Friday, May 29, 2009

Global Warming Primer

We hear repeatedly that scientists universally agree that global warming is caused by man through increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is NOT true. Scientists do NOT agree on the current cause of global warming or even that we currently have anything other than a transient/cyclical increase in temperature. Many have a vested interest in global warming. The scientists who believe to the contrary have trouble getting media exposure because their information does not lead to the global catastrophe popularized by Al Gore, a global catastrophe that would justify massive punitive economic changes to this country by capping our carbon dioxide emissions. To judge both the news media and the science, please take the time to just listen to the first two videos cited below. The first is a somewhat general presentation with a little bit of evidence thrown in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMDi_u0dcig&feature=player Youtube replies to this video would be entertaining if they were not so brutally inaccurate in terms of what we can reasonably expect to happen, but without perspective, how do we judge? Supposedly, they present the scientific view. But just supposedly.

The second video is presented by a scientist and is one of the best discussions of climate change versus carbon dioxide that I have seen. We produce carbon dioxide when we burn fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal). Are we truly impacting our environment and destroying earth through carbon dioxide emissions? That seems like a pretty important question to be able to intelligently answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI&feature=player This is Part 1. Parts 2-4 are similarly available on You Tube.

Why is any of this information important? Based on the assumption that carbon dioxide produced from the burning of fossil fuels leads to man-caused global warming, we are preparing to make political decisions in this country that will have a profound negative impact on our economy. By selling carbon credits from our ranch land, I will directly benefit. Most of you and this country will pay dearly. Please take the time to listen, evaluate, and judge for yourself so that you can help make the right decision.

The relevant legislation is currently camouflaged under the name of cap and trade and will soon be rushed through congress. Here is a brief explanation of cap and trade: http://www.foxnews.com/video-search/m/22006207/heated_issue.htm I believe the economic impact of cap and trade is grossly underestimated and that this legislation will result in pervasive economic and social changes that will prolong our recession and could even be the final straw that induces a depression. Shifting our energy production and manufacturing to countries with little regard for the environment (remember China and the Olympics?) might make some of us feel good, but does virtually nothing for planet earth at immense cost to the U.S. Rather than develop our own energy resources, thereby creating thousands of high paying non-government jobs (one estimate is that the creation of 2 1/2 million such jobs would be possible) and truly helping us become energy independent, cap and trade will put major taxes on virtually every item we purchase and has the potential to cripple our economy. I am totally in favor of having clean air and minimizing pollution. These issues can be argued on their own merit. Economically crippling our country under the guise of preventing global warming is a totally different matter. The evidence simply does not support carbon dioxide as a pollutant or as a causative agent of man-made global warming. We have stunning reserves of fossil fuels which can be intelligently developed and used while we aggressively support the research for advancing our wind and solar harvesting technology.

Just for good measure, here is another global warming video. This one deals with Greenland, which at one point was actually green land (hence its name) back when earth’s temperatures were much higher than they now are and polar bears became extinct because they couldn't take the heat :). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF_2bP9n3R0&feature=player

Gary A Howie

PS
I have become increasingly frustrated at the direction our federal government is turning and at the stunning amount of misinformation that we receive daily by the politically correct news media. We are making decisions for the wrong reasons, and often those decisions are very poor. For example, global warming is NOT man made. (By training I am a scientist--PhD chemist, although quite some time ago I abandoned academia for a career in real estate and now in ranching.) Carbon dioxide is the fuel for my trees and grass and does NOT cause global warming. Capping carbon dioxide emissions is foolhardy and so expensive that it could cause our economy serious harm. For those who might disagree, or even for those who agree without a firm basis for so doing, I have prepared and sent out the information given above. Unfortunately, my distribution is very limited, so if you think this has any merit, please send it to whomever might find it useful.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

My Scientific Publications--Definitely incongrous with "What we should know", but an important part of my life nevertheless.

Note that most of my writing will not be related directly to my areas of graduate and postdoctoral research. Scientific training is, however, extrapolable to other areas. Usually I will include sources of information when I write. If you disagree and think your sources are better, please feel free to send them.

