signing the treaty.
17. We can switch to non-emitting power sources economically? Nope – the lowest, pie-in-the-sky estimates for the cost of abandoning our clean coal fired power, which include the presumption of new inventions in the future, is $2,000,000,000,000 per year – 17% of our GDP.

And finally, why do these weathermen think they can predict the average Earth’s temperature to within 1° 100 years into the future, when they aren’t that accurate on this week’s predictions? Plus, if this 1° increase were so terrible, why are Americans migrating by the thousands from the Great White North down to the Sun Belts in Florida, California, Arizona, and St. George, Utah? Let’s see Al “Milli Vanilli” Gore tackle that one! The answer is, he can’t. And I’m looking forward to the day that he has to return his Nobel Peace Price in shame and slink off to be ridiculed in the history books.

Governor Huntsman’s Californication with Arnold

The Utah Governor’s “Blue Ribbon Advisory Committee (BRAC) on Climate Change” wants to enact California-style legislation here in Utah, supposedly to combat “Global Warming,” which has been calculated to cost every household in the state about $32,000, but with no discernable improvement in the air quality what-so-ever. And who wants an electrical power system like California anyway? This very Labor Day the electrical distribution system in Southern California failed them and left them without air conditioning during a heat wave (see: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/weather/09/03/heat.wave.ap/index.html.) Plus I happen to have inside information that the only reason Southern California’s electrical transmission system didn’t melt down was because their distribution system went down first - it was the weakest link.

Further, the average residential rate in California is $0.14/kWh vs. the average in Utah which is $0.08/kWh vs. my co-op, Dixie Escalante, which is $0.05/kWh. So you can see why I’m so against adopting ANYTHING that California is doing in the field of electricity – they obviously don’t know what they’re doing. I am convinced that Governor Arnold is peddling his failed energy policies to Utah so that the whole state of Utah will also become un-competitive, so that California’s industries will stop migrating to Utah. The sad thing is that our naive governor has bought Arnold’s bill of goods, hook line and sinker. Of course no one on the Governor’s hand-picked Blue Ribbon Committee knows anything about the science of the issue – they’ve taken what they’ve been spoon-fed wholly on faith – the group is largely comprised of miscellaneous mayors or special interest group activists. The whole lot have based their fear and panic on a regurgitation of a summary of the UN-funded IPCC study that is terribly flawed and outright wrong (the “summary” was written by anti-American politicians and not by the scientists and does not accurately reflect the findings of the study at all) and so have decided to sacrifice 15% of our economy to this imaginary monster. What a bunch of morons – the politicians, I mean, not the special interest groups’ lobbyists – I’m impressed that these lobbyists seem to have convinced the politicians that man-made CO2 is affecting the climate and so need to buy their products. They must have hired that smooth-talking guy from the movie: Thank You For Smoking.

Anyway, I don’t claim to be an expert in climatology, but I am a licensed professional electrical engineer and have bothered to read a lot of background material on this subject, including the scientific chapters of UN study itself, three books (so far,) and a ton of related scientific studies that are freely available on the internet. Of course, the science is practically superfluous in this case since the BRAC is loaded (17 out of 20) with members who have already decided that their mission in life is to subsidize the solar panel and windmill industry by doubling everyone’s electricity bills, so we definitely have an uphill battle ahead of us. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Stabbing Mother Earth in the Back

Back in the 70’s when I was a kid growing up in Lukachukai, Arizona, in the very heart of the Navajo Reservation, my Navajo classmates (in their more militant moments) would criticize the white man’s agriculture processes. They would say that to plow the ground was to stab Mother Earth in the back. Even as a kid I knew that that notion was ridiculous – totally lacking in scale. Even back then I knew that a plow in the ground was no more than combing the hair of Mother Earth, and I said as much to my unreceptive classmates. Now that we’re in the 21st century nearly 40 years later, and with the power of the internet, I can put a pencil to this problem: a simple on-line search quickly finds that the earth has a diameter of 7926 miles (at the equator), or 41,849,280 feet; a plow is 8 to 12 inches long, so call it one foot, which means that the plow is only penetrating 0.0000024% of Mother Earth’s back – really just a very light back scratch.

