Blankenship: Hurry up and go away, winter | Stafford County Sun

Politicians are paid to pin labels, I suppose, and to make wacky ideas sound reasonable. It brings to mind Al Gore’s recent appearance in Washington, D.C. to continue his preaching about the coming Armageddon, our warming planet — which by the way is not.

But just watch. Any green initiatives he succeeds in subjecting us to (and hang the cost) will be acclaimed a huge success. CO2 levels — harmless but considered dangerous by global alarmists — will likely drop, but not because we did things like banning plastic bags. Rather, the worldwide economic recession-depression will have done the trick.

At AAAS Meeting, Scientists Celebrate a Red-Letter Day - Chronicle.com

Chicago — If you’re a scientist, this is one happy day.

Here in Chicago, the American Association for the Advancement of Science is opening its annual meeting, with 10,000 attendees from 60 countries attending 175 scientific symposia, seminars, and career-development workshops on topics that include astrophysics, molecular biology, and neuroscience.

The theme of the conference — the notion that the scientific evidence for climate change is “unequivocal” — was cited this morning by organizers as part of the stark contrast between the Bush and Obama administrations in their official approach to science.