Potential antitumor agents. Synthesis of bifunctional. alpha.-methylene-....
Publication - Google Scholar
pubs.acs.org

Synthesis of alkyl-substituted. alpha., . beta.-unsaturated. gamma.-lactones as...
Publication - Google Scholar
pubs.acs.org

Synthesis and structures of dilactones related to anemonin. IK Stamos, GA Howie, PE...
Publication - Google Scholar
pubs.acs.org

Structural requirements for biological activity among antileukemic glaucarubolone...
Publication - Google Scholar
pubs.acs.org

Simplification of epoxide and lactone proton magnetic resonance spectra using tris...
Publication - Google Scholar
pubs.acs.org

Tumor inhibitors. 124. Structural requirements for antileukemic activity among the...
Publication - Google Scholar
pubs.acs.org

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

31,478 scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by mankind

My objective in a number of recent emails has been to present important information that the news media mostly neglects. Global warming has become political, and even the Bush administration eventually swallowed the "man-caused global warming and we must do something about it" pill. Al Gore's "An inconvenient truth" has been shown throughout our classrooms and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on the internet. He has received international acclaim for this film. Any challenge to his presentation has been largely ignored. Sadly, the film contains glaring scientific inaccuracies, most notable of which are the critical premises that increases in carbon dioxide levels cause global warming and that carbon dioxide levels have never been higher. Both scary, both wrong. Carbon dioxide levels increase after rather than before the rise in temperature, so can't possibly cause the temperature increase. Carbon dioxide concentration, currently less than 400 ppm (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html ), has been as high as 7000 ppm (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html ). John Stossel has had several of the limited number of media reports disputing man caused global warming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZcp_wcDXec and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUlGoaAOzqA&NR=1 Here is an excellent presentation by several environmental scientists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDI2NVTYRXU and several prominent scientists who are now skeptics: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12&Region_id=&Issue_id

Scientific issues are never properly resolved by taking a vote or by counting the number of advocates. Nonetheless, we are constantly reminded by the news media and by many of our politicians that the overwhelming majority of scientists believe in man-caused global warming. If almost every scientist believes it to be true, global warming caused by man must be pretty much an established fact. You have undoubtedly heard that. But are you aware of the results of the global warming petition found at http://www.petitionproject.org/purpose_of_petition.php ?You can click on this site and see a current state by state list of 31,478 persons (as of May 25, 2009)with degrees in science who do NOT believe that global warming is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide or that global warming is caused by mankind. A detailed scientific presentation is also given at this site. Isn't it fascinating that our news media can ignore these 31,478 signatures while reporting extensively on the 1,600 persons who projected global catastrophy, many of whom had no scientific training or did not even agree with the stated conclusions?

Cap and trade legislation before our Congress at this very moment is about to place a severe tax on carbon dioxide emissions under the pretext of protecting the planet from man-caused global warming. We will all pay this energy tax; the second Stossel video referred to above contains some opinions as to the magnitude of how much we might pay. Here is a very recent reference wherein one Ph D economist discusses an anticipated $3,100 per year per household additional cost (very definitely not limited to households earning more than $250,000 per year): http://townhall.com/columnists/RobertMurphy/2009/05/02/the_cost_of_cap_and_trade Predicting the cost exactly is nearly impossible. A scholarly attempt with various models is given at http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/636.pdf One of the models predicts job losses of 0.85 -1.86 million jobs in 2014 and 3.04-4.05 million jobs in 2030 (page 19 of the cited document). Is this a change our media has presented well or a change that we want?

If enacted, cap and trade legislation will have the unintended consequence of slowing down our economy at a very critical time and encouraging our businesses and jobs to move elsewhere. Raising your energy costs is not an unintended consequence but is actually an intended consequence that is expected to add 366 billion per year (some estimates are as high as 650 billion per year) to government coffers. Politicians are not renowned for understanding science, but they do understand votes. It is very easy to email or call your representatives and courteously register your informed opinion http://www.visi.com/juan/congress

The following (in bold) is copied directly from http://www.petitionproject.org/purpose_of_petition.php )
Purpose of Petition
The purpose of the Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.
Publicists at the United Nations, Mr. Al Gore, and their supporters frequently claim that only a few “skeptics” remain – skeptics who are still unconvinced about the existence of a catastrophic human-caused global warming emergency.
It is evident that 31,478 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,029 PhDs, are not "a few." Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,478 American scientists are not “skeptics.”
These scientists are instead convinced that the human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity and that government action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth.