Watching Our Water Ways

142 Responses to “Brouhaha develops over climate change; so what’s new?”

1. cynic Says:
   November 24th, 2009 at 8:23 pm

   The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Give me a multi-million dollar research grant and I will tell you where the pieces will land.
   I have heard this before, every decade there is a new crisis. Studies show that research gives whatever results the person funding the research wants.

2. robert taylor Says:
   November 24th, 2009 at 9:33 pm

   I am just curious, and perhaps hoping that you might think from a different perspective for a moment – climate change aside, don’t you simply want to breathe clean air and drink clean water? Or have healthy forests that do not suffer from the effects of acid rain? Or have beautiful mountains and their ecosystems remain intact instead of being completely annihilated for coal?

   How about clean food? Most states have issued warnings on seafood consumption due to toxic levels of mercury that results from the burning of coal.

   My point is that you don’t necessarily have to believe in climate change because, unfortunately, there’s more than enough concrete evidence to convince anyone that the burning of fossil fuels is (perhaps irreparably) damaging to us and our planet.

3. John F. Williams Says:
   November 24th, 2009 at 10:22 pm

   ” Studies show that research gives whatever results…” That’s funny!!!
   Studies show that one can say “Studies show” about just about anything! And lots of people do say just that and not much more, particularly in the media, which is sad. The real question is “can you cite peer reviewed studies that have run the gamut of the relevant variables?” And furthermore, you need to “show your work” when you draw conclusions from those many studies.

   But the most interesting thing to me in this article was the discussion of how trends are measured. Indeed the endpoints chosen have great influence on the observed trend — one could almost say that by choosing the right endpoints one could show whatever trend one wants to. But there is another side to the story. The choice of endpoints also constrains the conclusion. Unfortunately, “averages” and “trends” are often reported as single numbers that have some sort of importance by themselves. That’s actually far from the case. “Averages” and “trends” really carry a lot of baggage (context) that should also be reported in order to gain real insight into why they were computed in the first place.

4. Cameron Says:
   November 24th, 2009 at 10:51 pm

   It’s nice to read some level headed remarks on these issues.

5. Mother Earth Says:
   November 25th, 2009 at 5:30 am

   Anyone who has ever been to sea, quickly realizes how insignificant man really is to the planet earth. There is always going to be global warming and cooling…man cannot change this.

   As usual, follow the tax money to find the truth!

6. Tom Rosendale Says:
   November 25th, 2009 at 6:21 am

   I think the new skepticism of the non-skeptics is not only justified, but healthy for the debate. If it were so cut and dried, there wouldn’t be a debate.

   I doubt that the scientists deeply involved in this study ever have had or ever will have the opportunity to be in so much lime light. It is absurd to think that many of them aren’t letting their personal situation influence their reporting. It also is absurd to think we aren’t having a significant impact on the earth’s climate.

   The sad state of our economy shows how fragile our position of power and control can be. How rapidly the recession spread around the world shows how quickly any country can be affected by another and how easily the balance of powers could change.

   The remedies for controlling man’s imprint on the planet’s weather will necessitate not only changing many governments influence over their peoples and economies, but also the influence one country’s government has over another. If the climate predictions by the alarmists are true, we should be prepared for war as the developing masses of India and China hold the balance of climate control and life as we know it in their hands. Of course, that is once we have done everything we can and still have an economy that would enable us to impose our will over others. Then again how much damage would several atomic bombs do to the climate. The major players all have them.

   Science itself may be non-partisan, but that doesn’t exclude egomaniacs and profiteers.

7. BlueLight Says:
   November 25th, 2009 at 9:09 am

   The emails provide a glimpse into a culture whereby it is OK to steer research toward a predetermined outcome, to shut out contrary opinion from the discussion and to marginalize anyone not lock-step with the established direction.

   Yesterday, Washington State’s Department of Ecology announced a series of workshops to address various “challenges” of climate change, including “challenges that state and local governments face, such as regulations and procedures that need to be revised”.

   I am of the opinion that the foundation for new regulation should be beyond reproach. These leaked emails cast serious doubt on the veracity of the science and the integrity of those entrusted with it.

   The nonfeasance of the press is another side of this story, which I won’t go into here other than to say this: if you set the precedent that the ends justify the means, then you no longer have any moral authority when your ideological opposites use the same tact in goring your ox.

8. Heybooboo Says:
   November 25th, 2009 at 9:10 am

   Who funded that report of the 26 scientists? Who keeps funding and giving grants to the 26 scientists? Follow the money! There is a humongous industry now devoted to global warming, to the detriment of any other meaningful study (including rebutting some of the dubious claims).

   For some insight backed by $ numbers, read this:
   http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/climate_money.html

   I have to disagree with your trying to dismiss what those emails have shown by trying to explain how “human” the scientists are. How convenient. Science is grounded by peer review and is supposed to have checks and balances.

   Indeed, the whole global-warming wagon-circling “human side” behavior can be compared to that of most news organizations, in the sense they have also sold out themselves (and their objectivity and openness to facts that disprove pet causes) to obvious bias.

9. Jason Says:
   November 25th, 2009 at 10:10 am

   So much for climate change. Looks like all those scientists were fudging the numbers. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

10. Jason Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 10:11 am

    Here’s more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/24/hiding-evidence-of-global-cooling/

    It’s all a bunch of bs to supress and even depress the western way of life.

11. BlueLight Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 10:32 am

    And one would think a journalist would be slightly peeved at the effort to circumvent public disclosure laws.

12. michael Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 11:57 am

    OF COURSE I want to drink clean water. To suggest otherwise is absurd! ut I also don’t want a fake AWG to cause a permanent recession. These CRU guys have had total control over this issue for decades and now their cover is blown. Just a few for your reading pleasure:

    “I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC , which were not always the same.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=794).

    “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=419).

    “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=154).

    “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1048).

    “If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=544)

    “The skeptics appear to have staged a ‘coup’ at ‘Climate Research’ … Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=295).

    “It’s one thing to lose ‘Climate Research’. We can’t afford to lose GRL [Geophysical Research Letters]” http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=484).

    This shows collusion, witholding data (I thought sharing your data was part of the, you know, Scientific Method.), criminal acts in deleting data to avoid the FOIA, controlled the peer review process by getting people fired and refusing to print alternative opinions.

    The problem is that all these other organiations issuing warnings are using the SAME DATA, and that data has been proven to be corrupt.

    And YOU, Chris, are saying, ‘what’s new?’????? This is only the biggest scientific scandal in the world ever and your blase attitude here is THE PROBLEM! Why don’t you put on your “I are a Reporter” hat and INVESTIGATE this instead of blow it off? Get up off your duff and read the emails. Take a look at the programming code where “hide the decline” is everywhere–not just in one e-mail–in programmer comments.

    And the programs themselves? They have lost data, replaced data with ‘synthetic’ data. They don’t know where the metadata is. The programs throw errors and keep on running. It’s an absolute mess. To base worldwide political decisions on this is INSANE!

    TRILLIONS of dollars are at stake here, Chris. Can’t we have ONE reporter in the main stream media treat this seriously?

13. michael Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 12:06 pm

    Here’s just a few (so as not to be overhwelming) problems with the computer code. The comments are from the programmer (named Harry) who was attempting to fix the code. this is just a small sampling.

    FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\maps12.proFOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\maps15.proFOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\maps24.pro; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
    ; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
    ; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
    ; the real temperatures.

    FOIA\documents\harris-tree\recon_esper.pro; Computes regressions on full, high and low pass Esper et al. (2002) series,
    ; anomalies against full NH temperatures and other series.
    ; CALIBRATES IT AGAINST THE LAND-ONLY TEMPERATURES NORTH OF 20 N
    ;
    ; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid the decline

    FOIA\documents\harris-tree\calibrate_nhrecon.pro;
    ; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid
    ; the decline that affects tree-ring density records)
    ;

    FOIA\documents\harris-tree\recon1.pro

    FOIA\documents\harris-tree\recon2.proFOIA\documents\harris-tree\recon_jones.pro;
    ; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1940 to avoid the decline

    FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txt

    17. Inserted debug statements into anomdtb.f90, discovered that
    a sum-of-squared variable is becoming very, very negative! Key
    output from the debug statements:
    (..)
    forrtl: error (75): floating point exception
    IOT trap (core dumped) ..so the data value is unbfeasibly large, but why does the
    sum-of-squares parameter OpTotSq go negative?!!

    Right, time to stop pussyfooting around the niceties of Tim’s labyrinthine software suites – let’s have a go at producing CRU TS 3.0! since failing to do that will be the definitive failure of the entire project..

    getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.

    FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txt

    I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight.

    28. With huge reluctance, I have dived into ‘anomdtb’ – and already I have that familiar Twilight Zone sensation.

    Wrote ‘makedtr.for’ to tackle the thorny problem of the tmin and tmax databases not being kept in step. Sounds familiar, if worrying. am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!

14. michael Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 12:07 pm

    And just for fun:

    http://minnesotansforglobalwarming.com/m4gw/2009/11/hide-the-decline.html

    Pay particular attention to the charts here.

15. Heybooboo Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 12:43 pm

    Bluelight, with all due respect to Mr. Dunagan, I think that maybe the Kitsap Sun’s descriptive subheading for this blog “Environmental reporter… [who]… discusses the challenges of protecting Puget Sound and all things water-related…” should be a clue to the fact that this reporter is not an objective journalist, no? What is the reader to think is the opposite of an “environmental reporter” and the opposite of “protecting Puget Sound and all things water-related?” A “pro-pollution reporter” who discusses “polluting Puget Sound and all things water-related?”

    And where is a “discussion,” really, when the bias is so obvious despite the reporter’s claim to read his share of blogs that are the opposite point of view? Where is the Sun’s “non-global-warming-Kool-Aid-drinking reporter” who is also for protecting Puget Sound waters?

16. BlueLight Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    Chris says, “This morning, I participated in a national telephone conference with three climate experts: Richard Somerville, coordinating lead author of the last report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); Eric Steig, professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington; and Michael Mann, professor of meteorology at Penn State University.”

    There’s our press. Getting their talking points and marching orders from the very people they ought to be investigating.

17. michael Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 2:34 pm

    So what’s ew, Chris? Take a look at this. It’s one of the best , easy-to-understand presentations on global warming ever, a PDF file.

    http://www.climate-skeptic.com/Phoenix%20Climate%20Presentation.pdf

18. cdunagan Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    If you read a large number of these e-mails with the understanding that these messages were written as private correspondence among friends and colleagues, you come away with an insight about how these researchers were feeling when they wrote them.

    If, on the other hand, you read only selected passages from the hundreds of e-mails without any understanding of the context, you may be inclined to attack the researchers for what they may or may not be doing.

    In either case, what was expressed in these e-mails generally has little to do with what finally was published in peer-reviewed articles in established journals. Yes, these folks talk at length about how data should be presented. They talk about which data conform to their hypotheses and what does not. They debate whether it is appropriate to mix different kinds of data in the same report or graph. And sometimes they make mistakes.

    But if you want to argue about the science, focus on their published research reports, which have undergone scrutiny by their fellow scientists prior to publication.

    The e-mails also relate ill feelings toward bloggers and talk-show hosts who have called these researchers liars and frauds. More than a few scientists believe, rightly or wrongly, that skeptics are deliberately trying to confuse and mislead the public. It’s not really surprising to find expressions of anger in these e-mails — and that has nothing to do with science.

    I’m personally feeling a little under the gun here as well — but I’m not about to write down my feelings in an e-mail.

    Like I said in my post, I disagree with those who would withhold data from fellow researchers, skeptics, reporters or anyone else. If that were the extent of this brouhaha, then we could all agree that the data should be released in whatever form it is available. (In one case, there is a question whether data could be found, since the request came years after the report was written, but that was just one e-mail thread.)

    To reiterate, I have read dozens of peer-reviewed studies that point toward climate change. I’ve seen hardly any scientific studies that discount the trend, although I keep looking for reasonable arguments from those who believe the whole thing is a hoax.

