Time Magazine Compares Iwo Jima to Global Warming

[FrankRizzoXD40]

Originally Posted by jmichna

Etta,
Thank you for posting that data! I really mean it!!!

I assume you understand that the second and third graphs you posted use demonstrated flawed temperature data (e.g., the discredited and no longer accepted "hockey stick" model is your third chart) and that your fourth graph actually shows much higher temperatures at 8,000 years Before Present, and these temperatures remained higher than today through 1,000 years Before Present - way before any significant impact on the environment by Mankind. Your last chart shows the cyclical nature of climate change over the last 400,000 years, again before any possible intervention or impact by Man, and also shows - if you look carefully, that CO2 concentrations actually rise AFTER the temperature rises. All this is according to the data you posted.

Thanks again.

Those are some of the reasons why I was wondering what Etta had to say about those graphs.

Frank

[Palmguy]

Sorry, you can cut and paste all the graphs you want; the global climate is such a ridiculously complex and unpredictable entity, and the prediction methods so vulnerable to a small error rapidly expanding geometrically and without bound, and despite what you would believe the lack of consensus regarding the primary cause for whatever warming the planet is currently experiencing, and the financial and political motivating factors at play that influence the impartiality of many parties involved, and the dogmatic and unquestionable gospel status that man-made global warming is given (don't you dare question man-made global warming in an academic position or your job is on the line, so much for academic and scientific freedom) all work together to tell me that no one can say definitively that:

1. Humans are the primary cause of "global warming"
2. Global temperatures and delta-temps are trending towards an unusually high level in the history of the planet
3. Humans have the ability to exert any power to reverse whatever global temperature increase is taking place

EDIT: It was just mentioned, but I forgot to mention the evidence that exists that global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels actually have a direct correlation as the man-made global warming proponents suggest, however the change in temperature actually precedes the change in CO2.

[Etta Place]

I think the hockey stick data have been challenged, corrected, re-challenged and the challenges rebutted.

The rebuttals have been objected to and the objections denied and the denials rejected. The specific issues are highly technical and require considerable time and energy to fully understand. Steve McIntyre has a website devoted to his continued probe of this study and Michael Mann is a contributor to RealClimate, which consumes considerable web space refuting his attacks.

In short, M&M raise many specific and technical objections, and climate scientists seem pretty unified in denying the charges. To my knowledge, the worst indictment from the climate science community came from a study led by Hans Von Storch that concluded M&M was right about a particular criticism of methodology, but that correcting it did not change the study results.

If you want to evaluate the issue for yourself, and do it fairly, you must read the copious material at the sites mentioned above. You must also be prepared to dig into dendrochronology and statistical analysis.

'The hockey stick is broken' | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

Summary of Proxy Temperature Studies
Scientific References of Studies

Although each of the proxy temperature records shown below is different, due in part to the diverse statistical methods utilized and sources of the proxy data, they all indicate similar patterns of temperature variability over the last 500 to 2000 years. Most striking is the fact that each record reveals a steep increase in the rate or spatial extent of warming since the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. When compared to the most recent decades of the instrumental record, they indicate the temperatures of the most recent decades are the warmest in the entire record. In addition, warmer than average temperatures are more widespread over the Northern Hemisphere in the 20th century than in any previous time.

The similarity of characteristics among the different paleoclimatic reconstructions provides confidence in the following important conclusions:
Dramatic warming has occurred since the 19th century.

The recent record warm temperatures in the last 15 years are indeed the warmest temperatures the Earth has seen in at least the last 1000 years, and possibly in the last 2000 years.

NOAA Paleoclimatology Global Warming - The Data

[FrankRizzoXD40]

This stuff you are pasting may show that the earth is warming, but is anyone really disputing that?

What is in dispute is whether or not the warming is caused by man.

There were at least 4 ice ages and warming periods before a single SUV ever roamed the earth.

Frank

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by Palmguy

Sorry, you can cut and paste all the graphs you want; the global climate is such a ridiculously complex and unpredictable entity, and the prediction methods so vulnerable to a small error rapidly expanding geometrically and without bound, and despite what you would believe the lack of consensus regarding the primary cause for whatever warming the planet is currently experiencing, and the financial and political motivating factors at play that influence the impartiality of many parties involved, and the dogmatic and unquestionable gospel status that man-made global warming is given (don't you dare question man-made global warming in an academic position or your job is on the line, so much for academic and scientific freedom) all work together to tell me that no one can say definitively that:

1. Humans are the primary cause of "global warming"
2. Global temperatures and delta-temps are trending towards an unusually high level in the history of the planet
3. Humans have the ability to exert any power to reverse whatever global temperature increase is taking place

EDIT: It was just mentioned, but I forgot to mention the evidence that exists that global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels actually have a direct correlation as the man-made global warming proponents suggest, however the change in temperature actually precedes the change in CO2.

