Stop Corporate-Sponsored Wolf Slaughters

Target: Cabela's and Sportsman's Warehouse
Sponsored by: Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund

Care2petitionsite

What is a "predator derby?" It's a contest, where people compete to see who can kill the most wolves and other animals over a two-day period. What is a predator derby, really? It's a relic, from a time when we didn't know how important wolves are to the health of the American west.
Cabela's and Sportsman's Warehouse -- two major outdoor retailers -- sponsored three wolf-killing derbies in Idaho, held by the misleadingly named Sportsmen for Wildlife. Even worse the fees paid by derby contestants were funneled to support anti-wolf lawyers and lobbyists whose job is to keep wolves off the endangered species list and in the crosshairs.
Grassroots opposition has already convinced Nikon to drop its sponsorship of the predator derbies. Now its time for Cabela's and Sportsman's Warehouse to hear from citizens concerned for wolves and the American west.
Demand that Cabela's and Sportsman's Warehouse stop sponsoring wolf-killing predator derbies.

Please go HERE to sign the petition! They need some more signatures to be able to take action. It will only take you a minute. Send it to all your freinds, or post their page on Facebook or Myspace

Thank you!

Glacier Meltdown: Another Scientific Scandal Involving the IPCC Climate Research Group

Global Research, January 23, 2010

Only days after the failed Copenhagen Global Warming Summit, yet a new scandal over the scientific accuracy of the UN IPCC 2007 climate report has emerged. Following the major data-manipulation scandals from the UN-tied research center at Britain’s East Anglia University late 2009, the picture emerges of one of the most massive scientific frauds of recent history.
Senior members of the UN climate project, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been forced to admit a major error in the 2007 IPCC UN report that triggered the recent global campaign for urgent measures to reduce “manmade emissions” of CO2. The IPCC’s 2007 report stated, “glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world.” Given that this is the world’s highest mountain range and meltdown implies a massive flooding of India, China and the entire Asian region, it was a major scare “selling point” for the IPCC agenda.

As well, the statement on the glacier melt in the 2007 IPCC report contains other serious errors such as the statement that “Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035." There are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas. And a table in the report says that between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840 meters. Then comes a math mistake: It says that's a rate of 135.2 meters a year, when it really is only 23.5 meters a year. Now scientists around the world are scouring the entire IPCC report for indications of similar lack of scientific rigor.
It emerges that the basis of the stark IPCC glacier meltdown statement of 2007 was not even a scientific study of melting data. Rather it was a reference to a newspaper article cited by a pro-global warming ecological advocacy group, WWF.
The original source of the IPCC statement, it turns out,

appeared in a 1999 report in the British magazine, New Scientist that was cited in passing by WWF. The New Scientist author, Fred Pierce, wrote then, “The inclusion of this statement has angered many glaciologists, who regard it as unjustified. Vijay Raina, a leading Indian glaciologist, wrote in a paper published by the Indian Government in November that there is no sign of "abnormal" retreat in Himalayan glaciers. India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, accused the IPCC of being "alarmist." The IPCC's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, has hit back, denouncing the Indian government report as "voodoo science" lacking peer review. He adds that "we have a very clear idea of what is happening" in the Himalayas.” [1]
The same Pachauri, co-awardee of the Nobel Prize with Al Gore, has recently been under attack for huge conflicts of interest related to his business interests that profit from the CO2 global warming agenda he promotes.[2]

Pearce notes that the original claim made by Indian glaciologist Syed Hasnain, in a 1999 email interview with Pearce, namely that all the glaciers in the central and eastern Himalayas could disappear by 2035, never was repeated by Hasnain in any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and that Hasnain now says the remark was "speculative".
Despite the  lack of scientific validation, the 10-year-old claim ended up in the IPCC fourth assessment report published in 2007. Moreover the claim was extrapolated to include all glaciers in the Himalayas.
Since publication of the latest New Scientist article, the IPCC officially has been forced to issue the following statement: “the IPCC said the paragraph "refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers. In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly."

The IPCC adds, "The IPCC regrets the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance." But the statement calls for no action beyond stating a need for absolute adherence to IPCC quality control processes. "We reaffirm our strong commitment to ensuring this level of performance," the statement said.” [3]
In an indication of the defensiveness prevailing within the UN’s IPCC, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chair of the IPCC, insists that the mistake did nothing to undermine the large body of evidence that showed the climate was warming and that human activity was largely to blame. He told BBC News: "I don't see how one mistake in a 3,000-page report can damage the credibility of the overall report."

Some serious scientists disagree. Georg Kaser, an expert in glaciology with University of Innsbruck in Austria and a lead author for the IPCC, gave a damning different assessment of the implications of the latest scandal affecting the credibility of the IPCC. Kaser says he had warned that the 2035 prediction was clearly wrong in 2006, months before the IPCC report was published. "This [date] is not just a little bit wrong, but far out of any order of magnitude. All the responsible people are aware of this weakness in the fourth assessment. All are aware of the mistakes made. If it had not been the focus of so much public opinion, we would have said 'we will do better next time'. It is clear now that working group II has to be restructured."[4]
The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, has made no personal comment on the glacier claim. It appears he is as well shaken by the wave of recent scandals. He told a conference in Dubai on energy recently, "They can't attack the science so they attack the chairman. But they won't sink me. I am the unsinkable Molly Brown (sic). In fact, I will float much higher," he told the Guardian. His remarks suggest more the ‘spirit of Woodstock’ in 1969 than of what is supposed to be the world’s leading climate authority.

F. William Engdahl is the author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order

CLIMATE CHANGE IS NATURAL: 100 REASONS WHY

Climate change campaigners: 100 reasons why climate change is natural and not man-made

Express.co.uk Tuesday December 15,2009

HERE are the 100 reasons, released in a dossier issued by the European Foundation, why climate change is natural and not man-made:

1) There is “no real scientific proof” that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man’s activity.
2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.
3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.
4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.
5) Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher – more than ten times as high.
6) Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time.
7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.                                                                                                                      8) The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favorable reviewers not the 4,000 usually cited.
9) Leaked e-mails from British climate scientists – in a scandal known as “Climate-gate” - suggest that that has been manipulated to exaggerate global warming
10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.

