The Lords and Ladies of Environmentalism have no interest in doing anything.

This is one of my gripes. If they want to do something about any potential risk posed by human-driven global warming, they needn’t risk burning out the public with a fear campaign. The most productive use of Al Gore’s $300 million campaign money would be investing in energy efficient technologies like FloDesign’s new wind turbine concept, or Cree’s new LED lightbulb, or Luxim’s new plasma incandescent, or NanoSolar’s new gigawatt-scale PV production facilities, or Rotartica’s solar-powered HVAC for home use … all of these are technologies already available and needing capital for further marketing and improved manufacturing process.

Or if they want to getting more cutting-edge, there’s thorium nuclear power, or superconducting power grid capacity, or ocean current turbines, and (drum role please) the all-time energy super-techs of the next 50 years: Infrared Photovoltaics & He3 fusion.

Solve these last two problems and we’re home free.

It gets better: James Hansen, the main consulting scientist for Gore’s movie, coauthored a 2003 paper on soot deposition on tropical glacial packs REPLETE with the NASA web page showing a series of pictures of Kilimanjaro’s progressive glacial recession.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20031222/
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/1223blacksoot.html

Now riddle me this: How is it that Gore could get such a fundamental fact so wrong when extant research contraindicated using Kilimanjaro as an AGW poster child? Gore claimed to have had his facts vetted. By whom? James Hansen? If so, then just this one gaffe would serve to discredit both Gore & Hansen for playing so loose with science.

see also:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/leebert/dont_blame_kilimanjaros_glacier_loss_on_global_warming

Kilimanjaro is a fascinating place for reasons Allen Chapell and many other readers have pointed out. Herald Lange’s book, “Kilimanjaro, the White Roof of Africa” (1985), makes several relevant points:

It’s the largest free-standing massif in the world, and as such “makes” its own climate. Climbers from the base (savannah) pass upward through several different climate zones to reach the crater rim. Each of these “zones” is classified, in part, by the amount of moisture which reaches it: the savannah gets about 750-1000 mm of water per year; the shrub and cultivated zones (expedition porters and guides are drawn from the Chagga people there), gets about 1,000 to 1700 mm annually; montane rain forest (cloud forest) receives between 2,000 and 3,000 mm annually; alpine zones get 600 – 1,000 mm; and the summit, in near-arctic “cold desert” conditions, receives less than 100 mm. So the montane rainforest is noticeably wet, and wett-est.

I climbed it twenty years ago, in the summer, following a route on its east side. The forest at the level of human occupation (the Tanzanian government prevents people from living above about 5,000 feet) is what I would call jungle. It takes a few days of hiking to pass through this zone, and one emerges from the rain forest into the alpine zone to see a spectacular disk of clouds spreading around the mountain beneath you, at about 9,000 feet. This could only be generated by the warm, humid air rising off the forests and moist soil on the flanks of the mountain.

Below the cloud disk is an almost self-contained forest belt containing colobus monkeys, cape buffalo, eland, leopards, fig trees and other strange life. That life stays, for the most part, below the clouds, which makes scientists all the more puzzled at the not-uncommon discovery of antelope, monkey and other animal carcasses near the summit.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,403035-2,00.html

I can guess what the stripping of those mountain flanks for firewood and for cultivable space would do to that disk of cloud. The article refers to the loss of more than 50 square miles of mountain forest in the last 30 years. This is a perfect example of a unique microclimate. And it is an environmental crisis of sorts for the people who live there. If it is a “man-made” crisis, it wasn’t made by outsiders or by tourists, but by the people who live there.

The Sahara used to have a lot of trees (500+ years ago). The sand has spread south slowly ever since. Hard to blame that on SUV’s.

Change is inevitable. You can deny it, ignore it, rail against it, or live with it.

Of course glaciers around the globe are shrinking due to global warming. I’m sure you have no problem accepting those studies.

I predict in 10 years that AGWs will be history and another underfunded ACCC (Anthropomorphic Climate Change Crisis) will be underway.

Leon: I for one would certainly support protection of existing forests and a reforestation programme. Remember that there are plenty of “environmentalists” around the world still doing things the old-fashioned way. If some “carbon credits” flow in that direction to fund them, that would be fine by me.

Yes I saw it too. “Deforestation of the mountain`s foothills is the most likely culprit because without forests there is too much evaporation of humidity into outer space.” I thought about making a note of it, but then I figured nobody would bother with it. Thanks for proving otherwise.

Look at the source of the article. The correspondent probably has Kiswahili as his 1st language. Thus I expect the term “outer space” is a translation error for a technical term the correspondent didn’t understand. Think about it, if the correspondent who wrote the article was well fluent, don’t you think he’d question the use of the term?

What would make sense here? Upper troposphere, perhaps? Maybe the words “upper atmosphere” were originally used. It is an easy jump from “upper atmosphere” to “outer space” in translations.

As it is though, zeroing in this one phrase error gives you the tool you need: to ignore the entire conclusion by saying this one phrase negates everything. He said “outer space”! {buzzer]! Negation sequence initiated.

In Boris’ case especially, you’ve lost the right to ever again to use the phrase ‘cherry picking” on this site, since you’ve demonstrated it in the extreme by ignoring the entire article and the findings of the scientists quoted simply for two out of place words. Well played indeed, Boris.

Here’s another novel concept. Why don’t Mr. Gore and his cohorts start living the lifestyle they are telling the rest of us to live?

Just a small correction Anthony. The decline IS due to climate change. A localized climate change due to deforestation. In biology we call it micro-climate.

Of course it is nothing to do with global climate change and nothing at all to do with AGW (which is theoretical and unproven).

Correct. I believe that Anthony all along has been pushing the “Land Use” scenario.

It cannot be denied that the clearing of tropical rainforests in Asia, Africa and South America has contributed to localised “climate change”. (micro-climate).

How much does this equatorial massive tropical land clearing influence more Northerly or Southerly climes?

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/the-shrinking-glaciers-of-kilimanjaro-can-global-warming-be-blamed/1

Of course it is nothing to do with global climate change and nothing at all to do with AGW (which is theoretical and unproven).