NC Media Watch

Are CDC swine flu cases exaggerated?

Russ Steele

Why has the CDC stopped testing for N1H1?  Why are they lumping all flu case in to one category?

Are the number of swine flu cases reported by CDC exaggerated? Testing stopped in July. Yet the President has declared a national emergency for the swine flu, noting a "rapid increase in illness." Really, how did he know?  The CDC stopped testing flu cases in July for N1H1. How do they know the difference between the N1H1 and the regular seasonal flu?

The CDC ordered the states to stop counting so we have no way of making an accurate count now. Thus, the numbers being used by the media and fed to people like President Obama seem to have no reliable value.  CBS reports that the CDC has advised states to stop testing for swine flu, and to stop counting the number of swine flu cases. The CDC website explains that states are no longer differentiating between the regular flu and the swine flu, reporting instead all influenza and pneumonia-related hospitalizations and deaths in one count. Inflationary action?

Is there a H1N1 flu pandemic or not?  The flu season in the southern hemisphere, which has seasons opposite to the north, is now over, and the swine flu did not wreak havoc as predicted.

If the States are not testing and counting flu cases how would the CDC know. How would we know?  How would Nevada County's local health care professional know if they needed to prepare?  And, prepare for what?  Regular flu season, or a regular flu season plus the complications of N1H1 cases. 

Last Sunday I was watching Fox News's Sunday Housecall with Dr. Rosenfeld. He was asked how to determine the difference between the regular flu and swine flu? He suggested that regular seasonal flu did not produce diarrhea, where as swine flu does; along with the fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Seems to me the evidence would be quite pronounced.

What am I missing?

What a difference an update makes.

Russ Steele

I reported on California stimulus jobs here based on data from recovery.gov last updated on 10/10/09. Then in this morning's Bee Joe Biden and Gov Schwarzenegger reported over 100,000 California Jobs created or saved.

Standing at Biden's side, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said his state has saved or created more jobs than any other state in the nation. He said teachers and other educators account for more than 62,000 of California's jobs, including those who might have been laid off if not for the federal stimulus money.

Below  are the numbers for California as reported on recovery.gov. Note most of the jobs were saved by grants, not many new jobs created, thus our unemployment rate remains at 12.2 percent.

How is hope and change going for you?

Russ Steele

Last week 5,774 Californian's filed for jobless claims for the first time. In one week, California has lost more than twice as many jobs than nine months of stimulus have created in the State.  According to recovery.gov the stimulus has created only 2,260 jobs in California.

Three of those jobs were crated in Nevada County. Abide Industries,Inc. was awarded an $526,091 contract to re-build six miles of the Washington Road. What happens to those jobs when the re-building is done?

As a government contractor for 10 years in Sacramento, I know that when the contract is complete all the jobs associated with that contract are in jeopardy, unless there was a follow on contract, or your can move your team to another project.  That is the problem with government stimulus spending, when the contract is up the jobs are gone. 

Rebane's Ruminations is tracking Nevada County stimulus funding here.

Some alarming news, San Francisco liberals fear global warming

Russ Steele

Not happy with the results of climate changes polls showing that concern over global warming is declining, KQED the San Francisco National Public Radio station decided to do their won.  The early results are not surprising.(click for a larger image)


I took the survey and found out that I am a dismissive, even though I agreed that warming was happening, but humans have little ability to influence change.  Since the KQED's main audience is San Francisco Liberals, ooops Progressives, the results are not a big surprise. If your would like to assess your own position and broaden the validity of the survey go to this URL: http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/

You have to start here, KQED would not let me link directly to the survey, as I had already taken it.  See link to the survey at the bottom of the page "What's your climate profile?  Take the survey and find out." 

Its Time To Prepare For Another Dalton Minimum(edited)

Russ Steele

The A.P.P.L.E Center for Sustainability wants to create more reliance in our local quality of life. They want us to prepare for disruptions in our food supply by creating local food sources. The question is, are they willing to consider the possibility the real threat is not global warming caused by emissions of green house gases, but increased cooling due to another Grand Solar Minimum. Are they willing to consider that cooling will reduce our local food supply more than warming?  Last year Canada's grain production was reduced by 20% due to ongoing cooler wet weather. What if the cooling continues?  You can find the details at my latest post at The Dalton Minimum Returns. 

Policy Matters

Russ Steele

The Milken Institute's 2009 State of the State Conference was held on  October 20 in Los Angeles.  More than 600 attendees were given an in-depth look at the many challenges facing the state, along with solutions for solving them, including economic recovery. They now have the Conference Videos on line of the panel sessions here (www.milkeninstitute.org/sos2009).

Given the Nevada County Economic Resource Council is working on a Comprehensive Economic Development Plan for Nevada County, I was very interested in the Panel on Keeping Companies and High-Paying Jobs in California. We need a vision for where we want our economy to be in five-ten years, and some of the panel's insights should be considered in crafting that vision.

Session Speakers were:

David Crane, Special Advisor for Jobs and Economic Growth, Office of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Eric McAfee, Chairman, McAfee Capital
John Watson, Vice Chairman, Chevron Corporation
Perry Wong, Senior Managing Economist, Milken Institute

The Moderator was Nancy McFadden, Senior Vice President, Public Affairs, PG&E Corp.

Below is a session summary, but it does not really capture the strong message from the panel in their own words -- we are over regulated. The most important discussion for Nevada County was the presentation and follow up by Perry Wong on the loss of high tech jobs in California. Below are some captured screen images from his presentation. The slides are only available to Millken Institute Members. My apology for the poor quality.

Now look at the peer states their high tech job loss was much less. Wong thinks many California high-tech jobs went to these states.

The Sun Defines the Climate

Russ Steele

The folks at the A.P.P.L.E Center for Sustainability want Nevada City and the surrounding region to be more sustainable and resilient under times of stress. Here is a heads up by a Russian scientist that the planners at the Sustainability Center at might want to consider - Long term global cooling.

(Habibullo Abdussamatov, Dr. Sc. - Head of Space research laboratory of the Pulkovo Observatory, Head of the Russian/Ukrainian joint project Astrometria - (translated from Russian by Lucy Hancock)

Key Excerpts: Observations of the Sun show that as for the increase in temperature, carbon dioxide is "not guilty" and as for what lies ahead in the upcoming decades, it is not catastrophic warming, but a global, and very prolonged, temperature drop. [...] Over the past decade, global temperature on the Earth has not increased; global warming has ceased, and already there are signs of the future deep temperature drop. [...] It follows that warming had a natural origin, the contribution of CO2 to it was insignificant, anthropogenic increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide does not serve as an explanation for it, and in the foreseeable future CO2 will not be able to cause catastrophic warming. The so-called greenhouse effect will not avert the onset of the next deep temperature drop, the 19th in the last 7500 years, which without fail follows after natural warming. [...] We should fear a deep temperature drop -- not catastrophic global warming. Humanity must survive the serious economic, social, demographic and political consequences of a global temperature drop, which will directly affect the national interests of almost all countries and more than 80% of the population of the Earth. A deep temperature drop is a considerably greater threat to humanity than warming. However, a reliable forecast of the time of the onset and of the depth of the global temperature drop will make it possible to adjust in advance the economic activity of humanity, to considerably weaken the crisis.

Full Study is here.

Could this be happening in California?

Russ Steele

From the New York Post

New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers -- and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows.

More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.

The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City -- meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out.

"The Empire State is being drained of an invaluable resource -- people," the report said.
 
What's worse is that the families fleeing New York are being replaced by lower-income newcomers, who consequently pay less in taxes.

People in the higher income brackets have the greatest flexibility to move. With modern communications may of the higher paid people can work from anywhere. The retried folks have even more flexibility to move to lower tax states. So where do the high income folks go?

While New York City and the state were the losers, the Sunshine and Garden States were winners. more than 250,000 New Yorkers who lived in and around the city fled to Florida. Another 172,000 city taxpayers ended up in New Jersey.

Could this be happening in California?  High income people and wealthy retired moving to lower cost states?  It will be interesting to see what the 2010 Census data has to say about our population shift. Income tax revenue is down significantly.

And the rest of the AP Story

Russ Steele

Steve Enos posted a comment on an AP Story by Seth Borenstein “Statistics Experts Reject Global Cooling Claims” here.  Seth has know to write misleading climate change reports in the past, this one on Sea Surface Temperature is just one example. Now we are treated to yet another misleading article. Dr. Roger Pielke at Climate Science has some thoughts on the Borenstein AP article:

Comments On AP Story “Statistics Experts Reject Global Cooling Claims”
There is a news report titled “Statistics experts reject global cooling claims” by Seth Borenstein which appeared today. The article reads

“WASHINGTON — The Earth is still warming, not cooling as some global warming skeptics are claiming, according to an analysis of global temperatures by independent statistics experts.

The review of years of temperature data was conducted at the request of The Associated Press. Talk of a cooling trend has been spreading on the Internet, fueled by some news reports, a new book and temperatures that have been cooler in a few recent years.

The statisticians, reviewing two sets of temperature data, found no trend of falling temperatures over time. And U.S. government figures show that the decade that ends in December will be the warmest in 130 years of record-keeping.

Global warming skeptics are basing their claims on an unusually hot year in 1998. They say that since then, temperatures have fallen — thus, a cooling trend. But it’s not that simple.

Since 1998, temperatures have dipped, soared, dropped again and are now rising once more. Records kept by the British meteorological office and satellite data used by climate skeptics still show 1998 as the hottest year. However, data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA show 2005 has topped 1998.

“The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record,” said NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt. “Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming.”

Statisticians said the ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880.”

This article, however, (which is not a true independent assessment if the study was completed by NOAA scientists)  is not based on the much more robust metric assessment of global warming as diagnosed by upper ocean heat content. Nor does it consider the warm bias issues with respect to surface land temperatures that we have raised in our peer reviewed papers; e.g. see and see.

The Latest Climate Change Cartoon.

This is the latest from the Chilling Effect.