Reference: Climate change just the tip of the iceberg, Bangkok Post, October 31, 2009

The proposition that man is the steward of the planet and that it is possible and our duty to micromanage planetary processes is derived from a state of egotism that has become separated from reality (Climate change just the tip of the iceberg, Bangkok Post, October 31, 2009). The earth's climate is not stable, it has never been stable, and it is not possible for man to achieve climate stability. The idea that man's management of the planet can extend a stable Holocene for 2000 years contains many inconsistencies. Will the Holocene end without our intervention? Why 2000 years? Does the author have inside information about the Holocene's schedule? The fact that we have a Holocene at all is evidence of the unstable nature of a planet that is mostly an icy place with brief interglacial epochs in one of which we now find ourselves. It is not possible for us to manage this process or to control it; far less to ensure for ourselves another two thousand years of the kind of weather to which we have become accustomed.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: A fallout of global warming, Bangkok Post, October 29, 2009

In 2005 there was a drought in Guangdong and and the warmists said it was a fallout of global warming caused by carbon dioxide. In 2007 there was a flood in Guangdong, and we were told once again that carbon dioxide was to blame. Now, in 2009, there is again a drought and a drinking water shortage in Guangdong and these too are apparently the result of too much carbon dioxide in the air ( fallout of global warming, Bangkok Post, October 29, 2009). In fact, China's very extensive historical weather record in the Fang Zhi shows that cycles of drought and flood have been characteristic of this region for 2500 years long before atmospheric carbon dioxide rose above 300 ppm. Guangdong's growing drinking water crisis has been studied at length and it has been attributed to rapid industrialization and the equally rapid population rise due to the large numbers of migrant workers flooding into the region. Floods, droughts, and the drinking water shortage in Guangdong are not related to carbon dioxide.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Melting glacier uncovers island, cnet news, April 28 2007

A well circulated article about global warming compares Landsat phtotos taken on 8/11/1985 and 9/5/2002 and claims that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is melting the icesheet over Greenland and exposing rocky peninsulas previously covered by ice (Melting glacier uncovers island, April 28, 2007). Please note that a significant amount of summer melt takes place between these dates. The comparison does not yield trend information from year to year because it is confounded by seasonal changes. To draw conclusions about long run trends in ice mass once would have to compare the ice on the same date for more than just two arbitrary years neither of which is recent.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Staring at melting point, Bangkok Post, October 26, 2009
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It is great irony that the global warmists who took away the livelyhood of the polar bear hunting guides in Nunavut by causing the animal to be listed as a threatened species and who are even now pushing for is further classification as an endangered species, should be shedding alligator tears for the suffering in Nunavut that they have caused (Staring at melting point, Bangkok Post, October 26, 2009) presenting the plight of Nunavut instead as being caused by global warming and using these people as pawns in a game to push their Copenhagen agenda. In fact, there is no evidence that the polar bear population is dwindling or that the species is threatened by global warming. The now famous Bambi-like photograph showing a polar bear on a small and fast-melting ice-floe that has been used effectively by the warmists to make their case that global warming was melting the ice cap in 2007, was in fact taken in 2004 at the height of the summer melt. The polar ice cap is a seasonal phenomenon with the summer ice cap being less than half its size in winter.
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Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Rising seas threaten Shanghai, Bangkok Post, October 20, 2009

It is claimed that the use of fossil fuels has raised atmospheric carbon dioxide to well above 300 ppm since 1979, and that in turn, CO2 has trapped solar heat, melted glaciers and ice-sheets, and raised sea levels to a point that Shanghai is becoming inundated with sea water (Rising seas threaten Shanghai, Bangkok Post, October 20, 2009). In fact, the inundation problem in Shanghai was first noted and measured by geologists back in 1921 when atmospheric carbon dioxide was below 300 ppm. The problem is attributed to subsidence caused by the removal of ground water and the weight of the buildings in the downtown area of the city. The subsidence continues to this day and it is estimated that Shanghai is sinking at an annual rate of more than one cm per year. It is illogical, irresponsible, and mischievous to attempt to relate Shanghai's subsidence problem to carbon dioxide emissions and the Copenhagen agenda.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

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Reference: Climate refugees add strain to seething Bangladesh capital, AFP, October 18, 2009

It is alleged that Bangladeshis displaced by cyclone Sidr in 2007 are "climate refugees" because they have been rendered homeless by a climate change event that was caused by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and it suggests that cyclones like Sidr will continue to ravage this poverty stricken nation unless we forge a plan in Copenhagen to reduce CO2 emissions (Climate refugees add strain to seething Bangladesh capital, AFP, October 18, 2009). The authors of this article should know that cyclones with intensity equal to or greater than that of Sidr form on the Bay of Bengal during late summer and fall with great regularity. They are a natural phenomenon and not something that is caused by human activity and therefore not something that can be mitigated by attenuating human activity. In the alleged climate change era described as 1979 to the present, there were 14 cyclones that made landfall in Bangladesh. In the correspondng 30 years prior to 1979 there were 19 cyclones in Bangladesh one of which - the 1970 storm - was the most destructive in recent times and was the proximate cause of the separation of Bangladesh from its union with Pakistan. The mother of all Bay of Bengal cyclones occured in 1737. These events occured when atmospheric CO2 was less than 300 ppm. Bay of Bengal cyclones have not increased in frequency or severity since atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen above 300 ppm. If they had, the authors would not have to reach back three cyclone seasons to find one of sufficient severity to serve their purpose. It is not possible to relate cyclone activity with atmospheric carbon dioxide content.

