Earth Day must read: profile of Freeman Dyson

The New York Times did a profile of Freeman Dyson recently, including a look at his career and his controversial views on global warming. Dyson believes we need more data before we become concerned about anthropogenic global warming. He also believes man will either be able to adjust to any climate change or else fix the problem. His concern is more with the lifting out of poverty much of the world's population, and he believes coal is the answer.

IT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO that Dyson began publicly stating his doubts about climate change. Speaking at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University, Dyson announced that “all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.” Since then he has only heated up his misgivings, declaring in a 2007 interview with Salon.com that “the fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn’t scare me at all” and writing in an essay for The New York Review of Books, the left-leaning publication that is to gravitas what the Beagle was to Darwin, that climate change has become an “obsession” — the primary article of faith for “a worldwide secular religion” known as environmentalism. Among those he considers true believers, Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, whom Dyson calls climate change’s “chief propagandist,” and James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and an adviser to Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Dyson accuses them of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models that foresee a Grand Guignol of imminent world devastation as icecaps melt, oceans rise and storms and plagues sweep the earth, and he blames the pair’s “lousy science” for “distracting public attention” from “more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet.”

A particularly distressed member of that public was Dyson’s own wife, Imme, who, after seeing the film in a local theater with Dyson when it was released in 2006, looked at her husband out on the sidewalk and, with visions of drowning polar bears still in her eyes, reproached him: “Everything you told me is wrong!” she cried.

“The polar bears will be fine,” he assured her.

Not long ago Dyson sat in his institute office, a chamber so neat it reminds Dyson’s friend, the writer John McPhee, of a Japanese living room. On shelves beside Dyson were books about stellar evolution, viruses, thermodynamics and terrorism. “The climate-studies people who work with models always tend to overestimate their models,” Dyson was saying. “They come to believe models are real and forget they are only models.” Dyson speaks in calm, clear tones that carry simultaneous evidence of his English childhood, the move to the United States after completing his university studies at Cambridge and more than 50 years of marriage to the German-born Imme, but his opinions can be barbed, especially when a conversation turns to climate change. Climate models, he says, take into account atmospheric motion and water levels but have no feeling for the chemistry and biology of sky, soil and trees. “The biologists have essentially been pushed aside,” he continues. “Al Gore’s just an opportunist. The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers.”

Dyson agrees with the prevailing view that there are rapidly rising carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere caused by human activity. To the planet, he suggests, the rising carbon may well be a MacGuffin, a striking yet ultimately benign occurrence in what Dyson says is still “a relatively cool period in the earth’s history.” The warming, he says, is not global but local, “making cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter.” Far from expecting any drastic harmful consequences from these increased temperatures, he says the carbon may well be salubrious — a sign that “the climate is actually improving rather than getting worse,” because carbon acts as an ideal fertilizer promoting forest growth and crop yields. “Most of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is now,” he contends, “and substantially richer in carbon dioxide.” Dyson calls ocean acidification, which many scientists say is destroying the saltwater food chain, a genuine but probably exaggerated problem. Sea levels, he says, are rising steadily, but why this is and what dangers it might portend “cannot be predicted until we know much more about its causes.”

The Hot Air of Global Warming

State Representative Jim Ott, a former meteorologist, is pointing out all of the "hot air" surrounding the global warming debate in a weekly "Hot Air" report.

In his April 7th update, Ott specifically attacks what the global warming scaremongers are trying to do at the state level:

The Task Force, at the direction of Governor Doyle, has recommended a wide range of new laws and regulation be imposed upon state residents which would lead to untold costs. These costs are in addition to those which would be imposed by the federal cap and trade scheme, which will also result in incredibly higher energy costs in the years ahead. Will this mean the doubling of prices? Tripling? By the time we find out, it may be too late to undo the true impact of all these proposals. It all makes a reasonable person wonder what Task Force members were thinking when they voted to finalize this report.

Global warming threat ended by "Earth Hour" powering down

Dr. Ivan Varminof of NASA's Earth Atmospheric Science Institute announced today that satellite data shows the Earth's atmosphere has entered a new phase, and global warming is at an end. Varminof said recent data since the "Earth Hour" observances on March 29th has actually indicates a trend towards renewed global cooling.

