Blumenauer may wish to inquire of the Administration about what they are doing with federal funding for scientific investigations of climate change. Funding for fiscal 2007 was down by 2.3% from fiscal 2006. Proposed spending for fiscal 2008 is down by 7.4%. (This is in actual spending, not in inflation-corrected dollars.) Here's some verbiage from the Feb. 27 issue of Eos (Transactions of the American Geophysical Union):

"Total EPA funds for climate change science would remain level, as they would for most agencies, including USGS and NOAA. The two main exceptions are the National Institutes of Health—where climate change science funds would decrease by 12.3% to $50 million—and NASA, where climate change science funding would decrease by 11.2% to $871 million. Mary Cleave, NASA associate administrator for science, said that the decrease was mostly due to the movement of some satellite funding out of that calculation. However, the change contributes to a decline in climate change science funding across all agencies of 7.4%, bringing the FY2008 request to just $1.5 billion."

The full text of the FY2008 federal budget request can be found here.

Oh great, now we'll have our own homegrown "chicken little". I wonder if this one rides around in SUVs and lear jets all over the place and using $3,000 a month in electricity?

JK: I hope he learns something from realclimate.org, the web site run by (or for) the well respected “scientist”, Michael Mann, the father of Al Gore’s hockey stick. -- There is this little problem that, in the past, CO2 has NOT risen until AFTER 800 years of warming, making CO2 NOT the cause of warming:

At least three careful ice core studies have shown that CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations. These terminations are pronounced warming periods that mark the ends of the ice ages that happen every 100,000 years or so.

Does this prove that CO2 doesn't cause global warming? The answer is no.

The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data.

The 4200 years of warming make up about 5/6 of the total warming. So CO2 could have caused the last 5/6 of the warming, but could not have caused the first 1/6 of the warming.

It comes as no surprise that other factors besides CO2 affect climate. Changes in the amount of summer sunshine, due to changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun that happen every 21,000 years, have long been known to affect the comings and goings of ice ages. Atlantic ocean circulation slowdowns are thought to warm Antarctica, also.

From studying all the available data (not just ice cores), the probable sequence of events at a termination goes something like this. Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties. This leads to even further CO2 release. So CO2 during ice ages should be thought of as a "feedback", much like the feedback that results from putting a microphone too near to a loudspeaker.

In other words, CO2 does not initiate the warmings, but acts as an amplifier once they are underway. From model estimates, CO2 (along with other greenhouse gases CH4 and N2O) causes about half of the full glacial-to-interglacial warming.

from: realclimate.org/index.php?p=13

Of course, another possibility is whatever caused the original warming simply continues, perhaps strengthening and that CO2 comes out of the oceans as the oceans warm - just like the fizz comes out of a carbonated drink when it gets warm. Occam’s razor anyone?

Thanks JK

Thanks Chris, I was hoping to get a responses on the facts of the assertion in the link, instead of comments on Occam's razor etc.

If anyone were to respond to the facts, I feel that that would be very non boring

Thanks JK

every time i see the phrase "energy independence" i think of the winston churchill quote:

"The American people will do the right thing, after they have done all of the wrong things."

this is one of the wrong things; it's a bad idea whose time has come, apparently.

if the issue is energy independence, then the answer is coal. if the issue is globaly warming, the answer is "anything but coal". so which is it?

but good for blumenauer, if he's on the committee than i am more hopeful than i might otherwise be.

jim,

seeing how you bailed on our last global warming thread when you ran out of right-wing talking points, and refused to respond to my fully backed up refutation of your "800 years" gnat-attack, why don't you stay out of this thread until you can muster up some more propaganda to continue with our last thread. it's especially ironic, because i can now count 4 times that you have said "i was hoping to get a response on the issues" after i posted a response that you ignored!

also, are you receiving any money from anyone to compile and/or propogate your misinformation?

I have several comments for you jim karlock:

First, it's abundently obvious that you don't actually know what Occam's Razor means. Occam's Razor is simply dictum that all things being equal, the simplest explanation is preferred. That doesn't mean the simplest explanation is right, even if all things are equal.

