GINA COBB

What Do Women Want?

By DemocracyRules

8 Things She Hates About You

Well, this article is the topic of some recent buzz, with lots of heated words exchanged in comments sections.

The article describes the "€œsilent treatment"€, and asks what brings women to such irritation: (1) disorderly house habits, (2) spending conflicts, (3) excessive "€˜boy talk"€™, (4) vagueness about the future of the relationship, (5) taking her for granted, (6) Internet porn, (7) turning down sex, (8) soliciting dates electronically, especially by texting.

Rachel Lucas even includes a re-write of the list with the genders reversed.  More heated debate ensued from that.  Some women bloggers said they'€™re embarrassed about the pettiness of their own gender.  Nevertheless, we have to acknowledge that these eight things are real.  Many women do find at least some of these things annoying.

What do women want? (Said the cave-man, uttering his first words.) Actually, scientists have studied this quite a bit, so let'€™s see what they say.  I'€™ll just deal with the big picture, which is women'€™s pursuit of the reproduction of their own genes.  It is called  Selfish Gene Theory, or I call it "€˜Intelligent Gene Theory (IGT)"€, and it proposes that our DNA is designed to make copies of itself.  In mammals it accomplishes this by combining with strands of DNA from another individual of the same species (sexual reproduction).

Please note that the term Selfish Gene Theory or Intelligent Gene Theory does not mean that women are selfish, they are mostly very patient, affectionate and giving.  This theory can also be used to explain men, and I'll write about that later.

To carry out sexual reproduction, the DNA strands have acquired new genes and re-arranged existing ones to create a human body with certain features.   For example the DNA has made complimentary genitals that fit together.

This body is mainly designed to find a mate, and combine genes with that mate.  Then the two individuals cooperate to ensure the survival of their offspring (children), so their newly combined DNA will be perpetuated in new offspring (grandchildren).

So with chicken genes, the DNA has created a chicken as a device to perpetuate chicken DNA.  For example, the chicken DNA blueprint specifies legs, to propel the chicken around so it can eat and find mates.  Snake DNA got rid of the leg blueprint, but had to substitute a blueprint for complex belly-crawling muscles.  It took a while, but DNA has forever.

So, to IGT, women have prominent breasts to nurse young, and men like big breasts because that increases the likelihood his mate can nurse babies successfully.  It'€™s a sign of good "€˜reproductive fitness"€™.  In fact I have sat in Cafe's with male friends and commented about passers-by: "€œWhoa, look at the reproductive fitness on that one!"€ Because of these factors, women with nice breasts are more likely to have and raise offspring.  Men also tend to prefer women with larger eyes, fuller lips, a shorter jaw, and a smaller chin.  These facial features are associated with higher estrogen levels and higher fertility in women. 

The brain is also designed by DNA.  For IG Theory, love is a mating device invented by DNA.  To produce one new human, one must parent them for at least twelve years, so the couple must remain together at least that long and cooperate in the care for the young. 

I know, it all sounds very cold and mechanistic, but an IG theorist would say that we shun mechanistic interpretations of love because we are genetically programmed to shun mechanistic interpretations of love. Those darn IG theorists are hard to get around.

So to cut to the chase: Women need a high-quality mate, because they can'€™t reproduce like oysters, spewing out thousands of babies, hoping one will survive.  Each offspring must be high quality, so the mate must also be high quality.  More or less in order of priority, women look for the following. 

(a) Beauty.  Almost all beauty criteria relate to "reproductive fitness"€™, or how well that male can produce successful offspring.  Alcohol helps! Attractive men have higher sperm counts, and have sex more often.  Taller men tend to be more intelligent, have higher incomes, and they have many other features that improve their reproductive fitness. It€'s not just the genes, it€'s also how well those genes have been expressed in real life.  Men are more attractive if they have symmetric right and left facial features.  Most attractive male movie stars and models are very symmetrical.

DNA usually has blueprints for fully symmetric body parts, so if a person is not symmetrical, something may be wrong.  Facial asymmetry can be caused by problematic recessive genes or homozygosity.  Asymmetry can also result from health problems while growing up.  Men are more attractive if they have long legs, and poor early nutrition shortens leg length.

(b) Income.  Men must provide for the family while the woman is occupied with child-rearing, and money-wise, the more the better (California bumper sticker: "€œIf You'€™re Rich I'€™m Single!"€)

(c) Fatherly behavior. (AKA, "a nice man"€™)  A nice warm, pleasant patient man who loves children is usually preferred because he is better equipped to help a woman perpetuate her genes.  It's a trade-off of course because more masculine men are more attractive.  At high points in women's fertility cycle, they prefer more masculine men.

(d) Undying love.  This is needed to keep the male around long enough to get the children reared properly.  Most women express this as the need to be loved, or receive love.  Fewer women primarily express the need to give love, or be loving with men.  Of course women can and do love, and give love, and benefit immensely from it, as does their family.  But if the man does not love the woman, there probably won'€™t be a family from that man.

(e) Intelligence, because this is partly heritable, so it can be passed to offspring, and it also increases income capacity.

(f) Sexuality is important for several reasons.  Women have testosterone, and other systems which create sexual desire.  They actually have more sexual desire than they normally admit.  They don'€™t want to be slut-labeled.   Lesbians, who worry much less about slut-labeling, are much more openly sexual than heterosexual women.

The man must produce strong and viable sperm, and handsome men have more and better sperm.  If the man meets criteria  (a) to (e), then she will love him more, and she will want to mate with him more often.  The more sexually aroused she gets, and the stronger the orgasms, the better.  High sexual arousal produces lubrication, which extends the time of sexual contact, and reduces vaginal injury.  In sexually aroused women, the vagina enlarges at the back, near her cervix.  This facilitates sperm pooling.  During an orgasmic contraction, the cervix is pushed down into the sperm pool, thereby increasing the chances for her to conceive.  So there are strong biological reasons why a woman would want to be loved by her man, and would want to love him, to find him sexy, and want to have sex with him often.

When sex fails, the woman usually cites one or more of items (a) to (e) as the cause of the failure.  In that sense, items (a) through (e) are necessary but not sufficient criteria for successful marital sex.  Even if all five criteria are met, various equipment failures can get in the way.

Pshaw! You may say, this is far too technical and cold, and has nothing to do with my life.  Well, Intelligent Gene Theory is just a theory, and theories almost always have to be changed and improved later.  It could also turn out to be entirely false.

But if we review "€œ8 Things She Hates About You"€ with IGT, it fits pretty well.
The "silent treatment"€ is often a test of love, designed to verify that the man is loving and attentive enough to discover the problem and fix it.  Lesbians, both being women, sometimes drive each other nuts with tests of love.  The "€œsilent treatment"€ often comes from doubts the woman has about her man'€™s love.  That's what items (1) to (8) are mainly about, things which cause her to doubt her man's love. 

(1) Disorderly house habits suggest the man is not dedicated to the family, and is  downloading domestic work to the woman.  In contrast, her primary goal is to have and raise children in a safe secure domestic environment, and mess and dirt degrades that environment,

(2) Spending conflicts are a problem if the woman thinks the man is not dedicating sufficient financial resources to child-rearing,

(3) Excessive "boy talk"€™, shows lack of respect and love of the woman, and she must have the man'€™s respect and love to raise her children successfully,

(4) Vagueness about the future of the relationship show the man does not love her enough to sustain the relationship long enough for her to raise her children successfully,

(5) Taking her for granted is similar to (3) ans (4),

(6) Internet porn suggests that the man lacks fidelity, and may leave before the child rearing is complete,

(7) Turning down sex is a problem because women are more sexual during ovulation.  Turning them down is refusing them a potential pregnancy,

(8) Soliciting dates electronically, especially by texting, is similar to (3), (4), and (5), because it represents a lack of undying love.

Within  IG theory, tests of love are emphasized on the list of 8 because love is a very unstable variable.  It is much more variable than leg length or sperm count.  Yet marital love is vital for successful child rearing.  Therefore, women devote huge amounts of attention, consideration, and concern to love because it'€™s important, and they have some chance to control it.  One cannot control leg length or sperm count very much.

So men, in summary, if you want to succeed with women, act like a baby machine!  That's what she wants you to be.

Do it or suffer!
______________________________

References:

Physical Attractiveness
Brain Sex
The Mating Mind
Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation

What IS The Racism Obama Talks About?

By DemocracyRules

Some Very Surprising Facts

What is Racism?
The West now faces a new set of  crises around racism. Here I will mainly deal with the Obama-related conundrums.  Like all crises, this Zeitgeist is loaded with opportunity.  The key problem is defining what race and racism are.