11) Politicians and activiists claim rising sea levels are a direct cause of global warming but sea levels rates have been increasing steadily since the last ice age 10,000 ago
12) Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London says climate change is too complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds
13) Peter Lilley MP said last month that “fewer people in Britain than in any other country believe in the importance of global warming. That is despite the fact that our Government and our political class—predominantly—are more committed to it than their counterparts in any other country in the world”.
14) In pursuit of the global warming rhetoric, wind farms will do very little to nothing to reduce CO2 emissions
15) Professor Plimer, Professor of Geology and Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide, stated that the idea of taking a single trace gas in the atmosphere, accusing it and finding it guilty of total responsibility for climate change, is an “absurdity”
16) A Harvard University astrophysicist and geophysicist, Willie Soon, said he is “embarrassed and puzzled” by the shallow science in papers that support the proposition that the earth faces a climate crisis caused by global warming.
17) The science of what determines the earth’s temperature is in fact far from settled or understood.
18) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas, unlike water vapour which is tied to climate concerns, and which we can’t even pretend to control
19) A petition by scientists trying to tell the world that the political and media portrayal of global warming is false was put forward in the Heidelberg Appeal in 1992. Today, more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries have signed it.
20) It is claimed the average global temperature increased at a dangerously fast rate in the 20th century but the recent rate of average global temperature rise has been between 1 and 2 degrees C per century - within natural rates

21) Professor Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw, Poland says the earth’s temperature has more to do with cloud cover and water vapor than CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
22) There is strong evidence from solar studies which suggests that the Earth’s current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades
23) It is myth that receding glaciers are proof of global warming as glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for many centuries
24) It is a falsehood that the earth’s poles are warming because that is natural variation and while the western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer we also see that the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder
25) The IPCC claims climate driven “impacts on biodiversity are significant and of key relevance” but those claims are simply not supported by scientific research
26) The IPCC threat of climate change to the world’s species does not make sense as wild species are at least one million years old, which means they have all been through hundreds of climate cycles
27) Research goes strongly against claims that CO2-induced global warming would cause catastrophic disintegration of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.
28) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, rising CO2 levels are our best hope of raising crop yields to feed an ever-growing population
29) The biggest climate change ever experienced on earth took place around 700 million years ago
30) The slight increase in temperature which has been observed since 1900 is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term natural climate cycles.

31) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, rising CO2 levels of some so-called “greenhouse gases” may be contributing to higher oxygen levels and global cooling, not warming
32) Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures
33) Today’s CO2 concentration of around 385 ppm is very low compared to most of the earth’s history – we actually live in a carbon-deficient atmosphere
34) It is a myth that CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas because greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere by volume, and CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere
35) It is a myth that computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming because computer models can be made to “verify” anything
36) There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes
37) One statement deleted from a UN report in 1996 stated that “none of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases”
38) The world “warmed” by 0.07 +/- 0.07 degrees C from 1999 to 2008, not the 0.20 degrees C expected by the IPCC
39) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says “it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense” but there has been no increase in the intensity or frequency of tropical cyclones globally

40) Rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere can be shown not only to have a negligible effect on the Earth’s many ecosystems, but in some cases to be a positive help to many organisms
41) Researchers who compare and contrast climate change impact on civilizations found warm periods are beneficial to mankind and cold periods harmful
42) The Met Office asserts we are in the hottest decade since records began but this is precisely what the world should expect if the climate is cyclical
43) Rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests
44) The historical increase in the air’s CO2 content has improved human nutrition by raising crop yields during the past 150 years
45) The increase of the air’s CO2 content has probably helped lengthen human lifespans since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
46) The IPCC alleges that “climate change currently contributes to the global burden of disease and premature deaths” but the evidence shows that higher temperatures and rising CO2 levels has helped global populations
47) In May of 2004, the Russian Academy of Sciences published a report concluding that the Kyoto Protocol has no scientific grounding at all.
48) The “Climate-gate” scandal pointed to a expensive public campaign of disinformation and the denigration of scientists who opposed the belief that CO2 emissions were causing climate change
49) The head of Britain’s climate change watchdog has predicted households will need to spend up to £15,000 on a full energy efficiency makeover if the Government is to meet its ambitious targets for cutting carbon emissions.

50) Wind power is unlikely to be the answer to our energy needs. The wind power industry argues that there are “no direct subsidies” but it involves a total subsidy of as much as £60 per MWh which falls directly on electricity consumers. This burden will grow in line with attempts to achieve Wind power targets, according to a recent OFGEM report.
51) Wind farms are not an efficient way to produce energy. The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) accepts a figure of 75 per cent back-up power is required.
52) Global temperatures are below the low end of IPCC predictions not at “at the top end of IPCC estimates”
53) Climate alarmists have raised the concern over acidification of the oceans but Tom Segalstad from Oslo University in Norway , and others, have noted that the composition of ocean water – including CO2, calcium, and water – can act as a buffering agent in the acidification of the oceans.
54) The UN’s IPCC computer models of human-caused global warming predict the emergence of a “hotspot” in the upper troposphere over the tropics.  Former researcher in the Australian Department of Climate Change, David Evans, said there is no evidence of such a hotspot
55) The argument that climate change is a of result of global warming caused by human activity is the argument of flat Earthers.  
56) The manner in which US President Barack Obama sidestepped Congress to order emission cuts shows how undemocratic and irrational the entire international decision-making process has become with regards to emission-target setting.
57) William Kininmonth, a former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation, wrote “the likely extent of global temperature rise from a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C. Such warming is well within the envelope of variation experienced during the past 10,000 years and insignificant in the context of glacial cycles during the past million years, when Earth has been predominantly very cold and covered by extensive ice sheets.”
58) Canada has shown the world targets derived from the existing Kyoto commitments were always unrealistic and did not work for the country.
59) In the lead up to the Copenhagen summit, David Davis MP said of previous climate summits, at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and Kyoto in 1997 that many had promised greater cuts, but “neither happened”, but we are continuing along the same lines.

60) The UK ’s environmental policy has a long-term price tag of about £55 billion, before taking into account the impact on its economic growth. 
61) The UN’s panel on climate change warned that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035. J. Graham Cogley a professor at Ontario Trent University, claims this inaccurate stating the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.
62) Under existing Kyoto obligations the EU has attempted to claim success, while actually increasing emissions by 13 per cent, according to Lord Lawson. In addition the EU has pursued this scheme by purchasing “offsets” from countries such as China paying them billions of dollars to destroy atmospheric pollutants, such as CFC-23, which were manufactured purely in order to be destroyed.
63) It is claimed that the average global temperature was relatively unchanging in pre-industrial times but sky-rocketed since 1900, and will increase by several degrees more over the next 100 years according to Penn State University researcher Michael Mann. There is no convincing empirical evidence that past climate was unchanging, nor that 20th century changes in average global temperature were unusual or unnatural.
64) Michael Mann of Penn State University has actually shown that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age did in fact exist, which contrasts with his earlier work which produced the “hockey stick graph” which showed a constant temperature over the past thousand years or so followed by a recent dramatic upturn.
65) The globe’s current approach to climate change in which major industrialised countries agree to nonsensical targets for their CO2 emissions by a given date, as it has been under the Kyoto system, is very expensive.
66) The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team had emailed one another about using a “trick” for the sake of concealing a “decline” in temperatures when looking at the history of the Earth’s temperature. 
67) Global temperatures have not risen in any statistically-significant sense for 15 years and have actually been falling for nine years. The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed a scientific team had expressed dismay at the fact global warming was contrary to their predictions and admitted their inability to explain it was “a travesty”.
68) The IPCC predicts that a warmer planet will lead to more extreme weather, including drought, flooding, storms, snow, and wildfires. But over the last century, during which the IPCC claims the world experienced more rapid warming than any time in the past two millennia, the world did not experience significantly greater trends in any of these extreme weather events.
69) In explaining the average temperature standstill we are currently experiencing, the Met Office Hadley Centre ran a series of computer climate predictions and found in many of the computer runs there were decade-long standstills but none for 15 years – so it expects global warming to resume swiftly.

70) Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote: “The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the Earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope.  Such hysteria (over global warming) simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth.”
71) Despite the 1997 Kyoto Protocol’s status as the flagship of the fight against climate change it has been a failure.
72) The first phase of the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which ran from 2005 to 2007 was a failure. Huge over-allocation of permits to pollute led to a collapse in the price of carbon from €33 to just €0.20 per tonne meaning the system did not reduce emissions at all. 
73) The EU trading scheme, to manage carbon emissions has completely failed and actually allows European businesses to duck out of making their emissions reductions at home by offsetting, which means paying for cuts to be made overseas instead.
74) To date “cap and trade” carbon markets have done almost nothing to reduce emissions.
75) In the United States , the cap-and-trade is an approach designed to control carbon emissions and will impose huge costs upon American citizens via a carbon tax on all goods and services produced in the United States. The average family of four can expect to pay an additional $1700, or £1,043, more each year. It is predicted that the United States will lose more than 2 million jobs as the result of cap-and-trade schemes. 
76) Dr Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, has indicated that out of the 21 climate models tracked by the IPCC the differences in warming exhibited by those models is mostly the result of different strengths of positive cloud feedback – and that increasing CO2 is insufficient to explain global-average warming in the last 50 to 100 years.
77) Why should politicians devote our scarce resources in a globally competitive world to a false and ill-defined problem, while ignoring the real problems the entire planet faces, such as: poverty, hunger, disease or terrorism.
78) A proper analysis of ice core records from the past 650,000 years demonstrates that temperature increases have come before, and not resulted from, increases in CO2 by hundreds of years.
79) Since the cause of global warming is mostly natural, then there is in actual fact very little we can do about it. (We are still not able to control the sun).

80) A substantial number of the panel of 2,500 climate scientists on the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change, which created a statement on scientific unanimity on climate change and man-made global warming, were found to have serious concerns.
81) The UK’s Met Office has been forced this year to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by revelations about the data.
82)  Politicians and activists push for renewable energy sources such as wind turbines under the rhetoric of climate change, but it is essentially about money – under the system of Renewable Obligations. Much of the money is paid for by consumers in electricity bills. It amounts to £1 billion a year.
83) The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team had tampered with their own data so as to conceal inconsistencies and errors.  
84) The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team had campaigned for the removal of a learned journal’s editor, solely because he did not share their willingness to debase science for political purposes.
85) Ice-core data clearly show that temperatures change centuries before concentrations of atmospheric CO2 change. Thus, there appears to be little evidence for insisting that changes in concentrations of CO2 are the cause of past temperature and climate change.
86) There are no experimentally verified processes explaining how CO2 concentrations can fall in a few centuries without falling temperatures – in fact it is changing temperatures which cause changes in CO2 concentrations, which is consistent with experiments that show CO2 is the atmospheric gas most readily absorbed by water.
87) The Government’s Renewable Energy Strategy contains a massive increase in electricity generation by wind power costing around £4 billion a year over the next twenty years. The benefits will be only £4 to £5 billion overall (not per annum). So costs will outnumber benefits by a range of between eleven and seventeen times.
88) Whilst CO2 levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout history, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and the growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years.
89) It is a myth that CO2 is a pollutant, because nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere and human beings could not live in 100% nitrogen either: CO2 is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is and CO2 is essential to life.

90) Politicians and climate activists make claims to rising sea levels but certain members in the IPCC chose an area to measure in Hong Kong that is subsiding. They used the record reading of 2.3 mm per year rise of sea level.
91) The accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998.
92) If one factors in non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements show little, if any, global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).
93) US President Barack Obama pledged to cut emissions by 2050 to equal those of 1910 when there were 92 million Americans. In 2050, there will be 420 million Americans, so Obama’s promise means that emissions per head will be approximately what they were in 1875. It simply will not happen.
94) The European Union has already agreed to cut emissions by 20 percent to 2020, compared with 1990 levels, and is willing to increase the target to 30 percent. However, these are unachievable and the EU has already massively failed with its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), as EU emissions actually rose by 0.8 percent from 2005 to 2006 and are known to be well above the Kyoto goal.
95) Australia has stated it wants to slash greenhouse emissions by up to 25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, but the pledges were so unpopular that the country’s Senate has voted against the carbon trading Bill, and the Opposition’s Party leader has now been ousted by a climate change sceptic.
96) Canada plans to reduce emissions by 20 percent compared with 2006 levels by 2020, representing approximately a 3 percent cut from 1990 levels but it simultaneously defends its Alberta tar sands emissions and its record as one of the world’s highest per-capita emissions setters.
97) India plans to reduce the ratio of emissions to production by 20-25 percent compared with 2005 levels by 2020, but all Government officials insist that since India has to grow for its development and poverty alleviation, it has to emit, because the economy is driven by carbon.
98) The Leipzig Declaration in 1996, was signed by 110 scientists who said: “We – along with many of our fellow citizens – are apprehensive about the climate treaty conference scheduled for Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997” and “based on all the evidence available to us, we cannot subscribe to the politically inspired world view that envisages climate catastrophes and calls for hasty actions.”
99) A US Oregon Petition Project stated “We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of CO2, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
100) A report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change concluded “We find no support for the IPCC’s claim that climate observations during the twentieth century are either unprecedented or provide evidence of an anthropogenic effect on climate.”

Peter Taylor presents Climate Change: The Alternative View

Peter Taylor is a renowned conservationist and research analyst. Among his many achievements, he has previously taken successful action in challenging the UN to alter it's stance and policy regarding dumping of hazardous materials into the ocean (in other words, he cares about the environment and his research is credible).

In this presentation, made at the Alternative View Conference Totnes UK 2008, he explains the conclusions of his detailed studies which indicate man is not responsible for global warming/climate change, and many of the 'solutions' based on this lie are the real threat we are facing (he's not funded by oil companies).

Peter Taylor's website is ethos-uk.com.

 

Video here:

THE NEW CLIMATE CHANGE SCANDAL

Glacier melt claims were 'speculation'

Express.co.uk Monday January 18,2010 By Anil Dawar

FRESH doubts were cast over controversial global warming theories yesterday after a major climate change argument was discredited.

The International Panel on Climate Change was forced to admit its key claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 was lifted from a 1999 magazine article. The report was based on an interview with a little-known Indian scientist who has since said his views were “speculation” and not backed up by research.

It was also revealed that the IPCC’s controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, described as “the world’s top climate scientist”, is a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics and no formal climate science qualifications.

Dr Pachauri was yesterday accused of a conflict of interest after it emerged he has a network of business interests that attract millions of pounds in funding thanks to IPCC policies. One of them, The Energy Research Institute, has a London office and is set to receive up to £10million from British taxpayers over the next five years in the form of grants from the Department for International Development.

Dr Pachauri denies any conflict of interest arising from his various roles.

Yesterday, critics accused the IPCC of boosting the man-made global warming theory to protect a multi-million pound industry.

Climate scientist Peter Taylor said: “I am not surprised by this news. A vast bureaucracy and industry has been built up around this theory. There is too much money in it for the IPCC to let it wither.”

Professor Julian Dowdeswell, a glacier specialist at Cambridge University, said: “The average glacier is 1,000ft thick so to melt one even at 15ft a year would take 60 years. That is a lot faster than anything we are seeing now so the idea of losing it all by 2035 is unrealistically high.”

The IPCC was set up by the UN to ensure world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change. It issued the glacier warning in a benchmark report in 2007 that was allegedly based on the latest research into global warming.

