Is the Sun Setting on Solar Energy? | Solar Feeds

A wave of solar-energy companies are scrambling to adjust to the lingering credit crisis in capital markets. While investors and analysts are still bullish on the sector’s long term prospects, the next year or two could see a major shake up in the crowded solar energy space.

The looming threat of global warming and soaring energy prices have attracted vast amounts of capital into clean energy companies in the past few years. In 2007, the sector attracted $2.2 billion in venture-backed investments, up 45% from 2006. Biofuels production jumped from 4.9 billion gallons in 2006 to roughly 6.5 billion gallons last year. Meanwhile, in 2007, the United States added 314 megawatts of new solar energy systems to the grid, up by 125% from the previous year.

Convenience stores defend 24-hour operations | Japan Probe

Facing attack from critics that want convenience stores to shut down at night as a measure to prevent global warming, the Japan Franchise Association has responded by stating that convenience stores play a crucial role as safe havens for lost children and victims of crime...

The Blue Marble: GAO Slams Carbon Offsets

The GAO is soon to publish a report faulting the credibility of the carbon offset market. It suggests that Congress think carefully before letting companies use offsets to comply with climate change legislation. Everyone has known that offsets can be sketchy for a long time, but my article in the July/August issue of Mother Jones was the first to explore how leading offset companies have partnered with oil companies and anti-regulatory lobbying firms in an effort to carve out a huge new market for themselves through climate legislation. These are the same guys to whom well-intentioned enviros have paid millions to offset car trips and airline flights. The financial meltdown has been bad enough. Let's hope it won't take a polar meltdown for Congress to realize that a laissez-faire carbon market won't save us.

Scary "Reality" of Climate Situation Not Getting Through « La Marguerite

“Next year, when my youngest daughter goes to college, I wouldn’t mind spending more time in Hawaii” I mused over dinner with my friends Tom and Betsy. And quickly added that I felt conflicted about the idea. Given the climate situation, I told them, it felt irresponsible to engage in such gratuitous behavior. Both of my friends looked at me as if I was some crazy woman. Why wouldn’t I want to fly to Hawaii? No way would they change their habit of flying to Europe three of four times a year. Tom started ranting about not subscribing to moralistic attitudes towards climate change. No, the solution lied in new technologies. What about all the predictions that keep getting worse and worse? I asked. Tom, an engineer with an interest in data visualization, expressed skepticism. There is a lot we don’t know. All those data are to be taken with a grain of salt. No, both he and Betsy were adamant they were not about to change their lifestyle, one bit. I was shocked. And changed subject.

Considering that global warming was supposed to be The Most Important Problem Ever, it didn't get much emphasis at the first presidential debate

The Ticket's complete McCain-Obama debate transcript, Sept. 26, 2008 | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

Cuba at UN: “The very existence of the human species is at risk” | Creative-i

We are living a decisive moment in the history of humankind. The threats looming over the world put the very existence of the human species at risk.

The promotion of peace, solidarity, social justice and sustainable development is the only way to ensure the future. The prevailing world order, unjust and unsustainable, must be replaced by a new system that is truly democratic and equitable, based on respect for International Law and on the principles of solidarity and justice, putting an end to the inequalities and exclusion to which the great majorities of the population of our planet have been condemned.

There are no alternatives. Those responsible for this state of affairs, the industrialized nations and, in particular, the sole superpower, have to accept their responsibilities. Fabulous fortunes cannot continue to be wasted while millions of human beings are starving and dying of curable diseases. It is not possible to keep on polluting the air and poisoning the oceans; this destroys the living conditions of our future generations. Neither the peoples nor the planet itself will permit this without great social upheaval and extremely serious natural disasters.

Arnold to convene global CO2-hysteric summit

Schwarzenegger To Convene Global Climate Summit - News Story - KTVU San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to cast himself in a new role: an international leader on global warming.

The Republican governor, who has become a national pitchman by challenging many members of his party on the issue, announced Friday he would convene a summit in California for his contemporaries from around the world.

Schwarzenegger said he will invite lawmakers and government executives from China, India, Australia, Europe and other countries in the hope of forming an international alliance of community and regional leaders.

He is planning the conference for November, a month before the United Nations holds its next round of international climate talks in Poland. Governors from all 50 states also will be invited.

"The real action for any new ideas is always on the local level," Schwarzenegger told a gathering of the Commonwealth Club of California, a nonpartisan educational organization. "This is how we can push the agenda."

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Raked Over Coal

At Wednesday's conference, Gore, ever the alarmist, lamented that the battle against global warming is "losing badly" and claimed that an increase in tropical diseases and an upswing in severe hurricane activity are evidence.

Both claims are false, but there is an effort that is "losing badly," and that is his campaign to frighten the world into thinking the Earth is rolling downhill toward environmental cataclysm. The public, at least in this country, is beginning to understand the fraudulent nature of the climate-change scare and is refocusing its attention on issues that matter.

This is marginalizing Gore, and that's a shock to his ego. Expect his global warming claims and solutions to grow loopier and more extreme as he desperately — and bitterly — tries to cling to his waning, and almost wholly undeserved, relevance.

NASA JPL on Heatwaves: “it’s the asphalt, not the atmosphere” « Watts Up With That?

Kum Ba Yah « Watts Up With That?

...Of course, all of the artists have obtained advanced degrees in climatology, which is why we should pay attention to their trek north and respect any conclusions they draw.

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Dept. of Futile Gestures: House Passes Energy Tax Credits, To No Avail
Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Coal Country: Washington Ups Support for Coal, Clean or Not

Dan Sharp: ‘Gore Was Irresponsible’ | Skeptics Global Warming

Dan Sharp, a spokesperson for the Big Stone II power plant planned in South Dakota called Al Gore’s recent remarks encouraging today’s youth to begin civil disobedience “irresponsible.” He goes on to say that Gore’s proposal bypasses the structured process of public debate and government review. Even an opponent of the power plant said that civil disobedience was not necessary at this point.

Video: CO2 Truth-Alert: 'Are earth's glaciers wasting away at an accelerating pace as a result of CO2-induced global warming?'

CO2 Science

The Reference Frame: CO2 output increased 3 percent in one year

AP informs that the amount of carbon dioxide produced by the civilization grew by 3 percent between 2006 and 2007, mainly thanks to developing countries...

Gore Says Climate Change Deserves Attention The Bailout Is Getting - San Jose Mercury News

Al Gore said in San Jose Saturday that the climate crisis deserves the same type of attention and money from Washington that the financial meltdown is getting.

"Instead of a focus only on a bailout, we need to bail in renewable energy," Gore said during a 50-minute speech at the Civic Auditorium.

Gore, who turned 60 this year, was a three-term U.S. Senator from Tennessee, vice president for eight years and narrowly lost the 2000 presidential election to George Bush. But it was his move toward environmentalism, symbolized by his starring role in the 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and his subsequent Nobel Peace Prize that turned him into an international crusader against global warming.

That's what brought him to San Jose Saturday, as the keynote speaker for the three-day West Coast Green conference. It included presentations on a variety of green-living topics, plus an exhibit hall of green-building products.

Wearing a navy suit, but no tie, Gore came across as part science teacher, part economist and part environmental evangelist. His remarks, which included a funny story or two and mentions of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, drew frequent applause, and a few standing ovations.

Indeed, the speech had something of a rock concert feel. Loud music played before the event started. Many in the casually dressed crowd of about 2,000 took cell-phone photos once Gore walked onto the stage. And his comments about the dangers
of climate change, its impact on the world, and how it might be solved, sounded like Gore's greatest hits...

CO2sceptics News Blog | Dr. Martin Hertzberg: Meteorologist rejects 'fear mongering clap-trap about human-caused global warming'

As a scientist and life-long liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear mongering clap-trap about human-caused global warming (the Levi, Borgerson article of 9/24/08) to be a disservice to science, to your readers, and to the quality of the political dialogue leading up to the election. The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence shows that the Gore-IPCC theory that human activity is causing global warming is false. For details see my article, "The Lynching of Carbon Dioxide", in the "guest authors" section of www.carbon-sense.com .

