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The Sun Also Sets
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 2/7/2008

Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical "consensus." Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.

Related Topics: Global Warming

Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.

And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a "stethoscope for the sun." But he and his colleagues need better equipment.

In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun's emissions more rapidly and accurately.

As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth's climate over time has been the sun.

For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years.

R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales."

Rather, he says, "I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet."

Patterson, sharing Tapping's concern, says: "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth."

"Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again," Patterson says. "If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than 'global warming' would have had."

In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov made some waves — and not a few enemies in the global warming "community" — by predicting that the sun would reach a peak of activity about three years from now, to be accompanied by "dramatic changes" in temperatures.

A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion.

"The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100," according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.

The study says that "try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures."

The study concludes that if you shut down all the world's power plants and factories, "there would not be much effect on temperatures."

But if the sun shuts down, we've got a problem. It is the sun, not the Earth, that's hanging in the balance.
http://tinyurl.com/28kkfa

Homeland Security Getting Flashlight Weapon For Law Enforcement
New Weapon Against Terror: A Flashlight?
Feb 4, 2008 10:27 pm US/Pacific
Brandi Hitt Reporting

LOS ANGELES (CBS13) ― It looks like a normal flashlight, but Homeland Security has paid close to a million dollars for it. It can stop you right in your tracks.

Law enforcement is already calling it "controversial."

The point of this device is to disorient you, so we modified the video when we showed it on air. If you wish to see the unmodified footage of the device in action, you can click here -- but be warned, you may find the experience uncomfortable.

For riots and chaotic situations, police often use tasers, rubber bullets and pepper spray to try and control the crowd. But there could soon be a new weapon in their arsenal: a hi-tech flashlight with a big punch.

"Flashblindness, the 'Oh my gosh this light is really bright, I can't see anything behind it.' That effect is immediate for everybody," said Bob Lieberman, president of Intelligent Optical Systems.

Nausea and a feeling of disorientation soon follow. The device is called the "LED Incapacitator." Intelligent Optical Systems is the company building it right here in California, thanks to an $800,000 contract from Homeland Security.

Once Lieberman turned on the Incapacitator for us, we started feeling the effects. It can be irritating to watch the video, but in person it's even more stunning.

According to Lieberman, the device flashes LED lights at several specific frequencies. Before your brain has time to adjust to one frequency, the Incapacitator flashes another. Add multiple colors and random pulses and the brain just can't keep up.

"The longer you look at this, the more you don't want to look at it," said Lieberman. "The closer you are to it, the more intense the effect."

The only ways to escape the effects? "Close your eyes, put your hand up, turn your head away, all of which will give the user the advantage they need," said Lieberman.

We wanted to see just how effective the light is, so I tried it out. You see green, white, and after a while it becomes very blurry. I didn't feel sick, but I could not tell where the operator was standing at one point.

I also saw blotches in my vision, which stayed with me for about a half hour after the test. Then, a strong headache kicked in.

David Throckmorton is a Homeland Security program manager in Washington DC. He says the government would like to arm the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Border Patrol and Air Marshals with the device.

"It doesn't really do any damage to you," said David. "For them, it would be a way to stop a terrorist or whoever from advancing."

Commander Sid Hale with the L.A. County Sheriff's Department helped design the device over the last three years, and says this is something all law enforcement wants, especially at night and for crowd control, so they don't have to pull their guns.

"They may be incorporated into existing architecture," said Hale. "If we have a big jail riot, we just turn out the regular lights and turn on the flashing lights. This is about the safest thing you can find and still be considered some type of force. This is about one step above screaming and yelling at a guy."

Michael Soller with the ACLU says he's concerned.

"Let's not pretend these are anything less than a weapon," said Soller.

His concern is not so much with the device itself, but how officers are trained to handle it, and if they misuse it.

"Tasers were sold and police officers were trained that they're nonlethal," said Soller. "We have 300 deaths over the past few years that show that the claim was not true."

Is there a possibility that someone could go blind from something like this?

"No," said Lieberman. "We've been very careful to design this so the maximum permissible exposure limit for human eye safety is never exceeded."

Medical safety tests are already underway, and law enforcement field trials will likely start later this year.

Could the public get their hands on this?

"Yes, this kind of technology could possibly be useful for someone in a situation where they're trying to fend off an attacker," said Lieberman.

That's news to Homeland Security. The department says it may be restricted to just law enforcement. Still, by 2010, Intelligent Optical Systems hopes to be selling this technology on store shelves.

The whole point of this weapon is to disorient you, and it does. Some are concerned that if the public will get its hands on this, that means criminals will too.
http://tinyurl.com/2yzv5z

Climate Change Generates Near-Religious Fervor
Feb 8, 2008,
By Chad Vander Veen

With so much chatter focused on green technology, has this infatuation evolved into something akin to a religious movement?

The world's major religions have more in common than their respective followers would prefer to admit. Typically each maintains an elaborate dogma that dictates believers act a certain way and engage in traditional rituals. Most religions also warn of some world-ending cataclysm that can be avoided only by strict adherence to religious principles. Critics of religion often compare these true believers to sheep, blindly following a leader out of willful ignorance.

Today green technology is part of a movement that's winning millions of converts, many of whom would count themselves among the critics of traditional religion. This new belief system used to be called Global Warming, though its disciples now prefer Climate Change as the more accurate term. And woe unto he who neglecteth the tenets of Climate Change, for surely he will bring upon us the End Times.

Many who oppose religion do so based on science, a perfectly valid position to take. Ironically the science - or dogma if you wish - that drives the Climate Change movement is anything but agreed upon. Yet Climate Change believers are often so passionate about their "religion" that if you are in their numbers, you're probably seething right now - even before discerning the position I take.

Clearly finding renewable energy sources, deploying Earth-friendly technology and discouraging pollution are sensible goals regardless of whether manmade climate change is real. And even the staunchest Climate Change opponent might admit global temperatures are on the rise. The debate is what role, if any, man plays in contributing to this warming.

Both history and science tell us conclusively that the Earth's mean temperature is in perpetual flux. But just as Christianity teaches the sinful nature of man will be his undoing, so Climate Change tells us man's mistreatment of the environment will spell our doom.

The Climate Change clergy demands we live to as-yet undefined green standards, lest we create a global catastrophe. Many believers in manmade climate change are quick to mock religious beliefs as baseless superstitions; they also bristle at any suggestion that their own beliefs are debatable. But like other religions, there's no irrefutable proof that Climate Change is true. Correlation doesn't equal causation, after all.

Traditional religions have been blamed, often deservedly, for countless atrocities. But these religions also have done incalculable good. Likewise, the religion of Climate Change can do great works for the planet. But to the objective observer, simmering under the Climate Change movement is a palpable sense that a modern-day, politically correct inquisition is at hand.

One other tenet most religions share is that followers do unto others as they would have done unto them. Let's pray those who believe we are responsible for climate change keep that in mind.
http://tinyurl.com/22223x