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DvdGStwrt
Joined: 26 Nov 2002
Posts: 41
Location: Modesto, CA USA |
 Tue Dec 02, 2003 1:03 am
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quote:
Originally posted by Edufer:
To the Readers of This Forum
When I was invited to this forum (or defied) by David G. Stewart, to “stand up for my ecological convictions”, I was aware he would throw a pack of wolves against me.
[/B]
Whoa!!! hold it, stop right there I did not put out a challenge to anyone. Never have, indeed my case has been that I do not care if anyone does or does not believe what I have presented to them.
I did not send you a challenge. No need to, I know what I know -
Carry on.
David |
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the professor
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 1164
Location: heartland USA |
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Tue Dec 02, 2003 4:01 am
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Edufer sure does make some great points. Must be the part debunker in me. In fact it's better to question someone then believing everybody who thinks every single plane is spraying them with something. Not a fantasy I want to live in. |
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1489
Location: x |
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Tue Dec 02, 2003 5:43 am
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Of course "The Professor" agrees with SEÑOR Ferreyra...how comforting YOUR vote of confidence must be for him. Please send him an email...he keeps track of such things.
Others might reflect on this:
SEÑOR Ferreyra has not acknowledged the NASA ozone data from Antarctica showing a DEPLETION down to 100 DU, a FACTOR OF THREE below anything reported by Dobson.
As far as the role of volcanoes go in their role in depleting atmospheric ozone, consider the following:
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/Gases/ozone.html
Ozone is a gas made of three oxygen atoms. Ozone is bluish in color and harmful to breathe. Most of the Earth's ozone (about 90%) is in the stratosphere. The stratosphere is a layer in the atmosphere from about 10km to about 50km in altitude. Ozone is important because it absorbs specific wavelengths of ultraviolet radiation that are particularly harmful to living organisms. The ozone layer prevents most of this harmful radiation from reaching the ground.
As concern grew over depletion of ozone in the stratosphere scientists examined the role of volcanoes. They noted that the gases emitted by most eruptions never leave the troposphere, the layer in the atmosphere from the surface to about 10km.
Hydrogen chloride released by volcanoes can cause drastic reductions in ozone if concentrations reach high levels (about 15-20 ppb by volume)(Prather and others, 1984). As the El Chichon eruption cloud was spreading, the amount of HCl in the cloud increased by 40% (Mankin and Coffey, 1984). This increase represents about 10% of the global inventory of HCl in the stratosphere. Other large eruptions (Tambora, Krakatau, and Agung) may have released almost ten-times more HCl into the stratosphere than the amount of chlorine commonly present in the stratosphere (Pinto and others, 1989). At least two factors reduce the impact of HCl, chlorine appears to be preferentially released during low-levels of volcanic activity and thus may be limited to the troposphere, where it can be scrubbed by rain. Hydrogen chloride may also condense in the rising volcanic plume, again to be scrubbed out by rain or ice. Lack of HCl in ice cores with high amounts of H2SO4 (from large eruptions) may indicate ambient stratospheric conditions are extremely efficient at removing HCl. Thus, most HCl never has the opportunity to react with ozone. No increase in stratospheric chlorine was observed during the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.
Volcanoes account for about 3% of chlorine in the stratosphere. Methyl chloride produces about 15% of the chlorine entering the stratosphere. The remaining 82% of stratospheric chlorine comes from man-made sources, mostly in the form of chlorofluorocarbons.
Although volcanic gases do not play a direct role in destroying ozone they may play a harmful indirect role. Scientists have found that particles, or aerosols, produced by major volcanic eruptions accelerate ozone destruction. The particles themselves do not directly destroy ozone but they do provide a surface upon which chemical reactions can take place. This enhances chlorine-driven ozone depletion. Fortunately, the effects from volcanoes are short lived and after two or three years, the volcanic particles settle out of the atmosphere.
Study of ozone amounts before and after the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo show that there were significant decreases in lower stratospheric ozone (Grant and others, 1994). The amount of ozone in the 16-28 km region was some reduced by 33% compared to pre-eruption amounts. A similar reduced amount of ozone was measured in the summer of 1992.
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"Chlorine from natural sources is soluble, and so it gets rained out of the lower atmosphere," the journal Science explained (6/11/93). "CFCs, in contrast, are insoluble and inert and thus make it to the stratosphere to release their chlorine." Science also noted that chlorine found in the stratosphere-- where it can eat away at Earth's protective ozone layer--is always found with other byproducts of CFCs, and not with the byproducts of natural chlorine sources. "Ozone depletion is real, as certain as Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon," Dr. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California at Irvine, "Natural causes of ozone depletion are not significant."
1995 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry
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http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/pr96/mar96/noaa96-20.html
STUDY SHOWS HOW VOLCANOES INFLUENCE HUMAN-CAUSED OZONE DEPLETION
Many of the year-to-year fluctuations in human-caused ozone depletion over the northern mid-latitudes in the past 15 years are related to volcanic activity, government and university scientists said in a new study of the stratosphere. The study is the first to explain many of the "ups and downs" of year-to-year stratospheric ozone loss, which is caused by human-made chlorine and bromine compounds and accelerated by volcanic particles.
Using a state of the art dynamical-chemical model of the stratosphere, satellite observations of atmospheric particles and atmospheric measurements of ozone and related gases, the scientists helped show why the amount of ozone destruction varies from year to year over populated regions in the northern hemisphere.
The findings are published in the current issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research by principal author and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist, Susan Solomon, and scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the University of Colorado's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Researchers found that by taking the effects of volcanic particles into consideration, their state-of-the-art stratospheric model also came closer to explaining how ozone losses varied with altitude in the atmosphere above the northern mid-latitudes. The particles, or aerosols, occur naturally as a result of major volcanic eruptions, such as the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991. During these periods of volcanic activity, the particles accelerate ozone destruction.
In the stratosphere, the particles interact with chlorine- and bromine-containing compounds produced from human-made substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that cause destructive changes in the upper atmospheric ozone layer of the Earth.
Solomon stressed that while particles can contribute to the features and fluctuations of the stratospheric ozone depletion, the particles alone do not destroy ozone. "Chlorine- and bromine-containing compounds caused by human activity are the real culprits in destroying ozone," she said. "The particles influence the ozone loss because they provide a surface upon which chemical reactions that enhance chlorine-driven ozone depletion can take place."
The findings of this study also underscore the importance of current efforts to assess the effects of subsonic and supersonic aircraft, whose emissions include particles and gases, on the atmosphere. According to the scientists, any human activities that would increase particle abundances in the stratosphere could influence the ozone layer.
The ozone layer is expected to recover in the coming decades as a result of restrictions on CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals required by the United Nations Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. This study indicates that future major volcanic eruptions will cause fluctuations during the recovery process that are both expected and temporary. Scientists will be better equipped to predict those fluctuations as they continue to monitor and measure the on-going recovery of the ozone layer along with measurements of volcanic particles.
Authors of the research paper, entitled "The Role of Aerosol Variations in Anthropogenic Ozone Depletion at Northern Mid-Latitudes," are Solomon of NOAA's Aeronomy Laboratory, (currently on sabbatical at NCAR), R.W. Portmann of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, R.R. Garcia of NCAR, and L. W. Thomason, L.R. Poole and M. P. McCormick of NASA's Langley Research Center.
-------------------------------------------- http://www.aer.com/scienceResearch/volcano.html
Ozone Depletion, Chlorine, and Volcanic Eruptions
2-D Chemical Transport Model
Depletion of the ozone layer by chlorine radicals resulting from atmospheric degradation of anthropogenic chlorine-based compounds such as CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) is a well-recognized and serious phenomenon. The AER 2-dimensional chemical transport model (CTM), developed by Dr. Nien Dak Sze, Dr. Malcolm Ko, and Debra Weisenstein, was instrumental in confirming the relationship between CFCs and global ozone depletion and helped shape policies reducing and banning the use of CFCs.
