I am ending my subscription to National Geographic this year because of the magazine’s insistence on shoving global warming down my throat.

Today’s article about global cooling by National Geographic Online caught my attention:

A prolonged lull in solar activity has astrophysicists glued to their telescopes waiting to see what the sun will do next—and how Earth’s climate might respond.

The sun is the least active it’s been in decades and the dimmest in a hundred years. The lull is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age, an unusual cold spell in Europe and North America, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850.

The coldest period of the Little Ice Age, between 1645 and 1715, has been linked to a deep dip in solar storms known as the Maunder Minimum.

During that time, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice, and canals in Holland routinely froze solid. Glaciers in the Alps engulfed whole villages, and sea ice increased so much that no open water flowed around Iceland in the year 1695.

To summarize, the first part of this article explains how the Little Ice Age corresponds to a lack of solar activity. Then this:

But researchers are on guard against their concerns about a new cold snap being misinterpreted.

“[Global warming] skeptics tend to leap forward,” said Mike Lockwood, a solar terrestrial physicist at the University of Southampton in the U.K. []

He and other researchers are therefore engaged in what they call “preemptive denial” of a solar minimum leading to global cooling.

Even if the current solar lull is the beginning of a prolonged quiet, the scientists say, the star’s effects on climate will pale in contrast with the influence of human-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2).

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.” (emphasis added.)

Since when do real scientists form “preemptive” conclusions? The scientific model requires hypothesis, followed by experimentation to confirm or deny the hypothesis. Moreover, a hypothesis is only good until a single a single counterexample is found, at which time a new hypothesis is formed to account for the new observation.

For example, in the 17th century Newton proposed a set of laws of physics termed, appropriately, Newtonian Physics. The laws were based on observation. However, Einstein’s work disproved the Newtonian laws. Turns out, Newtonian Physics are a reasonable approximation for low speed mechanical systems. At high speed (i.e., approaching the speed of light), Newton Physics break down and do not behave as Newton’s model predicts. Einstein revised the Newtonian hypothesis and suggested that the Newtonian model needed to account for relativity. In the face of conflicting evidence, Einstein revised the hypothesis.

Compare that to these so-called researchers. In the face of conflicting evidence, they are standing by the old model and preemptively coming up with reasons (not experimental results) to support the old hypothesis. Is that how we conduct science now? This activity is referred to as data mining by honest researchers. Data mining starts with the conclusion and builds evidence to support it (real science works the opposite direction). In so doing, a data miner typically throws out data that doesn’t support the conclusion or rationalizes why the data understates or overstates their desired position.

What is the evidence that these researchers are missing? The article spells it out in a simple syllogism. First, the article points out the lack of solar activity over the last few years (see my prior post in support of this hypothesis). It is then pointed out that a solar minimum likely contributed to the Little Ice Age. The logical conclusion then, is that because low solar activity is observed now, then we should observe a period of cooling (which we are), supporting a reasonable hypothesis that the sun has a strong effect on global climate change.

Note, the so-called National Geographic researchers point out that the sun’s activity is only “a few hundredths of one percent down,”  compared with the doubling of CO2. They fail to mention that CO2 in our atmosphere makes up 0.0383% of the atmospheric gasses. Double that, and you get an astounding 0.0766% of our atmosphere, an increase of a few hundredths of one percent!

Notice that by framing the decrease in solar output in terms of “a few hundredths of one percent” and the purported increase in CO2 in terms of “double,” it seems as thought the CO2 phenomena is a more pronounced change, even though the relative amount of both the purported change of CO2 in the atmosphere and the change in solar output can be reduced to the same, meaningless pile of words that don’t say anything about anything unless they are placed in the proper context, together with other influencing variables.

To wit, these researchers should spend more time in the lab revising the global warming hypothesis and testing it, than arguing why the prior hypotheses are still valid in the face of evidence that appears to be providing the single counterexample to invalidate the old hypothesis.

