Nobel Prize-Winning Peacekeeper Asks UN to Admit Climate Change Errors

[HT:NN].
Dear Dr. Pachauri and others associated with IPCC

We are writing to you and others associated with the IPCC position – that man’s CO2 is a driver of global warming and climate change – to ask that you now in view of the evidence retract support from the current IPCC position [as in footnote 1] and admit that there is no observational evidence in measured data going back 22,000 years or even millions of years that CO2 levels (whether from man or nature) have driven or are driving world temperatures or climate change.

If you believe there is evidence of the CO2 driver theory in the available data please present a graph of it.

We draw your attention to three observational refutations of the IPCC position (and note there are more). Ice-core data from the ACIA (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment) shows that temperatures have fallen since around 4,000 years ago (the Bronze Age Climate Optimum) while CO2 levels have risen, yet this graphical data was not included in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers (Fig. SPM1 Feb07) which graphed the CO2 rise.

More recent data shows that in the opposite sense to IPCC predictions world temperatures have not risen and indeed have fallen over the past 10 years while CO2 levels have risen dramatically.

The up-dated temperature measurements have been released by the NASA’s Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) [1] as well as by the UK’s Hadley Climate Research Unit (Temperature v. 3, variance adjusted - Hadley CRUT3v) [2]. In parallel, readings of atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have been released by the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii [3]. They have been combined in graphical form by Joe D’Aleo [4], and are shown below.

These latest temperature readings represent averages of records obtained from standardized meteorological stations from around the planet, located in both urban as well as rural settings. They are augmented by satellite data, now generally accepted as ultimately authoritative, since they have a global footprint and are not easily vulnerable to manipulation nor observer error. What is also clear from the graphs is that average global temperatures have been in stasis for almost a decade, and may now even be falling.

A third important observation is that contrary to the CO2 driver theory, temperatures in the upper troposphere (where most jets fly) have fallen over the past two decades. [Footnote 2]

IPCC policy is already leading to economic and unintended environmental damage. Specifically the policy of burning food - maize as biofuel - has contributed to sharp rises in food prices which are causing great hardship in many countries and is also now leading to increased deforestation in Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, Togo, Cambodia, Nigeria, Burundi, Sri Lanka, Benin and Uganda for cultivation of crops [5].

Given the economic devastation that is already happening and which is now widely recognised will continue to flow from this policy, what possible justification can there be for its retention?

We ask you and all those whose names are associated with IPCC policy to accept the scientific observations and renounce current IPCC policy.

Yours sincerely,

Svend Hendriksen, Nobel Peace Prize 1988 (shared), Greenland, hendriksen@greennet.gl
Cc: IPCC's yu.izrael@g23.relcom.ru christy@nsstc.uah.edu spencer@nsstc.uah.edu dy.pitman@gmail.com
Tim Yeo MP (Chairman Environmental Audit Committee) Lord Martin Rees (President Royal Society)
Gordon Brown MP David Cameron MP Nick Glegg MP

[footnotes etc. at site - long > ]

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Iran 'behind Green Zone attack'

The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday's bombardment of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets. He said Iran was adding what he described as "lethal accelerants" to a very combustible mix. There has as yet been no response from Iran to the accusations.

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Why There Is a Hamas-Israel War

The deliberate murder of eight and the wounding of nine Israeli rabbinical students in Jerusalem only highlights the fact that Hamas is at war with Israel. It is, from Hamas's view, a war that will never end until Israel is exterminated and its citizens killed or expelled. No other analysis is accurate or can explain what is happening... [snip]

To see who is aggressor here is an easy task. If Hamas were to stop attacking Israel there would be no cross-border Israeli operations whatsoever. But if Israel does nothing in retaliation—as it has repeatedly for long periods of time—the Hamas attacks on Israel continue. Israel ’s goal is to defend its civilians; Hamas’s goal is to destroy Israel as a state and society. [snip]

Hamas should be isolated by all western countries and pressured with the goal of pushing it out of power by making it realize that it must stop the war on Israel or face that outcome. Aid or comfort given to Hamas by the West will only encourage its intransigence and lead to more violence and suffering.

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Astounding Headline: 'Global Warming Rage Lets Global Hunger Grow'

[HT:SB]
Contrary to Nobel Laureate Al Gore's depiction of this energy panacea in his film "An Inconvenient Truth," as well as his investments in companies responsible for such processes, the Telegraph viewed biofuel as a growing international calamity:

The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching its political and moral limits.

"The reality is that people are dying already," said Jacques Diouf, of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Naturally people won't be sitting dying of starvation, they will react," he said.

The UN says it takes 232kg of corn to fill a 50-litre car tank with ethanol. That is enough to feed a child for a year. Last week, the UN predicted "massacres" unless the biofuel policy is halted.

And here was the fabulous conclusion:

The world intelligentsia has been asleep at the wheel. While we rage over global warming, global hunger has swept in under the radar screen.

Nice. Think this will be headline/lead story news in the States?

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MARKETS AND MEDICARE

According to the trustees, Medicare's unfunded liability is $74 trillion -- five times that of Social Security. According to the Congressional Budget Office, health care spending is on a course that could crowd out all other government programs. How can we reduce the costs of Medicare?

• Reward doctors and other health care providers who raise quality and lower costs through improving patient communication and access to care, and by teaching patients how to be better managers of their own care. [*]
• Provide beneficiaries who have chronic diseases with training, easier access to information, and the ability to purchase and use in-house monitors, which would help them manage their own care as well or better than conventional physician care and at lower costs.
• Revise the reimbursement system to remove the many barriers to innovations in using those treatments efficiently and effectively.

