Werner Patels - A Dose of Common Sense: I stand by my convictions

As for global warming, I only need to look at those people who scream the loudest about it, including those who refer to "deniers" as Nazis and such, to know that my take on the issue is spot-on. Whether global warming is man-made or not, it doesn't change the fact that it is being used as a front by the extreme far left to spread anarchy, chaos and communism in an attempt to bring down Western civilization.

The other "proof of the pudding" is found in the fact that, due to the incessant talk about global warming, politicians have ignored the real problems – reducing pollution, ensuring a reliable supply of clean air and water. More and more regions around the world are faced with water shortages (e.g., the American south) and increasing rates of pollution (e.g., Ontario). Yet, all the "smart" measures conceived of to tackle the warming of the planet fail to address these vital issues.

Triablogue: The Case for Global Warming Skepticism

...But even not knowing the actual method used, the methods I’ve shown above would be unable to provide any precise data for the past 100 years. And I do not see how any other method of determining this number could work. As a result, I have no reason to believe in Global Warming at all, let alone anthropogenic Global Warming. Scientists must provide the details of their experiments, the details of how they determined these averages, the error bars for the temperatures collected at the beginning of the 20th Century, etc. before we can even hope to accept it as a theory. Anything less than this disclosure renders Global Warming as unscientific.

Record low temperatures in ten states

10/23/08: Record Lows

Record low temperatures in 10 states!
Rome, OR Breaks old record of 20 set in 1980
Caribou, ME Breaks old record of 21 set in 1982
Winslow, AZ
Traverse City, MI Breaks old record of 24 set in 1976
Grand Junction, CO Breaks old record of 26 set in 1996
Hilo, HI
Childress, TX
Seattle, WA
Bountiful, UT
Burley, ID
Idaho Falls, ID Breaks old record of 18 set in 1958
Challis, ID
Pendleton, OR
Union, OR Breaks previous record of 20 set in 1980
Walla Walla, WA
Thanks to Chuck Clancy for this info

(Via Marc Morano)

But soon we'll be 10% into the 21st century. Have the oceans risen a foot or two over the last decade?

Mount Desert Islander - Sea-Level Rise 65: New Age

The expected total rise in sea level by 2100 then ranges from 9.3 to 19.5 feet. Say 10 to 20 feet.

And that is only a rough approximation because no one knows how the global warming scenario is going to unfold. A ten-foot rise in sea level in a hundred years is 1500% greater than the 8-inch rise in the 20th century. That’s a devastating tsunami in slow-motion. And also an extremely conservative estimate.

Why did methane gas exhibit 10 years of virtually no increase?

Global Warming Examiner: Methane Gas in the atmosphere on the rise

Methane gas in our atmosphere rose by 27 million tons last year after 10 years of virtually no increase. There is now 5.6 billion tons of methane in the air. That represents an increase of only 0.125% but, methane is 25 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

Methane is the second most potent greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, which increased by 0.6% last year.

Carbon Dioxide comes from burning fossil fuels. Methane comes from landfills, natural gas released in the atmosphere, animal waste, and decaying plants. It is ancient decaying plants that most worry scientists. These are plants that are frozen in northern permafrost that has trapped tremendous quantities of methane gas for millions of years. That permafrost is melting due to global warming and scientists are concerned that the methane gas will be released into the atmosphere. This creates a feedback loop where the released methane further raises temperatures, which then releases even more methane.

New theory predicts the largest ozone hole over Antarctica will occur this month - cosmic rays at fault « Watts Up With That?

WATERLOO, Ont. (Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008) — A University of Waterloo scientist says that cosmic rays are a key cause for expanding the hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole — and predicts the largest ozone hole will occur in one or two weeks.

Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy who studies ozone depletion, said that it was generally accepted for more than two decades that the Earth’s ozone layer is depleted by chlorine atoms produced by sunlight-induced destruction of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere. But more and more evidence now points to a new theory that the cosmic rays (energy particles that originate in space) play a major role.

Hansen gets a salute from "eco-socialist environmentalist" Daniel Tanuro

SOCIALIST UNITY » IPCC report kicked in the long grass by capitalists

Putting profits and super-profits before the climate: the scandal is enormous. However, there are really very few people who dare to state this truth. Among them, we should salute a scientist with an international reputation: James Hansen. Invited to testify before the United States Congress, last June, the chief climatologist of NASA declared: “Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link. CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. ” [21] Mutatis-mutandis, this condemnation also goes for the governments which are concocting a new climate treaty according to the interests of these same bosses. A vast international social mobilization is more than ever necessary to impose a treaty that conforms both to the recommendations of scientists and to the requirements of social justice. Failing that, humanity is likely to have to discover that capitalism is far from having given the full measure of the cruelty of which it is capable.
...
-Daniel Tanuro, a certified agriculturalist and eco-socialist environmentalist, writes for “La gauche”, (the monthly of the LCR-SAP, Belgian section of the Fourth International), and Inprecor.

Boxer/Carper letter about power plant pollution fails to mention carbon dioxide, climate change, etc

Boxer and Carper Urge EPA to Withdraw "New Source Review" Air Pollution Proposals

We are writing to express our grave concern that the EPA could be putting our nation's air quality at risk if the agency promulgates its currently pending New Source Review proposals incorporating "the EGU Hourly Test". Air pollution and poor air quality continue to threaten the health and quality of life of millions of Americans, especially those of children and older citizens. If the EPA moves forward with the New Source Review proposals, our nation's air and citizens will further suffer. That is why we request that you withdraw this dangerous proposal.

Which voice would that be?

Women still absent in climate change debate

Oct. 24, 2008 - Lack of women's participation in efforts to solve climate crisis was the main focus of the Third Global Congress of Women in Politics and Governance held from 19 to 22 October in Manila, Philippines. The global gender alliance established by IUCN, UNDP and UNEP, encouraged women to speak with one voice at climate change negotiations.

WhackyNation - Exposing political wacks and media hacks » Why do political candidates back global-warming bunk?

Are politicians who run for public office lacking in common sense or somehow more dense in the cerebral region than most persons? Sometimes it certainly seems that way. Take the case of the global-warming issue, or what politicos now call climate change, as if the term takes away the steam of the issue.

Sad to say, both presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, as well as both Washington State gubernatorial candidates, Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi, have stated, in varying degrees, that global warming (or climate change) is a menace we on earth have to reckon with and spend billions or trillions to combat.

Rossi once considered the global-warming theory to be a hoax, but he has veered over to it as climate change, probably because of the heat put upon him in the political arena — as well as the fact that the Seattle newspapers and other newspapers in the state have backed the global-warming hoax and refused to interview any of the scientists who have refuted the hoax.

The lone standout who has refused to go along with the global warmers is the Republican vice presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, who has said clearly and steadfastly that there is no threat to the planet from global warming, that occasional warming of the stratosphere has come and gone for centuries, and that, for certain, humankind is not responsible for whatever warming has occurred.

To me, that indicates that Governor Palin is the most intelligence person running for office this year. Wish we had more like her. I would urge Rossi to listen to her and revert to his onetime position of disbelief in the global warming malarkey — and to seek out the intelligent, reliable opinion of reputable climatologists.

More from the barking mad James Lovelock

Top British scientist says New Zealand should become “Lifeboat” for global warming survivors

ZEALAND(RUSHPRNEWS)10/25/08– Leading British scientist James Lovelock said in a recent radio interview in New Zealand that New Zealand is wasting its time trying to pass an Emissions Trading Scheme, or ETS for short. He said on the Radio New Zealand program during a 4-minute interview from his home in Cornwall, England that New Zealanders should put their sights on thinking of their island nation as a lifeboat for survivors of global waming events in the distant future.

“I think the role of New Zealand, similar to that of the UK and other island nations, is to be a lifeboat, because the world may get almost intolerable during the coming century,” Lovelock said. “And you see that happening already in Australia — the desert is spreading and things just won’t grow. And island nations like New Zealand will be spared that kind of damage.”

“New Zealand could lead the world by being the perfect ‘lifeboat’ and taking that just right number of people that you can support and feed and the rest of it, and doing it building proper cities,” Lovelock added. “That’s going to take the money and the effort. Trying to stop global warming is almost a certain waste of time.”

Lovelock, of course, is one of those scientists who believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a “lifeboat” for refugees from mainland Europe. He has repeated this warning to reporters on several continents and now he brings the same message to New Zealanders.

Lifeboat Britain. Lifeboat New Zealand. Lifeboat Alaska. Lifeboat Russia. Get ready.

Andy Revkin: Still alarmist after all these years

A Year on (Dot) Earth - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com

This blog is an experiment, aimed at exploring in an interactive, sustained way a single question: How does humanity head toward a population of 9 billion, more or less, with the fewest regrets? Those regrets pile up every day in the thousands of avoidable deaths of poor people from the lack of simple resources like clean water and energy options. They are also piling up invisibly as long-lived heat-trapping gases accumulate in the atmosphere, progressively influencing the climate in ways that legions of climatologists and biologists say are bound to kick back, and kick hard if emissions are not curbed starting soon. And they accumulate ever more as species vanish and valued landscapes and ecosystems erode under growing pressure from humanity’s expanding resource hunger.

Check out Ben & Jerry’s Climate Change College!

Ben & Jerry’s Climate Change College

Ben & Jerry’s Climate Change College three year mission to spread the word on Arctic meltdown and support innovative ideas to combat climate change has ended. But our Ambassadors’ innovative campaigns to save the ice have only just begun.

Virginia: Remembering the "cold" old days

Donnie Johnston

COLD OLD DAYS

Occasionally I hear some old-timer remark, "It doesn't seem as cold now as it did when I was a child!"

Well, I guess not. Seventy years ago most people were living in uninsulated houses -- especially in the country -- and heaters (like radios) were extras on new vehicles.

Everyone gathered around a wood stove in the kitchen for the only "central heat" in the house, and likely as not a dry snow would blow through the cracks around windows and pile up onto the sills.

Now we turn the thermostat up to stay warm and walk 50 feet to our cars, some of which can be started and warmed while we are still in the house.

Old-timers will also often swear, "When I was a boy the snows would come knee-deep early in December and be on the ground when March came!"

Baloney! Maybe that happened in upstate New York or Winter Park, Colo., but not around here. Never since weather records have been kept is there documentation that snow -- even in patches -- stayed on the ground all the way from early December until the end of February.

They are right about the knee-deep part, though. But we must keep that statement in perspective, too. When you are 5 or 6, your knees are barely a foot off the ground. Yes, we have had plenty of snows that were a foot or more deep. To a little kid, that's deep stuff.

Climate Change Policy: Challenging the Activists

PDF here.

Excerpt (page 20):

..the course followed by virtually every environmental scare story.

Year 1: the scientist finds some potential threat.
Year 2: the journalists amplify and exaggerate it.
Year 3: the environmentalists join the bandwagon.
Year 4: the bureaucrats move in; an international conference
is demanded; regulations and targets proliferate.
Year 5: a scapegoat, usually America (global warming), is sought out and denounced.
Year 6: doubts surface among scientists.
Year 7: the quiet climb down: the official consensus estimate of the problem shrinks. The scare disappears not with a bang but with a whimper.

Don't believe in climate change? You still need a carbon tax

...remember that every vote against carbon taxes is a vote for Hugo Chavez; every voice raised against subsidies for alternative energy is a voice raised in favour of Iranian theocrats; and every driver who demands cheap gas is a "useful idiot" of Vladimir Putin and the House of Saud.

GORE LIED - Al Gore lied about anthropogenic global warming

This is hard to take seriously. I mean, I believe that this is the only message Gore hears from people all over the world, but that's only because he lives in a self-imposed cocoon of leftist ideology. He has put up a fence around his entire life.

Al Gore will not allow the media to attend his slide shows. He will not debate the issue of anthropogenic global warming with a skeptic. He will not put himself in any public situation where there is anyone around him who might ask a simple (yet hard) question, such as: If CO2 emissions drive temperature why have the globally averaged temperatures gone down for the past ten years while CO2 emissions are still going straight up? Al Gore lives his life surrounded by people who tell him he his 100% correct, that he is a great man on a righteous quest, and those same people make sure that nobody that is not just like them gets anywhere near Al Gore.

Gore could wake up on any day, look in the mirror and say: "The debate is not over. For the sake of honest science, let's debate the issues." Except he won't.

Michael Coffman -- Chicken Little, Half Truths and the Loss of Freedom

There is another problem with this alarmist cataclysmic warming/melting hyperbole. Research published this past year reveals that the ocean warming is likely due to volcanic activity, not global warming. In January 2008 one volcano was even found to be actively warming the underside of the glaciers overlaying it, causing them to melt from the bottom up and advance much faster than would otherwise be expected. Also not reported is the fact that some 3,000 scientific temperature measuring robots plying the oceans have found that earth’s oceans are cooling, not warming, as the man-caused global warming theory demands. Of course, none of this is ever reported by the media or acknowledged by the alarmist scientists. So, there is no way the average reader/viewer can put the issue into context.

Kansas: Alarmist USDA Scientist weighs in

Global climate change will have an impact on weed and insect populations and will prompt changes in planting dates, he said.

Hatfield acknowledged that corn yields have generally been increasing in recent years. He said he believes, however, that they will start leveling off within five to 10 years because of the growth-affecting impacts of increasing temperatures and the related variability in precipitation.

Australian Climate Madness: Nationals dump ETS policy

In a move likely to cause a big stir in Coalition circles, the National Party has dumped its support for an ETS until the rest of the world implements one. The Nationals are now the only party to have the courage to stand up against Rudd & Co's ridiculous "carbon pollution reduction scheme", given that the Liberals only plan to delay its introduction by a couple of years.

American Thinker: The Green Religion

Most people almost instinctually try their best to be responsible stewards of this earth's valuable natural resources. But the abrasive approach and militant tactics of many who fill the ranks of the environmentally conscious have led me to believe that the movement has gradually devolved into a kind of Religion. In fact, if we look closely at some of the social initiatives and assorted orbiting causes that are championed by the so called "green movement", one may discern some eerie similarities with some less well organized religions...

UK: article blames CO2 for "dramatic cold snaps"

climate science: COUNCIL ALARMISTS AT IT AGAIN

UK local government is under a relentless barrage of propaganda from the Local Government Association's weekly magazine "First". The latest issue contains more alarmist scaremongering, listing all weather related costs incurred by a council in the past five years. The article then implies that these are all caused by "climate change". There is no attempt to compare the last five years with any other five year periods in the past, so we have no evidence to show that our weather is any more "extreme" than in the past.

The article then makes the even bigger assumption that reducing CO2 would prevent further damaging weather events occurring. It would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that massive costs are being incurred on the basis of this empty-headed nonsense!

Churchill area: fall aerial survey found a record high number of polar bears

Polar Bear Alley - 10/20/08 entry

Manitoba Conservation does an annual aerial survey from the Churchill area to the Manitoba/Ontario border, roughly the inland range of the polar bears of western Hudson Bay. In late July (the 22nd I believe), they flew the range and counted around 34 bears. Most were still out on the bay feasting on seals. In fact, there were still two little bits of ice floe in southwestern Hudson Bay on August 22nd...! This means that many of the bears stayed out on the ice until mid-August, almost a month later than usual (or at least, earlier than usual for the last decade, but simply similar to the 'glory days' of the early eighties).

So, almost all of the bears visiting Churchill are in really good shape (around ten to twelve in buggyland right now). This seems to have translated through the larger population with 266 polar bears being counted on the fall aerial survey in September. This is the largest number of bears recorded in the history of this survey. Isn't that crazy?!? Life is good for the bears!

Of course, this also leads to the cut in quota for Nunavut's Inuit. Arviat, an economically challenged traditional Inuit town just north of Churchill (and when I say just north, I mean 250 miles) has had their quota wiped out. From 23 polar bears harvested last year, political pressure (not research) has led the government of Nunavut to cut it to three bears. All three bear 'tags' have now been used in self-defence kills (partially because we relocate bears north from Churchill... but that's another story). So, no commercial hunt, no income, no community pride for Arviat... hmmm...

An odd quote from a bicyclist

"If everyone rode bikes we'd see health and obesity issues improve, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming would be a non-issue and you'd have a fit, strong and more productive workforce."

A Hundred Years of Bark Beetles’ Feasts « The Unbearable Nakedness of CLIMATE CHANGE

The owner of the Climate Progress blog laments NBC’s forgetfulness in mentioning global warming as the culprit for forest destruction in Colorado by mountain pine beetles.

However, there is something else to ponder:
...
c) From the New York Times, 12/6/1932
“Director Horace Albright reports that he is greatly worried about the situation in the Yellowstone, where the mountain-pine beetle threatens the destruction of the lodgepole pine, which constitutes 80 per cent of the park’s forests”

(d) From the New York Times, 10/6/1907
“the mountain [pine] beetle refuses anything short of a high altitude. Here it abounds in destructive numbers, especially in the West: and as fast as it travels through those salubrious regions down go vast quantities of pine”

If one had read the article of 101 years ago, one would think we would have no trees left whatsoever by now. It didn’t happen. One worders why.

ps the not-so-mild 2008 winter has not killed as many beetles as expected. perhaps temperature is not that important.

Jennifer Marohasy » How Melbourne’s Climate Has Changed: A reply to Dr David Jones (Part 3)

The chart indicates that Melbourne experiences dry periods every so often and that the current drought is similar in magnitude to the droughts of 1896, 1925 and 1945. The chart showing 145 years of data, does not support the claim, made by Dr Jones in his article in Melbourne’s The Age, that there has been recent unusual climate change in Melbourne. Indeed periods of drought and flood are a natural hazard.

Could a graduate student with a bachelor's degree in economics be wrong?

Richland High School alumnus Kyle Gracey will be among 22 other graduate students to attend the United Nations Conference on Climate this December in Poznan, Poland.

An advocate of carbon emissions reduction, Gracey said he wants to push for an international cap-and-trade system.

“The country would get to be a global leader and also avoid the downside of global warming. It makes a lot of sense for us to be on board with this,” he said.
...
Gracey, who has a bachelor's degree in economics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said he believes American businesses stand to gain from cap-and-trade.

Maybe building the perfect car isn't so easy after all

Musk Unplugged: Tesla C.E.O. Discusses Car Troubles - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Mr. Musk said that 87 people — about a quarter of the company — were laid off in the current retrenchment.

He also said that the company’s second model, a battery-powered sedan called the Model S, was delayed because Tesla was having trouble raising the $100 million it needed for its next phase. Rather than turn entirely to current investors, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and former eBay President Jeff Skoll, Tesla decided to ratchet back the fund-raising and slow its expansion.

Tesla’s troubles are not new. Mr. Musk is the fourth chief executive of the San Carlos, Calif., company since it was founded in 2003. The production delay follows a long line of other delays. Mr. Musk, who made his fortune from the sale of online payment site PayPal to eBay, acknowledged that building cars has taken four times the time and effort he expected.

He has invested $55 million of his own money into Tesla, which is why he stepped in to replace Ze’ev Drori as chief executive as the company reached yet another crossroads. “We’re going through a very difficult economic period and I’ve got so many chips on the table with Tesla, it just made sense for me to have both hands on the wheel,” he said.

Running Tesla means scaling back his commitment to SpaceX, which launched its first rocket in September. Although he will remain CEO of SpaceX, Mr. Musk said he will cut back his time there from about 70 percent to 50 percent.

Tesla has raised $146 million from venture capitalists and angel investors. The company had been trying to raise another $100 million when the credit crisis hit. The terms on the money became “very egregious,” Mr. Musk said, so Tesla decided to go back to past investors for $20 million to $30 million instead.

Although the company’s existing backers are wealthy enough to have easily come up with the full $100 million between them, “they wanted us, and I wanted us, to go raise external money rather than have the whole thing be funded internally,” Mr. Musk said.

Feb. '08: Is Silicon Valley the new Detroit for electric cars? | Tech news blog - CNET News

Eventually, self-driving or smart cars could help make driving more efficient and safe, Thrun said.

"When kids can drive themselves to soccer, and do away with the soccer parent, humanity will be better off," Thrun said.
...
So why is Silicon Valley such a hotbed for alternative cars? It's the customers.

"The driving public here is among the most enlightened in environmental and policy issues," Gage said.

Washington Times - BORELLI: Denying affordable energy

What environmental elites don't want average Americans to have
...
Al Gore, Club Green's unofficial spiritual leader, lectured in Washington, D.C. in July about phasing out fossil fuels. Despite his righteous talk about stopping the "catastrophic" effects of global warming, Mr. Gore can't seem to walk the walk. Mr. Gore flys in private planes, and his Tennessee mansion uses almost 20 times the energy of the average American home. He was chauffeured to his July speech in a gas-guzzling motorcade of two Lincoln Town Cars and a Chevy Suburban SUV. There's nothing wrong with enjoying one's wealth, but it's hypocritical when Mr. Gore asks [actually, he wants to tell] others to sacrifice their standards of living but does not seem to do so himself.

CDOT penalized more than $500,000 for polluting streams : The Rocky Mountain News

It is also unusual, though not unprecedented, for health regulators to punish fellow state agencies. In 2004, they fined CDOT contractors $215,000 for sediment runoff from the T-REX project into the South Platte River.
...
CDOT won't pay the $506,385 administrative settlement as a fine but will spend the money on initiatives to improve the agency's environmental performance and the environment in general.
...$25,000 will cover Colorado's membership in a group developing a way to track the state's global warming emissions.

University students skip trays, showers, and laundry for a day so that polar bears might live

CO2 hysteria day at St. Bonaventure University

In commenting on the event, student Emily McLoughlin of Syracuse said she wasn’t able to do her laundry on that day and the showers were cold.

But I bet they keep the tires properly inflated

A New (Fighter) Jet for Google’s Founders? - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

A company controlled by Google’s top executives, including its billionaire founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appears to have added a new plane to its well-equipped fleet: a fighter jet, or more precisely a Dornier Alpha Jet. According to Wikipedia, the Alpha Jet is a a light jet attack and advanced trainer aircraft manufactured by Dornier of Germany and Dassault-Breguet of France.

The last time we checked on H211 L.L.C., the company that operates the private jets owned and used by Mr. Page, Mr. Brin and the chief executive, Eric Schmidt, was in October 2007. The company had just added a Boeing 757 to a fleet that already included a refurbished Boeing 767 and two Gulfstream V’s. All four planes had landing rights at Moffett Field, the NASA operated airfield that is a stone’s throw from the Google campus.

More "facts" from fraudster Al Gore

Gore to the Choir: - Seattle Weekly

For those who haven't heard, a couple of scary climate change facts from the former vice president/Nobel laureate/Oscar winner:

*If we continue on this path of increasing CO2 emissions there will be an 11-degree increase in temperature in this century.

*The polar ice cap, which used to be about the size of the continental U.S., is now 43 percent gone and could melt entirely in five years.

Global warming: it could allegedly kill all of our grandchildren, but EQUALLY IMPORTANT, it's an economic opportunity!?

Inslee praises state's environmental leaders | Politicker WA

SEATTLE - U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island) kicked things off at today's fundraiser luncheon featuring former Vice President Al Gore on behalf of Gov. Chris Gregoire by imploring voters to make it so that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Dino Rossi are all "swept into the ashcan of history."

He went on to praise Gregiore for her "financial acumen" and praised Washington's current status of carrying a budget surplus, and said she was among the boldest and most visionary leaders in the nation on the issue of climate change.

"She recognizes that global warming is an environmental threat," Inslee said, "but it is equally an economic opportunity."

Britain faces arctic freeze

He said: “Much colder weather is on the way, with night frost and wintry showers typical of mid-November, not the end of October.

“It will be quite a shock because we have been used to much milder weather recently.”

Experts warned that the poorest families and the elderly are likely to be worst hit by the cold snap.

Mervyn Kohler, of Help the Aged, said: “Nearly three million older people are living in fuel poverty.

“They will be dreading the nights closing in and the colder weather. Many older people will have to choose between heating their home and eating a meal.”

Travel chaos looms as gales give way to snow - Scotsman.com News

Age Concern Scotland warned of the deadly impact of cold weather. It said that 2,750 more older people died in Scotland in winter than in summer – a far higher proportion than in Scandinavia, which has better housing.