    By the way, Michael, have any legitimate scientists reviewed that “Phoenix Climate Presentation” on the Climate Skeptic page? I don’t feel qualified to comment, but I noticed several statements that appear to be incorrect, including the temperature graph and the discussion about solar impacts. This whole report seems to be out of date or else unaware of the latest studies, such as new ice core data.

19. BlueLight Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    Did you read where they skewed that peer review process you seem to be grasping so desperately for?

    Those “fellow” scientists you cite were just that: critical voices were excluded from the discussion (hey! kind of like our local salmon/puget sound/salish sea recovery effort!). They pressured journals not to print dissenting articles; even conspiring to remove those journals who did not toe-the-line from the list of peer review literature.

    I’m afraid you can’t shout “peer review” and have the unwashed masses cower anymore.

20. cdunagan Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 7:33 pm

    BlueLight,

    I disagree completely. Maybe you can tell me what critical voices were excluded or what legitimate articles were blocked from publication. As far as I can tell, the fuming that took place in these e-mails did little but make journal editors take a closer look at articles on both sides of the issue. In that sense, the skeptics have done a good service, because all climate articles are coming under greater scrutiny. Now, because the release of these e-mails has raised additional concerns about bias, editors will be even more careful about how data are presented. Peer review, an important part of the scientific process, is alive and kicking.

21. robert taylor Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    Michael,
    I believe that my initial post came across as a generally passive and rhetorical question to the masses who like to participate in this blog. However, you stating my question was “ABSURD” is an insult. Since common courtesy has obviously been thrown out the window I will offer you the same level of disrepute.

    The most despicable part of your post was where you personally attacked Chris with this unintelligent remark:
    “Put on your I are a Reporter” hat and INVESTIGATE this instead of blow it off? Get up off your duff and read the emails.”
    I do not believe he is “blowing it off”; he is just introducing an issue for the general populace to consider. Maybe you would be content if he was able to sit down with the House of Representatives on a personal level.

    You need to pay particular and astute attention to what is at stake here and show some general respect and restraint while acting like an intelligent adult before you spew your rhetoric.

22. robert taylor Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 10:51 pm

    Michael,
    After reviewing the link you posted which you said was ” the best, easy-to-understand presentations on global warming ever” I easily came to the conclusion that it is beyond worthless and void of any intelligible matter. Particularly noteworthy and pathetic is the slide showing a small “weather station” in a parking lot in Tuscon, AZ. indicating that prestigious weather data was collected and analyzed from that single point. Oh, and if you type in http://www.weatherstations.org as noted as the cited resource on that slide it diverts to http://www.weathershack.com which sells electronic weather stations and accessories, so whats up?

    Anyway, it dawned on me that no matter what I say you will still think this is all irrelevant so I think I will spend my time more wisely by completing a final project that is due this Sunday in my Environmental Economics course leading towards my Bachelors of Science degree in Environmental Studies. And your expertise on climate change and collegiate degree would be in……………???

23. Howard Garrett Says:
    November 26th, 2009 at 1:09 am

    The global warming debacle may be best understood by relating the parable of the runaway train.
    All the people were on a train headed for a new day. The train was built and operated by engineers who made it go fast, and almost everybody wanted the train to go faster and faster. So the people paid the engineers very well to make the train bigger so everybody could ride, and go faster. Everybody shared the thrill of going fast, and soon everybody was excitedly riding the train and almost everybody wanted it to grow even larger and go even faster.
    Long ago, soon after the train was first built some people wanted to know how it worked, so they learned how to learn, and how to share what they learned, and many of them helped make the train grow larger and go faster, while many of them also learned about how everything worked, even outside the train.
    After the train had grown to truly massive size, and was racing down the tracks at breakneck speed, some of the learning people who looked out the window began to realize that soon there would be no more room for all the smoke coming out of the train. They couldn’t exactly see what would happen yet, and they didn’t know if the water on land would dry up first or the oceans would rise up first, so they couldn’t tell people exactly where to look, but by adding up all the space in the world, and figuring out that the smoke had taken up most of that space already, they could tell that there wasn’t much space left ahead of the train.
    So the learners decided they should tell the people on the train, which was everybody in the world, that pretty soon the train wouldn’t be able to grow any more or go any faster. In fact it would have get a little bit smaller and go quite a bit slower, and eventually they would probably have to make the train go in a different direction, or some of the people might even have get off the train.
    But a lot of the people were having too much fun and didn’t want to hear about stuff like not enough space and having to get smaller or go slower. The engineers, who were the heroes on the train and who were being paid more and more to make the train grow bigger and go faster, and who made all the big decisions about how to get bigger and go faster, liked being in charge. They couldn’t figure out how to keep being in charge if the train had to get smaller and go slower, so they told the learners to shut up and go away.
    For a long time the learners just kept it all to themselves, but when they could actually see the end of space out the window they thought they’d better try to tell everybody anyway, so they got together and made themselves as big as they could and spoke as loudly as they could and they said, “really, really, it’s true, this train is running out of space and will have to get smaller and go slower real soon.”
    Some people on the train listened and looked out the window and understood and tried to tell the others, but the engineers, who were very important and liked it that way, told people that the learners were just saying that stuff because…, well they made up all sorts of reasons that the learners might make it up, and some of the people who admired the engineers were soon very angry at the learners and told them to shut up and go away. Most of the people just didn’t want to get into any arguments, and besides, they were having a good time in the club car so they didn’t listen to anyone.
    By starting arguments and not listening, enough of the people kept the learners from convincing more people to help convince the engineers, who didn’t want to hear it anyway, to make the train get smaller and go slower, so the train still kept getting bigger and going faster.
    After a while anybody who looked out the window could see that the space in front of the train really was running out fast. The train even started to slow down a little because the space was almost gone, but the engineers still told the people that there was plenty of space out there, and the people still paid them to run the train. More and more of the people argued with the learners and tried to shut them up. Only a few people tried to go slower (but they were all on the speeding train so they couldn’t go much slower until the whole train went slower), and still the train kept getting bigger and heavier, and going faster.
    The learners and the people who learned from the learners kept trying to tell the other people and the engineers that something terrible was about to happen if the train kept going so fast, but most of them still wouldn’t listen.
    The learners and the people who learned wondered what would happen to the train and all the people on it when the speeding train finally ran out of space. If we don’t all learn from the learners very soon, we’ll find out.

24. cynic Says:
    November 26th, 2009 at 9:40 am

    Howard: I think the story of Chicken Little is more relevant.

25. Howard Garrett Says:
    November 26th, 2009 at 10:45 am

    cynic – we’ll find out.

26. Howard Garrett Says:
    November 26th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    None of us is qualified to question the combined scientific conclusions of 99.5% of all credentialed climate scientists worldwide, but the corporate stakeholders and their employees and wannabes do it anyway, at a scale that effectively prevents democratic, organized adaptive actions by the rest of us, which successfully sells more hydrocarbon product in the short term, until the consequences of burning 100s of millions of years of accumulated organic carbon into the atmosphere in a few decades cause global devastation and tragedy. Droughts will intensify, oceans will acidify and rise, species extinction will accelerate, millions of climate refugees will be looking for food and shelter.
    It’s about who you listen to that determines what you know and believe. Is it the media personalities on the payroll of a few majority shareholders (engineers in the parable) of oil, coal, mining, auto, media, insurance, etc. who speak through their employees and exercise their ability to sway public opinion through their ownership and advertising influence, or is it the scientific community (the learners) who endeavor and generally manage to uphold the empirical scientific method of seeking objective truth and understanding? The chicken little answer is promoted by the engineers.
    It’s about where you want to belong, and who you believe you can believe.
    On this Thanksgiving I’m thankful for for the scientific community that informs us, for the bounty of life on earth, and hopeful we won’t waste it to sell more product to maximize someone’s quarterly return on investment.

27. cynic Says:
    November 26th, 2009 at 11:57 pm

    Howard: It may come as a surprise to, but scientists and the politicians who fund them are not plaster saints. They have self interest, and collectivly they form a system that can be very misleading. Where did you get you 99.5% figure? From AlGore?

28. Howard Garrett Says:
    November 27th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

    cynic – come back to reality. It’s in nobody’s interest to have the world heating up. Scientists are by training very conservative (that’s why the IPCC has consistently underestimated the intensity of global warming), and they aren’t generally funded by politicians anyway.
    I realize you’ve been reeled in with fantasies of conspiring scientists and politicians dedicated to taking your freedoms away, but nothing in reality resembles that stageplay.
    However, the folks who own and whose livelihoods are completely dependent on continuing to sell millions of barrels of oil every day, do have a vested interest in convincing the public (that’s you) to continue to buy it, and unlike physicists, they have the power to shape public opinion and legislation. It’s what they do, through advertising and lobbying and a great variety of persuasive methods. Remember the tobacco crusades? Your health is not their interest, it’s your money they want, and they are adept at convincing you that by smoking you are exercising your freedom. Now it’s buying and burning more oil that exercises your freedom, and paying exorbitant premiums for fraudulent health care is exercising your freedom. Anyone who says smoking is unhealthy, or health care should be a universal right, or that global warming is real, is threatening your freedom, they say. None of that fits reality, but it’s a dog whistle that gets many people to come running anyway. You bit the hook and you’re in the net, without a fight, to mix metaphors. You’re a dog, you’re a fish, whatever, you’re not acting like a responsible human being who can perceive reality and work and play well with others.
    By adding up all the climate scientists who say global warming isn’t real, and comparing that number to those who say it is real, the percent who say it is real is 99.5%.
    Al Gore, by the way, is one of the most decent, courageous and intelligent reality-based people you’ll ever find. You’ve bit down on another hook and come running to another dog whistle. This smearing of good people is an example of the contrived arguing that is intended to prevent reality-based conversations and paralyze our ability to democratically organize adaptive responses to problems, so we’ll all keep buying that oil. Come back to reality so we can talk, please. We’ve got some serious problems to work on.

29. robert taylor Says:
    November 27th, 2009 at 1:59 pm

    Howard,
    Well said! I really enjoyed your runaway train parable as well.
    Rob

30. cynic Says:
    November 27th, 2009 at 2:22 pm

    Howard: So you think the Evil Corporations are lying to us and I think the politicians are lying to us. It is I suppose just a coincidence that Global Warming / Climate Change fits in so nicely with the liberal agenda of government control of our lives and limited freedom. I would rather trust my future to a corporate executive than to a politician. AlGore is a power hungry idiot and his carbon footprint for his 7 houses and frequent private jet flights is immense. He wants the masses to freeze in the dark while he burns enough energy to support a community. The runaway train parable applies to the blind stampede of the global warming alarmists as well.

31. John Donne Says:
    November 28th, 2009 at 10:08 am

    cynic — ping!

    Howard — “It’s in nobody’s interest to have the world heating up.” Really? How about those in the far north and south who will be able to grow crops they’ve never grown? How about the Al Gore’s of the world who will live their lives with the benefit of untold riches and rock star adulation, then die before anyone knows how right or wrong they were? Lots of folks have “interests” on both sides of this equation.

    I accept climate change as fact, but predict that its greatest effect will be social and economic disruption. I don’t know whether specific species of bear, or salmon or slime mold will be favored or destroyed by then next warming or cooling, and I don’t much care.

    I once read that 90% of the species we have identified are extinct. Even if we’d had an endangered species act since caveman times this would probably be true. Whatever.

    What I do care about is the notion that we can “solve” global warming by restricting emissions without providing an efficient, alternative energy conversion source.

32. Howard Garrett Says:
    November 28th, 2009 at 11:51 am

    cynic (here I’m addressing all those who get their news and fears from ultra-conservative, reactionary media) – your delusional paranoia is spectacular, and your conspiracy theories are vast and entirely unfounded and impossible. The sum total of your message is that you refuse to help, and worse, you scoff and throw verbal bricks at those who are trying to address global warming. You’re like someone who sees a house burning and goes to the scene to act childish and crazy to distract the firefighters from doing their job, forcing the proper authorities to put you out before they can put the fire out. I find no honor there.

33. Kathryn Simpson Says:
    November 28th, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    Howard,

    When “scientists” are skewing the data to suit their position and lying, there is good reason to question the veracity of what they are saying.

    I haven’t heard anyone argue that concern for the environment isn’t important. There is value to improving our treatment of the environment and being more conscious of the impact of what we do in the environment we all share. However, there is also value in being responsible to tell the truth and put things in honest context.

    Regards,
    Kathryn Simpson

34. cynic Says:
    November 28th, 2009 at 5:50 pm

    In a few years everything that can be studied about climate change will have been published, the research money will dry up, and the “learned scientists” will no longer have incentive to falsify data. The scientists will invent a new crisis and they will continue getting fat federal research grants. When all of this happens it may be possible to get a realistic assesment of climate trends. Howard there is a big green bridge down in Tacoma that I would like to sell you. You never did say where the 99.5% figure came from. Was it the same source as the rest of your data?

35. Howard Garrett Says:
    November 28th, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    Kathryn – There is also value in an accurate assessment of the environmental situation, i.e., being more conscious of the impact of what we do in the environment we all share, which now includes the onset of global warming, as a baseline to devise solutions and set priorities. Those emails are not significant in the proceedings or veracity of any of the scientific organizations that have concluded that global warming is real serious.
    I’m listening to Rush say global warming is the “biggest lie in the history of the world.” Etc. etc. He literally shouts it over and over and over, without any support for his claims, except to say the same thing over and over and over, as if the sheer force of his loud voice and personality makes him more credible than the voice of the international scientific community. Rush is acting irresponsibly, except to his corporate sponsors, and childish and crazy. What’s sad is that some people believe him and the other media hucksters.
    John Donne – I think you’re right that the social and economic disruption will be the most immediate consequence of global warming for most people. As droughts and fires intensify and the land will no longer produce enough food people will be forced to try to find places where they can survive, but those places will already be stressed and the weight of so many people is likely to overload housing, food distribution, emergency and police responses and other social systems, which will push more people even farther into the remaining viable land.
    I don’t get the animosity toward Al Gore, but of course it comes from the same sources as all the other misinformation. He’s trying to help avoid the above consequences.

36. cynic Says:
    November 28th, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    Howard: I’m like the guy who comes home to find firemen chopping holes in his roof when the only evidence of fire is a 911 call from the crackpot across the street.

37. Howard Garrett Says:
    November 28th, 2009 at 11:11 pm

    cynic – it’s not a crackpot, it’s the international scientific community sounding the fire alarm. Contrary to what the skeptics claim, the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, IPCC, NASA and the world’s leading atmospheric scientists are not the agents of a clandestine global movement against the truth. Anyone with any familiarity with any scientific discipline would know how utterly absurd that assertion is.
    I understand the economic re-ordering that will be needed to substantially reduce our carbon emissions, and it’s entirely predictable that the owners of those carbon-based sources would use all the tools at their disposal to manipulate the public to believe that there is no need to reduce consumption or shift to alternative, de-centralized energy sources that they don’t own. But what continually amazes and disappoints are the numbers and the arrogance of those who repeat the crazy talking points and attitudes pushed by those corporate entities.

38. cynic Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    What continually amazes and dissapoints me is the numbers and the arrogance of those who blindly accept the claims of the politicians and then presume that anyone who questions the party line is ignorant. This is not the first time that the entire scientific and political community has gone off on a wild tangent, a few years ago it was global cooling and a new ice age. Global warming could be happening, or we could all be killed by a giant meteor or volcano or earthquake or a mutant virus. All of these disasters are predicted and peer reviewed by respected scientists who continue to live well on federal grant money.

39. Howard Garrett Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 3:56 pm

    You’ve been told there was once an agreement about global cooling. That was a sensational headline from a statement by a very few scientists made into media hype. The consensus around global warming is a decades-long international process based on thousands of peer-reviewed studies. The scientists don’t get much federal grant money, it usually comes from universities, and until last January those grants were biased against revealing global warming. Your arguments and your false facts are just nuts.
    It would be useless to go through every single lie you’ve been taught to believe, mainly because you’ve been taught that your basic freedom is threatened by the bad scientists and liberal politicians, so you believe your existence is threatened. You are acting from that fear, not with any sense of reality or facts.
    I’ve heard Rush, so I know what you’re being told. The people who tell you these things don’t care about your health, or your mental health, they don’t want your companionship and they don’t even think about the natural world or the ecosystems we all depend on. They just want to get your money by manipulating your thinking, and it’s worked so well that they now have most of the money, which gives them more power to convince the gullible and uneducated among us of anything that will make them buy more of whatever they’re selling. I know you aren’t hearing any of this, but thanks for answering so I could put some reality-based answers onto this blog so more rational people could see just how paranoid and crazy denialist slogans are.

40. Sharon O'Hara Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    Thank you, Chris…I’ve learned more about our environment from this blog in the past year than I have in all previous years combined.

    Your knowledge, curiosity and generosity of you and other professionals in the field to give their valuable time to post here and offer insights and information we don’t have is astounding.

    Science is fascinating, our natural world thrilling and sad at the same time. Sad because we human types, too many of us, disrespect our (pardon my use of this overused used and abused word) environment.

    I don’t know if we’re causing the earth warming… I have no idea.
    I support organizations working to educate and teach the public how we can respect and protect our natural world. But many of these organizations have jumped in wanting support for global warming action and I can’t support something I’m not sure about.
    We have one side stating humans have nothing to do with it or there is no such thing as global warming and the other side takes an opposite stand.

    I do believe human carelessness and lack of knowledge is destroying our waterways and the critters unable to survive the pollution.
    Thanks Chris and all you caring natural world types helping educate us here.
    I don’t have to always agree to appreciate your efforts and those who make the effort to help us understand their point of view.
    To all of you, my thanks.
    Sharon O’Hara

41. cdunagan Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 7:55 pm

    Sharon,

    Your kind words couldn’t have come at a better time. As I’ve said before, I’m not an advocate for any cause. I try to reflect the viewpoints of many people and to put things into perspective the best I can.

    On the issue of global cooling, there is an interesting article in the September 2008 issue of the “American Meteorological Society.” Two climate scientists and a newspaper reporter looked at the gamut of scientific and popular literature during the formative years of climate science — the time when skeptics claim scientists supported the idea of global cooling.

    The journal article is titled “The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus” (PDF 4.1 mb).

    The study found that between 1965 and 1979, seven research papers about climate supported the notion of global cooling, 20 were neutral on the topic of temperature and 44 supported the theory of warming.

    The authors went a step further to see how many times these various papers were cited by others in the field. Cooling papers were cited 325 times, neutral papers were cited 424 times and warming papers were cited 2,043 times.

    A summary paragraph of the overall findings: “There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.”

    Today, scientific consensus clearly supports the theory of global warming, which generally ties rising temperatures to increasing greenhouse gases.

42. cynic Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    Nearly all university research is funded by federal grant money. I haven,t read or listened to Rush in years. I know that you will find it hard to believe, but there are still a few of us who are independent thinkers and not controlled by the propaganda of either side. The funding on any issue is always biased toward the catastrophe. I would be useless to try to refute every lie that you have been taught because you believe the evil corporations are out to get you. The point that I have been trying to get through to is that it does not require an international conspiracy, only a system which rewards predictors of catastrophe, and individuals who work in thier own self interest. Unbiased researchers would try to find the reasons for anomalies like the past decade of net global cooling. Self interested researchers wouild rather find a way to adjust the data to cover it up. Read the E-mails

43. SharonOHara Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 9:45 pm

    cynic …who supports the “Unbiased researchers”?
    Research has to be supported…which research finding would you trust to be accurate? Would any organization or individual supporting a research be above suspicion in your eyes? I don’t know, I’m asking.

    I advocate for COPD research and education because there isn’t any. Yet. The drug manufacturers research to find drugs that make a difference to the patient and I’m grateful they do.
    They most certainly have a financial interest in developing drugs that work….and no one could be more grateful than the patient those drugs help or cure.
    Who do you suppose would spend the billions or trillions of dollars it takes to develop a medical drugs if not the drug manufacturers?
    The free enterprise system is alive and semi well – so far.

    Free thinkers are independent.. I understand and appreciate them.
    That said… Do we have enough free thinkers to support drug manufacturers or scientists in any field?
    …just asking… Sharon O’Hara

44. SharonOHara Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 10:13 pm

    Chris…You walk a thin line to do your job…the results so needed by the rest of us. You go out of your way to report honestly and fairly the varied aspects of the issues facing us …we need you, we need your input on our world.
    Thanks for the information, global cooling/warming…
    Sharon O’Hara

45. cynic Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 11:22 pm

    Sharon: The point is that there is no unbiased research. Every researcher has his own agenda therefore you can not accept research results without weighing them against your own experience and knowledge of human nature. In medical research it is possible to conduct experiments which can then be repeated by other scientists, In climate research experimental proof is generally not available. The conclusions must be based on statistical evidence and as Mark Twain once observed “Statistics prove that figures can lie and liars can figure.

46. Sharon O'Hara Says:
    November 30th, 2009 at 2:38 am

    cynic …Good points. In the 70′s a big cancer scare blew up over research showing hair dye caused cancer. As the flap dyed down I became a ‘skeptic’ of sorts.
    http://www.health-report.co.uk/harmful_toxic_toiletries_chemicals_cancer_causing.html

    The urls I scanned don’t mention it but the hair dye in question was the annolyn (sp) derivative in hair dye. The penetrating, not coating, black color, permanent hair dye was 100% a. derivative.
    To equal the testing done on rats and come to the same conclusion was for human subjects to DRINK (x # of) hair dye bottles.
    Sharon O’Hara

47. Sharon O'Hara Says:
    November 30th, 2009 at 2:41 am

    …: drink the hair dye…

48. BlueLight Says:
    November 30th, 2009 at 8:27 am

    Hs the Kitsap Sun even printed a story of the leaked emails? I haven’t seen it. Also, it is telling that Chris Dunagan’s first instinct is to defend the IPCC, the process and the findings. No inclination, whatsoever, toward a healthy skepticism. No assurance the readers of the Sun will get an objective look at the matter. No story here, folks, move along.

    And, Chris, you have seen – firsthand – examples of how these processes are skewed toward predetermined outcomes. How many “consensus-based” scientific exercised have you seen where the only votes the participants are allowed to cast consist of “strongly support”, “support”, “somewhat disagree” or (and this is the option for the dissenting) “abstain”?

    Yesterday, the Sun ran an editorial cartoon reference a “climate change email hoax” showing a cold couple burning copies of Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”. I bet a lot of Kitsap Sun subscribers were left wondering to what that cartoon referenced. Shameful.

    Chris, has the Puget Sound Partnership provided you the list of all taxpayer-funded restoration activities taking place in Hood Canal. Or is that – also – none of our business?

49. BlueLight Says:
    November 30th, 2009 at 8:35 am

    To be clear, members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (whose findings underlie a myriad of new regulation here in Washington State) allegedly conspired to:

    1. Falsify scientific data
    2. Exert inappropriate influence on the scientific perr-review process
    3. Exert inappropriate influence on the scientific publication process
    4. Evade public disclosure laws

50. BlueLight Says:
    November 30th, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    BTW, here is a link to Washington State legislation that has been promulgated over the past five years in response to climate change:

    http://www.ecy.wa.gov/climatechange/docs/2009_ClimateChangeActions_071509.pdf

51. Howard Garrett Says:
    November 30th, 2009 at 6:33 pm

    http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/climate-change-emails-stop-glaciers-from-melting-200911252254/
    CLIMATE CHANGE EMAILS STOP GLACIERS FROM MELTING

    25-11-09
    GLACIERS in the Alps, Andes and Himalayas have stopped melting after the release of secret emails showing climate change scientists are at it.