The AER 2-D CTM is a model that predicts how the ozone layer will behave through time under a variety of conditions and assumptions. It calculates concentrations of 80 chemical species in the atmosphere at 969 grid points, covering the globe from the surface to 60 km altitude. It also calculates the distribution of sulfuric acid aerosols in 40 size bins resulting from surface emissions of sulfur-bearing gases and explosive volcanic eruptions that penetrate the stratospehre. Different scenarios can be explored through model calculations, such as future emission rates of chlorine- and bromine-compounds, future concentrations of methane, changes in stratospheric temperature, or hypothesized emission of pollutants from aircraft or rockets. Results of such studies have been published in global ozone assessment reports published by the World Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
This plot represents a calculation with the AER 2-D chemistry-transport model (CTM) illustrating the effect of explosive volcanic eruptions and anthropogenic chlorine emissions on ozone. The x-axis represents a 9 year period following a massive volcanic eruption which penetrated the middle stratosphere, such as Mt. Pinatubo which erupted in the Phillipines in June of 1991. The blue line shows the aerosol surface area density in square microns per cubic centimeter at 47N and 25 km (right-hand y-axis) resulting from conversion of the emitted sulfur dioxide to sulfuric acid aerosol particles in the stratosphere. The red line shows the evolution of total overhead ozone at 47N in Dobson units (left-hand y-axis) for the 1991-1999 period when total stratospheric chlorine abundance was at 3.2 ppbv. The green line show the evolution of total ozone for the same aerosol loading but in a future atmosphere with lower chlorine abundance of 2.5 ppbv. Volcanic eruptions that penetrate the stratosphere, a rare (once or twice a decade) though natural phenomenon, lead to stratospheric ozone depletion through heterogeneous reactions (ie. reactions between gas phase molecules and solid/liquid surfaces) on aerosol surfaces which change the balance among nitrogen, chlorine, and hydrogen radicals. The most important reaction in these high-aerosol conditions converts dinitrogen pentoxide (N2O5), a short-lived reactive compound, to nitric acid (HNO3), a longer-lived less reactive compound. With a greater fraction of nitrogen atoms as HNO3, there are fewer nitrogen atoms to react with chlorine atoms, and therefore more free reactive chlorine available to destroy ozone. The impact of volcanoes on ozone depends on the concentration of anthropogenic chlorine in the stratosphere. In the case with lower chlorine shown here, the resulting ozone depletion is much less. If there were no man-made chlorine in the stratosphere, explosive volcanic eruptions would lead to increases in ozone.
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Additional References:
Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 1998
Frequently Asked Questions about Ozone
World Meteorological Organization Global Ozone Research and Monitoring Project - Report No. 44
http://www.al.noaa.gov/WWWHD/Pubdocs/Assessment98/faq10.html
"Frequently Asked Questions About Ozone"
The international scientific community included the section in their 1998 assessment called "Frequently Asked Questions About Ozone." In it, they answer several of the general questions that are most frequently asked by students, the general public, and leaders in industry and government. After a general introduction about ozone, the questions addressed are:
How can chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) get to the stratosphere if they're heavier than air?
What is the evidence that stratospheric ozone is destroyed by chlorine and bromine?
Does most of the chlorine in the stratosphere come from human or natural sources?
Can natural changes such as the Sun's output and volcanic erruptions be responsible for the observed changes in ozone?
When did the Antarctic ozone hole first appear?
Why has an ozone hole appeared over Antarctica when CFCs and halons are released mainly in the Northern Hemisphere?
Is there an ozone hole over the Arctic?
Is the depletion of the ozone layer leading to an increase in ground-level ultraviolet radiation?
Does ozone depletion cause climate change?
How severe is the ozone depletion now?
Is the ozone layer expected to recover?
If so, when?
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The most recent WMO/UNEP assessment (Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2002) is available here. It contains the most up-to-date understanding of ozone depletion and reflects the thinking of 275 international scientific experts who contributed to its preparation and review. Co-chairs of the 2002 Assessment were Dr. Daniel L. Albritton of the NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory, Dr. Ayité-Lô Nohende Ajavon of the Université de Lomé, Dr. Gérard Mégie of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and Dr. Robert T. Watson of the World Bank. Other members of the Aeronomy Laboratory made substantial contributions to the report, serving as lead authors, co-authors, contributors, reviewers, coordinating editor, and editorial and computing support staff.
The Assessment consists of the Executive Summary, five detailed chapters, and "Twenty Questions and Answers About the Ozone Layer", listed here with the names of the Lead Authors:
Chapter 1. Controlled Substances and Other Source Gases Stephen A. Montzka and Paul J. Fraser
Chapter 2. Very Short-Lived Halogen and Sulfur Substances Malcolm K.W. Ko and Gilles Poulet
Chapter 3. Polar Stratospheric Ozone: Past and Future Paul A. Newman and John A. Pyle
Chapter 4. Global Ozone: Past and Future Martyn P. Chipperfield and William J. Randel
Chapter 5. Surface Ultraviolet Radiation: Past and Future James B. Kerr and Gunther Seckmeyer
Twenty Questions and Answers About the Ozone Layer David W. Fahey
http://www.al.noaa.gov/WWWHD/Pubdocs/Assessment02/ExecSum02.pdf
A full formatted copy of the "Twenty Questions and Answers About the Ozone Layer" is available here (PDF; 844k). Adobe Acrobat Reader ® is required.
http://www.al.noaa.gov/WWWHD/Pubdocs/Assessment02/Q&As.pdf
INTRODUCTION
OZONE IN OUR ATMOSPHERE
What is ozone and where is it in the atmosphere?
How is ozone formed in the atmosphere?
Why do we care about atmospheric ozone?
Is total ozone uniform over the globe?
How is ozone measured in the atmosphere?
THE OZONE DEPLETION PROCESS
What are the principal steps in stratospheric ozone depletion caused by human activities?
What emissions from human activities lead to ozone depletion?
What are the reactive halogen gases that destroy stratospheric ozone?
What are the chlorine and bromine reactions that destroy stratospheric ozone?
Why has an "ozone hole" appeared over Antarctica when ozone-depleting gases are present throughout the stratosphere?
STRATOSPHERIC OZONE DEPLETION
How severe is the depletion of the Antarctic ozone layer?
Is there depletion of the Arctic ozone layer?
How large is the depletion of the global ozone layer?
Do changes in the Sun and volcanic eruptions affect the ozone layer?
CONTROLLING OZONE-DEPLETING GASES
Are there regulations on the production of ozone-depleting gases?
Has the Montreal Protocol been successful in reducing ozone-depleting gases in the atmosphere?
IMPLICATIONS OF OZONE DEPLETION
Does depletion of the ozone layer increase ground-level ultraviolet radiation?
Is depletion of the ozone layer the principal cause of climate change?
STRATOSPHERIC OZONE IN THE FUTURE
How will recovery of the ozone layer be detected?
When is the ozone layer expected to recover?
ADDITIONAL TOPICS
Understanding Stratospheric Ozone Depletion
Heavier-Than-Air CFCs
Global Ozone Dobson Network
The Discovery of the Antarctic Ozone Hole
Replacing the Loss of "Good" Ozone in the Stratosphere
[Edited 6 times, lastly by Sore Throat on 12-03-2003] |
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Tue Dec 02, 2003 6:00 am
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Posted by David G. Stwart:
quote:
Whoa!!! hold it, stop right there I did not put out a challenge to anyone. Never have, indeed my case has been that I do not care if anyone does or does not believe what I have presented to them.