Where is the evidence of this?

don't you dare question man-made global warming in an academic position or your job is on the line, so much for academic and scientific freedom

[jmichna]

September 25, 2007 Questioning 20th Century Warmth

Filed under: Paleo/Proxy, Temperature History —
In 2006, an article appeared in Science magazine reconstructing the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere back to 800 AD based on 14 smoothed and normalized temperature proxies (e.g., tree ring records). Osborn and Briffa proclaimed at the time that “the 20th century is the most anomalous interval in the entire analysis period, with highly significant occurrences of positive anomalies and positive extremes in the proxy records.” Obviously, concluding that the Northern Hemisphere has entered a period of unprecedented warmth is sure to make the news, and indeed, Osborn and Briffa’s work was carried in papers throughout the world and was loudly trumpeted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that publishes the journal Science.
A recent issue of Science contains an article not likely to receive any press coverage at all. Gerd Bürger of Berlin’s Institut für Meteorologie decided to revisit the work of Osborn and Briffa, and his results raise serious questions about the claim that the 20th century has been unusually warm. Bürger argues that Osborn and Briffa did not apply the appropriate statistical tests that link the proxy records to observational data, and as such, Osborn and Briffa did not properly quantify the statistical uncertainties in their analyses. Bürger repeated all analyses with the appropriate adjustments and concluded “As a result, the ‘highly significant’ occurrences of positive anomalies during the 20th century disappear.” Further, he reports that “The 95th percentile is exceeded mostly in the early 20th century, but also about the year 1000.” Needless to say, Gerd Bürger is not going to win any awards from the champions of global warming – nothing is more sacred than 20th century warming!

INHOFE SAYS NAS REPORT REAFFIRMS ‘HOCKEY STICK’ IS BROKEN

June 22, 2006 Washington, D.C.-Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works commented on today’s congressionally commissioned review by the National Academy of Sciences that shows that Dr. Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” study was flawed, specifically refuting some of its most often-cited conclusions.
The National Academy of Sciences’ “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years” noted in their summary that there were “relatively warm conditions centered around A.D. 1000 (identified by some as the ‘Medieval Warm Period’) and a relatively cold period (or ‘Little Ice Age’) centered around 1700.” The hockey stick constructed by Mann and his colleagues purported to show temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century.
“Today’s NAS report reaffirms what I have been saying all along, that Mann's ‘hockey stick’ is broken,” Senator Inhofe said. “Today’s report refutes Mann's prior assertions that there was no Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age.”
The NAS report also stated that “substantial uncertainties” surround Mann’s claims that the last few decades of the 20th century were the warmest in last 1000 years. In fact, while the report conceded that temperature data uncertainties increase going backward in time, it acknowledged that “not all individual proxy records indicate that the recent warmth is unprecedented…’
In addition, the NAS report further chastises Mann, declaring “Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that ‘the 1990’s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium ...’”
“This report shows that the planet warmed for about 200 years prior to the industrial age, when we were coming out of the depths of the Little Ice Age where harsh winters froze the Thames and caused untold deaths.
“Trying to prove man-made global warming by comparing the well-known fact that today's temperatures are warmer than during the Little Ice Age is akin to comparing summer to winter to show a catastrophic temperature trend.”

When warming's 'hockey stick' breaks
Published in: Washington Times (8/4/2006)
When is a story on global warming not worth reporting accurately, or maybe not worth covering at all? Evidently, when it undermines the near universal belief in the popular press that the scientific debate is over: "Humans are causing catastrophic global warming and we have to do something about it."

Nowhere is this clearer than in the recent reporting surrounding the global warming "hockey stick." The hockey stick is an image used by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shows relatively stable temperatures from A.D. 1000 (and in later versions from 0 A.D.) to 1900, and a dramatic temperature increase from 1900 to 2000. The conclusion drawn by authors of the image is that human energy use over the last 100 years has caused a dramatic and unprecedented rise in temperatures across the globe.

However, several independent studies called into question the hockey stick's conclusions. A number of climate experts noted that the Earth experienced both a widely recognized Medieval Warm Period from about A.D. 800 to 1400, as well as the Little Ice Age from 1600 to 1850. The hockey stick missed both of these significant climate trends. Other researchers found methodological flaws with the hockey stick, arguing some data sources were misused, several calculations were done incorrectly and some of the data were simply obsolete.

Because the hockey stick image has been regularly used to promote and justify proposed climate legislation, Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to examine the hockey stick controversy. Their report, released in early July, confirmed many of the criticisms of the hockey stick. Whereas the authors of the research that produced the hockey stick concluded "the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium," the NAS found little confidence could be placed in those claims.

The NAS also found the original researchers used proxy data for past temperature reconstructions that were unreliable, the historic climate reconstruction failed important tests for verifiability and the methods used underestimated the uncertainty in the conclusions reached.

However, one would hardly know from news reports that the hockey stick had largely failed to pass scientific muster. Rather, press reports typically highlighted the limited areas where the NAS supported the hockey stick research and downplayed the substantive flaws the NAS confirmed.

The best spin the NAS could put on the hockey stick research was that the present temperature was likely warmer than at any time in the last 400 years. Yet, this finding is hardly controversial, since 400 years ago we were in the midst of a little ice age and hardly corroborates the "hockey stick" image of climate history, since it missed the little ice age entirely.

On July 20, a second analysis requested by Congress was released at a hearing concerning the validity of the Hockey Stick findings. According to Edward Wegman, his team's research found serious statistical flaws that undermine the main conclusion of the hockey stick study. Mr. Wegman and his colleagues concluded, based on the evidence cited and the methodology used by the hockey stick researchers, the idea that the planet is experiencing unprecedented global warming "cannot be supported." Mr. Wegman and his team also concluded that the close ties between scientists in the small paleoclimatology community prevented true peer review of the hockey stick and related analyses.

The mainstream media -- both print and broadcast -- were largely, deafeningly silent on the congressional hearings and its findings.

The Earth's climate over the last 2,000 years has been characterized by periods of warmer -- as well as significantly cooler -- temperatures than the present. The "hockey stick" picture of dramatic temperature rise in the last 100 years following 1,900 years of relatively constant temperature, is flawed. Public policy -- especially public policy with such wide-ranging consequences as this -- should be based on science, not spin.

Yet in recent months, the mainstream press has largely abdicated its role as a provider of objective, balanced reporting on global warming and has adopted the role of advocate. In doing so, the press has done the public, scientific progress and the journalistic profession a profound disservice. It's time for respected reporters to turn their normally skeptical eye to the claims made by all sides in the important debate concerning global warming.

The Hockey Stick is debunked and dead.

[jmichna]

Broken Hockey Stick! (29 Oct 03)In a stunning scientific paper just published in Energy and Environment, the infamous `Hockey Stick' as developed by Mann, Bradley and Hughes in 1998 has been comprehensively discredited - using the same data sources and even methodology used by the Hockey Stick's original authors.
According to McIntyre and McKitrick [Energy & Environment ref];
" The data set of proxies of past climate used in Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998, “MBH98” hereafter) for the estimation of temperatures from 1400 to 1980 contains collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other
quality control defects. We detail these errors and defects. We then apply MBH98 methodology to the construction of a Northern Hemisphere average temperature index for the 1400-1980 period, using corrected and updated source data. The major finding is that the values in the early 15th century exceed any values in the 20th century. The
particular “hockey stick” shape derived in the MBH98 proxy construction – a temperature index that decreases slightly between the early 15th century and early 20th century and then increases dramatically up to 1980 — is primarily an artefact of poor data handling, obsolete data and incorrect calculation of principal components."
On this website, the Hockey Stick's conclusions about past climates were challenged (see `The Hockey Stick: A New Low in Climate Science') on the basis of direct comparison with numerous other scientific studies which found that late 20th century climate was in no way remarkable when compared with previous `pre-greenhouse' centuries, especially the warmer Medieval period.
However, McIntyre and McKitrick have challenged the `Hockey Stick' on its own turf by subjecting it to an `audit’, using the same data and assumptions, and developing a temperature reconstruction from similar principles. It was a classic replication exercise, so necessary in science. The result is shown below -

The McIntyre-McKitrick reconstruction (blue) shows earlier climates to be warmer than the late 20th century, a conclusion supported by numerous other scientific studies, whereas the `Hockey Stick’ denies this reality. It seems that through a combination of tabulation errors, truncating data series for no valid reason, and `bridging gaps’ in data with little more than guesses, the `Hockey Stick' authors created a thoroughly false picture of past climates, which was instantly embraced as policy by the UN-IPCC and the greenhouse industry it leads. It became influential in convincing pro-Green policy-makers like former US vice-president Al Gore, that late 20th century climatic warmth was without precedent in human history.
Not only did the `Hockey Stick' fly in the face of a mountain of evidence from other sciences which contradicts its conclusions, but thanks to McIntyre and McKitrick, we now know that the Hockey Stick is internally flawed as well, since its own data sources, properly read, do not support its conclusions either.
This raises the question of the scientific bona fides of climate science itself. McIntyre and McKitrick have exposed fundamental scientific flaws in an influential scientific paper which was fully peer reviewed by `experts' from the greenhouse industry and published in a top journal. Their audit of the databases and statistical processes which lay behind the `Hockey Stick’ called for first-order statistical skills above all else, and it is here that they have exposed the incompetence which lay behind the original `Hockey Stick' concept. There have been many other instances of deeply flawed science being given an uncritical green light for publication by reviewers from this science, but the question must now be asked whether their pretensions to scientific status can be justified by their performance.
Energy and Environment is one journal that has stood up for free debate on this and other issues of public importance, and is to be commended for publishing this long-awaited and damning critique of the `Hockey Stick'. To facilitate public debate, the journal has taken the unusual step of making the full McIntyre-McKitrick paper freely available online.

Download the full .pdf of the McIntyre-McKitrick `Hockey Stick' critique here

[jmichna]

The Week That Was

CLIMATE WARMING IS NATURALLY CAUSED AND SHOWS NO HUMAN INFLUENCE: CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2) IS NOT A POLLUTANT.
Press Release from The Science & Environmental Policy Project 6 December 2007
Contact: Dr S Fred Singer, President, SEPP singer@SEPP.org 703-920-2744
Climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia report that observed patterns of temperature changes (‘fingerprints’) over the last thirty years are not in accord with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability. Therefore, climate change is ‘unstoppable’ and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.

These results are in conflict with the conclusions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also with some recent research publications based on essentially the same data. However, they are supported by the results of the US-sponsored Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).

The report is published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651]. The authors are Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia). The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused).


Lead author David Douglass said: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”

Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”

Co-author S. Fred Singer said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals. The mechanism for producing such cyclical climate changes is still under discussion; but they are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth’s atmosphere. In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface—and thus the climate.”
■Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless. – but very costly.

[jmichna]

Global Warmists declare Heresy!

Thursday, November 29, 2007
By Steven Milloy
When the international global warming alarm-ocracy gathers for its annual convention on the balmy island of Bali next week, is there any chance that the delegates will look up at the big yellow ball in the sky and ask, “Could it be the Sun, stupid?”

New research suggests that would be a great question for them to consider.

A recent study from the Journal of Geophysical Research (November 2007) reports that the sun may have contributed 50 percent or more of the global warming thought to have occurred since 1900.

Researchers from Duke University and the U.S. Army Research Office report that climate appears to be insensitive to solar variation if you accept the global temperature trend for the past 1,000 years as represented by the so-called “hockey stick” graph— which claims to show essentially unchanging temperatures between from 1000 to 1900 and then a sharp uptick from 1900 to the present. But the hockey stick-graph has been relegated to the ash heap of global warming history.

Even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) no longer mentions the graph in its reports. The researchers instead used a temperature reconstruction developed by Stockholm University researcher Ander Moberg and others that shows more variation in pre-industrial temperatures. Using Moberg’s reconstruction, the researchers found that “the climate is very sensitive to solar changes and a significant fraction of the global warming that occurred during the last century should be solar induced.”

The researchers conclude that the current large-scale computer models — which, by the way, don’t work as they don’t even accurately reproduce historical temperature trends — could be significantly improved by adding sun-climate coupling mechanisms. Unfortunately, the reconsideration of the climate models isn’t on the agenda at Bali.

Another interesting bit of data comes by way of the Solar Science blog, which on Nov. 15 spotlighted a letter in the Green County Daily World (Indiana) that starts out, “Each morning I turn on my computer and check to see how the sun is doing. Lately I am greeted with the message ‘The sun is blank — no sunspots.’”

The letter goes on to state that, “We are at the verge of the next sunspot cycle, solar cycle 24. How intense will this cycle be? Why is this question important? Because the sun is a major force controlling natural climate change on Earth…”

“For the past few months, the actual sunspot numbers have been below [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s] lower predicted threshold, approaching zero,” according to the letter, leading some to conclude that we may be headed into another “solar minimum” period. The solar minimum, known as the Maunder Minimum, corresponds to the temperature depths of the Little Ice Age, a period of global cooling lasting from the 14th century to the 19th century.

As you can see from this graph of solar activity since the mid-18th century, low sunspot activity matches up nicely with well-known Little Ice Age climatic events like George Washington’s Christmas-night 1776 crossing of the ice-strewn Delaware River and Napoleon Bonaparte’s retreat from Moscow in the horrifically-cold winter of 1812-1813.

The letter writer goes on to mention that not too long ago the Mississippi River froze solid above St. Louis, permitting westward wagon trains to cross in the winter and that you can still see old two-story houses in Wisconsin with second floor doors that allowed inhabitants to exit their homes in the middle of winter when snow depths reached 8-feet and more.

If sunspot activity continues to be so markedly low, then we should prepare for the possibility of a significant global cooling trend that could reduce agricultural yields and bring on the sort of food shortages that occurred during the Little Ice Age.

There’s also a new study out this week claiming that the expansion of above-ground tree vegetation in Europe has absorbed 126 million tons of carbon, equivalent to 11 percent of the region’s carbon emissions. While this seems like a positive development — at least for those bent on removing carbon from the atmosphere in order to reduce global temperature — it may actually backfire in terms of preventing global warming.

As reported in this column last April, forests in northern regions actually contribute to global warming through the albedo effect. Researchers estimated that this effect may contribute as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit to regional temperatures. So while expanding European forests may take more carbon out of the atmosphere — a dubious proposition for reducing global warming — the forests will also be absorbing more sunlight producing a net effect of warmer temperatures.

Finally, let’s not forget about last year’s experimental validation of the sun’s impact on cloud cover. That research indicated that climatic impact of sun-influenced cloud cover during the 20th century could be as much as seven times greater than the alleged effect of 200 years worth of manmade carbon dioxide. So while the global warming crowd parties in Bali amid its plotting and planning to subjugate western economies to global government based on a dubious hypothesis about trace levels of invisible manmade gases acting as some sort of atmospheric thermostat, the sun will be there shining down on their folly.

Would it be too much to ask for someone to look upwards and see the light?

[jmichna]

"Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward)." -- Climate Change Science - An Analysis Of Some Key Questions, p1 (Committee on the Science of Climate Change, National Research Council) ISBN 0-309-07574-2.

On Climate Models:

"Reducing the wide range of uncertainty inherent in current model predictions of global climate change will require major advances in understanding and modeling of both (1) the factors that determine atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, and (2) the so-called “feedbacks” that determine the sensitivity of the climate system to a prescribed increase in greenhouse gases." -- Climate Change Science - An Analysis Of Some Key Questions, p1 (Committee on the Science of Climate Change, National Research Council) ISBN 0-309-07574-2.

"The consensus is that major advances are needed in our modelling and interpretation of temperature profiles . . . and their analysis by the scientific community worldwide." -- David Parker, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Berkshire.

"Because climate is uncontrollable . . . the models are the only available experimental laboratory for climate. . . . However, climate models are imperfect. Their simulation skill is limited by uncertainties in their formulation, the limited size of their calculations, and the difficulty of interpreting their answers that exhibit almost as much complexity as in nature." -- Climate Change Science - An Analysis Of Some Key Questions, p15 (Committee on the Science of Climate Change, National Research Council) ISBN 0-309-07574-2.

"For the global mean [temperature], the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14 Celsius, i.e. 57.2 F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58 F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse." The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature (SAT) (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)

"At this point in the debate, it is intellectually dishonest and borders on fraudulent to continue to maintain that there is any reasonable basis to fear a coming climate apocalypse. Yet the scientific establishment continues to grind out tortured "studies" to prove black is white. Those involved in this charade are doing lasting damage to science and the reputations of scientists. Hell, you are no different than the worst lawyers - you will say whatever people want you to say so long as you are paid." -- Fred Palmer, president of the Greening Earth Society.

Why "Global Warmism"? Gee... politics. maybe?

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?" -- Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations.

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” -- Paul Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, “Population, Resources, Environment” (W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1970, 323)