Reference: Chinese farmers struggle with climate change, Bangkok Post, December 20, 2009

Gansu province is located in the middle of China, the silk road runs through it, and it figures prominently in Chinese history, but throughout history its economic development has been retarded by frequent earthquakes, droughts, and famines. It is a very arid place containing parts of three deserts including the ever expanding Gobi desert. Expanding deserts and desertification of the province has been a long standing problem and is well documented in the historical records that go back thousands of years. It has never been an agriculturally important province. Its recent economic boom is due to mining and not agriculture. The plight of wheat farmers there is best understood in these terms and not in terms of carbon dioxide. The attempt to sell agricultural hardship in this arid land as effects of carbon dioxide emissions (Chinese farmers struggle with climate change, Bangkok Post, December 20, 2009) and the implied offer of agricultural success by emission reduction is dishonest and it is likely part of a strategy to scare China into submitting to the warmist agenda. It will not succeed because Gansu is not important to Chinese agriculture - which has been booming of late with bumper harvests - and because the economic well-being of Gansu itself depends on mining and not on agriculture.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Taking some positives from Copenhagen, Bangkok Post, December 27, 2009

The Copenhagen meeting (Taking some positives from Copenhagen, Bangkok Post, December 27, 2009), advertised by the warmists as a "do or die" watershed event for the global warming movement, appears to have gone in the "die" direction. What had started out as a ploy to use carbon dioxide to contain the rise of new Asian economic powers, and to control a perceived "population bomb" of the undesirable races, has backfired badly leaving the Europeans nothing more than obligations to pay billions of Euros to developing countries for programs that no longer have a context. The money game has been made worse by the enormous greed for reparations that has set in with the countries that the Europeans themselves once hyped as "vulnerable" or "most at risk" as a way of selling the war on carbon dioxide to the poor countries. Instead of joining the war, the vulnerable countries are demanding compensation for the alleged harm caused by Europe's industrial revolution. It has all gone wrong for the warmists. The only "positive" one can take from Copenhagen is that the world's nascent economic recovery has been spared an artificial and catastrophic rise in the cost of energy.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Destruction on a global level, Bangkok Post, December 17, 2009

The warmists had decided in 2005 that Hurricane Katrina was caused by carbon dioxide emissions and held up Katrina as the smoking gun and the "clarion call" in their movement; but when their predictions for more severe hurricane seasons in the ensuing years came up empty, they distanced themselves from hurricanes and moved on to the Bay of Bengal claiming that carbon dioxide emissions are causing cyclone activity there (Destruction on a global level, Bangkok Post, December 17, 2009).

Yet, cyclones have been forming regularly on the Bay of Bengal for hundreds of years. The area has a history of severe and destructive cyclones with more than a hundred cyclones recorded since 1732. Of the 30 deadliest cyclones only two, Nargis and 02B, occurred after the year 1979 that marks the end of the last cooling period and the year that global warmists cite as the beginning of the current warming trend.

The most devastating cyclone on record hit East Pakistan in 1970 and became the proximate cause of the separation of that region into the new country we know as Bangladesh. The second most severe cyclone hit Kolkata in 1737. In fact the 8 worst Bay of Bengal cyclones struck while atmospheric CO2 was less than 300 ppm. It is not possible to conclude from historical cyclone data that they are caused by carbon dioxide. It cannot be argued that Bay of Bengal cyclones can be moderated by lowering CO2 emissions.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Destruction on a global level, Bangkok Post, December 17, 2009

The soil salinity problem in southern Bangladesh has been misrepresented as an effect of carbon dioxide and "rising seas" (Destruction on a global level, Bangkok Post, December 17, 2009). Shrimp farming did not take root because of soil salinity as claimed in the article. Rather, soil salinity took root because of shrimp farming as explained below.

The export oriented shrimp farming boom in Bangladesh started twenty years ago and it caused large coastal agricultural areas to be leased, flooded with sea water, and converted into commercial shrimp farms. The boom went bust in 2008 after the financial crisis dried up the market for large and expensive shrimp in the West and the shrimp farms are being abandoned as a result.

Abandoned shrimp farms leave behind agricultural wastelands because the salinity of the soil caused by shrimp farming makes it impossible to grow traditional crops. Farmers who leased their land out to shrimp producers now face a tragic situation because the leases have been terminated and they have taken possession of their farms but they can't grow anything on them.

It is a sad tale of human suffering and it deserves the attention of the appropriate relief agencies but it has absolutely nothing to do with carbon dioxide.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Climate change 101, Bangkok Post, December 16, 2009

To establish the idea that carbon dioxide causes global warming, it is claimed that "The notion of warming comes from basic science: Carbon dioxide traps heat." (Climate change 101, Bangkok Post, December 16, 2009). Basic science does tell us that carbon dioxide absorbs heat but that in itself is not enough to conclude that the observed rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels has caused global warming. The essential parameter for that relationship is the climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide.

The source of that parameter is not "basic science" but an empirical correlation computed between CO2 and temperature in Antarctic ice core data. However, to use these data in this way is not scientific; first because correlation between historical data does not imply causality; and second because carbon dioxide lags temperature in the data.

The lag shows that during periods of warming, temperature goes up first and carbon dioxide rises later. Therefore rising carbon dioxide levels could not have been the cause of warming. In any case, a correlation between x and y in uncontrolled field data could exist if x causes y or if y causes x or if a third unobserved variable causes both x and y or if the correlation is spurious. To derive causality from such data is bad science.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Polar ice may go in five years, Bangkok Post, December 16, 2009

An unusually extensive summer melt of Arctic ice in 2007 encouraged warmists to abandon Antarctica and seize on the Arctic as their primary evidence of impending climate change catastrophe and to predict that global warming will cause a steep decline in the amount of ice left in subsequent summer melts until the Arctic becomes ice free in summer (Polar ice may go in five years, Bangkok Post, December 16, 2009). The ice free summer was initially forecast for 2080 but in later revisions the year was changed to 2060 and then to 2030 and finally to 2013 although the data show that in 2008 and 2009 the summer melt did not progressively increase as predicted and as required by their proposed theory. Instead summer ice did just the opposite by making a comeback in 2008 that got even stronger in 2009.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: What and where is our climate change policy, Bangkok Post, December 16, 2009

Thailand's climate change policy is the Kyoto Protocol and the Thai delegation to Copenhagen has clearly presented that policy and has made a point of reminding all observers that Thailand intends to abide by it and expects the Annex 1 countries to do likewise. As for the sinister reference to the encroachment of sea water in Samut Prakan as an effect of carbon dioxide emissions (What and where is our climate change policy, Bangkok Post, December 16, 2009), kindly note that such encroachment in the Bangkok Groundwater Area, that includes Samut Prakan, is a well known effect of land subsidence caused by ground water extraction and is completely unrelated to carbon dioxide. The repeated attempt by the global warming people to present these data as effects of carbon dioxide emissions speaks to the desperate nature of their science.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: The giant climate fraud in Copenhagen, Bangkok Post, December 13, 2009

An article breathlessly promoting climate catastrophe hysteria claims that "Himalayan ice is rapidly vanishing and will be gone by 2035 so the great rivers of Asia that are born there will shrivel and cease" to provide water to a quarter of humanity (The giant climate fraud in Copenhagen, Bangkok Post, December 13, 2009).

The preposterous and scientifically impossible idea that the Himalayan ice will be gone by 2035 comes from the IPCC which initially cited a research paper that claimed that Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2350. As this statement may not have contained the fear factor that the warmists wanted, the date has been whittled back to 2035 without explanation and Himalayan glaciers have been gradually expanded to include all Himalayan ice.

As for rivers running dry, the IPCC specifically targets the Ganges river claiming it will go bone dry by 2035 because of vanishing ice. Kindly note that the Ganges derives less than 5% of its water from glacial melt.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Low carbon is the economy of the future, Bangkok Post, December 12, 2009

In their hour of desperation, what the rich countries are saying to the poor countries is this: Look, there are just too many of you and if you all end up living high off the hog like we do, there would be way too much carbon dioxide and that would be bad for global warming. So please, stay poor and keep the status quo - with you as the white man's burden and we the all powerful rich, able and willing to take care of you with billions of Euros of aid should global warming devastation strike (Low carbon is the economy of the future, Bangkok Post, December 12, 2009). Unfortunately for the rich, the poor countries are not falling for this line for they know well that if their rate of economic growth is not ambushed by the rich countries' war on carbon dioxide, by the year 2100, when global warming devastation is predicted to strike, they will be rich enough to take care of these problems all by themselves.

What's more, if the rich are serious about committing economic suicide in their vain attempt to control the planet's climate, it is they that will be the poor countries in 2100 freeing up resources for the newly rich; but not to worry, because the newly rich countries of the future will be able and willing to take care of the newly poor and to help them weather the storm of global warming with billions of Bahts, Rupees, and Yuans in aid and assistance.

The message from the poor countries is this: don't keep us poor so that you can take care of us. Let us get as rich as you, so we can take care of ourselves.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Warming trend is clear, Bangkok Post, December 9, 2009

It is reported that the summer melt of Arctic ice was the third most extensive on record in 2009, second 2008, and the most extensive on record in 2007; and that these data show that our carbon dioxide emissions are causing Arctic ice to gradually diminish until it will be gone altogether ( Warming trend is clear, Bangkok Post, December 9, 2009).

In fact, the data show the exact opposite. If the claimed trend were correct, Arctic ice would not have fully recovered after the 2007 summer melt and the 2008 and 2009 summer melts would have been progressively greater not less. For the argument in the article to hold water, the 2009 autumn ice extent needs to be the lowest on record with 2008 the second lowest and 2007 the third lowest; and in fact this is what the IPCC had predicted in 2007, but that is not what happened.

The case against carbon dioxide is not clear but murky and sinister.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: CO2 models falling short, Bangkok Post, December 7, 2009

In the Pliocene warm period the earth was warmer than it is now but with atmospheric carbon dioxide about the same as it is now. This state of the world is inconsistent with the global warming climate model in which warming is driven primarily by atmospheric carbon dioxide. The obvious conclusion is that the global warming climate model is wrong and carbon dioxide is not the principal driver of global warming. However, unwilling to give up on their war against carbon dioxide, the warmists have devised a fudge factor - an unknown and unobservable latent heat effect - that would explain why it is cooler now than the Pliocene (CO2 models falling short, Bangkok Post, December 7, 2009) noting that not now, but a few hundred years from now, extra heat from the carbon dioxide that is already in the air now will make the data come out right and validate their climate model. It is clearly an exercise in pushing the Copenhagen agenda and not unbiased scientific inquiry.

Chaa-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Editorial to the world urges action on global warming, Bangkok Post, December 8, 2009

A global editorial on global warming calls for decisive action in Copenhagen to cut carbon dioxide emissions (Editorial to the world urges action on global warming, Bangkok Post, December 8, 2009) saying that "The question is no longer whether humans are to blame". Yet, that is precisely the question in Copenhagen. The agenda there is based entirely on the ability of human beings to control the world's mean surface temperature by attenuating their use of fossil fuels. The proposal to cut CO2 emissions would make no sense otherwise.

The editorial also claims that "climate change has been caused over centuries and has consequences that will endure for all time"and that inaction in Copenhagen will cause "half of all species to become extinct". These are highly charged and grossly inaccurate statements. Our use of fossil fuels could not have been causing climate change for centuries because we have not been using fossil fuels in any quantity for that long. As for specie diversity, earth's prior climate history for millions of years shows that episodes of climate change - particularly global warming - have been associated not with a reduction of specie diversity but with veritable explosions in the number of species during which many old species die off and many more new ones are created. These data have caused the theory of evolution to be revised to include the idea that mutations occur not at random but under environmental stress.

It would be a sad chapter in human history if we commit economic suicide Jim Jones style in the vain and Quixotic belief that we are in control of the planet's climate. Our climate has never endured and has never been stable and has always been dynamic and ever changing. The human race, even with all its knowledge and technology, is insignificant on a planetary scale. On what basis do we expect to be able to stabilize nature? We appear to be in the grip of some kind of mass insanity.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Himalayan glacier melts to hit billions of poor, Bangkok Post, December 7, 2009

In 2007, the IPCC issued a report citing data on the retreating Gangotri glacier in the Himalayan mountains that showed that the rate of retreat had accelerated from 19 m/yr in 1971 to 34 m/yr in 2001. They extrapolated the observed acceleration forward and wrote that global warming devastation due to carbon dioxide was only a decade away for people who depend on the Ganges and other rivers with headwaters in the Himalayas.

This scenario continues to be widely disseminated in the media (Himalayan glacier melts to hit billions of poor, Bangkok Post, December 7, 2009) in spite of more recent data that show that the predicted acceleration has not occurred; with the IPCC going so far as to vilify Indian scientists who who published the data as climate change deniers.

In any case, the idea that glacial retreat in the Himalayas will cause the Ganges river to dry up is inconsistent with the observation that the river derives less than 5% of its water from glacial melt. Also of note is that a gradual decline in overall glacial mass worldwide began in 1850, well before fossil fuel consumption and atmospheric carbon dioxide rose to levels that the IPCC has identified with man-made global warming. Therefore it is not a carbon dioxide issue.


Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Don't put the South on the road to permanent poverty, Bangkok Post, December 5, 2009

The global warming alarm began in the early 1990s at about the same time that Deng's new China began its economic ascent. Instead of welcoming China into the global economy, the West responded with paranoia, fearing that a billion Chinese living like Europeans would put a strain on the world's supply of energy and resources and threaten the comfortable lifestyle of the rich nations. It is possible that the global warming agenda of controlling how much fossil fuel gets used, is mechanism to ensure the rich nations' continued access to energy as well as to keep rich nations rich and poor nations poor.

Reference: Climate change's dealmaker, Bangkok Post, December 5, 2009

The implication that higher carbon dioxide emissions from economic growth in Southeast Asia causes extreme weather in Southeast Asia (Climate change's dealmaker, Bangkok Post, December 5, 2009) is contrary to global warming theory which alleges only a global relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions and temperature. With less than 5% of the world's energy consumption, the region does not hold any leverage at all in global climate patterns even in the most extreme climate sensitivity assumptions. Therefore there can be no causal linkage between fossil fuel consumption in Southeast Asia and typhoons in the region.

As a footnote, the inclusion of a photo of the 2007 drought in southern China is disingenuous because no meaningful correlation can be drawn between carbon dioxide emissions and a history of droughts in southern China recorded in the fang zhi for thousands of years.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Climate warming on harvest, Bangkok Post, December 3, 2009

The shrill warning about the catastrophic effects of global warming on Chinese agriculture boils down to the tautology that IF sufficiently extreme weather events occur and IF they devastate agriculture, THEN "the impact on the economic and social development of China would be incalculable". Much of the global warming hype is now being delivered as pure hypothetical statements of this nature; so much so that even their position appears to have retreated from a science argument ("the science is settled and we are right") to a Biblical one ("you can't afford to fret about whether we are right or wrong because we could turn out to be right").

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: UN points to Cambodia weakness in garment sector, Bangkok Post, November 28, 2009

In a UN sponsored report, Cambodian economist Sophal Chan and his team identified weaknesses and opportunities in Cambodia's economy that may be used as a road map for economic development. The report identifies the agriculture sector as the near term engine of economic growth and calls for converting forest lands to farmland, increasing productivity by adopting new crop strains and farming methods, and being responsive to changes in the global marketplace for agricultural products. The report also finds that ready made garments and tourism, the current mainstays of the economy, are not competitive and therefore the goal for the longer term should be to make significant improvements in these areas as well as to diversify into other service and value added manufacturing areas listed by the authors. The recent dog and pony show by a certain high profile foreigner on how Cambodians can "make money" stands in comical contrast to this rational and well grounded analysis by Cambodia's own home grown economists.

Anonymous

Reference: Over 100 icebergs drifting to New Zealand, Yahoo News, November 23, 2009

Warmists have seized on a flotilla of icebergs that have drifted from Antarctica toward New Zealand as evidence of man-made global warming (Over 100 icebergs drifting to New Zealand, Yahoo News, November 23, 2009) whereas in fact they are evidence of colder conditions. Icebergs break off routinely from Antarctica but they melt when they get to lower latitudes and are therefore not normally seen as far north as New Zealand. That the icebergs have survived the trip is not evidence of the rate of calving nor of global warming but of colder conditions that have kept the icebergs from melting.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091123/ts_afp/australianzealandantarcticaclimateiceberg

Reference: Ice loss at billions of tons every year, Bangkok Post, November 23, 2009

It is reported that our carbon dioxide emissions are causing the East Antarctic ice shelf to lose 57 billion tonnes of ice per year and that if CO2 emissions are not reduced this process could raise sea levels by 5m (Ice loss at billions of tons every year, Bangkok Post, November 23, 2009). This global warming alarm is based on measurements of changes in the earth's gravitational field. These measurements are not sufficiently precise to detect a rate of ice loss of 57 billion tonnes per year. Therefore no conclusion may be drawn from these data with regard to ice loss. Climate scientists also claim that during the Eemian interglacial warm period 128,000 years ago, the world was 6C warmer than it is today and that the sea level was as much as 7m higher than it is today. They conclude from these data that Antarctic ice is more sensitive to carbon dioxide emissions "than previously thought". This conclusion is not consistent with the data. The Eemian period predates the Industrial Revolution and therefore the sea level rise must have been a natural process that occurred without human intervention. In fact, the Eemian data presented actually suggest that ice and sea level changes on our planet are more sensitive to natural causes than to carbon dioxide emissions from human activity.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Hollywood does the apocalypse, Bangkok Post, November 17, 2009

Jesus Christ and other prophets that came before him, in his time, and after him, were called prophets because the crux of their message was a prophecy of the end of the world. The large supply and demand for these prophecies serve as evidence that we crave or need apocalypse to loom up ahead as part of our existence. In modern times alleged apocalyptic ends of the world have included annihilation by nuclear war, death by overpopulation or by UV radiation through the ozone hole, and the destruction of the world by geological mayhem in 2012, by global warming in 2100, or by plagues or space aliens in at some unspecified time in the future. The continued popularity of Hollywood movies that portray these horrors and the current obsession with the end of the world by climate change serve as further evidence that, for reasons not well understood, we need Armageddon in our life. It is as if we have an Apocalypse gene in our DNA.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: No deal in Copenhagen, Bangkok Post, November 17, 2009

Although the Europeans are taking the high road and pointing fingers at the USA and China for spoiling their party in Copenhagen (No deal in Copenhagen, Bangkok Post, November 17, 2009), the apparent European united front is not feasible as it stands because the poorer Eastern European members are not able to bear the share of the funding burden they have been apportioned. Also, much of the EU's commitment to "reduce" emissions by 30% " is not real because it is based on accounting reductions achieved by purchasing offsets from developing countries and not by reducing emissions in Europe. As a historical note, neither the Kyoto Protocol nor the Bali road map, nor the UNFCCC contains any reference to an "expiration date" for the commitment by "Annex 1 countries" (developed countries) to reduce emissions. In fact the Bali road map says that the Annex 1 countries will make even deeper cuts in the future after the 2012 targets have been met. In that respect, the new idea that Kyoto is going to expire in 2012 and that a new Copenhagen Protocol is needed as a successor to Kyoto appears to be a ruse by the Annex 1 countries to kill Kyoto possibly because they are suffering from buyer's remorse having bought into the Kyoto Protocol in which they gave away the ranch to the developing countries. The way things are going, however, with Copenhagen in disarray, Kyoto will continue to be the only guideline for emission reduction targets for the foreseeable future. It's a bitter pill for the Annex 1 countries to swallow. In any case, both Copenhagen and Kyoto now face the greater doom of irrelevance if the hundreds of damning documents leaked from the Hadley Climate Research Unit are verified as genuine, for they appear to reveal that the scientific consensus of global warming may be more propaganda than science.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Three years and counting, Bangkok Post Spectrum, November 15, 2009

