Tom Nelson: 2008-08-10

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Lawson W. Brigham, chairman of the three-year Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment that is scheduled to be concluded this year, told the gathering that altogether more than 5,400 vessels of 100 tons or larger operated in Arctic waters in the summer of 2004. During that summer there were 102 trips in the Northwest Passage and five complete transits of that legendary route, he said.

But isn't global warming supposed to be the single most important issue of all time?

Schwarzenegger injures knee, skips Tahoe C02 hysteria summit

Schwarzenegger's spokesman, Matt David, says the governor injured his knee recently and it was bothering him all week. He says a Border Governors' Conference the governor hosted in Hollywood this week and ongoing budget negotiations in Sacramento have kept him from getting it checked out until now.

Schwarzenegger is scheduled to return to work Monday.

American Thinker Blog: The global warming scare may have peaked

It will be fascinating to watch the political and popular response to [Doherty's] call. The strategy of Al Gore to dismiss the issue as settled science has failed. The public, which once when along with environmental scares, such as fears about offshore drilling, is increasingly cynical about what it reads in the media, and about scares pushed by those with a political agenda. Few people yet realize that Al Gore and his Silicon Valley venture capitalist backers, hope to score huge profits from the trading of carbon indulgences.

Scientists split on ice melt impact - Disaster News Network

Faster than expected ice melting this summer prompts warning that the Arctic could be ice-free in the summers within five years...

Carbon sequestration frustration :: iNSnet

Captured CO2 must be compressed to about 100 times atmospheric pressure (which takes energy), transported to a suitable underground reservoir (which takes energy) and pumped into the ground (which takes energy). A coal-fired power plant that sequesters its CO2 must burn about 30 percent more coal than conventional plants to cover these energy needs. And that extra coal must first be mined (which has environmental effects) and transported to the plant (which takes fuel) — the list goes on and on.

Even with this extra burden, a CO2-burying plant emits between 71 and 78 percent less CO2 than a normal coal-fired plant for each unit of usable electricity produced, Koornneef and his colleagues report. But when the researchers factored in all the “cradle to grave” pollution of a CO2-burying plant, emissions of acid rain-causing gases like nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides were up to 40 percent greater than the total cradle-to-grave emissions of a modern plant that doesn’t capture its CO2.

Climate realists in New Zealand

Belief in climate change also showed clear differences along party lines. Just 39% of Act voters said humans were to blame, compared with 59% of National voters, 77% of Labour voters and 82% of Green voters.

Putting the freeze on crime | theage.com.au

THE biting cold has had an unexpected benefit: it has made Melbourne safer. Police say that street robberies have plunged 50% in the past month as criminals thought better of venturing out and stayed rugged up indoors.

How the Age makes scientists disappear | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Morton/Karoly mislead if they are suggesting all 2500 IPCC scientists stand by the IPCC conclusion on man’s effect on the climate. A number, in fact, do not. Many others were not even consulted over the conclusions.

When the dissenting scientists are so casually wished away, and the believing scientists just as breezily exaggerated in number, I start to wonder how cavalier Marto and/or Karoly might be with other evidence that doesn’t suit them, either.

The Reference Frame: Tabarka, Tunisia & Pilsen, Czechia

Your humble correspondent is back from Tabarka, Tunisia. What a beautiful place and weather. The sea was clean, the sky was blue, the sunscreen was badly needed on the beaches, and the temperature was 25 °C higher than what we got after we returned to a cloudy Central Europe.

While AGW hysterics like an Oliver Nutcase Tickell claim that "the idea that we could adapt to a 4 °C rise [in a few centuries] is absurd and dangerous", the Czechs not only manage to adapt to a 25 °C rise in a few hours and they enjoy it but they also pay non-trivial money for such six-times-lethal excursions. ;-)

There are thousands of Czech tourists over there at every moment of time, including at least two hotels that are entirely "Czech", with the Czech language being the 4th most important language after Arabic, French, and Italian...

But Mary Doerr's dad John has a large FINANCIAL stake in global warming hysteria

Teenagers Launch "Inconvenient Youth" Network to Fight Global Warming - MarketWatch

"The world's youth have a huge personal stake in global warming," said Inconvenient Youth founder Mary Doerr, a high school senior. "After all, it is our future that hangs in the balance. The Inconvenient Youth network will give a voice to the many youth around the world who want to make difference now."
...
About the Trainees
The 80 trainees hail from Los Angeles, Marin, Orange County/Laguna Niguel, Sacramento, San Diego/La Jolla, Santa Ana, San Francisco, and Palo Alto, CA; Armonk, New York City, and Pelham, NY; Cleveland, OH; and Tokyo, Japan. Select trainees can be made available for interviews to credentialed media.
About Inconvenient Youth Network
Inconvenient Youth is a non-profit, non-partisan network that educates and activates teens to join the fight against global warming. The student leaders believe every individual has a moral obligation to contribute to finding a solution to the climate change crisis. The group was founded by Mary Doerr, its executive director. The foundation is headquartered in Menlo Park and is an affiliate of [Al Gore's] Alliance for Climate Protection.

Some background on John Doerr's financial interest in CO2 hysteria is here.

From A Pitch for Deeper Green Thinking from Venture Capitalist John Doerr:

Doerr owes his call to environmental activism to his 15-year-old daughter, Mary. Last summer, after Doerr had seen Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, he asked Mary what she thought about global warming.

"I'm scared and I'm angry," he recalled her telling him. "Your generation created this problem; you better fix it."

As a result of the conversation, he said, he jetted to Brazil to learn about renewable energy, traveled to Davos, Switzerland, to liaise with world leaders, and helped set up the Greentech Innovation Network, a consortium of scientists, policymakers, and entrepreneurs focused on solving environmental problems through innovation.

Update: More on Mary Doerr here:

The children of tech personalities are usually off-limits — unless their parents brought them into the public arena in the first place. Which is the case with Mary Doerr, the 15-year-old environmentalist daughter of Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr, who's guilted the powerful venture capitalist into a personal commitment to green issues. So, what do we know about Mary Doerr? She told her father that his generation had triggered climate change, and it was their job to fix it, which is the public explanation of his environmental activism. To judge by the Kleiner partner's reading list, she's headstrong. And, from this family photo from the TED conference, Mary's way trendier than her dorky dad. One hopes she doesn't move on to the next fad before Doerr has had time to save the world.

We need more politicians like Mike Doherty

Doherty won’t water down his views | Politicker NJ

Potential U.S. Senate candidate Mike Doherty doesn’t sound like a typical New Jersey Republican.

Take, for instance, yesterday’s Assembly debate on Linda Stender’s global warming bill. While most Assembly Republicans who spoke up against the bill focused on what they considered its vague language, Mike Doherty went to the very heart of the issue, attacking the scientific foundation of global warming.

“One of the things that gets my goat…. are statements that I’ve heard that the debate is over,” said Doherty. “It’s my understanding that the earth has warmed up and cooled down hundreds of times.”

Doherty is mounting a campaign for US Senate, but he’s not going to moderate his stances to have a broader ideological appeal. He tacks far right of many New Jersey Republicans on some issues, including Anne Evans Estabrook, his Senate primary opponent.

