MUENCHHAUSEN

AN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ENVIRONMENT,
RENEWABLE RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY,
AND RELATED TOPICS

By BOOTSTRAP PRESS, INC.
BETHESDA, MD
GREENBARON@CSI.COM

===============================================================
AUGUST 29, 2006
===============================================================

WELCOME!

The Green Baron welcomes one and all who take the time to read Muenchhausen. He aims to “tell it like it is” as much as possible, and avoid advocacy and ideological positions. There are enough of those to go around in other publications.

SCHOOLYARD DEBATE

Who remembers children arguing in a schoolyard, or at home, for that matter:

“Is SO!”
“Is NOT!”
“Is SO!”
“Is NOT!”

The debate about global climate change and the fierce storms it may generate seems to resemble the well-known children’s argument. “It is NOT happening!” “It is SO happening!”

“Is SO!” Here is the title of an article by Mike Tidwell, the author of several books on climate, and director of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council: “We’re All New Orleanians Now” (The Washington Post, Aug. 20, 2006, p. B1). He flatly predicts a Katrina/New Orleans-type flood in Washington, DC, and speaks about waters roiling over the famed Washington Mall, Reagan National Airport, and other famous landmarks of the Nation’s Capital. Tidwell envisions a “hot and swollen Chesapeake Bay, its surface free of the once-vast and buffering wetland grasses and ‘speed bump’ islands that slow down storms.”

Tidwell adds that because of global warming, this is our future. He posits that oceans worldwide are projected to rise perhaps three feet this century, and much higher if the Greenland icecap melts away. The result would be a New Orleans “bowl” effect in cities such as Charleston, SC (which is very low-lying), Miami, FL, New York, and other coastal cities. To protect these cities, if they are not to be abandoned, huge dikes would have to be built, or people would have to learn to live beneath the surface of rivers, tidal bays, and open seas (as in New Orleans).

What alarms Tidwell is that he projects future hurricanes to more ferocious, thanks to rising sea-surface temperatures. He cites a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study that concluded that hurricane wind speeds have essentially doubled during the past 30 years. He explains that among the six most powerful hurricanes to hit the Atlantic Basin during the last 150 years were Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, all of which occurred in 2005. Tidwell calls for immediate and drastic (and expensive) actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This would entail using hybrid cars, wind- and solar-generated electric power, and high-efficiency appliances. Perhaps those who are concerned with global warming might wish to read Tidwell’s book, Bayou Farewell, in which he chronicles the erosion of the wetlands of coastal Louisiana.

The Green Baron remembers from history—he was but a child aged 4 at the time—the New England Hurricane of September 1938. He was living in New York City at the time. His father told him how he was driving northward on New York City’s West Side Highway, and how he was buffeted from side to side by the fierce wind and rain.

New York City actually did not get the worst of the 1938 hurricane; it was on the west or “navigable” side of the storm. Eastern Long Island and Rhode Island were hit very hard with considerable loss of life and property. There was no scale for evaluating hurricanes then, but from historical data, it is believed to have been a high Category 3 or low 4 at the time it struck Rhode Island. Water from the Narragansett Bay was driven into the streets of Providence.

Also, who can forget Hurricane Camille that flattened Pass Christian, MS, in 1969 with winds whose rotational velocity may have been 210 miles/hour around a very small eye. It was a Category 5. But Tidwell cites an article in Science from the autumn of 2005 that states that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled in the past 30 years.

“Is NOT!” Patrick Michaels is a professor of natural resources at the University of Virginia. He is a well-known skeptic about global warming. In an article in The Washington Times (Aug. 20, 2006, p. B1), he reminds his readers that the summer of 1930 was a “scorcher.” Parts of rural Virginia, then definitely “far from Washington’s sprawl,” experienced a total of 21 days on which temperatures equaled or exceeded 100 °F (38 °C). Michaels notes that “even with the excess heat contributed by the city [of Washington, DC], the city now averages only one 100-degree day a year.” He also proposes that if the planet is indeed warming, humans and nature will adapt, and he even lists ways in which this adaptation is occurring.

Is SO, is NOT!” Another story by Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post (Aug. 20, 2006, p. A3) starts as follows: “Scientists Disagree on Link Between Storms, Warming”. “Same Data, Different Conclusions”. Eilperin is a staff writer for the Post.