    The Donnelly ice shelf has seen the error of its ways
    Vast ice sheets across the globe gained up to four inches just hours after it emerged experts at the University of East Anglia had been manipulating data in a bid to knock-off early.

    Meanwhile in the Antarctic the 200 square mile Donnelly ice shelf changed direction and headed back towards the continent where it then reattached itself to the slightly larger McPartlin ice shelf.

    Climate change sceptic and fully-qualified blogger Martin Bishop said: “As soon as these emails were released the world’s glaciers resumed their normal, icey behaviour, as long-predicted by some of London’s most important journalists.

    “This is the smoking iceberg that fires a polar bear of truth between the eyes of hysteria and communism.”

    He added: “More than half the world’s journalists who have read Nigel Lawson’s book now accept that the atmosphere could not possibly have been affected by setting fire to millions of tons of coal, oil and gas every single day for 150 years while at the same time chopping down most of the really big trees.

    “Can we all please now return to some kind of sanity and tie George Monbiot to the back of a Range Rover?”

    Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said: “While there will always be debate over climate data, it’s important to remember that the state of the world’s icebergs and glaciers remains wholly dependant on which group of tedious, hectoring arseholes is currently winning the argument.”

    But Bill McKay, an accountant from Dunbar, said: “I’m not a scientist, but last week I noticed some mosquito-like creatures buzzing around the light at my back door. Again, not a scientist, but… mosquitos, November, Scotland.

    “Someone needs to explain that to me.”

52. Sharon O'Hara Says:
    November 30th, 2009 at 9:32 pm

    OMG.
    Thank you, BlueLight …they’re overwhelming.
    If I were a headache type of person, I’d be having one about now.

    I have one electric assist recumbent trike. I haven’t wanted one because electric plugs in trees are hard to come by. What does a person do when they run out of power and a plug isn’t handy?
    We may be carrying things too far…
    Sharon O’Hara

53. cdunagan Says:
    November 30th, 2009 at 10:52 pm

    BlueLight,

    How do you have any idea what my first instinct was? If you must know, my first instinct was to read the e-mails, which I did. I provided my thoughts in the main entry above. As I explained, some of the e-mails troubled me. But do they disprove climate change? Not at all.

    What assurances do you want that I will take an objective look? I have read articles on all sides of the debate and continue to do so. I may comment on national or international stories, as in this case, but my reporting is focused on our local area. I provided a link for people to download the e-mails and make their own judgments. I also provided links for people to read beyond my comments — ranging from a blog by climate scientists to a highly critical piece on the Fox News Web site. And I welcome the debate, no matter what your viewpoint, as proven by the 52 comments on this blog entry — and not one was rejected.

54. Sharon O'Hara Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 1:53 am

    The fact is Chris… Fairness to all sides is you and this blog. You do not remove or refuse posts giving viewpoints from the urls you provide or the ones the posters provide.

    I don’t waste my time anymore reading one blog in particular for the obvious bias in presenting another point of view. Twice I took the time to point out something a biased poster presented…because a teeter-toter, pendulum swing from one extreme to another makes no sense. I posted it twice to no result and another comment was removed. So be it.

    Time is the most precious thing we have and to let other folks waste it to a non productive end is like a cat chasing their own tail.

    Thanks again Chris and BlueLight too for helping enlighten people like me.
    Sharon O’Hara

55. cynic Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 7:47 am

    Howard: Your sarcastic post ignores some of the same information that the other climate alarmists ignore. For example: the total amount of ice in Antartica is increasing, it is only a few areas around the edges that are losing ice while in the center of the continent the ice continues to deepen. While some glaciers are receding, some are advancing including our own Nisqually Glacier. There is no way to prove that climate changes if they are happening at all are human caused. You never did explain where you got the 99.5% figure, was it the same dark source as your other information?

56. BlueLight Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 9:21 am

    Chris,

    Your “first instinct” aside, the fact of the matter is that your paying subscribers (if they rely on your paper for news coverage) have no idea this story even exists. You have not written a report on it. Period. And, frankly, the longer you ignore the story, the more you BECOME the story.

    You report on local issues? The legislative link I provided above shows legislation that has been enacted in Washington state (since 2005!) that is predicated on the “findings” of the now spurious “science”. I checked the fiscal impacts of legislation since 2007. The Office of Financial Management estimated that that legislation (just that enacted since 2007) will add $136 Million in costs to Washington State government over a 10 year period. This doesn’t include the trickle-down costs to local jurisdictions and, oh! by the way! – businesses and private citizens. A $136 Million bill that was not there 2 years ago! That is money that COULD HAVE BEEN used for schools, roads, prisons, whatever (even a crumbling viaduct!). But no. It is a competing need now, brought about by what – increasingly – is looking like a rigged game.

    As for your aside email to me asking to rephrase my previous request… We can have this discussion right here. Here, again, is the very simple question:

    Ask the Puget Sound Partnership for a list of all government funded restoration activities taking place in Hood Canal.

    Background for some of your readers: The Puget Sound Partnership was formed out of a realization that our salmon/Puget Sound recovery efforts had spawned a legion of independent, self-interested fiefdoms. The effort was recognized as uncoordinated, inefficient and ineffective. The Puget Sound Partnership was formed to organize this disparate situation. Their first job was SUPPOSED to be to inventory all existing restoration efforts (you have to inventory them before you organize them, right?). Like-minded bureaucrats; however, are loathe to cut another’s funding and so… not only do we still have all the independent little fiefdoms, we also have the big, hungry Puget Sound Partnership to feed. So, the first question is simple, really:

    Ask the Puget Sound Partnership for a list of all government funded restoration activities taking place on Hood Canal.

    Let’s see what they have. We’ll go from there.

57. BlueLight Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 10:13 am

    For anyone interested, here is a good “follow the money” opinion from the Wall Street Journal regarding Climategate:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular

58. Karen Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    You should go to Alaska and see for yourself. Drive south from Anchorage on the Seward Highway and visit the Begich Boggs visitor’s center. You can no longer see the Portage glacier. Continue on to Seward and Exit Glacier. Both are within 120 miles of Anchorage on one of the prettiest drives in the country. See for yourself.

    http://travel.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/travel/26alaska.html

59. BlueLight Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 1:13 pm

    Yes, Karen. You, also, can no longer see the mile thick ice sheet that once covered Puget Sound.

60. SharonOHara Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    News alert…not helping the Global Warming picture become clearer.
    “Global Warming Scandal Makes Scientific Progress More Difficult, Experts Say”

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,578368,00.html

61. cdunagan Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    UPDATE, DEC. 1

    Phil Jones has stepped aside as director of the Climatic Research Unit pending completion of an independent review of allegations involving e-mail hacked from the server of the University of East Anglia in England. Details of the investigation will be announced within days. See news release from East Anglia.

62. Karen Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 2:45 pm

    And the earth was uninhabitable then, wasn’t it?

    I’m not coming down on one side of this issue or the other. I think people should make up their own minds. Take that 3 hour and 20 minute flight. It’s difficult to dispute what you can see with your eyes. I’m just saying find out for yourself. Travel, research, don’t accept what you’re fed, especially when the alarm becomes a political tool or a marketing campaign.

63. BlueLight Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 2:59 pm

    “And the earth was uninhabitable then, wasn’t it?”

    No. That was 20,000 years ago. Homo sapiens, to pick a species, has been around about 250,000 years.

    As for people making up their own minds… we are on the same page. We just need the information with which to do so.

64. Howard Garrett Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    The Antarctic is melting, but in keeping with the majority of global warming models, more precipitation is falling in some places (the Pacific NW may be another) so even as chunks the size of continents break off some new snow piles up on top. I could go back and find the sources but I assume you’ve been supplied with competing statements from somebody so the political facts would not change.

    With the resignation of Phil Jones the insurgent denialists are happy. Those hacked emails look bad for him, but his involvement is insignificant in the scope of all the processes that have gone into the gradual buildup of overwhelming scientific consensus over decades.

    There really is no real debate about anthropogenic global warming, just a PR war against some needed behavioral changes and economic restructuring to do something about it.

    About the petitions denying global warming, I refer all to:
    http://www.desmogblog.com/30000-global-warming-petition-easily-debunked-propaganda

    Quoting Jim Hoggan on DeSmogBlog:
    Whatever you do, you must keep a wary eye. By all means, read the sites that deny the reality of climate change. But then check on http://www.sourcewatch.org to see who paid for those opinions. Read the DeSmogBlog. Don’t accept the word of people who pass themselves off as “skeptics.” Be skeptical yourself. Ask yourself what motive the scientific community has to gang up and invent a phony climate crisis. Compare that to the motives that ExxonMobil or Peabody Coal might have to deny that burning fossil fuels indiscriminately could change irrevocably our existence on the planet.

65. cynic Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    Howard: Obviously your mind is made up and you don’t wish to be confused with facts. I hope you enjoy your paranoia.

66. Cameron Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 10:02 pm

    Everyone should read this post and comment thread for context on the email hack situation.

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/

67. cdunagan Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 10:39 pm

    You’re right, Cameron. “Real Climate,” a blog by professional climatologists, is informative about many climate-related issues — including this so-called “climategate” issue. This site was, in fact, one of the four links I listed in the original entry way up above.

    One thing I’d like to request of everyone: If you wish to post a link, please include some kind of observation about it. What exactly do you find interesting? I would hate to see this blog become a list of dueling links. Thanks.

68. BlueLight Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 7:34 am

    Ha! Yes, Chris and Cameron, we should all refer back to the people who are now under investigation for assurances that all is well on this “so-called” climategate issue.

69. Cameron Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 8:51 am

    The link I provided uses some examples of complaints being made and provides background. For example, the comment of Phil Jones using a “trick”, which deniers claim was meant to infer a deception, rather than a methodology (like cross dividing before multiplying your fractions). Many also mention “hiding the decline”, which is explained. There are also charges of data manipulation or hiding the data. Again, this is discussed.

    As to BlueLight’s comment, the only contributor to RealClimate that is mentioned in the emails is Michael Mann. There is no indication that he has done anything remotely wrong, and in the link provided above, he is not the one participating.

    This whole issue has provided far more heat than light and does nothing whatsoever to undermine the conclusions of the wider scientific community.

70. BlueLight Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 9:15 am

    “As to BlueLight’s comment, the only contributor to RealClimate that is mentioned in the emails is Michael Mann.”

    Wrong. Realclimate was started by the CRU. See this email: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=446&filename=1102687002.txt

    “There is no indication that he has done anything remotely wrong…”

    Along with his colleagues, Professor Mann allegedly conspired to:

    1. falsify scientific data
    2. exert inappropriate influence on the scientific peer-review process
    3. exert inappropriate influence on the scientific publication process
    4. evade public disclosure laws

    Professor Mann is currently under investigation by his employer, Penn State University.

    Read more: http://pugetsoundblogs.com/waterways/2009/11/24/brouhaha-develops-over-climate-change-so-whats-new/#comment-17599#ixzz0YYJW3lZp

71. BlueLight Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm

    “As to BlueLight’s comment, the only contributor to RealClimate that is mentioned in the emails is Michael Mann.”

    According to the emails, the RealClimate “team” consisted of:

    - Gavin Schmidt
    - Mike Mann
    - Eric Steig
    - William Connolley
    - Stefan Rahmstorf
    - Ray Bradley
    - Amy Clement
    - Rasmus Benestad
    - William Connolley
    - Caspar Ammann

    The number of times these people are “mentioned” in the emails?

    Gavin Schmidt – 112
    Mike Mann – 64
    Eric Steig – 11
    William Connolley – 1
    Stefan Rahmstorf – 42
    Ray Bradley – 23
    Amy Clement – 2
    Rasmus Benestad – 4
    Caspar Ammann – 62

72. Cameron Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm

    You mean the scientists who blog for RealClimate referred to each other in some of their emails? Crazy.

