MSNBC - Environment - more evidence for solar driven warming

We find that the system is presently undergoing a transition from the recent Grand Maximum to another regime. This transition started in 2000 and it is expected to end around the maximum of cycle 24, foreseen for 2014, with a maximum sunspot number Rmax=68±17. At that time a period of lower solar activity will start. That period will be one of regular oscillations, as occurred between 1730 and 1923. The first of these oscillations may even turn out to be as strongly negative as around 1810, in which case a short Grand Minimum similar to the Dalton one might develop. This moderate-to-low-activity episode is expected to last for at least one Gleissberg cycle (60–100 years).

American Thinker: The Democrats' Magic Bullet

2. Henry Waxman's climate change bill is very unpopular with many oil and coal state Democrats. But there is a difference between opposing the bill, and filibustering it. Health care reform was likely to pass this year even before the Specter shift, though by the reconciliation process, which would have angered Republicans, and become a rallying cry for the Party in 2010. Climate change legislation might not have passed this year, and there was no plan to use reconciliation to get it through the Senate with 51 votes. Now it will likely pass, and overcome a GOP filibuster, after some concessions are made to get recalcitrant Democrats on board. "Blue Dog" Democrats were hoping the GOP could kill the climate change bill with a filibuster, and save them from fighting publicly with the popular President of their own Party. Now that won't happen. Obama will get his bill, and proudly display it at the big climate change conference in December, 2009 in Copenhagen. The only remaining question now is how bad the bill will be.

Skeptic's Corner: Susan Crockford

The polar bear survived two major warming periods over the last 11,000 years, the first of which saw temperatures rise rapidly to at least 2.50C higher than present and there is no evidence that Arctic sea ice disappeared entirely during those times or that any ice-dependent species became extinct.

Skeptic's Corner: Edmund Contoski

"Do you ever wonder how communism could last for 70 years in Russia? Surely there was plenty of evidence, for decades, that the system was failing: food shortages, declining life expectancy, increased infant mortality, low standards of living, primitive hospitals, and sanitation facilities lagging far behind those in Western Europe and America — not to mention pollution far worse than in the West. But to diehard communists, the facts did not matter. All the observable negatives of collectivism were trumped by ideology. The same is true of the ideology behind global warming."

UN gathers experts to [promote climate scam]

Noting that sustainable agriculture holds the key to mitigate climate change through carbon storage and better use of carbon in crops, Peter Holmgren, Director of FAO Environment, Climate Change and Bioenergy Division, said that “millions of farmers around the globe could become agents of change helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Senator's climate warning

EVIDENCE given at yesterday's Senate enquiry into Climate Change gives dire warnings about job losses in Rockhampton if the Rudd Government's Emissions Trading Scheme goes ahead as planned, Senator Ian MaCdonald says.

The northern based Liberal Senator, who is a member of the Senate Committee undertaking the inquiry, said more than 400 of Rockhampton's 1,000 meat workers would be looking for work if the carbon reduction pollution scheme (CPRS) goes ahead.

Instapundit » Blog Archive

HEY, WAIT, I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO SAVE THE AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY: “GM wouldn’t be in quite so deep a hole if it had not sunk a billion dollars, and much of its corporate reputation, into a not-very-realistic plug-in electric hybrid vehicle known as the Chevrolet Volt. Likely to cost consumers more than $30,000 even after a big government tax rebate, the little four-seat Volt ‘is currently projected to be much more expensive than its gasoline-fueled peers and will likely need substantial reductions in manufacturing cost in order to become commercially viable,’ President Obama’s automobile task force reported on March 30.”

Nationals back sceptic Plimer | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

What interesting people to be helping to launch Professor Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth - a book showing why global warming theory is so dodgy...