Category: BELL CURVE (EXPLAINS EVERYTHING)

PSEUDO SCIENCE ON CLIMATE

WASHINGTON POST

How climate change makes the world more violent

By Alex Bollfrass and Andrew Shaver May 21, 2015

Dry cracked earth is visible on what used to be the bottom of Hensley Lake on April 23, 2015 in Raymond, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The following is a guest post from Princeton University political science Ph.D. candidates Alex Bollfrass and Andrew Shaver.

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Natural scientists agree that the climate is changing and that humans bear some of the blame. Social scientists are now attempting to assess the economic and political price societies are likely to pay for turning up our planet’s thermostat. The security policy community is especially eager for an answer.

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In the academy, the debate over climate change and its security implications gained momentum after researchers from Stanford, the University of California Berkeley, New York University, and Harvard observed that civil wars were more prevalent during years that experience hotter temperatures. The chief explanation for this relationship is that higher temperatures affect crop yields. Diminished agricultural output, in turn, as economist Ted Miguel and co-authors explain in a separate study, affects young men who are “more likely to take up arms when income opportunities are worse for them in agriculture [. . . ] relative to their expected income as [fighters].”

The “farmhands-to-fighters” argument linking reduced economic opportunity in agriculture to increased violent activity is consistent with other research results. Scholars at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Columbia University argue that recent drought in Syria produced “widespread crop failure and a mass migration of farming families,” resulting in in political unrest that ultimately contributed to the outbreak of civil war in the country. Research on modern-day piracy, violence in Colombia, and contemporary conflict throughout Africa is similarly consistent with this theory.

It is possible to extrapolate from this research and imagine how conflict resulting from decreased agricultural employment could threaten U.S. national security interests. But changing climate trends can produce security risks in other ways.

In research published Wednesday in PLOS ONE, we raise further questions about the relationship between conflict and variation in meteorological variables. Our first major finding is that warmer ambient temperatures indeed promote violent conflict in all parts of the world.

The second main discovery is that heat drives violence by something more than turning farmhands into fighters. Our clearest evidence that there is more to the temperature-conflict link than disaffected farm workers is that heat and violence are correlated even in areas of the world that do not produce crops (see the two figures below). Without farms, there are no farmers who would beat their plowshares into swords.

Predicted Probability of Conflict and Yearly Average Temperature, with 95% Confidence Intervals – Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Provinces Compared
Data: European Space Agency; Peace Research Institute Oslo; Figure: Alex Bollfrass; Andrew Shaver

Predicted Probability of Conflict and Yearly Average Temperature, with 95% Confidence Intervals – Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Provinces Compared (Sub-Saharan/Sahelian African countries excluded)
Data: European Space Agency; Peace Research Institute Oslo; Figure: Alex Bollfrass; Andrew Shaver

The implication is that the debate has been missing a scholarly foundation for other avenues through which climate change may threaten states’ security. One leading possibility is the well-established patterns of humans behaving more violently at higher temperatures. Another way for climate change to link to violent instability is through macroeconomic transmitters like food prices in years of lower farm production. The list of plausible alternatives is long and has received little scrutiny.

To date, there is enough preliminary evidence to suggest that a real security problem may be developing. Focusing research on the drivers of this temperature-violence should be a priority for academic and government researchers.

HUNGRY SEA LION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

By CHRISTINE HAUSERFEB. 5, 2016

Continue reading the main storyVideo

Sea Lion Found in California Restaurant

A starving sea lion pup was rescued on Thursday after it wandered into a booth in a San Diego restaurant.

By SeaWORLD on  Publish Date February 5, 2016. Photo by Mike Aguilera/SeaWorld, via Associated Press.Watch in Times Video »

 A hungry sea lion pup wandered off the beach and into a fancy seaside San Diego restaurant Thursday morning, took one of the best seats in the house and peered out the window at the waves as if preparing to order a big plate of sardines.

Alas, it was too early to be served. The restaurant, the Marine Room, does not open for dinner until 5:30 p.m. — unless it is offering one of its special “high-tide breakfasts.”

Bernard Guillas, the executive chef at the restaurant, posted photos of the pup, curled up or looking out the window, on his Facebook page Thursday. “We found this little guy in The Marine Room restaurant this morning,” he wrote. “He was a little bit early for his high tide breakfast reservation.

The pup was eventually rescued and taken to San Diego’s SeaWorld. But it was the latest reported sighting of a stranded sea lion in California, where the mammals are increasingly being found on land in places they were never meant to be, partly because of changing weather conditions driving them ashore.

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A sea lion wandered into La Jolla’s Cave Store, a souvenir shop, last month. An employee said she lured it outside with salmon.

“It was very, very gentle,” Jim Allen, the store owner, told a local TV station.

Experts are seeing a higher number of reports of stranded sea lions, particularly in San Diego through Santa Barbara Counties, according to data published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Many of the stranded mammals have been emaciated pups.

In the first five months of 2015, there were 3,340 young sea lions found stranded, compared with 862 in the same period in 2014 and 1,262 in 2013, the agency said.

El Niño, the weather condition that causes temperatures in the Pacific Ocean to become unusually warm, is believed to be a reason behind the increased strandings because of its impact on the food supply web, according to the oceanic group. It can also generate algal blooms and infectious disease outbreaks.

The Marine Room, a high-end restaurant belonging to the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club in the wealthy San Diego enclave of La Jolla, has for 75 years offered diners a view of crashing waves from its dining room built straight into the ocean.

About 8 a.m. Thursday, Leslie Tovar, a manager for the Shores Restaurant, another of the club’s restaurants, was on the grounds when she got a call from a custodian at the Marine who was “vacuuming up the floor and happened to come across a baby sea lion that matched the interior very well.”

Photo

The sea lion pup looking out the window at the Marine Room restaurant in San Diego. He also curled up in a booth and took a nap. CreditBernard Guillas 

“He said there was a sea lion in the dining room,” Ms. Tovar said in a telephone interview Friday. “Booth 65. Which happens to be one of the best seats in the house, on the waterfront next to the window.”

Ms. Tovar went to the room and saw the pup napping. It was not clear how it got into the dining room, leaving the china and cutlery undisrupted in table settings, and nestled into the booth. But the staff suspects it went through a back door that the cleaner had propped open to take in equipment at 6 a.m.

Ms. Tovar called SeaWorld, which sent a team with a net and roused it from sleep. The team identified it as female, about 8 months old and weighing about 20 pounds — about half the weight it should be at that age.

“It was also a little bit shocking to see how small the pup was,” said Jody Westberg, one of SeaWorld’s animal coordinators, who went to the rescue.

“A micro-pup. Very small in body length, and very malnourished.”

On Friday morning, the pup was getting rehydration fluids in a critical care unit in “guarded” condition. She was spending days at a pool with other pups, and the plan was to get her back to the water, Ms. Westberg said.

Thursday night, after the pup left the Marine Room, dinner went on as usual in the restaurant after a thorough cleaning, Mr. Guillas, the chef, said in a telephone interview.

At one point, he said, the sea lion pup looked out the window toward the ocean, as if to say, “Can I go back now?”

Correction: February 5, 2016
An earlier version of this article misidentified one of the California counties where experts have noticed a rise in the number of stranded sea lions. It is Santa Barbara, not San Bernardino.

SYRIAN WAR IS RESULT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

SURE : WARS WERE UNHEARD OF BEFORE CLIMATE CHANGE TS

Prince Charles blames the Syrian war on climate change. He has a point.

By Niraj Chokshi November 24, 2015

Britain’s Prince Charles on a visit to the Biodiversity Conservation Center in Perth, Australia, on Nov. 15. (Richard Wainwright/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

Britain’s Prince Charles has blamed climate change in part for the Syrian war and warned that global warming could exacerbate similar conflicts worldwide.

Charles’s comments — in an interview broadcast Monday — came exactly one week before the start of a United Nations climate change conference in Paris, where he plans to deliver a keynote address. Unless world leaders take action to slow the impact of climate change, “it’s going to get so much worse,” Charles warned in the interview with Sky News, which was recorded before the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris.

“Some of us were saying 20 something years ago that if we didn’t tackle these issues you would see ever greater conflict over scarce resources and ever greater difficulties over drought, and the accumulating effect of climate change, which means that people have to move,” he said. “And, in fact, there’s very good evidence indeed that one of the major reasons for this horror in Syria, funnily enough, was a drought that lasted for about five or six years, which meant that huge numbers of people in the end had to leave the land.”

Charles, a longtime environmentalist, is the latest person to blame the Syrian conflict on climate change. Various leading politicians, academics and military officials have made similar claims in recent years.

“It’s not a coincidence that immediately prior to the civil war in Syria, the country experienced its worst drought on record,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in a speech at Virginia’s Old Dominion University on Nov. 10. “As many as 1.5 million people migrated from Syria’s farms to its cities, intensifying the political unrest that was just beginning to roil and boil in the region.”

Climate change was “obviously” not the main reason for the crisis, Kerry added, but the drought “exacerbated instability on the ground.”

[There’s a surprisingly strong link between climate change and violence]

Democratic presidential candidates Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders have made similar claims. And although the fact-checker PolitiFact found thatSanders overstated a direct link between climate change and terrorism, it rated O’Malley’s description of the “cascading effects” of climate change on instability as “mostly true.”

O’Malley based his claim on a substantial March study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study found that the drought “had a catalytic effect with dire consequences for Syrians” — and that there is “strong evidence” that the drought was connected to climate change, lead author Colin P. Kelley wrote in a related article for the International Peace Institute at the time.

The drought drove an “unprecedented rise” in Syrian food prices, leading to a “dramatic increase” in nutrition-related diseases among children in Syria’s northeastern provinces, the authors found. That led to the internal displacement of as many as 1.5 million Syrians, swelling the country’s urban centers.

“The rapidly growing urban peripheries of Syria, marked by illegal settlements, overcrowding, poor infrastructure, unemployment, and crime, were neglected by the Assad government and became the heart of the developing unrest,” they contend.

Models they developed suggest that severe droughts such as the one in Syria were two to three times more likely “to occur under the effects of climate change than in its absence,” Kelley wrote.

Other researchers have predicted increased armed conflict in Africa driven by climate change.

And a 2013 academic review of the literature found “that there is more agreement across studies regarding the influence of climate on human conflict than has been recognized previously.”

[Is it too late to solve the mess in the Middle East?]

But these concerns aren’t limited to academics or politicians. In its 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Defense Department described the effects of climate change as “threat multipliers” that could worsen the conditions that facilitate terrorism.

Here’s how the report describes the chain of events (emphasis added):

Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing, and severe weather patterns are accelerating. These changes, coupled with other global dynamics, including growing, urbanizing, more affluent populations, and substantial economic growth in India, China, Brazil, and other nations, will devastate homes, land, and infrastructure. Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions — conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence. 

Then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel used the same phrase — “threat multiplier” — in a speech last year, warning that the glacial melt could set off a chain of events wreaking havoc worldwide.

“Destruction and devastation from hurricanes can sow the seeds for instability,” he said at the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas. “Droughts and crop failures can leave millions of people without any lifeline and trigger waves of mass migration.”

A year earlier, Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III — who was the top military official monitoring threats from the likes of North Korea, along with conflicts between China and Japan — called climate change the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific region.

Climate change “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen … that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about,” he told the Boston Globe.

Related stories:

Drought helped cause Syria’s war. Will climate change bring more like it?

What the ruins of Kobane tell us about the destruction of Syria

How climate change makes the world more violent

Whether or not global warming leads to more war, it hurts vulnerable people

 

WHAT DOES NOT CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE

Is the Christmas tree to blame for global warming? Researchers say Europe’s shift to dark green forests of conifers such as pine and spruce has ‘stoked’ global warming

  • Conifers such as pines and spruce dark colour traps the sun’s heat
  • Lighter-coloured trees such as oak or birch reflect more sunlight

By REUTERS

PUBLISHED: 14:04 EST, 4 February 2016 | UPDATED: 16:52 EST, 5 February 2016

 

An expansion of Europe’s forests towards dark green conifers has stoked global warming, according to a study on Thursday at odds with a widespread view that planting more trees helps human efforts to slow rising temperatures.

Forest changes have nudged Europe’s summer temperatures up by 0.12 degree Celsius (0.2 Fahrenheit) since 1750, largely because many nations have planted conifers such as pines and spruce whose dark colour traps the sun’s heat, the scientists said.

Lighter-coloured broad-leafed trees, such as oak or birch, reflect more sunlight back into space but have lost ground to fast-growing conifers, used for everything from building materials to pulp.

Experts say Forest changes have nudged Europe's summer temperatures up by 0.12 degree Celsius (0.2 Fahrenheit) since 1750, largely because many nations have planted conifers such as pines and spruce  (pictured) whose dark colour traps the sun's heat.

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Experts say Forest changes have nudged Europe’s summer temperatures up by 0.12 degree Celsius (0.2 Fahrenheit) since 1750, largely because many nations have planted conifers such as pines and spruce  (pictured) whose dark colour traps the sun’s heat.

THE GOOD AND BAD OF TREES

conifers such as pines and spruce whose dark colour traps the sun’s heat 

Lighter-coloured broad-leafed trees, such as oak or birch, reflect more sunlight back into space but have lost ground to fast-growing conifers, used for everything from building materials to pulp. 

Overall, the area of Europe’s forests has expanded by 10 percent since 1750.

‘Two and a half centuries of forest management in Europe have not cooled the climate,’ the team led by France’s Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement wrote in the journal Science.

They said the changes in the make-up of Europe’s forests outweighed trees’ role in curbing global warming. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels, from the air as they grow.

‘It’s not all about carbon,’ lead author Kim Naudts told Reuters, saying government policies to favour forests should be re-thought to take account of factors such as their colour and changes to moisture and soils.

A Paris agreement among 195 nations in December, meant as a turning point from fossil fuels, promotes forests to help limit a rise in temperatrues, blamed for causing more floods, heatwveas and rising sea levels.

Average world temperatures have risen by 0.9C (1.6F) since the Industrial Revolution.

Cows eat pine needles in a snow covered forest in the Basque mountain port of Opakoa, northern Spain, in this November 23, 2015 file photo. An expansion of Europe's forests towards dark green conifers has stoked global warming, according to a study on February 4, 2016, at odds with a widespread view that planting more trees helps human efforts to slow rising temperatures.

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Cows eat pine needles in a snow covered forest in the Basque mountain port of Opakoa, northern Spain, in this November 23, 2015 file photo. An expansion of Europe’s forests towards dark green conifers has stoked global warming, according to a study on February 4, 2016, at odds with a widespread view that planting more trees helps human efforts to slow rising temperatures.

Since 1750, Europe’s forests have gained 196,000 sq kms (76,000 sq miles) – an area bigger than Greece – to reach 2.13 million sq kms in 2010, the study said.

In the same period, conifer forests expanded by 633,000 sq kms while broad-leaved forests shrank by 436,000 sq kms. Over the period, Europeans have harvested ever more wood from the forests, reducing their role in storing carbon.

Thursday’s study was restricted to Europe but said similar effects were likely in other parts of the world with big forest planting programmes such as China, the United States and Russia.

Another study in Science, by experts at a European Commission research centre in Ispra, Italy, also linked a loss of forests worldwide to an increase in average and maximum temperatures, especially in arid and tropical regions.

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A mixed forest on a sunny autumn day in Recklinghausen, Germany showing the colours of the forest

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COCKROACHES AND PALACE

The Express Tribune

Cockroaches made me want new palace, says Erdogan

HAMAM SARAY

ISTANBUL: If cockroaches infest someone’s house or office, they might put down some poison or maybe call in the pest-controllers. 
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey had a more radical solution.
The presence of cockroaches in his old offices, he revealed in an interview, were the reason why he needed a vast new presidential palace outside Ankara. 
Erdogan’s new $615 million presidential palace in the outskirts of Ankara has been ridiculed by the opposition as the tasteless and needless extravagance of an increasingly authoritarian leader. 
But in an interview with A-Haber television broadcast late on Friday, Erdogan said his reasons for needing the 1,150-room palace palace were much more mundane. 
He said his old offices when he was prime minister from 2003-2014 were infested with cockroaches.
“A guest would come to the old prime ministry office and find cockroaches in the bathroom. That’s why we built this palace”. 
“Does such a place befit the prime ministry of Turkey? If a guest comes are you going to put them there? If they see this, what if they tell what they saw?” he asked. 
Erdogan has always defended the building of the palace, saying it is a worthy symbol of the new Turkey he is trying to build. 
He has already hosted high-ranking guests there, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pope Francis. 
Erdogan’s election to the presidency in August 2014 led to a musical chairs of palaces, with him moving to the new palace and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu moving to the old presidential palace in central Ankara, the Cankaya.
Neither leader now uses the old prime ministry offices. 
The new palace has been the subject of a sometimes farcical dispute in the run-up to Sunday’s legislative elections between Erdogan and the main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who accused him of having golden toilet seats there.
Erdogan dared Kilicdaroglu to personally come to the palace and find the toilet seats, saying he would resign if he found any. 
His lawyer then filed a lawsuit seeking 100,000 Turkish Liras ($37,300) in compensation for slander from Kilicdaroglu over the golden toilet comment.

SARAY2

2015 SEÇİM SONUÇLARI

 

ABD SEÇİM SONUÇLARI;

 

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ALMANYA SEÇİM SONUÇLARI:

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Here’s Why People Don’t Believe In Climate Change

  READER RESPONSES ARE OVERWHELMINGLY CRITICAL ABOUT THIS BIASED REPORTING BY MS. BERTRAND. I AM VERY PLEASED THAT PUBLIC FINALLY SEES THE LIES BEHIND THE “CLIMATE CHANGE” DECEPTION. FOR A WHILE I WAS AFRAID THIS HOAX WOULD LAST AS LONG AS THE “BLOOD LETTING” LASTED IN MEDICINE.

T. SUMER

Here’s Why People Don’t Believe In Climate Change

Business Insider

By Natasha Bertrand

 

More than one-quarter of Americans are climate change skeptics, according to a new report released by the Public Religion Research Institute. These deniers don’t believe that the planet Earth’s climate is changing, even though 97% of scientists believe it is.

When asked why they don’t believe, the skeptics’ most common response was that they had not noticed a change in the weather around them, and that the weather was actually getting colder where they lived.

“I hunt a lot, and last winter I froze my butt off,” wrote one respondent.

Here is a chart from the report showing this and other reasons that skeptics gave for doubting climate change. The survey is based on telephone interviews conducted among a random sample of 3,022 adults living in the US (see the full report here).

 

View gallery

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climate change skeptics

Public Religion Research Institute

The second most common response was that temperatures are not rising because of human actions, instead they are just fluctuating as part of a larger natural cycle. “I think there are just trends where the temperature goes up and down as part of a natural cycle every couple of hundred years,” said one respondent.

In fact, there is plenty of evidence that humans have contributed to changes in global temperatures. The chart below, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, includes a series of graphs, each presenting two models. The purple stripes show the climate changes we’d expect from only natural events, like solar variations, and the pink stripes show the changes in a model that includes human actions, like burning fossil fuels.

 

View gallery

.

IPCC_Chart_Temperature

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Synthesis Report

If human actions had no effect on climate, the purple and pink stripes would occupy the same space on each graph. Instead, they’re different in almost every case, meaning human actions have a definite effect on climate change. Most tellingly, the black lines on each graph represent the changes we’ve observed in real life — not just in models — and they match up with the pink stripe in every case.

The third most popular response, with 12% of deniers selecting it, is that there is not enough scientific evidence to back up the claim that the Earth is getting hotter.

“I don’t see any real evidence of that in the news media,” said one participant. “The entire scientific community really appears divided and scattered about the entire issue.”

But in reality, the scientific community agrees. More than 97% of scientists believe in global warming.

A small minority of skeptics (4%) responded that they have alternative theories about global warming. Around 2% said they believe God is in control and 5% believe that data and news reports showing global warming are propaganda.

More From Business Insider 

2,408 CommentsMy Comments
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  • Paul427 22 minutes ago

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    4

    Another weak-minded set of “examples” in a useless article which offers us nothing to add to the case for human caused climate change via carbon dioxide emissions. The reason people don’t believe these bozos from the IPCC is because there has been no statistically significant warming of the planet since 1995, the hockey stick curve of Michael Mann has been discredited as a fraudulent, statistical monstrosity, and the 35 scientific errors permeating Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. Maybe Gore should write a book about deception where he talks about his personal usage of electricity in Tennessee at more than 10 times the rate of the average citizen living there, or the use of his private jet, his houseboat, or the new house he allegedly bought at the shore in California (I guess sea level is not rising there) or about his incredibly good returns of approximately $150 million he made allegedly in green companies – or how about his new carbon sequestration company interest…(starting to smell a little hypocrisy or “conflict of interest” anyone?) At the end of the day, if you accept all of these chicken little rantings, then you realize that there is simply nothing that we could do as a nation to alter the climate by so much as a tiny fraction on the planet (again assuming we have correctly modeled the planet’s climate drivers which we ultimately have not yet achieved) even if we completely bankrupt ourselves and shut every operational plant down on the planet. In more recent times, Obama’s irresponsible endorsement of this nonsense seals the deal of deception among the other, more “scientifically misconceptions” for me- personally I mistrust everything that comes out of his mouth – and he’s all in on this BS.

    Expand Replies (1) Reply
  • Ed 24 minutes ago

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    Not being a scientist studying the affects of human activity on the climate myself I cannot say for certain if humans actually contribute to a global warming I’m not personally aware of.

    On the other hand I learned long ago not to bet with the 3% of experts that disagree with the other 97%. Sure, they may be correct but I’m not going to bet on them. Atlanta or New Orleans might win the Super Bowl but I won’t place a bet on it.

    Reply
  • Michael 5 hours ago

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    or maybe scientists like this:
    Another scientist has pushed back against the doom-and-gloom climate change predictions from the United Nations and other governmental agencies.

    Dr. Leslie Woodcock, emeritus professor at the University of Manchester (UK) School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, is a former NASA scientist along with other impressive accomplishments on his distinguished professional resume.

    In an interview, he laughed off man-made climate change as nonsense and a money-making industry for the green lobby, which approaches the subject with a religious fervor. Explained Woodcock:

    “The term ‘climate change’ is meaningless. The Earth’s climate has been changing since time immemorial, that is since the Earth was formed 1,000 million years ago. The theory of ‘man-made climate change’ is an unsubstantiated hypothesis [about] our climate [which says it] has been adversely affected by the burning of fossil fuels in the last 100 years, causing the average temperature on the earth’s surface to increase very slightly but with disastrous environmental consequences. The theory is that the CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuel is the ‘greenhouse gas’ causes ‘global warming’ — in fact, water is a much more powerful greenhouse gas and there is 20 time more of it in our atmosphere (around one per cent of the atmosphere) whereas CO2 is only 0.04 per cent. There is no reproducible scientific evidence CO2 has significantly increased in the last 100 years. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t mean anything in science, it’s not significant…”

    Added Woodcock:

    Even the term ‘global warming’ does not mean anything unless you give it a time scale. The temperature of the earth has been going up and down for millions of years, if there are extremes, it’s nothing to do with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it’s not permanent and it’s not caused by us. Global warming is nonsense.”

    Politicians and journalists — two groups who ordinarily lack any scientific training or background — insist that the global warming debate is settled and there are no dissenting scientists.

    So-called green guru Dr. James Lovelock also questioned the climate change movement (which used to be called global cooling and then global warming). He described the environmental movement as becoming like “a religion, and religions don’t worry too much about facts.” He added that “It’s just as silly to be a denier as it is to be a believer. You can’t be certain.”

    In perhaps a further contrary development for the climate change adherents, it’s been reported that the polar ice cap is actually expanding rather than contracting: “… In fact, receding Arctic ice rebounded between 2012 and 2013, growing by 29 percent into an unbroken patch more than half the size of Europe and within 5 percent of what it was 30 years ago, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Last month near the South Pole, a Russian ship carrying scientists and tourists traveled to the bottom of the Earth so passengers might document global warming and shrinking ice caps. But the ship got stuck on ice that was thicker than at any time since records started being kept in 1978.”

    Dr. Patrick Moore, a Greenpeace co-founder, has also publicly expressed the opinion that “There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years… no actual proof, as it is understood in science, actually exists.”

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    Expand Replies (4) Reply
  • Mark of the Beach 1 hour ago

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    The 97% figure is misleading – it’s derived from “examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. 66.4% of all abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming.”

    When you remove the 66.4% of articles that take no position, that leaves 33.6%. The 32.6% that endorse AGW are 97% of the remaining 33.6%.

    That’s not the end of the silly “97% consensus” definition. To “endorse AGW”, it means the author attributes any non-zero portion of the measured warming to human causes – anywhere from 0.1% to 100%.

    Most credible scientists agree that “about half” of the warming change is due to direct warming from the sun, which got considerably brighter from 1900-1970 and stayed there for 20+ years. (TSI = total solar irradiance). The rest is due to varying ozone levels, volcanic activity, water vapor fluctuations, and, YES, even CO2.

    97% is a nice figure Obama and others like to use to scare us into agreeing to a new UN carbon credit (wealth redistribution tax) scheme.

    Another thing to consider – CO2 doesn’t get hot all by itself. Something has to heat it up first, before it can radiate back into the atmosphere. CO2 warming is called a “positive feedback” – as the sun got hotter, the CO2 effect in turn added a little more to the temperature rise – this would have happened at 280 or 400 ppm CO2, but of course the 400 ppm effect is greater than the 280 ppm effect, that’s how positive feedback works. However, as the sun cools as expected over the next 30 years, the positive feedback says less heating by the sun also means less heating by the extra CO2 as well.

    Thanks to the extra CO2, the next “Little Ice Age” in 400 years may be a little less brisk than it otherwise would have been.

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  • Larry 3 hours ago

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    A statement in this article says….. “If human actions had no effect on climate, the purple and pink stripes would occupy the same space on each graph.”. I’m not going to take that statement at face value. Where are these scientists getting their funding? Are they influenced by governments and politicians who have a vested interest in climate change?

    In addition, I don’t like the premise of some of these polls on climate change. I think that a lot more than 25% of the US population agree that there are far more important things to focus on, including jobs and the economy.

    Don’t get me wrong. I totally get that pollution is bad. I’m just not convinced that the impact of humans on climate is large enough to impose corresponding taxes and regulations, that are bad for businesses and the economy.

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  • Ronald 8 hours ago

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    Among the propagandists the term “global warming” wasn’t getting anywhere so it was changed to “climate change.” Of course the climate changes all of the time. The earth goes through periodic changes the the centuries.
    The problem is that certain people would like to control so they bring about a crisis in order to call for change. The crisis is non existent but that is immaterial. If you can dupe enough people into believing that there is a crisis you can get the change you want.
    There are hundreds of scientists and professors who will tell you that there is no climate change going on such as we are being told today. Many of them will tell you that the earth is actually going through a cooling down period but, the alarmists are doing there best to quash such information in order to bring about the change they want.

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  • Robert 1 hour ago

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    I have two good reasons for not believing the fanatics and government power and control propagandists.

    First; Climate science is so advanced that scientists are able to predict local conditions up to 24 hours into the future with almost 40% accuracy and 72 hours into the future with over 10% accuracy. Al Gore, NOAA and the UN expect us to believe that they can take the same science and predict 40 YEARS into the future with 100% accuracy! And yes, weather and climate are interrelated. And NO, weather and climate are not responsive to political positions.

    Second, The history of climate science (all 40 years of it) is a long and detailed tale of wrong guesses. The politically driven UN – IPCC, the politicized studies released by NOAA, even the summary press statements released by the press office at NASA (which have conflicted with NASA’s own data every time), ALL have proven wrong within a few years – every time. The latest UN report (UN – IPCC5) specifically stated that every previous climate model (prediction) was wrong and they did not know why. When a supposed science is proven wrong in its predictions 100% of the time, that is good enough reason to disbelieve their current predictions.

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  • Think Free 5 hours ago

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    You can use stats, numbers and graphs to advocate for, or against, either side of global warming. Real or Not. However, its clear that the politics and motivation behind the global warming movement are socialist/ leftist. These people have a vested interest in controlling the lives of other people and confiscating other peoples money under the guise of saving the planet. These leftist make billions in carbon taxes and gov grants, others simply hate progress and like to dictate how people should live, the size of their home, the type of cars they drive, where they travel, etc. Its clear that their motivations outweigh any real science they claim to have that shows global warming.

    If you doubt this, note they most of these “green advocates” live a lifestyle much contrary to what they want the rest of us commoners to live. Al Gore and most of Hollywood. Even Pres Obama.. he takes two jets on vacation for convenience sake. If they really believed GW, wouldn’t they act accordingly?

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  • Gene 7 hours ago

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    I believe the climate is changing, I just dont believe its anthropogenic. The instant I saw the remark about 97% of scientists believe the climate is changing, the article lost any potential credibility. An intelligent person would stop using that 97% statement because it has been irrefutabbely fact checked and proven to be misleading. Any group can be polled and asked if they beileved the climate is changing and the overwhelming majority would agree that it is, but when you leave out the part about why they think it is changing and report the results as 97% of all scientists believe in climate change, its easy to see through the bovine feces. 97% of all scientists are not willing to empirically claim that anthropogenic activity is causing global warming.

    We have some serious environmental problems that require some serious people to address them, but instead, we have are experiencing the politicization of theories that have not lived up to any of the predictions or models that have been created so far. NOAA was caught red-handed earlier this year manipulating data in order to put the fix in on global warming. They have consistenly reported every month last summer as the hottest months on record, the problem is they had to go back and change the data from the past, in order to make these present day claims. The Australian government was caught doing the exact same thing. Just because its not a headline story in the NY Times or the lead on CNN or MSNBC doesnt mean that its not true.

    Most climate change deniers like myself would still like to see further research and development of renewable energy sources and the reduction of pollution, but I am never going to accept that CO2 is a pollutant. The simple fact is CO2 is a naturally occuring trace gas that makes up approximately .04% of our total atmosphere. The main way CO2 is sustained and replenished on planet earth is by animals (both oceanic and terrestrial) dispelling CO2 when they exhale. Without CO2, planet earth would not be able to sustain and replenish Oxygen which is also done through the natural process of photosynthesis. Out of all of the CO2 that is released into our atmosphere, less than 3% can be attributed to anthropogenic activity. That means less than 3% of less than 1/2 % of the total atmosphere can be attributed to anthropogenic activity. That is less than the eauivilant of a fart in a whirlwind.

    George Kukla, who was a paleoclimatologist and lead research scientist from Columbia University, proved that the current interglacial period earth is experience is a natural occurence. His research proved that the ongoing cycle of glaciation closely matches cyclic variations in Earth’s orbit around the sun, which has lead many researchers to conclude that orbit drives glaciation. This correspondence between orbit and climate is called the Milankovich cycle, after the scientist who analyzed and popularized it in the 1920s.

    Kukla stated, “I feel we’re on pretty solid ground in interpreting orbit around the sun as the primary driving force behind ice-age glaciation. The relationship is just too clear and consistent to allow reasonable doubt, It’s either that, or climate drives orbit, and that just doesn’t make sense.”

    Real science is a pain in the rear end for the kool-aide drinkers in the world. I know what I posted here wont effect what people will believe, but it is factual and backed up by reality and scientific facts, not what politicans are telling us.

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  • RayRay 7 hours ago

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    All the catastrophic prognostications over the years have never come true. That’s the #1 reason to not believe them any longer. When people try to silence debate on the subject, that’s another good reason to not believe. Changing the name from global warming to climate change? Really? You’re argument is that weak you have to change the name? Science is NEVER settled, that’s the nature of science. There are so many variables that affect our climate, all have to be considered without interference from outside self serving political/financial interests.

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  • fester 10 hours ago

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    This is what we get for evidence? A cheap series of graphs that look like they belong in a 6th grade science book. These graphs are from their computer models, yet nothing is explained about the models. The IPCC would say that these models use calculations that are too complex for most of the world, therefore you must take us at our word. BS! Do these people who cook this trash up think they are the only ones in the world that understand partial differential equations, which is what I must assume they used. Of course I could be wrong on that. They could have simply created the graph slop using data points on a spreadsheet. Who knows. Ocean heat content graph? Want are they trying to say here? The ocean heat content was “0” in 1960 and its is now 10exp22 or it had a value and it is now 10exp22 more than that value. For that matter what is the heat holding capacity of the oceans? On and on we can go, the variables are tremendous. There is not enough information supplied to form any judgment. This is why people don’t believe this s***. The IPCC depends on the slowest of minds, to fund the largest insane asylum on the planet, the U.N.

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  • DookieSince1973 8 hours ago

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    Noticed that you presented way cool, multi-colored graphs from MODELS! This is actually the real problem….presenting predictions as facts and then calling people idiots for not buying them. I guess there is no possible way model may have been incorrect in generating it’s pretty blue stripe. And of course, the only reason were are now using Model Version 8, instead of one of the earlier versions is because they added better graphics. Couldn’t have been because they are improving deficiencies and inaccuracies discovered in the earlier models (the results of which you were also declaring as FACT.) This is SCIENCE. People are making their best guesses, then testing their guesses against REALITY and hopefully improving their guesses as time goes on. THEY ARE NOT FACTS! Saying “consensus” proves that. There is no “consensus” on facts. Facts are facts. Consensus only exists for THEORIES. Just make sure you write about the new way cool graphs created by Model Version 9 (to be released soon) that corrects problems in the current Model Version 8.

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  • RayRay 7 hours ago

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    All the catastrophic prognostications over the years have never come true. That’s the #1 reason to not believe them any longer. When people try to silence debate on the subject, that’s another good reason to not believe. Changing the name from global warming to climate change? Really? You’re argument is that weak you have to change the name? Science is NEVER settled, that’s the nature of science. There are so many variables that affect our climate, all have to be considered without interference from outside self serving political/financial interests.

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  • Robert 5 hours ago

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    NOT a Skeptic! I know for a fact that the earth is getting warmer and has been since the flood. I also know lying to the world about it so you can spray the skies with nano particles that kill everything is happening now. I know you are spraying Aluminum, Barium and fluoride and other deadly nano sized particles . I also know it’s not for climate change. It is for control of the climate and weather and food and water. I know eventually it will be used to spray degraded Uranium. I know this is the truth so i’m not a skeptic. My father helped in planning and implementing this in the 80z and 90z and revealed it to his family just before his death. Spraying the skies is a multi-purpose implementation program. Designed for weaponized weather, food and water control and population control. It’s nothing new . it has been on the public record for years. You just don’t know where to find it or too lazy to look. All Praise and Glory to God the Father and Jesus Christ. The true source of Absolute Truth ! Not relative truth as you all speak.

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  • Yuck 3 hours ago

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    I find it amusing the only “climate scientists” are considered qualified to offer opinions. Out of curiosity I looked up what the entry requirements and courses are for a graduate degree in “climate science”. Laughably, the requirements for a MS at one of the more prestigious universities is one semester of calculus, one semester of chemistry, and one semester of statistics. A standard engineering degree requires four semesters of calculus, two of chemistry, two of statistics, and in addition, two in heat transfer, thermodynamics, basic physics, and atomic and nuclear physics. This is kind of absolute minimum for doing modeling of a complex dynamic system that any engineer has at the BS level, and yet is not required for climate scientists, instead they study policy and politics and social aspects of climate change. Lame.

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  • john s 7 hours ago

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    FACTS
    The world is actually only .36 degrees warmer than it was in 1979, and actually temperatures have been dropping since 1998 by 1.08 degrees total. So actually we haven’t seen any global warming in about 17 years. My data is from remote sensing systems they provide data for NASA and NOAA. Since Al Gores extremely profitable “global warming” initiative the polar ice caps have increased in size form 43% to 63% based on NASA satellite images. The 97% of scientist agree comment is always misused just as it was in this article. It is supposed to be 97% of scientists agree climate change is man made and that fabricated number and has been debunked by the wall street journal. 100% of scientists would tell you the climate is changing and always has. The suns solar cycles effect the temperature on earth more than any other factor by a extremely disproportionate margin. The fact of the matter is the “global warming” initiative is just a way to take money out of your pocket and line politicians like Al gores pockets and even Obama too. We spend 22 billion dollars a year to try to stop this so called global warming epidemic. The NOAA doesn’t even record actual temperatures anymore they use a computer model to adjust the temperatures. In 2001, before leaving office as vice president, Gore was worth less than $2 million. Since then, he has grown his wealth to $100 million . . . almost entirely by investing in a handful of “green-tech” companies . . . 14 of which received more than $2.5 billion in loans, grants, tax breaks, and more from the Obama administration.

