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News

Are polar ice caps really melting due to global warming?

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This post is old, please take a look at some of my newer posts

Are global warming alarmists wrong?

Consider this article from The Australian: (H/T Watts Up With That)

ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent’s western coast.

Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth’s ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilisation of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.

However, the picture is very different in east Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia.

East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week’s meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown “significant cooling in recent decades”.

And here’s the graph that goes with the findings:

Source: Cryosphere Today
Source: Cryosphere Today

Why are global warming alarmists wrong?

Now we know that they’re wrong. Why are they wrong? Well, maybe I should start by showing that the media is cherry-picking data in order to delude the public. This post by Anthony Watts which explains how the media deliberately recycles the images and stories about imminent climate catastrophes. This time, it’s about a vast antarctic shelf that’s about to collapse.

Only one problem. It was just about to collapse last year, but the media is re-using the the same scary stock photo and story again this year and telling us again that it’s just about to collapse.

Excerpt:

Those masters of disaster are at it again, and it appears our friendly scientists at that National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) help this story along each year.

…It seems that not only is the photography recycled, so is the storyline. It seems to happen every year, about this time. Note the photos show shear failure and cracks, not melted ice. Shear failure is mostly mechanical-stress related, though ice does tend to be more brittle at colder temperatures.

National Geographic reported this story headline last year, March 25th 2008.

…From the Nat Geo story:

“[It’s] an event we don’t get to see very often,” Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, said in a press statement.

Now, how is it that an ice shelf breaks up in the spring of 2008 and again in the spring of 2009 and it’s “not very often”? Hmmm.

Watts goes on in his post to take a look at how much the ice shelf has really changed over the years (it hasn’t) and whether the air temperatures have gotten warmer (theyhaven’t) such that the air would be causing cracks. So all we really have is a scary re-used photo and a lot of propaganda.

What are the economic effects of policies based on global warming alarmism

Well, to start with, we’re going to lose a lot of jobs, due to increase taxation and regulation of “the rich” and “greedy corporations”. And, the EPA is going to raise consumer energy prices and put American money in the pockets of terrorists, by curtailing domestic energy production. And, we’re going to waste tons and tons of taxpayer money subsidizing corporations to be “green”.

The good news: public opinion is shifting away from global warming alarmism

A recent Rasmussen Reports poll shows that there is hope. (H/T The Chilling Effect)

Global Warming is Primarily Caused By…
Date Human activity Planetary Trends Other Reason
Apr 09 34% 48% 7%
Mar 09 41% 43% 7%
Feb 09 38% 45% 7%
Jan 09 44% 41% 7%
Dec 08 43% 43% 6%
Apr 08 47% 34% 8%

So at least we’re slowly winning the battle for truth. Unfortunately, Obama has got until 2010 until he can be challenged in the mid-term elections.

r.

News

Round-up of stories on adult stem cell research and abortion

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As you know, Obama is making scientific progress and patient care take a back-seat to feminist ideology. He appeases his pro-abortion special interest groups by wasting money on unproven embryonic stem cell research, while neglecting proven therapies based on adult stem cell research. Who cares about patient liberty and curing diseases?

Let’s take a look and see what adult stem cells can do.

UPI reports that adult stem cells can revert to an embryonic state.

U.S. scientists say they have, for the first time, returned adult mouse cells to their embryonic pluripotent state, meaning they can become any cell type.

The University of California-San Francisco researchers said they used tiny molecules called microRNAs to reprogram the cells.

The achievement suggests scientists will soon be able to replace retroviruses and even genes currently used in laboratory experiments to induce pluripotency in adult cells. The researchers said that would make potential stem cell-based therapies safer by eliminating risks posed to humans by these DNA-based methods, including alteration of the genome and risk of cancer.

Adult stem cells provide solutions for stroke victims.

The good news continues to flow about the first stroke patient successfully treated in Houston using the patient’s own adult stem cells. The patient, Roland Henrich, was originally admitted to the emergency room at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center on March 25, 2009 with signs of stroke–he could not speak and had significant weakness on his right side. Because it was beyond the few hours window for use of the clot-dissolving drug TPA, the adult stem cell trial was his only option. The next day some of his bone marrow was removed, the adult stem cells separated, and returned intravenously to the patient. In less than a week doctors noted that he was recovering remarkably well and had not shown any signs of paralysis. Within 11 days of the treatment Mr. Henrich was walking, climbing stairs unassisted, and said his first word after the stroke, captured on a local news video and surprising his own doctor and leader of the clinical trial, Dr. Sean Savitz. His wife says now he has spoken several single words and phrases and has fed the cows by himself.

Adult stem cells provide solutions for infertile women.