I did not send you a challenge. No need to, I know what I know –
1) Everything started like this: halva posted this: in http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001752.html
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“David Stewart has posted new first-hand information on this subject at: [url=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cicdd/message/8134”]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cicdd/message/8134”[/url]
2) Then Deborah replied:
“I wish I had the time right now to respond to this piece-by-piece. Will attempt to do that later in the week. Meanwhile, I think this is worth copying out in here. Very interesting summation. Thank you, halva.
-------------------------=>
Monday 9/29/03
By "David"
Just my 2 cents worth
Any of you who know me (which a few do) know that I have been in contact with a person who claims to be an insider. … etc. (a long post)
3) Then, DvdGStwrt (you, I guess) sent 3 posts.
4) Later on, halva posted this:
“From chemtrailtracking usa
WH
Ozone depletion/Global warming lies/Holmestead article
this in regards to an article given to me by this forum's moderator, "i_don't_chat": http://www.holmestead.ca/chemtrails/shieldproject.html
in this article, a highly-placed secret source(deep shield), in the chemtrail program, 'claims' to be able to shed some light on the chemtrail spraying going on across the globe. he boils it down to global warming/ozone depletion. obviously there is a ton of scientists and scientific evidence that disagree and believe that the global warming and ozone depletion is a complete fraud and lie.
here is what happened when i sent this article to Eduardo Ferreyra President of FAEC- Argentinean Foundation for a Scientific Ecology. they happen to have an excellent website for exposing the lies and misconceptions regarding global warming/ozone depletion: http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/Ozone.html
he replied to me with this e-mail(please excuse its length):
"Dear Bruce: Thanks you for getting in touch with us. I went to the link you
provided and … etc”
5) After my email to ”Bruce Broccoli”, (halva?), Sore Throat made his customary “copy and paste” job, calling me “esteemed Preseident Ferreyra” (sic) accusing me of misinforming. Ending his long tirade with:
“So Halva, I have to wonder....just what was your point in posting what is clearly disinformation by Eduardo Ferreyra, President of FAEC- Argentinean Foundation for a Scientific Ecology ? ? ?”
6) Deborah said immediately:
“Re: Letter to Bruce Holmstead from Eduardo Ferreyra, President of FAEC [Argentinean Foundation for a Scientific Ecology] – ... “
7) How does Deborah knows if I wrote to Bruce Holmstead? I have never got in contact with him, as I don’t know who he is. Did I write my email to Bruce Holmstead, or to Bruce Broccoli, the only one I have been corresponding? Are they the same person? I don’t know.
Then, on October 27, 2003, halva said:
“Answer: He is being consulted by posters at the chemtrailtrackingusa forum who like his idea that global warming is a myth and conclude that therefore those who try to understand chemtrails in terms of answers or pseudo-answers to the problem of global warming are deluded or lying.”
“The posting is also something in the way of a challenge to debate. It seems to me that Eduardo Ferreyra is not in the first instance an anti-chemtrail debunker and would not respond with relish to an invitation to expose his unfamiliarity with the relevant facts.”
 I got an email from Bruce “Broccoli” (who signs “aldo”) saying this:
this is what one of the "regulars" replied with:
Bruce,
> >
> > If you, and/or Eduardo Ferreyra would like to repeat these
> > assertions to David Stewart, who took the Deep Shield interviews,
> > and has spent quite a bit of time with the person whose testimony
> > and opinions Ferreyra is ridiculing, David posts at the CTC Forum.
> > Engage him, and more importantly tell Mr. Ferreyra to do the same
> > if he has the courage of his ecological convictions.
http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001752.html
By the way, Bruce Broccoli is a strong believer in the spraying, but a tremendous skeptic about warming and the ozone hoax. If that helps to separate the hay from the grain.
So I logged in at the link above, saw all what Sore Throat and Deborah said about me, and got in touch with the webmaster at Chemtrails Central and asked for a keyword allowing me to answer the “misinformation” accusation and the “Speak about ignorance”.
So, summing up it is clear I did not receive an invitation from you – directly – to participate in this forum. So I must apologize for having said that. The confusion is so big, that right now, nobody knows who’s who, and who said what. It seems to me that the invitation came from Sore Throat. This thing of people not showing their real identities hiding behind nicknames is disgusting. This is not your case, of course, as you seem a well known person in the USA, at least among the people who believe in Chemtrails and the spraying.
I came to this forum to give my opinion on Global Warming and the ozone layer – which I firmly believe are hoaxes promoted by powerful economic and geopolitical interests, in order to install the New World Order (World Governance by a United Nations ruled by these powerful groups.
The Conspiracy theory cannot be dismissed so easily, and much less by you, as you firmly believe the Chemtrail spraying is being carried by another (or the same groups) in a huge, global conspiracy. But you are heading towards a dead end: your thesis is that this spraying is being done in order to stop global warming and save the ozone layer.
My position is that the conspirers know quite well that global warming (the catastrophic one, not the slight present one) and ozone depletion have been made up for the sole purpose of financial, economic and political gains, and the huge corporations involved in the scheme seems to add weight to the theory.
And we come now to the spraying: I don’t know if it is being done or not. As there seems to be as many believers as skeptics, the matter is not an easy one. I think that, if it is effectively occurring, they must be doing it for other reasons than warming or the ozone layer. And that is an entirely different matter. Look for other reasons, in other places. Looking in the warming and ozone drawers will get you nowhere. The global warming and ozone delusions are just diversionary techniques to get the attention away from the real motive.
[Edited 2 times, lastly by Edufer on 12-01-2003] |
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the professor
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 1164
Location: heartland USA |
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Tue Dec 02, 2003 6:38 am
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The last four paragraphs say it very logically, in a nutshell so to speak. |
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1489
Location: x |
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Tue Dec 02, 2003 7:22 am
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Recommended Reading to confront the modern day medicine men, hucksters, and shills:
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Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future
by Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich
Book Description
Despite widespread public support for environmental protection, a backlash against environmental policies is developing. Fueled by outright distortions of fact and disregard for the methodology of science, this backlash appears as an outpouring of seemingly authoritative opinions by so-called "experts" in books, articles, and appearances on television and radio that greatly distort what is or is not known by environmental scientists. Through relentless repetition, the flood of anti-environmental sentiment has acquired an unfortunate aura of credibility, and is now threatening to undermine thirty years of progress in defining, understanding, and seeking solutions to global environmental problems.
In this hard-hitting and timely book, world-renowned scientists and writers Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich speak out against what they call the "brownlash." Brownlash rhetoric, created by public relations spokespersons and a few dissident scientists, is a deliberate misstatement of scientific findings designed to support an anti-environmental world view and political agenda. As such, it is deeply disturbing to environmental scientists across the country. The agenda of brownlash proponents is rarely revealed, and the confusion and distraction its rhetoric creates among policymakers and the public prolong an already difficult search for realistic and equitable solutions to global environmental problems.
In Betrayal of Science and Reason, the Ehrlichs explain clearly and with scientific objectivity the empirical findings behind environmental issues including population growth, desertification, food production, global warming, ozone depletion, acid rain, and biodiversity loss. They systematically debunk revisionist "truths" such as:
population growth does not cause environmental damage, and may even be beneficial
humanity is on the verge of abolishing hunger; food scarcity is a local or regional problem and is not indicative of overpopulation
there is no extinction crisis
natural resources are superabundant, if not infinite
global warming and acid rain are not serious threats to humanity
stratospheric ozone depletion is a hoax
risks posed by toxic substances are vastly exaggerated
The Ehrlichs counter the erroneous information and misrepresentation put forth by the brownlash, presenting accurate scientific information about current environmental threats that can be used to evaluate critically and respond to the commentary of the brownlash. They include important background material on how science works and provide extensive references to pertinent scientific literature. In addition, they discuss how scientists can speak out on matters of societal urgency yet retain scientific integrity and the support of the scientific community.