Second, it is a fundamental logical fallacy to assert that just because some natural phenomena occurred in the past, it will occur again and in the same way in the future. The reason it is a fallacy lies a fundamental ignorance about the role of observation. Put simply, and echoing a point Pedro made in his post, you cannot assume, much less prove, you have observed all explanatory variables that can cause climate change in the past or the present.

Finally, and more succinctly, it is simply wrong to assert that whatever caused climate change in the past would be the only possible cause for climate change in the future. The climate change deniers have to prove that climate change could not be human-caused, and even the "best" scientist amongst them has not even come close to doing that.

Although most times you're curmudgeonly jabs at some of the arrogant idiots that make BlueOregon and the PDX so-called progressive community so annoying is fun reading, sometimes, and this is one of them, you're just plain nuts.

Your tactic of trying to throw doubt by essentially just trotting out random facts is not anything except just being contrary, because we do know three things with something getting very close to being indistinguishable from certainty: 1) climate change is happening, 2) we don't know the reason for sure, but for sure we cannot rule out human causes, and 3) we know that the set of possible explanatory variables is significantly different than in the past, including pollution from a level of industrialization that simply didn't exist previously.

If you understood what Occam's Razor actually meant, you would understand that it could be applied in this fact situation to argue those new variables could be simplest explanation for a climate change cycle that can differ from previous cycles.

Want to try again with a real argument, and not just a collection of random facts and right-wing spinning?

Shh. Karlock actually thinks that he represents the majority. He seems to think that if he would run for Metro or Portland City Council that he might actually win based upon the strength of his ideas.

He is brilliant and if you don't see it, it's just because:

A. You are on the take from Homer Williams B. Look at my websites! Look at the DATA! You do not look at the data enough. It is true that I have not background to give me the ability to work with data, but I put it out there for you anyway because I certainly know more than those people I disagree with. C. You are a stupid planner. Planner breath I call you types. D. Toy Trains. You like your toy trains and you have not yet assimilated my talking points that "toy trains do too little and cost too much." Please write this on the blackboard 50 times and then talk to me again. E. You are a bad person. You must live in a condo or ride a bike.

Thanks.

Go Karlock for Metro! Sign me up, too! I am at an OIA meeting right now. I just signed up for membership this morning. There are fired up people and I think the tide is about to turn on these crazy pro-density, pro-transit idiots.

You are all a bunch of crazys! The sky aint falling, the climate aint gettin any hotter. Just ask the people in NE that have had a record cold winter and snowfalls.

the climate aint gettin any hotter. Just ask the people in NE that have had a record cold winter and snowfalls.

Actually there is no inconsistency.

The EPA link I provided above provided some verbiage that's slightly stale, from the previous 3rd IPCC report. The 4th report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (A wholly owned subsidiary of the International Liberal-Communist-Zionist-Mass Transit-Housing Density Conspiracy) has similar verbiage about extreme events, I believe.

I really doubt these "statistics". They haven't even been gathering data long enough to extrapolate in order to determine a trend. It's just another ploy to have everyone living in "The Projects of Portland" and punishing the car owners.

pedro i couldn't let this one slip by. you have spent years on these boards denying global warming on earth--for which there is tons of evidence and scientific concesus-- JK: Well there is good evidence that we are warmer now than in the “little ice age.” And there is good evidence of warm period before that (when they farmed in Greenland - get back to me when the glaciers uncover those old farms!)

pedro with any spec of evidence that you can misconstrue to convey doubt about this issue, JK: All you have as to man being the cause is unproven CO2 (not even the most effectual greenhouse gas) and dubious computer models of unprovable accuracy.

pedro since we know the sun is not the cause of our current warming, it does not matter that that hypothesis would account for simultaneous warming on the earth and mars--the data contradicts it. a hypothesis without data is rank speculation (or wishful thinking, as the case seems to be here). better luck next time. JK: Talk about cherry picking data, your link claims that the solar radiation has been constant 1978. Your source conveniently leaves out the excellent correlation between solar cycle length and earth temperature. It also leaves out the FACT that this, unlike the greenhouse hypotheses, has actually been simulated in the lab. The link being through radiation, not light, and its effect on clouds.

Thanks JK

Don't miss this BBC film on the global warming swindle:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6331556994197648222&q=global+warming+swindle

Set aside 1 hour and 14 minutes. This is not a "once over lightly".