The scientists behind the report now admit they relied on a news story published in the New Scientist journal in 1999. The article was based on a short telephone interview with scientist Syed Hasnain, then based in Delhi, who has since said his views were “speculation”.

The New Scientist report was picked up by the WWF and included in a 2005 paper.

It then became a key source for the IPCC which went further in suggesting the melting of the glaciers was “very likely”.

Yesterday, Professor Murari Lal who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said: “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, then I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”

Last year the Indian government issued its own scientific research rejecting the notion that glaciers were melting so rapidly.

Before the weakness in the IPCC’s research was exposed, Dr Pachauri dismissed the Indian government report as “voodoo science”.

The revelations are the latest crack to appear in the scientific consensus on climate change.

It follows the so-called climate-gate scandal in November last year when leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit appeared to show scientists fiddling the figures to strengthen the case for man-made climate change.

The scandal prompted critics to suggest that many scientists had a vested interest in promoting climate change because it helped secure more funding for research.

Last month, the Daily Express published a dossier listing 100 reasons why global warming was part of a natural cycle and not man made.

Gore cancels on Copenhagen lecture – leaves ticketholders in a lurch

Wattsupwiththat.com

It seems the uncertainty about Copenhagen is growing. When Al baby pulls the plug, you know it’s hosed.

From Berlingske: Al Gore cancels lecture during COP15

Former U.S. vice president has canceled his event, more than 3,000 Danes have purchased a ticket. Photo: JOSE MENDEZ

Looks like they will get a refund though. Might be worth more as a collectors item in ten years though.

I wonder how many people have shelled out $1200 to shake Al’s hand? Maybe not enough and he couldn’t cover the expenses for his private jet?

From the Washington Post:

“Have you ever shaken hands with an American vice president? If not, now is your chance. Meet Al Gore in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference,” notes the Danish tourism commission, which is helping Mr. Gore promote “Our Choice,” his newest book about global warming in all its alarming modalities.

“Tickets are available in different price ranges for the event. If you want it all, you can purchase a VIP ticket, where you get a chance to shake hands with Al Gore, get a copy of Our Choice and have your picture taken with him. The VIP event costs DKK 5,999 and includes drinks and a light snack.”

Wait, what? How much is that in American dollars? The currency conversion says it all, too: 5,999 Danish kroners is equivalent to $1,209.

“If you do not want to spend that much money, but still want to hear Al Gore speak about his latest book about climate challenges, you can purchase general tickets, ranging in price from DKK 199-1,499 depending on where in the room you want to sit,” the practical Danes advise. “There will be large screens, so that everyone will get a good view.”

Yah, such a deal.

Climate change hoax

Climate change scientists reject claims they 'manipulated' data to prove global warming is caused by humans

By DANIEL MARTIN Daily Mail
Last updated at 2:09 PM on 23rd November 2009

The director of a climate research unit at the centre of a row over manipulating data on global warming after hundreds of private emails were stolen by hackers said today it was 'ludicrous' to suggest anything untoward took place during the research.

The material was taken from servers at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, a world-renowned research centre, before it was published on websites run by climate change sceptics, possibly in a bid to undermine next month's global climate summit in Denmark.

But Professor Phil Jones, the centre's director whose emails were at the centre of the row, said he wanted to put the record straight.

Climate-change sceptics claim emails they have discovered prove that data which did not support global warming was suppressed

Some commentators claimed his emails showed that scientists at the centre manipulated data to bolster their argument that global warming is genuine and is being caused by human actions.

In one email seized upon by sceptics, Prof Jones referred to a 'trick' being employed to massage temperature statistics to 'hide the decline'.

Today, he said the email 'caused a great deal of ill-informed comment, but has been taken completely out of context and I want to put the record straight'.

He said: 'The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward.'

But Lord Lawson, the former chancellor who is now a prominent climate change sceptic, called for an independent inquiry into the claims.

He said the credibility of the unit and of British science were under threat.
'They should set up a public inquiry under someone who is totally respected and get to the truth,' he told the BBC Radio Four Today programme.

'If there's an explanation for what's going on they can make that explanation.'

Kevin Trenberth, a leading climate change scientist whose private emails were also among those stolen, said the leaks may have been aimed at undermining next month's global climate summit in Denmark.

Dr Trenberth, of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado, said he believed the hackers deliberately distributed only those documents that could help attempts by sceptics to undermine the scientific consensus on man-made climate change.

'It is right before the Copenhagen debate, I'm sure that is not a coincidence,' he said.

The lead author on the 2001 and 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments said he found 102 of his emails posted online.

'I personally feel violated,' he said.

'I'm appalled at the very selective use of the e-mails, and the fact they've been taken out of context.'

In one of the stolen e-mails, he is quoted as saying: 'We can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.'

He said sceptics had argued it showed scientists can not explain some trends that appear to contradict their stance on climate change.

But Dr Trenberth said his phrase was actually contained in a paper he wrote about the need for better monitoring of global warming to explain the anomalies - in particular improved recording of rising sea surface temperatures.

Last week, a spokesman for the University of East Anglia said: 'It is a matter of concern that data, including personal information about individuals, appears to have been illegally taken from the university and elements published selectively on a number of websites.

'The volume of material published and its piecemeal nature makes it impossible to confirm what proportion is genuine.

'We took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation and have involved the police in what we consider to be a criminal investigation.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230122/How-climate-change-scientists-dodged-sceptics.html#ixzz0XnbFAp1g

Pesticides exposure linked to suicidal thoughts

Public release date: 22-Oct-2009
EurekAlert!
Contact: Melanie Haberstroh
melanie.haberstroh@kcl.ac.uk
44-207-848-3076
King's College London

A new study in China has found that people with higher levels of pesticide exposure are more likely to have suicidal thoughts. The study was carried out by Dr Robert Stewart from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London together with scientists from Tongde Hospital Zhejiang Province.

The agricultural pesticides commonly used in China are organophosphates which are in wide use in many lower income countries but have been banned in many Western nations. It is well known that they are very dangerous if ingested as an overdose but there is also biological evidence that chronic low-grade exposure to these chemicals, which are very easily absorbed into the body through the skin and lungs, may have adverse effects on mental health. This study is the first epidemiological evidence to suggest possible effects on suicidal thoughts.

The study was carried out in central/coastal China, a relatively wealthy area with a rapidly developing economy. In a very large survey of mental health in rural community residents, participants were also asked about how they stored pesticides. The study found that people who stored pesticides at home, i.e. those with more exposure, were more likely to report recent suicidal thoughts. Supporting this, the survey also found suicidal thoughts to be associated with how easily accessible these pesticides were in the home and that the geographic areas with highest home storage of pesticides also had highest levels of suicidal thoughts in their populations.

Given the high level of pesticide exposure and the high suicide risk in rural China, clarification of the causal mechanisms underlying this association and the development of appropriate interventions should be priorities for public health and health policy.

Dr Robert Stewart comments: 'Organophosphate pesticides are widely used around the world although are banned in many countries because of their risk to health. They are particularly lethal chemicals when taken in overdose and are a cause of many suicides worldwide. Our research findings that suggest that higher exposure to these chemicals might actually increase the risk of suicidal thoughts provides further support for calls for tighter international restrictions on agricultural pesticide availability and use.'

Dr Jianmin Zhang, Associate Chief Psychiatrist, Tongde Hospital of Zhejiang Province, and Vice Director, Zhejiang Office of Mental Health, China added: 'The findings of this study suggested potential causal links and might partially account for the much higher incidence of suicide in rural than urban areas of China. However, further studies particularly with more precisely defined and assessed exposure are critically needed, as awareness of safer access to pesticides is important both to policy-makers and pesticide users.'

###

Notes to editors

Pesticide exposure and suicidal ideation in rural communities in Zhejiang province, China by Jianmin Zhang, Robert Stewart, Michael Phillips, Qichang Shi & Martin Prince was published in the October issue of the WHO Bulletin. The full article can be accessed on http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/10/08-054122.pdf.

The analysis involved data from a survey of a representative sample of 9,811 rural residents in Zhejiang province who had been asked about the storage of pesticides at home and about whether or not they had considered suicide within the two years before the interview. The Chinese version of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was administered to screen for mental disorder.

King's College London

King's College London is one of the top 25 universities in the world (Times Higher Education 2009) and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King's has more than 21,000 students from nearly 140 countries, and more than 5,700 employees. King's is in the second phase of a £1 billion redevelopment programme which is transforming its estate.

King's has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.

King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres. For more information, visit: www.kcl.ac.uk.

King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King's Health Partners. King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world's leading research-led universities and three of London's most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit: www.kingshealthpartners.org.

What happened to global warming?

By Paul Hudson
Climate correspondent, BBC News

 

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?

During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.

Recent research has ruled out solar influences on temperature increases

Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth's warmth comes from the Sun.

But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.

The scientists' main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.

And the results were clear. "Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees.

He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.

He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.

If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.

Ocean cycles

What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to our oceans. They are the Earth's great heat stores.

In the last few years [the Pacific Ocean] has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down

According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.

The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).

For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.

But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.

These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.

So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.

Professor Easterbrook says: "The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling."

So what does it all mean? Climate change sceptics argue that this is evidence that they have been right all along.

They say there are so many other natural causes for warming and cooling, that even if man is warming the planet, it is a small part compared with nature.

But those scientists who are equally passionate about man's influence on global warming argue that their science is solid.

The UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, responsible for future climate predictions, says it incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new.

In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures - all of which are accounted for by its models.

In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of slower warming, or even temporary cooling.

What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.

To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.

The UK Met Office says that warming is set to resume

Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers.

But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.

So what can we expect in the next few years?

Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.

It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).

Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.

One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.

Full Documentary - Weather warfare, chemtrails- The History Channel

PART 1 OF 4- SEE THE REST ON UTUBE

Codex misinformation creates public confusion

alliance for natural health Updated: 12 Feb 2009 Link:

Are you confused over what impact Codex will have on food and dietary supplements?  If so, we're not surprised, given the rampant misinformation about Codex that abounds on the internet.

_________________________________________________________

If you don't know what Codex is, find out more at the
ANH Codex campaign page

_________________________________________________________

Misinformation takes people’s eyes off the real problems

There is presently a lot of information circulating on the internet about Codex—and its potential imminent impact on the banning of food (dietary) supplements including vitamins, minerals and herbs—that is inaccurate.

The misinformation is feeding people’s fears and is preventing them, especially in Europe, from using what democratic powers still remain to influence legal processes that will, in the short-term, have a far bigger impact on their access to natural health products.  This is particularly the case for the nearly 500 million people living in the 27 Member States of Europe, where it is European Directives and Regulations that present the main risk to their continued access to beneficial natural health products.

Much of the misinformation appears to stem from the US-based Natural Solutions Foundation (NSF), and in particular, a youtube-released video called Nutricide featuring NSF's medical director, Dr Rima Laibow.

For two different assessments of the relevance of Codex to natural health—which should go a long way towards helping you to separate the facts from the myths—please refer to the two articles referenced below:

• ANH’s newly revised Codex campaign page (that now also deals directly with the issue of Codex misinformation)
• An article, ‘Codex and Health Freedom—Beware of the ‘Instant Experts’ on the Dr Rath Foundation website

Will Codex ban food supplements from 31st December 2009?

One of the rumours that abounds suggests that Codex will ban a wide variety of food supplements as of 31 December 2009.  This is wrong. This date refers to the end of the transition phase of theEuropean Food Supplements Directive which brings in a ban after this date of any vitamin or mineral food supplement that has yet to be approved on the Directive's positive list (Annex II).

This means that many food supplements containing vitamins and minerals that have not been approved as safe and bioavailable by the European Food Safety Authority will indeed be banned from 1 January 2010.  But it is not Codex that is causing these bans—it is the European Directive. The same European Directive will also likely impose restrictions on maximum dosages on vitamins and minerals in 2010—and this is something that the ANH, together with a number of other organisations, such as the Irish Association of Health Stores, are working very hard to counter.  But again, these restrictions on dosages are not the result of Codex, but are the effects of the EU Directive.

In fact, it is the mechanism by which restrictions are occurring in Europe that are forming the basis for the Codex Guideline on Vitamin and  Mineral Food Supplements—which is just one of some 300 guidelines and standards to be produced by the inter-governmental Codex Alimentarius Commission.

At present, the US-based National Health Federation is the only health freedom organisation to have 'observer status' at Codex meetings. While the NHF has can potentially influence decisions in Codex meetings, as a non-governmental organisation, it has no voting rights.

UK Petition on Codex at No 10 Downing Street

Another misinformed, but undoubtedly well-meaning, action is the petition to the UK government on Codex at No 10 Downing Street, London.  You can find this petition at:http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Vitamins/#detail.

This petition indicates that Codex will cause herbal/vitamin/mineral food supplements to become ‘prescription only’.  This is not the case, as Codex Alimentarius deals with all categories of food and has already ratified (in 2005) the text of an international guideline on vitamin and mineral food supplements, which is expected to be finalised—complete with maximum guideline dosages—in around 2012 or 2013. By definition, products compliant with these guidelines will be safeguarded as a category of food (i.e., food supplements) and therefore will not be categorised as medicines.

Of course the petition is only open to British citizens (yet it’s being pushed as far afield as New Zealand) and the more urgent issue is the much more imminent restrictions in Europe being imposed by provisions of European Directives and Regulations that then have a major bearing on Codex.

The relationship between Codex and EU laws on natural health

In many ways, it is more correct to see Codex (with respect to its limited application to natural health issues) as the primary mechanism that allows restrictive European laws to be exported into Codex.  From there it then forms an international guideline for the rest of the world.  It's important then to appreciate that these guidelines cannot directly limit the availability of products—it's only when they are then implemented into national or regional laws that restrictions occur.

Codex member countries, of which there are over 170, are strongly encouraged to adopt Codex guidelines and standards, not just on natural health issues but across all other parts of the food chain, into their national or regional laws.  And to understand more about the consequences of not implementing Codex guidelines and standards, please see both the ANH's Codex campaign and itsSay No to GM campaign.  Here you'll find examples of how the World Trade Organization imposes trade sanctions, that have the capacity to cripple any country other than a super power.