    Should we be investing in green energy and working towards a greener future? Absolutely its common sense. Its just not the epidemic that it has been made out to be and it is most definitely not worth the cost to tax paying American citizens. Especially when we put ourselves at a disadvantage shipping our fuel to places like China and India who are increasingly polluting the same sky.

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  • Don 3 hours ago

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    I don’t believe in global warming because of the East Anglia University emails. The UN IPCC panel members that shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore were caught red-handed discussing how to continue scamming the public. I don’t believe the media because any coverage they gave to the story was to try to polish this huge wet turd. I know they were investigated and everything was found to be OK. Problem is they investigated themselves. Read the emails and form your own opinion.

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  • Robert 7 hours ago

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    The majority of the computer models that scientists based their global warming theories on have been proven to be flawed. Some of the research has been tampered with to prove a preconceived outcome. The last 19 years we have been in a cooling trend. The Antarctic Ice Cap has been growing. Notice how the terminology has changed from global warming, to man-made global warming, to man-made climate change to climate change. No doubt the climate changes constantly. We have not been recording temperatures long enough to be able to observe long term cycles in the earth’s climate. Two simultaneous major volcanic eruptions can and have altered earth’s climate for decades.

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  • Andrew 3 hours ago

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    I am the Prophet & first proponent of the PNGW / PNCC theory.

    That is – Paranormal-pogenic Global Warming or Climate Change. (And it’s pronounced “Pingwuh” or “Pinck” you skeptical denying d-bags!)

    For all you laypersons and deniers out there — PNGW / PNCC states that Global Warming (aka Climate Change aka Global Cooling aka Climate Hysteria) is caused primarily by the gases & toxins released into the atmosphere by the decaying flesh & consciousnesses of Paramormal Entities.

    That is to say – Ghosts and Zombies and the like.

    Think about it. What is a Ghost but a consciousness trapped in a collection of coalesced gases – mainly Co2, nitrogen & hydrogen & assorted acids?!? (What did you think the Ghostbusters were measuring, electromagnetic disturbances?!? Pfft… Imbeciles!)

    And what is a Zombie but decaying human flesh that walks and consumes human brains – all while releasing more of the same ozone-destroying, flesh-filleting nastiness?!?

    You’re welcome for the Truth. All Hail Me!

    (send PNGW tax dollars to my PayPal account)

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  • Guest 7 hours ago

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    Ok, let us go on the premise that this Global Warming is actually real AND that it is man caused.
    What is the solution. All these treaties aimed at increasing money intake and power to governmental type organizations just does not seem to fix anything other than providing $s for pet project (or friend). Especially when the biggest sources of the supposed harmful elements will be unaffected by the treaties (China/India/etc)
    So, other than running around yelling “the sky is falling” or melting…please provide solutions. There is already much research going on in the Wind/Solar front. More natural gas? More Nuclear? Less people and cows? What is it that the believers want…besides more money/power.

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UNITED STATES TAXING SYSTEM

EXPLAINING OUR UNITED STATES TAXING SYSTEM WITH BEER

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the
bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would
go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The six would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite
happy with the arrangement, until one day,
the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such
good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to
reduce the cost of your daily beers by $20. Drinks for the
ten now cost just $80.’

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our
taxes so the first four men were
unaffected.

They would still drink for free. But what about the other
six men – the paying customers? How
could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would
get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that
$20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that
from everybody’s share, then the fifth man
and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink
his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce
each man’s bill by roughly the same
amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each
should pay. And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100%
savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before and the first
four continued to drink for free, but once
outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their
savings. ‘I only got a dollar out of the
$20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth
man, ‘but he got $10!’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got
TEN times more than I!’

‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man.
‘Why should he get $10 back when I got
only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’

‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in
unison ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system
exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks,
so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something very
important….they didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college
professors, is how our tax system works.

The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit
from a tax reduction.
Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might star drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

PHYSICS EXAM

“Physics Exam”

The following concerns a question in a physics degree
exam at the University of Copenhagen:

“Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper
using a barometer.”

One student replied:

“You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the
barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of
the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string
plus the length of the barometer will equal the height
of the building.”

This highly original answer so incensed the examiner
that the student was failed. The student appealed on
the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct,
and the university appointed an independent arbiter to
decide the case. The arbiter judged that the answer 
was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable
knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was
decided to call the student in and allow him six
minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which
showed at least a minimal familiarity the basic
principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead
creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time
was running out, to which the student replied that he
had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn’t
make up his mind which to use.

On being advised to hurry up the student replied as
follows:

“Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof
of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure
the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of
the building can then be worked out from the formula 
H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer.”

“Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height
of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the
length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of
the skyscraper’s shadow, and thereafter it is a simple
matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the
height of the skyscraper.”

“But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it,
you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer
and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and
then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is
worked out by the difference in the gravitational
restoring force T = 2 pi sq root (l / g).”

“Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency
staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark
off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths,
then add them up.”

“If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about
it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure
the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on
the ground, and convert the difference in millibars
into feet to give the height of the building.”

“But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise
independence of mind and apply scientific methods,
undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the
janitor’s door and say to him, ‘If you would like a nice
new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me
the height of this skyscraper’.”

The student was Niels Bohr, the only person from
Denmark to win the Nobel prize for Physics.

Niels Henrik David BOHR : (PLEASE CLICK)

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