Chilly weather sets in Kuwait » Kuwait Times Website

KUWAIT: Kuwait has been experiencing cold weather for the past two days as we have entered December and the season has changed.

People are preparing to brave harsh Kuwaiti winters by buying winter clothes.
...
Since the season is illness-inducing, people fall sick ever so easily. Hospitals are flooded with children and adults who suffer from flu and fever owing to Kuwait's unpredictable weather.

UK: 'NHS vulnerable to winter crisis' - Deeside Today

Labour has claimed that the NHS is more exposed to a winter crisis than at any time over the past decade.
Cuts being demanded across the health service by the Scottish Government have been blamed for the problem, by Labour health spokesman Richard Simpson.

The number of blocked beds has doubled to more than 90, while the overall number of beds has dropped slightly.

Mr Simpson said on Sunday: "The NHS is less prepared this winter than at any time in the last decade. I am deeply concerned that hospitals will struggle to cope if the cold weather continues - we could see patients on trolleys in hospital corridors.
...
"In Glasgow, elderly patients have been given extra blankets to keep warm because a hospital ward has no heating. This Victorian approach to healthcare is simply unacceptable."

Cold Weather Brings Silent Killer To State « Where’s my Global Warming Dude? By Global Freeze

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — The cold weather is here and it has brought with it a silent killer.

With many people turning up their furnaces and throwing would on the fire, the Department of Public Health is warning resident of the dangers of carbon monoxide.

The Connecticut Department of Public Health said that each year, the colorless, odorless gas causes about 33 hospitalizations, 339 emergency room visits and four deaths.

Energy Secretary Pick Steven Chu on Climate Change, In His Own Words | SolveClimate.com

[Alarmist Chu:] In the end, it’s not about energy, it’s about carbon dioxide emissions.

Poznan: "Such a catastrophe" | DeSmogBlog

It’s not even a full sentence, but when Katherine Trajan uttered those three words - "Such a catastrophe" - it seemed to sum up perfectly the declining state of our natural world and the tragic inadequacy of our response.

Trajan is just 25 – too young to be jaded, too bright, too pretty and too generally promising to be giving over to despair. Yet, as the 14th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was drawing to a close in Poznan, Poland, there was surely a note of despair in her voice.

More from GREENIE WATCH

[Benny Peiser] In other words: If the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009 fails to agree on a post-Kyoto deal, it is almost certain that the EU climate package and its conditional targets will be further watered down accordingly. As a result of this new revision clause, the EU has ensured that any enforcement of the EU climate package ultimately depends on the outcome of future international climate negotiations. As Italy's Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi stressed yesterday, his shrewd strategy seems to have paid off.

Warning Signs: Not So Rare Cold Weather

It’s December, the season of the year in which we in the northern hemisphere are accustomed to hearing about cold weather. It is, after all, winter.

It is, however, also the end of the first decade of a cooling cycle that began in 1998. Every single piece of legislation the in-coming Obama administration bases on the need to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions” to “stop global warming” will be based on a lie...

Al Gore requests more money for his scam

If we can raise $121,000 by Thursday, we'll be able to get the newest Repower America TV ad in front of millions of viewers on CBS's 60 Minutes this Sunday.

The incoming Obama administration is deciding right now how ambitious it can be on climate and energy. Our newest ad shows that by taking bold action to Repower America with 100% clean electricity within 10 years, President-elect Obama and his administration will create jobs and revive our economy. Let's make sure they get the message. Make a secure, tax-deductible donation today.
...
The Alliance for Climate Protection is a 501(c)3 organization and contributions made to the Alliance are tax deductible.

YouTube - Allegedly Repower America With Clean Energy

“We” Campaign: It’s Time to Get Real and Repower America

TRANSCRIPTS:
“Clean Energy”
Some people say the answer to our energy lies in the past….
They want to burn more oil and more dirty coal.
Problem is it burns carbon and carbon’s gases are killing God’s green earth.
The future’s over here…. wind, sun, a new energy grid….
Imagine. Plugging in your pick-up truck and driving all over hell’s half acre on clean energy made right in here in America…
The boys in Teheran might not like it. But in Tucson it goes down pretty good about now.
Repower America.
It’s time to get real.

Tim O'Reilly weighs in

If you've been following my talks in which I urge software developers and entrepreneurs to "work on stuff that matters," you know that I consider getting a handle on carbon accounting is the first step in putting a stop to global warming. (If you're a warming skeptic, I consider global warming as a modern example of Pascal's wager: if we're wrong, and global warming is not human caused, the steps we'll take to address it are still worthwhile. We get off foreign oil, improve our energy security, build new industries, improve the environment.)

Daily Kos: Inhofe Plays while the Boxer's Away

Quite sadly, Morano knows how to manipulate the system and gain attention, with a massive spread of such malicious information just before the Christmas break on the Hill, when other members and staff simply are not around to put accurate information out on behalf of the entire committee (rather than simply deceptive truthiness and outright lies from the Minority side).

Unleashed: Not scared anymore, Mr Gore!

Marc Hendrickx has created an online presentation depicting an imagined visit by Al Gore to a classroom where his message meets a spirited challenge.

Chill out, you beautiful people, the Versace beach is refrigerated - Times Online

Versace, the renowned fashion house, is to create the world’s first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days.

NWS declares a blizzard warning |  Grand Forks Herald  | Grand Forks, North Dakota

Forecasters said the storm would last into Sunday and bring snow, strong winds and dangerous wind chills. Up to 10 inches of snow was expected in northern North Dakota by Sunday night, up to 8 inches between U.S. Highway 2 and Interstate 94, and up to 6 inches south of the interstate.

Wind gusts near 50 mph were expected, and forecasters said the wind could make it feel as cold as 50 degrees below zero Sunday.

The cold weather was expected to linger into midweek, Simosko said. Actual temperatures Monday morning were expected to plummet to nearly 20 degrees below zero with blowing snow up to 25 mph. The high will be no more than 10 below.
...
NWS considers the storm life-threatening.

Obama can't avoid global warming issue - The Connecticut Post Online

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.
...
Scientists are increasingly anxious, talking more often and more urgently about exceeding "tipping points."

"We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct."
...
Now some scientists, but not all, say the safe carbon dioxide level for Earth is about 10 percent below what it is now.

Gore called the situation "the equivalent of a five-alarm fire that has to be addressed immediately."
...
Obama is stacking his Cabinet and inner circle with advocates who have pushed for deep mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas pollution and even with government officials who have achieved results at the local level.
...
Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government's machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Gateway Pundit: Al Gore: "North Pole Will Disappear in 5 Years" (Video)

The Goracle spoke to an audience in Germany this week where he told them that "the entire North Polarized cap will disappear in 5 years."

Heliogenic Climate Change: For once Al Gore is right

"Al Gore: World cares more about Paris Hilton than saving the planet"

Local News | Brrr...Break out that blanket! | Seattle Times Newspaper

Temperatures are expected to drop below freezing by tonight and could stay low for seven days straight.

If that happens, Seattle-area residents could be in for one of the longest streaks of cold temperatures in about 70 years, said Jay Albrecht, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Something is rotten in Norway - 500,000 sq-km of sea ice disappears overnight « Watts Up With That?

I had planned to do a post yesterday evening about how sea ice area and extent had returned to very near normal levels. But I was tired, so I saved off the graphs from the NANSEN arctic sea ice site.

This morning I was shocked to discover that overnight, huge amounts of sea ice simply disappeared. Fortunately I had saved the images and a copy of the webpage last night. Here is the before and after in a blink comparator...