Using your democratic right effectively

For people living in Europe, this is why there is little point in only making your concerns known to your national member of parliament (elected representative).  The laws that will impact you are emerging from Brussels, so it is the European Commission, along with your own government (elected representatives and relevant government ministries) and, and then, very importantly, your Member of the European Parliament (MEP) that are so important to lobby.

Europeans who don’t already know who their MEP is, can find him or her at the following link: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members.do.

Get involved in the ANH campaign

We would also urge you to look at the ANH Get Involved page.

We realise that this is a difficult and complicated issue and we are very committed to trying to help people find their way through the maze.  Please explore our website and think about what ways you can work with us to help ensure that our fundamental right to natural health is not just maintained during our lifetimes, but also for future generations.

Thank you.

The ANH Core Team.

Would you like a cup of Arsenic?

Or how about Aluminum, Barium, Iron, Manganese, Magnesium, Sodium, Boron, Strontium, Uranium, Strontium-90, Antimony, Beryllium, Bromine, Cadmium, Calcium, Copper, Lead, Nickel, Silver, Thallium, Titanium, Vanadium, Zinc, Sulfide, Sulfate?
Well, this is what have been found in California drinking water. Read the following article by Rosalind Peterson August 30, 2009.

HOW SAFE ARE YOUR DRINKING & AGRICULTURE WATER SUPPLIES? CITY OF WEST SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA WATER QUALITY INFORMATION FROM JUST ONE WATER DISTRICT
Drinking water quality is of primary importance to every citizen in the United States. The story below is just one of many being played out across the United States today. We all need to know what is in our drinking water and how it relates to public health. Everyone has the right to know what is in their drinking water not only at the drinking water tap, but what is in the water that irrigates our food crops and that our animals drink. We need to know just how safe bottled water is, if plastic baby bottles are safe, and if plastic water containers (and tin can linings), are leaching contaminants into the water we drinking.
Recently the Agriculture Defense Coalition obtained information regarding water quality in the City of West Sacramento, California, from the California State Department of Health, Drinking Water Division, in Sacramento, California. The State of California is the repository of all drinking water tests for every public water supply facility or public well in California. (The data is on CD and is free of charge to anyone who requests this information under the California Public Records Act.)
Stunned by the results of this inquiry it became very important that the public using this water for drinking and irrigation be informed of the startling results of this ongoing investigation. Clearly, even from the data in the 2008 West Sacramento “Consumer Confidence Report,” it is imperative that everyone who receives this water be informed of the alleged dangers in using this water for drinking, cooking, bathing, crop irrigation, and yard watering.
Read more here:

EDITORIAL: Hurray for polar bears - Washington Times

EDITORIAL: Hurray for polar bears - Washington Times

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"Food Standards Guidelines" Threaten Human Health, Codex Alimentarius (CA) serves corporate interests

by Stephen Lendman Global Research, August 24, 2009

On its web site, CA (Latin for food code) says:

"The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 by the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN) and WHO (World Health Organization) to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme. The main purposes of this Programme are protecting health of the consumers and ensuring fair trade practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations."

Whatever its founding purpose, CA is much different today because corporate interests control it - global pharmaceutical, food, and banking giants in league with complicit UN and government agencies to promote GMOs over healthy foods, and drugs over natural remedies by restricting or banning vitamin and dietary supplements, except ones they control. Organic food as well by irradiation and hidden synthetic additives or ingredients.

If CA's standards and guidelines are adopted, they'll establish binding global rules, effectively overriding sovereign national laws. GMO foods and drugs will proliferate. Labeling will be banned. Food and drug giants will decide what will and won't be sold. Governments will be prohibited from countermanding them. Everyone's health and well-being will be jeopardized.

Since its 2004 founding, the Natural Solutions Foundation has been involved in "discover(ing), develop(ing), demonstrat(ing) and disseminat(ing) natural solutions to the problems facing us and threatening our health and freedom." Its goal is "to support advanced healthcare and health freedom" globally, not a system promoting corporate interests at the expense of human health and well-being.

It explains that CA has "absolutely nothing to do with consumer protection." It's a corporate-run "Trade Commission" created to control "every aspect of how food and nutritional supplements are produced and sold to the consumer." It's about profits, not human health. It wants to ban natural remedies and promote unsafe drugs. It's "unscientific because it classifies nutrients as toxins and uses 'Risk Assessment' to set ultra low so-called 'safe upper limits' for them." It wants to prohibit everything not explicitly permitted and controlled by them.

Under the 1986 - 1993 GATT Uruguay Round, its 110 member countries agreed to harmonize their domestic laws to conform to international standards. In January 1995, the WTO replaced GATT, and as of July 2008, its membership included 153 nations.

Its Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade was established "to ensure that regulations, standards, testing and certification procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles. It specifically refers to:

-- ...."the important contributions that international standards and conformity assessment systems can make....by improving efficiency of production and facilitating the conduct of international trade....;" and

-- the importance of "develop(ing) such international standards and conformity assessment systems."

It states that "Members are fully responsible under this Agreement for the observance of all provisions of Article 2" - pertaining to the "Preparation, Adoption and Application of Technical Regulations by Central Government Bodies;" under them, "Members shall formulate and implement positive measures and mechanisms in support of the observance of (Article 2's) provisions by other than central government bodies."

This means that WTO members are legally bound under global guidelines, including CA standards if adopted, that override currently in force national laws. Under WTO rules, failure to comply may bring punitive fines or crippling trade sanctions.

At its July 2005 session, the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU), drew up guidelines that set restrictive upper dosage limits on popularly used vitamin and mineral supplements and nutrients. They prohibit the sale of all curative, preventative, and therapeutic supplements without a doctor's prescription, most now accessible over-the-counter at health food, other stores, or by mail order.

Twenty-six other committees are tasked with setting global standards for different areas of the global food and drug trade, including:

-- fruits and vegetables;

-- fruit and vegetable juices;

-- fats and oils;

-- meat, poultry and fish;

-- cereals, pulses (used for food and animal feed) and legumes;

-- milk and milk products;

-- natural mineral waters;

-- sugars;

-- cocoa products and chocolate;

-- food hygiene;

-- food labeling (as a way not to disclose GMO foods and ingredients)

-- pesticide residues;

-- residues of veterinary drugs found in foods;

-- food additives;

-- regional coordination, and more.

Codex standards are binding on all WTO members under its Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. Both were included among the Multilateral Agreements on Trade in Goods that was part of the 1994 Marrakesh Agreement that established the WTO.

Currently, it says that "there is no legal obligation on Members to apply Codex standards, guidelines and recommendations." In fact, the WTO uses them to resolve international trade disputes that are legally binding on all members.

On December 31, 2009, Codex standards will be globally mandated unless legal challenges prevent it. In force, they'll override food and drug laws of all member countries, including consumer protection ones and America's 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). It classifies nutrients and herbs as foods, sets no dosage limits, and permits the sale of all dietary supplements unless expressly proved unsafe. Codex rules reverse things by prohibiting everything NOT proved safe, including high potency, therapeutically effective nutrients and supplements.

Common foods, herbs, nutrients, amino acids, homeopathic and other natural remedies would be called drugs. Potencies would be limited, and prescriptions would be required for their use. Some would be banned altogether.

