Hollywood Style Weather Reports Incite Global Warming Fears

Here.

Al Gore, NYU Law, 9/18/06

Check out the speech by Al Gore here.

This speech is loaded with assertions that'll make people giggle in upcoming years.

Excerpt:

Each passing day brings yet more evidence that we are now facing a planetary emergency — a climate crisis that demands immediate action to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions worldwide in order to turn down the earth’s thermostat and avert catastrophe.

About the Climate Audit blog

Here.

George Carlin on Global Warming

"Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow"

This "South Park" episode provides some richly-deserved mocking of global warming alarmism.

Excerpt:

The scientists in town, called in to examine the phenomenon, decide (based on no evidence) that the disaster is the result of global warming, which will hit two days before the day after tomorrow... the present day. "The end of the world will come Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow... good God thats...TODAY!!!"

The declaration of the scientists causes mass hysteria, and everybody runs from the "global warming," crowding in the South Park community center, believing that global warming is causing an ice age outside that would kill them if they left. A reporter reports that 600 billion people have died in Chicago alone (even though the world population was just under 6.5 billion at the time). Stan, after admitting to Kyle that he was the cause of the Beaverton flood, leaves with him and Cartman to rescue the people by boat. The attempt is a disaster in itself: they wind up crashing into an oil refinery, compounding the problems of the stranded people who now must deal with drowning and fire. Randy, Gerald and Stephen brave the supposed ice age to find their sons, dressed in multiple coats despite the fact that the sun is out (they end up collapsing in the street due to hyperthermia, which they think is hypothermia)...

Wrong reason, right decision

Here.

"Rising ice" at the South Pole

Excerpt from this article:

"We are building this one to be ready for the science of the 21st Century," said Jerry Marty, 61, the station chief who worked in both previous South Pole facilities and has overseen the construction of the new one.

The structure offers new comforts to isolated researchers, including private rooms. It is also designed to fend off, for as long as possible, the inexorable buildup of ice and snow that buried the first two stations. The front is shaped like an aircraft wing and faces into the prevailing winds, allowing the snow to blow under it and away.

But snow will, eventually, build up. And when it does reach the bottom of the station, 50-ton hydraulic jacks on each of its supporting columns can raise it up to 24 feet, extending the life expectancy of the building to 50 years.

Comment on the NYT blog about attacks on the Inhofe report

See the whole thing here.

Excerpt (see the post for links):

Also, the head of UN IPCC, Rajendra K. Pachauri, is an economist and engineer. It appears Nobel winner Pachauri would not meet your standards to comment on climate change. Pachauri's training as an economist has not stopped the New York Times from erroneously referring to him as a "climatologist" (see here) or the AP from referring to Pachauri as the "chief climate scientist" for the UN. See here. Are you going to chastise the NY Times and AP for referring to the "thousands" of UN experts as "scientists" as well?

The Great Climate Debate: Morano vs. Air America Host - Listen to 12 min. Debate

Here.

Growth of Fox Glacier in New Zealand

Excerpt from this post:

This glacier continues to grow and shrink every year. Today it is much greater in mass then it was 5 years ago. The glacier grows 100mm per day but 90% of that melts away leaving only 10mm of growth per day.

Board rejects regulating new plant's emissions

Excerpt from this article:

HELENA - Despite some impassioned words about the need to address global warming, a state board Friday declined to impose new carbon dioxide regulations on a coal-fired power plant proposed near Great Falls.

On a 5-1 vote, the state Board of Environmental Review said state regulators acted properly when they approved an air quality permit without carbon dioxide limits for the Highwood Generating Station.

Sir David King - 'Greens' Want to Take Us Back to 17th Century

Here.

More Gore propaganda for middle school students

Excerpt from this article:

After learning about The Climate Project training program, English decided to write Gore a letter asking to be included.

She was later selected and spent two days getting trained on environmental issues and public speaking.

The project trains participants how to give a slide show presentation similar to the one by Gore that is the central element of the documentary. After the training, participants are encouraged to return to their community to give the presentation or to take an active role in environmental advocacy at the local government level.

Gore took an active role in the training by giving the slideshow presentation to the group and giving an encouraging pep talk at the end of the weekend.

“It was an experience I will remember probably my whole life,” English said. “In person, he’s a very powerful speaker.”

Since the training, English estimates she’s given the presentation close to 30 times and has reached about 2,000 people. She frequently speaks at schools, senior social groups and other events.

Recently, English gave the presentation at Westridge Middle School seven times in one day. She spoke to all the school’s seventh- and eighth-grade science classes.

“That was fantastic,” she said.

Weatherman blows cold air on theories of climate change

Here.

Global Cooling? Saudi Arabia covered with snow in coldest winter for 20 years

Excerpt from this article:

Northern parts of Saudi Arabia are covered with snow with schools, mosques and administrative bodies paralyzed, local media reported Friday.

The oil-rich kingdom is being hit with subzero temperatures and snow storms with freezing winds of up to 50 km/h (30mp/h). Some regions have been experiencing problems with water supplies as pipes have frozen, and livestock has died from the cold.

The Saudi Gazette reported late in December that the winter was expected to last 89 days, with temperatures reaching below zero. National media said the winter is the coldest in the country for 20 years.

Polar bear listing could become a powerful tool to stop hydrocabon energy use

Excerpt from this article:

The basis for listing the bear comes from computer models that predict that global warming will cause widespread melting of the Arctic sea ice in the summer. Polar bears are strong swimmers, but need some sea ice in order to get to their major food source, seals. The general circulation models used were not designed to have predictive capacity and in fact do not have predictive capacity. However, under the peculiar rules of the Endangered Species Act, these models may have to be deferred to as the best scientific evidence available.

If Secretary Kempthorne gets his way, the polar bear listing will become a powerful tool to stop hydrocabon energy use. Every proposal to build something that would increase greenhouse gas emissions that comes before a local zoning or planning commission could be challenged on the grounds that greenhouse gas emissions increase global warming, which in turn threatens the survival of polar bears. If the planning or zoning body went ahead and approved the permit, then it would likely be challenged in federal court.

Past experience suggests that the Endangered Species Act has such unlimited regulatory reach that most federal judges would decide that it requires them to rule against almost any alleged threat to a protected species.

This is clearly a train wreck in the making, and it can only be hoped that responsible adults in the administration decide to rely on the real science and therefore to squash Kempthorne's effort.

Pat Sajak's "Solution to Man-Made Global Warming"

See the whole thing here.

Eco-Equity? Green Jobs Act Signed Into Law

Here.

Raining on the Drought Parade

Here.

Weather, climate, and noise

Here.

Grading the IPCC Forecasts

From Climate Skeptic here:

In essence, the IPCC is saying that we know that past forecasts based on a 1.5, much less a 2.5, climate sensitivity have proven to be too high, so in our most recent report we are going to base our forecast on ... a 3.0+!!

Did CO2 drive the changes in this graph of tropical tropopause temperatures?

Here:

Pachauri to "look into" the apparent temperature plateau so far this century

Excerpt from this Reuters article:

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.

"One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents," he told Reuters, adding "are there natural factors compensating?" for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.

He added that skeptics about a human role in climate change delighted in hints that temperatures might not be rising. "There are some people who would want to find every single excuse to say that this is all hogwash," he said.

[WMO's] Delju said temperatures would have to be flat for several more years before a lack of new record years became significant.

Snow causes many deaths in Asia

Excerpts from this BBC story:

In Afghanistan, officials in Ghoriyan district in Herat province said 45 people had been killed there over the past two days as a result of the snowfalls.