Betrayal of Science and Reason is an eye-opening look at current environmental problems and the fundamental importance of the scientific process in solving them. It presents unique insight into the sources and implications of anti-environmental rhetoric, and provides readers with a valuable means of understanding and refuting the feel-good fables that constitute the brownlash.
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Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism
by Sharon Beder
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Beder is a professional engineer who heads an environmental education program at the University of Sydney. She is also the author of two books published in Australia, The Nature of Sustainable Development (1993) and Toxic Fish and Sewer Surfing (1989). Rather than focus on direct assaults on the world's environment, Global Spin, which was already published in England last fall, is a well-documented survey of how corporations attempt to influence public opinion and garner political support when it comes to environmental issues. Beder reports on massive advertising and public relations campaigns designed to fight environmental regulations and portray supporters of restrictions as extremists. She shows how conservative think tanks and some so-called grassroots organizations with innocuous-sounding names, such as Coalition for Vehicle Choice or Mothers Opposing Pollution, are funded by companies and industry trade associations, and she uncovers corporate attempts to influence the media with threats to withdraw advertising. Beder is based in Australia, but her examples and her perspective are truly global. David Rouse --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
From Book News, Inc.
Examines the way that corporations have used their financial resources and power to counter the gains made by environmentalists, to reshape public opinion, and to persuade politicians against increased environmental regulation. Fourteen chapters describe the methods used, including employing specialized PR firms, artificially created grassroots support for corporate causes, deterring public involvement, industry-funded research, and getting corporate-based "educational" materials into schools. The author concludes that these manipulative spin techniques are actually threatening democracy, and that environmentalists must engage in the task of exposing corporate myths and methods of manipulation.
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When Smoke Ran Like Water
by Devra Davis
Book Description
From one of the leading public-health experts of our time, a passionate call to arms to protect ourselves from environmental pollution--and an astonishing revelation of how it's already affected our health.
In When Smoke Ran Like Water, the world-renowned epidemiologist Devra Davis confronts the public triumphs and private failures of her lifelong battle against environmental pollution.
By turns impassioned and analytic, she documents the shocking toll of a public-health disaster--300,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and Europe from the effects of pollution--and asks why we remain silent. She shows how environmental toxins contribute to a broad spectrum of human diseases, including breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and emphysema--all major killers--and in addition how these toxins affect the health and development of the heart and lungs, and even alter human reproductive capacity.
But the battle against pollution is not just scientific. For Davis, it's personal: pollution is what killed many in her family and forced the others, survivors of the 1948 smog emergency in Donora, Pennsylvania, to live out their lives with damaged health. She vividly describes that episode and also makes startling revelations about how the deaths from the London smog of 1952 were falsely attributed to influenza; how the oil companies and auto manufacturers fought for decades to keep lead in gasoline, while knowing it caused brain damage; behind-the-scenes accounts of the battle to recognize breast cancer as a major killer; and many other battles. When Smoke Ran Like Water makes a devastating case that our approaches to public health need to change.
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Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future
by John Stauber
Amazon.com
Fearless investigative journalists Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber (Toxic Sludge Is Good for You! and Mad Cow U.S.A.) are back with a gripping exposé of the public relations industry and the scientists who back their business-funded, anti-consumer-safety agendas. There are two kinds of "experts" in question--the PR spin doctors behind the scenes and the "independent" experts paraded before the public, scientists who have been hand-selected, cultivated, and paid handsomely to promote the views of corporations involved in controversial actions. Lively writing on controversial topics such as dioxin, bovine growth hormone, and genetically modified food makes this a real page-turner, shocking in its portrayal of the real and potential dangers in each of these technological innovations and of the "media pseudo-environment" created to obfuscate the risks. By financing and publicizing views that support the goals of corporate sponsors, PR campaigns have, over the course of the century, managed to suppress the dangers of lead poisoning for decades, silence the scientist who discovered that rats fed on genetically modified corn had significant organ abnormalities, squelch television and newspaper stories about the risks of bovine growth hormone, and place enough confusion and doubt in the public's mind about global warming to suppress any mobilization for action.
Rampton and Stauber introduce the movers and shakers of the PR industry, from the "risk communicators" (whose job is to downplay all risks) and "outrage managers" (with their four strategies--deflect, defer, dismiss, or defeat) to those who specialize in "public policy intelligence" (spying on opponents). Evidently, these elaborate PR campaigns are created for our own good. According to public relations philosophers, the public reacts emotionally to topics related to health and safety and is incapable of holding rational discourse. Needless to say, Rampton and Stauber find these views rather antidemocratic and intend to pull back the curtain to reveal the real wizard in Oz. This is one wake-up call that's hard to resist. --Lesley Reed
[Edited 2 times, lastly by Sore Throat on 12-02-2003] |
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Tue Dec 02, 2003 8:54 am
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The hole is growing larger, not in the ozone layer but in Sore Throat’s foot …
quote:
Others might reflect on this:
SEÑOR Ferreyra has not acknowledged the NASA ozone data from Antarctica showing a DEPLETION down to 100 DU, a FACTOR OF THREE below anything reported by Dobson.
As you have not read Dobson’s book and works, you don’t know what Dobson did in 1956. He said the following, (in his famous paper in Applied Optics, March, 1986):
“… This particular ozone instrument was sent to Shotover laboratory to be checked immediately before leaving England. … The annual variations of ozone at Spitzbergen [near the North Pole] was fairly well known at that time, so, assuming a six month difference, we knew what to expect.
However, when the monthly telegrams from Halley Bay began to arrive and were plotted alongside the Spitzbergen curve, the values fro September and October 1956 were about 150 [Dobson] units lower than expected.”
What Dobson found (or better, his helper in Halley Bay) was not 150 DU in Antarctica, but 150 DU units lower than expected from the Spitzbergen readings, that for the corresponding “low” (in March-April) are 270 DU. So Dobson found in those telegrams readings of 270 – 150 = 120 DU, and he thought his friend in Halley Bay had goofed with the instrument. Not 100 DU, but still an extremely low value of 120 DU.
However, the Polar Vortex in the Antarctic spring of 1956 was away from Halley Bay, as the Polar Vortex does not stay in one spot. It may move several times a month (as shown by the TOMS satellite). An atmospheric station near the edge of Antarctica may be inside the vortex one year, or month, and outside the next year or month, and ozone concentrations will vary dramatically. Inside the vortex, the values measured may be as low as 110 DU, while just a few miles away, outside the vortex, the values may by as high as 450 DU. You can see that in any TOMS map. The fact that there is such an mammoth difference in such a short distance, show clearly that dynamics, and not chemistry, is the main force behind the ozone depletion.
That’s what happened in 1956, when the polar vortex was away from Halley bay, but on the other side of Antarctica, just over the French scientific station of Dumont D’Urville, where the French scientists measured 110 DU. It is written down on scientific documents, it is pure History, it cannot be denied.
Two French scientists, P. Rigaud and B. Leroy, published in the Annales Geophysicae , November 1990 issue, reports of from the French Antarctic station Dumont D’Urville located on the opposite side of the South Pole, a few hundred miles from Halley Bay. These measurements show that the ozone hole was deeper in 1958 than at any other time in the 1980s!