The difference between a scientist and propagandist is clear. If a scientist has a theory, he searches diligently for data that might contradict it so that he can test it further or refine it. The propagandist carefully selects only the data that agrees with his theory and dutifully ignores any that contradicts it. The global warming alarmists don't even bother with data! All they have are half-baked computer models that are totally out of touch with reality and have already been proven to be false.

Mann 08 Temperature Reconstruction Using Less Than 11% of the Data « The Air Vent

Gore the Vandal

Gore’s advocacy of vandalism against coal-fired plants is yet another example of his growing desperation. It does not matter that he received a Nobel Peace Prize or an Oscar for the lies perpetrated by his so-called documentary. All that says is that the institutions bestowing these honors are corrupt, stupid, or both.

Fraud of Global Warming by Floy Lilley

The magnetic attraction of government funding for global-warming research, the political climate of fear-based policies seen in both climate issues and economic issues, and doom-sopping journalism works to push events into a downward spiral of exaggeration and hype. Al Gore rides this emotional wave. He has refused all debate with climate scientists. It is after all, for him, not about truth. For him truth is simply inconvenient.

Global warming has paused - By Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu

newsminer.com • Global warming has paused

The stopping of the rise in global average temperature after 2000-2001 indicates that the hypothesis and prediction made by the IPCC need serious revision. I have been suggesting during the last several years that there are at least two natural components that cause long-term climate changes.

Guy who used to be cute celebrates 20 years of CO2-phobia

Six questions for Robert Redford - Las Vegas Sun

Global warming has been an issue for 20 years at the Sundance Preserve (in Utah). We had a global warming conference at the preserve in 1989 and made a statement about how serious it was even then. But it didn’t get much traction. I’ve been committed ever since.

More from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

The Secretary-General's Statements

It is a great pleasure to take part in this discussion. As everybody knows by this time, I have called climate change a defining issue of our era, and I have taken it as the highest priority in the agenda as Secretary-General. I am therefore especially grateful to you for highlighting the ways in which climate change threatens to undermine our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, as has been very succinctly summarized – climate change hinders the progress of the MDGs.

We see new evidence every day.

Glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates, threatening fresh water resources.

Erratic rainfall and extreme weather associated with climate change are jeopardizing agriculture, compounding the food crisis and hindering our efforts to eradicate hunger.

Drought in Africa forces women to walk greater distances – as much as 10 to 15 kilometres a day -- to fetch water. This keeps young girls out of school, which is an obstacle to both gender and education goals.

This weighs heaviest on the poorest of the poor, who have neither the resources nor the capacity to cope.

All of us -- Governments, UN bodies, NGOs, the business community -- need to better understand the links between climate change and the MDGs. That would ensure that our responses are scientifically and economically sound. In a sense, we need to “climate proof” our activities, to the extent possible.

We know what we need to do, and by when. The science is very clear. I believe the IPCC could contribute even more to consensus building by including more developing-country expertise in its assessment. This would promote universal ownership of its conclusions, and ensure that negotiations are anchored even more deeply in [junk?] science.

Massachusetts Governor Patrick: PEOPLE COULD FREEZE TO DEATH

WHYN NewsTalk 560 | Fire up those Hummers

Governor Patrick says there's a real possibility that people in America could freeze to death this winter due to the soaring cost of home heating fuel. Patrick met today with members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation on Capitol Hill and later testified before a House panel on the need for heating aid in cold-weather states.
...
The House has approved legislation to double the government's Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to 5.1 billion dollars for the coming winter. Massachusetts would receive 163 million dollars under the plan, an increase of 36 million dollars from the last fiscal year.

Reuters AlertNet - INTERVIEW-Financial turmoil no bar to climate deal, says UN

De Boer said the talks scheduled for December in the western Polish city of Poznan involving environment ministers of the 192 U.N. member states could pave the way for a deal in Copenhagen to replace Kyoto, despite widespread scepticism.

EPA Fascism versus America: There Is No "Consensus" Among Scientists (4 of 7) by John Lewis and Paul Saunders -- Capitalism Magazine

Comment Number Three: There Is No “Consensus” Among Scientists

We oppose these measures on scientific grounds, because the assertions of a man-made global warming crisis are opposed by some of the best scientific minds in the world. There is no "consensus" among scientists that man-made global warming is a crisis requiring government intervention.

The most accomplished, senior, and expert scientists in climatology and related fields have gone on record to state that human action is NOT changing the climate. Many of them have paid a professional price for their candor. Their voices are unacknowledged in the press, and have carried almost no weight in the political deliberations.

Claims by the advocates of man-made global warming that a scientific “consensus” exists are false. These claims reveal the dishonesty of the advocates of man-made global warming and reveal their political motivations. If they refuse to admit that their own colleagues who do not agree with them even exist, why should we accept that they are accurate in their scientific conclusions?

Absolutely remarkable stuff from the (former?) climate alarmists at Environmental Defense Action Fund

Evidently realizing that a dwindling number of Americans are fooled by Gore's climate scam, these folks are now hoping to sell the stunningly boneheaded proposition that cap-and-trade is the way to "break America's addiction to oil". Since they obviously can't come up with any convincing arguments on their own, they're asking the public for help.

I'm extremely skeptical that this is going to fly, since fighting carbon dioxide and fighting American oil use are two VASTLY different propositions. For example, opponents of carbon dioxide want to spend astronomical sums of American money, both here and overseas, to reduce use of fuels like coal and natural gas; they want to pay people not to cut down trees, etc. These things make absolutely no sense if you're fighting American oil use.

Video/Graphic Competition - Environmental Defense Action Fund

Video/Graphic Competition
Explain to America how a carbon cap will solve our oil addiction

Many scientists, economists, environmentalists and business leaders agree that a cap on carbon emissions is the best way to cure our addiction to oil. But, quickly and vividly explaining how a cap will solve our energy problems is a challenge.

We need your help conveying this concept to the American people in a clear, brief, convincing and memorable way to stick in the public's consciousness—like the well-known shot of an egg frying that depicted "your-brain-on-drugs."
What We Want

* A video or visual analogy smartly, vividly and clearly explaining how a carbon cap will break America’s addiction to oil.
* Videos should be no longer than 30 seconds.
* Visuals can be submitted as a still image or any other format.
* Submissions must be posted to a website—for example, your personal site, company site, YouTube, or Flickr.
* If we decide your submission will most vividly connect the dots between a carbon cap and solving our oil addiction effectively, you will receive a $10,000 professional fee.
* There are also cash prizes for second and third place entries.

See the competition rules for detailed guidelines.

What We Don't Want

* Don't focus on global warming—its importance, impact, or the necessity to solve it. We know it's a critical issue, but that's not the message of this project. This is about drawing a line between our over-dependence on oil and the cap that will solve it.

clean-energy.us - facts about electricity

The electric power system in the United States is the largest in the world. In fact, with over 800,000 MWe of installed capacity, America has more than twice the generating capacity of China, our nearest competitor. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the electricity generated in America in 2002 came from the following sources:
Coal 50%
Nuclear 20%
Natural Gas 18%
Hydro 07%
Other 05%

Ludicrous upcoming PBS special "Heat"

GREENIE WATCH

[Marc Morano:] Your Frontline "Heat" trailer claims global warming is "most important issue of our time" and claims that global warming "is probably the most urgent problem facing the next president." See Trailer for the October 21, 2008 2-hour PBS Frontline Special "Heat.".

Smith is very comfortable in the roles as the warming fear advocate stating "But nothing matches climate change in scope and severity." Oh really Mr. Smith? You can't think of any other more "urgent" issues for a President to address? Surely you jest.

Is Mr. Smith not aware that Hurricanes are declining? That there are no long term increases in drought? See this report: Excerpt: There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms - There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor'easters - There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record. But all of the above appear to be INCREASING in unverified climate models. See: here

Is Smith aware that sea level is failing to rise at any type of alarming rate?...

A simple way to demonstrate that a movie character is an obnoxious misanthrope?

Yale Daily News - "Ghost Town" movie

One of the film’s most impressive successes is its portrayal of Pincus’ obnoxiousness toward almost any and all other human beings, which is not to downplay the also amazing demonstration of his awkwardness with the leading lady (a courting handicap best exemplified by “flirting” remarks referencing molar decay). In creating what is supposed to be such a repulsive character, the film walks a thin line between realistically portraying his misanthropy and making him into a Uncle Scrooge caricature. Luckily, the filmmakers achieve the former goal through such simple scenes as Pincus yelling “No!” at the poster-pushing, “global warming” propagandist (see the Activities Bazaar for details and sympathy).

Some climate realism from another alarmist

Slaying the dragon of climate change - The Denver Post

We are also beginning to recognize publicly what scientists have long understood: natural climate variation itself can have enormous and potentially undesirable societal consequences. While the potential impacts of human climate influence are sobering, our focus on human influence is misguided if it blinds us to the consequences of natural change.

The abnormal cold of the "Little Ice Age" from about 1350 to 1850 altered the course of world events - possibly delaying the settlement of America and driving the onset of the industrial revolution.

BBC2 show ignites contributor row

BBC2's Earth: The Climate Wars is at the centre of a new TV global warming row after four contributors claimed it misrepresented them.

The complaints surround the 14 September episode of the three-part, in-house programme, in which presenter Dr Iain Stewart interviewed key global warming sceptics, including Lord Monckton of Brenchley.

Lord Monckton has made a formal complaint to Ofcom and the BBC Trust that the programme-makers unfairly misrepresented him in a 90-minute interview.

"In the two minutes it [BBC2] broadcast, it omitted all my scientific points, including my criticism of the defective 'hockey-stick' graph which the presenter had questioned me about," Monckton told Broadcast.

Canadian climate expert Dr Tim Ball and fellow contributor Dr Fred Singer also told Broadcast that they would complain to Ofcom and another scientist, Dr Roy Spencer, said he was considering complaining to both Ofcom and the BBC Trust.

IPCC member claims that climate realist arguments can be "robustly rebutted", but utterly fails to actually "robustly rebut" those arguments

Sceptics wrong, global warming expert says | Otago Daily Times Online

Arguments that deny global warming is occurring are numerous but all can be "robustly rebutted", National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research climate centre leader Dr David Wratt says.
...
Dr Wratt, who is also on the steering group of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, said arguments denying global warming often featured in the media, the most recent claiming temperatures were falling rather than rising.

All the data showed while temperatures variations were numerous, there was a continual upward trend, meaning those arguments could be "robustly rebutted", he said.

Research showed the climate was changing because of greenhouse gas emissions and would do so increasingly unless something was done.

IBDeditorials.com: -- The Day The Earth Cooled

The New York-based Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, launched Thursday, strives to freeze CO2 emissions through 2014 and then gradually reduce them to 10% below current levels by 2018. The states participating are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Like its bigger cousin, it's a job- and growth-killing plan in a time of economic crisis. As the sun slows and the Earth cools, it'll mean higher energy prices during colder and snowier winters.

Al Gore's hippie legions may have to wear their winter coats.

AP Swings, Misses on Solar Wind At 50 Year Low « Global Warming: A Worn-Out Hoax

The confusion is grand. Sunspots, or more precisely, solar magnetic activity, and long-term climate change on Earth, obviously including weather, are the Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire of precise coordination.

It is anthropogenic carbon dioxide, on the other hand, that lacks any documented connection with weather or long-term climate change.

A mechanism has been alleged (unsuccessfully) connecting anthropogenic carbon dioxide with weather and long-term climate change; and has been worked to death. “The greenhouse effect” has now disappeared from the wire service “scientific” lexicon in favor of undefined “climate change.” Of course there is a real “greenhouse effect” which is absolutely required for life as we know it on Earth; but the real greenhouse effect is now proven practically insensitive to anthropogenic carbon dioxide.

While there is no connection observable between anthropogenic carbon dioxide and weather including long-term climate change, there very much is an obvious connection between solar magnetic activity and weather, etc. One can observe this connection if he does not ignore history (Maunder, Dalton, etc.). Frankly, I would prefer that those who ignore history should desist from polluting the “wires.”

A mechanism, enhanced low cloud formation from increased ionizing radiation during solar magnetic quiet, has been demonstrated (The Chilling Stars) in compelling fashion. Beyond simply being connected, a causal relationship exists. Read the book, AP.

Dalton Minimum Returns: Geomagnetic variation and cooler temperatures?

Given the recent NASA briefing on the declining solar wind and it's impact on geomagnetic field and Anthony Watts pointing to the sudden drop in the Ap index, shown below, I was intrigued enough to do some more searching...

Climate realist speaks on global "warming"

The Etownian.com

The political scene lit up again Tuesday as the College Republicans invited a speaker to present on the issue of global warming. The event was billed as “The Other Side of Global Warming: Discussing the Other Side of the Al Gore Propaganda Issue.” The speaker was a Mr. Ryan Nichols of the organization Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).

Nichols began the talk at 8 p.m., first giving a brief outline of his life. He was born in Madison, Wi. and attended the University of Madison, where he earned a degree in civil and environmental engineering. He then became a part of the Leadership Institute, a noted thinktank.
...
Nichols continued by belittling global warming as a threat, stating that not only is carbon dioxide a lesser greenhouse gas, but that the human contribution of CO2 is “negligible.” He also stated that global research stations for measuring the earth’s aggregate temperature were inaccurate, citing that after stations in Siberia were closed, the earth’s average temperature suddenly rose due to the lack of the Siberian data.

He also discussed that over the past 114,000 years, the earth’s temperature had fluctuated “over 7 degrees,” whereas people are freaking out because in the past 100 years the global temperature had gone up “only a slight fraction of one degree.”

Rather than human action, Nichols blamed the warming trend on solar cycles, that is the regular cycles of heating and cooling of the Sun.

Nichols then pointed out that alternative energy resources would be less applicable than the current use of fossil fuels, since they are five times more expensive and far less efficient than petroleum.

Rather than making alternative energy more efficient, Nichols proposed that we continue using petroleum until it runs out to the point that it is five times more expensive than current prices. That way, alternative energy sources would be comparatively priced to petrol, and at least there would be more incentive to make the switch.

(Via CO2 Sceptics)

Climate Research News » Climate Science: No Significant Trends in Tropical Cyclones Since 1690

The most comprehensive and longest document-based time series of tropical cyclone activity for any area of the world is presented for the Atlantic and Caribbean region of the Lesser Antilles for the years 1690–2007. Newspaper accounts, ships’ logbooks, meteorological journals, and other document sources were used to create this new data set, and a new methodology was applied for classifying historical tropical cyclone intensity. This compilation estimates the position and intensity of each tropical cyclone that passes through the 61.5°W meridian from the coast of South America northward through 25.0°N. The additional resources used here fills in gaps in the HURDAT record, which undercounts tropical storms and hurricanes by 28% (7%) in the years 1851–1898 (1899–1930) over populated islands from 12 to 18°N. The numbers of tropical cyclones show no trends that were significant at the 5% level. The time span 1968–1977 was probably the most inactive period since the islands were settled in the 1620s and 1630s.

Don't miss this

The Daily Bayonet: Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Sept. 26th 2008

Temerature falls to record overnight low | Gainesville, FL

There was a good reason you needed to put on a jacket or sweater in Gainesville on Thursday morning. The city set a record overnight low and it took awhile for the sun to warm things back up.

The temperature fell to 55 degrees shortly before dawn, according to the National Weather Service in Jacksonville. Forecaster Peter Keegan said that beat the old record low of 56 degrees set in 1967.

Keegan also said that there is a chance we could break the low record again tonight. The forecast calls for an overnight low in the mid to upper 50s and the record low for the date was 57 degrees set in 1914.

Moscow: Cold Snap Leads City to Turn On Heat Early

For the past two weeks, Alexandra Shuvalova has spent almost every evening sitting in a bathtub filled with piping hot water.

"I even read books in the tub. Any other place in the apartment is too cold for me," said Shuvalova, a 36-year-old nanny.

Moscow is caught in the grip of an unusually early winter chill and, with most apartments hooked up to the city's centralized heating system, residents are just plain cold. Authorities have avoided turning on the heat because of a rule that requires the outside temperature to remain below 8 degrees Celsius for more than five days in a row.

But City Hall decided this week to turn on the heat for all apartments by next Wednesday -- two weeks earlier than usual. In the meantime, residents are shivering, buying electric heaters or just slipping into the hot tub, like Shuvalova.

Coal Is Already Cleaner

Planet Gore on National Review Online

On the coal issue, one fact is routinely butchered: The idea that modern coal energy is “dirty.”

Press accounts reflexively abuse the term because it’s easier to scare the public with lurid terms like the “dark fuel” (Matthew Wald in The New York Times) than explaining the mineral’s “threat” to the planet is the same odorless gas we are exhaling right now. Carbon dioxide may be a relatively large byproduct of coal, but it is a greenhouse gas, not a “dirty” particulate.

The modern coal plant, in fact, is remarkably clean compared to the belching smokestack stereotype of CNN stock footage. Take American Electric Power’s (AEP) gigantic Gavin plant in the Ohio Valley (which, together with its sister, 2900-MW John Amos facility, produces more power than all of America’s wind turbines combined — a capacity factor of 4125 MW vs. just 3750 MW for the entire wind industry).

Located in Cheshire, Ohio, the two-unit, 2,600 MW capacity Gavin plant was completed in 1975. To comply with federal clean air standards, plants like Gavin have switched to low-sulfur coal mixes, which — though 50 percent costlier than standard coal — has reduced sulfur and nitric-oxide emissions by 90 percent.

Additionally, Gavin has decreased those emissions by 98 percent again by installing scrubbers in 2004. As a result, even as Gavin today produces 35 percent more power than it did 18 years ago, its emissions are a whopping 13 times less (383,400 tons of SO2 vs. 29,164 tons today). Yet, despite this achievement, coal is ridiculed by the very senators that forced these emissions challenges on the plants to begin with!

Or for more realism, how about putting the people in a chilly room and then turn up the thermostat .6 degrees every century?

24 Hour News 8 Blogs » “The Steam Experiment” movie close to wrap

The story begins when former university professor James Pettis (VAL KILMER) boasts to the local paper that he has trapped six people and is holding them hostage in a Turkish bath to prove his hypothesis that humans will devolve into chaos under the pressures of global warming.

Bill Clinton, climate realist?

If Clinton really believed that human CO2 emissions threatened to make our grandchildren's planet an uninhabitable fireball, would he make the statement below?

Transcript: Bill Clinton with Larry King, September 24, 2008 : Clips & Comment

[Bill Clinton:] And I think energy is the key to national security through energy independence to fighting global warming, and most important of all to the people that are listening to this, to more jobs and higher incomes.

Another Dissenter: 'Man-made global warming is 'junk' science' - declares analytical chemist

islandpacket.com | Numbers don't add up for global warming

As an analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, I am troubled by the lack of common sense regarding carbon dioxide emissions.

Our greatest greenhouse gas is water. Atmospheric spectroscopy reveals why water has a 95 percent and CO2 a 3.6 percent contribution to the "greenhouse effect."

Carbon dioxide emissions worldwide each year total 3.2 billion tons. That equals about 0.0168 percent of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration of about 19 trillion tons. This results in a 0.00064 percent increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number. The yearly increase is many orders of magnitude smaller than the standard deviation errors for CO2 concentration measurement.

"Scientific" computer simulations predict global warming based on increased greenhouse gas emissions over time. However, without water's contribution taken into account they omit the largest greenhouse gas from their equations.

How can such egregious calculation errors be so blatantly ignored? This is why man-made global warming is "junk" science.

(Via Marc Morano)

Warming in a global cool period | csmonitor.com

With all the focus on human-triggered global warming, it may be hard to imagine that the world is riding a 50-million-year-long cooling trend.

But it is, and blame the trend on a continental-scale collision, say geophysicists Dennis Kent of Rutgers University and Giovanni Muttoni of the University of Milan in Italy.

2008 Arctic summer COOLER -- Higher-than-average 1st year sea ice survived

Here are some of the main points from the report of why 2008 did not break 2007's record low.......

--Higher-than-average retention of first-year sea ice as more thin ice survived this melt season than is typical.

--The summer of 2008 was cooler than 2007.

--Much of this thin, first-year ice was located at higher latitudes compared to 2007.

--Wind patterns in 2008 as shown below were different from 2007, leading to less compacted ice, which does no melt as quickly compared to compacted ice.

"Inhofe Report Exposes Environmental Groups as ‘Massive Democratic Political Machines’"

.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, today released an updated comprehensive investigation into the financial and political activities employed by charitable and environmental organizations claiming to be non-partisan.
...
“Campaigns to ‘save the cuddly animals’ or ‘protect the ancient forests’ are really disguised efforts to raise money for Democratic political campaigns,” Senator Inhofe said during a floor speech today presenting the new report. “Environmental organizations have become experts at duplicitous activity, skirting laws up to the edge of illegality, and burying their political activities under the guise of non-profit environmental improvement.

“Take this ad for example, displayed on the League of Conservation Voters, or LCV, website. This is LCV’s standard text used to raise money for the nonprofit organization. In turn, LCV takes these donations, given to ‘save the environment’ and uses them to fund ads for Democratic Candidates such as Ben Lujan from New Mexico. LCV, similar to other groups I’ll highlight later, disguises itself as an environmental group dedicated to saving the environment, yet, as shown by this political ad, it is simply an extension of the Democratic political party.

“What we find now is the fleecing of the American public's pocketbooks by the environmental movement for their political gain. We also find exhausting litigation, instigation of false claims, misleading science, and scare tactics to fool Americans into believing disastrous environmental scenarios that are untrue. Especially in this election year, the American voter should see these groups and their many affiliate organizations as they are: the newest insidious conspiracy of political action committees and perhaps the newest multi-million dollar manipulation of federal election laws.

“As an American citizen concerned about our environment and our country, I’m dismayed and saddened by this deception. If these groups actually used the hundreds of millions of dollars they raise for actual environmental improvement, just think how many whales and forests we could save. These wolves should be seen for what they really are: massive democratic political machines, disguised as environmental causes.”

Northeast Carbon Trading System Gets Under Way - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

At the moment, the oversupply of allowances has caused the price of carbon to drop. Carbon futures dipped below $4 a ton of carbon dioxide on Thursday, according to Evolution Markets, a carbon brokerage. That was down by about half over the past several months, though trading volume has picked up significantly in the run-up to R.G.G.I.

Climate Skeptic: RCRC Climate Presentation

I made a 30-minute presentation to the California Regional Council of Rural Counties yesterday. The audience was mainly county supervisors and other officials from about 30 rural counties. The presentation was the skeptical counterpoint to a presentation by Joe Nation, who among other accomplishments was an author of AB32, the California global warming abatement law...

Climate Skeptic: From the Correlation Not Equal Causation Department

American Thinker Blog: Corrupted science revealed

Outsiders familiar with the proper workings of science have long known that modern Climate Science is dysfunctional. Now a prominent insider, MIT Meteorology Professor Richard S. Lindzen, confirms how Al Gore and his minions used Stalinist tactics to subvert, suborn and corrupt a whole branch of science, citing chapter and verse in his report entitled "Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?" His answer: A resounding "NO!"

Detailing the corruption, he names a series of names. Until reading this I did not know that

"For example, the primary spokesman for the American Meteorological Society in Washington is Anthony Socci who is neither an elected official of the AMS nor a contributor to climate science. Rather, he is a former staffer for Al Gore." Page 5

Al Fin: How Did Climate Science Get It So Badly Wrong?

Climate catastrophe has been vastly overrated, and derives from the most corrupted sector of science known to history, with the exception of Soviet and Maoist science in the communist dark ages. When politics takes over science--as it has in the case of the IPCC and the climate science mafia (PDF)--that area of science is no longer reliable.

4-minute video: Gore pushes his CO2 scam in Oct 2007

YouTube - Al Gore Clinton at Clinton Global Initiative 2007
(Although this video has been on YouTube for almost a year, it currently has only 687 views.)

Since the earth seems to be cooling already, should we do all this stuff in an insane attempt to cool it another tenth of a degree?