"The data indicates a .001% drop in the global temperature," he said. Even more encouraging, "The trend seemed to have accelerated with each day since the `Earth Hour.' Like a roller coaster going over a hill."

His colleague at the Institute, Dr. Grantry Seaver, was not quite as optimistic - yet. "Clearly this will need more study. Lots more study. The implications of which will clearly have a tremendous effect on public policy and scientific research. We may not even find the correct answer to the proper atmospheric carbon calibration after billions of dollars in research."

Varminof even raised a concern about his research. "If the three-day trend continues, we may be facing a new ice age in very short order. We will need to continue our research, with a substantial public commitment, to whether we will need high-carbon emitting mass transit expenditures to balance the cooling trend."

Dr. Ayn Emtody of the President's council of scientific advisers suggests a new "carbon emission trading system" if the trend towards global cooling becomes accepted. The new system would require corporations to reach carbon-emitting standards, the amount set by an industry grouping quota. Heavy industry would have higher quotas to reach. Corporations not reaching their goal would be required to send an equivalent amount of money to the US Treasury to be burned in a giant fire pit, resulting in enough carbon emissions to offset the cooling temperatures.

"Of course" Emtody said, "since Treasury has nobody on the staff right now, we have plenty of time to study the exact amount of cash that would need to be burned to warm the Earth. Right now it's just a guess, but another one or two stimulus packages ought to do it. We'll know the correct amount after a rather substantial public investment in cash-to-carbon emission research and technology."

"Unpaid taxes may be the Lord working in mysterious ways"

It was a packed house at today's town hall meeting with Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner and State Representative Bill Kramer. There were 90 people there (not including staff), three times the normal amount according to Congressman Sensenbrenner. Among the notables: former Waukesha mayoral candidate Jim Young, blogger M.E. from Stand in the Trenches, Alexander from A Little Off Main, Waukesha County Treasurer Pam Reeves, former Waukesha County Supervisor Alicia Silva. The Spring City Chronicle also reported Lynn Gaffey, owner of the Almont Gallery, was there. Token liberal Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson was there but did not speak or ask any questions.

I say "token liberal" because this was clearly a conservative crowd. The most critical questions were those wishing the Republicans would fight harder against President Obama and Governor Doyle.

Sensenbrenner replied that "elections have consequences" and that he and Kramer are "out of the legislating business." The agenda is being set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan. However, he pointed with some hope to the House Republican unity in voting against the "non-stimulus stimulus bill." In response to a question about universal health care, he also pointed out Democrats had a bigger majority when Hillarycare was shot down in the House.

When asked about alternative fuels, Sensenbrenner explained some of the problems with ethanol, noted that biomass fuel is still a ways off, and then declared his support for nuclear power to applause from the room.

To the amusement of the room, one woman asked who is it in Washington that determines they don't have to pay a fine when they don't pay taxes. "Why, the secretary of the treasury," replied Sensenbrenner. He then explained that he did not think Treasury Secretary Geithner made an innocent mistake, and he praised Feingold for voting against Geithner.

Along the same lines, in response to another question about universal health care, he pointed out that the President hoped to have an easier time pushing it through because former senator Tom Daschle is a former majority leader and something of a policy wonk on the issue. "Unpaid taxes may be the Lord working in mysterious ways."

One person asked about the federal stimulus bill, noting that the $13/week we'll be giving back next year in taxes. Sensenbrenner told her, "Your calculator works better than the one in Washington."

On the subject of global warming, Sensenbrenner called the proposed "cap and trade" carbon tax "cap and tax." He said global warming sceptics were being subject to "scientific fascism" in the way they are ridiculed and personally attacked.

"What is clear," he told the audience, "is the economic devastation of cap and tax."

But the repeated question was what could the members of the audience do to help fight the Democrats? Both Sensenbrenner and Kramer answered the best thing people could do is stay informed and tell their friends and neighbors. To one member of the audience with a brother-in-law in Wausau, Kramer and Sensenbrenner listed the Democrats representing the city and told him to tell his brother-in-law to call those Democrats. Sensenbrenner also suggested they all show up the next time Feingold had a meeting in Waukesha and express their concerns to him.

As for Senator Kohl, Sensenbrenner noted dryly that the only way any of the audience would see him is to "purchase $110 seats at a Bucks game. You might see him there."