Yesterday, Doherty – whose desk contained a copy of the New York Post and a paperback of Dear Americans: Letters from the Desk of Ronald Reagan -- gave what amounted to a 10 minute lecture, touching on topics from measuring CO2 levels in arctic ice, to Norse settlements in Greenland, to disputing Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth.” It was a speech more characteristic of Republicans from redder states; divorced from the more moderate tone his Assembly GOP colleagues took in the debate.
...
"The fact of the matter is that Assemblyman Doherty's opinion has no bearing on the reality of global warming," said Juan Melli, the founder of BlueJersey.com, a progressive Web site. "He can believe that Jesus had a pet dinosaur if he wants, but it doesn't make it true. There is practically no credible dissention within the scientific community about the facts that Doherty refuses to accept. This is not a conservative or liberal issue, nor should it be. He is simply on the wrong side of reality."

Canada: A bummer summer

If you measure the season by blue sky and sunshine, this has been the briefest summer since perhaps the oppressive gloom and cold of the summer of 1992.
...
As if to compound frustration over the summer that wasn't, there is nothing convenient on which to blame the weather, not global warming, El Nino or El Nina. The cave-like summer of 1992 -- perhaps the worst ever for cloud and cold -- was attributed to atmospheric fallout of dust from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines the year prior.

Australia: Cold August

August 2008 continues to be one of the coldest on record for most of Australia with temperatures averaging as much as six degrees below normal.

Unashamed Fascism from Australian Warmists

Polly Toynbee: Carbon credits tick all the boxes. What's the delay?

...Personal carbon trading was the most popular option: it was the fairest and it wasn't seen as a new tax. Here's how it works: each year everyone gets equal carbon credits to spend on petrol, home heating or air travel. People exceeding their quota can buy more credits. People who use less can sell credits. It encourages home insulation, energy saving and less driving or flying. Since low earners use less - 20% have no car, 50% don't fly - they can profit by selling to those with big houses, foreign holidays and gas-guzzling cars. It would be a powerful but voluntary agent for redistribution.

Failure to pursue personal carbon trading (or any other method) joined the long list of good causes killed by Labour cowardice. At Defra, David Miliband took it up with enthusiasm and commissioned a feasibility study, but after he made a strong speech advocating it, Gordon Brown at the Treasury banned any further mention. Miliband was moved away and what was called a "pre-feasibility study", limped out with the judgment that this idea was "ahead of its time". They guessed it would cost £2bn a year to run, threw up sundry obstacles, and the report disappeared.

Odd that a government with computers thinks it can't introduce a simple credit system, when a Nectar or Oyster card shows how easily home and car fuel bills and airline tickets could be deducted. Historian Mark Roodhouse of York University draws comparisons with his work on wartime rationing. Back then the state provided ration books for all, covering not just fuel but coupons valuing virtually every individual item in the shops from clothes to food.

Have we become more administratively incompetent since then?

Letter - Denmark’s Green Energy Policies - NYTimes.com

Thomas L. Friedman is right to praise Denmark’s green energy policies (“Flush With Energy,” column, Aug. 10). But he doesn’t mention one crucial point: If the historic achievement he admires was created by hands-on government, recent history has shown that government policy can also break a positive energy circle.

The current conservative government slammed on the brakes when it took over in December 2001. In a free-market, climate-skeptic spree, it canceled three offshore wind farms, abolished government schemes for energy conservation, slashed research in renewables and recently abolished Denmark’s historic freeze on coal-fired power stations.

The Calgary Sun - Global warming the new religion

I think sharing the planet and making sure there is lots left over for the next generation is a good thing too.

But I think it's a little much when there isn't a single thing that isn't pointed out as the result of global warming. A hot day in the summer -- global warming. A cold day in the winter -- global warming. Too much rain -- global warming. Not enough rain -- global warming. Didn't finish your school homework -- global warming.

The human effect on global warming with all its variations has become the new religion.

Actually, it's become the new big business of activists, consultants, pundits and others who have grasped it with both hands as a way of being taken seriously.

Global warming baloney: Madcap 'solution' - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

In short, the beginning of our extinction, or at least so posits columnist Oliver Tickell in The Guardian, a British newspaper.

The solution he proposes essentially is a super Kyoto Protocol. It would include the power to mandate a single global cap on greenhouse gas emissions that would dramatically curtail oil and coal production and other industries deemed not friendly to Mother Nature.

Revenue from his madcap scheme would, of course, be wisely invested in so-called green solutions; hundreds of billions of dollars annually would be handed out to poor countries "to finance adaptation to climate change."

Yet the scientific community still cannot reach a consensus on whether humans even cause global warming, let alone to what degree.

Unbiased research must continue because it neither has been, nor is it now, "settled science."

The Relationship Between Flat Earthers & Global Warming

What do global warming proponents and the Flat Earth Society have in common? They both refuse to look at science dispassionately.

Wanted: More Homer Simpsons

U.S. News knows which way the wind is blowing: their article "The New Hot Job: Nuclear Engineering" highlights the mounting interest in nuclear energy and technology. And a good thing, too. The American Nuclear Society estimates that 700 nuclear engineers need to graduate annually to fill growing demand, whereas only an expected 249 new engineers will graduate each year.

New BBC Climate Change Section « The Unbearable Nakedness of CLIMATE CHANGE

Friday, August 15, 2008

Northwest Passage report

Berrimilla Down-Under-Mars: Almost out.

The Berri crew has all been up all night dodging/fighting ice. They have not had time to do anything but handle the boat. (And I would hope to think- a quick bite) The call was short as Alex had to return to deck at once. He sounded tired and stressed. A long, long few miles and they will be out of it.

Fingers still crossed, just knocked on wood. If I thought throwing salt over my shoulder would help, I would go home and do it.

The Amodino is stuck in the ice. They are much larger and can hopefully push their way around. Good luck to them. The Berri is too small and under powered to help, if there was a prayer to get close enough to help. I saw a small oil tanker with a bent propeller and shaft from the ice. The shaft was designed for the arctic and was several feet (1Meter) diameter. This is scary stuff.

Ice this dense,1/10 to 2/10, doesn't just float around, it plays bumper penguin. One moving piece bumps into the next stopping but causes the next piece to take off, and so on. Openings close quickly and new opening happen just as fast. It's hard enough in the daylight, just try it in the dark. The unlucky boat gets caught. The really unlucky boat gets damaged. You really have to stay on your toes. Add land and the ice stacks up with a continuous buildup. Extreme buildup causes pressure ridges and kills ships.

Not Green: NBC Beijing Olympic Set Air Conditioned -- Outdoors

'Green is Universal' network that dimmed set to push eco-programming gives cold shoulder to Chinese weather...

Prometheus » Blog Archive » The Death of Environmentalism?

I was surprised to see the data that I’ve graphed below reported in an ABC News et al. poll (PDF) showing that people are less likely to describe themselves as “environmentalists”. The specific question asked was, “Do you consider yourself an environmentalist or not?” (Via Skeptics Global Warming)

Animated Space Race in Theaters | Animation Magazine

Stassen and Fly Me writer/producer Domonic Paris of Illuminata Picutres have reteamed to make Around the World in 50 Years 3-D, another stereoscopic adventure that will follow a sea turtle as he travels a world being changed by global warming. The voice cast will include Anthony Anderson, Ed Begley Jr., Pat Carroll, Tim Curry, Kathy Griffin, Melanie Griffith, Stacy Keach and Jenny McCarthy.

GORCHED | Daily Telegraph Tim Blair Blog

Scorched is a major new 90-minute tele-feature and multi-platform drama for the Nine Network and ninemsn set in a climate change ravaged Sydney in 2012.
After 240 days without rain, the city has only two weeks water left.
...
When the city is then ringed by severe bushfires, the question becomes, how do you fight fire when you have no water? [except for the entire ocean]

Public Service - Climate change policy cannot afford to be short-term

Deep national concerns such as energy security, rising fuel costs and economic slowdown are often seen as separate issues to climate change. If medium-term weather patterns begin to offer weight to climate sceptics, then there is real danger that action will be severely constrained, to focus on what many believe are more critical concerns. Climate sceptics may again begin to win over politicians.