Chinese scientists have published a study in Nature Cell Biology that suggests even older females retain adult stem cells that can stimulate fertility, including the production of more eggs. The evidence is in contrast to the usual dogma that women have a finite number of immature eggs, some of which mature and are ovulated, and that the number of eggs becomes depleted with age. Tilly et al. recently reviewed the evidence for and against production of new eggs after birth. Tilly’s group was one of those recently to challenge the dogma with evidence that new egg production could occur in mammals.

What the Chinese group showed is that ovaries contain stem cells that can produce more eggs, similar to the stem cells in testes that produce sperm.

Adult stem cells provide solutions for healing bones.

Patients confined to wheelchairs have been able to walk or live independently again because their broken bones finally healed, thanks to a drug that stimulates their adult stem cells. Preliminary results presented at the Orthopaedic Research Society meeting found 93% of those with an unhealed bone fracture had significant healing and pain control after treatment for only 8 to 12 weeks. Half of the 145 patients studied had non-healing fractures for 6 months or longer. The drug, teriparatide (Forteo), was approved by the FDA in 2002 for treatment of osteoporosis. A team led by Dr. J. Edward Puzas at the University of Rochester Medical Center discovered that this drug can also boost the body’s bone adult stem cell production to the point that adults’ bones appear to heal at a rate typically seen for young kids.

Adult stem cells provide solutions for diabetes.

Another success for adult stem cells, again treating Type I (juvenile) diabetes patients. As reported in a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 20 of 23 patients became insulin-independent after treatment with their own bone marrow adult stem cells. This report is a follow-up to the previous report by Voltarelli & Burt in 2007, and includes new patients as well as a longer period to follow the patients. Some of the patients have gone for four years insulin-free. The authors note in the paper that this adult stem cell treatment “remains the only treatment capable of reversing type 1 diabetes in humans.”

Adult stem cells provide solutions for treating ligaments and tendons

Recent news from London that adult stem cells will be used to repair damaged tendons and ligaments in patients. This isn’t really a new technique, but the interesting thing is that the technique is now used routinely in horses and other animals. Finally, the realization has hit that this adult stem cell treatment might work for people, too. More than 1,500 race horses have been treated using the same process, and follow-up data suggest a 50 percent reduction in re-injury over a three year period, compared with conventional treatment.

We don’t need to kill innocent unborn humans in order to make medical progress. We don’t need an excess of 32 million males due to anti-female sex-selection abortions. And we don’t need to subsidize Planned Parenthood with 350 million dollars when they already have net assets of 1 billion dollars.

And lastly, some good news. In contrast to the Democrats anti-life stance, Republicans in the Oklahoma legislature voted to ban embryonic stem cell research. Now that’s progress.

News

Michelle Malkin takes on Nancy Pelosi’s dismissal of tea party protests

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The Weekly Standard, citing Roll Call, reports on Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s explanation for the 800+ Tax Day protests.

Excerpt from the Roll Call article: (H/T Gateway Pundit)

But in an interview on Fox TV in San Francisco, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) chalked up the GOP grass-roots effort as “AstroTurf.”

“This initiative is funded by the high end; we call it AstroTurf, it’s not really a grass-roots movement. It’s AstroTurf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class,” Pelosi said.

Other House Democratic leaders took a different tack: One senior aide has been circulating a document to the media that debunks the effort as one driven by corporate lobbyists and attended by neo-Nazis…

In addition, the tea parties are “not really all about average citizens,” the document continues, saying neo-Nazis, militias, secessionists and racists are attending them. The tea parties are also not peaceful, since reporters in Cincinnati had to seek “police protection” during one of the events, it states.

The Weekly Standard responds to Pelosi:

The suggestions that these tea parties are driven by DC-based groups is laughable; Liz Mair takes a critical look and concludes the charge is baseless. Besides the points that Mair makes, it’s worth noting that while there have been dozens of tea parties, few have featured conservative candidates or representatives of DC think tanks and lobbying groups.

As far as the charge that these rallies are composed of Nazis and terrorists, that’s hard to reconcile with the pictures of participants. There are too many young children and grandparents. Further, even a strong Obama supporter like Susan Roesgen didn’t turn up any violent types at the Chicago Tea Party, despite her best attempt to provoke a strong reaction.

And then they ask about the groups and sponsors of left-wing rallies:

If this is a conversation they want to have, however, perhaps Ms. Pelosi can explain the role of Marxists and North Korean sympathizers in the U.S. anti-war movement, or discuss how George Soros bought such influence in the Democratic party. It’s not a debate that would help Democrats, since it’s relatively easy to show the role of fringe extremists in the Democratic grassroots.

That’s all well and good, but commentary is better when Michelle Malkin is the commenter:

And Michelle has a lot more photos and videos from the various protests, too.