posted 02-23-2004 11:12 AM               

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday February 22, 2004
The Observer

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.

Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.

A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.

One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.

Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.

Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'

Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.

'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.

'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.

Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.

Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'

Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.

'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'

So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.

The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence.

Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'

Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.

Special report
Climate change

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Interactive
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Key resources
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Useful links
UN framework convention on climate change
Greenpeace
Friends of the earth

posted 02-23-2004 07:17 PM               

Your egotistical arrogance is astounding Halva.

Those who have been engaged with this issue for the past five years are well aware of my position.

Since when do you know one iota about my politics?

As I have said many times before, until there is definitive proof that ChemTrails are specifically, and solely, directed as a mitigation effort against global climate change, I will not jump on the geoengineering bandwagon. Absent definitive evidence, you’re welcome to believe what you wish.

Condemning others, who are perhaps more cautious in their approach, is the height of hubris.

Assuming your belief that geoengineering is underway, how do you account for what others have identified as various forms of biological materials in atmospheric fallout, with ensuing illness reports?

You state, “Greenpeace is possibly a little more intolerant of 'geoengineering'.”

A little more intolerant than who? Based on what action on their part?

Or is this just another one of your heartfelt “beliefs”?

You state, “Also I believe that Jim Phelps is a genuine whistle-blower, but unfortunately not intellectually together enough and not skilled enough at writing coherently and in good English for his whistle blowing to have an effect.”

Just what is it that you find so appealing about Jim Phelps' revelations on this subject that should drive everyone else to become a believer like you?

Let’s explore a recent example of a Jim Phelps disclosure:

“Put simply enough, chemtrails are all part of the predicted "end-time" predicted effects. And, one can even read in many places from Genesis to Revelations that there are volcanic comparisons being made there. One of the big problems from these old world religion effects is some of these that wrote these literary works of religions made some huge mistakes. One should not attempt to make a volcano a god, as this does not work well. This is what happened in the Old Testament. Then, much later came a person that challenged this belief. He was killed much like how Galileo was threatened with death when he declared the world was round and not flat.”

“All these End-Times effects are just real simple Earth sciences. Global warming causes the earth's crust to expand and this increases effects like tectonic plate rifting in areas like the African Rift zone, where AIDS is the worst. The cause of AIDS is connected to global warming, and the direct effect of rising fluoride levels upsetting trace metals in the human food chain due to this effect. So, even the bit about rising world plagues was directly predictable from old world volcanic looks at health and environment. The AIDS crisis is just as manipulated as the factors on fossil fuels. AIDS exists as a way to promote less population growth and kill off some areas, while enhancing profits toward drug companies. And the list of manipulation of the human conscience goes on...…” Jim Phelps 12-20-2003

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002006.html[/URL]

or how about this "revelation":

"Chemtrails follows as a sort of culmination for a half dozen other national security cover ups. Some of these were things like human experiments in the 30-40's on little S. Am. jungle natives with varied chemical poisons leading up to some being used in atmospheric atomic testing. Then the Govt. nicknaming all these experiments involving "aliens." It is all designed to cover up war crimes." ...Jim Phelps 12/21/03

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002006.html

You then state, “There are not going to be any whistle blowers.”

I guess in your position there is no need to be consistent.

Given your assumed clairvoyance Halva, I’m surprised you haven’t already made a killing in the options market.

But then, maybe such insight is limited to areas you think you know something about.

At least it keeps bread on the table.

My observation is, that despite whatever good intentions you might have, your actions do not impress me as being at all helpful.

My opinion.

posted 02-23-2004 11:23 PM               

And as for my not knowing anything about your politics: one’s politics appear in one’s actions. We have interacted on and off for a year or more now, and that is more than enough time for the respective politics to show up.

Chemtrails being part of a mitigation effort against global climatic change in no way excludes other black programmes being ‘piggy-backed’ on to said mitigation programme, particularly in the prevailing conditions of secrecy and (as it seems from Deep Shield) paranoia of the people practically engaged in the mitigation work. If Deep Shield’s explanation of the presence of the biological materials is unconvincing (and it doesn’t convince me) there must be other purposes involved, as you say, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Deep Shield is a fake..

I have found that by taking the Deep Shield revelations as at least partially valid it has been possible to hold a joint seminar with Greenpeace on climatic change in which the chemtrail issue was mentioned publicly, without Greenpeace publicly or privately disputing the reality of chemtrails revelations.

The point that I am making about your politics is that if a qualified and informed person such as yourself had pursued (or started to pursue now) a similar strategy, this might be to the benefit of the whole project of forcing the reality of chemtrails into the public arena.

So this is a direct answer to your question on what action on the part of Greenpeace makes it possible to characterize them as possibly a little more intolerant of geoengineering than e.g. the Tyndall Centre, which seemingly promotes geoengineering solutions and is not visibly interested in dialoguing with people wanting to talk about chemtrails. Greenpeace are opposed to the ‘carbon sinks’ policies being pushed by proponents of geoengineering. That was the subject we (ATTAC-Hellas) asked them to talk about at our Climate Change seminar, to show up the differences between Greenpeace and the geoengineers and gain credibility for ourselves by having Greenpeace on the same platform hearing chemtrails exposures and not attempting to refute them.

This to me seems a better policy than expecting that a ‘whistle blower’ is going to turn up and some point and magically transform the situation. A whistle blower more helpful than Jim Phelps, whose message is not focused enough and is too much mixed up with quasi-religious opinions to play the role you apparently expect a whistle blower to play.

It is not a question of a heartfelt belief. It is something that we have tried and has worked.

All that I am saying to you is that you should focus on the differences between the Greenpeace line on climatic change and the new emerging Tyndall/Guardian/Observer geoengineering line, and try to ally yourself with the former against the latter. That is what we have done here in Greece and it seems to be a fruitful line of approach. If you don’t do that and persist in your present stance, the point that I am making is that there is then ultimately no practical difference between your politics and the politics of Greenpeace. All your energy is taken up exposing the lies of those who deny Anthropogenic Induced Climate Instability, leaving the chemtrails issue to be dealt with by a putative future magical ‘whistle blower’.

posted 02-23-2004 11:37 PM               

US 'does accept climate threat'

By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

Most US policymakers do accept that climate change is a significant threat, a leading British scientist believes.
Professor John Schellnhuber, of the University of East Anglia, said he thought about 80% of senior politicians recognised the danger "in principle".

He said he thought this consensus would eventually lead to a change in policy by President Bush's administration.

Professor Schellnhuber was among a UK scientific delegation which held talks on climate recently in Washington DC.

He is research director of the UEA's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and was speaking to BBC News Online.

Professor Schellnhuber said: "We spoke to the Congressional scientific committee, and my feeling is that in principle 80% of the people in Washington who are really informed feel dramatic climate change is a major threat.

"The administration is a prisoner of its own determination not to do anything that would affect the lifestyle of US citizens.

"Perhaps, in a parallel with its stance on Iraq, it has chosen a certain position and will now not alter it for fear of losing face.

"I don't think the US public and policymakers will be happy to go on with a business-as-usual approach for the next five years.

"I'm a scientist, not a politician. But I think the political elite understands pretty well what is going on, and the administration will eventually change."

Tipping point

Professor Schellnhuber, formerly the German government's chief environmental adviser, welcomed a report prepared by the Pentagon which warns of the potentially disastrous consequences of climate change to Europe within decades.

He said: "It's old stuff, about the possible collapse of the thermohaline circulation which keeps the Gulf Stream flowing to north-west Europe.

"If that stopped, average temperatures in countries like the UK could drop by about five degrees.

"It's a possible 'tipping point', a critical stage in global warming. But it's only one such point.

"I try to tell politicians about a range of them - that the Indian monsoon could change, or the Sahara become green again, or the Amazon forests disappear.

"I think the Pentagon didn't grasp the full complexity of what could happen and focused just on this, because the US is much more worried about possible cooling than about warming.

"We've been telling politicians for 20 years that climate change could be a far worse threat than terrorism.

"Unfortunately, our scientific assessments indicate that the window of opportunity for intervention to protect the climate is closing rapidly.

"In fact, we may have missed certain opportunities already, but there are still lots of things we can do like a powerful investment in renewable energy sources.

"So even strange bedfellows like the Pentagon are welcome. This may launch a debate in Washington that could have an impact on the administration."

posted 02-23-2004 11:42 PM               

A combination photograph shows a historic image taken in 1928 (top) of the Upsala Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina, contrasted with a 2004 photograph (bottom) with a similiar view of the Glacier. The pictures illustrate the extent to which climate change has caused the ice to melt away this century. Greenpeace campaigner Joris Thijssen, said: 'Rising temperatures are causing glaciers to melt all over the world. Here in Patagonia, they are disappearing at a rate of 42 cubic kilometers every year - faster than anywhere else on Earth. In both (1928 AND 2004) the composition is made from three separate viewpoints to form a panoramic image.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040210/ids_photos_wl/r3954287723.jpg

Right in the backyard of SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra.

Not surprising that he escaped from this discussion...the one he joined to defend his "honor".

What's the old saying,

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

posted 02-24-2004 09:11 PM               

Anyone see similarities with the pre-war intelligence reports from Iraq?

And we know how that one turned out.

Stand Back ! ! Bush Junta At Work ! !

*******************************************
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040224/sc_afp/us_en vironment_climate_040224205913

Pentagon downplays report on climate change that it commissioned

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Defense Department downplayed a report on climate change that it had commissioned, saying it was speculative and shrugging off its call to make the issue a top political priority.

"The Schwartz and Randall study reflects the limits of scientific models and information when it comes to predicting the effects of abrupt global warming," said Andrew Marshall, an influential Pentagon (news - web sites) adviser who ordered the study carried out.

"Although there is significant scientific evidence on this issue, much of what this study predicts is still speculation," he argued.

According to Britain's The Observer, US military officials censored an alarming report because the issue of global warming could wind up thrust into the US presidential campaign ahead of the November vote.

Environmental activists charge Bush with downplaying the importance of global warming noting his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Pentagon report predicts that "abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies," The Observer reported.

The report, quoted in the paper, concluded: "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human life."

Its authors -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA (news - web sites) consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of Global Business Network based in California -- said climate change should be considered "immediately" as a top political and military issue.

It "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern", they were quoted as saying.

********************************************

Here's a question for all you deep thinkers out there:

posted 02-26-2004 10:37 AM               

The Pentagon Sounds The Alarm On Global Warming; Why Isn’t President Bush Listening?

Arianna Huffington

If he’s smart enough to use it, the Democratic nominee may have just been handed the perfect cudgel with which to pummel President Bush — and cripple Karl Rove’s attempts to position his man as America’s go-to guy on national security.

The weapon in question is a new report on the grave and gathering threat posed by global climate change — and the potentially cataclysmic consequences of the Bush administration’s obstinately ignorant approach to global warming.

And the thing that makes the report so frightening — and the prospective bludgeon so crushing — is that it wasn’t authored by some crunchy granola think tank or a band of tree-hugging EarthFirsters, but by the U.S. Department of Defense.

That’s right, the Pentagon — Rummy’s playpen. In fact, the report, which was slipped to the press earlier this month after being kept under wraps by the White House for four months, was commissioned by Andrew Marshall, a legendary DOD figure, nicknamed “Yoda” for his sagacity. As head of the Pentagon’s secretive Office of Net Assessment, Marshall has offered national security assessments to every president since Richard Nixon.

And this latest assessment pegs climate change as a far greater danger than even the scourge of international terrorism.

Dryly entitled “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security,” the report reads like the plot summary of the upcoming Dennis Quaid doomsday flick, “The Day After Tomorrow,” in which global warming pushes the planet to the edge of anarchy and annihilation.

But this scenario is not science fiction. According to the Pentagon study, the question is not if abrupt climate change will happen, but when. It could be, according to the report’s authors, as soon as the next three years, with the most devastating fallout potentially occurring between 2010 and 2020.

At that point, we could find ourselves in the midst of a new ice age in which mega-droughts devastate the world’s food supply, drinkable water becomes a luxury worth going nuclear over, 400 million people are forced to migrate from uninhabitable areas, and riots and wars for survival become commonplace.

I believe that would qualify as a Red Alert in Tom Ridge’s color-coded book.

But the Bush White House remains unwilling to address — or even acknowledge — this looming peril. Instead, the oiligarchs in the administration continue to fiddle while the atmosphere starts to burn, routinely ignoring scientific evidence and international consensus, and casting a questioning eye on the very idea, let alone the fact, of global warming. It’s a stance that has warmed the hearts — globally, no doubt — of the Bush Pioneers and Rangers in the oil and energy industry, making them feel very generous indeed.

As last week’s release of a scathing letter signed by 60 prominent scientists — including 20 Nobel laureates and former science advisers to both Republican and Democratic administrations — makes clear, the Bush administration has made an art out of ignoring science. Particularly when it comes to the issue of global warming.

Who can forget the president’s famous CO2 flip-flop, or the way the White House tried to force so many changes to a section of an EPA report dealing with climate change that Christie Todd Whitman finally threw up her hands and decided to eliminate the section on global warming altogether?

But blinding the voters with pseudo-science may no longer be an option now that the Pentagon report threatens to put the issue front and center — and reframe it as a key component of our national security debate.

This is particularly good news for John Kerry, should he prevail, given his long history of leading the charge in the Senate to cut down on greenhouse gases by raising fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. The president, of course, has done just the opposite, giving Kyoto the kiss-off, and pushing through unconscionable loopholes that reward gas-guzzling monster SUVs and allow carmakers to effectively reduce fuel economy for millions of the vehicles they sell.

One of the defining traits of leadership is the ability to see not just the crisis right in front of you, but the one lurking around the next corner. Bush’s steadfast refusal to act upon the potential desolation that awaits us if we do nothing to confront global warming makes him a major national security liability.

Everyone in the Bush administration acted shocked and surprised when 9/11 happened — even though there had been red flags aplenty warning of al-Qaida’s evil intentions. Well, let there be no surprise this time. We have all been warned.

While the Pentagon is sounding the alarm on an environmental Armageddon, the president is covering his eyes, crossing his fingers, and whistling about the “national importance” of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

The Democratic nominee needs to remind the White House — and the American people: It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

posted 02-27-2004 10:44 AM               

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-02/huoj-dap022504.php

Documenting a paradox: Smoke decreases rainfall but ultimately increases its intensity

Air pollution and smoke suppress rainfall, but cause the remaining rain amounts to fall in greater intensities, with lightning and hail, says a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The researcher, Prof. Daniel Rosenfeld, was one of a group of scientists that included also participants from Germany, Sweden and Brazil who conducted measurements of smoke from forest fires and its impact on the development of clouds and precipitation in the Amazon tropical rainforests of Brazil. The results of their research appear in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Science.

They showed that smoke from these fires delays the release of water from clouds in the form of rain,thus preventing depletion of the water in the clouds as they grow. As these water-laden clouds reach great heights, they produce thunderstorms and hail instead of relatively moderate rain.

The research group, funded by the European Union and headed by Prof. Meinrat O. Andreae from the Max Planck Institute of Atmospheric Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, measured the capability of the smoke particles to produce cloud droplets. Prof. Rosenfeld, of the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University, penetrated the smoky clouds with a research aircraft and measured the way the smoke affected their composition and precipitation-forming processes.

The measurements show that the small and numerous smoke particles provide "nucleation sites" for cloud droplets, the result being that the given amount of cloud water is distributed into a large number of very small drops. These drops are so small that they float with the air and do not coalesce into raindrops, in contrast to the raindrop- forming process that takes place in clouds with larger drops that form in clean air.

This effect of smoke on precipitation suppression has been documented in previous research by Prof. Rosenfeld. The new findings show that when the smoky and water- laden clouds develop to great heights, in excess of 10 kilometers, these large amounts of water are also lofted and converted into ice chunks, which fall as large hailstones on the tropical rainforest. The process of hail forming is also associated with strong cloud electrification, which causes intense thunderstorms. Most of the hailstones melt during their fall, so that they arrive on the surface as spurts of intense rain.

Such impacts of air pollution are not limited to the tropical rainforests. Air pollution in general appears to change substantially the character of precipitation. This man-made climate change is already manifested by changes in the distribution of rainfall and the intensity of storms, not only over the Amazon but also over the rest of the world, says Prof. Rosenfeld, who is continuing his work as a leading researcher in this field.

posted 02-27-2004 06:11 PM               

and this is but the beginning.

How many of those people on Cape Cod support the Bush junta?

How many are smart enough to connect the dots?

Just how powerful do you think the insurance lobby is with the best politicians money can buy?

What do you think their position is in regard to climate change?

*********************************************
http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2004/02/27/cape_residents_face_harsh_reality/

Cape residents face harsh reality

Insurance costs rising as firms restrict coverage

By Sasha Talcott and Bruce Mohl, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff, 2/27/2004

A growing number of property insurance companies are restricting coverage or pulling out of Cape Cod and the Islands, leaving policyholders in the lurch.

The state's largest home insurer, the Andover Companies, plans to stop renewing policies for about 14,000 Cape homes in May. It is one of several property insurers that have scaled back coverage in the past few months, including Worcester Insurance Co., Hingham Mutual Fire Insurance Co., and One Beacon Insurance.

The retrenchments extend far beyond the Cape. With storms and other natural disasters costing the industry billions of dollars each year, insurers have increasingly looked to pinpoint the most dangerous areas of the Eastern Seaboard and limit their exposure.

"Cape Cod, as a peninsula that sticks well out into the ocean, is prone to these sorts of disasters," said Robert Hartwig, an economist at the Insurance Information Institute, an industry trade association. "They may be infrequent, but when they happen, they're devastating."

Even insurers that continue to write policies on the Cape have raised premiums and placed homeowners on the hook for more wind-related expenses. The Massachusetts Property Insurance Underwriting Association, the state's insurer of last resort for property owners, plans to boost its policy's wind deductible in March as high as 5 percent of the home's value.

That change means the owner of a $600,000 home on Martha's Vineyard would have to deduct $30,000 if winds damaged the home during a storm. Now, the same owner would deduct just $5,000.

After Hurricane Andrew tore through Southern Florida in 1992, causing $19.9 billion in insurance losses, insurers turned to storm modeling to help predict where and when disaster is likely to strike. Many of these models now show that the coasts are far more dangerous than previously assumed -- and that insurers with heavy investments in places like the Cape would face unacceptable losses if disaster strikes.

"Coastal areas from Texas to Maine have come under increasing scrutiny by insurance companies because of enormous losses," Hartwig said.

That high risk means that the price of "reinsurance," the insurance that covers insurers, has skyrocketed, said Francis A. Mancini, executive vice president of the Massachusetts Association of Insurance Agents.

"Every company that writes on the Cape is cutting back," he said.

In notifying its Cape Cod agents that it will stop writing and renewing policies, the Andover Companies blamed the high cost of reinsurance. "The extreme cost and catastrophe coverage requirements leave us no alternative but to reduce our writing in this county," the company's vice president, Donald F. Vose, wrote in a letter dated Feb. 20.

Andover's displaced homeowners will likely not be left without coverage. If all other property insurers turn them down, they can get comparable coverage from the Massachusetts Property Insurance Underwriting Association. Its FAIR plan offers homeowners moderate rates and many of the same features as private insurers, said association president Jack Golembeski. The plan is a private entity, but the state oversees it.

Some Cape insurance agents, however, inundated by waves of unhappy clients in the past few months as property insurers pull back, say homeowners rarely get a good deal from the state's default plan. Alan Long, an agent with Eldredge & Lumpkin in Chatham, said many of the clients he has referred to the plan have seen their rates increase between 10 and 15 percent. One Chatham homeowner, recently dropped by Hingham Mutual, saw his annual premium increase to $3,204 from $1,711 when he joined the state's default insurance plan, Long said.

