In Climate Controversy, Industry Cedes Ground

For years, the fight over the Earth's rising temperature has been mostly over what's causing it: fossil-fuel emissions or natural factors beyond man's control. Now, some of the country's biggest industrial companies are acknowledging that fossil fuels are a major culprit whose emissions should be cut significantly over time.

A growing number of these companies are pushing for a mandatory emissions limit, or "cap." Some see a lucrative new market in clean-energy technologies. Many figure a regulation is politically inevitable and they want to be in the room when it's negotiated, to minimize the burden that falls on them.

The broadening, if incomplete, consensus that fossil fuels are at least a big part of the global-warming problem signals real change in the environmental debate. The biggest question going forward no longer is whether fossil-fuel emissions should be curbed. It's who will foot the bill for the cleanup -- and that battle is heating up.

Yesterday, 10 companies, including industrial giants that make everything from bulldozers to chemicals to electricity, joined environmental groups in calling for a federal law to "slow, stop and reverse the growth" of global-warming emissions "over the shortest period of time reasonably achievable." Tonight, President Bush, whose administration has rejected such caps as economically unacceptable, will deliver a State of the Union address in which he's expected to announce a bigger push for such things as low-emission alternative fuels.

Chandler wobble

The Chandler wobble is a small variation in Earth's axis of rotation, discovered by American astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler in 1891. It amounts to 0.7 arcseconds over a period of 433 days. In other words, Earth's poles move in an irregular circle of 3 to 15 metres in diameter, in an oscillation. This is in addition to the precession of the equinoxes, a larger oscillation which takes over 25,000 years to complete.

The wobble's diameter has varied since discovery, reaching its most extreme range recorded to date in 1910. The cause is unknown: barring any external force, the wobble should have eventually subsided. Originally it was believed that the wobble was caused by seasonal weather fluctuations causing shifts in atmospheric mass distribution, or possible geophysical movement beneath Earth's crust. On 18 July 2000, however, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that "the principal cause of the Chandler wobble is fluctuating pressure on the bottom of the ocean, caused by temperature and salinity changes and wind-driven changes in the circulation of the oceans."[1]

The Chandler wobble is a factor considered by satellite navigation systems (especially military systems). It is also claimed to be the cause of major tectonic activity, including earthquakes, volcanism, El Niño, and global warming phenomenon, however there is no actual data which supports such a claim.

During the first hour of the national radio broadcast of Coast to Coast AM on January 28, 2006, Lloyd Stewart Carpenter correctly reported that the Chandler wobble had stopped (i.e. its amplitude had reduced to zero) and that it could be a harbinger of a catastrophic pole shift. In fact there was a near six week period in which a significant pause occurred. This was first noted by the International Earth Rotation Service on or about January 5, 2006 as the path of the wobble, usually a widening or tightening spiral depending on the depth of the cycle, made a 90° departure from its predicted track. It proceeded to cease any substantial movement until on or about Februaury 11th when the wobble appeared to begin tracing a path back toward its normal route. This anomaly has been of great interest in gaining a better understanding, but it is not yet known if this has or will cause any catastrophic changes in the overall rotation axis of the planet.

The Chandler wobble changes over time, with U.S. Navy data over the past several years showing the wobble has diminished as of mid-late 2005. However, this is likely transient, as the wobble has increased and decreased many times in the past and will likely do so a great many more times in the future.

The wobble has a known periodicity explained both on the internet and various encyclopedias. The amazing thing about researching the Chandler Wobble was the man's mathematical genius, including those who taught him, and those he tutored. A phenominal amount of intelligence went into the research. The means angular diplacement is about .75" (arc seconds).

For those who do not understand, the earth is speroid and not a true sphere based on its mass - both water and solid material, plus the hydraulic effects of lunar tides on the body as well as the sun.

My recommendation, read about it, and use it as a tool to blow liberals out of the water.

So it isn't exactly by coincidence that it is those same colossal foundations that are making all those "charitable" donations to those icky Greens. The Environmental Grantmakers Association? That's Rockefeller. The Pew Charitable Trusts? That's Sunoco. W. Alton Jones? That's Citgo. The World Wildlife Fund? BP and Shell. You do see a pattern, don't you?

Thanks, C.O. That's the post alright.

BTW, did you see that they are putting the squeeze through the capital markets, too? These guys are playin' this out on so many fronts it is impossible to keep up.

Leading Wall Street Banks Establish The Carbon Principles

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