Global Warming Sexism: 'Women Bear the Brunt of Climate Change'

Here.

Some sanity on global warming from Auburn

Here.

Completely bogus claim from The Washington Post

Excerpt from this article:

While scientific dispute over what causes global warming has ended, the debate over how to address it has just begun.

Yet another indication that climate science is not "clear" or "settled"

Here.

2007: WARMEST YEAR PREDICTIONS AND DATA THAT HASN'T YET BEEN MEASURED

Excerpt from this post:

An email below to Benny Peiser from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com]

With just a few weeks to go it's looking like 2007 will be the coolest year this century and possibly the coolest since 1995. If so then one more year like this and we will begin to have enough statistical information to speculate about a downward trend, though a few more years will be better. With this in mind may I remind readers what the UK Met Office predicted on 4th January 2007:

"2007 is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998, say climate-change experts at the Met Office. Global temperature for 2007 is expected to be 0.54 øC above the long-term (1961-1990) average of 14.0 øC; There is a 60% probability that 2007 will be as warm or warmer than the current warmest year (1998 was +0.52 øC above the long-term 1961-1990 average)."

Dishonest Political Tampering with the Science on Global Warming

Excerpt from Christopher Monckton here:

As a contributor to the IPCC’s 2007 report, I share the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Yet I and many of my peers in the British House of Lords - through our hereditary element the most independent-minded of lawmakers - profoundly disagree on fundamental scientific grounds with both the IPCC and my co-laureate’s alarmist movie An Inconvenient Truth, which won this year’s Oscar for Best Sci-Fi Comedy Horror.

Two detailed investigations by Committees of the House confirm that the IPCC has deliberately, persistently and prodigiously exaggerated not only the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature but also the environmental consequences of warmer weather.

Record Cold In the News Around the Globe

Here.

Make sure to bundle up for that global warming protest today

Excerpts from this link:

We intend synchronised demonstrations around the world on Saturday December 8th 2007 - in as many places as possible - to call on world leaders to take urgent action on climate change.
...
We feel that there is an overwhelming need to create a groundswell of global opinion to push for the urgent and radical action on climate change, without which we risk a global catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

I don't know if there are global warming protests scheduled today in Minnesota, but at the moment, the current temperature at my house is -6 F (-21 C).

Excerpt from this link:

EDMONTON, AB >> 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Dec. 8th. Canada Place.

"Join us on the streets for a climate funeral." Meet at Canada Place (south side entrance), march to the Alberta Legislature. The procession will go from Canada Place to the Alberta legislature. There will be a coffin, a minister, songs, taps, and more. "Please wear black, bring your tears and push our government to give us a future." Organized by the CYCC, Greenpeace, STOP (Stop Tar Sands Operations Permanently) and the Sierra Club.

Note that as of this morning, the temperature in Edmonton was -18 F (-28 C).

Update: Sorry, the above information is outdated. As of 8:30am Central time, the Edmonton temperature was actually -20 F.

Another excerpt from that page about a protest in Calgary:

Santa, elves and polar bears are among the first to be affected by climate change. The reality is that many humans and animals are at considerable risk of becoming environmental refugees. The elves and polar bears will be handing out information about the effects on climate change its subsequent creation of environmental refugees. One side of the handout will have information, and the other side will have the lyrics to 4 or 5 activist Christmas carols that we will be singing. We will also be carrying placards bearing news headlines related to climate change and environmental refugees.

Senate blocks energy bill

Here.

The great polar bear swindle

Here.

Arguing that oil prices may eventually collapse

Here.

A believer comments on the Ivory-bill Recovery Plan

Here.

Little hybrid car for you; personal Boeing 767 for us

Here:

Larry Page, Google’s billionaire co-founder, is set to marry his girlfriend, Lucy Southworth, on a tiny Caribbean island this weekend… The New York Post reported on Wednesday that 600 guests will be flown on private planes to the wedding on Branson’s Necker Island.

Also note this:

A photo-op of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin plugging-in a hybrid car was part of the search engine giant’s June announcement promising carbon neutrality by 2008. But how this PR-fluff squares with the so-called “Google party jet” — Page and Brin’s gargantuan personal Boeing 767, which burns about 1,550 gallons/hour — is any one’s guess.

Lots of microsite bias in our weather stations

Here.

"It has become clear that the United Nations’ global warming strategy has failed"

Here:

...While international officials have made grand predictions of what they hope to accomplish in Bali, the likelihood of a meaningful emissions reduction agreement is small.

“With many European countries failing to meet their Kyoto targets and major developing world emitters like China and India refusing to make any concessions, it has become clear that the United Nations’ global warming strategy has failed,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell. “Another round of promises to reduce emissions may make the delegates feel good, but the Kyoto Protocol has demonstrated that meaningless symbolism can be very expensive.”

Glenn Reynolds on "gun-free" zones

Here:

It seems to me that we've reached the point at which a facility that bans firearms, making its patrons unable to defend themselves, should be subject to lawsuit for its failure to protect them. The pattern of mass shootings in "gun free" zones is well-established at this point, and I don't see why places that take the affirmative step of forcing their law-abiding patrons to go unarmed should get off scot-free.

Andrew Bolt on hysteria

Here.

Excerpt:

My real problem is simply that in my 48 years I've lived through so many pack-panic attacks over nothing that I won't fall so easily for the next.

Your parents or grandparents may know what I mean. Go ask if they remember all those plagues we were told would surely smite us if we didn't sign some cheque, praise some god, or vote for some politician.

Ask if they remember scares like the nuclear winter, DDT, mega-famines, global cooling, acid rain, Repetitive Strain Injury, bird flu, the millennium bug, SARS, toxic PVC, poisonous breast implants, the end of oil, death by fluoride, the Chernobyl doom, the BSE beef that would eat your brains, and other oldies and mouldies.

It's amazing we're still alive after all that, let alone richer and healthier.

So, my furious friend, don't try to panic me now about global warming, GM food, peak oil or ADHD. I've seen too many.

Update: In my comment section, "LFC" disputes some of Bolt's examples. I agree with LFC on the millenium bug issue, however, I disagree on the DDT issue.

This article presents Bolt's side on DDT and malaria:

According to the World Health Organization, worldwide malaria infects 300 million people. About 1 million die of malaria each year. Most of the victims are in Africa, and most are children.

In Sri Lanka, in 1948, there were 2.8 million malaria cases and 7,300 malaria deaths. With widespread DDT use, malaria cases fell to 17 and no deaths in 1963. After DDT use was discontinued, Sri Lankan malaria cases rose to 2.5 million in the years 1968 and 1969, and the disease remains a killer in Sri Lanka today. More than 100,000 people died during malaria epidemics in Swaziland and Madagascar in the mid-1980s, following the suspension of DDT house spraying. After South Africa stopped using DDT in 1996, the number of malaria cases in KwaZulu-Natal province skyrocketed from 8,000 to 42,000. By 2000, there had been an approximate 400 percent increase in malaria deaths. Now that DDT is being used again, the number of deaths from malaria in the region has dropped from 340 in 2000 to none at the last reporting in February 2003.

In South America, where malaria is endemic, malaria rates soared in countries that halted house spraying with DDT after 1993 -- Guyana, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. In Ecuador, DDT spraying was increased after 1993, and the malaria rate of infection was reduced by 60 percent. In a 2001 study published by the London-based Institute for Economic Affairs, "Malaria and the DDT Story," Richard Tren and Roger Bate say that "Malaria is a human tragedy," adding, "Over 1 million people, mostly children, die from the disease each year, and over 300 million fall sick."

To me, it seems that the overall cost/benefit of limited DDT house spraying is very good, while the overall cost/benefit of widespread use of DDT outdoors may be very bad.

LFC--I'm interested in hearing the specifics of your side of the argument regarding DDT and malaria. How do you "debunk" the information above?

Is a sevenfold increase in ethanol a sane idea?

Excerpt from this link:

Renewable motor fuels: Requires a sevenfold increase in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, with two-thirds to be cellulosic ethanol from such feedstock as prairie grass and wood chips. Has tax incentives for renewable fuels plants.

Note an excerpt from a study linked here:

In terms of energy output compared with energy input for ethanol production, the study found that:

* corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced;
* switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and
* wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.

John Ruthven plans to continue his Ivory-bill search

Here.

Excerpt:

Ruthven, 83, continues to paint and be involved in wildlife activities. In January, he will travel to the Florida panhandle with a group seeking evidence of the ivory-billed woodpecker -- a large, beautiful bird thought to be extinct.

Understanding the Solar Wind

Here.

Excerpt:

Thanks to the new Japanese satellite Hinode, solar scientists can finally begin understanding some of the basic mechanisms of the sun's structure and activity--and the powerful solar wind that buffets the inner planets of the solar system.

Note that the solar wind may play a very significant role in natural climate variability on Earth.

Anyone claiming that climate science is "settled" (or that we can trust the predictive ability of climate models) is wrong.

Fishcrow's "Ivory-bill" sounds on a nature.com podcast

Listen to the "high-pitched peeps" at the very end of the Dec. 6 Nature podcast here.

I think these sounds have a 100.000000% chance of not being Ivory-bill vocalizations.

Who is the biggest NGO in Bali?

Here.

The Greenest Hypocrites of 2007

Here.

Road to Bali

Here.

"EU Funds Green Alarmists"

Here.

Orson Scott Card pulls no punches

If you're interested in the global warming farce, you should check out the podcast here.

The interview starts at about the 2 minute mark and is about an hour long.

More propaganda from Greenpeace

Check out this press release from Greenpeace, entitled "Habbo and Greenpeace survey reveals teens more concerned about greenhouse gases than drugs, violence or war".

Excerpt:

Amsterdam, International — A new survey of nearly 50,000 teenagers from around the world today reveals that 74 per cent of teens believe that global warming is a serious problem and are more concerned about it than any other issue including drugs, violence or war. The results are being released as governments meet in Bali, Indonesia, for one of the most important UN conferences ever held on climate change.
The research conducted jointly by Habbo, the world’s largest virtual world for teens, and Greenpeace International examined the attitudes and behaviour of the global teen population towards environmental issues and gave teens a chance to speak out on the most pressing problem facing the world.

The press release is obviously designed to convince us that teens are panicked by global warming (and evidently adults should join them).

But are the world's teens actually panicked about this one issue? That would seem understandable, given the massive play this gets in the media.

But check out some details from Greenpeace (Powerpoint) here.



I'd say that most of the "teens" (some were evidently 12 or under) in this sample don't seem a whole lot more worried about global warming than they are about most of the other listed concerns.

That was one short honeymoon

Check out this article, headlined "Kevin Rudd recoils from climate change pledge":

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd last night did an about-face on deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, days after Australia's delegation backed the plan at the climate talks in Bali.

A government representative at the talks this week said Australia backed a 25-40 per cent cut on 1990 emission levels by 2020.

But after warnings it would lead to huge rises in electricity prices, Mr Rudd said the Government would not support the target.

The repudiation of the delegate's position represents the first stumble by the new Government's in its approach to climate change.

Hat tip: Jennifer Marohasy

More papers not supporting the alleged climate consensus

Here.

Note this excerpt from "EXPECTED HALT IN THE CURRENT GLOBAL WARMING TREND?":

The mean variation in Fig. 3 (shown by a smooth solid curve) clearly oscillates from 1856 onwards. This oscillation displays maxima in the years 1878 and 1942 as well as minima in the years 1909 and 1971. This series of maxima and minima indicate presence of a dominant oscillation with a mean period of 63 years. Simple forward extrapolation of this dominant oscillation shows that the next maximum will expectedly be in the year 2005. On this basis, some global cooling trend is expected to start in about 2005 and last up to about 2036. By coincidence, the latter year is approximately equal to the earliest year (arrived at in Section 3) at which some cooling trend over Greenland is expected to stop. Finally, it should be noted that the period of the 63 years oscillation mentioned above (in connection with global mean temperature) is equal to the period of the second harmonic of the sunspot oscillation shown in Fig. 4 using a series of x's. The theory and mechanisms through which the latter sunspot oscillation so significantly relates to global mean temperature variations are given in Refs. [9], [14] and [15].

Reaction to David Whitehouse Solar Story

Here:

By Steve Milloy, DemandDebate.com

There is no ‘catastrophic warming’ for a solar minimum to ‘save’ us from and the trivial amount of warming from enhanced greenhouse will not be anything like sufficient to protect us from the downside of a quiescent sun. Cooling is inevitable and it is something to worry about, unlike gorebull warming.

In ways not well understood solar changes are amplified in our climate—Sol has been active and the planet has warmed a little but that appears to be over. Now Sol is going quiet and that could result in our cooling far more than will be comfortable trying to feed our now-larger population.

PREDICTION: reduced solar activity will result in oceanic cooling and increased absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Rate of increase will fall, possibly even go negative and carbon scammers will claim this as evidence of the success of the UNFCCC & IPCC, regardless of most parties’ failure to implement any of the self-destructive actions required under various iterations of The Protocols.

PROMISE: carbon scammers will need to hang on to their ill-gotten gains because JunkScience.com is investigating ways of suing the “global warming” and carbon reduction industry collectively and individually for crop losses, hunger, storm damage, disease and loss of life in a cooler world. From offsetters to junket bunnies, we intend to nail all the frauds’ hides to the wall—but not until we’ve made sure they haven’t kept one thin dime extracted from politicians and a frightened public through this absurd scare.

Wait a minute--what happened to that alleged consensus of 2,500 scientists?

Last month, I wrote:

So, Mr Ki-moon, just tear down that wall: just put up a simple web page containing the names, titles and affiliations of the 2,500 scientists that allegedly agree that global warming is a crisis, along with their role (author? reviewer? which chapter?) in creating the most recent IPCC report.

Under the headline "Scientists beg for climate action", Seth Borenstein writes:

A petition from at least 215 climate scientists calls for the world to cut in half greenhouse gas emissions by 2050...It includes many co-authors of the intergovernmental climate change panel reports, directors of major American and European climate science research institutions, a Nobel winner for atmospheric chemistry and a winner of a MacArthur "genius" award.

The actual petition is here.

Here's the key sentence:

The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities.

Questions that popped immediately to my head:

1. We were constantly told that we had a clear consensus of 2,500 scientists. Why did only 215 sign this petition, and what do the other nearly 2,300 scientists think?

2. How many of the 215 signers independently assessed the scientific evidence underlying the "key sentence" above?

If you didn't independently assess the evidence, doesn't your signature on this petition merely indicate your belief that someone else has assessed it?
---
3. For extra credit, I'd like to ask the following of each scientist who's actually assessed the evidence: Why are you only "at least 90%" sure? What's your personal estimate of "mostly" (ie, is it 51%? 99%?)

Confusing climate models with reality

Here.

Excerpt:

Climate models are sophisticated computer programs that incorporate as many details about the complex workings of the environment as possible. Hundreds of dynamic processes, such as ocean currents, cloud formations, vegetation cover and the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases, are included. The models produce data of the net effects for square-shaped plots over the Earth's surface. The smaller these squares are, the better the resolution the model can provide.

A model must factor in so many changing variables that a full analysis can require months of nonstop computational effort. The Rosen Center for Advanced Computing on Purdue's campus provided the powerful computing required for this study.

So if you don't fully understand a variable, or if you don't fully understand how all the variables interact, or if your input data is flawed, etc etc, you've got problems.