Officials in neighbouring Ghowr province also blamed avalanches for 13 deaths over recent days.
...
Parts of Central Asia are also suffering from energy shortages. In southern Kazakhstan, people say they are struggling to keep warm in unusually low temperatures, ranging from -10C during the day to -25 degrees overnight.

In Uzbekistan, which has been suffering its coldest temperatures for almost four decades, human rights groups reported that a small group of women and children held a demonstration in Samarkand to protest against shortages of gas and electricity supplies to rural areas nearby.

Comments on the catastrophic sea rise scare

Here.

Excerpts:

The Greenies will have to come up with a better scare tactic, as the catatrophic sea level rise story is a dog that won't hunt.
...
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! We're all doomed - run, run for your life! We're all going to die!

Oh, sorry, I may have overstated the case just a little bit...
...
Even the IPCC notes that there has not been any acceleration in the rate of rise. Without a dramatic, up to 10 times, increase in the rate of sea level rise, the human causation for global warming is in serious trouble.

Note in particular the distinctly non-scary sea level trend graphs here.

Real Climate's Two Voices on Short-Term Climate Fluctuations

Here.

Excerpt:

...So according to Real Climate one-year's ice extent data can be compared to climate models, but 8 years of temperature data cannot.

Right. This is why I believe that whatever one's position of climate change is, everyone should agree that rigorous forecast verification is needed.

An attempt at "debunking" a list of global warming skeptics

Check it out here and here.

Hot And Icy

See the post from Phil Stott here.

Excerpt:

The idea that we can plan climates predictably on one factor at the margin must be up there with the craziest ideas in a mad, mad world.

The First Argument, Not the Last

See the Climate Skeptic post here.

Excerpt (see the post for emphasis and links):

Here is my thought on this subject. There is nothing wrong with mentioning potential biases in your opponent as part of your argument. For example, it is OK to argue "My opponent has X and Y biases, which should make us suspicious of his study. Let's remember these as we look into the details of his argument to see his errors..." In this case, pointing to potential biases is an acceptable first argument before taking on issues with the opponent's arguments. Unfortunately, climate catastrophists use such charges as their last and only argument. The believe they can stick the "QED" in right after the mention of Exxon funding, and then not bother to actually deal with the details.

Melissa Ethridge's Oscar-winning global warming song

Here.

Northern Ireland Climate Change Legislation Overturned

Here.

Excerpt:

The regulations would have made it compulsory for all newly built properties to have build-in wind turbines, solar panels and wood-fuelled boilers.

Over one million people to be allegedly "educated" about global warming

Excerpt from this page:

Created by Eban Goodstein, author and professor of economics at Lewis & Clark College, Focus The Nation is galvanizing a generational partnership between youth and baby boomers in a vision for America that has not occurred since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

On Jan. 31, more than 1,100 colleges and universities in all 50 states will participate in Focus The Nation—an unprecedented teach-in on solutions to global warming that will simultaneously educate close to one million people.

Check out the "Focus the Nation" propaganda here.

One of the "lessons" is here (Word format).

About IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri

Should we take Rajendra Pachauri's word as pure gospel, or is it OK to question his claims?

Below is some background information:

1. From this article:

Since his appointment, Pachauri, who is known for his diplomatic skills, has managed to forge a global consensus on one of the most debated issues in the world -- climate change.
...
"It was not an easy job reaching a consensus on research by 2,500 scientists from more than 130 countries," said Nitin Desai, former U.N. Under-Secretary-General for economic and social affairs and an expert on climate change.

"His skills as a diplomat and a consensus builder are what sealed the deal," he said about the report which stated it was more than 90 percent likely that mankind's activities were the main cause of warming in the past 50 years.

A strong believer in the teachings of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, the 67-year-old Indian economist and engineer took over the job in 2002 amid controversy.
...
At the time, Gore denounced Pachauri in the New York Times and said his "virulent anti-American statements" would undermine the IPCC's authority in the United States.
...
Born on Aug 20, 1940 in the scenic town of Nainital in the foothills of the outer Himalayas, he is a hard-core vegetarian, partly due to his religious beliefs as a Hindu and the impact meat production has on the climate.

Married with two children, he also heads one of India's leading environmental think-tanks, The Energy and Resources Institute, which does research in areas from energy and the environment to biotechnology.
...
He spends much of his time travelling and speaking on climate change at international fora and jokes he "lives at 30,000 feet".

2. From this article:

OSLO (Reuters) - The science on climate change is indisputable so the world must now act to limit greenhouse gas emissions or face "abrupt and irreversible" change, the head of the Nobel prize-winning U.N. climate panel said on Sunday.
...
"The science is very clear -- it's loud, articulate and incontrovertible. On this basis I think it's time the world moved on," Pachauri told Reuters a day before he and climate activist Al Gore receive the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
...
"You will never get a more robust set of conclusions and findings than what we have provided. If this doesn't move the world to action, then I don't know what will," Pachauri said.

3. From this article, dated 1/8/08:

OSLO (Reuters) - India's Rajendra Pachauri said on Monday he will probably seek a new term as head of the U.N. climate panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.

"I think we are riding a crest ... as far as climate change is concerned, particularly spreading the information of climate change," Pachauri, 67, told Reuters in Oslo after making an evening speech about the risks of global warming.

"I feel that even though it's going to be very tough ... I will probably throw my hat in," he said when asked if he would seek re-election in April for a second six-year term as head of the U.N. panel that draws on the work of about 2,500 scientists.

"I am tending towards that ... I feel that I should decide formally in the next couple of weeks," he said of the election to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

4. Another quote from Pachauri is here:

We have been so drunk with this desire to produce and consume more and more whatever the cost to the environment that we're on a totally unsustainable path. I am not going to rest easy until I have articulated in every possible forum the need to bring about major structural changes in economic growth and development.

5. Some information about Pachauri's poor performance in a recent climate debate is here.

6. The Wikipedia page on Pachauri is here; the web site for his Energy and Resources Institute is here.

"Day by Day" skewers Gore

Here:

First snow for 100 years falls on Baghdad

Here.

Excerpt:

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Light snow fell in Baghdad early on Friday in what weather officials said was the first time in about a 100 years.

Rare snowfalls were also recorded in the west and centre of Iraq, plunging temperatures to zero degrees Centigrade (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and even colder, an official said.

Greenpeace is shocked–shocked–to discover lobbying going on

Here.

List of Climate Change Skeptics Continues to Grow (Part 3)

Here.

Consequences Of The Conflict Of Interest In the 2007 CCSP Report - “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconcilin

Here.

Excerpt:

When I resigned from the CCSP Committee, I wrote in my Public Comment,

“The process that produced the report was highly political, with the Editor taking the lead in suppressing my perspectives, most egregiously demonstrated by the last-minute substitution of a new Chapter 6 for the one I had carefully led preparation of and on which I was close to reaching a final consensus. Anyone interested in the production of comprehensive assessments of climate science should be troubled by the process which I document below in great detail that led to the replacement of the Chapter that I was serving as Convening Lead Author.”

Survey of Americans on global warming

Here.

Excerpt:

Global warming is the world’s biggest environmental problem - 33%
Global warming is caused mostly by human activity - 41%
...
Know a good deal about global warming - 62%

I think global warming awareness has already been raised, and I'm happy to see that a large majority of Americans evidently aren't buying the catastrophic scenarios.

Wow! That’s a big southern sea ice anomaly in the southern summer!

Here .

Excerpt:

...clearly the southern hemisphere has established an observation record for sea ice in the southern hemisphere summer.

Verification of 1990 IPCC Temperature Predictions

Here:



Note that the IPCC is rumored to be taking down some of their old official sites. If their old forecasts weren't ridiculously high compared to actual observations, I wonder if those sites would be left in place?

Inside the HO83 Hygrothermometer

Here.