Rigaud and Leroy wrote in the Annales Geophysicae “…reexamination of the data shows that a strong minimum of the total ozone content has been observed that year in the austral springtime. This suggests a natural phenomenon to explain Antarctic ‘ozone hole’ “ (p 791). According to the scientists, the “ozone hole” appears in September and the beginning of October 1958, but then there is a “spectacular recovery of the ozone concentration between October 8 and 2. The polar vortex breakdown in 1958 occurred between October 5 and 20”, (p. 793).
What could explain this dramatic drop to 110 DU recorded at the Dumont D’Urville station, while at Halley Bay the readings were around 250 DU? Leroy and Rigaud said:
“The center of the polar vortex was near Dumont D’Urville at the end of winter 1958, and far from Halley Bay. The situation is the opposite of the one observed in the recent years. Since the “ozone hole” is observed in the polar vortex, this could explain why this phenomenon was undetected in 1968 at Halley Bay.”
Dobson did not detected a “deep loss” in ozone in 1958, but he detected it in 1957, when the polar vortex was over Halley Bay.
And now, for the “coup de grace”, read this, from the Annales Geophysicae (1994) 12: 1197 – 1206, (the same French journal where Leroy and Rigaud published their review of the French Station Dumont D’Urville, quite an interesting site to visit.)
http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/annales/12/1197.htm
Evidence of a 50-year increase in
tropospheric ozone in Upper Bavaria
M. Schmidt
Abstract.
In a series of ozone-sonde soundings at the Hohenpeißenberg observatory, starting in 1967, the most striking features are increases of ~sim2.2% per year in all tropospheric heights up to 8 km during the past 24 years. These facts have recently been published and discussed by several authors.
In this paper, we present some evidence for the increase of tropospheric ozone concentrations during the past 50 years 1940-1990 in the territory of the northern edge of the Bavarian Alps, including the Hohenpeißenberg data. In December 1940 and August 1942, probably the first exact wet-chemical vertical soundings of ozone up to 9 km height were made by an aircraft in the region mentioned.
These results were published in the earlier literature. We have converted the results of the flights on 4 days in December 1940 and on 6 days in August 1942 to modern units and have compared them with the Hohenpeißenberg ozone-sonde data of the December and August months. We also compared the data at the ground with the August results of Paris-Montsouris 1886-1898.
Our results show an increase of ozone concentration at all tropospheric heights in Upper Bavaria during the past 50 years, compared with the Montsouris data in August during the past 105 years. In the recently published papers, the increases since 1967 were approximated linearly. Our results, extended to the past, show non-linear trends, with steeper increases since 1975-1979. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed. Quite recently (in case of the December months since 1986-87, the August months since 1990), the ozone mixing ratios at and above Hohenpeißenberg seem to have decreased.
I hope esteemed Meester ST finds that I have not overlooked or dodged the issue of Dobson readings back in the 50s, although his statement: “a DEPLETION down to 100 DU, a FACTOR OF THREE below anything reported by Dobson.” is clearly wrong – once you take a brief look at the data, and interpret it with some scientific methodology. By the way, it seems that his lack of scientific methodology played a primary role in his dropping out of college.
I wonder, will he keep chickening out with those questions I asked him? And he accuses me of “overlooking”, “not noticing”, “failed to answer”, etc. !!!!
[Edited 7 times, lastly by Edufer on 12-02-2003] |
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Tue Dec 02, 2003 11:32 pm
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quote:
Of course "The Professor" agrees with SEÑOR Ferreyra...how comforting YOUR vote of confidence must be for him. Please send him an email...he keeps track of such things.
Now ST picks on The Profesor for his mockery. He’s not going to be very popular if he keeps criticizing people that dissent with him. At least he still has Deborah for keeping his spirit high. If he sends me his email, I will send him hundreds of emails received congratulating me on my opinions and saying I shouldn’t be wasting my time answering his posts.
Well, let us go to another sordid story on scientific literature, peer-review and the Dome of Silence (remember super Agent-86?) imposed on some scientists that dare oppose the “scientific establishment”.
Dr. Joseph Scotto, of the Biostatistics Branch of the National Cancer Institute, published in Science magazine (Feb. 12, 1988), hard scientific evidence that the amount of UV-B radiation reaching to the surface of the USA had significantly increased between 1974 and 1985. This study, that was ignored by the international news media, was based on readings from a network of ground level monitoring stations that had been tracking measurements of ultraviolet radiation since 1974. The study, ignored by the media, has not been ignored by the internet: you can find here an excerpt of this long study:
http://seer.cancer.gov/publications/raterisk/risks103.html
And the long, well detailed paper in:
http://www.ciesin.org/docs/001-526/001-526.html
Joseph Scotto, Gerald Cotton, Frederick Urback, et al., 1988. "Biologically Effective Ultraviolet Radiation: Surface Measurements in the United States, 1974 to 1985", Science, Vol. 239 (Feb. 12), pp. 762-764.
In his study, Scotto el al., state:
Average annual R-B (Robertson-Berger meters, in which UV radiation is measured) counts for two consecutive 6-year periods (1974-1979 and 1989-1985). Show a negative shift at each station, with decreases ranging from 2 to 7 percent … (Figure 6.3) show that there are not positive trends in annual R-B counts for 1974 to 1985 … The estimated annual change varied from -1.1 percent at Minneapolis, Minnesota, to -0.4 percent at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For all the stations the R-B counts dropped an average of 0.7 percent per year since 1974,,, (page 762).
Scotto then reports that his instruments are confirming what many other individual instrument have been recording a drop in Uv radiation reaching the Earth:
”These results are consistent with earlier reports that used R-B data for a shorter time period from 1974 to 1979 and Dobson meter total column ozone data for the period from 1970 to 1982. Although recent measurements of stratospheric ozone from satellite instruments indicate a total column ozone is being depleted during the 1980s, anticipated resultant increases in solar ultraviolet B were not evident….”
Monthly trends of estimated UV-B levels showed consistent decreases at each field station. ... peak daily UV-B measures for each of the three 10-day periods within each month showed that the peak day, which is usually cloudless, also has consistent downward trends for the 12-year period..
In a subsequent issue of Science, Nov. 25, 1988, Scotto rejects the possibility (presented by the wolf pack thrown at him by the establishment) that urban air pollution was scattering incoming UV radiation and thus causing the reduction in UV-B reaching the Earth. Scotto points to data from the station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, “which is relatively free from urban air pollution”, yet, he says: “preliminary analysis of data from this site show no increase in UV-B radiation from 1974 to 1985”.
How did the US government and the environmentalists react tro the publication of Scotto’s National Cancer Institute data? Scotto was the victim of an “inquisition”. He was unable to extend his research beyond 1985, because funding for most of the UV recording stations was cut and the stations were shut down. And, although Scotto is a world-renowned cancer expert, he does no longer receives funding to travel to international conferences to present his findings.
Measured ozone column and UV-B levels, 1974-1986
by Wm. Robert Johnston
last updated 26 December 2002
Ozone amounts and UV-B levels, 1974-1986
Description: In blue, the graph shows atmospheric ozone (O3) levels in Dobson units (left scale). In red, the graph shows annual average UV-B measured at the Earth's surface in the United States in units of Robertson-Berger meter counts per 10,000/year (right scale). The UV-B measurements specifically are averaged from 8 measuring stations in the lower 48 states as reported by Scotto et ali. (1988)
Comments: Note that when ozone amounts decreased from 1980 to 1986, measured UV-B decreased--the opposite of what the ozone depletion hypothesis predicted. (End of UV-B data in 1985 corresponds to end of federal funding for the measuring program.) Much subsequent data on UV-B exposure (such as that available from U.S. government web sites) are not actual measurements but are calculated from measured ozone quantities--and assumed relations between UV-B and ozone. (One particular exception in the U.S. is data from the USDA monitoring program.)
Further note that atmospheric ozone increased from 1974 to 1980--in spite of a more than 25% increase in atmospheric chlorine from man-made chemicals. This also contradicts the ozone depletion hypothesis.
Sources: Scotto, Joseph, et ali., "Biologically effective ultraviolet radiation: surface measurements in the United States, 1974-1985," Science, 12 Feb. 1988;
So, summing up, see here which were the results of the National Cancer Institute’s R-B counts for the areas covered by its study. And we cannot say the US National Cancer Institute is tied to the industry, the Moonies, or other influential groups, but perhaps Meester ST will find a way to do it. Perhaps a “CTRL-C & CTRL-V” job?.
I hope Meester ST has a nice and joyful Google trip this evening trying to refute the US National Cancer Institute study. Hi, ho, Silver!
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Be very, very careful what you put into that head,
because you will never, ever get it out.
------- Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1471-1530)
[Edited 10 times, lastly by Edufer on 12-02-2003] |
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Wed Dec 03, 2003 4:53 am
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Some Common Sense
I will ask readers of this board to leave aside science for a while, and concentrate on good old common sense - the least common of senses. With such an amount of information overwhelming our senses, the only two shields we have for keeping our mental sanity are knowledge and common sense. There is an alarming and growing amount of people who believes that "information" is synonym of "knowledge", and even of "wisdom". Of course, that's not true. Wisdom is merely some basic knowledge and lots of common sense.
And what is "common sense"? Simply keeping in mind how many times we have been cheated, embezzled, lied, stepped with the same stone, and lastly on a long list of things, how many times we have made a fool of ourselves. This applies to science, and the history of science is plagued with people making fools of themselves and other people, people lying, cheating, doing anything to keep some money flowing, or gaining notoriety in his field or in the society. They would not be stopped by anything.
I could tell here stories of "scientists" or knowledgeable or informed people of the past, from the dawn of civilization to present days, but it would take months. Instead, I would like to remind you of some quite notorious hoaxters in recent times, that resorted to fraud to push their theories, but you will forgive the briefness of my account.
A very important hoaxter was Ernest Haeckel (1834-1919) who published the fundamentals of a very joyful "Weltanshauung", a conception of the world called "Oiskology", quite according to the myths and frauds created by this biologist. In order to prove his theory about "spontaneous generation" he faked embryos (fraud discovered by Heinz Brass), and claimed that "heat and rain produce a gender of primordial batrachians, spontaneously, as I have witnessed". He coined the term "Oiskology", for explaining his quite original view of nature, and this word later became "Ecology".
Natural sciences, especially those related to "ecology" were very prone to frauds and strange theories that could not be proved or disproved, because there was not enough information on the specific field. Fortunately, man has improved his knowledge about the basis of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and all sciences depending on them. But, in the near past, another factor entered the stage: politics. Either in its local or regional form, or in its global form, geopolitics.
One of the first examples of frauds and strange theories in this field of politics, was Giammaria Ortes, the Venetian thinker whose ideas on "population explosion" grew deep roots in Great Britain in the 18th Century, and his ideas were plagiarized by Rev. Thomas Malthus, whom we all know. Much has been said about the Malthusian theory, long discredited by reality and the technological advances that showed how wrong were is predictions of world famines due to the depletion of natural resources - increasing in a lineal trend, while population increased at geometrical trends. Malthus didn't take into account the resourcefulness of man, his ingenuity, his skill in facing challenges and survive.
But Malthus knew what he was doing, and WHY he was doing it: he was employed by the Eastern India Co., owned by the British Crown and in charge of colonizing the Near and Far East, especially India and China. The Eastern India Co. was who introduced the opium trade in China, and founded the HSBC (Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank of Commerce) to channel the profits to England. We know the rest of the story. The Boxers, the 7 Great Nations siding with England and crushing the rebellion, etc.
More recently comes "the Genial, Brilliant Living Institution and, Greatest Glory of all Universal Sciences", as put by Joseph Stalin when referring to Trofym Lissenko, "Comrade biologist and one of the makers of the URSS Ecology". When one reads Lyssenko's biography, there is no mention to his responsibility on the Siberian exile of Zhores Medvedev and other 60 Russian scientists opposed to his "green" theories.
Lyssenko's biology theories and experiments (all faked) and political theories persisted through the years, as demonstrated by Boris Parvasia, president of the URSS Academy of Science, in August 1st, 1975, when said that "ideology must occupy a place where no thesis can refute it, and that place is science, where Ecology plays an invaluable, primordial role. Ecology can mobilize the masses with an unquestionable proposition, the defense of the environment or the animals".
We see now that politics are embedded in environmental issues, displacing science from its natural and logical place in these matters, replacing it with invalid and scientifically unfounded ideologies as "The Precautionary Principle", or the "Sustainable Development" nonsense. Both ideologies are a straightjacket for development, progress, and human well being, - and have shown already to be detrimental to the health of humans and the environment.
Politics nowadays is everything. Lyssenko's ideology and Malthus' philosophy were picked up by the likes as Paul Ehrlich, Margaret Mead, Alexander King, Lester Brown, and many others as tools for the World Governance - Eastern India Co.'s ultimate goal. Environmental pressure groups have gone from one agency to another in Washington, London, Germany, Sweden, etc, attacking the scientists who oppose their ecological views. This is clearly evident in the subject of the ozone layer and global warming. They have attacked those scientists that proposed the maintenance of the UV-measuring R-B stations in the US. And although the US government was spending back in the 90s more than $3,5 billion dollars a year researching "climate change" "ozone depletion" and "global warming", it was decided that Washington cannot spare a few thousand dollars to keep those monitoring stations operating. They rather spend millions of dollars in "computer models" - unreliable and flawed, instead of recording real world measurements that would provide hard and undisputable data.
This post has been long enough, so I will bore you no longer. Perhaps tomorrow, if some asteroid does not fall on Earth, I will continue with the subject.
[Edited 2 times, lastly by Edufer on 12-02-2003] |
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1489
Location: x |
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Wed Dec 03, 2003 4:57 am
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You're so correct SEÑOR Ferreyra..Google is a wonderful tool...so helpful in exposing frauds. Like shooting fish in a barrel...
In 1996, scientists developed a new technique allowing them to draw conclusions about UV-b radiation at ground level. According to satellite-based trend analyses, major populated areas have experienced increasing UV-b levels over the past 15 years. As shown by the figure below, at latitudes that cover the U.S., UV-b levels are 4 to 5 percent higher than they were 10 years ago.
Note that this is 1996 data, not 1988.
http://www.epa.gov/air/aqtrnd95/stratoz.html
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/strat.html
One of the best sites for the determination of long-term trends in UV radiation is Lauder, South Island of New Zealand (45°S), a National Institute for Waer and Atmosphere-operated research station. The site has a 22-year Dobson ozone record, like several sites in Australia, and an 11-year record of spectral UV radiation measurements (Figure 77), unlike the Australian sites. There is a clear correlation in the Lauder data between declining ozone and rising UV radiation levels on clear-sky days. The Lauder ozone data have been used to derive, via a radiation model, a 22-year UV Index record. There is good agreement between the model-derived and the measured UV Index from 1989 to 1999, suggesting that the trend deduced from the 22-year model-derived UV Index record (about 10% per decade) is reliable.
http://www.deh.gov.au/soe/2001/atmosphere/atmosphere03-5.html
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[img]http://www.who.int/entity/uv/resources/en/penguinsmall.jpg[img]
Is there a connection between ozone depletion and UV radiation?
http://www.who.int/uv/faq/whatisuv/en/index1.html
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UVB RADIATION AND TRENDS OF UVB DURING THE LAST THREE DECADES (1968-1996)
Gantner, L., P. Winkler, and U. Köhler
German Weather Service, Observatory Hohenpeissenberg
Albin-Schwaiger-Weg 10 D-82383 Hohenpeissenberg
Tel +49 8805 920029, Fax +49 8805 920046, E-Mail leo@mohp.dwd.d400.de
Atmospheric ozone is the most important natural protection against solar ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation. At Hohenpeissenberg stratospheric ozone has decreased by 0.4% per year since 1968, whereas in the troposphere there was a 2% increase per year of ozone until the mid 80s. This tropospheric increase lead to a damping in the decrease of total ozone which has decreased by 3% per decade since 1968.
Because of this decrease in total ozone the UVB radiation would be expected to increase. On the other hand there has been a decrease in the global radiation of about 10% in 43 years, which can be attributed mainly to an increase in cirrus frequency. This leads to the question of whether the UVB radiation has in fact increased.
Ultraviolet radiation between 290 nm and 320 nm has been measured operationally at Hohenpeissen-berg since 1990 with a spectral resolution of 0.5 nm. Because of the huge variability in UV radiation this timespan is too short to be able to deduce a reliable trend from a time series.
In order to obtain information on the longterm change of UV since 1968 we have developed a new method. We use radiation measurements and synoptic data to define criteria by which we select particular UV values out of the large amount of measured spectra. We then correlate the selected UVB radiation with other quantities measured at the observatory. Using this method it is possible to quantify the influence of observed parameters on the UVB.
As a first step we calculated correlations of UVB and ozone for several classes of turbidity. For low turbidity and cloud-free sky we found a very strong relation between UVB and ozone at various solar elevations. The correlation is highly significant even at higher turbidity
With the aid of this relation it is possible to extrapolate the (short-wave) UV radiation based on measurements of ozone since 1968. Using relations between UV radiation and other measured quantities derived during the period where all data is available, it is possible to evaluate reliable trends of the UVB during the last three decades. We have calculated UV radiation from March to September since 1968 using ozone monthly means. In spring we found a strong increase in UV radiation especially in the short wavelengths. In March and April, for example, we found that the UV radiation at 300 nm wavelength has approximately doubled in the last 30 years. The trends later in the year and at longer wavelengths are much smaller.
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http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/globcat/NZ-RAD.htm
http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/globcat/cfc.html
[Edited 9 times, lastly by Sore Throat on 12-03-2003] |
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Edufer
Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Malagueno, Cordoba, Argentina |
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Wed Dec 03, 2003 7:42 am
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quote:
Note that this is 1996 data, not 1988.
http://www.epa.gov/air/aqtrnd95/stratoz.html
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/strat.html[/quote]
Look who's talking! The EPA! Perhaps the least science prone agency in the world. The EPA has a long history of unscientific rulings and bans (DDT is just one – remember William Ruckelshaus, EPA's administrator, saying back in April,1972, when announcing the DDT ban: “This has nothing to do with science. It is a political decision”?)
Perhaps things are going to change now:
Government peer review of scientific reports
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA -- John Graham, director) has proposed extensive new peer-review procedures for scientific reports from regulatory agencies. The Sept 15 Federal Register calls for a mandatory external peer review in order to alleviate potential conflicts of interest and reduce the number of lawsuits challenging regulations, which make use of the Data Quality Act of 2001.
The proposed standards would apply to research conducted by federally employed scientists or grantees. It is likely therefore to cover also federally funded research on climate change - a politically charged issue. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal might be sufficient to satisfy the proposed standards; but one could imagine challenges to such published papers since publication by itself is no guarantee of correctness. The public comment period ends Dec 15. The final standards are likely to be issued in spring 2004.
Peer review for journal publication is generally not sufficient for basing wide-reaching public policies. We have many examples of published work that could not be replicated and was later proven to be wrong. A recent example is the "hockeystick" paper that was shown to be in error after a detailed audit of the underlying data.
From the World health Organization pages (link provided by Sore Throat) at:
http://www.who.int/uv/faq/whatisuv/en/index1.html
quote:
The incidence of different types of skin cancer has been growing dramatically over the past decades. Some people claim that this is due to ozone depletion and enhanced levels of UV. However, most evidence now suggests that the major cause for the increased cancer rates is altered behaviour rather than ozone depletion. More outdoor activities and altered sunbathing habits often result in excessive UV exposure. Raised awareness and changes in life-style are urgently needed to alter ongoing trends.
After reading this, one would think that in the WHO there are responsible people and they do not misinform the public. There are responsible people in the WHO, of course, but when we read the next paragraph, we see that the editor of their webpage is one of the many exceptions.
quote:
Medium-wavelength UVB is very biologically active but cannot penetrate beyond the superficial skin layers. It is responsible for delayed tanning and burning; in addition to these short-term effects it enhances skin ageing and significantly promotes the development of skin cancer. Most solar UVB is filtered by the atmosphere.
At least he said correctly that “Most solar UVB is filtered by the atmosphere”. But, “delayed tanning is a short term effect? I thought (as all dermatologists) that the short term effect of UV-B was erythema, the reddening of the skin after a prolonged exposure to the Sun's rays.
We must differentiate between malignant skin cancer (melanoma) and benign skin cancers (basal cells and squamous cells cancers). Environmentalists throw all the cats in the same bag and call them “malignant”. Some facts about skin cancers:
Basal cell carcinomas are the most common but the least dangerous, as it rarely kills its victim. Melanoma accounts for only 4% of all total skin cancers, but 75% of all cancer deaths. The rate of cure of basal and squamous cancers is about 95%. Malignant melanoma is also the least frequent of all the skin cancers types associated with overexposure to sunlight. A study by the Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (July 21, 1989) summarizes scientific findings on this point.
“Despite the positive correlations relating the incidence of cutaneous malignant melanoma to ultraviolet radiation exposure, it is obvious that factors other than ultraviolet radiation are involved. Unlike non-melanoma skin cancer, which has a greater incidence in older individuals, cutaneous malignant melanoma is most common during the middle decades of life. Non melanoma skin cancer occurs most often in outdoors workers, whereas cutaneous malignant melanoma affects a greater relative percentage of urbanites who work indoors.
The incidence of cutaneous malignant melanoma does not correlate well with latitude gradients. (That is, sunshine) in Western Australia and Central Europe. Anatomic distribution of cutaneous malignant melanoma does not closely match body areas of greatest Sun exposure, as it does with non-melanoma skin cancers. Histologically, relatively little solar elastosis occurs in the vicinity of cutaneous malignant melanoma, whereas it is closely associated with basal cell carcinoma … No animal models has been developed that allows cutaneous malignant melanoma to be consistently induced by ultraviolet radiation alone. (page 382)
The report's bottom line is that medical science has not idea of what causes malignant melanoma.
Cedric and Frank Garland, from the University of California Cancer Epidemiology Department in an Diego, have proposed the theory that the widespread and growing use of sunscreens during the past 30 years is the cause of the rise in skin cancer (basal types) They say that is likely that the UV-A rays (320 to 400 nm) are causing he melanomas even though middle range UV-B (268 – 320 nm) has always been considred the “harmful” range of the UV spectrum. This is because malignant melanomas arises in the melanocyte cells of the skin's dermis layer – and less than 10% of UV-B reaches the dermis, while more than 50% of the UV-A does. Moreover, older sunscreens were designed to block ultraviolet B, yet they are transparent to the supposedly benign UV-A.
The body has two natural defense mechanisms: erythema, the reddening of the skin, which is the “alert” mechanism (It says: “Enough! Get out of the Sun, now!”), and “tanning”, the defense mechanism. When activated by UV-B, melanocytes climb to the surface o the dermis to block incoming radiation, preventing it to go deeper into the dermis. By selectively filtering the UV-B rays, sunscreens are foiling not only the body's alert mechanism but also the long-term protection provided by suntan and a thicker dermis.
The real danger and the possible cause for the rise in basal cell skin cancers (besides a better statistical paperwork – “screening”), are “tanning parlors”, the infamous “solar beds”, which allegedly irradiates customers with “benign” UV-A rays. Solar beds provides customers with 100,000 to 300,000 times the concentration of UV-A radiation that they would get if they stayed out in the Sun for the same amount of time. Since 1 million Americans (or more) use tanning parlors every year, this is a significant problem.
quote:
(By the WHO pages) – “The relatively long-wavelength UVA accounts for approximately 95 per cent of the UV radiation reaching the Earth's surface. It can penetrate into the deeper layers of the skin and is responsible for the immediate tanning effect. Furthermore, it also contributes to skin ageing and wrinkling. For a long time it was thought that UVA could not cause any lasting damage. Recent studies strongly suggest that it may also enhance the development of skin cancers.
What I have explained above. And I didn't take it from the WHO, that seems are getting the news quite late. I knew it back in 1991, when the Garlands proposed their theory.
quote:
Altitude: With increasing altitude less atmosphere is available to absorb UV radiation. With every 1000 m in altitude, UV levels increase by approximately 10 per cent.
I have spoken about this in my previous posts. They are acknowledging that ozone is not a potent UV absorber, as I have been insisting since 1986, but the “atmosphere” (oxygen 21%, nitrogen, 78%, other gases, 0,99999%, ozone= 0,000003%) is the real UV shield. In a future post (if somebody is interested) I'll try to explain why I consider ozone a poor UV absorber (besides my earlier explanation in a previous post about his 64 kcal/mol absorption from the photon's energy, while oxygen absorbs 118,111 kcal/mol). It has to do with the way scientists “interpret” what they believe is UV absorption by ozone.
By the Way, Sore Throat, do us a favor and try not to blow the edges of the screen with your gigantic images. In the “img src” tag, before the right bracket, put a limiting value of “width=550”. The “height” will be automatically set. If you have ACDSee in your harddisk you can see the with of the image you are going to post. If not, right/click on the image-s name and see "properties". If it is over 550 pixels wide, then crop it with that “width=550” HTML tag. We'll all thank you.
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Sore Throat
Joined: 01 Sep 2000
Posts: 1489
Location: x |
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Wed Dec 03, 2003 10:28 am
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Let us consider just how desperate SEÑOR Ferreyra has become. Ignoring decades of data collected by innumerable scientific institutions throughout the world, SEÑOR Ferreyra's “coup de grace”, is "Evidence of a 50-year increase in tropospheric ozone in Upper Bavaria".
TROPOSPHERIC OZONE ?!?!?!
And since when did that become relevant to the discussion? You didn't have to go to Bavaria to find that SEÑOR Ferreyra, try the millions of cars pumping out ozone in the Los Angeles basin...or any other major metropolitan area of the world.
Yet another classic example of obfuscation and disinformation.
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Stratospheric Ozone
Nature and Sources of the Problem:
The stratosphere, located about 6 to 30 miles above the Earth, contains a layer of ozone gas that protects living organisms from harmful ultraviolet radiation (UV-b) from the Sun. Over the past 2 decades, however, this protective shield has been damaged. Each year, an "ozone hole" forms over the Antarctic, and ozone levels fall to 70 percent below normal. Even over the U.S., ozone levels are about 5 percent below normal in the summer and 10 percent below normal in the winter. The figure below shows ozone levels over North America in dobson units (DU) in March 1979 and March 1994. One hundred DU of ozone would form a layer 1 millimeter thick at the Earth's surface. Each color band represents an area with a similar amount of ozone overhead. Comparing the colors of the bands over a particular city, such as Seattle, shows lower ozone levels in 1994 than in 1979. This figure is a snapshot in time that shows one example of reduced ozone levels. Long-term trends are based on numerous data sets taken over several years, as opposed to single observations.
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As far as the "scientific objectivity" of the Bush junta goes:
Bush Fries Climate Change
B y Derrick Z. Jackson
Boston Globe
20 June, 2003
UNDAUNTED BY accusations of cooking the books for war, President Bush deep-fried the data on global warming.
The New York Times reported yesterday that the White House took a draft report on the state of the environment by the Environmental Protection Agency and deleted critical portions on climate change. The White House knocked out references to studies that directly mentioned industrial pollution and vehicle exhaust as contributors to global warming.
The administration took out a phrase that said, ''Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment.'' It replaced it with gobbledygook. The White House wrote, ''The complexity of the Earth system and the interconnections among its components make it a scientific challenge to document change, diagnose its causes, and develop useful projections of how natural variability and human actions may affect the global environment in the future. Because of these complexities and the potentially profound consequences of climate change and variability, climate change has become a capstone scientific and societal issue for this generation and the next, and perhaps even beyond.''
Bush is trying to fry climate change until the issue is seemingly so tough to comprehend that Americans dismiss it. Two and a half years into his presidency, this recipe has worked magnificently. In the first few months of his presidency, Bush let EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman tell the world that the United States took seriously the carbon dioxide emissions that are such a major source of global warming. But when Bush himself spoke, it was either to back out of the Kyoto global agreement on climate change or reverse a pledge to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Bush said he needed to wait until he had ''sound science'' on the subject.
Over the months, evidence continued to mount in scientific journals that global warming could have dramatic and potentially catastrophic results for coastlines and cause a spread of disease. The evidence was so overwhelming that the 2001 report by the National Research Council that Bush himself commissioned said, ''Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities.'' The report later said, ''Global warming could well have serious adverse societal and ecological impacts by the end of this century.'' The report warned that temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise even under conservative scenarios. It also supported a full assessment of global warming lest anything less ''may well underestimate the magnitude of the eventual impacts.''
Since then Bush, with his campaign coffers lined with fossil fuel energy interests and his administration bursting with oil connections, has done his best to suppress the magnitude of the possible impacts. Late in 2001 the council added a report that said global warming may increase the chance of abrupt climate change, changes that could place poor countries at particular risk.
Then, a year ago, Whitman sent a report to the United Nations that reconfirmed that ''human activity'' is a real cause of the greenhouse effect. While the first victims of global warming are assumed to be poor people in low-lying countries, this report predicted a crazy quilt of long-term disruptions and destruction of ecosystems throughout the United States, from the drying up of ponds in the Midwest to the disappearance of forests in the South to the death of fish in the Pacific Northwest.
Bush crumpled all those reports and threw them into his political incinerator. He embarrassed Whitman even more definitively, saying: ''I read the report put out by the bureaucracy.'' This was obviously too much for Whitman to take. She recently announced her resignation and is leaving her post next week. So giddy over having gotten rid of the one person who showed at least minimal concern for the environment, the White House now appears to be depending much more upon so-called facts from organizations who have obvious reasons to dismiss global warming, such as the American Petroleum Institute.
With the neutering of the EPA report, it should make one wonder. This deletion of data on climate change should raise even more questions as to whether Bush cooked the books for war. Bush is in the control of oil interests in Washington. With the presence of our troops, President Bush for practical purposes now controls the oil of Iraq.
America's lust for oil hangs so ominously ar | | |
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