NASA’s Climate "Guru" vs a non-alarmist power utility CEO

NASA’s top climatologist and the director of the Goddard Institute, Dr. James Hansen, weighed in this August on state-owned power utility Santee-Cooper’s efforts to construct a new coal-fired power plant near Florence, penning a letter to CEO Lonnie Carter that called the plant “a terrible, foreseeable, waste of money.”

Carter replied in September, reiterating his position that some scientists still don’t acknowledge a human affect on climate change, and he welcomed the chance to discuss the issue with Hansen. Last week, Hansen traveled to South Carolina to meet with Carter and the utility’s board, also participating in press conferences and a public event at the College of Charleston.

“This is an issue of intergenerational equity and justice,” Hansen says. “We are leaving a certain problem for our children and grandchildren which will be enormous and not of their doing. We risk passing on to them a planet that is unrecognizable from the one we enjoy now.”

How green was my off-set? | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

...A question: how healthy are the trees in all the other “carbon sinks” that have been planted by companies which offer those fashionably green"off-set" schemes? Are they checked? Indeed, are they actually planted?

Just who is taking responsibility for checking the green hype?

Gore: It's all about oil

Gore gets frustrated, he told the sold-out Seattle Sheraton lunch, at those who are "willfully blind to the largest, costliest, most serious, dirtiest crisis in the world today." The audience rose to its feet in a prolonged standing ovation.
...
Gore took up the theme with gaseous politician hyperbole.

The transformation to new energy sources will be "bigger than the industrial revolution," predicted the former vice president.
...
A frequent Washington visitor, he has climbed Mount Rainier, visited sites like a sinkhole in Shoreline, done Christmas shopping at REI, vacationed in the San Juan Islands, and ridden a jet boat while designating the Hanford Reach National Monument.
...
At another point, speaking of Gore, Durkan declared: "He's not coming out until you pick up those (contribution) envelopes."

A green energy future may prove glorious, but our governor's race is not a pretty thing.

Commentary » Blog Archive » Gore and Going Green at Harvard

Unfortunately, Gore’s speech was everything we’ve come to expect from his new incarnation–self-righteous, messianic, and hypocritical.

Barking madness from ForbesTraveler.com

If the Greenland and Antarctic continental ice sheets then melt—as some predict—sea levels could rise by an additional 30 feet. Potential side effects include increasingly intense storms, catastrophic heat waves and global flooding on a biblical scale.

Hurricanes Might Help Fight Global Warming

The torrential rains of a single typhoon can bury tons of carbon in the ocean, two new studies suggest.

Bravo, Dan Lungren

Amador Ledger Dispatch

A highly charged crowd of more than l50 people funneled into the theater at Bret Harte High School in Angels Camp Wednesday night to witness the debate between well known 3rd District incumbent Congressman Dan Lungren (R-Gold River) and his Democratic rival, Dr. Bill Durston.
...
Both differed on the subject of global warming, with Lungren saying people should be skeptical and Durston saying there was "overwhelming scientific evidence" that points to climate change being caused by methane and greenhouse gases.

Study claims skeptics use media for 'seeding doubt' on man-made warming - Congrats to A. Watts website!

Here (PDF).

The most successful, WattsUpWiththat.com, the US‐based blog of sceptic and former weatherman Anthony Watts, in July this year posted 646,024 page views (2.8m since launch). It is in the top four of 3.4m blogs using the free online blog authoring tool, Wordpressxv. Using the latest Nielsen Net Ratings data, even the most conservative estimate would give it over 300,000 monthly visits and a readership of over 31,000 users.xvi Compare that to the New Statesman’s 12.7% year‐on‐year decline, to headline sales of just over 26,000. [...] This paper explores the ways in which new media is used to derail action on climate change. Climate change can be a gloomy subject; but in the spirit of this conference I’ll attempt to map out some productive coordinates for what is an increasingly urgent question. First I provide a (very) brief summary of the scientific consensus, and examples of where this is undermined online. Then I explore whether this phenomena is of substantive enough importance for our attention. Finally, I address its implications for new media and democratic renewal. On 3rd August this year, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri told the Chicago Tribune: “The science about climate change is very clear. There really is no room for doubt at this point.”i Since publication of the 4th IPCC report in 2007, the mainstream media has, in general, accepted this position. As Andreadis and Smith (2007) note, UK journalists are no longer required to balance each warning voice.

(Via Marc Morano)

Underground carbon capture will not avert global disaster: IEA

Underground storage of carbon dioxide has been hailed as the ultimate solution to climate change, but there's no evidence it can actually avert a global warming disaster.

I'm skeptical

States Touting Climate Action Dividends | DeSmogBlog

In Florida, Governor Charlie Crist's Action Team on Energy and Climate Change has estimated that the state can achieve $28 billion in net economic savings between now and 2025, while reducing carbon emissions 64% from business-as-usual projections.

UN solicits CO2-hysteric paintings from children

Children Artists Join Forces with the UN to Combat Climate Change--see some of the paintings for yourself

Young artists from around the world are lending their support to global efforts to combat climate change through Paint for the Planet, an exhibit and auction of children's art in New York.

Launched on October 7, 2008, the Paint for the Planet website features a selection of stand-out entries from nearly 200,000 paintings the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) International Children's Painting Competition received.

Newport News-Times: ‘Stop the Panic' tour plans local visits

Americans For Prosperity-Oregon announced this week that its “Stop the Panic” tour will visit Newport (on Oct. 31) and Lincoln City (Nov. 1) to draw attention to “the negative economic impacts” of Congressional and state proposals attempting to combat global climate change.

Bono to write about music

Apparently, completing U2's oft-delayed new album and gearing up for the likely world tour to follow aren't enough to keep Bono busy, which may be why the Irish rock legend has agreed to write six to 10 op-ed pieces for the New York Times next year.

The twist is that -- according to Times publisher Abe Rosenthal -- Bono won't be writing about AIDS, global warming, world debt relief or any of the other major issues near and dear to the singer's heart. Instead, he'll be writing op-ed pieces about ... music.

Snicker

UN climate chief says media not getting it | csmonitor.com

Speaking at a gathering of US environmental journalists last week, the chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the news media has not done enough to communicate the severity of global warming.

Another global warming alarm

All told, scary stuff.

But it's hard to get worked up over this.

Perhaps that is because a number of reputable scientists dispute the notion that global warming is on the verge of creating cataclysmic consequences. They say the jury is still out as to whether the warming is the result of human activity or a natural cycle.

In any case, I’ll be sure to turn out the lights in my house whenever possible.

Green shift: a loser worldwide

Remember when Liberal leader Stephane Dion unveiled his carbon tax plan earlier this year? The green lobby was thrilled. It had finally found a mainstream politician ready to fight an election on a promise to implement a tax on heating fuels, diesel and other traditional sources of energy that households consume. Environmentalists were convinced voters would rally around the plan, particularly since the carbon tax and ensuing higher energy prices would be offset with tax cuts targeted to low-and modest-income earners. Canada was set to become a world leader in the climate change debate.

Dreams of a carbon tax are dashed now, although few environmentalists will publicly say so. More likely, they will soon assert the messenger failed, not the carbon tax idea. But of course, we know this is bunk. The Liberals campaigned unequivocally on a revenue-neutral carbon plan to save the planet. It was soundly rejected.

The policy itself, not Mr. Dion's egg-headed intellectualism, was the political albatross. Long before the campaign was underway, the Liberal party's own pollster was warning that the public was not buying the Green Shift. A leaked memo from Michael Marzolini on April 29 was unequivocal: "It was our recommendation that if a carbon tax shift absolutely must be part of our platform -- and we do not recommend this at all -- that it only be part of a larger environmental strategy involving actual popular proposals." His forecast: "Making a carbon tax shift the key plank in our appeal to the electorate is a vote loser, not a vote winner."

Jennifer Marohasy » Not Enough CO2 in Fossil Fuels to Make Oceans Acidic: A Note from Professor Plimer

The history of CO2 and temperature shows that there is no correlation.

Ask your local warmer:

1. Why was CO2 15 times higher than now in the Ordovician-Silurian glaciation?

2. Why were both methane and CO2 higher than now in the Permian glaciation?

3. Why was CO2 5 times higher than now in the Cretaceous-Jurassic glaciation?

The process of removing CO2 from the atmosphere via the oceans has led to carbonate deposition (i.e. CO2 sequestration).

The atmosphere once had at least 25 times the current CO2 content, we are living at a time when CO2 is the lowest it has been for billions of years, we continue to remove CO2 via carbonate sedimentation from the oceans and the oceans continue to be buffered by water-rock reactions (as shown by Walker et al. 1981).

The literature on this subject is large yet the warmers chose to ignore this literature.

Gore compares idiots who fear CO2 with soldiers who stormed Omaha Beach

Sparse turnout for ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ — The Harvard University Gazette

It’s “an inconvenient truth,” but only about 25 people showed up for a Harvard screening Sunday (Oct. 19) of a film by the same name, which earned former Vice President Al Gore ’69 both an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize.
...
Around campus, “An Inconvenient Truth” got an update too. On Tuesday night (Oct. 22), HCEAC sponsored three simultaneous screenings of Gore’s 25-minute follow-up film, based on a February talk he gave at a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, Calif. The coffee house-style events — at the Barker Center, and at Lowell and Currier houses — were moderated by faculty experts and drew small crowds of student discussants.

Treuer was at Barker, where about 10 students watched the film. As an organic and evolutionary biology concentrator, he was familiar with the facts of global warming, but left impressed by Gore’s tone — “doggedly determined [and] forcefully optimistic,” said Treuer.

At Currier House, about 20 watchers relaxed on sofas as Gore’s renewed message of horror and hope flickered on a television screen. Most had just enjoyed a House “sustainable dinner” — a meal of New England mussels, greens, squash, turnips, and cheese that was designed to illustrate the ecological advantages of eating regionally.
...
To take on global climate change, Gore called for “another herogeneration” like that of the Founding Fathers, or those inspired by
Lincoln’s emancipation of the slaves, the triumph of women’s suffrage, or the sacrifices of World War II.

Afterwards, McCarthy said Gore had found in global warming “the one issue around which civilization could rally.”

Australia: Government-funded dancer believes CO2 is a noxious gas

Noxious gas prompts dance on global warming | Entertainment | Entertainment | thedaily.com.au

It was while living in Hong Kong that world-renowned Australian choreographer Maggi Sietsma first began to think about global warming.

While aware of the issue before then, it was during her two-year sabbatical overseas that she was forced to question her own accountability.

At the time, smog in Hong Kong had become so bad that residents were being forced to buy fresh air machines to keep the air inside their apartments pure.

However, Ms Sietsma soon realised the machine she had purchased was being manufactured just down the road from her in a factory that itself was spewing noxious gases.

It was this epiphany that led her to create On Thin Ice - the first Australian dance performance piece to tackle the heady issue of global warming.

Speaking from her Brisbane home, Ms Sietsma said she was looking forward to bringing the performance to the Sunshine Coast on Wednesday.

“When I decided to do a work on global warming from an artistic perspective, I decided to have a look and do some research,” she said.

“I ended up realising how naive I've been. One of the things I discovered was that the Americans had done research into homeland security.

“And the report said that in 50 years' time, what would be of more threat to their homeland than terrorism was actually displacement of people because of water rising because of global warming.”
...
On Thin Ice will mark Ms Sietsma's final production with the company, citing a cut in government funding.

Spain Investigates Wind, Solar Power Plants for Possible Fraud

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Spain is inspecting renewable-energy installations suspected of claiming they started producing electricity before they actually entered service.

The National Energy Commission will probe wind-turbine stations said to have begun generating power in the final months of 2007, the regulator said yesterday in a statement. The ministry of industry asked that solar-energy parks likewise be investigated, said a ministry spokesman who declined to be named.

Wind generators, which supply about 11 percent of Spain's power, and solar stations earn premium rates that are being scaled back. The generators have an incentive to get their stations operating as soon as possible to get the better price which, in the case of photovoltaic stations, lasts 25 years.

More than 100 million euros ($127 million) may be at stake, the Expansion newspaper reported today, using calculations from government and industry documents.

Sept '07: Wind energy exec indicted [National Wind Watch]

A federal grand jury has indicted a Twin Cities wind energy developer for mail fraud and money laundering, accusing him of overbilling Xcel Energy for electricity and collecting wrongful incentive payments from the state of Minnesota.
...
According to the indictment, Jaunich founded NAE Shaokatan Power Partners LLC around 1999 and had an arrangement to generate electricity for Xcel Energy. Between September 2003 and 2005, he allegedly submitted numerous inflated invoices to both Xcel and the state Commerce Department, which runs an incentive program subsidizing alternative energy projects with direct payments.
...
The payments from the Commerce Department came out of its Renewable Energy Production Incentive program, at the time using money from the state’s general fund, Commerce spokesman Bill Walsh said. Commerce was paying NAE Shaokatan 1.47 cents per kilowatt-hour it generated and paid the company about $140,000 before Commerce investigators got involved, Walsh said.

“Our energy folks auditing the program saw results from this wind project that were so good they questioned whether it was possible under the laws of physics,” Walsh said. Walsh confirmed NAE Shaokatan returned $144,561 to the department.

Climate Skeptic: Global Warming ... Accelerating?

...it is staggering to me that so many people can insist, with a straight face, that warming is "accelerating" or, crazier, that it is "worse than forecast."

UK MPs In Cloud Cuckoo Land

We must hold our MPs, of all parties, accountable for next week’s sheep-like vote when the lights go out; when businesses collapse; when we plummet down the world economic league table; when people can no longer afford energy; when the rest of the world ignores us over climate hysteria; when their wondrous carbon targets are missed - as they surely will be - by miles; when the climate doesn’t do what politicians think it will, or should, do; but, above all, when they themselves finally grasp that they can have no predictable effect on climate.

Voting Against Carbon Witchcraft

As Samuel Johnson would have surely noted acerbically, our MPs have tragically fallen for “the clamour of the times”. They are predestined to be disappointed, and to fail.

Their vote on the Climate Change Bill might well be compared to the infamous Witchcraft Act of 1604, which, somewhat reversing today’s Parliamentary processes, was read for the first time in the House of Lords on March 2, 1604, and committed on March 29. However, having been considered and found to be imperfect, a new Bill was brought in on April 2. On May 7, amendments were read, and the Bill appointed to be engrossed. On May 11, it was read in the House of Commons for the first time. A month later it was passed, and was returned to the Lords.

It is salutary to recall that it was this statute which was ultimately enforced by Matthew Hopkins [above left], the notorious ‘Witch-Finder General’.

Bravo, Mike Beard

House District 35A: Beard, Bruns battle for seat | Prior Lake American

Beard, a member of the state’s energy committee, said he came to regret his vote for the mandates once he better understood the cost to consumers.

Although companies like Xcel Energy were OK with the mandate, saying it had enough escape clauses, Beard said he later was informed that power companies have a guaranteed rate of return, which is why they weren’t concerned about the bill. They could actually make more money from more expensive power, he said.

A skeptic of what he considers global-warming alarmism, Beard said he tries to bring a voice of sanity and reason to the energy debates.

He believes expansion of the Big Stone Plant near Milbank, S.D., is essential to keeping the region’s baseline power going.

He said the coal-fired plant would double its present energy production while emitting half the pollution of the current site.

Bruns is hesitant about such a large investment in coal-based technology.

She said the state must be conscious of consumers’ energy costs but also weigh short-term savings of present power-production methods against the potential long-term benefits of emerging technology, which will lessen carbon footprints.

“I’m willing to listen, but hesitant,” Bruns said of the Big Stone proposal. “It feels like building old PCs.”

But how much has the world actually warmed since 2005?

The Associated Press: Global warming cools hopes for Dutch skating race

"In 2005, we calculated once in 10 years, and mainly due to warm winters that came afterwards we had to change our estimate to once every 18 years so there is ... a steep decline," one of the report's authors, Arthur Petersen, said in a telephone interview. "That's purely caused by climate change."

The Commissars Of Climate Change - Forbes.com

Who are these folks setting the climate agenda?

Most Americans have never heard of Yvo de Boer, and certainly never voted for him. De Boer is a Dutchman, appointed by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2006 to head the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

De Boer is not a scientist; his bio says he has a "technical degree in social work." Before joining the UNFCCC in the 1990s, he worked in the Dutch ministry of housing. These days, de Boer jets around the world presiding over conferences--such as last year's two-week climate summit at a Bali beach resort--aimed at creating a global "climate change regime." This regime rests on schemes for massive international wealth transfers, with multilateral bureaucracies calculating who owes, who pays and who gets special breaks--while related arms of these proliferating outfits crank out reports in which "science" is invoked to justify the entire set-up.

But didn't the Nobel Peace Prize go last year to Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for their eco-warnings? Yes. And the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five Norwegian politicians, appointed by the Norwegian parliament. They may be nice people, but their judgment seems an odd basis for sweeping new controls on the U.S. economy.

Proof that propaganda from authority works best on impressionable young people

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

Nearly 90 per cent of young people across the globe think world leaders should do "whatever it takes" to tackle climate change. This is among the top findings of a new poll conducted on behalf of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The survey of 12 to 18 year-olds in five countries (Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa and the United States) found that nine in ten young people (88% overall and 85% or more in each country) agree that "World leaders should do whatever it takes to tackle climate change".

October 2008 Possibly Set for Record Sea Ice Extent Increase Rate « The Unbearable Nakedness of CLIMATE CHANGE

What is the reason behind the fact that “[Arctic] sea ice area [is] approaching the edge of normal standard deviation“?

It’s because October 2008 is set to break all records in the daily rate of increase in sea ice extent in the Arctic, that’s why.

Climate Progress » Blog Archive » NBC News ignores climate change, "blows" the bark beetle story

...NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams manages to do an entire story devoted to the explosion of the tiny forest-destroying pest in Colorado without ever mentioning the crucial climate change connection

Tim Ball: A clear and present danger: Scientists with political motives

The ‘only tipping point’ Weaver needs to worry about is when the public discovers what is real in the climate change debate and how he, the IPCC and Al Gore, Nobel Prize winners all, have misstated the science. If there has been a government led “war on science and scientists”, it has been against those of us who want to take a rational approach to the climate science debate, listening to all reasonable viewpoints and censoring no one. While the federal Liberals rarely allowed a climate realist to testify before Commons Committee hearings on the subject, the Conservative government have gone even further and not once arranged that a scientist on the skeptic’s side of the debate testify. The real tragedy is that, while billions of taxpayer dollars have been squandered on the impossible goal of “stopping climate change”, targets for real pollution reduction are not being met.

With the election over, the Liberals in disarray having attracted the lowest percentage popular vote in their history and their ‘carbon tax’ roundly rejected by Canadians, it is time for the Conservatives to come clean on the climate file and say what is real and do what is honest: hold open, unbiased hearings on the rapidly changing science of climate change and let Canadians hear a range of expert opinion, not just those who agree with Andrew Weaver. Then, and only then, will it be appropriate to make national policy on this, the most complex field of science ever tackled.

New, Allegedly Dangerous Greenhouse Gas Tied to Global Warming : Red, Green, and Blue

Nitrogen trifluoride is one of several gases used during the manufacture of certain computer and television screens, and also in thin-film photovoltaic cells.

Oh my. Once again we run into the old dilemma: the manufacturing of the very thing meant to solve a crisis, is actually adding to the crisis.

But aren't countries with high CO2 emissions supposed to be paying?

JAKARTA, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) — The Indonesian government will proceed the Bali road map by setting up a climate change trust fund for global warming mitigation, an official said.

“We plan to pool all grants and loans for climate change provided by donors into the trust fund,” Basah Hernowo, the Indonesian Development Planning Board (Bappenas)’s director of forestry and water resource conservation, was quoted on Friday by the Jakarta Post daily as saying.
...
Several nations have pledged to provide grants and loans to Indonesia, a country with the third highest level of carbon emissions in the world.

Speaking of Offsets

Here’s a question: I know Obama Inc. is a rather large enterprise — surely in comparison to McCain-Palin — but whatever happened to the vaunted claims by both teams to offset their emissions? We haven't heard much since the initial breast-beating, and a quick perusal of their websites reveal few details of compliance in addressing what — right after the election — will be resurrected as the gravest threat facing mankind. Until whatever it is that Biden was briefed on happens, I mean.

Has it, as anticipated, proved too pie-in-the-sky for even such relatively small operations to achieve carbon neutrality? And, if so, what does that say about the same folks insisting that the entire country be mandated to do it?

What Goes Around Doesn’t Always Come Around

A report Thursday in the Peoria Journal Star, an Illinois.-based newspaper, quoted Richard Shertz, a farmer from near Wyanet, Ill., as saying he heard a noise like thunder Wednesday morning and later found the huge blade lying in one of his cornfields, 150 feet away from the turbine’s tower. A photo accompanying the article shows the Suzlon turbine tower with a stump near the central hub where one of the blades should have been attached.

Earlier this year, Suzlon said it was recalling 1,251 blades, or almost the entire number it has sold to date in the U.S. after cracks were found on over 60 blades on turbines run by Deere and Edison International’s Edison Mission Energy.

But is the science still settled?

No matter what actually happens to ocean salt levels, it's bad and it's caused by humans

This reverses previous fears that fresh water from the melting ice caps is diluting the north seas at such a rate it will reverse the warm Gulf Stream current, leading to a significantly colder climate for Europe - although over the long run the North Atlantic is expected to become less salty.

Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office and leader of the study, said there is relatively little information on the affect of global warming on the oceans.

But is China drastically cutting CO2 emissions?

Chinese companies newest members of global environment body _English_Xinhua

"China is a vital ally in the fight against global warming," said ex-British prime minister Tony Blair in a letter of congratulations.

Now watch as EU nations quickly develop and roll out "clean" solar-powered airplanes

AFP: EU forces CO2 caps on airlines

LUXEMBOURG (AFP) — EU nations on Friday agreed to bring airlines into the fight against global warming from 2012, though promising their contribution won't be too damaging economically to the fragile sector.

From January 2012 all airline companies operating in or out of an EU country, including non-European carriers, will have to limit emissions to 97 percent of 2005 levels.

From 2013 that figure will dip to 95 percent with further reductions envisaged later.

Airlines are furious about the plans which they say threaten their very survival as they struggle to cope with recent high fuel prices and have warned that it could spark trade wars with other countries.

The plans have also sounded alarm bells in Washington which has raised the prospect of launching litigation if Europe goes ahead with them.

According to the plans, airlines will have to meet the pollution targets either by reducing their emissions or by buying carbon dioxide credits from other industries with surpluses.

Additionally, airlines will have to buy 15 percent of their emissions allowances through auctions, although they will receive the rest for free.

MIxed signals from Polish PM Tusk

Polish PM Tusk defends stand on climate change -- china.org.cn

At a summit of the European Union on October 15-16, Prime Minister Tusk was widely seen as a driving force behind a group of eastern European leaders aiming to modify EU plans for a 20 percent reduction in emissions by 2020. Nearly all Poland’s electricity is generated by burning coal and the country’s leadership fears the plans as currently formulated would double domestic electricity prices.

Tusk said "Our civilization depends on taking action on climate change. It is the quintessence of responsibility and solidarity." But he added that "if we are too stringent and too orthodox, the poor will not participate". On December’s climate change conference he said, "In Poznan we will be looking to make one more step forward and it is alright if the steps are quite cautious. If they are too fast and too rapid we will never get countries such as China to participate."

Planet Ark : Poland Eyes Alliance With China In UN Climate Talks

BEIJING - China and Poland, both deeply reliant on coal, could collaborate in global climate talks to ensure fighting greenhouse gases does not harm their economies, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday.

Tusk, on a four-day visit to Shanghai and Beijing, said he had also discussed with Chinese officials and entrepreneurs the prospects for cooperation on clean coal technologies.

"I expect that in China we will find an ally for the global climate talks. We are in a similar situation due to our coal-based economies. We cannot allow fighting climate change to destroy them," he told a news conference in the Chinese capital.

The American Spectator: Climate Alarmism's Flimsy Foundation

Forget pretty much any news reporting you see that attributes disastrous phenomena to global warming, because it's all designed to create a fog surrounding the core issue: is climate change human-caused or not?

Caribbean Net News: Commentary: Global cooling? Yes...

If you notice temperatures getting cooler sooner or more and more news reports about a phenomenon called “global cooling,” fear not, because this only indicates that Mother Nature has determined that it’s time for a change.

Complete insanity at the Women on Wall Street Conference » The Glass Hammer

[Mindy Lubbor, President of Ceres] urged immediate action. “We are, for the first time in history, about to leave the next generation a planet that can’t be sustained. We are being told that we need to reduce carbon footprint by 80% by the year 2050 to make sure next generation has future…We need to do it because it’s right and it’s about building an economy that is sustainable.” She listed several ways to achieve that, including cooperation between corporations, government, educational institutions and non-governmental organizations.

Gore using his “We” website to “get out the vote” « Watts Up With That?

While this method of “getting out the vote” is certainly part of our democratic system, given the propensity for Mr. Gore to exaggerated and in many cases use discredited talking points when he discusses climate issues, one wonders if these young impressionable minds will be able to withstand Gore’s glizty barrage and find the real answers themselves. I once beleived what Gore and hansen were talking about in the late 80’s and early 90’s, now I think they are like Jake and Elwood Blues (you can choose who should fit what role) on a “mission from God” to save the penguin, er world.

CO2-hysteric mayors send their city planners to Tokyo, where some pledge to fight CO2 by tracking genetically modified food?!

wildsingapore news: Cities pledge action on climate change

TOKYO (AFP) – Leaders of 40 of the world's major cities pledged action Thursday to fight climate change, taking measures ranging from promoting solar energy to tracking genetically modified food.

Warning that crowded urban areas were especially susceptible to the planet's rising temperatures, city officials said they needed to take the lead in adapting to climate change.

"Very important actions are taking place by mayors who act," Toronto Mayor David Miller, the chairman of the so-called C40 climate initiative of cities, said after two days of talks in Tokyo.

"The focus of this conference was adaptation and particularly on measures that support adapting to climate change that is already occurring," he told a news conference.

The city leaders also urged national governments to commit to "drastic" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming, in the period after the Kyoto Protocol's obligations expire in 2012.

Some 40 cities are part of the C40 including Beijing, London, New Delhi, New York, Paris and Sydney. City planners from 32 of them took part in the Tokyo talks.

Climate realism in Ontario

The Forest City Institute presents

Dr. Christopher Essex, Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Applied Mathematics at The University of Western Ontario and co-author with Ross McKitrick of Taken by Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming

"The Climate Change Challenge"

A presentation on the science of climate change and how it impacts politics, with guest moderator Lorrie Goldstein of Sun Media.
...
Wednesday October 29 7:00-9:00pm
Wolf Performance Hall, Central Library

There’s Cash In Dem Der Carbon Emissions: ITOTD

“Cap and trade” emissions programs have always struck a dubious note for me, and yesterday’s “Cashing in on Carbon” conference in London further reinforced my suspicions. I’m all for polluters limiting their greenhouse gas output, and I have always argued that major environmental improvements for industries will come from economic incentives, but carbon trading seems like the old bait-and-switch deception long practiced by industry hucksters. Sure they have to limit their emissions to a degree, but then they can buy up carbon credits all over they place, appearing to their shareholders and the public as environmental stewards, when in fact, they are continuing to spew huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. And now we have industry leaders huddled in dark rooms scheming to make the most money from this shell game.

Be very afraid

Civil rights lawyer and community organizer from Chicago plans to "completely revamp how we use energy"

[Obama:] For us to say we are just going to completely revamp how we use energy in a way that deals with climate change, deals with national security and drives our economy, that's going to be my number one priority when I get into office, assuming, obviously, that we have done enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation.

BP Wind & Solar CEO: project money ‘completely dried up’ [National Wind Watch]

Financing for wind farms has disappeared and fewer companies will be able to develop the kind of “mega projects” needed to feed the growing demand for energy, said Reyad Fezzani, CEO of BP’s wind and solar operations, at the Dow Jones Alternative Energy Innovations conference Wednesday.

In just the last month, money that typically would be available for building renewable-energy projects has “completely dried up,” thanks to the financial market crisis, Fezzani said during a keynote and on-stage interview with Yuliya Chernova, editor of Dow Jones’ Clean Technology Insight.

Global Warming in Academia

I hereby condemn false arguments and bias on both sides of the debate. Skepticism is a virtue but it must be evenly dispensed. As a college student at what most of you would consider a liberal northeastern college, most students and professors I am exposed to unequivocally accept AGW, false observations of global warming, and dire predictions of its consequences. I was inspired to write this by a recent example of such unintended bias.

This evening my roommate attended a lecture by one of his professors in which the professor told the audience it has warmed in February, March and April during sugar maple tapping season. He has been a resident at the college for 34 years and taps over 1,000 trees in the spring. I, an amateur meteorologist, doubted this claim. In fact, the last F/M/A period 1992-2007 averaged .5 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than during 1976-1991 (F: +.25; M: -.9; A: -1.1).

ABC on warming: it’s doom or devastation | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Lateline last night interviewed three scientists and a UN official about global warming. Showing his famed concern for balance, host Tony Jones presents a range of views from this:

PROF. ANN HENDERSON-SELLERS, MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY: A lot of people like myself, and I believe many, many scientists now, who are frantically, hysterically worried.

To this:

PROF. DAVID KAROLY, MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: The only way that I could see the climate system in 50 years time or 100 years time being cooler than at present is if the earth got hit by an asteroid and basically human civilisation was destroyed.

I think that covers the subject.

Iowa’s Ethanol Plants Create 15 Percent of its Emissions : Gas 2.0

The Des Moines Register reported the other day that Iowa’s ethanol plants contribute 15 Percent — 7.6 million metric tons out of a total of 52 million metric tons — of greenhouse-gas emissions found in the state’s new inventory of major manufacturers, businesses and power plants.

Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources found that the largest portion of the state’s overall emissions came from fermenting grain at the plants and not from burning natural gas or coal. In addition, burning biomass such as switchgrass at various industrial plants added another 0.13 million metric tons.

The emissions generated by ethanol production are one reason why some environmentalists downplay the benefit of renewable fuels, while others insist they are far more beneficial than burning fossil fuels.

It may be getting worse. As Global Warming brings more rain to the corn belt, it affords farmers the opportunity to grow even more corn, something the farmers are looking forward to.

Under four different scenarios of climate change, which vary by projected temperature increases, yields in Iowa and the rest of the Corn Belt could increase anywhere from 5 percent to 19 percent by 2030. With adaptations by farmers, yields could rise by even more, 6 percent to 23 percent.

Brussels Bickering: EU Climate Stalemate Could Threaten Global Deal

"If the European Union does not get its act together on a clear climate agreement and it does not continue pressing ahead globally, that would relax a lot of pressure on the US," Christian Egenhofer, a climate change expert who is a senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "And that could very well lead to Copenhagen being a non-event."

Development from Disasters Network - Rich nations lack climate commitment: RI

At a recent ministerial meeting in Poland, Rachmat said many developed nations, including the United States and European nations, were attempting to renege on emission-reduction commitments by using the economic downturn as an excuse.

"I am very depressed about this recent development. The rich nations try to hide behind the economic crisis to stall their commitment to finance mitigation in developing nations," he said.

"If this happens, the Bali road map cannot be implemented."

Paying the piper-updated

After being arrested for causing trouble at a coal plant, alarmist whines about being put on a watch list

Since 2001, I have devoted my life entirely to the peaceful promotion of windmills and solar panels to solve global warming. Apparently not everyone liked my work, however. Believe it or not, the Maryland State Police - your state police - put my name in their criminal intelligence database as a “suspected terrorist” as part of their larger program of collecting information about political activists in 2005-2006. I was on this outrageous “watch” list apparently because of a single act of peaceful civil disobedience I participated in outside a coal-fired power plant in 2004. CCAN’s former deputy director Josh Tulkin was also put in the database as was another former CCAN staffer who has chosen to remain anonymous. Neither of these people has ever been arrested for anything in their entire lives. (See background below)
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Help end forever these police abuses in Maryland that threaten our climate/clean energy movement, and our right to organize for causes we believe in. Why has our state wasted precious resources creating a “terrorist” watch list of innocent people instead of devoting maximum resources to solving real environmental problems? The REAL terror in Maryland is the threat of 20 feet of sea-level rise. The REAL violence is the burning of coal to create electricity while wrecking the climate.

With your help we can end ALL of these abuses.

