Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Environment

Climate and Global Warming Resources

For a long time now. I have been threatening to create a sidebar item for the all-important issue of Climate and Global Warming. Ultimately, I want to transfer most of the resources I have used into a database of relevant articles sorted by article type. Well, that hasn’t happened yet, but I managed to get a few articles posted and a database window to all articles on this site that reference the “Global Warming” topic. The reference page may now be found on the sidebar under “information” as Climate and Global Warming. Click on it and go to the page and have a look around.

Please, please offer any suggestions, articles and any other information that I can add to this page — I already have used several articles to email my hippie moonbat congressperson‘s staff debunking their insane position on these issues. I’m not certain if it ever gets to her, but at least I’m inserting some sanity into their space.

Use caution — still under construction.

28 Jul 2006 by Environment Global Warming Whacko Politics

Interpretive Center

Yesterday, we went to the newly-renovated Point Vicente Interpretive Center. Located at the southwestern tip of the Palos Verdes peninsula, the center’s main focus is on marine wildlife including whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, sea lions and waterfowl. They also have an exhibit dedicated to the US Coast Guard. We enjoyed our visit, especially the 20 minute video about whales and other sea life.

I snapped this picture of a raven swooping over the cliffs by the whale watching area.

RPV marine facility is set to reopen

The Point Vicente Interpretive Center, featuring new decor and exhibits on whales, sharks and dolphins, admits visitors Saturday for the first time in seven years.

The Point Vicente Interpretive Center in Rancho Palos Verdes has always been known as a good place to see whales. But the newly expanded center, which opens Saturday after seven years of work, takes things to a whole new level.

There are stone whales embedded in the ground, fiberglass whales hanging from the ceiling and painted whales on the walls. “It’s breathtaking,” said manager Holly Starr, who joined the center shortly before it closed in 1999.

[more]

17 Jul 2006 by California Culture Environment Photography

Drought, Forest Fires and Global Warming

World Climate Report takes a deliberate and sensible look at the relationship between rising global temperature and frequency of forest fires in the west. Warning to Greenbats — The WCR post contains actual science which may offend and confuse you, and we wouldn’t want your little green brains exploding.


The Fire This Time: More Perspective Needed

Some prominent scientists are becoming increasingly restive about the shrill portrayal of global warming science in popular media. The latest round concerned a paper by A. L. Westerling (Scripps Institute of Oceanography) relating an dramatic increase in western forest fires to regional warming and changes in the onset of snowmelt.

Colorado University’s Roger Pielke Jr., one of the nation’s preeminent scholars about how science and society interact, called it “a useful paper that adds to our knowledge and hopefully will stimulate further research on the integrated effects of climate-society-policy.” But then, he warned that “At the same time I can envisage the paper being used simply as a caricature in the global warming debate—Global Warming Causes Forest Fires!—but that would be a shame because fire policy is more complex than that.”

Well, of course, what he feared would happen, did happen. And the resultant headlines are another sad commentary on how cursory reporting on global warming has become, and how little attention is paid to the facts as they stand. Nowhere, for example, did we read Westerling’s words: “Whether the changes observed in western hydro-climate and wildfire are the result of greenhouse gas-induced global warming or only an unusual natural fluctuation, is presently unclear.”

Why so unclear? In large part, because the science isn’t straightforward, and three decades is a very short period of climate time.


[more]

The article concludes by comparing temperature anomaly with the drought index. Using a “scatter plot” which reveals any correlation between temperature and drought. The plot found nothing to indicate correlation between the two. Nothing to see here, just a random scattering of dots — no lines, no circles, no wavy curves and no correlation.

Of course, Enviroloons and Greenbats will undoubtedly come up with a way to connect the dots.

12 Jul 2006 by Environment Global Warming Science Whacko Politics

The Heat of Summer

Do you think it’s a coincidence that the level of anxiety about global warming seems to intensify just before the heat of summer? Neither does Alan Caruba commenting on CNSNews.com.

Are You Bored With Global Warming?

Are you bored with hearing about global warming all the time? Me, too. The din of asinine predictions, warnings and claims that global warming is real, i.e. a rapid increase in the overall temperature of the Earth, always seems to occur just as summer arrives when — surprise — it gets warmer.

It must have been a slow news day on June 23 because my daily newspaper ran the following headline at the very top of the front page: “Global warming is real, scientists warn.”

Since the 1980s, environmentalists have been telling us that the next Ice Age — due any day now — has been cancelled, and instead, the Earth will suffer sizzling temperatures that will make it uninhabitable.

[more]

For an exhaustive list of stuff that global warming messes up go to numberwatch.co.uk. It can keep you busy for a bit, but pick out a couple and have a laugh or two.

05 Jul 2006 by Environment Global Warming Media

Space Rock Lunar Impact Video

Not having an atmosphere to ward off small meteoroids, the Moon’s surface is under constant bombardment by space rocks. NASA scientists are now collecting data about impactors on the Moon with an eye on problems they may cause future Lunar explorers.

NASA – A Meteoroid Hits the Moon

June 13, 2006: There’s a new crater on the Moon. It’s about 14 meters wide, 3 meters deep and precisely one month, eleven days old.

NASA astronomers watched it form: “On May 2, 2006, a meteoroid hit the Moon’s Sea of Clouds (Mare Nubium) with 17 billion joules of kinetic energy—that’s about the same as 4 tons of TNT,” says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. “The impact created a bright fireball which we video-recorded using a 10-inch telescope.”

Right: A meteoroid hits the Moon.
[Click here or on the image to see the video]

Lunar impacts have been seen before–“stuff hits the Moon all the time,” notes Cooke–but this is the best-ever recording of an explosion in progress.

[Read more]

Image courtesy NASA.

Hat tip to Dr. Tony Phillips of SpaceWeather.com

14 Jun 2006 by Astronomy Environment Science Space Rocks

Some College Students Get It

The College Republican National Committee has a nice web page dedicated to the dissemination of the truth about Global Warming:

Global Warming

Certainly, the environment concerns us all. Unfortunately, many groups use scare tactics and hyperbole to send listeners into a tailspin about global climate change. While the issue of climate change should be investigated and addressed, it shouldn’t be guided by cataclysmic predictions and “what ifs” that bypass reason, the markets, and effectiveness. Temper the global warming hype with some sobering facts.

FACT: While some scientists have warned of a global warming, not all scientists are in agreement as to just what type of threat this poses. Many reputable scientists predict no substantial warming in the future; they predict a raise of merely 1 to 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next century, which is well within the range of human adaptability.

FACT: The Kyoto Protocol will do little to slow carbon dioxide emissions, and has enormous costs. [read more about Kyoto]

FACT: Polar Bears are Drowning. Did you know that ice caps melting is causing extinction for homeless polar bears??? Just kidding, but some people seem to think so. [Are polar bears dying?]

09 Jun 2006 by Environment Global Warming

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