COVERSTORY GLOBAL WARMING

10 THENEWAMERICAN • FEBRUARY 16, 2009

by Ed Hiserodt

Judge: Counselor, do you have any-thini; to say before I pronounce sentenceon ihf accused?

Attorney: Yes. your honor. Might I re-mind you that the victim my client wasaccusí'íl of murdering showed up earlierand is veiy much alive, sitting there in thefront row?

Judge: Sir. thi.s cimrt does not deal in¡riviaiifics.

Attorney: But your honor, I'd respect-fully suggest that since there is no victim,¡here has been no crime and my client isobviously innocent.

Judge: Counselor, you are very close¡o being in contempt of this court. I am¡he one who determines guilt or innocencehere and your client is going to hang.

Attorney: Rut judge...

I n 1970. I recall New Orleans school-children taking a 185-mile field tripto Jacksttn. Mississippi, so students

might experience something Ihey hadnever seen before: snow. This year theydidn't have to bother, as Southern Loui-siana was blanketed with four inches ofthe white stuff, the first major snow in 45years, and only two inches shy of the all-lime record of six inches set in 1895. Itwas also the earliest snow since recordkeeping began in 1850.

Not to be outdone. Las Vegas checkedin with what local meteorologist JeromeJacquest said was the most snow since1979. With no snow removal or de-icingequipment, the airport was closed alongwith most reiads. Gambling, however, wasnot affected.

Snow wasn't the only problem. Freez-ing temperatures in Denver set a new lowof minus 18, eclipsing a record from 1901.White Sulfur Springs, Montana, reported29 below, shredding the previous recordmark of minus 17. set in 1922. For theweek of December 15, 2008 alone, HAMWeather Service reports 1.537 record lowlemperatures in the United States and 1.110record snowfalls — not exactly what onewould expect while on the way to climatecatastrophe owing to global warming.

Weather watchers know this isn't just ananomaly or freak occurrence. For the past10 years, the summers have been cooler andthe winters more severe. In Little Rock, for

example, a chart in the news-paper SIKWS ihcrr haw beenfive consecutive months withaverage temperatures beli>wnormal. Slnci.' Liltle Rock issituated near the geographi-cal tenter of the country,one would suspect that thisis not an unusual condition,and indeed, sucii a suspi-cion IS borne out by satellitemeasurements thiit cover theentire globe and are not sub-ject to the "urban heat island" effect thathas been sho« n u add .is much as 10°F torecording stations in urban areas as com-pared to rural counterparts. An NBC crewsent out to show the Northwest Passagewas ice free had their icebreaker strandedfor three weeks because of thick ice.

With such obvious disputations of"global warming," one might also suspectthat the convictions of some honest, objec-tive members of the weather establishmentwoulti begin to waver — ufter seeing thevictim alive and sitting in the courtroom.

Tip of the Iceberi]And in fact, il is Lpparent that more thanjust a few experts .ire wavering. When thonews was reported of a British court an-nouncing that Al <jore's An InconvenientTruth was unfit for school "because it ispolitically biased and contains scientific

If CO2 is the cause of glob^ war¡Tiing,then it must be absorbing solar energyand warming the âir, which in turn warmsthe surface. Both alarmists and skepticsagree that ail modeis predict a *'hot spot"at 10 kilometers above the tropics. Btitthere is nosuchhotsp^t.

inaccuracies and sentimental mush," CNNmeteorologist Kob Maa^ano — who wasoft-cameni preparing to give the weatherreport — applauded and said, "Finally, fi-nally!'" He was particularly incensed thaiGore blamed Hurricane Katrina on anthro-pogenic (human-caused) global warminglAGW). During the period of Decembermarked b> low temperatures, mentionedabove, CNN severe-weather expert ChadMeyer conmiented dur.ng Um Dobbs To-night. "You know; It) ihnk we etiuld alïec!weather al! that much is pretty arrogant."

