Time to issue an untimatum.

It's becoming more and more obvious that the Professional Political Class - from both parties - aren't listening to "We, the People". It's time to get their attention. Here's my open letter to both parties:

Listen, Jackasses, both Donkeys and Elephants,

It's obvious you only play lip service to our Constitution, and to the people it was created to provide governance of. You're playing the part of King George III and the British Parliament under him. We, the People, didn't like that the first time, and did something about it. Either return, as PARTIES and individuals, to the limits of our Constitution, or we'll be forced to do something about it again.

We don't need to use the force of arms to throw you out. We can use two very powerful tools: our vote, and our pocketbook. You felt the first part of that with the "Tea Party Revolution" over the past two years. So far, the Tea Party has backed the Republican Party, attempting to use it as a vehicle to affect change. It's become obvious, however, that the "movers and shakers" of the Republican Party haven't gotten the message we've been sending. There is nothing keeping us from divorcing the Republican Party and creating our own. There is a large enough grass-roots movement there now to make that work, to provide candidates at every level of government, and to support those candidates in their quest for office. Political parties aren't sacrosanct - just ask the Whigs, if you can find one.

The second power we have is the power of the pocketbook. We can not only withhold funds from your "reelection campaigns", but also from those rich and powerful that support you for personal gains. There are usually alternatives for everything, and the Internet allows us to communicate those alternatives to one another. Just to show you how that works, I've owned a number of General Motors products over the past 55 years, but I will NEVER buy another one. If 50% of the Tea Party members and associates refuse to buy GM, I'm sure their sales will drop - perhaps enough to throw them into bankruptcy again, this time without a government bailout.

We can do that with any company, large or small. For every member of the Tea Party that's active, there are a dozen of us working in the shadows to support them. We're a lot more powerful than you think - if that thought process actually applies to any elected member of Congress.

We're tired of having to hold our nose when we vote for YOUR choice of candidate. We're tired of seeing our wishes and desires for smaller, cheaper government ignored. We're tired of lying, stealing, backstabbing, deal-making, and cronyism that passes as "business as usual" in our government. We're tired of an out-of-control, unrestrained bureaucracy making rules that hit us in the pocketbook, or in our freedoms. We're tired of government at every level ignoring the limits our Constitution places on it. Many of us have fought for that Constitution, and hold it sacred. Obviously, few in Congress do.

Of course, if it does come down to the force of arms, remember that there are 40 million of us, and most of us own guns of some sort. Depending on the Armed Forces of the United States may not be practical, since their commitment and primary duty is to "SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO BEAR TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SAME". They may not be on your side.

This is your last chance. Either shape up, or find out how the Dodo felt.

Disrespectfully,


Michael A. Weatherford
Old Patriot
MSgt, USAF, Retired
Colorado Springs, CO

Tallbloke Tort Action

One of the many people I keep track of via their weblogs is Roger Tattersal, who posts as Tallbloke's Talkshop. Roger was visited by the Norwich constabulary a few nights ago, and had some of his computer equipment taken, with the promise that all would be returned soon. This is in response to "Climategate 2", the release of another large data dump from "FOIA", an unknown person who apparently doesn't like the downright fraud being committed by many of the people associated with "climate science", including Phil Jones and Michael Mann. These new emails and other data provide additional information that "Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming" (CAGW) has no basis in science, and is nothing more than a fraud to perpetuate and expand the authority of the United Nations over everyone on the planet. Tallbloke is suing a particularly nasty and libelous blogger at another blog that all but charged him with being one of the "thieves" that took the email information from the University of East Anglia and posted it on a Russian server. Since the post was both libelous and defamatory to Tallbloke's reputation, he is suing for damages. If you wish to help out, click on the link. It will take you to Tallbloke's blog, where you can both read some very interesting things the lame-stream media won't talk about, but also help by clicking the PayPal button and making a donation to Roger's legal fund. I hope that "discovery" during this trial brings even more derogatory information about the "team" promoting CAGW to light.

I do wish that someone in the United States would bring RICO charges against all the "team" members in this country. Even if they weren't convicted, the "discovery" phase would destroy the entire fabrication that is CAGW.

"Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change" is a Fraud

Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CAGW) is a fraud. More and more evidence of this is surfacing, yet tens of millions still believe it. Why? The major reason is a lack of understanding of atmospheric science and just plain general knowledge. I'm going to try, in this post, to provide the necessary information to allow anyone to understand why CAGW is not, and cannot, happen.

First, we need to know something about the atmosphere. Here is the chemical composition of Earth's atmosphere, from About.com:

This is composition of air in percent by volume, at sea level at 15°C and 101325 Pa.

Nitrogen -- N2 -- 78.084% (78%)
Oxygen -- O2 -- 20.9476% (21%)
Argon -- Ar -- 0.934% (1%)
Carbon Dioxide -- CO2 -- 0.0314% (0.03%)
Neon -- Ne -- 0.001818% (0.002%)
Methane -- CH4 -- 0.0002%
Helium -- He -- 0.000524% (0.0005%)

As you can see, Carbon Dioxide is the fourth most predominant gas in the atmosphere, behind Argon, but makes up only 3/100 of a percent of all atmospheric gasses. Methane, another "greenhouse gas" makes up 2/10,000 of a percent.

Next, we need to know about the so-called "greenhouse effect", and how it works. We also need to know how the name is misleading, and what actually takes place.

The way a greenhouse works is that it allows sunlight into an enclosed space, where the air is warmed to above what it would be outside. The reason the heat is trapped is that there is little or no air movement. Some greenhouses augment this by having a 'thermal trap' that absorbs visible light energy, converts it to long-wave thermal energy, and 'traps' the heat until the sun no longer strikes the surface before re-radiating it. The Earth's atmosphere does something similar. From CO2 Science:

The mechanism by which carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere is commonly referred to as the "greenhouse effect." Stated very simply, carbon dioxide, or CO2, is nearly transparent to the solar radiation emitted from the sun, but partially opaque to the thermal radiation emitted by the earth. As such, it allows incoming solar radiation from the sun to pass through it and warm the earth's surface. The earth's surface, in turn, emitts a portion of this energy upwards toward space as longer wavelength or thermal radiation. Some of this thermal radiation is absorbed and re-radiated by the atmosphere's CO2 molecules back toward earth's surface, providing an additional source of heat energy. Without water vapor, CO2, and other radiatively-active trace gases in the air, the planet's average temperature would be about 34°C cooler than it is at present.

Note how the explanation includes ALL greenhouse gasses, including water vapor. This is very important. Water vapor makes up 95% of ALL greenhouse gasses. Carbon Dioxide is the next most prominent greenhouse gas at 4%. All others - about 20 - make up the last 1%. The Earth's average temperature without greenhouse gasses would be 34 degrees Celsius cooler, or about 14 degrees BELOW zero Fahrenheit.

We know approximately how much energy is re-radiated from CO2 back to the Earth, and how much is re-radiated into space. Recent findings, however, show that the Earth is losing more heat (about 40% more) than estimated based on current heat-loss determinations. The science isn't completely settled yet, but the main reason for additional heat loss may be from water vapor, which has a much larger "window" of infrared ratiation.

We noted above that water vapor makes up 95% of all greenhouse gasses, with CO2 a distant second at 4%. There are problems with using carbon dioxide as a "driver" of warming: the effects of CO2 are logarythmic, not linear. Here are a few links to people who explain this a lot better than I can:

Dr Roy Spencer
The Tucson Citizen
David Archibald at Watt's Up With That (an excellent source of all things related to global climate change).

So, carbon dioxide does NOT drive temperature increases beyond about 500 parts per million (PPM). The IPCC and most "climate scientists" get around this by saying that CO2 causes some increase in temperature, which causes more water vapor, which raises temperatures more. The problem with that is that water vapor forcing is more often negative than positive - that is, it DECREASES temperature by increasing cloud cover (thus increasing the amount of solar energy reflected back into space) and by cooling the air in general by precipitation.

Another major problem with blaming "climate change" on human burning of fossil fuel is that we add so very little to the atmosphere - less than 3% of all the CO2 added. I used to think that 3% of 4% (the amount of human-created CO2 versus the total amount of CO2 in all greenhouse gasses) was a ridiculously low number, and it is (it works out to about 0.12%), but that's the wrong way to look at this. We need to look at the total amount of CO2 increase within the entire atmosphere! That makes the formula 3% of 0.03%, or 0.009%.

The bigger problem is some pretty shoddy science has been used to attempt to scare people into believing in a doom-and-gloom scenario. Let's begin with the most important one: what is the "normal" temperature of the Earth? That temperature has ranged from about five degrees Celsius (5C - +41F) during Ice Ages to about 26 degrees C (+79F) before the last Ice Age started.

Harping on the role CO2 plays does nothing to explain the Earth's current climate. The only reason "climate scientists" are harping on it is because it's something we ARE contributing to, and it's something they can BLAME US ALL FOR, and therefore, enhance their own personal power and prestige. The truth is, we really don't understand much about climate, or what affects it. We THINK we know what causes Ice Ages, but we're not certain. We THINK we know what causes interglacials like the one we're currently in, but we're not certain. In fact, the number of things we're not certain about is extensive:

• We really don't understand the sun and solar cycles. We know the sun is a variable star, and that solar output varies by anywhere from 2% to 4%, but we don't know why, what triggers it, and what the overall effects are on Earth or the rest of the Solar system. We have some ideas (hypotheses), but we're not CERTAIN. Some of the questions we don't have complete - and sometimes even partial - knowledge of are what causes sunspots to form or not to form, how do sunspots affect the Solar Wind, the magnetic field of the sun and Earth, how much do they contribute to total solar variance, especially beyond the visible spectrum. We're just beginning to determine if galactic cosmic rays affect the Earth, especially cloud formation, and how. We haven't begun to determine if space dust has an effect on the sun, or what that effect might be. We're beginning to study coronal mass ejections (CMEs) more closely, but we haven't even begun to determine if (or how) they may affect day-to-day weather or long-range climate.


• We're just beginning to research how much cloud cover affects the Earth's climate, and how. We've made the first tenative studies of how cloud formation moves heat from the lower troposphere to the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. We're only now beginning to recognize the importance of cloud cover as a feedback mechanism, and how it works. We still have a long way to go before we can say we're CERTAIN of how clouds affect long-term climate, or even day-to-day heat distribution.


• We're still in the early stages of knowledge about our oceans, and how they control not only climate but weather. We're just beginning to acknowledge the large roles played by the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) not only on short-term weather changes but also on long-term climate variations. We still have much to learn about the Deep Ocean Circulation System and how the oceans store heat and carbon dioxide, among other things.


• We are still "barely walking" in our understanding of the entire CO2 cycle. We have a glimmering of knowledge of how CO2 is sequestered in soil and water, how plants utilize CO2, how they respond to increased levels of CO2, how much CO2 is sequestered by growth worldwide, and a number of other factors. There is still much to be learned. We do know that plants respond positively to increased CO2, but not how much CO2 this actually sequesters on a planetwide basis. There is still much that needs to be learned.


• There are dozens of other items that affect overall climate that haven't been looked at closely enough yet. These range from the Earth's rotation (Is it speeding up, or slowing down? How does that affect climate?), the location and strength of the Earth's magnetic pole, the "wobble" in the Earth's geographic pole (and thus solar inclination), the effects of the gravitational fields of the Sun and other planets, the eccentricity of Earth's orbit (what causes it, how significant is it, and is it changing, and how much, if it is), how ocean-spreading, surface and undersea volcanic action, changes in coastline and ocean currents, airborne aerosols, and a dozen other things affects long-term climate, and how all of this interacts.

Using Dick Cheney's words, there are "known knowns" about climate, and "known unknowns". There are most probably a few "unknown unknowns" yet to be discovered as well. There are quite a few things we're fairly certain of, such as CO2 has been far higher and somewhat lower in the past than it is now, that CO2 levels usually FOLLOW warming by about 700 years, that below about 140 ppm all plant life on Earth will die, and that most of the records used to look at previous high and low temperatures are "proxies", and some are quite POOR proxies. If you're a true climate scientist, there's quite a bit to learn. If you think the "science is settled", you're NOT a scientist.

Three more things need to be said. The first is that there is no direct evidence that human burning of fossil fuel will create a catastrophic runaway climate. This only comes from computer models, and as one "climate scientist" said in one of the just-released Climategate 2.0 emails, "none of the models really work". The second thing is that the models only provide "evidence" of catastrophic global warming if EVERY feedback mechanism considered provides a positive response. Since we've already seen that cloud cover and cloud heat transfer provide a NEGATIVE feedback, there is no reason to put any credence into "global warming" scare tactics. Finally, according to satellite records there has been no net warming since 1998, even though CO2 continues to build up in our atmosphere. None of the models can even begin to explain why that has happened.

Climate HAS changed over the last 100 years. Climate ALWAYS changes. Human beings HAVE had an influence on some climate change. Land use - from agriculture to forestry to building houses and cities - have all affected change. We grow grass in a desert. We turn parts of the Great Plains into cities and even forests. These changes are regional, and small. In fact, most changes Man has made to climate have been regional and small. The big changes are primarily governed by the sun. We just haven't learned all the different ways yet.

Letter to my Congresscritter

Here's a letter I'll be posting this afternoon to my Congressman, Doug Lamborn. Feel free to use any or all of it for your own letter. The fraud of catastrophic, anthropogenic climate change MUST be stopped before it destroys our future.

Dec 1, 2011


Dear Congressman Lamborn,

I have currently read less than ten percent of the latest "Climategate" emails, and less than 70% of the previous release. Even so, it has become blatantly obvious that climate "science" is not as settled as many would have us believe, and that the "anthropogenic signal" is neither as strong as it has been portrayed to be, nor as "dangerous" as the "true believers" espouse. The one certainty I have acquired from my readings of these emails and other information is that the Environmental Protection Agency's ruling that carbon dioxide is a "pollutant" is both scientifically wrong and politically indefensible. Any regulation based upon that ruling is also indefensible.

I know you don't have time to keep up with all the information currently available, and the tons of additional information that is constantly being generated. I do believe, however, that this subject is something that must be dealt with, and that someone on your staff should be tasked with openly, honestly, evaluating this data. There is every indication that not only fraud but slander, libel, and the deliberate destruction or misrepresentation of data has taken place, including such acts at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU).

While it would be "nice" to have a totally reliable, pollution-free, low-cost source of electrical energy, the technology just isn't currently available, and probably won't be for fifty years or more. The current Administration's attempt to force the issue has resulted in extensive fraud, graft, and outright theft, and has failed miserably. We truly do need a national energy policy, but that policy will require that we continue to use oil, coal, and natural gas for the foreseeable future - possibly for another century or more. Nuclear power, especially thorium reactors, may be one key to a carbon-free future, but obviously solar and wind will only be capable of supplying a small percentage of our needs. In the meantime, government action is only delaying our achieving any sort of energy independence and killing jobs.

I'm a disabled veteran with a chronic pain problem, so I can't be much help with keeping track of this for you. I do recommend, however, that this is something that could be "crowd-sourced" here in Colorado, for little or no cost. I'm sure that there are many others who would be willing to devote a small portion of their time to tracking what is being written about climate science, and keeping you informed. There are also another dozen topics that could equally be crowd-sourced to your advantage, including environment, jobs, the military, infrastructure, and government over-reach. You may also wish to discuss some of these ideas with your colleagues in the House of Representatives.

In the meantime, here are a list of sources that can provide anyone interested with links to both sides of the climate debate:

Honest, open debate
Watts Up with That http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/
Climate Audit/Steve McIntyre http://climateaudit.org/
CO2 Science http://www.co2science.org/
Bishop Hill http://bishophill.squarespace.com/
Bob Tisdale http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/
The Air Vent/Jeff Id http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/
Icecap http://icecap.us/
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/
Climate Skeptic http://www.climate-skeptic.com/
Dr. Tim Ball http://drtimball.com/
Tallbloke's Talkshop http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/
Jo Nova http://joannenova.com.au/
The Chiefio - E. M. Smith http://chiefio.wordpress.com/
Global Warming Policy Fndn. http://thegwpf.org/
Dr. Roy Spencer http://www.drroyspencer.com/
Dr. Judith Curry http://www.judithcurry.com/
Science & Environmental Policy Proj. http://www.sepp.org/
Science & Public Policy Inst. http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/

"Consensus-driven Science"
Real Climate http://www.realclimate.org/
Sierra Club http://www.sierraclub.org/
Union of Concerned Scientists http://www.ucsusa.org/
Science of Doom http://scienceofdoom.wordpress.com/
Tamino's Open Mind http://tamino.wordpress.com/
Skeptical Science http://www.skepticalscience.com/
Environmental Protection Agency http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/
NOAA http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
Natural Resources Defense Council http://www.nrdc.org/

Sincerely,


Michael A. Weatherford
MSgt, USAF, Retired
Colorado Springs, CO