Gore to throw insults on 60 minutes

27 03 2008

There will be a story featuring Al Gore and his climate views on CBS 60 minutes this weekend. Normally I don’t pay much heed to this program, but Gore is publicly calling those who question the science “…almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat…”.

To me, a person who has at one time been fully engaged in the belief that CO2 was indeed the root cause of the global warming problem, I find Gore’s statements insulting. In 1990 after hearing what James Hansen and others had to say, I helped to arrange a national education campaign for TV meteorologists nationwide (ironically with CBS’s help) on the value of planting trees to combat the CO2 issue. I later changed my thinking when I learned more about the science involved and found it to be lacking.

I’ve never made a call to action on media reporting before on this blog, but this cannot go unchallenged.

The press release from CBS on the upcoming story on Gore is below. You can visit the CBS website here and post comments:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/27/60minutes/main3974389.shtml

See the video clip here

But let’s also let the producer, Richard Bonin, know (via their communications contact) what you think about it, as I did when Scott Pelley aired a whole hour long special telling us Antarctica was melting. They did no follow up.

Kevin Tedesco KEV@cbsnews.com
Director, CBS News Communications (”60 Minutes”)
That email is listed on the CBS website, so it is fair to send comments to it. In fact, here is a contact list they have on their website where you can comment about this story. I feel it is important to respond and to spread the word to others. While I have not seen the video segment, let us hope that it has some semblance of balance, because the press release certainly does not.



Comments : 241 Comments »

Categories : Announcements, climate_change

UPDATED: New sunspots, but still solar cycle 23 spots

27 03 2008
    solar_mdi_032708.jpg 
    Click for magnified view of the sun showing the most recent spot.

Sunspot 987, 988, and now newly emerging 989 are shown above.

With all being near the equator, they are still a cycle 23 spots. A cycle 24 spot would be at a much higher latitude.

The most recent magnetogram shows them to have the magnetic polarity of cycle 23 spots, in addition to being near the equator.

solar_magentogram_032708.png

Cycle 24 remains late. There was one sunspot of high latitude and reversed magnetic polarity on January 4th, 2008, but none have been seen since:

reversed_sunspot_010408.jpg
Click for a larger image

UPDATE 2: The solar holographic image shows a potentially large spot on the far side of the sun, we’ll have to wait until it comes around to see what it is. The method is not always perfect.


Darker area is the far side of the sun.

Seismic waves propagating through the sun are used to image potential spots on the far side. Here is a description of how it is done.

UPDATE 3:

It looks as if the spot seen yesterday on the far side of the sun via the holographic technique has disappeared. As I said “The method is not always perfect.”


The two spots above are earthward, 987, and 988.


Comments : 147 Comments »

Categories : Science