INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH (ICR) - By Larry Vardiman, Ph.D.* - Impact > November Acts & Facts

Introduction
Man-made carbon dioxide is generally thought to produce global warming. However, in a recent article entitled "Does Carbon Dioxide Drive Global Warming?" I presented several major reasons why carbon dioxide is probably not the primary cause.1 But if carbon dioxide is not the cause, then what is? Evidence is accumulating that cosmic rays associated with fluctuations in the sun's electromagnetic field may be what drives global warming. A new theory called cosmoclimatology that proposes a natural mechanism for climate fluctuations has been developed by Henrik Svensmark,2 Head of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish National Space Center. ...

A New Climate Theory
In 1995, Henrik Svensmark discovered a startling connection between the cosmic ray flux from space and cloud cover. He found that when the sun is more active--more sunspots, a stronger magnetic field, larger auroras, stronger solar winds, etc.--fewer cosmic rays strike the earth and cloud cover is reduced, resulting in warmer temperatures. Figure 2 shows the relationship he found between low-level cloud amount derived from satellite data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project and cosmic ray counts from Climax, Colorado. - - - -
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Drop in solar activity has potential effect for climate on earth.
DAILY TECH - By Michael Asher - September 1, 2008
The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted.

The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity - which determines the number of sunspots -- is an influencing factor for climate on earth.

According to data from Mount Wilson Observatory, UCLA, more than an entire month has passed without a spot. The last time such an event occurred was June of 1913. Sunspot data has been collected since 1749.

When the sun is active, it's not uncommon to see sunspot numbers of 100 or more in a single month.  Every 11 years, activity slows, and numbers briefly drop to near-zero.   Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins.

But this year -- which corresponds to the start of Solar Cycle 24 -- has been extraordinarily long and quiet, with the first seven months averaging a sunspot number of only 3. August followed with none at all. The astonishing rapid drop of the past year has defied predictions, and caught nearly all astronomers by surprise.

In 2005, a pair of astronomers from the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson attempted to publish a paper in the journal Science. The pair looked at minute spectroscopic and magnetic changes in the sun. By extrapolating forward, they reached the startling result that, within 10 years, sunspots would vanish entirely. At the time, the sun was very active. Most of their peers laughed at what they considered an unsubstantiated conclusion.

The journal ultimately rejected the paper as being too controversial.

The paper's lead author, William Livingston, tells DailyTech that, while the refusal may have been justified at the time, recent data fits his theory well. He says he will be "secretly pleased" if his predictions come to pass.

But will the rest of us? In the past 1000 years, three previous such events -- the Dalton, Maunder, and Spörer Minimums, have all led to rapid cooling. On was large enough to be called a "mini ice age". For a society dependent on agriculture, cold is more damaging than heat. The growing season shortens, yields drop, and the occurrence of crop-destroying frosts increases.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts, who runs a climate data auditing site, tells DailyTech the sunspot numbers are another indication the "sun's dynamo" is idling. According to Watts, the effect of sunspots on TSI (total solar irradiance) is negligible, but the reduction in the solar magnetosphere affects cloud formation here on Earth, which in turn modulates climate.

This theory was originally proposed by physicist Henrik Svensmark, who has published a number of scientific papers on the subject. Last year Svensmark's "SKY" experiment claimed to have proven that galactic cosmic rays -- which the sun's magnetic field partially shields the Earth from -- increase the formation of molecular clusters that promote cloud growth. Svensmark, who recently published a book on the theory, says the relationship is a larger factor in climate change than greenhouse gases. - - - -
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Climate change, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions, is "established fact," the UCC voter guide insists
FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE - By Mark D. Tooley - September 16, 2008
Allegedly manipulative conservative religious voter guides often get lots of media play.  But Religious Left groups publish their own guidance, although for a much smaller potential constituency.

The 1.2 million member United Church of Christ (UCC), whose elites are probably the most left-leaning of all major U.S. denominations, has helpfully composed "Our Faith, Our Hope" guides to direct how liberal Christians should think in politically correct terms about climate controversies, socialized medicine, the U.S. presence in Iraq, immigration and the Welfare State.

Conservative Christian groups typically focus their voter guides on issues to which Christianity has historical teachings, such as marriage and abortion, while often also emphasizing church/state and religious liberty issues.  These conservative religionists usually do not spotlight issues emphasized by secular conservative groups, such as tax rates, economic regulation and foreign policy. In contrast, Religious Left voter guides merely echo the refrains of the secular left.  How their guides are specifically informed by religious faith is often not clear.   

On Global Warming, the UCC voter guide denounces the U.S. for emitting "almost 25 percent of greenhouse gases" in the world, while asserting that the world's poor will be "greatly impacted because they live on and from lands devastated by climate change."  Naturally, the guides does not explain how the world's poor will suffer from the economic strangulation that many Global Warming zealots seek in their quest to save "The Planet."   

While admitting possible influence by factors other than climate change, the UCC voter guide apocalyptically claims that 326 "climate disasters" unfolded during the Bush Administration's first term, affecting 262 million people.  Additional global heating could displace another 330 million with flooding, while exposing an added 220-400 million people to malaria, the UCC starkly warns.

Climate change, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions, is "established fact," the UCC voter guide insists, while urging church goers to demand that candidates explain how they will better serve "The Planet" than has the Bush Administration.  The guide frets over America's "insatiable thirst for fossil fuels," while emphasizing solar energy and hydrogen as potentially magical solutions that are carbon free.  - - - -
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EU OBSERVER - By Teresa Küchler - May 6, 2008
BRUSSELS - Brussels officials have turned to religious VIPs to help spread the gospel of an environmentally friendly society and increase awareness of climate change in their parishes, as well as promoting tolerance between different confessions in Europe.

Twenty high-level representatives - 19 men and one woman - from European Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations met in Brussels on Monday (5 may) to discuss the sensitive issues of climate change and reconciliation between peoples.

The meeting was co-chaired by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Slovenian Prime Minister and current president of the European Council, Janez Jansa, and the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering.

Mr Barroso told a press conference that churches, mosques and temples could all play an important role in identifying and implementing solutions to the challenge of climate change.

"Thanks to their moral authority, their outreach and their structure, they are well placed to make a valuable contribution, mobilising our societies for a sustainable future," the president said.

Prime Minister Jansa, referring to both the Bible and the Koran, said: "Earth was created and given to man, and man has to be respectful of what he has been given," and called for what the late Pope John Paul II described as an "ecological conversion".

"The success in the fights against climate change relies to a great extent on changes in our habits, in our philosophies in our world outlook and the consumer society that has created superficial needs - needs that justify consumption."

Mr Jansa also announced that Slovenia plans to set up a Euro-Mediterranean university that will be a meeting place for students from the Christian, Muslim and Jewish world. The school's charter is to be signed in Ljubljana in June.

Bishop Adrianus Van Luyn, the president of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences (COMECE), suggested that the EU appoint a "High Representative for Future Generations".

Who was not invited?

On the second topic of the meeting, "Reconciliation through Intercultural Dialogue", President Barroso underlined the importance of combining freedom of expression and respect for other faiths, in an attempt to sooth both Islamic outrage in recent years and others' fear of Islam.

"Islam today is part of Europe. One should not see Islam as outside Europe. We already have an important presence of Islam and Muslims among our citizens," Mr Barroso said, adding that the inter-faith dialogue proved that the "preachers of a clash of civilisations are wrong." . . .

Others criticised the invitation list for Monday's inter-faith meeting.

Flanked by a female priest colleague, Swedish archbishop Anders Weyrud [Lutheran] told EUobserver he was disappointed there was only one woman among the religious dignitaries, pastor Letizia Tomassone, the vice-president of the federation of evangelical churches of Italy, who had also raised the point during the inter-religious meeting.

"We have neglected both nature and women, that was one of the messages we tried to get across at this meeting," the archbishop said.

From its headquarters just across the street from the inter-religious meeting, a spokesperson from the church of scientology, a faith that is growing rapidly in Europe, told EUobserver that Brussels should also look at minority religions in Europe when deciding who to put on the invitation list for upcoming meetings. - - - -
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* Emphasis Added

Blames U.N. for using scare reports, 'mob rule,' to bully through agenda
WORLDNETDAILY - By Bob Unruh - June 19, 2008
A scientist whose reservations about "global warming" have been officially endorsed by tens of thousands of other scientists is accusing the U.N. of using "mob rule" to generate fear-mongering climate change reports intended to scare national leaders into submitting to its worldwide taxation schemes.

"Science has always progressed on the basis of observations, experiments, and thoughts published by individual scientists and sometimes pairs or small groups of scientific coworkers," Art Robinson, a research professor of chemistry and co-founder of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, said in a recent column in Human Events. . . .

Not so, however, at the United Nations. Especially with the organization's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has generated many of the claims of catastrophic results of man's use of hydrocarbon fuels, including submerged coastlines and a deadly, massive expansion of African deserts.

The IPCC website boasts of sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore Jr. for "efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change." It also notes its goals are to eradicate poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve mothers' health, combat HIV/AIDS, ensure environmental sustainability and others.

"The IPCC provides its reports at regular intervals and they immediately become standard works of reference, widely used by policymakers, experts and students," the organization itself says. .

The IPCC conferences do, in fact, feature "a few hundred" people, including some with formal educations in science, some actively engaged in scientific work, some retired, holding discussions on "the entirely unsolved problem of climate prediction for time periods decades and even centuries in the future," said Robinson, who also publishes the Access to Energy newsletter. In 1973, Robinson co-founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine with Linus Pauling.

"The primary requirement for selection is a willingness to participate in the United Nations' new 'process' and the agenda behind it," Robinson said. "These people study and discuss the current and past research literature concerning climate and climate prediction. ... These emanations are closely observed by a very select small group of United Nations operatives."

At the end of the meetings, "this small group of observers combines the products of the meeting into a large important-looking report - carefully editing the report so that it supports United Nations political objectives," Robinson said. "At no time is this report submitted to the 600-plus 'scientists.'"

The results then are distributed as "settled science," he said, "regardless of the fact that the scientists involved do not agree upon the text. ... The elite few who oversaw the meeting and interpreted its results are special. They are the U.N.'s anointed messengers of the truth."

A spokeswoman for the United Nation's Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon declined to respond to WND questions about the process, referring those questions to the IPCC office in Geneva. There a spokeswoman confirmed for WND the process that has a small number of specially appointed U.N. operatives write reports following "scientific" meetings.

Robinson's petition, which includes the names of leading experts in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties, also features the names of more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in their areas of expertise. [See: The Petition Project]

But Robinson said the U.N. operatives have fallen victim to "a peculiar and dangerous virus" infecting American public discourse.

Victims of that disease, which robs words of their meaning, also believe that "democracy" means "republic," "gambling" becomes "investment" and "vice" becomes the "virtue of diversity," Robinson said.

Also, "science" has become devalued.

"And nowhere is it more abused than in the United Nations, where institutionalized mob rule is called 'science,'" he said.

"In its headlong drive to gain the power to tax and ration world energy (and thereby control world technology - sharing taxation authority with other governments in return for their support) the United Nations has created a 'process,' which it calls 'science,'" he said.

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Company recruits kids to keep records, bust parents for 'energy crimes'
WORLDNETDAILY - July 28, 2008
A new website campaign designed by a British power company recruits children through games, badges and cartoons to enlist as "Climate Cops," actively keeping records on their parents and neighbors for violations of "energy crimes" against the planet.

The "Climate Cops" website encourages children to investigate family and friends and "then build your 'Climate Crime Case File' and report back to your family to make sure they don't commit those crimes again (or else)!" The site also warns children that they "may need to keep a watchful eye" to prevent future violations.

A link on the site for teachers to download free materials for building lesson plans indicates the website is targeting children from ages 7-11.

The so-called crimes children are to watch for are listed on a poster (visible at left) and range from leaving the tap running and failing to use energy-saving light bulbs to running the dryer on a sunny day and putting hot food in the refrigerator.

The website also encourages children to download a series of "Climate Crime Cards" (such as the one pictured at the very top of the alert) in which enlisted "Climate Cops" can keep an ongoing record of their family's violation of energy "crimes." - - - -
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New study suggests storm frequency, intensity may not substantially rise during next 2 centuries
WORLDNETDAILY - April 12, 2008
One of the most vocal scientists in the field of hurricane prediction has backed away from his earlier certainty of a link between global warming and stronger hurricanes after developing a new forecasting technique that suggests a moderate increase - or even decline - in storm activity over the next 200 years.

Kerry Emanuel, a climate scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his co-authors published their findings in the March issue of Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. . . .

Emanuel and his colleagues found reduction in the number of hurricanes around the world over the next two centuries with increases in intensity in some regions. . . .

"There are various interpretations possible, e.g. a) The big increase in hurricane power over the past 30 years or so may not have much to do with global warming, or b) The models are simply not faithfully reproducing what nature is doing. Hard to know which to believe yet. - - - -
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REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Julie Steenhuysen - April 24, 2008

Ed. Note: We have already documented in previous alerts that a number of different nations militaries including the United States have been experimenting with this technology for various reasons without any regard for the safety of their population. See the links below for further information.
BE/\LERT!

CHICAGO - A proposed solution to reverse the effects of global warming by spraying sulfate particles into Earth's stratosphere could make matters much worse, climate researchers said on Thursday.

They said trying to cool off the planet by creating a kind of artificial sun block would delay the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole by 30 to 70 years and create a new loss of Earth's protective ozone layer over the Arctic.

"What our study shows is if you actually put a lot of sulfur into the atmosphere we get a larger ozone depletion than we had before," said Simone Tilmes of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, whose research appears in the journal Science.

The sulfur injection idea has been proposed by a number of climate scientists as a potential solution to global warming.

Tilmes said the idea was intended to mimic the effects of a major volcanic eruption. Such eruptions in the past sent plumes of sun-blocking sulfur into an upper layer of the atmosphere known as the stratosphere that cooled temperatures on Earth.

Ozone in the stratosphere provides a protective layer high above Earth's surface that guards against harmful solar radiation.

Antarctica's ozone layer has been steadily thinning, resulting in a seasonal "hole" above the South Pole.

"We know that particles would result in the cooling of the planet," Tilmes said in a telephone interview.

But such cooling would come with unintended side effects. She said sulfate injections could react with chlorine gasses in cold polar regions, triggering a chemical reaction that would further deplete atmospheric ozone.

Tilmes and colleagues looked specifically at the impact of plans to repair holes in the ozone over the poles and concluded that regular injections of sulfates over the next few decades would destroy between one-fourth to three-fourths of the ozone layer above the Arctic.

That would affect a large part of the Northern Hemisphere because of atmospheric circulation patterns, they said. The impact would be less during the second half of the century because of international pacts to ban the production of ozone-depleting chemicals.

In the Antarctic, a sulfate-injection scheme would delay the recovery of the ozone hole by 30 to 70 years, or at least until the last decade of this century.

Tilmes and colleagues used different measurements and computer models to make their predictions.

She said her findings did not close the door on the idea of artificially cooling the planet in that way but raised a flag of caution.

"We need people to have atmospheric models to understand the process in more detail," she said in a telephone interview.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

Original Report

Turbulent storms leaving spots on big planet, ice caps retreating on red planet
WORLDNETDAILY - May 23, 2008
Does Al Gore know about this?

While the former vice president is leading the charge for drastically changing the way humans do business in a bid to avert catastrophic, man-made global warming, scientists reported today there is noticeable climate change taking place on Jupiter, too.

The news follows reports as far back as three years ago that ice caps on Mars are also retreating much as some of the ice in the Earth's Arctic circle.

There's one striking difference between Earth and the other two planets, however. Neither Jupiter or Mars has any people - and no artificial activity creating so-called "greenhouse gases" like carbon dioxide. . . .

Captured with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the 10-meter Keck II telescope, this so-called "major upheaval" on Jupiter involves stunning changes in the planet's atmosphere, said lead astronomer Imke de Pater, professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley. - - - -
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New analysis: California in for a devastating quake within 30 years
Huge state quake predicted within 30 years
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE [Hearst Corporation] - By David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor - April 15, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO -- A strong and deadly earthquake is virtually certain to strike on one of California's major seismic faults within the next 30 years, scientists said Monday in the first official forecast of statewide earthquake probabilities.
They calculated the probability at more than 99 percent that one or more of the major faults in the state will rupture and trigger a quake with a magnitude of at least 6.7.
An even more damaging quake with a magnitude of 7.5 or larger, the earthquake scientists said, is at least 46 percent likely to hit on one of California's active fault systems within the next three decades. It probably would strike in the southern part of the state, the scientists warned. - - - -
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Israel authorities warn hospitals to prepare for earthquake
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - June 30, 2008
A strong earthquake could soon rock Lebanon and parts of Israel, authorities said on Monday, urging health officials in northern Israel to make preparations for such an event.
"The probability of an earthquake of a magnitude of up to six on the Richter scale, originating in Lebanon and being felt in Israel has increased," the health ministry said in a letter sent to medical officials in northern Israel.
Since February, abnormal seismic activity has been noted in southern Lebanon, which had suffered some 500 minor earthquakes in a three-month period, health ministry director-general Avi Yisraeli said in the letter.
"In May, the tremors have become more intense and were felt in northern Israel," he said adding that "should an earthquake of such magnitude hit northern Israel, it may cause substantial infrastructural damage in the area. . . .
Similar concern was issued by Lebanon's national scientific research centre.
The secretary general of the centre, Moueen Hamz, told AFP in Beirut that 800 tremors ranging in magnitude from 2.3-5.1 degrees on the Richter scale had shaken the south Lebanon regions of Tyre and Nabatiyeh since February 12. . . .
Some seismologists in Israel say that quakes have historically rocked the region every eight decades, and the last one was nearly 81 years ago.
About 300 people were killed in Jerusalem and nearby Jericho by the July 11, 1927 temblor.
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