Now fast forward to 2007: as an adult I see the same ignorance of scale of the earth and its atmosphere among the politicians and media of the developed world, including the United States. These poor uninformed alarmists think that our manmade CO2 emissions are affecting our climate – maybe they’re confused by the thick smog that they can see in their cities, largely emanating from automobiles’ unfiltered exhaust pipes, as opposed to the invisible and harmless breath that we all exhale. Either way, they certainly don’t understand anything about the relative scale involved when discussing CO2 and the atmosphere. The earth’s atmosphere, which by the way is what distinguishes God’s Green Earth from uninhabitable Mars, is primarily made up of Nitrogen (78%), Oxygen (21%), and Argon (1%.) CO2, the next most common gas, makes up only 0.038% of the atmosphere. Of that, man has contributed about 3%. Hmm… 3% of 0.038% - that sounds a lot like your chances of winning the lottery – essentially zero. Anyway, the rest of the CO2 in the atmosphere (97%) comes from natural sources, primarily that big mass of water that we call the ocean, which releases CO2 when it heats up and absorbs it back when it cools. So, even if we were to reduce mankind’s CO2 emissions to zero, which would require the elimination of all electricity production, transportation, and even our collective exhalations, we still would not be able to affect the earth’s temperature that one measly degree over the course of the next century for which the religion of Global Warming is renting their garments.

All of which isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be good stewards of Mother Earth – we absolutely should. Genesis 1:26 tells us: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth…” I believe that when God gave Man dominion “over all the earth” he also gave us the obligation to be responsible stewards, and we still have that responsibility today. I believe that we should maximize the use of our natural resources and keep our environment clean. We did the right thing when we eliminated the real pollutants, SO2 (smog) and NOx, from the electric power generation process here in America – good for us. And by the way, producing harmless CO2 rather than SO2 as an output of generating electricity only shows how efficient and clean our generation process has really gotten. I’m also glad we switched to unleaded gasoline and required catalytic converters on our cars here in America – we all breathe easier because of it. During the 70’s we all “pitched in” and picked up the trash along our highways, making them look decent again. It was the right thing to do. You only have to look at horrific quality of the environment in China, India, the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, or Latin America to really appreciate how much we’ve improved the environment in the United States of America since I was a kid the 60’s.

So with all of these huge strides in fixing our environment, why is it that we’re paying any attention to the well funded and very vocal cabal of politicians and media that want to steal our time and money and throw them to the manufacturers of windmills and solar panels under the guise of solving a non-existent problem? How stupid are we? Especially when we have REAL problems that require our time and money. For example, why are NONE of the politicians or media trying to solve our crippling debt problem? How is it possible that in the space of my lifetime we’ve gone from being the world’s biggest creditor to the world’s biggest debtor? How long will it be before China cuts off our allowance and leaves us to stew in the sweltering dark like California on Labor Day? How about we devote a little time and money to our debt problem?! Debt reduction may not be as sexy as Global Warming, but it has real tangible benefits and consequences.

Letter to BRAC

Ten years ago I worked on a rural electrification project in Bangladesh, funded by USAID, which was called Rural Power for Poverty Reduction (RPPR.) This was a fairly comprehensive project, with several technical components that covered a range of needs in delivering electricity to that developing nation – distribution, generation, and renewable energy – each with its own appropriate place and cost. Now you should understand that I’m an electrical engineer with a specialty in the transmission and distribution of electrical power, on which I’ve largely focused during my twenty-year career; I can model, analyze, plan, and design transmission and distribution lines, and then I can specify the materials and even get those lines built if needed. But, for this broader project in Bangladesh, we also had short-term specialists for the generation (Jim) and for the renewable energy (Andrew) components. The specialists set up the programs in their area of expertise, while briefly in-country, and I learned from them and then carried the projects forward in their absence (being the resident advisor.)

At one point in my 2-1/2 years as the Engineering and Operations Advisor in Bangladesh, Jim and Andrew were in-country at the same time – occupying desks in my office – and somehow the topic of conversation turned to Global Warming. Andrew was for it, Jim was against it. To my uninformed ears, they both sounded very knowledgeable on the subject, both tossing conflicting data and theories back and forth. Their argument was with each other and not aimed at me, so I was as ignorant on the subject at the end of the debate as before – all I knew is that the jury was apparently still out on the matter and that some day I would have to revisit this topic, get informed as to the facts, and decide what was truly correct.

Now, ten years later, Utah Governor Jon Huntsman has formed a Blue Ribbon Advisory Council (BRAC) on Climate Change and has tasked them to study the science of Global Warming and recommend pertinent policies, as needed, to address the issue. What this lame committee has done so far is to ignore the available science and instead lap up the flawed “conventional wisdom” on the subject and then recommend the acceptance of California’s onerous CO2 emission laws and propose to impose what is called a “Renewable Portfolio Standard” (RPS = a law mandating that electric utilities buy a significant percentage of their electricity from expensive but “renewable” power sources, like solar or wind, but NOT hydro.) Given that these policies have already been determined to double everyone’s electricity rates, the Utah Rural Electric Association asked me to comment on the imposition of a Renewable Portfolio Standard in Utah. Following is what I wrote to the BRAC on that subject:

There are several significant points to seriously consider when discussing something as expensive and unnecessary as mandating a Renewable Portfolio Standard:

1. The first ten to twenty points of contention are cost, cost, cost, etc. For example, a solar power system costs a minimum of $10/watt, and probably something more like $14/watt when you consider the cost of installation, while a natural gas generator costs a maximum of $1/watt, which cost goes down considerably as you increase the size to something over 10MW. The members of our cooperative simply can't afford to and won't stand for increasing their power costs by some twenty times more than what they are today and any politician or bureaucrat that thinks otherwise should start looking for a real job.