In contrast, about 300 dangerous food additives will be allowed, including aspartame, BHA, BHT, potassium bromate, and tartrazine. New guidelines will authorize the worldwide proliferation of unlabeled GMO foods, drugs, and ingredients, known to harm human health.

In addition:

-- dangerous high-potency industrial chemicals, pesticides, and fungicides will be allowed, ones now near-universally banned, including aldrin, hexachlorobenzene and toxaphene;

-- growth hormones for cows will be mandated;

-- antibiotics as well for all "food herds, fish and flocks;"

-- irradiation will be required for all foods not locally grown and sold raw and unprocessed; and

-- new standards will permit dangerous toxic levels (0.5 ppb) of aflotoxin in milk produced from moldy storage conditions of animal feed; aflotoxin is one of most potent carcinogenic compounds known.

In addition, professional written, oral or other nutritional advice will be banned, including about the benefits of vitamins, minerals, nutrients and other health-promoting substances. Henceforth, they'll be considered toxins or poisons to be removed from food because Codex will prohibit their use to "prevent, treat or cure any condition or disease."

In America before the 1996 Food Quality and Protection Act passed, the 1958 Delaney Clause prohibited use of known carcinogens in processed foods. It specifically said:

"the Secretary of the Food and Drug Administration shall not approve for use in food any chemical additive found to induce cancer in man, or, after tests, found to induce cancer in animals."

It protected against unsafe food additives, meat and poultry drugs, color additives, and cancer-causing pesticide residues in processed foods above a certain level.

Obama's Enforcers

On July 23, Obama appointed Monsanto vice-president and lobbyist Michael Taylor as food safety czar - the man Jeffrey Smith, author and leading GMO foods critic, called "The person who may be responsible for more food-related illnesses and death than anyone in history....This is no joke....What have we done?"

At FDA in the early 1990s, Taylor headed policy over letting Monsanto's GM bovine growth hormone (rBGH) be injected into cows to increase milk supply despite the known health dangers. He also kept containers from being labeled to warn consumers. Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand banned the drug because of the significant cancer and other risks.

Taylor also got the FDA to treat genetically modified foods and ingredients as "substantially equivalent" to natural ones, so no testing was required for safety. Ever since in America and many other countries, GM foods have proliferated despite reliable evidence of their harm to human health.

Rumored to become USDA's food safety head is Dennis Wolff - an rBGH-using dairy farmer and Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary. Wolff spearheaded state legislation to ban rNGH-free labeling so consumers could choose safe milk over contaminated brands. He partially succeeded when governor Ed Rendell balked but allowed an FDA disclaimer on containers regarding bovine growth hormone's safety.

Operation Cure All

A June 14, 2001 FTC press release headlined "Operation Cure All Wages New Battle in Ongoing War Against Internet Health Fraud." It cited a 1997 initiated law enforcement and consumer education campaign in announcing new actions against "the fraudulent marketing of supplements and other health products on the Internet" targeting dietary supplements, herbal products, and various other "questionable" substances. The FDA claimed (without evidence) that "unscrupulous marketers (were selling to) the sickest and most vulnerable consumers." To the general public as well that relies on them as essential nutrients and natural remedies that are far more effective, safer, and vastly cheaper than dangerous overpriced drugs.

At stake isn't consumer safety. It's protecting drug company profits by eliminating competition. It's about removing safe alternatives, natural therapies, and information about them. It's to empower drug giants and approve only their products for sale. It's to establish standards they alone write; to pave the way for mass-marketing of genetically modified foods and drugs. It's a stepping stone toward mandated harmful global Codex rules.

Codex Alimentarius - A Sinister Scheme for Profit at the Expense of Human Health

Empowering Ag and drug giants through CA poses an unacceptable danger to humanity as Dr. Rima Laibow, Medical Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation, explains:

-- it will replace "safe upper (nutrient) limits with junk science;"

-- reduce them to useless levels; and

-- call essential-to-life and well-being nutrient levels toxic or poisonous.

Adequate nutrient levels are vital to "health and longevity. Nutrients are essential components of enzyme function in the human body and enzymes are the very stuff of life because they carry out every biological process in your body. Without enzymes, nothing would happen. Literally."

"There would be no digestion, no growth, no detoxification....no life. At any moment, approximately 35,000 enzymatic reactions are occurring in every cell in your body. Nutrients feed and support enzymatic action and that's why they are so crucial to health."

At optimum levels, they produce optimum health. At impaired levels, symptoms. At unhealthy levels, illness, and "No enzymatic action = death." Varying human nutrient needs depend on "genetic diversity and requirement, diet, climate and energy output, toxic load (from food, water, air, and skin absorption), underlying nutritional deficits, (and all types of) diseases and stress." In sum, it's called "Biological Individuality - a concept "totally absent from the philosophy of Codex Alimentarius."

According to Laibow, there is no "scientifically measurable 'upper limit' for nutrients" because their potential toxicity is "astonishingly low" even though at times "more is not necessarily better." DSHEA prohibits nutrient upper limits because they're foods, not drugs. "Scientifically, DSHEA is right on the mark." CA is pseudo-science for profit at the expense of human health. Legal challenges have five months left to stop them.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendman.stephen@sbcglobal.net.

Link to this article:

Climate plan calls for forest expansion

By Traci Watson, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — New forests would spread across the American landscape, replacing both pasture and farm fields, under a congressional plan to confront climate change, an Environmental Protection Agency analysis shows.
About 18 million acres of new trees — roughly the size of West Virginia — would be planted by 2020, according to an EPA analysis of a climate bill passed by the House of Representatives in June.
That's because the House bill gives financial incentives to farmers and ranchers to plant trees, which suck in large amounts of the key global-warming gas: carbon dioxide.
The forestation effort would be even larger than one carried out by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, says the U.S. Forest Service's Ralph Alig. The CCC, which lasted from 1933 to 1942, planted 3 billion trees, says the Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy, an alumni group for workers and family members.
The environmental benefits are clear. More trees would not only lower carbon dioxide levels, but they would improve water quality, because they need lower levels of pesticides and fertilizers, says agricultural economist Bruce McCarl of Texas A&M University, who contributed to the EPA analysis.
The plan would, however, be hard on ranchers and farmers and potentially food prices, says American Farm Bureau chief economist Bob Young.
In the Senate, which is likely to consider a similar bill this fall, there are some who worry the loss of farmland would lead to increases in food prices worse than those seen in mid-2007, when costs spiked 7% to 8% above 2006 levels.
If those food prices seemed high, "wait till you start moving agricultural acres into climate-change areas," warns Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., Agriculture secretary for President George W. Bush.
McCarl says food costs would stay roughly the same.
The latest EPA analysis does not say where the farmland would be lost. However, an EPA study done in 2005 that analyzed climate-change policies similar to the House bill found that trees would overgrow farms primarily in three areas:
•Great Lake states: Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
•The Southeast: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
•The Corn Belt: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Ohio.
Forests once grew there, says study author Brian Murray of Duke University, so trees would sprout quickly in those areas if farmers got financial incentives. The House climate bill would allow landowners who reduce carbon dioxide to sell carbon permits to polluters, such as power plants.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week hailed the possibility that climate-change action could help forests. "We have our own deforestation problem right here in the U.S. of A," he said. "Just keeping forest as forest is a significant challenge."
Roughly 1 million acres of forests every year were flattened to make way for homes and other development in the 1990s, Alig says. Without a climate bill, a net total 26 million acres of forest will be lost to development by 2050, he says. Link:

Rise of the Natural Climate Cycle Deniers

July 29th, 2009 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

Those who promote the theory that mankind is responsible for global warming have been working for the past 20 years on a revisionist climate history. A history where climate was always in a harmonious state of balance until mankind came along and upset that balance.