Australian Socialists Propose Climate Action Plan : Climate and Capitalism

Bringing greenhouse gas emissions under control will require deep changes and immense effort at every level - international, national and local. It requires the equivalent of a wartime effort to transform the economy and industry.

1. Implement immediate emission reduction targets with the aim being to reduce net emissions to zero as soon as practicable, with a goal of achieving 95% of power from renewable sources by 2020, and 90% cut in overall emissions by2030. Introduce annual reduction targets. [NOTE: The Socialist Alliance is now considering whether these targets are adequate, based on the latest climate science, and will review its position in December.]
2. Initiate further international treaty negotiations aimed at getting all countries to agree to a global target of 90 % emissions reductions on 1990 levels by 2030.
3. Start the transition to a zero-waste economy. Engage workers in industry, with technical experts, to redesign their products and jobs sustainably.
4. Require the fitting of all feasible energy efficiency measures to existing houses and subsidise owner-occupiers for the costs.
5. Bring all power industries under public ownership and democratic control.Begin phasing out coal mining and power immediately. Provide guaranteed jobs and retraining on full pay for coalmining and power-station communities, with new sustainable industries being built in their areas and paid redundancies offered.
6. Bring the whole car industry under public control. Re-tool this industry to manufacture wind turbines, public transport vehicles, solar hot water, and solar photo-voltaic cells. Subsidise the conversion of private cars to electric power.
7. Accelerate the construction of wind farms in suitable areas. Boost research into all renewable energy sources. Build pilot solar-thermal and geothermal plants now. Create localised power grids.
8. End the logging old-growth forests. Begin an urgent program of re-forestation, and protection of biodiversity to provide increased carbon sinks.
9. End industrial farming based on fertilisers, pesticides and fuel sourced from petroleum. Restrict farming areas to ensure that riverine, forest and other indigenous ecosystems return to healthy states. Encourage new farming practices including organic and urban farming.
10. Make all urban and regional public transport free and upgrade services to enable all urban residents to use it for all their regular commuting. Nationalise and upgrade interstate train and ferry services, to provide real alternatives to air travel. Rail freight must be prioritised. Ensure transport services are integrated.

The Chilling Effect | cooling heated rhetoric on global warming » Sen. Joe Biden Gets The Coal-ed Shoulder

The [Wall Street Journal] editorial concludes with this thought: “That an eminence like Mr. Biden is clueless about coal suggests how little official Washington has thought through the consequences of its anticarbon agenda.”

Amen.

Bush speech to U.N.: “terror” 32, “climate” 0 | Blogs | Reuters.com

U.S. President George W. Bush upset some delegates by failing to mention “climate change” or “global warming” in his final speech to the United Nations — in which he referred to terrorism 32 times.

Exactly a year ago, the United Nations held a special summit about climate change – U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calls fighting global warming his “signature issue” and many governments see it as the biggest long-term challenge.

Polar bear paper by Dyck/Soon/Baydack/Legates/Baliunas/Ball/Hancock (2007)

ScienceDirect - Ecological Complexity : Polar bears of western Hudson Bay and climate change: Are warming spring air temperatures the “ultimate” survival control factor?

Long-term warming of late spring (April–June) air temperatures has been proposed by Stirling et al. [Stirling, I., Lunn, N.J., Iacozza, J., 1999. Long-term trends in the population ecology of polar bears in western Hudson Bay in relation to climatic change. Arctic 52, 294–306] as the “ultimate” factor causing earlier sea-ice break-up around western Hudson Bay (WH) that has, in turn, led to the poorer physical and reproductive characteristics of polar bears occupying this region. Derocher et al. [Derocher, A.E., Lunn, N.J., Stirling, I., 2004. Polar bears in a warming climate. Integr. Comp. Biol. 44, 163–176] expanded the discussion to the whole circumpolar Arctic and concluded that polar bears will unlikely survive as a species should the computer-predicted scenarios for total disappearance of sea-ice in the Arctic come true. We found that spring air temperatures around the Hudson Bay basin for the past 70 years (1932–2002) show no significant warming trend and are more likely identified with the large-amplitude, natural climatic variability that is characteristic of the Arctic. Any role of external forcing by anthropogenic greenhouse gases remains difficult to identify. We argue, therefore, that the extrapolation of polar bear disappearance is highly premature. Climate models are simply not skilful for the projection of regional sea-ice changes in Hudson Bay or the whole Arctic. Alternative factors, such as increased human–bear interaction, must be taken into account in a more realistic study and explanation of the population ecology of WH polar bears. Both scientific papers and public discussion that continue to fail to recognize the inherent complexity in the adaptive interaction of polar bears with both human and nature will not likely offer any useful, science-based, preservation and management strategies for the species.

Presidential candidate Ralph Nader weighs in on coal

WVPubcast News

"Someday, maybe in the next few decades, it will be considered a crime against humanity to expose workers to mining coal and to mine coal given its affect on the land, on the streams, and on global warming. The best way to deal with our energy problems is massive fuel efficiency, which we are fully capable of as the most wasteful country, along with Canada, of energy in the world."

The chair of the department of communications and mass media at Baker University weighs in

CJOnline Blogs - Gwyn Mellinger: Renewable energy must be embraced

In particular, [Roy] Spencer takes issue with claims that carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and industry are leading us to ruin. Although he is in a distinct minority in the scientific community, his argument offers refuge to those who want to continue business as usual.

Spencer's followers are unmoved by news video of polar bears clinging to melting ice floes. When swaths of the gulf coast are evacuated yet again for yet another hurricane, they refuse to connect the dots. Nor are they particularly concerned about the cost of being wrong.

While there is merit in hearing all sides of an argument, the scientific consensus on the cause of global warming is compelling...

William K. Wolfrum Chronicles » Blog Archive » Dear Al Gore: You start with the Civil Disobedience and we’ll see how it goes

Mr. Gore, you start with the civil disobedience and we’ll see how that goes. A multi-millionaire defying authority sends a much stronger message than a bunch of poor people tying themselves to trees. The rest of us need to deal with things like consequences. And the U.S. is currently in position to deal out consequences in a pretty severe way.

Eating to save the planet - Times Online

Ecotarianism is the new buzzword, a kind of greatest hits of all our favourite food movements from the past decade. It's about sourcing locally, organically, sustainably, in season and leaving the Earth's resources untouched. It's goodbye to £3 chickens imported from Thailand and hello to bean casseroles; no to winter asparagus and a resounding yes to celeriac mash.
...
Let me tell you, it feels good. Until, that is, I return to my desk to find an e-mail from Tony Bourdain, New York's visceral commentator on all matters food related. He once described vegetarians to me as “frightened, angry, bitter people who dropped too much acid”.

What would he make of ecotarianism, I wondered. “A fad for the wealthy and delusional,” came the unequivocal reply.

UK: Quiz the "climate change minister" online today

Post your questions for Joan Ruddock, the climate change minister, on energy bills | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Home energy bills have soared and climate change remains a constant threat. Can home insulation tackle both issues at once, or is fuel poverty a more urgent threat? Put your questions on these and other issues to the climate change minister, Joan Ruddock, who will be live online from 12.30-1.30pm on Thursday September 25

John Vidal: Eco Soundings: September 24 2008 | Environment | The Guardian

What happens to hardline Thatcherite economists when they've taken redundancy from the Treasury, DTI or the Daily Mail? They end up becoming hardline climate change sceptics writing tosh for the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA)and getting visiting professorships at the University of Buckingham. The latest tome, from Ian Byatt, David Henderson, Russell Lewis, et al, is called Climate Change Policy: Challenging the Activists, and is remarkable, even by IEA standards, for its dullness and scientific illiteracy. Eco Soundings wonders if the authors, most of whom must be over 70, should rethink their outrage at society being asked to fork out about $25bn a year to tackle climate change, when it's costing governments several trillion dollars to tackle the dodgy bankers.

IEA Blog » Blog Archive » Rampant ageism in the Guardian

The Guardian’s environment editor, John Vidal, cannot resist a swipe at the IEA’s latest publication, Climate Change Policy: Challenging the Activists. Vidal doesn’t address any of the arguments in the book, but rather dismisses it as ‘tosh’ written by authors ‘most of whom must be over 70’.

To describe the book as ‘tosh’ is par for the course, even though it is not a very well informed comment given that like all IEA publications the book has undergone a rigorous process of academic peer-review, unlike the writings of Guardian journalists it might be said. But to dismiss the authors’ views on the basis of their age is astonishing.

This is a classic example of the argumentative strategy in which the personal characteristics of one’s opponent are attacked rather than their arguments. It is used by those who are not confident in the strength of their own arguments.

It is remarkable that a politically correct newspaper like the Guardian has published such explicit ageism. I’d be curious to know at what age John Vidal believes people’s views no longer count? Perhaps if the IEA had published a weaker book with younger authors the Guardian would be willing to engage with its arguments, but for those who are interested in serious analysis of these most important issues, rather than personal abuse, I highly recommend reading this new publication.

New publication: Climate Change Policy: Challenging the Activists

There is currently a consensus amongst the political establishment – and amongst the intellectual communities that feed into it – that detailed and wide-ranging government intervention is necessary to combat the effects of climate change. This monograph challenges that consensus.

The authors look in detail at a number of the underlying assumptions and proposals of the policy activists and find that there is enormous uncertainty relating both to the economics and to the science of climate change. As one author shows, the policy activists have form: alarmists have been wrong, time and time again, about ecological disasters.

Reality bites Canada's capital city

More snowplows slated for South Ottawa

Snow removal in southern parts of the city could be much better this winter after council voted yesterday to include a $2-million improvement of service in the area in the 2009 budget debate.

Last winter's near-record snowfall exposed weaknesses in plowing operations in Barrhaven, south Nepean, Riverside South, and southern Gloucester-Southgate Ward.

After reviewing service levels and operations, public works staff recommended purchasing five more plows and deploying them specifically in areas that are underserved.

According to staff, the plows will cost $1.375 million, plus $640,000 a year to operate.

Before the added service becomes a reality, council must approve it in the budget.

Great new piece by Christopher Monckton (see the whole thing)

Here is an answer I gave to an email from a thermista in the Canadian Civil Service.

Why "in the name of humanity"? Because, although the noisy preachers from the media pulpits have found it expedient not to say so, there have been food riots all round the world as the biofuel scam whipped up by the High Priests of your religion takes vast tracts of agricultural land out of food production. Millions are now starving because the price of food has doubled in little more than a year. A leaked report by the World Bank says that fully three-quarters of that doubling has occurred as a direct result of the biofuel scam. So your religion is causing mass starvation in faraway countries, and is even causing hardship to the poorest in your own country. Can you, in conscience, look away from the sufferings that your beliefs are inflicting upon the poorest and most helpless people in the world?

Why not call off carbon-tax boondoggle?

And with a provincial election around the corner, Campbell didn't want a political war with municipalities and school boards who were certain to blame him for service cuts and tax hikes in their communities.

So he's buying them off -- and I say good on 'em. They didn't deserve to be punished with a harebrained carbon tax that doesn't even start to address questions of fairness.

But what about the rest of us, premier? What about the truck drivers and the commuters and the farmers and the shippers who have no choice but to incinerate those evil fossil fuels to earn a living? What about northern residents who have no choice but to heat their homes? What about our lifeblood forest companies that were on their knees even before you whacked them with a carbon tax? Just wait. I doubt this is the last carbon-tax bailout we'll see from Campbell.

But instead of cutting more side deals with special-interest groups, a better course of action would be to admit the carbon tax was a mistake -- and scrap the whole thing.

Climate realists publicly confront fraudster Michael Mann

At URI, Nobel Prize-winning scientist answers critics of climate change

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Michael E. Mann, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, had just spent an hour explaining why he thinks there is virtual scientific consensus that people are causing the earth to warm and sea levels to rise, when a self-described “left-leaning, pro-environment person,” a meteorologist, rose to angrily dispute him.

The critic said thousands of scientists disagree with Mann’s contention that carbon dioxide is causing climate change. Others have discredited Mann’s figures on unprecedented temperature hikes. And some wish he would leave his university, Penn State.

The critic didn’t give his name. But later Herb Stevens, a North Kingstown meteorologist who makes his living as the “Skiing Weatherman” on many local television stations, confirmed he was the critic. “I’m not some crackpot,” he said. “I’ve spent a lot of time in the last 10 years researching this matter. It is the greatest hoax perpetrated on mankind.”

The Modesto Bee | News and Notes

Climate change discussion at MJC

Today's installment of the Science Colloquium at Modesto Junior College will feature a talk by meteorologist Hugh Ellsaesser, who argues that people are not causing climate change. Ellsaesser, who worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 23 years, will speak from 1 to 2 p.m. in Forum 110 on the east campus. An alternative view will be presented Oct. 2, same time and place, by former Livermore Lab scientist David Simon.

The World's Leading Climate Scientists, in Their Own Words

In his interview, Dyson points out from long experience that models packed with numerous "fudge factors" are worthless.

As a mathematician and physicist, Dyson is known for the unification of three versions of quantum electrodynamics, as well as for contributions to space flight and the development of a safe nuclear reactor used today by hospitals and universities around the world. But today he is known more widely as a scientific heretic for disagreeing with claims of a central human role in global warming.

In his 2005 winter commencement address at the University of Michigan, Dyson said the mathematical computer models on which the alarmist claims are based "do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry, and the biology of fields, farms, and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in."

Harper heads for carbon fiasco | Lorrie Goldstein | Toronto Sun

It may be Harper isn't serious, given that he all but called global warming a socialist hoax a few years ago. Indeed, many Conservatives no doubt hope, even assume, Harper won't keep this promise.

But if that's Harper's plan, deception isn't leadership.

In any event, we should be scrutinizing Harper's cap-and-trade scheme more than Dion's carbon tax, since the Conservatives and every other party, including the Liberals, support cap-and-trade, while only the Grits and Greens support a carbon tax.

At these temperatures, I wonder how long it takes for ice to melt?

After thousands of years of human activity, it's STILL a bit nippy in Vostok, Antarctica

American Thinker: They're Launching America's First Carbon Cap-And-Trade Program Today?

And why was the Goracle himself screaming only yesterday that "the world has lost ground to the climate crisis" and, apparently taking a cue from fellow greenhouse gasbag Hansen, that "it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants?" Surely despite his personal financial interest in carbon trading (he's chairman of Generation Investment Management, which holds a large stake in carbon credit company Camco International) the former Veep is only looking to selflessly expose the truth.

And now we can. After all, with temperatures dropping along with solar irradiation levels and the economy being where it is, why not just wait a few years? That way, should CO2 levels continue to rise while the Sun remains dormant and temperatures continue to drop, we'll know for sure that ....

Oh.

Hoorah! Eco-nuts recruiting more innocent schoolchildren into the CO2 cult!

“Too Cool for School” Enrichment Programs : Eco Child’s Play

Now, the nonprofit is funded well enough to expand its reach with free kits to 100 schools nationally, ramped and ready to roll out. (complete with polar bear and Mr. Carbon funky costumes, a mother nature garland, the works) They’re hoping to pay it forward from coast to coast as a positive model of environmental change that bridges from school to home to community, to maximize engagement in a ripple effect.

Notice how phrases like this are becoming more frequent these days?

"We have to get serious about producing citizens for the 21st century ... whether you believe in global warming or not," Brown said.

Ben Pile: Going over the top in the ‘climate war’ | spiked

What could have been an interesting film was instead a fiction. It attached fictional arguments to fictional interests to legitimise the politicisation of the debate - exactly what it accused the sceptics of. Rather than concentrating on the arguments that have actually been made, Stewart invented the sceptic’s argument to turn climate science into an arena for an exhausted political argument for ‘change’ that has failed to engage the public.

The real ‘climate war’ is between those who do not believe that our future is determined by the weather and those who think that ‘climate change is the defining challenge of our time’ and define themselves – and everybody else – accordingly. Don’t expect a documentary film about it any time soon.