2. After you get past the mountain of additional costs, then it's no molehill when you start to surmount the issue of what renewable resources are physically available. Here in Sunny Southern Utah we certainly have plenty of sunshine, but that's only during the daytime and sometimes people like to use electricity at night. In fact, fully half of our annual peaks in power consumption happen after dark. And while you can store energy temporarily in batteries, neither lead/acid nor nickel/cadmium are renewable resources. Plus, there is no generation quality wind resource available in Southern Utah – even in Hurricane where the wind seems to be always blowing. Dixie did a study in connection with the State energy office 5 years ago by installing three wind meters at three different sites and found that the wind in the area was not steady enough to produce efficient power. And the very same people who are pushing this renewable energy agenda are undoubtedly the same group who complain about the hydro-electric dams (like Glen Canyon) that we already have, so they're not going to let us build more (even if there were another Glen Canyon to dam.) And certainly they can’t seriously propose that our members, which include a significant amount of retirees on fixed incomes, be forced to pay extra to import our energy from some other state when we have perfectly good clean coal right here in Utah.

3. Each of the co-ops in Utah already has a significant percentage of renewable energy in our portfolios with our hydropower allocations from Colorado River Storage Project. The co-ops as a whole purchase 100 out of 800 MW’s of renewable hydro energy already, which is a significant amount.

4. Dixie, and the other members of Deseret, are already offering “green” power as an option to members who choose to pay a premium to participate. Under our “Green Way” program members can elect to purchase blocks of “green” power and the extra dollars collected go toward the development of renewable resources.

5. Dixie, and the other members of Deseret, is already offering a Net Metering tariff to allow any of our members to install their own renewable energy sources and then net out their own power usage (even allowing them to sell us energy off-peak, when the value is low, and take it back out on-peak, when the value is significantly higher.)

6. If the State of Utah were serious in their promotion of renewable energy, they should put their money where their mouth is and raise income taxes so they can offer some substantial Tax Credits and Rebates that encourage home and business owners to install renewable energy generation sources. Utah has in the past offered a paltry $2000 tax credit toward the installation of a solar home system, which covered about 2-3% of the cost of installation. They should consider something more aggressive, like in the state of New Jersey where they offer up to $4.40/watt (over 30% of the total cost.) Obviously a program like this would cost real money, which would require real tax revenue increases, and would likely cost the sitting governor and legislature their jobs, but at least they'd be promoting the renewable energy program honestly.

7. Another sign that the state government were serious about developing renewable energy would be to devote some significant amount of money to research and development of new, improved, more efficient, and more economical technologies. Of course, research and development are not cheap and would come with the same financial and political costs associated with increasing taxes and spending as in item #6 above.

8. Ultimately, since Dixie and the other members of Deseret are member owned and democratically controlled cooperatives, the membership should be allowed to vote to determine if they really want to pay significantly higher electricity rates in order to pay for some “renewable” component in their energy portfolio in addition to their hydropower purchases. Of course, we already offer that option to the small minority that flunked math class (see #4 above.)

Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns on this topic.

Sincerely,

Colin W. Jack, P.E.

Global Warming is a Big Fat Lie

Many specialty manufacturers, special interest groups, politicians, and members of the media are perpetrating the biggest scandalous lie on the people of this earth since Galileo was muzzled by the Inquisition for stating the fact that the Earth orbited the Sun and wasn't really the center of the universe - that man's carbon dioxide emissions are causing catastrophic Global Warming and that we must annihilate mankind or at least return to the stone age to set things right. As a technically oriented individual I'm astounded that we've taken something that should be, on the whole, based in science and removed it to a completely political realm. The more that I study this issue the more angry I get - I can't believe that we're all just going along dumbly like sheep to the abattoir. We've been told that there is a "consensus" among the scientists that man-made Global Warming is a fact and we're just willing to take that at face value, just like the people in Galileo's time. Of course, those with a vested interest in perpetrating this heinous crime are just as potent and dangerous as was the Inquisition in Galileo's time, but that's still no excuse for our laziness. The worst thing about wasting our money and time on this subject is that we're limiting the intellectual and financial resources that we could be spending to solve REAL problems. Anyway, the purpose of this blog is to share digestible bits and pieces of my research as I go along. I've already spent months digesting every book, research paper, movie, and Internet site on this subject that I could find - on BOTH sides, I might add. I've also moved the following two posts over from my other blog in which I tend to write about our family travels around the world - I thought they'd be more at home here.