Meet the plane stoppers - Times Online

Yet while public support for Plane Stupid’s cause is substantial, their tactics have yet to win over the nation. A poll conducted for The Sunday Times this weekend found that just 8% of the public support the methods used by Plane Stupid protesters, although 40% said they did support their motives. Attitudes towards airport expansion are more divided: 50% support expansion while 30% are opposed and 20% have not made up their minds.

Activism at Stanstead: Flight of fancy, or a far-sighted protest? | Environment | The Guardian

While some have characterised the action as that of "militant environmentalists", the group argues that what is seen today as dangerously radical will one day be accepted. "We are definitely on the radical end of the spectrum and that is where we wish to be," says Moos. "Visionaries are initially seen as radical before the mainstream catches up with them and accepts their policies."

Interview with Ralph Cicerone, president of the US National Academy of Sciences

TT: Skeptics say humans are not responsible for climate change. Are you saying that we are?

Cicerone: Yes, I think the evidence is overwhelming; the evidence is also completely scientific.

There is a misunderstanding that this issue is a political one. Certainly there are choices that need to be made, which are governed partly by politics, but I am referring to the scientific evidence, and these changes are caused by human activities.

Up until maybe 10 years ago, some people thought the sun was causing some of the warming … but we now have enough high quality data [that] show the sun’s output is not increasing during this period of climate change, so [this] theory is no longer tenable.

IPCC lead author: “Bush will go down in history as possibly a person who has doomed the planet”

The headline quote comes from “Saleem Huq, a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report on adaptation,” in a Greenwire (subs. req’d) article on Bush’s legacy.

Bad Economy Hits Green Companies Hard | Newsweek Project Green | Newsweek.com

First there was the dotcom bust of the late 1990s, then came the real-estate bubble that's deflating before our eyes. Next up: the green bubble. Alternative energy ventures have received a lot of great press, heavy investment and lip service from politicians in the last couple of years, but many of the nascent green industry's balance sheets are beginning to bleed red.

Investor's Business Daily -- Less Power To Him

Politics: Barack Obama's apparent choice for Energy secretary is physicist Steven Chu. While there's no question about Chu's brilliance, his political activism is not what the country needs.

ANSA.it - News in English - Berlusconi hails EU climate deal

On Thursday the Italian premier had repeated a threat to veto the package if Italy's demands were not met, and said in a frank exchange with journalists that he thought it was ''absurd'' to be talking about carbon emissions in the face of the more pressing financial crisis.

''It's like someone with pneumonia thinking about having a hairdo,'' he said.

Heliogenic Climate Change: Wonder how Gore got his prize

The Nobel Prize Committee is facing criminal investigation of bribery and corruption after allegedly taking huge payments from a pharmaceutical company that directly benefits from the work of this year's Nobel Prize winner in medicine.

The astonishing scandal, being reported in the European trade press and conspicuously absent from Sweden's major daily newspapers, surfaced just days before the internationally renowned awards were presented in Stockholm on Wednesday.

Richard Black: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Climate talks hit stumbling block

Developing countries, especially those with long, low coastlines or where freshwater is already scalded from the landscape by extreme heat, are looking for much more than a pledge of emissions cuts.

Calgary locked in a deep freeze

Our high was reached early this morning near midnight at -14, and the temperature will remain around -23 for the rest of the day.

With the wind chill though, the temperature will feel more in the range of -35 to -40.

Richard Hopwood: Cold snaps, hot air and some inconvenient climate truths - Yorkshire Post

Indeed, if there is any hope, it seems to lie with the more pragmatic European nations, such as Poland and Italy, who are urging fellow member-states to abandon plans for massive EU-wide carbon reductions on the quite reasonable grounds that now is not the time to pile costs amounting to trillions of euros on to Europe's
hard-pressed economies.

Of course, these nations are not acting without self-interest– Poland relies on coal for 95 per cent of its electricity. Which means not only that 10,000 delegates arrived at the Poznan climate-change conference from 192 countries on carbon-spewing air transport, but also that they were protected from the freezing Polish winter by a fuel most of them would outlaw.

Berlusconi hails EU climate deal

The new deal accommodates two Italian demands that Foreign Minister Franco Frattini described as deal-breakers earlier this week.

In one new clause, the entire climate package will be reviewed in March 2010 after the Copenhagen conference in December 2009 in order to ensure Europe is not isolated, and therefore penalised economically, in its fight against climate change.

In a second major concession to Italy, the Italian manufacturing sector will receive free 'polluting permits' when European industries and companies have to start 'paying to pollute' via an auction system in 2013.

Thursday in Poznan: the Power and the Pathos « Roger Helmer MEP

Yesterday we met Mr. Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the IEA (International Energy Agency), who told us about the outlook for energy supplies over coming decades. After many hours of knee-jerk alarmism, it was a relief to hear someone talking sensibly about the energy supply situation, although his advice was not entirely comforting.
...
People often ask me: “If you’re right on climate, how come so many people are so wrong?”. But I daresay everyone in that room, apart perhaps from the US delegation, would have subscribed to the entirely erroneous view that the EU is getting it right and the US getting it wrong. It really is possible for large numbers of people to be entirely convinced of a narrative that has no basis in fact.

Evangelicals make necessary change at the top

The performance of its vice president for government affairs has been a source of deep concern among clear-thinking evangelicals in recent years because of his aggressive advocacy for global warming alarmism. He appeared to many in the press to be speaking for the evangelical movement in general, and did little to discourage such perceptions.

Yet evangelicals have been among the least gullible in accepting the utterly unsubstantiated claim that global warming is being caused by human activity. Recent polling data suggest that evangelicals are less likely than almost any other demographic group to embrace the hysteria surrounding the global warming movement.

And in truth, global warming isn't even happening anymore. There has been no discernible global warming for an entire decade now, regardless of who or what is responsible for climate change.

Check out the results here

"global warming consensus" - Google Search

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Gore's tough message to leaders

Leaders will have to embrace tougher targets on reducing emissions if they want to prevent dangerous climate change, according to Al Gore.

Speaking here at the UN climate conference, the former US presidential candidate said the "sclerotic" politics of today had to change.

His speech was met with rapturous applause by thousands of delegates.

Friday's New Hampshire ice storm blog: Hundreds of thousands without power

Updated ice storm news will be posted at the top of this article in blog style.

Climate Change: Much Ado About Nothing

Let’s be blunt: the Poznan Meeting was a disgrace. After two weeks, more than 10,000 delegates and 145 ministers could produce absolutely nothing except the release of some money (peanuts by comparison to credit crunch figures) to aid poorer countries with climate adaptation. Even I can go along with that. They are all waiting for some fairy tale solution to appear in Copenhagen next year, for their ugly duckling to turn into a swan. There will be no fairy tale; indeed, their ugly duckling could well drown in the economic floods. Moreover, at the even more hypocritical EU Summit, Italy, Poland, along with many other EU countries, douched the whole ‘global warming’ agenda in a cold shower of reality, with coal-burning power stations and heavy industries gaining (much-needed, I might add) reprieves. As The Times rightly reports, the down-hearted ‘Greens’ have not been been fooled by the spin...

Warning Signs: Drowning in Green Garbage

We all have one or more of them in our lives. They are the family members, co-workers, or just neighbors who are so convinced that global warming is real and that everything including the choice of a Christmas tree has “environmental” consequences, that any effort to convince them otherwise is a waste of time.

This is why many have come to view environmentalism as a religion despite its trappings as based in science.

Amid a Hopeful Mood, U.N. Talks Set Countries on Path Toward a Global Climate Treaty - NYTimes.com

POZNAN, Poland — The United Nations climate talks concluded here early Saturday, having seemingly achieved their modest goals and then some: setting the world on the track to a new global climate treaty with a renewed sense of purpose and momentum.
...
Mr. Obama has said he wants to return to 1990 greenhouse-gas emissions levels by 2020, but Mr. Kerry said he personally felt the cuts should be deeper.
...
“We need something simple and responsive that developing countries control,” said Masao Nakayama, the ambassador of the Federated States of Micronesia to the United Nations. “There’s a fire, and it’s like they’re arguing about whether to use a plastic bucket or a metal bucket or a hose.”