At the time Eilperin had prepared her story, the tropical storm season had been unusually calm. To be sure, Hurricane Ernesto could presage the onset of a series of nasty storms through September and October. AccuWeather® senior meteorologist Joe Bastardi expects just that, according to what The Green Baron heard on a broadcast on Washington, DC’s radio station WMAL-AM on Aug. 28.

Some examples: Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, has called the approximately 250,000 Katrina evacuees who will not return there as “the world’s first climate refugees.” The Green Baron believes that there have been climate refugees throughout human history; it’s just that the migration was slower in days of yore. Even the Book of Genesis in the Bible speaks of Jacob and his son’s seeking permission to settle in Egypt’s land of Goshen, because “the famine is sore” in the Land of Canaan, likely because of a protracted drought.

Christopher Landsea, of the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published an opinion article in Science in July 2006, in which he posits that data showing that hurricanes are more intense now than they were 20 and 30 years ago, may be based on flawed information. He suggests that wind and rain measurement technology was less sophisticated in years past, and storm strength may have been underestimated. Judith Curry of Georgia Institute of Technology, co-authored a paper in 2005, challenged Landsea’s hypotheses. And so the debates continue to rage.

“Is NOT!” Here, reproduced in its entirety, is a report by a scientist at Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg, Russia, to the effect that Earth will cool quite sharply through the middle of the 21st century, and start warming again as the 22nd century approaches. The story appeared in an English version of the Russian newspaper Izvestiya. In his view, the Kyoto Protocol can wait to be implemented. Please see below:

Russian scientist issues global cooling warning

ST. PETERSBURG, August 25 (RIA Novosti)- Global cooling could develop on Earth in 50 years and have serious consequences before it is replaced by a period of warming in the early 22nd century, a Russian scientist said Friday.
Environmentalists and scientists today focus on the dangers of global warming provoked by man's detrimental effect on the planet's climate, but global cooling - though never widely supported - is a theory postulating an overwhelming cooling of the Earth which could involve glaciation.
"On the basis of our [solar emission] research, we developed a scenario of a global cooling of the Earth's climate by the middle of this century and the beginning of a regular 200-year-long cycle of the climate's global warming at the start of the 22nd century," said the head of the space research sector of the Russian Academy of Sciences' astronomical observatory.
Khabibullo Abdusamatov said he and his colleagues had concluded that a period of global cooling similar to one seen in the late 17th century - when canals froze in the Netherlands and people had to leave their dwellings in Greenland - could start in 2012-2015 and reach its peak in 2055-2060.
He said he believed the future climate change would have very serious consequences and that authorities should start preparing for them today because "climate cooling is connected with changing temperatures, especially for northern countries."
"The Kyoto initiatives to save the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off until better times," he said, referring to an international treaty on climate change targeting greenhouse gas emissions.
"The global temperature maximum has been reached on Earth, and Earth's global temperature will decline to a climatic minimum even without the Kyoto protocol," Abdusamatov said.
So:
“Is NOT!?”
“Is SO!?”
Please stay tuned!
WHAT IS BOOTSTRAP PRESS?

Bootstrap Press is a nonprofit organization founded in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.A., to promote the development and management of technology and businesses based on renewable resources. We also encourage the preservation of our Earth's natural habitats and its plant and animal species. So do a lot of other organizations, and more power to them for doing so!

Bootstrap Press is different because its members believe that the development of renewable resources and the preservation of habitats and species are receiving far more lip service than the financial and technical support needed to achieve these goals. We also think they will continue to be subjects of more talk than action until someone can show how renewable resources and the diversity of biological species can be the basis for potentially profitable businesses as well as a matter of ethics. Bootstrap Press intends to provide a forum for the discussion of how to build up such business, and of related topics.

There's one more thing we should mention about Muenchhausen and Bootstrap Press. We try to present only the scientific and technical facts that are correct to the best of our knowledge, belief, and good faith. It is up to Muenchhausen's readers to draw their own conclusions and make their own judgments.

NOTE: The mention of a product or service in Muenchhausen is in no way to be regarded as an endorsement of that product or service by Muenchhausen, Bootstrap Press, the Green Baron, or any other contributor to Muenchhausen.