Sincerely,

Mike Tidwell
Executive Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network

2004: Pollution Protest At Md. Plant Ends in Arrests (washingtonpost.com)

Police arrested six protesters yesterday and charged them with blocking the entrance to a coal-burning power plant in upper Montgomery County.

The protesters lay down across a road leading to the Dickerson Generating Station, owned by Atlanta-based Mirant Corp. They were charged with disorderly conduct and blocking a public right of way, and they received citations, said Montgomery County police spokeswoman Lucille Baur.
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Mike Tidwell, director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network and one of those arrested yesterday, said the group wants Mirant to support the proposed Maryland legislation. "Mirant is not only a major source of harmful pollutants in our area but has shown very little desire to do something about it," Tidwell said.

Update: If Tidwell doesn't want any hassles from "The Man", he should probably stop doing stuff like this:

The entrance to a major federal agency, one whose politically appointed leadership has been widely condemned for suppressing scientific climate reports, was effectively occupied.

For the rest of the day, the occupation was major news in the nation's capital. The main NPR station broadcast hourly live updates of the ensuing standoff with police, repeating the activists' call for open science and clean energy. A Fox News helicopter hovered overhead, filming everything. And more than 150 newspapers picked up the Associated Press story about this day of principled activism in the face of politicized science.

As director of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council, I was one of the chief organizers of this event and played the role of main negotiator with the dozens of police and Homeland Security officials who eventually arrived to try to coax the activists off the ledge. My motivation for acting was simple. Those of us within the emerging global-warming movement in America routinely use the words "emergency" and "crisis" and "impending catastrophe" to describe -- accurately -- the runaway heating now afflicting our planet. Wildfires are off the charts. The Greenland ice sheet is imploding. Hurricanes are unrecognizable in their fury. And NASA's James Hansen says we have less than 10 years to profoundly alter our use of fossil fuels.

"Emergency, crisis, catastrophe," we say.

Excuse me, but I have a question

If you're truly concerned about solving the problem of climate change, why would you spend three years working on a vehicle that burns one ton of fuel every 22 seconds?

Supersonic Rocket Car Aims For 1,000 MPH | Autopia from Wired.com

The Britons who built the first car to break the sound barrier are back with plans to shatter their own record in a jet-powered land-rocket they're betting will be the first car to top 1,000 mph.
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"Ultimately, I hope that this iconic British project will encourage the next generation of scientists and engineers, as we will depend on them to find the solutions to everything from climate change to growing population pressures," Drayson says.

Bill Chameides: Global Warming and Predictions of an Impending Ice Age – Part 2 — Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University

Sunspots and cosmic rays are not the cause of the recent warming. How do we know? It’s all in the data.

Solar variations can have and have had a huge effect on our climate — that’s obvious. But have they been the cause of climate change over the past 30 years or so, when we have seen an accelerated rate of warming? (I will address the issue of the past ten years of warming or lack thereof in a subsequent post, so please hold your comments on that one.)

That oughta help

Government experts think the word "drought" is too negative | Herald Sun

GOVERNMENT experts say the word "drought" is making farmers feel bad and want people to use the word "dryness" instead.

Life at the start of the Little Ice Age

From the book "Unstoppable Global Warming every 1500 Years" by Singer and Avery (page 109):

Some Christians believed the horrible weather was a sign that Satan was gaining dominance over the Earth. Many blamed witches for their suffering. More than a thousand people were burned as witches between 1580 and 1620 just in Bern, Switzerland. The small town of Wiesensteig, Germany, burned sixty-three women in 1563. Johann Linden, canon of a church in Treves in 1590, explained the public mood in his diary: "Everybody thought the continuous crop failure was caused by witches from devilish hate, so the whole country stood up for their eradication."

Little Ice Age:

The phase between ad 1550 and 1850 when temperatures were generally lower in Europe and North America than they are at present, and glaciers advanced.

Carbon credit biz feels meltdown heat-India Business-Business-The Times of India

The collateral damage from the financial contagion closest home could be to India’s carbon trade that has already locked in investments generating 31 million carbon credits annually up to 2012. Other projects worth 439 million credits that are in the pipeline could now come under the cloud.

No mention of an overheated planet here: Life threatening winter weather - Wind chill, frostbite and hypothermia

Winter weather can not only be trying on the mind and soul, it also presents very real dangers to the human body. Extreme wind chills can be deadly and bring on the outset of frostbite and hypothermia. Here in Colorado, all residents should be aware of these hazards and be prepared to deal with them.
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David Floyd
Warning Coordination Meteorologist
National Weather Service, Goodland, Kansas

Origin of the Specious [Thinking] - Climate Change Fraud - Because the debate is not over

Warming periods and cooling periods are also directly linked to sunspot activity. We are currently in a spotless sun period and the temperatures are bearing this out. During the Medieval Warm Period that lasted 400 years and was warmer than it is today there were far less people on the earth, and most important, we were not an industrialized world. No trains, planes, or automobiles. No factories, either. This warm period was followed by the 'little ice age,' which also lasted hundreds of years and came to an end during the early 19th century. It wasn't until the 1950s a true industrial revolution took off.

18,000 years ago the planet started warming up, a gradual process after 100,000 years of Ice Ages. Since then, the Earth's temperature has risen about 16°F. It will continue to do so before this interglacial period ends and we return to another Ice Age phase. This has been proven by ice core samples and other methods, and it has nothing do with our population. When you hear alarmists rant about a 1°F rise in the last hundred years keep in mind this is what the Earth has been doing for millions of years. Warming, then cooling, repeat.

Unfortunately, we won't be around to see this happen, but not before generations of people spend enormous amounts of money, pass onerous laws, and destroy an economy already on the brink.
For 50 years the scientific community fought tooth and nail that continental drift was a pie-in-the-sky theory and used consensus to back up their claims and maintain the status quo. How long will it take before the global warming theory is finally disproved? Let's hope it's not after a hundred years of no significant warming. We should know better than to keep following mob mentality.

Paul Franson in the San Francisco Chronicle actually claims "the Arctic ice cap is almost gone"

Five ways California vintners are weathering climate change

The Arctic ice cap is almost gone and glaciers are melting.

Check out this data, Paul

The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, March 8-10, 2009, New York City

The Heartland Institute - Welcome to the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change

New York conference expected to draw
up to 1,000 scientists and experts
Global warming crisis "cancelled" by new scientific discoveries

The organizers of a March 2008 conference that brought together more than 500 scientists, economists, and other experts on global warming today unveiled plans to hold a second conference on March 8-10, 2009, once again in New York City.

The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change will serve as a platform for scientists and policy analysts from around the world who question the theory of man-made climate change. This year's theme, "Global Warming Crisis: Cancelled," calls attention to new research findings that contradict the conclusions of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

Don't miss it

The Daily Bayonet: Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Oct. 24th 2008

Green Jobs Problem: “Creating unneeded jobs just won’t help”

That’s the point for an op-ed by Reason’s Jacob Sullum, who argues in today’s Chicago Sun Times that “overhauling manufacturing, transportation and power production to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide may or may not be justified, but it is properly viewed as a drag on the economy.”
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It’s worth a read here. We attended a Green Jobs event on Capitol Hill yesterday … it was just brutal. Everyone starts with the assumption that the climate is irreversibly warming, that human activity is the proven culprit, and that only radical action imposed by the government will save us. We noted that the rhetoric has gotten away from the true COSTS imposed by claiming it’s an “investment” in our economy (no mention of where we’re getting the capital for this investment, obviously). It’s a good political move, though not necessarily fully honest. Sullum’s column today is a good step at pushing back, but alone it will not do the trick.

Flake blasts proposed ethanol bailout - Phoenix Business Journal:

Ethanol plants may be the next beneficiary of a federal bailout and Mesa congressman Jeff Flake is among those opposed to that idea.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said the federal government is considering outlays of as much as $25 million to help ethanol plants, which have been hit by volatile commodity prices.

World Climate Report » The Divergence Problem and the Failure of Tree Rings for Reconstructing Past Climate

This result indicates why one can not use tree rings for any periods warmer than the calibration period—a situation which is difficult to know a priori. The same issue could affect certain other types of temperature proxies (besides tree rings) as well.

More from James Hansen: Obstruction of Justice (PDF)