    The editors of the journal Nature published an editorial today that looks at some of the key points of attack by the deniers. It is worth reading:

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7273/full/462545a.html

73. BlueLight Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    “You mean the scientists who blog for RealClimate referred to each other in some of their emails? Crazy.”

    Well that sure is a gracious way of admitting you were wrong when you said, “the only contributor to RealClimate that is mentioned in the emails is Michael Mann”.

74. Cameron Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm

    Bluelight, you are right that Michael Mann wasn’t the only contributor mentioned (for that, I apologize). I would have been more accurate to say he is the only one implicated in the ongoing “scandal”. It is not, however, surprising that the others are mentioned in various emails. It also does not negate the fact that none of them are employees of CRU or the University of East Anglia.

75. BlueLight Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    Frankly, which conglomeration each are affiliated with are of very little import to me. I’m not sure why we have got so spun around that axle.

    Personally, I have lost more faith in the “press” than I have the scientific community in this matter. I have seen “science” used (and abused) to support the agendas of those on both sides of the political spectrum. I get equally upset (let’s use a local example) at the big developer who clearcuts to the creek and uses “science” to support his mitigation as I do the “environmentalist” that uses “science” to claim his drainage ditch is home to Chinook salmon and therefore should preclude development of the neighboring property.

    And while I recognize the bias in our local newspaper, I heretofore, thought it was a consequence of the staff’s personalities. Throughout the nation; however, a very small minority of media have reported on this story (and, yes, it IS a story; every bit as important as Tiger getting beat by his wife). I am clueless as to who has the power to dictate content of the press throughout the diverse communities of our country. But apparently somebody does. No, the REAL lesson in this (at least for me) is that the press of this country is broken. There, apparently does not exist within the media what I was raised to believe was a code of ethics amongst journalists. Will I believe whatever the IPCC says? No. Will I trust the press is watching out for the “truth”? No. And, while the IPCC may say, “no big deal” and while the politicians may make this go – quietly away; it IS a big deal. It increases cynicism. And with that – over the long haul – you are less – not more – likely to have people sacrifice for causes greater than themselves. Your party is just as guilty as the other.

    I know you and I will not see eye to eye on this matter. Like I said, I find arguing climate change (which I really do not argue the data so much as the process – I hate the squelching of debate!) with a true believer is EXACTLY like arguing evolution to an creationist.

    I hope; however, that you and I CAN agree that our press – the very underpinnings of our democracy – can no longer be counted on to serve as the fourth estate of our nation. We need a new media.

76. groovyjoker Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 5:59 pm

    Hmmm… According to Bluelight, he cannot rely upon scientists. He cannot rely upon the power of the press. He cannot rely upon religion. He cannot rely upon politics. What is he left with to make a reasoned and informed decision?

    Blogs?

77. cynic Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 pm

    It is dangerous to infer too much from a rether small data sample, but it may be that the pirated e-mails reflect the attitudes and strategies of the entire global warming alarmist community. If this is the case then none of the conclusions they have published is reliable. Do we want to transform our entire civilization based on reports that have questionable reliability?

78. Howard Garrett Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    BlueLight – please read the editorial in Nature above.

79. cdunagan Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 11:28 pm

    I never do this, but I think we need to pause for a little humor. Take it away, Jon Stewart.

    The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
    Scientists Hide Global Warming Data
    http://www.thedailyshow.com
    Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

80. BlueLight Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 7:46 am

    Thw Wall Street Journal: Science is Dying.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704107104574572091993737848.html

81. Howard Garrett Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 11:40 am

    The WSJ editorial seems very perceptive and ominous. It also accords with Rush saying scientists, academics and politicians are all LYING!!! That apparently leaves only him and a few other regressive conservatives to be believed. That’s what’s scary. The editorial is noting the effects of that rejection of the only reliable way of knowing how the world works.

    My hope is that most people are more balanced and always knew that even scientists can be biased and sometimes make judgement calls to make sense of the universe of data. Just as our system of democracy by checks and balances is brilliant and based on the known vagaries of human fallability, and yet can be hijacked and driven into a ditch, the empirical method of transparent methodologies, peer review and institutionalized skepticism is the best way to minimize tangents into pre-determined conclusions.

    The case for AGW has passed through a multitude of reality checks for decades and been verified from every conceivable angle and still continues to be strengthened by the day. The bias among the majority of the scientists involved is not for, but against advancing any theory so dramatic and controversial as AGW. When their best judgement is attacked, not respectfully questioned, in the ways described in the Nature editorial they may lose their cool and break protocol to wall off the attacks.

    It’s not just the CRU, or even the IPCC, it’s also the Nat. Academy of Sciences, NASA, and every other respectable scientific organization, plus innumerable biologists noting the effects of warming air and acidified waters and shrinking glaciers and icecaps, reported at every scientific conference and in every journal in print. Now Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians has said environmental desecration is a sin, and “350 is an act of repentance.” The directors of almost 800 of the world’s largest zoos and aquariums signed a letter to the Copenhagen conference demanding a 350 ppm CO2 target lest their cages become the only place to see the world’s fauna: in their words, “the climate change threat to the natural world is so severe that we’re rapidly losing suitable habitats for these species.” They were speaking in plain language based on scientific process.

    These people are not part of any plot to take away anybody’s freedom, which exists only in fevered imaginations. We would be wise to listen to the best sources of reliable information about the changing condition of our world.

82. Sharon O'Hara Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 12:47 pm

    “The EPA admitted “varying degrees of uncertainty across many of these scientific issues.” Again, this puts hard science in the new position of saying, close enough is good enough. One hopes civil engineers never build bridges under this theory….”

    I can’t help but remember last night’s first drive through Bremerton’s tunnel. My oooww’s and awww’s (its beautiful!)don’t quell the hope the science behind the design and building of that tunnel was not done to a less than exact science. “..close enough is not good enough..”

    The media BlueLight mentions has changed from years past. Other than Fox News, not one breath of the Acorn shame emerged to the public light of awareness. It is inconceivable that professional resporters/newsfolks didn’t know about it and chose to keep the shame in the closet.

    This morning I watched and listened to a news person earnestly explain why Tiger Woods should hold a ‘news conference” and explain himself to the public. I laughed at such nonsense.
    How dare those people.. Woods business is his business, not the public. Leave the man and his family alone…he is the greatest golfer in the world…he is not part of a government ‘secret service.’
    His shame is his and for his family, his wife, to deal with.

    The Acorn shame is a tax supported organization openly showing itself helping pimp underage girls smuggled into this country for the sex trade and ignored by the media. And yet they’re slathering over Tiger Woods and lust after this horny golfer and ignore Acorn’s apparent illegal activities.

    I don’t believe the Kitsap Sun would be part of such a cover up.
    Sharon O’Hara

83. BlueLight Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 1:06 pm

    “I don’t believe the Kitsap Sun would be part of such a cover up.”

    No? Then post a link to the story they’ve done on this issue.

84. Sharon O'Hara Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm

    Science and studies bring vitally important information to save lives. One of you pointed out that medical studies usually build on previous studies and the following does just that. One study building stone mentioned is from 1983. Really neat.

    The following current study at the University of Washington is for those on oxygen. If anyone knows a COPDer on oxygen, you might mention this study to him/her.

    “The cross sectional model presented here would require testing in prospective research designs to evaluate its ability to predict longitudinal decline in cognition and incident damage to brain tissue integrity. However, such damage, once it has occurred, may not be reversible. While the evidence is limited, it appears that the cognitive impairment reported in advanced COPD is only partially reversible with oxygen therapy started late in the disease course (Heaton et al 1983). If our model is correct, routine identification of episodic desaturation with everyday activity, and/or sleep, and earlier oxygen supplementation, could help to prevent irreversible brain damage in COPD patients….”
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2629981/
    Sharon O’Hara

85. Sharon O'Hara Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 7:20 pm

    “No? Then post a link to the story they’ve done on this issue.”

    I couldn’t find one.

86. cdunagan Says:
    December 3rd, 2009 at 11:50 pm

    UPDATE, DEC. 3

    Sir Muir Russell, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Glasgow from 2003 to 2009, was appointed by the University of East Anglia to head up a review of allegations against the Climate Research Unit.

    The review will look at the stolen e-mails for evidence of data manipulation or suppression, review CRU’s overall data-handling policies, and investigate compliance with disclosure laws. Review is designed to determine whether activities were at odds with acceptable scientific practices.

    The university has asked that the review be completed by spring, 2010.

87. Cameron Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 7:34 am

    This is a welcome development. Unfortunately, when they deliver their conclusions, those who persist in believing in conspiracies and science cover-ups will probably not be swayed.

88. BlueLight Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 8:06 am

    Yes, Cameron. Lock-step acolytes are unlikely to be swayed, either.

89. cdunagan Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 10:31 am

    I am not going to prejudge the investigation, and my conclusions from reading the e-mails has not changed. It seems that some skeptics are convinced that if several climatologists are discredited, the entire global-warming theory will collapse like a house of cards.

    From the dozens of research papers I’ve reviewed (and there are hundreds more that I haven’t seen), there is strong evidence that the average worldwide temperature is increasing rapidly, and there is a good correlation with greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There remains some uncertainty, of course, as there always does with science, but other potential causes of the warming have been researched and largely discredited.

    What isn’t clear to me is whether there is any consensus among the skeptics, because I hear all kinds of charges. Do most foster the belief that the climate isn’t really warming rapidly or is possibly cooling, or do they prefer to think that this rapid warming can be explained by natural causes?

    From what I have read so far, skeptics who work with the data have gained no traction within the scientific community. Maybe they believe they are like Galileo, delivering the right answer to a combative anti-scientific and religious community. But in today’s world the stronger likelihood is that they’re simply wrong.

90. BlueLight Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 11:54 am

    Chris,

    Can you tell us why your paper waited so long to report on this story?

91. cdunagan Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 1:13 pm

    BlueLight,

    I’m not an editor and I don’t make decisions about what goes into the paper, but if it will stop you from nipping at my heels, I’ll try to explain. This is based on what I have heard about our news philosophy.

    Times have changed, and newspapers are not what they used to be when the paper on your doorstep was your only source of local, state, national and international news. Today, the Kitsap Sun’s published edition focuses on local news. A few of us touch on state news. We leave a little space inside for national and world news. (The national and world news that goes into the newspaper does not usually relate directly to what gets posted online.)

    For online readers of the Kitsap Sun, the assumption is that you have many sources to choose from. You might visit the Kitsap Sun Web site for local news, because we are the primary source of news in our community. But you can easily click over to the New York Times, Fox News or another trusted source for national and world news.

    When it comes to complex, rapidly developing national stories with uncertain consequences, I’ve heard that the Sun may choose to run larger “analysis” pieces when things settle down a bit. This is to help people who may be hearing conflicting stories from a variety of sources. I’m not sure if or when we might run this kind of analysis on the e-mail scandal, but I believe it is how we handled the uproar over ACORN in our printed edition. I discovered by reading the printed edition tonight that we ran this story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

    There is another way of getting to this “climategate” story for our local readers. That is for me — as the environmental reporter — to find a local angle. I’ve been thinking about asking the views of our U.S. senators and representatives, since they are dealing with the cap-and-trade issues in Congress. Frankly, I have been somewhat compelled by breaking news to work on other stories recently, but I may still do it. If someone has an angle for me to explore, I’m always open to suggestions. But please don’t expect me to investigate the entire controversy or to look into the backgrounds of people in another country.

92. BlueLight Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    Thank you, Chris. I can’t say it will stop me “nipping at your heels”, though (I’m still waiting on the PSP’s inventory of Hood Canal restoration activities…).

    Tell your editors that it looks, to a lot of people, like there was a concerted effort to keep the public ignorant of this story. If the paper press is seen as political operative, it might hasten the demise of your, already struggling, industry. And well it should. I, for one, would rather have NO press, than a dishonest one.

    Perhaps this as a local angle: Since 2007, the Washington State legislature has passed a bunch of new laws predicated on the IPCC research. The state’s Office of Financial Management has estimated that legislation will add $136 Million to the cost of state government agencies over the next ten years. This does not include the trickle-down costs to local governments, businesses and taxpayers. In a time when the Governor is hinting at tax increases, setting free convicted criminals and making our state university system even MORE unaffordable to the vast majority of us; maybe a more critical look at this legislation (and any akin that happens to arise) might be of service to your readers.

93. BlueLight Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    And, now that we know your paper’s philosophy, we won’t look for crowing reports on the UN conference in Copenhagen.

94. cdunagan Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    BlueLight,

    I’m not sure if this will satisfy your request for projects in Hood Canal (which is different from your original request to me, by the way), but go to the Habitat Work Schedule search page and put “Hood Canal Coordinating Council” into the “lead entity field” and hit return. You’ll get 282 projects listed.

    If you want to narrow your search, you can list the type of project (restoration) or the status of the project (completed). If you need more information, every project should have a contact person.

    The overall contact for the Hood Canal Coordinating Council is Richard Brocksmith, rbrocksmith@hccc.wa.gov You should contact him if you have questions, then come back to me if you need more help.

    This is a nice tool, and I hope these links will help anyone interested in ecosystem restoration throughout the state.

95. BlueLight Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    No, it won’t satisfy my request. In fact, it lends credence to my charge. I want to see the inventory the Puget Sound Partnership has put together. I want to know if they are doing the main job they were formed to do which is serve as an umbrella, coordinating agency for all the little recovery fiefdoms. I specified Hood Canal because I posted in regard to a story on that water body and I figured it was a smaller task than for all of the Puget Sound.

    And if you can’t intuit the follow-up question, I will put it here with the original.

    Please ask the Puget Sound Partnership for a list of all government-funded restoration activities taking place on Hood Canal. The follow-up? Ask them the total cost of these efforts for 2009.

    And for clarification, “government-funded” means the effort receives Federal, State and/or Local government funding.

96. Cameron Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    You can make Public Record requests from the following individual at PSP:

    jennifer.eberle@psp.wa.gov

97. cdunagan Says:
    December 4th, 2009 at 6:15 pm

    Thanks, Cameron, that is what I was going to tell him.

    Guidance for requesting records can be found on the Attorney General’s Web site: http://www.atg.wa.gov/Records.aspx

    I try to help people when they are having trouble, but I usually ask that they try to help themselves first.

98. BlueLight Says:
    December 8th, 2009 at 8:05 am

    So… For your readers who have not been Pavlovianly conditioned to shut off their critical thinking skills when they hear the word “Environment”… And for those readers who are concerned about our state’s impending $3 Billion budget deficit…

    In 2008 Federal, State and Local governments spent over $2 Billion on Puget Sound restoration activities. The private sector spent another $1.5 Billion, mainly on coerced mitigation. So, for one year, we spent $3.5 Billion on Puget Sound restoration.

    Local governments (those closing parks, laying off police officers and neglecting infrastructure) spent over $1.1 Billion.

    The State (which – likewise – is closing parks, under-funding education and threatening to turn more Maurice Clemmons’ out of prison) spent $443 Million.

    And while some of this money found its way to on-the-ground activities that yielded actual results, much of it was sucked up by a growing bureaucracy (hence my earlier posts about fiefdoms) that does little more than talk, study, meet and request more money. Some of us believe even your sacred cow should come under fiscal scrutiny. Despite your desire to keep us ignorant on the issue.

    And, by the way, Cameron… A question like “how much did Federal, State and Local governments spend on Puget Sound restoration” is not the kind of question you can demand an answer to under FOIA laws. That is what we have a press for.

99. Howard Garrett Says:
    December 8th, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    BlueLight (and those of similar persuasions),
    Yes, we need funding for local governments for education, parks, police and courts, and infrastructure, and for environmental protections and restorations, and they all require bureaucracies to manage and have fiefdoms. Why pick on environmental funding, unless the word “environmental” so inflames your conditioned reactions that you suspend your critical thinking.

    Seldom mentioned is the fact that we are all animals, and like all animals we breathe air, drink water and eat food. That air, water and food can’t be produced only by our human efforts, they need constant production by a living, thriving organic environment.

    In the spirit of critical thinking, please consider current phenomena like mass extinctions of species underway right now (consult the eminent biologist E.O. Wilson, for example) or depletion of soil worldwide, or ocean acidification, or disappearance of glaciers that supply most of our drinking water and irrigation for food production, or melting polar icecaps that are essential in the production of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, which forms the foundation of Earth’s food cycles and generates oxygen for us to breathe. If anything is sacred, it should be life on earth.

    These processes are impeded by pumping millions of tons of CO2 into the air every day, by damming, chanelling and diking rivers, and by removing mountaintops for coal to burn more CO2, or digging up boreal forests for tar sands to burn more CO2, or clear-cutting rain forests, where CO2 is safely sequestered, for just a few examples. Development practices, chemical and fecal pollutants and over-extractions of resources are wreaking the same kind of havoc on a local scale in Puget Sound, and need to be addressed and mitigated, all of which costs money and requires some bureaucracy.

    What we don’t need are elective wars of intimidation and domination in reaction to imaginary threats, or billionaire’s clubs where the owners of military-industrial conglomerates decide how to extract the most revenue from an unwary public, where to dig for more coal, and how to corrupt and control our government and media to continue conditioning people to oppose environmental protections and restorations while protecting or ignoring military-industrial conglomerates.

    So how did you become so opposed to thinking critically about our environment? Did a tree reach out and hit you on the head and make you mad? If not, who taught you to reflexively react against environmental thinking? It’s not natural.

100. BlueLight Says:
     December 9th, 2009 at 8:20 am

     Your juvenile post aside, Howard, we will discuss the costs. The environmental reporter can participate or not.

101. Howard Garrett Says:
     December 9th, 2009 at 10:26 am

     Juvenile? Attaching an arbitrary adjective is not an argument.

102. cynic Says:
     December 9th, 2009 at 11:42 pm

     Howard: You are quick to point out that any suspicion of a coordinated effort to misinform people and governments about global warming must be paranoia, however you are just as quick to label any contrary opinion as a conspiracy funded by the fossil fuel industry. There are many who will profit from widespread acceptance of global warming. The first solution proposed is massive government controls and taxes, this will benefit big government advocates, scientists who depend on federal grants, and liberal politicians who will obtain more power and money. It is no surprise that the same scientists and politicians who have always advocated big government and socialist economics are at the forefront of the global warming alarmist movement.

103. Howard Garrett Says:
     December 11th, 2009 at 5:03 pm

     Cynic, There is just no way that physics professors and climatologists worldwide could possibly conspire with politicians worldwide to yell “fire” in a crowded theater just to get some new regulations or grant contracts. The negatives would be overwhelming, the logistics of such a conspiracy would be impossible, and there’s nobody behind the curtain to lead such a montrous charade.
     On the other hand, the powers behind the manipulation of public opinion to continue burning fossil fuel are in full view – Exxon, Peabody Coal, etc etc., They have a long track record of misinforming the public, and the training and ethical foundation to do so, under the heading of sales promotion. I’ve outlined how it happens above.
     Nobody is trying to take your freedoms away or impose a tyrannical dictatorship. But, our problems are global and can’t be solved without extensive global cooperation. The first requirement is that we all understand our situation, and the depressing fact is that purveyors of fossil fuels have instilled such fears and such blatantly absurd conspiracy theories into the public that we Americans, more than any other nation, are unable to function to save even ourselves.

104. cynic Says:
     December 11th, 2009 at 5:54 pm

     So it’s OK for you to believe in conspiracies, but blatantly absurd for me. I’m glad that you are being unbiased about this. BTW it does not take a conspiracy, only a few leading scientist and politicians acting in thier own self interest. At present any scientist who fails to enthusiastically support the Global Warming fraud is blacklisted. Even McCarthy wasn’t this thorough.

105. Howard Garrett Says:
     December 11th, 2009 at 10:28 pm

     OK, you win, I’m an agent of an international conspiracy to take away your freedom and put the riffraff in charge of the world. We really had to falsify a lot of data and photoshop a lot of pictures to convince the rest of the world that global warming was a fact. It’s just a good thing that enough Americans can see through the hoax to make it almost impossible for anyone to seriously assess the problem or address the causes or effects. But since we made it all up nothing will happen anyway. All that ocean acidification data, all those phoney photos of ice caps breaking up and glaciers receding, that takes a lot of organizing. We have secret photolabs where that’s all done. If it wasn’t for the American Petroleum Institute and the Club for Growth and Chamber of Commerce, the Republican Party and a couple of hundred other message factories and the hundreds of millions spent monthly to lobby every level of government and the investments in media to maintain influence, we might have gotten away with it. Those media darlings that call it a hoax are geniuses. And we were just about to stage another conference of geophysical climatologists for world domination.

106. Cameron Says:
     December 12th, 2009 at 8:36 am

     How are scientists blacklisted? Even research that was heavily criticized was cited and discussed in the IPCC Reports. Have critics like William Gray, Robert Lindzen, or Roy Spencer been muzzled? Quite the contrary. Conspiracy is just crankery unless you have actual evidence to back it up.

107. cynic Says:
     December 12th, 2009 at 9:03 am

     And the past decade of net global cooling, the many glaciers that are advancing, the net increase in antarctic ice, the communication between leading scientists discussing how to suppress unfavorable data, the destroyed raw data. These events are all engineered by the fossil energy companies to confuse the issue. And of course nobody profits from the global warming panic.

108. Cameron Says:
     December 12th, 2009 at 4:10 pm

     We haven’t experienced net global cooling over the last decade. 2005 is the warmest year on record. 2009 is warmer than 2008, and NOAA predicts 2010 will be warmer than 2009. Far more glaciers are retreating than advancing, and Antarctica is losing ice, not gaining. Raw data is freely available. This isn’t difficult info to find; it’s all in the literature.

109. Howard Garrett Says:
     December 12th, 2009 at 11:26 pm

     Your claims are some of the talking points pushed by the professional public relations people working for the fossil fuel companies or by Republicans who only want to discredit their opponents and don’t care about real facts. Another one is the ridiculous point that CO2 makes up only a tiny percent of the atmosphere, so how could a little more possibly be a problem. I just saw that one, delivered with utmost conviction by the Republican talking head on CNN. None of what you’ve said is true or means what you have been told it means.

     So, cynic, can you ever face the fact that you’ve been misled, and have then repeated the misinformation as if it’s true? Is that possible for you to admit? I’d like to know if and when that realization hits you, because I’m not sure if it’s possible, and if it is possible, I’d like to know how it can happen. I’m guessing that either the fears of losing your freedoms that you’ve been taught or the identity politics, the fight for the team regardless of any truth, is too strong to let facts get in the way. It would be helpful to see if there are lessons on how to reach others swept away by the misinformation campaigns.

110. groovyjoker Says:
     December 13th, 2009 at 4:38 pm

     Who are you people, btw? To be talking about climate change and global warming with such conviction that it does or does not exist? Please post your credentials. Thanks.

111. Cameron Says:
     December 13th, 2009 at 6:34 pm

     Groovyjoker, do you believe you need a PhD in some climate-related field in order to understand the underlying science?

112. groovyjoker Says:
     December 14th, 2009 at 6:54 am

     For the most part, yes. Or at least a Master’s, or extensive OJT in a related field. Examples would be studies or work in the Arctic Sciences, meterology, or climatology. I think it is fair to ask.

     I know that I leave this area up to the experts. Just wondering if any are posting on this board.

113. Cameron Says:
     December 14th, 2009 at 7:38 am

     I would agree that in some cases a PhD is probably necessary to thoroughly understand the methodologies, statistics or advanced mathematics used in their research, but the basic science is straightforward. So, I look to the experts to for guidance on the evidence, but I don’t have any qualms about debating the issue if I know what they are talking about.

     By the way, I have advanced degrees in biology, not a climate-related field.