MUENCHHAUSEN

AN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ENVIRONMENT,
RENEWABLE RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY,
AND RELATED TOPICS

By BOOTSTRAP PRESS, INC.
BETHESDA, MD
GREENBARON@CSI.COM

===============================================================
AUGUST 29, 2006
===============================================================

WELCOME!

The Green Baron welcomes one and all who take the time to read Muenchhausen. He aims to “tell it like it is” as much as possible, and avoid advocacy and ideological positions. There are enough of those to go around in other publications.


SCHOOLYARD DEBATE

Who remembers children arguing in a schoolyard, or at home, for that matter:

“Is SO!”
“Is NOT!”
“Is SO!”
“Is NOT!”














The debate about global climate change and the fierce storms it may generate seems to resemble the well-known children’s argument. “It is NOT happening!” “It is SO happening!”

“Is SO!” Here is the title of an article by Mike Tidwell, the author of several books on climate, and director of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council: “We’re All New Orleanians Now” (The Washington Post, Aug. 20, 2006, p. B1). He flatly predicts a Katrina/New Orleans-type flood in Washington, DC, and speaks about waters roiling over the famed Washington Mall, Reagan National Airport, and other famous landmarks of the Nation’s Capital. Tidwell envisions a “hot and swollen Chesapeake Bay, its surface free of the once-vast and buffering wetland grasses and ‘speed bump’ islands that slow down storms.”

Tidwell adds that because of global warming, this is our future. He posits that oceans worldwide are projected to rise perhaps three feet this century, and much higher if the Greenland icecap melts away. The result would be a New Orleans “bowl” effect in cities such as Charleston, SC (which is very low-lying), Miami, FL, New York, and other coastal cities. To protect these cities, if they are not to be abandoned, huge dikes would have to be built, or people would have to learn to live beneath the surface of rivers, tidal bays, and open seas (as in New Orleans).

What alarms Tidwell is that he projects future hurricanes to more ferocious, thanks to rising sea-surface temperatures. He cites a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study that concluded that hurricane wind speeds have essentially doubled during the past 30 years. He explains that among the six most powerful hurricanes to hit the Atlantic Basin during the last 150 years were Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, all of which occurred in 2005. Tidwell calls for immediate and drastic (and expensive) actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This would entail using hybrid cars, wind- and solar-generated electric power, and high-efficiency appliances. Perhaps those who are concerned with global warming might wish to read Tidwell’s book, Bayou Farewell, in which he chronicles the erosion of the wetlands of coastal Louisiana.

The Green Baron remembers from history—he was but a child aged 4 at the time—the New England Hurricane of September 1938. He was living in New York City at the time. His father told him how he was driving northward on New York City’s West Side Highway, and how he was buffeted from side to side by the fierce wind and rain.

New York City actually did not get the worst of the 1938 hurricane; it was on the west or “navigable” side of the storm. Eastern Long Island and Rhode Island were hit very hard with considerable loss of life and property. There was no scale for evaluating hurricanes then, but from historical data, it is believed to have been a high Category 3 or low 4 at the time it struck Rhode Island. Water from the Narragansett Bay was driven into the streets of Providence.

Also, who can forget Hurricane Camille that flattened Pass Christian, MS, in 1969 with winds whose rotational velocity may have been 210 miles/hour around a very small eye. It was a Category 5. But Tidwell cites an article in Science from the autumn of 2005 that states that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled in the past 30 years.

“Is NOT!” Patrick Michaels is a professor of natural resources at the University of Virginia. He is a well-known skeptic about global warming. In an article in The Washington Times (Aug. 20, 2006, p. B1), he reminds his readers that the summer of 1930 was a “scorcher.” Parts of rural Virginia, then definitely “far from Washington’s sprawl,” experienced a total of 21 days on which temperatures equaled or exceeded 100 °F (38 °C). Michaels notes that “even with the excess heat contributed by the city [of Washington, DC], the city now averages only one 100-degree day a year.” He also proposes that if the planet is indeed warming, humans and nature will adapt, and he even lists ways in which this adaptation is occurring.

Is SO, is NOT!” Another story by Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post (Aug. 20, 2006, p. A3) starts as follows: “Scientists Disagree on Link Between Storms, Warming”. “Same Data, Different Conclusions”. Eilperin is a staff writer for the Post.

At the time Eilperin had prepared her story, the tropical storm season had been unusually calm. To be sure, Hurricane Ernesto could presage the onset of a series of nasty storms through September and October. AccuWeather® senior meteorologist Joe Bastardi expects just that, according to what The Green Baron heard on a broadcast on Washington, DC’s radio station WMAL-AM on Aug. 28.

Some examples: Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, has called the approximately 250,000 Katrina evacuees who will not return there as “the world’s first climate refugees.” The Green Baron believes that there have been climate refugees throughout human history; it’s just that the migration was slower in days of yore. Even the Book of Genesis in the Bible speaks of Jacob and his son’s seeking permission to settle in Egypt’s land of Goshen, because “the famine is sore” in the Land of Canaan, likely because of a protracted drought.

Christopher Landsea, of the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published an opinion article in Science in July 2006, in which he posits that data showing that hurricanes are more intense now than they were 20 and 30 years ago, may be based on flawed information. He suggests that wind and rain measurement technology was less sophisticated in years past, and storm strength may have been underestimated. Judith Curry of Georgia Institute of Technology, co-authored a paper in 2005, challenged Landsea’s hypotheses. And so the debates continue to rage.

“Is NOT!” Here, reproduced in its entirety, is a report by a scientist at Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg, Russia, to the effect that Earth will cool quite sharply through the middle of the 21st century, and start warming again as the 22nd century approaches. The story appeared in an English version of the Russian newspaper Izvestiya. In his view, the Kyoto Protocol can wait to be implemented. Please see below:

Russian scientist issues global cooling warning

ST. PETERSBURG, August 25 (RIA Novosti)- Global cooling could develop on Earth in 50 years and have serious consequences before it is replaced by a period of warming in the early 22nd century, a Russian scientist said Friday.
Environmentalists and scientists today focus on the dangers of global warming provoked by man's detrimental effect on the planet's climate, but global cooling - though never widely supported - is a theory postulating an overwhelming cooling of the Earth which could involve glaciation.
"On the basis of our [solar emission] research, we developed a scenario of a global cooling of the Earth's climate by the middle of this century and the beginning of a regular 200-year-long cycle of the climate's global warming at the start of the 22nd century," said the head of the space research sector of the Russian Academy of Sciences' astronomical observatory.
Khabibullo Abdusamatov said he and his colleagues had concluded that a period of global cooling similar to one seen in the late 17th century - when canals froze in the Netherlands and people had to leave their dwellings in Greenland - could start in 2012-2015 and reach its peak in 2055-2060.
He said he believed the future climate change would have very serious consequences and that authorities should start preparing for them today because "climate cooling is connected with changing temperatures, especially for northern countries."
"The Kyoto initiatives to save the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off until better times," he said, referring to an international treaty on climate change targeting greenhouse gas emissions.
"The global temperature maximum has been reached on Earth, and Earth's global temperature will decline to a climatic minimum even without the Kyoto protocol," Abdusamatov said.
So:
“Is NOT!?”
“Is SO!?”
Please stay tuned!

WHAT IS BOOTSTRAP PRESS?

Bootstrap Press is a nonprofit organization founded in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.A., to promote the development and management of technology and businesses based on renewable resources. We also encourage the preservation of our Earth's natural habitats and its plant and animal species. So do a lot of other organizations, and more power to them for doing so!

Bootstrap Press is different because its members believe that the development of renewable resources and the preservation of habitats and species are receiving far more lip service than the financial and technical support needed to achieve these goals. We also think they will continue to be subjects of more talk than action until someone can show how renewable resources and the diversity of biological species can be the basis for potentially profitable businesses as well as a matter of ethics. Bootstrap Press intends to provide a forum for the discussion of how to build up such business, and of related topics.

There's one more thing we should mention about Muenchhausen and Bootstrap Press. We try to present only the scientific and technical facts that are correct to the best of our knowledge, belief, and good faith. It is up to Muenchhausen's readers to draw their own conclusions and make their own judgments.

NOTE: The mention of a product or service in Muenchhausen is in no way to be regarded as an endorsement of that product or service by Muenchhausen, Bootstrap Press, the Green Baron, or any other contributor to Muenchhausen.