FPL Group Chief Executive Lew Hay III told investors that pending carbon legislation could within a few years boost the company’s annual earnings by $690 million a year

If today’s rent-seeking by energy and power companies is any guide, should cap and trade become the law of the land, prepare to see lobbying the likes of which we have raely seen, as companies clamor for favored status in the new fixed-carbon-credits world order. It won’t be pretty.

(Because they're less likely to ask difficult questions?), Emma Thompson Recruits Young UK Girls into the CO2 cult

Actress Emma Thompson — who most recently appeared as the disturbed Professor Sybill Trelawney in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — is teaming up with Friends of the Earth to get kids involved in reducing their carbon footprint. The campaign is specifically targeting Guides and Brownies — the equivalent of United States’s Girl Scouts — to lead the change.

“Becoming a Climate Champion with Friends of the Earth will enable girls and young women to take effective action on climate change - the biggest challenge the planet faces,” said Thompson. “This is a fantastic opportunity for Girlguiding UK members all around the country to learn more about their carbon footprint, cut emissions and help make a real difference to their own lives and everyone else’s lives now and in the future.”

According to the release, the project aims to give members of Girlguiding UK a voice on environmental issues - a voice that will be listened to by Government.

Public Employee Pensions Endangered by State Officials Playing Global Warming Politics, New Report Says

Washington, DC - Already at-risk public employee pension funds are being placed at further risk by state officials who are lobbying for global warming regulation and by state officials who are ignoring the risks posed by such regulation, says a new report, "Pensions in Peril: Are State Officials Risking Public Employee Retirement Benefits by Playing Global Warming Politics?," by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Using the Nobel Peace Prize to promote CO2 hysteria was evidently SO 2007; this year it's about human rights?

OSLO, Norway (AP) — The annual guessing game about who will get the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize focused this year on a possible human rights rebuke for China.

Experts said the coveted prize could also be used to chastise Russia or Vietnam when it is announced Oct. 10.

Thomas Friedman can't believe that Sarah Palin isn't CO2-phobic

[Friedman] The northern edge of Alaska is melting off into the ocean and she doesn't believe mankind has anything to do with climate change. I'd just have to ask her a very simple question: "Have you studied this issue? Have you read the literature? Have you talked to a climatologist in your own state about it? Or is this simply a political mantra that you've gotten because it's convenient and fits with your expedient political needs of the moment? On what basis are you making that claim? We have the intergovernment panel on climate, the world's 2500 top climatologists who have concluded that mankind is indeed interfering with the climate. Do you have science to the contrary?"

The point is not global warming. The chapter in the book on climate is called "global weirding," which is a term coined by Lovins, because I think that's a much better description of what's going to go on. The weather is going to get weird! It isn't just going to get warm. What happens with climate change is that you get extremes: hotter hots, longer droughts, wetter wets, more frequent and forceful hurricanes, tornadoes showing up in cities where they've never shown up before... That's what's going to happen. To this it's this gentle, little global warming -- that's not what's going to go on. The weather's going to get weird and, in case you haven't noticed, the weather's getting weird!

The Chilling Effect | Where's the actual evidence that coal is "killing us"?

Sen. Joe Biden flatly stated that coal is killing you, just months after Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it’s making us sick. So what about it? Is coal killing us?

We doubt anyone would suggest huffing coal particulates for kicks and giggles, and if they did, it would be best not to heed their call. But here’s something that Senators Biden and Reid may have missed, probably because they are not on the Senate committee overseeing the Department of Health and Human Services.

Here’s a little factoid: Our life expectancies are at an all-time high...

Prometheus » Blog Archive » An Insider’s View on RGGI

[The below was submitted as a comment on an earlier post, and seems well worth highlighting. It is an insider's view on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) of 10 northeastern states. The idea that speculators could enter the market to drive up the value of the permits is very intriguing. RP]...

More priceless quotes from fraudster Al Gore

Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants | Environment | Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon.

The former U.S. vice president, whose climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Academy Award, told a philanthropic meeting in New York City that "the world has lost ground to the climate crisis."

"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

"I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact," he said. "I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that."

When I read Gore's increasingly shrill global warming hysteria in the face of growing evidence of global cooling, I'm reminded of Jeff Skilling's behavior in 2001 as Enron neared its implosion:

April 17, 2001
Quarterly Conference Call. In the call, now legendary on Wall Street, an analyst questioned Skilling on the company’s progress. Skilling dismissed him as an "a$$hole."
...
July 24-25, 2001
Skilling meets with analysts and investors in New York. “We will hit those numbers. We will beat those numbers.”

August 3, 2001
Skilling makes a bullish speech on EES. That afternoon, he lays off 300 employees.
...
August 11, 2001
Skilling talks to Mark Palmer about preparing press release for resignation.

August 13, 2001
Board meeting. Rick Buy outlines disaster scenario if Enron’s stock starts to fall. All SPEs (special purpose entities created to isolate financial risk) crash. Skilling dismisses this. That evening, in board-only session, Skilling, in tears, resigns.
...
December 2, 2001
Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Inconvenient Youth Tours the U.S. to Raise Awareness of Global Warming

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Inconvenient Youth, a non-profit, non-partisan network for and by teens, is touring 36 cities in the United States with Buena Vista Records artists KSM to raise awareness of global warming. Today, more than 1,000 inner-city youth will attend an Inconvenient Youth presentation and enjoy a KSM performance at Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento.

“By becoming a member of Inconvenient Youth, teens can learn how to effectively educate others about global warming,” said Inconvenient Youth founder Mary Doerr, a high school senior. “With this tour we hope to inspire and motivate young people to rally their peers and hometown communities to fight climate change. It’s been amazing to see such a strong reception to our efforts so far, and we’ve only just begun.”

Working with Disney and KSM, the Inconvenient Youth tour route will align closely with the tour schedule of the 2008 Tour of Gymnastics Superstars, a sports and music event featuring the country’s most celebrated gymnasts and some of Disney’s hottest young recording artists.
...
Inconvenient Youth was founded and is driven by a team of four teenagers based in Menlo Park, Calif. The non-profit network trains teens to teach a youth-focused version of the “An Inconvenient Truth” presentation originally created by former United States Vice President Al Gore.
...
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 the Alliance for Climate Protection. Additional information is available at www.InconvenientYouth.org.

Note that Mary Doerr's father John and his business partner Al Gore both have large financial stakes in global warming hysteria.

Timothy Birdnow » The Cooling Winds

The Ulysses solar probe reports a 13% drop in temperature, a 20% drop in density, and a 30% dropoff in the sun`s magnetic field, marking this as the weakest period of solar wind on record (records go back to the 1960`s).

What does this mean? The Heliosphere is thinning, and thus will block fewer cosmic rays. Heinrick Svensmark theorizes that an increase in cosmic rays reaching the Earth will drive cloud formation, increase the planet`s albedo, thus cooling it.

Is this the cause of the Earth`s unusually cool year? According to Anthony Watts, the Earth`s albedo reached a nadir in 1997, and has risen sharply since. Is this related to the weakening of solar activity? We`ve seen few sunspots in Solar Cycle 24, the solar conveyor belt has slowed to a crawl, and now the solar wind is bottoming out.

This will allow us to see if we are really in the throes of Anthropogenic Global Warming; if temperatures rise (and they haven`t since 1998) then factors other than solar activity are driving climate trends, if not then the greenhouse gas theory is falsified.

If a cooling trend continues, the climate alarmists will have to throw in the towel. Never fear; they`ll come up with a new cause to keep their adrenaline flowing! Probably ocean acidification, or the loss of bees…

No Separation of State and Global Warming

No Separation of State and Global Warming | Skeptics Global Warming

The state of Vermont is holding a competition between schools to determine which can reduce their contribution to global warming the most. Among the daily tasks to reduce carbon footprints undertaken by the students: bringing lunch in reusable containers and taking shorter showers. Government-mandated indoctrination at its finest!

Bravo, Cyborg Kevin Warwick

The Cyborg speaks again - CIOL Interviews

I am afraid that I do not hold with the theory of "global warming" – there will always be climate change and from the point of view of someone in a wet-cum-cold England things appear to be getting colder, not hotter. Big thing here is – do we know what we are doing that is bringing about climate change? At present the answer to this is NO.

