Entire Antarctic Shelf splitting away from Continent.

[chris]

And today, I read this

retrieved from http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/06/04/white-house-newsflash-global-warming-very-likely-caused-by-human/ :
_____________________________________________________________________
White House Newsflash: Global Warming VERY LIKELY Caused by Human

Written by Jennifer Lance
Published on June 4th, 2008

Since 1990, every four years the US government has been required to issue a “scientific” report on climate change and its effects on the economy, environment, and public health. In typical George W. Bush cavalier cowboy style, the 2004 deadline for this report was ignored and the government was sued by green groups. Finally, the long awaited report was four years late, and get this:

"…most of the recent global warming is very likely due to human generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations."

Very likely caused by humans-now that’s a definitive statement on climate change! Once again the US government has failed to make a clearcut connection between humans and climate change.

Why do we need our government to make an absolute statement that humans are to blame for climate change?

Without such a strong statement linking the human causes and effects of global warming, we are impotent to pass real legislation and regulations that will drastically curb greenhouse gases now! We can’t wait four more years for the next report to come out to say, “Yea, we are screwed and entirely to blame.” A definitive statement by the US government would end the silly debate about global warming that has distracted us from taking action beyond individual citizens. As Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch at the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, stated, “It’s important the government go on record honestly acknowledging this stuff.”

Why would the US government not want to make the connection between climate change and human actions absolute?

The climate science behind the report is not new, and neither is the White House spin. The “Scientific Assesment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States,” report states:

Finally, climate change is very likely to accentuate the disparities already evident in the American health care system. Many of the expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the uninsured.

Yet have no fear Americans! White House associate science director Sharon Hays declined to characterize the findings as bad, in a teleconference with reporters. That’s right, increased heat-related deaths and water shortages are not all bad. So what is not negative in the report: The doubt that humans are solely to blame. Now that’s something to celebrate!

I don’t know why the US government cannot admit human blame for climate change. It reminds me of my six-year-old daughter saying she did not drop ice cream on the floor, when she was the only one eating ice cream. Does the government fear it will get in trouble like my daughter and have to clean it up if it admits blame? Would such an admission open up even more litigation opportunities for the states, as well as for individuals to sue polluting corporations? Well, have no fear Americans, our president won’t even read this report. George Bush has already vowed to veto the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act before the Senate even debates the bill, because it will hurt the US economy. Oh yea, blazing wildfires, pestilence, and famine won’t hurt the economy at all.

It didn’t take Mean Joe Green four years to create a political cartoon on the climate change report). Although I disagree with Joe’s idea that the report is entirely “realistic”, given that it does not take a definitive stance on the human causes of climate change, at least the doom and gloom predictions of severe weather, water shortages, heat waves, etc. ring true. As biologist Thomas Lovejoy says of the climate report, “It basically says the America we’ve known we can no longer count on.” It’s a good thing Republicans live on another planet; they’re going to need it.
___________________________________________________
And a copy of the full report can be found here:

http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/scientific-assessment/Scientific-AssessmentFINAL.pdf

[RiversideGator]

Chris:  What does that excerpt add that is new?  Seems like more of the same, except poorly written this time.

BTW, I would think that libs would be happy that the Republican moderates have fallen for this.

[RiversideGator]

Thanks for proving my point that there is not a valid business case for building a nuclear power plant in the USA without massive government incentives, read that as tax dollar giveaways or subsidies to the nuclear power industry. Do you actually read the stuff you post, or is it that you just can't understand any of it? This is really ridiculous! NOW YOU'RE IN FAVOR OF MASSIVE GOVERNMENT GIVEAWAYS??

I mock your example.

If there were no government incentives, there would also be no solar or wind power being generated either.  If you truly believe that CO2 emissions are a clear and present danger, you would advocate government incentives for nuclear.  Of course, as we know, your real motivation is something quite different.   

Either way, I am content to burn coal if needed.  The US is, after all, the Saudi Arabia of coal producing nations.   

[RiversideGator]

I am pretty sure I know what my position is.

[RiversideGator]

And you are a crypto-Stalinist all the time.   

[RiversideGator]

[RiversideGator]

More disturbing signs of global cooling:

Sun Goes Longer Than Normal Without Producing Sunspots

ScienceDaily (Jun. 9, 2008) â€" The sun has been lying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites.

That's good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered June 1-6 to talk about "Solar Variability, Earth's Climate and the Space Environment."

The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual.

"It continues to be dead," said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission. "That's a small concern, a very small concern."

The Hinode satellite is a Japanese mission with the United States and United Kingdom as partners. The satellite carries three telescopes that together show how changes on the sun's surface spread through the solar atmosphere. MSU researchers are among those operating the X-ray telescope. The satellite orbits 431 miles above ground, crossing both poles and making one lap every 95 minutes, giving Hinode an uninterrupted view of the sun for several months out of the year.

Dana Longcope, a solar physicist at MSU, said the sun usually operates on an 11-year cycle with maximum activity occurring in the middle of the cycle. Minimum activity generally occurs as the cycles change. Solar activity refers to phenomena like sunspots, solar flares and solar eruptions. Together, they create the weather than can disrupt satellites in space and technology on earth.

The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today's sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren't sure why.

"It's a dead face," Tsuneta said of the sun's appearance.

Tsuneta said solar physicists aren't like weather forecasters; They can't predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, however, and they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late as the mid-19th century.

Tsuneta said he doesn't know how long the sun will continue to be inactive, but scientists associated with the Hinode mission are ready for it to resume maximum activity. They have added extra ground stations to pick up signals from Hinode in case solar activity interferes with instruments at other stations around the world. The new stations, ready to start operating this summer, are located in India, Norway, Alaska and the South Pole.

Establishing those stations, as well as the Hinode mission, required international cooperation, Tsuneta said. No one country had the resources to carry out those projects by itself.

Four countries, three space agencies and 11 organizations worked together on Hinode which was launched in September 2006, Tsuneta said. Among the collaborators was Loren Acton, a research professor of physics at MSU. Tsuneta and Acton worked together closely from 1986-2002 and were reunited at the MSU conference.

"His leadership was immense, superb," Tsuneta said about Acton.

Acton, 72, said he is still enthused by solar physics and the new questions being raised. In fact, he wished he could knock 22 years off his age and extend his career even longer.

"It's too much fun," he said. "There's so much exciting stuff come up, I would like to be part of it."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609124551.htm

[gatorback]

Social Conservative, it might be better to leave the promotion of new earth creationism to the experts in the field. You are doing a poor job of representing this cause and as such are tarnishing the entire movement.

There are numerous websites devoted to this subject that have in depth discussions of all the important and pertinent advances in this field, as well as a museum in Kentucky. I am deeply offended that you are representing this important cause in such an inadequate fashion.

If your arguments were more reasoned and compelling, I am certain that all who read them would understand the  basic underlying truth in this interpretation of the creation of Earth, and would also understand that the Earth's age cannot possibly exceed 8,000 years.

Please avail yourself of the myriad resources on this subject for the purposes of self education and return when you are equipped to adequately represent this advancement of human knowledge and awareness in a way that permits all people to follow your teachings.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock and the door will be opened unto you. For everyone who asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8

You're kidding right?  Or are you seriously quoting the bible?

[gatorback]

Creationist propaganda is best conveyed in a big tent with tons of little old ladies with hair buns shouting "Amen!" and the distinctive sound of palmetto bugs flying around overhead.

In Arkansas

[Driven1]

Do you think Hitler believed in global cooling or global warming?  What about Teddy Roosevelt?

[RiversideGator]

More evidence that global cooling is occurring, perhaps as a result of shifting ocean currents and/or fluctuations in solar energy:

Charlotte temperature hits 123-year low

GREG LACOUR
glacour@charlotteobserver.com

This morning was downright cool in the Charlotte region -- cool enough to break a record that had stood for more than a century.

The temperature at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport was 56 at about 5:30 a.m., breaking the July 2 record of 58, set in 1885. The normal low for this time of year is 70.

It'll warm up quickly today, though. Temperatures today are expected to peak at 90 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. But it'll still feel pleasant because of humidity levels between 20 and 25 percent, said NWS meteorologist Doug Outlaw.

Conditions will be cool again overnight, with the low descending to 59, one degree warmer than the record for July 3, set in 1932. And the Fourth of July is expected to be warm and dry, with a high of 92 and "a very, very minimal chance" of rain, Outlaw said.

http://www.charlotte.com/news/story/695929.html

[Charleston native]

I will say that Cola (just 80 miles south of Charlotte) is normally hotter than hell during the late springs and summers. Its reputation for its oppressive heat is well-known throughout the state. However, we had a very mild spring, and despite a 1-week heat wave in June, the summer has actually been pleasant so far.

The solar energy is what real scientists are concerned about; I think an earlier article on this thread indicated that there has been a lack of sunspots. This usually points to a reduction in temperatures globally.

[RiversideGator]

The summer has been unusually mild in Jacksonville too and I can personally report that ocean temperatures last weekend were substantially below their usual level this time of year.  Something is causing this cooling which we will later discover.  Hopefully then the GW crowd will drop their new religion and join the reality based community.

[Midway ®]

Climate Findings Were Distorted, Probe Finds

Tuesday 03 June 2008

by: Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post


James Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told of being censored by NASA press officers.

Appointees in NASA press office blamed.

    An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency's public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday.

    The probe came at the request of 14 senators after The Washington Post and other news outlets reported in 2006 that Bush administration officials had monitored and impeded communications between NASA climate scientists and reporters.

    James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told The Post and the New York Times in September 2006 that he had been censored by NASA press officers, and several other agency climate scientists reported similar experiences. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are two of the government's lead agencies on climate change issues.

    From the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, NASA's public affairs office "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public." It noted elsewhere that "news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution."

    Officials of the Office of Public Affairs told investigators that they regulated communication by NASA scientists for technical rather than political reasons, but the report found "by a preponderance of the evidence, that the claims of inappropriate political interference made by the climate change scientists and career public affairs officers were more persuasive than the arguments of the senior public affairs officials that their actions were due to the volume and poor quality of the draft news releases."

    The political interference did not extend to the research itself or its dissemination through scientific journals and conferences, the investigators said. "We found no evidence indicating NASA blocked or interfered with the actual research activities of its climate scientists," the report said, but as a result of the actions of the political appointees, "trust was lost, at least temporarily, between the agency and some of its key employees and perhaps the public it serves."

    Kristin Scuderi, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in an e-mail that director John H. Marburger III "would not comment until he's reviewed the report, and he has not yet done so yet. Therefore, OSTP has no comment at this time."

    Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), one of the senators who pressed for the investigation, said in a statement that the report showed that citizens had been denied access to critical scientific information that should inform public policy.

    "Global warming is the most serious environmental threat we face - but this report is more evidence that the Bush Administration's appointees have put political ideology ahead of science," Lautenberg said. "Our government's response to global warming must be based on science, and the Bush Administration's manipulation of that information violates the public trust.

[jacksonvilleconfidential]

How do you calculate 6,000 years?

Based on Geneological Records in the Bible the earth is about 6,000 years old.

OMG (no pun intended), seriously?