In a Jul) li"., 2008 widely circulated ar-ticle entitled "No Smoking Hot Spot." Aus-iraliiui Gieenliouse Office scientist DavidEvans came out of th¿ global-warmingskeptics' closet. Although having writtenthe carbon accounting model used to mea-sure Australia's compliance with tho KyotoProtocol, Evans was wrestling with a prob-

Record early wintrr weather givesnew meaning to thd term "snow plow'in a Southern Mississippi field.

www. TheNewAmerican.com 11

COVERSTORY GLOBAL W A R M I N G

"For how many yearSihustfhe planet-cool before we begin jo understand that .the p lanen^ot iÀrarming? For how mani^years must cooling go on?"

— Geologist Dr. D^vid^GeeChairman of the science committee of the

2008 Internationai Geologicai Congress

lem: the greenhouse-gas signature is miss-ing. If CO2 is the cause of global warming,then it must be absorbing solar energy andwarming the air, which in turn warms thesurface. Both alarmists and skeptics agreethat all models predict a "hot spot" at 10kilometers above the tropics. But there isno such hot spot. Quoting Evans:

We have been measuring the atmo-sphere for decades using radiosondes— weather balloons with thermom-eters that radio back the temperatureas the balloon aseends through theatmosphere. They show no hot spot.Whatsoever. If there is no hot spot,then an increased greenhouse effect isnot the eause of global warming. Sowe know for sure that earbon emis-sions are not a significant cause oftheglobal warming. If we had found thegreenhouse signature, then I wouldbe an alarmist aaain.

The Rest of the IcebergA U.S. Senate minority re-pon entitled More Than 650International Scientists Dis-sent Over Man-Made GlobalWanning Claims, subtitledScientists Continue to De-iniiik "Consensus" in 2008.was released on December11. 2008.'These650dissent-ing scientists are more than12 times the 52 government-supported scientists who gave

us the 2007 Summary for Policy Makers— the abbreviated version of the climateassessment by the UN's intergovernmen-tal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — towhich the major media looks adoringly fornews about global warming. (There were,however, diplomats from 115 countriesaiding the IPCC, making sure the warningsproduced the greatest gloom and fear.)

The Senate report includes names, biog-raphies, academic institutional affiliations,and quotes from hundreds of internationalscientists who have publicly dissentedagainst man-made climate fears. Here area few condensed remarks typical of thegroup as a whole;

• "I am a skeptic... Global warming hasbecome a new religion." — Nobel Prizewinner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

• "Since I am no longer affiliated withany organization nor receiving any fund-ing, I can speak quite frankly.... As a scien-tist I remain skeptical.... The main basis of

the claim that man's release of greenhousegases is the cause ofthe wanning is basedalmost entirely upon climate models. Weall know the frailty of models concerningthe air-surface system." — Atmosphericscientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the firstwoman in the world to receive a Ph.D. inmeteorology, and formerly of NASA, whohas authored more than 190 studies andhas been named "among the most preemi-nent scientists of the last i 00 years."

• Warming fears are the "worst scientificscandal in ... history.... When peopleeometo knovi' what the truth is, they will feeldeceived by science and scientists." — UNIPCC Japanese scientist Dr. KIminori ltoh,an award-winning Ph.D. environmentalphysical chemist.

• "The IPCC has actually become aclosed circuit; it doesn't listen to others.It doesn't have open minds.... I am reallyamazed that the Nobel Peace Prize hasbeen given on scientifically incorrect con-clusions by people who are not geologists."— Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwaliaof Punjab University, a board member ofthe UN-supported International Year ofthePlanet.

• "So far, real measurements give noground for concern about a catastrophicfuture warming." — Scientist Dr. Jarl R.Ahlbeck, a chemical engineer at Abo Aka-demi University in Finland, author of 200scientific publications, and former Green-peace member.

• "Anyone who claims that the debate isover and the conclusions are firmhas a fundamentally unscientificapproach to one of the most mo-mentous issues of our time." —Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke.senior adviser to the NorwegianSpace Centre in Oslo. Brekkehas published more than 40peer-reviewed scientific articleson the sun and solar interactionwith the Earth.