It's too bad neither Kramer nor Sensenbrenner said, "Join the Republican Party."

NASA scientist boss cool to global warming

Most fans of global warming love James Hansen, the NASA scientist pushing the idea that global warming is man-made. But has anyone asked Hansen's boss what he thinks?

The retired scientist formerly in charge of key NASA climate programs has come out as a sceptic.

Dr John Theon, who supervised James Hansen - the activist-scientist who helped give the manmade global warming hypothesis centre prominent media attention - repents at length in a published letter. Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009, and excerpts were published by skeptic Senator Inhofe's office here last night.

"As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research," Theon wrote. "I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made.”

Theon takes aim at the models, and implicitly criticises Hansen for revising to the data set:

“My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit. Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it.

"They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.”

I know, just another scientist joining the thousands of others that cannot possibly know what they're talking about because anthropogenic climate change is settled science, right?

The EPW Minority office has published Theon's correspondence in full, including his resume. In a 37-year career at NASA, his titles included Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics, Radiation, & Hydrology Branch followed by a stint as Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA HQ.

I'm really looking forward to the day when Obama fulfills his campaign pledge to get the politics out of science.

Pardon my language

But the only global warming that occurred today was from people going to Hell for saying, "God damn is it cold outside!"

James Wigderson and his critics, continued

Emily Mills asks who gave me a column?

I mean, he's a blogger after all. It's generally good policy to just keep us relegated to our own personal web space. Especially if we birth such abortions of grammar, common sense, and logic such as can be found in James Widgerson's {sic} latest column at gmtoday.com.

Widgerson {sic} is bemoaning the recent report, Wisconsin's Strategy for Reducing Global Warming, and its apparently audacious assumption that global climate change is a real threat and that we ought to take steps to combat it.

After that, she was just plain mean. Seriously, I think she was trying to be funny, or maybe not, but it's hard to take the criticisms to heart when she can't even spell my name right. As for why do I have a column? Probably because of my political background (easily Googled if you spell my name correctly), sharp wit, handsome picture, and the great job I do washing Bill Yorth's car each week.

But back to my critic. The report's audacious assumption is that if global warming exists, Wisconsin's economic self-destruction will be the means by which the Earth is saved. She offers no intelligence to support the claim, nor does the report.

It's worth noting that she is definitely up to date on global warming, adopting the new euphemism "global climate change." As Dad29 points out in the comments, whether or not we are in a period of global cooling is a matter for discussion (and I was agnostic on this point in my column). The fact is, we don't know, nor do we know what part man plays in the whole process. We even don't know if global warming would be bad.

What we do know is that the solutions proposed by the governor's task force are wonderfully (for lack of a better word) totalitarian in nature. There is not one aspect of human activity in Wisconsin that would not be affected if the recommendations are implemented. Aside from the total economic and human costs, none of which are calculated in the report, the loss of freedom resulting from the report's implementation could not possibly justify whatever possible positive benefits one might divine.

One might expect a response to the points I raised, but instead we're given an almost religious justification for the effort as if the task's force report were a revelation along the light rail system to Damascus. A couple of class-warfare snipes to appease her audience are hardly worth the response.

I deserve a better critic. Who gave her a blog?

Let's ask the weather guy

State Representative Jim Ott (R-Cold Front) takes on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's editors and Governor Doyle's Global Warming Task Force in Sunday's Crossroads section.

It’s important to understand that if the task force’s recommendations are adopted, we all will be forced to make dramatic changes in how we live. The state will interject itself into every facet of our lives, including but not limited to requiring an energy audit when we sell our homes, telling farmers what to feed their cows, adjusting the school funding mechanism, mandating what type of lighting landlords must install and maybe even regulating how many miles we can drive our cars — all in the name of “fighting global climate change.”

Finally, any effort by an individual state to address global warming is pointless. Even if Wisconsin’s greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced to zero, there would be no measurable impact on global atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and therefore no measurable effect on global temperatures. So a cost/benefit analysis of the task force’s recommendations reveals major increases in prices and taxes for consumers, massive growth in state government rules and regulations and no impact or benefit to Earth’s climate.

Highlights from the AFP hot air ballon tour stop

Giving the Wisconsin economy heat stroke

I took my first crack at the Governor's task force on global warming and their recommendations yesterday in the Waukesha Freeman (for just 50 cents you can still read a paper newspaper).