These are just a few of the many things that can be done to control the rising costs of Medicare while improving care and health at the same time. These steps will not be enough by themselves to put Medicare and our health care system on a sustainable course, but timely action by the president and Congress could make a big difference.

[*example: I've had a half dozen tests conducted as a result of a recent MS 'flare' - the results of which I've been notified by email are available for my reading at Kaiser's web-based health management system - after which I email my doctor directly asking for English please, and he explains them to me. I.e., much better care at much reduced time expense on both our parts. Even a ship the size of Kaiser turns, in the private sector.]

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IN EASE OF PAYING TAXES, WE'RE #76

In "Paying Taxes 2008," its second annual report on corporate taxation produced in tandem with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the World Bank seeks to compare the ease of paying taxes around the world. According to the researchers:

• Despite the popular perception of America as a land of laissez-faire, the United States ranks only 76th.
• This means it is easier to pay corporate taxes in Lithuania (71st), Germany (67th), Portugal (66th), Belgium (65th), Sweden (42nd), Australia (41st), the Netherlands (36th), Estonia (31st), Canada (25th), Norway (16th), Denmark (13th), the United Kingdom (12th), New Zealand (9th) and Ireland (6th) than it is here.

The 2008 survey stresses that government revenues can be enhanced by simplifying tax systems and compliance obligations. Hopefully, says the American, our presidential candidates are listening.

[our tax 'code' is 67 thousand pages and growing. Want to reduce corruption in our government? Fiddling with the code is the No. 1 thing 'sold' to lobbyists - we need a flat-fair tax for more than economic reasons...]

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An Illegal Exodus...Back to Mexico?

Previously I reported to you that a federal court in Missouri upheld a law penalizing businesses that hire illegals. Last week, more good news to report from Arizona:

A federal judge on Thursday upheld an Arizona law that prohibits businesses from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and yanks the business licenses of those that do. U.S. District Judge Neil Wake dismissed a lawsuit filed by business groups that argued that federal immigration law severely restricts Arizona's ability to punish people who knowingly employ illegal immigrants. [snip]

So, what impact is this work having on the illegal immigration population in Arizona? Check this out from The New York Times, reporting from Phoenix - where it makes note of one illegal alien who is pressing her husband “to return to Mexico because of the difficulty in finding a job...

If this doesn’t prove the wisdom of enforcing our nation’s illegal immigration laws, I don’t know what will. If we stop rolling out the red carpet for illegals, they will leave on their own. The problem will become more manageable. It’s clearly working in Arizona. And it will work on a national basis if we finally address the problem in a common sense manner – by enforcing the law.

[reminder: the only folks repeatedly talking about 'rounding up millions of people' are liberal-progressives ascribing it to rule-of-law supporters]

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Arbitration Ain't Broke, But Trial Lawyers Want to "Fix" It

Last fall the pro-lawsuit special interest group Public Citizen released a paper purporting to show that arbitrations find against the consumer the majority of the time. For a complete analysis of how misleading the report is, see: Arbitration – A Good Deal for Consumers by Dr. Peter B. Rutledge.

Nonetheless, the plaintiffs’ bar took up the Public Citizen’s report as proof that consumers are being denied their right to access the courts – and their timing, never a coincidence, was carefully coordinated to coincide with the introduction of the Feingold/Johnson Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007, a proposal that would effectively outlaw arbitration in virtually all consumer, employment and franchise contracts, leaving the courthouse as the only option for settling disputes.

That may be good for lawyers, but not so good for consumers...

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"Feingold/Johnson Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007"
Email YOUR Senator HERE

Greens Gone Wild and Jobs Gone, period...

California

In the latest installment of “Greens Gone Wild,” the governor’s appointees on the Air Resources Board have voted to reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions in the state to a maximum level of 427 million metric tons by 2020.

Since numbers like that have very little meaning without a reference point, consider this for perspective: Californians currently emit 500 million metric tons. That means that the economy will need to cut 73 million metric tons from its current level of emissions and then hold at that level until today’s kindergarteners are in college.

I don’t believe this figure includes exhaling, however. Thirty seven million Californians breathing produce an additional 13.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year (at 2.2 pounds per person per day). Just a drop in the bucket compared to the 2.4 billion metric tons that 6.6 billion human beings exhale annually worldwide.

But since they’re presumably not telling Californians to actually hold their breaths, one way of reaching the brave new world is to convince people not to drive cars. According to the ARB, an average car produces about 28 pounds of carbon dioxide per day, so the ARB target can be reached by removing just 15.4 million passenger cars from service. California only has 24 million passenger cars to take off the road in the first place, but the goal can be easily met if just two out of every three Californians quit driving. This will require some enforcement activity, of course, especially to keep former car owners from cheating by substituting ox carts.

“Now the rubber is hitting the road,” said an ecstatic Karen Douglas, the director of California Climate Initiative for Environmental Defense. And it won’t be long before the economy is hitting the skids and something else hits the fan.

No need to worry about jobs, though. The Air Resources Board is hiring.

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Mafioso too fat for jail

Rome - A court in Sicily has ruled that an accused Mafioso can be put under house arrest because he is too fat for any Italian jail. Salvatore Ferranti, who weighs 210 kg (462 pounds), was allowed to go home after spending six months in four Italian prisons (Snip) Guards at the first two prisons said they constantly needed to help Ferranti, 36, get dressed and undressed, move about and go to the bathroom.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23591801/
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