• "It is a blatant lie put forthin the media that makes it seemthere is only a fringe of scientistswho don't buy into anthropo-genic global warming." —• U.S.Government atmospheric scien-tist Stanley B. Goldenberg oftheHurricane Research Division ofthe National Oceanic and Atmo-spheric Administration.

12 THE NEW AMERICAN • FEBRUARY 16. 2009

1979

Satellite data compiled bythe University of Alabama inHuntsville clearly shows thatthe Earth is now in a coolingtrend. The peak in 1998 was aworldwide rise resulting from astrong El Niño having nothingtodo with carhon dioxide.

• "For how many yearsmust the planet cool beforewe begin to understand thatthe planet is not warming?l-or how many years mustcooling go on?" — GeologistDr. David Gee, the chairmanof the science committee ofthe 2008 International Geo-logical Congress who hasauthoied 130-plus peer-re-\ iewed papers, and is currently at UppsalaUniversity in Sweden.

• "The "global warming scare" is beingused as a political tool to increase govern-ment control over American lives, incomesand decision making. It has no place in theSociety's activities." — Award-winningNASA astronaut/geologist and moonwalk-er Jack Schmitt, who flew on the Apollo17 mission and is formerly of the Norwe-gian Geological Survey and the U.S. Geo-logical Survey.

International Panel on Climate ChangeThe IPCC. the entity that has generated thego-to documents that politicians and mostmedia turn to for global-warming procla-mations, doesn't have the credibility ofthe dissenters. The IPCC was formed in1988 by the United Nations and the WorldMeteorological Organization. It is a sin-gle-purpose, single-interest organization.The entire reason for the IPCC's beingis to provide evidence for anthropogenicglobal warming. Had it not been for theIPCC's aclivities, it is unlikely you wouldhave ever heard the terms "global warm-ing" or "climate change."

The IPCC has issued four "assessments"about the likelihood of AGW — in 1991,1996, 2001, and 2007 — and the likely ef-tects around the world should catastrophicwarming occur. These assessments arelypically 800 pages or so in length and(except for the last one) without indices.making them virtually wonhless for anybut the most dedicated reader. But one

UAH MOHT>«.Y MCANS OP LOWER TROPOSPW!« LT3.2Qlobtf Tcmperolur* Anornaiy

Jamiarv 197«'July 7008

\2 :A 3« *f 71 M 9t 108 IM m lU IM ne 23B MO 293 IM Z7e 2M 300 313 314 IM MRHontN 2008

e C

hang

etu

rT

empe

ra

- 0

MedievalWarm Period

1 1 1

1000 AD

Little Ice Age

1 1 1 1

1500 ADYear

^ ^

1 1

1900 AD

might not bolher níading them anyway, asthe importance of the reports is complete!)eclipsed by the 'Summary for Policy Mak-ers" (SPM) — or as some would suggestSummary hy Polii:y Makers. This docu-ment is what is reli:ased to the media and.as we shall see, is often quite differentfrt)m the repon itst-lf.

Let us look at how the IPCC "Summaryfor Policy Makers'" hasidled the assess-ments written by committees of scientists.The following are statements from theoriginal documem of the second IPCCreport (1996). which had been approvedby the scientific wiiters' committees. Thefirst statement says: "None of the studiescited above has shewn clear evidence thatwe can attribute the observed (climate)changes to the spet ific cause of increasesin greenhouse gases."

That's pretty clear, so how about this

Greenland really was green: As evidencedby agricultuie in now-frozen Greenland,temperatures were much higher during theMedieval Warm Period than today — without acatastrophe occurring.

one: 'No siudy to date has positively at-tributed all or part (of climate changeobserved to date) to anthropogenic (man-made) causes."

There's not any waffling there, so let'slook at one more: "Any claims of positivechange of significant climate change arelikely to remain controversial until uncer-tainties in the total nature variability of theclimate system are reduced."

As Al Gore would say. that is "UN-EE-QUIV-o-cal."