Perhaps the task force could have saved the taxpayers money by issuing a short statement instead of the report: "We regret Prometheus stole fire from the gods to warm the world of mankind. Henceforward, Wisconsin will renounce all use of fire."

It would be a more honest approach.

Return of the Idiots

This week the Idiot Politician of the Week feature is back by demand. We know you missed it. We know you love it. We know politicians hate it. But as they prove weekly, what do they know?

Think globally, accuse locally. That’s my motto. (What’s a motto with you?) Wisconsin Commerce Secretary Jack Fischer has been the local globe-trotter, spanning the globe to bring the wide-wide-world of business to Wisconsin. He and his administrative assistant *cough* have run up huge bills traveling during a supposed state government travel ban. This state’s foreign affairs and commerce can be rather expensive, given the weak dollar. But at a time of fiscal belt-tightening government-wide, we wish Fischer had kept his belt tightened as well.

Speaking of below the belt hits, the Reverend Jesse Jackson is tired of being talked down to by Senator Obama. Speaking on behalf of all African Americans everywhere, like he does when he’s shaking down corporations, the good Reverend volunteered to castrate the senator with his bare hands. Given the resulting higher pitch, I guess that would mean Obama would be speaking up to African Americans.

But Jackson shouldn’t stop at speaking for just African Americans. We’re ALL tired of being talked down to by the Obama. Fortunately, more civilized behavior prevails.

But Jackson must be an idiot if he thinks we’re stupid enough to believe the microphone wasn’t on. The former candidate for president believes that every word of his should be recorded for posterity, except for the extra-marital affair, “Hymietown”… okay, he may have a point.

While Jackson may want to make Rocky Mountain Oysters out of the Obama’s manhood, Senator McCain probably wished he could muzzle former Senator Phil Gramm who accused Americans of becoming a nation of whiners. Democrats immediately started whining that it was unfair, and that Gramm was just being mean.

But McCain himself made a little trouble when he praised tobacco sales to Iran for slowly killing the population there. I’m sure RJ Reynolds doesn’t need their patriotism puffed (pun intended) in quite that manner.

The Obama Himself is not immune to lapses in intelligence, and his brain cells have been a little more fried than usual lately. What idiot within the Obama’s priesthood suggested a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of the Cold War? Even the German Chancellor is wondering what the heck the Obama is thinking. Maybe he’s going to talk about how we should have definite timetables for withdrawal anytime the Army is deployed overseas, or how in the aftermath of war the US Army shouldn’t restore order or interfere with the internal workings of a foreign country’s politics. The Germans will just love that.

A little closer to home, State Represenative Pedro Colon has cast his hat into the ring for Idiot Politician of the Year. Only 246 of the 400 possible signatures (200 minimum) turned in for his nomination papers, and they’re getting challenged.

Using a state database that matches addresses with lawmakers, the Journal Sentinel found that about two dozen addresses did not appear to be in Pedro Colón’s district. One of the addresses cited in the challenge does not appear to exist.

The challenge includes a sworn affidavit from someone who said they did not sign Pedro Colón’s nomination papers and another swearing that Yadira Colón doesn’t live at the address reported.

We’ll be watching this one.

But this week’s Idiot Politician of the Week Runner-Up had his own election problems. Todd McGuire of Jefferson County, Washington may have voted twice in a 2007 special election by misrepresenting himself as his wife.

The McGuires have been prominent in local Democratic Party activities. Todd McGuire is a former treasurer for current Democratic County Commissioner David Sullivan. Rebekah McGuire is currently a Democratic precinct committeewoman.

The election board became suspicious when the ballots came in during a vote-by-mail election and Rebekah McGuire’s signature didn’t match.

Looking at the documents in question, Todd McGuire's ballot signature closely resembled the handwriting used to sign Rebekah McGuire's mail-in ballot, in her name.The auditor's office sent a letter to Rebekah McGuire questioning her ballot.Not only did Rebekah call the auditor's office and say she was out of the country at the time, she responded to the auditor's letter in a handwritten note delivered to the auditor's office, Eldridge said."Dear Betty Johnson, Donna Eldridge & Karen Cartmel: As I said last week on the phone I could not have voted in the Feb. 6, 2007, election as I was out of the county. Thank you for your attention to this. Sincerely, Rebekah McGuire," Rebekah McGuire wrote in a note.