CLIMATE CHANGE: "Things Happen Much Faster in the Arctic"

QUEBEC CITY, Canada, Dec 13 (IPS) - In just a few summers from now, the Arctic Ocean will lose its protective cover of ice for the first time in a million years, according to some experts attending the International Arctic Change conference here.
...
Barber spent much of last winter on a Canadian research icebreaker, the Amundsen, in the Arctic Ocean as leader of a 40-million-dollar ice research project.

Climate Change: Migratory Fish Allegedly in Danger - Digital Journal: Your News Network

In Europe, most migratory fish species completing their cycle between the sea and the river are currently in danger: the future distribution of these species may be modified because of climate change.

Inhabitat » DELHI PUBLIC ART: 48 Degrees Celsius

Delhi is a city choked in climate change. Mostly unregulated by urban planning, the city has colored the Yamuna river with an untold amount of sewage, darkened its skies with the particulate matter of thousands of commuters, and expanded its borders with illegal developments. Every monsoon season scrubs the skies clean, and recent developments, such as the conversion of public buses to CNG, have improved conditions, but 40% of its residents still live in virtual slums. Facing this landscape head-on is the festival 48 degrees Celsius, an exhibition of art at the intersection of urban planning, ecological rescue and aesthetic glory, which opened yesterday. Taking place from December 12 to December 21, the event will feature a series of tours, talks, performances, conversations, and works of contemporary art.

The Day the Earth Stood Still Yawned While Hollywood Preached

"Daft, pointless, and thankfully brief", "preachy and dull", "collection of cliches."

But you already knew that.

The "global warming action film" is in wide release today. Normally I'd be excited about a film wherein an alien destroys great chunks of humanity. But I have no desire to be lectured about the evils perpetrated upon poor, innocent Mother Earth. I can turn on Discovery, National Geographic, or CNN for that.

Blue Crab Boulevard » Skating On The Thames

No, the Thames River has not frozen over - yet - but British bookies are now taking bets on whether it will. It seems that Britain has been shivering through the coldest winter in more than twice the fourteen years Rod Stewart sang about - and it isn’t even officially winter yet.

It was hot air all along

The global warming issue touches on so many points of Bible prophecy that one column is nowhere nearly enough.

Gore to U.N.: 350 or bust | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

In a speech at the U.N. climate summit in Poland today, Al Gore argued that older targets for reducing global-warming pollution are out of date, and that world leaders should aim to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million.

"Even a goal of 450 parts per million, which seems so difficult today, is inadequate," said Gore.

The 350 goal was put forward by NASA climate scientist James Hansen in a paper earlier this year.

CO2sceptics News Blog | The Global Warming Snow Job

by Malcolm Hedges

We have been in an extended 'global cooling' cycle since 1998 (ten years) and the GreeenIsm whackos refuse to acknowledge it.

Guess why, because the Global Warming scam is reaping millions for the providers, pseudo-scientists, supporters and vendors.

Activities Of Secretary-General in Poland, 10-12 December | webnewswire.com

The Secretary-General told the Poznan delegates: “Twenty years from now, let our children and grandchildren look back upon this day and say: yes, that is where it began.”

The Secretary-General held a number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the meeting throughout the day on Thursday, including with Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister of Sweden; Lech Kaczyński, President of Poland; and United States Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts); as well as ministers from Brazil, Canada, Malta, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Korea. He also met that day with former United States Vice-President Al Gore.
...
After a breakfast with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and UNFCCC on Friday morning, the Secretary-General flew from Poznan to Geneva, Switzerland.

Climate denial as a phishing scam?

Spread the word, tell everyone about the truth. The truth about the climate, the UN and Al Gore. Tell them everything. Just do this and I promise you I will get you the evidence later. I count on you to help me stop this UN conspiracy to establish global government with global warming.

The fate of the Free World is in your hands.

Ngudima Madriguru,
Climate Minister
Xenophobia, Imaginationland

BBC NEWS | Americas | Southern US hit by rare snowfall

Snow has blanketed parts of the US states of Louisiana and Mississippi, causing disruption and leaving thousands without power.

Up to eight inches of snow were reported in some areas, blocking roads and forcing offices to close.
...
Public Service Company of New Hampshire said an unprecedented 230,000 customers - nearly half of the homes and businesses it serves - were without power at one point.

The outages had far surpassed the infamous ice storm of 1998, when some residents spent more than a week without power, utility officials said.

Opposition critics meet first time since signing coalition

Dryden countered that Prime Minister Harper has always been a skeptic of the climate change science, and his "change" on the issue was only a political change once he started to realize Canadians cared about action on climate change.
...
Elizabeth May perhaps has the sternest words for the Prime Minister and his climate policy: "I would rather die than to see government block progress on the only agreement we are going to get (on climate change)," she said.

My Way News - Northeast ice storm leaves 1.25M without power

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - An ice storm to compare with some of the Northeast's worst made a mess of the region Friday, leaving 1.25 million homes and businesses in seven states without power as it forced schools to close and toppled ice-laden trees and power lines onto slippery roads.

Most of the outages were in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and New York, and it was expected to take several days to completely restore electricity. The storm wreaked havoc from Maine to Pennsylvania, leaving a sparkling, ice-covered landscape that was too destructive for many to find beautiful.

"This is pathetic," said Bob Cott of Portland, Maine, who lost power. "I'm already sick of winter and we have nine days to go before it officially begins."

NC Media Watch: Reality bites in Poznan and Brussels

This Cambridge Scientific Alliance newsletter for 12th December 2008 popped into my email and I thought is was worth sharing with readers.

Wind Watch: Wind turbine plan scrapped by University of Illinois

The University of Illinois has canceled its plans to build wind turbines on campus, citing the university’s “deteriorating fiscal condition.”
...
“Basically (the turbine) was more symbolic than it was adding to the energy capacity of the campus,” said Jack Dempsey, executive director of Facilities and Services at the UI.

Interim Climate Pact Approved - washingtonpost.com

POZNAN, Poland, Dec. 13 -- The effort to come up with a global warming treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol inched forward Saturday morning as delegates to United Nations-sponsored talks here agreed on a narrowly framed interim document that leaves all the difficult negotiating until next year.

The modest result leaves the three-year process far short of the goal of concluding a binding agreement by the end of 2009 to curb greenhouse gas emissions and slow the planet's warming, which under current conditions scientists predict will reach dangerous and irreversible levels by the end of the century, if not sooner.

Given the minimal progress made in negotiations this year, several key players said, it will almost certainly take direct involvement by President-elect Barack Obama and other world leaders to produce a meaningful agreement next year.

Damn this cold | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

What few people yet understand is that a warmer planet would actually be more comfortable than a cooler one:

An ice storm across the north-eastern United States has caused power outages for hundreds of thousands of people and forced a government shut-down in Maine.

Which is why creating fire is rated as a greater invention than creating ice.

Gore’s tough message to leaders « Blowing Our Tax Dollars on Wind Farms

Why would anyone listen to this lying, manipulating, dishonest, mouthpiece for the UN New World Order. He and his mentor Maurice Strong along with a cabal of elitists and phony environmental groups intend to destroy our economies in order to gain complete control of the planet and everything on it.

Poznan: Canada replaces U.S. as "single worst" country | DeSmogBlog

After eight years during which the United States was consistently derided as the most obstructive force in international climate negotiations, Canada moved into worst place today, receiving the "Colossal Fossil" award for having done more than any other country to drag down talks at the UN climate negotiations in Poznan.