114. BlueLight Says:
     December 14th, 2009 at 8:07 am

     Cameron,

     What caused the disappearance of the mile-thick sheet of ice that once covered Puget Sound?

115. Cameron Says:
     December 14th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

     I’m sure you know as well as I do that the glaciers advanced and retreated several times over the Puget Sound over the last few million years. This demonstrates a natural warming/cooling, which has never been denied. However, the fact that the Puget Sound was covered in ice 20,000 years ago doesn’t really help explain the warming we are experiencing now.

116. BlueLight Says:
     December 14th, 2009 at 12:11 pm

     “However, the fact that the Puget Sound was covered in ice 20,000 years ago doesn’t really help explain the warming we are experiencing now.”

     Why not?

117. Cameron Says:
     December 14th, 2009 at 5:32 pm

     Because it was 20,000 years ago. If you want to understand why natural cycles are insufficient to explain the current warming, read Chapter 9 of the 2007 IPCC science report. Or, refer to FAQ 9.2 on pg. 702 of that chapter.

     http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf

     Again, no one denies that the earth’s climate has changed in the past, under natural circumstances.

118. groovyjoker Says:
     December 14th, 2009 at 6:02 pm

     Thanks for your reply Cameron. I thought it was a fair question, and you gave me a fair answer.

     I brought this point up in support of Howard’s statement:
     November 26th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

     “None of us is qualified to question the combined scientific conclusions of 99.5% of all credentialed climate scientists worldwide..”

     I support Howard’s statement about deferring to scientists to help lead us, even in light of the emails that were shared between some – (but not all) – of the authorities involved in studying the climate for decades.

     For example, one long-term expert I recently read about is Mark Serreze, who has a phD in Arctic science and has been studying the Arctic for 25 years.

     Serreze states (Discover December 2009)that we have already lost 40% of the Arctic sea ice compared to what we had in the 1970′s. That is equivalent in size to all the area of all the states east of the Mississippi. That’s a lot of real estate. He says climate models predict all of the summer sea ice will be gone by 2030.

     Mark Serreze is a geographer and the Director of National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

     http://cires.colorado.edu/people/serreze/

     Excellent source of information, for anyone who may be interested.

119. BlueLight Says:
     December 15th, 2009 at 8:43 am

     Sorry, Cameron, but I don’t see it. Saying what happened 20,000 years ago is irrelevant because it was 20,000 years ago seems ignorant of the time-scales at which earth processes work. 20,000 years in relation to the earth’s age is akin to one minute in 158 days. A very short time-frame, indeed. The paper you cite (again, by the same IPCC) tries to place the whole discussion within the context of 1,300 years! According to this line, one may just as well conclude carbon emissions have stopped the evolutionary process because elephants – anatomically – haven’t changed since the Industrial Revolution.

     I – initially – entered the climate change debate because I thought it illustrated a much more immediate and severe threat: the abdication of fourth estate responsibilities by the press. As I’ve looked into it, though, I’ve found the “skeptics” arguments more sound than the “believers” arguments. The latter – I have found – refer to dogma in the same way evangelicals refer to the Bible as proof the world is 4,000 years old.

     Maybe we can disagree over the role human Co2 has contributed to our current climate. Can we agree that:

     1. The “climategate” affair is – in fact – news. And our press appeared to conspire to keep the American people ignorant of it.

     2. The scientists involved in the episode acted contrary to generally accepted scientific and ethical practices and – thereby – discredited themselves and their research.

     3. As is evident by the $7.4 Billion that was recently defrauded from the EU under a carbon trading scam, the movement is rife with corruption. see link here: (again, this appears to be something the American people are supposed to remain ignorant of – as we ponder our own cap-and-trade schemes) http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/europol-74-billion-lost-from-carbon-trading-fraud-in-europe/

120. Howard Garrett Says:
     December 15th, 2009 at 11:57 am

     Blue light – the hackergate affair is not significant in the scope of the century of development of global warming research worldwide, and is not major news, except as an illustration of the frustrations that result when persistent partisans pester scientists to the point of distraction from their important work. You’ve been misled by partisan pundits to believe it illustrates malfeasance on a broad scale across the entire scientific consensus that global warming is real, anthropogenic, and demands immediate mitigation and adaptive action. Cap and trade may indeed result in gross fraud, primarily because so many people have been so easily persuaded that there is no real problem so they might as well corrupt the system for personal profit. Without the persistent pestering partisans diluting public opinion to deny the reality of AGW we might have more ethical responses to the actual situation we all face.

121. BlueLight Says:
     December 15th, 2009 at 12:39 pm

     There’s persistent pestering partisans on both sides, Howard.

122. Cameron Says:
     December 15th, 2009 at 2:40 pm

     Bluelight, I’m not sure how I can make this more clear. We have known for a long time that there have been past warming/cooling events. The earth has been much colder, and at time much warmer. The Puget Sound glaciation of 20,000 years ago is a good example of this. However, that glaciation does nothing to explain the current warming we are experiencing. When scientists look at the carbon cycle, and the energy balance of our planet, natural causes are insufficient to explain the observed warming. Only by including human emissions does it make sense. Chapter 9 lays that out pretty clearly.

     Also, while 1300 years is a blink of the eye in geological time, it’s still pretty long from a human standpoint. The greenhouse gases we’ve pumped into the air are going to be there for a few hundred years, and we will have to deal with the consequences whether we like it or not. The scientific evidence for this is substantial and compelling. I’ve yet to see contrarian arguments that present scientific evidence that falsifies the basic conclusions of the IPCC.

     As to your other points:
     1) Climategate (or Swifthack) is news, and I’ve seen it reported in most major newspapers, magazines and a zillion blogs. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could be ignorant of this unless they simply do not read. Heck, Gavin Schmidt and Bjorn Lomborg debated each other on CNN a few nights ago and talked about it. So, I’m not sure how you can say media is conspiring to keep people ignorant of this.

     2) Some of the scientists displayed shoddy behavior towards other scientists (some of whom, but not all, deserve it based on their own behavior). Phil Jones deserves a lot of criticism for advising to delete certain emails (which no one, including Phil Jones, appears to have done). However, scientific studies stand independent of the scientists behavior. If we threw out all research, from any field of study, simply because the scientist was a jerk, or rude to his peers, well, we wouldn’t have much to work with.

     3) There is always risk of fraud in any policy we craft. I’ll note that in the EU, criminal investigations are underway, people have been arrested, and tax regulations are being changed to avoid fraud in the future. US legislation can learn from these mistakes. In addition, the populace has a responsibility to be informed of these issues and there are plenty of studies and news on cap-and-trade in particular. It is up to us to keep our elected officials in check and communicate regularly.

     I’ll also note that the US has used cap-and-trade previously, as a way to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions (a cause of acid rain). It worked very successfully. There is not reason to think that a well-crafted policy cannot succeed in reducing our carbon footprint while allowing our economy to grow and expand.

     In the end, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.

123. groovyjoker Says:
     December 15th, 2009 at 4:56 pm

     Cameron, I would like to ask your opinion about Cap-n-Trade. I have looked at the details and have a general understanding of how it works.

     For those who want a nice public video -
     http://www.congress.org/news/2009/12/11/how_does_cap_and_trade_work

     I recently had an interesting conversation where it was concluded this system is almost like a subsidy – somewhat similar to how the U.S. Government has been subsidizing certain crop markets in order to control the price. Farmers are paid not to plant/Industries are paid not to pollute. The only real difference is that I do not know of any farmer that is penalized for planting..they just do not get the money.

     Is this a good analogy? Honest question here. No button-pushing.

124. Cameron Says:
     December 15th, 2009 at 8:18 pm

     Groovyjoker, I have a response for you, but the comment moderator won’t let me post it. I’ll try again later.

125. Cameron Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 7:30 am

     Groovyjoker, I’m not sure if a subsidy works in this situation. A cap is set on emissions and companies can then trade allowances amongst themselves. This will encourage innovation and efficiency (as it did with sulfur dioxide emissions in the 90′s). Here’s a good primer on the concept:

     http://www.sightline.org/research/energy/res_pubs/cap-and-trade-101/Cap-Trade_online.pdf

     A number of economic studies have been done looking at what it would cost in general to start dealing with global warming now as well as cap-and-trade legislation in particular. All come to pretty much the same conclusion: it will be cheaper now and will slow our economic growth very little. What kind of legislation is passed will of course determine what the effects will be, but the House bill got pretty good marks and so has the Senate bill under consideration. Maria Cantwell and Olympia Snowe have just released their own legislation but I haven’t looked at it carefully and I know it hasn’t been scored by the CBO. So, I’m optimistic that cap-and-trade will benefit us in many ways in the long run.

     I was going to include links to the studies I’m familiar with, but the website won’t let me for some reason. If you send me a message through the Kitsap Sun system, I’ll get them to you. Lots of interesting stuff.

126. Colleen Smidt Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 9:08 am

     Cameron, in today’s Kitsap Sun there is the perfect example of why the deliberate manipulation of legislative spending policy on environmental issues does impact our growth and economy in a very negative way.

     You say… There is not reason to think that a well-crafted policy cannot succeed in reducing our carbon footprint while allowing our economy to grow and expand.

     I say.. In Kitsap, a 1.5 million dollar decision by the State of Washington to award state taxpayer money for Salmon Habitat recovery does in fact take money away from Education Funding to the tune of a $2.5 million dollar reduction in payments to the Bremerton School District alone.

     Cap-n-trade legislation will require increased spending by the State of Washington. Increases in spending by the State of Washington almost always result in more cuts in Education funding because it is not an industry that provides our elected officials with special interest money to pad their pockets. So it is very easy for them to turn their backs again and again on their state mandated constitutional duty to provide an adequate education for our children.

     My question is how will the current and future generations of underfunded inadequately educated workers and future taxpayers promote economic growth and expansion for our nation?

127. BlueLight Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 2:14 pm

     Congratulations, Colleen. It is about time more of you started looking at our state’s expenditures on all-things-salmon. Did you know that the Governor proposed increasing the Puget Sound Partnership’s share of the General Fund by 665% (from $999,999 to $7,652,000) in her just released budget? See here: http://www.ofm.wa.gov/budget09/detail/cl478.pdf

     And the Puget Sound Partnership is just one of the shells under which the State hides “salmon” expenditures.

     It would be one thing if these allocations were up front and transparent and it would be one thing if these receiving agencies were being held to a level of efficiency and effectiveness. If you have followed my back-and-forth with this paper’s environmental reporter, you will know the press is not holding them accountable. It will be up to people like you. Good luck.

128. BlueLight Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

     Oh! And as regards Cap and Trade and other “climate-change” legislation… Since 2007, the State has passed a bunch of such legislation. Our state’s Office of Financial Management has estimated the cost of this legislation – JUST TO STATE AGENCIES – at $136 $136 million over the next ten years. This does not include the trickle down costs to local governments, businesses and individuals.

     Here is where the state brags about this: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/climatechange/2005-2009actions.html

     Nor – as you point out – does it count the reallocation of funds away from things like schools, etc.

129. Colleen Smidt Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 2:40 pm

     Bluelight. Oh, I have been looking. It just takes a significant amount of time to build an overall understanding of all of this. It is not easy. It has taken me two years to get to this point by pouring myself into hours and hours of using education and levy funding as my vehicle towards basic understanding. It takes even more time to build on that understanding and then be able to tie it all together. I am not whining here, just pointing out that really understanding complicated State funding at any level is not something the average person can achieve in a day. I even have an accounting background in a multi-million dollar private sector, small corporate business. So my learning curve was not as steep to begin with.

     Hang in there, I might be behind but I will catch up someday.

130. Colleen Smidt Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 2:41 pm

     Also, Here is an example I posted on the “story” associated with this blog topic. You might find it interesting…

     Let me explain to you a local example of why the numbers, government agencies report when it comes to job creation, are to be distrusted and dismissed as not factual.

     In the 08-09 Budget for the Bremerton School District there are (2) reductions in Revenue instituted by the State of Washington.

     #1 State Reductions in I-728 Funds: $503,866

     #2 Reduction in the Apportionment Payments to the District based on attendance: $1,845,138

     In the same 08-09 Budget there is a backfilled addition of $2,337,885 in Federal Stimulus Dollars to the District.

     In summary, because the State of Washington knew that the Federal Stimulus dollars were available they made the very deliberate decision to cut a similar amount of Washington State dollars from education and replace those State dollars with the Federal Stimulus money.

     The District did not gain any additional net funds and instead was forced to use staff time and resources to add an additional layer of separate and involved tracking to the Federal funds that would not have been required of the State funds. Because these dollars were labeled as Federal funds the district was then given an equation to use and forced to report to OSPI that the Stimulus (ARRA) dollars had SAVED the district 149.975 jobs for 32.5 days. Jobs that were already in existence before the Federal Funds were paid and were never in any jeopardy of being cut in the first place.

     So you tell me, where you can fully back up your statement of…

     “By the way, this does create jobs for people who care about our children’s future”

     with the same amount of publically reported and supported facts and figures similar to what I have used here in my example?

131. Cameron Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 5:38 pm

     Here are the links related to the post from this morning.

     http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm
     http://www.nber.org/papers/w13176
     http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/Carbon_Productivity/index.asp
     http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/11501IIED.pdf
     http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/102xx/doc10262/hr2454.pdf
     http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/105xx/doc10573/09-17-Greenhouse-Gas.pdf
     http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/economics/pdfs/HR2454_Analysis.pdf
     http://cantwell.senate.gov/issues/Cantwell%20Report.pdf

132. groovyjoker Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 5:54 pm

     Colleen, not to answer for Cameron, but I am pretty sure funds for wildlife and funds for health, education, and social services come from two differently managed areas in the budget. I do not think you can transfer money from salmon and give it to schools, or vice versa. What you could be implying is that the natural resources portion of the budget, which includes salmon restoration (but not schools), did not take as big of a hit as the schools, social services, and other sectors?

     I would argue further under the Priorities of Government (POG), education and social services rank higher. They have bigger budgets. It can appear as if they are losing more money, if you compare them dollar to dollar, to a group of services with a smaller budget.

     To do a correct comparison between the POG, the governor’s report includes a pie chart. This pie chart shows the amount each service receives of the proposed budget. I think natural resources (where PSP and salmon and wildfire fighting etc) ranks pretty low. Anyway, just thought I would point that out.

     Also, let’s remember some of these programs, PSP in particular, have dedicated federal funding authority. Look for that term when reading the budget.

     For comparison:
     2008 supplemental budget pie chart (natural resources gets 2.4% looking at the All Funds chart)
     http://www.ofm.wa.gov/budget08/highlights/assets/pdf/expenditures.pdf

     Compare to current proposed budget, page 7, same charts.
     http://www.ofm.wa.gov/budget10/highlights/highlights.pdf

     BlueLight, I am no accountant, but I see from this link that in order to sustain the budget for the PSP (which appears to be decreasing) they will be moving funds to the general fund. This represents a 665% increase in the funds from that fund compared to what they had before.

     http://www.ofm.wa.gov/budget09/recsum/478.pdf

133. groovyjoker Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 5:56 pm

     Cameron,

     Thanks so much for those links! I have the Sightline report up right now. Appreciate you taking the time to put those together. I see your point about there being a cap on the emissions, so it’s not that comparable to subsidized markets (although we argued the “cap” on a market would be target price…). So, let me wade through these…thanks again.

     I too am having issues posting, BTW. How do I access the Kitsap Sun system?

134. Cameron Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 6:38 pm

     Here’s a very short breakdown of the new Cantwell proposal.

     http://baselinescenario.com/2009/12/14/new-deal-for-u-s-climate-policy/

135. cdunagan Says:
     December 16th, 2009 at 8:09 pm

     It appears that the software for this blog imposes limitations if you try to post more than a single link. It is probably an anti-spam feature.

     I was able to get all of Cameron’s links in, because he sent them to me in an e-mail, and I posted them into one of his previous comments. I’m going to check with our tech folks and see if approved users of this blog can have unlimited access to post links, providing they are related to the conversation going on.

136. BlueLight Says:
     December 17th, 2009 at 7:39 am

     With a $2.6 Billion state budget deficit, the politician’s and bureaucrat’s defense that “it’s a different pot of money” should no longer be tolerated.

137. BlueLight Says:
     December 17th, 2009 at 7:52 am

     Back to the original subject of this string…

     Today there are more reports of climate-change scientists behaving badly. Apparently the CRU “cherrypicked” data from stations in Russia that supported their… uh… goals. This resulted in 75% of the stations being – conveniently – ignored. Here’s a link to the story: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/12/17/new-study-hadley-center-and-cru-apparently-cherry-picked-russias-climate-data/

138. Cameron Says:
     December 17th, 2009 at 11:04 am

     You might want to read this before jumping to conclusions:

     http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th.php

139. robert taylor Says:
     December 17th, 2009 at 7:45 pm

     Hey Colleen, It is obvious that you are against the state funding environmental concerns especially if that seems, in one way or another, to reduce funds being spent on education. I am just curious how much money you and other parents have personally donated or contributed towards education other than the taxes every citizen is forced to pay, through property and sales taxes, even if they do not personally have children attending public schools? Being taxed to fund other children’s education is a particular kind of “redistribution of wealth” that everyone is so talkative about these days. So honestly, if parents are concerned about the education their children are receiving, why do they not invest in it themselves by donating money or some other form of goods such as computers, books, etc? And I don’t mean 50 or 100 dollars per year, I’m talking about 1200 dollars every year, or even more. If every parent donated something for education then maybe the state cutbacks would not have such an impact, or maybe send your children through a private school and you will not have this particular problem. However, The environment affects ALL citizens so don’t you think the state has an obligation for that as well?

140. Colleen Smidt Says:
     December 17th, 2009 at 10:48 pm

     Good question Robert.

     During my K-12 education, I personally attended both public and private schools so I understand both sides. When my son came of age my husband and I did look at all the available options for his education. We did seriously consider sending him to a private school. What stopped us was the fact that we had specifically targeted and moved into our particular West Bremerton neighborhood because we knew it would take working couples like ourselves investing in these areas to make it better while having families of our own. We applied this very same personal standard to education and our neighborhood school. We knew that it would take committed individuals like ourselves to learn about and work at fixing the problems in education and its decision making at the local spending. We have spent the last four years ensuring every way we can within our personal power that every dollar in the system is being stewarded in the best possible way.

     Sure we make financial and time contributions to the school and youth programs. My husband’s employer has a wonderful program where we can have a deduction from his paycheck every week for the Untied Way. Because it is the United Way we are able to designate exactly where we want the funds to go. We choose the Boys and Girls Club at Naval Avenue so that the benefits to the neighborhood kids who attend our neighborhood school would be felt the most. Last year alone we contributed $25 a week $1300 dollars to their budget. We increased the amount this year and will exceed that previous amount. Since my son started Kindergarten we have made sure that every kid who wanted to go on any scheduled educational field trips could in fact go regardless of whether or not their family could pay. Our personal policy with the teachers is that they are to just give us a number. No names just the number of kids we need to write the check for. I have more examples but I think you get the point. If you go back through my comments on these blogs the past several years you will see that I have commented on and posted all of these same examples before in different contexts. I have even had quotes about some of it in various articles and letters to the editor published in the Kitsap Sun as well if you doubt anything I have posted here for you.

     I have been heavily advocating for education funding and operational reform for the past year. Once again go back and read my posts. We as taxpayers, parents and community members do not have control over 80% of the funds in an average school district budget. No control over the funds because the state and federal government have implemented detailed limited restrictions on its use. Most of those dollars can not be maximized to their full potential and in most cases common sense usage can not be applied. It would benefit you and your own environmental advocacy if you help be a part of getting the education system reformed and these restrictions lifted. If we (taxpayers, citizens, administrators and school board officials) could control the stewardship of 100% of the money already within the system for our schools within our neighborhoods that are educating our children there would not be a need to create your suggested additional revenue stream by charging parents fees and some of the current burden on property owners could be potentially be reduced.

     But your point about re-distribution and paying for services not used by you personally as an individual is not really a valid argument since you are comparing the inadequate funding of a State Constitutional Requirement when it comes to education with a perceived obligation on environmental issues that are not currently a fully funded legal requirement in the State Constitution.

     Thanks for asking.

141. robert taylor Says:
     December 18th, 2009 at 4:38 pm

     I applaud your personal efforts to contribute to your child’s education and your concern for others as well. It is obvious that you do more than the average person including your time and monetary contributions along with being personally engaged in an ongoing issue in which you are genuinely concerned. If more parents were as involved it would be a force multiplier which could eradicate many educational funding issues.

     However, my point about re-distribution is entirely relevant since environmental concerns are indeed a requirement and which IS included within the Washington State Constitution via multiple federal AND state laws including Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. So, I am happy to say, for everyone’s health and benefit, that I do not have a
     “perception of obligation” of environmental concerns and that they are fully funded and endorsed within the State’s Constitution. Furthermore, I would venture to believe that there are probably more state requirements to maintain the health of the environment as compared to the education system as a whole. Without these laws and regulations that benefit the every citizen, in one way or another, anyone could pollute, poison, and degrade the environmental services that nature provides, free of charge, if valued and handled responsibly.

     I enjoyed reading your reply and look forward to reading more of your thoughts. I appreciate being able to voice our opinions without going at each others throats. I also believe that education is of extreme importance and I honestly do not mind “chipping in” even though I do not have a child within the school system. Please post avenues in which I can help with education issues and voice my opinion for this effort as well. However, I do have issues with people bashing environmental concerns and those who expound that these funds are being irresponsibly used for conservation, restoration, management, and sustainability concepts. I do get a little concerned over people who do not seem to understand the benevolence provided by the natural environment and wonder what type of existence we would lead if we did not protect and value it. More than likely, it would resemble a third world country where there is little environmental protection and they suffer from it greatly. I also wonder why so many people resist or resent people and projects whose goal is to maintain healthy environments and ecosystems which is more of a social collective benefit for all citizens instead of personal gain or interest. It usually revolves around their concern for money in one form or another and their fear of losing it.

     I guess we all participate in those areas that concern us and we are all entitled to our opinions as well. The key is to be involved, such as yourself, instead of just complaining about it without offering suggestions, advice, or assistance where it is most needed and concentrated within your area of concern while willing to listen to others.

     All my best, Rob

142. Colleen Smidt Says:
     December 19th, 2009 at 7:38 am

     Thanks Rob. It is more posts like yours that do make me take a second look at what is important when it comes to the environment. I come from a family of hikers, hunters, fisherman, campers and overall outdoor enthusiasts who have been enjoying the wonders of our little area of the world for several generations and I want to do my part to help keep it that way so that I can pass that joy onto my own son.

     That said, I think we can both agree that there are fundamental problems and unneeded waste with state run funding when it comes to any issue. Exploring the intricacies of education funding has proven that to me as well as has the most recent fiasco, with the spending of federal funds, generated by the “art purchase” decision making of the Bremerton City Council. So much time and taxpayer money wasted when it could be put to better use and each dollar could be maximized to its fullest potential and provide the most return on its investment.

     Many of us here are not totally against spending money on improving and correcting environmental problems, what we are against is the current process. The process of how the money is allocated, how it is spent, how much of it goes to special interest and is wasted to line the pockets of paid consultants for reports and studies that don’t really go anywhere. I think environmental issues and spending could be streamlined in the same way educational funding needs to be streamlined. More control, of the existing money within the system, at the local level for spending and correcting local problems with increased citizen input. We as the citizens of our community are better stewards of our taxpayer funds than any State Agency, Commission or out of area Legislative group.

     It is going to take more people like you and me, working to get control of our dollars back in our hands whether it be for education or the enviroment.

     Best Wishes for a very Merry Christmas!

     Colleen