Note: always clear your vote fraud with your wife.

But this week’s Idiot Politician of the Week is delirious from the heat. Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass) blamed “global warming” for the infamous Blackhawk Down incident in Somalia.

“In Somalia back in 1993, climate change, according to 11 three- and four-star generals, resulted in a drought which led to famine,” said Markey. “That famine translated to international aid we sent in to Somalia, which then led to the U.S. having to send in forces to separate all the groups that were fighting over the aid, which led to Black Hawk Down. There was this scene where we have all of our American troops under fire because they have been put into the middle of this terrible situation,” he added. Markey was referring to the battle of Mogadishu in 1993, when 18 members of a U.S. military team were killed in a helicopter crash and a resulting firefight. The battle was made famous by a 2001 Academy Award-winning film, “Black Hawk Down.”

Markey was speaking to 25 students from the World Wildlife Fund's Allianz Southeast Climate Witness Program. The students had come to the Capitol to brief members of Congress on the risks of global warming. The students were from the Gulf States.

Congratulations to Congressman Markey. In a world full of idiots, you are the Idiot Politician of the Week. Thank you for your contribution to Global Warming hysteria with your completely stupid exhalation of hot air.

Probably upset a few polar bears

Scientists are discovering massive volcanic activity occurred under the polar ice cap in a way they never believed was possible.

But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished.

What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor.

Previous research had concluded that this kind of so-called pyroclastic eruption could not happen at such depths due to the crushing pressure of the water.

"On land, explosive volcanic eruptions are nothing exceptional, although they present a major threat," said Vera Schlindwein, a geologist with Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Sea and Polar Research, which took part in the study.

But the new findings, published in Nature, showed that "large-scale pyroclastic activity is possible along even the deepest portions of the global mid-ocean ridge volcanic system."

All this volcanic activity (you know, heat) from 1999 wouldn't have anything to do with the ice cap doing a little bit of melting... naaah.

Living in an energy-sucking cocoon

This is pretty funny, actually. The national Americans for Prosperity has been touring the country in a hot air balloon to campaign against "global warming alarmism" and its economic costs.

The balloon was grounded in Nashville because allies of former Vice President Al Gore are trying to protect him from further embarassment over his energy consumption.

Here's the update from AFP's Director of Policy Phil Kerpen:

FYI breaking news from our team on the ground in Nashville. The Nashville Parks Department is denying us permission to launch the balloon, citing the fact that our permit says balloon rides but not specifically the word "launch." This despite the fact that we have explained to them on the phone multiple times our precise flight plan and before today there was no indication that there was a problem or any defect in our permit. Clearly, Gore is calling in favors to stop the embarrassing visual and negative coverage surrounding our event and ratcheting up the beating he is taking over his home energy use.

I would love to be on that phone conversation. "Explain to me how a balloon gives rides without it launching."

Update! Up, up and away!

Gore Finds Hot Air Balloon Fly-Over of Nashville-Area Mansion an “Inconvenient Truth”

- At Last Moment, Parks Dept. Mysteriously Revokes Balloon Permit to Fly over Gore’s Mansion, Group Identifies Alternative Private Location for Launch-

NASHVILLE – At the last moment, Nashville Metro Parks and Recreation Department officials revoked a permit for the free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity to launch and fly a hot-air balloon over Al Gore’s Nashville-area mansion. The “mysterious” decision was handed down days after an article was published by The Tennessean in which Al Gore’s spokeswoman said they were “looking into whether the balloon launch violated any local ordinances.”

“This is a suspicious decision to say the least,” said AFP President Tim Phillips. “But taxpayers will not be silenced when it comes to the economic costs of Al Gore’s global warming alarmism.”

The fly-over of Al Gore’s mansion is part of AFP’s nationwide hot air balloon tour, which aims to provide an economic reality check on the “hot air” in the global warming debate. Despite the Parks Department's best attempts to scuttle AFP's event, the group's balloon was successfully launched from private property after staffers quickly scrambled to find another location.

AFP event-planning staff had numerous conversations with the Parks Department and took all the necessary steps to ensure the balloon event was in compliance with local rules. Friday was the first time AFP was notified of any problem. Roy Wilson, Director of the Board of Metro Parks and Recreation, threatened police presence would be at Warner Park to ensure the event did not take place.

“We made a good faith effort to comply with all local rules, which included having extensive conversations with the Parks Department, filing the necessary insurance information, and making payment for the permit,” said Phillips. “We’ve already held a dozen events as part of this Tour. It is disappointing and disconcerting that, here in Mr. Gore’s hometown, government officials would see fit to wrongfully revoke a permit on the day of the event.”

“In these uncertain economic times it is foolhardy to push for regulations that would transfer dollars from families and businesses to bureaucratic big-government,” said Phillips. “We want to make sure citizens know what global warming alarmism will cost them – higher taxes, lost jobs, and less freedom. Those who claim global warming policies are healthy for our economy are spewing a lot of hot air and we want to expose that.”

“The United States Hot Air Balloon Team has conducted launches and tethers from Mt. Rushmore, New York’s Central Park, and the Grand Canyon,” said U.S. Hot Air Balloon Team Lead Pilot Stan Hess, who is flying for the Tour. “In my 25-plus years of ballooning we have never had an issue like this. The balloon is federally registered aircraft and once you are in the air you are under FAA jurisdiction.”

And they make nice rugs, too

In honor of the prolific Polar Bear making the endangered species list, I thought a brief look at the bear and it's proper relationship to mankind would be in order.

Important facts about Polar Bear meat:
Polar Bear Meat - General

Although polar bear meat is considered delicious it is never eaten
raw like other meats because it carries many parasites. The polar
bear liver is never eaten or fed to the dogs because it causes
Vitamin A poisoning, which results in severe illness or even death.
Polar bear meat, like most country foods, is an excellent source of
iron and protein. Polar bear fat provides Inuit with Vitamin A and
omega-3 fatty acids which helps reduce the risk of heart disease.
Polar bear meat is usually baked or boiled in a soup or stew.

Polar Bear and Nutrition

Polar bear meat is an excellent source of iron and protein. Polar
bear fat provides us with vitamin A and omega-3 fatty acids. These
fatty acids help to reduce the risk of heart disease. Polar bear
meat is usually baked or boiled in a soup or stew. It is never eaten
raw. Polar bear liver contains toxic levels of vitamin A and should
not be eaten.

Polar Bear Stew

4 pounds (1.8 kg) polar bear meat
Water to cover
3 tablespoons (45ml)salt
1 1/2 cups (360 ml) dried potato
1 cup (340 ml) celery flakes
1 tablespoon (15ml) dry union
2 cups (480 ml) dehydrated carrots
1/2 cup (120ml) melted butter
1 3/4 cups (420 ml) flour
1 teaspoon (5ml) garlic powder or garlic salt
3/4 teaspoon (3ml) pepper

Cut meat into bite-sized pieces and boil in salted water for 1 1/2 hours or more. Then add dry vegetables; mix melted butter with flour, blend in seasonings and add to meat. Cook 15 minutes longer. The stew is ready. Makes eight to ten servings
Cooking Alaskan by Alaskans
Norma Silook, Gambell, Saint Lawrence Island

Warning: watery martinis imminent

Summer is coming and we're heading into an ice shortage:

The Arctic will remain on thinning ice, and climate warming is expected to begin affecting the Antarctic also, scientists said Friday.

"The long-term prognosis is not very optimistic," atmospheric scientist Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University said at a briefing.

Last summer sea ice in the North shrank to a record low, a change many attribute to global warming.

But while solar radiation and amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are similar at the poles, to date the regions have responded differently, with little change in the South, explained oceanographer James Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

What researchers have concluded was happening, was that in the North, global warming and natural variability of climate were reinforcing one another, sending the Arctic into a new state with much less sea ice than in the past.

"And there is very little chance for the climate to return to the conditions of 20 years ago," he added.

Until, of course, nature finishes this cycle of warmer weather (it may be already) and it gets darn cold in June again.

Given the geological history of Wisconsin, I think when the ice shelf starts growing again is the time for me to get nervous. In the meantime, I think we should be grateful for the savings of fossil fuels as shipping takes advantage of the clearing Northwest passage. I'm also talking to my real estate guru about taking advantage of some beach front property on Hudson Bay. Stupid weak dollar.