Jennifer Marohasy » Climate Conference Ends, Time to Consider Alternatives

THE big climate change conference in Poznan, Poland, ended yesterday with a recognition that the United Nations was “softening its tone” and acknowledging that the meeting would not come to final decisions on any major issues on “fighting climate change”.

Perhaps now is the time to move away from the idea that the solution to “fighting climate change” lies with a cap on emissions - an idea that has been pushed so hard by the United Nations.

Perhaps now is the time to consider alternatives?

Australian Climate Madness: News.com.au trumpets "Poznan agreement" ...

... when in fact it's anything but. It's basically a wish-list of issues to be negotiated during 2009, and an unwritten edict to everyone involved to keep their fingers, legs, toes and anything else handy firmly crossed for Copenhagen next year.
...
And why should those "big advances" suddenly be made next year, when the issues involved are exactly the same as in Poznan? Wishful thinking.

Problems in the NH Sea Ice Anomaly « The Air Vent

Something is wrong with their graphs for certain. There are several obvious things going on but as an example the NSIDC data shows a clear uptrend in extent for 1985 to 1988 yet the cryosphere graph is showing a downtrend. I don’t know what is going on but once again in AGW, the data as presented has some caveats.

Al's Journal : Speech in Poznan transcript - chock full of fraud

...And as you know, the warming ocean waters are also causing stronger typhoons and cyclones and hurricanes. Typhoon Saomai was the strongest to hit China in more than 50 years, two of the three strongest histories in history hit south Asia within the last 3 years, one of them killing 20,000 people in Myanmar. We have had such strong storms in North America as well, and in South America where Brazil had the first hurricane in recorded history. Massive flooding has resulted at record rates on every continent. Last year more than a dozen countries in Africa suffered the consequences of such flooding. Last year Mexico had record flooding. We have seen comparable events in Europe and throughout the world. Heat waves continue. Two winters ago was the hottest winter in the history of recorded atmospheric measurements. 20 of the 21 hottest years in recorded history have occurred in the last 25 years. The university of Tel Aviv recently published a new study predicting that with each 1 degree increase in temperature there is a 10 percent increase in lightning, along with man-made causes, we are now seeing record fires as dryer soils and dryer vegetation leads to spreading fires in Greece, for example last year and in many other countries as well. The extinction crisis is tearing at the fabric of the web of life, and the scientific consensus that we must take action was strengthened by the IPCC yet again earlier this year. So the science is clear, and we are faced with a sharp contrast between two notional rates of change, first, the rate at which we are approaching a point of no return in terms of systems collapse, and second, the slower rate at which we have been addressing the problem of how to reduce the emissions that are causing this crisis.
...
Mahatma Gandhi, one of the most inspirational leaders in the history of the world said halfway through the last century that the most powerful force in global politics is what he called "satyagraha" which I am told translates into my language roughly as "truth force". The reason why you have been able to continue moving forward is because you understand the truth about the crisis that we face.

HadCrut dropped 0.051C in November. | The Blackboard

HadCrut is the first surface based group to report temperature anomalies for November. They say the temperature dropped [0.051C] in November.

Global Warming – Governments, Media Close Down Debate

Is the media corrupt, dumb, lazy, or seeking a quiet life?”

I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but maybe I should. After all, governments and politicians around the world seem united in saying CO2 emissions by humans are warming the climate and unless action is taken soon, we will all drown or fry.

And yet any rational, sane or fair person examining the evidence linking humans to climate change would be amazed by the thinness, the inconclusiveness, of the evidence. Reporters like me, who as Reuters’ Science and Technology Correspondent in the 1990s had access to the world’s most impressive climate scientists, know that the balance of evidence points to there being no link between climate change and human activity.

Despite this, the politicians’ zeal to save us gains momentum. President-elect Barack Obama said reducing greenhouse gas emissions will remain a central plank of his new administration’s policy.

“Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season,” Obama said, in a video shown to delegates at a climate conference in Poznan, Poland.

But this isn’t true.

The science is disputed by an array of impressive scientists. Sea levels may be rising, but at the snail’s pace we’ve seen since the end of the last ice age. Some coastlines are being eroded by tidal action, sure, but that’s got nothing to do with climate change. Even climate change alarmists have been beaten into submission by having to acknowledge that hurricanes aren’t growing stronger with each passing season, although building in likely hurricane-inflicted areas has gathered pace.

The Reference Frame: Mathematica WeatherData: 17,168 stations

For example, you can pick a station in Florida and determine when its managers started their barbecue party last Sunday (most U.S. weather stations are cleverly attached to a grill, see wattsupwiththat.com).

Romm versus Motl

Big-time Warmist Joe Romm, however, seized on Motl's comment -- mistakenly attributing it to Marc Morano -- and made much of the "inaccurate" heading. Romm even went to the author of the paper to get her confirmation that "up to approximately 50%" did not mean "50%".

Motl can and no doubt will defend himself, if he thinks such a storm in a teacup is important, but I can see no fault in his logic. Why would the sun stop having an influence on climate in 1850? Who threw the switch? Because there is no such switch known or even imaginable, Motl took the high end of the estimate.

Population growth contributes to emissions growth

"A lot of people say population pressure is a major driving force behind the increase in emissions, and that's absolutely true," the U.N.'s top climate official Yvo de Boer said. "But to then say 'OK, that means that we need to have a population policy that reduces emissions,' takes you onto shaky ground morally."

Solar panel glut expected in 2009: Suntech | Reuters

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - The solar power sector will produce an over supply of solar panels in 2009, said Zhengrong Shi, chief executive of the world's biggest module manufacturer Suntech.

"Poor" countries complain that the CO2 scam netted them only $80 million this time

UPDATE 2-Poor accuse rich of meanness in UN climate fight | Reuters

POZNAN, Poland, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Developing nations accused the rich of meanness on Saturday at the end of U.N. climate talks that launched only a tiny fund to help poor countries cope with droughts, floods and rising seas.

They said the size of the Adaptation Fund -- worth just $80 million -- was a bad omen at the halfway mark of two years of negotiations on a new treaty to fight global warming designed to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.

"We are so sad and so disappointed," Colombian Environment Minister Juan Lozano said of the Dec. 1-12 talks, which went on into the early hours of Saturday and have been overshadowed by worries that global economic woes are drying up donor cash.

"The human side of climate change is the suffering of our orphans and our victims and that was not considered here. It's a bad signal on the road to Copenhagen," said Lozano.

"I must say that this is one of the saddest moments I have witnessed in all these years," Indian representative Prodipto Ghosh told delegates at the 189-nation talks, adding he had attended U.N. climate meetings for 12 years.

Al Gore lends his voice, charm to Poznan climate change talks | The Jakarta Post

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Al Gore lent his charm and knowledge Friday to call for strong commitment and action ahead of the closing of the Poznan climate change talks in Poland.

In his speech, Gore said the negotiators must stick to scientific facts to convince doubters.

Climate Conference Blog

Gore's speech was largely a positive one filled with encouragement for negotiators, and did not particularly prompt any drama or notes of contention. Though considered by some to be a demi-god, especially at these climate conferences, I was left with just a little nonchalant after hearing his speech. He said what you would expect Al Gore to say at a conference like this, and his flat toned "Yes we can" at the end of his speech paled in comparison to the many empassioned speeches containing the phrase by Barack Obama. He lost me further when he made a reference to Paris Hilton and society's obsession with celebrity pop-culture (hasn't the Paris Hilton thing been over done already?)

World Climate Growing Warmer, Say Russians (12/12/38)

Microfiche-New York Times archives | 12/12/38 | Harold Denny

Global climate change decisions on hold for Obama administration | Environment | guardian.co.uk

The Poznan talks have made no progress on deciding new global curbs on greenhouse gas pollution, which scientists say are needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. Officials said new targets would not be discussed until the summer, to give Barack Obama time to signal his intentions as US president.