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Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Arctic will be ice-free in 20 years, Bangkok Post, October 16, 2009

An alarm has been raised that the extreme extent of the summer melt of Arctic ice in 2007 was caused by carbon dioxide emissions and it portends that in 20 years global warming will leave the Arctic Ocean ice-free in the summer raising sea levels and harming wildlife (Arctic will be ice-free in 20 years, Bangkok Post, October 16, 2009). Kindly note that it is not possible for melting sea ice to raise the sea level and that the 2007 summer melt occurred during a time of global cooling and therefore it could not have been caused by global warming. In fact, the 2007 summer melt phenomenon was the result of shifting ocean currents that brought warm tropical waters further north than normal. A shift in ocean currents is a natural variability and is not caused by carbon dioxide emissions. In any case, the forecast based on 2007 data that the summer melt would leave less and less ice and that ice recovery in winter would progessively weaken in ensuing years has been proven false by 2008 and 2009 data. The mis-match between data and forecast is possibly the cause of the apparent state of confusion among warmists who have issued forecasts since 2007 that the Arctic would be ice free in summer by 2012, 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050, and 2100.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

The world's first climate refugees, The Age, July 29, 2009

South Pacific coral atolls are by-products of volcanism. First a volcanic island emerges from the ocean floor. Then, corals grow all around the island to form coral reefs. Finally, the volcanic island begins to sink by subduction and goes completely under water, leaving only a ring of coral islands visible above water. Such a ring of coral islands is called a coral atoll. It's existence implies that somewhere in the middle of the atoll is a sinking volcanic island because the atoll could not have formed otherwise. The atoll itself remains above water as long as the rate of sinking does not exceed the rate of coral growth and begins to go under water otherwise. The Carteret Islands in the South Pacific are coral atolls. That some of these atolls are sinking and becoming inundated by seawater is a tragic but natural event having to do with geological forces beyond our control. These events are not caused by carbon dioxide and they cannot be modulated in any way by cutting CO2 emissions. In fact, these are not climate events. People who abandon sinking coral atolls for higher ground are therefore not "climate refugees" and their plight has nothing whatsoever to do with our consumption of fossil fuels. The continued attempt to link carbon dioxide with sinking atolls is inconsistent with what we know about coral atolls and with the observation that all atolls are not affected. Rising sea level does not inundate selectively.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Volcanoes stirred by climate change, Bangkok Post, October 7, 2009

Vulcanologists, apparently eager to tap into the mother lode of research funding available for climate change, are eager to look into the idea that global warming could increase volcanic activity and volcanic activity in turn could cause more global warming (Volcanoes stirred by climate change, Bangkok Post, October 7, 2009). "I don't think we should be scaremongering" they said and then went right ahead with the scary albeit hypothetical proposition that if such a non-linear relationship existed between volcanoes and global warming then the climate change Armageddon predicted by the warmists would be that much worse and would happen that much quicker. They point out that as of now they have no data and will need lots of money to gather data because gathering data from volcanoes is dangerous. However, there is a danger that the vulcanologists may unwittingly throw a monkey wrench into the basic global warming hypothesis for if they end up showing that volcanic activity causes climate change, it could undermine the rationale for the war against carbon dioxide. To maximize research funding they might wish to emphasize the first relationship - that global warming causes increased volcanic activity - and not interfere with the something in which "the science is settled" and for which there is "scientific consensus".

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Warming ocean melts Greenland glaciers, Bangkok Post, October 7, 2009

The melting of glacial tongues and sea ice in Greenland and the Arctic (Warming ocean melts Greenland glaciers, Bangkok Post, October 7, 2009) have to do with shifting ocean currents and the El Nino effect both of which are natural events. These phenomena do not imply that glaciers themselves are melting, nor that the Arctic is being warmed by atmospheric carbon dioxide trapping heat. Climate scientists with a global warmist agenda, even after admitting these events are natural and not man made, find it necessary still to bring up carbon dioxide emissions and rising sea levels in the same breath. Clearly there is no causal connection between carbon dioxide emissions and shifting ocean currents; or between how long a glacial tongue takes to melt and rising sea levels. Climate scientists continue to lose credibility by interpreting short term natural variability as long term trend and making alarming forecasts of doom. Only if a mass balance shows that snowfall minus glacial flow to the ocean is negative and only if this process can be shown to be a long term trend and not a singular event, can rising sea level be inferred; and the projected sea level rise can be considered calamitous only if the time frame is sufficiently short. A two meter sea level rise over a few decades may be calamitous but the same rise over thousands of years is not.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Effects of Arctic warming seen as widespread, Bangkok Post, October 7, 2009

