WEBCommentary(tm) - The Global Warming Crescendo Has Passed

Despite the relentless efforts to maintain worldwide panic over rising temperatures and all of the supposed calamities that will ensue in the wake of the expected planetary heat wave (and many of which should have befallen us by now), a growing cadre of skeptics, supported by a bulk of research data, suggests the possibility that the “global warming” scam may be in retreat.
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Yet many among the scientific and political communities are recognizing the need to distance themselves from the climate change alarmism. Others, who pragmatically supported the ruse despite having access to empirical data that refuted it, will suffer long-term credibility deficits that inevitably befall such shameless opportunism.

Despite the seeming sea change in the political landscape last November, or the eagerness with which the incoming president intends to exploit environmental fears to his advantage, “global warming” may soon take its place along side Bigfoot, Y2K, and the Bermuda triangle on the ash heap of fabricated history.

Vaclav Klaus - Do not tie the markets – free them

We can also count on the fact that the Czech government will hopefully not be the champion of global warming alarmism. The Czechs feel that freedom and prosperity are much more endangered than the climate. The uniqueness of current levels of global warming is not a proven phenomenon. The explanation of factors that are contributing to global warming is not very clear and persuasive. Moves to mitigate climate change by fighting carbon dioxide emissions are useless and, what is most important, human beings have proved themselves to be sufficiently adaptable to an incrementally changing climate. We should turn our attention to other, really daunting issues.

Prometheus » Blog Archive » Does Wind Power Increase European Energy Security?

According to the FT today, in an excellent article by Ed Crooks on the Russian gas crisis, it does not...

Our Socialist Energy Czar » The Foundry

Carol Browner, Obama’s new Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, used to be listed as a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society for Socialist International. That’s right, Socialist International. As of today, however, her bio was taken off the site.

The Big Lie Of Anthropogenic Global Warming (And Why It Is So Worrying…)

There may be a very good reason for some Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) proponents’ censorial, bullying attitude focused on belittling and silencing all sorts of skeptical (and non-skeptical) voices, with disingenuous remarks about the debate being “over”.

It is the same reason that forces some teenage idiots to push younger children around. Simply put, it’s a matter of insecurity.

Coal Creek, Colorado Coop Observing Station Cooling The Last Decade « Watts Up With That?

I’m the NOAA co-op observer for Coal Creek Canyon, Colorado, elevation 8950 feet, in the foothills NW of Denver. Here is a graph of average temperatures for the past ten years. 2008 is by far the coldest year in the past decade, with an average of 39F.
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That’s full 3 degrees F colder than 2003. Each of the past five years is colder than any of the previous five years. This is only one station of the thousands in the NOAA co-op network, but I thought I’d show you the data before it’s adjusted and homogenized by the usual suspects.

'It takes time to change'; Cyclist braves cold to battle global warming (comment on this story) - The Sudbury Star - Ontario, CA

"I had a late start this morning because I didn't hear my alarm. My feet were cold on the first 10 km, so I stopped to warm up," Dagenais- Cote said.

The cold wasn't just taking a toll on his feet. During his brief stop outside Sudbury, he pulled a pear out of his bag to snack on.

"Oh, it's frozen," he said, tapping it against his bike frame.

Natural Climate Variation Interferes with Global Warming Theory

It's getting tougher and tougher to sell the fantasy known as global warming.

A few years ago, when little was known about it, it wasn't too hard. Just get a few people in white coats and some letters after their name to pronounce vague but spectacular doom and you had society's immediate attention.

Throw in a little self-loathing over having life a little too easy (a malady common in the West, these days) and pretty soon you have a head of steam built over a neat idea for a science-fiction thriller, without any real science to back it up.

But as time has gone by, we've learned a lot about "global warming" and "climate change." We've learned that there's a whole lot of guessing going on, based on very little hard data. We've learned that the computer models used to "predict" global warming don't really work that well--even with "tweaking" from global warming disciples. We've learned that NASA's temperature calculations have been proven incorrect--more than once. We've learned about cyclic climate change which has been happening for thousands of years...long before SUVs and power plants were invented. We've even learned that warming is occurring on Mars and other planets...where, the last time I checked, there were no SUVs or humans at all to wreak their wicked consumption-sins.

Thousands shiver in Europe's big chill | Reuters

Temperatures sank to record lows in parts of Germany overnight. A weather station in the eastern state of Saxony said the coldest spot was -27.7 degrees Celsius.

Thick snow has covered much of the country and icebreakers were at work on several waterways, including the River Elbe in eastern Germany

Cold weather causes disruptions across Europe : Nature Environment

Berlin - Germany was experiencing Wednesday the coldest weather in more than 20 years, with overnight temperatures dropping below minus 20 degrees centigrade. Near Dresden, in the eastern state of Saxony, Germany's lowest temperature of minus 27.7 degrees centigrade was recorded in the town of Dippiswolde, according to the Meteomedia weather service. In the neighbouring state of Thuringia, temperatures dropped to minus 27.5 in Altenburg, south of Leipzig.

Railway commuters experienced delays across the country, since train tracks and carriages had frozen overnight. Taxi vouchers were issued to passengers on the 40-kilometre railway service between the cities of Leipzig and Halle, which was disrupted by the weather.

On the motorways, icy conditions prevailed and lorries were brought to a halt as diesel fuel froze, causing tailbacks.

In a Berlin suburb, 120,000 residents lost their heat and electricity supply when a burst water pipe flooded cellars, covering roads with water which quickly froze to ice.

Other parts of Europe have also been affected by the cold weather conditions. At 21 degrees below zero, Belgium measured its lowest temperatures in a decade in the town of Ernage, between Brussels and Namur.

Global warming is nothing new even in NZ, according to scientists

Global warming is nothing new even in New Zealand, according to environmental scientists in the country for an international conference.

Global warming storm drowns out dissenting thought - Columns

In the battle to prove or disprove the existence of anthropogenic, or man-made, global warming (AGW), a battle which often orients along the cultural left and right, I must confess that I have little vested in furthering either side's campaign. I contentedly join the ranks of elite weathermen everywhere in my unequivocal conviction that tomorrow's weather will be the same or different.

But I must confide that I am unabashedly critical of many of the global warming theorists and their lesser, non-scientific apologists...

Class allegedly teaches how to fight alleged global warming with flowers

What does gardening have to do with global warming you ask? Damon Waitt of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center said you'd be surprised what gardeners can do to combat global warming.

"Step one, if you use native plants you can reduce your dependence on pesticides and fertilizers and water," he said.

Al Gore, Wangari Maathai to receive NAACP awards

Environmental activists Al Gore and Wangari Muta Maathai will receive special honours at the 40th Image Awards, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said Thursday.

Gore, a former U.S. vice-president, and Maathai, creator of the non-profit organization Green Belt Movement, will be given the chairman's award at a ceremony on Feb. 12 in Los Angeles.

NAACP board chair Julian Bond chose the recipients for their special achievements and distinguished public service.

"[Gore's and Maathai's] courageous and historic accomplishments have benefited not only current but future generations, and they clearly reflect the values that we have so valiantly fought for over the past century," Bond said in a statement.

Pelosi Says Hold Off On Cap-And-Trade (For Now) - Environment and Energy

...That still leaves a snag, though. Most climate campaigners were hoping that the world could agree to a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2009, in talks at Copenhagen. But it would be murderously difficult for the Obama administration to strike a deal abroad without having a commitment for emissions-reductions already in place at home—if we haven't passed a hard cap, China and India won't likely adopt one, either. But, conversely, it would also be nearly impossible to get a cap-and-trade bill passed through Congress if Obama's already agreed to a treaty at Copenhagen—especially one that doesn't include firm targets for China and India. So if Congress doesn't pass a bill by the end of 2009, that may push international negotiations back, as well. You can read all about the delicate diplomatic dance involved in this Greenwire piece.

Suffice to say, timing and sequencing are going to be nightmarish questions to resolve. If there's one bright spot, though, it's that the very deep recession plaguing the planet has caused emissions to plummet—even in China, as this stunning graph dredged up by Andy Revkin illustrates...

My prediction: Rebranding "global warming" as "global weirding" will fail miserably

Today, global warming is considered poor wording by some climate-action advocates because people snowbound in their homes by record blizzards and frigid temperatures conclude that “warming” must be a myth. “Global weirding” — a substitute attributed to Paul Hawken — now is embraced by Tom Friedman of the New York Times, among others.

Last June, Fox News posted a column by Steven Milloy, a self-described “junk science expert” at the American Enterprise Institute who warned conservatives not to use the term “denier” in regard to global weirding.

Anchorage burns up record amount of energy

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Anchorage residents in one day used a record amount of natural gas to keep homes warm and lights on in the long cold snap.

Global warming: Al Gore's convenient untruth freezes over :: Gerald Warner, Telegraph blogs

Bad luck for Al Gore, who used the image of a hurricane emerging from a smoke stack to promote his fantasy extravaganza An Inconvenient Truth. The core ice samples featured in Gore's film actually proved that increased CO2 emissions have historically followed 800 years after warm periods - but what the hell, this ain't science, it's politics. Just how we are supposed to influence carbon emissions when mankind is only responsible for 3.5 per cent of them is unclear.

But the cash from UN grants, wind farms, carbon trading and all the billions squandered on a politically useful (to totalitarians) superstition is very clear indeed: this is big bucks. "Man-made" global warming is the new sub-prime commerce of the planet. Meantime, wrap up well.

So, Why Exactly Should We Give Up? - Chris Horner - Planet Gore on National Review Online

The alarmists are gaining ground in their drive to wear down those among the opposition they cannot shout down, censor, or shut down. Last week — on the heels of Rep. Bob Inglis and Arthur Laffer calling for reductions in other taxes to offset the carbon tax they feel is inevitable — the latest to fall was my former CEI colleague, Jonathan Adler, over on The Corner.

Jonathan has a feature today on the homepage lamenting the wretched choice of the hyper-political — and, to my mind (and clearly Jonathan’s as well) highly anti-scientific — John Holdren as (of all things) chief science adviser. This of course only supports my argument against anticipatory capitulation on the belief that one can buy peace with this crowd.

Winston Churchill weighs in: Never Give In, Never, Never, Never

...this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

NASA to scrap power from space - New Scientist

NASA appears to have cancelled its research into space-based solar power (SBSP) systems - orbiting solar arrays that beam microwaves to receivers on the ground, where the energy is converted to electricity.

Monckton: Temperature Change and CO2 Change - A Scientific Briefing | / | Energy & Environment

THE CHIEF REASON for skepticism at the official position on "global warming" is the overwhelming weight of evidence that the UN's climate panel, the IPCC, prodigiously exaggerates both the supposed causes and the imagined consequences of anthropogenic "global warming"; that too many of the exaggerations can be demonstrated to have been deliberate; and that the IPCC and other official sources have continued to rely even upon those exaggerations that have been definitively demonstrated in the literature to have been deliberate.

In short, science is being artfully manipulated to fabricate what are in essence political and not scientific conclusions - a conclusion that is congenial to powerful factions whose ambition is not to identify scientific truth but rather to advance the special vested interests with which they identify themselves.

Danger ahead as the Sun goes quiet - space - 07 January 2009 - New Scientist

THE sun's ability to shield the solar system from harmful cosmic rays could falter in the early 2020s, just in time to threaten the health of NASA astronauts as they return to the moon.

As well as the 11-year cycle of sunspots and solar flares, the sun's activity experiences longer-term shifts lasting several decades. The sun is currently in a long-term high, having been relatively active for nearly a century, but it is not known when this will end.

Global Warming is Really Global Cooling

"The planet has grown steadily warmer in recent decades": In fact, the reverse is true. The fastest rate of growth in global temperature, at a rate equivalent to almost 2 degrees Celsius per century, was between 1910 and 1930. No "recent decade" has matched that warming rate, though 1975-1998 came close. Between 1940 and 1975, and again between 2001 and the present, global temperatures have exhibited a downtrend. In fact, the current warming began 300 years ago, at the end of the Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period when there were very few sunspots on the face of the Sun. Between 1700 and 1735, according to the world's oldest instrumental temperature dataset, the temperature in central England rose by 2.2 degrees C, equivalent to 6.3 C/century, or about nine times the warming rate seen in the 20th century.

1/5/09 - Dobbs again questioned human-caused global warming, suggested sun may be more responsible (3-minute video)

Summary: Lou Dobbs again questioned the impact of humans on global warming and suggested that solar activity may be far more responsible for global warming, ignoring the conclusion by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that "it is extremely likely [>95% chance] that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate" and that this "estimate is likely to be at least five times greater than that due to solar irradiance changes."

More on “Green Jobs” | Coyote Blog

It is interesting watching a group of folks sink into mass hypnosis. Specifically, much of the left is working really hard to convince itself that obsoleting much of the current energy and transportation infrastructure and raising the price of electricity and fuel will result in net jobs growth. And, that despite 100 years of failure in countries too numerous to name, the government will suddenly become able to successfully plan and manage investment to the greatest economic benefit...

Vermont Requires 'Global Warming' Labels For New Cars - News- msnbc.com

WATERBURY, Vt. - Vermont is the first New England state requiring all 2010 and newer cars, light trucks and SUVs sold in the state to carry labels with global warming scores.

Atmosphere cooler now than eight years ago (OneNewsNow.com)

...But Horner contends that global-warming alarmists are finding it difficult to switch their hysteria back to global cooling, so they created the so-called "climate change" crisis.

Christ Horner"And now, there is $300 million dollars from sources unknown [that has] been given to Al Gore to push a climate crisis rebranding campaign," he adds. "And that's what you'll see in 2009, coordinating with an effort to impose what's called a cap-and-trade rationing scheme."

He believes global warming became a "totem in the anti-Bush struggle," and that many people are going to wake up confused on January 20 when they cannot blame Bush anymore.

Europe's Fiasco Should Not Become Ours - HUMAN EVENTS

Despite the economic crisis, the incoming Obama administration has put the global warming agenda -- and all its dangers for our economy -- at center stage. The effects of the would-be policies are likely to be much longer lasting and have far greater impact on U.S. life and economy.

Europe was supposed to be the Great Green Hope for the environmental alarmists, the only credible balancing force against the “irresponsible” and “crass capitalism” of the U.S., which refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on carbon emissions. Many of Obama’s supporters invoke Europe as the model to emulate. But the results of the recent EU Climate Summit in Poland showed that hope to be misplaced...

Poland: cold snap claims 7 more lives

WARSAW - SEVEN people froze to death in Poland Tuesday as temperatures plunged as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit), the Polish Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.
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According to Interior Ministry data, hypothermia has claimed 76 lives in Poland since November 2008. Most of the victims have been homeless people sleeping outdoors under the influence of alcohol.

Northern Italy snowed under

RECORD SNOWFALL SINCE NOVEMBER.

Since the beginning of November Italy has seen a total of 190 hours of snowfall, compared to 30 hours for the same period in 2007 and and none in 2006, according to data released by the interior ministry on Wednesday.

Climate change rock stars coming to Corvallis - Portland & Oregon Events – OregonLive.com

It's not often that I think, man, I wish I lived in Corvallis. If I did, I'd definitely swing by Oregon State University to listen to the climate change rock stars about to arrive for a winter seminar series.
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Tues., Feb. 17: Roger Pielke, Jr., University of Colorado, "Uncomfortable Knowledge about Climate Policy"

UK Indymedia - What did the UK Climate Movement do in 2008?

Without a doubt, 2008 was an incredible year for the UK climate movement. There’s been a diverse display of incredible actions from Scotland to Plymouth throughout the year, as more people than ever before are realising its up to us to prevent climate catastrophe as no one’s going to do it for us!...

Arkansas: Global warming 'ruse' continues 01/07/09

On Monday, Dr. Richard Ford, commission member and economist and tenured faculty member at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, thumbed through a notebook on his desk, stopping at a copy of the law Act 696 that set up the global warming commission.

"Right here," he said, pointing to the law's emergency clause. "It says that 'it is imperative that Arkansas study the scientific data ... to determine whether global warming is an immediate threat to the citizens in the State of Arkansas.' We did not do that."

According to Ford, the only economist on the commission, the group wasn't allowed to do what it was instructed by law to do. He explained that the commission never "studied or even debated the scientific data" on global warming.

So why would a commission set up to study and make policy recommendations about global warming not study it? It's simple; CCS wouldn't allow it, according to a memo entitled "Proposal to Develop an Arkansas Climate Action Plan" sent to Morril Harriman, Gov. Beebe's chief of staff on June 27, 2007.

Under the heading "Participant Guidelines," the memo stated, "Participants will not debate the science of climate change or the directive of the Act, but will instead provide leadership and vision for how Arkansas will rise to the challenges and opportunities of addressing climate change."

This information was deleted from a similar memo on the GCGW's Web site.
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It's becoming clearer: CCS helped set up the GCGW, then got hired to advise the group, limited the terms of the debate, pushed its policies, which were eventually adopted, and then found liberal donors sympathetic to the cause to pay the bill.

A bargain? No. A ruse? Yes.

Should we pay people to do what they were already going to do anyway?

Carbon Credit for Reprocessed Coal Ash? - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

Dominion wants its reprocessing of coal-ash to generate credits for carbon-emissions reduction, which it hopes to use in the Northeast’s carbon-reduction scheme, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. But the Conservation Law Foundation, a Northeast environmental group, rejects this idea, saying that the carbon-reduction benefits of using coal-ash to reduce emissions from cement production are questionable.

The group also argues that Dominion would be reprocessing fly-ash anyway because it makes business sense — and therefore allowing this as a carbon credit would essentially be double-counting.

“There is this robust fly-ash cement business that allows them to turn this costly waste product into a valuable commodity they can sell. The idea that they wouldn’t make use of that market, even if there were not CO2 rules, is just silly,” said Seth Kaplan, a vice-president for climate advocacy at the Conservation Law Foundation, in an e-mail message.

Audubon Magazine: More from CO2-hysteric Mike Tidwell

The Low-Carbon Diet

So why in the world am I a dedicated vegetarian? Why is meat, including sumptuous pork, a complete stranger to my fork at home and away? The answer is simple: I have an 11-year-old son whose future—like yours and mine—is rapidly unraveling due to global warming. And what we put on our plates can directly accelerate or decelerate the heating trend.
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Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, is the author of The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities (Free Press).

Solar Powered Cars: Not Just Yet - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

Will we soon be letting the sunshine in for a new generation of cars running solely on solar power?

That was the conjecture when a Japanese newspaper reported last week that Toyota is secretly working on just such a vehicle for a product launch in some indefinable future.

Which Toyota denies.

“We have absolutely no knowledge of any pure solar-powered vehicle, or plans for one,” said Jana Hartline, a Toyota spokeswoman.

Youth caravan on mission against climate change: so where are they getting these allegedly solar-powered cars?

The network's aim is to reach out to youngsters across the country through the climate solutions road tour. The caravan and a solar-powered music band will wind its way through over 3,500 km in solar-powered electric cars and alternative fuel-driven buses through 15 major cities towards its final destination New Delhi where they will reach on February 4.

Greenies also pushed, then abandoned ethanol. Will they stick with wind and/or solar as these become less popular?

WWF Turns Against Natural Gas Amid Russia-Ukraine Crisis - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

Sure enough, on Wednesday, the prominent environmental group WWF issued a statement from its European Policy Office that retracted much of its previous support for natural gas as a fuel of choice for industrial countries making a transition to a low-carbon economy.

World Climate Report » U.S. Temperatures: 2008 Back to the Future?

The data are just in from the National Climatic Data Center and they show that for the year 2008, the average temperature across the United States (lower 48 States) was 1.34ºF lower than last year, and a mere one-quarter of a degree above the long-term 1901-2000 average. The temperature in 2008 dropped back down to the range that characterized most of the 20th century.

Michael Gerson - The Risks in Obama's Ambitions - washingtonpost.com

It is another iron rule that prosperous, confident nations do more for the environment than economically struggling ones. And this sets up a conflict between Obama's urgent environmental diagnosis -- a cumulative scientific case for serious, possibly catastrophic climate disruption -- and the economic and political realities of the moment.

The centerpiece of Obama's environmental approach is an "economy-wide cap-and-trade program," designed to dramatically limit greenhouse gas production. But this would act as a large tax on the use of fossil fuels -- in an economy where falling energy prices have been one of the few sources of good news.

If Obama plows ahead with an aggressive cap-and-trade system, Republican and Democratic opponents -- focused exclusively on jobs -- will find plenty of excuses for legislative inertia. If he phases in a system too slowly, it will undermine his own arguments for urgency. If he abandons a cap-and-trade system in favor of investing in eco-infrastructure -- a more efficient energy grid, weatherizing public buildings -- he will get what he wants, and also get slammed for betraying a serious commitment.

London colder than Antarctica - Telegraph

[Photo] Birds land on the frozen dock in front of London's Canary Wharf financial district - as temperatures dropped below those in Antarctica

Speaking of Energy Security . . . - Chris Horner - Planet Gore on National Review Online

As Ed does, below, we now have it confirmed, yet again, that Greens hate it.

From the D.C. Examiner, we learn that, although enormous energy is contained in U.S. oil-shale formations (measured in the equivalent of billions of barrels of oil it is far greater than the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia — in fact more than a trillion barrels, 80 percent of it presently recoverable), the reliably extreme Center for Biological Diversity, joined by sypathetic green groups, is trying to use the Endangered Species Act to block our ability to access these domestic energy resources.

Heliogenic Climate Change: From Hansen's shop

How did this get past the clergy?:

"By examining the spatial pattern of both types of climate variation, the scientists found that the anthropogenic global warming signal was relatively spatially uniform over the tropical oceans and thus would not have a large effect on the atmospheric circulation, whereas the PDO shift in the 1990s consisted of warming in the tropical west Pacific and cooling in the subtropical and east tropical Pacific, which would enhance the existing sea surface temperature difference and thus intensify the circulation. Thus, it can be concluded that the observed 15-year trend in radiative imbalance of the tropics is probably a signature of natural rather than anthropogenic climate variations.

Anthony Del Genio
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies" "Separating the Man-Made from the Natural"

Prometheus » Blog Archive » Sea Level Rise Slows by 20%

Efforts to sell climate policy based on ever more scary scenarios of apocalypse cannot be sustained and are likely to work in exactly the opposite manner than desired. A good example of why this is so can be found in a recent paper (hat tip Dad) that suggests that the rate of sea level rise from 2003-2008 (2.5 mm/year) is 20% lower than that presented by the IPCC for 1993-2003 (3.1 mm/year). Whether this is “consistent with” longer-term predictions is different that whether it is “consistent with” a political strategy based on scaring people. It seems pretty obvious that systems that exhibit a large amount of variability or are simply poorly understood on relatively short time scales are not very useful props in efforts to show the world moving inexorably towards doom.

Prometheus » Blog Archive » A Modeler’s Hippocratic Oath

• I will remember that I didn’t make the world and that it doesn’t satisfy my equations.

• Though I will use models boldly to estimate value, I will not be overly impressed by mathematics.

• I will never sacrifice reality for elegance without explaining why I have done so. Nor will I give the people who use my model false comfort about its accuracy. Instead, I will make explicit its assumptions and oversights.

• I understand that my work may have enormous effects on society and the economy, many of them beyond my comprehension.

Bloomberg.com: Canada

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Cold weather in Eastern Europe may kill off some winter wheat in the region, the Canadian Wheat Board said.

Wind Watch: Turbine inquiry gets under way

A new option to build four wind turbines at Langdon instead of five has been labelled a “crafty move” by a campaigner.

Sustainable Castles in the Sky: How to Reduce Greenhouse Gases, Save Money and Lose Weight

The political, media and scientific experts predicting catastrophic GW unless we reduce our carbon footprint or sequester it, ignore all dissenters from their 'consensus' and are using GW as a tiller to steer popular opinion towards expensive regulation of carbon generation.

The corporate megaphones we have for a free press are in full GG hysteria, which means there is big money behind it. The corporate media doesn't focus on an environmental issue this obsessively unless future profits for their owners and advertisers are involved.

The Carbon Cap and Traders and the Nuclear Power Industry are poised to rake in billions, based on media hysteria rather than reasoned legislation.

T. Boone Pickens likes odds for his energy plan | Business | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

The plan, which he has spent $50 million to promote, calls for meeting more than 20 percent of the country’s electric needs through wind power and redirecting the nation’s abundant natural gas reserves away from power generation and into fueling cars and trucks.

This would require spending about $1 trillion on building thousands of wind power turbines from the Texas Panhandle to North Dakota and another $200 billion to run transmission lines to major cities. Billions more would be spent helping owners of large vehicle fleets buy natural gas-fueled vehicles.

Pickens has much to gain from his proposal. He’s planning a huge wind farm in North Texas and has large holdings in natural gas as well as investments in firms that convert large vehicles to run on the fuel. But at 80 years old, he says it’s not just about the money.
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Pickens said little about his wind plans Tuesday night, focusing more on natural gas. He called the U.S. natural gas resources ranging from the Barnett Shale formation in Texas to the Haynesville in Louisiana and East Texas to the Marcellus in Appalachia as “the most unbelievable opportunity.”

He said later the omission of his wind plan wasn’t because the economic downturn has slowed his plans to purchase thousands of wind turbines from GE.

“I forgot it,” he said sheepishly afterward. “I did forget to get into wind. But the wind is going to happen. Obama’s going to go with wind.”

Pickens said he has already paid GE about $150  million for wind turbines set to be delivered in 2011 and has dropped plans to hook up the project to the grid with his own transmission lines, hoping instead to tie into the more than $4 billion in projects approved by the Texas Public Utility Commission.

Wind Watch: Alleged savings are cut by half

Now, suddenly, and with no public fanfare, the BWEA’s website has been altered to read “BWEA calculations use a static figure representing the energy mix in the UK: 430g CO²/kw/h”. Such is the power of the Advertising Standards Authority to reveal the truth!

As we all knew, there had been gross exaggeration by this industry. The saving by the existing wind farms is half, or less, of the promise; planning consents were flawed, and all future plans for wind power will need twice as many machines for the same saving of CO² emission.

Wind Watch: Wind turbine industry takes a hit; LM Glasfiber announces mass lay-offs in Denmark as a result of the on-going financial crisis

Wind turbine blade producer LM Glasfiber has announced that it is to fire one fifth of its Danish workforce in what is being called the biggest domestic firing-round of recent times.

Global harming - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

...No, Mr. Hursh, the worst thing that could happen if you're wrong is that all the proposed "solutions" (so far) would destroy America's economy, which means you've killed America's ability to spread the concept of individual freedom throughout the planet.

Plus, the trillions of dollars' worth of productivity you'd have wasted (if you are wrong) could have helped address problems we know for a fact are real right now -- hunger, disease, oppression.

China - Zoo's winter warmers help chilly animals

Animals at a zoo in China are huddling next a fire and electric heaters to beat the cold weather.
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As Britain contends with its own big freeze, China is also suffering a blast of Arctic conditions and staff at Chongqing Wild Zoo have installed winter warmers to help the animals cope.

Giraffes spend all day grouped around a roaring fire, while an enormous boa constrictor has been given a blanket and a heater to stave off the cold.

Yellow submarine to probe Antarctica glacier | Science | Reuters

At Pine Island, the thinning of the shelf seems to be linked to a shift in deep ocean currents that are bringing warmer water from the depths and melting the ice. No one knows why. On the Antarctic peninsula further north, several ice shelves have disintegrated in recent years apparently because of a 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) warming of air temperatures in the past 50 years that may be linked to global warming. In much of Antarctica, temperatures are little changed.

Wind Watch: Wind-farm firm set to shut down

Wind-farm company Noble Environmental Power announced this week it will close its Rutland office.

“We are in the process of packing up and moving right now,” said Brad King, the Connecticut-based company’s local project manager, adding the office would likely be shut down by the end of the week.

Wind Watch: Call for Conisholme wind farm to be closed

A call has been made for the Conisholme wind farm to be closed - before someone is injured.

Coun Robert Palmer, Chairman of East Lindsey District Council, says the site should be closed off to the public while an independent health and safety investigation is carried out.

On Sunday morning local people woke to find a blade on one of the 89 metre high wind turbines in Fen Lane had broken off.

A team from Ecotricity, which runs the 20 wind turbines at Conisholme, are investigating what caused the damage.

Coun Palmer said: “Imagine walking your dog there and one of those coming down on your head. It would chop you completely in two.

“I’m extremely worried about the safety of the public. It is open land and there are footpaths across there.

“I want the wind farm completely closed down while an independent investigation is carried out.”

He said while it was not yet known what caused the damage, one theory was a build up of ice on the blade.

Why not a CO2-hysteric for Surgeon General?

TV's Gupta Is Obama's Pick for Surgeon General - washingtonpost.com

America's most famous television surgeon, Sanjay Gupta, is poised to take his black bag and microphone to the White House as President-elect Barack Obama's choice for U.S. surgeon general.

Planet in Peril, Anderson Cooper, DVD - Barnes & Noble

A program that deliberately and aggressively slices through widespread conservative attempts to dismiss global warming, ozone depletion and other environmental hazards, the three-hour documentary Planet in Peril finds a trio of broadcast journalists - Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Anderson Cooper of CNN, and wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin of Animal Planet - trekking around the world to thirteen different countries. In each locale, the men witness the firsthand impacts of environmental deterioration on plant, animal and human life, and speculate on the dire future of the Earth if such catastrophes continue to grow.

For Gore, a very inconvenient astronaut

June '06: Gore Slams Global Warming Critics

In an unprecedented, uninterrupted eight-minute monologue on Keith Olbermann’s "Countdown," Gore characterized those scientists who dispute the reality of global warming as part of a lunatic fringe.

Later, on Charlie Rose’s show, Gore went further. Asked by Rose "Do you know any credible scientist who says ‘wait a minute – this hasn’t been proven,’ is there still a debate?” Gore replied, "The debate’s over. The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona.”

Astronaut Jack Schmitt Joins Skeptics

American astronaut Dr. Jack Schmitt - [one of the last men to walk on the moon] - is the latest scientist to be added to the roster of more than 70 skeptics who will confront the subject of global warming at the second annual International Conference on Climate Change in New York City March 8-10, 2009.

The day the sea froze: Temperature plunges to MINUS 12C and forecasters say it won't warm up until Sunday | Mail Online

Temperatures plunged so low today that the sea actually began to freeze as Arctic conditions continued to grip the UK.
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The fountains in Trafalgar Square had frozen over this morning due to the freezing cold temperatures in London.
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The weather also has serious implications for the elderly, experts say. They predict that 12 an hour could die from the cold.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Dimwits! Those bright sparks over in Brussels have decided to stop you buying old-fashioned light bulbs

As the Daily Mail revealed yesterday, our shops and supermarkets will from this week be running down their stocks of familiar 100-watt incandescent light bulbs, the kind most of us use in our homes when we need a good light to read by.

Soon it will be hard to find a 100w bulb on sale anywhere in Britain.
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All this is part of a move by which Britain is leading the rest of Europe in forcing us all within three years to switch to nothing but 'low-energy' bulbs, or CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps), which supposedly are going to help us save the planet from that global warming which has been so much in evidence in recent days.

Carbon tax shaping up as key issue in B.C. vote

VANCOUVER – The phrase "carbon tax" has all but disappeared among federal Liberals, but the B.C. Liberals are not backing down on their version as they head into an election campaign this year.

Premier Gordon Campbell acknowledges the opposition NDP has made gains at his government's expense over his refusal to scrap the carbon tax British Columbians began paying on fuels last July.

With the margin thinning between the two parties, the issue looks like the defining one for voters on May 12. (Provincial elections are now held every four years on the second Tuesday in May.)

A recent poll shows 55 per cent of British Columbians surveyed are against the tax, while only 41 per cent support it.

San Francisco: Protect vulnerable plants from brutal cold

January and February, when it's the rainiest and coldest, are the brutal months in Bay Area gardens. Here's what to do...

Cold weather wipes out cross country ski again - More Sports - SI.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Subzero temperatures Tuesday canceled another day of competition at the U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships.

Organizers waited more than an hour past the scheduled noon start before calling off a pair of distance races. Skiers won't compete unless temperatures are at least 4 degrees below zero.

What the global warming fear-mongers won't tell you -- baltimoresun.com

The fact is that the latest global warming began about 18,000 years ago, long before man started spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. At that time, thick layers of ice covered much of the Earth. The even bigger picture to keep in mind shows that for several million years, the dominant climate on this planet has been that of ice ages, which last approximately 100,000 years and which are interrupted by far briefer periods of warming, called interglacial periods, lasting for about 15,000 to 20,000 years. The current one in which we humans and other species developed and thrived should last a while longer before the extreme, life-unfriendly deep freeze returns. Warming is what enables and enhances life and is therefore something to be welcomed, not something to be feared.

This year, why not pay $185 to hear Al Gore promote his scam on April Fools' Day in Chicago?

Speaker Series 2009 : Al Gore tickets The Chicago Theatre Chicago, IL, Directions, seating chart. Official Ticketmaster site.

VIP ticket $185.00 (includes $3.00 facility fee) includes a post event meet and greet with the speakers and the opportunity for every VIP ticket hold to have his/her photo taken with the speaker or speakers of the event.

UK: Cold weather puts pressure on hospitals - WalesOnline

Neath Port Talbot Hospital’s local accident centre was also extremely busy, seeing 120 patients on Monday – 50% more than normal – many of whom had fallen on ice or were suffering from chest infections and pneumonia.

Mike McCabe, an A&E consultant at Morriston Hospital, said: “It has been very cold, really as cold as a ski resort, and we are not designed to deal with this in this country in terms of infrastructure.

“We have had a week’s worth of major orthopaedic trauma in one 24-hour period.

“If you are home and you are infirm or elderly, stay there. Don’t go out and get the paper, feed the dog or cat or put the rubbish out.

“These are the classic mistakes people are making day in and day out in this cold weather.”

Ukraine says Russia halts all gas to Europe - International Herald Tribune

PARIS: All gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine were shut down Wednesday as the pricing dispute between Russia and Ukraine escalated.

I&amp_M says ice storm may cost it _12 million | The Journal Gazette

Indiana Michigan Power expects cleanup from the Dec. 19 ice storm that ravaged Fort Wayne will cost the company $10 million to $12 million.

As part of his "all-hands-on-deck" effort to conserve energy, Obama only has 70 bands making fossil-fueled trips to Washington for his inauguration

They will be one of 70 bands from across the country and the only one from Nebraska.

Forget global warming, consider global blooming | GreenTech Pastures | ZDNet.com

Recently I tried to warn an indifferent public about the curse of the killer jellyfish. This time, it’s an even tinier threat, but also a great one. Deadly and toxic algal blooms are increasing in the world’s coastal waters. Researchers cite degraded water quality from increased nutrient pollution as the cause of increased HABs (harmful algal blooms). The algae can kill fish, marine mammals and other micro-organisms. And make you very sick.

In a related online poll, little global warming hysteria

The end of society as we know it will come

* when China stops lending money to the U.S. (47%)
* the algal blooms kill all the ocean's fish (21%)
* a comet smashes into the earth (16%)
* when the India-Pakistan nuc war causes nuclear winter (11%)
* when global warming floods New York and Amsterdam (5%)

Ten Global Warming Truths to Keep Us Sane in 2009: James M. Taylor, The Heartland Institute

Keeping in mind the following 10 global warming truths will help us avoid falling prey to global warming scams in the upcoming New Year.

An odd paragraph: Global Warming vs Global Cooling

The great debate of the 21st century is whether or not you believe that global warming is occurring or whether you believe that the planet is cooling. No matter what side of the fence you are on, there is no doubt that the actions of humans are generating a tremendous amount of greenhouse gases. The burning of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas is having a negative effect on our planet. The long term environmental, social and economic effects that these greenhouse gasses cause will be catastrophic to our planet if not controlled.

Interesting Items (1/5/09) by Alex Gimarc

1. Sunspots. For those of you out there who are fans of the actual science rather than endless data cooking from James Hansen and the frauds working on the public dime at NASA Goddard, I would point you to a few web sites....The global warming alarmists are the worst thing to happen to the scientific community since political correctness happened to the humanities or Lysenko happened to biological research inside the USSR during Stalin’s reign of terror.

Wind Watch: Wind blade maker cutting 150 jobs in Little Rock

LM Glasfiber, a wind blade manufacturer, has announced that it will halt production at its facility on Scott Hamilton Drive in Little Rock, laying off about 150 workers.

Investor's Business Daily -- Joe Gets Suckered

Oil: Joe Kennedy was an easy mark for Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who promised cheap oil in exchange for Joe's endorsement. But after a first $100 million, the well went dry Monday. How's it feel to be had, Joe?

Vancouver fails snow removal 101 - The Sault Star - Ontario, CA

Residents and officials are struggling to deal with that most Canadian of inconveniences -- snow -- following near-record snowfall in this West Coast city in recent weeks.

And one senior who spent a week stuck in her home because she couldn't get around the piles of snow in Vancouver says she's disgusted that the city hasn't done a better job clearing the streets.
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Corbett said she's been lucky because someone from the B. C. Coalition of People With Disabilities, where she volunteers, delivered groceries to her home.

Others who've been left to fend for themselves haven't fared so well in a city unused to dealing with snow that sticks around. While Vancouver does get some snow, it usually melts almost as quickly as it falls.

What’s in a Name? FPL Energy Becomes ‘NextEra’ - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

FPL Group, the big electricity services provider, said it plans to rename FPL Energy, its renewable energy subsidiary — and the largest generator of wind and solar power in North America. It will hereafter be called NextEra Energy Resources.

The name reflects the company’s role in “building the energy of the future” said Mitch Davidson, NextEra’s President and chief executive, who noted the company’s leading role in wind and solar production.

How much does this cost?: Fossil-fueled helicopters used to fix giant wind turbines

If you ever wondered how they get up there to fix those giant wind turbines, here’s the answer: Helicopters. And absofreakingnuttely crazylala mechanics.

That’s an Eurocopter EC135, which is being used by Bond Air Services to do windmill farm maintenance in the United Kingdom. I’m sure they stop the windmill before going up—unless the stop mechanism is the thing that is broken—but looking a the scale of that little man going down, it’s quite scary anyway.

Wind Watch: Bird strikes lead to delays in wind turbine projects

Operators of wind turbines are already under pressure to improve the structures’ quake-resistance strength. Now, they face another problem with nature: endangered birds flying into the turbines’ blades.

The bird strike problem has become so serious that measures to protect the fowl are slowing the spread of wind power as a source of electricity generation.

It's been almost four years--where's the evidence that Arnold's global warming scheme is a success?

Ten Second Response: Arnold's Global Warming Scheme May Terminate California Jobs

DATE: June 9, 2005

BACKGROUND: Vowing to make his state a "leader in the fight against global warming," California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has unveiled a plan certain to warm the hearts of green activists and to send chills down the spines of ordinary hard-working people. Under an executive order signed by the governor on June 1, California is to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010, or by 11 percent below what they would be without the governor's action.

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest green initiative is likely to make California even more unfriendly to business and new jobs.

Nov '08: California Budget Deficit Through June of 2010 Projected Now At $28 Billion

The Legislature’s budget analyst issued a report – and a warning – that the state budget deficit will grow to over $28 billion by the end of the 2009-2010 State Budget year if the State fails to take action on addressing increases to revenues and more spending cuts to programs.

Governor Schwarzenegger Letter to President-Elect Obama Regarding Federal Economic Stimulus Proposal

As we discussed in Philadelphia last month, we urgently need a broad national economic recovery package to generate jobs and get our economy moving forward again.

The Poorly Physician in a Huff — Climate Resistance: Challenging Climate Orthodoxy

If Mahatma Ghandi were still alive and dared to express scepticism about the climate issue, ‘liberals’ reading the ‘liberal media’ would struggle to identify the difference between his views, and those of Ann Coulter.

More Fun With GISS Temps « The Air Vent

Just another little post to consider the accuracy of our current measurement system. Boris, pointed out how stupid I was for comparing the two measures as they are “not supposed to match” — a valid argument methinks. Well don’t worry Boris, I am oft criticized and I expected it when I made my post with a title like that. Why aren’t the satellites and ground temps. supposed to match?...

Nov. '08: Leon Panetta channels Al Gore

Abundant CO2 hysteria from Obama's pick to lead the Central "Intelligence" Agency

Former White House Chief of Staff and co-chair of the Joint Ocean Commission addresses Governors Global Climate Summit.

Just listen to what this guy says for a couple of minutes each starting at the 8:00 mark and again at the 14:30 mark:

Business owner watches own roof collapse

COEUR D'ALENE -- Another business collapse, this time in Coeur d'Alene. While it may not be the first to collapse in the Lake City, it's a first in it's own right.

Big Country Communications is the first building with a pitched roof to collapse in Coeur d'Alene, Big Country Communications owner Jim Van Sky witnessed the collapse of his own business.

"You couldn't believe it, it was surreal," said Van Sky.
...
Van Sky has housed his business in the building for more than 20 years. In that time it has survived more than 20 winters without even a leak.

"I could never in a hundred years envision this was going to be to this extent, it's incomprehensible'" he said.

Spokane, Wash., residents cope with record snow

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Local boy Bing Crosby may have sung about the joys of a "White Christmas," but snow - 6 1/2 feet in the past three weeks - has residents begging for relief.

This unusually harsh winter has disrupted schools, traffic, garbage pickup and mail service in the city of 200,000, the largest on the northern border between Seattle and Minneapolis. Tempers are so frayed that a man was arrested for shooting at a snow plow operator on Monday.

Roofs are collapsing, streets are clogged with ice and slush and locals are starting to refer to this as Sno-maggedon.

As many as 200 members of the Washington National Guard were being dispatched to the Spokane area to help with snow removal, particularly on school rooftops, Laura Lockard, a spokeswoman for Gov. Chris Gregoire, said Tuesday.
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Hotlines at Spokane Mental Health are getting twice the number of calls from people seeking help, said Staci Cornwell of the agency. Some are from elderly people who need help picking up medications, or with shoveling. Other callers are just agitated.
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The winter has been so bizarre that when the roof of a health club collapsed into the swimming pool, search-and-rescue divers spent two hours sifting through the debris in the pool to search for bodies. None was found.

Weight on roofs is a major problem. The National Weather Service has estimated that the existing snow is placing a load of about 25 pounds per square foot roof on roofs designed to hold 30 to 40 pounds. Rain forecast to follow the snow this week will add significant new weight, the agency said.

That has created a brisk market for day laborers willing to go up on roofs and shovel snow off for at least $15 per hour.

July '08: State’s Climate Action Team continues work in Spokane

OLYMPIA – Washington’s Climate Action Team meets Friday, July 25, in Spokane to continue its work on actions to reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases in the state.

Climate Action Team (CAT) members are working to turn some of the 2007 Climate Advisory Team’s most promising recommendations into policies and actions to help meet greenhouse gas emission reductions. Gov. Chris Gregoire first outlined those reductions in Executive Order 07-02 in February 2007. The 2008 Legislature codified the reductions in HB 2815, the Governor’s request legislation on climate change and green jobs.
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About 20 CAT members and staff will travel to and from Spokane on a bus powered by biodiesel.

Accuweather's Bastardi: Global Cooling Reason for Putin Shutting off Gas Pipeline

Expert forecaster sees Putin's moves with energy as a power play in anticipation of global cooling 20-30 years out.
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Accuweather.com’s chief long-range and hurricane forecaster Joe Bastardi observed that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s recent cut of gas flows to Europe via Ukraine may have been done so in anticipation of a global cooling cycle on the Jan. 6 “Glenn Beck Show” radio program. Bastardi has a solid reputation among Wall Street traders for understanding weather’s impact on energy commodities.

Rudd advertising campaign on climate change cost $13.9 million | The Australian

KEVIN Rudd's feelgood advertising campaign on climate change cost taxpayers an extraordinary $13.9 million, with a massive spend on television and even magazine advertisements in lads' mag FHM and Cosmopolitan.
...
An outspoken critic of Howard government advertising campaigns in when she was opposition, Senator Wong had attacked the previous government for failing to reveal the true cost of taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns.

“Yet in an act of gross hypocrisy, Senator Wong is responsible for placing her Government’s climate change PR campaign in just about every newspaper and magazine and on every television and radio in Australia,” Senator Fifield said.

Gore and Hansen inspire and defend illegal activity by Greenpeace

The Rainbow Warrior and the Arctic Sunrise spearheaded our call on the world to "Quit Coal", essential to a meaningful deal to save the climate. In a year in which Al Gore said, "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants" we were doing precisely that. And, in an unprecented court case in the UK, leading climate scientists came to our defence when the so-called Kingsnorth Six were tried for - and subsequently acquitted of - criminal damage to a coal-fired plant. The jury found our actions justified when considering the damage to property caused around the world by CO2 emissions from the plant.

American Thinker Blog: Global Warm-mongering: More Silk from a Pig's Ear

It seems that NASA's James Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), is at it again. He just can't let the data speak for itself. In yet another egregious display of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) arrogance, he changed the temperature data from 1910-2008 to reflect what is clearly a cooling trend to reflect a warming trend.

Surprising Return of North Atlantic Circulation Pump

One of the "pumps" contributing to the ocean's global circulation suddenly switched on again last winter for the first time this decade, scientists reported Tuesday (Dec. 23) in Nature Geoscience. The finding surprised scientists, who had been wondering if global warming was inhibiting the pump-which, in turn, would cause other far-reaching climate changes.

Astronaut Jack Schmitt Joins Skeptics

American astronaut Dr. Jack Schmitt - the last living man to walk on the moon - is the latest scientist to be added to the roster of more than 70 skeptics who will confront the subject of global warming at the second annual International Conference on Climate Change in New York City March 8-10, 2009.

CNN’s Lou Dobbs: Belief in Global Warming 'Almost a Religion' | NewsBusters.org

The full transcript of the segment from Monday’s Lou Dobbs Tonight...

Would you mind if we took a look at your calculations?

IPCC's Pachauri makes another claim

BHUBANESWAR, Jan 6: "The challenge is to resolve conflicting requirements ~ rapid economic growth on the one hand and balancing it with sustainable use of natural resources given the rising population, fragility of natural resources and low subsistence level of majority of people," said Dr RK Pachauri.
"We have exceeded the capacity of the earth by 25 per cent and this has been so over the last two decades," he said.

More alarmists/fraudsters terrified of public debate

An Inconvenient HuffPo Item - Chris Horner - Planet Gore on National Review Online

More amusing is that I received this on the heels of receiving the following from the producer of a nationally syndicated radio show, cancelling a hit planned for this morning:

Unfortunately we are still unable to secure a guest to support the Global Warming Is a Reality side of the coin. Most have said that they have moved past the debate issue and are focusing on solutions to the problem. They stand behind their facts and say there is no longer a debate over this issue.

Boulder is a Stoopid Place: Global Warming kool-aid

Well, yes it is but I'm far from convinced the scientists that dispurse the information (whatever happened to the predicted runaway temperature depicted by the hockey stick?) really know what's going on. If they did, their models would work. If they did, they would have predicted the rapid growth of the Arctic ice cap this winter.

The "true believers" like Clay are the fanatics that concern me much more than "climate change".

One must wonder what it would take to change Clay's mind. For one who despises organized religion it's surprising that he can't see he's a front man for the Church of Global Warming.

Cold weather makes snow shovels a hot item

After last weekend’s snowfall – one of many this winter – there didn’t seem to be a snow shovel to be found on the shelves of Thunder Bay’s stores.
...
'But being that right across the country right now – East Coast, West Coast, Central Canada – has an overwhelming amount of snow, it’s hard for them to keep up right now in manufacturing the shovels,' Hebert said.

Ice cold freezing temperatures in Bristol | Bristol News | This Is Bristol

THE coldest start to January for 12 years has brought problems to Bristol's roads – and even waterways.
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Bristol's docks have also been affected by the cold snap.

Frozen waters have forced the Bristol Ferry Boat Company to cancel its ferry service.
...
Jane Salvidge, who runs the company with her husband, said: "The weather doesn't usually affect ferry services in the harbour as it is very sheltered.

"It's actually extremely rare for the harbour to freeze.

"Even if the temperature drops blow zero degrees, there's usually enough wind to create movement of the water which prevents it forming into ice.

"But the last few days have seen extremely cold conditions coming in from the east, with hardly any wind at all. Now significant portions of ice, some up to three inches thick, are forming.

"With the current conditions and forecast it's unlikely to thaw for several days."

India: Grape prices may soar this summer

Downy mildew which occurs in various horticulture crops including grapes also impacts crucifers and other vine-type plants. It typically becomes visible due to rampant cold weather and in case of grapes in Maharashtra and Karnataka due to the presence of severe fog.

Philippines: Big Chill drives farmers to cigarettes, alcohol, and lip gloss

But how do they keep themselves warm in freezing weather?

They use thick clothes and lip gloss. Houses here have their own fireplaces, too. Others resort to what the people in the city do – puff a cigarette or drink alcohol.

Now alarmist Dessler teams up with David Roberts, the "climate Nuremberg"/snowboarding guy

Huff Po gets one right

Word is that this was an editorial slip-up on HuffPo's part; they don't typically provide a place for this kind of agitprop. The essay is gone from the site's portal pages and rumor has it The Huff herself may address the issue soon.

Regardless, the essay is out there getting skeptics all twitterpated (again). These folks can't find a scientific journal with two hands and a flashlight, but nothing escapes their RSS feeds.
...
Indeed, the case against carbon dioxide is pretty close to airtight -- see, e.g., this old post.
...
Notwithstanding Mr. Ambler's confusions and deceits, humans are now in the climatic drivers' seat, with the pedal to the metal. Maybe it's time we put our hands on the wheel.

David Roberts takes on the alleged "denial industry"

When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.

Gristmill: About David Roberts

After several wayward years spent snowboarding and getting an MA in philosophy (go griz), he woke up with nothing but a dissertation between him and an arid, cloistered life spent debating minutiae with the world's other 12 Dewey scholars. So he bailed. A period was spent trudging through the swamp of Seattle tech work, wading past Amazon.com, IMDb.com, and Microsoft, before the fine folks at Grist fell for his devastating good looks in December 2003.

The Thaw: Val Kilmer Teaches Kids About Global Warming And Death In Thaw Trailer (video)

Global warming is toying with our environment and spreading alien egg-sacks from person to person, until we're all dead, and it's all Val Kilmer's fault. New trailer for The Thaw: "Recycle or die."

The Reference Frame: NCDC: the U.S. cool down by 0.49 deg F per decade

But even if you begin with a cool La Nina year 1999, you obtain a cooling trend in the average U.S. temperatures during the last 10 years. Because some infrequent readers may have problems to interpret these words, let me emphasize that this cooling means that there has been no warming in the U.S. for 10 years. In fact, there has been a cooling, and a rather fast one that would subtract 2.7 °C per century if it continued by the same rate (and it surely won't).

Instapundit » Blog Archive » TURNING AGAINST compact fluorescent bulbs at the PC L.A. Times? Next they’ll be dissing Al Gore! …

I have to say, I replaced a couple of dozen bulbs with CFLs and if it’s made a difference in my electric bill it’s not immediately apparent...

Bad design trends we hope die in 2009 - Los Angeles Times

CFLs: "To be green, you do not need to suffer with compact fluorescent bulbs, a light source that does not render color or texture and only turns on and off. Instead, do the planet a favor by using a combination of a halogen bulb, which does not use mercury or rare earth phosphors, and a dimmer. If you dim a halogen bulb to 50%, you will save over 40% energy and your light bulb can last more than 10 years."

-- Sean O’Connor, principal, Sean O’Connor Lighting Inc.

Important figure from pages 81-82 of Solomon's book: Studies contradicting IPCC's claim on CO2 residence time

Amazon.com: The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**And those who are too fearful to do so: Lawrence Solomon: Books

Grandiose video from Lewis Gordon Pugh (CO2-hysteric who tried to kayak to the North Pole, but fell 600 miles short)

Polar Defense Project » Saving the Arctic, Saving the Soul

Lewis speaks at the Business Innovation Factory of the motivation and vision which drove him to succeed in his 1km North Pole swim with the support of his world class team. He shares his dream to use this symbolic swim to shake the lapels of world leaders and to help stop climate change

Check out the remarkable opening scenes here:



More on Pugh is here.

More States Squander Public Money on Home Wind Turbines - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

The average production for the 19 existing small wind turbines highlighted in the progress briefing is less than one-third of the average production projected by installers, with a range of ratios varying from 2 percent to 59 percent of estimated production.

The Climate Gods Speak! - Chris Horner - Planet Gore on National Review Online

Also, we’re supposed to believe the Dems want to kick this into an election year. Mmm hmm. So, reality now moves us into 2011, the upside of which schedule is that the scheme cannot possibly be enacted in time for the pain to be an issue in the re-election campaign.

What Will 2009 Bring? - Chris Horner - Planet Gore on National Review Online

So, recognizing all of this, I nonetheless predict that 2009 will prove the end of the global-warming industry as a serious threat, at least in its current incarnation and for a decade, possibly more. This might only be because, their leaders’ ongoing cautions notwithstanding, they felt compelled to finally try and push the agenda through. Here’s to seeing how that plays out.

Study questions climate change - Sheffield Telegraph

SHEFFIELD University experts have discovered that the intensity of wind storms around the British Isles has not increased due to global warming.
The research contradicts some climate model predictions by showing little sign of overall increased storminess since the mid-to-late 19th century.

Three Kings bring more cold weather and snow to Spain

Yet another cold spell has been hitting Spain with Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country and Cataluña being placed on orange alert on Tuesday night as heavy snow falls of up to 20cms arrived and more were expected.

There has been a large fall in temperatures across the country, and snow and ice has been causing trouble for drivers. Chains are needed on many of the mountain passes in the north of the country on both the main and secondary road network.

Weather sends deadly chills in Europe

In Poland, where overnight temperatures have plunged to minus 25 Celsius recently, 10 people froze to death over the past few days, authorities reported.

German police also said that a 77-year-old mentally ill woman had apparently frozen to death near the town of Weimar after being reported missing from her retirement home.

And the bitter chill killed two men and sent others to hospital in Romania on Sunday, where temperatures fell as low as minus 31 Celsius in the centre.

Newsmax.com - Barack Obama and the Threat That Isn't There

As climate expert after climate expert comes forward to insist: Global warming is a gigantic hoax. Al Gore and his fellow hoaxers continue to see the threat that isn't there and promise to make it go away by bankrupting the economy and sending all of us to the poorhouse, where we'll shiver in unheated rooms.

August '08: Obama's words on energy conservation

Obama also said that only an "all-hands-on-deck effort" to conserve energy and increase the use of renewable fuels would help the United States through an energy crisis.

Today: Oregon band tapped to play in Obama's Inaugural Parade

The Portland-area band got word last week that they'd been picked for a coveted spot in Obama's inaugural parade. Now they're scrambling to make arrangements for 102 members to fly to Washington, D.C. later this month.

Climate Progress » Utah public land "hero" appeals for help

On December 24th we [Solve Climate] carried a report about Tim DeChristopher’s heroic act of civil disobedience: he went to an auction of public lands and outbid oil and gas companies for 22,500 acres of land — in order to protect it from fossil fuel development. The price? A whopping $1.8 million the University of Utah student doesn’t have.

The downpayment is due on January 9th, a mere $45,000, and on the advice of the legal team working to protect him and keep him out of jail, DeChristopher is trying to raise the money. So far, he’s got $18,000 in hand, and a campaign that’s gaining steam.

Climate Progress » Pelosi: House can pass cap and trade, but maybe not this year

The more Hill staffers and others I talk to, the less likely I think it is there will be a climate bill finalized and passed this year.

The Reference Frame: Record cold temperatures in 2009

Record cold temperatures have arrived to the United Kingdom, Canada (24 consecutive days below -24 °C in a city). Cold Siberian air has also hit Central Europe, France, and Italy. London is colder than Antarctica. Literally...

Cold snap costs millions

ARCTIC weather sweeping across the Westcountry could cost the region millions of pounds as emergency services and other authorities count their losses after the coldest December for 12 years.

CNN's Dobbs on Global Warming Hysteria: 'It's Almost a Religion without Any Question'

From illegal immigration and trade to voter fraud, CNN’s Lou Dobbs is never shy about expressing his opinions. That rule held true when Dobbs brought up global warming on Jan. 5.

The outspoken host of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” observed that global warming activists treat their belief in global warming like a religion following a segment about the issue by CNN correspondent Ines Ferre.

Climate realist blogs currently doing well at the Weblog Awards

Best Science Blog - The 2008 Weblog Awards

Vote for your choice for Best Science Blog

At the moment, it's Watts Up With That at 38.0%, Climate Audit at 12.7%, and (alarmist) RealClimate at 5.9%.

Chilean avocados take a plunge

Sub-zero temperatures caused widespread frost damage to Chile’s avocado groves last season causing damage to production this year.

Smoking Ban In Cafes Puts French Off Cigarettes

This winter, many Paris cafes have equipped their outdoor seating areas -- where smoking is still allowed -- with heaters so customers can keep puffing away while enjoying a coffee or glass of wine in the cold weather.

Alarmist David Suzuki writes to Santa

All I want for Christmas is a green stimulus package.

LDK & More Solar Peer Pressure

LDK Solar Co., Ltd. (NYSE: LDK) is living up to the doubts that many investors had in this stock. When times were good for solar and alternative energy players, many questioned the Chinese company. Now times are tough, and the news looks tough inside the doors at LDK. Unfortunately this is something solar investors have had to brace for now that the economy is softening and now that low energy prices are making many alternative energy projects not economically viable.

The solar wafer maker lowered its Q4 revenue expectations by some 23% as its customers have delayed shipments...

Leo Hickman: It will be interesting to see how climate change sceptics react as Václav Klaus, one of their own, takes over the EU presidency

But I don't join those who fear Klaus's spell in the hot seat. In contrast, I'm looking forward to his pronouncements, especially if they deal with climate change. Another popular refrain from the sceptics is that the world's political class has "bought this climate change puppy hook, line and sinker". It will be interesting to see how the sceptics react now that they have a staunch champion in high office, albeit on a short-term tenancy. Bright light is rarely flattering.

Tim Ball: Sustaining the Unsustainable

Mahatma Gandhi identified four phases in the transition to the truth. “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” I believe, based on a career educating people about climate change, that we are in the third phase. Claims of doom are more extreme as they try to sustain the unsustainable. Al Gore the master of alarmism says, “This year coming up is the most important opportunity the world has ever had to make progress in really solving the climate crisis.” Stanford biologist Terry Root claims, “We’re out of time. Things are going extinct.” Like others who make similar claims he doesn’t name one. Sorry Terry, extinction is normal and has occurred far more rapidly in the past. It is a natural pattern that has always occurred and always will. Source

The scam is being exposed with increasing speed. The most frequent comment I get after a presentation is, “I had my suspicions, but I didn’t know enough to know.” That, like the climate, is changing.

Should we redesign our economy based on these admittedly flawed climate models?

FAQ on climate models: Part II

Models do indeed include clouds, and do allow changes in clouds as a response to forcings. There are certainly questions about how realistic those clouds are and whether they have the right sensitivity - but all models do have them! In general, models suggest that they are a positive feedback - i.e. there is a relative increase in high clouds (which warm more than they cool) compared to low clouds (which cool more than they warm) - but this is quite variable among models and not very well constrained from data.

Cloud parameterisations are amongst the most complex in the models. The large differences in mechanisms for cloud formation (tropical convection, mid-latitude storms, marine stratus decks) require multiple cases to be looked at and many sensitivities to be explored (to vertical motion, humidity, stratification etc.). Clouds also have important micro-physics that determine their properties (such as cloud particle size and phase) and interact strongly with aerosols. Standard GCMs have most of this physics included, and some are even going so far as to embed cloud resolving models in each grid box. These models are supposed to do away with much of the parameterisation (though they too need some, smaller-scale, ones), but at the cost of greatly increased complexity and computation time. Something like this is probably the way of the future.

Christopher Monckton - Yet another “moment of fateful decision”

The truth: Al Gore knows full well that he is not telling the truth. In October 2007 a High Court judge in the UK ruled that his fanciful film, An Inconvenient Truth, depicted “an Armageddon scenario that … is not based on any scientific view”. Yet Gore deliberately persists in repeating the errors listed by the judge in that case, who had ordered the UK Departments of the Environment and of Education to circulate corrective guidance to schools before pupils were allowed to be exposed to it. There are now serious discussions afoot to lodge complaints against Gore to the federal financial and legal authorities, in that he fraudulently talks up the imagined “climate crisis” in the hope that he and his “green” investment corporation can profit by the baseless alarm that his falsehoods generate. If that was his hope, it was vain. In the current financial crisis (which, unlike the climate “crisis”, is real), so-called “green” investments have fallen in value nearly twice as far as all other investments. Certainly, it is a serious matter that Gore continues to attempt to profit at the expense of the gullible by peddling falsehoods specifically identified as erroneous by a High Court Judge, who, unlike most of Gore’s audience, had been compelled to hear both sides of the case and had decided that Gore’s side was in at least nine material respects erroneous.
“Moment of fateful decision”: Twenty years ago, the UN’s climate panel said that humankind had “only ten years to avert climate disaster”. Today, Gore says we have “only ten years”. This Messianic tone is calculated to divert his audience from the seldom-reported but readily-verifiable truth, which is that, as Figure 1 shows, for seven years the planet has been cooling... [Via Gore Lied]

Daryl "Razor" Reaugh, former NHL goaltender, Dallas Stars color commentator and blogger: "Al Gore is an idiot"

Global warming my colder-than-a-well diggers-arse!

I'm writing this as we sit on the tarmac in Vancouver awaiting a "de-icing" so we can get going and eventually conclude this Iditirod-like sojourn through Western Canada.

I'd like to get Al's take on why the average temp in Edmonton was -30, so cold that the hydraulics on our plane froze up. Yup, minus 3-0!...