Out Of Africa
Most geneticists insist that race in humans does not exist. They are completely serious, they have been saying it for decades, and no one listens.  Their opinions are based on facts, whereas our opinions are based on vague ideas.  Geneticists reject the word race because genetically, there is not much “there” there.  Within humans there are no known sub-species.  All humans can mate with each other (or with Eliot Spitzer), and have children.  Humans share the same global geographic range, can adapt to similar habitats, have the same nutritional requirements, and have huge genetic overlap with each other (roughly 99%).  With effort, one can find some broad vague clustering of genetic traits which correspond to the continents Europe, East Asia, Africa, America and Australasia.  However, the genetic similarities between people are huge compared to the small and highly variable differences.

There is no doubt that differences between human species did exist in the past.  All humans (except Nasrallah of Hizbullah) seem to be descendants of the Cro-Magnon, also called Homo sapiens.

The Cro-Magnon have disappered, leaving only us, one human sub-species that’s called Homo sapiens sapiens.  (Nasrallah might be a Neanderthal.) The best evidence is that all Homo sapiens sapiens originated in Africa, and were black.

As black Homo sapiens sapiens migrated and spread throughout the world, their skin color changed a bit, possibly so they could produce Vitamin D where sunlight levels were low.  Genetic color variants like this are common in nature.  Many black bears are brown, and some are cinnamon-colored.

A small number of genetic variations made some people lighter skinned.  Scientists have discovered a single genetic difference in whites that is responsible for about a third of the European whitening effect.  A different small set of genetic differences lightened skin to make people look Asian.  These were not albinos, the first light-colored variants were normal humans, they just looked lighter.  (In my fantasies, they all looked like Haley Berry).  Two sets of genetic variations produced lighter skin types, Europeans and Asians.  (Another mutation may have produced Michael Jackson, but scientists are still investigating.)

So if skin color differs across our species, do other things differ, like intelligence, the ability to dance the limbo, or the occasional tendency to say “ooga booga”?  Probably not, and data is still being collected.  Recently the world’s most famous living geneticist, James D. Watson, said blacks are dumber than whites, and he had to quit his job.  Was this fair?  Well, scientists should get to say things that are true, no matter who they offend. 

However, scientific research suggests that skin color has little or nothing to do with any particular individual’s intelligence potential.  If an indigenous tribal child from Uganda was raised by white New York stockbroker parents, her mind would become pretty indistinguishable from her stockbroker parents.  She would probably also sell short, over-promote dog stocks, and act like Broadway is the center of the universe.

But it’s not so easy to dismiss Watson’s comments outright.  American youth who hang out at the mall, skip school, idolize rap, engage in petty theft, use drugs, and eulogize “gangsta” are not being very bright, no matter what color their skin is.

“Virtual Race”
So if there is no such thing as race, then how can we have racism?  This is where the sociologists and social psychologists take over, and they can pretty easily prove that humans can and do dislike other humans because of their “race”.  I call it “Virtual Race” because it really exists, but only in our minds.

Vertebrates all tend to group things, and humans, with big brains and nuanced language, group a lot of things.  Humans just made up the concept of race because some people look different from others.  A black person and a white person can identify each other’s race about half a mile away (providing they’re not wearing burkas).  In this sense, racism can be considered an error of cognition, where a particularly salient characteristic, skin color, gets associated with a bunch of other characteristics that are not in fact genetically related. 

With Blacks and Whites, both sides then get in on the act.  We not only stereotype each other, but we stereotype ourselves, and actually start behaving according to the stereotypes.  We  become racists about ourselves.  Blacks and Whites separate ourselves from each other, and reinforce our own cultures from within, sharing values and behaviors.  This makes each side more distant from the other “race”.  At a party a while ago, a Caribbean woman stepped up to me and said, “Let me show you how to dance,” we both laughed, but I was glad for the help.

This means that when demographers examine how human characteristics correlate with each other, they see patterns of living that tend to group around characteristics of different “races” religions, and ethnicity.  Blacks have higher school drop-out rates than whites.  Whites have higher incomes.  Blacks are more likely to populate inner cities, whites are more likely to populate suburbs.  Mainly it seems, Blacks and Whites do these things to themselves, but is not correct to say that racist thinking is illogical.  It is based partly on fact, whether we like it or not.  As Condi Rice just said to the Washington Times, it’s what we do with those facts that will make things worse or better.

Consider the case of  “marrying-out” among Canadian Jews.  For millennia, Jews have been threatened from outside their culture, and it was safer to marry inside their faith.  This also perpetuated “Jewishness” (that’s a euphemism for wearing too much jewelry and eating gefilte fish for no sensible reason).  However, in places like Canada, Jews no longer feel very threatened, so many are “marrying out”.  Shiksa’s (Christian women) are not so bad after all.

