Doing Our Part for Global Warming By Eliminating Cow Flatulence

A team of Japanese boffins may have accidentally struck gold in the fight against global warming: they believe they have devised a way to neutralise the perilous belches of 1.5 billion cows.

Junichi Takahashi’s discovery could, he says, dramatically reduce the environmental damage caused by the world’s cattle herds, whose collective belching is thought to account for 5 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the team from Obihiro University of Agriculture, a few simple food additives, costing about 50p each day per cow, could remove virtually all methane from a herd’s daily output of greenhouse gas-enriched belches.

Full article here.  Send me the list of food additives, please, so I can pass it on to my Uncle Gil.  And hurry.

 

Funny Thing About Global Warming

The New York Times’ Andrew C. Revkin writes:

In the 20 years I’ve been covering global warming, it’s been hard to find a lot of laughs. There have been a few moments — like when I was standing too close to an open-water gap in the floating sea ice at the North Pole, until a bearlike Russian camp worker pulled me back, explaining in broken English that a tourist had fallen into the 14,300-foot-deep, 28-degree water that way the year before. That’s about as funny as it gets on my beat. 

… The tourist survived. Actually, come to think of it, that was the same day a beautiful Russian woman (the runner-up in the Mother Russia pageant) popped out of a tent dressed in an ice-length sequined gown, tiara and white fur coat, and began dancing with Santa Claus.

Maybe this is a funnier beat than I thought. As if to prove that, and just in time for the holidays (or a break from dissecting the latest nonpapers at the Bali talks), now comes “101 Funny Things About Global Warming” (Bloomsbury USA, January 2008), the first book of climate cartoons (the first one I know of, anyway). It is assembled by Sidney Harris and 20 other masters of the scribbled line.

Just in time for Christmas, for the giggling climate-catastrophist in your clan. Full article here.

 

Know Your Antichrist Candidates: Al Gore

Name: Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Birth: March 31, 1948, Washington, D.C., the son of a moderate Democratic U.S. congressman and later senator from Tennessee.

Claim to Fame: Served as U.S. congressman from Tennessee’s 4^th District from 1977 to 1985, where he became the first congressman to appear on C-SPAN and “invented the Internet” as sponsor of the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991; served as U.S. senator from Tennessee from 1985-93; ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 1988; was elected Vice President on a ticket with Bill Clinton in 1992, and served until 2001; ran for President against George W. Bush in 2000 and received a majority of popular votes cast, but lost the electoral vote to Bush after a ballot recount in Florida and a controversial decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush’s favor; retired from politics (mostly) to become an activist on global warming issues; in 2007, Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature; and, also in 2007, he won an Emmy for his role in founding Current TV, and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Power Base: 50,999,897 disappointed American voters in the 2000 presidential election; environmentalists; and, apparently, members of the Academies of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Television Arts & Sciences and the Nobel Committee.

Google Hits: 269,000 hits for “al gore antichrist” on October 14, 2007

Merits: There has been a definite spike in searches for “Al Gore antichrist” landing people here on this site since Friday’s announcement of the former Vice President’s Nobel Peace Prize, prompting us here at the Cocktail Hour to take another look at his antichrist candidacy.

• We first alluded to Al Gore’s merits as the antichrist back in July 2006, when we quoted Christian radio host Woodrow Kroll on the possibility of the antichrist being a popular environmental leader. This notion was consistent with the statement, in March 2007, by 78-year old Roman Catholic Cardinal Giacomo Biffi that the antichrist will be “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist” that “the masses” will follow.

• Since his loss in 2000, Gore has managed to remake himself in remarkable fashion, as described in a recent Rolling Stone article:

He has put aside his wooden, policy-wonk demeanor to emerge as the Bush administration’s most eloquent critic. And thanks to An Inconvenient Truth, Gore is not only the most impassioned leader on the most urgent crisis facing the planet, he’s also a Hollywood celebrity, the star of the third-highest-grossing documentary of all time. “He’s perceived very differently now than he was six years ago,” says Frank Luntz, the Republican consultant who advised George W. Bush to dispute global warming during the 2000 and 2004 elections. “He’s an icon. Imagine that: Al Gore, Mr. Straight and Narrow, Mr. Dull on Wheels — now he’s culturally cool.”

• According to mathematics writer Eli Eshoh, Al Gore is the antichrist because his name in ASCII Code translates as follows:

al gore = 97 + 108 + 32 + 103 + 111 + 114 + 101 = 666

“I am convinced that Al Gore has sold his soul to the devil,” Eshoh continues. “He is noted for his wooden appearance, something that makes me suspect he is nothing but a puppet being manipulated by Satan.”

• Dr. Rusty “Joe” Shackleford proposes the following reading of Revelations in light of Al Gore’s affiliation with Google:

Rev 13:16 and he [Al Gore, the inventor of the internet and soon to be partner with Google] causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: [url recognized by Google's search bot, I'm sure]

Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. [You think any online business would work without Google? How about an online provider of news and opinion without Google News? Think about it.]

Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number [is] Six hundred threescore [and] six. [Google=6 letters; Search=6 letters; Al Gore=6 letters......]

Along similar lines, other commentators note that, since the numerical value of W is ‘6,’ and “www” is the equivalent of “666,” as the “inventor of the Internet,” Al Gore has the mark of the Beast.

• In 2000, Sterling Allan analyzed Gore’s numerology and explored the penumbra of definitions of the word “gore” in the English language (such as “mass of filth” or “blood,”; and “to pierce or penetrate with a pointed instrument” or “horns”), juxtaposed against Old Testament lexicons, and concluded that Al Gore could represent “the use of tyrannical force to bring about a counterfeit of this unification of the world.”

• Gore, in his book Earth in the Balance, wrote that “we must all become partners in a bold effort to change the very foundation of our civilization,” a suggestion that writer Samantha Smith assails as advocating a New World Order, one “who would strip America of its progress and industry, incorporate population control, establish an international police guard to enforce compliance of international laws on the environment, and lead a battalion of interfaith advocates in earth stewardship–rationing the ‘sacred’ earth’s resources.” Smith sees these ambitions as being consistent with the spiritual goals of a New Age Movement that would denounce God in favor of a worship of nature.

Quay Fortuna’s Analysis: The fact that a Republican tells Rolling Stone that Al Gore is “cool” does not make it so — although, you have to admit, it’s like he became a new person after 2000. His remarkable transformation, however, only really supports the notion that he sold his soul to the devil right after the 2000 election. I mean, come on, would anyone have predicted that Al Gore could have ever received an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Nobel Peace Prize, let alone in the same year? Anyone taking odds that he might win an Olympic gold medal? Don’t bet against it!

Those with short memories have already forgotten that his popular vote in the 2000 election was a close one, and that even many Democrats were disappointed with Gore as a presidential candidate at the time. If we must, as the scholars suggest, see the antichrist as a charming and beloved figure, we must ask ourselves the following question: Is it possible that before his election loss in 2000, Al Gore would not have been capable of being the antichrist, but now that he’s a Hollywood celeb and talk show bon vivant, he is now suddenly capable of being the antichrist? I think the preferred view would be that the antichrist is going to be the antichrist from birth onward. And no antichrist worth his salt would have allowed himself to be so overshadowed by the devilishness of Bill Clinton for eight years.

 

Gore Wins

Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to raise awareness about global warming … which is all well and good until the U.S. Supreme Court decides to declare George W. Bush the winner instead.

 

Cardinal Says the Antichrist is Green

An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by the Pope to deliver this year’s Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by giving warning of an Antichrist who is “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist”.

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, 78, who retired as Archbishop of Bologna three years ago, quoted Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), the Russian philosopher and mystic, as predicting that the Antichrist “will convoke an ecumenical council and seek the consensus of all the Christian confessions”.

The “masses” would follow the Antichrist, “with the exception of small groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants” who would fight to prevent the watering down and ultimate destruction of the faith, he said.

It ain’t easy being green.  See full article here.

 

Doomsday Clock Moves 2 Minutes Closer to Midnight

By moving the hand of the Clock closer to midnight — the figurative end of civilization — the BAS Board of Directors is drawing attention to the increasing dangers from the spread of nuclear weapons in a world of violent conflict, and to the catastrophic harm from climate change that is unfolding. The BAS statement explains: “We stand at the brink of a Second Nuclear Age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a renewed emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth.”

The BAS statement continues: “The dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons. The effects may be less dramatic in the short term than the destruction that could be wrought by nuclear explosions, but over the next three to four decades climate change could cause irremediable harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival.”

Full press release, from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, here.

 

Global Warming is Warming Hearts, Too

Could global warming be the focal point of unprecedented ecumenical cooperation?

In an effort to mobilize a “religious response to global warming,” thousands of congregations are meeting in churches, mosques, synagogues and other halls of worship around the nation during the first week of October for an unprecedented number of inter-religious screenings and discussions of films about climate change.

… “Global warming is harming God’s creation: first the poor of the world, and eventually, all of us and all life,” said the Rev. Sally Bingham, an Episcopal priest at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Calif., and a founder of IPL, which describes itself as “a nationwide movement to engage people of faith in the urgency to address global warming,”

“I have spent my life fighting for civil rights and human rights,” said Pastor Gerald Durley of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga. “After I saw ‘The Great Warming’ and ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ I have taken on yet another mission. We are destroying our earth. We can’t protect human rights if we aren’t here.”

“Everyone has a stake and a role in reducing global warming emissions,” said Souleiman Ghali, a Muslim leader and founder of the Islamic Society of San Francisco. “Working together, we can change history.”

Full story here. Of course, there’s always a naysayer in the crowd. E. Calvin Beisner, a Knox Theological Seminary professor, has a different point of view:

. . . “[I]t is a sad day when Americans turn to the movies to learn science for public policy.”

Beisner pointed to an ISA document entitled “A Call to Truth, Prudence and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming,” which uses “the best scientific evidence to show that the current warming trend is well within the bounds of natural variability” and “that human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are at most a very small component of its causes.”

“Human beings have responsibility before God to care intelligently for the earth — to increase its fruitfulness by wise cultivation and conserve its ecosystems, especially as by doing so, they promote human well-being,” Beisner told Cybercast News Service.

“But absolutely no credible scientific evidence supports the notion that foreseeable global warming poses a threat to the survival of the human race or is likely to destroy the earth,” he added.

“Such exaggerated claims are not in the best interests of intelligent public policy, which needs to be based not only on charitable motives but also on sound science, sound economics and a commitment to truth telling,” Beisner noted.

“Proposals to reduce future temperatures by cutting CO2 emissions would be almost wholly ineffective but would cost the world from $200 billion to $1 trillion per year,” he added.

That money “could be much better spent providing sewage sanitation, clean drinking water and electrification for the world’s two billion people who lack them, thus reducing premature deaths by millions per year among the poor,” Beisner said.

“There are good reasons to try to reduce energy use regardless of our views on global warming,” he added. “Conservation of resources, reduction of truly harmful pollution — which CO2 is not — and saving money are among them. Fighting global warming is not.”

Maybe he’s right that I shouldn’t get my public policy from a movie, but what kind of day is it when I get my climate science from a theology professor?

 

Tepid Reaction to Striptease at Global Warming Conference

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — A saloon-style striptease, complete with corsets and balloons, at an Australian government-sponsored conference on global warming left some scientists hot and bothered and the organizers in boiling water.

The show was cut short and organizers issued an apology after some delegates at the Australia and New Zealand Climate Forum’s dinner in Canberra walked out in disgust at what was intended as a lighthearted break from the weighty business of rising temperatures.

Rebecca Gale, who led the team of dancers from Miss Kitka’s House of Burlesque, said the performance was in reasonably good taste and she didn’t understand what the fuss was about.

Gale said she emerged into the function room during dinner wearing a heavy corset, black fishnet stockings and at least a dozen balloons, which she invited delegates to pop as she danced to Peggy Lee’s sultry 1958 hit “Fever.”

“The most that any of the girls get down to is vintage lingerie, which is corsetry and stockings,” Gale told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Friday. “It’s not like we were doing full nudity and simulating sexual acts or anything like that.

“There was not even a midriff on display.”

But some in the audience objected to the Wednesday night show in Australia’s old Parliament House, and the dance troupe was asked to stop about 10 minutes into a 45-minute routine, Gale said.

The Australian National University, which organized the conference, issued a statement the next day apologizing for any offense caused.

Full article here.

It strikes me that if someone on the conference planning committee actually expected the audience to wait 45 minutes to get to the end of a striptease, then it’s pretty clear that the environmentalists have no sense of reality when it comes to waiting for the Bush administration to acknowledge global warming.

 

What Would You Do With Your ‘Last Days’?

ABC’s Last Days on Earth, which aired last night as a special edition of 20/20, galloped through seven scenarios for the end of the world, aided by Al Gore and a gaggle of prominent scientists (including the ebullient American Museum of Natural History astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson), and punctuated with earnest vox poppery and some rather stilted, angular commentary from Stephen Hawking.

And according to ABC, the nominees for the most likely end-of-world scenario are:

1. A gamma ray burst or black hole;
2. Artificial Intelligence on the loose;
3. A supervolcano;
4. The Earth getting hit by an asteroid;
5. Nuclear annihilation;
6. A natural or bioterrorist pandemic; and
7. Global warming, also known as that thing Al Gore’s always talking about.

See more hype here.

During interludes in the discussion, average folks talked about what they would do with the rest of their lives if they knew the exact time and date of the end of the world.

Feel free to submit your own ideas in the comment section of this post.

 

An Ice Age Caused By Global Warming

Scientists monitoring the Yenisey, Lena and Ob’, Arctic rivers comparable in size to the Mississippi that push fresh water from the Arctic into the north Atlantic, are concerned about potential climate changes (via NPR) — ironically, an ice age produced by the melting of glaciers in the Arctic due to global warming.  As explained by Thom Hartmann:

[I]f enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age – in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset – and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the “little ice age” of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world.

Here’s how it works.

If you look at a globe, you’ll see that the latitude of much of Europe and Scandinavia is the same as that of Alaska and permafrost-locked parts of northern Canada and central Siberia. Yet Europe has a climate more similar to that of the United States than northern Canada or Siberia. Why?

It turns out that our warmth is the result of ocean currents that bring warm surface water up from the equator into northern regions that would otherwise be so cold that even in summer they’d be covered with ice. The current of greatest concern is often referred to as “The Great Conveyor Belt,” which includes what we call the Gulf Stream.

The Great Conveyor Belt, while shaped by the Coriolis effect of the Earth’s rotation, is mostly driven by the greater force created by differences in water temperatures and salinity. The North Atlantic Ocean is saltier and colder than the Pacific, the result of it being so much smaller and locked into place by the Northern and Southern American Hemispheres on the west and Europe and Africa on the east.

As a result, the warm water of the Great Conveyor Belt evaporates out of the North Atlantic leaving behind saltier waters, and the cold continental winds off the northern parts of North America cool the waters. Salty, cool waters settle to the bottom of the sea, most at a point a few hundred kilometers south of the southern tip of Greenland, producing a whirlpool of falling water that’s 5 to 10 miles across. While the whirlpool rarely breaks the surface, during certain times of year it does produce an indentation and current in the ocean that can tilt ships and be seen from space (and may be what we see on the maps of ancient mariners).

This falling column of cold, salt-laden water pours itself to the bottom of the Atlantic, where it forms an undersea river forty times larger than all the rivers on land combined, flowing south down to and around the southern tip of Africa, where it finally reaches the Pacific. Amazingly, the water is so deep and so dense (because of its cold and salinity) that it often doesn’t surface in the Pacific for as much as a thousand years after it first sank in the North Atlantic off the coast of Greenland.

The out-flowing undersea river of cold, salty water makes the level of the Atlantic slightly lower than that of the Pacific, drawing in a strong surface current of warm, fresher water from the Pacific to replace the outflow of the undersea river. This warmer, fresher water slides up through the South Atlantic, loops around North America where it’s known as the Gulf Stream, and ends up off the coast of Europe. By the time it arrives near Greenland, it’s cooled off and evaporated enough water to become cold and salty and sink to the ocean floor, providing a continuous feed for that deep-sea river flowing to the Pacific.

These two flows – warm, fresher water in from the Pacific, which then grows salty and cools and sinks to form an exiting deep sea river – are known as the Great Conveyor Belt.

Amazingly, the Great Conveyor Belt is only thing between comfortable summers and a permanent ice age for Europe and the eastern coast of North America.

Full article, from 2003, here.  With the as-yet unmeasured effect of the melting of glaciers in Greenland, says Jonathan Overpeck, a professor of geosciences and director of the University of Arizona Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, “… you are talking about quite a bit more fresh water than we have now, and I don’t think anyone can say with confidence that we’re safe from a large scale, abrupt change in the north Atlantic.”