Exposing the Blackbody Model
“The globe is warming, the globe is warming!” So say the Alarmists. And when queried as to why, they say, “greenhouse gases, greenhouse gases!”
But wait, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a few molecules per million. How could such a scarce gas warm the planet?
And the Alarmists reply, “Stefan-Boltzmann, Stefan-Boltzmann!”
Generally that ends the conversation right then and there, because neither you nor the Alarmist have any idea what they’re talking about.
This post will clear all that up by edifying you and your Alarmist buddy about blackbodies.
“Stefan-Boltzmann” equations are also known as “blackbody” thermodynamic equations, and they lie at the heart of the vaunted “global warming models” which Alarmist scientists use to predict “climate change”.
The Stefan-Boltzmann Law says that the energy radiated by a blackbody radiator per second per unit area is proportional to the fourth power of the absolute temperature and is given by P/A = (5.6703 x 10^(-8)) watts/square meter x Kelvin temperature ^4, but that’s not important.
What is important is that the Earth is not a “blackbody” or a “perfect Planck emitter”, and therefore the global warming models are wrong. Their fundamental starting equations are incorrect, and so all the predictions made by those models are wrong.
What’s more, NASA (our National Space and Aeronautics Administration) has known for 40 years that the Stefan-Boltzmann Law does not comport with reality. They discovered that quirk of physics when planning the Apollo Moon missions in the 1960’s. The Moon is warmer than it is supposed to be, according to Stefan-Boltzmann. And the Moon has no atmosphere.
It turns out that the actual Universe is a lot more complicated than any simple physics theory.
Artillery Bombardment, Butterflies, and Anthropogenic Fire
The Tacoma Tribune reports that efforts to restore the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly in Puget Sound are most successful at the Fort Lewis artillery range.
Does that mean the butterflies are ecologically adapted to artillery bombardment?
‘Just a bug, but a very beautiful bug’
Back from the edge: Checkerspot butterflies thrive in new prairie home
by John Dodge, Tacoma News Tribune, 05/25/10 [here]
Monday was a reluctant moving day for a batch of brightly colored Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies that began life at the Oregon Zoo in Portland and will end it soon on a South Sound prairie preserve near Littlerock.
The release of 60 adult butterflies was the latest chapter in a five-year project to bring the black, reddish-orange and cream-colored insect back from the verge of extinction.
Once found at more than 70 sites from Vancouver Island to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, the only self-supported population is limited to, of all places, the artillery impact zone at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
The decline, which makes them a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act, is traced to fragmented and degraded prairie habitat, development and maybe even climate change, according to Hannah Anderson, a rare species program manager for The Nature Conservancy.
But there’s growing evidence that efforts to establish a population at the prairie site near Littlerock is paying dividends, said state Fish and Wildlife biologist Mary Linders. … [more]
Bombs away for butterflies?
Not exactly. Retired DNR forest soil scientist Ken Schlichte (frequent contributor to News From the Salmon Front and other W.I.S.E. subsites) offers a more nuanced explanation:
PRAIRIES: Burning required to maintain habitat
by Ken A. Schlichte, Letter to the Editor, Tacoma News Tribune, 05/25/10 [here]
Re: “‘Just a bug, but a very beautiful bug’” (TNT, 5-25).
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife and others have reported that the prairies of the South Puget Sound area developed by replacing forests during a warm-dry climatic period around 10,000 to 7,000 years ago. Temperatures have been cooler for thousands of years since this warmer period, known as the Holocene Maximum, but these prairies were maintained against naturally advancing forest vegetation by Native American prairie burning.
Native American prairie burning ended in the 1800s, and prairie habitat suitable for the Taylor checkerspot then became more fragmented and degraded as forest vegetation naturally reclaimed these prairies. But the fires escaping from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord artillery impact zone have maintained the surrounding prairie habitat with the only self-supported population of the Taylor checkerspot.
Native American prairie burning and artillery impact fires have maintained the prairie habitat for the Taylor’s checkerspot and other prairie species during the thousands of years of cooler temperatures since the Holocene Maximum. These cooler temperatures require continued prairie burning in order to maintain our remaining prairie habitat against the naturally advancing forest vegetation.