The High Priests of Doomsday

Back on December 14, 2001, I was working on a rural electrification project in Guatemala when I got to view a near total solar eclipse - I made a pin hole projector and everything (see the attached photo.) It was amazing to me to hear and see the local news on the radio and TV assuring the people that it was only a natural phenomenon and not the end of the world*. It seemed to me that the modern Mayas weren't that far removed from the ancient Mayas that were portrayed in Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, where the poor peasants had their hearts ripped out as they were sacrificed by the decadent power-grabbing priests, right in front of the stoned-out-of-their-minds royalty, playing on the people's and leaders' ignorance of natural phenomena, like solar eclipses, making everyone think that what they were doing was controlling the weather. Of course, we modern Americans are no better - we've crowned Al Gore and the other alarmists of "man-caused Global Warming" as our high priests and are offering up our economy as a sacrifice (they want $2T/yr = 15% of our 2006 GDP!) in an attempt to change the natural phenomenon of global warming. What a bunch of nimrods we are becoming.

And since the scientific community has been marginalized out of the current "debate" on man's contribution to Global Climate Change, and since it is no longer acceptable for anyone to express a viewpoint on the subject that doesn't coincide with our priest's, it is imperative that we all do a little of our own homework on this topic so that we can try to shift the public opinion back to something a little more based on science rather than superstition. Toward that end, following are a few recommended readings on global climate change, for your personal edification:

1. Shattered Consensus, The True State of Global Warming by Patrick J. Michaels


2. MYTHS, LIES, AND DOWNRIGHT STUPIDITY: GET OUT THE SHOVEL -- WHY EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG by John Stossel. Note: You can read the pertinent chapter on-line at: http://www.abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3061015&page=1


3. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) by Christopher C. Horner


4. Energy & the Environment: Myths & Facts by Max Schulz


5. Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Separating Scientific Fact from Personal Opinion prepared by Sherwood B. Idso and Craig D. Idso


6. The Blue Dog Coalition, Energy Principles, 110th Congress


7. Petition Project – Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide by Arthur B. Robinson, Sallie L. Baliunas, Willie Soon and Zachary W. Robinson


8. Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal by Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Craig Idso, Sherwood Idso and David R. Legates


9. Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties by Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev and Eric S. Posmentier


10. Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory and politics by Lee C. Gerhard


11. Issues in the Current State of Climate Science, A Guide for Policy Makers and Opinion Leaders


12. Variations in CO2 Growth Rate Associated with Solar Activity by Dr. Theodor Landscheidt


13. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis - Technical Summary, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change


14. Hug and Barrett versus IPCC by Heinz Hug and Jack Barrett


15. Winning the Energy Endgame: Oil, Gas Electricity, and Climate by Amory B. Lovins


16. Climate Connections: The failure to include many factors in climatology by Dr. Tim Ball


17. Samuelson: The Dilemma of Global Warming vs. Economic Growth by Robert J. Samuelson


18. Economic Climate Changes by Marlo Lewis


19. The gods are laughing by Tom Harris


20. Hockey Stick, 1999-2005, R.I.P.


21. Global Warming Bombshell by Richard Muller


22. Written Testimony of John R. Christy, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 2 May, 2001


23. There is No ‘Consensus’ on Global Warming


24. Decoding Climate Politics by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.


25. Get Your Priorities Right, The Weekend Interview with Bjorn Lomborg by Kimberley A. Strassel


26. Climate of Fear by Richard Lindzen


27. A Global Warming Worksheet by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.


28. Pork, the New Green Meat by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.


29. Highly Over-Hyped – Greenland’s and Antarctica’s Impacts on Sea Level by Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso


30. Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Generation of Electric Power in the United States report jointly prepared in July 2000 by the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency
    

* Excerpt from my journal 12/14/01: "Our afternoon was broken up a bit as we went outside to observe the solar eclipse. I showed the guys how to make a pin-hole projector to view the eclipse -- they were impressed. They always attribute technical proficiency to my being a "Gringo" -- like when I showed them how to set the clock in the truck, run the remote control on the air conditioner, etc. Juan Jose tried to improve my eclipse projector and when it didn't work they all laughed at him for trying to be a Gringo. Speaking of laughing, we also watched local TV coverage of the eclipse and just had to chuckle when the local scientists had to reassure the local citizens that this is only a natural phenomenon and not the end of the world. The news said that the best view of this eclipse was in Costa Rica -- Jorge Mario suggested we walk around the block to their embassy to watch it there."