 Investor's Business Daily -- Global Warming's Poor, Huddled Masses

Barack Obama doesn't have a mandate for his global warming policies. He doesn't even have a mandate from his most fervent supporters.

North America Warming Unevenly : Discovery News

Dec. 12, 2008 -- Climate change caused by greenhouse gases is warming the United States, though unevenly, government researchers said Thursday.

"The continent as a whole is warming, mostly as a result of the energy sources we are using," William J. Brennan, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, asaid at a briefing on the nation's climate since 1951.

But there is a "warming hole" where no change occurred in the center of the country, roughly between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, added Martin Hoerling of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory.

Australian Climate Madness: Hysteria from Gore as Poznan fizzles

Al Gore has added his ever-increasing weight to the hysteria at Poznan claiming that tinkering with a harmless trace gas is the "greatest challenge humankind has ever faced" (ignoring, of course, poverty, clean drinking water, cures for cancer and other terminal diseases), and The Age goes into full arse-lick mode over this peddler of misinformation..

24/7 Wall St.: Ominous Solar News: Job Cuts (SOLR)

It was not that long ago when traders and investors were making a fortune investing in the new endless growth instrument: blazing hot solar stocks. If you have followed this sector, you have seen how many of these stocks have fallen 60%, 70% and some by even 90%. But today, GT Solar International, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOLR) did something worse than the other companies facing slowing orders. It cut jobs.

Browner and Greener by Max Schulz on National Review Online

Ironically, Obama did make an exceptional pick on the energy front — but he did it three weeks ago and in a different context. On November 22, the president-elect picked Gen. James Jones to serve as national-security adviser. Not only is Jones a decorated soldier, he currently leads the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy. In addition, he serves on the board of directors of Chevron — one of the Big Oil behemoths Obama has excoriated. Jones has examined many of the truly pressing energy and environmental issues from the perspective of economic and national security. He understands the complexity of international energy markets. And he brings a seriousness to energy questions that, frankly, is lacking at the top of Obama’s green team. With luck, Jones will emerge as a leading voice in the administration, and as a check on climate-change czarina Carol Browner’s regulatory zeal.

The American Spectator : Greens Against Growth

What was once merely a media hostility to skeptics of human-caused global warming has now mutated into a media hostility to anyone who has any doubts about the invasive, inevitably costly ways that government wants to deal with climate change. And so the critics of Arnold Schwarzenegger's bogus claims for his global-warming approach must be ignored -- even if they have impeccable reputations and unimpeachable credentials. [Via Heliogenic Climate Change]

What are they saying on Twitter?

"global warming" OR "climate change" - Twitter Search

Sarah Palin, Book-Burner? - Tim Graham - The Media Blog on National Review Online

Richard Cizik was pressed to resign as a spokesman and vice president for the National Association of Evangelicals over his remarks in favor of so-called gay marriage. But deeper in his NPR interview with Terry Gross was the bizarre spectacle of an Obama-voting evangelical suggesting passages opposing homosexuality in the Bible are politically negotiable, while oil-drilling is so unquestionably evil that Sarah Palin is, in effect, anti-God...

The Endless Global Warming Sitcom

Just imagine all the liberal “work” and “enterprise” that would come to a crashing halt if people simply ignored the idea that we’re apparently all going to explode into a giant ball of fire someday, and went about our business. Liberals have created a catastrophe from which only they can save us. But an actual solution would ruin all the fun -- and destroy liberal employment prospects in the mass hysteria industry.

So the goal of global warming proponents is to give the issue a cameo in every possible scene playing out on the world stage. Here’s what that has looked like over the past week

Global warming - who's getting fooled? (OneNewsNow.com)

The founder of JunkScience.com is questioning whether there's a correlation between manmade carbon emissions and global warming.

The Cap and Trade Fraud

These elitist Liberals want to re-create a serf / royalty society, with them representing the royalty class. You will know when this global warming hype is for real when Gore, Pelosi, and their ilk give up the amenities of the 'rich and famous' and live in 1600 sq. ft. houses, fly coach, and use mass transit. Until then, their hot air is the cause of global warming. Every aspect of your life will be adversely affected if our politicians are allowed to implement any of these fraudulent cap and trade schemes.

102 cm of snow disrupts rail, traffic in south Austria

VIENNA - Record snowfall in parts of southern Austria disrupted traffic and rail services Friday and prompted authorities to declare the highest-level avalanche alert.

In the Gailtal valley, in the southern province of Carinthia, about 102 centimetres of snow fell in just 48 hours, marking an 80-year record, according to the Austrian national weather centre ZAMG.

The Lesachtal valley meanwhile saw between 160 and 200 centimetres of fresh snow, according to unofficial data.
...
In eastern Tyrol, fire fighters were working at clearing roofs after a 35-metre-wide mass of snow slid off a building, crushing six cars, and as roofs threatened to collapse under the weight. Nobody was injured.

This just in: Founder of solar company urges Obama to direct money to solar companies

1) Spend $10 billion over the next few years to green the federal government. Put solar panels on rooftops, and introduce other types of alternative energy to power government buildings.

Al Fin: Obama Election Spells Big Trouble for US Jobs

Al Fin's biggest problem with the new Obama / Pelosi government is its incredibly naive and destructive attitudes toward energy, and its unwavering belief in carbon hysteria and the great climate hoax.

Prometheus » Blog Archive » Suppressed French Report on Electric Cars

The FT reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has suppressed a report commissioned by his government that throws cold water on the prospects for electric cars.

Climate Change Fraud - Because the debate is not over - When Facts Get in the Way

When you don't "negotiate with facts," you're left to make them up. In what can only be described as a head-scratching nightmare of dystopian proportions, the UN socialist party, er, UN climate conference agreed to free up at least $60 million to help poor (read: third-world) countries adapt to "droughts, floods, and other effects of global warming." All of which have been happening on planet Earth since the oceans and land masses formed.

BREAKING...Fresh Al Gore video from Poznan: Gore confirms climate alarmism is religion saying it's a "spiritual issue"

The audience of idiots/fraudsters seems to lap up everything Gore says. By the way, in this video, is that a bottle of delicious tap water in front of Gore?

Framing Science : NSF Panel on Scientists, Journalists, and Climate Change

NSF to Host Panel Discussion on Communicating Climate Change 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. January 8, 2009

Leading journalists and climate scientists will headline a January 8, 2009, program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, Va., to discuss a newly released book on climate change science and journalism.

Andrew C. Revkin of The New York Times and John Carey, senior correspondent for Business Week, will participate on the panel along with climate scientists Michael Mann of The Pennsylvania State University and Maureen Raymo of Boston University.

They will be joined on the panel by Bud Ward, editor of The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media, and Tony Socci of the American Meteorology Society.

California moves on global warming, warned on cost: ENN -- Know Your Environment

Critics have urged the board to reconsider, including some economists who argue the analysis is full of rosy assumptions and ignores potential problems.

"All economists are skeptical when approached with a free lunch," said University of California
, Los Angeles economist Matthew Kahn. "I wonder if there would be less likelihood of a backlash if there were more discussion now."

Companies throughout California fear rising electricity and other costs will put them out of business.

"This plan is an economic train wreck waiting to happen. Up until now, that train wreck has only existed on paper," said California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce Legislative Affairs Chairman James Duran.

The Clamour Of The Times

The Government must now face up to painful reality. The electorate has had more than enough of ‘Green’ taxation and “Green’ trumpery, especially in the name of ‘global warming’. Whenever, and wherever, there is a vote, the imposition of ‘Green’ taxes is roundly rejected. A similar vote has already caused Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, to abolish the Western Extension of the London Congestion Charging Zone.


