Climate Change Not a Political Issue Anymore Except For Mainstream Media

December 10, 2010 06:50


Most of the public realizes the global warming and climate change due to human produced CO2 deception is over. Everyday more evidence both scientific and political events cause more people to change their view.

By Dr. Tim Ball

Most of the public realizes the global warming and climate change due to human produced CO2 deception is over. Everyday more evidence both scientific and political events cause more people to change their view. Change, if not to opposition, is at least to reassessment. It appears some of the political leaders are aware and backing off from the potentially disastrous policies such as Kyoto. Ironically, and almost symbolically, Japan announced their opposition at the Cancun climate conference.

Other countries including the US, Canada and Russia want a new treaty mostly related to changing the transfer of payments while continuing to reduce CO2 production. There was quick and united opposition to Japan’s move. “The move prompted an angry response from developing nations and NGOs who accused Japan of trying to kill the Kyoto Protocol.”

Climate change policies and discussions from Conference of the Parties (COP) 1 in Berlin through to COP 16 in Cancun were about transfer of wealth

This action and reaction further confirm that climate change policies and discussions from Conference of the Parties (COP) 1 in Berlin through to COP 16 in Cancun were about transfer of wealth.

Most people have moved on in a range of ways. Some pay no more attention, others monitor enough to reconfirm their view that it is a deception and some pursue action to reverse the damage. One group continues as if the exposed corruption of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the false science and machinations revealed in the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), the ongoing failure of IPCC and national weather agency predictions, and record cold around the world don’t exist. As they say there are none so blind as those who will not see and the blindest of all are the mainstream media. They continue to publish a steady stream of hysterical, out of context articles all related to climate change.

Recently the Huffington Post had this headline. Siberia’s Climate Time Bomb: Thawing Permafrost Could Spell Disaster.

A similar story appeared earlier in the Guardian claiming Arctic permafrost leaking methane at record levels, figures show.

It’s a story that fits the criteria of all these scare stories. It’s a little known subject in a remote area that threatens plants, animals and ultimately the entire planet.

Permafrost is often incorrectly defined as frozen soil. Actually it’s the water in the soil that is frozen and it covers approximately 22.79 million square kilometers mostly in the Northern Hemisphere (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Northern Hemisphere extent of permafrost. Source:

The depth of permafrost increases toward the Pole and in the large river basins of the Lena and Yana rivers in Russia reaches 1493 m (Figure 2).

Permafrost is classified as continuous or discontinuous. The area of discontinuous permafrost is also defined as a relict, that is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon, because it was left over from the last Ice Age. Generally, if thawed out by injection of heat, it doesn’t refreeze. Continuous permafrost refreezes.

Each year the surface layer of soil thaws to varying depths depending on latitude. This is called the active layer and because it is saturated soil sitting on the underlying permafrost it moves easily and creates some remarkable ground patterns.

Figure 2: Cross section from 60°N (N.Alberta) to the Arctic Ocean.  Source:

It is part of the consideration for building and living in permafrost areas. Heat from the building can thaw the permafrost and the building sinks. Even preventing the thaw doesn’t prevent the constant heaving caused by the freeze thaw cycle. Figure 3 shows the Hudson’s Bay Company post at York Factory on the bank of the Nelson River where it flows into Hudson Bay. It is reputedly the largest oldest wooden building on permafrost anywhere in the world. It survives because they dug drainage to remove excess summer melt water round the walls, but more important, they made the building flexible.  Walls and floors were hinged so movement in one didn’t cause stress in the other.

Figure 3: Hudson’s Bay Company Post at York Factory

They maintained a large garden by fencing off an area to keep out animals and removing the snow from the first of April on. This allowed the Active layer to thaw out quicker and the minute it was thawed to 6 inches they planted the crop.

An interesting problem created by permafrost at York Factory is that some 80 percent of the people in the cemetery died from smallpox. (Figure 4) When the government started removing vegetation the active layer increased in depth and threatened to thaw out the bodies and possibly release the smallpox into a world from which it is supposedly eliminated.

Figure 4: Cemetery at York Factory on Hudson Bay

The argument that permafrost is thawing and warrants exploiting, parallels the sea level rising scare. Both are a function of the general warming trend of the last 18,000 years as the Earth emerged from the last Ice Age.

They want to make an issue of the thawing because it can replace the failing focus on CO2 with methane. The 2007 IPCC Report did not consider methane at all. The Huffington Post said it’s because, “awareness of methane leaks from permafrost is so new…” This is nonsense. It wasn’t considered because they only look at human causes. Methane is a greenhouse gas and rather than mention the amount Huffington distorts the picture by saying it is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, which is a questionable figure in itself. Actually, methane is only 0.36 percent of total greenhouse gases.

Like carbon dioxide we have little knowledge of natural sources of methane and how they vary so it is impossible to determine any additions due to human activities. For example, they only recently identified tropical forests as a major source.

A few years ago they were blaming cows for increased production, but before that it was an increased number of beaver ponds because of decline in fur trapping. Even earlier it was an increase in termites because of land use changes. All have been summarily dismissed, the latter because they had miscalculated by a factor of four the number of termites.

The entire scare of thawing permafrost and rising levels of methane is based on the incorrect global warming predictions of the IPCC. The large amount of permafrost that has melted since the end of the Ice Age is not considered a factor even in natural factors. The thaw of that area frozen under the ice will continue for some time because it is delayed as the ground insulates. After that the permafrost line will approximate the line of annual deficit of energy.

The mainstream media continues to cry wolf about climate issues. But just as the village people stopped listening to the shepherd boy so people will stop listening or reading. That appears to be happening now as they lose customers monthly. By the time they realize the bigger story is the level of deception it will be too late for them to report, but that will be far from a catastrophe.

Dr. Tim Ball is a renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg.  Dr. Ball employs his extensive background in climatology and other fields as an advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition, Friends of Science and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Dr. Ball is a regular contributor to usACTIONnews.com

Dr. Ball can be reached at: Letters@canadafreepress.com

Older articles by Dr. Tim Ball

This article originally posted at and copyrighted by Canada Free Press. Used by permission.



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