[Rhodes22-list] TGGW

[Bob Keller]

Just my made-up acronym for "Thank God for Global Warming" since I am 
planning to go sailing the next two days and the temps will be 60 tomorrow 
and 70 on Thursday...

Here's some light reading:

UN Report Pours 'Cold Water' on Global Warming, Senator Says
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
December 12, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - A United Nations study due for release early next year will 
reportedly lower estimates of mankind's impact on the earth's climate by 25 
percent, a development a leading climate change skeptic in the U.S. Senate 
says will pour "cold water" on "global warming alarmism."

"We are all skeptics now," Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the U.S. 
Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, said in response to media leaks 
on a report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 
which is set to be published next February.

London's Telegraph reported Sunday that the IPCC draft report reduces its 
overall estimate of the human impact on global warming by one-fourth, and 
halves its predictions for rises in sea-level by 2100.

The IPCC's new figures are attributed to "a refinement due to better data on 
how climate works."

The panel's report "says that the overall human effect on global warming 
since the industrial revolution is less than had been thought, due to the 
unexpected levels of cooling caused by aerosol sprays, which reflect heat 
from the sun," the paper said.

Furthermore, "large amounts of heat have been absorbed by the oceans, 
masking the warming effect."

Copies of the document, which was sent by the IPCC to climate experts and 
participating governments on Oct. 28, were obtained by several news 
organizations in Britain.

"Climate science is always going through these 'refinements,'" Inhofe said 
in a statement. "The media has alternated between four separate global 
cooling and warming scares since 1895," including "the erroneous prediction 
of a coming ice age in the 1970s," he said.

"Each climate scare eventually faded away due to similar 'refinements due to 
better data,'" Inhofe said.

That global warming alarmism was "more hype than fact" should not surprise 
those who have heard the more than 10 speeches on climate change Inhofe has 
given, the senator said.

"Even the U.N. appears to now be sobering up and dousing much-needed cold 
water on the global warming alarmism promoted by much of the mainstream 
media, Hollywood, NASA scientist James Hansen and former Vice President Al 
Gore," Inhofe added.

"Eventually, even the peddlers of climate alarmism will have to concede that 
the hoopla over man-made catastrophic global warming and the proposed 
solutions like the costly and ineffective Kyoto Protocol will prove to be 
one of the history's most misguided concerns."

However, despite the IPCC's reported reassessment, according to the Sunday 
Telegraph, the U.N. body maintains that "there can be little doubt that 
humans are responsible for warming the planet."

It said the IPCC report also "warns that carbon dioxide emissions have risen 
during the past five years by three percent, well above the 0.4 percent a 
year average of the previous two decades."

"The authors also state that the climate is almost certain to warm by at 
least 1.5 C during the next 100 years," the Telegraph said.

While calls seeking response from representatives of the IPCC were not 
returned by press time, according to the IPCC website a report compilation 
process is still underway, the deadline for submitting comments regarding 
the final draft having only passed on Friday, Dec. 8.

Earlier this year, IPCC Secretary Renate Christ issued a press release 
cautioning members of the media against reporting "findings" in the study 
until it had been finalized by the working group in 2007.

"In wake of several premature reports that have appeared recently in the 
media concerning 'findings'" from the IPCC, Christ said at the time the 
process leading up to the 2007 release was "long, complicated and far from 
complete."

Nevertheless, the Telegraph reported that "one leading U.K. climate 
scientist, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity surrounding the 
report before it is published, said: 'The bottom line is that the climate is 
still warming while our greenhouse gas emissions have accelerated, so we are 
storing up problems for ourselves in the future.'"

Inhofe saw a different "bottom line" in the leaked information, however.

"With the continued scientific demise of man-made catastrophic global 
warming fears, the environmentalists, publicity- and grant-seeking 
scientists and many in the media may now have to find another dubious 
environmental doomsday cause to scare the public and policymakers," Inhofe 
said.

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