(ht: Fred Dooley)

When does that global warming start?

My wife and I can't wait to kick the kids outside. I guess it's back into the garage for the sled.

Measles

I blame global warming.

Two people have been diagnosed with measles in the Milwaukee area. The doctor says someone brought it back from travelling overseas during Spring Break.

Couldn't they have just brought back an STD?

The pitter patter of little carbon footprints

From the Book of Matthew, Chapter 2

16 Herod was furious on realising that he had been fooled by the wise men, and in Bethlehem and its surrounding district he had all the male children killed who were two years old or less, reckoning by the date he had been careful to ask the wise men.

17 Then were fulfilled the words spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

18 A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and weeping bitterly: it is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more.

This week's column in the Waukesha Freeman asks how many children would you sacrifice for global warming?

More than 2,000 years ago, King Herod of Judea ordered the Massacre of the Innocents, the death of all the male children in Bethlehem in order to kill the prophesied newborn king of the Jews - Jesus.

Perhaps Herod was ahead of his time. We could hold a lottery, or find some other random selection method, and begin to reduce the population. We could call it the "United Nations Herodian Environmental Greenhouse Gas Initiative" and start with volunteers.

Surely there are parents who, when thinking of what it would mean for the earth, would consider sacrificing their own children, not just before the children are born but afterward. We can rid the earth of the threat of global warming by simply reducing the head count.

Find classic movies at Amazon.com

Let me cry some salty tears

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting local communities are having trouble keeping up with snow costs.
In Milwaukee:

For those watching the budget, a white Christmas - while pretty and all that - brings a bah, humbug.

"I used to like it," said Milwaukee Ald. Michael Murphy, chairman of the council's Finance and Personnel Committee. "I don't anymore. It's like a running cash machine."

The city's 2007 snow-removal budget, using past winters as a guide, was based on the projected need for 26 ice-control operations and three full-scale plowing operations. So far in 2007, there have been 36 ice-control efforts and six full-scale plowings, three of which came this month.

In Waukesha:

In Waukesha County, highway operations manager Pete Chladil said his department had gone through 6,214 tons of salt as of Dec. 14, already exceeding the 4,700 tons that had been projected.

"We projected to spend $50,000 in overtime for December," he said. "But we've already spent $120,000 on it, and that was only through Dec. 14."

In Waukesha, officials say the city is about $50,000 over budget on salt costs and $20,000 over budget in personnel costs.

Unfortunately for them, this is Wisconsin. It often snows here. That's why I have a snowblower in the garage with some pre-mixed gasoline. It's why I have several bags of salt. It's why my wife keeps some cash on hand in case the local kids offer to shovel my walk.

Over the past 10 calendar years, Milwaukee has received an average of 46.1 inches of snow a year, according to an analysis done by the city budget office. The city tracks snow by calendar year, to match the budget, not by winter. So far this year, there has been about 70 inches, or 52% more than the average.

That trails only one year in the period, 2000, which featured those repeated December snows and brought the total for the year to 89.9 inches.

(In my best cranky old man voice) I remember the snowstorms we had when I was a kid. We would dig tunnels under the snow and have little snow caves to hang out in. This stuff is nothing compared to what we had. After all these years, you mean to tell me each of these communities don't have some sort of contingency plan?

Update! The lovely Doreen from Waukesha blames it on Global Warming.

Who among your children would you kill?

Ht: Jessica McBride

An Australian "medical expert" has proposed a tax on families with more than two children to pay for more trees to offset their carbon emissions over their lifetimes.

Writing in today's Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and "greenhouse-friendly" services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

And he implied the Federal Government should ditch the $4133 baby bonus and consider population controls like those in China and India.

Professor Walters said the average annual carbon dioxide emission by an Australian individual was about 17 metric tons, including energy use.

"Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society," he wrote.

Why stop there? Why not just one child? Why are we only considering taxation to coerce families into not having children?

And how destructive to the Earth are any living children? Just think about all those resource and fossil-fuel consuming schools and school buses destroying the Earth? Think of all those methane-emitting cows providing milk for the kids? The numbers of trees destroyed to print the textbooks and paper for a typical child.

If the threat to all mankind is as great as they say, surely we should consider offing a few rugrats now? It's for the Earth, right? Just a modest proposal to help fight global warming.


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