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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (6985)	7/12/2006 12:26:09 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Respond to of 36917

Dear NRDC BioGems Defender, I'm writing to report a big stride in our campaign to protect whales and other marine mammals from mid-frequency naval sonar. Two weeks ago, NRDC attorneys raced to court to block the U.S. Navy from unleashing a barrage of ear-splitting sonar into the waters off Hawaii as part of a massive military training exercise. Whales exposed to mid-frequency sonar have repeatedly stranded and died on beaches around the world -- but the Navy refused to adopt even common-sense measures during peacetime exercises to help protect marine life from this deadly threat. In an infuriating attempt to avoid our lawsuit, the Navy took the unprecedented step -- on the eve of the Fourth of July weekend -- of declaring itself exempt from the primary U.S. law that requires measures to protect marine mammals. But the court sided with us and found that the Navy's planned sonar use violated a second key environmental law as well, noting that NRDC had submitted "considerable convincing scientific evidence" of the dangers of sonar to marine life. The judge prohibited the Navy from going forward with its sonar use as planned and ordered the Navy to sit down with NRDC and decide on a set of protective measures to be put in place during the month-long exercise. In the settlement reached last Friday after days of tough negotiation with our attorneys, the Navy will be required to create a sonar-free buffer zone around the newly established Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, as well as significantly improve its monitoring of marine mammals during sonar drills and implement other important safeguards. This is an important victory, but much more needs to be done to protect whales and other marine life from high-intensity sonar, especially in biologically rich waters. As our campaign moves forward, we will continue to depend on your generous support and activism to compel the Navy to limit its use of harmful mid-frequency sonar. I hope you'll go to: savebiogems.org On behalf of our entire legal team, I want to thank you for coming to the defense of marine mammals around the world. Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (6985)	7/12/2006 4:27:18 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 36917

All of those urls look suspiciously unlike anything credible. The most incredible source would be wikipedia, the leftwingers encyclopedia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . junkscience.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Entire 15th century temperature estimates based on rings from a single tree: foxnews.com The above further discredits the hockey stick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Global Warming Skeptic Claims Environmental Conversion Thursday, May 25, 2006 By Steven Milloy Al Gore’s new global warming movie is apparently causing some to think that a major turning point in the debate is at hand. The ranks of the so-called global warming “skeptics” were supposedly thinned this week when prominent environmental commentator Gregg Easterbrook announced his defection in a May 24 New York Times op-ed. “As an environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the data I’m now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert,” wrote Easterbrook, a senior editor with The New Republic and a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Easterbrook a “skeptic”? With “a long record of opposing alarmism”? Are there two Gregg Easterbrooks? Though Easterbrook is far from a household name, readers of environmental commentary are certainly familiar with his reputation as a left-of-center eco-contrarian – an image secured by his 1995 book entitled, “A Moment on Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism.” Publicly reviled by environmentalists and hailed by their opponents, Easterbrook’s book examined human impact on the environment and concluded that the environment was getting better, not worse. But 1995 is so over and now in 2006, Easterbrook concluded in the Times that “[Global warming] research is now in, and it shows a strong scientific consensus that an artificially warming world is a real phenomenon posing real danger.” So what changed Easterbrook’s mind? Ironically, it was a report from the Bush administration released earlier this month. Before we get to that, consider what developments Easterbrook says in his op-ed didn’t persuade him. Easterbrook writes that, in 2003, the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Service “both declared that signs of global warming had become compelling” and “In 2004, the American Association for the Advancement of Science said that there was no longer any ‘substantive disagreement in the scientific community’ that artificial global warming is happening.” He also notes that in 2005 the national science academies of the U.S., U.K., China, Germany and Japan issued a joint statement announcing that “significant global warming is occurring.” But it wasn’t “case closed,” according to Easterbrook’s op-ed, until the Bush administration’s Climate Change Science Program announced this month that research supports “a substantial human impact on global temperature.” It’s difficult to take this alleged conversion seriously. Since at least 1998, Easterbrook has consistently regurgitated global warming alarmism. In a 1998 New Republic article, Easterbrook wrote that “the scientific consensus on global warming has strengthened,” that projected warming could be “quite nasty” and that “coming temperature increases appear cast in stone.” In 2000, Easterbrook criticized CBS for “trivializing the greenhouse effect” by broadcasting the 1993 miniseries “The Fire Next Time,” which depicted the U.S. as destroyed by global warming in the year 2007. Later in 2000, Easterbrook wrote, "The signs of global warming keep accumulating… realistic steps against global warming could start right away. A warming world need no longer be our destiny.” In 2003, Easterbrook criticized Democrats for being too critical of President Bush and discouraging him from “proposing… meaningful global warming rules.” In 2004, Easterbrook wrote that, “There are troubling problems with Bush administration attitudes toward science, especially greenhouse gases.” In 2005, Easterbrook wrote that “restraining greenhouse gases” was “our next great environmental project.” Contrary to assertions in his Times op-ed, Easterbrook’s writings indicate that he became a global warming convert long ago – not just this month. So what’s up with the melodramatic announcement of his “conversion”? Easterbrook may be thinking that Al Gore’s movie and attendant hoopla will finally cause sufficient public panic to catapult the global warming alarmists to rhetorical victory. If so, Easterbrook may want to atone to the environmental activist community that he previously alienated by “A Moment on Earth” and any other eco-contrarian “moments” he has had over the last decade. Easterbrook will no doubt be welcomed and forgiven for any past sins by the environmentalists since, as a prominent eco-contrarian writer, his supposed “conversion” from skeptic to convert purports to signal the public that a major turning point in the global warming debate has been reached. I suppose a major turning point has been reached – Al Gore and the alarmists have seemingly gone over the edge in thinking that a movie rather than scientific debate is the way to resolve the global warming controversy. There certainly has been no change in the science – there is still no persuasive evidence that humans are adversely affecting global climate or that humans can manipulate global climate by regulating greenhouse gas emission. Moreover, it’s quote ironic that the tipping point for Easterbrook was a statement about global warming from the Bush administration whose viewpoint apparently is not credible until it coincides with his own. It’s quite laughable that Easterbrook and the New York Times fancy his imaginary status as a new convert of any importance to the global warming debate. It’s the science that’s important, not a journalist’s self-aggrandizement for political and possible career-advancing purposes. And if there are two Gregg Easterbrooks, will the real skeptic please stand up? Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com, CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. foxnews.com