Remember when Clinton and Gore were in office for 8 years, and their brilliant alternative energy policy made fossil fuels obsolete?

Laws and effect | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

[Henry Farrell:] Clinton's basic argument was that the [financial] crisis was one of an overleveraged Wall Street system which emphasized the volume of transactions, and in which people were rewarded for chasing risky deals, and in which there were too few good investment opportunities. Money ended up being funneled into real estate that shouldn't have been. Clinton furthermore argued that if there had been a real clean energy policy, it would have created alternative investment opportunities in dealing with climate change -- because there wasn't such a policy, the money was "misspent." This last bit of the argument doesn't seem entirely plausible to me -- would there really have been enough investment opportunities generated by clean energy to suck up the loose cash sloshing around? -- but I'll leave it to those with more specific expertise to evaluate properly.

"ice is not a polar bear nutrient"

Sea Ice - End of Game Analysis « Climate Audit

The polar bear's "usual food source" is seals. If there is no ice, the seals must hang out near the shoreline because seals are mammals and need sleep and while they can sleep at sea, they are at risk from orcas and other predators if they do so. When there is a lot of ice, they surface and rest. If there is no ice, they go to shore. This nonsense about polar bears somehow needing ice to survive is nuts. If there is a lot of ice, the seals will be dispersed and the polar bears forage across the ice in search of them. When there is no ice, the seals come to the bears. The last interglacial was warmer than this one has been and there was less ice than there is now. In fact, there might have been no polar bears at all in the last interglacial and the current "polar bear" is simply a brown bear that has been selected due to coat color. The whiter the coat, the more seals they catch, the longer they live, the more cubs they produce in a lifetime, and the trait is selected in over time. That trait might get selected out when there is no ice and the bears need to be "browner" or patchy brown/white to better catch seals on shore.

Again, ice is not a polar bear nutrient. If anything the lack of ice will result in a decrease in seal populations by keeping them closer to shore where more are eaten by bears.

Another £6m blown on CO2 hysteria

Kent cops eco protest bill will cost us £3 million

Around half the estimated £6m spent policing the Climate Camp protest at Kingsnorth Power Station is to be paid by the Government.

The Home Office has confirmed it is willing to contribute £3.2m to the bill which will most likely rise as other costs are factored in.

A Home Office spokesman said: "We have offered Kent Police £3.2m and Kent Police have asked for more. We are considering that request."

About 1,400 officers policed the event and 1,000 activists attended the camp, according to police estimates at the time.
...
Kingsnorth Climate Action Medway spokesman Andy Rogers added: "I attended the camp and I feel that the underhanded and incredibly intimidating use of political policing at the camp was an out and out infringement of my human rights, including my freedom of speech and the right under law to attend a peaceful protest.

“Surely six million pounds of what is essentially tax payers’ money would have been better spent introducing a moratorium on coal fired power stations.”

Satirical movie poster: Albert Gore in “The Hoax” - Coming to Theatres Soon | Skeptics Global Warming

For a good laugh, see the satirical poster of Gore’s new film, The Hoax over at ...

Grist's David Roberts weighs in

Annals of innovative damage control | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

Skeptics are arguing within a larger paradigm, and they are failing. While there are many interesting unanswered questions in climate science, the skeptics aren't generally asking those -- they're going after the rudiments, like the fact that human CO2 emissions are driving the process. Those rudiments are well established enough, have enough explanatory backing and evidential support, that rejecting them is evidence of willful ignorance or non-scientific motivation, not brave intellectual independence.

About David Roberts | Grist

David was born and raised in the South. A revelatory summer working in Yellowstone National Park convinced him that it was not the world but just the part where he lived that sucked, so he moved out West. After several wayward years spent snowboarding and getting an MA in philosophy (go griz), he woke up with nothing but a dissertation between him and an arid, cloistered life spent debating minutiae with the world's other 12 Dewey scholars. So he bailed. A period was spent trudging through the swamp of Seattle tech work, wading past Amazon.com, IMDb.com, and Microsoft, before the fine folks at Grist fell for his devastating good looks in December 2003.

"Media accountability in climate change reporting"

CORDIS : News

Media messages, explained Dr Carvalho, can take on two extreme tones: an optimistic, win-win message (for example, modernising an economy in order to protect the environment can create jobs by investing in renewable energies); or a message that is clearly pessimistic, with an emphasis on imminent catastrophe and doom. 'You have to strike a balance in order to avoid public scepticism or apathy, particularly to make the issue more manageable, more tangible for people to act.'

The official Dilbert website

On the contrary, somebody needs to educate McCain and Holtz-Eakin about the reality of natural climate change

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Candidates on Climate: Where Obama and McCain Agree and Disagree

[Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and instigator of the recent “Blackberry flap,” speaking for the McCain camp] bemoaned the Bush administration’s record on science, especially global warming. Sen. McCain “needs to educate the party and the people” about the reality of climate change, he said. Does that include vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who’s caught a lot of flak for downplaying man-made global warming?

“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about on that front,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin said.

September 23, 2008--early frost hits Spokane again

Are We Skipping Fall This Year?

Yeah, it was cold this morning.  And scraping frost off your windshield on the second day of fall is pretty unusual.

According to the National Weather Service, the average date of the first frost in Spokane over the past 127 years has been October 7.  For the last 30 years, that average date has been October 3.  Last year, it was September 29.  The low temperature this morning in Pullman was 32° Fahrenheit.  At the National Weather Service office in Spokane, it was 29° F.

I'm seeing a trend here, and it ain't global warming.

UPDATE: For new readers, Pullman had 1.5 inches of snow back on June 10, the latest snowfall ever on record.  And there was widespread frost on July 11.

Canadian schools are politically indoctrinating your kids with your money

...Climate change, global warming and a push for a greener, friendlier world I would suppose, where the salvation of the planet rests on walking, bicycling, recycling, voting green and the preposterous notion that the welfare of earth rests in the fragile and fickle ego of mankind.

Global warming is the new big business. The federal Liberals are so enamored by the concept that their entire political campaign is centered around it. Tabled as the Green Shift, they are willing to bankrupt the country in it’s favour. Elizabeth May’s Green Party is all about green, green and more green, leaving economics, geo-political concerns, international relations and health care as bothersome afterthoughts. This leaves room for the lesser known but still high profile celebrity anti-carbon enthusiasts such as David Suzuki and Al Gore wannabe’s to peddle their wares to the biggest market available: school children. This latest initiative is sponsored by Health Canada, Environment Canada, The Ontario Trillium Foundation, the City of Toronto, Green Communities and Go for Green. Aside from the obvious departments of Health and Environment Canada and the City of Toronto, who are these people? Reprobates from the by-gone hippie generation seeking a modern cause?

The trouble is, there is no counter argument presented to young minds that is welcome in any public school. There is no booklet published by respected scientists detailing evidence to the contrary brought home in the knapsack available for families to read. Sponsorship through tax payers dollars for the alternative point of view is simply not available. I have yet to see a booklet of this nature. Are schools not obliged to teach our children in an environment of academic fairness without bias and political, state interference?

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SOLAR WIND (Rocket Scientist's Journal)

ENSO may, as the Consensus says, devastate, but it has only half the capacity of the solar wind to warm the planet. By omitting the solar wind, the Consensus underestimates the natural causes of global warming, simultaneously overestimating the anthropogenic sources by the equivalent of two ENSOs, assigning the error to carbon dioxide emissions.

What about our freedom to choose?

Congress still protecting you – from lightbulbs!

"The light bulb ban exposes the Democrat mindset," [U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann] said. "They want to limit consumer choice and tell American families what products they can and can't buy.

"The light bulbs they are forcing on American families are not new," she continued. "Consumers have just been rejecting them for a variety of reasons: cost, aesthetics, health and environment concerns. At a time when hard-working taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet, the last thing they need is to have the government forcing them to purchase a more expensive and potentially unsafe product."

Following the introduction of H.R. 5616, the bill was sent to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and then sent to the Subcommittee on Energy & Air Quality, where it has languished without action or a hearing for since March. But Bachmann has not given up.

She said, "This act is important because the American people deserve the ability to choose what products they purchase for their homes and families."