Tag: the journal Nature

Global Warming Revisited

This is probably the only controversial subject I address on the blog – Global Warming. I think I’ve made it clear I’m a skeptic, and the others I know who forecast the weather are also mainly skeptics.

It’s not a small thing. If I’m wrong, I’m asking you to sit by and doom the planet. If the Global Warming proponents are wrong, they’ve asked that we cripple our industrial base, allow others to continue to spew ‘greenhouse gasses’… and all for naught.

Every time I feel my position is solid, I think of reading things like:

Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.

That always gives me second thoughts.

Now there’s more… but it’s nothing I ever expected. It’s an eye opening article in the Telegraph from the UK. In case the link ‘expires,’ I will place the actual text at the bottom of this entry.

Here’s a little excerpt:

However, her (Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California) unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.

They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents – and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

I have often feared Global Warming is a politically and not scientifically motivated

campaign.

I’ll keep my ears open for more on this.

Continue reading “Global Warming Revisited”

Why Is NASA Backtracking?

Yesterday I wrote about the announcement that two NASA scientists were ready to publish a paper claiming live may currently exist on Mars. Today, it’s a different story. From MSNBC:

NASA nixes claims of Mars life: NASA on Friday issued an unusual denial of a report that its researchers found strong evidence for life’s existence on present-day Mars.

Earlier this week, sources told the weekly Space News that NASA scientists Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke had submitted a paper to the journal Nature outlining the evidence for biological activity on the Red Planet, based on the signature of methane found in the Martian atmosphere.

However, NASA’s newly issued statement claims that’s not the case:

If this were a ‘real’ news site, I’d never say this. But, since this is nothing more than a venue for my opinions, I’ll say it. This so smells of politics!

Friends, closer to NASA than I am, say they’ve already heard chatter from others that this speculation was quashed from above. Again, in real news this third hand info should never see the light of day… and I’m telling you know I have this on very shaky authority.

Still, based on whatever experience I have, something doesn’t smell right.