• Little Ice Age began abruptly in two steps
• Decadally paced explosive volcanism can explain the onset
• A sea-ice/ocean feedback can sustain the abrupt cooling

An episode of David Attenborough's Frozen Planet series that looks at climate change will not be aired in the US, where many are sceptical about global warming.

Seven episodes of the multi-million-pound nature documentary series will be aired in Britain. However, the series has been sold to 30 world TV networks as a package of only six episodes. These networks then have the option of buying the seventh "companion" episode -- which explores the effect man is having on the natural world -- as well as behind the scenes footage.

Read more...

Environment Canada is planning to axe a monitoring network that is key to assessing Earth's protective ozone layer, according to a report in a leading science journal.

Environment Canada is planning to axe a monitoring network that is key to assessing Earth's protective ozone layer, according to a report in a leading science journal.

The British journal Nature says scientists and research institutes around the world have been informally told the Canadian network will be shut down as early as this winter putting an end to continuous ozone measurements that go back 45 years.

OTTAWA — A major Alberta-based oil and gas company helped to kick-start an elaborate public relations project designed to cast doubt on scientific evidence linking human activity to global warming with a $175,000 donation in 2004 channelled through the University of Calgary, a newly-released letter has revealed.

The donation from Talisman Energy was the largest single contribution to a pair of trust accounts at the university that received $507,975 in donations to produce a video and engage in public relations, advertising and lobbying activities against the Kyoto Protocol and government measures to restrict fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

"Talisman is pleased to be a part of this exciting project and wish you success in the production of the video," said the letter, dated Nov. 4, 2004, to university account administrator Chantal-Lee Watt, that accompanied a $175,000 cheque.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has no balls - only one.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called global warming “perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today.” Yet his government has delivered little meaningful action to address this threat.

It’s hard to imagine Canada’s international reputation on global warming and the environment getting worse, but our loss of credibility on these issues didn’t happen overnight. It’s partly the result of ongoing neglect of environmental science at the federal level, but it also stems from a long history of broken promises, both to Canadians and to our global peers.

From our Friends the Friends of Science - and as endorsed by Barry Cooper:

Solar Inertial Motion refers to the movement (predictable “wobble” of the sun about the centre of gravity of the solar system under the influence of the orbits of the giant planets (mainly Jupiter and Saturn). It forms the basis for a hypothesis by Czech geophysicist Ivanka Charvátová that correlates cycles of solar activity (and thus Earth’s climate) to SIM patterns. She discovered that every 179 years the Sun’s motion returns to a regular “trefoil” pattern (lasting about 50 years) interspersed with 62-90 year periods when the motion is chaotic. During the trefoils sunspot activity (and Earth’s temperature) are maximized, while the reverse is true during the chaotic periods (e.g., Wolf, Spörer, Maunder and Dalton Minima). According to SIM researchers, solar activity and temperatures in the first half of the 21st century should decrease.

By: John O’Sullivan

How saving the planet causes famine: the climate crisis melts away but global food shortage is legacy of the foolish rush to biofuels. Evidence for dangerous, human-caused global warming was always slim, now it lies cruelly exposed both by a cruel blowback and it’s not just coming from within the science. A far more devastating catastrophe is unfolding and it is entirely the product of the mad rush to biofuels: third world famine. Today a whopping 6.5 percent of the world’s grain has been stripped from the global food supply. That’s the kind of catastrophic cut in food supply that triggers a tipping point so that Third World hunger explodes into mass starvation. Why did it happen?

Where to look
 BY CHARLES SIMPSON, CALGARY HERALD MAY 20, 2011
 
 Kent Hehr misses the main ingredient for finding funding to offset education shortfalls. By eliminating the climate change expenditures, he will find a few billion dollars, in one fell swoop.

The sooner the Conservatives get off the man-made global warming scenario, over which we have no control, the better off our books will look.

There is no correlation between rising greenhouse gas levels and global temperatures; more importantly, any recent global warming ended in 1998. Temperature oscillations have occurred for millions of years, without man's influence. Canada should opt out of Kyoto at the first opportunity (2012).

Charles Simpson, Calgary

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Note: Charles Simpson is the former president of the Friends of Science.
Schweinsgruber: Simpson contradicts his Friends of Science in that his world started cooling in 1998 while the Friends of Science proclaim 1st January 2002 as judgement day the start of cooling. In contrast, the rest of the world as well as the scientific community and some fellow deniers (e.g. Patrick Michaels) speak of ongoing global warming.

INFORM OF THE DEAD: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning people to have a survival plan ready - in case of a climate change denial zombie apocalypse.

Just in case there weren't enough natural disasters or security threats in the United States, a Government health agency is advising people to prepare for a climate change denial zombie apocalypse.

Apparently being ready for when the undead take to the streets in search of human flesh is perfect training for what to do if a hurricane or pandemic should strike.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, part of the United States Government's Department of Health and Human Services, has posted instructions on what to do should your brain be sought for a climate change denial zombie's breakfast.

On August 4 1961, a young woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy in a hospital at 1611 Bingham Street, Honolulu. That child is now the 44th President of the United States. There is absolutely no doubt, none whatsoever, about the fact that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on that day in 1961.

Notwithstanding that simple fact, recent surveys reveal that only one in three Republicans accept that President Obama was born in Hawaii, with the remainder either believing that he was born outside the United States (some 45-51 per cent, depending on the particular poll) or professing uncertainty.