Thailand's mistreatment of the Hmong refugees in Phetchabun and Nong Khai and its inexplicably headstrong refusal to allow resettlement in third countries (Three years and counting, Bangkok Post Spectrum, November 15, 2009) surely constitute a kind of crime against humanity for which the country will pay dearly in the court of karma if nowhere else. Thailand's current state of internal strife and foreign relations turmoil may be the karma principle at work. Please do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Ozone hole news archives

March 10, 1987: Skin cancer is increasing in the United States at ``a near epidemic rate,`` outstripping predictions made as recently as five years ago, a research physician testified Monday before a House panel examining threats to the Earth's protective ozone layer. Malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, ``has increased 83 percent in the last seven years alone,`` he said. ``Melanoma is increasing faster than any other cancer except lung cancer in women.`

March 12, 1987: If the harmful radiation reached the Earth, it would cause monumental problems, including rampant skin cancer and eye cataracts, retarded crop growth, impairment of the human immune system and damaging radiation doses to all forms of life. Although many Americans and the people of other nations are still not listening or taking the ozone threat seriously, the Earth's protective shield is getting thinner and developing mysterious holes. There is a growing consensus among scientists that ozone destruction is caused by the accumulation in the upper atmosphere of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a class of industrial chemicals used for refrigerants, aerosols, insulation, foam packaging and other uses.

August 23, 1987: Scientists have begun the largest study ever of the depletion of the ozone layer in the atmosphere by sending a modified spy plane on missions 12 1/2 miles above Antarctica.The flights this past week were part of a $10-million project being carried out by a 120-member team of scientists, engineers and technicians who hope to decipher a mysterious ``ozone hole`` that has been detected over Antarctic each winter for the past eight years.

September 24, 1987: Sometimes when the world seems bent on self-destruction, a ray of hope pierces the darkness. The historic first international agreement to protect the Earth's ozone layer inspires that kind of encouragement.Twenty-four nations plus the European Community signed the protocol to reduce production of synthetic chemicals that float to the stratosphere and erode the ozone layer, the invisible shield that filters out the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. The world's leading scientists have warned that the continuing destruction of ozone by man-made chemicals would cause sharp increases in skin cancer and cataracts, damage crops, forests and marine life and cause other environmental changes.

October 1, 1987: Vital ozone above Antarctica from mid-August to mid-September reached an all-time low since measurements began in 1979 and scientists said Wednesday that they found strong evidence indicating man-made Freon-type gases are partly to blame. Ozone is the only gas in the atmosphere that filters out harmful amounts of ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Estimates endorsed by the Environmental Protection Agency say for every 1 percent of ozone decrease in the global atmosphere, there could be 20,000 more skin cancer cases annually in the United States.

November 27, 1987: The hole in the ozone radiation shield over Antarctica is caused by chlorine from gases used for years as propellants in spray cans, scientists confirmed Thursday.The chemical reaction that causes the depletion is possible only in the presence of polar clouds - composed of tiny ice crystals - and the amount of sunlight that reaches the South Pole in late winter and early spring, scientists wrote.``It's only recently we began looking at ice particles as possible participants,`` said Mario Molina, an atmospheric chemist at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

December 20, 1987: The frigid air over Antarctica took three weeks longer than usual to warm at the onset of the Antarctic spring this year, prompting concern that the ``ozone hole`` discovered over the icy continent less than three years ago may be affecting global climate. According to satellite data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the polar vortex - a whirlpool-like mass of extremely cold air that forms over Antarctica in the dark winter months - broke up in late November. The vortex normally breaks up in late October or early November, when spring brings sunlight back to the South Pole and warms the atmosphere.

February 7, 1988: Global warming and further deterioration of the upper atmosphere's protective ozone layer can be expected to accelerate the formation of smog in major cities across the United States, a new study for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found. Based on a yearlong examination, researchers said that smog would be formed earlier in the day under conditions of global warming and a depleted upper atmospheric ozone shield. In the most polluted cities, the global effects would also increase maximum ozone concentrations.

March 4, 1988: The amount of methane gas in the atmosphere has risen 11 percent since 1978, possibly speeding the seasonal loss of protective ozone above Antarctica but blocking the same depletion over the rest of the Earth, researchers say.``We're changing the atmosphere in a rather rapid way. It's hard to tell what the eventual consequences will be, but there are several ways it may have a strong impact on man,`` said F. Sherwood Rowland, a chemist at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), whose study was published today in the journal Science.

September 21, 1988: Earth's protective ozone layer will continue to be eroded by chlorine even if ozone-depleting chemicals known as chlorofluorcarbons (CFCs) are phased out, an environmental group said Tuesday. But the Environmental Policy Institute concluded in a report that if two other chlorine-producing compounds - methyl chloroform and carbon tetrachloride - were also eliminated, the amount of chlorine in the atmosphere could decline significantly over the next three decades.

December 4, 1988: Earth's protective ozone is thinning more than expected in northern regions of the globe, say scientists who detailed Tuesday an intense research effort to try to find out the reasons why. While the so-called ozone hole over the South Pole has attracted the most media attention, a lesser but still significant thinning also has been found in the North.

February 3, 1989: Scientists working in the Northwest Territories fear that serious damage to the ozone layer over the Arctic Ocean is imminent, a senior official said Thursday.Wayne Evans, experimental studies chief for Environment Canada, said its High Arctic weather team has discovered the presence of dense ice clouds similar to those that have helped cause a huge hole in the ozone over Antarctica.

February 18, 1989: Earth's protective ozone layer seems to have broken down over the arctic, a team of international scientists said Friday. They said it is not yet clear to what extent pollution may be to blame. About 150 scientists from various countries have been investigating the ozone layer for six weeks from a base in Stavanger on Norway's west coast. The ozone layer is important because it filters out harmful solar rays. If ozone levels are significantly reduced, scientists say, it could lead to an increase in some skin cancers, crop failures and damage to marine life.

March 21, 1989:Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand new relationship with our planet. Unless we quickly and profoundly change the course of our civilization, we face an immediate and grave danger of destroying the worldwide ecological system that sustains life as we know it. In 1939, as clouds of war gathered over Europe, many refused to recognize what was about to happen. No one could imagine a Holocaust, even after shattered glass had filled the streets on Kristallnacht. World leaders waffled and waited, hoping that Hitler was not what he seemed, that world war could be avoided. Later, when aerial photographs revealed death camps, many pretended not to see. In 1989, clouds of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. Once again, world leaders waffle, hoping the danger will dissipate. Yet today the evidence is as clear as the sounds of glass shattering in Berlin.

September 24, 1989: A hole has opened in the atmosphere's ozone shield above Antarctica, and scientists say it is growing at the same rate as one in 1987 which broke records. Ozone in Earth's stratosphere normally blocks most ultraviolet radiation from the sun, shielding people and wildlife from harmful radiation effects. But certain chemicals released into the air - chlorofluorocarbons used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and spray cans - are destroying ozone. Scientists fear an epidemic of skin cancer and other radiation-induced diseases will result.

March 15, 1990: The holes in the world's protective ozone layer will still be there in 2060 and beyond even if governments severely restrict the use of damaging chemicals, the United Nations' leading environmental official said Wednesday.

October 10, 1991: NASA reported Wednesday that a satellite passing over Antarctica had measured the lowest stratospheric ozone level on record, an ominous indication of potential global health risks.

October 24, 1991: The rate of ozone depletion has accelerated and will continue at the higher rate in the 1990s, requiring a more rapid phasing out of chlorofluorocarbons, halons and other manmade chemicals that destroy ozone in the atmosphere.

November 22, 1991: A fleet of planes spraying 50,000 tons of propane or ethane high over the South Pole possibly could neutralize the Antarctic ozone hole, scientists say.

February 4, 1992:Government scientists say they have recorded the highest levels of ozone-damaging chemicals ever measured over the northern hemisphere, making it likely an ozone hole will develop this winter over parts of the United States, Canada and Europe. "Everybody should be alarmed about this," Michael J. Kurylo, manager of the upper atmosphere research program at NASA, said Monday. "We're seeing conditions primed for ozone destruction. It's in a far worse way that we thought." Kurylo said aircraft and satellite instruments have measured levels of chlorine monoxide, a manmade chemical byproduct, at up to 1.5 parts per billion, the highest levels ever recorded.

September 6, 1992: As of July 1, 1992 it became illegal to vent refrigerant gases into the atmosphere. These gases contain chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which do the cooling. Scientists believe that CFCs released into the air have been rising into the stratosphere where they have been destroying the earth's protective ozone layer. Ozone helps filter out some of the sun's ultraviolet rays. Those rays cause skin cancer and, because of holes in the ozone layer, health experts expect an extra 12-million cases of skin cancer over the next 50 years.

September 30, 1992:Satellite measurements show the ozone hole over Antarctica is now the largest on record and almost three times larger than the area of the United States, NASA announced Tuesday. The space agency said measurements by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer instrument aboard the Nimbus-7 satellite showed last week the south polar territory under a depleted ozone area of the atmosphere extended for about 8.9-million square miles, about 15 percent larger than the ozone hole measured in 1991. Ozone, composed of three oxygen atoms, is a natural chemical in the atmosphere. It acts as a filter against damaging ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Chemical reactions can destroy ozone by stripping away one atom of oxygen, removing the shielding effect of ozone.

November 1, 1992: Source: CQ Researcher, Environmental Protection Agency The ozone layer, and how it gets broken down 1 The ozone layer consists of: Free oxygen atom (O), two oxygen atoms make an oxygen molecule (O2), three oxygen atoms make an ozone molecule (O3) 2 Oxygen molecules are transformed into ozone by the sun's ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which splits the oxygen molecule into two free oxygen atoms. 3 The free oxygen atoms bind to other oxygen molecules forming ozone. 4 The ozone molecules also are broken up by UV radiation, converting it back into one free oxygen atom and one oxygen molecule. This continuous cycle occurs normally in the stratosphere. 5 Once chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), consisting of atoms of carbon, fluorine and chlorine (CI), reach the ozone layer, UV radiation breaks off an atom of chlorine. 6 A free chlorine atom reacts easily with other molecules. When it collides with an ozone molecule, it can break up the molecule by stripping away an oxygen atom. 7 The chlorine atom combines with the oxygen atom to form chlorine monoxide

November 26, 1992:Future accumulations of a gas that promotes global warming may lead to ozone "holes" over the Arctic similar to those now detected over Antarctica, a study says.The ozone reduction would expose Arctic wildlife to more ultraviolet radiation and might mean transient increased exposures for people elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, he said. Ultraviolet radiation promotes skin cancer and cataracts.

November 26, 1992: Spurred by recent evidence that Earth's protective ozone layer is being depleted more extensively than feared, a U.N. environmental conference agreed Wednesday to move up the deadline for eliminating some ozone-destroying gases to the end of 1995.

Representatives of 87 countries moved up the phaseout deadline from the year 2000 to Jan. 1, 1996. The chemicals affected, mainly chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, are industrial chemicals widely used as refrigerants, solvents and cleaning agents. The delegates set an even earlier deadline, Jan. 1, 1994, for chemicals known as halons, which are used in fire extinguishers. The delegates also set a timetable for eliminating hydro-chlorofluorocarbons, or HCFCs. Industry has been relying on these chemicals as interim substitutes for the more potent ozone destroyers pending the development of permanent substitutes. HCFCs, which still deplete ozone but not as much as the chemicals they replace, are now to be eliminated in stages starting in the year 2004 and ending in 2030.

April 23, 1993:The ozone layer - Earth's protective shield against ultraviolet radiation - has dropped to record-low levels over the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States. A research team reports in today's issue of the journal Science that the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Phillipines may have sped that depletion. Scientists said one of the ways the volcano could have contributed to the lower ozone levels is by its release of microscopic dust particles into the upper atmosphere. The losses, expected to persist into summer, include an average drop of 12 percent over the mid-latitudes where most Americans, Canadians and Europeans live, and a dip of 15 percent over the West Coast, including California. Ozone is down by as much as 20 percent over Northern Canada, Greenland, Norway, parts of Alaska and Siberia.

September 24, 1993: Calling the drop "an unprecedented decrease," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the ozone appears to have been gobbled up by chemical reactions involving manmade chlorine compounds and an enormous blast of dust from the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines.

October 19, 1993:Ozone levels over the Antarctic have dropped to record lows over the past month, creating a polar "ozone hole" bigger than Europe, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said late last week. The United Nations agency said levels of the gas over the southern pole had regularly fallen below 100 Dobson units, "representing the lowest absolute daily minimum ever recorded in the history of ozone observations."

"It's the worst we've seen yet," WMO ozone expert Rumen Bojkov told Reuters. "It is lower now than we had thought was possible."

August 27, 1994: The protective ozone layer over North America has rebounded from its extremely low level of two winters ago, but that doesn't mean it's time to relax. High-altitude "ozone over the U.S. during the winter of 1993-1994 recovered from the record low values of the previous winter," a team of scientists reports in Geophysical Research Letters. Ozone levels that were as much as 15 percent below normal in 1992-1993 have risen to slightly above normal. The layer of ozone high in the atmosphere helps block dangerous ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Too much of this radiation can lead to skin cancer, premature aging of the skin and eye damage.

December 21, 1994: Three years of data from a NASA satellite have provided conclusive evidence that man-made chlorine in the stratosphere is the primary cause of the ozone hole above Antarctica, scientists said this week. "The detection of stratospheric fluorine gases, which are not natural, eliminates the possibility that chlorine from volcanic eruptions or some other natural source is responsible for the ozone hole," NASA's Mark Schoeberl said Monday.

October 30, 2000: This year the ozone hole over the Antarctic has reached its worst level since scientists began measuring 15 years ago. According to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, all 12 monitoring stations around the Antarctic rim have reported ozone measurements that are 50 percent to 70 percent below the norms 30 years ago.

December 7, 2005: Current computer models suggest the ozone hole should recover globally by 2040 or 2050, but Tuesday's analysis suggests the hole won't heal until about 2065.

Commentary on the Montreal Protocol:

1. http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/11/reference-will-our-air-cons-destroy.html

2. http://munshi.4t.com/papers/ozone.pdf

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Farm coops are losing their competitive edge, Vietnam News, November 7, 2009

Farming and service sector cooperatives in the Saigon area, long used to easy credit from government banks, were able to offer their members high quality stock, cheap fertilizers, and guaranteed markets for their products. These days they find it hard to make good on these promises because a new Party directive to their banks to lend only on the basis of the ability to repay has dried up their credit. They tried to use their land as collateral for bank loans only to discover that they could not do so because the Party and not they are the legal owners of the land they farm. The cooperatives now have the smell of death for several reasons. First, members are disgruntled because of the coops' failure to deliver benefits and many of them have stopped making their annual contributions which, as it turns out, are voluntary. Second, productive members are leaving the coops to venture out on their own thus starting a Darwinian process that leaves behind by natural selection, cooperatives that are associations of the incompetent. Third, the worse things get the less interested farmers are in participating, the less likely members are to make voluntary contributions, and the less interested young and educated members of the community are in cooperatives and these in turn cause things to get even worse. It's a non-linear dynamic. The response by the Party has been a combination of too little too late and wrong diagnosis. The Party has decided that the problem is that the coop leaders lack managerial skills and its response has been to hold elaborate management education seminars. Predictably, these seminars have done little to turn the tide.

Cha-am Jamal
Saigon

Reference: Turning up the heat on palm oil, Brunch Magazine, Bangkok Post, November 1, 2009

Global warmists claim that the planting of new palm oil plantations to produce vegetable oils for cooking is a bad thing because it causes deforestation and that in turn causes global warming and destroys the habitat of the orangutan (Turning up the heat on palm oil, Brunch Magazine, Bangkok Post, November 1, 2009). This analysis is disingenious. The recent rapid growth in palm oil plantations in orangutan country is not motivated by the cooking oil market but by the so-called renewable biofuels market. This market was created by the warmists themselves in their urgent call for a rapid increase in biofuels to replace fossil fuels as a way of mitigating global warming and saving the planet. It is bizarre irony to see the warmists now complaining that their medicine is worse than the disease, that their solution to global warming causes global warming, and that their single minded obsession with carbon dioxide compromises real environmental issues.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: The decline of the caribou, Bangkok Post, November 2, 2009

It is reported that in 1989 there were 178000 Porcupine caribou in the Yukon and that "their number now is estimated to be 100,000" and from these data we may conclude that global warming is killing off the caribou because warming causes freezing rain in the calving season and that makes it hard for calving caribou to feed (The decline of the caribou, Bangkok Post, November 2, 2009). There are two things wrong with this analysis. First the data reported for 2009 was estimated by the authors to suit their purpose and it does not represent actual data. Second, if you don't cherry pick the start of the study period as 1989 but look at the entire available time series you get a very different picture because it shows that the population rose steadily from 100000 in 1972 to 178000 in 1989 and then decreased steadily down to 120000 in 2005. These data suggest, and caribou biologists agree, that caribou populations go through a 30 to 40 year cycle of growth and decay.This population dynamic cannot be related to global warming or carbon dioxide. Presenting only half of the caribou population cycle as a global warming phenomenon is just the kind of flimflam chicanery with which the war against carbon dioxide is now associated.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Will our air-cons destroy the planet? Bangkok Post, November 1, 2009

Armed with new tools to make such measurements, scientists identified an expansion of the ozone-depleted area over the Antarctic in 1985 and labeled the phenomenon as the ozone hole. Although they did not have historical data for comparison the scientists nevertheless assumed that the ozone depletion they had witnessed was neither natural nor cyclical and therefore it could only be a trend caused by human activity; and soon identified R-12 and R-22 refrigerants as the agents by which human activity depletes ozone. The proposed mechanism is that these refrigerants rise up to the ozone layer where ultra violet radiation removes a chlorine ion and the ion then acts as a catalyst to facilitate the conversion of ozone to oxygen. The Montreal Protocol was hastily adopted and the world was given the very expensive task of phasing out inexpensive, efficient, and non-toxic refrigerants. Meanwhile, the ozone hole that had caused scientists to scare us with skin cancer, coral loss, frog mutations, and ecological horror began to change all by itself in a cyclical pattern that was not in any way responsive to reductions in CFC production and consumption. Ozone is an evanescent substance for it is constantly being formed and destroyed in the natural process of absorbing harmful ultraviolet radiation. The formation of the ozone hole in 1985 was neither a trend nor man-made. It is instead part of a natural and cyclical process over several years in which the amount of ozone in the extreme latitudes rises and falls in cycles. The Montreal Protocol is based on a false premise and bad science and it no longer has a purpose.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

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