"These are not exaggerated examples," he said. "This stuff is happening all the time."

Cape office buildings also are being hit by the escalating cost of property insurance. One Hyannis developer, Stuart Bornstein, said he has seen the insurance for his portfolio of about 70 buildings increase to more than $400,000 a year from $46,000. In response, he said, he has swallowed some losses and raised the rents for his commercial tenants. Bornstein said his insurer is the St. Paul Companies.

"It has really slammed us," he said. "The tenants are screaming bloody murder. It's a real burden."

The Massachusetts Division of Insurance regulates much of the state's industry but exerts little control over homeowner's insurance. State officials have met with Cape Cod agents and insurers to debate solutions, but the companies have free rein on whether to write policies in a given area, said Chris Goetcheus, a spokesman for the Division of Insurance.

"Nothing in the law prevents them from making a business decision not to write in a certain area," he said.

The insurance problem for coastal property is likely to get worse, industry observers said, as the number of homes built by the ocean grows. While coastal dwellers previously paid lower rates, companies are now asking residents to assume financial responsibility for their beachfront views, said Hartwig, the economist.

"There's now a recognition that if you want to live in areas that are prone to natural disaster, you're going to have to bear the burden of the higher risk."

posted 02-27-2004 11:37 PM               

At the end of her article Arianna has got a link to her forum. Get onto her forum and say a few words about her remark that it's not nice to fool with mother Nature, and how the Democrats have to tell Bush about that.

I've started a thread there entitled: "It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature".
http://www.ariannaonline.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=56903#56903

posted 02-28-2004 11:40 AM               

By Steve Newman - San Francisco Chronicle

The melting of permafrost in Sweden's sub-Arctic region because of global warming is believed to be releasing vast quantities of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere. A research team, led by the GeoBiosphere Science Senter at Lund University, said its research shows that the part of the soil that thaws during summer has become deeper since 1970, and the permafrost has disappeared entirely in some locations. "This has lead to significant changes in the vegetation and to a subsequent increase in the emission of the greenhouse gas methane," the team announced. It added that methane is 25 times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide and often is overlooked in the discussion of greenhouse gases.

********************************************
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl0410.html

Thawing subarctic permafrost increases
greenhouse gas emissions

WASHINGTON - The permafrost in the bogs of subarctic Sweden is undergoing dramatic changes. The part of the soil that thaws in the summer, the so-called active layer, has become thicker since 1970, and the permafrost has disappeared altogether in some locations. This has lead to significant changes in the vegetation and to a subsequent increase in emission of the greenhouse gas methane. Methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Behind these new findings is an international research team led by the GeoBiosphere Science Centre at Lund University in Sweden. The results were published 20 February in Geophysical Research Letters. The researchers say their results are unique, as there are very few places in the circumpolar North where comparison of observations over a period of decades is possible. The Abisko region in subarctic Sweden, which they studied, has long-term records of climate, permafrost and other environmental variables, they say. The Abisko area is recognized by UNESCO as part of the international network of Man and the Biosphere Reserves.

In the present study, airborne infrared images were used to compare the distribution of vegetation in 1970 with that of 2000. Dramatic changes were observed, and the scientists relate them to the climate warming and decreasing extent of permafrost that was observed over the same period.

The exchanges of carbon dioxide and methane between land and atmosphere has been studied for a long time in Abisko. Carbon dioxide can either be released from the bogs, or mires, to the atmosphere or absorbed from the atmosphere into the mires. But these mires predominantly release methane into the atmosphere, the researchers say.

Methane is released from the breakdown of plant material under wet soil conditions. The disappearance of permafrost and subsequent wetter soil conditions have lead to the observed increases in methane emissions. "At a particular mire, Stordalen, we have been able to estimate an increase in methane emissions of at least 20 percent, but maybe as much as 60 percent, from 1970 to 2000," says the lead researcher, Torben R. Christensen of Lund University's GeoBiosphere Science Centre.

Despite methane being an important greenhouse gas, it is often forgotten in discussions of the greenhouse effect, the scientists say. Methane is released from rice agriculture and meat production, but the largest single source of methane is the natural wetlands. If what is seen in subarctic Sweden is representative of the circumpolar North, this could mean an acceleration in the rate of predicted climate warming, they say.

The annual mean temperature in Abisko is -0.7 degrees Celsius [30 degrees Fahrenheit], but during recent years it has often been above zero Celsius [32 degrees Fahrenheit]. "One might imagine the cold subarctic ecosystems as very static, but in areas where the mean annual temperature is around zero [Celsius; 32 degrees Fahrenheit], the ecosystems may be extremely sensitive. The ecosystems are dynamic and their response to climate change is very rapid. This we have seen clearly here in Abisko," says Christensen.

posted 02-28-2004 11:53 AM               

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/article2120.html

Study finds evidence for global methane release about 600 million years ago

New findings may have implications for the stability of today's climate

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside and Columbia University have found evidence of the release of an enormous quantity of methane gas as ice sheets melted at the end of a global ice age about 600 million years ago, possibly altering the ocean's chemistry, influencing oxygen levels in the ocean and atmosphere, and enhancing climate warming because methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. The study was published in today's issue of the journal Nature.

The global ice age is of particular interest to paleobiologists because it took place shortly before the first appearance of animals in the fossil record, and may have supplied an environmental drive to evolution. The Earth's most severe climate is thought to have occurred about 600 million years ago with ice sheets stretching to the tropics. Some scientists have referred to times of such extreme cold as a "snowball Earth" condition, assuming that the ocean would have been totally ice covered.

The new evidence is based on a chemical fingerprint of the methane gas from rocks in south China, which is strongly enriched in lighter carbon isotope, carbon-12, and which the researchers measured in ancient ocean carbonate sediments that were deposited as the temperature rose. The methane gas was apparently derived from the melting of frozen methane clathrate crystals that had accumulated beneath the seafloor.

"The extremely negative isotopic values from these sediments provide unambiguous evidence for methane-derived carbon," said Ganqing Jiang, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside, and the article's lead author. "The identification of a methane-derived isotope signal and widespread seep-like deposits indicate the massive passage of methane through the sediments," he added. "We now have an important record of the role methane plays in climate change and the global carbon cycle."

Methane clathrates are increasingly thought to play a role in mass extinctions associated with significant climate change in the Earth's history, and they are a large and exceedingly unstable source of greenhouse gas, greater than the equivalent of instantaneously burning all the oil reserves on Earth.

"Linking these dramatic climate events to changes in the methane clathrate pool has important implications for the stability of our current climate," said Martin Kennedy, an associate professor of geology at UC Riverside. "The Earth has a large unstable pool of these clathrates in ocean sediments today, and it is thought that a few degrees of ocean warming could trigger large-scale release into the atmosphere. We now have strong evidence of this doomsday scenario in one of the most important intervals of Earth's biologic history".

The recognition of extreme isotope variability in the rocks examined in south China is expected to stimulate new research.

"This is a very exciting result because the existence of methane seeps and their possible significance in explaining the unusual carbon isotopic signature of the carbonate deposits had been discounted by many on the basis of the lack of expected isotopic heterogeneity," said Nicholas Christie-Blick, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. "If the methane hydrate hypothesis is borne out by new studies that are sure to be stimulated by this research, it represents one more reason for questioning why the snowball Earth edifice is needed."

posted 02-28-2004 12:04 PM               

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Today's question: What do you get when more than 60 of the world's top scientists, 20 Nobel Laureates among them, get together and write one of the most scathing, damning reports in the history of modern science, aimed squarely at BushCo's thoroughly atrocious record of cover-ups and obfuscations and outright lies regarding the health of the planet?

What do you get when those very scientists, a highly respected, nonpartisan group called the Union of Concerned Scientists, go on to claim that no other president in modern history has so openly misled the public or been so flagrantly disrespectful of scientific fact and mountains of irrefutable research, deliberately and systematically mutilating scientific data in the service of its rather brutal, pro-corporate, antienvironment agenda?

If you answered, "Why, you get even more painful polyps of sadness and disgust on your soul due to the BushCo onslaught," consider yourself among the millions who are right now rather horrified and appalled and who are wondering just what sort of human -- not what sort of politician, mind you, not what sort of power broker, not what sort of failed Texas oilman corporate lackey -- but what sort of human being you have to be to enact such insidious ongoing planet-gouging legislation, smirking and shrugging all the way.

It is not an easy one to answer, as you can only wonder what has gone so horribly wrong, what sort of line has been crossed so that not even the basic dignity of the planet, not even a modicum of respect for it, is the slightest factor anymore in modern American right-wing politics. What, too extreme? Hardly.

The story about the scientist's report is >here. It was broadcast over many major media channels, somewhat loud and mostly clear, though most media was far more eager to bury it under all those more hotly controversial pics of happy gay people smooching on the steps of S.F.'s city hall than they were to trumpet the dire claims of a bunch of boring genius scientists.

Such is the national priority. After all, no one wants to hear how badly we've been duped by this administration, again. Given the nonexistent WMDs and the complete lack of Iraqi nukes and the bogus wars and manufactured fear and a galling budget deficit and nearly 3 million lost jobs and a raft of BushCo lies so thick you need a jackhammer to see some light, no one wants to know that even the world's top scientists are disgusted with our nation's leadership.

We can, after all, take only so much abuse, can be only so karmically and ideologically hammered, before we become so utterly exhausted that we just stop caring.

And, in fact, BushCo would love nothing more than to cripple our outrage and deflect attention away from all the dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq and his overall atrocious record on the war, jobs, the environment and foreign policy, and center it all on divisive issues of God-centric moral righteousness, like all those sicko gay people trying to dignify their sinful love.

This is a president, after all, who truly believes he is doing God's will by turning this country into the most lawless, internationally loathed aggressor on the planet, something I'm sure is very reassuring to those countless thousands of dead Iraqi civilians.

Does it really matter anymore? After all, as any child can tell you, politics has always been a wildly corrupt and slimy profession, valued somewhere between professional wrestler and professional baby-seal clubber on the moral and spiritual scale o' delicious karmic significance.

And, yes, it must be noted that there isn't a U.S. president on record who hasn't somehow deliberately mangled scientific data and covered up important reports during his term in order to further favored policies. Goes almost without saying.

But, as the Union of Concerned Scientists point out, never has the oppression of fact been so systematic, so widespread, so repulsive as that which Bush has wrought. Never has the abuse been so flagrant, the border marking what's morally acceptable so shamelessly crossed.

Maybe you don't believe the hippie environmentalists who are always spouting off about saving the whales and protecting the forests. Maybe you like to hiss at and dismiss, say, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s outstanding, powerfully researched articles in the recent issue of Rolling Stone and the latest issue of The Nation that carefully delineate just how Bush's enviro record is the worst in history, and call Kennedy just another typical left-wing liberal. You wish to be that small and boorish? Fine.

Not so easy, however, to dismiss a small army of nonpartisan, internationally respected scientists as just more agenda-thick political BS, as BushCo has done. To do so reeks of something far beyond mere name calling and dumb party maneuvering. It reeks of sheer heartlessness regarding the planet. It reeks of abuse. It reeks of hate.

This, then, is the gist of the BushCo attack on the planet: a hate crime. An intentional, ferocious dismantling of protections and guidelines, a view that Mother Nature is nothing but a cheap resource to be exploited, a giant oil can to be suckled, a hunk of toilet paper for Dick Cheney to -- well, let's not imagine.

Look at it this way. It's like music videos. Over and over again, endless droning shots of gyrating sweating booty-pumping faux-sexy bodies pretending to writhe in bogus orgasmic bliss, video after video and hour after hour where you watch and watch and go slowly numb and say, Jesus with a skimpy thong and a spray bottle of baby oil, how much further can they go?

How much more naked and sexist and overblown and abusive can they get before they say oh screw it and just strip down and have sex with a live chicken as 50 Cent downs a bottle of Crystal and grins maniacally?

This is like the saturation level of BushCo. Something's gotta give, you say. Surely some sort of ugly orgiastic critical mass has been reached wherein Bush and his planet-reaming policies simply cannot go any further without some sort of meltdown, some sort of massive international cosmic recoil whereby we finally see the Bush admin for what it is, quite possibly the most self-serving, egomaniacal cluster of enviro thugs in modern history.

But with the Union of Concerned Scientists report, this sentiment goes one step further -- this is not just hate for the planet, not merely a blatant right-wing revulsion for those much-loathed intangible New Age-y touchstones like earthly vibration, energy, true spiritual connection and a deep veneration and sense of profound awe for the raw divinity of nature.

This is more sinister, and more disturbing. BushCo's ugly rejection of not merely the "liberal" environmental politicking but also of the factual science of the natural world is, ultimately, a form of self-loathing.

It is a snide and self-destructive rejection of the human-nature connection, of the very real and very direct correlation between how we treat our world and how we view ourselves, between what we choose to celebrate/annihilate in nature and what we venerate/devastate in own spirits. After all, the less regard you have for one, the less you care about the other. Simple, really.

Look. We reflect the planet. The planet reflects us. And 60 out of 60 scientists agree: BushCo's time of reflecting nothing but cruel blackness and abuse needs to come to an end, right now.

posted 02-28-2004 08:23 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by halva:
http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=40

At the end of her article Arianna has got a link to her forum. Get onto her forum and say a few words about her remark that it's not nice to fool with mother Nature, and how the Democrats have to tell Bush about that.

I've started a thread there entitled: "It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature".
http://www.ariannaonline.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=56903#56903

[Edited 2 times, lastly by halva on 02-28-2004]

---

posted 02-29-2004 08:49 AM               

Not only that, but they're preventing me from replying to his reply.

posted 02-29-2004 10:48 AM            

You've got to be kidding me. Are you sure. As I honestly explained I don't have a working EM account that is not shared that I can use, but as I explained I am trying to correct that (and yes the scanner too.)

If you are certain you should repost that info on a new thread and let's see if we can't get some assistance from those here who say that really care about his issue. Again I will see what I can do about EM. If they are truly preventing you from posting there that is total BS and maybe illegal I don't know depending on who it is that is "manipulating" the situation. I wonder if perhaps it is occuring from "outside" and maybe she doesn't even know it is happening. I wonder if someone can be reached by phone???

posted 02-29-2004 04:47 PM               

Be sure to check out all the links in the "Evidence" section!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/climate_change/default .stm

Example:

Carry on as usual
Implement Kyoto (developed countries reduce emissions)
Stabilise emissions at 2000 levels globally
Reduce emissions globally 25%
Reduce emissions globally 75%

posted 02-29-2004 05:31 PM               

But don't feel too happy. Someone just tipped me on the latest absurdities posted by Sore Throat, and I just dropped by to see. Nice show of a one-man-website! Sore has kept copy & pasting, and pasting, and pasting to his heart content – and for halva's and Show-Me-Truth's content. Counting page views, and substracting posts, it make quite few readers. Keep going Sore, good job.

But Sore made this statement, quite recently:

quote:

---

“…until there is definitive proof that ChemTrails are specifically, and solely, directed as a mitigation effort against global climate change, I will not jump on the geoengineering bandwagon. Absent definitive evidence, you're welcome to believe what you wish.

---

Then he goes on swallowing one of Greenpeace's bait and hook – along with the line, rod and boat:

quote:

---

A combination photograph shows a historic image taken in 1928 (top) of the Upsala Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina, contrasted with a 2004 photograph (bottom) with a similiar view of the Glacier.
Right in the backyard of SEÑOR Eduardo Ferreyra.
Not surprising that he escaped from this discussion...the one he joined to defend his "honor".
What's the old saying, If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
How appropriate.

---

Greenpeace has never studied the Upsala glacier (yes, in my own backyard), because they it has not scientists of any sort in the organization. The ones who pretend to pass as scientists are simple whacos. Had Greenpeace advisors (and Throatie) taken the precaution of informing themselves prior to boasting moronic theories and blowing whistles for no reason, they should have refrained from engaging in such behaviour. But, what do they care? They keep telling and spreading lies, because they know “something always stays”, as their mastermind Joseph Goebbels taught them in the 30s.

Everything started some months ago with a newsbrief here:
http://www.cecs.cl/esp/news/esp_news20_10_03.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.cecs.cl/esp/news/esp_news20_10_03.html">http://www.cecs.cl/esp/ news/esp_news20_10_03.html

In the same Good Old Green Litany Little Chicken style of “The Sky is falling!”. However, in the same article from the Chilean CECS (Center for Scientific Studies), they made the disclaimer that: (translated into English) “According to the team of Chilean and US scientists, the main cause for the glacier retreat would be climate change, although the speed of this process cannot be explained by the atmospheric warming alone, nor the decrease in precipitations.”

Please note the use of the potential tense, always present "would".

What, then, explains the Upsala glacier retreat? As in the same region, the Chilean Pio XI, and the Argentinean Trinidad, and Perito Moreno (barely 50 km away from the Upsala) have been growing steadily and FAST, this could be a real mystery, if glaciologists wouldn't give us a scientific answer. You wouldn't find these glaciers in the World Glacier Monitorin Service, for unknown reasons, so don't lose your money looking there. So here is the answer for the Upsala retreat. And warming has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
http://glacier.lowtem.hokudai.ac.jp/project/patagonia/patagonia.htm

When you get the website, don't worry for the garbled characters in the screen. Please scroll down the page until you reach the following section:

In these studies, no mention is made about warming, or climate change, or anything pertaining to the Green Litany. Glaciologists make mention to glaciar's dynamics, not temperature.

Your kitchen is getting hotter, Throatie…

Then poor Throatie posted the Pentagon Report blooper as definitive EVIDENCE of global warming, and government manipulation to hide the secret report!

First of all, it was not a Pentagon Report, but a report prepared for an aging (82-year-old, advisor in the Dept. of Defense - and still allowed to play with his telephones and Xerox machines, photocopying secretary's derrieres in Xmas). The “report” is the work of the feverish fantasy by P. Schwartz (the guy who wrote the script for the movie “War Games” - remember?, that clumsily tried to make us believe that a kid could pass through the firewall in the US missile launching center and, worse, that such AI (Artificial Intelligence) kind of scheme could be made with technology of the 80s! A side note: Schartz was for years chief futurist adviser for Royal Dutch/SHELL, a nice oil company.

Also was there Doug Randall, from the Monitor Group's Global Business Network, a think tank organization specialized in advising companies about crazy things that could happen in the future. Really, they earn their money reading chicken guts, sediment in coffee cup bottoms, or reading Tarot cards.

It is a long, although amusing story. Start with the Fortune article: that proves that the “Pentagon officials” didn't keep the report secret - they didn't even know about it!. The report was kept by Andrew Marshall until the time was ripe for passing it to The Observer and The Guardian, in England, and to Greenpeace, for they to start this baloney. My guess is that Marshall planned it all, carefully, and also the outcome: the report has been so ridiculed that it is going to be very hard for the people to believe what Greenpeace or the warming lobby says. Pretty clever!

The Fortune Article: http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0%2C15935%2C582584%2C00.html

And Tim Blair's report and comment: http://www.cecs.cl/esp/news/esp_news20_10_03.html

By the way: I downloaded the entire “Pentagon-Schwartz Report” (a stupid piece of science fiction literature – 27 Megabytes of it! – in doc format), and couldn't refrain the laughter. Even Throatie would feel embarrassed when reading it. What a laugh!

Well, Throatie, I know you will make all efforts in order to withstand the heat in your kitchen. You'll rather die before giving up. I don't envy you. Getting cooked in your own poisonous juices doesn't look appealing.