NCPA | Brief Analysis #622,Green Schools Don’t Make the Grade

Congress is considering funding a range of projects designed to reduce carbon emissions, including the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act, which would provide $20 billion to build public schools that meet “green” environmental standards. House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) says the legislation will not only save energy, but also make the facilities safer and cleaner and dramatically reduce costs. Advocates claim that such schools will use 35 percent less energy.

Because the push for green schools is new, nationwide data is lacking. However, in Washington state — the national leader in embracing the green school movement — schools built to comply with green standards have consistently failed to meet the energy saving targets claimed by supporters, and have not shown improvements in student health or other metrics.

Horner: Billions, Served

I see in today's "Inside Politics" column in the Washington Times that size is no excuse to Barack Obama, who "complained that Exxon Mobil Corp. makes too much money and should be forced to give some of that profit to the government." Yeah, the poor government. More on that in a moment.

'Rudd’s carbon tax bad governance,' says Vic ag scientist - National Rural News - Agribusiness and General - General - Stock & Land

The Rudd government’s carbon pollution tax is based on non-scientific and theoretical computer modeling and does not make good governance at a time of rising inflation, global food shortages and increasing export uncompetitiveness due to rising cost and freight pressures.

That’s the view of agricultural scientist John Williams - a researcher, author and educator who is studying for a PhD at the University of Melbourne.

Mr Williams said there are ‘strong and powerful counter-arguments’ to the theories on global warming and carbon trading that are not being fully considered.

Drawing on a chorus of disbelief from a growing number of scientists, Mr Williams said “there is no proof that carbon dioxide is causing or precedes global warming”. “All indications are that the minor warming cycle finished in 2001 and that Arctic ice melting is related to cyclical orbit-tilt-axis changes in earth’s angle to the sun.”

Global pursuit of happiness | The Australian

ENDANGERED ice caps and polar bears notwithstanding, the thing that most annoys me about global warming is that the climate wars have turned its prophets into priests of a new campaign against the modern world.

Qtown man turns up global warming - Queenstown - The Southland Times

A Queenstown man is taking High Court action to prevent the Government enacting the controversial Emmissions Trading Scheme.

Former property developer Basil Walker is seeking an injuction against all Labour Party MPs preventing the scheme being passed into law before this year's election.

Mr Walker said he was acting in the interests of the people of New Zealand.

"It is amazing to me that, rather than going to CSIRO, the National Academy of Sciences in the US, the Australian Academy of Sciences or other scientific organisations from around the world that are all consistently providing the same evidence, a significant proportion of the (federal) shadow cabinet and many others in the Liberal Party and National Party and other interest groups are collecting information not from reputable sources, but from websites which may or may not be funded by a right-wing lobby group or a fossil fuel company which says there is a conspiracy. But I'm not surprised — people like to hear information that confirms their underlying beliefs."

Arctic sampler

Arctic Ice Extent Discrepancy: NSIDC versus Cryosphere Today « Watts Up With That?

Foreword: I had originally planned to post a story on this, but Steven Goddard of the UK Register sends word that he has already done a comparison. It mirrors much of what I would have written. There is a clear discrepancy between the two data sources. What is unclear is the cause. Is it differing measurement and tabulation methods? Or, is it some post measurement adjustment being applied. With a 30 percent difference, it would seem that the public would have difficulty determining which dataset is the truly representative one. - Anthony

Berrimilla Down-Under-Mars: Yesterdays new ice

The purple is the new ice from the evening 13th and morning 14th, and the first I've seen this year.

Expedition Around North America - Logbook :Ilulissat - Pond Inlet

For a while the visibility clears up and we can see two polar bears on shore, a female and her cub. What a beautifull present. We keep going towards the channel and we see another one, and another one a while later. This place is full of polar bears. When we arrive at the south of the archipelago we saw 5 of them.

Australia: State begins slow squeeze on emitters

On the same day Ms Firth was promoting the benefits of reducing the state's reliance on coal-fired power, her counterpart in the Energy Resources portfolio, Ian Macdonald, announced that another coal exploration licence had been awarded.

China's biggest coal-mining company, the state-owned Shenhua Group, will pay the state $300 million for the right to search for coal on 190 square kilometres of the Liverpool Plains, near Gunnedah.

And we know he's serious--note the caps in 'Oil Companies"...

Global Warming Slowed by Manmade Global Cooling? « Travellinbaen’s Weblog

Almost always, the funds supporting scientists who deny man-made global warming come from Oil Companies.

Carbon scheme unworkable: economist | theage.com.au

GEOFF Carmody is running hard. As the former joint-head and co-founder of Access Economics, he was known as Australia's leading private sector economist. These days he is in anything but retirement.

"I have never had my email working so hard in my life," he says as he goes through his 30-page paper on the economics of climate change. "I have sent this everywhere. There's no consultancy budget. I'm doing this because I care about good public policy."

What he is doing is saying very loudly that Australia's emissions trading "emperors" have no clothes. He is preparing an alternative to the schemes proposed by Professor Ross Garnaut and the Government in its green paper.

"What we've got won't work. It'll either be symbolic or cost jobs."

Gore claim: "Temperature measurements are generally taken in parks"

Falsehoods in the book version of Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

"Misconception 8 'The warming scientists are recording is just the effect of cities trapping heat...'
"People who want to deny global warming because it's easier than dealing with it try to argue that what scientists are really observing is just the 'urban heat island' effect... This is simply wrong. Temperature measurements are generally taken in parks, which are actually cool areas within the urban heat islands... Most scientific research shows that 'urban heat islands' have a negligible effect..." (p. 318)

From John McCain's website

And we know he's serious--in that first sentence, the first letter in each word is Capitalized!

John McCain Proposes A Cap-And-Trade System That Would Set Limits On Greenhouse Gas Emissions While Encouraging The Development Of Low-Cost Compliance Options. A climate cap-and-trade mechanism would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and allow entities to buy and sell rights to emit, similar to the successful acid rain trading program of the early 1990s. The key feature of this mechanism is that it allows the market to decide and encourage the lowest-cost compliance options.

Update: If you have a low tolerance for stupidity, I beg you not to click on the red "What is it" button on McCain's site here.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | What is a typical British summer?

Some people say that the 2008 summer has been the worst in living memory but that only shows that people's perceptions are the worst thing to use when categorising a summer, because memories are fallible and summers are always described as the worst or the best when the truth lies in between.

Alleged Global Warming Myths and Facts from Environmental Defense

[alleged] FACT:
There is no debate among scientists about the basic facts of global warming.

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Wave of Influenza Hits Country (Page 1 of 1)

A WAVE of severe influenza, which has in some cases developed into complications such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, has hit some parts of the country as the cold weather persists.

Health and Child Welfare Deputy Minister Dr Edwin Muguti said people who develop that strain of flu should see a doctor early. He, however, said infections caused by viruses were common during winter as people usually remain indoors and get crowded.

The Daily Bayonet: Global Warming Hoax Weekly Update, August 15th 2008

Climate change for agenda pushing?

Climate Change Action

One idea that was not uncommon at the Camp for Climate Action was that people have started using climate change to push there own political agenda. More specifically, Climate Camp has a distinct anti-capitalist flavour. Some therefore see the advancement of an anti capitalist agenda as extra baggage that we are being persuaded to drag along with our attempts to mitigate climate change. We certainly don't need extra baggage, this is a long and arduous journey. The other side of this, that many at climate camp actually conceive as there position, is that climate change is a product of capitalist society and that although--in the technical sense--all we need to do is reduce emissions, we wont be able to do this without progress on a much larger political agenda.

Cold weather and energy cuts looming in Kyrgyzstan

Deep popular disillusionment with the government has become apparent since the elections, expressed mostly in resigned disgust with the system rather than overt anger. Food prices and inflation are rising faster than expected. Few officials or citizens expect that energy cuts will be limited to unheated homes once the cold weather comes.

A further deterioration in living conditions could spark serious anger among a public already worn down by power cuts, the steady increase in fuel prices and the memory of the previous grim winter. If anger turns to violence, it risks being brutal, destructive and xenophobic -– and the remnants of the discredited opposition may not be able to channel demonstrations into a more controllable form

Steven Milloy - Environmentalists Prompt Nuclear Power Wake-Up Call - Opinion

What did the nuclear power industry get for playing footsie with the "greens" on global warming? A knife in the back, it looks like. The greens now are saying that emission-free nuclear power may actually contribute to climate change.

UN funds alarmist TV show?

ABS-CBN News Online (Beta)

Ros Sothea is racing against time. The 24-year old producer of "Climate Change Talk," the first show to bring climate-change issues to rural folk in Cambodia, has to secure additional funds in the soonest time or the network would pull the plug on her show.

"My boss believes in the show," she said, "but he’s not getting money from it."

Only on its six month-run, "Climate Change Talk" started with financial backing from the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations Development Program.

While the two donors pledged to fund her show for more than a year, Ros said it wasn’t enough. They still need advertisements.

Currently, "Climate Change Talk" gets support from three advertisers – Unilever, Procter and Gamble and a Chinese manufacturing company. While these corporations are considered heavyweights in the industry, Ros said three advertisers are not enough for her program, whose production costs around $10,000 a month.

Ros’s situation, however, is not just another sad tale of a show that is about to go down the drain because it cannot rake in revenues. Her problem mirrors the struggle of journalists to acquire media space and ample exposure for climate change, a phenomenon that is globally described as the "biggest threat [to the world] in the 21st century."
...
He suggested the following ways of making climate change sexy:
...
- Use "charismatic" flora and fauna. The polar bear became the symbol for action against global warming because its extinction struck a chord among environmentalists, animal lovers and even children.
...
- Businessmen listen to the message when there’s promise of money. Discuss how climate change has opened investment and business opportunities to manufacture "green" products and develop green technologies.

Björn Lomborg: Oliver Tickell's alarmist predictions won't solve climate change| guardian.co.uk

Much of the global warming debate is perhaps best described as a constant outbidding by frantic campaigners, producing a barrage of ever-more scary scenarios in an attempt to get the public to accept their civilisation-changing proposals. Unfortunately, the general public – while concerned about the environment – is distinctly unwilling to support questionable solutions with costs running into tens of trillions of pounds. Predictably, this makes the campaigners reach for even more outlandish scares.

These alarmist predictions are becoming quite bizarre, and could be dismissed as sociological oddities, if it weren't for the fact that they get such big play in the media. Oliver Tickell, for instance, writes that a global warming causing a 4C temperature increase by the end of the century would be a "catastrophe" and the beginning of the "extinction" of the human race. This is simply silly.

Ag at large: Green aspirants may be too late / HanfordSentinel.com Columns

For those considering the green revolution and wondering about its future, it may be too late. One prominent authority believes green has gone, gone wild. M. David Stirling, vice president of the highly regarded Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento has just published a book titled "Green Gone Wild -- Elevating Nature Above Human Rights." In it he catalogs the unrestrained steps by hardcore environmentalists from Rachel Carson to present day power and property grabbers who operate through the implementation and enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

He chronicles the half-century worldwide influence of Carson's rage against the use of the mosquito-killing DDT as costing tens of millions of lives. Uncontrolled mosquito populations, especially in developing countries, have spread killer malarial plagues year after year since DDT was banned in 1972.

Gang Green - WSJ.com

But now the environmental movement has morphed into the most authoritarian philosophy in America. The most glaring example of course is the multitrillion-dollar cap-and-trade anti-global warming scheme that would mandate an entire restructuring of our industrial economy. This plan, endorsed by both presidential candidates, would empower climate-change cops to regulate the energy usage and carbon emissions of every industry in America. If we do this, the best estimates are that we could reduce global temperatures by 0.1 degrees by 2050 and save on average about one polar bear a year from early death. But no burden is too great when it comes to helping the planet -- even if the progress to be made is infinitesimal. To weigh costs and benefits is regarded as sacrilege -- the refuge of global warming "deniers."
...
Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes with rich irony that "we now live in a society where Sunday church attendance is down, but people wouldn't dream of missing their weekly trek to the altar of the recycling center." These facilities, by the way, are increasingly called "redemption centers." Which is fine except that now the greens want to make redemption mandatory. Oh, for a return to the days when someone stood up for the separation of church and state.

The good news about 'global warming'

The latest ABC News/Planet Green/Stanford University poll on "global warming" suggests more Americans are beginning to understand they are being manipulated by one of the biggest hoaxes in the history of the world.

Though one must read carefully between the lines of this survey conducted by three entities entirely committed to perpetuating the fraud, it's clear fewer Americans are buying in to the notion that the world is on the precipice of man-made, catastrophic climate change.

The Compass: Columnists | Global warming -- international tragedy or political hype?

Recently I read this piece taken from the North Star and St. John's Newfoundland News. It is dated July 19th, 1879. Is nature just repeating itself in a never-ending and perhaps not truly understood renewal process? Here is what the concerned writer revealed 110 years ago.
"The outlook abroad is more than usually gloomy. Storms, floods and hurricanes seem to be completing the devastation which unseasonable weather began. In the United States and Canada the heat is unusually severe, and numerous deaths are already reported by sunstroke, this early in the season.
"In Europe, this year (1879) so far has been unusually disastrous, and there has been large losses of life and property by flood and fire. We have had the most distressing accounts of the floods in Hungary and elsewhere, the eruption of Mount Etna, the ravages of life by plague subsequent to the Turco-Russian war, the famine pestilence in India; and now comes the prospect of cholera in Russia."
What experiences the world is capable of undergoing we have the evidence of; but what still more adverse conditions it is capable of assuming remains yet to be discovered.

(Via CO2 Sceptics)

Hadley Climate Center HadAT2 Data shows global cooling in the last year « Watts Up With That?

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Ok, so cap and trade ISN'T the answer?

California: Greenhouse gas institute slips under the radar:

A publicly funded, world-class research institute that would develop answers to the threat posed by climate-changing greenhouse gases is being crafted in the Legislature, and is among the last-minute proposals expected to come before the Legislature in the closing days of this year's legislative session.

The plan differs sharply from the original blueprint proposed by California's top utilities regulator, state Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey. Legislation encompassing the new, estimated $87 million-a-year plan is likely to be completed within a few days.

At time when public attention is focused on California's $15.2 billion budget shortage, the proposed California Institute for Climate Change has flown largely under the radar. But it has become the target of an intense lobbying campaign by a number of academic institutions who want to host the institute -- and its ability to attract top-flight scientific talent. Among those vying for the CICC is a Southern California consortium of UCLA, USC, CalTech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; the University of California at Berkeley, UC San Diego, Stanford University and others, Capitol sources say. Thus far, nobody has the inside track, although Peevey himself is believed to favor Berkeley, and it remains possible that the institute may be housed in multiple locations.

Serious or spoof?

Germans try to slow glacier melt with giant screen

German researchers trying to slow melting glaciers have set up a large screen in the Swiss Alps that they hope will trap cold air over the icy mass, Johannes Gutenberg University said Thursday.

"We hope our installations will bring about a net cooling of the area. And if the melt is not stopped, that it is at least slowed," the project's leader, geography professor Hans-Joachim Fuchs, said in a statement.

UK: Survey shows some ten million households cannot afford another energy bills rise

The survey also reveals one in two households (13 million) are planning to cut down on heating as the cold weather draws in this winter, 54 per cent will become more energy efficient and four million (15 per cent) of homes will take drastic measures to reduce their energy usage by cooking fewer hot meals.

Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.com, said: "Households who are concerned about their jobs, their homes and their ongoing ability to pay their bills will be left with no choice but to cut back on both heating and eating this winter.

I'm also guessing that this winter, most Brits will not be flying to Hawaii on a "private" Boeing 757 that burns 900 gallons of fuel per hour.

Al Fin: Spotless Sun, Armagh Observatory: Freeze Watch

Natural climate variation is driven by multiple overlapping solar cycles, by the ocean multidecadal oscillations, by volcanic activity, by chaotic biological cycles on land and in the sea, all influencing and being influenced by ice and snow cover. None of these factors are well understood. Yet the wholly warmer climate orthodoxy claims to be able to simplify climate to one parameter: anthropogenic greenhouse gases! These high priests of the orthodoxy exhibit a sad combination of laziness and arrogance.

They are like the lazy and incompetent physician who jumps at the first diagnosis that enters his mind, and refuses to consider any other factors. But having jumped onto the political and media bandwagon of climate doom, these alarmist orthodoxers have set their course, regardless of how the reality may develop.

IBDeditorials.com: Executive Privilege

What's needed here is a bit more perspective, a sense of proportion. Though Exxon Mobil set a record for nominal profit, the oil industry isn't actually making the biggest profits.

In the first quarter of this year, the profit margin for oil companies was 7.4%. That trailed the electronic equipment industry (12.1%) and the pharmaceutical and medical industry (25.9%).

Last year, 63 industrial groups posted bigger profit margins than the oil industry.

Also obscured by the moaning over Exxon Mobil's profit is the fact that investors expected higher earnings from the company. After second-quarter profit was announced, the company's stock price fell almost 5% because of its disappointing performance.

That's not an aberration for this corporate behemoth that is ruining everyone's lives by selling them the gasoline they need.

» We Have Ways of Making You Walk Climate Resistance: Challenging Climate Orthodoxy

Interesting, isn’t it, that Krosnick has conducted a poll amongst the public, to see if their beliefs match those of the scientists, but neglected to poll scientists to establish their views. He takes for granted the magnitude of the consensus, and fails to actually define it. What is the point of agreement, against which he wishes to measure the public’s error? For a professor at an Ivy-League university, specialising in survey methodology, this ommission is stark, and very unscientific. What is more, it exhibits some considerable arrogance and contempt for the public. He assumes to know the truth, and beleives that the difference between his view and the public’s can be explained by some kind of psychological mechanism. They are so stupid and irrational that being exposed to balanced media risks people thinking the wrong things. Call the psycho-cops, democracy is on the loose.

Stone Age climate change | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Welcome to mid-August at Resolute, along the Northwest Passage

Weather here.

Google map here.

Indiana crops recover after flood, new threat looms - Forbes.com

Two months after flooding swamped many Indiana farms, the state's corn crop is in the midst of an "amazing" rebound after weeks of good weather that revived once waterlogged fields.

But Purdue University agricultural economist Chris Hurt said farmers now have a new weather worry - the threat of an early frost that could slash the yields of late-planted crops.

Hurt said Thursday that Indiana's corn and soybean crops are a week to 10 days behind average in development and if the state's current streak of unseasonably cool weather lingers into September cold weather could end the growing season early.

A killing frost in mid-September 1974 caused significant crop losses, he said.

"For heaven's sake, no early frost," Hurt said. "The solar energy and nutrient energy that's getting deposited into the seeds everyday, every hour there's photosynthesis, all that stops if there's a killing frost. It's done."

He said that ideally, warm, dry conditions will persist well into the fall, giving corn and soybeans time to mature and develop their seeds further before cold weather arrives.

Warning Signs: Cooling Off Corzine

It should be noted that the Maryland General Assembly not long ago rejected proposals for its own Global Warming Solutions Act of 2008. The bill had the support of its Democrat Governor Martin O’Malley and of course received wide support from the state’s environmental lunatics.

What people fail to grasp about these and other efforts alleged to reduce global warming is that they will find themselves trapped by a spiraling series of regulations that would punish them for running any kind of business involving “greenhouse gas emissions”; which is to say every business other than the individual whittling of wooden candlestick holders. It is a form of hidden taxation. It is a killer of business enterprises of any scale, small to large.

The nation’s governors, with a few exceptions, are all competing to be the next Al Gore. Those who propose global warming legislation should be run out of their state on a rail. In New Jersey, we’ll settle for returning Corzine to the private sector where he can only waste his own money, not ours.

Climatologist Dr. John Christy spanks down Holdren

Holdren has created a GSM (Global Skeptic Model) that accommodates his view of the “observations” of some skeptic’s behavior and gives him a sort of comfort level to explain what he thinks he sees in a way that keeps his beliefs intact. I suppose we all have an innate drive to try and make sense of what we observe in a way that is consistent with our beliefs.

As with any model, it is over simplified, not able to account for all situations and is inconsistent with predictions (i.e. several folks have apparently announced becoming skeptical having been non-skeptics in the past)....

(Via Marc Morano)

The current: Coal in the crossfire

In an interview, [Jim] Hansen said tax- or market-driven efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will be too little and too late to slow the chief cause of global warming. Half of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere today will be absorbed, largely by oceans, in 25 years, but it would take 1,000 years to absorb the rest, said Hansen.
...
Hansen, who first spoke about global warming to Congress 20 years ago, said he doesn't "give a lot of talks. I'm trying to maintain my credibility as a scientist."

Haute Couture Pretends to Glow Green / Jossip

A show of hands here: Who plans on buying a Louis Vuitton bag because it supports Al Gore's climate change project? How about slapping down an extra 300 bucks for a gold-painted recycling logo on your $2,300 Murakami bag?

The fashion biz, like every other industry, is feeling the push to "go green," which is less about climate change than it is about including warm fuzzies about Mother Nature in your marketing campaign. This means a look book stuffed with descriptions like "organic" and "environmentally sustainable."

The Control Room Belies the Homer Simpson Stereotype.

Planet Gore on National Review Online

That earns my nomination for Sentence of the Year . . . from a USA Today discussion of the growing attractiveness of nuclear power. The big type . . .
As energy demands grow, nuclear deserves new look.

Reactors are cleaner than coal and safer than critics claim.

Roger Pielke Sr.: An Odd Weblog By Josh Willis

The more appropriate analog is to a bank account. Joules must continue to be accumulated in order for global warming to occur. In the last 4 years there has been an absence of deposits. To make up for this deficit in the next 4 years, for example, the accumulation of Joules must be double the rate that occurred in the 1990s. Josh Willis is gambling, but it is in accepting the models as reality.

Bravo, New Jersey Assemblyman Michael Doherty

DOHERTY: NEW SCIENTIFIC DATA JUSTIFIES REPEALING GLOBAL WARMING RESPONSE ACT | Politicker NJ

Responding to various new scientific reports questioning the concept of global warming, Assemblyman Michael Doherty today called on Governor Corzine to hold off on proposing any new regulations associated with the state’s Global Warming Response Act and urged the Legislature to repeal that act when it returns to legislative business after Labor Day.

“There are many credible members of the scientific community who have questioned the theory of global warming, and now we have some scientists actually suggesting the earth’s temperatures may be entering a period of dramatic cooling,” said Doherty, R-Warren and Hunterdon. “With this growing level of scientific uncertainty, it makes no sense to enact a new set of economically damaging regulations prompted by the global warming hysteria of recent years.”

Colorado: Storm to cause mountain snow, metro rain

KUSA – A very strong cold front will pass over Colorado on Thursday bringing unseasonably cool air and a good chance for rain and snow.

According to the 9NEWS Weather Team, the front will cause temperatures to drop 15 to 30 degrees through the weekend.

In addition to the fall-like temperatures, the storm will bring a very good chance for rain to the metro area and snow to the high country.
...
As the very unseasonably cool air settles into the state, freezing temperatures will drop to about 10,500 feet on Friday, meaning some high country locations will see the rain change into snow as early as Friday morning.

Locations such as Rocky Mountain National Park, the Indian Peaks Wilderness, Berthoud Pass, and Mount Evans could see several inches of snow. However, the warm ground will prevent much of the snow from accumulating.

Seasonal roads above 11,000 feet such as Trail Ridge Road will likely have to be shut down on Friday because of the snow.

Arizona's Own Espresso Pundit: Going to the Honey-Well

The Tribune had a recent story that caught my eye.

Honeywell International has agreed to pay a $5 million civil fine and contribute an additional $1 million to fund a regional climate-change study to settle charges the company violated Arizona clean-water laws for more than 30 years.

Actually, it's not the story that caught my eye, it was this line:

"contribute an additional $1 million to fund a regional climate-change study"

That seems odd, Clean Water Act settlements aren't supposed to be used to fund climate studies.

Then I dug a little deeper to see the details of what Honeywell's million dollars is really funding.

The complaint says that the money goes to...the Western Governor's Association to be earmarked for the Western Climate Initiative.

Isn't the Western Climate Initiative one of the Governor's pet projects?...

Walking shoe/bicycle shortage for the Democratic convention in Denver!

Oops, sorry--I misread the post. It's actually a limousine shortage.

Recycling as mentally challenging as Sudoku

Planning, Startups, Stories: Is Trendy and Fashionable Bad?

But do we want debate about environmental or social or health consciousness? Aren't those trends just plain good for all, good for the earth, good for business, good for humans? I didn't want to just accept the idea that trendy drowns debate, but still, for the sake of argument, I thought these truths would be self evident.

But Ralph says global warming isn't yet accepted as scientific, and needed debate and discussions are stifled now. Scientists with counter evidence are shouted down.

I was surprised. I thought educated people have accepted that environmental worries, particularly the phenomena related to what we call (for lack of a better name) global warming. Haven't they? The fact that green and organic and healthy are marketable now, people who can afford to worry are worried, that seems all good to me.

Alex Jones’ Prison Planet.com Dearth Of Sunspot Activity To Herald New Ice Age?

A top observatory that has been measuring sun cycles for over 200 years predicts that global temperatures will drop by two degrees over the next two decades as solar activity grinds to a halt and the planet drastically cools down, potentially heralding the onset of a new ice age.

While the mass media, Al Gore and politicized bodies like the IPCC scaremonger about the perils of global warming and demand the poor and middle class pay CO2 taxes, both hard scientific data and circumstantial evidence points to a clear cooling trend.

So public money meant for schoolbooks can soon be handed to scam artists selling bogus carbon offsets?

UK Schools Set to Join Carbon Trading Scheme : TreeHugger

With a long-term goal to ensure that every new school and home from 2016 to be built with a carbon footprint of zero, the British state schools are about to be included under the government’s new domestic carbon emissions trading scheme from April 2010 in a move that will enable teachers, students, and school district personnel to jump right into the mix when it comes to recognizing what impact their carbon emissions have on the Planet.

New global warming play

The difficulty of addressing a problem as big as this is also the underlying premise of Iain Heggie's satirical new play, Global Warming is Gay. Loosely based on Ostrovsky's The Handsome Man, and directed by Heggie himself with a mixed cast of students and professionals, it seems to question the value of trying to be green at all.

Andy Orbison (younger brother of Green MSP Graham Orbison) is determined to reduce his carbon footprint to zero. Unfortunately, this means buying a lot of expensive green gadgets, while creaming money off his girlfriend Kirsty's sick father. He is not the first man to use a higher cause (and what could be higher than saving the world?) as an excuse to treat other people badly.

It's a confrontational piece which probes areas the Green movement would prefer to ignore: how the scale of the problem tends to induce powerlessness; how the desire to be greener has opened up a whole new sector for scam merchants; how a truly carbon-neutral life might turn out to be neither enjoyable nor sustainable.

New ice forming in the Northwest Passage area

Berrimilla Down-Under-Mars: Holding my breath!

The bad news is new ice is forming in the northern areas above Resolute and way above Barrow. One can play 'chicken' with new ice at this time of year, but sooner or later the new ice will win.I don't expect any new ice to stay.

CO2sceptics News Blog | Podcast: Global Warming Debunked by Floy Lilley

CO2sceptics News Blog | Proof that Global Warming is hoax: Interview on KDKA radio with John Zyrkowski

Proof that Global Warming is hoax and that temperature increases have been caused by the sun: Interview on mega-station KDKA radio with John Zyrkowski on August 13 at 1:10 pm.

Listen to this interview [here; WMA format]. More here.

Prometheus » Blog Archive » The Hockey Stick Debate as a Matter of Science Policy

Having collaborated a bit with Steve McIntyre in recent years, and seen how the community reacts to him in the peer review process, I have seen some of the frothing and irrationality that he stirs. Further, as a long-time observer of this debate, how the more vocal climate science community has dealt with the criticisms of the Hockey Stick and McIntyre’s determined efforts is really an embarrassment to all of the hard-working and brilliant scientists who work out of the limelight trying to advance knowledge in a rigorous manner. The problem is that the behavior of the few reflects upon the community as a whole.

McIntyre may never get the recognition that he deserves from the climate science community (though some, like Peter Webster and Judy Curry have shown leadership by recognizing Steve’s legitimacy, and apparently taken their lumps for it), but within science policy circles it is becoming increasingly clear that has made a significant contribution to upholding the integrity of climate science, and for this he should be applauded.

U.S. on verge of grand-scale blackout

“I’m really not a ‘Chicken Little’ player, but I worry that no one seems to be focusing in on this,” said Michael Morris, chairman, president and chief executive of American Electric Power, which runs the nation’s largest electricity transmission system.

Morris said massive outages this year in South Africa, which forced gold, diamond and platinum mines to stop production for five days, should serve as a warning to the United States.

Industry experts back Morris and say there is even more resistance to building new plants because of the debate over climate change and opposition to new transmission lines. The blocking of two coal-fired plants in Kansas is one example of the resistance.

“The level of excess capacity has shrunk … to a level barely within the planning toleration of the industry,” said Marc Chupka, with the Brattle Group, an energy consultant.

Alarmist Dessler on the alleged "uncertainty agenda"

Wind whips up health fears - OregonLive.com

Hundreds of giant turbines in the Oregon desert will bring power, but residents nearby raise concerns about health effects and an end to their quiet way of life...

Psychologists Probe What it Means to Think Green

Not surprisingly, news stories that include global warming skeptics seriously undermine the public's concern over climate change.

Australia: Big chill here to stay

YOU'RE right -- it has been cold. The Gold Coast is now heading for its coldest winter in more than two decades.

Nearly every day this month, both the maximum and minimum temperatures, have been well below average.
...
At the Gold Coast Seaway, the average morning temperature has been 7C when the usual monthly average is 9.8C.

Coolangatta has been even colder.

The average minimum temperature this month has been just 4.9C, while the long-term average is normally 10.6C.

But many days have been far colder.

The Gold Coast Seaway cracked a record minimum temperature on August 10 when it dropped to 4.2C, almost six degrees below average. The previous record minimum was 4.3C.

Coolangatta then posted a record minimum temperature of 1C two days later on August 12, more than nine degrees below average. Its previous record minimum was 2.4C.

"That is the coldest it has been in 23 years," said climate services regional manager Tamika Tihema.

"It is much colder this month than normal."

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Burning Cash: Coal-Friendly Banks Under Fire

The question is: Should banks that help finance new power projects like coal-fired power plants for energy-hungry economies be tarred with the same brush as companies that do business with rogue regimes? Is coal money blood money? That’s what the “Cashing in on Coal” report suggests...

BC: Climate hysteria ignores bigger problems

Does it really matter if the government uses propaganda and faulty analysis on its global warming crusade? After all, it's "doing something" about the environment, right?

But spending billions of dollars to little or nothing 100 years from now is a questionable use of resources.

New Zealand: Power station ban 'to go after election'

Infrastructure Industry News - BusinessDay.co.nz

The plan to impose a 10-year ban on new gas-fired or coal-fired power stations will probably be abandoned by Labour and would certainly be ditched by a National government, a leading energy and resources lawyer says.

The oil and gas industry has strongly opposed a ban because it would discourage further exploration for gas and mean big rises in wholesale electricity prices.

"Absolutely it would go [under a National government]," Bryan Gunderson, a Kensington Swan partner, said. "Assuming a Labour government [after the election], you might see it go anyway."

The planned Emissions Trading Scheme, which includes the ban, was not expected to be passed in its present form before the election because time was running out and Labour did not have enough support from minor parties to pass the legislation.

Does global warming give you kidney stones? — Plenty Magazine

Q: I just heard that global warming causes kidney stones. Is this really true? It sounds like an urban myth. –Victor, Paducah, KY

A: It’s no hoax...
...That would mean a lot of people screaming in pain. A shout heard round the world, perhaps, if we do indeed continue along the current trajectory.

Insider's look at the Camp for Climate Action’s weeklong protest of a new coal-fired power plant in the UK — Plenty Magazine

Pedal power was used to operate sound systems, there were wind-powered laptops and solar-heated showers available, and used cooking-oil cans were converted into makeshift but reliable stoves.
...
As Jo, an English volunteer currently working at an Amsterdam-based environmental NGO, said: “We are not the fringes, this is the mainstream now.”
...
One particularly memorable seminar she attended was dedicated to talking to skeptics about climate change without alienating them. “The important thing is not to batter them with guilt and fear,” she said.

More from NYC's CO2-phobic mayor

Media-Newswire.com - Press Release Distribution - PR Agency

Mayor Michael R. "global warming in the long term has the potential to kill everybody" Bloomberg today launched the Climate Change Adaptation Task Force and the New York City Panel on Climate Change through to develop adaptation strategies to secure the City's infrastructure from the effects of climate change.
...
The task force will be assisted by a technical advisory committee, the New York City Panel on Climate Change, made up of leading experts from regional academic institutions and the legal, engineering, and insurance industries. The Rockefeller Foundation's generous grant will fund the creation of New York City Panel on Climate Change, modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ). The committee will be chaired by Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig of the Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research/NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Dr. William Solecki of Hunter College's Institute for Sustainable Cities.

Don Surber: Rev up those SUVs

An inconvenient truth: It seems to be getting cooler.

"Best summary ever" of the hockey stick saga

- Bishop Hill blog - Caspar and the Jesus paper

Al Fin: The Obamanation of Energy Obstructionism

If humans are to transition from a fossil fuel economy to an electric and renewable economy, they will absolutely have to maintain the flow of energy in all available forms--that means offshore oil, arctic oil, shale oil, coal to liquids, etc. If we allow energy supplies to drop enough to destroy our economies, the ability to develop alternatives will slip through our fingers. Why does Obama pretend not to realise this?

Study: Immigration to U.S. Increases Global Greenhouse-Gas Emissions - Yahoo! News

The findings of a new study indicate that future levels of immigration will have a significant impact on efforts to reduce global CO2 emissions. Immigration to the United States significantly increases world-wide CO2 emissions because it transfers population from lower-polluting parts of the world to the United States, which is a higher-polluting country.

The Gore Challenge Starts Here | SolveClimate.com

How much solar power would it take to replace the 20% of US electricity powered by natural gas? About 311 GW of nameplate capacity would do the trick. Some more context: SolveClimate linked to a story yesterday about a proposal for the world's largest solar farm. It would produce 250 megawatts of power. We'll need 1,250 of those to replace the gas plants.

How much solar power to replace all the coal? About 761 GW. Gulp. These are big numbers.

» Switch Off, Tune Out, Give Up

Yes folks, you too could buy your energy from n-power, who will, in return, encourage your kids to spy on you and make sure you don’t lapse into climate criminality.

Tom Friedman argues for still more public subsidies for wind and solar energy

Op-Ed Columnist - Eight Strikes and You’re Out

Both the wind and solar industries depend on these credits — which expire in December — to scale their businesses and become competitive with coal, oil and natural gas. Unlike offshore drilling, these credits could have an immediate impact on America’s energy profile.

Serious or spoof?

Australia: Mercedes-Benz proposes CO2 hysteria tax on new cars

EVERY Australian new-car buyer would be hit with a carbon tax based on the car's greenhouse gas emissions, under a proposal to the Federal Government by luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz.

(Via Skeptics Global Warming)

Since all these 'climate change cost' numbers are made-up, can't we just round them all to an even eleventy-zillion dollars?

Ghana needs $1.4 billion to fight climate change

afrol News, 13 August - Ghana would need over US $1.4 billion to combat climate change if bad environmental practices persists, a senior official of the West African country's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said.
...
The Executive Director of the foundation said based on a 2006 study, Ghana would pay US $7.5 trillion by 2050 if it fails to address climate change.

Alternative Energy's Biggest Losers

Another player in the sector is Pacific Ethanol (NASDAQ: PEIX), which garnered much attention in recent years as Bill Gates was once a massive stakeholder. He's been a seller but he probably wishes he would have unloaded it all long ago. Its recent earnings didn't add any love and shares are down close to $2.00 with a 52-week range of $1.45 to $12.80. In 2006 this was trading over $30.00, so it is a serial disappointment.

Chicago: Decade has had fewest 90-degree days since 1930

August is the wettest and often the muggiest month of the year. Yet, summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century's opening decade. There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That's by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.

This summer's highest reading to date has been just 91 degrees. That's unusual. Since 1928, only one year—2000—has failed to record a higher warm-season temperature by Aug. 13.