Enough is enough. We are fed up to the back teeth with ‘Green’ policies that punish the poor and ordinary citizens, while benefiting the hypocritical rich.

The Letterman/McCain braintrust weighs in

David Letterman and McCain Discuss Global Warming

Lack of breakthrough at climate summit does not worry India (Second Lead)

The world’s top green superstar Al Gore spoke to the delegates on the closing day of the summit with his usual passion, but appeared resigned that there would be no concrete outcome at the Poznan summit.

He asked the delegates to ensure that a new treaty to combat global warming was in place by the end of next year.

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer had already dampened expectation from this summit by saying: “This is a blue-collar conference, about getting a job done and not about a spectacle or a breakthrough. It has agreed on the agenda for negotiations in the coming year”.

In other words, they would keep talking.

EDITORIAL: Wrong Plan at Wrong Time: ARB Global Warming Plan Costly, Unnecessary

Not only are these government intrusions onerous and costly, they are unlikely to have any effect on temperatures, which aren't rising even though greenhouse gas emissions are. The ARB, which can't even persuade its own hired consultants, ought at least to have gone back to the drawing board before gambling with California's economic well-being.

Al Gore, New Orleans Snow, Obama and Global Cooling

Instead, Al Gore, Barack Obama, the United Nations and Hollywood are pointing to global warming as the crisis of the century. They should refrain from hysterical rhetoric and try to focus on what is really happening in places like New Orleans. In the Crescent City, snow is not seen very often, it has appeared only eight times since 1947. It was a rare event to say the least, almost as rare as Al Gore and his global warming fanatics actually making sense.

Paul Chesser: The American Spectator : Truth, Economics, and Politics

Someone please tell me it's about to end. That it's O-V-A-H in New England. That's it's D-U-N in Rio Linda. That it's fini in France and finito in Italy.

I've experienced a build-up of evidence that undermines climate change alarmism, and I'm at the tipping point. My head has formed a canopy of truth-trapping that can only contain so much before my circuits overheat, blood pressure elevates, and my faith in broad-based common sense melts away. So please: polish it off in Poznan -- wishful thinking, you might think, but signs point to the beginning of that end. Read on.

Clinton/Gore Administration: The Real Cause of Global Warming?

Russia may not join global deal on climate change | Environment | Reuters

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - Russia may not join a new global deal to fight climate change if it is against Moscow's interests and will set a national mid-term target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions next year, an official said on Friday.

"If the conditions for the international agreement are not favorable for us we may not join such an agreement," Alexander Pankin, deputy head of the Russian delegation at U.N.-led December 1-12 climate negotiations in Poland, told Reuters.

Storm cuts power to more than 1M in New England

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - An ice storm knocked out power to more than a million homes and businesses in New England and upstate New York on Friday, and authorities say it could take days for all of them to get service back.

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Bailout Blues: Is That the End of Detroit's Green Revolution?

“In short, the small, fuel efficient car market is still not some sort of gold mine that the Big Three have stupidly overlooked,” argues Megan McArdle at Atlantic Monthly. Her point? Even Japanese and European carmakers’ bread-and-butter products are regular-sized cars with middle-of-the-road fuel efficiency. Small, hyper-efficient cars remain a niche for everybody.

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Nuclear Power: Should the U.S. Emulate France?

The debate boiled down to the question: In its quest for lower-carbon sources of energy, does the U.S. want to become more like France?

Absolutely, said Dr. Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace but now an outspoken nuclear-power supporter. “If France can get 80% of its power from nuclear plants, so can the U.S. Our initial goal should be to double nuclear power in the U.S. [to about 40% of electricity supply] then think about doubling it again.” If zero-emissions power sources are the goal, he said, remember that nuclear power provides 70% of clean power in the U.S., compared with about 5% from renewable energy.

European Leaders Agree on Weakened Plan to Reduce Emissions - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

European Union leaders on Friday agreed to a dramatically weakened plan to reduce emissions.
...

“A flagship E.U. policy now has no pilot, a mutinous crew and numerous holes in its fuselage,” said Sanjeev Kumar of the environment group WWF.

Prometheus » Blog Archive » The Inevitability of Cap and Trade in the US

Today’s New York Times has an interesting and speculative article about the role that Carol Browner will play as White House energy and climate “czar.” Interestingly, the article reveals that Browner sits on the corporate board of APX “which specializes in handling cap-and-trade emission credits.”

Prometheus » Blog Archive » Someone Explain This to Me

The only solution I can see is for a linked carbon market to work would be for the U.S. to join the EU, which doesn’t really seem likely. Barring a global carbon authority with the right to overrule national governments, linked carbon markets seem a fantasy. But maybe someone can show me what I might have missed.

Getting Warmer by The Editors on National Review Online

There’s an international conference on global warming — the 14th Convention of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol — under way in frozen Poznan, Poland. You’ll be excused for not having heard about it, because not much is happening, despite Al Gore’s triumphal entrance into the city, which may as well have occurred in a chariot. (“Many see him as a saviour,” reports Der Spiegel.) In Poznan, what is not happening is more significant than what is...

Britain shivers through coldest start to winter for 30 years as bookies slash odds on white Christmas | Mail Online

Britain is shivering through the coldest start to winter for more than 30 years, the Met Office has revealed.

The average temperature for the first third of December was a chilly 1.7C (35.1F)- compared to the long term average of 5.2C (41.4F), according to official figures.

Bookies have slashed their odds on a white Christmas to 4/1 in London and just 2/1 in Aberdeen.

They have even seen a flurry of bets on the Thames freezing over thanks to the freezing weather.

Climate Skeptic: Steve Chu: "Climate More Sensitive Than We Thought"

...it is hard to say what physical evidence one can have that temperature sensitivity to CO2 is increasing.

Climate Skeptic: Global Warming Is Caused by Computers

In particular, a few computers at NASA's Goddard Institute seem to be having a disproportionate effect on global warming.

Another way to cash in on CO2 hysteria?

Abstract:
Private equity offsets are a partial solution to the difficult justice issues raised on the global level by climate change. Equity offsets allow individuals to follow their moral intuitions about the global differences in carbon emissions and the impact of global warming on individual lives. An active equity offset market could precede a post-Kyoto international agreement for global emissions reductions and could enhance the prospects for the adoption of such an agreement.

small dead animals comment thread: The Sound Of Settled Science

It's worse than you know. I spent two days at a US think tank earlier this week, and let me tell you, they're swilling the kool-ade so fast I'm surprised they haven't run out. These people admit no alternative points of view, don't want to hear the words "observed data", aren't interested in solar activity, think a "cycle" is something with wheels, and give "academic" presentations that are so devoid of facts and so blatantly propagandistic that Algore could take lessons from them. They make Suzuki look like a moderate. And these are the guys that Obama listens to.

Opinion: Hype Won't Solve Climate Problem - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

I am far from being a climate skeptic. On the contrary, I believe the evidence of man's impact on the planet is overwhelming. But I am increasingly ill at ease about the debate itself.
...
I have just finished reading another large pile of articles about the topic and listening to various speeches. And the elements of hype and carelessness I have come across are increasing. All sorts of things are thrown together under the banner of climate change as if it is responsible for all of the world's problems.
...
...if I have to choose between alleviating hunger and poverty today and preventing CO2 emissions tomorrow, then I choose the former, in the firm conviction that only prosperity will lead to a change in mentality and the financing of energy-saving measures.

Al Gore pushes his scam in Poznan

"We now face a crisis that makes it abundantly clear that increased CO2 emissions anywhere are a threat to the integrity of this planet's climate balance everywhere."
...
"I would like to relay to you a message that I've heard from the people of the United States of America this year, that I think is very relevant to the task the world is facing over this next year -- 'Yes we can'," he said.
...
Famous for his "Inconvenient Truth" film charting evidence for climate change, Gore won the loudest cheers for supporting a tougher limit on levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than a widespread aim of 450 parts per million or more.

"We will soon need to toughen that goal to 350," he said.

Czech president hits at EU climate deal

Czech President Vaclav Klaus hit out at the EU climate deal concluded Friday and described global climate issues as "a silly luxury."

"I do not like the way they forced it", Klaus said shortly after an agreement was announced in Brussels.

He also claimed that his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy had "pushed" the deal so that it would not be left when the Czech Republic takes over the EU presidency from France on January 1.

"This is scandalous," he said. "We should have been able to discuss it during our presidency, to force it now is not very good."

"Environmental issues are a luxury good," Klaus added. "Now we have to tighten our belt and to cut the luxury."

Millionaire behind Stansted climate change protest owns shops at AIRPORTS around the world | Mail Online

The tycoon bankrolling the anti-aviation activists who stormed Stansted owns shops in airports around the world.

Mark Constantine, the owner of Lush Cosmetics, was today accused of profiting from airline passengers while funding groups whose actions can severely disrupt their journeys.

Manchester voters give a resounding NO to Britain's biggest congestion charging zone | Mail Online

The Government's transport policy lay in tatters today after voters overwhelmingly rejected controversial plans to extend congestion charging.

In a major referendum the people of Greater Manchester delivered a resounding 'No' when asked to support the charge.

Four out of five people voted against the proposals delivering a massive body blow to plans to reel out charging across the UK.

Playing the percentages

Since the Rudd Government came to office a year ago, it has readily accepted the scientific advice that Australia needs to plan now to adapt to climate change. Penny Wong, the Climate Change Minister, proudly insists her Government "recognises the science", compared with what she says is the climate change scepticism among Opposition MPs.

Morning Bell: Obama’s Undemocratic Plan to Tax Everything You Do and Send the Money to Kuwaiti Millionaires » The Foundry

What makes California’s cap-and-trade plan so scary is that voters never had, and never will have, an opportunity to debate and vote on its implementation. The plan is being implemented entirely through the administrative process. None of the members of California board have ever had to, or ever will, face the voters. They are appointed by the governor.

Could a similar thing happen on the federal level? Yes. Obama has already signaled he will pursue that route...

Heliogenic Climate Change: Greenpeace believers burn CO2 in effigy, create more CO2

They probably don't even realize that what's coming out of the cooling towers is condensed water vapor, not CO2...

Greenwash: Are carbon offsetters taking us for a ride? | Environment | guardian.co.uk

But in recent months, there has been a shake-down in the carbon offsetting business. The start-ups are being taken over. The enthusiasts in cardigans and riding bicycles are giving way to money men in sharp suits driving limos. A few months ago my own favourite, ClimateCare, got gobbled up by Wall Street investment bank JPMorgan. Call me prejudiced, but suddenly I don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt any more.

Washington Wire - WSJ.com : Obama Transition Looks at Far-Out Idea

...the idea of turning solar power generated by orbiting satellites into electricity that can be used on the ground recently showed up on the Obama transition Web site, www.change.gov.

The Completely Cuckoo Climate Change Cyberspace Conspiracy Conspiracy — Climate Resistance

...And we can see why Monbiot fails to reflect on his own argument. Because if he could, he would realise what an embarrassing lunatic he has turned himself into.

While Discussing Global Warming in Poland, It’s Snowing in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas | All American Blogger

How does a person expect me to believe that carbon dioxide, which is still being pumped into the atmosphere by the tons, is driving this climate change, when the temperatures are dropping? This is nothing more than a socialist scam to redistribute money on a global level. It started right here, with Maurice Strong. It continues to this day with the full support of the United Nations, and now, the President of the United States.

The sad fact is that our only hope of stopping this is that it gets so cold that it makes it impossible to continue selling this false religion. It’s sad because the cold kills far more people than the heat does. Once again the bodies pile up at the feet of socialism.

Poznan: UN Accredits Alarmist DeSmog Reporter - First Blog in History | DeSmogBlog

After two days of deliberations, the United Nations officials at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poznan, Poland, agreed to give media accreditation to the DeSmogBlog, the first time in history that the UN has accredited a blog, according to UNFCCC Public Information and Media Assistant Carrie Assheuer.

"It was quite the ordeal," said DeSmogBlog Editor Richard Littlemore. "The UN system is set up to accommodate mainstream media and it's not an institution that's designed to be flexible or innovative."

But after Littlemore showered the UNFCCC press office with examples of DSB citations in everything from the Globe and Mail to the New York Times, Assheuer, a Canadian who was already familiar with the DeSmogBlog, finally acknowledged the blog's function as an online media outlet within the UN's now-more-flexible definition.

‘When Britain Really Had Some Oil’

If I were asked “What has been the single biggest failure in UK politics over the last thirty years?”, I should have to reply “The abject failure of all political parties to develop, and to put into action, a realistic energy policy for the next thirty years.” Although rather belated, I am thus delighted to see that a few of our more enlightened MPs have at last grasped the seriousness of the situation.
With the EU closing down our older coal plants; with the imminent demise of our older nuclear power stations; with our lack of adequate gas storage facilities; with a rose-tinted and utopian view of ‘renewables’ blinding MPs; and, with the economically-fatuous and ill-fated policies currently being adopted in the name of ‘global warming’ hysteria, Britain faces a very grim future of power blackouts and massive economic disruption.

Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group News » An Upcoming Talk By Roy Spencer “Global Warming As A Response To The Pacific Decadal Oscillation”

On December 15, 2008 Noon-1:30pm there will be an interesting and provocative talk titled “Global Warming as a Response to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation” by Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama-Huntsville at the Capitol Hill Club 300 First St., S.E., in Washington, D.C.

Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group News » Holland Inundated? No Way! Guest Weblog By Hendrik Tennekes

My weblogs of 28 October and 7 November, and a incisive two-page centerfold article by Karel Knip in the November 8 issue of NRC/ Handelsblad, Rotterdam’s counterpart to the New York Times, finally received a clear response from KNMI, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

In a November 10 message to the director-in-chief of KNMI, I suggested that the Institute should contemplate issuing a low-end estimate for sea-level rise, in order to balance the alarmist furor sweeping the country. This is exactly what KNMI decided to do. In an op-ed piece in the December 11 issue of NRC/Handelsblad, Wilco Hazeleger, a senior scientist in the global climate research group at KNMI, writes:

“In the past century the sea level has risen twenty centimeters. There is no evidence for accelerated sea-level rise. It is my opinion that there is no need for drastic measures. It is wise to adopt a flexible, step-by-step adaptation strategy. By all means, let us not respond precipitously.”

Bravo, Don Blankenship

Here's a guy who's not afraid to stand up in public and tell it like it is.

We need more Don Blankenships, and I'm confident that we'll get them.

See the videos here | DeSmogBlog

Blankenship: "Let me be clear about it Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid they don't know what they're talking about, they're totally wrong. What they do is nonsense... pretty simple, they're all crazy."

A related post: Straight talk from Don Blankenship

Far below: for some odd reason, global warmers love to bring up that big ship that hit an iceberg

Merkel's Global Warming Waffling: Europe Puts Hurdles in Obama's Climate Path

Just as the US gets a new president who promises to reverse years of climate change neglect, American environmental experts worry that Europe's resolve on climate change is weakening. Merkel's recent about-face is especially alarming. [to who?]
----
It was a telling moment. Normally these days, when President-elect Barack Obama appears before the press, even his designated cabinet secretaries arrange themselves dutifully in a row behind him. But when Obama met with Al Gore in Chicago on Tuesday afternoon, the former vice president politely offered Obama a seat at a table. Gore is, after all, a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Many see him as a saviour of the global climate.
...
One thing especially in the crossfire is the emissions trading system that Obama wants to set up as soon as possible. After the lessons from Europe, where, in the opinion of many experts, freely giving out emissions credits has tended to benefit energy companies, the Obama team now plans to auction them. In this way, they function as a kind of tax on CO2 emissions -- an unpopular concept in the US.