Excerpts:

Much has been written about problems with artificially high temperature readings due to the HO83 aspirated air temperature/dewpoint temperature sensor used on NOAA Automated Surface Observing Stations (ASOS). The most famous problem occurred in Tucson, AZ in the mid 1980’s where a malfunctioning HO83 unit created dozens of new high temperature records for the city, even though surrounding areas had no such measured extremes. Unfortunately those new high temperature records includign the all time high of 117 degrees F, became part of the official climate record and still stand today.
...
While only 5% of the USHCN network is ASOS, the biases produced by the HO83 are quite large, and there appears to be no site specific adjustments to remove the bias. Since determining the individidual maintenance records and biases of each ASOS station would be a significant task, the simplest solution would be to remove all ASOS stations from the USHCN record set.

The Well-Funded "Well-Funded Denial Machine" Denial Machine

See the whole thing here.

Excerpts:

Let us recap. Of all the oil companies, according to Greenpeace, the Royal Society, and campaigning organisations, journalists, and scientists, ExxonMobil is the worst. And of all the wrong things it does, the worst has been to give $2 million to the CEI over the course of a decade. This funding has been sufficient to significantly stall international action on climate change on the global political agenda. Allegedly.

Yet as we can see, since 1994, Greenpeace have been the lucky recipients of well over $2 billion in roughly the same time. A difference of three orders of magnitude.
...
The irony of "the well-funded well-funded-denial-machine denial machine" is not simply that it is well funded, and denies critics of its political agenda, whilst complaining about funding and political distortion of science. But that the angry accusations thrown at sceptics - both scientists and 'ideological' sceptics - are the product of a deeply illiberal form of politics, which seeks to deny opposition its right to expression, avoids debate, and hides behind the distorted conception of science that comittees can determine scientific truth which politicians and individuals should obey, and damn anybody who disagrees.

Why can't we increase nuclear output in this country?

See the IBD editorial here.

Excerpts:

The answer is, of course, irrational opposition by environmentalists. They screech about greenhouse gas emissions from gas- and coal-fired electric plants but, with a few exceptions, they fanatically resist the most reasonable alternative: nuclear power.
...
As eco-activists continue their campaign of hostility toward anything but renewables and spineless politicians let themselves be intimidated, our energy needs and dependence on foreign sources keep growing. It's a recipe for long-term economic misery.

This country wasn't founded on political weakness and raving hysteria, and it can't be expected to forge ahead under their burden. We don't have much of a future if those character failures aren't eliminated.

Local rainfall stats defy global warming fears

Here.

Excerpt:

Despite warnings that global warming is already impacting precipitation quantities, local rainfall statistics have remained essentially unchanged in the 60 years they have been tracked.

"While models project gloom and doom for climate change, field observation of rainfall indicates a grayer stability," according to Haifa University's Noam Halfon. The institute's geography department recently completed research that found no substantial change in rainfall quantities.

"The whole thing looks ad hoc as if someone was insistently forcing a linear regression fit"

See the post and comments here.

Steger, Branson, Ekran Heading Across Arctic in Bid to Demonstrate Drastic Change In Real Time for Schools, Public

Excerpt from this page:

...legendary polar explorer and lifelong environmental activist Will Steger is leading a team of top explorers out across the arctic ice this spring in an amazing journey to capture the arctic trauma while highlighting the need for immediate action…

The team includes Sam Branson, son of Virgin’s Richard Branson, and …… They’ll be documenting their journey in real-time, blogging and creating podcasts from the ice throughout the trip. They’ll also be leaving time-lapse video cameras in their wake to capture the ice as it melts away.

I just don't think video of melting ice in spring and summer is going to raise worldwide "awareness" a whole lot.

"A warming climate can support glacial ice"

Here.

Excerpt:

New research challenges the generally accepted belief that substantial ice sheets could not have existed on Earth during past super-warm climate events. The study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego provides strong evidence that a glacial ice cap, about half the size of the modern day glacial ice sheet, existed 91 million years ago during a period of intense global warming. This study offers valuable insight into current day climate conditions and the environmental mechanisms for global sea level rise.

A related Telegraph story is here.

Excerpt:

The most pessimistic predictions of sea level rises as ice sheets are melted by global warming may have to be scaled back as a result of an extraordinary discovery that ice persisted when the Earth was much hotter than today.

Scientists have discovered that glaciers survived for hundreds of thousands of years during an extraordinary era when crocodiles roamed the Arctic and the tropical Atlantic Ocean was as warm as human blood.

Actually, Heather, it IS a fad

Excerpt from this article:

Mayor Heather Fargo doesn't think "being green" is just hip or trendy. And, certainly, she said, it's not a fad or a buzz word.

In fact, she told a group of 600 downtown leaders Thursday that slowing emissions and dealing with climate change needs to be Sacramento's top priority.

"I want to ask you to help make this the agenda for Sacramento," Fargo said as part of her annual State of the Downtown address at Memorial Auditorium. "Every household, every person, even every business needs to join us in our efforts."

Indian 'cheapmobile' gives IPCC's Pachauri 'nightmares'

Here.

Update: Although this car supposedly can deliver around 54 US miles per gallon (while a Prius may deliver an MPG in the 40's) Greenpeace is actually protesting it:

Outside the auditorium, activists from the environmental protest group Greenpeace held up banners calling for the world to tackle climate change and "CUT CO2" rather than build millions of ever-cheaper cars.

I find that protest more than a little odd.

Every time you drive a Prius in the United States, aren't you saving the life of a polar bear cub? Isn't it also OK to fly people on private jets to Bali for "important" discussions about carbon dioxide?

Garth George: Great global warming debate a bunch of hot air

Here.

Excerpt:

...global warming is to environmentalists these days what smoking is to health professionals - a convenient vehicle for extracting large sums from Governments (taxpayers) and industry, and a convenient scapegoat to blame for a raft of perceived problems.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: blaming CO2 emissions for climate change is an international rort.

"A Critical Look at Global Warming" by Larry Gould

Here (PDF); here (Word format with clickable links).

States' Climate Manager Gets Economic Scrutiny

Here.

Futile Fight Against Fission

Here.

Excerpt:

The powering of Britain for the next forty years is one of the most important issues facing us. We can no longer play childish games. It is time to grow up, to put away childish fancies, and to face up to cold realities.

Bad News! The World is Getting Safer!

Here.

From the linked article:

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%.

A skeptical scientist speaks out in a new blog

From William M. Briggs here.

Excerpt (see the post for links):

But climatology has, unfortunately, become a different sort of creature. Far too much speculation shows up in the headlines. Prominent scientists have taken to using the press as a bludgeon to discourage reasonable dissent. An example: R K Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, and now co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has compared anybody that dared question mad-made climate change to those who believe in a flat earth.

“Well, there will always be some skeptics,” Pachauri said. “As you know, there is still in existence something called the Flat Earth Society. There are people — a very limited number, thank God — who believe the Earth is flat.” Source: Washington Post

These excruciating comments are asinine and irresponsible, and they must be answered publicly.

Rearranging the (thermal) furniture

Here.

Our global warming 'Animal Farm'

Here.

Excerpt:

In one of his incomparable essays, C. S. Lewis criticized man's often insolent determination to control the forces of nature. He remarked that man's control of nature was frequently nothing more than man's control over other men - with nature as the instrument.

Nothing explains the mad obsession with global warming quite so pointedly. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the global warming panic has little to do with temperature change and everything to do with man's control of other men with climate as the instrument.

A climate "event" in Alaska

Here.

Excerpt:

The event of interest was the regime shift from cold to warm phase of the PDO in 1976 and Alaska’s temperature record makes this obvious:

Ice Age Cometh?

Here.

Excerpt:

And so we’re ready to compromise our sovereignty and surrender our mode of government for what scientists really haven’t a clue about? Heck, they can’t even get today’s forecast right, let alone divine the end of times, first creating a panic over a global ice age, next global warming, and now, could it be again, a global big chill.

Thirty-eight dead in Romanian cold spell

Here.

Excerpt:

A severe cold spell has killed 38 people in the Romanian capital Bucharest since December 10, the head of the Forensic Institute told the Mediafax news agency on Monday.

The majority of those killed were homeless people, Dan Dermengiu added.

He said another 58 people died a "sudden death" in the capital during the same period and "the cold played an important role in a third of those cases".

Meanwhile, 11 people have died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the past month due to faulty heating installations, he said.

How not to measure Temperature, part 46. Reno’s USHCN Station

See the post and comments here.

Excerpt:

In wondering about just how this placement between runways on a darker surface environment might contribute to the upward trend in the GISS temperature graph shown above, I did some searching online and soon discovered that NOAA uses Reno’s placement problems as an example in a training manual for climate monitoring COOP managers. They’d already done all the work for me! More on that internal NOAA training manual later, as it has provided a wealth of information previously undisclosed.

What was amazing is that they’d already determined that there were significant problems with this USHCN station placement that contributed a significant warming bias to the record.

Latest storm leaves 70 centimeters of snow at Aspen/Snowmass

Excerpt from this page:

DEEPcember is over, but the snow has not let up. The latest storm left up to 72 centimeters of snow at Aspen/Snowmass this weekend, and more is on the way tonight. After a record setting December, with 300 centimeters falling at the top of Snowmass, the resort has now received more over five meters (nearly 510 centimeters) since the beginning of October.

“We haven’t seen a winter like this in decades,” said Rich Burkley, Vice President, Mountain Operations. “It seems that January is hot on the heels of December already. If this keeps up we’ll be skiing into June.”

How Mainstream Media Can Regain Lost Trust

Here.

Excerpt:

Then there is the little matter of the global warming debate. The debate, in reality, is not about global warming, rather it is about convincing entire populations to accept the environmental protest industry’s claims at face value and accept any form of punishment they wish to impose for our collective eco-sins. The mainstream media has jumped right in, agreeing the debate is over and now we must all suffer the consequences or suffer some unbearable fate. A recent list shows there are several hundred fates from which to choose so at least we have a choice.

To illustrate media complicity in this sham, I would ask if have you heard of one media outlet demanding from the enviros to define exactly what, in their humble opinions, is a normal climate and secondly how long they expect mankind to take to reverse current weather patterns?

Are Carbon Offsets BS?

Here.

Excerpt:

A good word the Times uses for what is going on is “deception.”

Seriously, carbon offsets are just a way that certain people and companies can pretend that they are climate change friendly without actually changing the way they live/do business.

The sky is NOT falling

See the entire paper here from the Carbon Sense Coalition.

HT: Climate Science

"Private citizen" James Hansen opposes an Iowa coal plant

Here.

Thoughts on satellite temperature measurement

Here.

Excerpt:

Any convergence of surface temperature measurements with satellite should be a source of skepticism, not confidence. We know that the surface temperature measurement system is immensely flawed: there are still many station quality issues in the US like urban biases that go uncorrected, and the rest of the world is even worse. There are also huge coverage gaps (read: oceans). The fact this system correlates with satellite measurement feels like the situation where climate models, many of which take different approaches, some of them demonstrably wrong or contradictory, all correlate well with history. It makes us suspicious the correlation is a managed artifact, not a real outcome.

"Failure of IPCC WG1 to release the Review Editor comments"

See the post and comments here.

More lunacy about allegedly "growing" Ivory-bill evidence

Here.

"I think that I was slightly naive"

An article on a guy's swim in 29 degree salt water is here.

Excerpt:

Following a route designated by flags planted along the ice, he made his 0.6 mile swim in a little more than 18 minutes, enough distance to qualify for an international record. (Others had briefly jumped into the polar water, but none had come close to traveling far enough to qualify as an official "swim.") Pugh suffered no long-term ill effects, though the fingers on one of his hands remained numb for several months afterward.
...
While his feat briefly made world headlines, Pugh laments that it hasn't had the impact he had hoped. He thought that by showing that someone could swim at the heart of the Arctic, the most northern place on Earth, world leaders would have been shaken into taking action against global warming.

Looking back, he says, "I think that I was slightly naive. I thought that if I showed people the beauty of the Arctic and the beauty of the polar bears that they would care so much that they would stand up and try to make a change."

The Road from Climate Science to Climate Advocacy

A blog post about alarmist Richard Somerville is here.

Excerpt:

In an email exchange, I asked Dr. Somerville what he thought was needed in order to spark the changes the letter seeks. He responded, “I think a dramatic shocking surprising climate event that is unambiguously due to global warming may be the only thing that motivates people and governments. Maybe a big chunk of ice sheet destabilizing and producing a significant sudden sea level rise. Unfortunately, then it may be too late, because it’s essentially irreversible; you can’t cool the world enough to make the ice re-form quickly.

Somerville was a member of an alarmist team that lost an NPR debate on global warming last March.

Your farm is their farm

Here.

"Could we scrub CO2 out of the atmosphere with synthetic trees?"

Here.

Ads meant to promote global "warming" awareness

Here and here.

Deadly blizzards bring Asia chaos

Here.

Excerpt:

Central Asian nations have reported unusually cold temperatures.

In Kyrgyzstan, a government agency said 50 homeless people froze to death over the first four days of the new year.

In Tajikistan, people are struggling to keep warm in daytime temperatures as low as -10C, at a time when cutbacks in energy exports from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan mean electricity supplies have been reduced to a total of about four hours a day.

Heavy snow has also caused casualties in Afghanistan.

Five people were killed in an avalanche in the western province of Ghor, and in neighbouring Herat eight members of the same family died after their roof collapsed under heavy snow.

EU emissions quotas too generous / Trading scheme may require major overhaul

Here.

Chris Horner on "statements" and appeals to authority

Here.

Puzzling climate propaganda from Reuters

Check out the 1/8/08 sob story here, entitled "China ice festival feels heat from climate change".

Excerpts:

"In the beginning of December 2002, ice lanterns in Harbin melted right after they were sculpted. What came out of the work was sweaty ice sculptures," Yin Xuemian, senior meteorologist at the Heilongjiang Observatory, told Reuters.
...
Far from the global debates about how to curb climate change, participants in Harbin's festival have more immediate concerns: how to keep their creations from melting.

"We are worried that the thing will collapse. We tried to readjust a little bit," said one Malaysian participant chipping away at a hunk of ice.

According to this page:

Officially, the festival starts from January 5th and lasts one month.

Ok, so how much "heat" is actually being felt in Harbin right now?

According to Weather Underground, the answer seems to be "not too much". It's -2 F right now, with temperatures ranging from +12 to -25 F expected through next Tuesday:



This page currently shows that temperatures have ranged between +21 and -18 F so far in 2008.

I'm skeptical that the ice sculptures are going to melt very quickly in those temperatures...

Decaffeinated

See the Wall Street Journal piece by Holman Jenkins here.

Excerpt:

Take last month's fuel-economy legislation, deemed "a nice little Christmas present" for the American people by Nancy Pelosi. President Bush wore himself out singing the bill's praises. Mr. Obama, who has been hell on the auto makers, practically called it America's salvation. But its only redeeming feature is that it's unlikely ever to take effect, at least in current form.

We won't try to list all the built-in fudge factors. No two companies, or even vehicles, will have to meet the same mileage target. Domestic auto makers will be favored over foreign ones, "trucks" over "cars." Biofuel-ready vehicles will receive additional credit, even if they never see a drop of biofuel. Etc.

And lobbyists will surely descend on Washington during the long years before implementation begins, changing the rules beyond recognition, especially if gasoline prices drop. Don't be surprised if the courts, and even Congress itself, also ultimately balk at a program that treats each auto maker differently, while relying on the Gosplan-like discretion of federal regulators somehow to conjure into being a new national fleet that averages 35 mpg, a 40% increase, by 2020.

What's more, Detroit could always just ignore the rules and pay the fines as Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen have done for years.

Don't get us wrong. No mileage rules designed by Congress would ever have the slightest impact on global warming or bring any nearer to thee the false god of "energy independence."

Forecast Verification for Climate Science, Part 3

Here.

Excerpt:

Something fishy is going on. The IPCC and CCSP recently argued that the surface and satellite records are reconciled. This might be the case from the standpoint of long-term liner trends. But the data here suggest that there is some work left to do. The UAH and NASA curves are remarkably consistent. But RSS dramatically contradicts both. UKMET shows 2007 as the coolest year since 2001, whereas NASA has 2007 as the second warmest. In particular estimates for 2007 seem to diverge in unique ways. It'd be nice to see the scientific community explain all of this.

03 Jan, 2008 - Best early season snow in the Alps for 11 years

Here:

In the best possible answer to the climate-change gloom reports of last winter, many areas of the Alps are currently reporting the best December snow conditions for 11 years. Most of the world's leading ski areas and many more marginal areas are also reporting good snow conditions at present.

However in recent weeks temperatures have been very cold, with clear sunny days, and there has been little fresh snow after the heavy falls last month. Snowmaking machines are operating at full power however, building piste bases.

Who could get sued for global "warming"

Here.

Is having fewer children key to stopping climate change?

Here.

Excerpt:

...one couple I know are confident of having made a contribution greater than the rest of us put together.

They made a deliberate decision many years ago not to have any children and the more I think about it, the more I am sure they are right.

Somewhere, Mr. Edison Gently Weeps

Here.

Excerpt:

A New Yorker cartoon from several years ago shows a vast, cubicle-filled office, with a manager explaining that the "dim fluorescent lighting is meant to emphasize the general absence of hope."

Fluorescents aren't all that bad. In fact, they've steadily gained market share in recent years. But from now on their popularity will rest not on consumer preferences, but on the force of law. If there's anything about fluorescents that involves the general absence of hope, it's that Congress has been able to mandate them with so little opposition.

The new energy bill, signed by President Bush this past Wednesday, is noted for its huge hike in auto fuel economy standards and in ethanol mandates and subsidies. The former will kill people, by causing cars to be downsized and less crashworthy; the latter will waste huge sums of money.

Clueless academic folks on "the world disaster we know is looming"

Check out the article and comments here, and note that almost everyone involved seems to have completely swallowed the "impending CO2-induced catastrophe" story.

Excerpts from that page:

Some of the financial and career rewards given to faculty and administrators who amass travel invitations could be transferred to those who innovate to tackle global warming.
...
I think universities could play two more significant roles in reducing global warming:

First, they could consider this far more intensively in their development and building. Here on our campus a new administration building went up two years ago. I tried to argue for a solar component, to make the building generate its own energy at least in part, and was shot down on expense grounds. I found this unbelievably short-sighted, since in twenty years I anticipate other energy costs will be astronomical. I also think that expense is warranted given the planetary predicament. What a beacon the universities could be if they became not merely energy efficient but self-sustaining, premised on renewable resources.

Second, universities and their faculties have a vital role to play in educating the public. Americans are simply not all on the same page as the New York Times, Al Gore, and the scientific consensus. My students here — and I’m sure they’re not unique — still are full of jokes about global warming when the subject arises that indicate their lack of registering its full significance. Some of them show irresponsibility (it only matters for future generations, not ours) or denial (it’s not linked to CO2 emissions or any human endeavor). Others, of course, are aware and concerned, and a few are active, but... we have a surprisingly long way to go and as educational institutions, universities have a key role in education on this cardinal issue.

Dozens killed in Iran blizzards

Here.

Excerpt:

At least 28 people are reported to have died in Iran's heaviest snowfall in recent years.

Eight people froze to death as severe blizzards left 40,000 people stranded in their cars, authorities said.

Although most have now been rescued, another 20 people are reported to have died in car crashes caused by the weather, officials said.

Tehran has declared two days of national holiday, urging people to stay at home to avoid the bitter cold.

The temperature has been down as low as -24 degrees Celsius, and for the first time in living memory there has been snow in the country's southern deserts.

A New Paper - Numerical Experiments on Fair-Weather Clouds Forming By Tadao Inoue and Fujio Kimura

Here.

Media Promotes Global Warming Alarmism

See the whole Jack Kelly piece here on Yahoo News.

Ken Livingstone, Peter Garett And Al Gore: SOS

Here.

'Weather Report' Now About Entertainment: A Note from Anthony Watts

Here.

Are some official IPCC sites being taken down?

From the JunkScience blog here (see the post for links):

On the topic of the assessment reports, JunkScience.com has established a mirror of IPCC_TAR (because official sites are apparently being taken down) and would like to archive all the reports. Does anyone have, or can they create digital copies of FAR and/or SAR? We’d love to hear from you.

Why would these official sites be taken down?

The week...the consensus...died?

Sometime in the recent past, there was supposed to be this complete "consensus" that the earth was facing catastrophic global warming caused by human CO2 emissions. Anyone not buying this alleged consensus was supposed to be misinformed or paid off by Big Oil.

The first week of 2008 was rather remarkable in that three different mainstream news sources published articles strongly questioning some or all of that consensus.

To review:

1. On January 1, in The New York Times, John Tierney took alarmist Al Gore to task in this article.

Excerpt:

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Gore didn’t dwell on the complexities of the hurricane debate. Nor, in his roundup of the 2007 weather, did he mention how calm the hurricane season had been. Instead, he alluded somewhat mysteriously to “stronger storms in the Atlantic and Pacific,” and focused on other kinds of disasters, like “massive droughts” and “massive flooding.”

“In the last few months,” Mr. Gore said, “it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter.” But he was being too modest. Thanks to availability entrepreneurs like him, misinterpreting the weather is getting easier and easier.

2. On January 3, a non-alarmist Associated Press article by Seth Borenstein was published.

Excerpt:

There's a natural cause that may account for much of the Arctic warming...

3. On January 6, the Boston Globe published this non-alarmist piece by Jeff Jacoby.

Excerpt:

Climate science isn't a religion, and those who dispute its leading theory are not heretics. Much remains to be learned about how and why climate changes, and there is neither virtue nor wisdom in an emotional rush to counter global warming - especially if what's coming is a global Big Chill.

I don't think that this global warming hysteria will die quickly, but I'm confident that it will continue to erode in the months and years ahead.

Forecast Verification for Climate Science, Part 2

See the whole thing here.

IPCC's Pachauri loses face and temper in Norway

Here.

Excerpt:

According to Norwegian Aftenbladet, Pachauri had done his usual alarmist presentation in a good mood. He even included a joke about 20-30 percent of species dying out as a cause of global warming, and this extinction would include climate skeptics.

Åm had done his homework and disproved the outrageous statements, and concluded by accusing the IPCC of committing scientific fraud. One of his strongest points was the scientific critique of the hockey graph that the climate alarmists love so much.

Personally, I have read so many science reports discrediting that graph that it is hard to believe that IPCC is still using it with a straight face, but that is just my meager science reporter’s opinion…

Pachauri did not take kindly to the accusation of scientific fraud, but was not able to turn room back around after Åm’s devastating debunking, according to Aftenbladet.

After the debate, Aftenbladet asked Åm what his scientific credentials on climate science was, and Åm answered “I have the same credentials as Al Gore”.

About the supposed retreat of tropical forests

Here.

Update: In a related post, Al Fin writes:

Can you imagine? The rain forests keep losing the same 150 million ha of rainforest every ten years!...The clueless mainstream media continues to barrage a hapless public with disaster stories of rain forest devastation accompanied by catastrophic human-caused global warming.

Constant refrain from alarmists: there *was* a climate debate, but now it's over

1. In 1992, Al Gore said:

Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled.

2. In April 2007, with Sheryl Crow sitting next to her, Laurie David said:

...the world has complete consensus on this....the debate is over.

(By the way, Laurie David was the real-life wife of Larry David, who was the inspiration for the "George Costanza" character in Seinfeld.)

3. In December 2007, Sheryl Crow explains that about "six months ago", people were still debating, but now "there's no more debate".

How green is CES?

Here.

Excerpts:

The cost of the CES carbon tax: $108,000. No, there's not a zero or three missing from that number. For the price of a Tesla Roadster and change, CES is cleansing the collective environmental sins of 140,000 people. Without wading into the controversial arena of carbon offsets or questioning the good intentions of CES' organizers, that number begs an obvious question: If neutralizing a looming global catastrophe comes so cheap, wouldn't have Bill and Melinda Gates just have written a check by now?
...
According to Carbonfund.org's website, CES' money will be invested in such things as buying renewable energy certificates from wind farms and planting trees in Nicaragua and Hungary.

CarbonFund is also letting conference-goers offset the considerable CO2 emitted by jets ferrying more than a hundred thousand people into Las Vegas. That's also a bargain: the bill for the six Fortune Magazine reporters who flew into town for CES from New York and San Francisco comes to a grand total of $23.81. At that price, you almost feel guilty about paying so little to not to feel guilty about your contribution to global warming.

Musings on Satellite Temperatures

See the whole thing here.

Severe cold spell paralyses normal life in Netrakona

Excerpt from this Bangladesh news site:

The intensity of the could worsens after mid-day and turns extremely unbearable in the evening. The cold weather condition caused extreme sufferings to the local people especially to the floating and poverty-stricken people here as they could not able to purchase the warm clothes. Meanwhile, many old aged men and women and children were affected by different cold related diseases like cold fever and cough in various parts of the district, local physicians and hospital sources said.

If you approached the locals right now and told them you had a grand plan to reduce temperatures a fraction of a degree by 2100, I wonder how appreciative they'd be?

Frozen water bodies in Himachal Pradesh lead to power crisis

Here.

Excerpt:

Power crisis looms over Himachal Pradesh as the water level in reservoirs has fallen steeply with water flows in rivers and rivulets getting drastically reduced due to sub-zero temperatures.
...
The frozen water bodies at the higher altitudes coupled with intense cold weather conditions are compounding the problems of the people. They are apprehending a severe shortage of water and electricity during the winter months.

Ivory-bill updates

1. An update from Geoff Hill is here.

2. An update from Cornell's Mobile Search Team is here.

It looks to me like they're just going through the motions.

3. "Stallings combing the Delta for the ivory-billed woodpecker" here.

4. For his bogus claim about seeing an extinct bird, Tim Gallagher makes a "most influential Britons in America" list here.

More bright ideas

"Scientists" suggest orbiting sunshades, artificial volcanoes, growing extra-hairy soy beans, and painting the roads white here.

"21 die in Iran snow storms"

Here.

Excerpt:

Tehran - At least 21 people have been killed and 88 others injured in Iran in accidents related to heavy snowfall and strong winds, state media reported Monday.

Iran has suffered from the most serious snow storms in a decade since Saturday - forcing schools and government offices to close, blocking major roads and leading to the cancellation of all domestic and international flights.

As much as 55 centimetres of snow has fallen in areas of northern and central Iran, said meteorologist Ali Abedini. Heavy snow also blanketed the capital of Tehran on Sunday, the second time in a week.

What Happens When You Abandon The Price Mechanism to Allocated Resources

Here.

Turning coal into liquid fuel

Here.

Morgan Freeman Commutes To Work In An Airplane

Here.

Interview with Ross McKitrick

Here (WAV format).

Some background information is here.

California USHCN station surveys are complete

Here.

Excerpt:

Of course NOAA did just about everything possible to prevent access, including pulling the station observer database last summer from public view. When I pointed out that NOAA/NWS published pictures of observers standing in front of their stations, along with their names and location, and that they publish a national quarterly newsletter with the same information, they changed their mind and put the database back online.

I understand the NWS wanting to protect privacy of observers, as they are volunteers. At the same time it would just be a lot easier if the NOAA/NWS would simply pitch in and help rather than throw out roadblocks. The goal is not to exposure observers, or their locations, but rather to accurately record the current (and past if possible) station measurement environment. That can be done without compromising privacy.

In fact it can be done far easier if NOAA/NWS would simply help. But given the questionable condition of some USHCN stations, I’m sure they view the project as an embarrassment. But it is our tax dollars at work, and the public right to know such information should supersede any government agency’s concerns.

Climate change is not an excuse for genocide

Here.

"To me this makes the main stream reporting of global warming little more than propaganda"

Here.

Brilliant solutions to global warming!

Let's simultaneously burn a lot more wood and a lot less wood!

The Gore Effect defined

Here.

Excerpt:

The phenomenon that leads to unseasonably cold temperatures, driving rain, hail, or snow whenever Al Gore visits an area to discuss global warming. Hence, the Gore Effect.

"Hollywood Goes Green" conference agenda

Here.

'24' Executive Producer Howard Gordon Turns Green

Here.

Excerpts:

But after years of gentle coaxing by his wife, Cambria Gordon, a writer and environmental activist, he has officially gone green.
...
My wife Cambria is a longtime global-warming activist who wrote a book with Laurie David called "The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming."
...
To be honest, there are skeptics on the writing staff who aren't embracing this challenge with the same vigor as me. I respect all points of view among our writers. We do argue a lot at lunchtime.

"The effect of aerosols is one of the most uncertain processes in climate change modeling"

Here.

Ok, so maybe solar fluctuations could be significant

Here.

Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent now greater than last year

Look carefully at the red line here:

"Science spin" and "Greenies getting rattled"

The latest from Greenie Watch is here.

An alarmist statement

Excerpt from this letter:

I remember reading or hearing somewhere a few years ago (I can't retrieve the source) that if the people of China (pop. 1.3 billion) were to achieve the fossil fuel powered, electric toothbrush living standards of the USA (pop. 0.3 billion), within 50 years the Earth will be devoid of all oxygen-breathing life. (You don't need the source; the arithmetic proves the statement correct.)

About that "Global Warming Hits China" article

Here.

Maybe if we raise the price of gas by at least $2 a gallon, it will help those "struggling" polar bears?

Here.

Arctic Global Warming Expedition Cancelled Due To Extreme Cold

A story from last March is here.

All the "Catastrophe" Comes from Feedback

Excerpt from this post:

...suffice it to say that climate scientists are way out on a thin branch in assuming that a long-term stable process like climate is dominated by massive amounts of positive feedback.

Presidential Candidate Global Warming Update

Here.

Forecast Verification for Climate Science

See Pielke Jr's post here.

How are those polar bears and penguins actually faring?

Excerpts from this post:

In November 2007, he [Dr. Mitch Taylor, Wildlife Director with the Government of Nunavut] commented: “I really think that the amount of seals seen and seal kills witnessed (or almost witnessed) means that the ringed seal population in Hudson Bay is huge right now, probably well in excess of the last estimate of nearly half a million. Considering we need about 10,000 ringed seals to feed this population of bears, the bears have a good start.”

It seems the bears aren’t really struggling at all, in fact they are thriving.
...
Penguins are now enjoying a population boom. Their increasing numbers can be partly attributed to the over-fishing of baleen whales in the past which has resulted in a super-abundance of krill, a key species in the Antarctic ecosystem. In addition to krill, penguins feed heavily on fish, squid, and other small crustaceans.

New website: Climate Debate Daily

Here.

Thermal vents discovered near the western Antarctic peninsula

Excerpt from this post:

"Earthquakes and magma spewing on the seafloor go hand in hand, and what we are seeing is, there are new heat sources right off the coast of Deception Island that no one was aware of before. "It's the only place on the planet where active seafloor and subaerial (above sea level) volcanoes are near large icebergs and ice sheets." Dziak is hoping to learn more about how the sea floor volcanoes and earthquakes contribute to the breakup of ice in the region. The most significant find from the research so far has been the discovery of thermal vents on the seafloor.

Brussels considering climate tax on imports

Here.

New Books and DVDs

Here.

"Global Warming" Strikes McCain Supporters

Here.

Excerpt:

Moments later, the unseasonably warm air -- it's nearly 50 degrees today -- nearly cost McCain a few votes when a sheet of snow and ice slid off the roof over the State House steps and fell about 20 feet, crashing on top of a group of McCain supporters. They shrieked. The candidate stopped talking and turned around to see what had happened. So did the crowd.

"We're OK!" one of the victims, an older woman, announced as she struggled to her feet.

"It's just snow!" McCain cracked. "There's that global climate change there."

Jeremy Clarkson drives a truck to the North Pole

See the BBC notes here.

Excerpt:

As you may know, the polar bear is the largest land carnivore on the planet. It can run as fast as a race horse, has an incredibly keen sense of smell, and is the type of bear most likely to prey on humans. We encountered lots of them. In fact, the doctor who accompanied Hammond’s team, and who travels to the Arctic Circle every year, said he’d seen more bears on this trip than any other he’d made. The shotgun wasn’t for show.

The 13th Annual Critics' Choice Awards Gift Bag Goes Eco-Friendly

Before your next party, print out a copy of this press release.

Then have guests compete to see how many paragraphs they can read before succumbing to eco-fatigue.

(Can you really save the planet by relaxing in a Colorado year-round outdoor hot tub by the light of a GMO-free organic soy candle?)

David Suzuki's conspiracy theory

Excerpts from this interview with prominent alarmist David Suzuki:

...Why didn't we do anything? I think it was because the fossil fuel industry was very, very successful at supporting a handful of sceptics...[who]... created confusion. To the public it seemed as though questions about the reality of climatic change hadn't been settled yet.
...
Stanford University ecologist Paul Ehrlich says is that there are a thousand ecological Pearl Harbours going on at once and we need to marshall…effort worldwide. Y’know…whenever you go to a…science fiction film about aliens threatening all of humanity, the first thing you see is the American President is calling the Russian President or the Chinese President…In the movies, when there’s an invader from outer space, everybody recognizes a common interest and they pour whatever they can into it…This is exactly what we need now, except the invader is us…

Using Climate Change to Justify Bad Policies

Here.

Concerned about lack of snow this ski season?

If so, this site suggests that you can affect the Earth's climate by purchasing a snowboard made of bamboo.

If that sounds ridiculous to you, the site also suggests that you try buying socks made of recycled materials.

Decision on Listing Polar Bear Postponed

Here.

Comparing the UK's Two Long Temperature Series for 2007

Excerpt from this post:

...the mean for 2007 was 10.48C, the same as 2004 and 1959, but lower than 1949, 1989, 1990, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003.

Sea Ice Rorschach Test

Here.

They are Not Fudge Factors, They are "Flux Adjustments"

Here.

Excerpt:

Boy, that is some real semantic goodness there. We are not putting in fudge factors, we are putting in "empirical corrections that could not be justified on physical principles" that were "arbitrary additions" to the numbers. LOL.

‘Eco-fashion’ — for a zillion bucks?

Here.

Cities Enticing Residents to go Green

Here.

Excerpt:

Baltimore offers at least $2,000 toward closing costs for people who buy new homes close to where they work. It is called the "Live Near Your Work" program.

Changing the subject from global warming to "ocean acidification"

See Chris Horner's post here.

How to misinform impressionable young students about global warming

Check out the National Wildlife Federation's "Climate Classroom" here.

If you're a skeptic, I wouldn't advise eating anything expensive before visiting that site.

The Virtues of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

See the whole thing here.

Excerpt:

The Earth’s atmosphere and surface are warmed by solar radiation; the greenhouse effect -- primarily caused by atmospheric water vapor; and other less-understood phenomena. Carbon dioxide and methane are also greenhouse gases, but their physical properties render their greenhouse effects very weak. Neither warms the Earth significantly, and no greenhouse warming caused by these two substances has ever been unequivocally observed. The warming and cooling of the Earth is correlated most closely with fluctuations in solar activity and is entirely uncorrelated with human hydrocarbon use.

This has not, however, troubled Al Gore, the United Nations, and their enviro retainers, who are regaling the body politic with unverified computer projections that purport to predict the weather centuries in the future. These computer models cannot predict the weather next week, nor can they even “predict” the weather last year. In order to make the models conform at least somewhat to past temperature trends, their handlers have introduced 6 and even 7 adjustable parameters into their calculations. As Enrico Fermi famously remarked when quoting his friend, the great mathematician and computer pioneer John von Neumann, “with 3 parameters I can fit an elephant and with 4, I can make him wiggle his trunk.”

The article includes this amusing example of "glass half empty" thinking:

A dire prediction was even published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- I am not making this up -- warning that poison ivy is also growing faster.

An actual article on the predicted poison ivy "problem" is here.

Excerpt:

"The fertilization effect of rising CO2 on poison ivy ... and the shift toward a more allergenic form of urushiol have important implications for the future health of both humans and forests," the study concludes.

If extra carbon dioxide also stimulates growth of wheat, rice, fruits, melons, vegetables, etc, just how important is its effect on poison ivy?

300 Million US Population in Light of Kyoto, Global Warming and Other Created Hysterias

Here.

Excerpt:

Environmentalists’ big problem is that by almost every measure, the environment of the United States has gotten cleaner in recent decades as her population increased by 50%.

Warmth in the East and Central Early This Week Followed by Deepening Cold Starting Before Midmonth

Here.

A closer look at volcanic activity

See the PDFs here and here.

Heavy Snow Blankets Iran

Excerpt from this article:

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran on Sunday awoke to heavy overnight snowfalls which forced schools to shut, blocked major roads and led to the cancellation of domestic flights.


All schools were closed for the day in Tehran and most cities in the north of the country.

The authorities ordered all government offices, schools and universities closed on Monday and Tuesday.

State airline Iran Air cancelled all of its morning domestic flights from Mehrabad airport in the centre of Tehran, while roads in the northwest of the country were closed to traffic.

A roundup of harebrained global warming "solutions"

Here.

The post includes a link to an article entitled "Lovelock: Warming Will Kill 6 Billion".

Extra Sunshine Blamed for Part of Arctic Meltdown

Here.

Response To The New York Times Weblog By John Tierney Entitled “Are There Are Any Good Weather Omens?”

Here.

Excerpt:

Synopsis of This Weblog: An examination of even the most fundamental of climate metrics show that recent trends are inconsistent with the 2007 IPCC claims regarding global warming. This includes a lack of warming in the global average lower tropospheric temperature and upper ocean, the muted at best moistening of the troposphere, and evidence of a negative radiative feedback. These lack of agreement with these climate metrics indicate that the IPCC report should be interpreted as a collection of papers on a hypothesis rather than a summary of established scientific understanding of how humans are altering the climate system.

Climate Skeptic on Don Kennedy

Excerpt from this post:

Guess we can certainly expect him to be thoughtful and balanced in his evaluation of submissions for the magazine. "seek social relaxation with old pals from the tobacco lobby"?? My god that is over the top.

Temperature Measurement Fact of the Day

Excerpt from this post:

...This made no sense to me. How could this possibly be true? Why should an arbitrary begin or end of a day make a difference, assuming that one is looking at a sufficiently long number of days. That is how I found out that the sensors were not integrating over the day but just averaging highs and lows. The latter methodology CAN be biased by the time selected for a day to begin and end (though I had to play around with a spreadsheet for a while to prove it to myself). Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

It is just another reason why the surface temperature measurement system is crap, and we should be depending on satellites instead. Can anyone come up with one single answer as to why climate scientists eschew satellite measurements for surface temperatures EXCEPT that the satellites don't give the dramatic answer they want to hear? Does anyone for one second imagine that any climate scientist would spend 5 seconds defending the surface temperature measurement system over satellites if satellites gave higher temperature readings?

The Met office and certainty levels

Excerpt from this post:

...For those who are not used to the magnitude of anomalies, 0.15C is WAY OFF from the forecasted 0.54C. In fact, using the mean and std. deviation of the forecast we derived above, the UK Met office basically was saying that it was 99.99997% certain that the temperature would not go so low. Another way of saying this is that the Met office forecast implied 2,958,859:1 odds against the temperature being this low in 2007.

What are the odds that the Met office needs to rethink its certainty level?

Ski areas nationwide rejoice over super snow conditions

Here.

Excerpt:

From New England to California, the snow piled up in the days and weeks before Christmas. Even Taos, N.M., in the Desert Southwest had a 60-inch base.


"This is our best opening since 1977,” said Adriana Blake, marketing director for Taos. The resort couldn't open for Thanksgiving but later got 68 inches in a week. "This is crazy. It never snows like this.”

Al Gore wins a "Baptist of the Year" award

Here.

AN AMUSING GREENIE ATTACK ON THE INHOFE REPORT

Here.

Excerpt:

...we don't really need a list of 400 scientsists. Aside from 2007 being the year of a biased, cherry-picked literature review known as AR4, it was a good year for peer reviewed science that produced inconvenient results for the IPCC consensus e.g. a warm bias in the surface temperature records, the UAH troposhere data has been shown to be robust from independent sources, Spencer's negative feedback, Tsonis et al climate shifts paper, factors other than CO2 involved in Arctic warming, climate sensitivity, the Loehle climate reconstruction, another quiet hurricane season plus papers that fail to link hurricanes with global warming, the tree ring-surface temperature divergence problem, Lomborg's view backed by Prins and Rayner, and so on. In fact every cornerstone of global warming alarmism can be undermined by peer reviewed science, with more papers to come in 2008.

On global warming, a "citizen silence even more ominous than the political silence"

An alarmist bemoans the general public's lack of panic here.

Are biofuels ‘green’?

According to this long post, the short answer appears to be:

Not if they come from the first generation. For UK consumers the question is, should you use biodiesels at petrol stations such as those of Tesco and BP? Based on the evidence given above no you shouldn’t. You are better off using 100% petrol/diesel until second-generation sources come on stream.

This blog wins a Golden Lemon award

Here.

People in Greenhouses Throwing Stones

Excerpt from this post (as always, see the post for links):

Stoat, Desmogblog and Tim Lambert claim that anybody can be an expert reviewer, which is a handy argument when you want to cast doubt on the credentials of any pesky 'denialist' who happens to be one, but kind of backfires when you're trying to defend 'the consensus'.

AR4: “ad hoc tuning of radiative parameters”

Here.

Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?

Check out Jeff Jacoby's Boston Globe piece here.

Excerpt:

Climate science isn't a religion, and those who dispute its leading theory are not heretics. Much remains to be learned about how and why climate changes, and there is neither virtue nor wisdom in an emotional rush to counter global warming - especially if what's coming is a global Big Chill.

A whole lot of new snow in California

From a current snowfall report here:



Contrast the numbers above with this gloomy January 2008 article from Whole Life Times, entitled "Green Acres is the Place to Ski":

...the stark realization that snow could become a thing of the past (and that skiers themselves could be on the fast track towards extinction) is finally provoking the ski industry into action.

An example of the skeptical posts that are becoming increasingly common

Excerpt from this post:

I guess...we really need to sort this out once and for all. Global change and co2 levels and so forth, does it lead, or follow? Sun cycle and sunspot activity, the dominant factor, or man made changes? And like that. Like everyone here, I have read a ton of the layman's articles and at least some of the more academic studies...and..I still don't know. I am stuck at "all of the above" as reasons. I concur on the need for cleaner energy sources, climate change or not, cleaner and more diversified, all good stuff. But do we need to radically alter the entire planet's economy based on premises that change weekly?

AR4: “Now-Classic” Results on Cloud Uncertainty are “Unsettling”

Here.

Pure alarmism from a Minnesota "forest ecologist"

Excerpt from this article:

"With a doubling of [carbon dioxide], our forests will shift 200 to 400 miles northward," University of Minnesota forest ecologist Lee Frelich told about 250 people who crowded into the auditorium at Vermilion Community College. "There would be a tsunami of grass from the west. Minnesota would end up without much forest at all."

Although it seems that Minnesota warmed over the last century, I still see a lot of trees and very little grass when I look out my window.

In this article, we can see that Frelich has a backup catastrophe to sell if the global warming one doesn't work out.

Excerpts:

If the global climate change doesn’t transform the northern forests into something we don’t recognize, the invasive species will.

That was the simple but dramatic message delivered by Dr. Lee Frelich to about 100 guests at the 2006 Sigurd Olson Lecture at Vermilion Community College late last week.
...
Warming also will bring a higher frequency of harsh storms such as the supercell storm system that produced huge downbursts on July 4, 1999, across the boundary waters, stripping 400,000 acres of trees.

“I would love to be completely wrong about this whole (global warming) thing,” he said, “but invasives are coming regardless of global warming.”

When you unexpectedly encounter icebergs far from the south pole, what does that mean?

Without explanation, this sailor evidently sees the experience as a sign of global warming:

'At 48° 45 South and 10° 19 East, I am an eyewitness to this infamous global warming. As far as I can remember, I’ve never seen ice so far North during this season.

Nine people dead this season in Washington state snow slides

Excerpt from this article:

The death toll is the state's worst for avalanches in modern history, experts said.

Record snowfall, heavy rains, high winds and changing conditions have made this year's snow pack dangerously unstable.

So now the alleged problem is not warming, but unprecedented climate *variability*?

See the ridiculous article here.

Excerpt:

“Species therefore have problems coping with fluctuating environments, an important problem at a time when climatic conditions are becoming more variable”.

Ok, so where's your evidence that today's climate is any more variable than it was in 1958, 1908, 1008, etc?

Gore Supporters Halt NH Primary Drive

Here.

The Mercurial EU

Excerpt from this post:

Apparently, last July, the EU agreed to ban the sale of mercury-in-glass thermometers (as a health hazard). The ban is due to come into force next year. The number of thermometers is, of course, infinitely smaller than the number of mercury-containing compact fluorescent bulbs, which the EU has now decided to make compulsory.

"Home wind turbines are significantly underperforming"

Here.

When does Cycle 24 really start?

Here.

Michael Crichton interviewed by Charlie Rose

Michael Crichton provides an intelligent and informed perspective on global warming hysteria here.