The natural climate cycle deniers have tried their best to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age from climate data records by constructing the uncritically acclaimed and infamous “hockey stick” of global temperature variations (or non-variations) over the last one- to two-thousand years.

Before being largely discredited by a National Academies review panel, this ‘poster child’ for global warming was heralded as proof of the static nature of the climate system, and that only humans had the power to alter it.

While the panel was careful to point out that the hockey stick might be correct, they said that the only thing science could say for sure is that it has been warmer lately than anytime in the last 400 years. Since most of those 400 years was during the Little Ice Age, I would say this is a good thing. It’s like saying this summer has been warmer than any period since…last fall.

These deniers claim that the Medieval Warm Period was only a regional phenomenon, restricted to Europe. Same for the Little Ice Age. Yet when a killer heat wave occurred in France in 2003, they hypocritically insisted that this event had global significance, caused by anthropogenic ‘global’ warming.

The strong warming that occurred up until 1940 is similarly a thorn in the side of the natural climate cycle deniers, since atmospheric carbon dioxide increases from fossil fuel burning before 1940 were too meager to have caused it. So, the ‘experts’ are now actively working on reducing the magnitude of that event by readjusting some ship measurements of ocean temperatures from that era. Read more here:

About Dr. Roy Spencer

Roy W. Spencer received his Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Before becoming a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001, he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has provided congressional testimony several times on the subject of global warming.

Dr. Spencer’s research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. Not even Exxon-Mobil.

Dr. Spencer’s first popular book on global warming, Climate Confusion(Encounter Books), is now available at Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

The Sun, Not CO2, Caused Ice Age Glaciers To Melt

Submitted by Doug L. Hoffman on Sun, 08/09/2009 - 16:32

Increased insolation 20,000 years ago caused deglaciation in the Norther Hemisphere, according to a new report in the August 7, 2009, edition of Science. Further more, it was the onset of deglaciation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which occurred between 14 - 15 thousand years ago, that was the source of sea-level rise at the beginning of the Holocene warming. Such events are often associated with rising CO₂ levels by climate catastrophists but the evidence says otherwise.

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is typically defined as the most recent interval in Earth history when global ice sheets reached their maximum volume. This is conventionally calculated from sea-level records but, according to Peter U. Clark et al. this is an overly simplistic approach. Sea-level records do not distinguish between globally synchronous ice-sheet maxima and temporary regional ice-sheet maxima that can combine to produce apparent sea-level low points that can last for a thousand years or more. In their report the author's describe their improved approach as follows:

We drew on 4271 ¹⁴C ages and 475 terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) ages that span the interval from 10,000 to 50,000 years ago (10 to 50 ka) to constrain the timing of maxima in global ice-sheet extent. For all but the Barents-Kara and Greenland Ice Sheets, the spatial distribution of ages is sufficient to evaluate regional variability in the timing of maxima for different sectors of individual ice sheets. Because ice-sheet extent scales with ice volume, our constraints on regional variability in ice-sheet maxima allow us to evaluate the temporal evolution of individual ice-sheet contributions to global sea-level change. Because mountain glaciers are highly sensitive to climate change, we used an additional 172 ¹⁴C ages and 786 TCN ages to constrain mountain-glacier fluctuations from five widely distributed regions of the world, allowing a more comprehensive assessment of the response of the cryosphere to climate change.

The sea-level change at a number of the sites studied reflected relative changes in sea-level and not the change on a global basis. This is because of the variations in Earth's gravitational field, deformation of the planet's crust, and rotational effects on local sea levels driven by the shift of water mass from glacial ice to the ocean. “In order to evaluate these effects, we used a state-of-the-art theory that includes a realistic glaciation phase to predict the RSL change at these far-field sites,” states the report. From these up-to-date theoretical constraints a new model was built to predict the actual LGM.

Read more here:

America’s Secret Chernobyl - Uranium Mining & Pollution in the Upper Midwest

July 27, 2009

The following report was produced by Defenders of the Black Hills:

1. World War II ended with the nuclear bomb and introduced the use of nuclear energy for the production of electricity which caused the price of uranium to rise. Uranium mining in South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota began in the middle of the 1960s. As the economy of the Midwestern states depends primarily on agriculture, when uranium was discovered in the region, many get-rich-quick schemes were adopted.

Not only were large mining companies pushing off the tops of bluffs and buttes, but small individual ranchers were also digging in their pastures for the radioactive metal. Mining occurred on both public and private land, although the Great Sioux Nation still maintains a claim to the area through the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868, the March 3rd Act of 1871, Article VI of the US Constitution, and the 1980 Supreme Court decision on the Black Hills.

2. In northwestern South Dakota, the Cave Hills area is managed by the US Forest Service. The area currently contains 89 abandoned open-pit uranium mines. Studies by the USFS show that one mine alone has 1,400 millirems per hour (mR/hr) of exposed radiation, a level of radiation that is 120,000 times higher than normal background of 100 millirems per year (mR/yr)! In the southwestern Black Hills, the US Forest Service reported on 29 abandoned open-pit uranium mines, one of which is about 1 square mile in size.

3. It is estimated that more than 1,000 open-pit uranium mines and prospects can be found in the four state region from a map developed by the US Forest Service. The water runoff from the creeks and rivers near these abandoned uranium mines eventually empties into the Missouri River which empties into the Mississippi River.

4. The following agencies are aware of these abandoned uranium mines and prospects: US Forest Service, US Environmental Protection Agency, US Bureau of Land Management, SD Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the US Indian Health Service. Only after public concern about these mines was raised a few years ago did the USFS and the EPA pay for a study in 2006 of the off site effects caused by only 1 abandoned mine.

5. More than 4,000 exploratory holes, some large enough for a person to fall into, are found in the southwestern Black Hills with an additional 3,000 holes just 10 miles west of the town of Belle Fourche, SD near the Wyoming border. These holes go to depths of 600 feet. This exploratory process itself allows radioactive pollutants to cross contaminate underground water sources. More exploratory holes for uranium are being drilled in Wyoming and South Dakota.

6. The US Air Force also used small nuclear power plants in some of their remote radar stations. No data is available on the current status or disposal of these small nuclear power sources or of their wastes. The US Air Force is responsible for monitoring these sites although there is no stopping the radioactive pollution that could contaminate aquifers.

7. In Wyoming, hundreds of abandoned open-pit uranium mines and prospects can be found in or near the coal in the Powder River Basin, and the coal is laced with uranium ore. The coal is shipped to power plants in the Eastern part of the United States.
Radioactive dust and particles are released into the air at the coal fired power plants and often set off the warning systems at nuclear power plants. The same radioactive dust and particles are released into the air that travels across South Dakota and to the South and East in the coal strip mining process.

8. In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a secret Executive Order declaring this four State region in the Upper Midwest to be a ‘National Sacrifice Area’ for the mining and production of uranium and nuclear energy.

Continue reading here: