GreenWatch Newsletter 16 (February 23, 2009)

Featured Story:

Global Warming advocates have made a habit of arguing that Global Warming not only will lead to more natural disasters, but actually has already done so. Climate realists, including this newsletter at times, have just as frequently pointed out that there is no evidence to support this claim. Well it seems our side has a new ally: Al Gore.

That's right. The Goracle himself has removed a slide from his oft-rebutted PowerPoint presentation "An Inconvenient Truth" that contained a graph which purported to show an incredible spike in disasters in recent years. He culled the data from Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times explains:

"The graph, which was added to his talk last year, came just after a sequence of images of people from Iowa to South Australia struggling with drought, wildfire, flooding and other weather-related calamities. Mr. Gore described the pattern as a manifestation of human-driven climate change. "This is creating weather-related disasters that are completely unprecedented," he said. (The preceding link is to a video clip of that portion of the talk; go to 7th minute.)

"Now Mr. Gore is dropping the graph, his office said today. Here's why.

"Two days after the talk, Mr. Gore was sharply criticized for using the data to make a point about global warming by Roger A. Pielke, Jr., a political scientist focused on disaster trends and climate policy at the University of Colorado. Mr. Pielke noted that the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters stressed in reports that a host of factors unrelated to climate caused the enormous rise in reported disasters."

In fact, this isn't the only bogus claim of Gore's recently debunked. Al Gore and United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon published an Op-Ed in The Financial Times last month that claimed that there are significantly more jobs to be found in the wind-energy industry than in the coal industry. A related article claimed that there were 85,000 jobs in wind and just 81,000 in coal. But according to The Christian Science Monitor:

"...it's a bogus comparison. According to the wind energy report, those 85,000 jobs in wind power are as "varied as turbine component manufacturing, construction and installation of wind turbines, wind turbine operations and maintenance, legal and marketing services, and more." The 81,000 coal jobs counted by the Department of Energy are only miners. Their figure excludes those who haul the coal around the country, as well as those who work in coal power plants."

Using faulty statistics to support their position is not the behavior of a movement confident in their position. And how could they be confident, with global temperatures declining, arctic ice levels matching those from 30 years ago (more on that below) and the American public growing more and more resistant to their claims?

More Headlines:

Next Decade May See No Warming

Earth and Mars Both Have Global Warming (How did our CO2 get all the way out there?)

In Australia, Tensions Boil Over on Climate Change

Climate Fears Driving "Eco-Migration" Across Globe

Global Warming Increases Respiratory Disease

Global Cooling Increases Respiratory Disease

Most Egregious Claim of the Week:

Here's the claim: Arctic Sea Ice is at historically low levels. You've heard it repeated a thousand times.

This year, however the claim seemed to be bunk. Arctic ice was recovering dramatically, nearly matching levels from 30 years ago. Then suddenly, for no discernible reason, it dropped severely. Why?

"A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.

The error, due to a problem called "sensor drift," began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That's when "puzzled readers" alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site."

Here's a link to a map showing Arctic ice cover. On the left is January 1, 2009. On the right is January 1, 1979. Here's a comparison of 2009 and 1989. And here's 2009 and 1999.

Judge for yourself.

The Reader's Corner:

We're adding a new feature to the newsletter this week: The Reader's Corner. This is your opportunity to sound off on Global Warming, a story in the newsletter, or whatever springs to mind this week. Just email us at GreenWatchAmerica@gmail.com. Please include your name and where you're from.

Rennie from Missouri: "My opinion of global warming is another government control gimmick to impose restrictions on companies, so that they can control those companies by forcing them to comply and I also believe it is in a round-about way, government's way of controlling private lands."

Buck responds to the featured story from last week, about the government restricting the amount of lead in children's toys: "I have worked with Lead for most of my life and am now 70 years old and in good health. Lead can be harmful if you do not take care of yourself. It will take drinking it do any harm."

Teresa writes in about the stimulus bill including money for an arctic ice breaking ship: "Now, why on God's green earth would they need an Ice Breaker if the ice is melting in the Arctic as 'they' claim?"

And Gene thinks we're not doing enough: "After reading your e-mail about "The New Book Banning" it is obvious your stand on 'Global Warming' is as timid as Congress's bull in the china shop approach is stupid greedy and totally uninformed!! The Congress is hot on global warming because it allows them to steal large sums of money from the American People in the form of 'Carbon taxes', supposedly to 'fight global warming' but really just a slush fund from which to steal money and hide it for themselves and their scummy 'friends'."

While we can't do anything about Congress, we'll certainly try to do better, Gene!

Have something to say? Want to tell Al Gore and Goracles how you feel? Email us at GreenWatchAmerica@gmail.com