Owen McShane

Inconvenient truths, sensationalism, then fear – how easy the public can now be manipulated by the socialist thinkers. The ultimate path to government controlled social engineering. Yet the affluent manipulators continue to do business as usual - all talk no walk. The Gores spent $30,000 a year on energy for their “suburban” Nashville home, burned 221,000 kilowatt-hours last year, about 20 times the national average. Senator Dianne Feinstein and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are both owners of multiple SUVs (Arnold likes Hummers) and fly cross country in private planes. Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski is chauffeured around the state in a big full-sized Lincoln that is often accompanied by a big full-sized SUV, and lives in a big house some distance away from the governor’s office in the Capital Building. Being affluent and in many cases a public figure like a politician, a movie star or a corporate CEO seems to equate to huge and multiple houses, riding around in stretch limos and private planes, and energy use many times that of the average citizen. A person has to wonder; if just the wealthy people who have seemingly unlimited resources to over indulge cut back energy use, how would that affect supply to the rest of the country?

What I find amusing is that these liberal simpletons don't even think for themselves - they're just like the frog in the boiling water going along with everything their "leaders" tell them.

It's just another ploy to have everyone living in "The Projects of Portland" and punishing the car owners.

Well, of course. My paleoclimatologist friend who served on the IPCC assures me that this dominated the discussions in Paris while the final revisions to the 4th panel report were being hashed out. In fact, he mentioned that Homer Williams was secretly bankrolling the whole study and had arranged to have skeptics liquidated.

The NASA Earth Observatory website is generally a really nice one that covers a lot of stuff related to climate-schange science and many other studies for which satellite remote sensing is critical. There is stuff for a lay audience as well as for professionals.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate science site is here.

US Geological Survey climate change science program is summarized here.

How much carbon do these so called "climatologists" spew up into the air for their social elitist gatherings in Paris?

More info on Climate:

JunkScience.com co2science.org

And: climateaudit.org Climate chaos? Don't believe it

(Oops that 2nd one didn't work.) And: Misled again: The Hockey Stick climate

The FULL conclusions section of last spring's National Academy of Sciences report, with comments: National Academy of Sciences report

And, of course: The Great Global Warming Swindle

Thanks JK

Damn, I should have known that NASA, NOAA, and the USGS were all part of that International Liberal-Communist-Zionist-make them ride the bus and live in condos conspiracy. And to think that these US government agencies were all part of The Great Global Warming Swindle and I didn't know it until JK enlightened me. But then what can you expect from the government?

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty my mind is free at last!

How much carbon do these so called "climatologists" spew up into the air for their social elitist gatherings in Paris?

My elitist friend is the guy in the polyester suit testifying at the Congressional hearing last month

linqiao,

The question wasn't who your elitist snob friend was, the question was 'How much carbon do these so called 'climatologists' spew up into the air for their social elitist gatherings in Paris?"

Please answer my question.

lin qiao Damn, I should have known that NASA, NOAA, and the USGS were all part of that International Liberal-Communist-Zionist-make them ride the bus and live in condos conspiracy. And to think that these US government agencies were all part of The Great Global Warming Swindle and I didn't know it until JK enlightened me. But then what can you expect from the government?

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty my mind is free at last! JK: I see you finally ran out of BS arguments, but still refuse to address the facts:

• CO2 lags warming per RealClimate

• National Academy of Sciences report says we really don't know much about past temperatures back further that 1000 years. (therefore we can't know if we are warm on a geologica, time scale)

Thanks JK

lin qiao Damn, I should have known that NASA, NOAA, and the USGS were all part of that International Liberal-Communist-Zionist-make them ride the bus and live in condos conspiracy JK: Let me get this right: 1. You believe the Feds on climate change 2. You don’t believe the Feds on weapons of mass destruction.

Thanks JK

The Great Global Warming Swindle is worth watching, regardless of ones personal opinion on global warming. Hell, I sat through An Inconvenient Truth and tried to evaluate it objectively, even though I place about as much trust in Al Gore pitching science to further a political agenda as I would in Dick Cheney trying to sell me on the merits of the Iraq invasion.

The film is not nearly as slick or polished as An Inconvenient Truth and it starts off kind of wonky, but it has it's moments of thought provoking commentary from scientists, IPCC members a former Greenpeace bigwig.

Google Video