Is there a cold future just lying in wait for us? - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Cycle 23, which hasn't finished yet, looks like it will be long (at least 12 to 13 years) and cycle 24, which has still to start, looks like it will be exceptionally weak.

Based on the past Armagh measurements, this suggests that over the next two decades, global temperatures may fall by about 2 degrees C — that is, to a level lower than any we have seen in the last 100 years. Of course, nothing in science is certain. Perhaps (though I doubt it) Armagh's old measurements are wrong or perhaps there are now other factors, such as CO2 emissions, which may change things somewhat.

However, temperatures have already fallen by about 0.5 degrees C over the past 12 months and, if this is only the start of it, it would be a serious concern.

Northern Ireland is not noted for extreme warmth at the best of times and has much more to fear from cold weather than it does from hot. We really need to be sure what is going to happen before spending too much money on combating global warming.

We may need all the money we can save just to help us keep warm.

David Watt

Spotless days: 400 and counting « Watts Up With That?

As many of you know, the sun has been very quiet, especially in the last month...

Michelle Malkin: Pelosi and the Big-Wind Boone-doggle

More foolishness/fraud from the sea ice "experts"

More alarmist BS: Sudden ice loss in Arctic could make '08 worst ever

Desjardins says there's also a "very good likelihood" that the best-known route of the Northwest Passage -- from north of Baffin Island to the Beaufort Sea south of Victoria Island -- will soon become fully navigable for the third consecutive summer, a year after the fabled shipping conduit drew global attention by opening more completely than ever.

Hold it--the mainstream media just told us repeatedly that the Northwest Passage opened in 2007 for the "first time in memory". (As long as no one can remember years like 1906, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1944, 1957, 1969, 1977, 1984, 1988, and 2000).

How'd we get to THREE consecutive summers so soon?
----
Arctic ice melt increased for a few days, then decreased

'It does not really matter whether 2007 or 2008 is the worst year on record for Arctic ice,' Maslowski said. 'The crucial point is that ice is clearly not building up enough over winter to restore cover and that when you combine current estimates of ice thickness with the extent of the ice cap, you get a very clear indication that the Arctic is going to be ice-free in summer in five years. And when that happens, there will be consequences.'

But the graph below shows that the ice actually DID build up more last winter than it has in several years:

...and the Aug 11 update here shows that sea ice extent was still running more than 3/4 of a million square kilometers HIGHER than on the same date last year.

Finally, check out this picture comparing sea ice extent for 8/12/07 and 8/12/08--there's clearly more ice this summer.

Corporate Fiscal Irresponsibility

The main takeaway is that businesses are throwing money at climate initiatives and other “green” causes — but what do shareholders get in return? What do consumers get in return? Obviously, the businesses get generous subsidies and tax breaks, but what about the rest of us?

Jennifer Marohasy: Global Warming and Some Maths: A Note from William Kininmonth

This is the first time in human history that there has been a conscious move at the national level to discard the tools that have underpinned security, wellbeing and comfort. We are deliberately abrogating energy usage from proven and widely available sources on the basis of a perceived environmental threat which is poorly articulated and substantiated only by recourse to obviously deficient computer modelling.

Why am I reminded of Charles MacKay’s 1841 tome, “Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds’?

William Kininmonth
Melbourne, Australia.

William Kininmonth is a former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre; a consultant to the World Meteorological Organization; and author of Climate Change: A Natural Hazard (2004, Multi-Science Publishing)

New York’s Belief in Global Warming Fiction Costs You Big Money

Remember when global warming was going to kill off the ski industry?

Here's an update:

Skiers will weather lousy economy, survey indicates | AspenTimes.com

Snow conditions were superb in nearly every part of the country last season, with the Rocky Mountains enjoying near-record snowfall after November. As a result, the ski industry had a record season for lift ticket sales. A final audit by Kottke showed that the ski industry topped 60 million skier and rider visits for the first time last winter. That was an increase of nearly 3 percent over the previous record in 2005-06.

“The record season suggests that the industry has enhanced its ability to capitalize on favorable snow conditions, when the opportunity arises,” the Kottke report said.

The report painted an all-around bright picture of the current state of the ski industry: the strong performance last winter was enjoyed by resorts of all sizes in all regions of the country; the sport was drawing impressive numbers of youngsters; and the amount of business from overseas soared.

“These are, in fact, the golden years of the ski business right now,” said Michael Berry, president of NSAA, a trade association based in Lakewood, Colo.

William M. Briggs, Statistician » Extremely fit have larger carbon footprints than do couch potatoes: scientific study

The policy implications of this study are obvious: people must be discouraged immediately from exercising. They should be taught the immorality of it, how their narcissistic habits unnecessarily add to carbon burden of the atmosphere, thus endangering the fragile climate system, and therefore the future for our children.

If we can each stop just one jogger from donning his multi-colored, garish shorts and trotting through the neighborhood, we will have done the Earth a tremendous service.

Students fed Flannery | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

The Geography Teachers Association of Queensland wants the global warming preaching of Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery taught as gospel...

For lovers of Al Gore warming porn | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

From reader Warren, this handy set of links - the core of a GoreWatch...

Yet another sceptical scientist | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Add another warming sceptic to the list - now so long that surely even the ABC must doubt the “consensus”. This time it’s Professor Bill Collins of James Cook University’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences...

Vogan: THE STRONG LA NINA DOMINO EFFECT

Even across Greenland where we saw record or near record cold last winter over the heart of the vast ice shelf, Summit Camp supposedly plummeted on at least 1 (probably more night’s) to -86 degrees and over recent days or weeks we have seen cooler than normal temperatures with a -20C reported just recently. Yes Greenland is no hot spot for sunbathers but for August I believe -20C is a little colder than what is typical.

The Steamboat Pilot & Today: Dr. Henry R. Savage: Climate talk

Bill is a highly valued and respected friend with whom I discuss the science of this subject. We sometimes agree on matters and often agree to disagree. My major difference with Bill is the desirability to launch draconian policies in the face of science that fails by a large margin to justify same. The debate is not over and the evidence is not incontrovertable. Many thousands of scientists are now on record expressing doubt about the conclusions regarding anthropogenic global warming. In the late 60s and early 70s alarmists said things such as “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind” — Nigel Calder at the first Earth Day. “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed” — C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization.

Cool August weather in Washington, DC: Fort Reno in Pictures

As we mentioned yesterday, last night was the penultimate Fort Reno show of the summer. It was a magical evening, with weather that gave the term "unseasonably cool" a new meaning. It was almost cold! Everyone cuddling on their blankets in the park seemed to enjoy the cooler climes, that even seemed to keep the mosquitoes at bay. The only person who probably wasn't happy with the way the weather turned out was the ice cream man, who can usually count on a sweaty Fort Reno crowd for a good haul.

Weather alerts boost lung health

A scheme warning people with a lung condition about weather which could have an effect on them has cut hospital admissions for the problem by a fifth.

The Met Office alerts tell people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) when cold weather is due.

More than 8,000 patients from 189 GP practices across the UK are signed up to the scheme.

The British Lung Foundation says users can plan to avoid being out during cold snaps which could harm their health.

COPD is a progressive lung disease that affects over 900,000 people in the UK, causing acute breathlessness meaning everyday life can be very difficult.

Cold air can worsen symptoms by making airways narrower, making it even harder to breathe. Chest infections are also more common in winter.

Deaths due to respiratory disease, like COPD, increase 12 days after a fall in temperature, which causes an increase in colds and breathing problems.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

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