2007 Fire Season Federal forest policy Private land policies Restoring cultural landscapes
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Road Closure Meeting With the Payette National Forest Highlights
By Scott Amos, Letter to the Editor, Yellow Pine Times, May 25, 2010
Folks from Big Creek and I did attend the meeting with the Payette National Forest office in McCall today. Much material was gathered which was not otherwise available to the public. It shows that the USFS believes there is only one job in Yellow Pine related to tourism and 40 government employees reside in the Yellow Pine area.
I started to offer the loan of my calculator to the PNF, but figured with their government budget they should have plenty. Then I thought they may have not been sufficiently task trained in the operation of calculators. I held a brief class with present PNF employees and counted five businesses in and around Yellow Pine. I even used a visual aid, my fingers on one hand, but it was like explaining differential calculus to a kindergartner. I really got a lot of blank stares when I explained some of the five businesses in fact have MORE than one employee, and one employee does not run, operate, and maintain all five businesses simultaneously. Therefore, I will offer a class free of charge to any PNF employees who are interested in operating, maintaining, and understanding calculators. They can even be clean and green solar calculators, if they prefer.
Clearly being alone in the woods for long periods of time with the hazardous fumes from our incinerated forests has affected the understanding they once had of calculator operations and basic math. Deciding one employee in tourism was too hard a concept, we did not dare talk about the 40 missing government workers with no Yellow Pine mailing addresses. That material will be offered in subsequent advanced government mathematics which is too advanced for introductory classes and could not be offered due to time constraints in explaining it to the students.
RS2477 Roads
From this point the discussion has been deemed to go to appeals. We briefly discussed RS2477 roads, but the PNF thinks we should spend lots of federal, state, and county money to find out that which we’ve already agreed upon as valid; i.e. yes many of the roads the county claims as their right of way ARE county RS2477 roads, but you, I, and the folks who don’t spend as much of the government money as we can aren’t qualified to settle the debate. Sounds like only a highly paid federal judge can read the documents we currently hold [presented by highly paid government lawyers] and say “yes, sounds like you’ve got a valid point.” Even though the PNF agrees the county has a valid point in claiming RS2477 jurisdiction.
The West Side Road to My Property
The representative present today stated on behalf of Suzanne Rainville, Forest Supervisor, that the roads (including my driveway) that she deemed “unworthy of public comment” would be “closed by de facto.” In other words, the roads the public wasn’t allowed to comment on will likely be obliterated, removed, and destroyed, even though some of them may qualify for protection due to their historical value under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1963.
The NHPA states:
(1)(A) The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to expand and maintain a National Register of Historic Places composed of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture.
and that
(B) Properties meeting the criteria for National Historic Landmarks established pursuant to paragraph (2) shall be designated as “National Historic Landmarks” and included on the National Register, subject to the requirements of paragraph (6).
The National Historical Preservation Act of 1963 can and does include roads. Look up Historic Route 66 [here].
My driveway, Smith Creek Road, Three Mile Road, Hennesey Meadows Road, the Old Thunder Mountain Road, the Frog Pond Road, the Road Adjacent to the Frog Pond, and the Road Across from the Trail to Buckhorn Lake, are all historic and significant, especially to local residents. According to Yellow Pine legend and some maps dug from their dusty tombs these historical roadways are much older than the Route 66.
Just a thought.
*****
Note: see also Yellow Pine Road Workshop Planned [here], Payette Road Closure Appeal Meeting [here], and Boise NF and Payette NF Post-2007 Fire(s) Photos [here].
Federal forest policy Politics and politicians Saving Forests The 2009 Fire Season
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Revisiting the Station Fire
Last September the Station Fire [here] ignited in the Angeles National Forest, burned 160,600 acres, and destroyed 90 homes. Two Los Angeles County firefighters were fatally injured during the fire. The Station Fire was the largest fire in LA County history, cost nearly $100 million in suppression expenses alone, and inflicted economic damages of 10 to 50 times that amount.
Shortly after the fire was contained, the LA Times charged that mistakes had been made in fighting the fire [here]. Specifically, the newspaper alleged that aerial attacks were delayed in the first hours of the Station Fire, and the delay led to the fire growing out of control.
It was more than an hour after first light, and some six hours after U.S. Forest Service commanders had determined that the fire required a more aggressive air attack. But the skies remained empty of water-dropping helicopters — tankers that were readily available.
There was uncomfortable irony to the LA Times allegations. One year earlier LA Times reporter Bettina Boxall won a Pulitzer Prize for a series condemning aerial firefighting as a waste of money [here]:
Air tanker drops in wildfires are often just for show
The bulky aircraft are reassuring sights to those in harm’s way, but their use can be a needless and expensive exercise to appease politicians. Fire officials call them ‘CNN drops.’
In November an after-action review panel made up of two representatives of the U. S. Forest Service, one from L.A. County Fire Department, one from CalFire, and a private consultant determined that decisions made by Incident Commanders on the Station Fire were reasonable and prudent.
W.I.S.E. meets with the WFLC
I attended a forum on the Cohesive Strategy for Wildland Fire Management in Olympia yesterday. This was the tenth of 13 forums sponsored by the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC). They are part of the WFLC effort [here] to formulate a Cohesive Strategy for wildland fire management, as called for by Congress in the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME Act) which was bundled with the FY 2010 Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act [here].
SEC. 503. COHESIVE WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY.
(a) STRATEGY REQUIRED.—Not later than one year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture, acting jointly, shall submit to Congress a report that contains a cohesive wildfire management strategy, consistent with the recommendations described in recent reports H. R. 2996—69 of the Government Accountability Office regarding management strategies.
(b) ELEMENTS OF STRATEGY.—The strategy required by subsection
(a) shall provide for—
(1) the identification of the most cost-effective means for allocating fire management budget resources;
(2) the reinvestment in non-fire programs by the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture;
(3) employing the appropriate management response to wildfires;
(4) assessing the level of risk to communities;
(5) the allocation of hazardous fuels reduction funds based on the priority of hazardous fuels reduction projects;
(6) assessing the impacts of climate change on the frequency and severity of wildfire; and
(7) studying the effects of invasive species on wildfire risk.
(c) REVISION.—At least once during each five-year period beginning on the date of the submission of the cohesive wildfire management strategy under subsection (a), the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture shall revise the strategy to address any changes affecting the strategy, including changes with respect to landscape, vegetation, climate, and weather. …
The forum was by invitation only, but I managed to wangle an invite. The agenda included a form to fill out “to help formulate significant questions that the cohesive strategy development process”. My filled-out form is [here]. The discussion followed the format on the agenda/form.
About 30 people attended the forum in Olympia. Two or three were private citizens (including myself) and the rest were government employees (some state, mostly federal). It was the only Cohesive Strategy forum to be held in the Pacific Northwest. No one from the Oregon Department of Forestry attended. No county officials or representatives of county organizations attended. Three BIA people attended, one being a Native American, but otherwise no Tribal representatives were there. No one from the National Park Service or U.S. Fish and Wildlife was there.
But the lack of diversity in the room did not bother me. I got my my points into the record, which was my goal. I can’t hold everybody’s hand. If your agency wasn’t represented there, that’s not my fault. It is not particularly to my credit either, though, nor yours, nor the WFLC’s.
The discussion was cordial if dull, as befitting a government functionary meeting. I was reserved and held my sparkling wit in check for the most part, baiting the moderator only once or twice. Really, I was very nice and so was everyone else. The moderator and I are friends now, and see things very similarly with one or two exceptions. He likes fire use (whoofoos, foofurbs, niados [here]) and I don’t.
The forums are something of a breakthrough for the WFLC. In prior manifestations they were a secretive and insular body that held closed door meetings. Now they are making an attempt to open the doors a little bit. Outreach is a new thing for them, and these first steps are toddling. They promise to set up an interactive (blog-like) website soon. When they do, I will let you know.
Geologist Declares ‘Global warming is over’
Warns U.S. Climate Conference of ‘Looming Threat of Global Cooling’
“Expect global cooling for the next 2-3 decades that will be far more damaging than global warming would have been”
by Marc Morano, Climate Depot, May 16, 2010 [here]
CHICAGO — A prominent U.S. geologist is urging the world to forget about global warming because global cooling has already begun.
Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook’s warning came in the form of a new scientific paper he presented to the 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago on May 16, 2010. Dr. Easterbrook is an Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications. Easterbrook’s full resume is [here].
Note: Easterbrook, Don J. 2008. Global Cooling Is Here! Evidence for Predicting Global Cooling For the Next Three Decades is [here]
Dr. Easterbrook joins many other scientists, peer-reviewed research and scientific societies warning of a coming global cooling. Easterbrook is presenting his findings alongside other man-made global warming skeptics at the three day conference in Chicago.
Dr. Easterbrook’s key excerpts:
That global warming is over, at least for a few decades, might seem to be a relief. However, the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming and a cause for even greater concern because:
1. A recent study showed that twice as many people are killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat.
2. Global cooling will have an adverse effect on food production because of shorter growing seasons, cooler growing seasons, and bad weather during harvest seasons. This is already happening in the Midwestern U.S., China, India, and other places in the world. Hardest hit will be third world countries where millions are already near starvation levels.
3. Increase in per capita energy demands, especially for heating.
4. Decrease in the ability to cope with problems related to the population explosion. World population is projected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050, an increase of 50%. This means a substantial increase in demand for food and energy at a time when both are decreasing because of the cooling climate. … [more]
Note #2: Watch the Heartland Institute’s 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago live [here].
Climate and Weather Federal forest policy Politics and politicians Private land policies Useless and Stupid
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Holocausters Seize the Day
The Obama Administration has gotten in bed with the Burn Baby Burn crowd. If all goes according to nefarious plan, the holocausters will take landscape-scale forest incineration to new heights.
Get ready, America, for record megafires.
Three recent news blurbs indicate the power that radical anti-human, pro-holocaust crazies now wield with our dysfunctional government. First, it turns out Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was lying [here] when he told a Senate committee last March that there is no “hidden federal agenda” to unilaterally designate national monuments in Utah and around the West.
Govt Met With Environmentalists On Land Takeover
Obama Administration Consulted Environmentalists in Secret About Creating New National Monuments
AP, CBSNews.com, May 15, 2010 [here]
HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Recently released documents show the Obama administration was getting ideas from environmental groups about setting aside millions of acres in the West, drawing the ire of land users who said discussions were being developed behind their back.
In the documents - most of which are e-mail messages - the environmental groups suggest various ways to protect land, such as by creating national monuments, buying private land or through conservation easements.
A subsequent internal Interior Department memo - which the agency said is simply the product of brainstorming - listed 2.5 million acres in Montana for a new bison range as one of 14 sites in nine Western states being considered as national monuments. …
Republicans who submitted an information request to obtain the documents blasted the information as proof that the administration was privately crafting large-scale land use plans. Federal agencies have so far produced only a fraction of the requested documents, they said.
“We now find references to plans that Montanans were told weren’t in the works,” said U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Montana Republican. “This doesn’t pass the smell test.”
The e-mails show detailed discussions that went into brainstorming for the “Treasured Landscapes Initiative.” … [more]
The law allows the President to declare unlimited acres of Federal land as “national monuments”, a designation that, like wilderness and roadless, invites Let It Burn.
The Extraordinarily Intelligent Agree: Warmer Is Better
Just in via the SOSF grapevine from one of our extraordinarily intelligent SOSF agents:
Bomb Designer, Mars Expert Sent by Obama to Fix Oil Spill
By Jessica Resnick-Ault and Katarzyna Klimasinska, Bloomberg News, May 14, 2010 [here]
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu signaled his lack of confidence in the industry experts trying to control BP Plc’s leaking oil well by hand-picking a team of scientists with reputations for creative problem solving.
Dispatched to Houston by President Barack Obama to deal with the crisis, Chu said Wednesday that five “extraordinarily intelligent” scientists from around the country will help BP and industry experts think of back-up plans to cut off oil from the well, leaking 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below sea-level.
Members of the Chu team are credited with accomplishments including designing the first hydrogen bomb, inventing techniques for mining on Mars and finding a way to precisely position biomedical needles. …
Their exact activities are cloaked in secrecy. “We saw some confidential and proprietary information,” said one scientist on the team, Jonathan I. Katz, a physics professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
Katz’s early work focused on astrophysics, but now he consults on a wide variety of physics puzzles, he said. He is a member of the JASON group, a think tank dedicated to researching complex problems for the U.S. Government, including the Defense Department. … [more]
And what does Dr Katz, an “extraordinarily intelligent” scientist, think about global warming?
“Global warming is probably good for humanity. Sit back, relax, and watch it happen.”
That’s right, sports fans. It appears that the “extraordinarily intelligent” Dr. Katz agrees with Yours Truly, who in 2005 famously and publicly coined the phrase, WARMER IS BETTER - FIGHT THE ICE [here, here, and elsewhere].
2007 Fire Season Forestry education Saving Forests The 2008 Fire Season
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Clearcuts Don’t Burn
By Derek Weidensee
I’d like to share with readers of W.I.S.E. and SOS Forests several photographs I’ve taken of seven different Montana wildfire burns — of a phenomenon I call “clearcuts don’t burn”!
Unburned area on the right is a 25-year-old regenerated clearcut. Photo by Derek Weidensee. Click for larger image
In fairness, I should say clearcuts seldom burn. The “green islands” in a sea of burned old forest are often “regenerated” clearcuts.
The Rat Creek Fire (2007) Burn west of Wisdom, MT, in 2009. Photo by Derek Weidensee. Click for larger image
This is a hobby of mine. I’ve spent my last four summer vacations going to Montana to study and photograph this phenomenon. I think it’s the best kept secret of forestry.
A 30-year-old regenerated clearcut surrounded by burned forest. Photo by Derek Weidensee. Click for larger image
Federal forest policy Politics and politicians Useless and Stupid
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Are Whoofoo and Hammer Gone?
The latest missive from USFS Fire and Aviation Director Tom Harbour indicates that whoofoo (as we call it) is no more. Let It Burn is still happening; they just don’t want to refer to it as whoofoo, foofurb, or any other moniker we can satirize.
There are only two types of wildland fires: wildfires and prescribed fires. The terms “fire use fires,” “resource benefit fires,” or “suppression fires” will not be used. The agency reports activity on only these two types of fire. Manage natural ignitions to achieve desired Land and Resource Management Plan objectives when risk is within acceptable limits. A wildfire may be concurrently managed for more than one objective.
However, if you look close, they are now calling Let It Burn “natural ignitions to achieve desired objectives” or “niados”.
So niados are the new Let It Burn.
The authority to declare niados comes from the WFLC February 13, 2009 Guidance for the Implementation of Federal Wildland Fire Policy or GIFWFMP [here].
The new GIFWFMP (2009) replaces the old GIFWFMP (2004). the changes are, in a nutshell:
1. Wildland fires may be concurrently managed for one or more objectives and objectives can change as the fire spreads across the landscape. That replaces the old guidance that said “wildland fires will either be managed for resource benefits or suppressed. A wildland fire cannot be managed for both objectives concurrently.”
So now the objectives can be swapped around whenever. Note that fires can be managed “for resource benefits”; it’s just that nobody in charge is allowed to say so. See the new “niados” rule above.
2. Initial action on human-caused wildfire will be to suppress the fire… but not necessarily subsequent actions. That replaces “Human caused wildland fires will be suppressed in every instance and will not be managed for resource benefits.” The implication is that human-caused fires may now become niados and Let Burn, even though they are not “natural ignitions”.
3. Same as #1, but replacing the old guidance, “Once a wildland fire has been managed for suppression objectives, it may never be managed for resource benefit objectives.” Now the fire managers can change their minds whenever. They can suppress, then not suppress, then suppress, then not suppress. It all depends on the whim of the person in charge. No Environmental Impact Statement, study or analysis is required.
4. The term Appropriate Management Response is removed from implementation guidance with “Response to Wildland Fire” as the policy area defining the actions for managing a wildland fire.
What ho? Appropriate Management Response, or as we call it, “hammer”, was the official term that described the response to wildfires. Hammer was allegedly based on evaluation of threats to lives and safety, resource values, and fire conditions.
Now it’s gone. The word “appropriate” has been found to be inappropriate. Internal and
public use of the word “appropriate” are discouraged.
2007 Fire Season Climate and Weather Restoring cultural landscapes The 2008 Fire Season The 2009 Fire Season The 2010 Fire Season
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The True Crisis
The LA Times spit out an editorial today that missed the mark by a mile.
Climate change is the true crisis
LA Times Editorial, May 10, 2010 [here]
West Virginia’s mining disaster and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill were disastrous and investigations are justified, but the real threat is much worse. …
Blah, blah, blah…
… beaches are going to vanish within half a century (along with much of Miami) under the worst-case scenarios presented by climate modelers.
Blah, blah, blah…
Lawmakers today aren’t seeing the forest for the trees; that will change when the forest has burned or been destroyed by bark beetles, but by then it will be too late.
It may be too late for the LA Times, and for “climate modelers”, but you can be assured the beaches of Florida are not disappearing. Global sea level rise since 2005 is a whopping 1 millimeter per year, down from 2 millimeters per year over the last century or so. And now that global ice caps are growing again, it is likely that sea levels will fall; over the next 30 years at least. In fact, sea levels may have peaked in this interglacial (the Holocene) and could fall for the next 100,000 years or thereabouts.
More important to the principal theme of SOS Forests, we must point out (yet again) that even the most generous estimates of US temperature change indicate that over the last 130 years temperatures have risen no more than 1 deg C.
That’s 2 deg F. On a day when it might have been 90 deg F 130 years ago, today it might be 92 deg F. That change is so small as to be largely undetectable, unnoticeable, and of no significant consequence to forests.
We have been experiencing a forest fire crisis, however, and bark beetle infestations, but they are not due to temperature change.
Climate and Weather Politics and politicians Useless and Stupid
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Cap-and-Tax America to Death
The American Power Act may now be downloaded [here].
This is the section-by-section summary of 5/11/2010. It is 21 pages long, 9.5 MB. It is a photocopy, not in text format, so it cannot be cut and pasted. It could be printed out, scanned, and converted to text. If somebody wants to do that exercise, please send me the text copy. That will be much smaller, more like 200 KB or less.
Note: I have replaced the photocopy version with an OmniPageTXT version that can be cut and pasted. This version is also in pdf format but it is a little smaller (4.3 MB). Thank you Jim K. for providing it.
Note 2: the whole freaking thing, all 987 pages, is [here] (1.2 MB)
The section-by-section summary is marked **For Staff Use Only - Not For Distribution Or Publication** but we are publishing it online anyway.
I dare the US Senate to arrest me for putting their secret deliberations into public view.
Title II is entitled “Global Warming Pollution Reduction”. It establishes a cap on carbon emissions and monetary and injunctive penalties for parties that exceed their quotas (Sec. 723).
It also establishes a “carbon bank” for trade in “allowances” (Sec 725).
It directs the EPA Administrator to establish a “reserve” of “allowances” for sale to carbon emitters (Sec 726).
It directs the EPA Administrator to collect payments from gas and diesel “providers”.
It goes on and on. Later I will make a more complete analysis. Cap, cap, cap, tax, tax, tax — all for nought. It will not change the temperature of the globe in any measurable amount. But it will bleed the economy dry, shut down power plants, kill industry and manufacturing, and fill the coffers of the biggest crooks in America — until the economy is in shambles.
This is the most egregious scam, and most horrifically bad law ever proposed in this country. If passed, it will presage the destruction of the United States of America.
The American Power Act is worse than a dozen Pearl Harbors. Now is truly the time for all patriots to rise in defense of our nation.
Climate and Weather Politics and politicians Useless and Stupid
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Indoctrinating the Children in Oregon
Propagandizing your kids with your tax dollars, courtesy Oregon State University
Note the following authentic email (names have been changed to protect the guilty).
—-Original Message—-
Sent: Wed 5/5/2010 15:03
Subject: [GECO] Classroom Carbon Challenge- testers neededHello GECOs,
The Classroom Carbon Challenge folks are developing a board game for middle schoolers and would love your help! We need adult participants to try out the board game next Mon the 10th at 7:30pm, Location TBA, and give us feedback. Please email XXXX@oregonstate.edu to let us know if you can join us. In exchange you get to have some fun and eat some cookies!
The game has players make decisions about GHG-emitting behaviors and consider how to budget a fair share of “carbon emissions”. It’s part of ongoing development of classroom activities about climate change.
If you like middle schoolers, we’ll be playing the game out with real live kids Thur 13th at 1pm and you’re welcome to join us. If you’re interested but can’t make these sessions, we’d still love to hear from you.
Hope you’re enjoying spring!
Thanks,
XXXX, YYYY, and ZZZZ
Yep, sports fans. The Big U has a propaganda program to indoctrinate kids in the Global Warming Hoax. It’s the Algore Youth Brigade, coming to your middle school, coming from your university.
Check it out. GECO is the Global Environmental Change Organization [here], an “interdisciplinary avenue for Oregon State University students, researchers, and professors to pool resources, energy, and knowledge about global change.”
It’s a student group with an Idea Bank. Some of GECO’s ideas:
* Campus symposium
* Communicating to kids about climate change
* Writing editorials
* Panel discussion
* Inviting speakers
* Fundraising for exciting events
* Low carbon BBQ
* Writing group
* Lab tours - Ice core lab!
GECO’s faculty advisor is none other than College of Forestry professor Bev Law, notable for the Donato-Law paper “Post-Wildfire Logging Hinders Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk”, published in Science BREVIA, Jan., 2006 [here, here, here].
GECO is linked to the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (OCCRI), headed up by Dr. Philip Mote - Director.
History buffs may recall the Great State Climate Debate [here] in 2007 when Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor debated Washington State Climate Alarmist Phil Mote at at a meeting sponsored by the Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society and hosted by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI).
George cleaned Phil’s clock in that debate, which irked Governor Ted Kulongoski. Teddy the Torch, a tool of the Goldschmidt Machine, subsequently closed the Oregon State Climatologist’s office at OSU and forced George Taylor into early retirement. Then Teddy created OCCRI and hired loser Phil Mote.
It’s all political. In Oregon, the Governor circumvents all established procedures and academic freedoms and personally hires and fires faculty at OSU, based on their political leanings. It’s a novel system, not practiced elsewhere in the Free World but typical of communist dictatorships and banana republics like Cuba (of which Teddy the Torch is inordinately fond).
But anyway, the latest craze to come out of the Oregon State Marxist Re-Education Facility is a climate board game for kids. Created by the Classroom Carbon Challenge folks, your kids can learn how to reduce your carbon footprint. In the old days the kids wanted to drive Pop’s car. Now they learn in school that the best thing is to sabotage it by cutting the brake lines. It’s positively Khmer Rouge!
The kids are ready for Climate Monopoly. After all, they have been brainwashed by Algore’s movie, slide shows from Algore operative (and now Goobernatorial candidate Phil Bonehead), and daily torture by union thugs from the Oregon Education Association. Your little darlings have been more or less lobotomized.
They have learned that no challenge to “the basic tenets of anthropogenic global warming (AGW)” is permitted and “the evidence in support of AGW is unequivocal.” Any climate change skeptic who questions “the basic tenets of climate change” is “wrong and/or ignorant” [here].
Is it any wonder that Oregon is ranked 49th out of 50 states in the quality of public education [here]?
However, Oregon leads the nation in political indoctrination of children. Nobody has taken a poll that I know of, but I’m sure we’d win the blue ribbon in that category. Credit goes to our one-party government system run by convicted child molesters.
The EPA, the IPCC, and Junk Science
Last December the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a CO2 “endangerment finding”, formally declaring that CO2 poses a threat to human health and welfare, a designation that sets the federal government on the path toward regulating CO2 emissions from power plants, factories, automobiles and other major and minor sources [here].
The EPA relied on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR4 2007 report rather than making any independent assessment:
Joined at the hip: The EPA Endangerment Finding uses the IPCC’s questionable science
by Thomas Fuller, Examiner.com, February 25 [here]
The Environmental Protection Agency made no bones about where it shopped for its science, proudly proclaiming that the IPCC had done such a good job that they did not need to do their (mandatory) independent assessment of the risks posed to U.S. citizens from greenhouse gases, which they now propose to regulate. Now, however, they are not so proud of the IPCC… although their Endangerment Finding relies heavily on the IPCC and uses some of the IPCC’s more questionable reporting. …
So, just how independent is the IPCC’s findings? Not very-the Technical Support Document averages almost two references to the IPCC on every page, and both the Endangerment Finding and the Technical Support Document contain direct reference to IPCC findings that have been revealed to be suspect, due to inadequate sourcing or plain error. …
Number of times the IPCC is mentioned in the Endangerment Finding itself: 49 (in a 52 page document) …
Number of times the IPCC is mentioned in the Technical Support Document to the Endangerment Finding: 396 (in a 210 page document) …
Now it has been revealed that the IPCC AR4 report is itself based on “grey literature” such as press releases, newspaper articles, and advocacy rants published by environmental groups. The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, repeatedly claimed the report was based on on “peer-reviewed” science, but a citizen audit found that over 30 percent of the citations were not peer-reviewed.
Spear-headed by Canadian journalist and blogger Donna Laframboise, the citizen audit found that 21 out of 44 chapters contain so few peer-reviewed references (less than 60 percent) that they merit a grade of “F”.
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Barbed-wire pitch posts preserve forest history
Note: the following excellent essay is reposted with permission of EPTG editor John Cordsen. There is a surprising amount of history recorded in fence posts, of all things. This is our second fence post/history article. The first is Roger Underwood. 2005. The jam post and plain wire fence: An insight into York’s agricultural, ecological and economic history. Barladong (5) 2005: 16-27 [here].
Old fences reveal lessons
By Ron Gosnell, Special to the Estes Park Trail-Gazette, 05/06/2010 [here]
At old ranches and on some remaining farms near the foothills, one can see old barbed-wire-fence “pitch posts.” These relics of a bygone era artistically reveal some Colorado history and provide an interesting forestry lesson.
Pitch posts were cut and split from the dense and heavy wood of live pitchy trees. Pitch is a resin found in evergreen trees and it forms when trees are injured. When the injury is caused by heat from ground-surface, low-intensity forest fires, and the fire has not killed the tree, more sap is made. This resin then concentrates in outer layers of sap-wood.
Long ago, forest fires were started from lightning and often times by indigenous people. Native Americans knew that a flush of new and tender vegetation that sprouts after fire meant well-nourished game and thus better hunting. With no human effort to suppress forest fires, they were frequent, and trees were often injured by fire.
In those conditions, a “relatively young,” 150-year-old tree may have received fire damage three, four, five or more times in its lifetime. A living tree exposed to that many fires accumulates high concentrations of pitch all the way from its heartwood center out to the bark.
Many fire-injured trees had a portion of their lower bark burned off. Exposed and charcoaled wood made inverted V-shaped black areas called “cat faces,” usually on the uphill side. Often, the cat-faced trees healed over the charred surface with new wood, which can be seen in cross-sections of old pitch posts. Fire events can sometimes be dated by annual tree rings of wood that grew over the black fire scar or surround it.
Still other old forest fires left no definitive trace. Very light intensity fires did not scar trees. Other fires simply killed and then totally consumed tracts of young trees. Later, new forest hides old fire evidence. Unquestionably, though, prior to Colorado`s settlement, frequent fire and pitchy trees were parts of the forest environment.
Back then, many forest fires persisted for months. These long-lasting fires took on a variety of day-to-day behavior, depending upon weather, terrain and fuel conditions in their path. Some fires smoldered underground for a long time as root fires, only to be rekindled with a strong, dry wind. Over centuries of time, subsequent fires affected miles and miles of forest, covering a wide range of aspects and elevations.
Then things changed. Colorado settlers took advantage of an abundant supply of pitchy trees. Pitch wood resists rot. Fence posts cut and split from living pitch trees would seemingly last forever. Miners, farmers and ranchers paid a premium for solid, pitchy logs and wood-cutters soon depleted accessible forests of pitchy trees.
Decades later, encouraged by a forceful conservation movement, forests regenerated naturally or were replanted. Many trees grew, but pitchy trees did not. About the only evidence of pitch trees that we still have are “antique” pitch posts.
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