The article on Arctic ice (Effects of Arctic warming seen as widespread, Bangkok Post, October 7, 2009) is based on a paper published in 2008 and that paper was based on data taken in 2007 at a time when the annual summer melt was more extensive than normal. The deep summer melt of 2007 had encouraged global warmists to claim the melt as a dramatic effect and therefore proof of global warming, and also to make a forecast that Arctic ice would not fully recover in the following winter, and that therefore there would be less and less ice each successive summer until the Arctic became ice free in 2012. It has not worked out that way. The summer melt of 2008 was not greater than that in 2007 but less and the melt in 2009 was lesser yet. The ice made a full recovery in both 2007 nd 2008 and it looks like it will do it again in 2009. Although the data are moving exactly contrary to the forecasts of 2007, these forecasts and their fear factor continue to re-surface in the media as if 2008 and 2009 had not yet happened.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: No change US blasted at talks, Bangkok Post, October 7, 2009

It appears that the Europeans have taken the high road scolding developing countries and blasting the USA for doing so much less than they have done to mitigate climate change (No change US blasted at talks, Bangkok Post, October 7, 2009). Europe has committed to cutting carbon dioxide emissions at least 20% by 2020 although it is not clear at this point how much of that reduction will be achieved by reducing the amount of carbon based fuels used in Europe and how much of it represents offsets purchased by rich Europeans from poor developing countries. The developing countries are in a fix. They are expected to run carbon offset programs for the Europeans that they can't claim as their own while at the same time being scolded by Europeans for not cutting their own emissions. Apparently they will be given some kind of "international development aid" by the Europeans to achieve the emission reduction targets the Europeans want but there is a monkey wrench in that program too. Both sides agree the amount needed is 100 billion Euros per year but the Europeans have yet to offer anything close to that figure. Besides, as economist and author Christopher Lingle has pointed out, international development aid is a failed model and a rat hole through which more than $2 trillion have passed in the war against poverty without measurable results. Are we expected to believe that the same program will work in the war against carbon dioxide?

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Vanishing islands look to the world, Bangkok Post, October 4, 2009

One cannot but sympathize with the hardships of a nation that consists of nine tiny atolls straddling the middle of nowhere amid the vast South Pacific and subjected to nature's whims (Vanishing islands look to the world, Bangkok Post, October 4, 2009). They live in the path of South Pacific tropical cyclones that form annually during the cyclone season and that often cause coastal erosion and crop damage not to speak of the loss of life and property. As well, the land they live on is not terra firma but instead a dynamic and ever changing balance between coral growth and a sinking underwater volcanic island on which the atoll is perched; gaining elevation when the rate of coral growth exceeds the rate of subduction and sinking when the rate of subduction exceeds that of coral growth. These are cruel equations but neither can be changed by cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: A thermostatic time bomb, Bangkok Post Brunch Magazine, October 4, 2009

The claim that our carbon dioxide emissions are causing the ice on Mount Kilimanjaro to melt is based on a comparison of the ice extent in 1993 with that in 2001 and the hysterical prediction at that time that continued use of fossil fuels will cause the peak to become ice free by 2016. Since then, however, other facts have come to light that have discredited the global warming hypothesis in explaining the loss of ice on Kilimanjaro. It is therefore surprising to see that the Bangkok Post is still carrying the Kilimanjaro icon as a call to arms in the war against carbon dioxide (A thermostatic time bomb, Bangkok Post Brunch Magazine, October 4, 2009). As it turns out, the loss of ice was due to aridity and not warming; the process is sublimation not melting; and it started at least as early as 1912 when atmospheric CO2 was below 300 ppm. Furthermore, the ice appears to have stabilized and the various projections of its demise by 2016, 2020, or 2030 have all been withdrawn.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Nature warns climate talkers, Bangkok Post, October 2, 2009

An editorial column claims that typhoon Ketsana "carries a sinister message" for climate change policy makers now meeting in Bangkok and that the sinister message is for them to "shape up or face the fatal consequences" (Nature warns climate talkers, Bangkok Post, October 2, 2009). Kindly note that typhoons in the South China Sea, cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, and hurricanes in the Caribbean are natural events we have had all along even when atmospheric CO2 was less than 300 ppm. Ketsana, Nargis, and Katrina cannot in any way be related to carbon dioxide. It is not possible for Ketsana to send any message, sinistra or destra, to meetings about reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand