SF Environmental Policy Examiner: Global warming, common sense and expert opinion

If global climate change is a real problem, then the communication strategy of its advocates is pathetic, and may lose them all the good will built up over decades of environmental struggle. It is pathetic because it resembles in all its shotgun approach and hysterical pronouncements nothing more than a con game. It is reprehensible--almost criminal--in its attempts to demonize everyone who disagrees with them, to state that all skeptics are deniers in the pay of the energy industry.

Nobody is arguing that the greenhouse effect is controversial. Nobody is arguing that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that we are emitting more of it. But only computer models are making the case that this will cause catastrophe--and the data isn't good enough for computer models to be accurate. Your case needs more, if you want people of common sense to believe you.

If it's real, get serious. If you don't know, just say so. And come forth now with a set of conditions that you agree would prove your theory wrong. Follow the rules of science.

Global Warming Bill Moving Through Congress - Cattle Network

...here's the rub. The legislators that control the Subcommittee (and the Energy and Commerce Committee) appear to be staging the testimony on the legislation so that there isn't a legitimate debate. At the April 24 hearing, former Vice President Al Gore testified that global warming legislation was akin to the Marshall Plan and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which, by the way, his father voted against as a U.S. Senator). Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, invited the United Kingdom's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, to testify along with Gore. However, the Democrats in control of the hearing cancelled his invitation when his plane arrived in D.C. on April 23. Why? They didn't want Gore humiliated. Monckton has published a mathematical proof that there is no "climate crisis" in a major, peer-reviewed academic journal — Physics and Society. The article is titled, "Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered" and demonstrates that a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide compared with pre-industrial levels will increase the global mean surface temperature by little more that 1 degree fahrenheit — a meaningless increase. That's far less than the 6 degree increase that the United Nation's climate panel (IPCC) concluded in its 2007 climate assessment report.

Brazilians flee anacondas, alligators amid floods - Examiner.com

But Paulo Barreto, a researcher at the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment, noted that the flooding comes just four years after a major drought. He blames climate change and said such events put stress on the environment "that could affect the survival of plant and animal species."

Reuters AlertNet - INTERVIEW-Senior House Republican sees climate bill delay

WASHINGTON, May 7 (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are likely to set aside a controversial climate change bill for a few months, giving them more time to build support and instead concentrate on a healthcare reform effort, a senior Republican said on Thursday.

"The pressure is going to build on Chairman Waxman, not to give up on climate change, but to set it aside and let it simmer a while and then go to healthcare," said Representative Joe Barton in an interview.
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"I honestly don't see him (Waxman) getting a bill out of committee...by the end of May," Barton said.
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Waxman's end-of-May deadline for committee action is made difficult by the fact that there are only about 10 more working days left before Congress goes on recess until June.