Of course, the real motivation is money. Without money they can’t do science, and the money doesn’t flow freely to those who question the religion of global warming, especially now that it appears our Federal Government is pushing the pro-global warming agenda wholeheartedly. As I have said before, science and politics arewater and oil — if we are going to do science like this, let’s make up whatever scientific conclusions are politically expedient in the day and save the money that would otherwise be used to produce the data-mined results that support whatever preconceived conclusions that put the most money and influence into the pockets of the pols.

My Aunt Liz pointed mt to this New York Times article on the reaction to Susan Boyle. Of course, the NYT can’t have a single article without singing praise to our Commander-in-Chief. That aside, the article is interesting because it provides an explanation as to why we stereotype and make snap first impression judgments.

I contend, however, that the baser instincts that are alluded to in the article are the “animal” part of us. The goal, at least from a religious point of view, is to put the animal aside and become human (a saint). On the other hand, there is a certain sense about stereotypes — especially where it comes to fast recognition of danger.

When I have been introduced to people in the past, I usually end up most interested in friendship with the people that I initially am least “attracted to.” Not attracted in a boy-girl sense, but attracted in a this person looks funny or cool sense. I am attracted to the cool people, but have the most in common once I cut through the first impression with the people who have the most substance. That probably says something about me: I think I’m cool, but really I am just a garden variety dork.

For a long time, I believed the core principle of the environmental movement was population control. Don’t get me wrong, I am about as conservationist as it comes. I love the outdoors, and I believe in good stewardship (i.e., we can still both protect certain areas of the forest, while at the same time allowing responsible logging).

But this …

COUPLES who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government’s green adviser has warned.

Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming . He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population.

First, the science supporting global warming is suspect. Politics and science have never made good allies if we want to get to the heart of the science. More and more officials and studies are finally coming out questioning the science of global warming.

I digress. Here, in all its unabashed glory, is a person spouting the central theme of the environmental movement. Contraception and abortion?!? Heart of the fight?!?

Another post will have to get into detail about the faulty assumptions here. Suffice to say, depopulation is a much graver problem than global warming or environmentalism. Our economies, our lifestyles, and modern day society is dependent upon population growth. With 6 billion plus people, has anybody starved because we can’t produce enough? No. The world produces plenty of food, and always has. So what exactly is the "unbearable burden?"

I have to admit that astrophysics intrigues me. In my last semester of college, I took Astronomy, which turned out to be one of my favorite classes. Later, I read Stephen Hawkins "A Brief History of Time." Perhaps my interest in astrophysics is because so many of the theories seem like the stuff of science fiction (dark matter, string theory, etc.), not the stuff "real" science is based on. Yet, the theories are proved mathematically and updated as the evidence is gathered and theories are disproven.

The below article caught my interest. Scientists suggest that the Copernican assumption that there is nothing special about planet Earth or our solar system may be wrong. Instead, Earth may be in a special "bubble" of space-time that biases our observations of phenomena outside of the bubble.

As a person who believes in creationism (I also believe in evolution), I don’t have a problem with a theory postulating that our solar system is special because it was specially created for us by God.

Scientists: Earth May Exist in Giant Cosmic Bubble

If the notion of dark energy sounds improbable, get ready for an even more outlandish suggestion.

Earth may be trapped in an abnormal bubble of space-time that is particularly devoid of matter.

Scientists say this condition could account for the apparent acceleration of the universe’s expansion, for which dark energy currently is the leading explanation.

Dark energy is the name given to the hypothetical force that could be drawing all the stuff in the universe outward at an ever-increasing rate.

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One problem with the void idea, though, is that it negates a principle that has reigned in astronomy for more than 450 years: namely, that our place in the universe isn’t special .

When Nicholas Copernicus argued that it made much more sense for the Earth to be revolving around the sun than vice versa, it revolutionized science.

Since then, most theories have to pass the Copernican test. If they require our planet to be unique, or our position to be exalted, the ideas often seem unlikely.

"This idea that we live in a void would really be a statement that we live in a special place," Clifton told SPACE.com. "The regular cosmological model is based on the idea that where we live is a typical place in the universe. This would be a contradiction to the Copernican principle."

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Full Article (Underlining Added)