MEDIA WATCH: THE GAIA CONSPIRACY
Copyright c for Earthwatch By Evan Pritchard

Last week, TIME Magazine did what no one else seemed to be able to do, to publish an article about the new accelerated pace of global warming, right under the noses of the Bush administration. The date on the cover was April 3rd, however it was already sold out in stores across the country by April 3rd, and everyone was talking about it. “Be Worried, Be Very Worried!: were the ominous words on the cover. On Monday, April 3rd, I went to see a screening of an unfinished documentary by “Blue Vinyl” director/producer (Toxic Comedy Pictures danielbeegold@earthlink.net) Daniel Gold, called “Melting Planet.” It was somewhat in the Fahreheit 911 tradition, but looking to be a little more mainstream, more folksy, and also informative. There were priceless interviews with born- again Christians, revving up to meet the Lord, clueless folks who never heard of global warming, and hard-working people like you and me, saying “I can hardly make a living; what am I supposed to do about it?” Gold also interviewed author Ross Gelbspan, who candidly told us how terrible it was to be an expert on global warming, and demonstrated his frustration by making a box out of cardboard to put his own publications into storage.

I had brought the TIME magazine article, and Gold took it and held it up to the audience four different times, quoting from memory what it said, “The debate is over..” I did the same thing with both of my Marist classes the week leading up to April 3rd. That TIME article may turn out to be one of the most important documents printed in the US since the Bill of Rights, however that is only true if anyone reads it and does something about it. Otherwise it will just get burned and add CO2 to the atmosphere.

We watched snowmakers at a ski lodge in Utah watching moths in their headlights in January, waiting in vain for 26o or lower, so they could make snow. We saw the native peoples of Shishmarif, watching the permafrost melt and begin packing for the mainland. We watched Heidi the Weather Channel expert find a way to announce back in 2004 that Global Warming was “real.” We learned that the US is producing 4 billion tons of carbon emissions a year. We watched as a “Death of Environmentalism” movement caught hold.

TIME’s article was, to say the least, timely! But Gold said that one of the most important writings on global warming was a little-known memo, that has become known as “The Luntz Memo.” It was written in 2000 by a consulting company advising the Republican re-election campaign, and it said, basically, “As long as the public doesn’t believe there is a consensus, the debate will continue.” It advised the Republican party leaders to keep attacking the uncertainty of the science involved.

This is exactly what has happened during the last six years, and with great effect. And yet, according to Gold, our majority in Washington took things one step further and had government and corporate lawyers with no background in science, rewrite Exxon-funded (and other funded) studies, removing all language that sounded certain, and inserting the uncertainty that the situation, according to the Luntz Memo, required. Then the politicians would comment on the uncertainty with a dismissive air.

Global Warming
“The scientific debate remains open. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.”
The Luntz Memo.
(page 137)


According to Gold, James Hansen had appeared before Congress with this message way back in 1988, (That was before carbon emissions had even reached 1990 levels, which the signers of the Kyoto agreement now long for nostalgically) and read from his research stating that global warming was a fact. He was treated like a “doomsday nut” and dismissed. 1991 to 1995 were consecutive record heat years. Late in 2005, he began his tirades again, and was accused of being disloyal to the President. Now his reports must pass across the President’s desk in the feared Oval Office before he can read them.

I stated that Lovelock’s book was released on February 2nd, in the UK and yet seemed to have disappeared in the US. Gold agreed, and said he has been looking for it, and asking people in the book industry, but had not heard anything at all.

Lovelock said that his book “Revenge of Gaia” would be published on February 2nd, 2006, ie: Ground Hogs’ Day because in pagan tradition, that is the day on which prognostications are made, predictions of the future. That’s the day the groundhog sees his shadow. It was also announced that the US publication by Penguin Putnam would be on March 2nd. The book was released around February 2nd in the UK to rave reviews, however the US publication never happened. In fact it is not listed in the on-line books in print, nor have any booksellers in the US been notified of its existence. Rumor has it that Basic Books will pick it up in the fall. It is currently on sale in Ottawa, Canada and consumers have described it as a “small but expensive import,” about 140 pages and $30 Canadian currency. As of this writing, I have not met anyone in the US who has seen it.

Penguin USA has the rights to publish a book by a famous author, his most important book, and a sure best seller. However, they don’t publish it. One must consider the possibility that they got stepped on, however Penguin Putnam is a giant of the publishing industry and very independent at that. They try to live up to the legacy of Ian Ballantine.
When this scenario was mentioned to an employee of Penguin Putnam, they said no one could step on this company, that it would make the New York Times. Welll……..

Andrew Revkin, top science writer for the New York Times, wrote an important article in which he talked about the melting of the ice of Greenland, and said that the rise in ocean levels was now irreversible. He said it could possibly raise the ocean 20 feet above current levels, destroying much of Florida and many of the great coastal cities of the US. This article was posted on the internet at the NY Times site as part of the “Science Section” and dated March 24th, a Friday. It apparently only appeared in one local late edition of the Times. Many of the facts and findings were the same or similar to those mentioned in Lovelock’s book. Apparently the BBC broadcast the same or similar story to Revkin.

One of the few sources to bring this information to the internet is Common Dreams. They quote from British papers on this issue, as nothing else is available. Here are some excerpts from websites regarding James Lovelock and the Gaia Theory, plus Jack Todd Thomas Lovejoy, James Hansen and others.


Here are some quotes from Lovelock


The Independent Jan 16th

“We are in a fool’s climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” James Lovelock

“She (Gaia) has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years.” Lovelock

“Had it been known then (in the time of Charles Darwin) that life and the environment are closely coupled, Darwin would have seen that evolution involved not just the organisms, but the whole planetary surface. We might then have looked upon the Earth as if it were alive…” Lovelock

“..So what should we do? ….realize how little time is left to act; and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilization for as long as they can.” Lovelock

“We should be the heart and mind of the Earth, not its malady. So let us be brave and cease thinking of human needs and rights alone, and see that we have harmed the living earth and need to make or peace with Gaia. We must do it while we are still strong enough to negotiate, and not a broken rabble led by brutal war lords…” Lovelock

“We will do our best to survive but, sadly, I can’t see the US or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time and they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate.” Lovelock.


James Lovelock is an independent environmental scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society. The Revenge of Gaia, scheduled for release Feb. 2nrd 2006 is published by Penguin. He was part of a NASA team in 1965 to look for life on other planets.

Lovejoy heads the H. John Heinz III center for Science Economics and the Environment. He is the author of Global Warming and Biological Diversity.”
Article by David Ignatius Common Dreams

“Lovejoy fears that changes in the Amazon’ ecosystem may be irreversible.” David Ignatius, Common Dreams.

He describes a snowball of drying factors that is happening, and drought is spreading.

Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker ran a three part series last spring, mentioning the shrinking of the Arcitic sea ice by 250 million acres since 1979; the first thawing of the permafrost in 120,000 years. In a recent article “butterfly lessons” she showed how these creatures are moving to new habitats.


Dr. Charles David Keeling, a Scripps marine chemist was the first to confirm the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 1957. It has risen more than 14% since that time. Scripps Oceanographic Society

It has been discovered that the ice age ended abruptly 15,000 years ago, as temperatures rose 16 degrees in less than two decades. From Scripps Oceanographic Society


QUOTABLE QUOTES REGARDING GLOBAL WARMING

“It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.” Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker

“An Antarctic ice shelf that was 200 metres thick and had a surface area of 3,250 square kilometers has broken apart in less than a month.” BBC 3/19/02

“We knew what was left (of the Larsen B ice shelf) would collapse eventually, but the speed of it is staggering.” David Vaughan, a glaciologist at Cambridge.

“Scripps scientists have discovered an 1800 year cycle of oceanic tides that appears to drive changes in earth’s climate….strong tides bring cool conditions to the sea surface..weak tides lead to less cold water mixings and warming periods on Earth. Research at Scripps has shown that Earth is currently in a period in which a natural rise in global temperature..combined with warming from the greenhouse effect will push the planet through an era of rapid global warming.” Scripps Oceanographic Society:

“James Hutton (1726-1797) the father of geology, once described Earth as a kind of superorganism.” Oceansonline.com

“We are in a fool’s climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” James Lovelock

“She (Gaia) has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years.” Lovelock

“Climate-change scientists have been warning about the rise in temperatures reaching a “tipping point” when carbon and methane locked up in the Amazon rainforest and Arctic ice would be released into the atmosphere as the climate becomes warmer and drier.” The Scotsman Jan 17 2006

“I would agree we are committed to a certain amount of climate change already. We cannot stop what’s happening, all we can do is slow it down.” Dr. Richard Betts, Climate modeler, Devon

“I don’t think anyone could put any sort of figure on how many people will survive.” Dr. Richard Betts.

“The collapse of the Gulf Stream appears to be unlikely to happen at least in the next 100 years, but it’s theoretically possible it could happen. It’s low probability, but would have a high impact.” Dr. Richard Betts

“Lovejoy fears that changes in the Amazon’ ecosystem may be irreversible.” David Ignatius, Common Dreams.

“People will be killed by climate change in this century. I’d be reasonably confident in that statement.” Dr Myles Allen, Oxford University.

“If the Arctic was to start releasing vast amounts of methane…it wouldn’t necessarily be a planet-destroying event.” Dr. Myles Allen

“Everything he (Lovelock) is writing has to be taken very seriously. Its not just some Doomsday Prediction.” John Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Research.

“Many human lives are at stake if we don’t do anything about global warming.”
John Schellnhuber

“We could cut carbon emissions by 90 per cent by 2030..just within the realms of possibility..the tipping point is probably around 2025..just last year there was a new study saying British soil has become a source of carbon. Things can happen very quickly and far sooner than we are expecting…Last year there was a big conference in Exeter and what came out of that is we have only ten years in which we can take some meaningful action.”..If we do not do anything in that (timeframe) we might as well forget about it. Once we get to a certain point with global warming, its out of our hands.” George Monbiot British environmentalist The Scotsman Jan 17th 2006

Note: Jack Todd is also called John Todd and his group is called Oceans Ark, and has built amazing “green architecture” sites all over the world. Nancy Jack Todd is his wife who is an equal partner, and is writing a book. She is editor of Annals of Earth and Vice President of Ocean Arks International. She can be reached at (508)548-8161



The Famed Hansen-NASA Censorship Article

Here is a now-famous article about James Hansen by leading science writer Andrew Revkin.



By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: January 29, 2006
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.


Dr. James Hansen on Global Warming
Dr. Hansen's Recent Lectures and Papers (columbia.edu)

Dr. Goklany's Papers on Climate Change
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.
Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," Mr. Acosta said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."
He said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.
Mr. Acosta said other reasons for requiring press officers to review interview requests were to have an orderly flow of information out of a sprawling agency and to avoid surprises. "This is not about any individual or any issue like global warming," he said. "It's about coordination."
Dr. Hansen strongly disagreed with this characterization, saying such procedures had already prevented the public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.
"Communicating with the public seems to be essential," he said, "because public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming the special interests that have obfuscated the topic."
Dr. Hansen, 63, a physicist who joined the space agency in 1967, directs efforts to simulate the global climate on computers at the Goddard Institute in Morningside Heights in Manhattan.
Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the long-term threat from heat-trapping emissions, dominated by carbon dioxide, that are an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels. He has had run-ins with politicians or their appointees in various administrations, including budget watchers in the first Bush administration and Vice President Al Gore.
In 2001, Dr. Hansen was invited twice to brief Vice President Dick Cheney and other cabinet members on climate change. White House officials were interested in his findings showing that cleaning up soot, which also warms the atmosphere, was an effective and far easier first step than curbing carbon dioxide.
He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled and said he planned to vote for Senator John Kerry.
But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.
In several interviews with The New York Times in recent days, Dr. Hansen said it would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA's mission statement includes the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet."
He said he was particularly incensed that the directives had come through telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents.
Dr. Hansen's supervisor, Franco Einaudi, said there had been no official "order or pressure to say shut Jim up." But Dr. Einaudi added, "That doesn't mean I like this kind of pressure being applied."
The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet."
The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.
After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.
Among the restrictions, according to Dr. Hansen and an internal draft memorandum he provided to The Times, was that his supervisors could stand in for him in any news media interviews.

Here is the text of a subsequent Andrew Revkin article, dateline March 24th, New York Times, which apparently only appeared in a late local edition of the New York Times.

The Lost NEW YORK TIMES Article
of Andrew Revkin

This important article by leading science writer Andrew Revkin, was published on the New York Times webpage on March 24th which is a Friday not a Tuesday, when most science articles appear and apparently only appeared in print in a local metro late edition of the Times. Here is the article in full.


By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: March 24, 2006
Within the next 100 years, the growing human influence on Earth's climate could lead to a long and irreversible rise in sea levels by eroding the planet's vast polar ice sheets, according to new observations and analysis by several teams of scientists.
One team, using computer models of climate and ice, found that by about 2100, average temperatures could be four degrees higher than today and that over the coming centuries, the oceans could rise 13 to 20 feet — conditions last seen 129,000 years ago, between the last two ice ages.
The findings, being reported today in the journal Science, are consistent with other recent studies of melting and erosion at the poles. Many experts say there are still uncertainties about timing, extent and causes.
But Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona, a lead author of one of the studies, said the new findings made a strong case for the danger of failing to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in a greenhouselike effect.
"If we don't like the idea of flooding out New Orleans, major portions of South Florida, and many other valued parts of the coastal U.S.," Dr. Overpeck said, "we will have to commit soon to a major effort to stop most emissions of carbon to the atmosphere."
According to the computer simulations, the global nature of the warming from greenhouse gases, which diffuse around the atmosphere, could amplify the melting around Antarctica beyond that of the last warm period, which was driven mainly by extra sunlight reaching the Northern Hemisphere.
The researchers also said that stains from dark soot drifting from power plants and vehicles could hasten melting in the Arctic by increasing the amount of solar energy absorbed by ice.
The rise in sea levels, driven by loss of ice from Greenland and West Antarctica, would occur over many centuries and be largely irreversible, but could be delayed by curbing emissions of the greenhouse gases, said Dr. Overpeck and his fellow lead author, Bette L. Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
In a second article in Science, researchers say they have detected a rising frequency of earthquakelike rumblings in the bedrock beneath Greenland's two-mile-thick ice cap in late summer since 1993. They say there is no obvious explanation other than abrupt movements of the overlying ice caused by surface melting.
The jostling of that giant ice-cloaked island is five times more frequent in summer than in winter, and has greatly intensified since 2002, the researchers found. The data mesh with recent satellite readings showing that the ice can lurch toward the sea during the melting season.
The analysis was led by Goran Ekstrom of Harvard and Meredith Nettles of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., part of Columbia University.
H. Jay Zwally, a NASA scientist studying the polar ice sheets with satellites, said the seismic signals from ice movement were consistent with his discovery in 2002 that summer melting on the surface of Greenland's ice sheets could almost immediately spur them to shift measurably. The meltwater apparently trickles through fissures and lubricates the interface between ice and underlying rock.
"Models are important, but measurements tell the real story," Dr. Zwally said. "During the last 10 years, we have seen only about 10 percent of the greenhouse warming expected during the next 100 years, but already the polar ice sheets are responding in ways we didn't even know about only a few years ago."
In both Antarctica and Greenland, it appears that warming waters are also at work, melting the protruding tongues of ice where glaciers flow into the sea or intruding beneath ice sheets, like those in western Antarctica, that lie mostly below sea level. Both processes can cause the ice to flow more readily, scientists say.
Many experts on climate and the poles, citing evidence from past natural warm periods, agreed with the general notion that a world much warmer than today's, regardless of the cause of warming, will have higher sea levels.
But significant disagreements remain over whether recent changes in sea level and ice conditions cited in the new studies could be attributed to rising concentrations of the greenhouse gases and temperatures linked by most experts to human activities.
Sea levels have been rising for thousands of years as an aftereffect of the warming and polar melting that followed the last ice age, which ended about 10,000 years ago. Discriminating between that residual effect and any new influence from human actions remains impossible for the moment, many experts say.
Satellites and tide gauges show that seas rose about eight inches over the last century and the pace has picked up markedly since the 1990's.
Dr. Overpeck, the co-author of the paper on rising sea levels, acknowledged the uncertainties about the causes. But he said that in a world in which humans, rich and poor, increasingly clustered on coasts, the risks were great enough to justify prompt action.
"People driving big old S.U.V.'s to their favorite beach or coastal golf course," he said, should "start to think twice about what they might be doing."
END

The following article appeared on March 20th in the Washington Post. It ties in with a number of articles that were apparently squelched elsewhere.

Early Spring Disturbing Life on Northern Rivers
By Cheryl Lyn Dybas
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, March 20, 2006; Page A05
THE GLEN, N.Y. -- The winter-old river ice is creaking and groaning, shifting position. Spring has come early to the frozen upper Hudson River, and ice-out is just around the corner.
Lilliputian wildflowers will soon line the Hudson's banks. In what are known as riverside ice meadows, an ancient cycle of ice formation and melting gives rise to swamp candles, ladies'-tresses, wood lilies and other rare, diminutive flowers. In New York's Adirondack Mountains, ice that forms on the river in winter is pushed onto its banks in spring; there it scours the sloping cobble shores, keeping them free of shrubs and small trees and leaving space for wildflowers to sprout in fragile, arctic-like ice meadows.
But the future for these floral pixies, which depend on late-melting river ice, is bleak. The number of days of ice on northeastern rivers has declined significantly in recent winters, said hydrologist Glenn Hodgkins of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Maine Water Science Center in Augusta.
The trend could spell disaster for the ice meadows. It also signals trouble ahead for endangered Atlantic salmon and other fish, for wetlands plants and animals, and for Northern economies, all of which are sustained by winters with icy rivers.
If the pattern continues, say scientists, only in Currier and Ives prints will ice skaters twirl across frozen New England rivers.
"Northeastern rivers have 20 fewer days of ice cover each winter now than they did in 1936," said Hodgkins, who said the total now averages 92 days. "A lot of that decrease has occurred since the 1960s."
Hodgkins has studied 16 rivers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. In recent years, the data show, 12 of the 16 rivers had much earlier spring ice-out dates.
"On average, ice-out dates were 11 days earlier in 2000 than in 1936," Hodgkins said. "These changes are linked to warmer temperatures in late winter and early spring."
Winter, it appears, is melting around the edges.
Research by Hodgkins and USGS scientist Robert Dudley also shows changes in early-spring stream flow across eastern North America from Minnesota to Newfoundland. Rivers are gushing with snow- and ice-melt as much as 10 to 15 days sooner than they did 50 to 90 years ago, based on USGS records.
Hodgkins and Dudley's results are scheduled to be published Tuesday in the online edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

RIVER WARMING
Since 1936, gauges in northern New England rivers have recorded a steady decline in the annual number of days of river ice, a change that threatens Atlantic salmon, wetlands plants and Northern economies.
Number of days river flows were affected by ice
River 1936 2000 Drop
Allagash 138 129 9
St. John 134 124 10
Missisquoi 123 93 30
Piscataquis 119 105 14
Fish 118 93 25
Sandy 117 104 13
Swift 107 79 28
Saco 98 81 17
Oyster 51 31 20
CORRECTION: A chart with a March 20 Science article on river ice contained an incorrect scale, making it appear that some New England rivers had fewer days of river ice than they actually did. The decrease in average annual days of river ice from 1936 to 2000 for the selected rivers is reflected in this updated chart.
SOURCE: Glenn Hodgkins, U.S. Geological Survey
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So there you have it: While “Global ecological chaos” is a phenomenon that even conservative sources were admitting by the end of last year, now almost everyone is admitting to “Global Warming” as well. That is some measure of progress, very slow moving progress. I would say it was a “glacial pace,” however that term now seems to indicated great speed, not slowness.

The question is still being debated, “Has there been an organized conspiracy to squelch information about global warming here in the US?” From here, it looks like the answer is “yes,” but a fairly subtle and well-orchestrated one, based on the Luntz memo.