Lately, Jews are less stereotyped by Christians, and they also stereotype Christians less.  They also stereotype themselves less.  The strict virtual boundaries between Christians and Jews have begun to soften significantly, because neither side wants to enforce the boundaries.  The deep concern is left to a few old-time anti-Semites and some worried-looking conservative rabbis.

Also, Asians in Canada eventually ignore most of the virtual racism baloney and go ahead to succeed very well amongst Whites.  After three generations, they marry whomever they want, move to the suburbs, and start taking their kids to hockey practice.  For them, the virtual boundaries are not worth enforcing.

Between Blacks and Whites, we still want to enforce the virtual boundaries between ourselves, and the reason seems obvious to me.  We are distinctly different, we look different, and in the narrow human mind, that makes a big difference in how we handle the issue.  The barrier seems too high.  Interestingly, with Haley Barry or Obama, it does not seem so high.  In other words, amazingly, the size of the perceived  barrier is related to actually how black or how white we are. 

With Obama’s parents, it is striking how black his father was and how white his mother was.  Have a look yourself, and tell me that it’s not striking.  Why is it striking?  Because humans tend to group things according to how salient the differences are. 

Brazilians, who are of every conceivable color and appearance, don’t seem to have much trouble figuring out who to marry.  They just guess.

Racism is Normal
It's not a good thing, but it occurs in every person from time to time.  Every group of people on earth who have been studied are prone to racism.  The biggest problem is the failure to understand that racism is normal and it’s a continuum.  It’s not an all or nothing thing.  We all move back and forth across that continuum as time and events occur.  There is no such thing as zero racism, that’s only a theoretical value.  We are all a bit racist, more or less.  So are my dogs, as I said, it’s common in vertebrates.  One of my dogs has a thing about mini-schnauzers.  She got attacked by one once, and now she hates them all.  If a person says they’re not racist, you can stop listening and go do something else.

Strangely, Americans think they consist of two main races, when geneticists and other scientists can clearly see that there is huge genetic mingling.  The crazy ‘rule’ is that if you have one drop of ‘black blood’, then you’re considered Black.  (Remember, all Whites are descended from Blacks.)

George Washington Carver, the Peanut Thing, And Creativity
Every year in black history month people solemnly drag out George Washington Carver and praise him for inventing peanut butter.  Don’t get me wrong, black scientists and inventors have done amazing things, but it is really strange to ignore all the other things Blacks have done for America and the world.

In addition to genetic mingling, Blacks have produced profound cultural mingling.  Blacks are not an afterthought to American culture, to a large extent they ARE American culture.  Name me one truly American cultural thing that was not invented by blacks.  Not so easy, eh?

Ragtime, The Blues, Jazz, Scat, Swing, Gospel, Motown, R&B, Rock and Roll, HipHop, Ska, Rap, all Black inventions.  Michael Jackson almost single-handedly invented the music video as we now know it.  And Blacks are not done inventing music and entertainment, we can expect more in the coming centuries.  For them it’s not so much a business as it is a Weltanchauung, a philosophy of life.  So after we have listed all the music that American Blacks invented, is there anything that we can attribute to White Americans?  Hmm, let’s see, there must be something... um, how about Neo-Celtic?

Fashion and design spawns another long list of Black innovations, including Zoot-Suits, wing-tips, dashikis, dreadlocks, Afros, corn-rows, pimped-out-cars, etcetera etcetera.  As you can see in the photo, Capri pants may not have been invented BY Blacks, but they seem to have been invented FOR Blacks.

My central idea is that American Blacks and Whites are immensely creative.  American culture and innovation comes from taking all the races and sub-cultures in the country and rubbing them together vigorously.  Then things start to heat up.

Don’t Go There. Why not?
Some shocking revelations:

--Blacks have darker skins than Whites.  Calling them African-Americans won’t do anything except confuse the Egyptians.

–Again, Whites and Asians are minor genetic variations from the original basic Black.

–Every group of people on earth who have been studied are prone to racism.

–Someday most humans will be light brown.

–North Africans have lighter skins than other Africans because they intermarried with whites.  Some of those were white slaves they captured in Europe.  Yes, that’s right, Blacks took White slaves.

–Disaffected American freed slaves started the African country Liberia.  They made a mess of it, and Liberians are much worse off than American Blacks.

–If you’re Black or White, and you have no romantic interest in people of the other race, then in a very technical sense, that might be racist.  But let’s not be stupid about this.  Trying to be  politically correct about love is a mistake. You can’t make yourself love someone, and you shouldn’t even try.  If you have no romantic interest in someone, don’t date them, don’t marry them, and don’t bother worrying about it.

–Also, don’t have sex with someone of another skin tone because you’re drunk and the exotic look makes you horny.  Love is based on love.

–If you’re White, and you claim you’re not racist, but you won’t live in a black neighborhood, then just admit you’re racist.  Hypocrisy is an enormous waste of time and energy.

–Almost everywhere in the world, when men select a mate, they tend to prefer lighter skinned women.  It’s not clear why.  I don’t know how that plays out in Norway.  What if your wife is transparent?

–When you’re looking for the bad guy who did it, and you announce it on TV, if he’s black, say so.  You can even describe how black (or white) he is.

–No one is entitled to use victimhood to get things they don’t deserve.

--When you go to the beach with a few black and white friends, don’t pick up some bottles of SPF 30 suntan lotion for everyone.  You will look like a dork.

–Racism will probably continue indefinitely in some form.

–Laughing about race and ethnicity is good for you.  It breaks down virtual boundaries.

–It’s better to celebrate differences than hide from them.

-I'll leave you with this image.  It's a picture of a monkey that the local Malays call "white man" (Orang Belenda).  It does look a bit like Richard Nixon.

"Extinct" Jack Rabbit Still Hopping in Yellowstone; What Can We Learn From This?

Here we go again, with another "extinct" animal turning out to be -- oops! -- alive and well.

This time it was the white-tailed jack rabbits in Yellowstone.  They were claimed to be extinct in February . . .

. . . but were observed hopping around just fine in Yellowstone as recently as last week.

Penguin Baby Care

A cool picture from the Daily Mail, via Hot Air.  The brown chicks are corralled into large groups by their parents to keep them warm.

From the sky, it looks like a giant swirling frothy coffee.

Yet this scene shows an extraordinary community at work - thousands of king penguins instinctively herding their recently born young into giant huddles to stop them freezing to death.  . . . .

New Doomsday Seed Vault in Arctic

Scientists are building a "doomsday vault" for seeds in the Arctic, to re-grow food in case of a global catastrophe.

One Year Ago on GINA COBB: The Deadly Human Cost of Environmentalist Overkill

Originally published on February 23, 2007

The Deadly Human Cost of Environmentalist Overkill

Suzanne Fields has an interesting article at RealClearPolitics with some more "inconvenient truths" for Al Gore and environmentalists generally -- some that I had not heard before. 

Did you know that environmentalist objections to DDT, asbestos, and large steel and concrete "sea gates" have each ended up taking a human toll?:

But when politics, fashion and entertainment fuse with scientific "factoids," truth drowns in a flood of misinformation. In his new book, "Eco-Freaks," John Berlau, a policy director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank devoted to environmental policies, catalogs the tragic mistakes imposed on the rest of us by the environmentally correct. After Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring," DDT was banned nearly everywhere. Most of her "evidence" later turned out to be all wrong, but 2 million poor Africans die every year of malaria that DDT was on the way to eradicating. Al Gore, of course, blames global warming.

Asbestos, like DDT, gets a bad rap in the popular media, but nothing else comes close as a shield against heat. The original plans for the World Trade Center called for the interior steel in both towers to be covered with asbestos-based fireproofing material. Asbestos was eliminated when environmentalists objected. Engineers think the twin towers might be standing today but for the politically correct construction. Asbestos would have at least slowed the spread of the fire and the melting of the metal, giving hundreds of those who perished a chance to escape.

Suzanne Fields has an interesting article at RealClearPolitics with some more "inconvenient truths" for Al Gore and environmentalists generally -- some that I had not heard before. 

Did you know that environmentalist objections to DDT, asbestos, and large steel and concrete "sea gates" have each ended up taking a human toll?:

But when politics, fashion and entertainment fuse with scientific "factoids," truth drowns in a flood of misinformation. In his new book, "Eco-Freaks," John Berlau, a policy director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank devoted to environmental policies, catalogs the tragic mistakes imposed on the rest of us by the environmentally correct. After Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring," DDT was banned nearly everywhere. Most of her "evidence" later turned out to be all wrong, but 2 million poor Africans die every year of malaria that DDT was on the way to eradicating. Al Gore, of course, blames global warming.

Asbestos, like DDT, gets a bad rap in the popular media, but nothing else comes close as a shield against heat. The original plans for the World Trade Center called for the interior steel in both towers to be covered with asbestos-based fireproofing material. Asbestos was eliminated when environmentalists objected. Engineers think the twin towers might be standing today but for the politically correct construction. Asbestos would have at least slowed the spread of the fire and the melting of the metal, giving hundreds of those who perished a chance to escape.

The Stunning Sombrero Galaxy

By DemocracyRules

This is a real picture, taken by the Hubble telescope. This beautiful galaxy has a huge 'dust' ring around it, but it has very few stars in the center.  Instead, the core has a super-massive black hole. 

Black holes are like huge gravitational vacuum cleaners that suck matter in, and the vacuum bag gets VERY FULL (but very squished).  The core of the Sombrero Galaxy has a mass 1 billion times the mass of our sun.

This infra-red picture is just as striking.  Don't get too close, or it will be 'Adios muchachos'.

Petroleum May Be An Inexhaustible Resource

By DemocracyRules
h/t Small Dead Animals, NRO

The received wisdom has been that petroleum comes from ancient  simple life forms. 

However there have been theories circulating for a long time that petroleum does not originate from living organisms.  These theorists have argued that the basic chemical constituents of petroleum may originate deep in the earth.  These may percolate upwards, and the molecules may interact with life forms, but they could be inorganic (abiotic) in origin.

A new scientific study provides support for the abiotic theory.  However, even if petroleum comes from certain rocks interacting at certain temperatures and pressures, we could still run out of it.  Maybe it takes a long time for the earth to make it.

But as we learn more about how abiotic petroleum originates, we may be able to develop efficient ways to make it ourselves from scratch.

Global Warming and the Hard, Cold Facts

The case for global warming is cooling down rapidly.  Don Surber summarizes the hard, cold facts:

Al Gore: My Ice Caps Are Melting, Melting! Ohhhhh, What a World, What a World!

Alan Caruba at Canada Free Press writes:

Just how crazy is Al Gore? That was the question that popped, once again, into my brain as I read a January 24 Agence France Press news story out of the Davos meeting of business and political elite. Gore asserted that, “the North Pole ice caps may disappear entirely during summer months within five years…”

I was instantly reminded of the story that ran in The New York Times in August 2000 claiming that the Pole was free of ice for the first time in 50 million years. It wasn’t, of course, because people who have actually been to the Arctic quickly noted that, in the summer, some ice actually does melt there. The Times retracted it three weeks later.

This kind of apocalyptic nonsense has been ratcheting upward ever since the new century began and my theory is that lunatics like Al Gore know that they are running out of time when it comes to imposing draconian restrictions on the use of every form of energy known to mankind. This is the purpose of the global warming hoax.

The Times later published another story about Arctic ice loss, adding the equally bogus issue of polar bears dying as the result. Currently, Greens are trying to get polar bears declared an “endangered species” in order to close off all of Alaska to any exploration or the extraction of the billions of barrels of oil known to exist there.

The problem with this latest ploy is that the polar bear population has risen from approximately 5,000 in 1950 to around 25,000 today as documented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is the same agency being asked to declare the bears endangered and, for good measure, a species of loon as well. 

Scientists Decide Global Warming Is PREVENTING the Next Devastating Hurricane Season

This is hilarious.

After a couple of quiet hurricane seasons -- despite all the prophesies of gloom and doom by global warming alarmists -- some scientists have decided that warmer seas (caused by global warming) may actually result in fewer Altantic hurricanes:

Following in the footsteps of an earlier study, government scientists on Tuesday said warmer oceans should translate to fewer Atlantic hurricanes striking the United States.

The reason: As sea surface temperatures warm globally, sustained vertical wind shear increases. Wind shear makes it difficult for storms to form and grow.

"Using data extending back to the middle 19th century, we found a gentle decrease in the trend of U.S. landfalling hurricanes when the global ocean is warmed up," Chunzai Wang, a physical oceanographer and climate scientist with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, said in a prepared statement.

Sang-Ki Lee, of the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies at the University of Miami, worked with Wang on the study. Their findings are to be published on Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The study found that the warming of the Pacific and Indian oceans plays an important role in determining hurricane activity in the Atlantic.

A study released in December found that as the Atlantic basin becomes hotter, hurricane intensity likely won't increase and might even deflate somewhat. That study found that ocean's heat acts to stabilize the upper atmosphere, which, in turn, hurts a storm's ability to build.

It was conducted by Gabriel Vecchi, a NOAA research oceanographer and Brian Soden, an associate professor of oceanography at the University of Miami.

Several other studies have asserted that global warming is steadily increasing the intensity, duration and number of tropical systems. For instance, Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found the combined power of Atlantic hurricanes has more than doubled since 1970.

Regarding the most recent study, Wang said vertical wind shear is not the only factor that determines Atlantic hurricane activity, but noted it is an important one. Other factors include atmospheric humidity, sea level pressure, and sea surface temperature, he said.

Observations from 1854 to 2006 show almost all the world's oceans have warmed, particularly in large areas of the tropical regions of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans, the study found. That warming has increased vertical wind shear in the Atlantic and suppressed hurricane activity, the NOAA study found.

It will be particularly funny if this finding precedes a busy hurricane season.

In the meantime, let's all pretend that this latest "study" isn't just as much of wild guess as the previous "studies."  Let's celebrate the fact that manmade global warming is saving Americans -- and everyone else along the Atlantic hurricane zone -- from devastating hurricane seasons!

Imagine the horrors and devastation that will result if Al Gore gets his way and America manages to greatly reduce carbon emissions.  Will there be anything left of Florida?

Yay for global warming!

New Poll on Global Warming

By DemocracyRules

Please choose all that you agree with
	There is a global climate
	I’m sure global warming is occurring
	I’m NOT sure global warming is occurring
	I’m sure global warming is NOT occurring
	Global warming is caused by humans
	Millions will die from global warming
	Polar bears are endangered
	Humans can stop global warming
	Adapting may be better than trying to stop warming
	Scientists agree that human-caused global warming is a crisis
	I read this survey and answered at least one other question
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Global Warming Comes to Iraq

Or was it the first snowfall in recent memory?

Either way, I'm sure such freak weather portends impending climate disaster and we need a large global bureaucracy to deal with it.

Right?

No Convincing Evidence for Decline in Tropical Forests

By DemocracyRules

UN Research is Wrong Again

Environmentalists bewail the loss of tropical rain forests.  It turns out their concerns are misplaced.

Dr Alan Grainger, a researcher at the University of Leeds, has examined the evidence, published  Jan 8, 2008  in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences.  He concludes that forest loss may or may not be occurring.  He could not find enough evidence to tell, even when he used the best data he could find.  This applies to temperate, tropical, and dry forests.  UN data (from the FAO) does not show a net decline in forests.

“The picture is far more complicated than previously thought... If there is no long-term net decline it suggests that deforestation is being accompanied by a lot of natural reforestation that we have not spotted.”

"What is happening to the tropical forests is so important, both to the peoples of tropical countries and to future trends in biodiversity and global climate, that we can no longer put off investing in an independent scientific monitoring programme that can combine satellite and ground data to give a reliable picture,” he said.

Dr. Grainger’s study will probably have influence because he is a well-known expert on tropical deforestation.  Previous studies have also shown complex trends in deforestation and forestation. 

Dr. Grainger’s findings will also influence global warming research, because growing forests soak up carbon dioxide.

Al Gore Is Afraid of Summer

It's the big picture that Al Gore and other global warming alarmists miss:  This beautiful Earth is always changing. 

The naturally-occurring past and future global climate changes of Planet Earth dwarf anything currently keeping the global warming worriers awake at night:

Gore erroneously assumes that current conditions on earth are the natural state. Even a cursory study of the earth would reveal that nothing related to the earth is constant. Continents move, the oceans rise and fall, glaciers advance and retreat, the magnetic poles have moved and reversed, the composition of the atmosphere has varied and the earth's temperature has warmed and cooled. All of these events occurred without any human influence.  . . . .      

Fossilized kelp and fossils of ocean creatures have been found at altitudes over 5000 feet above the current sea level. We know the kelp and sea creatures lived in the oceans so either the land was pushed up or the oceans receded. Either scenario makes the global warming doomsday predictions laughable. The sea level changes predicted by these global warming zealots are dwarfed by previous variations of sea level changes.

Ice cores have established the existence of at least 17 Ice Age Cycles in just the past 2 million years. During those Ice Ages Cycles, glaciers several thousand feet thick came as far south as the mid U.S. Each Ice Age Cycle lasted about 100,000 years separated by an interglacial warming period of about 10,000 years. We are in an interglacial period now, so another Ice Age is a safe bet.

The north and south magnetic poles wander independently and it been theorized that the north and south magnetic poles have reversed numerous times. The last reversal occurred about 740,000 years ago. Evidence of these reversals is recorded in the magnetism of ancient rocks. The sun also reverses poles but on a more predictable cycle. The next reversal of the sun's magnetic poles will be in 2012. The earth's pole reversals are unpredictable and many scientists feel another magnetic pole reversal is overdue. A reversal of the earth's magnetic poles would be far more serious than the predicted rise in the earth's temperature of 2 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years.

Despite Al Gore's contention that the CO2 in the atmosphere is approaching dangerous levels, scientists tell us that CO2 levels have been as high as 15 times the current level of about 380 parts per million (ppm) and levels of about 5 times the current level were common. The current level of 380 ppm is like comparing the contents of an eye dropper to a swimming pool. Plants thrived at the higher CO2 levels and varying CO2 levels aren't harmful to plants, animals, or humans.

Dr. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist from the University of Virginia, summed up these Inconvenient Truths this way. Singer said, "We have to remember that the climate has always been changing ever since we have records, and we have geologic records going back millions and millions of years. We know that there have been huge climate changes on the earth long before human beings actually came into existence."

Global temperature changes are natural to this planet.  Being afraid of global climate change is like being afraid of summer.

Al Gore is afraid of summer.

Global Warming Zombies in Bali

Christopher Monckton reports from Bali:

The zombies seem listlessly incapable of checking even the most elementary facts. Take Yvo de Boer, the UN archpriest at the conference. He made an impassioned speech saying that the sceptics had had their day and that everyone now accepted that, for instance, the island nations of the Pacific were facing an imminent threat from rising sea levels. Er, no. Corals have been around for 275 million years. They’ve survived temperatures up to 7 degrees Celsius warmer than today’s. And has it never occurred to the poor sap to wonder why, after a rise of 400 feet in sea level over the past 10,000 years, the sea has – by some startling concidence – exactly reached the surface of all the coral atolls?

No, it’s not a coincidence, because corals grow to meet the light. They can outpace at least ten times the Holy Books’ high-end estimate of sea-level rise, which is anyway down by a third since just six years ago. We know this, because the mean centennial rate of sea-level rise since the end of the last Ice Age has been – get this – at least double the high priests’ highest estimate of future sea-level rise. Nine-tenths of the land-based ice sheets of the world have already melted. There’s so little left that even if it began to melt (which it won’t) the rise in sea level would be very, very slow.

The new Australian prime minister got a dutiful round of applause from the zombies when he announced that his first official act had been to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. He didn’t tell them that back home he’d also let it be known that Australia had not the slightest intention of complying with the protocol. But then, practically no one else is complying with it either.

For me, it was this laughable disconnection between rhetoric and reality that was the most striking feature of the conference. Anyone with half a brain can see, after making the most elementary of enquiries, that greenhouse gases can’t have all that much effect on temperature, that even if they did the consequences would be minimal and largely beneficial. For this reason – since Heaven has a sense of humour – global temperature has now been stubbornly failing to rise for the best part of a decade, and (unless you’re James Hansen, who started the scare in the first place) 2007 will yet again fail to be a “record year for temperature” – and the zombies go back only 150 years.

Since CO2 can’t be exercising more than a minuscule influence on temperature, and since the temperature is accordingly failing to rise as predicted (or, in the past seven years, at all), the entire conference was unnecessary, but the zombies didn’t know, and they didn’t care, and – either way – they were getting rich at taxpayers’ expense thanks to the most elaborately-conceived scare of modern times.

Bryan Leyland, the leader of our delegation and an engineer far too highly-qualified to be an IPCC reviewer, asked the IPCC lead author how many more years of temperatures failing to rise as predicted would convince him to give up the pretence that the IPCC’s predictions have any connection with reality. Answer came there none.

I had a quiet word with the US delegation before the conference began, just to confirm that they were not about to go soft and goofy as Australia has done. A solidly-constructed Congressman gave me the clear message that as long as George Bush was in the White House there would be no nonsense. That meant that both this conference and the next one – at Poznan in Poland this time next year – will merely mark time until President Bush isn’t. Nothing can happen until Copenhagen in two years’ time.

I also said Konichi-wa to the Japanese delegation, whose members diligently turned up half an hour before each session, while the rest were still drying out their hangovers. They politely read our daily messages to delegates, and joined the US and Canada as the pariahs of the conference, refusing to shuffle along with the zombies.

Read it all here.

__________________________________

Related:  BLUB-BLUBS in BALI