Shots fired at Greenpeace coal plant protest

Here.

Evidently "Coal Kills Climate". This must be true, because it says so right on the huge banner the protesters brought with them.

You might recall that both Al Gore and James Hansen have endorsed this type of civil disobedience against coal-fired power plants.

You may also recall this:

Gore's home may get some power from solar panels and may use enviro-friendly compact flourescent bulbs but the bulk of the home's power comes from Nashville Electric Service, which gets its power from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which produces most of its power from coal-burning power plants.

An alarmist departs the professional climate field

A RealClimate alarmist has announced his departure from the professional climate field here.

Ok, with the whole fate of the Earth and all its creatures allegedly hinging on your work, you're leaving to work in software engineering?! Why would anyone do that?

The gist of the offered explanation appears to be this:

...in some senses, much of the main areas of climate science have now become much clearer than when I began to be interested; the obstacles to progress are now very obviously political not scientific.

Sorry, I'm just not buying it.

At some level, I suspect that this guy has begun to realize the uncomfortable truth that he's on the losing side scientifically.

I think we're currently seeing something similar from the Fitzpatricks and the Lammertinks of the Ivory-bill farce. They're keeping up a little of the brave talk publicly, but their actions don't match their words.

A Brief Window into How the IPCC Does Science

Here.

Excerpt:

...It looked as though they had recorded something; but they hadn't recorded anything. It was the original one which they had suddenly twisted up, because they entered a “correction factor,” which they took from the tide gauge. So it was not a measured thing, but a figure introduced from outside. I accused them of this at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow —I said you have introduced factors from outside; it's not a measurement. It looks like it is measured from the satellite, but you don't say what really happened. And they answered, that we had to do it, because otherwise we would not have gotten any trend!

That is terrible! As a matter of fact, it is a falsification of the data set. Why? Because they know the answer. And there you come to the point: They “know” the answer; the rest of us, we are searching for the answer. Because we are field geologists; they are computer scientists. So all this talk that sea level is rising, this stems from the computer modeling, not from observations. The observations don't find it!

The IPCC's cardinal error

A piece by Christopher Monckton is here.

The Hebrew University debate on Global Warming

Here.

Excerpt:

In my short presentations, I stressed a few major issues. First, there are no fingerprints proving that 20th century warming is necessarily human. Second, once you check the details, you find that there are notable inconsistencies. In particular, the AGHG theory predicts warming over the whole troposphere, while in reality, only the ground appears to have warmed over the past few decades, and that Earth's climate response to volcanic eruptions is significantly smaller than predicted by computer models. This is because these models tend to have an exaggerated climate sensitivity. Third, the only reason we can attribute the warming to humans, is because allegedly there is nothing else to blame, but there is, the increasing activity of the sun. And then I quickly showed some of the evidence showing that the sun affects climate through the cosmic ray climate link.

Reviews of "Ivorybill Hunters" by Robbins and Able

Here.

When an Australian cow belches, does a polar bear die?

Is this parody?

A related link is here.

For climate alarmists, extremely inconvenient new data

You should read the whole thing here.

Excerpts:

RSS MSU satellite data for the lower troposphere show that November 2007 was the coldest month since January 2000.
...
November 2007 was also a whopping 0.915 °C colder than April 1998.

Here's a shout-out for some help from Ilya MacLean and Martin Collinson--if carbon dioxide is such a powerful driver of climate, how do you explain the temperature data above?

Don't start writing about floods, droughts, hurricanes, cyclones, malaria, asthma, sad-looking polar bears, etc etc etc--if you can't measure actual increases in temperature, that other stuff is all just the same meaningless, misleading "weak coffee" crap that we saw in the Ivory-bill controversy.

If it's actually "clear" that global warming is "accelerating", please explain to me, in your own words, why global temperatures haven't risen for about a decade now.

Manipulation of public perceptions

Check out the piece by Tim Ball here.

Excerpt:

Ignorance allows presentation of natural events as unnatural or normal events as abnormal.

"Contaminated data"

See the piece by Ross McKitrick here.

Excerpt:

...we have confirmed, on new and stronger grounds, that the IPCC's global surface-temperature data is exaggerated, with a large warming bias. Claims about the amount of surface warming since 1980, and its attribution to anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, should be reassessed using uncontaminated data. And governments that rely on the IPCC for advice should begin asking why it was allowed to suppress earlier evidence of this problem.

Rube Goldberg meets carbon caps

Here.

New Early Season Snow Records Set Across the North

Here.

"Luxury For Them, Serfdom For You"

Here.

What if everyone believes in global warmism only because everyone believes in global warmism?

You should read this entire Wall Street Journal piece.

Coal-fired electricity generating power plants rejected in Kansas

Here.

Excerpt:

On October 18, 2007, The Kansas Department of Health and Environment rejected a request to build two new 700-megawatt coal-fired electricity generating power plants, citing concerns over the contribution of the proposed plants’ carbon dioxide emissions to climate change and “the potential harm to our environment and health.”

In making this finding, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment had to ignore all of the known climate history of the state of Kansas, established climate science as well as the climate model projections for the future climate of the state of Kansas. Both observations and projections clearly demonstrate that:

* - Kansans have neither experienced nor are predicted to experience negative effects from climate variations and trends
* - There have been no overall changes in temperatures during the past 75 years
* - Total precipitation has increased slightly, making more water available for all to use
* - The frequency and severity of drought has decreased
* - Kansan’s sensitivity to heat-waves has declined
* - The number of severe storms, such as tornadoes is relatively unchanged
* - “Tropical” diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, or West Nile Virus have been erroneously predicted to spread due to global warming
* - Future projections indicate that Kansas will be less impacted by rising global temperatures than any other state in the country

China alone opens a new coal-fired plant every 4 - 7 days, any Kansas-derived “savings” of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere will be made up in a matter of days, effectively exporting emissions and jobs overseas.

These facts make it inconceivable that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment would, on spurious grounds of “climate change,” deny the application to add more generating power aimed towards reducing the cost and insuring an abundant future supply of electricity, prosperity and general well-being to Kansans.

Do we all remember those California rolling blackouts?

El Nino or CO2?

Here.

More than 10,000 jet into Bali for global warming conference

Excerpt from this AP article:

Two big climate conferences have been held in less than a month, both in idyllic, far-flung holiday destinations -- first Valencia, Spain, and now Bali. They were preceded by dozens of smaller gatherings. In Bangkok, Paris, Vienna, Washington, New York and Sydney, in Rio de Janeiro, Anchorage, Helsinki and the Indian Ocean island of Kurumba.

The pace is only expected to pick up, prompting some to ask if the issue is creating a "cure" industry as various groups claim a stake in efforts to curb global warming.

No, says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change Conference. "Wherever you held it, people would still have to travel to get there," he said. "The question is, perhaps: Do you need to do it at all? My answer to that is yes."

Greenpeace’s Fun with Graphs

Here.

Doug Stotz on the "Ivory-bill"

A Sept. '07 presentation by Doug Stotz (former roommate of Mark Robbins) is here (MP3; about 1 hour).

He'll also be speaking this month:

Wednesday, December 12, 7:00 PM

Kane County Audubon Program: The Latest Findings on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

Kane County Audubon in conjunction with the St. Charles Park District will feature Doug Stotz in a presentation on both the history and the very latest findings on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Mr. Stotz, Ph.D., is a Conservation Ecologist specializing in zoology at The Field Museum and an avid birder...

Update: Around the 29:55 mark, he says that Geoff Hill's alleged Ivory-bill video "makes the Arkansas video look like Citizen Kane".

"Ray of hope: Can the sun save us from global warming?"

Here.

Excerpt:

It might even be the case that the Earth's response to low solar activity will overturn many of our assumptions about man's influence on climate change.

"U.N. Blackballs International Scientists from Climate Change Conference"

Here.

Excerpt:

James M. Taylor, senior fellow for The Heartland Institute explained, "It is not surprising the UN has completely rejected dissenting voices. They have been doing this for years. The censorship of scientists is necessary to promote their political agenda. After the science reversed on the alarmist crowd, they claimed 'the debate is over' to serve their wealth redistribution agenda."

Taylor continued, "For example, ICSC scientist Dr. Vincent Gray recently published Unsound Science by the IPCC, which proves the main claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are scientifically unsound. Dr. Gray is an expert reviewer for the IPCC and has submitted more than 1,800 comments on IPCC reports. He is an expert on the IPCC methodology and published Spinning the Climate.

"Dr. Gray is the last person the politicized UN wants speaking," Taylor noted. "He single-handedly debunks the entire alarmist theory. And there are more than 600 Dr. Grays trying to be the voice of reason and science. All are being censored."

"Oregon Public Television Fabricates Statistics"

Here.

When Religions Collide...

Here.

"A Global Temperature Chart Not in Gore’s Movie"

Here.



(This version of the chart may be slightly more readable.)

A related link is here.

Global warming, the greatest threat since that other greatest threat just before it

Here.

Excerpt:

...CBS environmental reporters have shown remarkable imagination. Consider Scott Pelley, whose global warming alarmism is so ham-fisted that when asked in a (not wicked funny) interview with colleagues about his bias he explained the he doesn’t need to seek the other side of the story because skeptics are like Holocaust deniers, who he has no need to interview.

Of course, that not long after making this claim he flew halfway around the world to actually interview Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad only further confuses his analogy. Anyway, it seems the real kind is apparently okay.

More global warming links

Here.

Brian Williams nominates "Mother Earth" for Person of the Year

Excerpt from this link:

Brian Williams Veteran journalist who became anchor of NBC Nightly News in 2004, replacing Tom Brokaw

My nominee for 2007 Person of the Year is a woman--a woman with a history of abuse, a woman who has never run for elective office, someone we all know, someone who makes her presence known on a daily basis in all our lives and, for my money, is better than any male alternative. That woman is Mother Earth. I think the environment is the compelling issue of our time.

Trees are actually pretty lousy thermometers

Here.

Computer servers 'as bad' for climate as SUVs

Here.

Excerpt:

Computer servers are at least as great a threat to the climate as SUVs or the global aviation industry, warns a new report.

---
Note that this older article claims "Internet Eats Up Nearly 10% of U.S. Electricity".

More proof that everything causes global warming

Now it's kudzu.

CO2 or Rainforests?

Here.

Seattle uses accounting tricks to claim Kyoto success

Here.

When someone mentions "global warming", hang on to your wallet

Here.

Excerpt:

Here's how this Kyoto sting works. The developed countries that ratify Kyoto promise to cut their greenhouse emissions by agreed amounts by the year 2012.

Underdeveloped countries can just let rip, which actually makes the whole thing a farce since China is probably the world's biggest emitter, getting much bigger every year and making our own sacrifices useless.

But here's the nasty catch. Countries that don't meet their targets -- by shutting down "dirty" industries or belting consumers with such high prices for coal-fired power that they switch off or buy a pricey green alternative -- must pay a price.

That price is a carbon credit bought from a country that is under its own target, and can sell you the carbon dioxide it has saved, for around $25 a tonne at current prices.

Who are these lucky sellers? Mainly former Soviet satellites whose economies crashed after their targets were set, driving emissions down.

Global warming 'used as a template to rob from the rich nations and give to the poor ones'

Here.

HT: Greenie Watch

Stott on those "green" light bulbs

Excerpt from this post:

Q. How many Green dimwits does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Just a few, but millions to mop up the mercury.

I have been meaning to write about the madness of switching to so-called ‘low-energy bulbs’ - low energy compact fluorescent bulbs or lamps (CFLs) - for some time now. The idea that such a switch is ‘green’ can only have been thought up by a chandelier of dimwits hanging in a darkened room.
...
I trust, Dear Reader, that you knew that these so called ‘green’ bulbs contain mercury. I have recently put the same question to three different gatherings of goodly folk [two of farmers, one of the WI - around 600 people in all], of which < 5% had any idea of the potential mercury risk. Here, yet again, we have an unintended consequence of unthinking ‘global warming’ madness.
...
I should like to ask every reader of this blog to approach their local council to ask them precisely how they propose to re-cycle the mercury from CFLs? I bet there will be some wondrous silences, glorious obfuscation, total ignorance, and a mighty lot of waffle.

EU leaders plan to hitch rides to cut emissions

Here.

"Biofuels and Carbon Markets Are No Answer to Global Warming"

Check out the short Daily Green article here.

That cyclone in Bangladesh was allegedly your fault

Here.

To me, it's quite amazing that so many adults can get this panicky over a CO2 increase (over 150 years) of one ten-thousandth of total atmosphere.

"Climate Models Match History Because They are Fudged"

Here.

Excerpt:

I am willing to make a bet based on my long, long history of modeling (computers, not fashion). My guess is that the blue band, representing climate without man-made effects, was not based on any real science but was instead a plug. In other words, they took their models and actual temperatures and then said "what would the climate without man have to look like for our models to be correct." There are at least four reasons I strongly suspect this to be true:

1. Every computer modeler in history has tried this trick to make their models of the future seem more credible. I don't think the climate guys are immune.
2. There is no way their models, with our current state of knowledge about the climate, match reality that well.
3. The first time they ran their models vs. history, they did not match at all. This current close match is the result of a bunch of tweaking that has little impact on the model's predictive ability but forces it to match history better. For example, early runs had the forecast run right up from the 1940 peak to temperatures way above what we see today.
4. The blue line totally ignores any of our other understandings about the changing climate, including the changing intensity of the sun. It is conveniently exactly what is necessary to make the pink line match history. In fact, against all evidence, note the blue band falls over the century. This is because the models were pushing the temperature up faster than we have seen it rise historically, so the modelers needed a negative plug to make the numbers look nice.

"How not to measure temperature, part 42"

Here.

Excerpt:

Continuing our tour of some of the worst climate monitoring stations in California, we come to San Jose. In previous posts we’ve seen stations put next to parking lots. In this case we have not only that, but also a station next to a major city intersection. It never ceases to amaze me when I find another station that flagrantly violates NOAA’s own published siting standards.

This station #04-7821 has been in operation since 1874. It is painful to see what was likely once a pristine site so thoroughly polluted by thoughtless placement.

"New Paper HALVES the Global Average Surface Temperature Trend 1980 - 2002"

Here.

"Kyoto's failure haunts new UN talks"

Here.

Excerpt:

In the Kyoto Protocol's accounting of greenhouse gases, the former Eastern bloc is a smashing success.

Russia: Down 29 per cent in carbon dioxide emissions since 1990.

Romania: A 43 per cent reduction.

Latvia: A resounding 60 per cent drop.

Reductions like those across Eastern Europe were the main reason the United Nations was recently able to report a 12 per cent drop in emissions over that period from the accord's industrialised countries.

It was an illusion.

The progress wasn't due to a global embrace of green power, but rather to the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which shut down smoke-belching factories across the region.

Despite the 1997 Kyoto Protocol's status as the flagship of the fight against climate change, it has been a failure in the hard, expensive work of actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Its restrictions have been so gerrymandered that only 36 countries are actually required to limit their pollution. Just over one-third of those-members of the former Eastern bloc-can pollute at will because their limits were set so far above their actual emissions.

"Environmentalists Pour Wrath on Biofuels Mandate"

Here.

"Let policy follow science: Tie a carbon tax to actual warming"

A very interesting proposal from Ross McKitrick is here.

Excerpts:

...consider the tropical troposphere, the vast atmospheric region centered about 10 miles above the earth, ringing the equator. Climate models project that, if carbon emissions cause warming, the strongest effect will be up there. But both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) have found no significant warming there. A 2006 CCSP report called this a "potentially serious inconsistency" and pointed out that the models with the best fit to the data show low amounts of greenhouse warming. If warming in the tropical troposphere is not soon observed, it will convincingly refute the standard greenhouse warming model.
...
My "T3" formula – short for Temperature of the Tropical Troposphere – guarantees that, if carbon emissions do not cause global warming, the charge will not go up. But if they do cause warming as the IPCC projects, the emissions tax will start rising by between $4 and $24 per ton per decade. The upper-end corresponds to a very aggressive emissions-control scheme. Because the emissions fee would depend on actual warming, the stringency of the policy would depend on the actual, observed severity of the problem.

Divorce causes global warming?

Here.

A blog reaction is here.

Excerpts:

...I would like to say that I am bothered to no end that a major state university spent time and money on a study that points out the obvious to us. Seriously, did we need a university study to tell us that two households use more than a single household?...has the green crowd finally hit that point of no return where science, logic and reasoning has finally given way completely to madness? This is sheer insanity on their part and shows a certain level of sick desperation as they try to drag every aspect of life into their cause. From my perspective, the longer they drag this out, the less credible it becomes. Eventually global warming will be nothing more than a giant practical joke; and they will be able to look back at studies like this and realize that they are the ones who turned themselves into a laughing stock of science.

"The Media Begin To Rumble Bali"

Don't miss Philip Stott's post here.

The media's increasingly desperate attempts to sell global warming

Check out this story, entitled "Global warming and celebrity melt-downs in top Yahoo searches in 2007".

The first sentence:

A review of Yahoo searches reveals global warming, celebrity meltdowns, social networking and a literary boy wizard's final adventure captured mankind's attention in 2007.

More excerpts:

Internet searches revealed a hunger for knowledge about global warming and ways to do something about it, according to Gossain.

Recycling, hybrid cars, solar energy, and former US vice president Al Gore, who shared a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his battle against global warming, were among top "green" searches for the year.

"These queries indicate a desire for people to take action," Gossain said. "The issue has clearly gone into the public consciousness."
...
Global warming joined animals, games, dinosaurs and homework subjects in the top ten Yahoo searches by children.

It seems to me that the mainstream media's interest in global warming far exceeds that of the general public.

Check out Yahoo's actual press release on 2007 search trends.

If you look carefully, global warming appears #2 in a list of environmental searches (between "recycling" and "freecycle"); they don't actually say how "global warming" ranks in a list of all searches.

And how about those kids? It turns out that "global warming" squeaked onto their list at #10, behind ultra-hot topics like "George Washington", "Halloween" and "Sally Ride".

Google Trends shows "global warming" searches up earlier this year, but generally down in the last six months. It also shows searches for "global warming hoax" up in 2007.

Fighting climate change via dress code

Ok, the UN suggested that air travel was helping to destroy the planet, and that future warm weather would cause significant health problems.

After some thought, they evidently concluded that to best discuss these problems, they should fly thousands of people someplace far away, where it's currently very warm.

After taking a lot of flak for the huge carbon footprint of this junket, they've responded by changing the dress code:

Having selected as a venue for its biggest-ever conference a location where the average annual temperature is around 86 degrees Fahrenheit, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) organizers suggested at the weekend that jackets and ties be optional after the official opening.

"The secretariat hopes that amending the dress code will allow participants to conduct discussions in a more comfortable environment, as well as limit the use of air conditioning and thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions," the UNFCCC said in a notice posted on its website.

The choice of venue also necessitates long-haul air travel for the majority of the more than 10,000 participants, despite environmentalists' concerns about aviation's contributions to climate change.

Note that in addition to the 10,000+ delegates, an additional "10,000 policemen and 2,000 soldiers" have been deployed for the meeting in Bali.

Maybe it's just me, but I find that productive on-site discussions just can't take place without involving at least 10,000 people.

I think they should seriously consider inviting eleventy-zillion people to their next conference.

Maybe using light bulbs containing 5mg of mercury isn't such a great idea

Here.

Whatever you do, PLEASE don't disappoint the "Carbon Markets Association"

Excerpt from this article:

“Negotiations in Bali cannot afford to fail,” said Adam Nathan, director of communications for the Carbon Markets Association, an international industry trade association. “It is vitally important that ministers meeting in Bali do not let the date for a new global agreement slip beyond 2009, as this will send a weak signal to the carbon markets.”

Well, we certainly want to avoid that at all costs, am I correct?

From the CMA web site:

Our members in the CMA provide highly-skilled jobs and value added to the British economy through the offer of services to the growing global market for the management of climate change responsibilities.

After reading the above sentence, is it clear that the CMA will someday deliver a measurable amount of cooling to the world's thermometers?

Is it fair to suggest that Exxon is evil because they're motivated by money, and that the "Carbon Markets Association" is clearly a simon-pure organization motivated only by love for our shared environment?

Let's say we had evidence of imperfections in our surface temperature data (for example, problems with hot car radiators, barbeques, etc placed near the thermometers). Let's say the magnitude of those imperfections was likely far larger than any "cooling" effect of anything that the CMA is likely to ever do. In this situation, would the CMA acknowledge reality and immediately close up shop?

---

I'm no fan of Exxon, but I will say this: When you fork over real money for a gallon of unleaded gasoline, you do get an actual gallon of fuel that you can use to transport your family to a real physical destination.

When you fork over money to climate change bureaucrats, it's almost certain that no one will receive any measurable temperature "benefit" in return.

"How not to measure temperature, part 41"

Here.

Excerpt:

The view shows it to be clearly rural in nature, at an elevation of 2170 feet, but I think the local microsite biases are as great as what is seen in some city weather stations.

While I realize flat space on a mountain comes at a premium, you’d think they could do a little better with placement of this station. Vehicles can park radiator inward within a few feet of the shelter, and the asphalt and building proximity certainly break the NOAA 100 foot siting rule. Since the station is just a few steps from the rear door, again it appears the placement was for the convenience of the observer, and not for the quality of the measurement.

Remember when ecochondria wasn't quite so rampant?

Some interesting results are here.

A post about ecochondria

Here.

Excerpt from Philip Stott:

“Humans have always feared climate change and developed myths that our sinfulness is its cause. Accordingly, we always want to be able “to do something” about climate, to sacrifice to the Earth to bring about a golden age of climate stability. Unfortunately, both geology and history show us that the idea of a stable climate is untenable; there has never been, and never will be, a stable climate under human control. All we can do is adapt to constant change.

Our current obsession with the single factor of carbon dioxide emissions is little different. In a system as complex and chaotic as climate, actions with just one factor out of the thousands involved may even trigger unexpected consequences. It is vital to remember that, for such a coupled, non-linear, chaotic system, not doing something (i.e., not emitting gases) is as unpredictable as doing something (i.e., emitting gases). Even if we closed down every factory, crushed every car and aeroplane, turned off all energy production, and threw 4 billion people worldwide out of work, climate would still change, and often dramatically. Unfortunately, we would all be too poor to do anything about it.

Basing policies on worries about ‘global warming’ is a serious threat to us all, but especially to the 1.6 billion people in the less-developed world who have no access to any modern form of energy. The twin curses of water poverty and energy poverty remain the true scandals. By contrast, the political imposition on the rest of the world of our Northern, self-indulgent ecochondria about ‘global warming’ could prove to be a neo-colonialism too far.”

"GW, Bali, And Mass Sociogenic Illness"

Here.

Excerpt:

Fascinatingly, such mass hysteria can spread rapidly to those who are distant from any original ‘event’; in such cases, the response is known as ‘mass hysteria by proxy’. One outbreak of ‘mass hysteria by proxy’, for example, has been documented, in which anxiety transmitted among parents led to reports of serious symptoms in students.

‘Global warming’ hysteria appears to be a classic example of ‘mass psychogenic illness’, which is triggered and fed by the regular world meetings mentioned above, but which is then transmitted globally through a 24-hour media and Green pressure groups as ‘mass hysteria by proxy’.

This is hardly surprising, as taking the temperature of the Earth every second of every day, and then reporting it uncritically and apocalyptically via 24-hour-rolling news, constitutes a perfect trigger for folk with a predisposition to hypochondria, or, in this case, to ecochondria. Manic-depression, or bipolar-disorder, then begins to exhibit itself, both in the individual and in the media.

Noah Strycker and the "Ivory-bill" search

An excerpt from this article:

Strycker plans to do some sort of field work after he graduates next year, maybe in Ecuador or possibly in Florida, helping search for the elusive ivory billed woodpecker.

More background is here and here:

Dec 2006-Jan 2007: full-time Field Researcher, Ivory-billed Woodpecker search project, Choctawhatchee River Basin, Florida; searched for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers from kayak and on foot, navigated with GPS, lived in remote field camp with up to 10 other volunteers/interns.

"Fall in weather deaths dents climate warnings"

Here.

Excerpt:

GREEN scientists have been accused of overstating the dangers of climate change by researchers who found that the number of people killed each year by weather-related disasters is falling.

Their report suggests that a central plank in the global warming argument – that it will result in a big increase in deaths from weather-related disasters – is undermined by the facts. It shows deaths in such disasters peaked in the 1920s and have been declining ever since.

Average annual deaths from weather-related events in the period 1990-2006 – considered by scientists to be when global warming has been most intense – were down by 87% on the 1900-89 average. The mortality rate from catastrophes, measured in deaths per million people, dropped by 93%.

The report by the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change, a grouping of 41 mainly free-market bodies, comes on the eve of an international meeting on climate change in Bali.

Indur Goklany, a US-based expert on weather-related catastrophes, charted global deaths through the 20th century from “extreme” weather events.

Compared with the peak rate of deaths from weather-related events in the 1920s of nearly 500,000 a year, the death toll during the period 2000-06 averaged 19,900. “The United Nations has got the issues and their relative importance backward,” Goklany said.

The number of deaths had fallen sharply because of better warning systems, improved flood defences and other measures. Poor countries remained most vulnerable.

"Is biofuel industry boom going bust?"

Here.