Yet the three statements above were re-moved by the jjolitica! inOuences, and intheir place was substituted: "The balance

www. TheNewAmerican. com 13

I COVERSTORY

CantribuiM to the IPCC work wittiANHcalim md veracity are (bewtniwrs of ttir

NOBELPEACEPRIZE

007

of evidence suggests a discernible humaninfluence on global climate."

The late Professor Frederick Seitz, theformer president of the National Academyof Sciences, in a June 12, 1996 letter tothe Wall Street Journal, accused the IPCCof censoring the scientific content of theassessment report to agree with a positionfavored by bureaucrats, governments, andNGOs. Said Seitz: "I have never witnesseda more disturbing corruption of the re-review process than the events that led tothis IPCC report.**

The bias of the IPCC was establishedby the lead editor of the first three IPCCreports. Sir John Houghton, who set thetone for the organization with the state-ment. "Unless we announce disaster, noone will listen."' If you've been hired bythe United Nations to provide evidence ofglobal warming, you can't be pussyfoot-ing around with statements that suggest itis not only unproven but well might notbe happening at all. One is certainly com-forted by such objectivity.

The IPCC and the Temperature RecordThere is general agreement that the lastice age ended about 12,000 years ago.With the temperature some 20°F belowtoday's norms and continuing that way

for about 100.000 years, some 400 feet ofthe oceans' depth evaporated, fell as snow,was compressed into ice and covered theNorthern United States to an estimateddepth of one mile. With intennittent back-slides and pauses, the Earth has gener-ally been warming since that time. Yet thewarming alarmists would have us believethat the warming that we have experiencedrecently is unprecedented, human-caused,and hkely catastrophic. Oh really?

About 7,000 years ago, a warm pe-riod known as the Holocene Optimumcoincided with the time that agriculturearose worldwide that, in turn, ushered inthe Bronze Age. It is a period the IPCCsimply ignores, as temperatures then weremuch warmer than their worst predictionsunder COi-generated warming, yet catas-trophe did not ensue. Polar bears had beenaround for the previous 190.000 years andsurvived the Holocene Optimum quitenicely, thank you very much.

After a few ups and downs, anotherwarm period called the Roman Optimumis considered by historians to be a largefactor in the rise ofthe Roman civilization,as society had the ability to produce morefood than required to sustain the farmers,thus allowing others to construct the in-frastructure of roads, buildings, and aq-

Created specifically to provide evidenceof global warming, the IPCC chooses onlydata that support their position and ignoresmountains of proof to the contrary.

ueducts upon which the empire was built.The Dark Ages, on the other hand, may nothave been dark, but they were cold.

Then warmth came back in the form ofwhat we call the Medieval Warm Periodin about 950 A.D.. known by hi,sti)rians asthe Age ofthe Cathedrals, The MedievalWarm Period presents problems for alarm-ists because it can't be simply ignored. Itis easy to prove that it was warmer thantoday. Not only do temperature proxiessuch as ice cores show it. but the flour-ishing Viking civilization on Greenlandconfirms it. Land that today is frozensolid then supported cattle, pigs, sheep,and goats for the "settlers."

Existence of the Greenland civiliza-tion is a source of embarrassment to theglobal warmers as it leads to a logicalinconsistency:

Q. Was Greenland warmer during theperiod 950 A.D. to 1450 A.D, than it istoday?

A. Without question. Crops and pastureswere grown where today is permanentlyfrozen ground.

Q. Could this be a localized temperatureanomaly?

A. Only if such an anomaly can stayaround for approximately 500 years.

Q. Were port cities such as London- andVenice flooded by high sea levels duringthis period of high temperatures — tem-peratures several degrees higher thantoday?

A. No.Q. So why would one expect them to be

flooded today if temperatures rose consid-erably, to the level that would allow agri-culture again in Greenland?

A. Duh. Because Al Gore said so?Sadly for our ancestors, the warm cli-

mate didn't last. Europe experienced aprolonged cold, wet spell, causing cropfailures and famine. Always being on theverge of starvation resulted in a generalweakness that is thought to have prolongedand exacerbated the "black death," whichkilled approximately half of Europe's pop-ulation. This cool period — from whichmany climatologists consider the Earth tobe still emerging — is known as the Little

14 THE NEW AMERICAN • EEBRUARY 16. 2009

MIM

Ice Age. It too is a difficult period to ex-plain away, as there are records of "frostfairs" on ihe Thame.s in London fromthe early 16()0s to 1814, with ice on theorder of 11 inches thick supporting tents,wagons, and even a visiting elephant.Since temperatures obviously have beenincreasing for several hundred years, is itso unusual for them to still be increasing?{Except thai they're not.)

In North America the weather was coldenough for New York harbor to freeze soihal one could walk from Manhattan toStaten Island. During the Civil War, armyreports indicated that in Little Rock, forseveral weeks each year, wagon teamscould cross the iced-over Arkansas River,something no one alive today has everseen.

The period between about 1645 andI7I5 was particularly cold and coincideswith the Maunder Minimum, where onlyabout 50 sunspots appeared, compared toan expectation ot from 4ü,Ü00 to 50,000.(More sunspots mean greater solar activ-ity. See sidebar on page 16.)

Summing up, the Medieval Warm Pe-riod was far warmer than the tempera-tures global-warm ing alarmists expect usto reach, without any of the catastrophespredicted by alarmists, and the Little IceAge clearly shows that Earth had a coldspell from which it has been warming forsome 200 years, benefitingplant, animal, and humanexistence on Earth. Enterthe "hockey stick."

The Hockey StickThe term "hockey stick" re-fers to the shape of u 1998graph of temperature versuslime as displayed by globalwarmer.s Michael Mann,Raymond Bradley, and Mal-com Hughes. It performsseveral amazing functionsfor the alarmists, namely:

• Eliminates the MedievalWarm Period;

Used by Gore in hisInconvenient Truth, the"hockey stick" graph hasbeen discredited and removedtrom the most recent IPCCassessment report.

• Eliminates the Little IceAge; and

• Shows reccni teinpera-tures to be rising catastrophiccally.

Il was a blessing for theIPCC and, according toChristopher Monckton —writer and prooucer of theinformative and entertainingvideo Apocalypie? NO!^ —the hockey stick was usedin full color no fewer thansix times in the 2001 IPCC assessmentreport.

Unfortunately for Mann el al.. two Ca-nadians were suspicious of their resultsand finally were able to obtain sufficientinformation lo challenge the methodologyihat produced the "convenient" graph.Businessman Steven Mclntyre and econo-mist Ross McKitrick examined the con-struction and ust̂ of the data set of prox-ies for past climate that Mann had usedto estimate the temperature from 1400 to1980 and found collation errors, unjusti-fied truncation and extrapolation, use ofobsolete data, and calculation mistakes.

Global alarmists challenged the chal-lengers, and the matter was taken to theAcademy of Sciences and to a panel head-ed by Edward Wcgman of George MasonUniversity, commissioned by the U.S.

^ -

The Medieval Warm Perioll^astfarwanner than the temperatures alarmistsexpect us to reach, and the Little ice Ageclearly shows that Earth had a cold spell 'from which it has been warming for some,200 year&, benefiting plant, animal, and 'human existence on Earth.

Congress. Both referees found in favor ofMclntyre over Mann, The Wegman panelfully endorsed the findings of Mclniyreand McKitrick. "The NAS panel." asChristopher Horner puts it in The ¡'oHii-cally Incorrec! Guide to Global Wanning."specifically repudiated three-fourths ofMann's record, specifically accused theIPCC of misrepresentation, and specifical-ly accused the Mann team ol down-playinghistorical uncertainties." Nonetheless, theonce-proud and resptcted Nature maga-zine brazenly opined. "Academy afHrmshockey-stick graph."

All of these investigations had beencompleted aiitl were v.el! known by earlysummer of 2006, Nonetheless, Gore's Aninconvenient Truth, not relea.sed until lateNovember 2006, used the hockey stick asthe centerpiece of his .irgument.

Mann el ill. Hockey Stick, CRU Instrumental NH Temperature Anomaly

1000 1060 1100 1160 1200 1260 1300 1360 1400 1460 1600 1660 1600 1960 1700 1760 1800 1BS0 1B00 1060 2000

WWW. TheNewAmerican.com 15

COVERSTORY

Goodbye Free-market CapitalismIf the IPCC and inlernalionali.sts every-where were content to let global warmingremain an object of discussion and moni-toring, its pronouncements would likelyinspire the same type of humor as thatelicited by an eccentric old uncle who tellsabout inventing the light bulb and sailingon the Titanic, but such is not the case.They want (demand) worldwide changes— decreasing levels of COT emissionsthrough a worldwide cap-and-trade systemlor CO2. It is difficult to imagine any pol-icy more destructive to our economy than"cap and trade." Today's bailouts are hor-rid and give government an equity stake inbusinesses — about as socialist as you canget. But "cap and trade" would gut the very

system that has made the United States thewealthiest country in the world.

While there are a number of plans underdiscussion, most have the same basicelements:

" The government, or governments,would issue "carbon certificates" allow-ing a commercial or industrial user** toconsume a specified amount of carbon-based fuel. The total amount would beless than the currently used amount, mak-ing these instruments instantly valuable.If. for example, a manufacturer desiredto expand or continue production (sincethe number of existing credits would becontinually reduced to meet some Kyoto-type protocol), he would be required topurchase them from another manufac-

turer or on "the open market."• The "open murket" — the reason Ken

Lay and Enron were such fans of global-warming alarmism — could be anywhere inthe world. A self-coronated potentate fromCowabunga, Africa, might sell the creditshe is given by an international body for notdestroying a rain forest (formerly knownas a jungle) to an American entrepreneurwho wanted to open a shoestring repairbusiness. Or an up-and-coming corporaicexecutive might see a huge profit frommoving his manufacturing plant to a ThirdWorld country (with no carbon certificaterequirements), benefiting nicely from salesof the carbon credits obtained by closinghis U.S.-based manufacturing plant.

The possibilities for corruption are end-

Not So Funin the Su

After months of inactivity, the sunspol in the norttiern hemisphere mayhe the start of I on g-delayed Solar Cycle #24.

I f CO2 didn't cause the warming we experienced through the199ÜS, what did cause it? In 1801 astronomer William Herschel,

discoverer of the planet Uranus and of infrared radiation, is said tohave predicted the price of grain from counting the number of ob-servable sunspots. When the sunspots increased, the weather warmedand the price of grain came down. During periods of low activity, theweather cooled, crops diminished, and the price rose. The relation-ship between solar activity and temperature has been noted for years,but the increase in solar irradiance can be shown to be too small to

account for significant changes in temperature. However,ihe correlation was far too close to be coincidental and is;i far better correlation to Earth's temperature record thanCO2 as a climate forcing agent. It seems we were lookingin the wrong direction. In 2004. Nir Shaviv and Jan Vetzerof the Hebrew University showed empirical evidence thatcosmic ray flux" had an impact on climate variability.

Though increases and decreases in solar irradiancewouldn't directly produce Earth's measured temperaturechanges, solar activity appears to have an indirect effect. Asupernova sends out swarms of cosmic rays (mostly pro-tons and elect]-ons) that cause small particles in our atmo-sphere to attract one another, becoming nuclei for cloudfomialions high in the atmosphere. During periods of highsolar activity, solar winds and magnetic tlelds act to blockihese cosmic intruders and prevent the formation of clouds.As high clouds reflect sunlight, preventing their formationincreases the radiation reaching the surface and increases(he global temperature. In other words, high solar activity,L-videnced by sunspots. disrupts cloud formation. Ihus al-lowing more solar heating of the Earth.

The '90s were a period of high solar activity, but thishas slowed down. In fact, it has virtually stopped. The totalsolar irradiance, as reported by NASA's David Hathaway,is at the lowest point on record — although the record isonly a few decades long. Furthermore, sunspots migrate

across the sun as the sunspot (solar) cycle matures. Usually a newsunspot cycle would have already been active by this time — but ithasnH started. This is very bad news for the global-warming alarm-ists, as the data show this is the precursor of a cooling trend. Actually,it is not such good news for skeptics either, as colder weather is muchmore dangerous and uncomfortable than warmer weather for manyreasons. Personally. I'm not a big fan of driving a team oí horNCsacross a frozen Arkansas River. •

— ED HiSERODT

16 THE NEW AMERICAN * FEBRUARY 16. 2009

less. It would make all U.S. enterprisesbeggars \o controllers ofthe carbon-creditapparatus. Carbon producers would be-come de jure criminals, and de factocriminals would become rich and power-ful. Competition for the ever-decreasingcredits would increase their value andthe power the issuers had over our entireenergy-dependent economy.

But in Our Arsenal...Sa\ ing the day may be a new organization,the N"^1PCC — the NON-GovernmentalInternational Panel on Climate Change.It has hundreds of .scientists with varyingbackgrounds to show its objectivity. Withbulldog Dr. S. Fred Singer at the helm,one should feei confident that the positionof skeptics to climatic catastrophe will bewell upheld.

Underpinning the global realism rebel-lioîi is the Petition Project of the OregonInstitute of Science and Medicine. Nowwith signed petitions from over 31.000scientists with a minimum of a bachelor'sdegree, but including over 9.000 Ph.D.s.it is a force lo be reckoned with now and

in the future as the battle lines are drawnbetween skei)tic> and alarmists. For moreinformation or to check on qualiñcationsgo to www.petitionproject.org.

If you want to hear from the finestminds on the subject of climate change,you should hurr} to make reservations forthe 2009 Internaiional Conference on Cli-mate Change sponsored by the HeartlandInstitute in New York City on March 8-10.Forihe second ytar.TNA plans to be therefor interviews with national and interna-tionai speakers. For more information orreservations, contact ncomerford@heart-land.org or call 312-377-4000.

Humor: Bane of the AbsurdMore and more p"ople worldwide are ask-ing. '"Hey, I'm fieezing my buns off andthe weather is getting cooler every year.But Tm going to have to change my life-style and reduce my standard of living be-cause 52 scientisi-lackeys say that carbondioxide is causing global warming? Giveme a break." The emperor has no clothes,and it's up to us to reinforce what is al-ready known. Let us take every opportuni-

ty ti> usk. "Whatever -lappeneti to (ilobalWarnung.*"' and at the same time ¡loiiit onlthat it's not a sin against tbe planet to dri\ean SUV or burn a peat bitg. And — onelast fact — in geologic time, our presentlevel of CO2 is relatively low comparedto earlier Ie\els that were sotne 12 timesthe amount of concerr to alarmists. Plantswere very happy then, and oceans didn'tboil away. Remeinber, plants thrive onCO; — "Trees Love SUVs." •

I.The U.S. Senate Comtniilee on Environmcnl anil

Public Works has made livailahle a downlnailiihlc

PDF of ihe full repon tit (heir minority website

littp://epw.scnate.gov/miiiority/. Click on "'White

Papers atid Reports"'; the PDF is listed as "Senate

Mimtrily Repon 2."'

2. The Tower oi' London was buill in IÜ78 A.D. on

the north bank of the River Thames, a few feet

above the high lide mark. Today it remains a few

feei above ihf high lide mark.

^.Apocalypse? NO! is available Imni the Science

& Pnlilic Policy Institute, http://scienceandpub-

lic|Ki I icy.org/.

4. Programs to extend this t.i individuals are already

well underway in EU countries.

RAFFINCONSTRUCTION CO.

RAFFINP R O P E R T I E S7 4 4 E A S T t t 3 T H S T . • C H I C A G O , I L 6 0 6 2 8 • i 7 7 3 ) 7 8 5 - 3 O 5 5 • w w w . RAFF 1 SCON STIJUCTION .COM