Obama is aware of how controversial his plan is, and he hardly mentioned it during the campaign. Instead, he preferred to emphasize his proposal to invest $15 billion in research into alternative energies.

Prentice Meeting: some personal thoughts

The meeting ended with a very touching closing statement by Thea Whitman, a colleague of mine here. She concluded our meeting by saying that we, the youth present here, are a small slice of the Canadians who so strongly care about climate change. She mentioned that this was not just like any other trade of business conference where we are talking about money. At this conference we are talking about life, death, and the elimination of whole species and ecosystems.

Chuse Science | DeSmogBlog

A few weeks ago in Los Angeles, I saw Chu speak at a National Academy of Sciences event devoted to connecting science and the entertainment industry. Chu focused on global warming and compared our civilization to the Titanic, about to hit an iceberg unless we wake up and recognize the course we're on. It was a brilliant message, although I can testify that while Chu may be an electrifying choice for Energy Secretary, he is not a very electrifying lecturer.

Poznan: Green Leader Despairs at Conference Potential | DeSmogBlog

"It's like attending a family reunion on the Titanic."

Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May is a difficult person to interview at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poznan, Poland. She seems to know nearly everyone, and when she isn't waving and smiling at passersby, she is fending off phone calls or emails buzzing on her blackberry.

But regardless of the old-home week atmosphere, she is bleakly disappointed about what's going on in this sprawling conference centre. Having attended the organizational meeting for the UNFCCC in 1990 and the inaugural meeting in Rio in 1992, and being a veteran of many "COP" (Conference of the Parties) meetings for the inrternational biodiversity treaty, she has seen her share of such events.

"But this has a dreadful pall to it."

Poznan: Canada Snags Another Fossil of the Day | DeSmogBlog

In awarding Canada the (not-very) coveted Fossil, youth delegate Katherine Trajan sang the following, to the tune of "My Heart Will Go On," perhaps appropriately from "The Titanic."

Canada keeps blocking
Objecting, obstructing
Hoping that the talks won't go on

We object to targets
Commitments, and funding
We wish that Kyoto were gone

Stop, no, we don't want to go
To a world where our tar sands are banned
We love to burn fossil fuels
And we'll keep on emitting
Emitting till Harper is gone

The alarmism of Steven Chu

Concern for Climate Change Defines Energy Dept. Nominee - washingtonpost.com

The man tapped to be the next secretary of energy, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu, recently compared the danger of climate change to a problem with electrical wiring in a house.

Suppose, he said, you had a small electrical fire at home and a structural engineer told you there was a 50 percent chance your house would burn down in the next few years unless you spent $20,000 to fix faulty wiring.

"You can either continue to shop for additional evaluations until you find the one engineer in 1,000 who is willing to give you the answer you want -- 'your family is not in danger' -- or you can change the wiring," Chu said in a presentation in September.

Because of the danger of climate change, he said, the United States and other countries also need to make some urgent repairs. He said governments need to "act quickly" to implement fiscal and regulatory policies to stimulate the deployment of technologies that boost energy efficiency and "minimize" carbon emissions.

Chu's views on climate change would be among the most forceful ever held by a cabinet member. In an interview with The Post last year, he said that the cost of electricity was "anomalously low" in the United States, that a cap-and-trade approach to limiting greenhouse gases "is an absolutely non-partisan issue," and that scientists had come to "realize that the climate is much more sensitive than we thought."

Tamino’s Imagination « The Air Vent

I was working on a post on the polar caps tonight and for the past week because I am sick of beating up on the idiotic policies of our collective governments. I went to Tamino who put a placeholder in his blog on ice extent and noticed a new post — YES WE CAN. His new post exposed every one of his extreme left tendencies and well frankly… he pissed me off...

Lecture series to tackle controversial energy issues

The Energy Controversies will begin on Thursday 5 February with a lecture by Peter Smith, Professor of Soils & Global Change at the University of Aberdeen and author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, entitled Global warming: The View of the IPCC.

Passengers' fury as 'snow flurries' force four-hour closure of Gatwick Airport | Mail Online

Thousands of air passengers faced chaos yesterday after airport operator BAA failed to anticipate cold weather in December.

More than a hundred planes were grounded and up to 2,000 passengers were left stranded after ice and light snow closed Gatwick's single runway for four hours in the morning.

Unhappy Romm: Council on Foreign Relations is duped by Inhofe, labels denial rehash an “Essential Document” and a “primary source”

I was worried the media would be duped by Inhofe’s repackaged disinformation.

Cape Farewell Canada Events Blog » Blog Archive » Last chance to influence the negotiators!

Caleb was the spokesperson who kept chanting “Don’t let low targets puck around with our climate!”

It got a few laughs!

Australian Climate Madness: The Brisbane Times - cognitive dissonance

Headline:

Countries agree on goals for new UN climate treaty

First paragraph of article:

A UN climate conference attended by 190 countries has failed to make a real commitment to reduce the amount of carbon emissions.

Read it here.

Obama's Carbon Busters - WSJ.com

A team of Al Gore's protégés takes over energy policy.
---
After the selection of a largely centrist economic team, liberals have been asking when President-elect Obama would give them a seat at the table. Well, now we know, and Americans should strap themselves in. Mr. Obama is stocking his energy shop with the greenest of greens who want to move fast on a very aggressive climate agenda. Here come the carbon busters.
...
As for the "team of rivals" hype, the rest of Mr. Obama's energy list is heavy with Ms. Browner's acolytes. Lisa Jackson, for 16 years a top EPA enforcement officer, will now run that agency. At the White House Council on Environmental Quality will be Nancy Sutley, who was Ms. Browner's special assistant at EPA. At a Congressional hearing last year, Ms. Browner declared that trying to eliminate carbon -- a main input of industrial civilization -- "need not bankrupt us." As a standard for policy, that's not exactly reassuring. [Via Gore Lied]

Global Shamming: Greens prop up scam while snow piles up

Funny. You have two different realities, apparently--all within the same news cycle.

Climate Research News » Autocar Readers Defy Emissions Beliefs

Add to this that during the Paleozoic and mesozoic periods co2 content was several thousand PPM and has steadily decreased in an almost linear fashion to present where climate is more stable than it has ever been.
If co2 was able to cause a runaway feedback mechanism then it would have done so rather than declining to present day levels and one should not that temperature has remained stable throughout these periods except for ice ages.

CO2sceptics News Blog | Consensus is no guarantee of scientific fact

The second claim made is that TV personalities are somehow unqualified due to their lack of peer-reviewed publications in meteorology. But from their online biographies, it is apparent that any one of these accredited meteorologists is at least as qualified to expound on the subject as career politician and former Vice President Al Gore. In any case, that argument is a straw man, as there are many other reputable scientists who are publishing peer-reviewed works that challenge the global-warming consensus.

The final claim -- that there is no downside to investment in clean energy -- is also false. Every dollar spent "chasing after windmills" is a dollar that cannot be spent on improving roads, or invested in retirement accounts, or used to improve schools, or spent enjoying a movie with one's family. One estimate is that countries have spent more than $243 billion on adhering to the demands of the Kyoto Protocol in exchange for a 0.003-degree Celsius reduction in global warming by 2050. Surely we can find better uses for our hard-earned money.